I move—

Unfortunately there are still a few formalities which have to be put right.

announced that the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders had discharged Messrs. B. J. Pienaar and Waterston from service on the Select Committee on Public Accounts and appointed Mr. Rood and the Rev. Mr. Mullineux, respectively, in their stead.

I move—

I want to take the earliest opportunity available to me to reply to certain remarks made by the Minister of Finance on Thursday evening last in winding up the debate on the second reading of this Bill. Before dealing with the Minister, however, there are one or two other matters which I think I should touch upon in the first place. A remark was made by the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow) in reference to myself and my service on the liquor commission, that in his opinion I ought not to have accepted a seat on a Government commission. Let me say this, that if I were in any doubt as to the propriety of any action I proposed to take, there are 133 members of this House to whom I would go for advice before I would go to the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North), and then I would not go to him. On a memorable occasion recently he referred to a colleague of his in the Labour party as being “unstable.” From my long and intimate knowledge of the hon. member, I can say this —that if there is any hon. member of this House to whom that epithet could be applied, it is that hon. member. Sometimes we hear him as the candid critic of the Government, and on other occasions he seems to be rivalling the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Waterston) for the position of chief m’bongo to the Government. The Minister of Labour took occasion to reply to certain criticisms of mine in regard to the expenditure of the Labour Department. What was the line of his reply? Surely a most amazing one when one remembers who the Minister is, and what party he comes from. His reply in effect, was—

That is extraordinary coming from the Minister of Labour and from a prominent member of the Labour party. I have been looking up to see what he and his friends did say in those years when we had to spend half a million or more on unemployment. In 1922 Col. Creswell, the leader of the Labour party, said this—

In 1923 I see that some of the members of the Labour party had something to say. Mr. Waterston, for instance—

Mr. Sampson said he wished to protest against the decrease of the vote, and to ask the Minister how it had been brought about. He objected to the reduction in the rates given to men employed under this vote, and urged it was a bad thing for the State to profit through unemployment. Mr. Boydell—

And yet in 1927, being a Minister of the Crown, and Minister of Labour, he comes to this House and says—

In any case the Minister completely missed the point of my criticism. It was not the amount of capital expenditure on unemployment, but the amount of expenditure on his department in administration. In the last year of the South African party regime, the Labour administration cost £28,900, and in the first estimates presented by the present Minister of Finance in 1924 the Labour Department cost £36,000. This year’s estimates, for administering less than half the sum we had to administer, show that the cost of the department has gone up to £85,000. It now has a personnel of 177. That is the point of my criticism that I want the Minister to meet. That is my criticism of the Labour Department, that its expenditure has gone up in four years from £36.000 to £85,000, and it now has a personnel of 177. Yet the Minister comes forward and says—

I want to come to the Minister of Finance. I cannot congratulate him on the methods of controversy or debate he adopted in his reply, because in many instances he was most unfair. He put into my mouth assertions I had never made, and criticisms I had never attempted, and having done that, he attempted to destroy them. I will give the Minister two instances in which either because he did not make proper notes of the speech to which he intended to reply, or because he was careless, or did not care, he deliberately set up arguments I never used. For instance, in regard to the oudstryders, I made it perfectly clear that the merits of the payments I did not attack, but merely the method by which the Minister had attempted to do it. And secondly, when I referred to the number of boards as being 35 and their cost as £55,000, I at once added that I was perfectly prepared to believe that the great majority were carried over from the last Government. And yet, what does the Minister do? With the air of a conjurer producing a rabbit out of a hat, he gets up and tells the delighted audience behind him—

I made him a present of that, but he seemed to entirely ignore what I said. So I say the Minister’s method of reply was not what we are accustomed to from him, and was unfair. He queried my figure of an increase of 3½ millions. I told him at the time how I got that figure, but I will tell him again. I have taken his own estimates for 1924-’25, and I have his own memorandum over his own signature. He says this—

That is his own figure and those were the last estimates ever presented to this House by Mr. Burton. I have taken his estimates for this year, and deducted the one total from the other, and that gives 3½ millions increase. I went on to say I had no criticism to make of the item £1,000,000 in regard to the provincial councils. I have no criticisms to make on the £600,000 increase of interest and redemption, but I have got very little credit for this. The Minister went on to say—

My answer to that is perfectly plain—if the pensions are granted and are on the statute book, I could not. But having in mind the speeches the Minister and his friends made when in Opposition, I do expect them to deliver the goods in the way of economy. I do expect the Minister to Keep a watchful eye on the growth of expenditure, as he promised to do if ever they took office. The Minister went on to say, and this is the gem—

I have taken the trouble to look up the speeches made on the eve of this Government’s taking office, in the two last years of the regime of the last Government. At that time the Minister was not the leading financial critic of the Opposition; the leading financial critic was the late Mr. Fichardt, whose untimely loss we all deplore. Year by year he led the attack on the South African party. The same hon. members who cheered the Minister on Thursday night were the same hon. members who cheered Mr. Fichardt when he made this criticism in opening the budget debate on April 13, 1923—

In this jeremiad he was followed immediately after by the financial leader of the Labour party, the present Minister of Labour, who said—

That hon. member, I may remark, is now responsible for a department which this year is costing £85,000, and when he took office it cost £40,000—less than half. I now read what Mr. Fichardt said on the 13th May, 1922, on the Budget debate—

At this there were Nationalist cheers—the same Nationalist cheers when the present Minister of Finance said the other evening—

Why did you not quote what the Minister said before?

I will make this confession—I looked up to see whether he took part, but he did not; he confined himself to the railways, and in those days the Minister was not looked forward to as the future Minister of Finance. Mr. Fichardt was. The Minister’s speeches in those days did not receive the prominence that they do to-day. Mr. Fichardt on the 13th of May, 1922, went on to say—

I hope that the Minister will remember that when he and his party were in opposition their plea was—

Are they not in order?

Whereas Mr. Fichardt in 1923 declared that we had reached the absolute limit of our tax bearing power—

Taxation has been reduced since.

To-day the expenditure is £27,500,000, and when he took office it was £24,000,000. All the sophistry the Minister has been able to exercise will not get over that fact. I gave a list of items of increased expenditure the other night, to which the Minister did not answer. He answered a good many things I did not say. I gave a list showing how the expenditure had gone up, and these costly excrescences which the present Government had introduced. I want to deal finally with the Minister’s so-called defence of his action in regard to the oudstryders. I make no cavil as to the expenditure itself. There is no doubt that the condition of some of them is such as to call for remedy, but my criticism is that the Minister abused the powers conferred on him.

The hon. member must not say the Minister abused his powers.

I must think of some softer term—I will say he transgressed the powers conferred by the Audit and Exchequer Act. If there is one fundamental axiom of Parliamentary Government it is that Parliament should control the public purse, and that no expenditure should be incurred in the public interest except when it is voted by Parliament.

And except under circumstances laid down in the Audit and Exchequer Act.

Let me quote in abbreviated form what Mr. Hilton Young, former financial secretary of the Treasury in England, says on this subject in his book on the “System of National Finance.”—

Our own Auditor-General writes—

The Audit and Exchequer Act lays it down that if at any time it appears to the Governor-General to be necessary in the public interests that an issue should be made from the exchequer account to defray unforeseen expenditure of a special character which is not provided for in an Appropriation Act, and which cannot, without serious injury to the public interest, be postponed until adequate provision can be made therefor by Parliament.

The only judges of that are the Government.

Parliament apparently is to have no say.

Parliament gets its say eventually.

The Minister tells us that if Parliament refuses to agree to a single one of these warrants he is bound to resign.

Of course.

It is an excess of the powers and spirit of this Act to say that twenty days before Parliament assembles persons, whose claims dated 25 years back, were to have a new class of pension created for them without Parliament being consulted. The Minister says that he had a recommendation that their case should be relieved, and to get Parliament to do that he would have had to wait until March. It is insulting the intelligence of the House for the Minister to tell us that consideration of the case of the oudstryders by Parliament could not equally well have taken place in February as in January. If there had been any urgency he could have brought the matter before the House straight away, but instead of doing that he himself laid down the scale of their relief and then tells us—

That is the very negation of parliamentary authority. What he should have done was to introduce a Bill, and given us a chance to discuss it, but instead of doing that he presents us with un fait accompli. It is idle to tell the House that this was a form of relief—

I thought it was a pension. You now correctly call it a form of relief.

The Minister is now going on to chop words. Had this happened in July or August, there might have been some justification for the Minister’s action, but there was no justification for his deciding the matter three weeks before Parliament assembled. One result of the Minister’s action is that now there is no Act providing that these people should get relief at all, and any Minister of Finance can simply drop the amount off the Estimates.

Quite so.

In the case of the ex-republican officials their pensions must be paid under an Act of Parliament, but the oudstryders depend on the caprice of any individual Minister of Finance, and in times of financial stringency there will be a temptation to drop the payments. The Minister has signally failed to make out any case whatever to justify his action. I repeat, at the conclusion, that I do not criticize the merits of the payment. I have not seen the report.

What report?

The report in virtue of which these payments were made. I say the verdict of this House, and public opinion, will condemn the action the Minister took on that occasion.

I would like the Minister to tell us something about a matter which ought to be made clear for the public. I have before me a dividend warrant for payment of interest on Union loans, and it says—

Many people are anxious to know where they can get paid at par, because, as far as I know, there is no Government bank. Perhaps it is intelligent anticipation on the part of the Minister.

I had not the least intention of taking part in the debate, but the occurrences of the past two days have compelled me to say something to-day in connection with the desire of Ventersdorp to be made the centre for the sale of diamonds. I asked the Minister of Mines and Industries to assist me, and to grant me an interview, but, to my regret, that was refused. I am disappointed about it, because I think that, as representative of my constituency, I can claim to put a request before the Minister and explain it. The Minister has now verbally informed me that he has discussed the matter with the Secretary for Mines, and that it has been decided not to grant the request. The request to approach the Minister in this connection came from the Ventersdorp Chamber of Commerce, and also from the chairman of the Nationalist party there. I have to-day finally received a letter from the Minister in which he gives the reasons why Ventersdorp cannot be selected as a diamond centre. He says that the buyers go to the diggers, and not the diggers to the buyers, and he says, further, that if the diggers had to come to Ventersdorp, they would run the risk of wasting their money there, or of losing it by the way. I regard that argument of the Minister’s as a reflection on the diggers. My experience of them is that they do not waste their money, or lose it along the road. In my opinion, there are sufficient reasons to constitute Ventersdorp a diamond centre, and the Minister’s arguments are no valid reasons to the contrary. If the Minister had said that it would cost too much money, I should possibly be able to submit, but the reasons of the Minister are not to the point. Many farms around Ventersdorp have already been proclaimed, and on six or seven, diamonds have been found. I shall be glad if the Minister will reconsider the matter, and hope that he will then comply with the general request of the public to constitute Ventersdorp a diamond centre.

The course of the debate, on the second reading of this Bill, made it impossible for me to refer to several topics to which I wished to refer. I was compelled to confine myself to the question of imperial relations. There was one point I was anxious should be dealt with more fully by the House than has hitherto been the case. It was raised by the hon. member for Griqualand (Mr. Gilson), and it refers to the agreement in the building trade, which the Minister of Labour has applied over a large portion of the country. I was impressed by the speech of my hon. friend. It raised a matter of far-reaching importance to the country. I was astonished the Minister, in his reply, although he referred to a number of points that had been raised, neglected to refer to the strictures, the criticisms, passed by my hon. friend.

My time was up.

We gave the hon. Minister an extension. I moved myself that we give him more time to continue his interesting remarks. Instead of using that time to enlighten the House on a matter of first-class importance, he launched into a venomous attack on the Opposition, and the policies of this side of the House. I do not want to pursue that, but the matter is one of great importance, and it is the duty of the House to ventilate it more fully, and give more attention to it than it has hitherto received. This agreement is a remarkable one. It is an agreement in the building industry concluded last October by the National Industrial Council for that industry. It was then submitted to the Minister for his approval, and the Minister, in terms of the Conciliation Act, has published this agreement, and, therefore, given it force of law. I find that by the proclamation this agreement is applied over a very large part of South Africa. It is applied in the Transvaal over the magisterial areas of Pretoria, Witbank, Johannesburg, Benoni, Springs, and several other places, including practically the whole of the Western Transvaal. It is also applied to a number of areas in the Free State, to Pietermaritzburg, Durban, Kimberley, Mafeking and the whole area of the northern Karroo, including a large portion of what is commonly known as the Kalahari Desert. It applies to the magisterial districts of Albany, Kingwilliamstown, Cathcart, Molteno, Tarka, the magisterial areas of East London, Port Elizabeth, Uitenhage and to the Cape Peninsula, and some additional areas going on to Bellville. It is also applied, among other places, to Lydenburg in the Transvaal, and Ladybrand in the Free State. The agreement lays down that in those areas which I have mentioned, certain wages shall be paid in the building industry, and a scale of wages is laid down, ranging from 3s. 4d. per hour at Pretoria, on the Witwatersrand, Potchefstroom and the Transvaal generally, down to 2s. 9d. per hour here in Cape Town. These wages of 3s. 4d. an hour have to be paid to all persons engaged in the building trade, except painting, glazing, lead-light work, glass-work, paperhanging and decorating. In these other trades, there is a lower scale laid down of 3s. 2d. per hour, going down to 2s. in Cape Town. It is laid down that all persons engaged in the building industry, whether in the erection or maintenance, alteration or repair of any building, or any portion thereof, or in the preparation of work for any building or portion thereof, shall be paid these wages. Then it goes on to lay down that the persons engaged in this industry in all these areas, shall work only for 44 hours per week, and it makes provision that for overtime, there shall be an increased scale of payment. It lays down that for dangerous work in connection with building, there shall be a still higher scale of pay. It lays down what tools shall be used, that there shall be proper sanitary accommodation separately for whites and coloured persons. It forbids piecework. It deals with notices of discharge, it deals with the question of the tools which shall be supplied by the employer, and with a variety of other questions. It even deals with the question of refreshments. Employers are to provide boys with tea twice daily, and once daily in the Cape Peninsula. I do not know why the Cape Peninsula should be differentiated against. Exemptions may be given by the Industrial Council to aged persons and in other cases. Then there is a clause about annual holidays for artizans.

You have missed the general exemption clause.

Yes, there are several provisions in regard to exemptions.

There is a general exemption clause which you have not read.

There are cases of exemption granted in terms of this rule to be recommended by the National Council sitting in Johannesburg, and it is set out that a certificate signed by a member of the executive committee and the secretary of the National Council, shall be issued in respect of each exemption granted.

Read par. (b).

—

The agreement goes on to make provision for certain other industries, and in regard to painting, it says that the only work in the painting trade which may be executed by persons other than those paid the legal wages, shall be lime-washing, whitewashing of private dwellings, native habitations, etc. The Minister, in giving the agreement the force of law, says this—

He goes on to say he gives force of law to this agreement, that it shall be in force up to the 12th February, 1928, and he says further—

Provision is made that in the event of a dispute arising as to the value of such material, the executive committee shall decide. It is quite clear that the Minister purports to act under the Conciliation Act of 1924, but it is equally clear that the Minister, in his action, has contravened the provisions of that Act. The Act of 1924 says this in the first clause—

Neither does it.

How does the Minister then explain this condition, that farm buildings erected on a farm, even for the exclusive occupation of the people on the farm, even for exclusive use for farming purposes, shall, so long as the materials cost a certain amount, fall under the terms of this provision. Clearly the exclusion under the Conciliation Act was absolute. No buildings erected on farms, for farming purposes, could come under the terms of any agreement, and no wages could be settled in respect of buildings erected on farms for farming purposes. Here the Minister comes and lays down that, so long as the material for a building costs a certain amount and no more, they shall fall within the terms of this agreement. To my mind, the Minister here has clearly, in terms, contravened the terms of the Conciliation Act. I should like to hear the Minister’s explanation of this, because there is no doubt that, under the Act, the exclusion is complete and total and absolute.

I will deal with it.

If I erect, on my farm, a tobacco shed, or a shearing shed, or any farm building which is necessary for farming purposes, it is excluded by the Conciliation Act from any form of agreement. The Minister has gone and included it. He has said that, so long as the value of the materials used in the construction of the building exceeds a certain amount, then the building shall be included under the agreement. Take a dwelling house, surely a dwelling house put up on a farm is used for farming purposes.

Putting up a house is not agriculture.

Is that the argument? It is now the argument that a farmer must not live in a house, and his servants must not live in a house, that that is not farming?

Do you mean to say that building a house is employment in agriculture?

Undoubtedly. Will the Minister tell me that putting up a shearing shed on a farm or an engine room on a farm is not done for farming purposes?

Is putting up a sugar mill agriculture?

I am talking of agriculture. There may be a stage where the line becomes difficult to draw, but I am taking a stage where it is perfectly easy, where you are erecting a building on a farm which is necessary for the occupation of the owner, or the workers on that farm. Under this agreement which the Minister has notified and applied all over the country in the districts I have mentioned, a farmer cannot build stables on his farm, provided there is a certain value attached, without falling under the terms of the agreement, and he then has to use this most expensive form of labour in order to equip his farm with the necessary buildings. To my mind it is quite clear that this agreement is in conflict with the terms, certainly with the intention, probably also the letter of the law which we passed in 1924. Now I go further, and I want to say this, that an obligation is put on the Minister under this Act. This Act gives very large powers to the Government of the day, and the Minister has used the power in such a way that it cannot be said that he has exercized a proper discretion under this Act. The Act in Clause 9 says—

and in this agreement the Minister, in pursuance of that requirement, says—

I would ask hon. members in this House, can it be said that an industrial council sitting at Johannesburg or Cape Town, composed of persons taken from these great centres of industry, is representative of the building trade or of the employers in the outside districts of South Africa? That is what the Minister has to satisfy himself of. The farmer who puts up a farm building becomes part of the building industry for the purpose of the Act. If I as a farmer living at Prieska or Upington put up a farm building, the materials of which cost beyond £400, I become an employer in terms of this Act, and it is for the Minister to satisfy himself that the industrial council is so constituted that the farms, villages and outside districts are properly represented on that council. He has given such a certificate. I say that this is an improper exercise of his discretion. I would say, without entering into a controversy, that it is an abuse of the Act, which was never intended to be applied like this. The Act specially required that the Minister should discharge his function gravely and judiciously. For a body sitting at Cape Town or Johannesburg representing the building industry in its intensest and most highly organized form to come to an agreement which the Minister proceeds to apply in the far distant villages and the far distant veld, is an abuse of the powers which are entrusted under this Act to him.

I would like to point out that I ruled out the word “ abuse ” as applied to the powers exercised by Ministers. I hope the right hon. member will not use the word.

Perhaps the word “ abuse ” is not the proper word. You will understand, Mr. Speaker, that no imputation of a personal character is made against the Minister, but I am sure the very grave powers given here have been misused by the Minister, have been applied in a way not in accordance with the intention of this Act. What are the results going to be? I think I have shown the House that in the first place the Minister has gone beyond the meaning and intention of this Act in applying it ruthlessly and indiscriminately to farm buildings. I think I have also succeeded in showing that the Minister has not exercised proper direction in saying that the national industrial council is representative of all the interests concerned. I should like to know what farmers in the outside districts are represented in this council. They become employers in terms of this Act—what representation have they got? I think they have never heard of it. Take Lindley in the Free State. Have the farmers in that area any representation whatever on the council, and what right has the Minister to say that the council properly represents them? They know nothing about it. But in a most autocratic manner the fiat has been issued which tightens on them bonds which were forged, not for them at all, but for Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town. This Act is a good one. Properly applied, I look upon the Conciliation Act as one of the greatest instruments of reform in this country. But it is very easy, by misapplication of it, to bring the whole Act into suspicion, and to raise a great agitation in the country for its alteration in the future. What are the consequences going to be of this act of the Minister’s? hitherto it has been customary, when buildings are put up in our villages all over the country, for the local people to do it. They are not experts, they are not highly-trained artizans, they are not capable of earning a wage of 3s. 4d. per hour. They have never been paid it, and they have never looked for it. They are simply semiskilled people, not entitled to this high wage, and the local contractors have recruited their labour force from the villages. But what is going to happen under this agreement which emanates from Johannesburg and Cape Town, forged by the employers of Cape Town and Johannesburg and the trade unions of highly-skilled men? These semi-skilled people in the villages are going to be eliminated. We know it; we have seen complaints in the press from all over the country that in Potchefstroom and many other places people who were engaged in this industry and who made a decent living are now simply thrown on to the streets to join the army of the unemployed, because the owner who has now to put up the building and pay these rates can only bargain for the highest-paid and highest-skilled men. That is what is happening and will happen more and more under this agreement. We are a young country, and the expert skilled tradesmen in this country are a small number, and they are almost entirely confined to the great centres. If we are going to make them do all the work of the country and eliminate the thousands of men who have hitherto been doing this work in the villages and on the veld, I think we shall be doing a very grave injustice to these people, and we shall give a decided setback to the development of this country. What happens to-day if a farmer wants to build a building on his farm? He gets some trained masons and he gives them a lot of native labour, and the result is a building goes up, a building which stands there for generations. That is the sort of thing which we have been seeing all our life in South Africa. Hon. members do not realize, and the country does not realize, that under this sort of agreement that kind of thing is coming to a stop. If I want to put up a building on my farm, I fall under this agreement. I shall have to pay these wages, and I shall have to rule out the semi-skilled and native. The result is that a farmer, with all the troubles and expense which he already has, will say—

And if he does put it up, it will cost twice or three times as much. I will ask the Government to consider this position very carefully. We have passed this Conciliation Act in order to provide means for conciliation, to act as a buffer between employees and employed in the great centres and areas of intensive industrial development. There you have the employers organized on the one side, and you have highly-skilled workers organized in their unions on the other, and the Conciliation Act was passed as machinery to bring these two together in order that they might settle their disputes and prevent strikes and other labour dislocations. But it never was intended that this Act should be extended from those big centres for which it was passed to the veld, to the small villages, and all over the country. If it ever actually applies, then it will raise such a commotion in this country as we have not seen hitherto. You can imagine a person in Gordonia, or a person somewhere in Bushmanland, putting up a building and being confronted with this agreement. He has to ask for contracts in Johannesburg or Cape Town, and he has to pay these wages and keep to these hours. I would very strongly urge the Government to beware. I do not think you could show up the evil tendencies of the present combination which forms our Government in this country more clearly than by an incident like this. I do not want to labour the point any further. I hope this matter will be taken into revision. I hope the Government will awaken to the fact that they have been giving a free hand to one section in the Government, and that section has been applying what lies far beyond the legitimate province for which the Conciliation Act was intended. If this continues much longer, there will be a very serious revulsion, and this Act will be in danger not only in the veld, but in the great centres of population. The matter is so important, and is a matter of so very strong criticism in the press and the country generally, that I cannot understand why the Minister in his speech did not take the trouble to refer to this matter. I hope he will do so this afternoon, and make a statement which will reassure the country and show the country that the Government is prepared to reconsider the whole matter.

I am not at all sorry that the right hon. the leader of the Opposition has raised this question, because he has raised a number of quite serious and important points which I will do my best to deal with. Of course, it provides members on the other side with perhaps an opportunity of trying to antagonize against the present Government a certain section of the population, particularly on the farms and in the country, but there is also so much in the arguments that I welcome the opportunity to explain the position. I did not deal with the question the other night, because my time was up, and I did not like to trespass unduly on the indulgence of the House when they granted me an extension, but seeing that the right hon. member has raised it now, I welcome the opportunity of dealing with it. It was not that I wanted to shirk it the other evening. The right hon. the leader of the Opposition says that this Act was passed by the last Government, but the present Government has abused its power in giving effect to and in administering it. I hesitate to think how it would have been administered, and whether any benefits would have been derived from it had its administration been left to the last Government, because he quoted large areas, and he referred to the 3s. 4d. an hour, and said these areas should never have been included. He said that the rates were too high, that the contractors of small places were not used to this legislation, and that we were eliminating large numbers of people who in the past had been employed.

Do you deny this?

Yes. Let me give the history of this. For four years before this Act was passed by the last Government, the building industry, in consequence of disputes, upheavals and dislocation of trade, arrived at a voluntary agreement—the same as in the printing industry. The printing and building industries, before this legislation was passed, decided that it would be in the best interests of the industries as a whole that they should arrive at some agreement, and they gave effect to that by voluntary action. The Master Builders’ Association, which contains members in small as well as in larger places, and the trade union organization, which also contains members in small as well as larger places, drew up a voluntary agreement, and it was in operation when the Industrial Conciliation Act was passed. With a few exceptions, that voluntary agreement provided for exactly the same areas as are provided for under the agreement to-day. I will take the point of the right hon. the leader of the Opposition, that in making it applicable to building in the countryside, we are in conflict with the Act— something that the Act never intended, or does not allow. The right hon. member quoted the first clause of the Act, which says it shall not apply to any employment in agriculture or the farming industry. The right hon. leader of the Opposition might know more about it than the law advisers; but the law advisers did not regard putting up a building in the country, or anywhere else, as employment in agriculture. Let me give the Opposition a case in point. Take the case of a boarding-house keeper in Johannesburg who was prosecuted because he was putting up a certain building for boardinghouse purposes, and was not complying with the terms of the agreement. The case went into court. He said—

and the court laid down the dictum that while he was actually building the premises he was, for the purposes of the Act, in the position of a builder or contractor. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell) will remember the case. I will give the right hon. the leader of the Opposition the whole case, if it can be shown that the building of a house, a mill, or anything else in the countryside is agricultural work, what we have done, therefore, is ultra vires. But the law advisers do not say so.

What about a shed for shearing?

Sheep shearing? The building of a shed is not agricultural work. The building of a shed is in the building industry. That must be obvious. The point is quite clear—we can bandy arguments the whole day.

It is as clear as mud.

What was the intention of the Act? Its intention was to prevent industrial disputes by means of a settlement and an agreement to be arrived at by employers and employees, and if the agricultural employers—the farmers—want to take advantage of the Act, and they made an agreement with their employees for the purposes of arriving at wage conditions, etc., that would be a contravention of the Act, because it is specifically excluded. Might I say that it is a bit late in the day, also, for hon. members to draw attention to the particular point, because the Act has been in force since it was passed, namely, three years ago—since the present Government came into office, and on less favourable terms than it is to-day. I asked the Industrial Council to put in this special exemption clause—to put in the clause, not until the value of the building material is up to £400. Until that was put in it applied to every building, and it was put in only last October.

Who applied it?

Under the terms of the Building Council agreement, it covered all buildings in the areas laid down.

It did not have the force of law.

Yes, it did have the force of law. That agreement was first gazetted shortly after the Act was passed in 1924. My hon. friend (Col. Creswell) was in office. Under the terms of that agreement, every building in every area scheduled in the agreement came under the provisions of the agreement, which had force by virtue of the Act. The Industrial Council put in a general exemption clause to meet the very case the right hon. the leader of the Opposition referred to, as far as the man in the countryside is concerned. I will read out the exemption clause. The right hon. member for Standerton might have read C, which has a bearing on the important points. He did not refer to the fact that in the small places the local committees laid down local rates. I will just show how the right hon. the leader of the Opposition—I do not say intentionally— is misleading. He quoted those areas which are to be covered, and said that 3s. 4d. an hour was to be the rate, irrespective of who was to be employed in those areas. I will just read out the agreement, and show where the right hon. member for Standerton has gone so far astray. He quoted Potchefstroom, Heidelberg and other places. But as far as Pietermaritzburg is concerned, the rate is 2s. 11d., and not 3s. 4d.; in Kimberley the rate is 2s. 9d.; in Grahamstown, 2s. 9d.; in King William’s Town, 2s. 9d. The right hon. the leader of the Opposition referred particularly to Ladybrand, and said you lay down conditions there such as in Cape Town and Johannesburg; but the rate in Ladybrand is 2s. 6d., laid down by the local committee.

Who is this local committee? Farmers?

A local committee of builders and employees.

Was Tarkastad consulted?

Will the hon. member keep quiet? I want to deal with the right hon. the leader of the Opposition. I cannot deal with everybody at the same time. The Industrial Council has been working on the voluntary agreement for all these years. They now ask their own local committees to lay down local rates, and in addition to that they put in a special clause which enables them to grant an exemption for any reason whatsoever to any person who cannot earn the wage laid down by the local committee or the National Council. These points have been fully met. Take Potchefstroom; there are a large number of special exemptions. The Industrial Council realize that in smaller places conditions are quite different from the towns. That puts an entirely different complexion on it, than the complexion the right hon. the leader of the Opposition has tried to put on it in this House. The object of this Act was to try to establish peace in industry.

Peace and plenty.

You can have peace and plenty, if you like, and the man who works is entitled to it. There are carpenters, joiners and bricklayers in these small towns who for many years have been scandalously underpaid.

By whom?

By the contractors. The agreement is a protection for the worker in the small towns, and also for the good contractor. If the good employer does not have this protection, how can he compete against the unscrupulous employer? I ask whether the country has not gained tremendously by the peace it has enjoyed during the last three years in the building and other industries? If this Act were to be administered in the way suggested by the leader of the Opposition, we should not have had this freedom from strikes, but instead we should have had trouble, strikes, dislocation of trade and all the other evils which this country knew before. It is a difficult Act to administer.

No, it is quite easy.

It is one of the most difficult Acts to administer that we have on the statute book.

It may be for you.

It is full of snags. The building industry itself makes a levy of 3d. a week per employee, and the employers also pay 3d. a week, the total levy amounting to £6,000 a year, this amount being dispersed in order to try to administer the agreement. Surely they are entitled to some support, sympathy and consideration from this House. Under the agreement they are supposed to enforce its terms in respect to all those who are parties to it, while the Labour Department enforces the agreement in respect of those to whom the terms of the agreement is extended, but who are not actually parties to it themselves. I think it is very praise worthy that the building industry should raise such a substantial sum to give effect to the agreement.

They take it out of the public.

In spite of, or because of, this agreement, the building industry was never busier than it is at present.

It is not owing to this agreement.

Would this be possible if it were not a good agreement?

It is in spite of the agreement.

It is a sign of confidence, security and industrial and peaceful progress. Before the agreement a builder could not make a contract without feeling that he might not be able to fulfil it on account of strikes or the men demanding higher wages. Many a contractor previously lost heavily through having to pay higher wages in the middle of a contract, the demand practically ruining him. This agreement is one of the greatest blessings the country has ever had, because of the freedom we have had from strikes, and even if we have to pay a little bit for it, it is well worth it. There is no country in the world to-day which would not jump at the three years’ industrial peace which South Africa has enjoyed. Strikes and upheavals and conflicts between capital and labour are the greatest troubles of other countries, all of whom would be prepared to pay heavily for the peace which we have had in South Africa. During the last five years before this Government came into office, there were 175 strikes in the Union—these are the official figures. The wages that were lost were £2,500,000, to say nothing of the loss of life; in one dispute alone, because—

216 lives were lost.

A red herring across the trail.

If we have done nothing else, we have justified our existence by having a period of industrial peace, and even if farmers are paying a little more, they will appreciate the fact. I would like to emphasize again that I have told the building industrial council that I hardly thought it right to cut out something which was in force before legislation was established, but I am not going to extend the agreement to further areas unless they have local committees functioning there for the purpose of laying down local rates.

Are you going to curtail the agreement?

No, I have not the power to curtail it. When the agreement expires, the parties concerned make a fresh agreement, and then I can suggest that the agreement might be altered.

You would not be there to do that.

Supposing I said that I would not accept the agreement, the industrial council would have said “ You can take your Act,” and we would have had the old trouble of strikes. The representatives of all parts of the country are in favour of the agreement.

The farmers?

They are not affected until they start building. I got the council to exclude last October all buildings on farms when the material was valued at £400. It was estimated that the cost of material in a building, the total cost of which would be £1,000, would be £400. Up to then there had been no exclusion whatever. This will show at any rate, that as far as I was able I was solicitous regarding the interests of the farming community. The fundamental principle of the Act, and it is a sound one, is that it gives an industry home rule, and if an industry makes an agreement, we legalize it. There are, however, so many conflicting elements and interests, human as well as financial, that it is a difficult Act to administer. However, we are doing our best to carry it out in a fair and just way to promote and maintain industrial peace, to make an end to strikes, and to give the good contractor and the good workman in town and country a square deal.

The Government take tremendous credit for having had no strikes within the past few years, but the leaders of the Labour party have had something else to do besides fomenting strikes. All their influence has been applied to keeping the men quiet, for the less trouble they have the more credit they claim for the Government. Prior to the present Government taking office, however, these hon. gentlemen used to go round the country stirring the men up, but now it is a very different story. I think it is not far from the truth. My friend says this agreement has worked well. There are various opinions about that. It has had the effect of throwing hundreds of semi-skilled men out of employment. My hon. friend can shake his head as much as he likes, but we have evidence. Take the small builders in the Cape Peninsula. They have employed these semi-skilled men for many years, but they cannot continue to employ them at 2s. 9d. per hour.

There are hundreds of exemptions.

It is the application of the Act we object to. Ask any small builder in the Cape, and they will tell you hundreds of men have been thrown out of employment who have been with them for years. And one person whose interests are never considered, is the one who hires the house. Rents have put up also the cost of living, and you have done your best to keep up that cost. You have increased the cost of building in this country very materially, and no doubt the building industry has been in a flourishing state for three years now, but some people are not building because they cannot afford to The Minister takes full credit for this boom in building, but he has not heard the worst side of it yet. He must wait until building falls off, which it will inevitably do.

You are opposed to this Act?

Wait a moment, don’t you play the small attorney, and try to inveigle one into statements one has no desire to make. The Minister says they are carrying out the intention of this Bill. I was present when this Bill was passed, and it was the last thing the House dreamt of that it should be applied to farmers. Up to now, I have worked under that impression, and I have been doing building work on my farm, but I did not expect this Bill to apply to it. Even this week-end I have been discussing the erection of a couple of buildings, but I shall stop it, now I know how this Bill applies. You cannot make the thing pay. No farmer in this House dreamt that this Act was going to apply to buildings put up on farms. It is going to put up the cost of buildings, and I think I am not exaggerating when I say 100 per cent.

You mean in wages?

Yes, in wages, undoubtedly; 2s. 9d. an hour for a 44-hour week. If my friend had any experience of farm life, and what the farmers have to contend with, he would know more of what he is talking about. No farmer can afford to put up buildings on these conditions, if he wants to make the farm pay. You cannot mention a single case where a farmer has been prosecuted for putting up farm buildings on these terms.

They have been left alone.

Yes, and that is why you had peace. The Government should bring in an amending Bill to specially state that this shall not apply to buildings put up on farms. It applies in the same respect to villages where there are many small semi-skilled men. There you find small men who have been at the trade for years, they do not ask for this wage because they live considerably cheaper. Why should they be brought in?

And the same for small towns, eh?

I should take the view of the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts), that is, apply it to the large towns, the big centres where it was intended to apply to. You cannot afford to apply it to small villages where you will throw scores of men out of employment. I urge the Government, if there is any doubt, to bring in an amending Bill to clear these doubts away.

Confine it to Johannesburg and Pretoria?

No, not necessarily.

But you were objecting to it for Cape Town.

It was intended to apply to the big towns only, and that is where you should apply it.

I think we were all surprised on this side of the House to see the hon. member for Standerton and leader of the Opposition (Gen. Smuts) rise to-day and oppose the Act which his own Government had passed, i.e., the Industrial Conciliation Act. That is the kind of Act they passed, and come and disapprove of to-day.

We disapprove of the administration of it.

The hon. leader of the Opposition protests against the Act being applied on the countryside, and the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger), who sits next to him, protests, I think, against the Act being applied in the towns. What then is the use of that Act which they introduced and passed? I always opposed that Act of the Smuts Government in its application to the countryside, but now hon. members there want to put the blame on us for the Act which is their own. Now, according to the leader of the Opposition, this Act was never intended to be applied to agriculture. Then I say that it is a strange thing that it is being applied to-day to the countryside. Who is responsible for the Act? According to the legal advisers the Minister is quite right in carrying out the Act. The Minister is only carrying out what the members of the Opposition passed.

The Minister has the power. The hon. member has not read the Act.

I am possibly not so learned, because I am only a simple farmer. But I hope that if some day I introduce and put a Bill through that I shall then understand it, and that the country will do likewise, so that I do not to-day pass an Act and the next day protest against it. Hon. members should abandon that kind of criticism. The late Government is responsible for this legislation, and the hon. leader of the Opposition is attacking his own Act. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) opposed the wage of 3s. 4d. May I ask him why he passed the Act then?

Where is it so stated in the Act?

It says here that an agreement will be made between the employer and the workers; they will conclude an agreement.

The Government must exercise its discretion with regard to the execution.

I have carefully read the Act, and I also protest against its being applied on the countryside. On behalf of my constituency and the countryside, I protest against its application there, but the Act against which we are protesting is one made by the former Government. The Minister is administering an Act for which the former Government must bear the blame. I ask the Government, however, to amend the Act so that it is clearly stated that it shall not apply on the countryside, a thing which the other side did not set out clearly. If it is possible and necessary, I ask the Government during the present session to make the amendment in the Act, so that the misunderstanding can be cleared up. We are thankful that the time of strikes, which we had under the former Government, when there were no less than 175 strikes, has gone by. We have not yet had one strike, but if this Act is applied on the countryside, we shall have our first strike among the farmers. As we have these terrible droughts, and have to deal with all kinds of difficulties so that often everything which has taken years of hard work to accumulate becomes ruined in one year, it is an impossible position to apply the Act to us and make us pay those heavy prices. I make another appeal to the Government which stands up for the farmers’ interests to amend this Act passed by the last Government. There is great misunderstanding among the farmers. When the Wage Act was passed I told them that it would not be applied on the countryside. When a part of my constituency was proclaimed under the Conciliation Act the farmers came to me and said that I had told them the Act would not be applied to agriculture. The Acts are mixed up, and a great deal of the misunderstanding with reference to them is due to hon. members opposite. I am, however, glad that the leader of the Opposition has got up here to-day and expressed his disapproval of his Act being applied in the countryside.

I shall not detain the House long, but I want to make it clear that the Minister of Labour is the authority who is responsible under the Industrial Conciliation Act. The hon. member for Albert (Mr. Steytler) argued that the Act did not clearly provide that agreements under it could not be applied on the countryside, but it is laid down in the Act—

If the Minister has acted illegally, why then is he not taken to court?

The hon. member must not be impatient, because I am trying to make the matter plain to him. The Act further provides that if there are disputes in a particular industry then the employers and employees meet together with the object of coming to an agreement. If an agreement is come to, it has not the force of law unless the Minister approves of it. The responsibility rests with the Government to ultimately give the force of law to the agreement. That is the first responsibility of the Minister. But in the second place, with reference to the building trade, the areas which are established have also to be confirmed by the Minister. The full responsibility remains with the Minister, because he has the fullest right of referring the agreement back and saying that it must be amended in one respect or another, and that he does not agree to its being applicable on the countryside. The Minister did not do that, but accepted the agreement, confirmed it, and published it in the Government “ Gazette,” and, consequently, it has the force of law to-day. The Minister is the person who bears the responsibility. I am, therefore, not surprised that the Minister said that if this side of the House had remained in power the Act would have remained a dead letter. He thereby admits that the Minister must take the responsibility. It is not only that difficulty which may be caused with reference to the wages under the Industrial Conciliation Act, but under the Wages Act, which was passed by the present Government, many difficulties may also arise. If there is one thing which cramps the industries of South Africa, then it is the impossible wages and regulations which are laid down. If we are to apply the wages on the countryside as drawn up by the Minister, then I say one can say good-bye to agricultural development. If the Minister wanted to assist the farmers he would have had sufficient aid under the Act as it stands. If he had any knowledge of circumstances on the countryside he would know what the intention of the Act was, irrespective of what the legal advisers say. Even if they say that the Act applies to the countryside, then the Minister has the right to refuse to apply the agreement, and he can refer it back to and say what portion he will not apply. Before the Minister approves of the agreement it cannot have the force of law. I hope the Government will consider the matter, because even now the Minister has the right under the Act to refer back the agreement with the approval of the Conciliation Board. He does not, however, want to do that, because he is determined to carry it out.

When I was listening to the right hon. the leader of the Opposition just now, I was in some doubt as to whether he was attacking the principle of the legislation which his own Government passed or whether he was attempting to enter into some legal quibble with my hon. friend the Minister in respect of this agreement. If this is purely a legal matter, surely it is one for the legal advisers, and if somebody has, by means of an agreement, broken the law, the court is the proper place to fight that question out. My hon. friend has told us that the matter has already arisen, and practically been determined by the court, and I am glad it was determined in the way he stated. One can picture a man starting a manufactory on a farm with a view of evading this Act. Far more serious to my mind is the attack which has been made on the underlying principle of this Act by the other side, and for the greater part the right hon. gentleman’s speech was devoted to a ridicule of the principle, not so much to the legal quibble, and followed as it was by the speech of the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger), it seems to me that some great change of opinion has taken place inside that party, that they no longer belong to the school who support voluntary agreements, round-table conferences, fair conditions of labour, but they want to expunge all these provisions from the legislation of this country. I hope they will make their position clear to this House and the country at large as to what they mean. I want to assure them of this, that there are tens of thousands of people in this country today who are benefiting by the law they passed, and it will come to them as a great surprise to find that there is even a small voice raised in this House against that very successful principle which they started, and for which they are entitled to credit. What is the underlying principle of this Bill? To get at that, we have to go back to where we were before this Bill was passed. Not only in the towns, but in the country we had disputes. The Rand was aflame with industrial disputes. Hardly a day passed when we could not pick up our newspaper and find that some industrial dispute had broken out. Here in Cape Town no building was going on for many weeks when that scale of pay, which was read a little while ago, if I recollect aright, was laid down as the scale of pay for Cape Town, before this Act came into force as the result of a long strike and great inconvenience to the public. It was at that juncture that the late Government came along and said—

They proposed that a strike should be delayed until the parties to the dispute should have had a conference, and they went on to say that even if the conference should break down a mediator and even an arbitrator might be called in, so that some agreement should be come to. The award of an arbitrator would then have the same effect as an award of court for the period for which the agreement was made. The people concerned were compelled to hold to that agreement under penalty of imprisonment or fine. It is obvious how little chance there is of negotiating an industrial agreement if it concerns only a portion, and not all the persons engaged in the industry. In the first place an agreement cannot be registered at all unless there is a majority of employers and employees engaged in the industry parties to the agreement, and it contemplates forcing the minority outside into line. In the working of these agreements it is quite true that we are finding in South Africa a very sad state of affairs. Inefficiency everywhere, inefficiency grown up through lack of training and proper apprenticeship, and all these things. I venture to say to members of the Opposition that they will have the greatest difficulty in finding any agreement in existence which does not provide a back door by which the person who is inefficient may be left at his work and not expected to get the full conditions laid down in the agreement. Meanwhile, we are trying to improve the worker. The Apprenticeship Act, as I understand it, is working well, leading to greater apprenticeship in the country, and in the future you will have plenty of competent workmen able to fill the places of the other people and entitled to and able to earn the wages laid down in agreements. The last speech I heard before I went overseas was one by the right hon. leader of the Opposition, who was entirely opposed to the principle of the Wages Board Act, viz., the arbitrary fixing of wages. He said—

What does he mean now—that both are no good? I say this, that there is no other alternative if we listen to the right hon. member and abolish these Acts than to go back to the state in which we found the country four or five years ago, ridden hard with industrial disputes, all sorts of passions at work in the country, and hatred being bred between employers and employees. I am sure members of the Opposition do not want to do that. They want it both ways. They want industrial peace and, at the same time, low wages and bad conditions; they want competition between workers, but no competition between themselves. I think the Minister has administered the Act with very great fairness to the trade unions, and very much in the interest of the public. I know that if there is anything in any agreement against the public interest the Minister soon pulls up the bodies concerned. I hope he will follow the policy he has pursued in the past in regard to these agreements, and I am confident it will be to the interest of all concerned in South Africa.

The hon. member for Jeppes (Mr. Sampson) says that the Act has given great satisfaction in the towns. I can assure him that, as far as the countryside is concerned, there has been great dissatisfaction with regard to the Act.

Who is responsible for the Act?

The Act is good, but the regulations made under it give great dissatisfaction. I want to tell the Minister, in answer to his statement that the Act is being applied where there had previously been conciliation between the employers and the employees, that in some parts there has been no conciliation whatsoever where at present the Act is being put into force. There was no conciliation at all with representatives from the districts.

You mean consultation?

Yes, consultation. There was no consultation. The first we heard of it was that the Act was proclaimed. What happens is that an industrial board which is established in a large town itself also exercises its function over surrounding villages which are not represented at all. Take the Queenstown Board. It was established there, and the regulations apply at Queenstown, but also to villages like Molteno, Sterkstroom, Tarkastad, etc. That creates an impossible position, because in the small villages there are not many trained men who, e.g., can erect a building from foundations to roof. It is as the Minister himself has said, the competent people in the small villages, who know all the trade are contractors. They have, in many cases, previously made contracts for the building of houses, and suddenly the labour inspectors come and say that they are to pay the high wage. It is impossible for them to go on with the work if they have to pay higher wages. That is impossible in the small villages. The contractors there cannot enter into a contract any longer. The contractors from the large towns freeze them out because they have the skilled workmen and can, therefore, pay the wage. We are not so much opposed to a skilled man being paid the higher wage, but any man that takes up a trowel or a hammer has to get the higher wage under the regulations. All these people come under the Act.

What Act?

We do not deny that the Act was passed by our Government, but they were never able to apply it. This Government was first able to apply it, and is responsible for the application.

You are the cause of it.

But you placed confidence in the Labour party and appointed a member of it as head of the Labour Department, and he made these ridiculous regulations. The Minister has said that we have local committees. In Tarkastad they are not represented at all in the industrial board sitting in Queenstown. We have never yet been represented on it, and they have never shown sympathy with us. The unskilled man on the countryside, who formerly made a good living, cannot now get work because people cannot pay him the high wages. I do not think it ever was the intention to apply the Act on the countryside, but only in the large cities.

Why did you not say so in the Act?

It is clearly enough stated in the Act—

Now the Minister says that if a farmer builds a barn to shear his sheep in it does not fall under agriculture, but under the building trade, and so the Act is applied to the farmers. It is also clearly stated in Section 9 that the responsibility remains in the hands of the Minister. When the Minister spoke this afternoon I asked him a question in connection with the areas in which the agreement was proclaimed, but he did not reply. He said, however, that the regulations were proclaimed in the areas where such an agreement already existed, and he added that if any place was proclaimed in future, he would see that the conditions were not so harsh, and would not be applied to countryside areas. Why, however, have the regulations already been applied in the small villages around and in the neighbourhood of the large towns? The regulations operate harshly in the small villages, and they are not required at all. Hon. members of the Labour party have said that we farmers make our people work as much as possible and pay as little as possible, but let me tell them that the protests are just as great from the employees as from the employers. If the regulations had been proclaimed in Riversdale, then the hon. member for that constituency would not have sat so quiet and been satisfied with the position.

I shall speak later on.

I hope the Minister will bear in mind that the regulations are very unwelcome in the small villages and districts, not only among the employers and farmers, but also among the workers. They do not want the Act to operate there at all. Why the Minister wanted to create the impression that there was consultation I cannot understand, because it is quite incorrect. There are clauses in the regulations which are quite ridiculous.

There is no doubt that there is considerable misconception about the Industrial Conciliation Act. The hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. C. van Heerden), who has just sat down, repeatedly mentioned regulations which the Minister is supposed to have drafted and put into force. There is no question of regulations at all. It is an agreement which the Minister has to approve under the Act which was made in the beginning of 1924 by the then Government. The Minister publishes the agreement, but he does not draft his own regulations.

Where is it stated in the Act that he has to approve of the agreement?

There is considerable misunderstanding, and even the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) was under a very great misconception. In 1925 he travelled round my district and said that the high wages in the building trade had come into operation as a result of the Wages Act of 1925. The hon. member for Hopetown (Dr. Stals) was also present, and the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) will remember that, after he had made the statement, we specifically asked him what Act was responsible for the higher wages of which he had complained. He then corrected himself, and said that it was the Industrial Conciliation Act, and then we asked him who had passed the Act. He, therefore, also in the first place said that the Wages Act was the cause of the wages in the building trade. I do not know whether he made a slip of the tongue, but he only admitted after cross examination that it was the result of the Industrial Conciliation Act. The first agreement under the Act was proclaimed at the end of 1924. That agreement continued in force, and now there comes a new agreement which is a continuation of the old one, but what is so strange to me is that hon. members opposite now suddenly wake up and proclaim all the evils of the agreement. The Hon. member for Standerton said that if it is applied to Gordonia, Upington, Bushmanland and Prieska, it would be undesirable. He did not then frighten those farmers, and he possibly thinks that he will now frighten them by mentioning what injurious results the application of the Act will have for them. I may say that not a single complaint from farms in those districts in connection with the administration of the Act has come to my notice. If I had heard it I would have gone to see the Minister about it, because I agree with the hon. member for Albert (Mr. Steytler) and other hon. members who said that it was not the intention of the framers of the Act to apply it to farms. What I object to is that the legal advisers now state that the section means that buildings erected on the countryside fall under the Act. We cannot agree with that. Where the section mentions any farming industry, it also means any operations in connection therewith, including buildings, wagon houses, shearing barns, stables and (I may even say) a dwelling house, which are all things required for agricultural operations, and I think that they are all included under the exemption. Therefore, I hope the Government will take steps to have them included, and will see to the section being amended, because the construction of the legal advisers creates an impossible state of affairs. Hon. members opposite must not try to-day to blame the regulations. That agreement was made under their own Act, and if it is applicable we must be the first to ask for an amendment.

It may be somewhat brutal to have to say it, but when Mr. F. S. Malan, the then Minister of Mines and Industries, was piloting the Industrial Conciliation Bill through this House in 1923, so little interest was taken in the measure by members of the South African party that many of them were unaware of the fact that they were committing themselves to co-operation and conciliation in future industrial disputes, instead of carrying on their previous policy of shooting first and investigating afterwards. The right hon. the member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) actually made the mistake in 1925 of attributing to the Wage Bill what was actually due to the Industrial Conciliation Act. This bears out the contention that members of the South African party did not take sufficient interest in what is probably the finest piece of industrial legislation ever enacted in this country. I served on the select committee to which the Industrial Conciliation Bill was referred, and it was quite a pleasure to find such broadminded and progressive master builders of Cape Town as Mr. A. B. Reid and Mr. M. J. Adams, asking Parliament to legislate along lines compelling the unfair employer to pay the same rate of wages as his competitor, who is prepared to maintain a reasonable status for the workers. Mr. Adams, in the course of his evidence, stated—

I know from my own experience that what Mr. Adams stated is exactly in accordance with facts. The fair employer is prepared to pay a reasonable standard of wages. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) adheres to the law of supply and demand in human activity, whereby a man shall be paid in accordance with what he is able to earn, but, of course, the employer is to be the judge as to what a man’s capabilities are. Thank heaven we have men like Mr. Adams, who says—

Here we have the point. I am labouring it, but at the same time it is of sufficient importance to put emphasis on the fact. I do not know whether hon. members agree that the only way to lessen the cost of production is to attack the wages of the workmen. The South African party did so in 1921 when they reduced wages in the public services. I regret to see leaders of the South African party getting up in this House and actually condemning the fundamentals of the Industrial Conciliation Act.

We have heard a good deal of typical soap-box oratory from the Minister of Labour and the Labour members, but it is curious that from the moment this debate started the hon. members from Fordsburg (Mr. J. S. F. Pretorius), Riversdale (Mr. Badenhorst) and other Nationalist constituencies, have, like the Arabs, folded their tents and silently faded away. Last week there was a debate here on the Architects Bill, and these stalwart boys of the old brigade put up a formidable opposition to that Bill. They said they objected to it because it interfered with the rights of the farmer, and they wanted none of these ring fences. They said: Why should they have an architect to help them build a house? They could build it as well as any architect. I am surprised none of them were here this afternoon. They wrecked the Architects Bill on the principle that it interfered with building on farms. The principle involved here this afternoon is exactly the same. The Labour members have made a great song about our wanting to keep up wages, but they have missed the point that the Bill is being applied to the farmers against the spirit of the law. I have not heard a single farmer get up on the other side and protest against the Minister extending this Bill to the farmers. The principle in this Bill is the same as the principles of the Architects Bill. Am I in order, Mr. Speaker, in quoting the speeches of the hon. members on a different topic?

I am afraid not.

I accept your ruling, sir, but I advise hon. members to look up Hansard and see what members on the Nationalist benches had to say about the infringement of their rights on farms. They got up and said they did not want architects. They could build their own houses. Now the Minister of Labour has laid down that they are not competent to build houses unless it is a hovel under £400. It does not seem to me to be a very high compliment. Farmers on both sides have objected to the extending of the principles of these labour principles to the farms, yet here we have it in full swing. I warned them at the election time that we should have these laws applied to the land, and here it is. The hon. member for Albert (Mr. Steytler) says he is against it, and that the law must be altered. The only mistake he made was he blamed it on the wrong side. It is the Minister of Labour, and not the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) who has misapplied this Bill. The Minister of Labour is going beyond his mandate in applying it to the farms. If the hon. member is sincere, he should get together the whole of those who think alike and force the Minister to put a stop to it. It is characteristic and significant that the defence has come solely from the Labour benches. It is unparliamentary to use the word “ docile,” but our friends are very quiet where such a great principle is at stake.

It is the lesser of two evils.

Do you mean that the Minister of Labour is the lesser evil? If they accepted the Minister of Labour as the lesser of two evils, they got hold of the wrong end of the stick, if I might use a mixed metaphor. I think the House is entitled to an explanation from the Nationalist members.

I should like to intervene in this debate to condole with the Opposition on an opportunity lost. They have made a big attack on the Minister of Labour this afternoon, but why did they not attack me last session? You know the history of this matter. Soon after we came into office, this was one of the first industrial agreements which I as Minister of Labour sanctioned.

The courts declared it ultra vires.

That was a totally different point altogether. The old agreement was not ultra vires at all. The industrial council of the building industry existed long before this Act was passed. Soon after we took office a meeting of the industrial council was held to make up a national building industry agreement. I sanctioned that agreement. It was running the whole of last session and a portion of the session before. They had an admirable opportunity of attacking me over the fearful effect on the countryside and the extraordinary way in which it was impeding the development of the country in those years. I am quite willing to admit that the agreement that I sanctioned was far too wide, that is to say, it covered bigger areas and had not all these exemptions. If they had been as vigilant as they now pretend to be, there was the whole of last session, and I think a portion of the session before, when they were perfectly able to point out the evils of this terrible agreement. The fact of the matter is that these evils exist very largely in their own imagination. In actual working it does not have any of these effects. The position is this, we have the National Master Builders’ Association and the various trades unions mentioned in this agreement are the corresponding national associations of employees. I do not know what was the opinion of hon. members opposite and of the right hon. the member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) when they passed this Act, but I certainly understand from the Act itself and also the declared intention of those hon. members, that their idea was, in cases where an agreement was arrived at between responsible bodies on the employers’ side of the industry, and the employees’ side, to give it the effect of law, so that it should not be made inoperative by people outside these two organized bodies doing as they pleased. We will take the point raised by the right hon. gentleman. Hon. members opposite want to frighten the country. My hon. friend the Minister of Labour has taken the precaution, which very probably I should have taken, of eliminating from the operation of this agreement, any building in the country where the materials required for that building do not cost more than £400. Let us take a £1,000 building. What did the master builders and the employees represent? They represented this—

And they very strongly objected. My hon. friend has got them to modify their agreement more than I could, to these excisions, and confining it purely to the town areas and nothing else. If hon. members reflect a minute, they will see that it is extremely difficult to draw the line.

Then you are in favour of extending this right through the country?

My hon. friend is administering this Act, as I am in favour of administering it, with due regard so that it shall not inflict unnecessary hardship and friction. The reservation that it shall not apply to houses and buildings in the countryside where the materials are less than £400 was put in, because that was the criterion.

Then you are in favour of spreading it all over the country.

I am certainly not in favour of confining it to the big towns. The right hon. gentleman said—

Why not? If he puts up a building, does he not employ a contractor? The contractor would be a member of the Master Builders’ Association in Pretoria, and he would employ persons belonging to the trade unions, and it is precisely with the object of seeing that these agreements are duly observed in the letter and the spirit that the right hon. gentleman was one of the sponsors of the Act of 1924. I want the working people of this country to thoroughly understand what is the attitude of the South African party on this matter. One can suppose this, that if the South African party were administering this Act, they would see that it was administered in as niggardly a spirit as possible, and they would confine it as far as possible to a few big buildings in the towns, and nothing else. I am surprised at the tone the right hon. gentleman took up. He criticized this agreement, the rates of wages laid down, the provision as to the working week of 44 hours, the provisions as to sanitary accommodation, and the prohibition of piecework. What did we hear from the right hon. gentleman two years ago when the Wage Bill was under discussion? He said—

Is not the attitude of the South African party that they do not want the Wage Act? When the Wage Bill was under consideration, they talked about these agreements between the organized bodies of employers and employees as the right way to regulate wages. Now, when the question of the application of the Industrial Conciliation Act is considered, they want to confine it within the narrowest possible limits, so that it will do as little good as possible in regulating the affairs of industry. The right hon. gentleman said, in reply to an interjection by one of my hon. friends who mentioned 3s. 4d. per hour, that the Minister sanctioned that. I want to know what their view is. In speaking on the Wage Act, the right hon. gentleman said—

Yes, and when they have settled it, if the right hon. gentleman had been in power he, no doubt, in consultation with the Minister of Labour in his Government, in spite of the two parties having settled the rate of wages, his Minister of Labour would decline to sanction that unless the particular wages settled by those people were in accordance with the right hon. gentleman’s view. If that is not Ministerial interference, I do not know what is. Then we come to the question of exemptions. I would like to know how the right hon. gentleman would administer this Act himself. It is well known in every part of the world where industrial legislation has been put in force, that particularly in the first phases of the application of such legislation, and to some extent it will always be the case, there will be persons getting their livelihood in that industry who are not efficient enough really to be worth the full rate of wages laid down. How on earth can that be met except by this system of exemptions? Properly administered, that is the way to get over from one stage to another— to the stage in which you have these really skilled men who have not had the advantage of the working of the Apprenticeship Act, from that of the present condition where you have a large number of persons who are not skilled craftsmen, but are able to do, in some sort of way, a job. Under this general clause there are hundreds of exemptions to-day in the country. Well, what are hon. members over there grumbling about? They talk about thousands of men thrown on to the streets. It is a very curious thing that, in spite of these matters, the unemployment in this country is vastly less than it was when the right hon. gentleman left office.

They are all on the railways.

They are all on the railways, all on the diggings and anywhere else—except unemployed! So long as they are not unemployed we, on this side, are satisfied that we have been largely instrumental in improving the employment position in this country. In this matter of wages and the adjustment of wages, we have to go steadily on, as my hon. friend has done, making exemptions, telling these people they have to make limitations, but, broadly speaking, applying the conditions of the industry in such a way that it does not result in friction and hardship, but works smoothly. I principally rose to emphasize what is perfectly clear from this debate, and I particularly want the working classes of this country to realize what they have to expect if they are foolish enough at any future time to put hon. members opposite into power. What they have to expect in the application and administration of the Industrial Conciliation Act is agreements so long as they accord with the ideas of the S.A. party and no one else, and not their own agreements; in every possible way limiting the progress of the workers and restricting the operation of their own Acts to which they have appealed so often as the height of wisdom. The workers have got to know that if hon. members over there receive their suffrage, what they have to expect is that all these Acts will be administered in a spirit entirely hostile to their welfare and to any real operation of industrial conciliation.

The application of the provisions of the industrial Conciliation Act was the subject of discussion at the last annual congress of the Transvaal Agricultural Union. Delegates were concerned as to whether the provisions of this Act would apply to farmers. It is customary to refer to different Ministers matters which arise during the congress for information. Amongst other matters this question now being discussed was referred to the Minister of Labour. This is his reply—

Is building an agricultural industry?

I am just coming to that. A simple-minded farmer is lulled into a sense of security by a written statement of this sort. Any simple-minded man reading this statement will naturally conclude that all agricultural activity is excluded. Surely the erection of buildings forms a part of agriculture; that is how the ordinary man would argue.

Go on !

The farmers would take that view. If one is to carry on agricultural operations, it is necessary to erect buildings. Strictly speaking, the erection of a dwelling-house or a shed would not necessarily be a farming industry, but that view is not the one taken by the agricultural industry at large. The hon. member for Albert (Mr. Steytler) and the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie), the only two farmers on the Government side who have spoken, have admitted that this interpretation has come as news to them, and they want the Minister to amend the Act. I repeat that a statement of this sort has lulled the farming industry into a feeling of security. This request has been put to the Minister by two of his followers calling upon him to alter the Act so as to exclude all operations of farming, building operations as well. I would like to know what the Minister’s attitude is with regard to that. Does he agree? I think the majority of farmers would take exactly the same view as that adopted by those two members. I say there is no doubt that the farmers throughout this country came to the conclusion that all farming operations, including the erection of buildings, did not fall under the provisions of this Act. I am not discussing the policy of this Act. I believe its provisions should be applied to building operations in large places, but I am against applying them to any operations of farming. I know the hardship of farming and the expense of farming, and the poor game which farming is in this country. I have here another expression of opinion by the Minister of Labour in regard to a further point that was put to him, and that is in regard to the Wages Act, also by the Transvaal Agricultural Union. This is what the Minister says—

The Minister proceeds with his apologia—

This sort of reply, I again urge, lulls the farmers into security. I pointed out on a previous occasion in this House that forestry, although it does not fall under the provisions of the Wage Act, falls under those of the Factory Act. If you do not catch them in one way, you catch them in another. If a man grows timber, and in the process of cutting it up he uses mechanical appliances, he comes under the Factory Act. Farmers are fools if they do not think they are going to be roped in under these Acts. There are farmers who go in for fruit culture, and they may plant a number of forest trees suitable for the manufacture of boxes intended for packing. You cannot cut these trees up by hand, but you have to use machinery, and when you do you are roped in under the Factory Act. Then you have as a farmer to differentiate in wages for employees—certain men on the farm may not work over a certain number of hours, and if you do work them over that number of hours you must pay them extra wages. You must erect conveniences which will never be used; the farmer must keep records and put up with all sorts of annoyances. The House will see what a handicap the farmer labours under. You cannot have two sets of workmen, one set working eight hours a day and the other more. It causes friction if your men who work more than eight hours a day are receiving additional wages, while the other set is not. It makes farming impossible, and it is stupid to think that these Acts will not be applied to the agricultural industry. The Minister has said that anything over £400 comes under the provision of this Act. The next step will be £200.

How many buildings does a farmer put up in a year?

If a farmer is progressive, he puts up a good many buildings. If the hon. member would come to have a look, he would see for himself. Why, some of these places look like small villages. I believe this is the first occasion on which a pronouncement has come from a responsible quarter that the farming population must now understand that the principles of the Industrial Conciliation Act apply to them. I have now once again pointed out to them that they also fall within certain provisions of the Factory Act.

The hon. members for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) and Cradock (Mr. G. C. van Heerden) made a terrible attack on this side of the House for something that was their own fault. They did something wrong, and now make this attack to create an impression outside that they are innocent. They have been doing this for a long time on the countryside. The hon. members for Swellendam (Mr. Buirski) and Paarl (Dr. de Jager) came to my constituency last year and held a meeting, and said that furniture and carts and wagons were too dear, and that it was all due to the Wages Act. All the time it was the Act of the former Government, the Act of the hon. member for Standerton. I am only a farmer, but the hon. member for Standerton, who is said to be a clever advocate, is responsible for the Act, and the legal advisers now say that farmers also fall under the Act. Who is responsible? The Act has been so passed as to include the farmers. The clever advocate is the culprit.

It is the regulations.

The Minister has alleviated the Act by the regulations, and buildings are excluded which do not require more than £400 in material. Hon. members opposite he also included. That is what was done by a Government which had no Labour Minister in the Cabinet. Now I want to ask a question: Why did the members of the Opposition pass an Act which they are now attacking?

The Minister is bringing the farmers under it.

Yes, but your Act is so made that they can be brought under it. Do hon. members want us to repeal the Act? Please answer. Must we repeal it? Not one dares to answer. They made an Act which they are now attacking. In the meantime, I shall be very glad if the Minister can do something to prevent the farmers coming under it. I am glad that Riversdale does not yet come under it.

That will still happen?

The hon. member has just as often been wrong as he has prophesied. All his bogies have never been realized, and he will not create a wrong impression among the farmers. His party is responsible for the Act.

I think it is a great pity that hon. members will speak as the hon. member for Riversdale (Mr. Badenhorst) has spoken, without understanding the Act. I am quite willing to take up the challenge of the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Defence, regarding the Conciliation Act. We have, on our side, never taken up any attitude against that Act, but what we object to is the way it is being administered. It is the socialist wing of the Pact that has got hold of this Act, and is administering it in a manner that was never intended when it passed this House. I want to make one point perfectly plain, which every hon. member who has spoken on the other side deliberately overlooked. The attitude that has been taken up is that the Minister had no option, and that once the agreement was entered into by the builders, he was unable under this Act to vary it, and proclaimed it exactly as they gave it to him. Clause 9 of the Act states that when any matter referring to any industry, trade or occupation has been under the consideration of the industrial council, the parties may make an application to the Minister for a declaration that any agreement shall be binding on the parties, or shall be extended to any other employers, and then the Minister may, if he deems it expedient and is satisfied that the applicants are sufficiently representative of the industry, trade or occupation concerned, publish the agreement in the “ Gazette.” and then such terms of the agreement as he may specially indicate shall be binding in the areas defined by him. Thus the Minister has the whole matter in his own hands—he “ may ” if he deems it expedient within the area defined by him and such terms as he “ may ” specially indicate. Therefore, let us cut out all this camouflage that the Minister was unable to depart from the determinations of the councils. It is not a new Act that the country wants, but a new Minister. I have dealt with the matter very fully on previous occasions, but I want to make one or two points from the agricultural point of view. Did the Minister consult the farmers in any way before sanctioning these agreements? Not a single member of the agricultural industry is a member of the industrial council, and the agreement was forced on the farmers without their being given an opportunity to utter a single word of protest. The Minister says the local committees may exempt the agriculturists from the operations of the Act. Are we farmers going to have an industrial council dictating what wages we are to pay, and are we to go on our hands and knees to a precious industrial council? Are we, who are the majority of voters in this country, to have no say in this matter? For that is what it amounts to. I wish to point out one or two absolute absurdities in the regulations. Do the farmers realize that if they erect a building of more than £400 in value, that a labourer who digs the foundations will have to be paid 3s. 6d. per hour, and apparently the labourer who treads the dagga will have to be paid the same rate unless the farmers ask for exemptions? Even then no exemption can be given in case of repairs. If you employ a man to whitewash your stable or cowsheds, you will have to pay him 2s. 4d., 2s. 6d., or 3s. an hour, as the case may be.

That is not true.

The only exemptions under the Act are private dwelling-houses, native residences and latrines. It seems to me we have come to the point when there will be a clash between the conservative and labour elements in this country. A matter like this will bring home to every conservative, no matter on which side of the House he sits, the way in which a small handful of labour men are able to dominate the country. The market value of agricultural production per farm in South Africa increased from £930 to £950 in 1923, or two per cent., but the net value of the production of other employees increased by 12 per cent. That is to say, that society paid two per cent. more for farm produce, but 12 per cent. more for the products of labour. In America, while the real wages of a farmer in 1920 were four per cent. less than they were in 1914, the workers in other industries were 22 per cent. better off in 1920 than they were in 1914. On the other hand, during that period farm failures increased by 1,000 per cent. It is only by the conservative elements in both parties getting together and standing against the socialistic trend of legislation, that we shall avoid drastic developments in the very near future.

Are most of our builders socialists?

The whole policy is socialism. I would like to see a reply from a responsible Minister. This proclamation was issued in October, 1926, and it has only been defended by the Labour party. Is this policy of extending this Conciliation Act to the country district the policy of the Ministers of the Crown? Is it the policy of the conservative elements of the Nationalist party? I think the country has a right to ask this. One thing strikes me forcibly—the Nationalist party is one which stands for the country districts, and is one which glories in representing the platteland, and came into office on the votes of the conservative elements of the country. Yet it is a significant fact that in two and a half years of the Pact Government, we have had more socialistic legislation passed and more existing legislation applied in a socialistic direction than in the whole of the years in which the South African party held office.

We have listened on two occasions this session to the economics of the hon. member for Griqualand (Mr. Gilson), and we have listened to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell) on finance, and I am wondering whether the South African party expect it to be so long before they come back to power that they are leaving it to their younger men to enter the fields of economics. On the question of wages in America, as far as the farmers are concerned, the ordinary farm labourer is being paid day wages ranging from 2.3 to 4.5 dollars. It is no good his giving figures of what the farmer is getting for his produce. We are greater friends of the farmers than the members of the South African party. We are anxious to secure such conditions for them that they will get full value for their produce. Long enough have they been exploited by the middleman without interference from the South African party. In the present case an attempt has been made by the South African party not only to mislead this House, but also the farming population. It is true the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) has not followed that line, and I hope his line will get due publicity in the press. He has given the best testimonial the Labour party could have in this House. He has said that we are justified in claiming that we have obtained industrial peace in South Africa. Surely he does not want the country to revert to the losses which resulted from strikes? He should be the first to welcome the activities of the Labour group and the legislation which has been passed for the manner in which they tend to industrial peace. I remember the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) complaining that the Pact Government, by its Wages Act, had brought terrible things to the people of South Africa. When he complained he did not know that the Wages Act was not in operation, and that everything that was taking place was the result of what they did themselves. Apparently, he is taking up the same attitude in connection with the Industrial Conciliation Act as he did with the Mine Workers Regulation Act. When that legislation was tested in a court of law it was declared ultra vires. The hon. member for Standerton took no notice of that, but he passed a Bill which he made sufficiently vague that the workers thought they were being protected, yet it left the employers an opportunity of going to law and upsetting it. He has done the same in this case. He has made the words so vague that he comes along and says that what you are doing is ultra vires. If he wanted to protect the farmers he could have made it clear that they must be exempted from the operations of the Act. I think he wanted to satisfy the industrialists and the employers, the big contractors who supported the South African party, and bamboozle the workers, and, at the same time, wanted to satisfy the farmers by saying that it was so vague it would never apply to them. If the right hon. member is correct that what the Minister has done is ultra vires and is not enforceable, then where is his complaint, because no farmer need fear it because, if it is applied, and he goes to court, it will be declared ultra vires.