as chairman, brought up the third report of the Select Committee on Public Accounts (on East Rand Proprietary Mines, Ltd., gold mining agreement).

Report and evidence to be printed and considered on 10th June.

I move—

I would like to ask the Minister when he is going to have the accounts out for the year ending the 31st March—the last financial year. They have not appeared in the “Gazette” as far as I am aware. Perhaps my hon. friend will tell me.

The accounts have been completed and I will see that the hon. member gets the information. I was under the impression that it had been published.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time; House to go into Committee now.

House in Committee:

Clauses, schedule and title put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported without amendment; third reading to-morrow.

I move—

This little Bill, which consists of one clause, is a very serious reflection on the carefulness of this side of the House and it is an even greater reflection on the watchfulness of the other side of the House. It has been introduced merely to rectify an oversight, which is a very serious one. In the Act which was passed in 1925 to lay down the constitution of South-West Africa, provision was also made for the registration of voters; among others it was laid down that every male person who had been resident in the territory for twelve months immediately prior to the date fixed in paragraph 3 of this schedule for the commencement of the provisional 1st, should be eligible as a voter. He must be 21 years of age, and a British, or a naturalized British, subject. Reference is made, in this paragraph, to another paragraph 3 of this schedule, which lays down the way in which the commencement of the provisional list is to be fixed. As hon. members will see when they study the Bill, provision in that third paragraph was made only for the fixing of the commencement of the first registration. The effect of the Act as it stands now is that only persons can be registered at any future registration of voters in the territory who had been actually twelve months resident before the first registration took place. Nobody who came to the territory after the first registration is at present, as the law stands, eligible for registration as a voter. That certainly was not the intention. It is merely an oversight and a serious oversight, and the Bill provides for a rectification of this error. The first registration will commence on the 1st October, and therefore it is necessary that this short Bill should be passed through this session of Parliament.

I agree with the Minister that this is a very necessary amendment of the existing Act, but I hardly agree that is the fault of the Opposition. I thought the Government were responsible for the legislation which they introduced into the House, and we understood that the present Government is a Government of all the talents, so that, to some extent, we were lulled into a state of security which did not exist. But this will, perhaps, rather encourage us to look more closely than we had been doing into these innocent little Bills which come forward. But to be quite serious, there is no doubt that this Bill is very necessary, and I cannot imagine that there will be any objection to it. I should’ like to ask the Minister when he replies, to give us a little information about the position of the number of voters there, and whether the population of South-West Africa are now looking upon themselves as at one with the citizens of the Union. As we know, South-West Africa is an integral part of the Union, and we want to know whether the citizens of South-West Africa are looking upon themselves as South Africans and whether there is complete harmony between the older and the newer population. There is an older German section and a newer population; are they pulling well together? Do they want separate flags, or two streams, or anything of that sort?

Perhaps this is an opportunity where I should supply the necessary information. I can quite understand the anxiety—or rather let me say, a desire—on the part of every hon. member of this House to know how things are going on in South-West Africa, and to know that they are going on as they should. I wish to say that I have not the least reason, nor has the Government, to be dissatisfied in any respect with the manner in which things are going in South-West Africa. I think, in every respect, we are as fortunate as any people in our position can want to be. This, of course, is not saying that everybody is satisfied, that everybody thinks that he has just that which he wants, and that nobody thinks that there is something which he would not still have. No, you have these persons there; but, as hon. members will know, Mr. Werth was here a short while ago, and I asked him very closely how things were going on there and what the general spirit and temper of the various sections of the community in South-West Africa were, and his answer to me, in every respect, has been very satisfactory indeed. I am really pleased, and the Government are pleased, at the total absence of complaints. In one respect, it should perhaps be qualified, for there has been amongst, shall I call them, the old Union subjects in South-West, a fear that eventually South-West may desire to, or may be allowed to, follow a course divergent from that of the Union. About a month or two ago I was asked a question in this House on the subject and hon. members will remember my answer. There have been reports in circulation that we in the Union wish to return South-West to Germany.

There was an agitation in Germany in the same direction.

I will not say an agitation. We must take it for granted that there are people of the old German population in South-West who do think or feel that they would like to be with Germany rather than with the Union. We must expect that. It takes very few people to make such a noise as to make you think they are really the people, and, so it is according to my information, undoubtedly, in the South-West territory. But as far as the great majority of the old population is concerned, no matter what their feelings towards their old fatherland may be, there is not the least doubt we have no right to say, or even to think, that they are agitating for the separation of the South-West territory.

Is not the German population increasing more rapidly than the South African population?

I will come to that in a few minutes. Unfortunately only this morning I received a copy of a resolution which was taken by the Assembly at Windhoek during its last session. That resolution expressed disapproval of the agitation in favour of the return of the territory to Germany. I regret that that resolution ever came before the Assembly. I say I regret it because if the question had been left outside the Assembly it would have been better for the good feeling of the whole population towards the Union. We can well realize, we who have all gone through the same experience, that a matter of that kind if done in the manner in which it was done can do no good. It can only rub up the wrong way, and make people feel sensitive at a time when they should be, and, I have no doubt, are gradually coming to a position which will, after some years, make them feel one with the others in that territory and with us in South Africa. That was a regrettable incident, and the result was that when that resolution was put, the German members of the Assembly left the Assembly. Quite right, quite right. I would absolutely have done the same, and I do not think any honourable man could have done otherwise. The resolution was carried, so it is reported to me, without the German members of the Assembly being present. I referred to this, for I cannot but express my sincere regret that this matter was brought forward in the Assembly, especially so shortly after legislative powers had been entrusted to South-West Africa. If there is one thing I feel, it is that the first thing the two sections in South-West must strive for, is that they should have a common feeling with regard to South Africa, and, in order to have that, they should work together as well as possible.

You ought to apply that to the Flag Bill?

Perhaps so, perhaps—that only shows how foolish we are too. I have not the least doubt there is tremendous folly on that side of the House, but unfortunately those who are in a more impartial position than we are think of us exactly as I think of what has occurred in South-West. I hope this is one of the last instances—I won’t say the last instance—as far as South Africa is concerned, of differences between the two races. My hon. friend (Mr. Jagger) has asked about the increase in population. I am very sorry to say that a great many of our good Free State farmers are leaving for South-West. I wish South-West luck for these men are going there more and more in large numbers.

They are dissatisfied with the Government.

At the same time, Germans of a very good stamp are coming into South-West, and there are a good many coming in. I have not the figures, and as for the figures of departures from the Union for South-West, as far as I have gone into the matter, they are about the same as the other. I am glad to see that Germans are coming in. I feel this, that with the experience we have of the Germans as colonizers and farmers, especially in South Africa, I do not think we could have a better element for the future of the whole of South Africa than to have in South-West your German who, to a great extent, is settled there and has already made a success of farming there, and is an example, not only to the farmers in the South-West, but to the farmers in the Union. So far as that is concerned I know something of the fact that the German element is coming in too fast but I am not at all fearful as to what is going to occur because it is an element which any nation wishes to have to-day and I do not think we have any reason to be afraid of their coming to the South-West or anywhere. From the Union itself more and more people are going to South-West to take up farming there. The prospect of farmers in South-West has considerably improved during the last few years and we have every reason to be satisfied with the position in the South-West. In the last few years since we came into office I have not had a single complaint from South-West either from the Government or from any class of the population.

I am sure the House is glad to hear from the Prime Minister that things are advancing in a satisfactory manner in the South-West Protectorate and I am sure too, the House and the country will be extremely pleased to hear the unqualified statement of the Prime Minister on behalf of this Government that under no circumstances whatever is there any idea, owing to its intimate association with the Union of South Africa of ever returning this mandated territory to Germany. I am pleased the Prime Minister has made that unqualified statement, but I could not help thinking when the Prime Minister referred to a certain section of the people holding the view that it was the voice of a section which spoke so loudly as if they represented the whole of the people. I remember the time when a section of the people in this country spoke so loudly that they allowed the people in German South-West to imagine that when the moment arose they would have strong political support for the return of the territory. I disagree with the hon. member for Dundee (Sir Thomas Watt) in twitting the Government on the necessity of the amendment in the Bill. Like ourselves the Government place implicit reliance on the Minister of the Interior and imagine every instrument he introduces must be perfect and that there will be no cause for analysis. The Prime Minister having found the Minister of the Interior cut and having realized that his voice is not always the voice of the people, should analyse things which the Minister of the Interior and his Labour friends force on the House. I ask the Prime Minister to take these lessons. This is not the first occasion the Minister has been at fault in his interpretation of matters before the House.

There is one other point of interest on which I hope the Government will enlighten us and that is the question of the Angola trek boers who have approached the Government with regard to being allowed to re-cross the territory into South-West. I have taken an interest in these people and I hope the Government will do something to repatriate them. In “Die Burger” this morning I saw an article suggesting they be put back in the Kaoko veld, but if they are they will lead the same nomadic life as at present. South-east of Windhoek there is a large stretch of country with underground artesian water which is near to the railway and I suggest the Government explore that area as a settlement for these people. I think they should be encouraged to repatriate themselves. In addition to their nomadic life there is no schooling for their children, who will go to rack and ruin. I do not agree that the Portuguese Government is treating them badly. There is no real future for these people and the sooner they come over to their own kith and kin the better. I think they should be brought nearer to civilization. They have been wandering in the desert now for a longer time than the Israelites and they should be brought back to within measurable distance of civilization where their children can get schooling and they can stop this nomadic life. I should like information as to whether the Minister has been approached by these people and whether the Government intends to do something.

I do not think that it is actually necessary to say much in reply to the debate because the matters raised have not actually much to do with the Bill itself, but with matters affecting the administration of the mandated territory. As hon. members know I am not responsible for that, but the Prime Minister. The question raised by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Col. D. Reitz) has already been under the consideration of the Government. The Government must, of course, act in consultation with the Administration of South-West. Africa. I cannot give the hon. member any further information at this stage. If it is to be given then the Prime Minister can do so on the next occasion that the matter comes up. In any case the hon. member can rest assured that the interests of those people will be regarded and handled sympathetically by the Government. We realize that although these people have lived for a long time out of the Union they have been to a great extent always connected with the Union.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time; House to go into Committee now.

House in Committee:

Clauses and title put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported without amendment; third reading to-morrow.

Last evening the Minister of Labour in his defence of the contract which he granted to Mr. Rosenberg endeavoured to make light of Mr. Rosenberg’s bad reputation and to neutralize Mr. Justice de Villiers’ condemnation of that gentleman by quoting what had been said in his favour by Mr. Justice Krause and the Minister of Justice. I ask any member of this House whether so weak a subterfuge speaks well for the Minister’s defence of his case. Does this sort of retreat cure the defects, the essential defects of the contract, and does it do away with the fact, the proved fact, that the company concerned was tottering towards liquidation when the Government came to its rescue? It serves as an indication of the feebleness of the defence. It is a grave admission really of the weakness of the Minister’s case, because in regard to liquidation, I want to quote the evidence of Mr. Sprinz, who throughout the whole history of the Doornkop company was the financial supporter of Mr. Rosenberg. When he was giving his evidence in the Maxwell case this question was put to him—

What paper are you quoting from?

I am quoting from the published evidence in the “South African Sugar Journal” of December 31, 1926. I have the original verbatim copy of the evidence given in the Maxwell case. I am quoting from this paper because it is easier to read. Mr. Sprinz was then asked—

So that the “liquidation refrain” which is the greatest danger the Minister has got to encounter as long as he hopes for fulfilment of the contract, was well established long before he came into touch with the company. Apart from that, I ask any business man in this House or out of it whether, with the knowledge of Mr. Justice de Villiers’ judgment, he would contemplate for a moment entering into a contract with Mr. Rosenberg, which was virtually a partnership contract between the Government and Mr. Rosenberg, and where the performance of the contract at rested so largely, in fact almost entirely, upon the good faith of Mr. Rosenberg. The reply would be “No, a thousand times no!” There is not a business man in Africa who would accept Mr. Rosenberg as a partner considering all the circumstances, except, as my hon. friend here says, “Our farmer from Greyville” (the Minister of Labour). In regard to the conflicting views of the two judges, I wish to remind the Minister in the first place, that in the issue of the “Sunday Times” following that which published the advertisement in which Mr. Justice Krause’s testimonial appeared, that learned judge demurred to his testimonial being used and Mr. Rosenberg in consequence wrote to the paper—

When asked in the Maxwell case whether these papers were not given to him merely to be shown to buyers, he said—

That abuse of confidence, to my mind, ought to affect the opinion of Mr. Justice Krause as expressed in his testimonial. Mr. Justice Krause by the withdrawal of his name from that advertisement was evidently not willing that his testimonial should have the same measure of publicity that the judgment of Mr. Justice de Villiers challenged. Moreover, Mr. Justice Krause’s testimonial was founded on the ex parte statements of Mr. Rosenberg and not on the evidence given in court under the circumstances which prevailed when Mr. Justice de Villiers came to his conclusions. Mr. Justice Krause wrote—

He added that he was satisfied as long as Mr. Rosenberg’s name was connected with the company the public would have a square and straight deal. We know that the guarantees which he laid stress upon were proved by Mr. Alex. Aitken not to have existed then or at any time and we have Mr. Rosenberg’s admission under oath to that effect, and the soundness of the scheme, viz., the buying of a 20-acre lot at £25 per acre for sugar production, would not be seriously argued by anybody at this stage. So that on the facts, that was as to the soundness of the scheme and the existence of the guarantees, Mr. Justice Krause, with the Minister of Justice, was placed in the position, owing to the misrepresentations of Mr. Rosenberg, of sponsoring things that did not exist, and they were both to my mind blameworthy in misleading the public of this country. In these circumstances I doubt whether the learned judge would adhere to the opinion he expressed that as long as Mr. Rosenberg’s name was there it would be a guarantee of a straight and square deal. Mr. Justice Krause has probably long since revised his opinion of Mr. Rosenberg. With regard to Mr. Justice de Villiers, it should be remembered that his judgment was based on a long and careful hearing of Mr. Rosenberg’s evidence and a close study of his demeanour and the testing of his evidence by the statements of others. The case in which Mr. Justice de Villiers gave judgment was carried to the Appellate Division.

Mr. Rosenberg won.

Just a moment. I am glad that the Minister is gloating over the fact that Mr. Rosenberg won. He is, however, following a false trail there. The case was not taken to the Appellate Division by Mr. Rosenberg but by the defendant. Simon, who lost in the court below. The Judge’s comments were made upon Mr. Rosenberg, although judgment was given in his favour largely on the evidence of a Mr. Meintjies, which merely goes to show that the judge as far as Mr. Rosenberg was concerned, felt the necessity of being very frank, irrespective of the merits of the case, but in spite of the fact that he gave judgment for Mr. Rosenberg on appeal, his comments were not in any way affected by the upholding of his judgment in the Appellate Division. Now we come to the reliance which the Minister has placed upon the fact that the Minister of Justice gave Rosenberg a testimonial. [Time limit.]

We have been listening to the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) bringing forward these charges against Mr. Rosenberg and going into great detail with regard to the introduction by Mr. Rosenberg of these settlers into the Doornkop settlement. Why does not the hon. member come out into the open and tell the House what he actually has at the back of his mind, when he brings these charges up against Mr. Rosenberg? There are many Rosenbergs on that side of the House; there are not many on this side of the House. If his objection to Mr. Rosenberg is as a Rosenberg, let him say so. What the hon. member for Illovo objects to is this, that the Minister of Labour has brought a poor white settlement into Natal, into the sacred realm of sugar with the sugar kings dominating Natal, and that these people who have been put there are recruited from the poor white settlements, or as he would like to say, from the Dutchmen of Natal, into Natal. If that is what he objects to let him come out into the open and say that. As far as we are concerned, it makes no difference to us whether the Minister of Labour is finding employment in Natal in sugar or wattle or anything else, if he can find a satisfactory outlet for our unemployed. If he can do that we, on this side, are prepared to back him with regard to this scheme. He has told the House in figures what the possibilities are for settlement in Natal in the sugar line. The Opposition has objected to the figures; they say they are far too rosy, but in the past we have not been too successful in finding outlets in South Africa to absorb the farming population. Here is a new scheme in which it is possible to find an outlet for this class of population, who are eminently only suited to this class of work. Immediately we have the hon. member for Illovo getting up and telling us we are intruding ourselves into the sacrosanct and holy preserves of the sugar kings in Natal, and we are also introducing a new element that is going to be a danger to this loyal little Natal. We have listened to this concentrated attack coming from the Opposition. As a business proposition there is no fault to be found with the Doornkop settlement. The hon. member for Illovo tells us Mr. Rosenberg has all the objections against him because of his antecedents. Why did he not tell the British Government before they concluded these terms with Mr. Rosenberg? The British Government thought Mr. Rosenberg was a very good man for this scheme. I have nothing to do with the intrusion of the British Government into sugar settlement in Natal, but I want to support the Minister if he thinks he has a reasonable proposition, whether it is Natal or any other section of South Africa that we have to get settlers for. If we can get satisfactory settlers into Natal it is not for the hon. member for Illovo to come and tell us that Natal is sacrosanct to the sugar kings and wants to keep itself within the purview of its narrow little voting strength. Let him be honest and tell us this is the only objection he has to the Doornkop settlement. I want to ask the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger). We had all this in the Select Committee on Public Accounts. We knew exactly what was going to happen. I want to ask the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) whether there was any question that arose in committee that we could bring up to this House. He had plenty of time; why did he not bring it forward then?

Because I did not know about it then.

Why did not he tell us he objected to this financial transaction? That is the duty of the Auditor-general. He is the watchdog of Parliament to look after these accounts. We had’ plenty of time then to go into the details and the allegations of the hon. member for Illovo, but we come here and we have to listen for two days to this attack over the question of the Doornkop settlement, and we have him drawing the muckrake over the Doornkop settlement.

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, is the hon. member allowed to suggest that I used a muckrake. I maintain that under the rules of the House an offensive and unbecoming expression may not be used in this House.

I must say that the language now and before this has been of such a nature that I have felt very much inclined to stop it. The word “subterfuge” was used previously. The hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) used it in regard to the Minister. I do hope this sort of thing will cease. I ask the hon. member to moderate his language.

I bow to your ruling, Mr. Chairman. I am following the hon. member down to the depths of the argument he has carried with him. I want to appeal to the hon. member for Illovo once more, in all Sincerity and honesty, to come out into the open and we are prepared to meet his arguments in the spirit in which he wants to put them forward. As far as I am concerned, I am quite satisfied that the Minister is trying to find an outlet for our unemployed labour—whether Dutch or English or anything else does not matter so long as it is unemployment—he is trying to find an outlet for it in any conceivable manner he can. Whether he is right or wrong the hon. member for Illovo cannot say and I cannot say, and the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) cannot say until we see the results. If the results are unsatisfactory it will be time enough then to condemn him. At the present time he is experimenting on what he thinks is an outlet. It is arguments like those of the hon. member for Illovo that have stampeded these settlers from these settlements in the past, and his attitude does not reflect any credit upon him at present.

I remember last year telling the hon. member for Vredefort (Mr. Munnik) that he was often mistaken, in a very loud voice. He is quite wrong in thinking that we have brought this forward in any other spirit then that of criticizing the settlement purely on its merits as a settlement. I carefully listened to the Minister’s explanation as to the wonderful things he is going to do on that settlement. The impression I got was that he has missed his vocation; he should not be a Cabinet Minister but a company promoter. His prospectuses would be works of art. In fact, we have discovered the ideal board of directors for a company. Rosenberg will bring to bear honesty and straight dealing with the public, the Minister of Labour will supply inexhaustible optimism and the annual directors’ report, and I think the Minister of Justice might also be included as a director. His function is not so obvious, but he would, at any rate, serve to inspire the public with confidence in the remaining two directors. Let us analyse the Minister’s own statement. He tells us he will come along like a fairy godmother and put a hundred people from the forestry settlement on to this settlement. The hon. member for Vredefort (Mr. Munnik) is quite wrong when he thinks we have any objection to the type of man. If the Minister can make a success of it does not matter where he gets them from.

You would be very disappointed.

I would be very surprized. He is going to take a hundred people from the forestry settlement, people who know absolutely nothing about sugar planting, which is quite an expert job. These men between them have not got a penny to bless themselves with. They are, at present pensioners on the bounty of the Government—I am not speaking in any way disparagingly of them. Within four years these settlers are going to pay off a debt of £100,000. That is the proposition. All I can say is I Wonder we have not been able to do this before. I wonder that not a single sugar planter in South Africa has thought of this before, to take a hundred men who know not the first thing about sugar planting, who have not a penny between them, and who are going to pay off £100,000 in four years, when they will be turned into prosperous sugar magnates. I asked the Minister whether it is possible. I am not questioning his motive, but we do question the practicability of the whole thing. We say it is an absurd scheme. It is one which has never been carried out in this country before, and I would like to hear what the Lands Department think about it. If it were possible to do this, why, we could pay off the national debt in a few years. At that rate Mr. Rosenberg is not a company promoter; he is a philanthropist, and the more Doornkops he can establish the better. I ask any business man whether it is possible, whether there is the remotest possibility of the Minister ever succeeding. That well-known character, “Get rick quick Wallingford,” would turn green with envy at the Minister’s activities.

Is that the same man who laid out Sundays River?

Sundays River is a far different and better proposition. I should be sorry to think that even the Minister was comparing Sundays River Valley with this wild-cat scheme, because that is what it is. I know what will happen. It cannot possibly succeed on these lines, but in four years’ time, or two years, or one year, the Minister will come along and say that he is very sorry, but one obstacle or another has impeded them, and the Government had to buy the mill. That is what is going to happen. The Government is going to be saddled with the mill and all the costs. I will make a prophecy that the nett result of the Minister’s activity is going to be that the Government, in other words, the taxpayer, is going to be saddled with this expensive and probably useless mill. Our Lands Department, in all the years of its service, has never been able to do anything of this sort, and the Minister is putting these unfortunate tenant farmers a hopeless task and an unfair task. The Government will pay for it all and the taxpayer will pay the piper. We saw the type of business man the Minister is, when we asked him last night as to his statement last year that the Government was amply secured and he admitted that the British Government had a bond on the property, but he said—

That is the sort of frenzied finance the Minister is indulging in, and I am afraid the whole scheme is on a par with that. The Minister laughs—this is the famous £100,000 Doornkop smile.

Your criticism is pitiable.

Even at this eleventh hour I hope the Minister will have another look at this scheme.

I wish you had another look at it.

The settlers are very unhappy and unsettled; they are the most unsettled settlers in the country at the moment. I warn the country it is not only at Doornkop that the Minister is trying his prentice hand, but hundreds of thousands are being spent by him at Hartebeestpoort, and I am seriously perturbed at what is going on there, if this is going on under the Minister’s aegis. We warned the Minister two years ago and a year ago, and if he does not accept our warning, it is going to be an added burden on the taxpayer, and there is to be no added benefit to these tenant farmers. They will desert Doornkop like rats leaving a sinking ship.

I am really surprised at the two days’ debate which hon. members opposite have carried on about the Doornkop settlement. I will not say that it is such a very rose-coloured matter, but I really would not have expected that hon. members opposite, and especially the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Col. D. Reitz) would have made such an attack. I should have expected that he would leave the House during such a debate.

He is not a coward.

He is not a coward, but he has spent money which had subsequently to be written off. We had to write off £135,000 for the Natal settlers on land bought by the hon. member.

I did not buy it.

You were Minister of Lands at the time.

No.

Then it was under your predecessor.

You all voted for it, including yourself.

Now they want to attack the Minister about Doornkop. They have quite forgotten about the £54,000 which had to be written off in my district.

You voted for it.

Neither I nor my party did so, but the taxpayers have now to pay for it. The Minister is now being attacked on what may possibly happen, because hon. members opposite are prophesying. Who in this House knows how the settlement will turn out. If the former prophecies of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) had been realized then the writings-off would not have been necessary. We have already written off millions on farms which were bought from pals by the South African party Land Board, and the taxpayers have now to pay the piper. The object of the discussion is not to benefit Doornkop, but in order to tell the farmers: “It is a Labour Minister who is going on like this, and you will have to pay for it.”

That is so.

It is the truth.

They already admit it, but they will not tell the farmers everything, because they know about the millions which had to be written off as a result of the acts of the South African Party Government. If I were a South African party member, then settlements would have been the last matter I would have dared to make an attack about. I think hon. members opposite will still use sugar produced at Doornkop in their coffee and puddings. The Minister has calculated that the settlers there will be rich in a few years.

Do you believe it?

Yes. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) is an honest man, and he knows how his Government made the greatest blunders in the world with regard to settlements. He now shakes his head, but he knows well that he would not have done it in his own business. We have to write off large amounts to-day so that the poor settlers may make a living. I ask that this discussion should stop now so that the time of the House may be no longer wasted. The taxpayers pay for the time of the House, and they will settle with hon. members opposite if they go to work in this way.

This Doornkop settlement cannot possibly succeed, first of all, because the land is not suitable for sugar. I do not care whether you get settlers front the Transvaal, the Orange Free State or any other part—they are handicapped because the land is unsuitable for sugar. The Minister had a report from the Natal Land Board on this, but it was not that the land was suitable for sugar, but it was suitable for land settlement. We had a direct condemnation of this proposition by a qualified expert from Cedara, but in spite of that the Minister has ignored both of these. He said there are 2,000 acres of cane planted there, but anybody who knows anything about cane and cane land knows that no suitable cane land from 1915 onwards can be bought at 35s. an acre. That is the price of wattle land. This land is of the same altitude as Pinetown. As to its sugar content, it would be of less value, although you could get cane to grow there. The hon. member for Klip River (Mr. Anderson) asked the Minister some time ago how much cane had been planted there, and he said in February 600 acres had been planted. Last evening the Minister said 2,000 acres. How was that extra 1,400 acres planted since February? Has it been planted recently? Has it been planted by the settlers themselves? How did they plant it? A sum of £150 is allocated to each settler, £25 of which is for a house, which leaves £125. This Doornkop Estate is a very broken piece of land; it is very like Pinetown, up hill and down dale. How is cane to be taken to the mill? You cannot construct economical tramways there. Then there is a big variation in the yield of sugar per acre in the country, and when you get to a certain altitude, the sugar content of cane is very low indeed. The most successful cane production is on low lying land like Zululand, and the rich portions of the land abut on the sea. This Doornkop land is ten miles from the railway, and the railway is four miles from the sea. The Minister is courting disaster. How can he defend a thing like that? We protest against this wanton waste of money, as we are the custodians of the public purse.

The hon. member for Umvoti (Mr. Deane) just now said that the Natal Land Board said that this land was suitable for settlement. I do not know whether I can take much notice of the Land Board of Natal. In the past we have had such glaring cases where it bought land which was not worth half the amount paid for it. They must be the most incompetent body we have ever heard of.

The Minister is relying on them.

We have had occasion to have members of that board before the committee of this House for their negligence. Coming from Opposition members, when under the previous Government in 1919 they could not buy land fast enough—

When the boom was on.

You do not instruct to buy as much land as possible when there is a boom on, but when there is a depression. The poor settler had to pay for that boom price, and the hon. member forgot that. We have written off no less than £86,000 on twelve different farms, of which I have the list here. Now this question is raised because it is a Labour Minister who is making an experiment, but in the other case it was a man who professed to know better. He made an experiment and failed. If the experiment has failed, I can quite understand hon. members on the Opposition side coming and criticizing. To-day it is a matter of opinion. With regard to what the Opposition did, it is not a question of opinion, but it has been shown to be an utter failure. They settled men with £1,500 and £2,000, and some of these men are driving motor-cars in Cape Town and Durban to-day.

Give one instance.

If I have 24 hours to go and collect them, I will get them.

You are talking through your neck.

He was the man who robbed them of their chance.

I deny that. All my settlements were a success. On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, I challenge the hon. member for Namaqualand to state any settlement of mine that is not a success. He has no right to say a thing like that.

That is not a point of order.

They settled them on land where they had no earthly chance to make good. They made the men definite promises, and instead of helping them on their feet to make good after the war, they told them that it was a boom time, but that is no excuse. They paid boom prices to their chums. The farm Oakdale at Riversdale was bought in 1916 from one of the Opposition supporters for £85,000 and let at £75 a year, for after it was bought it was found that there was no water on the farm. Members of the Opposition have no right to make complaints for they themselves have made blunders. We have at least 150,000 poor whites, and because the Minister is trying to help them make good the Opposition condemns the principle before it is tried. Give it a trial and in four years they can come and say that the policy is wrong.

Then we shall have to pay up and look pleasant.

As the country has had to pay for bigger blunders than this can ever be. The meal contract entered into by the late Government cost the country £250,000.

The poor man got the benefit of that.

The millers were far too clever for the Opposition and could turn them round their little finger, and the country had to pay. This attack is made because the Labour Minister is trying an experiment, and the sugar kings are afraid that the experiment may turn out trumps and do harm to their industry. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Col. D. Reitz) should know better because he tried that beautiful cotton-growing proposition in Zululand. The Minister is making an honest endeavour to settle people on the land and give them a chance to make good, but the Opposition condemn it because their minds are not big enough to conceive such a scheme. When they had a chance to help the people they sent into danger they were not men enough to keep their promises.

Probably I am the only man in the House who has personal knowledge of the Doornkop estates, which are situated in my constituency. The hon. member for Vredefort (Mr. Munnik) has stated that the sugar industry desire to kill Doornkop for purposes of their own. I emphatically deny this. My desire, and the desire of the sugar industry, is that this settlement should be a success. The sugar industry desires to see small settlements of this nature established, and anything that the sugar industry can possibly do to further their success will certainly be done; but to be a success such a settlement must be conducted on economic lines. Now, I have been to Doornkop. Accompanied by the president of the Planters’ Union I visited Doornkop last January. I inspected the whole estate and took stock of its possibilities. I have nothing but the most profound admiration for the work the men have done at Doornkop—they have worked in a way I thought white men could never work in such country, and they had at the time of my visit ploughed about 2,000 acres. To understand what this means the House should appreciate the fact that Doornkop is situated in a very hilly part; the slopes are very steep, and ploughing is extraordinarily difficult. But this was made more difficult by the detached areas which had been ploughed. The land was surveyed in 50-acre lots and each settler had built a little iron hut on his own allotment in which he and his family lived until they were able to get more permanent buildings. They helped one another to plough. The weather in January was very hot, and the conditions under which the people lived were very crude indeed. On the whole they had put their backs into their work, and anything we can possibly do to better their conditions should be done. There are about 160 children of school age, and they are bonny children— children of which any country could be proud. The impression I got was that if any settlement deserved support certainly Doornkop does, for if it can win out it will establish a form of settlement of value to the country. But there are drawbacks and I refer to them in no spirit of hostility. In the first place the area has not yet been proved for sugar, but I do not say that sugar cane will not do very well there. As a matter of fact the cane already growing there was doing very well. The country had been planted with wattle for many years, and whether the cane will rattoon or not I cannot say, but all the indications are that it may be a very good cane area. One of the greatest economic difficulties is caused by the hilly nature of the country. When you are dealing with a crop which yields 20 tons to the acre and has to be taken to a distant mill in a short time, it can be carried only by means of a tramway, and that will be very expensive to construct at Doornkop. The third disadvantage is that the mill is situated in a hollow, consequently everything has to be drawn up the hill to the railway.

But the cane all goes down hill.

The cane comes from all directions, from isolated patches situated in hilly country. I should imagine that 30 or 40 miles of tramline will be required.

Thirty miles.

The fourth drawback is the size of the mill. In the report on which the Minister is relying it is said that the cost of manufacturing sugar is £4 10s. a ton, but that is absolutely absurd. Now the mill proposed is a very small one, and the cost of manufacture must be much higher than in a large mill. According to figures compiled by the Board of Trade the actual cost of manufacturing sugar in Zululand at a first class mill was: In 1921-’22 £9 19s. 4d. a ton, but railage, commission, excise and storage brought the total to £11 13s. 10d. (during that year 10,505 tons of sugar was made); 1922-’23, cost of production £7 9s. 3d., railage, etc., £2 11s. 6d., total £10 0s. 9d. (manufacturing 11,433 tons of sugar); 1923-’24, cost of production £6 3s. 9d., railage, etc., £2 13s. 8d., total £8 17s. 5d. (manufacturing 17,503 tons of sugar); and in 1924-’25, the total cost was £12 5s. 0d. a ton (manufacturing 10,336 tons of sugar, of which 9,904 tons was cargo sugar). It will therefore be seen that the quantity of sugar produced has a great influence upon the cost of production. The big mills have become our standard. We had a conference last year between planters and millers presided over by a member of the Board of Trade, at which the average cost of manufacturing a ton of cargo sugar—without any profit—was agreed upon. Taking the industry as a whole throughout the country we agreed to consider £6 a ton for the cost of manufacturing cargo sugar as a reasonable allowance. To that had to be added the cost of refining, which at that time was £6 a ton, making a total of £12. A new refinery, however, is being completed, which it is hoped will reduce the refining cost to £4 10s. but this is yet far from accomplishment. The Minister cannot therefore base his calculations upon milling costs of £4 10s. a ton, but upon £12 a ton, for Doornkop, like the rest of the industry, will be forced to manufacture cargo sugar and take part in export. The Minister entered into this business with the best possible intention. I believe he has conscientiously done his best for Doornkop, but he has been landed with Mr. Rosenberg. It would be interesting to know how he became acquainted with this scheme. Who introduced Mr. Rosenberg to him. I know that Doornkop is merely an extension of the tenant farmers’ scheme. He took over the policy of tenant farmers from his predecessor, but I think it is going to be a painful experience for the people concerned. This is part and parcel of the Government’s white labour policy. That is what this scheme is based upon. The natives are not being asked to help. The natives are being shunned as though their presence were of no value to the Europeans, and these people are expected to maintain a civilized standard of living entirely on their own exertions. We had an example of these settlement schemes at Ntananama. [Time limit.]

The Minister, in his reply, dwelt on the testimonial Rosenberg had from the Minister of Justice. But before I deal with that may I say that the only defence of the hon. member for Vredefort (Mr. Munnik) in his speech on this subject, was to hurl groundless accusations at me. It is a curious thing that every searching criticism of Ministers brought up by me is attributed to the kind of motive of which I am accused by the hon. member for Vredefort. Whilst the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Col. D. Reitz) was Minister of Lands he sent to my district over 100 families of the same kind as those settled at Doornkop. They were welcomed and given every kind of assistance, and we look upon them as an asset. I have been their spokesman in this House for the improvement of the conditions under which they are working. It is not I, but the Minister of Agriculture who has proved unsympathetic and unwilling to increase their pay. Whilst dealing with the wholly unjustifiable attitude of the hon. member for Vredefort, I wish to observe that the Minister of Labour took up an indefensible attitude in suggesting that we on this side of the House are people less honest than his friend, Mr. Rosenberg. That form of abuse was on a par with that of the Minister of Justice, who, a short time ago, when being severely criticized by me, used an offensive quotation from the Scriptures towards me. I shall not deal with that for it recoils on his own head. Outside the House the public are under no illusions as to the real object of the abuse employed by Ministers. I had a telegram from beyond the borders of the Union which, in reference to the offensive proverb used by the Minister of Justice, said—

A good many chickens are coming home to Roos out of the Rosenberg case, too. I want to deal with the Minister’s testimonial in regard to this property in which he said a 20-acre plot of ready-made sugar plantation was a sound investment for the public at £25 per acre. I shall test that by the valuation the Minister of Labour, in his own contract with Rosenberg, places on prepared sugar land. The contract provides that if any of the 50-acre plots become vacant through the death of a tenant farmer or absence from other cause, the Minister is empowered to allow the land to go back to Mr. Rosenberg, prepared sugar land, precisely the same as that which the Minister of Justice said was worth £25 per acre, at £3 per acre.

I could compel him to take it, but I would not.

And it is stipulated that the land so surrendered to Rosenberg at £3 15s. per acre must carry a ratoon crop of sugar cane. So long as the outside public were buying from Mr. Rosenberg and putting money in that gentleman’s pocket, the Minister of Justice was ready to recommended the purchase as a sound investment at £25 per acre, but the value of an established sugar cane crop prepared by white labour and proposed to be surrendered to Mr. Rosenberg is £3 15s. per acre. The cost of the land itself was 35s. per acre unimproved. The Land Board, in its estimate, said the capital cost of establishing this cane on the land was at least £10 per acre, and the Minister knows that in his contract the sum of £3 15s. is laid down as the sum he may call upon Mr. Rosenberg to pay for the surrender of any plot of established cane which he gives over to him. The Minister asserted my case against Mr. Rosenberg was based solely on the De Villiers’ judgment. He attempted to answer the proof I produced that at the time the Minister was negotiating a contract with Mr. Rosenberg, the latter was giving an entirely false version of the contract to people overseas for his own ends.

That is not correct.

His own cable shows it. When I quoted the date—January, 1926—the Minister said that was three months before the contract was concluded. Three months then before the contract was concluded the cable was sent and he prefaced the description of the contract with these words—

That was his impression. I told him the Cabinet rejected the contract. I told him the Cabinet turned it down.

That is not so—

It is an ordinary rule that hon. members must accept the reply of another hon. member on a question of fact concerning such member.

On a point of explanation, and in fairness to Mr. Rosenberg and the country, I must explain that Mr. Rosenberg put up an original proposal, which I accepted. He was under the impression it was agreed to by the Government, but when I put it to my colleagues in the Cabinet it was not accepted, so that when Mr. Rosenberg sent the cable or letter he was under the impression it was agreed to. The whole position was modified and a second agreement submitted which is the one now in force. Mr. Rosenberg acted in good faith.

I am quoting from the document Mr. Rosenberg put in under the discovery order in the case, Maxwell v. Rosenberg. In no respect did he amend those documents or state they were not correct. And this particular document was corroborated in a letter from Mr. Sprinz to Dr. Murray, the South African representative of Maxwell’s, on 11th February, 1926, as follows—

That was the first proposal.

There is no shadow of doubt both stated it was an accomplished fact. [Time limit.]

I was referring to Ntananama, as an illustration of how the Minister got into difficulties at Doornkop. I want to mention that this scheme was to settle tenant farmers under approved farmers all over the country. They were to be tenants on the land under some form of agreement and be assisted to cultivate the land. The project might have been a laudable one on paper, but in practice it has been a miserable failure. Take the case of Ntananama. The land was Government land to start with, and the farmers were lessees who were paying rent to the Government. The department sent up a number of tenant farmers on very loose agreements with the farmers. They built their habitation and started to clear the virgin bush for the farmers subsidized by the Government. All of them failed. I think there are none left to-day. These poor people, subsidized by the Government, we sent to do work for nothing for the farmers owning the land—free labour. That is what happens in practice, and this is the same principle now being applied at Doornkop. I think the Minister found it difficult to get the money for any other kind of scheme. The Government was willing to go on with this scheme on these particular lines for which money had been voted. When Mr. Rosenberg was handed over to the Minister—I do not think he met him by his own volition—he came with a scheme cut and dried, and he was willing to take 100 tenant farmers on the same principle as other farmers were doing. This scheme fell into line with the other schemes. Mr. Rosenberg fell into the position of a farmer taking tenant farmers, and the Government entered into an agreement under which in certain eventualities the tenant farmers would reap a reward for their work.

The tenant farmers would get two-thirds interest in the whole estate which they do not get under other schemes.

If they get it everything would be all right.

Can you prove they will not get it?

I am interested in this question, and I want to help the Minister to put it on a sound basis. The only thing which is different at Doornkop from the other places is the character of the landlord. The Minister may have a better opinion than I have about Mr. Rosenberg, but I feel very strongly about these people being left under Mr. Rosenberg for the future.

But they are not, they are under the Government.

Come, I put it to the Minister. Mho is running the store at Koornkop?

What has that got to do with the settlement?

Mr. Rosenberg’s brother. A number of the settlers complained to me they were not getting a fair deal there, and what little money they had they preferred to take outside and spend it at stores outside rather than at Doornkop. The very rudiments of economics are ignored in this proposition, because, like many other things in South Africa, the sugar industry is a low-grade industry. The Minister runs away with the idea in his theory of white labour, that if you employ white labour they will, naturally, reach a civilized standard and maintain a civilized life. The sugar industry, like the gold industry, exists because of the native labour. He knows we produce a crop every two years against a crop every year in other countries. We take a greater number of tons of cane to make a ton of sugar than other countries. And we work under handicap with competing countries with whom we can only compete because of the native labour. The Minister of Labour proposes to reverse that order, and I tell him he will kill the sugar industry if European labour is used entirely in the sugar industry. Every planter in Natal employs from 20 to 50 natives to work on his farm and if he paid them at the rate of £10 a month, which I should think is the minimum upon which the tenant farmer can exist, there would be no sugar industry. It could not exist, therefore, under a scheme run on the white labour policy. It is an excellent thing on the railway because you can pass the increased cost on to the users of the railways and maintain a fictitious price just as you can with houses. You cannot import houses by the shipload and stick them up. But you can import sugar, and in considering the white labour policy, you must consider it in connection with world competition. It is very necessary to understand that position in order to understand Doornkop. Doornkop is right up against competition. In order to live at all it has got to produce the goods. It is not service; it has to produce the sugar, otherwise it cannot maintain its living. I want to take this departmental report as an example of the wild statements which were made regarding the economics of this concern. I have here a report by E. J. Scholtz and J. C. Bodenstein, I suppose both officials of the Labour Department. It is an amazing thing to me that the Minister did not go to the right sources for information of this kind. He could have gone to the Board of Trade and Industries, which was then carrying on an enquiry into the whole industry. He could have gone to the Lands Department and got inside information about the real position. But the Minister ignored these and sent two people down to Natal who know nothing whatsoever about the business and you get information from two planters, who spoke of the possibilities at Doornkop entirely from a cane-growing point of view without any consideration of the economic position underlying the whole scheme. On that the Minister has come to a decision. This is what the report says—

Now this gentleman has no experience at all in South Africa.

Is that why you appointed him at Umfolosi?

He is an expert sugar maker. He had no information as to the position here. I have given the Minister the actual cost of production in one of our largest mills here. Mr. Deplasse has no knowledge of our factory laws, the wages paid in our factories, etc. He has never managed a mill in Natal. The report says—

[Time limit.]

I have some criticism to make of the Minister’s contention that this scheme was undertaken by the Natal Land Board and other competent authorities.

I never said it was undertaken by the Natal Land Board.

It was undertaken by the Minister, on the advice of the Natal Land Board and other competent authorities. The first parties he sent down there to report on this matter were the persons mentioned by the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls), Mr. Bodenstein and Mr. Scholtz. Mr. Bodenstein was a motor mechanic, who had had no previous experience of anything to do with sugar. He had this qualification, however, that he had formerly worked with Mr. Rosenberg. He had been engaged with motor lorries in the conveyance of machinery, etc., for Mr. Rosenberg on the Rand—the loading of machinery on rail and that sort of thing. Another qualification was that he is one of the numerous connections of the Minister of Agriculture, who have been admitted to the public service. He is, I understand, a brother-in-law of the Minister of Agriculture. It is a travesty of words to refer to Mr. Bodenstein as a competent authority on this question of the desirability or otherwise of entering into this transaction. He was accompanied by Mr. Scholtz, a very competent man in his own particular line, but his particular line is that of a clerk formerly in the Forestry Department, and now, I understand, in the Minister’s own department. These enthusiastic gentlemen wrote a most glowing report. They out-Rosenberged Rosenberg. Among other things they estimated that these tenant farmers could make £925 per annum from raw cane out of a 50-acre plot. That is the output of cane that they were to sell every year. Now they did have the grace at the end of their report to say that they thought this estimate of theirs indicated a “nigger in the wood pile.” Those were the actual words of their post-script. I think if they had looked a little further they would probably have discovered the “nigger in the wood pile” in the person of somebody totally different, but they evidently admit with a good deal of misgiving at the end of their report, that they think, perhaps, they have overdone it in paragraph 15, and they make that qualification, that possibly this paragraph 15 indicates a “nigger in the wood pile.” These were the competent authorities who first blazed the trail. They were the first people whom the Minister sent down to report on this property, and they were accompanied on their mission by a member of the Land Board, who, by profession, is a land surveyor.

And a sugar planter. He was president of the Sugar Planters’ Association, and he has 10 years’ experience of sugar planting in other parts of the world, one of the most competent authorities on sugar in South Africa.

Yes, the Minister is going on with my speech very satisfactorily, for I agree with every word he has said up to the now. I do not blame the surveyor for doing work that the Minister offered him. The Minister should have given it out in the usual way. One of this gentleman’s recommendations was that a counter survey should be undertaken of this property. The other day the Minister, when questioned as to what surveyor had carried out this work, informed us that this gentleman had done it for a fee of something over £300, which is being charged to the tenant farmers.

Is he not qualified to do it?

He is quite qualified.

It is dirty of you.

The fact remains that this recommendation was contained in the first report made to the Minister on this property, and the Minister’s action has called for this criticism. Now, when the Land Board had the matter referred to them, the idea that Mr. Rosenberg was to carry out this scheme was not, I understand, put before them. Their advice was asked about a certain number of definite questions, and they gave definite replies. They found that 5,000 acres could be profitably used for cane; they found there was a sufficient water supply; that five acres was a desirable area for each settler; that the value per acre was £4, and the valuation, if the mill were built, would be £10 per acre. They valued improvements, and they estimated the cane yield. They estimated that the capital cost of establishing cane would be £10 per acre, and they estimated the recurring cost at £1 5s. per annum, and they said it was a remarkably healthy area, and they considered it suitable for a settlement scheme.

Yes, that is the point. They considered it suitable for a cane settlement scheme.

That is perfectly true, but the question as to whether they considered is suitable for a Rosenberg cane settlement scheme, as disclosed by the contract, was a different question altogether, and one never submitted to the Land Board nor to Mr. Warner, and it is quite misleading for the Minister to give us to understand that it was on the recommendation of the board that this particular venture was adopted. The Minister stated last night that an official of the School of Agriculture at Cedara had reported unfavourably on this property. He might have been more accurate if he had said that Mr. Jno. Fisher, the principal of the school, visited the property and gave an unfavourable report. The report commented upon the badly prepared state of the ground for planting, and that criticism is going to hold good of the land which has been so hurriedly planted since February last. There is no doubt, as indicated by Mr. Fisher, that the planting of the cane already on the property had been carried out with the idea of getting as much planted as possible, and not with the idea of doing the job thoroughly. He emphasized that it was an absolute essential for the ground to be brought into good tilth for planting where cane is to occupy the soil for a number of years without any opportunity of reploughing. The Minister has disregarded his advice. He is probably taking the advice of the gentlemen whose opinion he has had in such rosy terms, and one of whom Mr. Bodenstein is already on the scene of operations. [Time limit.]

When I sat down I was going on with section 15 of this report, and section 15 points out that the milling was to cost £4 10s. per ton, and the planter was getting something like 37s. per ton for his cane, and this gives £925 per annum for cane from his 50 acres.

It cannot be done.

The Minister knows that cannot be done. I want to emphasize this point; neither the Land Board nor Mr. Patrick ever considered the financing of this at all. They considered it merely as a cane-growing proposition, as if the Department of Lands had been settling men on that land with sufficient capital to win out with native labour. It becomes an entirely different proposition where that land is to be allotted to tenant farmers under a scheme where they do all the work, both in the mill and on the land. I want to show’ the Minister how absurd it really is. I suppose the Minister knows that the average amount of cane which is cut by the natives in the Natal cane fields is one ton a day. The natives of Natal are probably the most expert in the world. They work to the limit of physical endurance. It really is hard work to cut and load a ton of uba cane a day. These hundred tenant farmers have to send 400 tons of cane a day to the mill. How are they going to do it? Whose labour are they going to employ? Are they going to employ natives? If so, that knocks the bottom out of the white labour policy. The whole thing bristles with difficulties of that nature, and if the Minister looks into it, he will see the impossibility of carrying on this scheme on these lines. I suggest to the Minister he should exercise his option, buy out Mr. Rosenberg, take over the whole concern, get the Cabinet to face the fact that they have made a blunder here, and put the settlement on proper lines. Allow them, like everyone else, to use natives, and those hundred tenant farmers on that land will, within a few years, be able to build up a decent place for themselves, but it won’t be done on the present lines. The utmost living they can get from 50 acres will be no more than 3s. 6d. a day. For years all the tenant farmers can look forward to getting is merely the subsistence allowance which the Minister is giving. I put this to the Minister. The mill is a very small unit. The whole of the sugar industry is trying to get away from these small units because of the high cost of production. Added to that you have the question which the Minister has not considered, of taking part in the export from this country. He seems to imagine he is going to produce white sugar and simply put it on the market, and sell it for ordinary consumption. It is not done today. When the new refinery gets to work, the whole market in South Africa will be supplied with refined sugar, and there will be no home market for this mill. The Minister, during the course of his speech yesterday, said that this party, when in power, had gone in for Umfolozi, and the present Government had to help them out. He spoke as though the previous Government had been to blame. The Minister surely does not compare Umfolosi with this. The money which the Government has advanced for Umfolozi is sunk into one of the largest and best mills in the country. Every farthing which is received for sugar is paid into the Land Bank, so that the Bank has complete control of the whole revenue of the settlement. It can under the terms of its loan retain sufficient every year to meet the interest and redemption charges. It has therefore unique security—better security than exists for any other loan it has made, but it can tax the whole productive energies of the settlement. Umfolozi is one of the richest cane areas in the country, an area of tremendous potentialities, and probably producing 50,000 to 60,000 tons of sugar within a very few years The Government is on velvet at Umfolozi. Any comparison between Doornkop and Umfolozi is absurd. If the Minister is going to give these people a future get the Cabinet to agree to buy up Mr. Rosenberg lock, stock and barrel; allow the settlers to pay off the capital cost, gradually over a period of years. The Government will then get all its money back; it will make this a decent settlement, and the thing would run smoothly.

Might I say at the outset that I appreciate the criticism of the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) because he speaks with expert knowledge and he means well; his remarks have dealt with the whole question on their merits, and not as some of the other speakers have done—dealt with the character of the parties concerned. The hon. member emphasized that these men who were there have worked exceedingly well. There is no question about that. I agree with him that if anyone in South Africa is entitled to the consideration of this committee and the country, it is these men we have placed on the Doornkop estate in order to work the scheme. Further than that, it has also been proved, although time will increase this proof, that this area is eminently suitable for sugar cane growing. The adjacent lands are growing good sugar. The hon. member for Zululand has seen the place. Some of the cane is eight and nine feet high; in fact, in splendid condition. People who have been there say there is not better cane grown anywhere than at Doornkop. Time alone will prove it. I may say one thing, and hon. members another. The cane is doing exceedingly well. The Minister of Lands emphasized what Mr. Warner has said—the gentleman referred to by the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick)—and this gentleman is one of the most expert sugar growers in the country, well up in the sugar industry; he has had experience in Queensland and is a successful sugar grower in South Africa. He is impressed with the success of the scheme.

With the possibilities of cane growing.

Eighteen months ago it was said that cane would not grow at all there, and that it was only suitable for wattle. That has been knocked down, and we have knocked other objections down one by one—there is no question about that. One point has been mentioned by the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) when he mentioned to me privately, and I took it up; that is the question whether there would be difficulties in getting the cane to the mill. It was originally intended that there should be ten miles of tram line, and the engineer—we have an expert consulting sugar engineer’ in Mr. P. Murray—says that you will require about. 30 miles to serve the mill adequately.

What will that cost?

The cost will be borne by the company; I have arranged for that. I told the department it must make immediate inquiries through the engineer, and see whether there was anything in it, and what steps should be taken to meet a difficulty of that kind. The engineer says that if provision is made for 30 miles there should be no difficulty whatever. Another point made by the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls), and he seemed to think it was the strongest point, was that because tenant farmers have failed elsewhere, they therefore would fail at Doornkop. Tenant farmers have not failed in any case where we have had direct supervision and control. The system has failed only where men have been placed with landowners and farmers scattered all over the country, as I have explained to this House. The reason why it failed was that either the land was unsuitable, the owner could not hit it off with the tenant or the tenant could not hit it off with the owner, and the position was very difficult. We have 200 left out of a total of 556 who have been placed; some are doing very well. We have transferred 102 on our extension schemes, where we become the landowner.

I am judging on its own merits. That is how you got into it.

When we took office in June, 1924, there were 77 of these tenant farmers who had been placed by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Col. D. Reitz) when he was Minister of Lands but on a mere subsidy basis. The full subsidy was paid for nine months and half subsidy for six months, in order that they should maintain themselves until they got revenue from their crops. No attempt was made to recover that the money was spent to try to rehabilitate them. I do not think one of them is left today. When I made inquiries last September I found only 15 left, and I should be surprized if any are left to-day. This brings me to the financial aspect of this scheme. Hon. members opposite try to make a lot of capital out of the fact that we have no security, as they say, for the money we are advancing for placing these settlers on the land. If we had placed 100 settlers withoutside farmers we would advance £150 on account of each settler and would have had as security implements, etc. The advances in the case of Doornkop are also held as security by the Land Bank for the £15,000 which is regarded as a loan. In the ordinary way we would not get the subsidy back. The £5 per month subsidy is given in order to keep the settler until the revenue comes from his crops, but in this case as the crop is sugar cane the settlers will have to be maintained for two years. When the British Government stated that they wanted the first call on the receipts for their £70,000 we extended the period of subsidies for the settlers from two years to three years. The British Government said they did not want the South African Government to commence recovering its money until the British Government had been repaid the £70,000 it had advanced for the erection of the mill: that was not unreasonable and we agreed to it, because we had confidence in the scheme and we thought it was a very good bargain. We expect a second crop in 1929. The proceeds of the first crop will practically pay out the British Government, but the proceeds from the first and second crops will undoubtedly be sufficient for that purpose.

You think you can run the mill for nothing then.

No. The British Treasury officials examine every proposition on its merits. One of the leading officials of the British Trade Facilities Board, which works under the British Treasury, was in South Africa a few weeks ago, and he told me that they would not have advanced this money unless they had thoroughly satisfied themselves that the proposition was sound from a business and economic point of view, and they had been in direct communication with the contractors for the erection of the mill, Duncan Stewart of Glasgow.

Did they take advice from the sugar-growers in South Africa?

I did not ask that, but he said they went into the thing very, very fully and they were satisfied that the proposal was sound.

Because they know the South African Government daren’t let it down.

Why did they embody your letter as the basis of their agreement?

That is part of the whole scheme. As to the store, the settlers are to purchase food, clothing, etc., at cost price, plus six per cent. interest on the capital outlay and the cost of running the store. If there is dissatisfaction it is not on account of the prices, but because the settlers want to have too much credit. In all our settlements we are against the settlers being given too much credit. The settlement is not run by Mr. Rosenberg, but by Government officials with the assistance of Mr. Rosenberg. There is a board of management which is now controlling and running the whole concern. The chairman of the board is the Under-Secretary for Labour, Col. Muller, and the other members are: Mr. Austin, assistant to the magistrate at Stanger; Mr. Patrick, a very highly respected sugar farmer who when he was appointed said he would require no fee or remuneration; Mr. Rosenberg, and Mr. Boden, stein, our welfare officer and through whose energy, enthusiasm and initiative a good many of our schemes have reached the successful stage they are now in. The whole organization is in the hands of the Government officials, and we shall take good care, if necessary, that the tenants and the Government get a fair and square deal. As far as I am concerned my negotiations with Rosenberg have been of a satisfactory nature. Any suggestion I or the department have made to help things on have been generously received, and there has been the best and most cordial relationship between Mr. Rosenberg and the department. In spite of anything dug up about what Judge de Villiers says, that is my statement based on actual experience. The department has had a very square deal.

Who is the chairman of the board?

Col. Muller. Have you anything to say against him? It is a thousand pities this discussion and investigation was not made in the Select Committee where the whole of the details could have been obtained from the officials of the department, and you could have gone into the whole matter. It causes alarm and disaffection amongst the people themselves when they are told the scheme is a cock-and-bull scheme, a wild-cat scheme, and when they read that Mr. Rosenberg is unscrupulous. It is bound to have a demoralizing effect on the men who are entitled to something better from hon. members on the other side. It is already difficult enough to get these people and rehabilitate them and train them without the publicity of allegations and untruthful statements and distortion.

Who made the untruthful statements?

The hon. member said there was only 100 acres planted whereas 2,000 acres have been ploughed and planted. The whole tone of the debate has been calculated to discredit Mr. Rosenberg, to discredit me as the Minister of Labour, and to discredit the Pact Government and the scheme. That is the one end in view of this debate. I am only concerned with the welfare of these people. If hon. members had a little more consideration for these settlers they would have commenced their criticism in the Select Committee, where they could have got all the information they desired.

Why did you withhold the papers we asked for?

We had the same thing last year. It is only a repeat performance. The hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) has got the bit between his teeth and like the sick dog, will return to his vomit next year.

On a point of order, is the hon. Minister entitled to say that I behave like a sick dog? I raise the question because I resent such offensive and unbecoming language. I must press for a withdrawal and an apology.

I must confess it is not very becoming language, and I must urge an apology. The Minister says he believes the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) will return to his vomit next year. I will be pleased if the hon. Minister will not use language in that way.

It is a very common expression.

It is a very poor imitation of the Minister of Justice.

But it is a very common expression.

Yes it is, very common indeed.

When you are dealing with common people you must use common expressions.

I think the Minister should withdraw that statement.

Very well, I will withdraw that statement. The hon. member knows, and other hon. members know, the harm which a debate of this kind, carried out in this tone, is going to have on those very people we ought to try and help.

Your sole argument is abuse.

He knows the local Durban papers will exaggerate and emphasize and give proper colour to everything said on that side of the House, and the special correspondent will go out of his way to show I have been discredited. The whole thing is coloured and will go to the Natal public absolutely coloured to show the scheme is had and unsound, and that the hon. member has made out a cast-iron case, he has done everything that is right and I have done everything that is wrong. I do not blame the reporter. I am not talking about Reuter’s; I am talking about the special correspondents. I do not blame them. If they were to say anything that was favourable to the scheme, to me or anybody on this side of the House, they would probably lose their job. Everything has" to appear in Durban in order to discredit me in particular, and the Pact Government in general. I am not blaming the man; he has got to look after his job, the same as anybody else. That is what makes the position more difficult, not for me; I don’t mind. They read all these things in the newspapers and they will say to each other—

They will get discontented. What will happen? This will happen, unless they put their backs into and continue the work they are now doing until the end of the year, we will not be able to fulfil our terms of the contract. Perhaps that is what hon. members on the other side want. We have undertaken to see that 5,000 acres are planted in the first two years. If these people get discontented owing to the statements made in this House, they are not going to do the work they would otherwise do. If hon. members opposite had been in earnest, they would have thrashed the whole thing out in the Public Accounts Committee. I am satisfied that the fact that was not done goes to show that what they are out for is not to help these settlers, but to discredit the Pact Government and the Minister of Labour and make political capital out of the position.

I am a member of the Public Accounts Committee, and I would like to say a few words in regard to this matter. We had nobody on the Public Accounts Committee who could give us the information that the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) has given us. The papers that have been laid on the Table of the House were not referred to the Public Accounts Committee. The only report we had before us was the report of the Auditor-General, who does not reveal all these things that have been revealed, and quite properly revealed, by the hon. member for Illovo.

You had the Secretary for Labour there.

Exactly. He is not an official to give the whole show away in the same way that the hon. member for Illovo has tried to do. Now if there is one safeguard the country has at the present moment, it is publicity. These things are bound to come out and it is a good thing for the country that they do come out. I have had had 20 years’ experience of the Public Accounts Committee, and I have often said that the greatest benefit that this country gets and Parliament gets from it is publicity. It is part of our duty to investigate a matter of this kind. The fact that we did not do so was because we had not the papers. My hon. friend the Minister now makes a tremendous fuss that we are going to spoil the whole scheme. Who is to blame?

The scheme is actually in force.

How does the Minister manage it? In the first place, owing to lack of experience in these matters, and lack of judgment, he did not make proper enquiry about the scheme, and, above all, he accepted the statements of the man who was to manage it without any enquiry. Anybody in business knows that it is the personality at the head of a concern that counts. The Minister took this man at his own valuation, accepted the scheme, and only afterwards did he find out what the man really was. We have that laid down in the judgment of Mr. Justice de Villiers. I would take Mr. Justice de Villiers’ judgment far away sooner than I would take —and any other business man would do the same—the opinion of the Minister of Justice or Mr. Justice Krause, or anybody else, because Mr. Justice de Villiers had the man before him.

Because he blackguarded the man.

Not at all. Any business man would have said after he had got that information—

He would not have worried himself very much about the recommendation of the Minister of Justice or Mr. Justice Krause, because they have not had the same opportunities of forming an opinion as Mr. Justice de Villiers had. The Minister, in the first place, has not shown sufficient judgment in regard to the selection of the place and, above all, he has got the wrong man at the top. He ought never, with this record against this gentleman, to have touched him with a six-foot pitch-fork. No business man would have done it, and that is the source of all this trouble. He must not blame the trouble on these gentlemen who have taken the pains and labour to bring out these facts. The Minister has said that he is getting a square deal. I would advise my hon. friend to make some investigations from the buyers point of view into this store business. I can see that he has had the information from the sellers point of view, when he talks about credit. That is a very easy excuse.

That is what the department reported to me.

Just ask some of the poor beggars on the spot who have got to buy.

I am going round there.

I am very glad that the Minister is going to enquire. My hon. friend says that he has got a square deal. This is not a matter of a day or a year or two years, but it is a matter of ten years. The chaps who will have to suffer, in my opinion, are these tenants. The initial mistake was made in taking up this proposition of Mr. Rosenberg’s and taking up Mr. Rosenberg himself, who has got no character. It is not the experience of everyday life that these gentlemen turn virtuous and honest in a night. The leopard does not change his skin quite so easily as all that. I think the hon. member for Illovo, instead of being blamed, is very much to be commended, from the taxpayers’ point of view, for haying taken the pains and stood the opprobrium of bringing these facts to light. I can tell my hon. friend, speaking as an old Minister, that there is nothing a Minister is so afraid of, or officials are so afraid of, as the_ publicity brought out in the report of the Public Accounts Committee. I know it myself I do not grumble about it; it is part of the day’s work, so long as you have done your work conscientiously and to the best of your ability. I am not saying one word to impugn the honour or integrity of the Minister.

made an interjection.

No, you are being taken in by one man. You ought never to have touched Mr. Rosenberg. Would any Business man, would any man of ordinary affairs in this country, after having the remarks of Mr. Justice de Villiers before him, have touched him, aye, with a ten-foot pitch-fork? That is where my hon. friend has got wrong from the start.

I wish to refer to the Minister’s labour policy and to the wage determinations which have been laid down under the Industrial Conciliation Act. I have here the official pamphlet which I wish to quote from before I proceed to argue, and I hope that hon. members opposite will pay special attention to the provisions which are laid down in this pahphlet. [Notice of determination in building trade read.] Pretoria 3s. 4d. per hour, Witwatersrand 3s. 4d., Potchefstroom 3s. 4d., Heidelberg 3s. 4d., Bloemfontein 3s. 4d. Then we come to Kimberley, including Prieska, Upington, De Aar and other surrounding magisterial areas. In this the wage laid down is 2s. 9d. per hour. With regard to Queenstown we have the magisterial area at Queenstown including Cathcart, Sterkstroom, Molteno and Wodehouse. I do not see the hon. members who represent those places but we were given to understand that these provisions would not be applicable to the Platteland, yet here we find they are imposed not only in these places but right away up in the Karoo at Prieska and Upington and other similar places. They are definitely brought within these provisions. Then I come to the rules. Rule 5, country jobs. What follows applies to the country—

This does not apply to jobbing work. All this shows what the farmer is expected to observe, namely—

The giving out of piece-work is prohibited—

It is provided that suitable sheds shall be provided by the employer and all tools shall be sharpened by a competent man. Rule 13 provides that an employer must provide a grindstone for sharpening tools, besides numerous other conditions. Rule 14 relates to refreshment and rule 15 provides that all employers shall observe the recognized working hours as laid down in rule 2. [Time limit.]

I want to say something regarding the statement made by hon. members on this side including myself that only a few hundred acres of cane had been planted on Doornkop. The Minister characterized that as a wild, unfounded statement. I based my assertion on the Minister’s own reply to a question which was tabled in February last.

Four months ago.

Yes, I am coming to that. Four months ago according to the Minister only 600 acres of cane had been planted at Doornkop. The question which was put was—

and the reply was—

That information discloses a position that is going to lead to a good deal of trouble in connection with Doornkop, because the Government or the company has undertaken to crush a certain portion of the crop in 1928. I want to ask the Minister to tell the House where the cane is coming from to feed the mill in 1928 if only 600 acres were planted in February, 1927. The position is there will be no cane sufficiently matured in 1928 to go to the mill at all. I want the Minister to explain where the cane is coming from for this 1928 crushing. If there is no cane to crush in 1928 then where is the money coming from to liquidate the loan by the Trade Facilities Board? The agreement provides that in 1930 the revenue from the sugar sold is to be appropriated by this Government to liquidate all claims for advances made to the tenant farmers. If this Government is going to appropriate the proceeds of the sale of that 1930 crop and there should be no 1928 crop, where is the money coming from to pay the Trade Facilities Board this £80,000 or £90,000? Does the Minister seriously contend that the 1929 crushing will produce sufficient to pay off this claim. I want an answer to that question, which the Minister has evaded, although he has spoken some hours, where is your 1928 crop coming from?

From the ground.

What is going to be the position in connection with the cane planted subsequent to February, 1927? Does the Minister contend that the 1,500 acres of cane planted since February will be ready for the 1928 crushing? Does he say that in the presence of the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) who has special knowledge of cane growing. The Minister himself admitted that it took two years for cane to mature he further admitted that only 600 acres had been planted by February, 1927, yet he stated in the House last night that 2.500 acres would be ready to be cut in 1928 which is, of course, absurd. Again I ask the Minister to explain where he expects this 2,500 acres of cane to come from in 1928.

The Minister has twice dwelt upon the fact that Mr. Carter the representative of the British Trade Facilities Board said that they had taken up this loan because of the business-like character of the undertaking, and they would not have advanced the money unless they were thoroughly satisfied. I merely want to point out that the agreement between the British Treasury and Mr. Rosenberg emphasises two points in its preamble: firstly, the possession of the land by Mr. Rosenberg unencumbered, and the use to which it is being put; and, secondly, the fact that the Union Government had entered into an agreement with Mr. Rosenberg under which certain funds and labour are to be provided. Prior to the date upon which the Minister gave Mr. Rosenberg that agreement the Trade Facilities Board had rejected Mr. Rosenbeg’s application, and one cannot be surprised at it. He stated in his application to that board in January, 1925, that his company was one with £25,000 capital fully paid up. The evidence of Mr. Alexander was that only £8,000 capital was fully paid up at that date, so that Mr. Rosenberg was endeavouring to obtain a loan from the Trade Facilities Board on an entirely false statement, and in addition to that he embodied in his prospectus, filed with the Registrar of Companies, that he had already arranged for this loan with the Trade Facilities Board long before it was even turned down. He went to England to interview the board with the Maxwell’s and owing to the unfavourable report of Mr. Fisher, the principal of the Agricultural School at Cedara, his application was rejected. These are the facts stripped of any adornment by Mr. Rosenberg and his friends. Mr. Maxwell when he left South Africa in November last said his experience had been a very bitter one indeed, and although he had erected machinery in every part of the world where sugar is grown, he had never had the desperate experience he had had with Mr. Rosenberg, who had from the outset postured as a man who was in the confidence of the Government and had great influence with the Government. He led Mr. Maxwell to believe that when the co-operative society was to be formed he was to have various privileges because of his influence with the Minister of Justice. He also definitely informed Mr. Maxwell that this loan had been obtained from the Trade Facilities Board. It will be remembered that the Minister of Justice in this House declared that he would not privately or publicly ever again endorse a proposition of the kind brought to him by Rosenberg as he could see how it could be misunderstood, yet in a little more than 12 months we find the Minister of Justice identified again with Mr. Rosenberg’s affairs in a way we can only consider blameworthy. After the Trade Facilities Board had rejected his application and Maxwell’s had notified him through their solicitors that their agreement was at an end. Mr. Rosenberg came back to South Africa and took Mr. Maxwell’s South African representative, Mr. Murray, to see the Minister of Justice, and after a long private interview with the Minister their representative Murray cabled to him that the Minister of Justice absolutely vouched for Mr. Rosenberg’s integrity. This was only 12 months after he had said that he would not endorse again publicly or privately such a scheme, as he saw “it was liable to misconstruction.” Their South African representative was in constant touch with Mr. Rosenberg, and when Maxwell’s were about to institute an action, not as the Minister of Labour said last night, for breach of contract, but on the contrary, for a cancellation of the contract, they received this cable from their South African representative—

That is a reflection on the courts.

I am quoting the cable.

What influence has Mr. Rosenberg on the courts?

I am quite unaware what influence he had on the courts, except that Justice Krause had given him a very flattering testimonial, which by this time no doubt he regrets having issued, but he undoubtedly has great influence with the Minister of Justice. The hon. member for Vredefort (Mr. Munnik) stood up in this committee and suggested that anything that I had said arose out of my unwillingness to have settlers and tenant farmers sent to Natal. On the contrary, the whole of my criticism has been on behalf of these tenant farmers. The Minister’s reply shows that nine have already left owing to their being medically unfit, five have left of their own accord, and six have been dismissed. By whom were they dismissed, and for what reason? I asked the Minister whether he could lay on the Table the agreement safeguarding the interests of the tenant farmers, and he was unable to do so. He referred me to the agreement which subsists between Mr. Rosenberg and the Minister. I hold that the tenant farmers are unprotected, and that has been the basis of my argument. The tenant farmer has no agreement to protect him, but he may be dismissed or driven to leave of his own accord, and abandon the fruits of his labour. In fact, the interests of these men are entirely unprotected. They have no rights from the Government and are tenants at will of Mr. Rosenberg. These tenant farmer conditions applied to farmers other than Mr. Rosenberg (which were framed by the Minister’s predecessor) provide that the subsistence money shall be refunded when the tenant farmer reaps his crops. [Time limit.]

If hon. members are wearied by listening to these rules being read they will appreciate the feelings of the farmers who have to submit to such rules. Rule 17 is a very significant one, and it reads—

Rule 19 says—

These arbitrary powers given to councils to upset the law are surely unsound.

What has the Minister to do with it?

He has given these rules the effect of law. Rule 20 says—

If a farmer has to make these deductions he will have to employ a bookkeeper to keep a time sheet. Another rule says—

Who is going to pay the officer to supervise this work?

The industry.

It will naturally be added to the cost of the building. Then it is laid down that the only work in the painting trade which may be executed by persons other than those paid the legal rate shall be limited to the lime washing of dwelling houses and native quarters. All concrete work has to be carried out under the supervision of an artisan, who must be paid the standard rate. These are the rules laid down for the erection of buildings in the rural areas. The Minister shakes his head, but he cannot deny the very first paragraph, which reads—

The effect of these rules will be the paralysis of industry on the farms.

I challenge you to give me one case where they have affected a farmer.

If the Minister will ask a reasonable question I will try and reply to it. If the Minister of Justice has interfered and has withdrawn these provisions he has done a wise thing.

It has never applied to the farms. The instruction was that it should so apply until the Minister of Justice intervened

The Minister is quibbling now. I am quoting from his own words.

There has not been a single farm affected, and it has been in operation for 12 months.

Here, too, the Minister, I think, is wrong. This agreement is dated from October last. [Time limit.]

Surely the hon. member is aware that the document to which he has devoted so much time is an agreement arrived at in the building industry of South Africa by a council composed of an equal number of employers and employees. That council has been instituted, and the agreement they have come to has been legalized by an Act …

Not legalized by an Act, but legalized by the Minister

How the hon. member can use an agreement of this kind as an attack on the Minister is beyond my comprehension. Under the Industrial Conciliation Act of 1924 if the Minister is satisfied the parties concluding these agreements are sufficiently representative of the industries concerned, all he has to do is to register the agreement under the law. He is obliged to do so. This particular agreement you have been reading out has been drawn up by the employers and the employees coming together and adjusting their industrial trouble by methods of reason instead of by methods of force, and an agreement reached in that way should be applauded and not condemned by members of this House.

I should also like to say a few words, but I do so with fear and trembling, because since the Minister has been exalted to the high position he holds, he thinks members on the back benches need no consideration from him. This is a letter sent to me quite lately from De Aar, signed by the secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, and in this he says that at the last meeting of the Chamber of Commerce it was unanimously proposed that country places, especially such as De Aar, should be excluded from the operation of this Act. It was pointed out under the Act in question builders of property were compelled to pay first-class rates for inferior work. First-class workmen were able to obtain high wages and could not be obtained in country districts like De Aar. I would like to ask the Minister if he is satisfied builders and contractors of De Aar were consuited before it was applied to them?

If they were not it is their own fault.

It is the fault of the Minister.

No, you are wrong there.

The argument of the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (North) (Mr. Strachan) cannot hold water because the Minister failed to do that. In fact, to say that it has never been applied to any farm is no proof that it will not be applied in the future, and that is what we fear. Unlike the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) I cannot take notice of what the Minister of Justice said because we find in their Cabinet they speak with different voices, and it is difficult to know which voice to believe or to follow. Sir, the Deputy-Chairman knows how to behave himself when he is in your place, but he does not know how to behave himself down here, where he is a perfect nuisance. There is another question which I wish to bring to the notice of the Minister of Labour, but he is not even listening to a poor backbencher. We know it is the policy of the hon. the Minister to try and find work for the unemployed, but in his endeavour to do so, I am afraid he is making more unemployment. There was a case of a friend of mine, where two families who had been stopping with him for many years wanted higher pay. He said he was sorry he couldn’t do it, so they said they would go to Government works and get higher pay.

Business suspended at 6 p.m. and resumed at 8.6 p.m.

I referred this afternoon to the resolution which had been sent to me by the Chamber of Commerce of De Aar, but the Minister’s attention was otherwise occupied and I thought I would just mention it again. I hope he will give it his serious consideration to see whether a great part cannot be cut out of that area. If he had taken in Kimberley only we would not have worried about it. At Britstown, for instance, there was a case where a contractor undertook to build a school.

Excuse me a moment, I would like to ask the Minister whether he administers the Conciliation Act.

I do and I don’t. In other words, the Industrial Council itself is supposed to administer in respect of the parties to the agreement, and I am supposed to administer in respect of the non-parties to the agreement.

With regard to this building at Britstown, the contractor asked the masons there what they got for doing this work. They said the usual pay was 10s. a day. The contractor employed as many as he could. Then the inspector came round and told these men that they were not allowed to work for 10s. a day, and they were to work for 2s. 9d. per hour. The contractor was informed that he was not allowed to pay them less than that rate, with the result that he had to dispense with the services of these men. The men came back and asked to be taken on again at 10s. and, in fact, they said that they were prepared to work for less, and that they were accustomed to work for 10s. a day, and were quite satisfied with that. The contractor replied—

In that case the contractor and an apprentice that he had were obliged to finish the work by themselves. The contractor said to me—

That confirms what I have said, that, in these small places, if you have to pay high wages the contractor cannot come out. In regard to the labour policy, the object of the Minister is, I admit, a very laudable one in that he wishes to try and find work for all the unemployed, but I would like to warn him that he must not, while trying to do this, create more unemployment, because I think that is what is being done. I mentioned the case of a farmer this afternoon, and there is another case for which the Railway Department are really to blame. A farmer who ran a dairy had a young European fellow taking in his milk every morning, and when the Minister of Railways started his civilized labour policy he gave notice that he wanted to leave. He got another man and, after several months, he too gave notice, and said he was going to work on the railway. He got another man up from the Transvaal, and he also gave notice for the same reason. This farmer wrote to the Minister and told him he had had three cases where his men were leaving and going on the railways. [Time limit.]

It would be rather interesting to know exactly what is the position taken up by the South African party on this question of the Conciliation Act. Perhaps the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell) will tell us what his views are, and whether he agrees with the views put forward by the hon. member for Aliwal (Mr. Sephton) and the hon. member for Colesberg (Mr. G. A. Louw), or I will ask the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger).

I do not pretend to speak for the farmers.

There is no one in the South African party readier to jump up and speak than my hon. friend. This is a most interesting position. We have had nothing but attacks on the Conciliation Act and on the Minister of Labour on the question, yet farmers on the other side are quite prepared to support the Minister.

Oh no.

I represent 1,500 farmers, and I can say truthfully that no one has been to me to quarrel about this Conciliation Act. I will ask the hon. member for Cape Town (Harbour) (Maj. G. B. van Zyl) to get up and tell us what are his views about the Conciliation Act. Surely the members of the South African party do not want to tell us that the Nationalist party are against the Industrial Conciliation Act. They are not. This is just an idea of driving a wedge between the Labour party and the Nationalist party. What a hope you have of driving that wedge. You are wasting your sinews. I want to point out to the hon. member for Colesberg that for some years now the Conciliation Act has been in force in his home town. In the printing industry it is in force. He is against the principle of the Conciliation Act—an Act which was put through by the South African party, and which we, on the Labour benches, have always been thankful to them for. The gentlemen from the Transvaal, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell) and others, have on many a platform bragged about this industrial conciliation. The hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) has called himself the father of industrial conciliation. I want to put it to my hon. friends— what are they going to put in its place? How are they going to do it? Are you going to say that in De Aar a man shall be paid a shilling and in Bloemfontein 3s. 6d.? I would like to ask the right hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt), who is always throwing this thing across the floor of the House, what will he do? Does he want strikes, does he want trouble between employers and employees? I do not think anyone in this House does. No, this is just got up by the South African party with one object, to attack the Minister, who has shown himself to be particularly able as a Minister of Labour to be able to go up to the Rand and settle a very dangerous strike there, where the South African party would have allowed it to develop, and we should have had martial law. These things do not cut any ice. They are only a cheap way of trying to get votes. If they think they are going to divide the Nationalist party and the Labour party on this question they are very much mistaken, but I do not think they take us for such fools as that. The hon. member for Aliwal (Mr. Sephton) gets up and reads to a weary and distracted House the whole of the arrangements come to between the master builders and the employees, forgetting it has nothing to do with this Parliament. He gets up and says to the gentlemen on the other side—

But when they are challenged to give one case where this law has been brought into force in the country side, they cannot do it. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout will, I know, get up and strafe me. Well, good luck to him, but I want to ask him to tell us from the Johannesburg point of view whether, if he were in power to-morrow, he would move a resolution that this Act be taken off the statute book.

I would not do it.

Of course you would not do it. The hon. member is too honest to do a thing like that, but he is allowing these two poor forlorn ewe lambs to bleat across the floor of the House. There are no two men I respect more and feel more sorry for than these two gentlemen. They belong to a dying day. To preach that if the Industrial Conciliation Act is carried to its logical conclusion my hon. friends on the other side will have to pay through their nose is absurd. My hon. friend should really be sitting here, and he knows that there is not sufficient scope for his ambitions, so he went there.

Whichever Government takes the Industrial Conciliation Act off the statute book of the country will be doing one of the worst things which have been done in South Africa for very many years.

Who suggested doing so?

After the howls which have been going up from the other side I should not be at all surprized if that should happen.

It is the administration.

This is a first-class gogga. The fact remains that I have asked hon. members on the other side to give me one single instance where this has been put into force against any farmer in the countryside, The Industrial Council, which is responsible for administering this, informs the department that in no case has it done anything whatever to interfere with a single farmer. However bad it may look on paper, the fact remains that no farmer has been affected by it, and the Minister of Justice made the announcement that it has not been applied to any farmer and the interpretation was made that it should not be applied to any buildings on farms.

On buildings over £400.

We have this difference of opinion. As far as we were concerned, we were under the impression it applied to buildings on farms; and as far as members on the other side and legal opinion were concerned, they were of the opinion that it did not.

You applied it.

I have tried to protect if there was any need, but I find there was no need, not only from the legal aspect, but also from the point of view of the Industrial Council itself. When hon. members howl how farmers have been hit, it is simply not true. Further than that, let me tell the Committee something it does not know, and to remove all misapprehension, not only as far as farmers are concerned, but misapprehension with regard to that Act being applied unduly and harshly. The Industrial Council of the building industry, which met last month, has decided to cut out—I am sure the hon. member for Colesberg (Mr. G. A. Louw) will be delighted to hear—De Aar, Hopetown, Mafeking, Prieska, Upington, and all these small towns. They cannot be cut out legally until the new agreement comes into force, but the Industrial Council has agreed that, as far as it is concerned, it will not apply the Act in these small towns.

Where do they draw the line?

I do not know where they draw the line, but they take the country areas hon. members are talking about; and what does it show?

Trouble in your own party.

Not a bit. They know it is new legislation, and having applied it successfully in towns, if this Act is to be maintained and supported, the council has to carry public opinion and the country with it. The council has taken up a reasonable and statesmanlike attitude—not that it did wrong before—but because the agreement was there, and these areas were included. It caused a howl on the other side, party capital was being made out of it, and an attempt was made to drive a wedge between the two parties to the Pact. They ask what is the good of leaving it there if you do not give effect to it? You have either to have legislation of this kind, or strikes, upheavals and the turmoil South Africa knows only too well, and is only too glad to turn its back upon. Kimberley is the only town within fifteen miles of the Kimberley post office, and it is the same with regard to Potchefstroom and some of these other towns. If the builders and employers think Parliament is against this sort of thing they will refuse to go on and smash the council and have strikes and turmoil. Then hon. members would say, “Why don’t you stop these strikes”?

The Conciliation Act was put on the statute book by the South African party, but what is wrong is that the Minister thinks he has more power than he really possesses, powers which were never intended when the Act received the sanction of Parliament. The Minister says that under no condition does the Act affect the farming population, but he introduced a clause in the regulations to the effect that buildings on farms, when the value of the material is over £400, will be regarded as coming within the scope of the regulations.

Was I responsible for the law advisers’ opinion? Rubbish!

The Minister is responsible for the administration of his department, and for legal interpretations he should go to the Minister of Justice, who subsequently had to come to his assistance and put him across his knee and chastize him, unfortunately, in public. Had the Minister of Justice done it in private, I would not have minded so much. Now my hon. friend has recanted in the most abject manner. We are extremely pleased that the gruelling to which he has been subjected from both sides of the House has at last made him see reason. The Act itself is an admirable one, for the best way to settle disputes is for employers and employees to discuss them around a table. Administered in that spirit, there will be no necessity for a colour bar Act.

The Conciliation Act has a colour bar, and you put it in.

The hon. member is getting a bit excited, for he is an awkward position, although in one way he is in an advantageous position, because there is no question that could possibly come before the Committee upon which it would not be easy for him to say that at one time or another he had expressed diametrically opposed views. As the Minister has made an abject capitulation, it would not be fair for us to chastize him any further.

We have heard a great deal of criticism, but nothing of a constructive character in the speeches delivered this afternoon.

You did not hear it because you were not here.

I had to leave the House, it being difficult to restrain myself when listening to the speeches of the hon. member. I would like the Minister to deal with the things that matter, the large number of men who are unemployed and those unemployable. There are a great many unemployed, but nothing like the number that were out of work under the previous Government. We are in a very unfortunate position, for whereas under the last Government the divisional councils and the municipal authorities did their best to assist the Government, now they refuse to show that sympathy they should towards the alleviation of the great amount of unemployment. I appeal to the Government to state its policy and not only find work for the unemployed, but realize that the unemployed are swelled by a large number of men who are unemployable. In other countries, especially in Europe, there are private and charitable schemes which, to a certain extent, assist these people to live. I have investigated unemployment in Cape Town and find that less than 30 per cent. classed as unemployed were fit for work and willing to work. They are attracting to the ranks a large number who are unemployable. I therefore appeal to the Minister not to worry about the criticism of his action on the Conciliation Act or other schemes—he has done his best to interpret them for the people of South Africa—hut to tell us the schemes, if he has any, not only to find work for the unemployed, but to find sustenance for the large body of men who have become unemployable through age and infirmity. There are only 2,000 unemployed registered at the present time. All the means at the disposal of the Government and different bodies have been used to try and get everybody to register. There was 10,758 unemployed when this Government took on. What is the Government’s policy in the interval between the old age pensions scheme of this Government, which I believe will be introduced next year, and the present suffering of the aged and infirm?

I rather differ from the Minister when he puts down the avoidance of strikes to the Conciliation Act. That is not the reason. All the agitators who support strikes are on those benches in this House. They are too busy now and take care to damp down and stop all trouble. I want to ask the Minister about one or two points. He said before these determinations are brought into force they consult both the employers and the employees. Was that done in the building trade? Nothing like the whole of the employees were consulted. There are hundreds of men thrown out of employment in the building trade through the operation of this determination, and certainly hundreds of coloured men who were employed by the small builders, but now having to pay 2s. 9d. an hour they are not worth it and are thrown out of work.

They can get exemption.

How can they get exemption? There are hundreds of them walking the streets out of employment and only tonight’s paper referred to men out of work. There are just as many men to-day out of employment as ever there was.

No.

Well, the unemployed came to see the Minister at Parliament House; that shows. He is putting up the cost of building in the city by 15 per cent.

Most builders dispute that.

They can dispute it if they like, but we have had official evidence from the board which controls advances of money for building purposes. It is common knowledge as well and this has not been quite the unmitigated blessing which some members seem to think and there is no doubt it is simply the pressure of public opinion that has compelled the Labour Council to draw back.

I have not done it; it was the National Industrial Council.

Take the small country dorp. You do not get as good a workman as a rule in the country dorps as you do in the town, and the result is he gets a bigger wage in the town than in the country dorps and it throws a lot of men out of work.

Are you against the Act?

I am not convinced about the Act. The public opinion has forced the Industrial Council into making these alterations. There is another point I want to refer to. How is it the Minister came into court in support of the nomination of Andrews for the Arbitration Board? He is down to have to pay one-third the costs and maybe he will have to pay the lot. It was agreed that the certain matter relating to wages between the employers and the employees would be referred to the Arbitration Court, and instead of taking a local man acquainted with the trade the extremists from the employees’ side said they must appoint Mr. Andrews. He has not been in the trade and he belongs to Johannesburg and knows nothing of the circumstances of Cape Town. The employers brought that before the court and it has been disallowed by the judge in the Supreme Court as being an entirely unsuitable appointment for the Conciliation Board. In his expressions in regard to these matters Mr. Andrews showed he was a prejudiced man, and now I notice the Minister, on behalf of the Government, puts his oar into the dispute and now he has to pay half the costs. I would like to know what those costs amount to. I would also like to ask if he has any idea, to revert to the previous matter for a moment, how many men are out of work in this city to-day as a consequence of the operation of this Conciliation Act?

Not one.

What nonsense. As a matter of fact, I may tell my hon. friend that I took the trouble when I came into town this morning to see a builder, and he gave me some information. I believe the Labour Department have got the information, but I do not suppose the Minister will be prepared to give it.

If it is there, I will give it.

There is no doubt that it amounts to some hundreds in this city.

The Minister in his reply managed very successfully to confuse some very important issues in this matter. One of the main issues is the responsibility of the Minister in connection with these building wage agreements and the building trade councils. The challenge has been thrown out, a very absurd challenge, as to whether those of us who criticised these wage agreements desire that this Act should be torn up. I think it is a good Act, properly administered, but the essence of the Act is that it shall be applied to the decisions made by the industrial councils in areas. The trouble is that the Minister has succeeded in getting this council in order to have uniformity formed into one big building council practically for the whole of the country.

And a number of local committees.

Never mind the local committees.

They are provided for in the Act.

The idea of the Act was not merely to have the local committees which would be subordinate to the council, but to have councils which would deal with matters in their own areas. The hon. member for Liesbeek (Mr. Pearce) has made a most interesting contribution to the debate by asking the Minister of Labour in a Government which came in largely on the cry of the Labour people throughout the country about employment, what his policy is. I think there are a few thousand other people in this country who share in that curiosity of the hon. member for Liesbeek. When he says that the failure is due to the non-co-operation of the divisional councils and the municipal councils I would like to know what authority he has for that statement. We have had it from the Minister that he has had a good deal of co-operation from the local authorities. We know that the local authorities have spent a great deal of money locally in order to carry out the Minister’s policy. I hope the Minister when he gets up will, at all events, if he cannot give us more information as to what his policy is, have the courage to give the hon. member for Liesbeek what is colloquially called “a good dressing down” for what he has said about the co-operation of the local authorities. The hon. member for Liesbeek says there are about 2,000 unemployed in this town. I myself put a question to the previous Minister of Labour, now the Minister of Defence, as to the figures of unemployment before the Government came into office and the figures at that time. He had to tell me that he had not got these figures. I would like to know where the hon. member has got his figures.

From the “Cape Argus.”

There are at least 1,000 “unemployables” who regard the policy of the Labour party as an extremely callous one. They have asked for bread and they have got the proverbial stone from the Labour party. When the hon. member has the courage to try and discount these things and say that 70 per cent. of the unemployed people in Cape Town are unemployable, I challenge the hon. member to give any figures or any proof to this House that his statement is correct.

It seems to be the stock in trade of the Opposition to challenge.

Our challenges are never met. The challenges that have been given have been given on very sound grounds, after very fine talk on the part of some of our Labour party friends. I was speaking just now in regard to the administration of the Conciliation Act. Let me take a case which I see is mentioned in a local journal this evening. I had been intending to take up this case. It is the case of the native township at Langa. What is the position there? I see it stated that application was made to have that particular place taken out under the peculiar circumstances of the case, from the area within which the building agreement should be applied. [Time limit. ]

Of course, the hon. member for Rondebosch (Mr. Close) we know is an authority on industrial matters. The only time I have seen him have anything to do with industrial matters was when the police came back from Johannesburg covered with glory, or gory. Then we saw the hon. member for Rondebosch, the hon. member for Harbour (Mai. G. B. van Zyl) and the hon. member for Newlands (Mr. Stuttaford) marching behind. I want to deal with the right hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt). He has said to me that one day I am supporting one thing and another day I am supporting another thing. That comes awfully well from the right hon. the member for Fort Beaufort. He, in the old days when I was in the press gallery, was first a Bondsman, then be became a, Progressive, then he became a Unioinst and then be became a Progressive again. Then he became an S.A.P. and now he is breaking his neck to get into the Nationalist party. Talk about going from side to side, he is the best crab I have ever known. I say this with all seriousness, what I said to him was this. He accused us of a colour bar and I said there was a colour bar in the Industrial Conciliation Act and it was put there by the South African party, and if he will look at Clause 24 of Act 11 of 1924 he will find this—

So all natives who carry passes are distinctly exempted from the Conciliation Act. If that is not a colour bar I would like to know what a colour bar is.

They do not have passes in the Cape Province.

I know that as well as the hon. member does, but they do in the Transvaal, the Free State and Natal. The Cape Province, after all, is not all the Union. Just one more point. The hon. members on the Opposition side have said that the Conciliation Act is applied to the country districts, and their argument all along is that we must not apply industrial legislation to the rural districts. They did it themselves. They passed a Factory Act and a very strong and a very good Factory Act, and they applied it to the countryside. If I put up a factory on my farm to-day or hon. members on the other side do so, they at once come under the Factory Act.

A factory is a factory.

Exactly what I wanted the hon. member to say. A factory is a factory, and if I build a factory on my farm to-morrow must I employ men who get a shilling a day or men who get 3s. 9d.? So you see you cannot have it both ways. The South African party were the people who took industrial legislation into the countryside.

Machinery regulations as well.

Machinery regulations, of course. I remember Mr. Joseph Baines cursing and swearing and saying—

No, the South African party must not talk about that, because they are the people who did it. They are going to find themselves rather in a hole in the future. The Minister should have applied it to these places, and taken his courage in his hands. We have done it in the printing industry. What is the result? South Africa is becoming one of the best countries for printing. Farmers must not be afraid. After all, every good farmer I know —what does he do? He goes to the town and gets a contract for his house. I will take one of the best known farmers in South Africa, the hon. member for Natal (Coast) (Brig.-Gen. Arnott). I will wager that he goes to Durban and gets a contractor and has a decent building put up. The farmers need not be afraid, because it is the farmers’ sons who are going into these trades. It is the farmers’ sons who are becoming the skilled mechanics of to-day.

I want to draw the Minister’s attention to the effect which the administration of the Wages Act is having at Worcester. We have only a few factories at Worcester. The Minister was asked a question in February as to the effect of the determination of wages on the clothing and sweet industries. The Minister correctly replied that no employees were dismissed from the only clothing factory they have there, but 22 coloured girls who had been employed there for several years and had done very satisfactory work, have had to leave because they found they could not earn the minimum wage laid down.

Who took their places?

If the hon. members will wait they will hear. There only remain employed still some 19 white girls. A hostel has been erected there and the employers have gone to very considerable trouble. I will just read a paragraph of a letter. This is a letter sent by these 19 white employees there. Remember the 22 coloured girls have had to leave. The Minister does not seem to have taken much notice of that. I hope he will take notice of the complaint raised by these white girls. The coloured girls mentioned (22) are out of employment. Naturally they have others dependent on them, and that is one of the ways in which the Minister is increasing unemployment. I will just read one paragraph. [Paragraph read.] These girls were quite satisfied before.

I have a copy of the letter.

I am glad to hear that. Some action ought to be taken. You should not apply this wage determination to a country district where entirely different conditions prevail. They have cheaper living there than in the thickly populated centres. These girls ask that something should be done to relieve them of this wage determination, which has been imposed upon them against their will.

It was not against their will.

They never asked for it. The coloured people never asked for it.

It was the industry. I will deal with that point.

Some of these girls have been there since the factory started seven or eight years ago. It just shows the effect of meddling by sending inspectors round. We have more inspectors going round these factories than is wholesome to-day for the work. To-day one inspector comes to look at the sanitary arrangements, another comes for the machinery, another for the conditions under which the employees work, and hardly has he gone or another one comes round. They upset the whole business, and cause more unemployment. Let me assure the Minister you do not only have the unemployment you see round about Cape Town here, but you have it all over. In spite of the railways having taken on a large number of the unemployed you still have unemployment rife both amongst coloured and Europeans. The number of appeals for help one gets to-day surprises one. They are from people seeking employment, and in many cases when they cannot get it, they seek for other assistance. I have not known it to be so bad for years past, and this indiscriminate determination of wages and applying them have only one effect, and that is to create more unemployment.

Did I understand the Minister of Labour correctly—that this wage agreement applies only in regard to Kimberley and a radius of fifteen miles, and not to the country districts which have previously been affected?

In that area.

Why does he single out other areas?

I do not single them out.

He told us some time ago he was going to stick to this agreement. He keeps the application of it to some areas and not to others. I would ask him to withdraw the agreement with regard to certain other areas in my constituency; for example, you have Queenstown, Tarka, Sterkstroom, Cathcart and Molteno.

It is being withdrawn from Wodehouse, Sterkstroom and Tarka.

What about Molteno?

It remains.

It ought to be withdrawn there, because it is hitting the farmers severely there. We are to-day [in this position—you have in the one case the Minister of Justice saying that no criminal prosecutions will be taken by his department, and you also find the Minister of Labour saying—

That is an unfortunate position. On behalf of certain farmers I appeal to the Minister. It is unfair, and it is hitting certain farmers hard. One inspector of the Minister’s has been round these areas and has gone too far in many cases, and not interpreted the Act correctly.

Only in the towns.

That is an argument I cannot understand, because if it affects a small town, it affects the district. It is far better for a labourer to work in the towns and cheaper to him than to go to a farm and work there. The thing is out of place in the small towns. The Minister will never tell me that the conditions prevailing in Kimberley are the same as those prevailing in small towns like Molteno or Queenstown. Why not Molteno?

It is the Building Council, not I.

I wonder sometimes who is boss in the country.

Not you.

I hope the hon. member will keep his hat on. I am speaking, not he. These small places are not represented on that council. Without any notice being given to them, we find one day that the agreement applies. I would appeal to the Minister to be reasonable on this matter.

I thank the hon. member for Maritzburg (North) (Mr. Strachan) for the aid he, perhaps unwittingly, gave me by explaining and supporting my contention that the Minister was acting within his rights by giving effect to rules which I quoted. I am glad also that the Minister of Justice saw the wisdom of inducing the Minister of Labour to withdraw these provisions so far as the rural areas are concerned. The Minister of Labour challenged me to point out a single instance where builders in the country were receiving the standard wage.

I did not challenge the hon. member on that point. I asked him to give any case in which action had been taken against the farmer for not paying the standard rates.

That is precisely what I am trying to explain. When I pointed out that the rules were applicable to the rural districts I was challenged for not being able to give an instance. The Minister must have known all the time that that was not the original intention as expressed in the agreement. I am very pleased that he has withdrawn these provisions as far as they affect the farmer. I cannot understand why Molteno should still have to remain under the regulations, while they have been withdrawn in neighbouring areas. It has been urged by hon. members on the cross benches that higher wages signify cheaper and greater production. In America builders’ unions and trades unions are almost non-existent, in that country a man is paid on the basis of his output. When a man ceases to give satisfaction in the States his employer cashiers him without reference to his labour union. In this country we may not do that, and persons are not remunerated according to the quantity of work performed. This is placing a premium on indolence. When you claim higher wages and, at the same time, place an impediment in the way of a man who would like to do more work, the whole argument is vitiated. One of the principal contractors in the Peninsula confirms the statement that strong influences are brought to bear against men who lay more than a certain number of bricks a day. Some years ago evidence was given before a select committee of this House to the effect that there was such a limitation. [Time limit.]

I should like to relieve the mind of the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow), who seemed to think there was an attempt on this side of the House to drive a wedge into the Pact. We are not so simple as to think that any trifling question of a fundamental difference of economic policy or even a difference of opinion on the flag question would ever drive a wedge into the Pact so long as the Pact is bound together by a golden band. I want also to answer the question put to me by the hon. member when he was speaking by saying that I believe in the Industrial Conciliation Act wholly and entirely. I believe it is an admirable piece of legislation, and it should not have been necessary for him to make that appeal because this was stated plainly by our leader, on raising this whole question on the third reading of one of the Appropriation Acts. It was an Act brought into being by our own party when in power, and an Act of which he and the party entirely approved. His criticism was entirely against the injudicious and unwarranted application of the Act by the Minister to certain phases of farm employment. Speaking as a friend of that Act, and as one wishing it to succeed, in my opinion the worst friend the Act has ever had in the House is the Minister of Labour. He knows how sensitive farming opinion is in this country. He knows it is a cardinal rule with regard to industrial legislation in this House that you must exempt the farmer. Whether right or wrong, I do not discuss that, but on both sides of the House farming opinion is strong enough to wreck any industrial measure and, knowing that, he should have been careful to see this did not apply to farming operations or building on farms. One of the weakest things he said, when defending it, was that the law advisers of the Crown said that buildings on farms do come within the operations of the Act. He missed the point. They said building operations on farms did come within the ambit of the Act and, therefore, he might include them. No lawyer ever said you must include them. Having got permission, he has administered the Act and allowed them to be included. The responsibility must rest on the Minister. I say, speaking as a friend of the Act, to one who is also a friend of the Act, one of the most injudicious things he ever did in administering the Act was to tread on the corns of the farmers. It will be a lesson to him and to anybody else who tries to improve the conditions of industrial workers in the country as showing how far they may go in the future. This is a new Act, and a lot of people like my hon. friend in front view the Act with step-fatherly feelings. Public opinion is not yet solid behind the Act, and, therefore, it would have been wise of him to make haste slowly and apply the Act in the first place to the big towns. In the big towns there is an unanswerable case. The Act says that where an organization of employers and employees in any particular trade come together, and when they have agreed on a scale of wages and on conditions of their trade, it shall be binding on that trade throughout, and no employer, who does not belong to his organization, or employee, who is not a trade unionist, shall be permitted to evade the Act. It would be impossible to have the Act applying to only a proportion. The principle is sound that if the majority agree it shall bind the minority. That is absolutely sound. After the reverberations in this House, which have made the Cabinet totter, I believe the Minister has learned a lesson, and I think my farming friends can rest content they will in future be left alone.

They always have been left alone.

The mere thought that they might not have been left alone was enough to create a first-class political crisis in the country. Why did not the Minister use his influence to include an amendment to make it clear they did not apply to farms at all? I agree a factory is a factory wherever it be, and if a farmer sets up a factory and starts to manufacture articles, I will always say he should be subject to the same regulations as every proprietor of a factory.

Why exempt buildings?

Because they are erected for the health, comfort and safety of the farmer and his family. Machinery is machinery, whether on a farm or anywhere else, and the regulations laid down to insure the safety of people handling machinery should be observed by farmers as well as by anybody else. A lot of talk has been made in the House about cheap wages and the effect of the Act in creating unemployment. America has been held up as an example of the success of high wages, but I believe we need not go to America to look at the effect of high wages on efficiency. In Johannesburg to-day they pay the highest wages in the building trade, higher than anywhere else in South Africa, and the buildings are better and cheaper in Johannesburg than in Cape Town, where they are built by cheaper and less efficient labour. The ordinary house in Cape Town costs from 20 to 50 per cent. more to construct than it does in Johannesburg—although you have to convey the raw material from the coast by rail, and the wages are 3s. 4d. against 2s. 9d. here. When they were inviting tenders for the building of the Cape Town University a number of Johannesburg firms tendered, and one of them, who was the second lowest tenderer and who nearly got the job, told me that had he got the contract he would have brought the whole of his workmen from Johannesburg, and would have paid them Johannesburg wages, and we should have got a better and a cheaper job than by using labour on the wages payable in Cape Town. You have only to walk round to see how this cheap and poor labour makes it necessary to take twice the time to build in Cape Town than in Johannesburg. You need not go to America. In the building trade and in industries generally, it pays to pay a good living wage, and I say that if my hon. friend (Mr. Jagger) wanted to build a good house, he would get it cheaper by getting first-class, highly-paid labour from Johannesburg than he would by employing double the number of workmen and paying half the wages at Cape Town. All this talk of freezing these people cut leaves me very largely cold. The Act, of course, must be sympathetically administered, there must be exemptions, but let me say this— you will never get efficient labour until you pay high wages. [Time limit.]

Perhaps it would be advisable if I dealt with one or two of the points that have been raised. The last speaker (Mr. Blackwell) is quite right in regard to high wages promoting efficiency, or, at any rate, going in that direction, and he is also quite right in regard to the cost of building in Johannesburg as compared to Cape Town. It is cheaper to build in Johannesburg than it is in Cape Town. The hon. member for Cape Cape (Central) (Mr. Jagger) and the hon. member for Rondebosch (Mr. Close) have referred to the buildings for the natives at Langa Location. I understand that the town engineer insisted that that work should be first-class work, work of a very high grade character, and, even if there had been no agreement applied, he would not have got that work done without paying full wages. Nobody would have gone out there to work without being paid the recognized wages in the town. Furthermore, I am informed that the contractor himself, although he is complying with the agreement, said that it does not make any difference as to the cost of the job. I have seen two statements from master builders who do not belong to the Master Builders’ Association, but have got to pay the rates laid down in the agreement, because they are in the building industry. They say that it does not affect their prices at all. As to all this talk about increased cost, I would like the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) to get hold of some of the really reputable, efficient master builders in this town. Take a man like Mr. Adams, who is one of the biggest contractors in Cape Town here. He is chairman of the local committees of the National Industrial Council. But you can take others also.

Mr. A. B. Reid.

Yes. I believe he is the Deputy-Mayor of Cape Town. Take a master builder like Mr. Reid. They tell me that the agreement is not making one per cent. difference in the charges. They get it back in efficiency. They get it back in work, and it is not making any difference at all. [No quorum.]

I would like to hear what Mr. Reid says about that.

The other point raised by the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) was, what is this case going to cost the Government which has recently been decided in the court here? I do not know yet. As a matter of fact, we have not had the full judgment yet. Again, I can only take protection on the legal point behind the law advisers. I am not a lawyer and the departmental officials are not lawyers. We can only go to the Department of Justice, take their advice and act on it or otherwise.

Use a little common-sense.

We very often do that, and I find it stands us in very good stead. Sometimes common-sense is a great deal better than law. The position is this, that when these five names were submitted, I put it to the law advisers whether I was bound to accept the nominations which had been submitted. They said there was nothing in the law to stop it. We were cited as one of the defendants in the case before the court. I was hoping, when the case came before the court, that we would challenge the position, and we would ask the court precisely what power the Minister had to reject this particular nomination. I wanted to know precisely under what power I could object to that particular nomination. But the point, as it happened, was not raised. The department has taken the matter up, and—

Under what section of the Act?

The section which says that on a conciliation board a trade union can have representatives who are officials of that particular union or that particular industry. I want to know what power I had to stop it Could I stop it? The law advisers said “no”; the court said “yes.” I want to see the judgment in detail. I have not got it, and I do not know what the costs are going to be. An important principle has been raised by the hon. member for Germiston (Mr. G. Brown) and other hon. members, and that is as to whether, if the Act does not allow any particular organization to nominate whom they like to represent them on a conciliation board or an industrial council, the Act should not be amended to enable them to do so. After all though this gentleman was not a local man and not actually engaged in the industry, I think the hon. member for Cape Town (Central), who has sat in Parliament with him, will know that he is a man with a South African reputation in industrial circles, and that he is a man of great ability. You might not agree with what he says at times.

Very much so.

He is a man of great ability, and where he has taken part as a negotiator in a case like this, he has done exceedingly well. He has time and again proved himself a very sound negotiator in round-table conferences. Because the local people felt that they wanted his services they nominated him. Personally, I thought it was a mistake. I thought they should get somebody locally. I had no power, I thought, to say that they should not. If I had gone against what the law advisers said, I would possibly got myself into difficulties on the other side. Further than that, quite a number of these conciliation boards have had, as members, people who are not connected with the industry Or the organization. But in this case the position was exaggerated by the fact that Mr. Andrews lives 1,000 miles away, and he is a man so well known, and a man very much in the public eye. That is really what focussed attention on it. Take this very same Conciliation Board. The Commercial Employees’ Association nominated, among others, Mrs. Walsh. She does not belong to the Shop Assistants’ Union; she does not belong to the industry at all, but no exception was taken to her. We have had that position in many of these conciliation boards. The hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) was nominated in respect of one of the conciliation boards in connection with the mining industry. He is not a miner, yet there was no exception taken to that. This is the first case in which exception has been taken and the matter has gone to court, so I was only following what had been done in numbers of other cases. In this particular instance, attention was focussed on it, mainly because Mr. Andrews was living a thousand miles away. Had he been a resident of Cape Town, as Mrs. Walsh was, I do not suppose his position would have been challenged. With regard to the hon. member for Worcester (Mr. Heatlie), he referred to employees at the clothing and sweet factory there who had to leave because they were put on to piece-work and they could not earn the wages. He said this had been forced upon them. Let me tell the hon. member that both in regard to sweets and in regard to clothing, the Wage Board was going to make certain recommendations, but, the sweets industry itself raised objections to these recommendations and the clothing industry also raised objections, and those objections were considered by the Wage Board in consultation with the industries concerned. The clothing industry discussed the whole matter with the board, and the sweet industry did so, and what happened? The clothing industry and the sweet industry said to the Wage Board—

And the Wage Board said—

And the clothing industry put forward their proposals, and the sweet industry put forward theirs. These proposals which came from the industry were eventually taken over by the Wage Board, and were made the recommendation which I made the determination.

It was forced on them.

What I want to emphasize is this, that the clothing section of the Manufacturers’ Association submitted the conditions which are in force in the clothing industry to the Wage Board as being suitable, and they submitted those conditions in respect of Worcester and Cape Town and other centres, and the Wage Board merely took over what the industry had put forward, and made them their recommendations until such time as an industrial council was set up under the Industrial Conciliation Act, so that they could make their own arrangements accordingly. In the Wage Board’s original recommendation they made a difference as between Worcester and Cape Town, but in the industry’s proposals of what they thought was acceptable to them, they made no difference between Worcester and Cape Town. We are in this difficulty. I think as a general principle that allowance should be made for these smaller centres, which the Wage Board did in their original recommendation, but we find this in the sweet industry, there are several small centres left out, on the ground that they cannot stand it, and should be left alone in the meantime. What happens? I am always getting letters from firms in other towns complaining that they are having to compete against these places that are deliberately left out, and yet, when you put a small place in, you get the complaint that what may be all right for Cape Town is not all right for Worcester, or any of these other places. It is a very difficult thing, but I think, in the course of time, these matters can be adjusted in a way fair to the large town and also to the small town.

In the meantime the employees are left out of work.

I do not think in this case it is directly due to the wage award. It is due to their inefficiency. If other employees can earn the money, there must be something wrong with these particular employees that they cannot do it. I was only discussing this very point of the Worcester factory with the chairman of the Wage Board to-night, and I have no doubt the whole thing will be gone into, and due consideration will be given to this very point raised by the hon. member. I have not got any figures of the actual number of people out of work in Cape Town in consequence of the wage awards or anywhere else. I know when someone is thrown out it suits the purpose of some people to say, “That is on account of your Wage Board or your industrial agreement.” I can give you one particular case. In the sweet industry, the wage recommendation came into force, I think, in December or January, just at the time when the sweet trade had practically fallen off, and the fruit trade was coming in. In this particular case, I believe something like 60 or 70 employees were paid off and that was put down as being the direct result of the wage determination. When I made enquiries, I found that last year this same firm had put off about 100 at the same time, before the Wage Board was even set up. So it is very difficult where you have these fluctuations of trade and seasonal trade and so on. Let me say with regard to the semi-efficients, that about a month ago I made enquiries, and I was told by the local committee that there have been no fewer than 102 exemptions made in Cape Town alone, which means that the wages laid down in the agreement were not being paid in respect of 102 men in the building industry. Where you have small towns they set up local committees and they lay down a local rate. They are feeling their way, and gradually getting the thing adjusted, so that they will be able to administer the Act as it was intended, and in a way satisfactory to the industry and the country. The hon. member for Liesbeek (Mr. Pearce) has raised a very important point, and one we could talk about all the evening—this question of unemployment. Under the present economic system, there is no question about it, there is bound to be unemployment. Under the capitalistic system there is bound to be a measure of unemployment, and all we can hope to do is to try to minimize it and meet the difficulty when it arises in an acute form. One of the things this Government has done since it has been in office, and it is generally admitted, is that it has extended the avenues of employment for civilized labour for many thousands who were down and out, and who were on the relief works. The figures given by the hon. member for Liesbeek (Mr. Pearce) were really those of the men engaged on relief works in 1924 as against to-day. Then it was about 10,000, and to-day it is somewhere about 2,000 for the whole of the Union.

There are over 2,000 in Cape Town alone.

Not on relief works. The hon. member is confusing unemployed with the number on relief works. By our policy of protecting industries there is no doubt about it we have opened avenues of employment to something like 1,500 people in certain industries—for civilized labour. In industries such as the clothing, sweet and other industries, which have received protection, every quarter there is an increase in the number of civilized labour employed.

Are you not attracting Europeans from the land?

No. Does the hon. member know that amongst other things we try to keep people on the land? We have opened up 255 post office employment exchanges. The postmasters are officers—indirectly—of the Labour Department, and act on our behalf. As far as they possibly can they try to place men locally. The first year these exchanges were functioning they placed something like 1,500 men, and for the last twelve months something like 2,500. Another method is to have people placed out as tenant farmers which, as I stated, has been a failure. We have also placed 100 men on the land at Doornkop, 100 at Zanddrift, others on extension schemes—100 were placed on a similar scheme Geluk in the Hartebeestpoort area and 63 on the Karreepoort farm, and we will soon have 250 working on a communal farm, where we try them out and test them. Some are found to be unsuited to farming work, and we have passed them to the railways and to do roadwork and the like. In addition, we have another 200 also on a training farm and working as individual plotholders on three-morgen plots, and not communally. They get not only their daily wage but the difference between what their crops produce and what we pay for them. We are passing a number to the Lands Department the probationary lessee scheme. It is necessary for the Labour Department to collect, sort and test these people. Whether we should rehabilitate them is a matter which is being referred to a committee. I have asked the Treasury to appoint three officials, one to represent the financial side, another the public service and the third the Agricultural Department. We realize that one of our most difficult problems is to try to keep people who are suitable on the land and try to prevent them coming into the towns. There are those, however, who are only suited for pick and shovel work or work of that nature. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) if he goes to Port Elizabeth will find that 80 per cent. of the labour in the boot factories is drawn from the older section, from the countryside. Mr. Simon Collier and other men connected with the industry say they seem to be cut out for this kind of work. This is new to South Africa.

They have as many boot factories here as in Port Elizabeth.

They do not seem to be so prevalent here. That was what struck me when I went to the factories in Port Elizabeth. That does not touch our problem of unemployment, particularly in the large centres. Here let me say at once that the position is always made difficult because up to now we have had no adequate provision for the semi-fit man who is, perhaps, fit only for light work, and not for general work. We have a policy which is to embrace the fit, the semi-fit and the unfit. The latter are mainly old men, and they will have to remain until we get our old age pension, which I hope will be next session. Old age pensions are long overdue, and I shall be very sorry if they are delayed very much longer. As to the semi-fit we have an illustration of the method of utilizing their service at the Langa location rear Cape Town where 80 semi-fit men have been engaged in clearing the site.

Are they natives?

I think they are Europeans, but they are not natives, the City Council is carrying out the policy which we have adopted. It said these people were not worth more than an economic wage of three shillings a day. They cannot possibly live on three shillings a day. I said that if the City Council was not employing them, they would be a charge on the provincial administration, and for that reason the provincial authorities should contribute something towards their maintenance. The Labour Department said it would contribute the same amount as the provincial authorities do and so they each paid 1s. 6d. per day per man, so that the full amount the men receive is 6s. a day. We are doing the same thing at Bloemfontein and other centres, and we are going to follow it at East London. I think it is a fair, reasonable and sound proposal to allow the three bodies mentioned to carry the burden. As to the fit men, the Labour Department cannot employ anyone, but the Railway Department is employing very large numbers of fit men. When I became Minister of Posts and Telegraphs 800 natives and 450 Europeans were employed on telephone construction, but when I left there were 1,400 Europeans engaged on the work and in addition 200 natives were working mostly in the native areas. So we have extended the avenue of employment in Government departments. But that is not sufficient and we have circularized all the municipalities asking if they can extend their avenues of employment for civilized labour. I think Johannesburg employs about 16.4 per cent. of European unskilled workers, Durban and Pietermaritzburg about 2 per cent. each and Port Elizabeth 1.7 per cent. We ask town councils or hospital boards to employ civilized labour under proper conditions and supervision instead of engaging uncivilized labour. The engineers make an estimate of what a particular work will cost if performed by uncivilized labour and by civilized labour. Then we say to the bodies concerned the Government will share the extra cost and will help you to get the largest return and the highest amount of efficiency. The Cape Hospital Board was going to erect a hospital at Groote Schuur and proposed that the preliminary work should be done by 500 convicts, their work to last something like two years. We said that was absolutely wicked in view of the unemployment, but the hospital board and the provincial administration said they could not afford to engage civilized labour. A compromise was arrived at and it was found that to employ civilized labour on piece-work and properly organized would cost £7,000 more than if the work were done by native labour. The hospital board and the provincial administration agreed to share the extra cost with the Labour Department and we expect our share will be £3,500. There was one gang there which started, according to the information I received, working at about 9s. a day. They are fairly well away. Others have come down to 4s. and various rates, and some are supposed to be 2s. 6d. I have already asked the department to let me have a weekly statement showing the earnings of the different men employed on that particular job. It is difficult for men who have been out of work to fall into it and earn satisfactory wages from the start. What is our experience? Our experience is this. I am quoting from memory regarding the Bultfontein railway line in the Free State. When they started there for the first month their average was 5s. 6d. a day, and they have gradually increased in efficiency until the last monthly statement showed they were up to 12s. 4d. a day and every month, from, the beginning, shows an increase. The first month was 5s. 6d., the second month was 6s. 2d., then it was 7s. 8d., and then over 8s., and to-day by proper organization and getting down to it and understanding the work the average for the last month, from the figures I have, was 12s. 4d. One gang worked up to 21s. a day, but the average for the lot is 12s. 4d.

You don’t subsidize those people on the railway works.

No, we do not subsidize these people at all. For this class of work, when the people have not been used to it, it is our experience that when they start they cannot get into it properly; they are not very suitable. But in every case I find there is an improvement right through. As a matter of fact, one particular case, that of the sewerage works in Pretoria erected by the municipality, at the finish at ordinary piecework rates; economic rates, some of the unskilled labourers were earning 21s. a day and the municipality found it paid them. So it goes on. That is the policy which we have laid down. The hon. member for Rondebosch (Mr. Close) is right in saying I paid tribute to the assistance I have got from the different municipalities and public bodies in giving effect to the operation of this Act, but there is room for them to do a great deal more. It has been a most difficult thing to get these bodies to break from the past policy. I have had the utmost difficulty to get them to agree to the principle and the policy we have embarked upon. They have been so used to subsidies at 3s. and 4s. a day, which was the policy adopted by the late Government, that is the municipalities, the provincial and divisional councils have been so used to getting 3s. and 4s. a day for the white men they took on that I have had the utmost difficulty in getting them to break away from that, which was very often demoralizing to them. £150,000 four years ago was the amount paid in subsidies by the late Government when in power. It was often £100,000, £80,000, and £90,000. I can give the figures, but we have done away with those subsidies and have tried to get it on a sound economic basis.

You are subsidizing still.

Yes, but on a different basis. We share half the difference in the cost, but in the case of certain municipalities where they were on the subsidy basis before, we are gradually tapering it off. There are still some on the old subsidy basis. As far as relief work is concerned, we are not subsidizing anybody. We only subsidize a few of the municipalities, who have been used to having the subsidies before, but it amounted to a couple of thousand pounds, or very little over for subsidies.

Take the hospitals.

That is splitting the difference in the cost. We do not say to the Hospital Board or to the Provincial Administration that we shall give you 3s. or 4s. a day for every man you take on. In that case they will not take an interest in the organization, if they were only paying 3s. or 4s. a day. That has been the experience in the past. We say now to them, “Share with us the financial obligation and responsibility and we will share the excess cost.”

How do you arrive at the excess?

The engineers on these schemes consult with the engineers of our department, and in this particular case the engineer of the Public Works Department was called in and they arrived at an estimate.

How much for black labour, and how much for white?

Take the men employed at Langa.

I have explained. They are semi-fit. We give a subsidy for the semi-fit, which is shared by the Provincial Administration. We only agree to give it if the Provincial Administration give the same. The Provincial Administration hesitated and we pointed out that if they did not do it they would have to pay pauper rations.

That is the old system, surely.

No. The old system was to give the municipality 2s., 3s. or 4s. whether the men were fit or semi-fit. These are semi-fit men. Nobody will employ them and pay full wages because they are unable to do a full day’s work. We had to make that provision.

Are they being looked after?

Oh, yes. They are looking after them as far as they can. We do not treat them in the same category as the fit men, who are expected to do a full day’s work. I am sorry the municipalities and the Provincial and Divisional Councils are not doing more to help us to give more effect to this policy than they are. None of them are doing in proportion what the Government is doing itself in regard to its services—the post office, railway department, and others—not a fraction of what the Government is doing in this connection.

What is the reason for that?

I would not like to suggest what is in the hon. member’s mind on the subject.

If you do, you will only start a fresh hare.

I do not want to do that, but I have only succeeded in getting them to accept the principle and give effect to it to a certain extent.

I am obliged to the hon. Minister for his explanations, but, in the first place, these are purely palliatives.

Will you accept socialism?

No, we won’t, and that is not going to do away with the out-of-work business either. Take wherever it has been tried. Go to Russia, where you see it in full development. I want to ask a further question, how long is this system going to go on?

As long as there is any need for it.

Then I would like to call the attention of the Minister of Finance to it, because this system seems likely to go on for the rest of the term of this Government.

As soon as the industries carry more people and the land can carry more, there will be less to do for the Government.

Exactly. But you are drawing them off the land. Here you are content with palliatives only. A lot of these things mean that you spend more money out of taxation, and every penny you take by means of taxation means that you leave less in the hands of the public for them to expend on works.

What is your alternative?

Reduce the cost of living as much as you can and leave them on the land. This is not going to cure the position. The only way you can reduce the cost of living is by reducing the tariff. It has been alleged that the municipalities are not taking their share. That also means that any money for which they do not get value has got to come out of the pockets of the ratepayers in exactly the same way. While all this is being done by the Government, you are tending to reduce the capacity of the people themselves to employ a lot of these people, and it is only by the people themselves giving employment and employing their money that you can get rid of this unemployment, and you are reducing that capacity every day by taking more money in taxation out of the pockets of the people, instead of leaving them to use it themselves. There is no question about it, that if you leave money with the people they are bound to employ it. This method of the Government is not the soundest method of going to work, in my opinion, by a long, long way, as the country will ultimately find out.

My hon. friend (Mr. Jagger) asks how long this is going on. All I can say is that “the poor people ye have always with you.” As far as I can see, for many years to come we shall always have a certain number of the very poorest unemployed in this country. There is no doubt that the Minister seems to be trying his very hardest to cope with this problem. But I was very seriously perturbed by what I read in to-night’s paper. It is only on a par with what we have been reading for some time past about the distress, not only in Cape Town and Johannesburg and the other big cities, but also in some portions of the Cape Province and elsewhere in South Africa. Let me read what is said there—

Some of us remember a month ago reading in the paper of the Louw family in Cape Town, a family consisting of a father and mother who, with their children, being absolutely starving, walked up the slopes of Table Mountain to get mushrooms, as they thought, for food, and the whole family ate what they thought were mushrooms, but which turned out to be toadstools, and the whole family of seven or eight died. Apparently it irks the hon. member for Witbank (Mr. A. I. E. de Villiers) that we are trying to discuss in a spirit of friendly cooperation with the Minister how one can solve this great social evil in this country. What he has mentioned about pick and’ shovel work even subsidized pick and shovel work, does not touch the case of the black-coat man like Louw. He was a traveller out of a job. He came down from the country, and too proud, no doubt, to beg, simply died from starvation or, rather, from poison.

How would you deal with that class?

I am not the Minister of Labour. I am only going to ask him now, having heard what he said about the fit men who can make this money on piecework, what about your black-coat man who is out of a job, and who wanders about as many of them do, hungry, never knowing where the next meal is coming from? What are you going to do with the clerical class, the commercial class?

We do place large numbers, but you cannot place them all.

What happens to those you don’t place? It is one of the saddest facts in our life in South Africa that this should exist. It is facts of that sort that make one ashamed of the whole policy of this Government and to some extent the last Government in the scale on which it runs the government of this country. It thinks nothing of creating new offices and paying very high salaries. It thinks nothing of paying enormous wages to many of its employees. Take engine drivers and others who get their £40 or £50 monthly, and yet side by side with that aristocracy of labour you get this unemployment, and I believe the hon. member in front of me is right when he said that high taxation does of necessity create a large amount of unemployment, that it does stifle enterprise and that it prevents in the end the giving of jobs to men like Mr. Louw. The Minister himself seemed to indicate in his reply that he thought as long as the present economic system continued so long would you get this, but I take it his remedy is a socialistic remedy. There is one other point of administration I want to discuss in connection with this Industrial Conciliation Act. In Johannesburg a dispute is raging between the tramwaymen’s union and the municipality of Johannesburg on what they call the spread-over. That dispute arises in this way. The municipality has for some two or three years had to face increasing competition from the bus companies. That competition has made it almost impossible to run the tramway system. Recently they proposed to their employees to have a spread-over of their hours of service that is, they were not to work longer hours, hut the hours of work were spread over a longer period of the day. The tramway employees objected to that. In due course the dispute came to a head, and an industrial council was appointed. The parties could not agree to the arbitrator or referee who was to sit on that, council, and under Section 11 of the Industrial Conciliation Act the Minister had to appoint a sole arbitrator and who do you think the Minister appointed? He appointed Mr. Downes, who is the organizing secretary of the Typographical Union.

A very fair-minded man.

That may be. I am not attacking him personally. Of the extraordinary things the Minister has done under the Act the most extraordinary is this. Here, in a dispute between the town council, on the one hand, and a trade union, on the other, the secretary of another trade union is appointed by the Minister as sole arbitrator. [Time limit.]

There appears to be something not satisfactory about the Minister’s reply about Langa. Is it not a fact that a couple of days ago, when there was that official inspection there, the chairman of the responsible committee of the City Council complained of this very fact, that the buildings were far more expensive than they would otherwise have been owing to the fact that they had been built under this particular building agreement, or that the natives, for whom the buildings are put up, were not allowed to take a hand, and were deprived of the prospect of earning wages. Is it not a fact that the City Council made an application for the exemption of those who were to work at Langa from the provisions of this building agreement, because if that is so, it does away with the whole of the explanation given by the Minister. He has repeatedly endeavoured to shelter himself behind the fact that he is not responsible and that this agreement was made by the Industrial Council representatives. But that agreement does not come into force until the Minister has, under Section 9 of the Act, proclaimed it, and he does so only if he deems it expedient. It all depends on the Minister, and we know perfectly well the power he can exercise in refusing to approve of it. He can say—

Is it correct that the City Council made application to have the Langa buildings exempt from the operations of the building agreement, and why did the Minister not take steps to secure that exemption? For three years running we have heard a great deal about the Minister’s labour policy.

Why do you keep on asking about it then?

Your colleague even does not yet know what that policy is. So far nothing but palliatives have been given by the Government, and they have not solved the problem of unemployment. The Minister is very much more chastened now than he used to be. Without endeavouring to disparage his efforts, for we all desire that the labour problem shall be solved, I must say that this method of giving subsidies bears a very remarkable resemblance to the policy of the late Government. Take the case of 80 semi-fit men employed at Langa. It is a very good thing indeed in essence, but the money spent there is relief payment pure and simple. The Minister, at any rate, claims credit for finding work for the unemployed, but a great part of his duty consists not of opening up new avenues of work, but of shifting the incidence of employment by giving more work to whites at the expensive of the natives. What retribution, however, are we laying up for ourselves by adopting such a method? To what extent is this unrest not due to the policy of the Minister of taking the bread out of the mouths of one section of the population in order to put it into the mouths of another section? The Minister must not think that he has settled the matter by merely shifting work from one class of the population to the other, and benefiting one section of the community at the expense of another section.

What do you suggest to solve the problem?

You don’t want to solve it.

That is perfectly unjust. The Auditor-General, on page 306 of his annual report, draws attention to the Elgin Training Settlement, the object of which was to provide work for European men who would be thrown out of employment by the closing of relief works at Cape Town. He shows a large amount of money spent on that Elgin Settlement and a large amount of money was wasted on the settlement. That expenditure was incurred in defiance of the advice of people acquainted with the conditions on the spot. I wish to go further into the complaint, because in addition to the money there expended, the Minister will remember he got particular warning of the danger of pollution to which attention was drawn in the Auditor-General’s report. The farmers in the Elgin district had to bring an action against the Government in regard to the pollution of water which the Government were warned against, and in the end the Government had to come to a settlement and pay the costs of the action. [Time limit.]

I was trying to bring out to the Minister the absurdity of the action of appointing Mr. Downes in this dispute. I have no objection to Mr. Downes or to his union. Wherever I have been able to give a helping hand to the trade union movement in the House, I have always done it. This was a dispute between the Council On the one side and the trade union on the other, and the arbitrator appointed is a trade union official himself, and so I am told, a man who holds the view very strongly there should only be a 40-hour working week. That may be right or wrong, but what confidence do you expect the Council, as an arbitrating party, to have in the judgment of a gentleman like that? It is a great mistake. If that is the spirit in which the Minister is administering the Act I do not wonder so many complaints are made about the administration. It is a great mistake, and even my friends on the cross benches will admit that. When you appoint an arbitrator to a dispute between parties, you must appoint a man above suspicion. Appoint a magistrate or a judge—

We cannot get a man who is not prejudiced.

That may be true, but the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge), if advising a client on the question of an arbitrator, would be careful to advise him not to appoint a brother or a cousin because, although he might be the most impartial man in the world, the other side will not believe it. Therefore, the Minister, having the full power, when he nominated another trade union official made an error of the first magnitude.

If I had appointed an employer, you would not have raised the question.

No, if the Minister had appointed the chief magistrate of Johannesburg or some person who was beyond dispute. Perhaps the Minister will think over it before now and to-morrow morning.