I wanted to raise a question before we come to the Order Paper, and to ask the Prime Minister what the intentions of the Government are about the Precious Stones Bill.

Oh, we are going through with that.

It is sinking down the list. It stands seventh on the Order Paper to-day. This is one of the most important measures of the session and if we do not pass it—

We are going through with it.

I am glad to have that assurance from the Prime Minister, because I look upon the position, as far as the diamond industry is concerned, as very serious.

I hope to have the Bill high up on the Order Paper to-morrow.

There is one matter I would like to raise. I notice that the railway administration has, contrary to its previous practice, refused to grant up-country concessions to the Port Elizabeth citrus, cotton and sheep show. Port Elizabeth has always been the great wool centre of the Union, and is rapidly becoming a very important citrus centre. It does seem to me a distinct handicap to the citrus and wool farmers of the Midlands, at any rate, that these concessions which have held up to now should be withdrawn. The larger shows are all having these concessions, and I would be glad if the Minister would tell us, in the first place, why these concessions have been withdrawn, and, in the second place, if he can hold out any hope that they will be granted again. It is a vital matter to this particular show, and it is a very important show, so far as the citrus growers and wool farmers of the Midlands are concerned. I do hope that the Minister will see his way to hand back these concessions, or replace the facilities which this show has had in the past.

The board considered the application for concession tickets for this particular show. I do not think the hon. member is quite right when he says this has been a general concession which has been withdrawn. All these concessions are considered on their merits. These concession tickets are given to the larger shows.

This particular show has had it up to now.

The principle is that concessions are generally given to the large and important shows. The hon. member knows these smaller shows are not held at Port Elizabeth only but all over the country and it would mean that we would have to give a concession to every little show in the country. The board had the matter under full consideration and it is all a question of limiting to a certain extent these concessions, which are growing every day. In the end we will come to the position that practically everything will have a concession. I very much regret that it was not possible to extend it to this particular show.

I cannot allow a second reading discussion now. At the third reading the hon. member may ask his question and discuss it as much as he likes.

I would like to ask the Minister whether he has gone into the question of the sub-letting of railway quarters.

The hon. member cannot go into this matter now. I cannot allow discussion on that point at all. The rule is that in committee on the annual Appropriation Bills debate and amendments are restricted to the matter of appropriation, and no discussion On questions of policy can take place. The matters which are now being discussed could be raised on the third reading of the Bill.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 3,

I have an amendment on the paper in line 33 after “schedules” to insert “or be used to defray expenditure on any work or service not authorized by Parliament.” That was the condition on which the Select Committee agreed to allow these variations in the case of the capital expenditure votes. I am not quite clear that that condition is included in the clause as it stands. It is quite true the brown book was this year for the first time put to the committee of supply and voted, but there is no reference to that in the Bill. It seems to me it is desirable to make quite sure that these words should be included. I therefore move—

I have no objection to the amendment. I think it carries out what was the intention of the Select Committee.

I quite agree with this amendment. I think it was wanted to make the clause accord with the resolution of the Select Committee, but it does not seem to me that it quite meets the point I made yesterday as to the diminution of Parliamentary control which is involved in these variations. It is true no money can be used out of savings to defray expenditure on any work not authorized by Parliament, but unless what is authorized by Parliament is defined within very narrow limits really there can be a great extension of expenditure on one particular head provided there are savings on another. Supposing Parliament authorizes the construction of a workshop and £100,000 is put down. During the course of construction it is found it is better to enlarge this workshop and to put in all sorts of machinery. The design may be entirely changed and the whole thing may be made more extensive and the extra cost may be very considerable. Well, under the proposal recommended now it would be competent for the Administration to stop expenditure on one of the other three heads and to spend all the money thereby saved in adding enormously to the scale and design and equipment of this workshop that I have taken for the purpose of illustration. It could be said by the Administration that Parliament has authorized the construction of a workshop and that Parliament does not lay down what number of machines for example are to be installed. I have used that as an illustration but it is perfectly easy to take other matters in which it might be to the political advantage of the Government of the day to stop work on one item of expenditure and to extend expenditure on another item. So far as I can see there is nothing in this proposal, even as safeguarded by my hon. friend’s amendment, to stop things of that sort. I do think it is a matter deserving of attention and I hope next year we shall not see any of these items have been altered, which I maintain would be certainly possible.

I do not think the case mentioned by the hon. member will arise, because even if Parliament has sanctioned the construction of a particular work, Parliament also sanctions the amount which can be spent on it. We cannot exceed that amount unless we come to the House.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Remaining clauses, schedules and title put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with an amendment, which was considered and agreed to, and the Bill, as amended, adopted and read a third time.

I do not know where I move my amendment; do I do so on new Clause 7?

As soon as this clause is omitted the right hon. member may move that in his new clause.

Omission of Clause 3 put and agreed to.

New clause to follow Clause 5,

I move—

1. 7. (1) As soon as possible after the commencement of this Act the Governor-General shall appoint a commission consisting of the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Assembly, who may call to their assistance such persons as they think fit, to design a flag which shall be the national flag of the Union, which design shall embody the Union Jack together with the flags of the late republics of the Transvaal and Orange Free State as integral and substantial portions of it.
2. (2) The design adopted by the commission constituted under sub-section (1) shall be published by the Minister in the “Gazette” and shall be submitted for the approval of both Houses of Parliament not less than six months after the date of such publication.
3. (3) The said design if approved by resolution of both Houses of Parliament shall be proclaimed by the Governor-General as the national flag of the Union.

In substance it will be an amendment of new Clause 7 as it has been adopted. Some confusion arose yesterday because I had moved my amendment to Clause 3 of the Bill; the Minister then moved that Clause 3 should stand over, and proceeded that the Committee should go on with Clause 4. I was then compelled to move my amendment as an amendment to Clause 4, but it appeared subsequently, owing to our rules of procedure, that my amendment could not be put under the consideration of Clause 4, and that being so, I have had again to fall back on the consideration of my amendment in connection with Clause 3. In the meantime a change has taken place because the Labour party has come forward with an amendment of their own to Clause 3, which now appears here as Clause 7, and we are therefore now in possession of the old draft and the new clause as moved by the Labour party and agreed to; and my amendment, which could not be moved either to Clause 3 or Clause 4 yesterday, appears as an amendment to that of the Labour party. I wish to point out, in reference to the clause moved by the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (North) (Mr. Strachan), that it is not really his clause. We saw this clause in process of incubation in the Select Committee. We watched the mountain in labour, and we saw the little mouse being produced in the Select Committee. The Prime Minister is the father of that clause and actually framed that in the Select Committee, and I was very much astonished when on the notice paper I saw that this clause, framed by the Nationalists, and produced by the Prime Minister, was now being fathered by the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (North) on behalf of the Labour party. I think that must be the reason why the hon. member in introducing his amendment did not say a single word in explanation, or even in justification of it. He made a speech interlarded with his usual witticisms; but not a word about the meaning of this clause.

Are you against it?

That is a fair question.

Yes, the hon. member is very impatient—he will hear all about it. There was not a word of explanation. We waited last night after the hon. member had moved that amendment to hear what the attitude of the Minister was on this clause. After all, it is the Bill of the Minister, and here is moved a most important amendment—one which goes to the roots of the whole Bill—and the mystification continues, and again not a word of explantation. And so it goes through, not a word is said, and to-day we are faced with his amended clause. I want to ask, even at this late hour, what this means.

You have been reading the “Cape Times.”

The Minister might read “Die Burger” too.

I thought I explained it in the Select Committee.

No, the amendment was only produced. In a matter of this character the country must know what is being done. It is not a case for mystification, but so far as the matter now stands there is complete mystification. The hon. member who introduced the clause did not say a word in explanation of it, and the Minister who is in charge of the Bill also sat mum. There is complete obscurity as to what the clause means. I can understand the first sentence of the clause, which says that a complete design shall be the national flag of the Union. That is plain enough; but the clause goes on to say—

Is it the word “symbolized” that worries you?

No. What troubles me is what is the meaning and consequence of this clause. There are two alternatives. Either the idea which the Labour party originally fathered of two equal flags with equal rights to be flown together on all official occasions as the two official flags, is the correct construction, or the Union Jack is simply recognized as a symbol of the British connection, but need not be flown on any occasion and might just as well be put into an album, a museum or anywhere else. There is no middle way between these two constructions. Either we have two equal flags, both official, and both to be flown together, or the Union Jack is to be relegated under the amendment to the archives.

No more than the national flag.

You cannot have two national flags.

The one is declared a national flag; the other is not a national flag. For all we know it is a foreign flag, as the Prime Minister told us, and as it is not declared a national flag, prima facie it need not to be flown here at all. These are the two possibilities, and I want the Prime Minister to tell us which of the two he accepts. Are these two flags to be put on a footing of equality—if that is the intention let us put it plainly. If the idea is that we are to have two flags both to be flown officially together on all occasions, let us say so, so that the people will know what they are going to vote for. I have no doubt that the Labour party will tell their friends from the platform that they have secured equal rights for the Union Jack, that they have carried their policy of two poles and that the two flags are on a footing of equality and that they are both going to have equal official treatment. Is that the attitude of the Government’ Let us have plain dealing in this matter. This game of mystification has been played long enough. We are coming now to the last stages, and we want to know where we stand, and whether it is the intention of the Government to have two official flags to be treated equally and to be flown together on all occasions. If that is so let the Government say so in the clause.

Do you agree to that?

Let us have it. I am very much afraid, in fact I am fairly certain, that it is not this alternative which is intended, but the real intention is quite different, and that is to empty the baby with the bath. If the Union Jack is to fly in this country let us say how it is to fly. The Government had the courage in their clause to say that the Union Jack shall be flown four days a year, and on such other occasions as the Government may decide. The Labour party has moved not only to delete the four days, but that the flying also shall go. It has all gone now—the baby is emptied with the bath. What is the national flag to be flown for—

What is the Union Jack to be used for but to fly.

What a miserable subterfuge. What does it mean when it says that the Union Jack shall be a flag to symbolize the Imperial connection? There is nothing about the official use or flying of that flag implied in the clause. Let us put a stop to this game of spoof; let us be honest. As I read the clause, when it goes through, the Union Jack in this country which is here called the symbol of the British connection” need never be flown, except at the discretion of the Government, on any day. One Government may fly it all the year round, and another Government would be quite within the reading and the interpretation of this Act in not flying it on any day at all. No future use need be made of it, except leaving it in the clause of the Act. Either it is an official flag on a footing of equality with the other one, and if not, it means nothing at all, except the placing of it in the Act, and it need not be flown in the country.

It cannot symbolize unless it is flown at least sometimes.

I am fairly clear what the alternative is. It means there is no legal obligation for the use of the Union Jack, even on the four days we had before. The effect of this clause is a going back on the concession which the Government made last year. Last year, when driven by this House to say on what occasions this flag would fly, they were hard put to it. Empire Day was the day they could mention, and we challenged them to mention other days, and then, at the end of six months’ hard thinking, they came to the result that there were four days for the flag. Now the Labour party has come forward to delete those four days. The result is, as far as this clause is concerned, there will be no legal compulsion to fly it on any day of the year.

Do I understand the hon. member is moving his amendment now? If the hon. member’s amendment is dealt with now, he will be entitled to speak again when the new Clause 7 is put. I want to know if he wants to deal with the whole question now.

I have started on the assumption that the new Clause 7 and my amendment are in conflict.

The hon. member can move his amendment now and then deal with Clause 7 when it is put.

No, sir, I do not want to do that. It would be a duplication of the debate. I am putting my amendment in place of the new Clause 7. In this amendment which the Labour party has moved, we are getting into the greatest confusion possible, and when we come to the referendum, the people will not know what they are voting for, and what is going to be the effect. It is not stated here what the status and use of the Union Jack is going to be. It is clear about the new flag. That is the national flag, and we all understand what that means. It will represent this nation on all public occasions, but what use there will be for the other flag is not made clear. It is not declared that it shall be flown on any occasion and the plain meaning of the words is, that we shall have abolished it, except by the grace of the Government, abolished the official flying of the Union Jack in this country when we pass this clause. No doubt private people can fly it on their motor cars and over their houses. You may fly any flag anywhere in the country as private people. We see the red flag appearing more and more in this unfortunate country, and there is no law to prevent it.

And you have seen our white flag when we were running away.

Do you refer to 1899?

Don’t remind the Minister of that past, he does not like it. Don’t introduce ancient history into that debate. We do not want to make charges against anybody. When I referred to the white flag, it was in reply to a taunt of the Prime Minister. The country will now be in a position of complete mystification, and I want the Government to make the position clear. Reading this document with a legal mind brought to bear upon the subject there is no doubt the Union Jack will be relegated to the dead past the Prime Minister has so greatly emphasized in this debate. It becomes part of our past history. With this concession, the Union Jack will have to be satisfied. I am sure the Labour party does not intend that at all.

Why worry about the Labour party?

Well, no, I suppose they are past praying for. There is only one solution in this matter. You cannot have a dual flag. There cannot be two kings and there cannot be two flags in this country. The two-flag policy is impossible. The one will have to be subordinate to the other, and once you do that it shrinks to a position of complete nonentity, such as the Union Jack which is embalmed in this clause. It is kept in cold storage, so to speak.

Move the deletion.

I move the deletion of the whole clause, because I oppose this whole policy of the Government. It is a policy of mystification. I might have called it by a stronger term, but I do not want to stir up any passion.

You say the plain meaning is what you say.

Yes.

Then where is the mystification?

All over the country. There will be complete mystification. For months to come you will hear the words bandied about that the Union Jack may be flown, or it may not be flown, and the referendum will come, and the poor driven people will be forced to vote, and they will not know what for. I am certain there can only be one flag for this country which will represent legal sovereignty and external connection, and on that flag must be put such symbols of our past, of our history, such an expression of our traditions and aspirations for the future that we may all look up to it whatever section we belong to, with feelings of reverence, love and respect. That is the flag I wish to see in this country, and that is embodied in my amendment. We do not want flags as embalmed relics of the past and simply a verbal concession. I, therefore, move my amendment, which is an amendment, I take it, to Clause—

Do I understand that the hon. member moves it as a new clause?

Yes, a new Clause 7.

I second the proposal of the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts). It is clear to me now that in the new clause a step further is being taken and I think it is fair to say that the Minister of the Interior since the Flag Bill was introduced has tried to cheat the public of South Africa.

Order. The hon. member is going too far.

I, of course, do not wish to say anything unparliamentary and will say that the Minister is confusing the public and driving them into such a position that they do not know how they stand. Between the two parties to the Pact an agreement has been made which goes a step further because the new clause is an attempt to confuse and mislead the public. It is undoubtedly true that my Nationalist friends will not get up to say that the intention of the clause is to have the Union Jack flown 365 days in the year. Hon. members of the Labour party think that the intention of the clause is that the Union Jack will fly 365 days in the year.

What do you want?

I want an explanation. I am certain of it that many hon. members opposite say that they have got the labour people well gripped by the neck.

The Unionists have got a good hold of you by the neck.

The explanation of the clause seems to be that no one in the country will know who will be responsible for the flying of the Union Jack. It is clear to me that the only time the Union Jack will be flown will be when private people hoist it. The one section will always be hoisting the Union Jack, and the other section the national flag. I want one flag. I have always fought against the two-stream policy and the two-fold policy of the Prime Minister.

Two languages also.

I want a flag in which the Union Jack, the Transvaal Vierkleur, and the Free State flag will be included. I want to ask the Minister of the Interior whether the Union Jack and the national flag here created will wave together over the Houses of Parliament. Is he going to be responsible for that, and when will it happen? I want to ask the Minister of Justice if he will give instructions to hoist the Union Jack over magistrates’ courts and police offices. I ask the acting Minister of Defence if he will have the Union Jack hoisted together with the national flag over the headquarters of the Defence Force.

Do you want that?

That makes no difference. I want to know what the result of the Bill is going to be. Is the Prime Minister going to have the Union Jack hoisted over the Union buildings together with the national flag, and if he is not will he then ever give instructions for the two flags to be flown together? If the Bill says that the Union Jack shall stand for one or the other object then surely it should fly on one or the other day and then there must be someone who is responsible for it and who will decide when it shall take place. I do not want the people to be misled and confused.

You will not say what you want.

Let me say that I absolutely deny that the Prime Minister has a monopoly to speak for the Dutch-speaking part of the population. I say that some of us have just as much right as he to speak on behalf of the Dutch-speaking people.

On behalf of handsuppers.

We must not throw such accusations against each other. If we look for the hand suppers then they are not on this side of the House. I maintain that I sit here with the support of the majority of the Dutch-speaking people in the Ermelo constituency, and therefore I have the right to speak on behalf of the Dutch-speaking people. That is also the case with the hon. members for Standerton and for Bethal (Lt.-Col. H. S. Grobler).

How many are there of you?

Why then did a Nationalist get in for the Provincial Council at Ermelo.

The Prime Minister says that we Dutch-speaking people are suffering from a great feeling of injustice, viz., that we have not our own flag. With all respect I want to say that the strong feeling of the people outside is that the whole thing ought to be dropped. They are asking for rest Let me add that that is the attitude of the whole of the S.A. party.

They want no national flag.

I want one flag in the country which will contain the three historical flags. We shall be satisfied with nothing less.

I want to say at once, with regard to my statement that I spoke for Dutch-speaking South Africa, that I want to qualify it after having listened to the hon. member for Ermelo (Col.-Cdt. Collins) this morning. I want to say that if he represents a portion of the Dutch-speaking people with the malicious and bitter ideas which are contained in his speech then I do not represent that section. Anything more venomous and more malicious—

Order. I think it would be better if the Prime Minister alters his language.

I beg pardon Is it the word malicious or venomous that I must withdraw?

I did not say the Prime Minister must withdraw, but that it would be better if he modified his words.

I cannot change these words. I say that anything more malicious and anything more venomous—

Is that in order?

I think the Prime Minister must withdraw his words.

I submit to your decision, but I want to say that I think hon. members ought to have the right of calling a spade a spade. When I used the word “malicious” then it was to give expression to the spirit in which the hon. member was clearly speaking, viz., that he would be glad if violence took place as a result of the passing of the Bill, and that it would give him pleasure if it happened.

To a point of order I want to know whether the Prime Minister is entitled to say that an hon. member would be pleased if violence came about as a result of the Bill.

I do not think the Prime Minister ought to make such an accusation.

Then I will say that I want to warn hon. members to act differently. I am certain that he did not express himself in any way that indicated that he would be sorry about such a thing. I say again that if I speak on behalf of Dutch-speaking South Africa that does not include Dutch-speaking persons like the hon. member for Ermelo. I want at once to qualify my statement and to say that I do not represent them.

I will never ask you to represent me.

We are quite satisfied about it.

Now I come to the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) While I was listening to his speech I closed my eyes on one occasion and I actually thought that we had Mr. Pitcher here addressing us. The glow of love and consideration for the Union Jack that he pleaded for here almost made me think that tears had come into the eyes of the man because the Minister of the Interior would not allow the Union Jack to float over South Africa. Immediately there after in a later portion of his speech I thought that he might just as well have been sitting in my place. It was one of the speeches of the hon. member of which he is such a past master, viz., first to talk on the side of one man and to bring him under the impression that he agrees with everything that the man wants, and then to turn round to the other and to bring him under the same impression. For a long time I did not know whether the hon. member wanted two flags in the country or only one. We appreciated something else in him, viz., the clever way in which he drew benefit from the incident in order to produce discord outside. It is clear that his whole speech this morning amounted to an attempt to frighten the Labour members out of the Pact. I think that nothing will be better than for me at once to say what my position and that of the Nationalist party was to which he referred in relation to this new alteration represented by new Clause 7 in the Bill. In the Select Committee I suggested it orally in this way. I said that there appeared to be a feeling that a provision of such a nature, viz., that our connection with the British Empire should be acknowledged by means of the Union Jack would be something that was acceptable. I also said that there appeared to be dissension about whether the Union Jack should fly for four days, or for how many and for which days, and I said that as far as I was personally concerned I should be prepared, if it would lead to an agreement between the Opposition and ourselves, to propose it as one of the provisions of the Bill. Well, I also at one time thought and said to the Select Committee that I did not want to go further immediately, but of course first wanted to consult with my party. It was when we were introducing amendments in the Select Committee. I consulted my party, and although it was quite willing to have this provision as a compromise in the Bill, it was not prepared to have it there unless an agreement was come to. This attitude was taken up because we thought that we would rather not have it and for the reason that if we were now to say that it could be put in in the Select Committee then precisely that would happen, which the hon. member for Standerton would naturally at once make the best and fullest use of. He would say exactly what he has just said here that it was added to further deprive the English-speaking people of those four days. We felt that that would not be correct, but we were quite right in foreseeing it. He did do so, and would have used it with more force to make the people believe it than he is able to do now. Let me now say that we are quite prepared to stand by the old provisions, that is to say as Nationalist party, but what we were prepared to give to the other side of the House by way of compromise I felt that we could not justly withhold from our Labour friends who co-operate with us and form part of the Government. They asked for it, and let me say that I readily agreed to it. As for myself personally I have not the least doubt that it is a sound principle. I have always in the past in any matter and with regard to anything which came up in the House said that the Government should not wish to evade its duties. I should like to know from the hon. member for Standerton if he can tell me of a single flag in which it is stipulated by law that it shall be flown.

Is there any provision about a flag like the Union Jack here where it is not a national flag?

Nothing else can be done than that the flag shall be provided for in the law and nothing more. Nowhere is it said that the flag must be hoisted.

Nowhere is a flag in such a position as the Union Jack here.

It is nothing but a mere quibble. The Union Jack does nothing else here than render a certain service. It is exactly like an “ensign,” and any other flag besides the national flag which renders a general service to the country. Every flag has a special service, and the Union Jack is in this Bill given a special service just as is done for any “ensign.” I have never yet heard it said that it shall be hoisted for so many days, but only that when it waves and flutters then it will stand for such a service. Where and when it shall be flown is just what the Government takes responsibility for. Then the Government has to say from time to time how and where it shall occur. Hon. members opposite need not be so frightened about it because they assure us every day that we shall only be in power for two years more, and that they will then again come into office. Why are they so frightened now? Then they can allow the Union Jack to fly to their heart’s content and every day if this Government has not done it enough. Listening to them this morning one would say that they had not so much confidence about getting into power again, and there is possibly a great deal to be said for that view. They must not, however, give themselves away so openly because it is either all camouflage about their coming into power or otherwise it is camouflage about their fear that the Union Jack will not be flown. It is very clear to me that what the hon. member for Standerton wants is not a flag for the country which will bring contentment, but that he really wants a flag which will give him a satisfactory election. It is for that reason that they complained so much this morning that we are going to say that the Union Jack will be flown as a symbol of our position with regard to the British empire. They know that this Government will do its duty in this respect, and that the Union Jack will be flown when it ought to be, but they also know that that is the very reason why thousands who would otherwise ordinarily have voted for the hon. member for Standerton will not vote with him with regard to this matter. In other words, he well knows what effect it will have on the election, and to prevent that he has this morning put up an argument which is calculated to cause mystification. Though he says himself that its meaning is clear to him, he comes here to talk and wants to make the world outside believe that everything is doubtful and uncertain. That is the old method of acting every time the hon. member has not a better case. Let me point out that I said to him in the Select Committee that I was in favour of such a provision because I was in favour of a Government not evading its duties. If then a Government does not hoist the flag when it ought to be hoisted then it is for the general election and for the people outside to say whether they have confidence any longer in that Government, just as is done with regard to any question of administration. What the hon. member wants is not only that we shall say that the Union Jack will symbolise our relation to the British empire, but that we shall also say in the Bill how it is to be administered. I say again that it will nowhere be found that a law ventures to do such a thing. Administration is a matter for the Government, and if the Government does not do what ought to be done, then under a democratic system the decision is in the hands of the people. For this ordinary general reason which has always weighed with me, I said that the Government ought to assume its responsibility, and that it ought not to be mentioned in the Bill, and for this reason I think the Government ought to say when and where it ought to be flown.

Will the Union Jack be flown every day just like the national flag over the public buildings?

The national flag has its service to render and the flag which indicates our connection with the British empire has its service to render. The latter can be flown every day, but it is not necessary.

Answer my question.

It is not necessary that it should be flown there every day. The two flags have nothing to do with each other and they stand for different functions which they have to perform. May I ask the hon. member for Standerton whence the necessity arises for the two flags to be always flown there on the same pole? Where does he get that from? The “ensigns” are just as much the flag of England as the Union Jack, but does the one always fly when the other is flown?

When will the Union Jack have to render its service?

That the Government will tell you. It is of course a matter of administration. Of course we know that that he has never been inclined to take responsibility upon himself. It was always the weakness of his Government that he never dared to assume responsibility. If the Government does not do its duty then go to an election, but there you have the whole beautiful thing. Then the hon. member for Standerton will actually have to show his hand, and tell the people what he really wants. He will not dare to announce his great interest in the flying of the Union Jack on the countryside so constantly. He knows that he will not catch votes by that and we surely know the hon. member now. If there is one thing which he has never yet lost sight of for a moment it is votes. He knows that when I was in opposition we constantly pointed out to him that every step he took was with a view to getting votes. He, however, calculated very badly and I assure him that he is now again calculating just as badly. I am ready to go together with the hon. member for Standerton and to debate the matter with him at any place on the countryside.

Have an election.

There the cat comes out of the bag.

I should like to meet the hon. member for Standerton very much, but inasmuch as we enjoy the confidence of the people to the extent that we do, it would not only be unwise but unjust towards the people and we shall not do so. The hon. member for Ermelo asked me a question, but I have already answered it.

I thought it appeared very clearly from the right hon. gentleman’s interjection that he will again welcome a flag election. In the past, every election in the Cape Colony was a flag election, and in the Transvaal since 1908, every election there has been a flag election. At first the flag was used against the leader of the Opposition, but afterwards it was used in his favour. It is a most distressing thing that any public man should welcome a flag election. That is why the course has been adopted of having a referendum, so that every person should be able to express his opinion on this point apart from any political issue. In what way is it better to get the views of the people on this question at an election or by means of a referendum? Surely you get the views of the voters in a referendum in a better way than at an election, where the issue is complicated by a large number of other questions. For any member of my race, it is a disgraceful thing to urge the holding of an election on the flag issue in view of our history.

On a referendum you escape the penalty.

So you think that in two years’ time, we shall have rehabilitated ourselves so much that we shall not have any penalty? Hon. members opposite are in a state of deadly fear that they will be able to do nothing unless they have the flag issue at an election.

Is that what you tell your Labour friends?

We shall protect them, and they will protect us too when it comes to an election. The Pact has been immensely strengthened by the happenings of the last few months. The position of the National party has been immensely strengthened, because the men who have followed the right hon. gentleman will come over in larger numbers and in droves to the National party. One thing that will assist that process is when the followers of the South African party see what slow-thinking leaders they have in this House, and that it took them very nearly a day before they understood what took place last night. Even although the amendment of the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (North) (Mr. Strachan) was on the Order Paper for the whole of yesterday, the leaders of the South African party did not know what was happening last night, and when people realize this they will say, please God we will have different leaders because we want people who can think quickly and not slowly. We are not able to explain anything to hon. members opposite, but they may be able to understand it next year with some luck and with a little study of the alphabet in the interval. We are not explaining it to them, but to the country.

That is why you are following your leader.

I am following my leader because the country thinks it is getting good guidance from him, and the country is never going back to the leadership of the right hon. gentleman. I will show the fair atmosphere created by the newspapers today. In the House we hear the word mystification used but the “Cape Times” is not so choice and delicate. It not only uses the word “trickery,” but has two and a half columns with regard to trickery. They knew the meaning at once. It is only the slow-thinking people in opposition who are looking for the interpretation. They knew as far as their lights were concerned and their prejudices what the meaning was to be attached to the word, and indeed, when you denude the verbiage surrounding the other side they come down to the same arguments as the “Cape Times.” They have to follow something, they cannot follow leaders, so they might as well follow the “Cape Times.” Now I will show them again what a curious leader they have in the “Cape Times” and the attitude which is adopted in the “Notes in the House”—

Including “Die Burger.”

I think all these Capetown papers are a bit slow in the uptake. That is not a new remark of mine. I have said it for years.—

They feel that the Opposition has so little sense that the only people wise enough to interpret it is the Government. The real point I make is can they reconcile those two positions of the “Cape Times” with each other, the one of saying nothing until we have an explanation and the other that the whole thing is trickery. I say to hon. members opposite, “don’t follow the ‘Cape Times’ so steadfastly.” They don’t know their own minds and if you follow them you will not know where you are going to end. You are in the wilderness now but you may get in a worse position. Then they follow General Pitcher, the glorified town clerk of Natal, who says they want a quarter of the flag. They call anything smaller a vulgar fraction, they don’t think a quarter is a vulgar fraction, but a fraction smaller than a quarter is a vulgar fraction.

You have mistaken your calling; you ought to have been at the Tivoli.

Surely the right hon. gentlemen are not going to follow town clerks for the rest of their lives. Pitcher will not be the new leader to lead them out of the wilderness. I want to make this point clear to the House and to the country and there are many points we are going to make clear to the country during the recess Those opposite are not amenable to conversion and we are going to get the converts in the country and not in this House. I never believe in getting converts in this House because I find the task difficult. As far as the backveld is concerned you get as much and more political wisdom than you do in the towns and I want them to know again they have been referred to in contemptuous terms by the S.A.P. I thought we should never hear that jibe again about the folly of the backveld. I want the country clearly to see what the position of the hon. gentlemen opposite is who want to exclude the Union Jack as the flag of South Africa. I will prove that at once. The right hon. gentleman said we don’t want two flags in this country. He said we want one flag with the Union Jack and a number of other designs. That would be no longer the Union Jack I suppose. It the Union Jack is pulled down and this other flag put up, the Union Jack is for ever excluded from South Africa. If hon. gentlemen opposite want that consummation there is a large number of English people in South Africa who will not accept that solution. What is our solution? Our solution is you require your national flag and your imperial flag which symbolizes your association as set out in the clause and that is the only way to get peace in South Africa because then no part of the population can say they have been wrongly treated. Hon. gentlemen say what does this clause mean? I say it means exactly the same as far as flying and non-flying is concerned. It places the national flag and the imperial symbol on the same footing because flying is not dealt with by the clause. The official flag does not fly every day either. The two flags are referred to in exactly the same way and I thought the English-speaking people of South Africa were objecting to any limitation in the law with regard to the two flags. The law is exactly the same with regard to these two flags. The question of flying any flag in any country in the world is a question for the Government of the day to decide. It is a purely administrative matter and if the Government of the day decided against the views of the people of the country the Government will pay the penalty. They have to give satisfaction to the people of the country with regard to the flying of the flag and if the hon. members cannot understand the meaning of the clause in 24 hours, they must give the Government a long time to decide what administrative acts are necessary. This clause is perfectly easy to understand. The understanding of that clause is that the limitation in regard to your Union Jack has been removed out of this Bill. One necessary implication is that certainly the flying of the imperial symbol could not be limited in the way in which it was limited when the section was unamended.

Will you tell us which section of the party has beep “spoofed”?

I will tell you who has been “spoofed. The Opposition have been “spoofed,” because their last weapon has been taken out of their hands and the game which they have been trying on us for years of “spoof” is exposed to the country. The whole basis, the whole edifice of trickery outside as far as the newspapers are concerned, trying to put poison in the waters of this country, is exposed as far as the outside press and the people of this country are concerned. I say again that this Government has tried to take a further step in the direction of obtaining quietude on this question in South Africa. All those efforts have always come from the Government. I challenge any hon. member opposite to put a motion before this House in regard to this section. Have they changed their attitude? Do they want to come to agreement here in this House, or do they not want to come to agreement? If they are insisting on their amendments, what have they to do with this clause that we are dealing with? If they want to compromise the issue and meet us in some way or another, bring an amendment before the House, an amendment which, of course, would exclude the fight which is taking place to-day on the amendment proposed by the right hon. gentleman.

We have to depend on the Minister of the Interior for the flying of the Union Jack?

No, you must depend upon the Cabinet, the Government of this country, and the Government of this country is going to satisfy not only the Dutch section of South Africa, but going to satisfy the English section of South Africa as well. I can give that assurance.

Put it in the Bill.

How do we know by putting it in the Bill that we satisfy any section in South Africa to-day? Hon. members opposite are afraid of suggesting any amendment, because they are not certain as to whether any compromise would satisfy their followers in South Africa. They can only act here, but we have the power, and we can act after these stages of the Bill are passed. Now is the eleventh hour. There is still time for them to repent and, if they do not repent and they go into this fight, this fight is going to be a very sore thing as far as they are concerned. What sense is there in the right hon. gentleman saying that this provision in the Bill in regard to the Union Jack puts the Union Jack into an album, into a museum. If that is so, it puts your national flag into an album, into a museum.

The Union Jack flies every day now.

The Union Jack flew from the post office in Durban four times in the year, and nobody even noticed it. After they were stirred up, you find it flying every day in the year.

It flies every day on the Union Buildings.

It might on some buildings. I will accept what the hon. gentleman says. I am one of the fortunate people who are in town in Pretoria in the Palace of Justice and not in the Union Buildings, and so I cannot speak with authority as to what happens at the Union Buildings. I say this, in laying down the national flag there is nothing implied as to the number of times of flying anywhere, and the laying down of the Imperial symbol does not imply any flying or any limitation of flying in any period of the year. Where administrative acts take place, that is, naturally, a thing which the Government is answerable for in this House and at elections. The hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) will no doubt keep his eye on that matter. In what way is any flag at all protected in our legislation in South Africa to-day? You might just as well say that it is a wrong thing that the previous Government never laid down a law in regard to the Union Jack. There never was a law in South Africa about the Union Jack. Why will there be trouble, then, if we lay down the Union Jack as the symbol of the free association of this country with the British Commonwealth of Nations? I say we have made the position stronger. If there was no trouble without a law, why should there be trouble with this law?

You are putting another flag in its place.

We are doing nothing of the kind. Your national flag represents the national status acquired at the Imperial Conference, and only the man who rejects the Imperial Conference decisions can say we are placing another flag in place of the Union Jack. The hon. gentlemen opposite say the Union Jack must form a portion of the flag, so the Union Jack must disappear; we say we will give the Union Jack and a fraction. They say “Give us one-quarter,” but we say “We will give you the Union Jack and a fraction.” Which is more, a quarter or one flag plus a fraction. The hon. gentlemen opposite will have to take a course in arithmetic before they come back next session.

I hope you will give us lessons.

No, I do not like dull pupils. I understand from the right hon. gentleman that the whole Pact had been in incubation for a considerable period of time, and had given birth to a mouse, this mouse being the resolution of the hon. gentleman over there. They will find one thing, that that mouse is powerful enough to destroy the whole fabric they have built up in South Africa, all that flimsy and unsubstantial fabric of racialism built up by the Opposition outside, especially by its press, during these days. The only danger to South Africa is this, that we are making trouble about this matter; because I believe as far as our relations are concerned, and our association is concerned, as set out in that clause, they are safe when this Bill becomes law in the country, because people are looking for a symbol to represent that national status obtained at the Imperial Conference, and they are going to accept fully and freely, what has been given at that Imperial Conference, and your constitutional questions in South Africa are going to disappear. Only those who wish to live upon hate caused by constitutional questions—they are the people who must try and destroy this Bill, because if it is destroyed you are going to have little peace as far as constitutional questions are concerned, but if it is passed they are settled for all time. As I have said before, I have accepted fully what the Imperial Conference has done, but a large portion of the people in this country are looking to this one thing; they want to see that work symbolised in a national flag of South Africa, and the moment they see that symbol they are going to accept as fully and freely as I have done, the new position laid down. I therefore wish to warn hon. members over there that they will imperil the causes they have at heart by their wrong attitude on this Bill. I believe it is an honest attitude, although a rather dull one. But still, it is going to imperil what they want to obtain. They will not obtain peace unless they fully and freely accept a symbol emblematic of the new national status of South Africa.

The Minister ended on a serious note, and I would like to deal with that first. He tells us that this attitude we are taking in regard to the flag is contrary to the constitutional position, that we are endangering the constitutional position as laid down at the recent Imperial Conference. I would like to put it to the Minister, is not that exactly what they are doing? If this flag is the logical outcome of our new constitutional position as declared at the Imperial Conference, why is it that the Government a year before that conference, brought in their Flag Bill? I maintain, on the contrary, that by that Flag Bill which was introduced last year, and particularly by the attitude then adopted by the Minister of the Interior in regard to the question of a flag, the Government very nearly wrecked their own idea expressed later on, of our constitutional position.

You take it for granted that the Imperial Conference gave something which did not exist before.

It gave recognition to a status which existed before.

And we always claimed it.

But I am dealing with the point of the Minister of Justice about the acceptance by the people of this country of the recognition of our status, and I say there was no greater difficulty in the way of acceptance than the whole attitude of the Minister of the Interior last year, and the manner in which he introduced it and dealt with it. It was only because when the Prime Minister came back from Europe that, anyhow the people I am trying to speak for, took it for granted, as a logical outcome of what the Prime Minister brought back from Europe with him, that this Flag Bill would be dropped, or materially altered; and it was that reasonable expectation that made people accept wholeheartedly the new status as declared by the Prime Minister. If they had indicated, as was indicated by the Minister of Justice, that they should get the new status adopted by the people first, and had not raked up all the bitterness of the past by this Flag Bill of theirs, they would have been in a stronger position than they are now. The new status has been wholeheartedly accepted; but this new policy of the Government is going to make people think twice about it.

So you object to the method—not to the Bill itself?

The method and the substance. I say that the people of the country are not yet ripe for the proposal the Minister is bringing in. In a few years’ time, when the new position has sunk into the people’s minds, then they could face this question of the adoption of a national flag in a far better spirit than now. I support the amendment of the right hon. member for that reason—that it gives a little more time for the people to get this new constitutional position thoroughly understood and thoroughly into their minds and into their hearts. The rest of the speech of the Minister of Justice was, I must say, a very welcome episode, and provided an interlude of what I might call comic relief of a situation which was becoming almost one of deepening gloom. It took us on to a new level altogether, so much so that I have almost forgotten what we were discussing when the Minister began his speech. If the Minister is left to himself and takes to the platform, he will convert a great many people; but I hope he will not be left to himself, and that the “little mouse” that “will devour our party” will be followed by a very active cat. To come to the question of the amendment, I sympathize very deeply with “Die Burger.” The Minister said it is very slow-witted; but it caters for the people who read it, of whom I am one, and it does not go faster than the intelligence of the people who follow it. It heads its leader this morning—“Wat beteken dit?” (What does it mean?)

You have the reply of the Prime Minister, who has explained it.

In fact, your own leader explained it, and said it was quite clear.

I hope his followers of the Labour party were able to follow his explanation. I know they will follow all right—to their own destruction. But we think they will follow him blindly. I am looking forward with interest to hear what the Labour party itself will say about it. The father—no, the adopted father—not the step-father—the putative father—it has been put on him by a decree of affiliation—I want to know what he says about it. The Prime Minister was very instructive about the interpretation of it. He said that in the select committee he had thoughts of making a proposal of this kind.

I intimated it to the select committee.

That is what I mean; but, after consulting his people, he decided not to move this, because he saw it was open to the very objection the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) brought against it— that it was taking away from the people who want the Union Jack something they had under old Clause 3; so he handed it over to the Labour party.

Not that it would be taken away; but would be interpreted.

Exactly. It will be interpreted as taking away something which people have now, and that is now being moved by the Labour party. That indicates very clearly what the idea of the clause is, and what will be attributed to it by the ordinary man. When the Prime Minister was asked when the Union Jack would be flown and where he said: “You must leave it to the Government.”

Hear, hear!

In other words, he said: “Wait and see.” He said it was a mere administrative question, and he did not know of any law where it was definitely laid down that a Government should fly a flag on any particular days. The only law I know is the old Clause 3, so the Prime Minister apparently yesterday was hoping that if there was no law of that kind in existence he is going to make a precedent laying it down on what occasions the flag should be flown.

If you are prepared to move that, I will accept it.

No, I am supporting the amendment moved by my hon. friend.

They why waste time?

You want to pull down the Union Jack.

That is what the hon. member will say outside, and he is welcome to say it.

Nobody will believe it.

We say we want a national flag in which the Union Jack and the two republican flags shall be substantially and integrally represented. The Minister of Justice gave rather a different interpretation from that of the Prime Minister, for he said that the two flags are both on the same footing.

He said under the law. That is quite right.

I join issue with him there.

I agree with him.

The clause says one of these is to be a national flag.

Legally they stand on the same footing, but they render different services.

That’s a very fine point. I don’t in the least mind exposing myself to the accusation of being thick-headed. It is as well to be thick-headed at times and not to understand proposals too quickly, especially when they come from you.

This does not come from me.

A little healthy stupidity is a great safeguard. I do not see the subtle distinction that the two flags stand for two different services, but I see that one is called the national flag and, as such, it will be flown as every other national flag is. The national flag will be flown on public buildings and on public occasions as representing the spirit and the people of the country. The wording of the new clause “the association of the Union with the other members of the group of nations constituting the British Commonwealth of Nations shall be symbolized by the Union Jack,” is a plain statement with which everybody can agree, but where, when, or how the Union Jack is to be flown one does not know, but it differs from the national flag.

If the flag is a symbol it must be flown.

But it might symbolize in England or somewhere else.

That does not do justice to your usual fairness.

We don’t legislate for England.

We have two ministerial explanations now, and, without attempting to dictate to hon. members, I would like to hear an explanation from the Labour party. My position is perfectly clear. This amendment commits the country to a double flag—to two flags instead of one, and I adopt entirely the position put forward by the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts). What we want is one national flag which will symbolize the feelings and traditions of the people and our constitutional position as a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations. A proposal for two flags in this country should not be accepted as it will lead to misunderstanding and division, and, however much the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow) may try to use the argument that we are endeavouring to pull down the Union Jack, I would rather face that than support a scheme like this which leads no one knows where.

I have kept before me in this Bill, through every stage, two principles. One was that I opposed the Bill at every stage because I thought there was only one way to settle the flag question, and that was by agreement and that you have to wait for that. While I took up that attitude, I was not prepared on that ground to make imputations of bad faith, bad motives and trickery and that sort of thing. Whether you disagree with the Bill or not, you are bound to consider the proposals as they come forward on their merits. In my opinion a considerable improvement has been made in Clause 3, and every fair-minded man will agree that the new clause as it is now is a great improvement on the old one. In the old clause it was distinctly laid down that the national flag was to be flown as such, and the Union Jack was to be flown on only four days and such other occasions as the Governor-General may approve. Throughout the country the papers seized on that limitation as a sign of contempt for the Union Jack. Now it has been taken out. I was going to refer to the only legislation on the subject in the British empire. No other part of the empire, except New Zealand, has legislated on it, and in the form of the amendment moved and put in the Bill, you are following the only legislative precedent you have got, and that is the New Zealand Acts of 1900 and 1901. It is unfair to call this a two-flag proposal. You might as well say you have three flags here now, namely, the Union Jack and the Red and the blue ensigns. You have the red ensign and the blue ensign flying on ships, and you have the Union Jack on land.

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

When business was suspended I had explained that, although I was, in principle, opposed to the flag clauses, either in the original or amended form, on the grounds that they do not comply with this position, that there had been an agreement, and I considered it a sine qua non that there should be an agreement before you have a national flag, it was my opinion that a great deal of the criticism made in regard to this flag question was not generous, and was not fair, and that the form in which the amendment had been moved left the clause in a better position than it was before. I was trying to explain why I took that view. In the first place the drafting of the original clause was not as clear as it ought to have been. That clause said—

The words “for all purposes” are used in connection with the national flag, but when the clause comes to provide for the Union Jack, those words are left out, and, therefore, it is clear that one flag is the national flag, “for all purposes,” and the other is simply recognized for one special purpose. Then again, the original clause said that the national flag shall be “flown as such,” and there is not limitation as to the number of days and occasions when it shall fly, and the natural inference would be that it is always to fly, whereas the Union Jack is only to fly on four specific days which are set out, and on such other days as the Governor-General may appoint. There is another difference, but that is rather a matter of the English language. The original clause said that the Union Jack—

while the amended clause says that that association shall be symbolized by the Union Jack. There is nothing very material in that, though, as far as I can see, the amendment is an improvement on the original version. It may be argued from the old clause that the two flags were not put in a position of equality, whereas the amendment makes it clear that the two flags are put in a position of equality. I have a book here which describes the Union Jack as the national flag of the British empire, so that here we have two flags, one symbolizing national unity, and the other symbolizing membership of the British empire or our association with a number of other nations who have the same King as their head. I say that to charge the Government and to charge the Labour party with trickery, one “spoofing” the other, and so forth, is a serious charge to make, and one that should be supported by something more than mere argument. There should be some proof of such a charge. I have tried my best to arrive at a just conclusion of this matter. I have tried to consult the legislation of other countries of the world, and, as far as I have been able to ascertain, one part of the British empire only has legislated on the matter of flags at all. It has been the subject of legislation in New Zealand which legislated in 1900 and 1901. If you look at the history of the way in which the Union Jack came into operation as far as Great Britain is concerned, you will find that it was not done by legislation, but by an Orderin-Council. The real thing that was achieved was the Union, but the symbol was arrived at by an Order in Council. Look at “Flags of the World”—

There is nothing in the law of England which says that the Union Jack shall be flown on this or that day or any other day. As far as I understand the law in regard to ensigns, the ensign is only supposed to be used at sea, and any dominion which uses the ensign for land purposes is committing an irregularity. Australia and Canada have not regularized the position by having legislation. New Zealand had done so already in 1900. There is not a word about the flying of the Union Jack in the legislation of New Zealand. Why? Because it is taken as a matter of course. You have not got there the race problem that you have here, and you have not this distrust and suspicion.

The Union Jack is on their flag.

That interruption is not worthy of the hon. member. The symbol of New Zealand with the Union Jack on it is not the same thing as the Union Jack without anything on it. The Union Jack is on the New Zealand flag, and it is on this flag as well. Not as prominent, I admit, but it is there, and if you take it off you will have to leave a hole in it. No one has suggested in New Zealand that the statute should state the Union Jack must fly as symbolizing the empire. In New Zealand, they respect one another’s political opinions. This trouble has only occurred in South Africa because of this terrible suspicion and distrust, for which neither side is responsible; it arises out of the terrible period through which the country has passed. The Canadians have not legislated yet. They are using the flag supposed to be used at sea irregularly for land purposes. It has been ruled that unless you have legislation no dominion is entitled to put up the ensign as the national flag on land at all, so if you want a national flag on land as distinct from a flag at sea, you must have legislation.

So Canada and Australia are both wrong?

Canada and Australia were content with the position of waiting for legislation, and my advice to the Government has been, and still is, to wait also. I can still give credit where credit is due, even though I am still opposed in principle to the Bill. That is the difference between the hon. member and myself.

Why do you say: “That is the difference between you and me?”

The difference between the hon. member and myself is this— that, whereas he not only opposes the Bill, but characterizes everything as trickery and subterfuge, I am not prepared to do so.

You must substantiate what you said or withdraw.

The hon. member will get apoplectic if he goes on like this. The whole argument on his side of the House—

You are dealing with me.

I wish I could deal with the hon. member.

Will the hon. member for East London (North) kindly allow the hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street) (Mr. Alexander) to continue?

Certainly, sir.

The whole argument adduced, the interjection, “Who was spoofed?” by the hon. gentleman who sits on the right of the leader of the Opposition, the whole argument is that there has been trickery, and that is the attitude of the South African party papers. I was referring to the New Zealand legislation, and here I have the Act of 1900—

Is there a word to say it shall be flown on this day or that day or any other day? There is not a single word. That is a matter of administration. They simply say it shall be the New Zealand ensign, exactly as this says it shall be the national flag of South Africa. In 1901 New Zealand again legislated. There is not a word in the Act to say how and when it shall be flown. Is that trickery on the part of the New Zealand people? Of course not. Yet you could use the same argument against the New Zealand Act as against this proposal. Personally, in view of the tremendous suspicion which has been aroused, and in view of this criticism, I would have preferred to see something added to the clause, to say that the one flag would be flown on public occasions and on public buildings—together with the other flag. The Prime Minister has made a statement, and the trouble seems to be the secession trouble, according to the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls). We are told by the leading S.A. party papers that, so far as the English-speaking people are concerned, they will never trust the Prime Minister again. Personally, I am prepared to trust the Prime Minister, the Minister of Justice and other members of the Cabinet when they have given the public the assurance on more than one occasion that the secession issue is dead. I am prepared to accept it. Hon. members of the Opposition are not; that is a matter of opinion. If it were not for that feeling of suspicion, and that they distrust the Prime Minister, there would not have been the trouble about this particular question and this Bill. That is why they read in this Bill all these dark and terrible suspicions. The hon. member for Ermelo (Col.-Cdt. Collins) made a great point of it that here you have two flags. You have not two national flags, but one. In England there are a huge number of flags which are used on different occasions. They are not national flags; the Union Jack is the national flag. You have the Royal Standard, used by the King when he moves about; you have the Standard of England, the Standard of Scotland, the Standard of Ireland, the Admiralty flag, and Admiral’s flag, the flags of the Vice-admiral, Rear-admiral, Commodore, and White Pennant. They are not national flags. No one will say that England has eleven national flags. We are providing for one national flag, and the other is the symbol of our association with the King and the British Commonwealth of Nations. When hon. members of the Opposition get away from their suspicions, they will thank the Labour party for that improved position—they will bless them instead of throwing stones at them. As the clause was originally drafted, the phrase used was, “the British community of nations,” which is not very well known; “British commonwealth of nations” is a better term, and I prefer that wording in the amendment, to that of the original draft. In every respect we must recognize, even if we were opposed to legislation at all in the absence of an agreement, that, as a matter of justice and fairplay, there has been a considerable improvement, namely, with regard to having the Union Jack and the two vierkleurs—no matter what space they occupy—and by the amendment of the Labour party which has succeeded in getting a considerable improvement, in putting the two flags in a state of absolute equality, leaving the flying of them to administration. In the Colonial Office regulations does it say that the Union Jack is to be flown on all public buildings or on all public occasions? No. It says you have to fly it on Government House. The Union Jack is flown from Parliament House, and I hope it will continue to fly—not because you are compelled to do so, but because it is left to the good sense of the people and the people desire it. When this particular piece of legislation is through, the Union Jack will be as much flown publicly and privately as in the past.

I desire to say a few words on this, because it does seem to me that the essence of this amendment is the only chance we have left to get a satisfactory conclusion to this matter, because the policy of the Government, as indicated, is to force the measure through, and it is impossible for that policy to lead to anything but disaster. I think hon. members opposite must have a very bad case. The hon. member who has just spoken is a very able advocate, and has expended a great deal of time and trouble in trying to prove that hon. members of the Opposition are to blame for the position which has arisen. If he has arrived at the very unconvincing conclusion he has arrived at, it is clear that the fault and the responsibility for this deadlock do not rest with this side of the House. The hon. member is, no doubt, very learned in the law relating to flags. I do not question his law at all. He has given the answer himself. No one in New Zealand would object to the presence on the flag of the Union Jack. The other dominions, where they may not be strictly correct in their legislation have elected to wait. We are driven, as the hon. member has been driven in spite of himself, to the conclusion that the Government would have been wise to wait. When we look at the position which has arisen we are bound to look at the spirit in which the Government measure has been conceived, and the spirit in which the advocacy of it has been conducted. Anyone who has listened to the speeches of the Prime Minister and some of his friends will hardly be at a loss to discover the spirit which was underlying the proposals and the reason why we object to these proposals, and why we cannot look at the matter as we might have looked at it if the conditions had been the same here as in Australia or New Zealand. Only yesterday the Prime Minister referred to the Union Jack in terms which we are bound to look upon as terms of deep opprobrium. He said the existence of the Union Jack as the flag of this country was an insult and an injustice which the country had been suffering under since 1910. It was a stigma and an indignity. One would have thought the Prime Minister would have recognized that nearly half the people in this country are of British origin and descent.

Of all your terms there was only one I used, and that was that it was an injustice.

I think the Prime Minister has forgotten.

He never said the Union Jack was a stigma.

Yes, he said it was a stigma. Let us confine ourselves to the stigma.

I said it was an injustice to the people of South Africa that it should be the national flag.

I do not wish to split hairs about it. No doubt Hansard will one day show. The point of my argument is this, that whether these were the exact words he used or not, and if not there were many people besides myself thought they were, the spirit of the Prime Minister’s reference to the Union Jack constituted an insult to the British section of the community. I think in this matter the Prime Minister is ignorant of the sentiment of the whole British community, and when I say the Prime Minister I don’t say he alone is responsible, but he and the representatives of his Government and his party are guilty of a repeated breach of faith; a breach of faith in regard to the agreement arrived at in 1902, a breach of faith in regard to the agreement for Union arrived at in 1909-1910. Will the Prime Minister or anyone else suggest that if he had used the words he used yesterday at the Convention Union would have come about? He has been guilty of what is perhaps more important than all, a breach of faith towards that numerous section of the people in the country, whether British or Dutch-speaking, who want to see the community in a state of peace and prosperity in this country. It has been said in the course of this debate that the Prime Minister had no mandate to bring forward this Bill.

You have no mandate to oppose it, either.

Well, well, I gave the hon. Minister some credit for some intelligence, and perhaps that is why he is where he is, or is it perhaps due to the dislike of some of his colleagues, or someone else who wished to be in the same place? If the Minister cannot read the signs of the times, cannot see the growing feeling in the country, then he is blind, indeed. I would like to ask the Prime Minister when he went to the Imperial Conference and made excellent speeches about co-operating with the rest of the British empire, and expressed his feelings of amity towards the British nation and the British Government, did he suggest over there that the first thing he was going to do on coming back was to alter the flag of the country in such a way that he would not have the Union Jack on it, because he considered it to be an insult and a stigma? My hon. friend, the member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) showed this morning the proposal was brought forward before the Prime Minister went to the Imperial Conference, and therefore nothing that arose at the Imperial Conference was any justification for bringing this Bill forward this session. I would like to ask the Prime Minister whether, when he was discussing with the representatives of other dominions and of the British Government, questions of status and co-operation and finance and Imperial trade, did he then say that when he got back he would be going on with the Bill he had brought forward?

Will you tell me what they have to do with this Bill.

I do not say the British Government, or any other Government of the dominions has any right to determine our flag.

Then why should I consult them?

But when the Prime Minister talks to the British empire in his public speeches about co-operation and friendship, and makes it conditional on pulling down the Union Jack. [Uproar.]

British statesmen would give a fair deal.

Will you ask your Leader what was told him when he suggested something of the kind in London?

Members of the cross benches and on that side of the House said something about racialism. If hon. members will not make such a noise I will tell them what I think. I defy anyone to say the campaign against the measure has been conducted by this side of the House on racial lines.

You are telling the country we are pulling down the Union Jack.

The Prime Minister said yesterday he was the representative of the Dutch-speaking people in South Africa. Has the Prime Minister not listened to the speeches on this side of the House by members of the Dutch-speaking population of south Africa They are as worthy representatives of the Dutch as is the Prime Minister.

They no more represent the Dutch than you do the British.

The Prime Minister accused my colleagues of being political cowards for not supporting him in this Bill. The charge of political cowardice comes badly from the Prime Minister. It would have been a sign of political bravery on the part of the Prime Minister if, on coming back from the conference where he professed friendship and amity to the empire, he had said I may have my own opinions, but there are a great many other people in South Africa with different opinions, and I know the object of any Government in South Africa is to preserve peace and goodwill between the different sections of the people, and knowing that I will subordinate my personal desires and wishes and I will defer my Flag Bill.”

And support the Unionists?

That would have been political bravery. Considering the campaign of calumny which has been waged by the Government against our Dutch-speaking members on this side of the House, then I say a charge of political cowardice comes badly from the Prime Minister.

I never accused your leader of cowardice. I never used the words.

That is rather a fine distinction. The Government have given us a bad lead in this matter. They brought in a Bill last year and then wisely dropped it. They brought in a Bill this year and when they saw it was going to arouse division they referred the matter to a commission, the constitution of which was nothing but an absurdity. They have laid down conditions which have made any agreement by any sort of committee an impossibility. It does not become hon. members opposite to charge this side of the House with obstinacy. There are certain fundamental things which people feel they must maintain, and it is not mere obstinacy to uphold these things and to ask hon. members opposite —on whom the responsibility for introducing the change lies—to respect those feelings, and if they are not able to agree, to postpone action until there is an opportunity of arriving at an agreement. The Government have decided to cast that policy to the winds. What do they put forward as a solution? They have put into the mouths of one of their innocent victims an amendment which is neither here nor there. They have made no attempt to consult opinion on this side; all they have done is to quote the opinions of those unfortunate people on the cross-benches and to quote them as representatives of the people who were foolish enough to put them into office. We know what the end of that will be. The only possible way out of this difficulty is to accept the amendment of my right hon. friend. That, at any rate, will provide for an impartial consideration of this matter by people whose impartiality cannot be disputed. The Bill will lead to a campaign which is bound to rage from one end of the country to the other, and is bound to have the most disastrous consequences.

After having listened to the very superior speech delivered in a very superior style so characteristic of the hon. member who presumably represents a majority of English-speaking constituents—although it would be interesting to analyze the composition of his constituency—one is not surprised to realize that agreement on this question is absolutely impossible, and that is has been made impossible as a result of the very embittered racial attitude taken up by the South African party. The hon. member for South Peninsula (Sir Drummond Chaplin) has clearly shown that he is still imbued with the colonial complex. I do not know where he obtained it, but when he left the Union to take up an appointment in Rhodesia he was found to be apparently even too narrow in his opinions there, and they decided to appoint someone in his place when his term of office came to an end. It is quite clear, looking at the position to which South Africa has attained, that we are not likely to benefit by the hon. member’s advice. The whole trend of his speech is entirely opposed at any rate to the spirit of the resolution adopted at the recent Imperial Conference. He asked the Prime Minister whether he consulted the other dominion Prime Ministers about little matters which affect the internal affairs of South Africa. The hon. member does this because he does not know what the terms of that conference resolution were, or because he entirely disagrees with the decision arrived at at the conference. That resolution distinctly stated that the position of the self-governing dominions was that they were equal in status to and in no way subordinate one to another; they all owed a common allegiance to the Crown and were freely associated as members of the British commonwealth of nations. The hon. member’s speech shows clearly that he does not accept the status defined by the Imperial Conference. That has been the trouble from the beginning as far as this question is concerned. The South African party does not want South Africa to have a national flag to symbolize its natural status, but to continue not as a dominion but as a colony of the British empire, subordinate in its ideas and outlook and having to consult people overseas about its affairs. I submit without any hesitation that had their attitude been different, had they definitely accepted the status of which the right hon. the member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) used to speak so much, and which has now been defined by the Imperial Conference, as a result largely of the efforts of our Prime Minister, instead of taking up the attitude which they have done, or if, instead of baulking any attempt on the part of the Government to settle this matter, they would have shown some willingness to establish a national flag they would have made an agreement possible. What has been our experience? I, and many others of the Labour party, at the very outset of this controversy took up the attitude that we would have preferred to see this question settled by common agreement, but the attitude taken up by the South African party during the last 12 months has compelled those of us who held that there should be a common agreement, to depart from that attitude, because we realized that a common agreement is no longer possible. In order to obtain a common agreement there must be two parties to it, and the experience of negotiations which have gone on in connection with this question has shown that while the Prime Minister arid the other Ministers—and may I say that the Minister of the Interior, in spite of everything that has been said in the press, has shown his readiness and willingness at all times to listen to reason and to try to secure something which will be acceptable to both sections of the population—the South African party have taken up an attitude which is very reminiscent of the late Lord Milner at the Bloemfontein Conference, when, as the republican governments made concessions, every concession which was made was met by an increase of the demands. That has been the history of these negotiations. We started off with a particular design, and a provision in the Bill dealing with the recognition of South Africa as part and parcel of the commonwealth of nations, and we were told by the South African party that they could not possibly agree to that, as the design of the national flag would not include anything of the Union Jack. They said—

Then they realized all of a sudden that that might be very good propaganda in the towns, but it would not help them in the country districts, and they suddenly came along with an amended proposal and said—

They were thinking, apparently, only of the Transvaal. The Free State was of no concern to them because they could never win a seat in the Free State. When the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow) reminded them that there were two Vierkleurs in South Africa they altered their position and said—

When they did that, the ground of their complaint was this—

When they took up that attitude, the Prime Minister, to show still further the bona fides of the Government in connection with the matter, said—

You would have thought that the South African party would have jumped at the chance, these great imperialists, these great monarchists, would have jumped at the chance of having the crown embodied in the national flag but they would not hear of it. I understand that the right hon. gentleman would not accept the flag, crown or no crown. I do not know whether the crown or the connection with South Africa as part of the monarchy is of really great concern to the South African party, except as something that can be exploited for political purposes. At any rate, they did not accept the position, and then the Prime Minister said—

Of course, he said, and, I think, rightly so, this was not a matter which should be made the subject of controversy, but if the South African party agreed to the inclusion of the Royal Standard, the Government is prepared to include it in the national flag. But again the South African party said no, they would have nothing whatever to do with it, until we came to the last conference, and then the representatives of the flag committee definitely stated that, as far as they are concerned, the last flag, the St. George’s Cross flag, showed at any rate a bona fide intention on the part of the Government to meet the sentiments of the English-speaking people, and they said it was a genuine gesture of friendship upon which it would be possible to come to some agreement.

Who said that?

The representatives of the flag committee signed a document to that effect, Mr. Howard Pim and others. Unfortunately, the representatives of the flag committee, as the South African party are, are in the position to-day of showing the truth of the statement made many years ago by Disraeli, who said that the power of Parliament is fast going away from Parliament, and going to the press. That has been our experience in this controversy. We had a resolution yesterday tabled for the whole day; our friends accepted the position whole-heartedly; not only did they not move an amendment or criticise it, but they voted for it in the form submitted by the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (North) (Mr. Strachan). [Interruption.] … It was unanimous … [Further interruption.] The South African party are equally bound with us in the decision that was taken last night, but they woke up this morning and found that the “Cape Times” was not satisfied, and so they have to-day taken up the attitude of following the lead of the “Cape Times.”

Tell us what that amended clause means.

Having then adopted the position of wanting the Union Jack and the two Vierkleurs, after the suggestion made by the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow), we then started off with negotiations and further discussion, and then we were faced with the amendment moved by the right hon. the member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) in this House. I do not know whether it was because he did not understand the language of his own resolution, although one would never accuse him of that, or whether it was because he wanted a line of retreat, but he put the words “as far as possible” into the amendment submitted by him in this House, and when he was asked by the Minister whether he wanted the Union Jack in its entirety and the Vierkleurs in a mutilated form and he was in the position of saying what he meant by those words, he said—

I believe at the last meeting at the Town Hall, Durban, on this question clamouring for this policy of the South African party, the Vierkleurs were forgotten, but when they came to Johannesburg, where there is a substantial Dutch-speaking population, they came to the conclusion that they must do something further in connection with the matter, and they imported two small Vierkleurs. I do not know whether these were pinned on to the Union Jack, or were put on either side, but, at any rate, they were not part of the Hag which they were showing there, but were simply appendages. That was the amendment that was put, and it was on account of that amendment and on account of the definite answers given by the right hon. the member for Standerton to the Minister of the Interior, that the Minister of the Interior said that here was a basis for agreement and we had our select committee appointed. We found in the select committee that the words “as far as possible” were suddenly withdrawn from the amendment. When the South African party found that on the amendment moved by the right hon. gentleman in this House it was possible to come to an agreement, they withdrew the words “as far as possible” and said—

But when the design which now forms part of the Bill and which includes the Union Jack and the Vierkleurs was submitted to them in committee, we suddenly found ourselves faced with the position that the “integral part” was extended and the word “substantial” was added. Then they found that they could not make a flag of the Union Jack and the two Vierkleurs only and they imported a springbok into their design. May I make a prophecy, or a suggestion, that if the Government came and said—

the South African party would again change its mind and say, “We will not have any flag which does not include the springbok as an integral and substantial part thereof.” That has been their attitude, and in view of that attitude, I submit it is impossible for them, with any political honesty, to talk of any desire of agreement in this matter. Then we had another question, which was arousing certain difficulties. I refer to the clause which has now been amended, which provides for the association of South Africa with the other dominions in the British commonwealth of nations being symbolized by the Union Jack. A considerable number of members of the South African Labour party felt that it was a mistake and wrong to restrict the flying of the Union Jack to four days in the year. As far as the South African party were concerned, we understood that they looked upon that restriction as an insult to the Union Jack. Very well, although we have come to an agreement, and the Government has very generously met us—[laughter]—my hon. friends did not laugh, but they looked very gloomy last night. The laughter this afternoon sounds very much like hollow laughter. We got that amendment. The Government accepted the amendment submitted by the hon. member (Mr. Strachan), and may I say this, as regards that amendment, that there is no question that it is a principle which has been advocated by the Labour party for a considerable time, and one which the Government has very generously and very readily accepted. The position is this, that as the result of that amendment the restriction as far as the four days are concerned has been definitely removed and the position of the Union Jack as a symbol of the connection with the British commonwealth of nations, and the national flag, have been placed in exactly the same wording in the Bill; no distinction is made between the position of the Union Jack and that of the national flag. Now we are faced with another difficulty. The S.A. party tell us they really do not want the Union Jack to fly as a symbol of the association of South Africa with the British commonwealth of nations. They say “Give us the Union Jack in the national flag.” They cannot have it both ways. They cannot one day attack the restriction as far as the four days are concerned, and when that restriction is removed, to shift their ground and say that they do not want the Union Jack separately to symbolize our association with the British commonwealth of nations. They want to know, with the consideration they have for the Labour party and the Nationalist party, what is the position, whether the Nationalist party have let down the Labour party or the Labour party have let down the Nationalist party. I believe they are not really concerned with that but what they are concerned with is the fact that the Pact has let down the S.A. party very badly. They say, “We want something specific; we do not trust the Government.” I say without hesitation and I believe I am speaking for every member of the South African Labour party, we do trust the Government. We say further, that our trust has been amply justified by the readiness and anxiety of the Government to try and meet not only our wishes but the sentiments of English-speaking South Africans. They have shown it by the great work the Prime Minister did at the Imperial Conference and by getting the people of South Africa ready to accept the position of being part and parcel of the British commonwealth of nations; they have shown it by the continued concessions they have made in connection with this Bill, and they have shown that they are out to cement the two white races as opposed to the policy of the South African party, which has shown that right through they are out to divide the two races. The right hon. member told us that the Union Jack in this flag will be something only fit to be put in the museum or the archives. The museum and archives will, I believe, eventually be occupied not by the Union Jack, but by the remnants of the fast dying South African party, and the Union Jack will continue to fly in South Africa in spite of the South African party.

I listened with surprise to the speech of the hon. member for South Peninsula (Sir Drummond Chaplin). Of course the cat was let out of the bag by him the other night on the second reading and also by the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls).

After your mouse, I suppose.

These two hon. members are imbued with a suspicion as to our statement re secession and as to the general attitude of the Government in regard to anything touching the relationship between the English and Dutch communities of South Africa. That is the value of the hon. member’s criticism in such circumstances. One of his chief grievances this afternoon was that the Prime Minister had not thought fit to drag a purely domestic squabble of the Union into the counsels of the Imperial Conference. What utter absurdity! I think we can pass such criticisms and leave them to themselves. The hon. member for Zululand attempted to give us an attempt at reasoning but he miserably failed. His argument was “put something into the national flag so as to show our connection with the British commonwealth of nations.” Doesn’t he see that it follows as the night the day that if we were to do that then it is the duty of the United Kingdom to put something into their flag to indicate their relationship with the rest of the commonwealth of nations and we could call equally upon every other sister nation in the British community of nations to do so. They have not shown any sign of doing so. I do not want to impute unwillingness but why should we be singled out to do it? The policy of the other side has been one of quibbling and evasion and shuffling and wriggling, a policy to which the talents of their right hon. leader are so extremely well adapted. What is the design they have put forward? The design they put forward immediately stamped their effort with the desire to make the Union Jack predominant. That is the only design they put forward and they have given the position of predominance to the Union Jack in that design. Every time they have run away. It has been wriggling from A to Z. We have also run away but only to come back with a bigger olive branch. I challenge hon. members opposite to produce a design in which they do not claim a predominant position for the Union Jack. Let us put them to the test. Let them produce a design. Will they say now that in principle they will not insist upon a predominant position for the Union Jack in any design? Will they say that? Of course they cannot answer and if they did answer “yes” then I want to know why in the only design they put forward they gave a predominant position to the Union Jack. These arguments on the other side have been a hollow sham, the hollow sham of wanting the republican flags and the Union Jack when at the same time they condemn us to-day for our secession policy and condemn the republicans because they had at one time the ideal of republicanism in South Africa. What did the republican flags stand for but republicanism? Then they talk about the Union Jack being “coffined.” The right hon. member repeated that they wanted only one flag. Of course, they want only one flag and that is to maintain their old position, to retain their stock-in-trade of predominance and the ability to abuse and misuse the Union Jack in every election. What has become of the words “as far as possible” in the right hon. member’s amendment? He has run away from that. What has become of his declaration in the past that he wanted a clean South African flag? To-day he is not straightforward enough to admit that when speaking at that time he meant a flag without the Union Jack, and we had yesterday the evidence of a formal and unanimous resolution passed by the Transvaal Provincial Council clearly showing that the intention was the flag should be one without the Union Jack in it. It was in 1920, quite recent, and quite old enough. At Paarl in 1919 when the congress took place there and there was a deputation from the South African party to the Nationalists it was clearly understood and it was acquiesced in by them on behalf of the South African party that the national flag for the Union should be a clean flag without the Union Jack in it. This is what I call wriggling and shuffling and a lack of candour especially on the part of the right hon. member (Gen. Smuts). Look at the expressions used by him in that famous memorandum in connection with the Imperial Conference of 1921. What sort of flag did he visualize then? Can anyone believe for a moment that he visualized anything but an exclusive South African flag in which the Union Jack would not be embodied? We come to the Bill. What is the effect of the superseding clause? It is to take away the limitation previously existing of four days and such other occasions as the Governor-General might specially appoint. Now on general principle the flying of the national flag and the Union Jack should be left to the administrative action of the Government of the day. It is for the executive authority to direct when and where the Union Jack shall fly. Is there a member opposite that would have the audacity—of course they are very presumptuous—to say it is the intention of this Government never to allow the Union Jack to fly to symbolize the relation with the rest of the sisterhood of nations? Or do you prefer to have it limited to four days?

Tell us when you will let it fly.

That is for the administrative discretion and action of the Government. You might just as well ask the Government with regard to the power given them in any Bill what their administrative action is going to be.

Did not your Prime Minister repeatedly call it a foreign flag?

I will come to that presently. That is the only sound course to adopt to leave it to the administrative discretion of the Government of the day. That appears to be the law in New Zealand, the only instance of legislation that has been quoted here. Now I come to the position in England and that is why I premised what I had to say by referring to the rather singular observations of the hon. member for Zululand. What is the position in England? In a book called the “Government of England” by A. Lawrence Lowell, I find in the 1921 edition—

That is what you want, but that is no reason why each colony should follow it and why each colony, and all the more why each self-governing dominion, should undertake to have the Union Jack as part and parcel of the national flag, when in England the position is dubious whether the Union Jack is the national flag. In this book it goes on to state—

I think that reasoning is sound. The crown is thus the only visible symbol of the empire.

Who is the writer?

A. Lawrence Lowell, a well-known writer. Now we have run away only to come back with a better peace offering, and I do not think we need be ashamed. We have been inconsistent, but it shows all the more, and it will show and convince the country, that we have adopted everything possible to bring about a peaceful understanding. We have adopted every course possible, and we have gone out of our way, in addition to putting the Union Jack in the national flag, to having an extra symbol to indicate our relationship to the other sister states of the community of British nations. Now hon. members opposite can only prove their bona fides by indicating and saying here in an unambiguous way whether they insist upon a Union Jack which will dominate in South Africa as it has done in the past. If you propose a design in which you give the place of honour to the Union Jack, it is only proof of the spirit the hon. member for South Peninsula (Sir Drummond Chaplin), the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) and many other hon. members are imbued with, and the Dutch people of South Africa, and, thank goodness, many of our fellow English-speaking citizens, are not going to continue that state of affairs any longer. We want the equality which has been established and of which so much has been spoken, and not least of all by the right hon. the leader of the opposition—we want that equality to be a practical thing.

You have got it.

We have not got it. What is the main plea of hon. members? They want to maintain the status quo, and what is the status quo? The status of the monopoly of the Union Jack up to now. They want that monopoly of utilizing and abusing that Union Jack for their miserable party purposes.

We have now had three Ministerial explanations of what this new clause means. We have also had an explanation from the Independent Constitutional Democrat party, and one from an hon. member of the Labour party. Unfortunately for me, I have not yet had the privilege of hearing the explanation of the reputed father of this particular clause, the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (North) (Mr. Strachan). The Minister of Mines and Industries, in the course of his very bitter speech, made use in the first place of the stock-in-trade of the majority of hon. members on the other side—personal insult and abuse, showing personal hatred of the right hon. leader of our party. The country has long learnt to discount this, because it has learnt the true value of the venom with which these criticisms are uttered. As to his charge of our insisting on English dominance— well, after all the arguments we have had from his side—from responsible English and Dutch speakers—

Why do you not come forward with a proposal?

I hope the Prime Minister will allow me to put my argument in my own way. From our point of view it is beginning to be clear that it is absolute futile and a waste of time to go on answering that charge of the Minister. We have shown by our consistent conduct in the country ever since this controversy began that we do not require dominance of one flag over the other. We stand by our gallant Dutch friends and want equal rights for the three flags. To charge us with being racialists in the face of the speeches by the great Dutch and English representatives in this House, backed up as we know is the case by large numbers of the people in the country, is abusive, and perfectly and hopelessly ridiculous.

The referendum will show it, and we will wait and see what the referendum will show. I advise the hon. member not to make too great a bet on the referendum.

Will you accept it?

The Minister for Mines made reference to what was said in 1919 and 1920. If there was one chapter I thought the Minister would have been glad to close it is that involved in the years 1919 and 1920, when he, above all others, was the one big stumbling block in the way of what he professed to desire—the re-union of the people on a basis acceptable to both sides as fair and honourable. For him to make those charges against the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts), and refer to the incidents in 1919-’20 in support of that—

Are you really serious on that?

Of course. Now after listening to the Minister of Mines and Industries one is almost inclined to believe that the Union Jack does not exist. He has quoted from a book written by someone I have never heard of before. I must acknowledge and express my regret for my ignorance.

It is an American professor.

Really. So the Minister of Mines and Industries, with that delightful sense of humour of his, quotes on the Union Jack this American professor who is unknown. It really beats me.

Often the onlooker is the better judge.

That is why I am so glad to be an onlooker. From this authority first he quoted the case in Panama, and then proceeded to quote a proposition alleging what the Prime Minister and others strenuously deny—that we have a flag of our own

Why should he not quote from an American?

I do not propose to be diverted from my argument by questions of the Prime Minister. That writer says the Union Jack is not the flag of England. But, as a matter of fact, in the same authority, the Minister finds the statement that we have a flag of our own, with the Union Jack in the corner. What is the mentality of the Minister like, when he can use these contradictory arguments, and use references in an authority which are wholly and entirely contradictory?

Are you really serious with regard to that?

Now, I come to the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge), who I regret is not in his place. He makes a long speech and then goes outside. He began his speech in a remarkably offensive way by referring to the hon. member for South Peninsula (Sir Drummond Chaplin) as a superior person making a superior speech in a very superior way. After listening to the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) I don’t think anybody would make that accusation against him, either as being a superior person or making a superior speech. A more hopeless attempt to solve the problem I have never heard. After making some unjust references to Lord Milner, and after referring to what he called our colonial complex, thus raising that easy cheer which some people are so proud to evoke, no matter at what cost to their self-respect, he dealt with this particular amendment of the hon. member for Maritzburg (North) (Mr. Strachan). He said that to restrict the flying of the Union Jack to four days was felt by many of his party to be an insult, and that the Government has generously met them by agreeing to a principle which they had advocated for a long time. The right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) has very rightly insisted on endeavouring to obtain some explanation from the Ministry as to the meaning they attach to the amendment of the hon. member for Maritzburg (North), for it is industriously put round by the Nationalists on the one hand that it means that the flying of the Union Jack is merely an administrative act, at the discretion of the Minister, and on the other hand that it means that the Union Jack must fly every time when the official flag of the Union flies. I was very glad, indeed, that the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) put that definite question to-day. The faces of the members of the Labour party were a perfect picture when they began to grapple with the explanation given by three different Ministers, because they know that that was not the understanding given to the various people who follow the Labour party. I go from the hon. member for Troyeville to-day to the hon. member for Troyeville on a previous occasion, and the record I take from a source which the Prime Minister will not deny. It is “Die Burger”

You need not take the meaning of “Die Burger” as being my opinion.

Yet they throw the newspapers at me!

Do you want me to tell “Die Burger” not to be so naughty?

This is very interesting. How consistent they are. Yesterday the Prime Minister said that the right hon. member for Standerton could have stopped the “Cape Times’” attitude with a word. To-day the Ministers are accusing him of speaking at the direction of the “Cape Times.” So they always throw mud at him. It does not matter how inconsistent they may be, but they throw mud in the hope that some of it will stick. But now the Prime Minister disclaims responsibility for the views of “Die Burger,” which is putting the Government in a horrible position. For, referring to the amendment of the hon. member for Maritzburg (North), accepted as it is by the Government, it says, in effect, “What the dickens does it all mean?” “Die Burger” refers to a previous resolution of the Labour party and its own previous interpretation thereof. That resolution it points out was precisely on the same lines as the amendment. It points out that the hon. member for Troyeville proceeded thereupon the repudiate the interpretation which “Die Burger” had put on it. This is what “Die Burger” quotes as having been said by the hon. member for Troyeville in repudiation on this previous occasion. [Translation.]—

Where are the consistency and generosity, and where is the hon. gentleman himself, and where will he be when his constituents come to know that they have the felicity to be represented by a man who can blow hot and cold on this question. For a man of his birth, coming from where he does—

What is that to you?

He came from a land of tyranny to a land of freedom under the Union Jack.

Why don’t you say he is a Jew?

I did not touch or intend to touch upon whether a man is a Jew, but he came as a Russian from Russia. There are a large number of my friends both inside and outside the House—people whom I am proud to call friends—who are Jews, and they are proud of obtaining freedom under the Union Jack, and they show their gratitude in a proper way, but I have no respect for a man who comes here and tries to lecture a man like the hon. member for Peninsula (South) who, by birth and upbringing, has the right to express the deepest sentiments for the flag under which he was born. The hon. gentleman has now run away entirely from the position he took up before. I regret to see the wobbling attitude taken up by the hon. member for Hanover St. (Mr. Alexander). He has lectured us as if we had no sentiment or genuine sincere patriotism on this matter. Does he mean to suggest that members on that side are the only ones with honest feelings of patriotism and deep regard for their flag? Does he really mean to suggest that the monopoly of patriotism is on that side?

I did not say anything of the sort.

That is what you suggested in a whirlwind of words which attacked us and praised everything said by the other side. I ask him and the hon. member for Maritzburg (North), would they have dared to put this amendment forward if it had been couched in a way in which the Ministers have interpreted it—that the Union Jack shall be flown as and when the Administration thinks fit? The hon. member for Hanover Street talked about “spoofing.”

I did not talk about “spoofing.” The right hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) used the word “spoofing.”

The country will see what sincerity inspires all these twistings and turnings and changes. We have here a novel use of the Union Jack as a symbol. We have heard the hon. member for Hanover Street quote the New Zealand Act. My reply to that is that if this Government were to adopt the precedent set up by New Zealand the English-speaking section of the Union would accept it wholeheartedly, insisting also that recognition be paid to the history of the other two provinces by having the Vierkleur on the flag. If we adopted what New Zealand has done it would go a long way towards supplying a solution.

You want domination.

Does the hon. gentleman really believe that English-speaking people in this country are desirous of predominance in the flag?

Absolutely.

I know that everyone of the hon. members on the cross benches is aware that that is an absolutely false charge against the English-speaking people; it is a baseless charge, and is only used for party purposes. They are attacking men of their own blood, and they are making these charges for party purposes. The Minister of Mines says, we have run away several times, to come back each time with a bigger olive branch.” This olive branch—what is it? I ask the House to look at the Bill of 1926, as first introduced, and, in view of the explanation of the Prime Minister to-day, to see in what respect does this Bill differ in principle from the first Bill. In 1926 the Bill in Clause 5 said that “the Minister may, by notice in the ‘Gazette,’ prescribe the times when, the places at, the circumstances in which the national flag shall be flown.” Then Clause 6 provided that “on any official occasions which is intended specifically to represent the relation of the Union to the British community of Nations the Union Jack shall be officially displayed in conjunction with the national flag of the Union.” We are told by a gentleman (the hon. member for Troyeville) that this amendment makes a great concession. How could anyone have the effrontery to say it is a concession at all! We have got further back than the Bill of 1926. For that bit of bread we have received a stone in the shape of a symbol. There is now no need whatever for the Minister to fly the Union Jack on any one day of the year. We are told the Bill will have to be dealt with administratively, and they tell us if they do not fly the Union Jack sufficiently they would get their punishment at the next general election. But one of the chief points raised in favour of forcing the flag on now was that they wished to deal with the matter now to avoid the flag being used at a general election. Yet they themselves lay down a principle which will lead to more battles over the flag at election time than any other clause they could invent. The right hon. member for Standerton said that two interpretations were possible. I suggest there is possibly a third interpretation, and that is when you say the association of the Union with the other parts of the group of nations shall be symbolized by the Union Jack it will be competent for the Minister to say, “Oh, yes, it is so symbolized by the Union Jack on the shield of the national flag.” That is going to be a very easy argument indeed for the Minister who wants to go in for fine dialectic discussions such as we have often heard form the Ministerial benches. It seems to me in these grievous times there is only one chance left for arriving at a possible solution, and that is delay. Even if it means putting it off for a long time, is it not worth waiting for years in the hope of arriving at a solution in the end rather than bring about a state of affairs now which in the excited, irritated, inflamed state of public opinion is most probably going to bring the utmost disaster to the community? We have a flag placed before us said to be intended to be a flag of unity. But I cannot see anything more destructive of true unity than to have a flag forced on the people which does not represent them, and which they have had no part in the creation of. I ask the Prime Minister at this last hour of all to remember what a great responsibility rests on him; and I ask him to remember if trouble comes that each of us in our big or small capacity will certainly have to dread as to whom may be given the answer, “Thou art the man.”

The hon. member has attacked a member of this party on the ground of birth. Might I remind the hon. gentleman that any individual who attacks any man on account of his birth or boasts on account of his own birth is attacking him or boasting for something for which they are not responsible.

I think you might be fair.

The hon. member throws out his chest, and speaks about being a free-born Britisher. In doing that he is doing something he is not responsible for. It is purely an accident he is a free-born Britisher. He might have been born in China or elsewhere. This boasting of one’s birth, and sneering at another man about his birth ill becomes any man.

You might be fair.

It is only because he is an hon. member of the Labour party that his birth comes into question. If he had belonged to the South African party, it would not matter if he was a descendant of Mussolini. He would be everything that is right, but if he belongs to the Labour party, no evil is sufficient to throw against him. When you hear the hon. member for East London (City) (the Rev. Mr. Rider) standing up and talking about patriotism, it reminds one of some lines of Rudyard Kipling, slightly altered—

That is typical of many other men who shout of patriotism. Patriotism is one of the noblest sentiments that can actuate humanity, but it does not mean hating every other people, and it does not mean that you must always be shouting and covering yourselves with Union Jacks, and paying your shillings to send somebody else to fight. Many members are fond of boasting of patriotism who never lifted a finger for King or country, but sent somebody else, and when the war was over, allowed them to roam the streets. When England and Scotland entered into Union, they still retained the English flag and the Scottish flag, that is, the Cross of St. George and the Cross of St. Andrew as their domestic flag. When Ireland was brought into Union in 1801, and we do not want to inquire too closely about the method adopted to get them into Union, none of their domestic flags had the Union Jack inserted in the corner. Englishmen, Scotch men and Irishmen had their own domestic flag without the Union Jack, and that is all we ask. Why are we not entitled to a domestic flag in the same way, without the Union Jack in the top left-hand corner. I ask the Opposition a straight question. Where do they want that Union Jack? Do they want it in the top left-hand corner in a dominant position? That is a straight question, and is entitled to a straight answer.

Where does Australia have the Union Jack?

This House has nothing to do with Australia, and what has Australia got to do with this House? The Opposition are shouting for the insertion of the Union Jack, and I ask them to tell the country where they want it. They say they recognize that South Africa is an equal partner in the British commonwealth of nations. If we are equal partners in theory, let us be equal partners in practice. If hon. members do not believe that we are equal partners, but are in an inferior position and that the mother country dominates South Africa, let them say so. If we are equal partners, then I ask hon. members opposite, in regard to this proposed new flag of theirs, which the right hon. gentleman (Gen. Smuts) has been careful to say is not their flag, but was simply put before the select committee for their consideration, where they are going to put the Union Jack and the Vierkleurs in order that everyone shall have equality on our national flag. Is it possible to put the Transvaal Vierkleur in the top left-hand corner and the Union Jack underneath? Will that satisfy the English-speaking section in South Africa They will immediately say it is an insult to the British-speaking population, and yet, in the same breath, they will turn round to our Dutch-speaking fellow-citizens and say: “We demand the Union Jack in the left-hand corner of the flag.” How can an agreement on terms of equality be reached, unless you agree to a flag similar to the one now before the House with the various old flags embodied in a shield? Can hon. members tell us where they can put those old flags and still maintain equality and not place one particular section in South Africa in a position of dominance over the other section. Coming to the amended clause proposed by the hon. member for Maritzburg (North) (Mr. Strachan), previous to the insertion of that, what was the cry of the South African party? Although they knew that the Bill had provided that the Union Jack must be flown on a certain number of occasions during the year, hon. members on that side repeatedly said in this House and outside that the Bill deliberately prevented the Union Jack from being flown on any other days than those specified during the year. They led the public to believe that the Bill restricted the flying of the Union Jack by private citizens in South Africa. They led the public to believe, for miserable party purposes, that everyone who wished to fly the Union Jack on any other than those four days would have to get permission from the authorities. Now that that clause has been removed, they say they must have a clause requiring that the Union Jack must be flown in South Africa. The Bill specifies that the Union Jack should be flown on certain specified occasions, and if the Government desired they could fly it on every day in the year, and so far as the public were concerned, they could fly it on every day in the year. Having used that old clause, as far as they could, for political party purposes, they now come and say—

I agree with the Prime Minister and others who have stated that it is absolutely impossible to get an agreement with the members of the South African party. I believe it would be possible to reach an agreement with the English-speaking section of South Africa were it not for party politics. If hon. members opposite, who have so much to say about political courage, instead of taunting members of the Labour party as they have done and saying that they have forfeited the confidence of the country and that they will be swept out of existence at the next general election, if hon. members opposite has as much political courage and were prepared to sacrifice their seats in the interests of a greater South Africa, they would come to an agreement on this question and support the Government.

We have done our best.

If the hon. member has done his best, then I say it is the poorest best that I have ever seen. In spite of the gloomy prophecies of the hon. member for Pretoria (West) (Mr. Hay), the Labour party are still undismayed, still prepared to support the Government even if they may lose all their seats, proving, at least, conclusively that on this question they are prepared to sacrifice their seats even in doing what they believe to be for the best good of South Africa and, although we may suffer to-day, the time will come in South Africa, when our children have joined hands, when the influence of the old flag-wagging jingo is no longer felt in South Africa, when we have a true South African spirit, when we hear a little more of South Africans and less of British or Dutch citizens, as the case may be—when that time comes, and it is realized that the Labour party took part in this great effort to bring about unity between the two nationalities in South Africa and were the true friend sof South Africa, I say that the Labour party will score. If they lose to-day, they will score to-morrow The Labour party have been taunted that there is not one South African-born man amongst them, with the exception of the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) and my late colleague (Mr. Hay). They have been taunted that they are uitlanders, but I claim that in this controversy the Labour party have proved conclusively that, if they have not been born and bred in South Africa, they have, at least, lived long enough in this country to adopt a South African outlook.

The hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Waterston) is an example to us of selfsacrifice; his seat, as he knows, being quite safe, but my heart sinks when I think of the number of my old colleagues who will not come back to Parliament. One great “patriot” in America when asked to make a sacrifice for the war, said: “Yes, everybody must make some sacrifice; I will give my mother-in-law.”

That is why you are giving yours.

I would like to see what some of them will do if that sacrifice touches their own safety! Let me ask the Minister of Mines what he considers should occupy the predominant place in the flag, because that detail has been largely dwelt upon by him and by others. Why should there be any question of that? I ask the Minister why should the predominant place in the flag be given to the stripe of orange, and why should the Union Jack be placed beneath that stripe of orange? By what right does the orange-coloured stripe take the place of honour? Certainly I think we could make a better case out for the Union Jack having the place of honour in our South African national flag. I see no heraldic reason, no historic reason, no reason by association why the Union Jack should be placed under the orange stripe. I ask my hon. friends to remember that the Union Jack has been for 120 years the flag of the Cape, and has flown for 80 years as the flag of Natal; and when the question is raised as to equal rights we have those two older portions of the country which, I think, can claim a right to say the Union Jack should have the place of honour in our common flag. Lest we forget, let me ask the hon. gentlemen who are opposed to its being placed there, and are opposed to what they call the dominance of the Union Jack and I specially ask the Minister to answer honestly from his heart and inner consciousness—if it had not been for that flag, and all it means and all it stands for whether the flag flying to-day over South Africa would not be the German flag?

That is an old story.

Yes, you may sneer, yet, but for that flag and all it represents, you would now be under German dominance and under a German flag. I know there are those, perhaps, even here, who would not have objected to that; they were in perfect sympathy with those who made alliance with our German foes. But for what the Union Jack stands for, the German flag would be over this country to-day. If the German flag had been flying over our land to-day would these hon. gentlemen be allowed to choose their own flag? They would know what the Prussian jackboot was, in place of the freedom which we enjoy in the British commonwealth of nations. From the British commonwealth we get the freedom which we would not enjoy if the German flag had replaced the Union Jack less than 10 years ago. I was rather interested in the Minister of Justice coming to the assistance of the hon. member for Maritzburg (North) (Mr. Strachan) in an interpretation of what that accepted amendment really means. I had vainly tried to get some explanation from the mover, and I, therefore, listened interestedly while the Minister was explaining; but, after listening very intently, I concluded it would take some days of thinking to understand what that explanation really means! The Minister was rather clever in his interpretation of the amendment of which he probably knew the parentage and origin. The hon. member for Maritzburg (North), when introducing his amendment, gave it with a touch of the humour which characterizes him, saying one great reason for it was so that all might resume the pursuit of profit. It seemed a rather strange excuse for putting the Union Jack in what many of us consider a secondary place. It is not eliminated. It is not excluded—certainly not—and there is no extinction of it. All very kind indeed! No, it is merely to be presented as a gift to our commonwealth of nations by the hon. member for Maritzburg (North). I think the commonwealth is able to determine for itself what its own representative emblem should be. What we are told by the hon. member to do with the Union Jack is to fold it up, put it away, and forget it. I am perfectly certain that that is just one of the things this country will not consent to do. The Minister of Justice went so far as to say that the Union Jack does not fly officially every day. He has failed to notice that it floats every day over his office at the Palace of Justice, and when he goes to see his colleagues in the Union Buildings every day he sees that “insult,” displayed at Pretoria. He is far cleverer than the hon. member for Winburg (Dr. van der Merwe) for he evidently looks at the bottom of the flagstaff and not the top, and “what the eye does not see the heart does not grieve over.” He goes in and out of his office, and never sees that flag. I would recommend that sensible plan to my republican friends. It would save their feelings. We see our freedom and their freedom in that flag; and ask why should it be folded up? The question is put to us: Why should there be suspicions? Well, look at the “Wynberg warnings” of the Minister of Justice. He there said that if bitter feelings continue in the towns then secession would not be a thing of the past, but be resuscitated. We all stood for the unity of the country. While once more, although the Prime Minister has stated that secession is dead, and the Minister of the Interior has said that republicanism is dead, a whisper came, and justifies us at this stage in asking what there is behind this flag removal; and for the suspicion that there still exists a feeling that we shall get rid of it. That justifies those of us born in South Africa, and see what goes on around us, in saying that there is no necessity for this particular action. There is no clamour, and no mandate from the country, but with the advantage of a majority given by the party which claims to have no reverence for the Union Jack, with two or three exceptions, the Pact Government says: “We seize the opportunity of placing your emblem in an inferior position on the Union official flag. We have now the power to do it, and whilst we have, we shall do it.” I remind Nationalists once more of their own history, and the history of this country—what this land has suffered from by short-sighted policies. I ask them to take the long sight. They are sowing seeds which must end in a harvest we all dread so much—that of continual racial distrust. The hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow) referred to me as a man of unbalanced mind—he is a judge of balance. In this, as in some other things, he has to pull us out; in fact, part of his mission in life in is to help us out of trouble. He joined with the Minister of Justice at Wynberg, but not in doing anything to help us out of trouble. He stirred up the idea that unless a flag concession is made, which he thinks should be made, the whole country will be in one turmoil of revolt. Does he think the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Waterston) is once more going to raise the flag of revolution and proclaim a new republic at Pretoria? I am perfectly certain my hon. friend can be trusted now to be as peacefully law-abiding as anyone else. I regret that the threats used by the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) should be used as an argument in a matter of this kind. He reminds me of a man who tried to win the Royal Humane Society’s medal for saving life, by pushing his lady friend into the river—first, to get us into trouble, and then show us the way out—and this hybrid flag is supposed to be “the way out”! The great sacrifices already made for unity of the country will be all in vain if we again start racial fires which we hoped had for ever burned down.

In the very few remarks I wish to make in this matter, I hope that the accusations which have been made with regard to having an eye on the electorate will not be made in my case, because it is a matter of indifference to me. I hope that the acrimoniousness displayed in the debate will not be a reflex of what will happen in the country if this Bill is proceeded with.

Only on your side.

No, there is acrimoniousness on both sides, and from the nature of the matter, is bound to lead to both acrimony and bitterness. I feel sorry to think that this matter of the flag is not settled on a basis of harmony and co-operation, but that it is going to lead to dissension right throughout the whole country. We have heard it to-day already here. The Prime Minister made an unmerited attack on the hon. member for Ermelo (Col.-Cdt. Collins) that was bitter, venomous and malignant, and said that if the hon. member in his utterances represented a section of the Dutch people, he (the Prime Minister) would rather not claim to represent them. I have never heard a more unfair accusation. The hon. member put forward his case in moderate and temperate language, and no exception can be taken to what he said. It was left to the Prime Minister to try and put another construction upon what the hon. member said, a construction which could not possibly be put upon it by any fair-minded person. The Prime Minister also accused the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) of being anti-Dutch. I know the hon. member most intimately. That hon. member has laid bare to me the innermost recesses of his soul, and I know his mental attitude in regard to the Dutch.

He does not often show it, then.

There is suspicion again. In other words, what the Prime Minister wants to convey is that the hon. member is a bitter racialist, but cleverly conceals it.

He does not even cleverly conceal it.

I know the esteem the hon. member for Zululand has for his Dutch fellow-subjects, and the very strenuous efforts he has made to master their language.

Why is he so suspicious?

I suppose we all harbour suspicion sometimes. The hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Waterston) has one idea, and his main theme is where is the Union Jack to be put on the new national flag? He has the idea that we claim that it should have the dominant position. But I have never heard it claimed by any section of British people that they should get a dominant position on the flag.

Why, I could give you a telegram I have just received today.

That is not the last word.

One telegram means nothing.

Oh!

We ask for fair representation.

Is it not remarkable that your only design gives a dominant position to the Union Jack?

That was merely a suggestion as to how we thought the three flags could be incorporated, and if that design can be improved on, let it be done. Why not have the flags side by side? Personally I think that what would very fairly represent the feelings, sentiments and traditions of the people would be to have the Union Jack occupying a place in the centre, with the Vierkleurs on either side joined by links, showing that the people are linked together by indissoluble ties. I speak with great feeling on this matter, and I deplore that no arrangement has been arrived at. It is no use, however, indulging in recriminations, and I ask hon. members opposite as representatives of the people, to ponder seriously as to the ultimate result of pressing forward with this measure. For some months, business will be stagnant, and people overseas who want to invest money here will be deterred from doing so. They will say there is so much dissension and if South Africans quarrel about a thing which should be sacred and be agreed upon and are so small and petty then the Union is not the country for their investments. I feel certain that incidents will occur which all of us will deplore. That unhappy prospect stares us in the face. Is it worth while to proceed with this Bill with that possibility, nay, certainty Before us? I again appeal to the Government to pause. There is no great urgency. Let us take more time. Let us have another commission, for, after all, what is a delay of a year or two in this great matter? There is no danger in postponement. The Prime Minister cannot make me believe that there is an urgent clamour on his side for a flag immediately. In my constituency there are large numbers of Dutch and English people, and at no time have the Dutch ever said an injustice was being done to them, and that they must have a national flag. Of course, if you commence telling people that they have a grievance, they will at once nurse it.

The people know better. They have a grievance.

I am more closely in touch with the people than the hon. member is.

Namaqualand knows much more about grievances than you do.

You probably nurse grievances, but I don’t. I hope I have not a temperament of that character. Let us have patience and the matter will eventually be settled amicably. Otherwise there will be strife, unrest, turmoil and financial stagnation.

I purposely refrained from the very beginning from taking part in the debate. I feel that in participating at such a critical time one really wants to contribute something useful towards a settlement. Very much has been said to convey impressions—I do not say purposely or wilfully—which cannot be substantiated, and so I feel I must bring out one particular point. That is in regard to the attitude taken up by a number of hon. members opposite as to the position the Union Jack should have in the national flag. It has been put to them very definitely, particularly by the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Waterston), as to what position in the flag they actually want and so far he is just as wise as he was before. Until we receive a definite reply we must accept it that they think in the spirit of the members of the Empire Group.

I do not wish to imply that they receive their orders from that organization. There is no reason why they should hide the position of where they want the Union Jack in the flag, and until they tell the country definitely the position they do want we must accept it that they want a dominant position in the Union of South Africa. I think we must accept the statement of the leader of the Opposition that that particular Empire Group has been repudiated by the party opposite. Nobody else has made that statement. I want to read a telegram to the House in which there is a demand to this House and to the Prime Minister—

I suppose we must anticipate, then, there is a disloyal section of the British in this country—

Are you prepared to repudiate that?

We don’t take any notice of it.

There will be plenty of opportunity for the hon. members to repudiate it. Until we have a definite statement that this is not so we must accept the position claimed as one of domination. If the position is that they want peace in the country based on equality they cannot insist on the position of the Union Jack in the flag, which means domination and nothing else.

[Interruptions.] I am gratified at the ovation which hon. members opposite have given me. I am glad also to see the hon. member for Maritzburg (North) (Mr. Strachan) in his place, because I have a word to say to him. The hon. member came into the House last night beaming with his usual parlour manner to address us on the question of his important amendment to this Bill. He very carefully, under cover of a great deal of abuse of a number of private individuals in Natal who, as far as this country is concerned, stand higher in the esteem of the public than the hon. member himself, delivered himself of this wonderful amendment of which he did not give one single word of explanation. He left that to his political step-fathers, the Ministers who have delighted us to-day with laboured explanations of what this clause means. The position is that the Labour party have found the pea under the wrong thimble. The hon. member’s countenance, which last night radiated with smiles and cosmetics, is to-day pale and wan in the realization of what he has done. He finds himself now in the same white ant run which he occupied when he introduced his famous Public Holidays Bill to do away with the empire holiday occasions, which were craftily dangled before the public in the clauses which he has now completely obliterated. His amusement supersedes a clause which aimed at the flying of the Union Jack on certain public holidays which indicated our connection with the empire.

Do you want it back again?

I do not propose to devote any attention to the hon. member for Namaqualand. I have more important things to attend to. The hon. member for Maritzburg introduced his Public Holidays Bill, and as I suspected, he was not altogether acting without the concurrence or approval of a certain strong clique of people outside this House. I said on that occasion, “I venture to say the Labour party to-day is financially and every other way in the hands of a small Bolshevik element. They are to-day owned and ordered by Mr. Weinstock.” I shall prove that my statement was well founded. I do not doubt the hon. member for Maritzburg (North) knew what he was about when he moved the amendment to do away with the occasions on which the Union Jack can be flown. He introduced an amendment which has gone further in the direction of whiteanting the Union Jack than he has ever attempted before and he has done it blindly at the bidding of the Nationalist party, who are to-day laughing up their sleeves at him.

made an interjection.

The hon. member who promised to kiss Mr. Schlesinger’s hand had better continue that occupation instead of interrupting me.

Whose hands are you going to kiss?

The Labour party are in a very peculiar position. Their prominent spokesmen in this House have been the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentride) the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow) and the hon. member for Springs (Mr. Allen) and I propose to deal very briefly with the position of these gentlemen as authorities and spokesmen representative of the Labour party. The hon. member for Springs admitted that he was a Sinn Fein Irishman and proud of it. He did not admit that he was a communist (as he is), and not proud of it. We do not, as a rule seek for inspiration in regard to Imperial sentiment from either of those two quarters. In his speech he reproached us on this side as being of those who could not rise above parochial loyalty and see with a “vision truly imperial.” That is the gentleman who attended a communist congress as a delegate in Johannesburg in 1923, and he, as far as I am aware, to-day is still of that persuasion. We do not, as a rule, expect the communist to be burning with fervour for the imperial connection or to be able to teach us about a vision which is “truly imperial.” When speaking on the Flag Bill he was unable to forbear from expressing his real feelings. He said—

At a later stage he said—

Then we have the hon. member for Troyville who, doubtless, would teach us a great deal about “the vision truly imperial,” too, if we could understand him fully—but we prefer to believe that his particular brand of that vision, coming from Vilna in Russia is not quite the sort of brand we approve of or can stomach. The hon. member for Troyeville—and I say this in order that it may be deliberately recorded in the proceedings of this House—is a man who was born in Russia and who comes to this country prepared to teach us why we should give up the symbol which belonged to this country, which has earned a place in this land and which has established orderly government here long before he was born. I now come to the hon. member for Bloemfontein North). He is an office-bearer in the Sons of England, and the other evening, when he was imparting to the public of Wynberg the secret of what the new flag was to be, a gentlemen who knew the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North), ventured to ask him whether he was not aware that when he became a member of the order of Sons of England he took on oath to uphold the honour and integrity of the Union Jack. That man was sorry he spoke, because the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) endeavoured to smother him, as he says in a letter to the press, with upwards of a thousand words of abuse, trying to indicate that this man had made money during the war and that he had done other things which were not creditable to him, including his having sought assistance from the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North). The letter challenged the hon. member to prove any of his statements and offered £10 as a wager. This man asked a question which we should all like to have answered. The hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) is under the Sons of England oath, pledged to uphold the honour and integrity of the Union Jack. Is there any man in this House who has heard him say a respectful word of the Union Jack or say a word upholding the integrity and honour of that flag? The hon. member, on the other hand, has joined hands with people in this House who have scarcely ever opened their mouth but to traduce that flag and have called it a foreign flag, and only given to it such recognition as would be given to a symbol that belongs to the limbo of past things. The hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) was very full of criticism in regard to the attitude of this party in the select committee, and he had a great deal to say about what they should have done and their insincerity. In the course of his speech last night, he also referred to the fact that this party was so given to anonymous communications in the press that it was necessary to employ the press clause of the electoral law in order to curtail and curb this tendency on our part. Among other things, he spoke to us of loyalty too. I wish to remind him that not long ago the hon. member for Newcastle (Mr. Nel), in reply to an interjection by the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North), said that he certainly would not descend to attacking his colleagues in his own party by letter anonymously. The hon. member for Bloemfontein (North), with that indignation which dignifies him on such occasions, rose up in his seat and said he challenged the hon. member for Newcastle to utter such untruths outside this House. At that particular moment there was a letter in the pocket of Mr. Eaton since made public which showed that the hon. member knew very well that he had written such a letter, attacking his colleagues and the leader of his party in a way which was amazing.

This is very interesting, but I do not see what bearing it has on the debate.

Do you rule this out of order, Mr. Speaker?

I want to know what bearing it has on the debate.

It has a distinct bearing upon the whole attitude of the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow) on this Bill.

We are not dealing with attitudes. We are dealing with arguments. There is a tendency to attack members personally, and with regard to their personal views and actions rather than their arguments. This is going very far from the subject of the debate.

The hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) himself made an attack of a most virulent kind upon us last night, travelling right outside the whole subject, and he indulged in an attack which we feel called upon to rebut.

I know nothing of that, but I do think the hon. member is travelling very far from the subject of the debate.

The whole ground of his attack was an accusation of insincerity; he charged us with insincerity and my purpose was to show that so far from that charge being sustained against us, he was the man who was indulging in that particular form of insincerity, and I was about to describe—

That has nothing to do with the subject under discussion.

It certainly has, to my mind, a very definite bearing upon it. I shall deal strictly with the hon. member’s attitude in regard to this flag question. At a meeting at Wynberg last week, when he was questioned in regard to the responsibility of the Labour party—a responsibility which he himself had attached to them—for the introduction of the Flag Bill, he took refuge in stating that if the Labour party or the Pact were swept out of office upon this flag agitation, there would be a great industrial upheaval on the Rand. We are all entitled to form our own conclusions both as to the hon. member’s intelligence and as to the grounds which he had for making such a statement. If we are to trust his intelligence we have to believe that the sweeping of the Labour party out of power because of their attitude on the flag, is going to cause an upheaval on the part of the very people who resented their attitude on the flag and who themselves put them out of power. It is the most illogical statement any man could make, and in addition, a most unprovoked and unwarranted statement and entirely wanting in truth, as has been proved by the subsequent declarations made by people entitled to speak. There is no doubt the hon. member would do everything he could to bring about such an upheaval. We had immediately a denial on the’ part of Mr. Andrews, the head of the trades union congress in Johannesburg, who gave a direct denial to what the hon. member had said.

You can’t take any notice of what he says.

I should like to remind the hon. member for Salt River (Mr. Snow) that his friend and colleague, the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North), said of Mr. Andrews only a fortnight ago, “Mr. Andrews is a man who has the deepest respect from every Labour man in South Africa.”

What do you think about Mr. Andrews?

I have said Mr. Andrews is a very misguided man, in spreading Communistic propaganda among the natives, but as far as his personal character is concerned I have not said a word against it. I believe it is to be of the best, and I believe he is an intensely earnest and sincere man. He said—

Then there are further letters. Mr. Mego says—

Another says—

Mr. Glass says—

This shows the hon. member’s threat to have been a very empty one. The Minister of Justice, on that occasion, indulged in a somewhat similar threat of a very childish kind. He said that if the Government were driven out of power it would lead to a recrudescence of the secession cry and it would become again a live question. Yet hon. members opposite wonder that we are suspicious. The other day, I think it was the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Labour, employed a disgusting simile in likening me to a dog. These natural history lessons are interesting, and certainly not without benefit to me politically and in other ways, but whilst our thoughts are turned in this direction one cannot help thinking the Labour party would be better for some natural history of the same kind. The Nationalist party seem to realize that when you buy or barter a pomeranian you do not expect him to do more than sit on the sofa and give a shrill bark from time to time, and to be quiet when called to heel. We have certain tendencies amongst pomeranians, they wear submissively whatever ribbon you may adorn them with, but we do not expect them to develop the instincts of a bulldog.

We are not discussing natural history.

The Minister of Justice was allowed to discuss, in a most disgusting manner the other day, something dealing with natural history without any sort of rebuke.

To what is the hon. member referring?

I am referring to the occasion on which the Minister of Justice replied to me at question time in a most insulting manner; and he was not rebuked in any way.

Did the hon. member object?

I am not called upon to object when I am insulted, I leave that to the spokesman of this House. The right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) has moved an amendment which in the circumstances is the only one possible in the state of feeling existing at the present moment in the country. That amendment aims at dealing with the question in a maimer which will remove it out of the arena of the discussion in this House until it has arrived at a stage upon which an agreed-upon flag has been presented to the people, and the verdict of the people can find some expression. The worst service that is being done to this question in this House has come from the speeches delivered by the Prime Minister, and by some of his colleagues, because they have imparted a bitterness into the whole of this discussion which has but served to accentuate, not only the division in Parliament, but carried bitterness throughout the length and breadth of the country. The object of the Bill, as originally announced by the Governor-General’s speech, was to promote the sentiment of common nationhood. The outstanding point the Prime Minister has made throughout the discussion is the fact that the Union Jack does not belong to this country.

It never did.

That it is a foreign flag, and can only be symbolized in the flag at all as a symbol of past things.

Hear, hear.

Quite right.

I understand that is the view of the other side of the House, and that is why I maintain that the greatest disservice is being done to the country by the Prime Minister and his colleagues, because if that is the view to be accepted, which the Labour party is willing to accept, I maintain there will be no peaceful adoption of this flag amongst the English-speaking section. It is the very antithesis of—

Of the Jingo.

The Prime Minister seems to overlook the fact that he has more jingoes behind him than there have ever been in this House. There is no jingo like the little Afrikander jingo, none so obstinate and narrow-minded as the jingo of that particular kind, the Nationalist jingo.

Of Natal.

In Natal we have had an unbroken history under which the Union Jack, having earned its right to fly in that country, has stood for equal treatment to all men, of whatever race they belong to, and, as far as we are concerned, we resent the attitude which maintains that our flag is alien to this country, and that it has not earned the right by reason of the services of the people who have followed it, to remain in this country. That is an attitude we resent, and one which provokes resentment in every mind that thinks clearly about this particular question. We have in two speeches by the Governor-General at the opening of Parliament had references to this Bill, and in each the ideal of common nationhood is indicated. Every word the Prime Minister has spoken, and every speech he has made in this House on the Flag Bill, shouts aloud that there is no common nationhood in his conception of things. He would expel the Union Jack as foreign to this country. The idea that the Union Jack has not earned a place on the soil of South Africa is the very antithesis of a common nationhood, or a peaceful solution of this question. The Bill is consecrating what does not exist—what he has declared is not in existence; in other words, it aims at the consecration of a lie.

I possibly should not have again spoken at this stage of the Bill but for what the Prime Minister said the other evening in reply to some remarks I made. I will attempt again to make my argument clear to him. During the whole of the afternoon we have had a number of speeches from a number of legal gentlemen on the opposite benches in which they have sought to justify this clause by legal definitions, to which I am sure the average man in the street is not going to listen at all. The man in the street to going to regard this matter from the common-sense standpoint, uninfluenced by the legal quibbles which have coloured the speeches of hon. members opposite. Now, throughout the whole of this debate the Government has insistently attempted and tried to show the country that this side of the House is utterly unreasonable in its arguments.

So they are.

It might serve a useful purpose to go back, and ask how this matter has arisen. In the first place I must candidly say that I, personally, living in my part of the world, never heard any sound or demand from anybody for a national flag. I have been some years in Parliament and have fought several elections, but I never heard the subject mentioned. Subsequently, since this flag discussion has taken place I have heard read out to the House certain resolutions passed at certain obscure meetings in the country which I have never before heard of obviously demanding what is at the back of the minds of many Nationalists—that they should have a national flag; but they have not clamoured for it in a very strident voice, not sufficient loud to penetrate the ears of the electors at the last general election.

You would not hear it in Natal.

I realize now that this demand for a flag has undoubtedly been in the minds of many hon. members opposite who inhabit the Western portion of the Union and in the minds of many men throughout the country, but it has been there I am convinced as a matter of academic interest only, not as a live issue, and now we have this formal expression of a slight desire that has existed for a long time. The difference between hon. members opposite and hon. members sitting on these benches is that we represent the whole of the people of this country, all races and peoples, while the Prime Minister and the people who sit behind him represent a small section of the country—a portion of the Dutch race. The figures of the last general election show that hon. members opposite have less voting strength than is represented by hon. members on these benches. If we consider that the Labour party have lost quite a number of their following by the action they have adopted, it is obvious that the expressions of opinion from the other side are those of a racial minority in the country. This demand for a flag has obviously long been in the mind of the Prime Minister.

And also in the mind of your leader.

We will say in his mind also, but what has he done in the matter? Actions speak louder than words. He has faced the question.

Has he faced it?

He has done what he did with the rebels.

The hon. member (Mr. Mostert), who interrupted, referred just now to the grievances of Namaqualand. I should say the greatest grievance Namaqualand has is that he is sitting here. We will say then that this matter has been before the country for some years in the minds of a certain section of the people, but the late Government exhibited its wisdom by realizing that they were speaking not for a section but for the whole of the country. They could not therefore as patriots take an academic matter and turn it into a live issue which they knew would rend the country. The Prime Minister, on the other hand—probably urged by people like the hon. member from Namaqualand—refused to consider himself as the spokesman for the whole community. He has turned this academic matter into a burning issue, and for two years now it has been before the country.

If it is so academic, why should you object to it so much?

You may discuss matters quietly in college or university—matters subversive of all Government—different forms of Government—but if you attempt to translate them into practice they will lead to tremendous disturbance. Those things are not done by statesmen. The right hon. the member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) spoke of the Prime Minister as being an “ideologue.” That is a perfectly true description of the Prime Minister. For years we have listened to his constitutional, legal wrangles—we have smelt the incense of this high constitutional religion—which has been a curse to the country for so many years and has stultified all advance. The Prime Minister will never get down to flesh and blood, to the real interests of the country and the true feelings of the people.

Is it not the realization that stings you?

He is willing to sacrifice the whole country for this mystic political religion of his, but we, on this side of the House, refuse to go on listening to these academic promptings which come from the cloisters and the schools. It has been said that although we refuse to face the flag question we have used the flag at the elections.

Hear, hear.

If the flag has been used in the elections, as the Prime Minister says, why has it been used?

Because of your jingoism.

What were the jingoes afraid of—why did they use that flag? Is it not plain to any reasoning man that if these people used that flag at all, it was because they were afraid and had very good reason to be afraid of secession which lay behind the Prime Minister’s policy.

It was because they were afraid they would lose the election.

At the last election, when the people began to listen to the Prime Minister, and they took his words at their face value when they were lulled to sleep on the secession issue they cast aside the flag. They were assured it was not in danger. The Pact election, which was fought on other grounds, put in a Government which is pulling down the flag. That is precisely what the country have been told—that if the Nationalists came into power the first thing it would do would be to attempt to pull down the flag. Were the people then not justified in pointing out the danger of the flag disappearing?

Is the object of Section 7 to pull down the flag?

It is. The other night the Prime Minister got very angry and talked about cowards and cads because I attempted to meet him on his own ground and to explain what people were thinking about. He cannot realize that there are two principles in this matter. One principle is that the Union Jack is part of the history of this country. I explained that phase of our history during my second reading speech. It has borne the heat and burden of the day in South Africa. It is a part of the soil—it is written into our history—

Hear, hear!

And if the British empire disappeared the Union Jack would still be desired because of what it represents in the history of civilization in South Africa.

I grant that fully to you.

Clause 7 says that the association of the Union with the other members of the group of nations constituting the British commonwealth of nations shall be symbolized by the Union Jack. When does that association take place? When is that association to be fittingly represented by the Union Jack? Let me put this question to the Prime Minister. He will admit, I hope, that that association is not a detached, temporary association, but something permanent, something which is a part of our national life.

I should think it is constantly existing.

The Prime Minister, by Clause 7, interprets our relations with the empire as being something separate from our national life.

As long as our will it is to have that association and it is our will.

If it is our will, why should it not be on the national flag. If our association is a permanent part of our existence why should we not symbolize this on a national flag?

I deny the correctness of your conclusion. I deny the necessity.

Does the Prime Minister deny that association? Is our relationship with the British League of Nations or the British commonwealth of nations, wherever you wish to call it, a permanent or is it a transitory thing?

Should you rather not ask me whether it is a continuous thing, and my answer is, undoubtedly—it goes on from day to day.

What do you mean?

I mean it does not exist this hour and cease to exist the next hour.

Then if this association— this partnership—is a permanent thing—a part of our real life and a protection all round us— do you object to that term?

I have no objection.

If it enters into our financial and political life and every part of our social life—

I grant that.

Then I say why is it not represented on the national flag?

Where is your logical inference?

Surely, if it is part of our national life a national flag cannot be truly national which does not show it. If our national life is something entirely separate from our relationship from the British empire, something intermittant, the Prime Minister is entirely correct. It should not be on the national flag. If he admits our national life is continuous as a member of the British league of nations, then obviously there must be some representation on the flag.

I do not see the necessity or the logic of your conclusion.

How can you logically try to represent that continuous national relationship by a different symbol altogether—a symbol which you say is a foreign flag?

Why should it be on the national flag?

It is part of our national life?

It undoubtedly is so.

And you will not have it on the national flag? If the Prime Minister cannot see what an illogical attitude he has taken it is useless to argue. I will come to another aspect of the flag. We demand in addition to that representation of the British empire—

By what authority do you demand?

That is what we are here for—to demand on behalf of the people we represent. By what right does the Prime Minister arrogate to himself the function of alone deciding what must be done in this country merely because by fortuitous circumstances of a chance election he happens to be Prime Minister of the country?

I have never arrogated that function to myself. But we will not acknowledge your demand. We are not going to meet your demand.

Don’t challenge my right to demand. If, having admitted that we are inseparably bound up with the British league of nations, that the bonds which bind us are a part of our national life, yet despite this admission, we cannot have a symbol of that relationship on the national flag, does he still deny the right of the British South African portion of the community to have its own traditions in South Africa represented in the flag?

I do deny it most emphatically.

Let me ask another question. The Prime Minister objects to the Union Jack because it is a foreign flag. As a foreign flag he has no time for it. Except to represent that foreign relationship he does not want it at all. Now, if it were not a foreign flag— simply a part of South Africa—he admits the right of the British section to be represented by the Union Jack—

I do not admit that. I do not admit your right to claim that it shall be on the national flag.

The Prime Minister admitted a moment ago the right of the British to be represented on the flag as far as their traditions in South Africa were concerned.

I never did. It is a question for the people of the country to say.

You deny the British section of the people, despite all they have done and suffered in South Africa, any right to representation on the flag?

To demand it, yes.

If they didn’t demand it, but came supplicating they would get it?

Neither supplication nor demand. It is a question for the people.

I want the Prime Minister to understand the outlook of the British community. I do not care whether he charges me with being anti-Dutch or not. It hurts me a little, but it will hurt him more. He cannot accuse me of ever having said a word that would give him that impression, except, perhaps, on this Flag Bill. I defy him to find amongst all the records of this House, in any speech I have made, one word which would substantiate his charge. But I should be false to every opinion I represent in this House if I did not express them. The Prime Minister has never scrupled to tell us through all these years what he is thinking about us. There has never been any attempt on those benches to hide their anti-British sentiments. There is no reason for the Prime Minister to wax angry and talk about cads and cowards as he did the other night To whom was he referring when he spoke about cowards and cads?

I referred to nobody. I said that if you thought you had to do with cowards and cads, you had better go back to Zululand.

You said—

I said: “The hon. member may be, but was much mistaken if he came here—”

Stick to the true version.

I assure the Minister of Mines and Industries I need no prompting from him. I have listened many times to his speaking in this House, and I do not know anybody who has said more bitter racial things than the Minister. I remember the hereeniging conference at Bloemfontein, where I went hoping for peace between the two peoples of this country, and when I heard all the bitter things the hon. Minister said at Bloemfontein, I began to feel it was a very unpleasant place altogether.

It is not so that I said anything bitter.

The Minister is the last person in the House to set himself up as a model of anti-racialism.

No wonder there was no hereeniging if you were there.

It seems impossible to make the hon. members opposite realize where this party stands on the matter yet it is a plain and logical position. The whole country has been rent from one end to the other during the last two years’ controversy over the flag question because the Government have set out as flag-makers. It is not political wisdom. The less any party has to do with flag-making the better. We are not going to commit the colossal blunder the Government has made by setting out to frame a flag ourselves. This is not a political matter. The Government itself admitted that principle, before the Flag Bill came to the House, the Government appointed a committee to try and reach an agreement. Having failed to obtain that agreement, they decided to bring it into this arena in a spirit of aggression to fight and divide the country, and because this party will not fall into the trap which the Government fell into—because we refuse to set ourselves up as flag-makers, but prefer to carry all sections of the country with us—they pour a shower of abuse on these benches.

Business suspended at 6 p.m. and resumed at 8.7 p.m.

The debate is obviously drawing to a close now, but there are a few points that I think should be dealt with before we come to a division. Not for the first time, or the second time, or the third time have I to draw attention to the argument of racialism that is so constantly urged from the Labour benches, no matter what the question under discussion may be. It shows that they must be bankrupt of arguments and facts, and they hope, perhaps, to conceal that by appealing to some of the most regrettable instincts that can actuate hon. members of this House. I want to say once for all that I challenge any member either of the Labour party or of the Nationalist party to bring forward any specific instances in which this party has shown evidences of racialism. Why, our whole history is the negation of that.

Not in South Africa.

No, I defy the hon. member. I challenge the hon. member to bring forward any specific instances. We are not at all impressed, nor will the country be impressed, by wild statements. We want specific instances. For my part I do not wish to say anything that I cannot prove, and I hope hon. members will observe a like courtesy towards hon. members on this side of the House.

A lot of courtesy your side has shown this side in the debate.

I think we can stand the comparison very well.

I don’t.

Well, we may agree to differ, and the Minister of Labour should be the last one to make such a remark as that, but the matter is too grave for these little interchanges across the floor of the House. I hope I shall speak with a gravity becoming the occasion, and that I shall be listened to in the same manner. I regret to say that the Prime Minister has fallen into that trap, too. He, too, frequently charges us with racialism. We deny that charge, and we invite him, if he thinks well, to bring forward any specific proof of that charge. I am not ashamed to stand here as an old Unionist, a Unionist who puts in the front of his programme a desire to bring the two races together.

When?

At all times. It was not merely a phrase in a party programme. When the time came we were ready to amalgamate our lot with our fellow-countrymen, who were not of the same race as ourselves, and that without any hope of reward or promise of office, absolutely unconditional. We would be false to the whole of our programme, to our principles and our practice were we to do otherwise. The members of the Labour party who speak across the House must have a very poor idea of the intelligence of hon. members opposite if they think that the shrieking out of the word “racialism” is an efficient substitute for facts and arguments. Not once in my knowledge have they endeavoured to justify that charge. Speaking to the amendment, which I heartily support, if there is one factor dominating the terms of that amendment it is this—it provides for a certain amount of delay. Surely if this long debate has taught us nothing else, “it has shown that the country is not ripe for a solution of this flag question at present, and, although the delay forecasted in the amendment is not very long, yet it is all to the good, and it is a pity that that cannot be granted to us by the acceptance of this amendment.

The debate is not in the country. It is here.

The debate is in the country also. It is very eagerly scanned, and I am only surprised that hon. members on that side have not made their position more clear to their constituents and the country at large by speaking definitely on this question. During the latter portion of the debate it was represented that this party was imbued with the idea that the Union Jack must take a place of dominance on the flag. Nothing of the sort. That is not in the terms of the amendment. The terms of the amendment are wide enough to ensure that the matter will be left in the hands of those who are best qualified to make a just and proper arrangement of the flags, but there is a definite reason why the Union Jack should occupy the place that it does on our existing flag, because that has been the practice with regard to the flags of the other dominions. They are not there for reasons of dominance, but for very practical reasons, and one of the most practical is that they should be recognized and especially at sea, so that vessels of foreign nations seeing that flag on the high seas would recognize at once that it belonged to a member nation of the British empire. I wonder if hon. members are aware that if we were so misguided as to pass this Flag Bill in its present form and send our vessels bearing that flag they would be liable to be arrested by any little twopence ha penny warship of any republic as a pirate. The Minister laughs, but will he deny it? I will give the Minister an instance where something like this actually happened. The Irish Free State adopted a flag, not by legislation, but by usage, and they sent one of their vessels carrying that flag to meet an American warship in the channel. The American warship refused to recognize it, and this vessel had to hoist the Union Jack before she could receive and return the usual compliments. That was the case. At last, apparently, it has dawned upon the Minister of the Interior, who informed me before during the second reading debate that he had never seen our Union flag, that there is such a thing. It is not a question of dominance; it is largely one of convenience, and there is no doubt that seamen all over the world would at once recognize a ship as belonging to a British dominion. May I remind the Prime Minister once more that he has shown on reason whatever for the hurry with which he is bringing forward this Bill and pushing it through the Legislature.

Very slow hurrying— two years!

No, I do not think so. This flag which was flown with his own sanction and over his signature since 1910 evoked, as far as I am aware, no protest worth considering at that time. If there was such objection as has been alleged, how is it has not been advanced? Surely, in the space of 14 or 15 years if this contempt really existed it would have made itself felt and the Prime Minister, when going to the country, would have asked for a mandate from the country on this very question. It cannot be denied that his programme contained no reference to a new flag.

You cannot mix that up with party politics.

At that time there was no reason to believe it would be a party matter. Is unemployment a party matter? Not necessarily. The Union Jack came very little into our party programme, but it filled the landscape to a very large extent in the speeches and statements of Labour candidates at the election. If this discontent had been so marked during fourteen years, it would have been felt and placed in the programme of the Prime Minister when he was seeking the confidence of the country. There were five headings under which he asked to be returned to power and nearly all were non-party matters, and there was no reason why the flag should not have been included if it was such an urgent matter. Is the development of agriculture necessarily a party matter or the development of industry or the native question? I am quoting from the Prime Minister’s manifesto. I hope I am correct—I believe I am—in stating that the Prime Minister claims to represent to a very large extent Dutch opinion in this country May I take it that is so?

I think so.

I am sure the Prime Minister thinks so or he would not say it, but the figures and facts are against him. I will just give him a few figures which he can think over. There was a total of 316,352 votes cast at the 1924 general election. We assume that the British population is to the Dutch as 45 is to 55 or nearly so. That would give as nearly as we can get, and I think it is approximately correct, about 170,000 Dutch-speaking voters and about 140,000 English-speaking voters. I think these figures will not be seriously questioned. The Nationalist party polled in all 113,000 votes. That is a definite figure, and as we know that party was returned to power with the aid of the votes of the Pact in several constituencies. Of these 113,000 votes I am assuming that 13,000 were Labour votes. That would leave him as representing just about 100,000 Dutch-speaking voters out of the total who went to the poll.

What about the 13,000?

They are Labour.

And how many Dutch went to Labour?

Even if I make the Prime Minister a present of the whole 113,000 by no stretch of imagination can he say that he speaks for the Dutch people of this country.

How many Dutch people voted against your party?

Probably 100,000, but the Prime Minister can only claim that he represents about 100,000 Dutch votes. We find that the Nationalists polled 36 per cent. of all who went to the poll and Labour 13.3 per cent., so this party was returned to power with 49.8 per cent. of the votes of all who went to the poll. The South African party polled 47.8 per cent. and Independents 2.9 per cent. By no stretch of imagination can the Prime Minister say he speaks for the over whelming majority of the Dutch-speaking population.

Is it worth while discussing it when you have a referendum before you?

I am dealing with the claim of the Prime Minister that he represents as the result of the last general election an overwhelming number of Dutch people.

Then why are you so afraid of the referendum?

I am not afraid of it. I have never said so.

Then why waste time?

I am not wasting time, but as the Prime Minister has raised the question of the referendum does he think, in his no doubt honest desire to produce a national flag, that a referendum by a bare majority can decide the question? Not only can it not decide it for ever but I do not think it will decide it for a week. Suppose, to employ a rather delicate parallel, it were a matter of two conflicting religions—and this is really very like a religion with some people —would the Prime Minister say a bare majority was sufficient to strike so deeply at the convictions and beliefs of half the people?

Give us another analogy.

No, I think that is quite a good one. The Prime Minister really should consider that a flag would not be national unless something like 90 per cent. of the population were in favour of it.

If you had the Union Jack upon it do you think you would get 90 per cent.?

I am not attempting to forecast the result of the referendum. It is not only my hope but my earnest belief that these proposals will be defeated. My argument is it is not right to settle it by these means. On an important question like this a solution should not be attempted by these means until it is obvious that there will be an overwhelming majority, and the minority against will be composed of fractious and unreasonable people. There are very great advantages in having a flag that will be readily recognized by nations as the flag of a Dominion belonging to the British Empire. Surely, the Prime Minister cannot say that there is urgency for this measure when his own Minister of Justice time and again, and as late as December last, has said that the people are cold on the question, and he is cold himself. In February last the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow) said the same thing deliberately and in writing. I think the Prime Minister will admit that there are no more prominent members of his party who go round the country than the Minister of Justice and the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) either they do not know the feeling of the country, or they say the things that are not. I will leave the Prime Minister on the horns of that dilemma. A good deal of the opposition in South Africa comes from the fact that people are suspicious that this is only another step forward toward secession. If we are suspicious it is not on account of our suspicious nature, but on account of the material which forms these suspicions through the utterance of individuals. They are in great contrast to those of the Prime Minister himself. The Minister of Justice in 1922 said—

Surely, we would not be doing our duty if we did not take serious notice of this. Then we have the Minister of Mines and Industries, who said—

That was in the days of our youth—like your leader said the other day.

“The days of our folly.”

We will come to more modern times—to June 22nd, 1927. The Minister of Mines and Industries spoke of people who were at one time republicans. What time does he allude to—the past or the present?

I thought that “was” always applied to the past!

I hope that is the correct meaning, and that it has not some reference to the present and also to the future. The Prime Minister must see that there is every reason for this suspicion—perhaps it may not be well-founded—but the Prime Minister and his supporters have done little to dispel it. As to these grievances about the flag, I ask for evidence that they exist to any great extent. If it is so oppressive we would have some manifestations. Is it any wonder that in the absence of reasons we should attribute it to some internal troubles the Prime Minister has experienced? We know sometimes that people have to distract attention from internal troubles by concentrating on something outside. At all events, there is ample justification for our suspicions. If the Prime Minister and his henchmen are able to dispel these suspicions without a shadow of a doubt, I hope they will be able to do so.

How many times do you want assurances?

What is going on in the rest of the world? Few people realize the pressure of events that are imminent now. We know that almost two-thirds of the world’s population is concentrated between India and Japan. There must be an overspill, and that, like flowing water, will follow the line of least resistance. I do not know any part of the world that can offer less resistance than South Africa. You cannot take up an American magazine or you will see that they are obsessed by the Asiatic menace—the thrust from Asia which may once again overwhelm western influence and civilization. We have half of Europe detaching itself, and attaching itself to Asia. Surely that is another reason why South Africa should remain closer within the bonds, or the boundaries as I prefer to call it, of the British commonwealth of nations, which is the best guarantee we have of peace at the present time. The Cape of Good Hope is 6.000 miles from all the continents, and is a great sea way. Panama and Suez will be closed in time of war, and in that case British owned ship will pass the Cape about every half hour. It is essential that the Union Jack should fly over the Cape, and that should be recognized by any possible enemies. We cannot weaken the ties of the Empire in any way; not even by a gesture or a proposal of this sort. There will be few here who would be prepared to take the risk.

Many of us who are sitting here with the object of hearing something constructive from the Opposition benches have found that the greatest regret of hon. members on those benches is that the Prime Minister to-day stands for the British connection. They are harping on the question of there being something underlying the intentions of the Government; that it is not honest in desiring to come to a settlement on this Bill The hon. member for East London (North) (Brig.-Gen. Byron) showed very clearly what was in the minds of hon. members there when he suggested the people are suspicious. He really meant that many of his hon. friends on those benches were suspicious, and he should class with them the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) who has been more frank than others on that side in expressing their suspicions. As Shakespeare said, suspicion always haunts and will haunt the guilty mind. If these hon. members persist in the attitude they have adopted this afternoon and yesterday, we are on dangerous ground. As far as we can come to a definite conclusion, the Opposition right through the whole of this flag debate have been right up against any desire to arrive at any compromise or agreement. The Prime Minister and the Government have advanced step by step to make it possible to take this question out of party. The Opposition have continuously shifted their ground and have tried to make the position of the Government more difficult than ever. On the other hand, the Labour party has taken up the soundest and most solid position that it has ever adopted in its history. They took up the standpoint that the question of the flag was too important to be turned to any mere party advantage. They were prepared to fight and to lose, believing that the cause was a good one—good for the country and good for all time. The leader of the Opposition has repeatedly told the House that there should be delay over this matter. Unquestionably when he and his supporters said that and their press repeated the same thing they did so with the deliberate object of assisting the South African party, hoping that the issue will be delayed until an opportunity comes for them to return to power on the cry of the Union Jack. The hon. member for Rondebosch (Mr. Close) sneered at certain people on the cross-benches who had not the good fortune to be born under the Union Jack. There are many men not born under that flag, but who served it in a more practical way than did the hon. member for Rondebosch, many of them making the supreme sacrifice. During the Great War we did not hear him enquire whether a man was born in Russia, South Africa or Brazil When he introduced certain arguments this afternoon the hon. member stooped to the lowest form of debate. Right through this debate the Opposition have shown that their sole desire is delay. On the other hand the Government have solved the question, and when the referendum is taken the people will show that they are not going to allow themselves to be dragged into a party squabble. I hope that when the referendum is take the issue will not be fought on political grounds. I am pleased that the press clauses of the Electoral Act are to be enforced during the referendum period, so that we shall not have anonymous communications and unjustifiable articles appearing in the newspapers. The hon. member for East London (North) (Brig.-Gen. Byron) said that the Prime Minister had been left on the horns of a dilemma. As a matter of fact is exactly the opposite. Last night they had the opportunity of moving in a certain direction, but they did not do so. To-day they suggest that as the result of a certain misunderstanding last night they did not move in the way they intended to do. But they have not yet stated what amendment they would have moved. They say that under the amendment of the hon. member for Maritzburg (North) (Mr. Strachan) the Union Jack need never be flown. Their previous complaint was that the four days’ limitation was wrong. That limitation has been removed but now they say it means that the Union Jack will never be flown at all, thus showing how some men twist things round to suit their own ends. As a national flag the Union Jack may be flown every day, or on such days as may be necessary. The flag symbolizing our membership of the British commonwealth of nations and the national flag are dealt with in the Bill in exactly the same way. As to whether the Government will do the right thing, I am quite satisfied that not only this Government but every other Government will play the game in that respect. The Opposition feel that their cry You can’t trust the Dutch,” is slipping away from them. They have repeatedly come into power on issues such as these, but this Bill will destroy for all times the chance of any party being returned to power on such a cry. As a result of the Bill I am glad to say we shall get a better and a more honest opposition. The Government require an honest opposition, which will oppose a Nationalist, a Pact or a Labour Government on things that matter, on economic questions, on good and sound lines. Instead of that the present Opposition has been getting the people on the run and inducing them to vote on a matter which is to a great extent a false issue. We want to destroy an Opposition which is returned on such issues. At times I had some hopes of the Opposition, but recently they have fallen very far from what an Opposition should be. The members of the Opposition, speaking with their tongues in their cheeks, say that this Bill should be removed from the arena of party politics. To-morrow they will no doubt fight the report stage on the same lines. I honestly believe that the Bill will Be ultimately for the good of the country, that our children will be well satisfied with this solution, and that the time—which is the real test of statesmanship—will definitely prove whether we were right or wrong. The Labour party has not been actuated in this matter by considerations of expediency, but it has been actuated by a belief in the justice of the attitude it has adopted. We are prepared to lose as the result of what we have done. From the Opposition we have had nothing but hypocrisy, things twisted and warped, but despite all attempts to cloud the issue, I am satisfied that the country will decide and then we shall have some hope of obtaining an Opposition worthy of this country.

The Flag Bill was to come up last year, and before that I had met a few of the chief English-speaking South Africans in Cape Town, men of importance, who for years were members of the House and who went away to Europe three months before the Bill came on. One of these persons said to me—

To that I replied without having known what the resolution was that was passed at the Paarl South African party congress in 1919 on the motion of Mr. F. S. Malan that if the Flag Bill came up we wished to have our own clean national flag for the Union of South Africa, and the Union Jack for certain occasions. I did not know about that resolution because in 1919 we were more occupied with the question of Hereniging and the flag question interested me less. It is wonderful that I used the same words to them as Mr. F. S. Malan used, viz, that we wanted to get a clean national flag for South Africa and the Union Jack would be used to indicate our connection with the British empire. The whole object of my speech is to prove that the fault did not lie so much with my English-speaking friends but with my own race, the Dutch-speaking people When the Flag Bill was introduced last year. I asked two of my English-speaking friends what they though of the flag, and they said that they considered it a reasonable compromise. The “Sunday Times” also invited designs for a national flag. Thousands were received and the 1st prize was given to a flag which did not contain the Union Jack. The flags which contained the Union Jack were sent back to the contributors with the remark that the paper did not want to have flags containing the Union Jack but a clean national flag. “The Friend” wrote about such a clean national flag, and “De Volkstem” stated that it was glad that there was now to be a flag for the Union which would not include the Union Jack and the Vierkleur. As for me I have never yet been a race hater. I have had many good English-speaking friends and still possess them and I have the utmost respect for the Union Jack as representing that sentiment of my British friends. I have, however, no love for it. It will be said that I was born under the Union Jack but that did not happen with my consent. What has given me a repulsion for the Union Jack was not the action of my English-speaking South African friends but the treatment which even loyal British subjects received during the second war of independence in the Cape Province. I am not going to rake up the old history because if I were to mention cases there would be some of my English-speaking friends who would ask if such things really could have happened. I have already given extracts from that period to some of my English-speaking friends who came here subsequently, but they simply would not believe them. Therefore I do not wish to go further into the matter. During the 1915 election and at all elections the Union Jack has been used as an election weapon, but I had obtained so much respect for the flag on account of my English-speaking friends that when at the Paarl after I had lost the election there it happened that the Union Jack was thrown down so that I could trample on it, I did not do so, and did not allow anybody to do so. From the earliest times Dutch-speaking South Africans have allowed themselves to be used against their own race. There was a Stockenström and a Cloete at the time of the annexation, and during the second war of independence they allowed themselves to be used, and here in the Cape Province our own compatriots also allowed themselves to be used. We find, however, that the English-speaking South Africans stand together. Take the Rebellion, for instance. Who was the cause of that? It was not the English-speaking people, but the hon. leader of the Opposition, Gen. Smuts. Moreover we see that the newspapers that I have mentioned and a part of the English-speaking people have taken up a favourable attitude with regard to the flag, but just because the hon. member for Standerton has seen that he can make party capital out of it he asked for a flag containing the Union Jack and the republican flag. What is more a Dutch-speaking South African, like the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Col. D. Reitz) held a meeting of English-speaking people and told them that if they were satisfied with the proposal of the Government they would deserve everything they got. It is Dutch-speaking South Africans who are the cause of disunion, and they have allowed themselves to be used by the Unionists. Although I differed on many points from the late Gen. Botha, I agree with what he said viz., that if in the future an amalgamation were to take place between the Unionists and the S.A. party, then the S.A. party would simply be used as a dishcloth to do the dirty work for the Unionists. Then I come to the point that the love of English-speaking people for the Union Jack is so great that they want it in the top left-hand corner of the national flag. In Australia, Canada and New Zealand the Union Jack is put there in the national flags, but it must be understood that it was put there while they were still British colonies. South Africa is to-day no longer a British colony and that is a great thing which is lost sight of. Then it is argued that in the 1924 election not a word was said about the flag and that we are now trying to force it on the people is no compulsion because a referendum will be held to test the feeling of the people. An election was held in 1910, and in 1914 a special session was held to decide upon the attack on German South-West Africa. No referendum was taken and it put brother against brother and caused the rebellion of which the hon. member for Standerton was the chief cause. Then the hon. member yesterday took up the attitude that the Prime Minister could not state that he was speaking on behalf of Dutch-speaking South Africa. To-day there are only fifteen Dutch-speaking members on the opposite side of the House, out of a total of 53. If the hon. member for Standerton wants to say that he speaks for Dutch-speaking people then he must just take notice of that. I hope that at the next election we shall be able to reduce their number by a further ten and that will be done notwithstanding all the shouting about the flag.

Will you come back?

A great fuss is being made about the resignation of Mr. Coetzee as member of the Nationalist party, but we never hear of the 18 or 20 persons at Aliwal North who came over to the Nationalist party.

The hon. member must confine himself to the subject under discussion.

As for the flag the sentiment of English-speaking South Africans is being respected, but they must also try to respect the feelings of Dutch-speaking South Africans in the Free State and Transvaal. If the English-speaking people put themselves in the same position then they will be convinced of it that they ought not to insist on the Union Jack being put in the top left-hand corner on the national flag. Then they will be satisfied with the present Bill by which the Union Jack will be acknowledged in South Africa as the symbol for which it stands.

I think we have reached a stage in this debate which can be described as confusion worse confounded. The amendment moved by the hon. member for Moritzburg (North) (Mr. Strachan) has placed in the Bill a clause which no one knows the meaning of. In vain we have appealed to the Prime Minister and the hon. member himself. We turn in vain to the official papers of the Nationalist party to find out what they think is meant by the new clause, and in “Die Burger” we find two remarkable statements worthy of passing note. One was on its posters in the streets to the effect that the South African party were in favour of the Government flag. Where “Die Burger” got their information from it is difficult to say. But as regards this clause moved by the hon. member for Maritzburg (North) at the instigation of the Prime Minister—

Who said that?

He admitted it himself.

It is pure imagination.

The Prime Minister made it perfectly clear in one of his replies that the document was handed to the Labour party by the Prime Minister. Of course, it is immaterial whether the Prime Minister or the Minister of the Interior drafted it. All we are told is that South Africa is to be provided with two flags.

We took away the limitation. Do you object? [Interruptions.]

My friends are so excited.

And amused, highly amused.

Also highly strung, and bitterly disappointed. Disappointed that their earlier action has been received with ridicule and contempt throughout South Africa, so that even now they cannot feel secure in their seats. You are going, you say to supply South Africa with two flags. Well we already have two capitals, and two official languages, and now we are going to have two nationalities and two flags and that is the way the Pact are trying to kill racialism. A more deplorable, and disintegrating policy it is impossible to conceive. Now why has the South African party consistently opposed this two flag policy? We have done so because if there is one thing calculated to keep the two people apart it is this two flag policy. What we want, and what the S.A. party have fought for is one flag, which people will be able to look to and regard as a symbol which appeals to their sentiments and to their own traditions, and their histories, whether of Dutch or British descent. Unless you get that sentiment and you get that symbol on the same flag you are going to divide the people. That is the fundamental objection to this flag. I think when hon. members get back to their constituencies they will find this country is not in favour of two flags, but in favour of one flag. The hon. member, as I have said, who moved this amendment into the Bill made no explanation and offered no reasons why it should be put into the Bill or what it embodied. We expected the hon. member to explain why, after all the flag which we have now got is not the one which is the best in the interests of all. We expected him to tell us and we waited for it, and when the hon. member did not give it to us, we expected it to come from the other side. What is the relative value of these two flags? How are they going to be used? Are they going to be hoisted side by side throughout the country, or are you going to place them on the same flag pole? If so which of them is going to be put on top, or are you going to have a day for the national flag and a day for the empire flag? If so, on what occasions are you going to hoist these flags? These are things that the country wants to know. The only answer given by the Prime Minister to these enquiries, was “You wait an see.” There may be another alternative. For instance, there are a number of us who come from Natal and the people there may be told “You may take your choice and hoist which flag you like.” If you prefer the Union Jack, by all means hoist the Union Jack, or if you prefer this new national flag then hoist that. Is that intended or is it not? If it is then that is not a solution, because there again you are going to have differences of opinion. Take a public institution which consists of 40 per cent. of Nationalists and 60 per cent. of South African party, say a provincial council or other public body with a composition of that sort. What takes place? The South African party say they have a majority and up goes the Union Jack and then there is friction. All this going to be the result of putting into this Bill an ill-digested amendment at the last possible moment for no other reason than as a last gasp to see if something cannot be devised which will capture the Opposition, in the country and the dislike of this measure outside. The Government were at their wit’s end and the Labour party were at their wit’s ends. They said “How on earth can we put something into this Bill which will save our skins? and so they invent this amendment. Now I listened with great interest to the speech delivered by the hon. member for Langlaagte (Mr. Christie), who is one of the members of this House for whom I have a very great respect, because I know that he is so constituted that he always seeks to approach these subjects from a fair and impartial point of view as possible, but what seemed to worry him more than anything else was this suspicion which attaches to very move of the Pact everything the Government does in this connection. There is no question about it that this suspicion does exist right through the country from north to south and if there is anybody to blame for this suspicion, I say that the people who are responsible for it is the Government party entirely. The Government came in at a time when the finances of the country were at their lowest and they proceeded to rise and were on the up-grade the moment the Government took office they had the sympathy of the public and they had a wonderful opportunity for winning the confidence of the people of this country. The fact that they have lost it and gained nothing must have some sound reason. Of course I associate the Labour party entirely with the Government. So far as public opinion is concerned, they are one. The matter was put to the test at the last provincial council elections and the Labour party were practically swept off the face of the earth. It is perfectly futile to pretend that the Government is not regarded with suspicion, not only regarded with suspicion, in the Union, but regarded with suspicion far outside the Union.

The hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) must not interrupt so frequently.

Thank you, sir. One likes intelligent interjections, but this is merely trifling and puerile interruption. Now I am going to give one or two further reasons for this suspicion that exists. Some years ago, when the Pact Government were inviting the confidence of the people of South Africa, and it was, of course, not at all unlikely that a change of Government might take place, they sought to make it clear that if a change of Government did occur the public would be safe in placing their affairs in their hands. So we had the Minister of the Interior making a statement which was published broadcast throughout the length and breadth of South Africa, and which we have all read, that—

No sooner were the Government returned with a majority than they set to work to pull down that flag. That is the origin of our quarrel with them. We stand up for a flag which we revere and which is everything to us. This flag has been the flag of Natal and the flag of the Cape Province for all time, yet our friends on the left whom we trusted to safe guard these interests have given it away on every presenting opportunity. They promised that flag would be safe in their hands, and we have seen what has happened in the last two years. The hon. member for Langlaagte said he thought these auspicious were most unfair, but we say they are thoroughly justified. Now a word with the Price Minister; he goes home to England and, after a very hearty reception, he comes back with a brand new charter and he tells us we have now a higher status, whatever that means, and all will be peace and content in the land and there is no need to worry anymore about secession. That would be all right if it ended there, but we know it did not end there; he proceeded at once to resuscitate his flag and nationality schemes. We have also members on the other side of the House, such as the hon. member for Winburg, who we know is the spoiled darling of his party, and what does he say? He addressed a meeting about a fortnight ago at Swellendam. Now, there is no man who should be more careful of what he says than the hon. member, because he is will known as the leader of a school over there who are responsible for a good deal of the trouble in this country—the extremists. This is what he said at the meeting at Swellendam—

This is the sort of statement made by Government supporters which arouse suspicion. What is meant by complete independence? Just a republic, nothing more, nothing less. How is it going to be secured? By a gradual process of “white-anting,” gradually eliminating everything British in this country, diminishing our power and influence, and then planting this republic upon us. That is what people believe and they have good reason for believing it, because there is ample evidence. That is not all by any means. We are constantly being threatened. We are tired of being threatened. What we want is peace and quietness and prosperity and we will never get it under the Pact Government. We are in a constant state of self-defence. The hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) addressed a meeting the other day at Wynberg. I am not going to deal with him; he has been very effectively dealt with, but he had on that occasion the Minister of Justice, who went with him for protection. This is what the Minister practically said. He told these people that if the Government were turned out of office—and, of course, there is no doubt they are going to be turned out when the public get at them—they may expect to see a recrudescence of this republican spirit. That is another threat. It is simply telling us. “We are holding back the republican movement as long as we occupy the seats of Government, but as soon as you turn us out it will be liberated.” Then we had the Prime Minister. What does he say? He has said in the course of this debate that he felt it was a matter for regret that he did not force the Bill through last session.

Well, we would have saved a lot of time that is wasted now.

Yes, and so he would have rammed it through last year. He would have rammed through a flag which the Minister of the Interior to-day says he does not approve of. That is a nice thing to tell the country. There is another reason why the Prime Minister did not ram that Bill through. That reason was he could not do it and he knew he could not.

Don’t you think that was a very sufficient reason?

Very good indeed, but he had a better one—that he would not have done it last session even if he could. Why? Because he knew perfectly well he was going home to the Imperial Conference and he knew he had certain schemes at the back of his mind which he had not disclosed to the people of this country but which he hoped to bring to maturity. He knew perfectly well it would undo the whole of his work in London. So what happened? He scrapped his flag. And the week before he sails he makes some of the most touching speeches that have ever fallen from a Prime Minister—speeches breathing of peace and brotherly love, so when he arrives in England they simply fall into his arms and say. “This is indeed the man. That man Hertzog a dangerous man? Nonsense. Just read his speeches; look at him; could anything be better?” The Prime Minister said, “I would like a little more independence,” and they said, “Take it; and anything else you require,” so they gave him now a little more than he expected, and by the time he packed up his portmanteau to return, he was amazed and he said to the Minister of Finance, his colleague, “Now we can go home and knock out the flag, because there is no one to stop us.” He determined to pull down the Union Jack when he came back.

No, no, I shall never pull down the Union Jack.

But you have done it, or are trying to.

Your complaint to-night is that I did not do it.

That is enough; sit down now.

I think it is not at all amazing that this country is a little more than suspicious of the acts of the Government or that when the Government puts forward a measure like this that we should examine it from all sides, inside as well as out. If the Government and Labour party were wise they would even at this eleventh hour when they can get away with a whole skin, accept the amendment of the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts), before thrusting down the throats of the people a flag which they will refuse to have and refuse to respect.

A well known British statesman said on one occasion that he never allowed himself to get across with his political opponents, but he always liked to see them in a position in which he could be sorry for them; and one can be genuinely sorry for the South African party at the moment. The hon. member for Weenen (Maj. Richards) has been endeavouring this session to build up a reputation for himself as a political liblick who is used by this party to get them out of bad lies, but I would like to point out to the hon. member, when he and his party are so deeply bunkered in the course they have taken on this Bill, that it will be very difficult indeed to present a really creditable score-card at the end of this game. I can readily understand the dismay which the introduction and acceptance of the amendment I moved on behalf of the Labour party last night caused in the ranks of the Opposition, simply because it removed the last possible objection the people of the country could have to the passing of the Nationality and Flag Bill. The parrot cry of the Opposition has been that no flag will be acceptable that does not include the Union Jack. Well, the Union Jack has now found a place in our domestic flag.

And it is “quite safe in your hands.”

It always has been safe in my hands.

Say that when you get back.

I am afraid my financial account would not be very safe in your hands. The only real objection remaining in the Bill was the limitations imposed regarding the flying of the Union Jack. Almost without exception every member of the Opposition on the second reading complained about the provisions laid down in Clause 3. The hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. D. M. Brown) in a humorous speech said—

He was altogether dissatisfied that the Union Jack was only to be permitted to fly four days officially in the year. We also did not like these conditions.

And took them out altogether.

My old friend, the hon. member for Pretoria West (Mr. Hay) voiced his objections in these words—

I do hope, however, that the hon. member for Pretoria (West) (Mr. Hay) will desist from making any further attacks on his old colleagues of the Labour Party. I would remind him that when the Creator had finished all the crawling things of this earth, the toads and the frogs, and so forth, He had some material left over with which He made a political scab.

Withdraw.

Is it in accordance with the dignity of Parliament for one hon. member to address another hon. member in such revolting terms?

I would ask the hon. member to moderate his language.

The hon. and gallant member for East London (North) (Brig.-Gen. Byron) also objected very strongly to the clause containing the provision that the Union Jack should be flown for only four days. The hon. member for Aliwal (Mr. Sephton) likewise protested. That undoubtedly was a reasonable objection to the Flag Bill as it stood, and the Labour party shared the opinions thus expressed. It was frequently referred to in our deliberations on the Bill. So much so, that after the repeated complaints presented from the Opposition, the Labour party decided to submit the new clause now embodied in the measure before the House. When the amendment was moved every member supported it—no division was called. The hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) stated that the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (North) (Mr. Strachan) had been used by the Government to “white ant” empire occasions by introducing last year a Public Holiday Bill, so that two of these days should be done away with. The Public Holidays Bill first drafted was long before there was any question whatsoever of bringing forward a Flag Bill. When the hon. member stands up in this House and accuses me of being used as “a white ant” by the Government to do away with empire holidays he is misrepresenting the position in a way which does not benefit him as an hon. member of this hon. House.

The hon. member will find that the Flag Bill was referred to in the Governor-General’s speeches of 1925 and 1926.

Let me tell the hon. member that the only reason I had for introducing the Public Holidays (Amendment) Bill was to endeavour to bring about a more equitable redistribution of the present one-day statutory holidays.

You aimed at abolishing Victoria Day and the King’s birthday.

If the hon. member associates that with an attempt to do away with empire days so that the flag could not be flown it is a dishonourable thing for an hon. member to do.

I do not wish to delay the House, as I have already given expression to my sentiments on the Bill. But I am prompted to address the House on this occasion to put a question to the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Reyburn). He is not in his place, but possibly the Minister of Labour will convey my question to him. Why has he (Mr. Reyburn) changed his opinions from those he expressed two years ago? It does seem extraordinary when one remembers the sentiments he expressed in 1925. In an article written by him and published in the “South African Nation” in April, 1925, the hon. member wrote—

I merely put that question to the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Reyburn) and trust he will take the opportunity of expressing the reason for his views in this respect to-day compared with two years ago.

Several times during this lengthy debate it has been brought as an accusation against the members of the Opposition that they did not trust the Government and especially that they did not trust the Prime Minister. If that be true it is a matter of great regret. There is no more honourable position in the country, except that of the representative of the King, than the office of Prime Minister, and apart from party consideration, the man who occupies that position is entitled to look for respect from the whole country. If there is ground for the statement that the Prime Minister is not trusted and has not the confidence of the people then there is surely some reason for it. In the last three years in Parliament what has impressed me is the frequency of the statement from the Government side “the people of South Africa.” And I know now finally what it connotes. It is used from ministerial seats as a piece of racialistic arrogance. It is meant to apply only to those who accept the dictum of the Prime Minister. He regards us still as aliens, foreigners, fortune hunters. What really constitutes a membership of this South African State? Is it limited to men who dwell too much on racialism and those who cherish the memory of bitter past days? It is the prerogative of those who spend their lives in the country seeking to advance the fortunes of the country. While I was out of the chamber this afternoon one member, whose pride it is to support the Government of the day, dared, by implication, to say of me I was one of those who fight with the mouth. Three times I put my life in peril on active service, and my sons have suffered grievous loss through service in the war. One will never return; he fills a soldier’s grave in East Africa. But we are only foreigners, aliens, fortune hunters, according to the dictum of the Prime Minister of this country. I can claim to be as true a South African as any man on the opposite benches and I claim to be more typical of the English-speaking people of South Africa than those who play the part of “Mr. Facing Both Ways” on the Labour benches.

The hon. member who has just sat down does not speak in that lowly way we expect from a follower of the carpenter of Nazareth. Instead of that, he bellows like the bull of Basham.

And you bellow like Barlow.

That is quite true. The hon. member has always been a racialist. He was a racialist in the Free State, he was a racialist in Graaff-Reinet and he is a racialist to-day.

That is not true.

We need not worry about him. There is a Labour man waiting for him in East London, and he will put this hon. member out. That Labour man can do what I thought nobody else could do—he can wave the Union Jack harder than my hon. friend. This afternoon the hon. member for Weenen (Maj. Richards) was decidedly annoyed and talked about two flags, two capitals and two languages and said it was undesirable. He forgets he wanted two countries in South Africa. Not long ago he was leading a secession movement in Natal, so he is the last man to speak. I am afraid he has done a lot of harm in Natal, because at the present moment meetings are being held in Natal in favour of secession. If there is bad blood it is due to three members sitting there in a row who preach secession and stir up bad blood not only among the whites but among the natives.

That is absolutely untrue.

There is nothing to get excited about. If the hon. member says it is untrue, I can only refer him to the hon. member for Durban (Central) (Mr. Robinson) and the hon. member for Dundee (Sir Thomas Watt), two sensible men who went along and said that their colleagues were making such fools of themselves. The hon. member for Weenen (Maj. Richards) has talked a great deal about the flag and the holy flag and the protection of the empire. May I ask him this question, is it not a fact that when Col. Meyler was fighting for the flag the hon. member was endeavouring to jump his seat?

There is as much truth in that as in many of the other remarks and charges which the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) has invented this evening and levelled against hon. members on this side. There is not a word of truth in them.

According to the rules of order, one must accept what the hon. member said. I will tell the hon. member that outside. He is now wriggling like a worn on a hook. With regard to what he has said in reference to the Labour party and the amendment of the hon. member for Standerton, had we supported that amendment are we certain that it will be the same amendment to-morrow? We have seen in the course of the last two weeks that same right hon. gentleman put up three different amendments. One was “as far as possible,” the second was “an integral part of the flag” and the third was “and integral and substantial part.” That gentleman up there in the corner of the press gallery may change his mind. The representative of the “Cape Times” may write a leading article to-morrow and tell him what to do. Yesterday he was prepared to support the two-flag proposal. The Whip behind him got up to move for a division, but the right hon. gentleman turned round and told him to sit down. You cannot have it both ways. They did not know where they were last night; they did not know whether they had to support or not to support this amendment. I want to deal with the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Col. D. Reitz). He is born in the Free State and he criticised very severely here the other night the fact of this being the van Riebeeck flag and said that the House of Orange had done nothing for South Africa. Surely he knows that the House of Orange gave to our old republic the Free State flag. The Orange Free State was called after the House of Orange. The hon. member came here and sneered at a certain member of the House of Orange and he called this flag all sorts of names, and said that the only man of that house who had ever done anything in South Africa was the weakest member of that house, who had allowed the British to come in here. The weakest king Great Britain ever had was James the First. James the Sixth of Scotland and his descendants, the Stuarts, were probably the worst kings Great Britain ever had and they gave the Union Jack to Great Britain.

And the weakest Prime Minister will give the national flag to South Africa.

History is repeating itself.

Of course, that is very cheap. I have had my differences with the Prime Minister for many years, but there is one thing I can say about him and I think the country will say. He is the last man on earth to call weak. A man who goes out of the Cabinet and who treads the wilderness for ten years, who endures all sorts of insults from English-speaking people and some of his own people, who throws up at once the idea of republicanism or secession—do not call that man weak. The Prime Minister has not been weak on this Bill. Certainly he has not been like the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts). He has not changed his position step by step and retreated from trench to trench. We know the position of the South African party—“As long as we have a portion of the flag we are satisfied.” You give them a portion. They want it in this corner or that. We have asked till we are tired—where do you want the Union Jack in the flag? The hon. member says read their amendment. What is the amendment? It is to put it off for six months until Parliament can fight it all over again. What is their design? It is a white cross, the sort of white cross which is put on medicine bottles and on the pills they give to sick horses. In the left corner you have the whole of the Union Jack flying, against the staff. In the other corner is the Free State flag, and below the Transvaal Vierkleur and at the bottom is a mangy springbok. If hon. members knew anything about heraldry they would know that as soon as you put an animal on a flag it is not a flag anymore. Is that a flag to come to South Africa with? It is a crazy guilt, nothing else. Whatever we English-speaking people may say—and I must say I am surprised how far the Nationalists have gone—we have the whole of the Union Jack to symbolize the commonwealth of nations and we have a sixtieth part of the domestic flag. So the English again in South Africa have done the Dutch a shot in the eye. I want to deal with the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick). This gentleman creeps out of his morgue. He lives in a morgue down among the dead men, and he comes creeping out dripping venom.

I think the hon. member is going too far. He must moderate his language.

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to go too far, but I would like to know exactly how far one can go. I do not know whether it is going too far to say he lives down among the dead men and conies creeping out. Because he does. There is no man who digs up bones more than the hon. member. He is always digging in the old files, sweeping out old corners. If he would only put that work into something constructive what a wonderful man he would be for South Africa. I dare say we will find him among the archives trying to find out what van Riebeeck said to the first man when he landed. And he will find it he attacked my hon. friend on the left because, he said, he came from Russia. That is not the reason he attacked him. He attacked him because he is of the Jewish faith. I am surprised at the South African party allowing that man to always attack the Jews. He did not attack him as a foreigner, but if he did, are we to lay down this principle, that a man who was born in Russia, left it at five years of age, went through a Scotch university, came to South Africa as a professional man, has been a member of Parliament for many years, and is a leader of the Labour party, which is a more proud position than to be a leader in the South African party, should he not get up and speak about this Bill? The hon. member for Kimberley (Sir Ernest Oppenheimer) was not born under the British flag.

What did the hon. member for Winburg (Dr. van der Merwe) say about the Jews?

I have lived with the hon. member and I know he is one of the most tolerant men I have ever met. The hon. member on my left (Mr. Kentridge) is original; that is more than you can say about the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick).

Did you call him original or aboriginal?

Order.

I have (never asked for protection in the House. I do not care what any hon. member says. I am not a coward. I do not care what an hon. member says or not. But the hon. member will not say that to me outside. I have been attacked by the newspapers this morning; with a good deal of vulgar abuse in the “Cape Times” notes. I am rather sorry about that because, although one may disagree with another politician, there is no need to write a lot of vulgar abuse. I have been abused in the “Cape Times” and charged with giving away secrets of the select committee. Of course, it is untrue—absolutely untrue. The “secrets” appeared in the “Cape Tinies” on Saturday morning, before the select committee’s report was printed, which, I may point out, is a breach of the privileges of Parliament. As far as I know, there were no secrets. Surely I have a right to say that I studied the countenance of the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) and came to the conclusion that he was adamant, and was not going to retreat one inch? We who sat in the select committee all know that from beginning to end the Prime Minister offered, and offered in the most courteous way I have ever seen, but the other side refused, refused, refused. That is the game in South Africa to-day. The South African party are hoping to have an election on the flag, and they want to drag the flag of England into the mud, and to prostitute the Union Jack in order to get votes. I have fought the South African party since 1914, and I can remember one election in which they did not project the Union Jack into the mud. In 1910 the right hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) was doing it against the man who sits alongside him (Gen. Smuts). The cry then went out, “Vote British.” I have not forgotten the election which took place with “Het Volk” in the Transvaal, when some hon. members sitting on my right put up a placard. A cartoon was put out by the Progressive party in the Transvaal. There was a big rock behind which were two men; one of them was holding up a false light and there was a ship coming in. The ship was marked “The British Empire,” and the men behind the rock were luring the British empire ship in so that it should be wrecked. Those two men were tile present leader of the Opposition and the late Gen. Botha. That cartoon was put out by the press of South Africa. It was the same old game then, and it is the same old game to-day. The snake has changed its skin but it is the same old snake. Just one word to the hon. member for Rondebosch (Mr. Close), who also made a speech which I think is probably one of the worst speeches he has ever delivered. He is a sporting fighter in an election, but to-day he made a very bitter speech, in which he referred to the country in which the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) was born. I know lots of men born in Russia who, when the Boer war broke out, went to the front, and did not act as town guards in Cape Town.

I should like to refer for a few minutes to the clause supposed to be under discussion. I was very interested to hear the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (North) (Mr. Strachan) explain this clause. I understood this claim to be that by his amendment he had secured a greater amount of flying of the Union Jack than under the original clause of the Bill. We look at the clause and we see in the original Bill the Union Jack was bound to fly for four days and for so many other days as the Governor-General might appoint, which was, of course, the Government. Now by the amendment it is not bound to fly on any days whatever. All that is left is the Government may fly it on as many days as it likes.

If you are not satisfied won’t you move an amendment?

The hon. member has taken away the assurance that it will fly on four days.

Well, move an amendment.

The Prime Minister has said that about six times and I have heard him. Perhaps he will keep quiet now.

I am testing your sincerity.

I do not take any lesson in sincerity from the Prime Minister. Another point about this clause is that if he looks at the marginal note he will see in the original Bill it says “national flag of the Union and flying of the Union Jack.” In the amended clause it merely says “the national flag of the Union.” There may not be much in that.

There is nothing in it at all. Look at the text and not the sidenotes.

Will the Minister of Mines say there is more safety for the Union Jack than in the old Bill?

It is absolutely untrue to say there is no provision for the flying of the flag at all, for it is a symbol and must be flown.

If the Minister who can look at this with a legal mind had come to an agreement whereby the flag was bound to be flown four days of the year and as many more as the Government might decide and then the four days were cut out and it was only necessary to fly it as the Government might declare, would he accept that on behalf of his client as an improvement?

Your parallel is incorrect.

Move to improve it.

It is your Bill.

The hon. member knows I have no intention of moving an improvement, because I am backing an amendment of the hon. member for Standerton.

We are backing a winner.

We are comparing it with the old clause.

Don’t you see before it was rigid and now it is elastic?

Then we had a long and a very personal speech from the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow), who is not here.

As usual.

I do not want to follow him in any of his vituperation, but I would like to point out that he has talked of a flag as being put forward as a South African party flag. Where does he find that in the amendment of the right hon. gentleman? In his amendment he deliberately avoids flag-making, holding that it is not the function of Parliament to be the designers of flags. It is their function to give legal sanction to a flag that has been designed and approved of by the people, and he provides machinery for that. We have held all along that a flag should not be a party thing. I understand that in select committee a flag was put forward so as to show that in the opinion of some members of the committee, at any rate, it was possible to embody all these three flags complete in a flag that might be suitable. There is no flag that can be claimed to be designed as a South African party flag, because we have refused to put forward a party flag. We want a flag that is going to be approved of and agreed to by the people and that this House will give sanction to.

The sanction of this flag will be higher than this Parliament; the people will sanction it.

There are different ways of getting the people’s sanction. We propose a different way. The people’s sanction that is being asked for in this Bill is for this flag and nothing else.

Well, they can reject it.

They can reject it and then you keep on bringing flags up. That is the Minister’s idea of the functions that a Government has to perform. About this flag which was referred to by the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North), I would be sorry even to attempt to follow him in some of the ways that he went, but he talked about there being on that flag a “mangy springbok. The springbok has come to be an honoured symbol in this country. Apart from the renown that the sportsmen of the country have got under the springbok, it was under the springbok that men fought and died in this country and laid down their lives for the honour of South Africa, and I think it ill becomes any member of this House, whoever he may be, from the highest to the lowest, to refer to a springbok that is put on the flag as being an emblem of the devotion of these men and what they have done, as a “mangy springbok.”

I move—

This little amendment, as hon. members will see, deals with the declaration of the voting at the referendum. As the clause stands, after the referendum has been taken, the Minister is directed by a notice in the “Gazette” to give the total number of votes in favour of and against the provisions of the Bill dealing with the two flags, and my amendment is to the effect that the Minister shall also declare the result of the voting in each electoral division. It is necessary to point out that under the Electoral Act the public are accustomed to the voting taking place in different constituencies and the results being declared in those constituencies, and it is in accordance with the spirit of the Act and also the letter of the Act. I think the public will be very disappointed in the different constituencies after they have taken the trouble to go to the poll to find that the result is kept back from them. I see no good purpose to be served by suppressing this information because the information must be in the hands of the Minister. It will be absolutely necessary that the counting of the votes in the different constituencies shall be done separately and for the papers to be kept separate otherwise it will become impossible to give effect to the provisions of the Electoral Act. We know there are certain offences dealt with in the Electoral Act called corrupt and illegal practices which if indulged in entitle any person interested to petition the Supreme Court to enquire into the matter. In the case we will say of voters being bribed to vote as has happened before in South Africa the Supreme Court will strike out the votes given by those voters. In the case also of any person who has been working for hire within three months of the referendum for either side and voting at the referendum his vote can be disallowed. In the event of impersonation taking place the court orders the ballot papers to be inspected. The court will be unable to apply the provisions of the Electoral Act and disallow votes which ought to be disallowed if the papers are not kept separate.

I think the papers will be kept separate.

If they are kept separate then the result must be known to the officers who are engaged in the counting, The Minister will know undoubtedly; his colleagues will know and why should not the public know? Why should not the public in this democratic country know how they voted in each constituency? I can see no good reason at all. The Minister says he supposes the papers will be kept separate. They must be kept separate because it is absolutely necessary that a proper enquiry may be made by the court in the case of offences such as I have mentioned. If that is the case, it is laid down in the law, and these provisions must be observed when a referendum is to be held, in accordance with the Electoral Act. To do justice a court must be able to inspect the papers in each constituency. That cannot be done if there are 350,000 voting papers.

It could be done; I daresay they would be kept separate.

I think it was said by the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow) that if a constituency voted in favour of these two flags the voters might be called traitors. I think that is a very childish reason indeed, and if no better reason can be given my amendment should be adopted. The Minister gave another reason equally unfounded and ridiculous. He said it might be regarded by the M.L.A. representing a certain division as either a vote of confidence or of no confidence in him. What does it matter? The electors who go to the poll have a right to knows, and if an hon. member is supported in the attitude he took up why should he not know?

The elector is entitled to know the result, and he gets the result from the total.

But not in his constituency. The hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street) (Mr. Alexander) made the ridiculous suggestion that if the votes in each constituency are counted and declared you might be able to tell on which side that certain coloured voters voted. It is absolutely impossible to tell, as the Minister knows, how anybody voted any particular way. I think on reconsideration the Minister will see not only the justice but the absolute necessity if the public is to be satisfied of declaring the result in the manner I have stated. In a matter of this sort you must convince the public that there has been fair-play all round, and if there is any suspicion connected with the management of the election or in connection with the counting of the votes, that suspicion will give rise to a very undesirable state of affairs. I do say the people of each constituency are far more likely to be satisfied with the whole result if they know the result in their own constituency, and there is no good reason why they should not know.

I second the amendment. I cannot say I agree entirely with the last speaker. It will be better for all concerned if we keep strictly to the Electoral Act. There are over 420,000 registered voters in the Union, so one will appreciate the colossal amount of work that will be involved if all the ballot boxes were sent to Pretoria. Should one box be lost the referendum would be null and void. The votes should be counted in each constituency.

The hon. member for Dundee (Sir Thomas Watt) hardly did me justice. Are we going to perpetuate the feud between two sections and to be told that this or that constituency is pro-flag or anti-flag, and keep the pot boiling until the next general election? It will be most iniquitous to do that. The best thing to do, as soon as the referendum is over, will be to forget it as soon as possible, and the surest way to achieve that end is not to publish the results by constituencies. What possible object, except the party object, is to be served by publishing the results of the voting in each constituency. I hope the Minister will not accept the amendment.

I support the amendment. The object of the Minister is to provent the perpetuation of feuds which may arise through the declaration of the poll in each constituency. I submit to the Minister he is going to perpetuate feuds if suspicions arise as to the bona-fides of the referendum. As the hon. member for Dundee (Sir Thomas Watt) has said, quite a number of people are bound to be in the secret because they will be engaged in counting the votes and to report to the Minister. They will know the results, and they are bound to get out in the different constituencies, and wrong impressions will be created, which will do more harm than would the official information if given by the Minister. The object of the Government should be to place this matter beyond suspicion in every way.

I support the amendment because I should like to see the results declared in each constituency. In cases of duplication and impersonation it is more likely the returning officer in the constituency will detect cases of that sort than would be possible in Pretoria, where the counting would take place under officials who would have no knowledge of the local conditions whatever. The conduct of the election is better carried out by the man who has the local conditions in his mind. It is the returning officer who judges whether the papers have been spoilt, or whether there has been duplicating voting, and he is the best person to detect such cases.

It has nothing to do with local circumstances.

In connection with mass counting in Pretoria, who is there to object to cases of irregular voting if there are no local persons concerned in the contest present? It is not a party question but a question of the efficiency of the referendum. Let the counting take place where the persons interested in the result locally are present to raise their objections. Who is there otherwise to ask for a recount at the mass voting in Pretoria? If the Minister is so perverse as to desire that this shall take place just as he lays down, then he cannot blame the public if they become more suspicious than they already are. All they desire is an efficient referendum, an efficient means of aiming at the result, and no efficient result can be obtained if this counting is done under mass conditions in Pretoria, when no body interested will be present.

Surely I gave assurances to the House yesterday.

You gave assurances, but who is going to pay the expenses of innumerable scrutineers to go to Pretoria from every district?

I think the House should know that this must be another proposal emanating from the Empire Group of Durban.

These self-same gentlemen came all the way from Durban to Maritzburg during the last recess to take a referendum in my constituency in order to find out whether the people there were in favour of or against the Flag Bill, and there can be little doubt that the hon. member for Dundee (Sir Thomas Watt) has been approached by the Empire Group of Durban and has put this amendment on the paper.

Let me just explain. This is the first time I ever heard that the Empire Group ever thought of taking a census or a vote in the hon. member’s constituency. There was no suggestion at all made to me by any person. I simply followed the practice which was adopted in Natal at the referendum in 1910.

I must accept that, but, as has already been said in the House, it is very suspicious.

Suspicion haunts the guilty mind.

I submit there is just as much justification to be suspicious of the hon. member for Dundee and the Empire Group as the hon. member for Weenen (Maj. Richards) has to be suspicious of the Prime Minister. I hope this amendment will be treated in the way it deserves. When the referendum was taken as to whether Natal should go into Union, 14,000 people voted for and 3,700 odd against, and in each constituency the figures were given. In every division there was a fairly large majority in favour, and if the hon. member for Dundee and others insist that the counting of the votes should be confined to the constituencies, I very much fear they will find a similar result in Natal.

What are you afraid of?

After the speech of the hon. member for Dundee (Sir Thomas Watt) in connection with his amendment we on this side are more than ever convinced that if his request is complied with no good purpose would be served, besides one reason which I shall mention later there is no argument in favour of his motion, except that the desire of certain interested people to know should be satisfied. I do not think that we should introduce legislation just to satisfy people’s curiosity. There are greater and more important things which the Government should bear in mind in introducing legislation. As I said before this flag question has been turned into a party matter and if we decide on a national flag then it will be best to remove the question as quickly as possible out of the arena of party politics. It is clear from the speeches of hon. members opposite that if they know the result of the voting in the various constituencies they will want to use it for party purposes, and I do not think the House should enable them to attain their purpose. The other argument raised is that it will be unsafe to follow the method proposed in the Bill, because there will be an opening for all sorts of abuses, and because suspicion will be aroused about the way in which the referendum will be taken. I have already given the assurance that at every stage of the referendum from the beginning until the counting takes place—steps will be taken with the cooperation and knowledge of, and after consultation with, representatives of the opposite opinion to ours. All the parties will be represented and there will be guarantees against abuse. Why then should hon. members express the view that there is a possibility of the polling and counting not taking place properly. I think the hon. member’s amendment is quite unnecessary. According to the Bill the Government is only authorized to publish the total result of the referendum, but I think it goes without saying that the result of the various constituencies will be kept separate. That is a useful thing for more than one purpose, although it does not matter whether the votes in the various constituencies are counted separately, or whether the ballot papers are mixed up and then counted. For security in the matter it makes no difference, but I think that is desirable to keep the voting papers of the various constituencies separate. Even as Minister I shall not know how the voting in the various constituencies went off. The people who are present at the count are pledged to secrecy, but if Parliament wants to know it then it has the right at any time to ask for the information. Any time after the referendum any hon. member in the House can ask for the result in the various constituencies to be laid on the Table, and if the Government thinks that it should, it will be done. If the Government thinks that it is undesirable then it will still be done if the House passes a resolution to that effect. The opinion of the House will be obtained and in the circumstances I think that it is unnecessary to provide in the Bill for its being done.

Amendment put and negatived.

Amendments in Clauses 6, 7, and 8, the schedule and title, put and agreed to.

There has been a printer’s error in annexing two schedules to the Bill. I have already called attention to it. I presume that the House does not approve two schedules but only one.

In the Bill new clauses 7 and 8 are still shown as 3 and 4. I take it that this will be put right.

Yes.

Bill as amended adopted.

If there is no objection, I will move the third reading now.

Objections raised.

Third reading to-morrow.

I move—

I just wish to say, in response to the request made by the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) when the matter was last before the House, and the subject of the crossing by the proposed railway of the various roads in the city was considered, that there has been a discussion between the city council and officials of the railway administration, and an arrangement was arrived at, which is still subject to confirmation by the city council; subject to the fulfilment of provisional arrangements which have been come to in which the council undertake to donate to us certain land and assist us in closing certain roads, the administration is prepared to undertake the construction of two overhead bridges, in addition to the one bridge for which provision is made in the estimates—the two bridges are over Koeberg Road and Church Street, and the estimated expenditure is about £40,000, the construction to be deferred for two or three years of such earlier period as may be necessary as the result of the earlier closing of the roads. It is not necessary to make any provision for that in the Construction Bill, because if the arrangement is concluded in due course provision can be made under capital and betterment provision. I hope that the Bill will be satisfactory to hon. members, and that the Bill can now be proceeded with.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

The Clerk will now read the fourth order.

I would ask the Prime Minister whether we might not now be permitted to come to an end. We have been sitting for thirteen hours. The train service is closed, and many members will be unable to return home to-night unless the proceedings terminate now. It is only right and proper, out of consideration to members and the officers, to stop at this stage.

Give us another chance. Let us finish Order No. IV.

I am prepared to help, but I do not think we shall get any further.

I would like very much to meet my hon. friend but really I think we ought to get on a little further. There is really a very urgent necessity that we should get through with this. If they knew from how many quarters I have been pressed to get on with this, hon. members would assist me in getting the Bill through. The Bill is almost finished.

The Prime Minister knows that business cannot properly be conducted after the House has been sitting for thirteen hours. Such a thing is unprecedented. I have never known the House to meet at 10.30 a.m., and to be asked to sit after 11.30 p.m. surely some consideration should be shown not only towards members, but towards the officials and the representatives of the press. It is far better to ask members to sit an extra day, than to carry on business in this way. I protest against it; it is making a farce of legislation.

This discussion is quite out of order. The Clerk will read the next order.

On a point of order, as Mr. Speaker did not put the vote before he left the Chair, is it competent for us to go on?

As this is a resumption, Mr. Speaker simply leaves the Chair.

The hon. member who moved this has gone already. What members are going to stay here at this hour if they can get away, and how can you expect proper legislation at this late hour. We have been kept all day discussing important questions.

The hon. gentleman must stick to the clause. Does the hon. member move to report progress and ask leave to sit again?

Yes.

I hope the Prime Minister will accept this. We shall not get further this way.

Some of us live in the north and we don’t want to stop here for ever. We are sick of Cape Town.

May I remind the Prime Minister that when he moved the motion the other day to suspend that 11 o’clock rule, he expressly gave the House to understand it would only be to finish incompleted business that might be going on till 11 o’clock. I make an appeal to the Prime Minister to remember that.

That is so, but I qualified it by saying if I thought sufficient progress was not being made that day we should make use of the rule and I think hon. members will agree with me that considering the time given to every one of the members of the Opposition to talk about the Flag Bill at every stage to-day there has been a great deal of time taken that should have been devoted to other work.

Your people talked as much as we did.

There is no doubt we have not made the progress we ought to have made.

We are on Clause 26, which is one of the most important clauses of this Bill, and many of his own supporters are very much opposed to this Bill. Is he taking the opportunity now, in their absence, to try and force it through the House? To ask the House to go on with an important clause of this sort at this time is making a farce of parliamentary procedure. We are in a minority and the only thing we can do is protest. If the Prime Minister uses his majority to force us to go on then he is taking upon himself a great responsibility.

I would remind my hon. friend that we are not at the end of the session yet and you are dependent to a large extent on the Opposition for the way things go through.

There won’t be divided capitals in future if this goes on

Don’t talk that way. We have let two Bills go through to-day without any opposition at all. It would be far better to work together in matters of this kind.

I would point out to the Prime Minister that there is a very good feeling in the House. We are all anxious to help with the work. We have been detained by the flag debate because it is a matter of supreme importance. We are coming here to a clause which no doubt will lead to some debate. Why cannot we have this first tomorrow and dispose of the matter, if it is a matter of urgency?

Let me say this, I am as anxious as hon. members opposite to meet them and they know that on other occasions I have been meeting them.

Quite true.

I am glad to hear what the leader of the Opposition has said and I am glad to accept that. I hope that we shall be assisted.

On the motion of Mr. Jagger it was agreed to report progress and ask leave to sit again.