I move—

The effect of this will be to delete the following words—

This House has adopted the principle that there shall be a wage regulated to every person who has to give his or her services. It is laid down that the word “wage” means a reward for labour, and this House by its action is, I think, guilty of class legislation. Thirty years ago, in a more humble chamber, I moved that a minimum wage should be paid. With regard to those engaged in agriculture. I hope I shall be able to show that the question of a wage regulation for them will do them no harm whatever. When we accept the principles of this Bill we accept them simply for the artizan class. When you come to consider it the whole of your artizan labour is nothing like our agricultural labour. In Britain there is a fixed minimum wage for those engaged in agricultural labour and one for miners. I cannot understand my hon. friends on my left accepting a Bill which excludes a number of workers. I want them to tell me why the man who works on the farm, who tills the land and reaps the crops, is not to be treated in the same way as the man who works in the mines. The treatment meted out to them in some places is such as should not be meted out to any human beings. I cannot understand how hon. members over there can seek to get protection for one class of workers only. If it is right, if it is just, it should be extended to every worker and to every class. Why should a domestic servant be left unprotected or a man who drives a motor car? Many of the persons who employ the latter kind of labour are much better able to pay than many engaged in industrial occupations. Then I say to my hon. friends on both sides of the House “You seek to protect your produce as much as you can, and I only seek to protect the labour.” I ask in fairness is it reasonable, is it just, to co-operate by every means possible to protect yourselves and yet give no protection to those who help you to make your money? The man who wields a spade is the man working for the welfare of this country. This very session we passed a Bill—-and rightly so—to protect the fruit-growers, just the same as last year we passed another Bill of the same kind dealing with the wine trade, which was equally right. I ask those hon. members who produce both, fruits and wine, why do they not protect those who are helping them to produce the things they are protecting. It is their labour, it is their effort. I can remember when we sought to have a fair wage clause in connection with every contract from this House. It was jeered at. To-day it is a principle in every Government contract. I ask hon. members opposite, and also those on this side, it they had been asked ten years ago, to support a wages control bill, where their votes would have been? You know they would not have been in favour of it. Hon. members are like Saul of Tarsus and have seen the light, and now you support those things which you would not support ten years ago. Do you think it is just for these things to be done to-day to one class of workman, and not to another? [Time expired.]

I also wish to deal with the matter of the exemption of those employed in agriculture, but I do not want to follow the footsteps of the hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. D. M. Brown). There was considerable discussion of this matter in Select Committee, but I do not think that up to now any of the members of the Select Committee have any clear understanding as to how far the exemptions will go. Can the Minister now tell us clearly what would really be exempted under the provisions of the Bill? In the eyes of some, “agriculture” embraces a much wider scope than in the eyes of others. Take the case of an agricultural product put to diverse uses; the grape for instance. As an agricultural product, it would be free; but I would like the Minister to tell us whether, when the grapes are being turned into wine, and in the process you employ expensive machinery, would that process be exempted under the Bill. When in the making of wine, some farmers use extensive machinery, which brings them under the Factory Act and under this Act, will those employing a simpler method be included in the exemption, when you will have winemaking in one come under the Act and in another, exemption. Then your raisins are treated by elaborate machinery in cleaning, stalking and stemming, to prepare them for the market. Will that be exempted. It has been stated that when such works are done on your own property they would be exempted; but I am not clear about that yet. The Minister was not clear about it before the Select Committee, and said he would consult the law adviser, and I would like to know exactly what the position is. Then if you hand your produce over to the co-operative society to treat, what will the position be? So far as I could gather, the opinion of the Select Committee was that work done by the co-operative society would not be exempted. You have also the dairying industry. Your milk would be considered a pastoral product and work in connection therewith exempted, but if you use your separator and turn out cream, and cream into butter, that would be a manufacturing process, yet by some it was held that that would be exempted. If it is exempted, when you do it on your own property, would the exemption continue when you have the work done by the co-operative society. We will not be able to tell our constituents what is going to be exempted in agriculture, unless this matter is cleared up. If your co-operative societies are not exempted, it will have this effect, that while the Minister of Agriculture preaches co-operation, your Minister of Labour would to such an extent interfere with your co-operative societies that a great many members would resign. I have confined myself to the agricultural exemption; I might say a word about the other exemptions later on.

I move—

Those who are acquainted with the alluvial diggings know that it is something of a purely speculative nature. The diggers are not certain of a fixed income every year. Sometimes a man digs for three or four years before he has the good fortune to find a small stone which is worth a few hundred pounds. Therefore, I think that this digging is of such a speculative nature that it should not be included. There are certainly 30,000 poor whites who are working on these kind of diggings and there is a large number who have made their living out of it for the past 40 years and whose parents also have made their living by it. Subsequently farmers who were ruined in consequence of drought, etc., also landed there and after the second war of independence people from the Transvaal and the Free State, who had been ruined by the war, also established themselves there. They state that the income derived from these diggings is practically the only thing that still keeps them going. It is certainly a kind of relief work with the difference that the State in this case pays nothing. They keep themselves above water. The State as a matter of fact derives great revenue from it. The diggings at Barkly West alone brings no less than about £70,000 per annum into the treasury in taxes on the export of rough diamonds and from claim licences, etc. The members of the Select Committee told me that the Act will never be applied to those diggings. If that is so then in my opinion, we should lay down clearly here that it will not be applied to them, that they will be excluded. Only this morning I received a letter sent by the secretary of the Minister of Labour to the people, in which the Minister of Labour clearly states how it will be applied, and that it will not be applied to them. But they think that that does not quite meet their views and they wish it to be laid down in the Act that the alluvial diggings are excluded. They even intend before its final passing to send a deputation at great expense to the Minister to induce the Minister to grant their request. But before that great expense is incurred I want to try to get the Minister now to concede the point.

For the amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper, viz.—

I wish to substitute the following—

When we come to the schedule I intend to move the following among the definitions—

I feel that the amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper was perhaps too comprehensive. The House has, rightly or wrongly, accepted the principle of the minimum wage, and I do not wish to introduce an amendment which will exclude any industry which is not directly an agricultural industry. The only possible chance the Bill has of passing the House is if agriculture is excluded; it has been excluded in name, but not in fact. Legal opinion is that if the raw material of agricultural, horticultural or pastoral pursuits is subjected to any manufacturing process the Bill will apply to such process, The farming industry is not merely concerned in producing raw materials, but in turning those raw materials into the finished article, principally of food, and the position under the Bill is going to be very, very difficult. For instance the pressing of grapes may be considered a manufacturing process, and if a cotton grower establishes a grin on his farm he will come under the Bill. The same thing will apply in the case of milk, butter and cheese factories; so, too, will a wattle grower, for the sawing up of the trees into lengths for mining props, or into slats for use in making fruit boxes, will be regarded as a manufacturing process. The position will be an impossible one if farming industries are subjected to the Bill and they have to pay minimum wages. A state of chaos will result if a farmer has to pay the ordinary wages to his labourers concerned strictly with farming pursuits and minimum wages to men employed, say, in his cheese factory. It is of course, quite possible that the Minister intends that all these secondary industries shall be excluded from the operation of the Bill; at any rate, the farming members of the House agree that that should be done, and I think we have every right to ask him to so amend the clause as to leave no doubt about it. We want no ambiguity about it. We have had many discussions about this, and whilst it was felt that they were opposed to the minimum wage they also felt, if it has to be imposed, then the industries run by the farming community should be excluded under the Bill. I would point out in the definition I am moving that I want to make it as clear as possible that it is not the commercial undertaking nor the manufacturers whose products are agricultural products, and not a factory started on the by-products, where they work them up as in tanneries, which we wish to exclude from the operation of the Bill, but just those industries started on the farms and worked by the farmers themselves, and the condition 25 per cent. of the products used in the factory shall be produced by the owners themselves makes this plain. I hope he will exclude these factories. I hope the Minister will accept some amendment that will make the position specific and plain.

I wish to support the amendment of the hon. member for Barkly (Mr. W. B. de Villiers). The position is not understood properly, because very few members have had an opportunity of seeing how the men, women and children are living on the alluvial diggings In the last report of the Department of Mines and Industries we find 70,000 people on the alluvial diggings, 26,000 whites, and the remainder coloured. The fact is the majority of these are poor people, and have gone there not for luxury, nor in the hope of getting wealth, but just to make an existence. Although we have an impression that the provisions of this Bill will not be applied to the alluvial diggers, we wish to insist, in all reasonableness, upon the Minister in charge of this Bill that the alluvial diggers should be exempted. Once the provisions are imposed these people will not be able to make an existence, and they and their dependents will have to go elsewhere for a living, either to be employed in other industries to be started, or in relief work. The State collects considerable sums from the alluvial diggings. Approximately £200.000 were gathered in export duties from the alluvial diggings, and there are other sources from which the Government of the day derives income, such as the licence fees. Now we must realize these particular sources, fruitful as they are, will terminate in consequence of the application of the provisions of this Bill. Any further taxation must lead to ruin for those involved. The average digger does not gather wealth there. Men who were able to meet their obligations under former circumstances have been able to make good, but if further taxation is levied upon them it will be impossible. In the first annual report of the Board of Alluvial Diggers, and I read it because it gives an insight to another point of view of the situation, it says—

At that rate, with the sacrifice they have to make, and with big dependent families, it must be plain to the Minister that they could not stand any further taxation. I am going to support the Bill, because it contains so many provisions that must make for improvement, but in this case the Minister would confer a benefit on these people and upon the State if they were to be excluded.

I support the amendment of the hon. member for Barkly (Mr. W. B. de Villiers). The matter was brought to my notice last month when I was on the Barkly West diggings. This Bill is regarded, so far as its possible application to the diggings is concerned, with considerable alarm. The machinery of the Bill would not fit in with the conditions there. They felt that it would be better to make an exemption under the Bill and not leave the matter to be decided afterwards. The condition of affairs is absolutely unsuited for the application of a Bill of this kind. It will be impossible to apply the law to the conditions on the diggings, and the effect of the law, without exemption, even if not applied, will retard development because diggers would rather not risk the possibility of it being applied. There is a good deal of capital investment there by working people on that eternal hope that animates the breast—the hope that some day they will make a big find There are no trade union conditions that apply to the affairs on the diggings, and the public feeling has been manifested by the fact that there is not one digging where there has not been a public meeting, and where the matter has not been debated, and they have been unanimous in asking the Government to exempt the diggings in the Bill. There have been memoranda sent to the Government, and to the select committee, and they were anxious to give evidence before the committee, but the latter apparently did not think this was necessary. I would ask the Minister not to oppose this amendment, because a case has been made out for exemption. Exemptions have already been made in the Bill, and I think the alluvial diamond diggings have made out a good case for exemption in addition to those classes already exempted under the Bill. It won’t interfere with the machinery of the Bill, and will make clear what is going to take place. Probably the provisions of the Bill will never be applied to alluvial diamond diggings, but it is better to make the position quite clear.

I want to say a few words about the amendment of the hon. member for Barkly (Mr. W. B. de Villiers). I do not think it is the intention of the Minister to apply the Bill to the diggings but for that very reason it is our duty to strongly urge upon him to accept this amendment. The diggers are often called fortune seekers, but everybody who knows them knows that that is a wrong appellation. They go there to keep the pot boiling. If they cannot make a living there they will be thrown on the hands of the Government and we shall have to provide for them. In these circumstances we ought not to make it more difficult for them to make a living. There is a strong agitation among the diggers. They are alarmed about the Bill. They are excited and if the Minister accepts the amendment they will become calm. They feel that this Bill will make it impossible for them to go on digging, if they have to appoint a wages board to fix the wages. I think it is a matter of great importance because there are many of these diggers in my constituency. I know that they do not go there for luxury but simply to make a bare living. We must not allow the wages to be fixed. The digger works in partnership with his helpers and if the work of the week has been a failure then he, together with his workers, suffers from hunger. As it is not the object of the Minister to apply the Bill to the diggers I have no hesitation in asking him to accept the amendment.

I can see no reasons for differentiating between the alluvial digger and the diamond miner, but I must say that I am entirely opposed to the Bill, and, therefore, I am very anxious that every industry should be exempted from the operation of this Bill. If every industry were exempted, I would like it very much indeed. I am speaking against my own interests now, because the more diamonds are produced at the alluvial diggings the worse it is for the diamond mines —there is no question about that—but in the interests of these poor people I must support the amendment of the hon. member for Barkly (Mr. W. B. de Villiers). I have lived close to these river diggers much longer than any of the hon. gentlemen who have already spoken, and I have seen the sad way in which the majority of them live and the precarious manner in which they make ends meet. I would think there are not more than 5 per cent. who do fairly well, about 25 per cent. make a very bare living, and the remaining 70 per cent. don’t know from one day to another how they are going to get a meal on the following day. Of course, the Government is greatly to blame, not alone the present Government, but also previous Governments, in having proclaimed so many of these alluvial farms. I admit that a great deal of pressure has been brought to bear upon the various Governments, and that they have found it difficult to resist the applications that are frequently made for the opening up of these alluvial diggings. To my mind it would be far better for the Government, instead of opening up these new alluvial diggings, to give each man who is anxious to go to the river diggings, £100 to go to Monte Carlo, and with the balance of £50 let him have a gamble on the tables. A few of them would make a living, and as to the others the Government would probably have to send money to them to enable them to come back, in the same way as they have to assist so many of the river diggers who subsequently become poor whites. There are over 20,000 natives working on the river diggings. Whether this Bill applies to them or not, the natives are going to take a leaf out of the white man’s book. When they see the white men combine for higher wages they are also going to combine for higher wages and that will have a bad effect not alone on the river diggings but on the whole of the industries throughout South Africa. We hear so much about the poor people from the Labour benches and I hope they will show their genuineness and vote for the amendment of the hon. member for Barkly. There are 26.000 natives at the diggings, and if you increase their wages by 1s. per day that will mean £400.000 per year. That means that the large majority of these diggers will have to go elsewhere. What will become of them I regret to think. This Bill is the most dangerous and far-reaching measure that has ever been brought before this Parliament. I am speaking very seriously, I do not wish to get any political advantage or score a political point, but I do say most seriously that this Bill is going to cause unemployment, that it will raise the cost of living, and that it will be a Westinghouse vacuum brake on the development of industries in this country.

It is a remarkable fact in connection with this Bill that those who profess themselves to be wholeheartedly in favour of it are equally wholeheartedly in favour of exempting any particular class of people who have the predominance of votes in their constituency. We know that, many members opposite, while saying that they support the Bill thoroughly, have pledged themselves to their farming constituents that it shall never apply to the farmer. The Minister of Justice has assured the people in the country that so long as they are in power the farmers will have no reason to fear that the Bill may be applied to them, and I suppose when he next visits the river diggings, he will, if he ever goes there again, give the same assurance to them. It cannot be said that these two classes are distinguished amongst the rest of the community—I mean those who work in the diamond diggings and those engaged in agriculture —for getting a high and remunerative rate of wages; that at any rate cannot be said. I am going to propose an amendment to exempt another class—not this time on account of votes. The Bill provides it shall not apply to persons whose wages are governed or regulated by any Act relative to the public service or the railways and harbours service. There is another class of officials, a small class, whose conditions of service are entirely governed by this House, and that is the officers of Parliament, and I think it would be both illogical and unnecessary that that class of people whose remuneration is directly governed by this House should be subject to a wage board. As you have exempted the public servants you ought, logically, to exempt these officers. I move—

I second that, and I would also like to ask the Minister before he replies what he is going to do in connection with commercial establishments. I presume that with the exception of those mentioned in Clause 1, this Bill will apply to every undertaking or business throughout the Union. I think the Minister knows sufficient about commercial matters to know that in an office or store, men are not on the same plane or footing as in a workshop or factory. Even in a small business there are men doing different kinds of work and having different responsibilities, and receiving different wages. If he is going to apply this Bill to these establishments how is he going to work it? Does he intend to lay down a minimum wage sufficient to keep the older man in a comfortable state of living and to apply it also the younger man who has not reached the stage of responsibility and efficiency that the older man has attained? I am inclined to agree with the hon. member for Beaconsfield (Sir David Harris) that we should exempt all undertakings and all industries from this Bill. Seeing that is not to be, however. I think the Minister should give us some idea as to how he is going to work the Bill. I know there is a great deal of doubt and uncertainty among commercial people and they are anxious to know from the Minister how the provisions of the Bill are to be put into force when the Bill becomes law.

I would commend the hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. D. M. Brown) to his friends on that side of the House for an intimation as to why there are exemptions in this Bill. His complaint is that there ought to be no exemptions; the complaint of all the other hon. members on that side of the House seems to be that there are not nearly enough exemptions.

We are against it.

I beg your pardon—you want to exempt commercial people. The hon. member for Beaconsfield was candid; he would like to exempt every industry, and if that were done he would have no objection to this Bill. There are two or three specific things which have been asked me. The hon. member who spoke last spoke about the commercial men. The hon. member for Barkly West (Mr. W. B. de Villiers) and others on that side who have championed the cause of alluvial diggers appear to have very imperfectly grasped the clauses of the Bill. They are proceeding on the assumption that this Wages Board is going to lay down one national minimum wage throughout the country. Let us take the commercial community. Does the hon. member for Durban (Berea) (Mr. Henderson) seriously ask that the whole of the commercial establishments should be exempted from the operation of the Wages Board? I know hon. members over there are against the Bill; they do not want it at any price. Well, we do not want the Bill.

How are you going to work it?

Read the Bill. On the application of any employer or employees sufficiently represented the Board shall investigate and report to the Minister. They shall make such recommendation as they deem fit to the Minister, and the Minister may then accept their recommendations and make them effective. It seems to me—I may be doing hon. members over there an injustice, but if they will candidly examine their own thoughts I think I am right—that they are proceeding on the assumption that the Board is going to entirely ignore the things which it is expressly directed to take into consideration; that it is going to be composed of persons with no judgment who are going to send to the Minister recommendations which the Minister, entirely ignoring his responsibilities to Parliament, is going to put into force. Let us take the diamond diggers. What is their position? Sub-section 2 of clause (3) says that “the Board shall take into consideration the ability of employers in that trade or section of trade to carry on the same successfully,” and so on. Is it likely in a ease where the actual product is so small that the whole thing is little more than relief works, that they are going to make a wage which will put a stop to the diamond digging industry? Take the other side of the case. Not only these poor diggers are concerned. What do hon. members mean by alluvial”? The whole of the German South-West diamond deposits are alluvial.

This will not apply to South-West.

There is no more reason to exclude diamond diggers than commercial employees or any of these other things. I know hon. members over there, in their desire not to see this Bill go through, wish to lay stress on the exclusion of the agricultural industry from the Bill.

What is the reason?

Why did you also limit it, in the Factory Act, and in the amendment to the Workmen’s Compensation Act dealing with industrial diseases, and would not allow anthrax, or any of those things that occur in agriculture, to be included? One reason is that the bulk of the people in the country are not satisfied that this is as necessary in the agricultural industry as in the ordinary organized wage-paying industries. I am trying to do a practical thing which will be of extraordinary value to the big bulk of the wage-paying industries of this country. My hon. friend over there would probably agree with the hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. D. M. Brown), but we are not going to sink the ship for the sake of a ha’pennyworth of tar. Where we see the possibility, in the big bulk of the organized wage-paying industries, of putting things on a better footing, we are not going to sacrifice that for mere doctrinaire arguments. Hon. members opposite, in their own legislation, have been excluding the agricultural industry themselves. The hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) will remember that he found it expedient to do so. Was he less logical? Not a bit. The objection of hon. members over there is not really to the exclusion of agriculture. They are using this, if possible, to defeat the Bill. I am sorry I cannot accept the amendment of the hon. member for Barkly West (Mr. W. B. de Villiers). There is no necessity for it. In so far as any alluvial deposits such as those in South-West may exist, or may be found, they are just as much wage-paying industries as reef mining. I see no ground for the exclusion of them. As regards the poor diggers, it is not going to affect them the least bit in the world. Then I come to the amendment of the hon. member for Griqualand East (Mr. Gilson). I am glad to see that, after studying his amendment as originally put in the paper, he has seen the futility of it. He jumped in, thinking he had some form of words to cover him, and he found the words exempted a great deal more than he wanted. His original amendment was that every factory which manufactures articles of agricultural, horticultural or pastoral pursuits or forestry origin was to be excluded. That means that every factory that exists in the world that does not manufacture mineral products would be excluded. His second attempt is first of all to put in “and industries” and then to proceed after that to exclude a very large number of those industries, because, in his second amendment, which we are coming to later, he seeks to solve his riddle by saying that an agricultural, horticultural or pastoral industry shall mean—

and so on. Does that furnish any criterion at all? If a large company erected a really big factory; merely because the man who produces the raw material also runs the factory, is there any justice in distinguishing between that and any other factory. You certainly cannot get at it in that way. I know what he has in mind. It is the same problem we have to deal with in the administration of the Factories Act. The little two-penny-halfpenny divisions, shall I say, in the process of making the goods. I had a complaint from certain wattle growers that they have a little bit of a saw mill where the same natives they employ to strip the bark, on two days a week saw it up into lengths. Is the hon. member not going to take this factory into consideration? Is he going to regard that as the same as a large boot factory? The only common-sense way of dealing with these matters is to take a broad view and exclude agricultural, horticultural and pastoral pursuits. And the ministerial responsibility is here, in every practical step, and the Minister, in the exercise of his ministerial responsibility, has to apply them. We have the same thing in administering the Factories Act.

And you fall into the hands of your officials.

We instruct the officials as much as we can, and they frequently refer matters to headquarters. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) is really consistent, and if he were to speak his mind frankly he would say, let us go back to the laissez faire policy of the Manchester school and leave this factory legislation alone. But even the Factory Act passed by his friend the leader of the Opposition conflicts with his free trade and laissez faire principles. We tried to get these effects with as little pinpricking as we possibly can. It is perfectly obvious that what is pinpricking to the person concerned is not always pinpricking in the eyes of the administration. We have tried a number of forms of words, and the advice I have amounts to this, that there will be a border land whatever form of words you use and that border land has to be negotiated by sympathetic and at the same time fair administration. I think these are all the points that have been brought up. We have threshed them all out in select committee and there was no satisfactory criterion ever suggested, and, apart from the select committee, I have tried to find a form of words to fill the bill, but the more you include in your exemptions the more certain you make the operation to other things that are meant to be excluded, and by trying to narrow it you will widen it and not improve on the present words there.

What it comes to is this: We have had some experience in regard to Factory Acts. Ministers come and go, as my hon. friend will no doubt find out, but officials are always there, and they read these Acts as they think fit. They read them strictly according to the wording of the Act, and follow the lawyers every time. I will give an example. We passed the Factory Act, and it was applied at Malmesbury to small concerns pressing and baling forage. The result was that the men who worked the presses had to leave work at 5 p.m., but the men who were employed by the same firm, but in the forage store, had to continue work until the day’s business was finished. Consequently some of these small establishments have been compelled to close down. When the matter is referred to the officials they will, despite ministerial assurances given to this House, say that it is their duty to carry out the Act as it is printed, not as it may be construed here. My hon. friend will probably not be on the ministerial benches by then. His assurances are, under the circumstances, worthless. I speak from experience in these matters. Where is the Minister going to place jam making or fruit packing; will they come under horticulture? My hon. friend does not know. Where will wine making come in; will domestic service include a chauffeur? I warn the House very strongly against accepting the assurance that the regulations are going to be read according to common sense, for my experience is that officials do not go according to common sense but adhere to the strict reading of the law, as, of course, they are bound to do. If a farmer builds a stable for his cattle or cottages for his farm hands, will that be considered an agricultural pursuit? Hon. members do not know what they are committing themselves to in this matter.

You can put limitless conundrums with regard to any legislation.

Does the Minister expect us blindly to accept the Bill simply because it comes from the Government? Not exactly. The Minister of Labour says the Bill is approved by the majority of the people—I take leave to doubt that. It is being pressed for only by a small minority. The measure will have two effects. In the first place it will increase unemployment. If you fix a minimum wage for any particular trade a large number of the workers employed in that trade cannot come up to the minimum standard, and consequently they will lose their situations, as they have done in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth in the building trade. Secondly, the Bill will increase the cost of living.

Are you not opposing the Bill altogether?

I am opposed to it entirely. It is no wonder my hon. friend did not wait for the appointment of the Economic Commission before introducing the Bill. The Economic Commission of 1914, which consisted of very able men, one—Professor Chapman—being one of the ablest economists in Great Britain, condemned such legislation as this. In the course of their report they said—

This experiment has been tried in certain countries, which have only white inhabitants, but it has never been tried in a country like this. On what basis is the minimum wage to be fixed —is the Minister going to fix the pay for the white man or the coloured man? The statistics of production show that in the year 1921-’22 the average wage paid to a European employee in the Cape Peninsula was £239 per annum, and to a non-European £73 per annum. Another case has been brought to my notice. There are crayfish canning factories in Cape Town, and also in South-West Africa; the Act will not be enforced at the latter place, so that the result will be that the local factories will be handicapped. I move, as an amendment—

The Minister just now spoke for ten minutes and said nothing. He evaded the question, and the Minister is the sole arbiter of this law. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) has raised an important question which is agitating the minds of all we agriculturists and I hope the Minister will give a definite answer. You have the case of farmers who make butter. Are they coming under this Act? Because the Minister is the sole arbiter, the beginning and the end of the Act, and he has all the power. What about the wattle mills? In my constituency you have dozens of farmers growing wattle and they have mills cutting up the wattle bark in which they work once a week. I call the Minister’s attention to the domestic wattle mills and to the fact that the same labour is also used on the general work of the farm. Is that also coming under the Act? Will the Minister give a definite reply and not evade it?

There is another question I want to raise. You may have wages fixed in any area in the building trade, and in that same area you have the position where a farmer has a little bit of building or repair work or a little bit of whitewash to a building. I want the Minister’s attention to this matter because we insist upon getting a reply. There might also be a little bit of work on a wall which may be broken down, and you employ a man employed on your farm who may ‘be only half skilled in that work. Will it be an infringement of the Act if you employ such a person on that? You might have wages for motor drivers and mechanics fixed. Farmers use their own motor cars for carrying their produce. Will it apply to them? The motor lorry is not in constant use and the man employed on the lorry is also employed on the farm. You have the same with carpenters. A man in your employ may be a very fair hand at doing a bit of carpentering. It is natural that you will fix the wages for carpenters. You have a man you employ on your farm who is semi-skilled at carpentering. He works at carpentering for perhaps an hour or two, or perhaps a couple of days. Will he have to be paid the fixed wage? The Minister must let us clearly know what the position is. You have made up your minds to put the Bill through and we have a right to know how it is going to be applied, and I am very much concerned about Row it is going to be applied to agriculture. What will be exempted and what will come under the Act?

I think the hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. D. M. Brown) is perfectly consistent in stating that the application of the Bill should be made more general. I am opposed to the principle altogether, and it will be a matter of surprise to me if we don’t find, as a result, that the cost of living does not go up, and the further necessity for resolutions such as the one we had on Tuesday last, urging the Government to take steps to reduce the cost of living. I see no reason for discrimination in this matter. If the principle is sound it should be applied generally. What has been said in regard to the farmers and the alluvial diggers could be said in regard to other industries? I contend the principle of the Bill is unsound, and I support the hon. member for Barkly (Mr. W. B. de Villiers) and the hon. member for East Griqualand (Mr. Gilson). With regard to dairies in my own district and in East Griqualand, I would like to point out to the Minister that there we work for six months of the year continuously. Our milk has to be carted over various distances to the factories, arriving there at all hours. If we were to adopt the eight-hour system it would be wholly impracticable. Then there is the period when our dairies are all locked up and the men have nothing to do there. During that period they receive £12 or £15 a month, although there is nothing for them to do, but when they come back we expect them to devote the whole of their time to the work and their salaries are made adequate for that purpose. There is a further point. I do think it is essential that the managers of our factories or the companies to which the factories belong, should have a right to fire any undesirable man malcontents or agitators who have a grievance against them. Such people among workers do an infinite amount of harm. I shall have much pleasure in supporting the amendment which has been moved.

The Minister’s difficulties this afternoon in regard to this clause are difficulties entirely of his own creation. If he had been content to introduce a Wage Bill which follows the principle of legislation in other countries, and that is to look after the “under-dog,” none of this trouble would have arisen, but we find the Minister in this Gilbertian position. He sits there on the Ministerial benches with the support of a party three-quarters of whom are representing farmers or farming constituencies, and they have said to him—

One of his followers has suddenly discovered that there is a class of people in his constituency who may be influenced by this Bill, and he is hastening to move a further amendment, so as to remove them from the purview of this Bill. On the Labour and the Nationalist benches I do not see a single member who will be affected by this Bill when it is passed. There is not anyone of them who is an employer of labour in the sense that he will come within the operation of this Bill. Hon. members opposite have no objection to liberal and democratic legislation, provided always you put it on the other fellow. I speak from an entirely different aspect with regard to this Bill from a good many of my hon. friends on this side. I support the principle of the minimum wage, and minimum wage legislation, but I say this: That the Minister, if he is logical, will accept the amendment of the hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. D. M. Brown). The whole idea of minimum wage legislation is to help those who cannot help themselves. The lower down a man is the more he needs help by legislation of this sort, and the higher up a man is the less he needs help by legislation of this sort. Your trades unionists, organized into strong and effective trade unions, do not need legislation of this sort. This legislation is to help the “under-dog.” and the “underset under-dog” in this country is the agricultural and farm labourer.

Nonsense.

You read the reports of the Department of Justice, and you will find that stock thefts all throughout the country are attributed to the lowness of the wages of the farm labourers.

Nonsense.

If it is nonsense, why object to legislation of this sort applying to the farm labourers?

Let your leader propose it.

I am going to support the proposal of the hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. D. M. Brown), because it is fair and just and logical. If you want to alleviate the position of the “under-dog” by legislation of this sort, then do so. Now to come along with a proposal, as the hon. member for Barkly has done, to exempt from the operation of this Bill the workers on the alluvial diamond diggings, is to make these proceedings of the House come somewhere near the level of a farce. I have read the memorandum that was laid before the select committee in favour of this proposal, in which it is stated that individualism has all along the line succeeded, and that attempts to fix standard wages and hours have failed. It seems to me that if the Minister accepts this amendment he will negative the whole purpose of his Bill. If the Minister were logical, he would apply this Bill, if he applies it at all, uniformly throughout this country. What he is doing now is, with the help of farmers, to legislate to make producers pay wages which the farmers admit that under similar conditions they themselves would not pay. I say that that is not right. If this Bill of ours, after we pass it, is sent to other countries with similar legislation, Australia, Great Britain and elsewhere, they will say—

The Minister cannot attempt to answer my hon. friend, the member for Three Rivers, in the way that he did. I would be glad to hear him state by reference to existing conditions what is the real justification for applying this Bill to everyone and anyone, except the constituents and friends of hon. members opposite.

I want to assure my hon. friend, the member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan), that there are no alluvial diamond diggings in Hanover Street, although the hon. member has stated that hon. members were supporting the exemption of particular classes of people in their own constituencies. I was very disappointed with the Minister’s reply, because he has stated that this amendment is unnecessary, inasmuch as the Bill can never be applied to the river diggings. If that is so, why not make the position perfectly clear in the Bill itself? I would point out to him that, in the Diamond Export Duty Act of 1917, special exemption was made with regard to alluvial diamonds. It is true that was taken away in 1919, but it showed that they evidently regarded it as quite possible to exempt alluvial diamonds. The Minister said that you might have something in the nature of the South-West fields discovered in the Union. I have no doubt that if and when that time comes, you will have special legislation to deal with it. It does seem hard that the Minister should refuse to accept this amendment which would make the future of these people absolutely certain; and I do not see what possible harm it could do to the machinery of the Bill.

I agree with the hon. member opposite that the diggers for alluvial diamonds should be excluded, because I know that there is no portion of society that works so hard as they do. I want, however, to come back to the reply that the Minister made here, and it is clear to me, from that, that the farmer is in danger. I hope that my friends there will translate to the Minister what I am saying, so that he can reply as to whether I understood him correctly. I want to know what the position of the farmers is who start a factory on their farms to turn their fruit into konfyt. The Minister has clearly said that they will come under the Act, and I wish to warn my fellow farmers that, anyone who puts up a factory to manufacture products falls under the Bill. I am very uneasy about it, because many of the farmers in my constituency put up factories to make orange konfyt. The words of the Minister have frightened me. Although farming is excluded, the farmer will be hit in many ways by this Bill. I hope that the Minister will withdraw his reply, and will accept the amendment to exclude that.

I hope hon. members over there who support the Minister know what they are doing, because, I for one, do not know what I am doing. Hon. members over there may jeer, but I as a farmer want to know where I stand. When I was last on my farm many other things besides crop production were being carried on. For instance, there was brick making. Does that come under the Bill? Is that an agricultural pursuit? Furthermore, I had a contractor there building a bit of a dam. I suppose he would come under the Bill too. In the part of the country where I am there is a good deal of rain, which means road construction continually going on. Whether all these things come under this Bill it would be interesting to me as a farmer to know. Then there was a little oil engine for electric light and so on; a blacksmith in continual employment, a store-keeper, a butchery on a small scale, and innumerable other things all connected with the business of a farm but which do not seem to be covered by the terms of this Bill. I think hon. members on that side, as well as those on this side, will agree with me that we ought to know where we are in these matters. You can never sit still on a farm. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) knows this since he has taken to farming himself. A farmer is nearly always building or doing something other than tilling the soil, winch is only an incident, although the most important one. We want to know whether our farm servants, who are employed in many jobs and are taken on the land, say, to construct a dam, or make bricks or run up a shed, whether they will be entitled to apply to the wages board. We are getting into a great tangle and hon. members over there who have seen farming operations going on will appreciate the difficulty of the farmer with his servants unless he knows exactly where they are under this Bill. I am inclined to support any amendment exempting everyone. I do not think the Bill will ever be a good one. I hope the Minister will at all events throw some light on the points raised by others and myself and give us an indication of what we are voting for and what will be the probable effect of this legislation to our farmers.

In the motion which I tabled I did not consult anybody. The Minister does me an injustice when he says—I do not know whether he refers to my particular amendment or not—that the amendments have been brought up for the purpose of defeating the Bill. This amendment, so far as I am concerned, carries out the traditions of my life, before the Minister was in politics. The hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street) (Mr. Alexander) said everybody should be brought in. I quite agree that a proper wages bill should bring in every person. I am in favour of a wages bill. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) has raised the question of work in connection with a farm. I raised the question of the man who drives the motor car to take the produce from the farm. If you leave out the farm worker, you are doing a great injustice. But somebody cried out—

Will any hon. member say the strongly organized unions of the Rand demand this, and that the agricultural labourer is not in a less protected position than they are? The 8 hour day has been mentioned by the hon. member for Aliwal (Mr. Sephton). That is impracticable, harming can only be dealt with in the day God gives us, from sunrise to sunset.

It is a seasonal occupation.

Yes. Then consider the fruit industry. As soon as the fruit is taken off the trees it comes into the hands of a different class of people, who deal with it by machinery. How can you exclude these persons from the working of an Act of this kind? I do not agree with the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) that the Act should apply to officers of Parliament, who might safely be left out. They are few in number, and if you include them, why not include the staff of the provincial councils? It has been well said by most of the political economists that the only way to solve most of your difficulties in regard to wages, and everything else, is by the adoption of the profit-sharing business. My hon. friend said “What about locusts coming along?” Well, I say it should be like the income tax—no crops, no bonus; good results, good bonus. I should like to ask the Minister whether hotel servants come under the Bill?

Is a hotel a private household?

In my amendment I am asking that. Do workers in hotels come under the term “domestic servants”.

No.

You have hotels in this country with 300 servants, and I think that hotel servants in the ordinary sense are domestic servants. Only in regard to two classes of persons has the greatest industrial country in the world, Great Britain, attempted to deal with industry by legislation, namely, the coal workers and the agriculturists. What is the difference between the agriculturist here and the agriculturist in Britain? I think I can tell you. Possibly the Minister knows that, if he dared to include the agricultural labourer, the Bill would not go through. He says he is not going to spoil the Bill for the sake of a ha’penny worth of tar. Does he for a moment think that the great mass of workers employed on farms, who number more than those on the mines, are to be called a halfpenny worth of tar in dealing with this question? Generally the Minister has a high sense of responsibility when he speaks, and I do not believe in his heart he is opposed to their inclusion. If he were still sitting on the cross benches, instead of sitting where he is, he would accept this amendment. His whole association in the past has been fighting for those who needed fighting for. I ask him to go back to his own speeches, and I defy him to find a single reference where he has ever suggested that there should be different legislation for different persons connected with the working class. The hon. member cannot, because he has now a portfolio, rid himself of his responsibility to the thousands of people in this country who have no mouthpiece, namely, the agricultural workers. In Britain they have many mouthpieces, but there is, on the cross benches here, not a single member who represents an agricultural centre. (Time expired.)

I hope the committee will not carry this discussion to an unnecessary length. These matters are quite clear. The difference between us is clear. Hon. members over there, like the hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. D. M. Brown) and the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell) want to give full vent to their humanitarian feelings, and object to a certain exclusion. Let me congratulate the hon. members on being, at the moment, in a position where their votes will support their views in this matter, no doubt.

Where would you have been on this question if you were sitting on the cross-benches?

If I saw any chance of the Bill going through I would have supported this. I am going to ask the Committee to come to a vote as soon as possible on this, for we cannot spend the after-noon on one clause. I do not agree with the amendment of the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger), for if interpreted reasonably that amendment will leave the clause exactly as it was before. If we are going to interpret unreasonably and have all sorts of imaginary conundrums, we might as well say that the largest sugar mill which could be erected on a sugar estate would be an occupation in connection with that farm. Whatever form of words are used they may be interpreted unreasonably or in the ordinary common-sense way. Interpreted by the latter method the existing words are quite enough. If you take the hon. member’s words and unreasonably interpret them they are liable to the same objection that can be urged against the words in the Bill. I have given an enormous amount of time to this matter, trying to find some form of words to meet the opinions which have been expressed, but I am advised to leave the matter where it is. Hon. members have now registered their opinions, and we on this side, on the other hand, are satisfied with the safeguards afforded in the Bill. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) is quite right—Minister succeeds Minister, but there is a disposition on the part of the administration to avoid pinpricking, and whoever the Minister may be who administers the Act he will be responsible to Parliament. We have discussed the matter both in select committee and here, and we come back to the position that the form of words in the Bill gives every legitimate safeguard, but any form of words you devise will be open to the imaginary conundrums which have been put this afternoon. Let us come to a conclusion, but do not let us further protract a quite useless discussion.

The hon. Minister speaks about the unnecessary length of the debate. We have no thought of prolonging the debate unnecessarily, but the matter is of so great importance to us that we cannot permit that it should be accepted without that which we consider wrong being clearly brought out. The hon. Minister has just got up and said that he had such great difficulty in drafting the Bill. I can well understand his difficulty. When I read the Bill it makes me think of what happens so often on a farm. When a horse and a donkey come together, and the two become intimate, then you get neither a horse nor a donkey, but a mule. When I look at the Bill, then it seems to me to be neither a horse nor a donkey. It is a mule. If the hon. Prime Minister had drawn up such a Bill, then we would have had something else to what we have to-day, and if the hon. Minister, who is now responsible for it, could have followed his own wish and idea in accordance with what he has always said when he sat on the cross benches, then he also would have introduced something different. But now he has to satisfy his own people and, at the same time, to also put the farmers’ representatives at rest. I do not know whether the farmers’ representatives on the Government side are satisfied. They are sitting quiet to-day, but as a farming representative, I can certainly not be satisfied. When the hon. Minister for Labour is asked if this or that falls under the Bill, then he sits still, and says neither yes nor no. He has got up and spoken, but what he said is of no assistance to us. It amounts to this, that what is in the Bill will be carried out. Therefore, the acceptance of the amendment of the hon. member for Griqualand (Mr. Gilson), or of the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger), is of great importance to us, because the amendment will make it clear what is intended. Circumstances are so different in our country. If wages are fixed, which are applicable in the large towns such as Cape Town and Johannesburg, then they will be wages which will be absolutely impossible for the same work in the inland villages. And the wages which are paid in factories will not be able to be paid for work that is done in farming. The hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. D. M. Brown) talks so easily about the produce of the ground being the reward of the owner of the ground, and then asks why the person that does work shall not also have his portion of the profit. I wish to ask him if great losses are incurred, which is often the case, whether those that have done the work will also be satisfied to share in the losses. He will say that that cannot be done, and this shows that the circumstances are different, and that we are justified in asking that agriculture should be excluded.

It is excluded.

Yes, but if the hon. Minister is asked what is excluded, then he can give no reply. If a man, e.g., who works at the pump on a farm, works less hours and earns more than other workers, then great dissatisfaction will arise among the others. I want to ask hon. members if they have as yet read the definition of “work.” If they do so carefully, then they will no longer be satisfied, because it includes all kinds of operations in connection with agriculture. I feel much inclined to support the amendment of the hon. member for Three Rivers, because if the amendment is passed, then the representatives from the country side will be against the Bill.

I think the Minister has made a remark which, to me, I might say, is almost offensive. I think it was a remark he had no right to make. He says we are registering a protest. Does he think that farmers are merely making a formal protest, and not that we are really deeply interested in it? I, for one, will fight it to the last ditch.

I don’t want the hon. member to go off on a wrong tack. I was not implying that the protest was not entirely sincere.

You used the words in juxtaposition with the vote.

Well, it was a lapsus linguae, I had not the faintest intention of meaning that. It was not in my mind. What I thought was, having registered your opinion, don’t carry on a long desultory discussion.

I accept the Minister’s word, and so let me now put forward what may be more persuasive arguments. What they have done in England is this: They form their Trades Board, but that board has not the power to deal with every condition of trade throughout the country. It has to deal with specific trades, and if they recommend any other trades should come under the operation of the minimum wage, these trades have to be recommended to Parliament, and parliamentary sanction had to be obtained to include them. I hope the Minister is not feeling very tired.

I think better with my eyes shut.

You say—

I say that the agricultural interests in this country is not prepared to sympathetically entrust the administration of an Act which may react seriously on agricultural activities to a Minister of Labour. I don’t say it personally. If the Minister told me outside, personally, as Mr. Creswell, that he is not going to apply them to agriculture, I should accept that, but I don’t take his word as Minister of Labour, that he is sympathetic to the agricultural interests. That is not the opinion of the Labour party. There was an article in the “Argus” a few days ago which shows the interest of the Labour party to the agricultural interests. It says—

There is the sympathy of the Labour party to the agricultural industry. If that is the sympathy we are going to get—

The hon. member must confine himself to the clause.

Am I not entitled to show the effect the agricultural industry would be subjected to by a Bill being administered by the Labour Minister, as an example of what we might expect. It was said when a Labour Ministry was ruling England that we shall yet see the Labour Party governing South Africa, and in fact it seems to me that they are doing so to-day, therefore, we must see that we are not subject to the whim of a Labour Minister who might, in future, impose his will on the agricultural interests of this country. I for one intend to do all I can to see that proper safeguards are put into the Bill to do away with the possibilities in the future which I have outlined. You have prominent members of the Labour party giving evidence before the select committee, and Camrade Andrews said the Labour party wishes to include the agricultural interests in this Bill. He said—

That is the opinion of a leading member of the Labour party in South Africa. He was asked—

I quote this to show the sympathies of labour are not in the direction of the agricultural industry. That is why I press this amendment. This seems to me to be an excellent illustration of the old nursery rhyme—

Here is the Minister of Labour asking us to walk into his parlour and take his word that he will not do us any harm. If he is sincere in not applying this Bill to these interests why not come into the open and adopt this amendment. If he is sincere he can give effect to his words in the Bill. Again, I would like to say with regard to the sympathy we may expect, if we are going to get any form of labour control in which this Bill may be administered in the future,—[Time expired.]

I just want to say this to the Minister, that I do not intend to introduce to him any imaginary conundrums. If I take the answer which he has given the hon. member for Umvoti (Mr. Deane) in regard to wattle bark, and also his answer in regard to the sugar plantations in Natal, I can only come to this conclusion, that the wine farmers are going to come under this Bill, notwithstanding his assertion that agriculture is excluded. I will put to him a case and show him why the wine farmer will be included in this Bill. You have on a wine farm 20 or 30 employees who during the pressing season collect the grapes from the vineyard and carry them to the cellar, and you will find that all the operations of wine farmers to-day are carried on by machinery.

Isn’t that a pursuit in connection with agriculture?

Notwithstanding the interruption of the hon. member for Ceres, I want to try to enlighten him on this subject. Notwithstanding the Minister’s explanation, it is quite clear to my mind that the wine farmer will be included under this Bill. He may shake his head and camouflage the position to the agriculturists behind him and tell them they are not going to be affected by this Bill, but, if it is carried out, as it must be, by the officers of the Crown according to the letter of the Bill, the wine farmers will all be under it. In the cellars of the wine farmer the operations are carried on with machinery, and you may have 10 or 20 men working there.

I must say that I have a certain quantity of sympathy with the Minister of Labour in this matter. Owing to the exigencies of party politics, he has been forced to base this Bill on an illogical foundation. He has been made to exclude agriculture and he has found that in the application of that principle it is impossible, as he says, to find the form of words to define the limits of agriculture. To me it does not seem to matter very much. It is perfectly clear that agriculture will come within the scope of this Bill as the Bill stands to-day, and I suppose to that extent the Minister is not altogether unhappy. I think the more agriculture comes under the Bill, as far as I know the Minister’s past expressions, the more he will be pleased. Agriculture will come under the Bill either directly or indirectly as the Bill now stands. Directly it will come under the Bill as suggested by the last sneaker (Dr. de Jager). It will come under the Bill as regards fruit packing and as regards dried fruit manufacture. As a matter of fact, in Australia fruit packing does come under the Minimum Wage Act. In-directly agriculture will come under this Bill in other ways. If you have a farm close to a village it is perfectly clear that if you have a wage of 7s. a day in the village you are not going to get the pick of the labour at 3s. a day outside the village. As showing the extraordinary position when you try to define what is agriculture, I may mention that in the Select Committee we had this case, that if a man gathers grapes and crushes them by machinery it was stated that he does not come under the Bill, but if a man gathers sugar cane and crushes it by machinery he does come under the Bill. I would suggest that it would require a very clever judge to explain the logical position of those two cases. It seems to me that if a man who gathers sugar cane and crushes it by machinery comes under the Bill, then the man who gathers grapes and crushes these grapes by machinery must come under the Bill. The Minister is in this most extraordinary position, that he has either got to delete the exemption of agriculture or the only solution to this trouble is to go to the board and this board of supermen have to decide whether any case does or does not come under the Bill. I would suggest that one of the reasons why the agriculturist is so afraid of this Bill is because of its form. He is to have no say whatever, neither he nor his employees, in this question, which is purely a technical question. The whole matter is going to be handed over to three men, none of whom probably will know a spade from a pickaxe and they will decide all these very intricate questions. So that, personally, I am naturally in favour of the amendment of the hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. D. M. Brown). If you want a Bill, if it is good, if it is going to protect the worst classes of labour, sweated labour—and I do not for a moment say that agricultural is worst paid than any other form of labour—if agricultural labour is paid decently, then the farmers have nothing to be afraid of, but if agricultural labour is paid badly, then in all conscience the agricultural interest should come within the scope of the Bill, so I do feel that the amendment of the hon. member for Three Rivers is a sound one and I am perfectly certain that it is one that meets entirely with the support of the Minister of Labour.

I do hope that all farmers in the House will support the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) in his amendment. I appeal to the farmers on the Government benches to support the amendment. I do not doubt the Minister’s statement when he says that all occupations in connection with farming will be excluded, but I feel that we ought to make it quite clear that there are a lot of activities pertaining to the proper working of a farm that you really cannot connect with purely agricultural purposes, but which will be, and should be, excluded. We make our own bricks and do much of our own building. The Minister stated that it is intended to administer the Act sympathetically but I think we should accept the amendment and make the position quite clear. It is possible for inspectors to abuse their powers under this Act or for a Minister and his inspectors to be not as reasonable as he might be or expect his officials to be. There is a grave danger of the Bill being made to apply to farmers far more than they anticipate to-day, and therefore I would urge the acceptance of the amendment moved by my hon. friend. I wish to go further, and again in quite a reasonable spirit—but the Minister must not repeat or think that we get up every time merely for the sake of getting a few more votes. We are trying to make what we consider a bad measure at least workable. I beg to move a further amendment to follow the one by the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger), namely—

I think this is perfectly reasonable. We are out to help and extend co-operation in this country as much as we can. I want to try and meet the case where the work is not actually done on a man’s farm, but where a number of men join together in a co-operative creamery, butter or cheese factory, jam factory, or whatever it may be. I think that there should be no objection to making it clear that co-operative societies of farmers are not to be penalized by the operations of this measure. I cannot see that farmers’ co-operative societies, as such, can possibly be excluded as the Bill now stands. The more definitely it is laid down as to how far the agricultural industry is to be protected, the better it will be for the country.

I quite see the difficulty of specifying which industries should be exempted. Logically, of course, all industries ought to be included under the Bill. I quite appreciate the difficulty the Minister is faced with; because he knows if he proposes to include farming matters in this Bill he will not be able to get the Bill through the House. The answers he has given seem in no way to meet the difficulties raised by hon. members on this side. When asked to what agricultural pursuits it would apply, he only said—

Well, who is to judge as to what is reasonable and what is not? If a thing is reasonable or not according to where one sits in this House, then the officials who will have to administer the Bill will probably find themselves in a difficulty. Apart from the difficulty in deciding exactly what are the farming or agricultural pursuits to be affected, other important difficulties are going to rise which are going to affect very considerably the position of the farmers throughout the country. This Bill is going to apply to practically every industry, and obviously in 99 cases out of 100 the cost of production is going to be increased. The farmer will have to pay more for all the things he has to buy. As the result of the policy pursued on the railways, plus the increased cost of production generally, it is going to put up railway fares and rates, and that again is going to affect the farmer. It is quite natural that the farmer should wish to know how he stands under this Bill, because under another Bill with which the House is dealing the Government is going to be empowered to make regulations by which they will be able to dictate to employers who employ machinery as to what class of labour they shall employ. This means that the farmer who has subsidiary industries in which machinery is employed, will be open to the danger that the Minister may step in and say he claims the right to say what form of labour such a farmer shall employ. On top of that, under this Bill, the Government—or the board, which, of course, will carry out the policy of the Government—is going to take steps, the almost inevitable result of which will be to raise the cost of production, in the first place by fixing the labour which is to be employed, and then the wages which they ought to receive. If that is to be the case, it seems to me it will be good-bye to a great deal of individual enterprise. The farmers are perfectly justified in asking the Minister to define how they stand. It seems to me that farmers and other people will presently find themselves up against a great many difficulties, so it is perfectly legitimate for members on this side to take up considerable time in discussing the matter in trying to determine what pursuits come under this Bill.

I am afraid I cannot accept either of the amendments. The hon. member for Albany (Mr. Struben) wants to go a little further than the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger). The point is the real distinction—if we could not get a criterion—between the regular factory industries and the sort of domestic industries; that is what I contend would be included in the agricultural, horticultural and pastoral pursuits. I am not going to answer the conundrums put me by hon. members, because, as the hon. member for Colesberg (Mr. G. A. Louw) has perfectly well said, “What is the use of the Minister answering these questions? What we want to know is our own interpretation of the Bill”; and hon. members will vote on their interpretation of the words of the Bill. The hon. member for South Peninsula (Sir Drummond Chaplin) made a perfectly legitimate parliamentary hit when he stated that if I had been sitting over there I should have been fulminating against this exclusion, and he says that if an hon. member changes his opinion because he has changed his place, what attention have we to pay to it? But what is to become of the right hon. the leader of the Opposition and the two gentlemen who sit on the right and left of him, and the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan), and others in this House? They say this is altogether too vague, but in 1921 they introduced a Wages Bill. It is true there was a different form of board, but the point is that they also wanted to exclude “agriculture.” If the difference in the form of the board entirely eliminated all the evil of the Bill, and that I understood was their view, why eliminate agriculture? And if they were going to eliminate agriculture, why not define it in a manner to leave no manner of doubt? But what do they contend? Which is the wider definition, the one I have in this Bill, of any person carrying on any agricultural, horticultural or pastoral pursuits or forestry, or theirs—

But this was supposed by the party on the other side to be a full and sufficient protection then. Now they say it is full of the greatest possible dangers. Again I appeal to hon. members. We have discussed this matter very thoroughly. We do not agree; but I think we have worn the subject pretty well threadbare and should now come to a vote. We have been three hours over this clause and I think it is reasonable to ask that we should come to a vote.

I can understand the anxiety of the Minister to come to a vote, but the subject is one of very great difficulty. I do not think his comparison of the present Bill with the Bill of 1921 will hold water for a moment, and let me explain why a meticulous definition of agriculture did not matter under the Bill of 1921, but matters very much here. The difference between those two Bills was that under the 1921 Bill the settlement of minimum wages was left to the farmers and their workers, or to the employers and employees in any industry.

Did you mean to include farmers?

No, the employers and the workers. That was the framework of the Bill of 1921, that those interested on both sides of the industry should themselves be the authority to settle the minimum wages, and I am prepared, if the question is to be settled as between farmers and their workers, whether they fall within the terms of the Bill—whether there shall be minimum wages in any subsidiary agricultural industry—I would gladly leave it to them to settle.

Did you exclude the farmers?

The point we are arguing is what does agriculture include? Does it include only the primary agricultural pursuits or also the subsidiary industries which arise in connection with farming. My argument is that under the Bill of 1921, where the question, if it arose at all, would be one for decision between the farmers and their workers, we were prepared to leave it there; but here the position is entirely different. If it becomes law, neither the farmers nor their employees will have anything to say. The decision will not even rest with the Minister. It will not be for a Minister subject to political influence to decide whether the particular activity falls under agriculture, horticulture, etc. He won’t have much to say. The bureaucratic board will say it. Under Clause 3 you will see the board will act on its own initiative. Once this Bill is through, and the board constituted, the matter will be settled. My hon. friend has referred to the board as a board of super-men. It may be another kindergarten.

This board will not settle it; the board will only make the recommendation and the Minister will decide.

The Minister becomes the instrument. He is the last link in the chain, and the board will start on its own motion, and therefore I think it is of the greatest importance in the framework of this Bill where a bureaucratic board is going to make the recommendation for farmers to know where they are. I am a representative of an important farming constituency. I shall have to go and explain to my constituents how far this Bill, perhaps the most far-reaching Bill introduced into this Parliament for many years, is going to effect them, and as I am at present advised this exclusion means that only those pursuits are directly and in the simpler sense agricultural, horticultural or pastoral pursuits, will be excluded, that anything which comes after the primary stages will be included. Neither dairying, cheese-making, nor wine-making nor any of the industries that arise in the working up of agricultural products will fall under the terms of this Bill, not even everything done on a farm is excluded. I think the amendment of the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) is quite necessary. He says if anything is done by the farmer, and there is a doubt whether it is an agricultural, horticultural or pastoral pursuit, let it fall under the exception. I think that is the least the Minister should do. I go further and say that if the exclusion is to be effected we should exclude the operations of groups of farmers under our Agricultural Acts. I think the amendment of the hon. member for Albany (Mr. Struben) should be accepted as a very proper interpretation to give to this exclusion here. There is a further question whether other primary agricultural industries should not also be excluded. The clause as it stands is perfectly clear, for the exclusion covers only farming in its most elementary aspects of production. At any later stage whether people want to make cheese, butter, wine or anything else, the process ceases to be farming and falls under the terms of the Bill. I repeat that if the Bill were of the same framework as the Bill of 1921. I would not be critical, but unfortunately, this measure established entirely different machinery. A board will step in and make recommendations to the Minister, and the Minister, at his discretion will, or will not, accept, but he will have those recommendations before him. It is a very dangerous position. I can understand the position of the Minister who says to us—

But I don’t want the country to be led into a trap and for the farmers to find that the scope of the Bill is very much wider than they thought. We should certainly accept the amendment of my hon. friend in regard to anything that is done on a farm, and in the second place we should exclude the operations of those agricultural societies consisting of farmers themselves who manipulate their own produce. I want to say a word about the amendment of the hon. member for Barkly (Mr. W. B. de Villiers). I admit that the alluvial diggings afford an entirely precarious occupation. [Time expired.]

May I just reply to the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts). It seems to me that there may be a wrong impression about the machinery of this Bill. The principle upon which the hon. member for Standerton goes lays down the basis of arguments that have been used here by hon. members. The Bill actually provides that there shall be a board to institute enquiry into the industries which are considered of such a kind that the provisions of the Bill shall be applied to them. Recommendations are then made to the Minister. In the first instance therefore it is a matter which must be judged according to the nature of the industry. After the board has made these recommendations the Minister, or rather the Ministry, must decide whether the Bill will be applied to that industry. As I have already said account is here kept of the responsibility of the Minister and it is quite improbable that they will go and approve of something which they find is against the interests of the country. Now let us take the position of farming. The Bill provides in section 1 that all persons concerned in farming shall be excluded. Questions have now been raised about persons who are accustomed to build barns, etc. If a barn is built on a farm then the persons who do so are concerned in farming or rather in connection with farming. Cheese-making has also been mentioned and if that happens on a farm in connection with farming then that also does not fall under the Bill. We therefore find that farming as I have clearly shown is even excluded from enquiry by the board. But the Bill does not however provide when the board has made a report about an industry that it shall be accepted. The board will of its own motion leave out some of the industries because it does not say that the boards are compelled to report about all the other industries. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) now comes and proposes that we should include all operations on the farm. I say no. If the work in question is an ancillary part of farming then it is automatically excluded. When it is no longer a part of the farming but an independent industry we cannot prevent the board from making a report about it. The place where the work is done can therefore not be the test.

But if the produce of the farm is worked?

I will give an example. A company has a number of farms. On one of them a wool factory is put up of such importance that hundreds of people are employed there. Must we then prohibit the Wages Board from reporting whether the Bill should apply to that factory or not? I only mention this case to show that the place where the factory is cannot be the test. It is just here where the Minister experiences difficulty, and we must leave it in the hands of the board to decide upon it. If it is actually a subordinate part of farming, it is covered by the Bill, as I have made clear. If it is a matter subordinate to farming, the board can say that it will have nothing to do with it. If the board makes a report thereon, then the Minister, or the Ministry, can say that it is not of so much importance, and employs so few people that the Bill should not be applied to it. In those circumstances the farmers should not have any objection to the passing of this Bill. The farmer, just as much as we in the town, is called to see that the object of this Bill is attained, namely, to see that the workmen who apply themselves to their work will get a proper wage for it, so as to be able to lead a proper life. For this reason we must not adopt the proposal of the hon. member for Cape Town (Central). Of course, if the Ministry does not do its duty, and acts against the interests of the country, there is always the election.

That is just my difficulty, the hon. the Prime Minister says: There is your board and your Government. Well, I am not prepared to leave our farmers to the mercy of the board and of the Government. I should like to see the law protecting them. I want to see the acceptance under the Act so clear, that the farmers will know how far they are protected, and how far they are not excluded. Now it is said the circle will decide. That is just my difficulty. There is a large grant extent which is doubtful and uncertain, and the board and the Government have to decide about that. That is just my difficulty. I do not wish to leave the farmers to the tender mercies of the board and of the Government. I do not know how the board and the Government will be constituted. I do not see what value the limitation and exception of the hon. Minister have for the farmers. That is why I should like the uncertainty to be removed and the farmers left to the mercy only of the Act. Inasmuch as that is not done in the Bill, the amendments of the hon. members for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) and Griqualand (Mr. Gilson) should be accepted. I, however, rose to go further into the amendment of the hon. member for Barkly (Mr. W. B. de Villiers) in connection with alluvial diggings. I accent that what has been said about the position of the poor people is accurate. They, at least the great majority, live from hand to mouth, and to subject them to minimum wages will create an impossible position for them, and I am, therefore, in favour of excluding those people. But in connection herewith, I meet with a great difficulty. Alluvial diggings do not stand alone in this connection. What has been said with reference to alluvial diggings, and in support of the exclusion thereof also applies to 101 small industries in our country, who also do not know from day to day whether they will have a profit or a loss, who are so situated that it is from day to day a question whether the business can still be made to pay or not. I agree with the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) that the Bill will result in a whole number of small industries being killed. We shall have more unemployment, higher cost of living, and we shall, in the course of time, find out that this far-reaching Act will crush small industries which are standing on the border line of becoming payable. What has been said about alluvial diggings applies generally to small industries. The hon. member has only introduced the motion with respect to alluvial diggings, because they are situate in his constituency, and he has votes there, but it is clear to me that the arguments apply to quite a number of other industries. Do not let us close our eyes to the facts. I just want to refer to one thing more in connection with the amendment regarding alluvial diggings. The amendment only speaks for alluvial diggings for diamonds. Why only for diamonds? What about the alluvial diggers in the districts of Barberton and Lydenburg? There also there are a number of alluvial diggers, but they do not dig for diamonds, but for gold. I think that people who are similarly situated to the diamond diggers should also be similarly treated. I hope that the amendment of my hon. friend will be accepted, and that it will be extended to gold diggers and other diggers who make a very modest living.

Now the right hon. gentleman has made very clear the position of the party opposite, I would again appeal that we come to a vote on this. Nothing we can say further will clear it up. The hon. members and their friends have put up clearly their position and we don’t agree. The discussion has continually left the clauses and has resorted to the fundamental principles of the Bill, and the House has already decided on the principle of the Bill, and responding to what the hon. gentleman has said, I can enter into his feelings of some years ago, when we were leading these discussions in opposition. We have now threshed it out. I see some of the difficulties, but anything you do to attempt to improve it will tend to make it worse, and where we differ so fundamentally is that hon. members look upon it as an irretrievable misfortune for the gold or diamond alluvial diggers to come even within the purview of this board. We don’t look upon it as an irretrievable misfortune. I again appeal to hon. members, after spending three hours on this one topic, let us register our vote, and come to a division, and we will take our responsibility on this question.

The Minister has just now justified every word that we have said. The Prime Minister, when he spoke, differed entirely from the Minister of Labour. My hon. friend has said right along that these words cover everything on a farm. Now the Prime Minister does not agree with that at all. Here we have two Ministers who differ, and I understand that other two Ministers who are lawyers also differ from the Prime Minister. What we don’t like is being left in the hands of a board of officials. We want the Bill to be clear so that every farmer can know exactly where he stands. I am certain that the Prime Minister will see that you cannot leave it to the officials. Officials can only just say—

I would suggest to the Minister that progress should be reported on this Clause until, let us say to-morrow, and that we should now proceed to Clause 2.

You will carry on the same discussion on Clause 2.

I think we ought to report progress, so far as this Clause is concerned, and go on with the next Clause.

Vote on it.

If I am in order, I will move—

May I make a suggestion to my hon. friend (Mr. Jagger)? The Clause is in very wide terms, and the proper definition Clause is No. 17. By passing this Clause now you are not debarred from defining agricultural, horticultural and pastoral pursuits in Clause 17. I quite agree that you have to define these terms, and that it is not sufficient to simply refer to—

The proper place in which to put your definition of agricultural, horticultural or pastoral pursuits is not this Clause, but Clause 17.

I hope the hon. member will adopt that suggestion. I do not think we should always be at arms-length. I am bound to say the intention in the precise words of the hon. member’s amendment were nearer to something I have been searching for than anything I have found yet. We do not want perrichetty action in this legislation. I am quite willing, I will do my best, to give something which I think the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) wants, that is to see that all these things which form a legitimate part of farming operations are outside; but when it comes to the extent that it becomes a factory then there is no legitimate reason for excluding that. I will not give a guarantee, but I think the suggestion of the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) is a most practical one and will enable us to get on. Let us take this now, and when we come to the definition Clause I will again try and meet him.

The Minister has admitted quite frankly that he is groping about in the dark with this Clause, and yet he suggests we should vote on it now. Surely that is not a reasonable suggestion.

I did not say I was groping about at all.

If words mean anything I understood him to say he was searching about for a definition. He has not found the formula yet. No, I do not think we should do as he says when he and the Prime Minister and the hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street) (Mr. Alexander) have all made the admission that they are in the dark; they have not been able to find a proper formula. I think it was an eminently reasonable suggestion by the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger). I sincerely hope the Minister will not push this to a vote, we should either have more opportunity to discuss a definition or let it stand over.

I hope the Committee will not follow the suggestion of the hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street) (Mr. Alexander). There is no harm in this Clause standing over until we have found a satisfactory definition.

I hope the Committee will not accept this motion for standing over. After the speech by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Col. D. Reitz), we shall certainly not agree to its doing so. The position is quite satisfactory; I am not going to meet, what I believe to be imaginary affairs.

There are other important factors connected with this clause which we have not discussed. I presume the only reason for excluding agriculture, if we eliminate the political factor, is the economic disaster which might overtake the agricultural community if included in this Bill. There are other classes of industry included under this Bill which have not received any consideration at all. There is not the slightest doubt that every hon. member, who is acquainted with the industrial position in this country, knows that the ultimate effect of this Bill will be to lower the wages of the white man—the skilled white worker.

The hon. member must confine himself to the motion moved by the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger). This must be disposed of first.

Well, I think this clause ought to stand over, because it has a very wide application. We have taken all the manufacturing and mining industries into this Bill and excluded agriculture, and yet I think the other industries which are not so well represented in this House as agriculture, ought to have consideration. This is the most epoch-making legislation that has been introduced into this House. We are going infinitely further by this legislation in this country than they have gone in any other country. Neither in Australia nor England, nor anywhere else, have they gone to this length. I realize the sincerity of the Minister, I give him full credit for his desire to improve certain phases of our industrial life; but I join issue with him as to the good that is going to be done to the workers by this Bill. It is for these reasons and, because of the disaster which may come upon various industries if they are included in this clause, that I wish the clause held over. Surely the applicability of this Bill to those specified industries in clause I brings up the discussion of the whole principle of the Bill; because if they are to be excluded from the Bill, they must be excluded for good economic reasons. If agriculture is to be excluded because it is economically dangerous, then it may be economically dangerous to others, and we bring up the whole discussion of the principle under this Bill.

The hon. member must confine himself to the motion before the Committee.

Well, I am arguing that we have not been able to go into the whole discussion of the economic question of the industries which will be affected and therefore, whether they should be included or excluded.

I venture to make a last appeal to the Minister to allow this clause to stand over. From a very early hour this afternoon, the Minister indicated his desire to have this clause voted on, and at one stage I fancy he insinuated that we were obstructing. It is rather unfortunate that this Bill has followed so closely on what took place on Friday last. I would ask the Minister to believe that a legitimate attempt has been made to elucidate the principles of this Bill. The suggestion by the hon. member for Hanover Street, that the matter should be dealt with in the definition clause, to my mind, is not satisfactory. But if the Minister will only believe that the bulk of the discussion this afternoon is to clearly define the position of the farmer. I think he will have less hesitation in allowing the clause to stand over. If we had had any sinister motive, we would have allowed the Bill to go through in its present bald form, and let the consequences fall on the head of the Minister and those responsible, but accepting it as we did, after great objection, we are legitimately desirous of putting this clause into proper form. If he allows the clause to stand over it will not matter one iota.

We have had sufficient delay with it as it is.

That is just the unfortunate attitude the Minister has taken up. We are not obstructing, but merely seeking a via media to put this clause in a proper form. The Minister does not facilitate the passing of the Bill by taking up this non possuimus attitude.

I would urge the Minister to adopt a more reasonable attitude. He has admitted himself that these words supply a way out of the impasse better than any other form which has hitherto been considered does. Why not allow the clause to stand over to enable us to agree on a formula which will meet our wishes and clarify what he states to be his intention?

I am sorry I cannot accede to the request. In an endeavour to find out if I can meet the hon. member I said I would distinctly consider the point when we got to the definition clause. The form of words used will cover in practice all the objections that have been raised, but the point of the Opposition is that the words do not. If the hon. member insists on pressing that the clause should stand over all we can say is—

I hope the hon. member will not press it.

The far-reaching effects of the Bill are not only covered by the first clause. In fact we do not know where we are with the Bill, and that the Minister admits himself.

No, I don’t.

You said it was a little bit vague. The Minister admits that Clause 6 will be applied to the farming industry if it is allowed to pass as it is.

The hon. member cannot discuss that clause now.

Motion put and negatived.

I want to call the attention of the House to the effect on agriculture this clause will have if it goes through as it stands now. Under Clause 6 the Minister has power to decide the class of employer in any area or in any trade, whose duty it is to comply with section 8 of the Act. We will turn up section 8 and see what the small farm factories have to do. I know the Condition of these various factories in our area. The first thing they have to do is to keep a wage sheet in a form prescribed by the regulation on which shall be entered the wages paid daily, weekly or monthly, the name and age of the employee, and in the case of a juvenile, the age, number of days and hours worked, and the amount of wages paid.

Had you not better read your Bill? All you have been reading is deleted.

What are you quoting from?

I am quoting from the Bill. What else do you want me to quote from?

The Labour party have only just come back. They have been out all afternoon.

You have to keep affixed in legible characters, in a conspicuous place so as to be easily read by employees, the official address of the nearest inspector. A lot of the employees are natives, and have not been taught to either read or write. How are you going to have these notices easily read by the employees’ It would require a school or kindergarten to instruct our native employees how to read and write. Secondly—

I think I am an intelligent farmer, but I don’t even know what “determination of time” means.

The hon. member might incidentally refer to Clause 8, but he cannot do it as he is doing at present.

It is going to be a handicap on these farmers if we impose these conditions. Under Clause 6, sub-section 1 and sub-section (g) the Minister may make regulations in—

That means that our farm industries are going to be bound hand and foot to the whim of this board and the inspectors, who have to act under the board. I know what inspectors are—

The hon. member is again transgressing. He cannot discuss either Clause 6 or Clause 8. He must confine himself to clause 1.

The effect of Clause 1—

The committee will resume at 8.

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

However, I feel that it is no use discussing this clause any further. It appears that the farming members opposite have made up their minds to accept it as it is, and I must say that it occasions me very much surprise that they have done so. After all, the Minister himself admitted the ambiguity of this clause, and the result is going to be that the only dividing line will be one defined by a legal action. From a Government that represents the farming interests of this country, or claims to represent them, I would have expected a greater measure of sympathy than has been meted out under this Bill. As hon. members opposite are not prepared to assist farmers on this side of the House to attain the object in view, I, for my own part, am not prepared to go on with what may be described as obstruction. I hope, however, that the Minister even now will meet us, and try and let us see where we do stand in so far as the agricultural industry is concerned.

There is one aspect of the question which, I think, has not been brought to the notice of the House, and that is the effect of this Bill on the sugar factories of Natal. The sugar factories, it is true, are engaged in a seasonal occupation, but they are very closely connected with agriculture, and I do not know whether, under the Bill, they will be exempted under the agricultural side of the clause. Last year they produced 165,000 tons of sugar, and to do that they had to mill something like 2,000,000 tons of cane. Cane is an agricultural product. The mills are very large consumers of agricultural produce. I suppose next to the mines they are the largest buyers of maize, as an industry, in the country. If this Bill comes into effect and the minimum wage is imposed, what is the position of those who are working in the mills for six months, and then in the fields for six months’ If you increase the cost of production to the miller, you are going to increase unemployment, because the miller will say, at the end of six months, that he cannot keep these men pottering about the mills doing repairs and odd jobs; he must get rid of them. This is a very serious question. The millers in Natal are very perturbed about it. They maintain they already have various factory and other inspectors, and if they are going to have an inspector of labour as well, life will not be worth living. I do not think members fully realize the seriousness of this Bill, and how it is going to affect industry throughout the country. It is going to affect it detrimentally; do not worry about that. Let me tell you Labour men—

The hon. member must address the chair.

Let me tell you Labour members if you do away with production there will be precious little use for the consumers; we can do without the consumers, but we cannot do without the producers. If you are going to tax the producers, because that is what you are going to do, it eventually has to come back to the land; and if you are going to tax land to that extent it is goodbye Mary Ann!

We on this side of the House, stand for a Wage Bill. We introduced one on a previous occasion, and we realize that there are masses of workers in this country who need some assistance in order to maintain the standard of living. My fear is that in some respects, this Bill may do more harm than good. The haziest opinion exists regarding the full implication of this Bill. The evidence before us in select committee came from three different sources, the representatives of associated employees, the employers of the mining industry, and the employers in the manufacturing industries. The employees said that the Bill was primarily designed—I am speaking of the Bill on the whole—for those industries which were either badly organized or unorganized, as it were. In their opinion, it was the unorganized people solely to whom this Bill was to apply. The representative of the Chamber of Industries asked, in Question 291, whether he was right in assuming that the Conciliation Act was for the purpose of dealing with organized industry, and this Bill with unorganized industry.

The hon. member must confine himself to the clause.

I am dealing with the application of these economic considerations to those industries which are within the Bill. My argument is that the inclusion of these industries in the Bill is going to have a harmful effect upon them. If this Bill had set out originally to schedule certain unorganized industries. We should then have done the maximum amount of good and the minimum amount of harm, because we could have proceeded stage by stage, and fixed the conditions in the industries to the benefit of everyone concerned. The witness went on—

I want to quote now from the evidence of Mr. Anderson on page 90 in reply to a question by Sir Drummond Chaplin. He was asked where he got his idea from that the Bill applied only to unorganized industries. He replied, from the Secretary of Labour who made a public statement to that effect. Asked where this was, he went on—

There are three direct references there to the fact that this was to apply only to unorganized industries and not to organized industries understood as such. I want to call the attention of the House to what Mr. Sampson said in England recently—

I may point out to the hon. member that the principle has been debated.

The principle of the exclusion of certain industries in the Bill has not been debated. We have already excluded agriculture, and I submit it is worthy of the consideration of the House that other industries should be excluded for economic reasons.

Why don’t you move an amendment?

I can argue it without moving an amendment can’t I.

Tell us something about it you, fellows.

I wish to put before the House certain economic facts which have not been considered, and which may have some effect upon the decision of the House in including certain industries in the Bill. If hon. members will turn to page 228 of the Statistics of Production in the table showing the “International Comparison in Manufacturing Industries” they will find these extraordinary figures. The amount of value added to the materials in the process of manufacture in Canada, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. This represents the total sum to be distributed for wages, power, depreciation, interest and all the costs of manufacture and profit. They will also find the total wages paid. I am going to give the percentages of values added paid in salaries and wages to show how we stand in South Africa in relation to those countries. Canada paid in wages 44 per cent., of the total value added in process of manufacture, New Zealand 47 per cent., Australia 50 per cent. and South Africa 51 per cent. My argument is this. Taking the whole of the dominions, we have paid into the wage fund 51 per cent. of the total amount added in the process of manufacture, as against 44 per cent. in Canada, and lower percentages in other dominions. How are we to pay an increased wage, which, after all, is the object of this Bill? Where is it to come from? Only from increased production in those factories or else from the wages of the highest paid men. We have it in evidence by Mr. Sampson what the object of this Bill is. The result of the Labour doctrine in application will be that the unorganized workers, who are the natives in this country, will have to receive more than they are getting, and the white man less. It is on these grounds that I think it would have been wiser for the Minister to have scheduled the unorganized trades in the first instance, and to have applied the Bill in a tentative manner to unorganized industries, and gone on step by step. I submit that it will be dangerous, in practice, to go on as we are doing and to have a board which the men can call upon to function merely by making application. It will be dangerous to the workers in these industries and also to the State, and after a year or two, the sorriest man will be the Minister.

Apparently this Bill seeks to exclude agriculture from its operation. I represent a very important agricultural district where, during the threshing period, you have dozens and dozens of threshing machines, each employing up to 50 labourers. I should like to ask the Minister whether the people working on those machines will be subject to this law. As a rule the machines are owned by two or three farmers who club together and thresh all the grain in that particular area. When the Minister’s board comes about, making enquiry into the different industries, would this industry be subject to the Bill as now proposed? This is not a question which I raise just for the sake of raising a question: it is a matter upon which my constituents feel very keenly and this is the first opportunity I have had of raising the point. Then I want to point out that another important industry in my district is at Villiersdorp where we have a grape juice (moskonfyt) factory. Owing to the instability of the wine market, certain farmers club together and form a society. They have put up machinery to the value of three or four thousand pounds. The farmers bring the grapes which, instead of being turned into wine, are converted into moskonfyt. This is a subsidiary farming industry away from the farms. Is that industry to be subject to this Bill? We are consoled by the fact that agriculture is excluded, but these are allied industries very closely connected with our farming operations. If a wage were to be fixed at Villiersdorp which that industry cannot bear, you are going to do an injustice to a young and most laudable industry which is trying to reduce the amount of unnecessary alcohol which is manufactured. Last year grapes which would have made 5 to 6 hundred leaguers of wine were converted in this way. It is a wholesome syrup. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) has moved an amendment which I hope the Minister will accept. I understand it will exclude threshing machines. Then the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) has raised the point of exempting the parliamentary officers from this Bill, and I think the Minister should accept that amendment. The parliamentary officers have always been considered as outside the civil service and under the control of Parliament itself, and I consider it would be a big insult to Parliament that an outside wage board should have power to come to the officers of Parliament and enquire into their salaries and into the wages of the messengers in the lobbies, etc.

As far as the officers of Parliament are concerned I must say that, for my part, hon. members can vote as they please but I shall vote against the amendment of the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) on the ground that Parliament is not going to pay its servants wages which it would be ashamed for any wages board to look into.

I beg to move—

The hon. member cannot move that. He can simply vote against Clause 1.

I wish to congratulate the hon. member who, after sitting in the select committee for several weeks on the Bill, now has these brain waves.

In the select committee I told the Minister that I never committed myself to the principle of the Bill and reserved my right to propose amendments in committee of the Whole House.

The Minister of Labour seems to take offence at my saying that he was groping about in the dark. Everything that has been said here to-day proves that neither the Minister nor the Prime Minister are clear as to the definition in Clause 1. If they are clear why will not the Minister give us a definition; so far he has very carefully avoided doing so The Prime Minister admitted that there was a debatable region in the definition, hut said that after all the public will decide at the next election. It seems to me very slip shod legislation to bludgeon a thing through without knowing what it means; surely that is not what we are here for? The Minister of Labour’s solution is—

I am very much surprised at the blank silence of the other side on this important question. We have been discussing a clause which will have a very far-reaching effect on the farming population, but not a single member of the Nationalist party has dared to stand up and say a word about it. No, they dare not. I have heard Nationalist members very vocal on matters of far less importance.

The hon. member had better confine himself to the clause.

I am appealing to the Nationalists not to be so terrified of the Labour wing, but to give us the benefit of their views.

I asked the hon. member to confine himself to the clause.

With due submission I am confining myself to the clause.

No.

We are discussing whether the farming community should or should not be included, and it seems to me that gentlemen across the way who represent farming constituencies ought to give us their opinions on the point, and if they do not, we are entitled to say that they dare not say a word upon it because they are being cowed by the Labour wing. I am sure not a single Nationalist member is satisfied with Clause 1. However much you may exclude agriculture from clause 1 this Bill will hit the farmers directly. Every hon. member across the way knows that, but this is the price of the Pact. They are farmers and not a single one of them has the moral courage to say “Aye” or “Nay” about it. Surely we are entitled to some expression of opinion on the point from the farmers’ party?

The hon. member has been repeating that for about four minutes in succession. If he continues I shall have to ask him to sit down.

It bears repetition, but I will not repeat it, as I think it has sunk in very thoroughly.

Shall I be in order in moving—

I am afraid I cannot accept this amendment. It is irregular and tantamount to a motion for the omission of the whole clause for the purpose of substituting another clause. The proper course would be for the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) to vote against Clause 1, and in the event of the clause being negatived, to move a new clause to give effect to the proposal he now wishes to make.

Cannot an hon. member move the deletion of a clause and the insertion of a new one?

No, he cannot. As I have already stated, the hon. member can vote against Clause 1 and, after that, he can move another clause.

I understand the amendment is not a negative of the whole clause, but gives the power to Government to mention such trades as they may think fit.

It has exactly the same effect as the negativing of the whole of the clause.

May I point out that the effect of the proposed amendment is to say that instead of the Wages Bill being applied to every occupation except those definitely excluded, it shall set out in a separate category the occupations in respect of which the Act shall apply. Cannot that be done by an amendment to the clause itself? The clause says the Act shall not apply to certain persons, and the amendment simply makes it positive instead of negative.

I have given my ruling.

Is it competent, without specifically moving the deletion of Clause 1, to argue against Clause 1? I take it, it is competent to argue that a clause in that form would be more desirable.

The committee may delete Clause 1. No member can move that Clause 1 be deleted, but any member is entitled to argue against Clause 1 as much as you like.

I did not intend to move the amendment. I was constrained to move it in reply to the challenge thrown out from the other side to move an amendment. I desired that the Minister should amend the Bill of his own volition. I can assure the Minister that has been my thought all along. I have felt the application of this measure in the particular way it is intended, was going to lead to disaster in the country, and it is going to reduce the wages of the white man wherever he is employed. I cannot see how you are going to increase the wages of unorganized people without drawing on that portion of the population receiving higher wages. In a country such as we have, with different classes of workers, and different standards, it is wiser to proceed by slow steps from one industry to another until you find how it is working. We know that every form of legislation of this kind adopted in other countries, has never worked. We are going further than has been done in other countries, and the result will be the same. I suggest that to treat one industry at a time, the unorganized industry which it is desired to help over a stile, would lead to better success than by the manner we are attempting now. The Bill gives the lead to all unorganized labour to come forward and organize and get a determination under the Act. It is a direct invitation to all natives in the country to organize.

Why not?

If they ask for more wages, well, you cannot have it both ways. If there is going to be equal work for equal pay, the white man suffers. In the interests of the white people it would be preferable to apply to one industry at a time and see how it acts. To say to every unorganized labourer in the country: “Organize, and then you have a statutory right to demand determination,” is. I think, going to end in disaster. A witness before the select committee, who was representing the organized employees, was asked the question—

He said—

Yes, they have a right to organize.

This is an invitation to all unorganized labourers in the country to organize and have determination under the Bill.

I hope that the amendment of the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) will be accepted by the Minister, because the section is not quite clear. The hon. Minister himself acknowledged this afternoon that he did not quite understand what work would fall under it. The hon. the Prime Minister has mentioned that when a farm is enlarged, and more labour is used on a farm, that the Act would then come into force. It therefore, amounts to this: That the coming into force of the Act depends on the number of people at work on a farm. As a farmer, I protest against that, and I hope the hon. Minister will accept the amendment. What, e.g., if a large shearing appliance is erected on a farm, what will happen in that case? And what if a threshing machine is erected? I should very much like to know that.

I don’t want to pursue this debate I presume these matters have been sufficiently thrashed out, and the Minister seems hard-hearted to-night and won’t listen. I want to raise a point in sub-section (2), but if it is the desire to dispose of the amendments in section 1, I will wait.

Go ahead.

I want to say a word against the final provision in sub-section (2), section (a), which has reference to the amount of wages. The committee will see that the provision here is that no determination under this Act shall apply to any award or agreement under the Industrial Conciliation Act, which—

I said a few words against this last provision at the second reading. I think it should be deleted from the Bill. I want to say a few words once more in regard to the subject. On the second reading the Minister argued that the Bill was mostly intended for the unorganized industries in which sweating was possible, and in which we, as the legislative authority in the country, should attempt to make provision and secure justice for the under-dog which cannot protect itself. But here we have just the opposite case; a case where you have an organized industry. Employers and workers are organized on both sides. They have appointed a conciliation board, and this conciliation board has come to an agreement. I should have said this Bill ought to leave a situation like this entirely alone, where both sides of an industry have considered their position and have come to an agreement. But now this clause comes in and says—

Not than they would be. I will explain, if my hon. friend will allow me.

It is quite clear; the Minister need not explain to me. It will be seen that this provision says—

Not which would be, but which are.

Now what sort of wages would be—

The wages that would be in force under this Act are wages which have been recommended by the board and which have been put into operation by the Minister. That matter is dealt with in section 7, which says that, after the publication of any notice by the Minister “determining any wage, rate or other matter, every employer in any trade or any section thereof and after the date designated in the notice and in any area designated shall pay to each of his employees” those wages. The position, therefore, is this, that the Minister will, after the board has made a recommendation, put that recommendation in force for any area designated.

Any area and trade?

Let me assume that it is something that has happened in Natal. It is a Durban question that has arisen and the board has enquired into a wage question at Durban and recommended in a certain trade at Durban a minimum wage and the Minister has thereafter proclaimed the minimum wage in the area designated.

In that trade?

Yes, in that trade, and for that area. Let me say that it is a wage of 6s. a day. That would be a wage in force under this Act. In another part of the Union, say at Cape Town or Port Elizabeth, the same question has been dealt with by a conciliation board. The matter has been gone into by an organized industry and that industry has agreed, after the enquiry by this conciliation board, to settle the minimum wage say at 5s. a day. In accordance with the provision which is made here this wage which has been settled under this Act at Durban will be sufficient to disturb the arrangement which has been come to at Port Elizabeth. The Minister shakes his head, but I would advise him once more to read his Bill. He will see that sub-section (2) provides for—

There are wages in force under this Act at Durban of 6s. a day, but the industry at Port Elizabeth has come to a voluntary agreement, after an enquiry by the conciliation board—a perfectly fair agreement, both sides are satisfied—and in accordance with the provision which is made in sub-section (2) this agreement which has been come to at Port Elizabeth can be upset and can be reopened and gone into, because there is a higher wage in force under the Act at Durban. Surely we do not want to do that. Where people have voluntarily, at a conciliation board, come to an agreement, employers and employees alike, in regard to their wages, don’t let us disturb it under this Act Don’t let this Act become an unsettling factor which will disturb the conditions settled by the people in the industry themselves. I make this statement because I think that when we come to sub-section (2) we should delete these words.

Do you wish to move that amendment?

I will move an amendment if necessary. I think the Minister does not understand the question. [Time expired.]

I should not dream unsupported of pitting myself against the right hon. gentleman’s legal capacity for interpreting, but my common-sense tells me that he is wrong. I will take the case that he spoke of. He told this House that in a particular trade at Durban wages had been determined at 6s. per day and that in the same trade an agreement is come to in Cape Town to work at 5s. a day. If you are going to say that it is determined by area, if you are going to read the words in that narrow sense, then why, if the area can vary, cannot the trade vary? A wage is fixed, we will say at Durban, at 14s., and another wage at Cape Town in another trade at 5s. The law adviser says that this provision means wages in force for such employees in such a trade and such an area. I might say that this was one of the amendments come to by common consent in the select committee. It served to clear up a thing which hon. members on the other side said was ambiguous in the previous wording. It was never the intention to say in drafting this Act that it should mean anything else, but that it should only apply really to agreements made in the trade and area in which the board had already ruled. The right hon. gentleman may be quite sure of that. I have satisfied myself on the point.

I have assumed that the position is this. Of course, our adviser must be quite clear on the detail, but this is a point of substance that I am at, and I understand the Minister says that where a decision has been come to in an area in respect of a certain trade, it is only in such an area that a voluntary decision, if it is for a smaller amount, would be upset. If that is quite clear it is all I meant—that we should not apply decisions made in one part of the country to voluntary agreements which have been made in other parts of the country.

That is the aim one had.

I rise with a certain amount of fear and trembling in view of recent attacks made upon me. I feel somewhat like the apostle who fought against wild beasts at Ephesus. I do feel, however, that my constituents are entitled to have me voice their views in regard to this section, which only partly excludes the agricultural industry. What is most harmful, of course, about this section is the instability which is to be brought about. The farmer produces his crops in good faith, hoping to get a market for them, and it seems to me the whole of his calculations may be entirely upset by the determination of the Wage Board in relation to subsidiary industries which are allied to the main agricultural industry. There is a very strong feeling, and I have received telegrams during the last few days from my constituents, who are farmers, expressing this feeling against the indeterminate and indefinite character of this section. The matter has been carefully considered by farmers’ associations, and their opinion is that the application of this section in its present form will lead to a state of instability in the industry which it can ill afford to face at the present time. The agricultural industry is in parlous condition throughout the whole of South Africa, except in regard to the wool industry. Agriculture itself barely affords a living and certainly affords a very low rate of interest to the farmer who has invested his all in the industry. I hope the Minister will not merely treat us to his magniloquence, scorning every argument brought forward and apparently observing an attitude towards these very serious considerations which is that of poo-poohing the facts we are bringing forward, and treating the industry with very scant consideration.

I wish to move an amendment—

Would you not put it after “Act”?

Yes, I will accept that.

I am quite agreeable if you think it makes it any clearer, although I am advised that it is quite clear.

Amendment put.

I am afraid I cannot accept the plural It does not read properly. It must be “for such trade in such area”.

I accept that. The Minister will appreciate that the amendment was hurriedly arranged so as to get his consent.

It seems to me that our farmers do not understand this section. There is apparently only one member who understands everything, namely, the hon. member for Riversdale (Mr. Badenhorst). I am astonished that hon. members opposite do not assist our farmers on this side of the House to explain the section. The Labour members have not spoken at all to-day.

We understand it.

Then we on this side of the House are the only stupid people.

Hear, hear.

That is right, my friend, go and plant pumpkins. Only three members opposite have spoken about the matter, and they have spoken about diamonds regarding which we ask nothing. We have just travelled past them in the train. We have every respect for the diggers and, therefore, we support their request, but how is it possible that no one has spoken about agriculture? The hon. member for Riversdale says that the Bill does not touch the farmer. I know that a farmer wanted to have a wagon made, and he was told that it would be 33 per cent. cheaper if he had it made before this Bill came into operation.

That wagon-maker was surely a South African party man.

My hon. friend, of course, knows everything, and I am certain my hon. leader also is not quite certain yet what the Bill means.

This afternoon the Minister told us he was not here to answer conundrums. My concern is with the hon. gentleman sitting behind him. When they go up to their constituencies and are asked to explain this Act, they will have to confess they know nothing at all about it. They will be asked whether this little butter factory, or that little cheese-making combination run by two or three farmers, comes under the Act. The Minister has not answered that question, and we are still in doubt. It is going to mean disorganized agriculture from one end of the country to the other.

In the amendment moved by the hon. member for Cape Town (Harbour) (Maj. G. B. van Zyl) I want to point out that the words “such areas” really have no signification at all. I would suggest in substitution the words—

I am quite willing to accept the amendment, but it is most dangerous to be accepting amendments at every step. I have met the point. If there is a drafting error it can be put right at a later stage.

The first part of the amendment proposed by Mr. D. M. Brown, viz., to omit the words from “carrying” in line 4, to “pursuits” in line 5, put and negatived.

The CHAIRMAN put the amendment proposed by Mr. W. B. de Villiers.

I wish to move, as an amendment to that amendment—

Agreed to.

called for a division; upon which the committee divided:

Ayes—36.

Anderson, H. E. K.

Arnott, W.

Ballantine, R.

Buirski, E.

Chaplin, F. D. P.

Cilliers, A. A.

Coulter, C. W. A.

Deane, W. A.

Gilson, L. D.

Grobler, H. S.

Harris, D.

Heatlie, C. B.

Henderson, J.

Jagger, J. W.

Krige, C. J.

Lennox, F. J.

Louw, G. A.

Louw, J. P.

Macintosh, W.

Marwick, J. S.

Moffat, L.

Nicholls, G. H.

O’Brien, W. J.

Oppenheimer, E.

Payn, A. O. B.

Pretorius, N. J.

Reitz, D.

Richards, G. R.

Sephton, C. A. A.

Smartt, T. W.

Smuts, J. C.

Struben, R. H.

Van Heerden, G. C.

Van Zyl, G. B.

Tellers: De Jager, A. L.; Robinson, C. P.

Noes—54.

Alexander, M.

Allen, J.

Badenhorst, A. L.

Barlow, A. G.

Beyers, F. W.

Brink, G. F.

Brits, G. P.

Brown, G. Christie, J.

Conradie, J. H.

Conroy, E. A.

Creswell, F. H. P.

De Villiers, P. C.

De Villiers, W. B.

De Wet, S. D.

Fick, M. L.

Fordham, A. C.

Fourie, A. P. J.

Grobler, P. G. W.

Hattingh, B. R.

Havenga, N. C.

Hay, G. A.

Hertzog, J. B. M.

Heyns, J. D.

Hugo, D.

Kentridge, M.

Louw, E. H.

Madeley, W. B.

Malan, C. W.

Malan, D. F.

Malan, M. L.

McMenamin, J. J.

Mostert, J. P.

Muller, C. H.

Mullineux, J.

Naudé, A. S.

Pearce, C.

Pretorius, J. S. F.

Raubenheimer, I. van W.

Reyburn, G.

Rood, W. H.

Roux, J. W. J. W.

Stals, A. J.

Strachan, T. G.

Swart, C. R.

Van Heerden, I. P.

Van Niekerk, P. W. le R.

Van Rensburg, J. J.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Waterston, R. B.

Werth, A. J.

Wessels, J. B.

Tellers: Pienaar, B. J.; Vermooten, O. S.

Amendment accordingly negatived.

Amendment proposed by Mr. Struben put.

called for a division; upon which the committee divided:

On a point of order, did not the select committee move those words in?

Yes. According to the rules I have to put the amendment now, because it has been challenged. The hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. D. M. Brown) moved the omission of these words.

Agreed to.

Amendment, as amended, put and agreed to.

The amendment proposed by Maj. van Zyl put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 2,

I have an amendment on the Order Paper, viz.:

To omit this clause and to substitute the following new clause:

1. (2) Every wages board so appointed shall be constituted as follows:
   1. (a) The number of members shall not be less than four. There shall be an equal number of representatives of employers and employees chosen by the organizations, associations or trade unions of employers and employees concerned and any such organization, association or trade union may also choose alternative representatives.
      If at any time any such organization, association or trade union considers that any representative chosen by it is no longer a suitable representative on the board it shall notify the Minister and the chairman to this effect in writing, and at the same time the name of his successor. The notice shall become operative fourteen days after its receipt by the Minister, and the new representative shall hold office for the unexpired period for which the former representative was chosen.
   2. (b) Each member of the board shall, subject to the provisions of paragraph (a), hold office for a period of three years and shall be eligible for reappointment.
   3. (c) In case of sickness or absence of any member the alternate appointed may sit as a member of the board for the period of such absence.
   4. (d) Where there is no organization, association or trade union which, in the opinion of the Minister, is sufficiently representative in any trade, industry or occupation to elect members of the wages board in such trade, industry or occupation, he may appoint such number of representatives from the rest of the trade, industry or occupation in addition to those appointed by such organization, association or trade union, or in lieu thereof, as he may consider necessary.
   5. (e) The chairman shall be elected by the members of the board either from amongst themselves or outside their own number as those members may determine, and in case of their failure to do so the Minister shall appoint a chairman who shall act in that capacity until such time as the board may elect its own chairman.

The method of selection of the representative members by the persons whom they represent may be determined in each case by the Minister, or may be prescribed by regulation.

If, in any particular trade, industry or occupation, a considerable proportion of the employees work thereat in their homes, employees so working and their employers shall be specially represented on the wages board for that trade, industry or occupation.

The object of my amendment is to modify the form of the board.

I may immediately inform the hon. member that he can argue against Clause 2, but I cannot accept an amendment to delete Clause 2. He can simply vote against it, and then if Clause 2 is deleted he can move his new clause.

The object of my suggested amendment is to entirely alter the form of the board. Under the Bill the board consists of three independent gentlemen, while under the amendment I suggest the board would consist of an equal number of employers and employees. I will say at once that if this had been the form of the board suggested originally it would probably have taken away a great deal of the sting of the criticism against the intrusion of certain trades and industries in the Bill under the first clause. There would have been more confidence both amongst employers and employees if they knew they had some say in the determination of the wages in the trade in which they were concerned. This amendment of mine, I may say, meets the views not only of employers but of employees. In the evidence before the select committee, from which I will just quote one or two answers, it is quite clear that the employees asked for this form of board just as strongly as the employers. Mr. Andrews, the secretary of the Employees’ Association, a gentleman of communistic views and therefore not prejudiced in favour of the employers, in question 105 distinctly says that he is in favour of a board composed half of employers’ representatives and half of employees’ representatives, with an impartial chairman. In question 101 he says—

In question 114, Mr. Andrews gives his idea of the board of three members suggested in the Bill—the three-member board appointed by the Minister. He says—

And then he goes on to say—

That is Mr. Andrews’ view of the board suggested by the Minister. The Board of Federated Industries takes up exactly the same position. Mr. Anderson, on behalf of the mining industry, said—

If he cannot get that, he said he would be satisfied with the board provided the elected members representing employers and employees are in the majority over the nominated members. That is the principle that applies in England and Australia. I very much doubt whether there are three men in South Africa sufficiently endowed to be able to understand the intricacies and technicalities of every trade in the country, and I believe that if you allow a board of three men to wander around this country dealing out what they think to be justice as between employer and employee, you are going to put the employees on one side and the employers on the other side—two opposing armies—with three policemen standing between. Under the terms of the Bill of 1921, you have equal numbers of employers and employees, and you put the two parties on the right footing. These two parties interested in a trade know the technicalities of the trade and the extent to which the other party can go, and you will arrive at a sound conclusion. In fact. I think the de Villiers award is rather a good example of what I say. That award led to a lot of controversy and the Minister, very wisely, said we are going to get away from this trouble, and I understand sent two emissaries to Johannesburg to get the employers and employees to meet and fight out their difference across a table. That is the way I believe you are going to arrive at a sound minimum wage basis and not in any other way. You must get the employees and the employers to consider the fact that the one has to give good service so that good wages can be paid, while the other has to give a good wage for good service. Another criticism I would offer on the machinery at present in force is that you have a board of three who have to consider the whole trade of South Africa. That would take an interminable number of years, but if the Minister adopts the suggestion in my amendment of having boards for each trade, the work would be got through very much more quickly, more efficiently, and without the friction he is going to have if he tries to force any given minimum wage on employers and employees. It is quite clear that Mr. Andrews, on behalf of the employees, dislikes an outside board as much as the employers do, for no self-respecting employee wants an outside board to force the opinions of that body down the throats of the employees and the employers. Under the machinery proposed in the Bill there will be just as much trouble with the employees as with the employers. As far as I can see, the Minister made it clear that the whole working of the Act would depend on the board of three. They will have to be men of extreme common-sense, and will have to solve difficulties, such as the inclusion of agricultural trades, by a stroke of a pen, while we have been vainly trying for five hours to solve these very difficulties. The whole working of the measure will be in the hands of three men who, unless they are absolutely under the control of the Minister—which will be worse still—will be autocrats dealing with the whole of the trades and industries of South Africa. [Time expired.]

I want to support this clause, although it goes against the grain, but if there is one thing which is going to make the Bill workable it will be this clause. I don’t like the Bill, but the amendment is certainly an improvement. I support the amendment, because if we are going to be left with a board as the Minister proposes, we are going to be left in the hands of bureaucrats. Who is the Minister going to appoint on the board—what class of men?

A good class.

I hope not another kindergarten.

Lord Milner’s?

No, the one across the street. We don’t want a repetition of that. In any case, they will become a set of bureaucrats. Furthermore, it would be utterly impossible for them to carry through this work. How can three men go through all trades of this extensive country? It is impossible. My friend’s amendment makes the Bill more workable. There is another point. What I like about the amendment is this: The principle is to go by areas. In the Bill you have gone by trades only. The wages in trades vary in accordance with the localities. In the Witwatersrand, and at Durban they are higher than in this part of the world. Is it going to lay down that wages must be of one standard all over the Union. Why, even at the Salt River railway works they differentiate from the works at Pretoria and on the Rand. In investigating these things the board should not only pay attention to trades, but also to areas. If this amendment is rejected, I shall bring forward another amendment later, to carry out the idea. If the Minister wants to make it a workable proposition he ought to accept this. One board is too small, and it is not representative of both sides. It is a board of bureaucrats, if not at the beginning it certainly will become so. They are not men who understand the business.

In addition to what has been said on the point, it might be of advantage to the Minister if I tell him of the experience of Australia in connection with the appointment of wages boards. If he knew what their experience has been it might help him to arrive at a conclusion on the important principle underlying this amendment. Whether the board consists of three or five members the selection of the chairman is going to be a difficult task. By Clause 1 of the Bill, the Minister indicates that he is anxious to maintain the voluntary principle. Precisely the same consideration was borne in mind when dealing with wages boards in Victoria, and I have a valuable report before me framed by a commissioner appointed in 1908 by the Imperial Government to investigate wages boards, etc. in Australia. The hon. member for Newlands (Mr. Stuttaford) without reference to this report, embodies a device or proposal practically identical with the principles underlying these Acts, and I want to tell him something of the experience with regard to the working of the Acts. In the Act which regulates the appointment of wages boards in Victoria, and they led the way in Australia, there is embodied the voluntary principle. I will deal with one or two expressions of opinion of the commissioner who framed an impartial report after hearing both sides, and after considering whether they should, in England, adopt the compulsory principle or proceed along voluntary lines. In dealing with the appointment of the chairman, he said that the chairman could be elected by the board or, if not so elected, he was appointed by the Governor-General-in-Council. The first qualification was to be that of impartiality. It is singular to find that in the majority of cases which are mentioned, the employers and the employees have been able to select a chairman. I would suggest to the Minister that if he wishes his boards to command confidence, he should agree to divest himself of the responsibility of appointing three people, one of whom must be the chairman. Would it not be very much easier for him to say, as the amendment asks him to say, that, by means of regulation, he will settle some system of appointing two representatives from either side, and that those four persons so appointed should elect a chairman? I would suggest that he would then be able to devolve the responsibility for any wages decision upon that board and to point out that the chairman has been selected by the two contesting interests in the industry concerned. Under the voluntary system, where an agreement has been arrived at, experience shows that because of the very fact that the employers and employees have come to a common conclusion the agreement holds because, as this authority says, they have a certain responsibility in maintaining it, but where you have a wage board making an award which is fixed down by a statutory sanction, you are going to have disappointment on the part of one of the parties, and a constant endeavour to rip that up at the very first moment when an opportunity offers for that purpose.

I am sorry I cannot accept this in spite of what has been said by the hon. member who has just sat down.

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, there is no quorum.

The amendment is not, as the hon. member who has just spoken seems to think, a product of the brain of the hon. member for Newlands (Mr. Stuttaford). It is taken from that last word in industrial legislation, the Bill of 1921, which was passed through this House by the hon. gentlemen opposite and conveniently lost in the Senate. It was not quite the last word even in their own eyes. The spirit of this Bill has been adopted in the Conciliation Act passed in 1924. There are two principles subsequent to the passing of this Industrial Conciliation Act of 1924. All that industrial conciliation machinery I want reserved. During the discussion on the previous clause I think I showed the sincerity of my desire to preserve it. I see the necessity—although many of my friends down there do not agree with me, but I ask them to accept it—of keeping the two as parallel methods but not to interfere with each other. Every single industry such as the hon. member spoke of that chooses to take the line of conciliation will by Clause 1 of this Act, once it comes to agreement, be excluded from the purview of this board. If conciliation is not possible, if they cannot come to an agreement, it does not matter. The hon. member seemed rather optimistic when saying that if they chose their own chairman, they will always come to an agreement. We had a unanimous choice of a chairman in a case very much before the public, but his judgment came to little. He gave his view in justice. Under this machinery you have here you are confusing two schemes, and how the rest of the Bill is going to work if this is accepted I really do not know; but these are really minor points. I cannot accept this on the ground I mentioned in the second reading, that is, that we are approaching this very difficult subject in a way that will only make confusion worse confounded by having different determinations of different principles by different minds all over the country. If you are going to get anything like order into the matter. Possibly it might not work so rapidly—there may be congestion—but against that you have always got the conciliation machinery open to both parties.

Is this system working anywhere in the world?

Compulsory arbitration courts are a great development of this system. The parties appeal to these courts and the case is tried and both parties have to abide by the decision.

They don’t; they are not a success in Australia.

Let the hon. member ask his hon. friend the member for Port Elizabeth, who, on the second reading debate, read an interesting and pertinent extract from the “Cambridge Law Journal pointing out the excellent work they had done in gradually developing a system of industrial common law. We have heard a great deal about the defects of that system; but I that it is because we have adopted the other system that we have blinded ourselves to the fact that there is a good deal of good in the system. I am satisfied that your conciliation machinery by itself is not going to be the complete solution; your compulsory arbitration by itself is not a complete solution, but the parallel development of both principles with a major emphasis on the conciliation principle is, I believe, the way along which we are going to get the greatest amount of industrial peace, and this amendment here tacked on to this Bill will make it unworkable and I hope the hon. member will withdraw it.

I would like to support the motion of my hon. friend. The vital point of the difference between us and the Minister is that the Minister thinks that there should be two systems in force running as he puts it in parallel channels, the voluntary and compulsory systems, and we think in all these matters, and certainly in any trades which in any shape are organized, it is desirable to rely on the voluntary system. My hon. friend quoted some of the evidence given before the select committee. He showed quite plainly that representatives of a large number of trades unions on the Witwatersrand, now banded together in some sort of employees’ organization, expressed a view, very strongly, that the system of representatives from both sides should be adopted. Question No. 126, which I put myself to Mr. Andrews, makes that clear. The fact is that so strongly did Mr. Andrews and his friends feel the necessity of both sides being represented on the board, that they were prepared to argue that even in the case of trades which are wholly unorganized, the board as proposed by the Minister should not function as he suggests, but that the board should be so constituted that the employees being unorganized, their representatives should be selected by some employees’ organization. He said that the organized employees should have the right of nomination, and he thought the unorganized workers would agree to that. We had that also from the representatives of the employers. Nowhere, except in Australia, is there any system which in any way corresponds with that which it is now proposed to establish. It does not exist in Canada or in the United States, and when it was suggested a few years ago, the American Federation of Labour said it would protest against such a proposal by every means in its power. Then there is nothing like this in England. I do not see why, in this country, where the unskilled labour is largely supplied by natives, it can be supposed that such a principle will succeed. The Economic Commission strongly recommended the creation of voluntary boards. We think it is very much better that boards should be deputed to deal with particular areas and particular trades, if not particular cases, because the people concerned will be familiar with local conditions and the needs of the trades concerned, and will be able to approach the matter from a much closer point of view than would professional members of the board, who would have no particular knowledge of the trade concerned. I am quite aware that there are objections to that principle. In some trades the employers and the employees come together and the interests of the public are altogether sacrificed. We have such instances in the building trade and to some extent, in the printing trade. That system, however, brings with it its own remedy, for if the conditions get too severe for the public, the public retaliate, and do not build or print, and the people concerned have either to reduce profits or wages. In the end, the system suggested in the amendment is likely to be far more productive of justice than the board suggested by the Minister. The Minister says he appreciates the value of agreement, and he has accepted some amendments that will preserve that to some extent. If he goes so far in trying to preserve the voluntary representative system, surely it is far better to rely on that only and not to endanger its successful working by introducing what the Minister calls another parallel system.

I think the clause, as printed, is the greatest defect in the Bill. I have always been in favour of the statutory fixation of wages, and have always supported very strongly minimum wage legislation, and I was particularly glad when in 1921 we managed to pass the Minimum Wage Act. That measure, which followed the principle of the Act of 1918, was our first step in the direction of minimum wage legislation. It related to women and young children, and followed the principle of joint boards. It is a matter of great regret that the Minister has departed from that principle in this Bill. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) said it was somewhat against the grain that he urged the adoption of the amendment, because it would improve a Bill which he strongly disapproved of. From precisely the opposite standpoint—because I am afraid of the principle of the Bill—I would urge the Minister seriously to consider whether he cannot accept the amendment of the hon. member for Newlands (Mr. Stuttaford) I do believe it will have the effect of making the Bill more effective and more workable than the machinery he contemplates under section 2. The difference between section 2 and the amendment is this: Section 2, as he has drafted it, creates one board for the whole country, and it will impose wage conditions on employees and employers alike from above. They will be in the position of witnesses giving evidence on what they think should be the statutory wage and the determination is left to a body on which they may or may not be represented, the members of which will not be connected with their particular trade. In the case of employees, it will be very difficult to get their consent and amenability to any determination they don’t care for. The other system is far better, because you get the determination of wages by both parties sitting round the table with a chairman. Ultimately, the chairman may have to decide, but he will decide in the light of the advice of members of both sides sitting on the board, and I venture to say to the Minister, as one entirely favouring this sort of legislation, that he is on the wrong tack in setting up a wages board for the whole of the Union as he is trying to do. The hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) asked him if there was any other country in the world that does what is proposed to be done under this section, and he could not tell a single case where it was done. Industrially, this country is many years behind countries like Australia, Canada, America and England. If they cannot do it, I question our ability to do it. The Minister mentioned one of his objections to the amendment of the hon. member for Newlands (Mr. Stuttaford), and that was that it brought about different determinations by different persons all over the country. Precisely. That is its virtue. It will set up wage conditions in the Cape which are not wage conditions for Johannesburg or Durban. Each area has its own conditions, and what might be a fit and proper minimum wage for the Rand may not be the proper minimum wage for Cape Town or for Port Elizabeth. The Minister says we have done all that in the Conciliation Act. Judging by a recent Bill he has thrown on the floor of the House in regard to one determination under that Act, I doubt if it is going to be a success. The workers will never really meet the employers face to face and determine things as they would under that Act if they know they had this board of three men that they could appeal to, and which they will hope will impose their will on the employers. [Time expired.]

The Minister has said that if the amendment I suggest were adopted it would be unworkable in this Bill. He has not given any reason why he is of that opinion and I cannot see it. The only thing I ask is that instead of having a board of three men appointed by himself, the employees should have an opportunity of appointing a certain number of their own people as their own representatives and the employers a certain number of representatives of their own. That board, when appointed, would have exactly the powers and functions as the board suggested in the Bill, it does not make the Bill unworkable in any way as far as I can see. In order to protect the employees in a sweated trade, under this amendment the employee does not need to appoint one of his fellow employees as his representative. He can appoint an outside representative, as Mr. Andrews suggested on behalf of the employees’ organization. Suppose you had a sweated industry, the employees in that industry would appoint probably a trade union official like Mr. Andrews or some one who has had experience of negotiating, to represent the employees on the board. The employers are supposed to look after themselves. Under this amendment, too, there is no actual necessity for the chairman to be appointed from outside; the body themselves, after they have been nominated, can elect their own chairman, if they like, from within their own body. If they don’t like to do that, they can, on their own initiative, appoint an outside chairman, or, failing that, the Minister appoints an outside chairman. The Minister has made a great deal of the Industrial Conciliation Act, but I would suggest to him that he argues this Bill to a very large extent from the point of view of the organized trades. The definition of “trade” in this Act is, however, so wide that it comprises everybody who is employed in the whole country, and many of those employees do not work under conditions which would bring them under the Industrial Conciliation Act. For instance, you have clerks in insurance companies and clerks in attorneys’ offices. All these people come under this Bill. It does not propose that clerks in attorneys’ offices, I take it, should register under the Industrial Conciliation Act. I do suggest to the Minister that, owing to the fact that the definition of trade is so very wide, he should take a very long view of this matter as to how he is going to form his board I am convinced that the board of three supermen, which he suggests, is going to be an utter and entire failure. If he accepts the well-tried principle of allowing the employees and employers to get into a room together and compose their own differences, they talk in their own language, they will come out of that room with an agreement which will last. If it is forced upon them from above by a board who know nothing whatever about the technicalities of the trade, it is going to be an utter failure. In conclusion, I would just point this out to the Minister. He gave us a memorandum on wage regulations in various parts of the world when we were in the select committee. I would like to take one extract. I want to quote this on Australia—

That is my view. If you allow these people to come together they will compose their difficulties. If you put three policemen over them and start ordering them about you are only going to cause confusion and a great deal of trouble.

I just want to add a few words to what I was saying when my time expired. I also feel a difficulty with regard to the personnel of the board. I suppose it would not be fair to ask the Minister how he proposes to constitute the board, but if he could not give us the names perhaps he could give us some information as to the sources from which he proposes to recruit the board, their experience and so forth. I agree entirely with the hon. member for Newlands (Mr. Stuttaford) that it is a very difficult matter to find gentlemen sufficiently acquainted with industrial and the economic conditions of this country to be able to determine wages for the diverse industries of this country. All that, as has been pointed out, would be obviated if the determination was done by representatives of the particular trade concerned. I will put this to the Minister. Supposing he sat on a board to fix a minimum wage for the legal profession, or let us say that I sat on a board to fix wages for mining engineers. I could listen to the evidence and perhaps form some idea but I could not gain the same correct idea as to the proper remuneration as he could, and conversely he could not do so in regard to the legal profession. The task of appointing these three gentlemen is going to be one of thorough difficulty. There is no doubt about it. If he could only see the necessity of adopting the suggestion of the hon. member for Newlands (Mr. Stuttaford) he would remove at once what is my main objection and that of most hon. members on this side and certainly of our leader. If you could leave it to the people themselves to settle it, all the trouble this Bill is creating and is likely to create would be obviated. I am certain the Minister in years to come will realize, if he does not realize now, that what we are saying is absolutely right. Let them settle it themselves, and of course, I admit, that if they cannot come to an agreement there should be machinery for an agreement to be made. If they could not settle it themselves then the chairman, who would be their nominee, would report to the Minister and he would make a determination. This ad hoc wages board would be far more effective than one of three civil servants. Think of the expenditure that will be saved to the State, instead of setting up another board with three salaried men, with two others, who will sometimes have to be paid fees, with the necessary clerical staff, secretary, typists and so on, all adding to the expense. We seem to be continually adding to these boards. No doubt some of them are necessary; but they all add to the expense. I beg the Minister to pause and say, here at least is an opportunity of avoiding the necessity of creating a new board, because we can allow the industries and trades to do it themselves, with no expense, or very little expense, to the State.

I have a small amendment to put but I suppose the Minister will refuse to accept it, as usual. In sub-section 5, I move to delete the word “confirm” and substitute the word “conform”.

Would you move one also in sub-section (2), line 29, of a similar character?

Will the Minister promise to accept it?

I will accept it.

I should like to put some objections I have to this clause. The Minister seems to be under the impression that it would be possible to run both these systems together, the voluntary system under the Conciliation Act of last year, and the compulsory system which he wants to introduce under the machinery of this Bill. It is impossible to have both together at the same time. It seems to me as clear as day-light that if you make this attempt the compulsory system must kill the voluntary system, and I think the effect of this Bill will be that the Conciliation Act of last year will be forced from the slate and will not be an operative measure. The Conciliation Act of last year is an Act of very considerable importance That Act was passed after the fullest enquiry, by the most competent body of enquiry we have ever had in this country. I remember Mr. Brace stated that if we put that system into force which had been recommended by the Solomon Commission—

Was the Act you introduced recommended by Mr. Brace?

The Act of last year was practically in agreement with the system that was recommended by the Solomon Commission, a most advanced machinery passed through Parliament, and working in this country. That Act deals with the same subject-matter, and while we have this the Minister comes forward with this compulsory system, and it seems clear that this Bill must drive the other Act out. They cannot both continue to exist in this country. It is very difficult to bring parties together voluntary and make them thrash out their differences, when there is a court which is grinding out judgments and imposing its will and giving its decisions ready made.

What about the wages boards which co-exist with compulsory arbitration boards in Australia?

I will come to compulsory arbitration just now. This Bill must necessarily kill the existing machinery, because it is much more difficult to bring parties together and make them compose their own differences and try to come to a conclusion. You need to be no prophet to foretell that when this Act comes into force people will appeal to the board. They will not go in for the machinery of conciliation —all this democratic system which we have, and which we look forward to help us in our industrial development, will be simply ignored. The idea of the Minister that he can run these two systems together is bound to fail. We shall then be left with this machinery. If I had to choose between the Australian system of compulsory arbitration and this system which the Minister is trying to force on the country, I am not sure that I should not prefer the Australian system. The Australian system, after all, leaves the decision to an arbitration court. The decision is the decision of the court which imposes its will by judgment on the industry. That is not going to happen here. Here minimum wages are going to be imposed on the country by the Government, and the result of the Bill will be that, once it comes into force, in practically all trades everywhere there will be no industrial wages, but wages prescribed by the Government. Outside of extreme socialistic countries, I do not think you will find such a system working anywhere in the world If I have to choose between the Australian system, which is bad on many grounds, I certainly would say that the Australian system is to be preferred to this system, where the wages would be Government wages from one end of the country to the other. The Minister may say that if the board renders a report to him which he thinks undesirable he need not apply it. I would like to ask all reasonable men would it be possible for the Government to do that? An appeal has been made to the board by the workers in any particular industry, the board. Has rendered judgment and given an award and has stated that in that particular industry there shall be a minimum wage of 7s. or 10s. a day. The Government may think that this is impossible and they might be of opinion that if such an award were in force it would kill the industry. Would any Government be able to refrain from putting these awards into force? If they did not there would be a strike, and the strike would arise entirely owing to the action of the Government. The whole matter, which should have been an ordinary industrial dispute and confined to the contending parties concerned, will be transferred to the Union, and it seems to me that under this system the country is going to have, in the most extensive form, a bureaucratic system under which the Government will be responsible for whatever may happen in regard to wages. I think this is most undesirable. We are a young country—we are not an industrial country yet. With the exception of our mining industries we are at the very beginning of our industrial career, and we are at the very birth of industries. Are we going to strangle ourselves? We are going to impose a bureaucratic machinery which works nowhere else. The Minister says there is no precedent anywhere for it, the nearest being the Australian arbitration system. I would rather have the Australian system, bad as it is, than this which makes the Government responsible for settling industrial wages. We are a young country, and we look forward to the industrialization of this country, and we are going to strangle everything at its birth. We are going to have wages settled by a Government bureaucratic board. Nor will it be one board. The passion for bureaucracy is growing on the Minister very rapidly. He started with one board, which I thought was bad enough. Now there will be divisions of this board all paid, and all with their staff and clerks, and you will find the country covered with a network of boards and divisions of boards investigating circumstances of industry all over the country and reporting wages which the Minister will have to put into force, and if he does not, the Government will be responsible for the strikes which will follow. When I read the clause I think of the Latin proverb about whom the gods wish to destroy, and the Minister is insisting on this clause which, I think, will be the essence of the Bill.

Let me answer you in two minutes.

No, I think we cannot finish to-night. To-morrow will do. The previous Bill left the settlement of wages to parties representing each industry. He is not satisfied with that.

You didn’t like it much yourself.

I had some measure of responsibility for it. [Time expired.]

The hon. gentleman has been making several attempts and jabs at it, but can he say he has been successful in avoiding horrible strikes or making for good relations between employers and employed and bringing about contentment among the working people of the country? If he reflects, he will realize the country cannot go on eternally following in his footsteps. The country is justified in asking that we should look critically at the defects of the conciliation machinery, and see that other steps are taken to provide not only for the unorganized industries for which conciliation is impossible, but that we shall have side by side with the conciliation machinery some alternative or parallel method which will provide the necessary agency where conciliation breaks down. Let him reflect upon the result of his own past legislation, and I think he would hesitate in asking us to accept himself as a high authority for industrial legislation. I move—

Agreed to.

House Resumed:

Progress reported; House to resume in Committee to-morrow.