I move—

Upon the first £2,000 of the dutiable amount, ½ per cent.

Upon so much of the dutiable amount—

Subject to an abatement of £7,500, which shall be reduced by £1 for every completed £1 whereby the dutiable amount exceeds £7,500.

I would like to say a few words about the death duties. Of course, I know that it is no use moving to reduce, or anything like that, but it seems to me that the subject is one that calls for a few remarks. Death duties, it has always seemed to me, are peculiarly unsuited to a young and developing country like South Africa. It is nothing else but a tax on capital in South Africa. Suppose a man is a farmer, as a rule there is not much in the estates of farmers in the way of cash which would have to be paid to the Government as death duties. He has got to realize part of the land in many cases, or it may be in some cases he has got to realize his possessions in some way or other for the purpose of paying the death duties, which come fairly heavy. To my mind the income tax is a far sounder tax than the death duty, because with the income tax a man has an opportunity of saving, but the death duties may take capital out of its existing use, it may be farming, business or manufacture, for the purpose of paying the duties. In some cases I do not say in every case—it reduces employment at the same time. It would be fairer and more just to pay a heavier income tax than heavy death duties. Of course, I am well aware that the duties in England are very heavy, but even there it is beginning to be recognized that they interfere very largely with the development of trade and so forth. They also hamper employment. It is very curious that Holland, though heavily taxed at the present moment, perhaps as heavily as Great Britain, lets the death duties alone, although they have the succession duties there. There is another point. The succession duties which we also have are better than the estate duties, for this reason. A man may have a family of six children. Under the estate duties he will pay exactly the same as if he had only one child or none at all, whereas under the succession duty the heirs pay and pay according to the nearness of relationship. For instance, a son or daughter will pay 2 per cent., whereas a stranger will pay 10 per cent. So that in any case the succession duty, which we have also beside the estate duty, is a fairer tax, a more just tax, than the estate duty. I know my hon. friend cannot afford to give it up just now, but I do not think he likes the estate duty himself, especially in a new country where we want capital. Where is the advisability, where is the policy, of coming along and taking this estate duty out of the estate just when the man has built up the business is taken away, and his heirs want to carry it on? It certainly does not tend to the more rapid development of the country.

The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) was most interesting this afternoon and it was a pleasure to listen to his speech. At the first blush I almost thought that he had become a Nationalist because a few years ago when he was a prominent member of the then Government we made the same kind of speeches in Opposition as he has done this afternoon. The hon. member will remember that we fought the estate duty step by step and we used the same arguments that he has now done. What happened then? The hon. member, one of the leaders of the South African party Government, tacitly permitted the then Minister of Finance to put the matter through. I am glad that the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) has apparently become converted and I hope that when the time comes for the Minister of Finance to scrap what I consider an unjust tax the hon. member will assist him and us.

Why then are you now voting for it?

Unfortunately, he supported the Government at that time to create the tax and as it now exists in consequence of the administration of the previous Government the present Government cannot do otherwise than use the tax which the previous Government introduced to meet the expenditure and to cover the public debt. We feel, however, that this estate duty should be repealed as soon as possible and something else put in its place. We and the people feel, however, that in the circumstances the present Government cannot do otherwise than to retain the tax for this year in any case, in consequence of the condition in which the country was when this Government took over. I wish to congratulate the hon. Minister that notwithstanding those circumstances he has found it possible to do so much up to the present to increase the exemption from £1,000 to £7.500, and I hope that if the conditions should be still better next year that then the estate duty may be entirely abolished.

The objection people have to these death duties increases on a sliding scale, in proportion to the amount they anticipate their estates will have to pay. I do not see why the State should be in such a hurry about getting the money the moment a man shuffles off this mortal coil. I do not object to these death duties, but I would like to impress upon the Minister that when an estate has to pay death duty, that the Government, or department dealing with it, will give sufficient time, so that the assets of the estate are not to be sacrificed in order to pay quickly the amount due to the State.

I welcome the attitude of the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger). I have taken the trouble to look up the Votes and Proceedings for 1922, when this tax was imposed for the first time in the Union. I wish to remind him that we divided on the matter. The Nationalist party proposed that the Bill should be read that day six months. The whole of the S.A.P., or at any rate all of them that were present, voted in favour of the tax and among them were the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) and also the hon. member for Bethal (Lt.-Col. H. S. Grobler).

Why do you not put it right now?

I just wish to say that I welcome the conversion of the hon. member for Cape Town (Central). I hope that he will help us in the future to put the matter right. I do not know whether it can go into the brain of the hon. member for Bethal, but we must surely admit that it is impossible for the present Government to immediately repeal such taxes where the former Government had so run up the expenditure of the land. The relief which has been given is very useful and will help the farmers much because there are very few farmers who leave estates worth more than £26.000. The arguments against the estate duty which have been mentioned here again to-day always apply, of course, in our country, but, unfortunately, we cannot yet do everything.

At the time this estate duty was passed the idea was to consolidate the taxation in the Union. The estate duty was known for years in the Transvaal, I think even in the time of the republic. In the other provinces there were succession duties. These were all then consolidated and the Nationalists were all against the principle of an estate duty. At the recent election they also promised that they would abolish the estate duty at the first opportunity.

That is not so.

Yes, that was the case. Promises were made that the tax would be repealed as soon as the Nationalist party came into power. To-day they have the chance of making the alteration.

A great change has been made.

Yes, but the Minister can go back to succession duty if the Nationalist party are actually against the estate duty. The principle is, however, again to be adopted and is even being extended in the case of the larger estates. The hon. member for Hoopstad (Mr. Conroy) and the hon. member for Ceres (Mr. Roux) are so much against the principle and want to repeal it. Have they already asked the approval of the Labour party?

The Labour party did not vote for the estate duty.

That is the great principle of the Labour party. The great protagonist of the estate duty is the Leader of the Labour party, who is now in the Cabinet. If the Nationalist party wants to be true to its word it should vote against this tax.

It is quite amusing to listen to the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. Krige). Hon. members opposite complain and make a noise about the estate duty. In their hearts they hope that it will be removed. At the time it was imposed they were also opposed, but the former Government forced them to vote for it which they very submissively did. Now they want to make use of the new Government to take it off and come here and say that we promised to do so. Everybody can see that this is nothing else but crocodile tears. We said at the election that we would alter the estate duty.

No, abolish.

We have altered it and we said that we would take it off if it was possible. Our friends opposite there who are sensible men—

What?

No, I withdraw that, I made a slip of the tongue. My hon. friends opposite, who ought to have sense, can surely appreciate that it is impossible for a Government to take off the whole estate duty in the first year of its existence. What the Government has already done in connection with the exemption will help the smaller man a good deal.

I have permitted a good deal of liberty in connection with this debate, but I want to point out that the general principle of the estate duty may not be discussed in committee.

Still, I am glad that I was permitted to say what was on my mind. In connection with the incidence of the tax I should like to say that I want to insist on the Government going back to the succession duties. Under this exemption an estate of £7,000 left to an heir pays nothing. But if £8,000 is left to a number of heirs then they must pay.

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but we cannot now deal with the succession duties.

We all thought that, when the present Government took office, a great improvement was to take place in our public finances, but we find that they are taking over all the taxes imposed by the late Government.

And increasing them.

Order. I have just pointed out to the hon. member for Ladybrand (Mr. Swart) that we cannot now discuss the principle.

It reminds me of the old saying that—

Hon. members, when they sat here, were altogether opposed to the tax, but now that they are sitting on the other side, they are in favour of it.

The hon. member must confine himself to the Vote.

I am one of those who believe that this is quite a reasonable tax. I think it is a tax which ought to be imposed. There is no doubt that one of the reasons for a great deal of the unrest that is spreading throughout the world, and is evidenced in South Africa, is the disparity between rich and poor.

I am sorry the hon. member cannot now go into the principle of the desirability of such a tax or otherwise.

I can only say that I thoroughly approve of the Minister’s proposal, and even if the Minister were to make the tax a little steeper on the larger fortunes, I think it would meet with the approval of the majority of the people in this country.

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, we are now discussing this principle of the death duties. Are we to understand that, when the Committee have a clause before them, we cannot discuss the principle in the clause nor negative that principle.

I will read what the standing order says. Clause 117 reads—

I feel that I must say something about the estate duty. As hon. members know, I was bitterly opposed to this tax, and I cannot to-day do otherwise, although the hon. Minister has done his best, again—

The hon. member cannot discuss the principle of the estate duty.

Is it not competent for a member on that motion to address the committee with the object of inducing the committee to negative the whole thing?

The principle was adopted yesterday, and what hon. members have been doing has been to discuss whether this principle should be adopted.

Suppose I had decided to strike out this death duty altogether. Would it have been competent for me to move it as an amendment to the motion to go into committee? Must I not wait until we go into committee and then move that it be negatived?

The hon. member should have moved the deletion yesterday when Mr. Speaker was in the Chair.

As an amendment to go into committee?

Yes.

Is not the question of raising money by way of death duties a detail that we are discussing?

No, that is a principle.

Otherwise I do not see when we can advance objections to any proposed taxation. If we take the licences seriatim could we not discuss the hardships that would be entailed in order to prove that it would be ill advised to levy such a licence? We shall be very seriously hampered if your ruling is to be strictly applied. It is a question of what is meant by detail.

I should like to know when we can talk about the estate duty if we cannot do it now, because I think this estate duty is now under discussion, and immediately I begin to talk the Chairman tells me to sit down. I do not know where I stand.

The general principle could have been raised by the hon. member yesterday and the day before. Now the time is past.

I do not wish to talk about the general principle. I am satisfied with the principle, but the incidence of the tax at present is not good enough. I want to discuss the details of estate duty, and not the principle.

If the hon. member does not discuss the principle, then he is in order. He can go into details.

Well, I approve of the principle. But I say that for us farmers this estate duty in its present form is quite impossible. I am thankful that the hon. Minister has given the relief by increasing the limit of exemption from £1,000 to £7,500, but immediately attached to it is the provision which exclusively hits the farmers. The position with regard to the unfortunate farmers to-day is that if you have only one farm and you plant 1,000,000 trees there and work hard, don’t go to the bioscope, and don’t attend other frivolities, but work hard, then the valuator comes eventually, and he is not a friend, but only a valuator, but puts £10 per morgen on a farm of 5,000 morgen, which means an amount of £50,000, which must be paid in cash, and in the long run the estate is entirely in the hands of the Government. The man who knows precisely the circumstances and who has brought up the farm is no longer there, and the widow or poor orphans are entirely ruined. I was opposed to it, and I am still opposed to it. In my constituency the people are opposed to it and I am still opposed to it to-day, because it is a complicated matter and our farmers who own farms are hit too severely by it.

The hon. member is again talking about the principle.

I am sorry that I again wandered away. I only say that the estate duty will finally put our farmers into the desperate position that they will no longer be in a position to make a living on their farms.

Is it competent for me, if I were opposed to the death duties, to move that the abatement should commence at £75,000 instead of £7,500, and that the rate be 1 per cent. instead of 17 per cent.

Oh, yes.

Would I not then be within my rights in stating the reasons which actuated me in making such a proposal?

Oh, yes, certainly.

That is all that hon. members want.

Motion put and agreed to.

Resolution on death duties to be reported.

Licence Duties.

I move—

Schedule I.—Union Licences.

Schedule II.—Provincial Licences.

(Part I.—Trading Licences.)

(Part II.—Professional Licences.)

Provided that where more than one of the above professions is carried on by the same individual he shall be required to pay full duty in respect of one licence only and shall be entitled to obtain any additional licence or licences at half the rates specified; provided, however, that full duty shall in each case be paid in respect of the licence for which the highest duty is specified.

In respect of any of the above licences taken out within two years of the date when the person licensed shall first have commenced to practise on his own behalf; half the above rates.

(Part III.—Occupational Licences.)

I move—

Schedule II be taken seriatim.

Agreed to.

On Schedule I,

I should like to know if the Union licence “Banker or banking institution—in respect of each branch, £20,” is in addition to the existing licence of 1s. for every £100 of subscribed capital, or it that done away with? Are we to understand that the latter licence is to be abolished, and that the only licence the banks will pay will be £20 for each branch? Any licences which do not appear on this schedule are I presume abolished with the exception of the liquor licences?

I want to ask the Minister a question or two with regard to Item 2, “Banks, bankers or banking institutions.” The licence in respect of each branch is £20. Does he include in that category the ordinary loan institutions, building societies, and savings banks? I want to raise a protest against this item. A great deal of the progress of South Africa depends upon the banks being able to open up branches in remote portions of the country, and it is a retrograde step to say to the banks that as soon as they open a branch they shall pay £20 for the privilege. It is discouraging the ordinary spread of trade in the country. It is regrettable that one of our leading banks had to close down several branches in the last two or three years because those branches do not pay the expenses of management. We want to encourage the opening of branches in every part of the country and not only in principal towns. I want to ask the Minister what he means by the term “branch.” Banks have not only what they call “branches,” but agencies, and periodical branches, where they send a clerk once a week. Will the bank have to pay £20 for the purpose of serving the public by means of an agency in some remote part of the country? In the big towns the big banks for the convenience of the public, have several branches in the same town. The Standard Bank in Cape Town has five or six branches, and in Johannesburg there are branches all over the place. If the bank had only one head office, and closed the branches, it would do the same volume of business, because the public would have to go to the head office. These branches are opened mainly for the convenience of the public, so that business men and others will not have to send their staffs long distances. I think this is an unwise suggestion. Let the Minister place a tax on the head office of a higher amount, but to discourage branches in the country is unsound.

The hon. member says it will stop the banks from opening new branches. Sometime ago you had a tax on branches, and the banks opened more branches than they had ever opened before.

There was no tax on branches in the Cape Province.

No, not in the Cape Province, but in the Free State, where they had to pay £50.

And they closed them down.

They didn’t close them down. One bank did because it went into liquidation. With regard to the tax on daily and weekly newspapers, I don’t see why the Minister does not put them on monthly and annual publications. Some of these are making more money than the small daily and weekly papers in the small towns.

The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) has asked if licences imposed on these branches will be in addition to what they pay in the Cape. I suppose he refers to the licence they pay as joint stock companies. That will remain until it is repealed by the Companies Act.

You had better repeal this, too.

The banks were not taxed in the Cape, but in the Free State the licence was £150 for the head office and £75 for each branch. I have really reduced the licence payable by banks considerably.

Is that in operation now in the Free State?

Yes, it is in operation now. Hon. members will realize my difficulty. When you have to deal with the subject of making the licences uniform you are bound to get anomalies. I have tried to get at some uniform rate applicable to the whole province, and that has been a difficult matter. I don’t pretend it has been done scientifically, and you will get anomalies. Although it may not be a desirable method of taxation, at the same time it has been a recognized source of revenue for the provinces, and they do not want to give it up. I do not think the licences proposed are unreasonable, except, perhaps, in a few particular instances. We get a considerable amount of revenue from them. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell) asked whether savings banks are included. Any institution that transacts business ordinarily known as banking will, I presume, come in.

And building societies?

Yes; if they do banking.

Yes, they will come under it if they do banking.

They come under it now.

They are not treated as banks to-day.

I am informed the Act will state that banks will only be institutions classed as banks under the Banking Act. Savings banks will not come under that.

Nor building societies?

No, nor building societies. This applies to all bona fide branches, and we do not include agencies. If they go to Pretoria or to Roberts Heights, just to pay out, that would not be considered a branch. The hon. member has mentioned newspapers.

What about directories that make all the money?

We have not considered that. We don’t pretend to bring everybody into the net.

You bring the poor man in and leave the rich man out.

I should like to refer to item No. 4, commercial travellers, £7 10s. The hon. Minister in introducing this matter said that the cause of his increasing it was that he had receiver representations from the retailers on the country-side to do so because they found it difficult to compete with the wholesale merchants in Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and elsewhere. I enquired at local revenue offices and found that the position is as I thought, namely, that the licences which are to-day taken out apply with respect to every division. Now, I should like to know from the hon. Minister whether the licences of £7 10s. as they are proposed to be levied in the future will also be imposed on respect of each fiscal division. I want to point out that this is a matter about which great dissatisfaction exists and about which strong feeling exists practically throughout the whole country. I have had representations not only from my own constituency, and other members have also received bequests to obtain certainty about the matter. It is felt that the conditions today are appreciably changed in business matters in our country. The position is that local dealers find it very difficult to compete with the large bodies in the big towns. The difficulties will be increased as is plain from all newspapers by the introduction of the new system of delivering parcels by post on the cash on delivery system, and the opinion outside in the country is that this will be a tremendous blow for the ordinary small dealers in the country villages. I only wish to point out that if a commercial traveller of a large firm visits a village he is practically established for the time in the town and has his business in the town. He remains three or four days, goes from house to house, and when he leaves the village he often takes with him orders for £200 or £300. Hon. members who are married surely know that it is a habit of the ladies not to buy locally, but to say: This or that comes from Cape Town, Port Elizabeth or elsewhere. That is the grievances of the local small dealers. They cannot possibly compete. They live in the town, are an asset to the town, pay local and other taxes and they want the trader who comes temporarily and goes from house to house—they come regularly every month—to be placed on the same footing. While the local dealer who has a good turn-over pays much to the revenue, the trader who comes from the town only pays £7 10s., which enables him to travel throughout the whole of the Union. For this reason I should like to know from the Minister what his intentions are. If it is not intended to impose £7 10s. in every fiscal division then I intend to move an amendment in that direction.

In answer to the hon. member I may say that this tax is for a whole province and not for a definite fiscal division. The object is that this licence shall qualify people to carry on business throughout the whole of the Union.

I would like to ask the Minister whether he is prepared to accept an amendment in regard to the first schedule. I understand that licences under that schedule can practice anywhere in the Union. I think it is very desirable that diamond buyers, who, I believe, have to take out a licence in every province, should be included in these general licences. I am informed that they have to put up security in each province in which they buy. As it is a very big licence that they pay. it would be a very desirable thing indeed that the diamond buyer should appear in schedule I.

I think the committee is in the dark regarding this licence duty payable by banks. The Minister has told us that the licence is payable in the Free. State, but I would be glad if he would tell us what is paid in the other provinces. It seems to me that if these licences are to remain in force until the passing of the new Companies Bill, we are increasing the taxation very materially in the case of banks, and, if that is the case, this item ought to be withdrawn or negatived. In any event, before we impose this additional taxation on banks, we ought to know what the present taxation is, and I would ask the Minister to inform us.

In the Cape the licence for a banker or a banking institution is 1s. per £100 of the subscribed capital. That will remain until we pass the proposed new legislation. In the Free State the licence is £150 for the head office, and £75 for each branch.

That goes.

It is superseded by this licence. In the Transvaal if the paid-up capital does not exceed £500,000 it is £250 and 10s. per £1,000 of paid-up capital in excess of £500,000. In Natal where the capital does not exceed £100,000 it is £100, or £1 per £1,000 of paid-up capital.

Is not that a much better system?

I should like to support the hon. member for Beaufort West (Mr. E. H. Louw) in his appeal to the Minister to make the licences only apply to magisterial divisions. It is clear here that the bank must pay in respect of each branch. It is perhaps not so in the parts the Minister is acquainted with, but in the northern portions of the Transvaal it is the case that the small commercial traveller goes to the villages every month. The large firms have practically branches in such towns and villages but they only keep samples there and the goods are forwarded. They therefore compete with the local trader and pay an insignificant licence. If the Minister cannot make the licences applicable only to magisterial divisions then they should pay licences on the stock which is represented there. It is not fair towards the local dealers to make them employ assistants to pay high licences and then still to make them compete with the large firms.

I want to ask the Minister one very simple question in connection with No. 6 of Schedule I sub-section (b)—

Does this cover the issue of weekly papers’ Is the licence imposed on them?

It appears now that these bankers’ licences are going to supersede the licences which are now in force in the Transvaal and Natal, where they are based not upon the number of branches, but upon the capital of the bank. Surely that is a much sounder way of taxing a bank, than to put a penalty upon it for opening new branches, which is the very thing we want banks to do, to extend and bring business to the doors of the people. Surely it is an unsound thing to put a tax on a bank, not according to its capital or business, but according to its efforts to meet the demands of the public. I move—

And that the Minister impose the tax on the capital of the bank, which is a much simpler way and will not prevent the expansion of business.

It appears from the answer by the Minister that the object of fixing these travellers’ licences was to secure uniformity throughout the Union. I would like to point out to the Minister that if my suggestion of making these licences operative for each magisterial division is followed, that that principle will not be departed from. It is simply a matter of determining how these licences are to be collected. The position is this, that to-day—we cannot get away from it—the commercial traveller of a retail firm pays £5 per magisterial division. That would mean that in the case of the commercial traveller visiting ten different districts, instead of having to pay £50, his firm would be let off with the sum of £7 10s. and would be able to cover the whole of the Union. What has been said by the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. J. F. Tom Naudé) is absolutely correct, that some travellers open sample rooms in some of these towns and so become on an absolute footing with the man who does his business locally and pays his taxes locally. It is the same matter which was spoken of some days ago, of the big business versus the small business. It is only fair, seeing that when the city merchants already have a large area in which to operate, that when they come into the country towns and compete with the local man, then they ought to pay for operating there. I, therefore, wish to move—

I am afraid that means an increase of taxation. I will ask the Minister, and if that is so, I cannot put the amendment.

I wish to support the amendment of the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) with regard to the deletion of the taxation on branches of banks. I want to point out that in the country districts the farmers in different wards petition the banks to have weekly meetings, to keep a definite room where for the convenience of farmers the banks can do business.

That is an agency; it is not taxed.

I want to be clear about this. These are regular weekly meeting places, and I want to be sure that they are not to pay as branches. I want to point out generally that a branch in a small town is a great public convenience; and often public petitions go to these banks asking them to open up branches in order to give facilities to the public. From a business point of view and from the point of view of public convenience, I hold that this business should be encouraged. I consider it is against the interests of the public to impose such taxation. When the head office pays a substantial licence that should cover the operations of such an institution. It is unsound to keep on accentuating taxation upon a company as soon as it moves away from the head office.

I have been asked to enquire from the Minister the reason for the differentiation in the licences of the wholesale and retail travellers. I must say, on the face of it, I do not see why this should be: and I have been asked to move an amendment —which I will not do until I hear the Minister’s explanation—to make them uniform. Possibly there is a reasonable explanation, and perhaps the Minister will tell me why the difference exists.

I should like to support what was said by the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) with regard to the bank licence. It is quite true, as far as the Free State is concerned, that the scale will be levelled down, and the banks will benefit; but it is equally true that, so long as the duty on capital remains in force—which the Minister says may be repealed some day—the banks will certainly lose, and it seems to me a wrong principle to penalize the banks for opening fresh branches. It is within my knowledge, as a director of one of the banks, that very often it is a matter of very little benefit to open a branch in a small place, and the probability is that, as the banks will now have to face considerably increased taxation under this scheme, they will endeavour to minimize that to some extent by drawing in their horns and closing branches—

They will take it off the directors’ fees.

By closing branches in districts where they get very little benefit. I think if it is the intention of the Government, when they introduce a Companies Act, to take off the present duty, this might be allowed to remain until that is done, because we have no guarantee whatever that, once this tax is passed, the other will be taken off. It is much easier to put on taxes than to take them off. Therefore, as the Minister held out the inducement—the probability—of the other tax being repealed, he might defer the enforcement of this tax until that one is actually repealed. I hope this will be reconsidered by the Minister. If not, I can only add my vote to that of the hon. member for Yeoville.

I should like to have some information on item No. 1, “agent for foreign firm, £75.” Some of these agents for foreign firms have a regular business out here, and employ a number of travellers under them. I suggest that it should be made quite clear in this schedule, as to whether the “agent for a foreign firm” applies to the principal only, and that any other travellers he employs would come under item 3, or whether every sub-traveller he employs would come under item 1. Many of these agencies become so large that one man does not go round and do the actual work himself; but employs travellers to go round.

As regards the banks. I am sorry that the Minister is unnecessarily kind to the banks. I do not think that the banks require us to show much consideration to them. We cannot say that they have taken the interest in our country that they ought to have taken in it. During the world war the costs of living went up and the action of the banks was in a great measure the cause of that. They gave credit to all kinds of people who wanted to speculate, and when the reaction came they suddenly stopped almost all credit. That was one of the great causes of insolvency. The banks have a monopoly of business in the Union, and they are not fair. If anyone overdraws his account they pay a high rate of interest, but when they have a credit balance they receive no consideration. In other countries things are different. In Germany the banks are compelled to pay interest on all credit balances. In England some banks do this, but it is not obligatory. I shall be very glad if the Minister will give his attention to the matter, and I think we should have legislation about the banks because they do not give the consideration to the businesses and the farmers that they ought to give. The private individual has no advantage from a credit balance, but he has to pay seven or eight per cent. when his account is overdrawn. The bank on the contrary gets a benefit from the credit balances. I hope the Minister will give this his attention with a view to the introduction of legislation to knee-halter the banks a little so that they cannot do just what they like.

With reference to Schedule I, “Agent for foreign firm,” it will be generally admitted that an agent represents perhaps five or six firms from overseas. Will he then be called upon to pay for each firm £75? If so, I think it would be extremely hard. I think it would be better if the wording were altered to read—

I am sorry the hon. member for Colesberg (Mr. G. A. Louw) does not seem to have understood my object in moving the amendment which I did. I am not doing it to reduce taxation on banks. So far as I am concerned, it does not matter what tax the Minister puts on banks; but if he does tax them, he should tax them on their capital and not on the number of branches, and if the hon. member for Colesberg wants to see taxation increased, that is not the point I am anxious about. What I am anxious about is that they should not be taxed in such a manner as to prevent them establishing branches throughout the country, where they are wanted. I have no interest in banks except an occasional overdraft; so that it does not concern me: but in a large number of country towns, it is very convenient for the public to have a branch of a bank. If this licence goes through as it is now they will have to pay £20 as soon as they open a branch in any town—

The customers will have to pay for it.

The customers will have to pay anyhow as if they are men of business they will have to use a bank; but the bank will either decide not to establish a branch or to establish only an agency and send a man there three days a week. It is in the country’s interests that the opening of branches should not be discouraged. Let the Minister put a tax on capital, to raise the same amount as he expected to get from these licences. This is an undesirable and unscientific method of taxation.

There is another reason which I might add to those given by the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) why the Minister should not maintain the tax in its present form, and that is it will fall harshly on the smaller banks. We have two large and two or three small banks, and the latter will have to pay at the same rate as the former. The whole thing is absolutely unscientific. Like the hon. member for Yeoville, I am not speaking out of any particular consideration for the banks, and I will be perfectly satisfied if the amount proposed to be raised by this tax were collected by a tax on the share capital. This form of tax is at present confined to the Free State. I suppose we must forgive the Minister for being a Free Stater, but I do not think the Free State’s example should be followed in this instance. The fact that a bank has to pay £20 for each branch might turn the scale against the opening of a new branch by a bank. The farming communities want the banks to open branches in the smaller villages and dorps, but this tax may prevent them doing so.

My hon. friends are very apt in talking about scientific taxation. I am quite sure that if the tax were placed on the share capital basis of the banks, as hon. members suggest, I should be able to point out many anomalies. The whole principle underlying the taxation is the payment of a licence on a place of business. If you take the share capital as a basis, would you put the tax on the nominal or the paid-up capital? Then you might have reserve capital to complicate the basis. I do not think that any bank that wants to open a new branch will be deterred from doing so by the fact that they will have to pay a licence of £20. We are trying to make taxation uniform. I am not after additional money from the banks, but if you accept the underlying principle running right through the Licencing Bill—that is to have licences for every place of business—

It is a bad principle.

But the other suggested basis might be subject to similar objections. The hon. member for Pretoria (West) (Mr. Hay) has raised the question of the licence for a diamond dealer. That is imposed under the Diamond Trade Act, with which we are not interfering at all. As to the licences to be paid by the agent for a foreign firm, the intention under the Bill is that when the representative of a foreign firm has an office and sends out several travellers, he shall pay a licence-fee for each representative he sends out. If the agent of a foreign firm has a place of business he really becomes a wholesaler. If he represents several firms the idea is not that he should have to take out a licence for each firm. In the case of a retailer, if he travels only within his own magisterial district he does not require a licence. In the case of a wholesaler, he will not have to pay a licence for travelling in the province in which his business is located, but he will have to get a licence if he goes outside that province.

Why the distinction?

I suppose the volume of business done by a wholesaler is bigger than that done by a retailer.

I would have liked a definition of a retail commercial traveller. What would be the position of a principal who visits his customers occasionally and takes orders? Again, what would be the position of a town traveller?

In his own district he does not require a licence.

I do not see the difference between a wholesaler and a retailer.

A retailer takes orders from private people, and a wholesaler takes orders from firms.

Amendment proposed by Mr. Duncan put and negatived.

Schedule I, as printed, put and agreed to.

On Schedule II. Part I.

I asked the hon. Minister a special question on the first point, “manufacturers of aerated and mineral water”. I think there are probably fifty or sixty small mineral water manufacturers in the Cape Province and they have hitherto paid £2 per annum but will now have to pay £10. This makes a difference for fifty small factories of £400. Is it worth the trouble to tax quite a number of small manufacturers practically out of existence to get that amount? They are surely manufacturers. We have adopted the principle that we want to protect our own industries but if the little factories have all to pay £10 per year then it means that the large manufacturers will practically be the only people who can carry on the business and probably forty or fifty factories will be killed. It is difficult for me to propose an amendment to fix the amount of £3, because that would mean that the large manufacturers will also only pay £3. I appeal to the hon. Minister to reduce the amount for the small factories.

I just wish to say that I have already considered this. As the hon. member rightly remarks there are not only small but large factories and we wish, of course, to raise that tax as little as possible, but I think that we may possibly be able to fix two different amounts of £5 or £10 according to the quantity produced, and I will make the necessary amendment in the Bill.

I wanted to bring up the same matter as the hon. member for Ceres (Mr. Roux), and I am pleased the Minister is going to meet him. I think the £5 licence is too much. In the small country towns if anyone starts a mineral water factory he is doing a service to the inhabitants. Many of them will be debarred if they have to pay a licence of £5. Then there is the other matter, for the sale of mineral waters, £3. You have mineral waters sold in bars, hotels and tearooms. In many country towns people are pleased if anyone starts a tea-room, but if they have to pay £3 for mineral water licence in addition to £5 for a tea-room licence that debars them from selling the stuff. The Minister ought to make the licence for sale of mineral water at the outside 10s. It is simply to register a business. You don’t want to tax these people. Take the baker, £5. The baker who starts in a small country place does a service, and he cannot stand to pay £5 licence in a small town. Then there is the boarding house keeper. £5. What do you define as a boarding-house keeper? Some boarding-house keepers only take in one boarder.

That kind would not come in.

Suppose he takes two.

He will not come in either. We will have a definition for that.

The aerated water manufacturer should be reduced to £2 as before.

I wish to add my voice in support of the deletion of the tax on aerated water manufacturers. He proposes to tax the manufacturer and the dealer. In the small country towns a manufacturer is very often a dealer too, he sells by retail, and you mulct him in a tax of £13 per annum, £10 for the manufacturer’s licence, and £3 for the dealer’s licence. It is really a public need in this country to have an aerated water manufacturer, and I would submit if the Minister has a registration fee of 2s. 6d. per annum, just to have his business registered for the purpose of inspection, it would meet the case as far as the State is concerned. It is an entirely wrong principle to tax these people who are a real need in the country. In the big centres you have people making vast sums of money in the business, but in the country districts it is not a very profitable business. Then I ask the Minister to apply the same principle of a registration fee to the boarding-house keeper, the eating house, the restaurant and the tea room keeper. The hoarding-house keeper is going to pay £5 per annum. Speaking from the view of the country districts, you often find this business is entrusted to widows.

Don’t you worry about the widows. I will tell you what the position is.

I speak on the question as I find it. As a rule you find it is poor people who resort to the business of a boarding-house, and they also supply a public need without making undue profit. They are living from hand to mouth, because the supply of foodstuffs is not a paying business. This will press very hard on the ordinary boarding-house keeper in the country districts. In addition, there is the eating-house keeper and the tea-room keeper who have to pay £5, and they also supply food. How are your proposals to apply? I hope the Minister will tell us what he proposes to define in his Bill.

All these licences are not licences I am imposing. They all existed before in the provinces. The eating-house keeper’s licence is well known in the provinces. In the case of the aerated water manufacturer, it is a licence that exists at present in the Free State and the Cape Province. This gentleman pays £5 to manufacture, plus turnover. In the Cape they pay £2 to sell. In the case of the manufacturer it is not proposed to require him to take out the £3 licence to sell. That will not be necessary. In the case of the hoarding-house keeper, the Bill will make provision to exempt all such establishments that do not exceed £1,000 per annum, so that it is only the big places that will be affected. It is not a new licence. It exists in other provinces. I now move—

That is to meet the hon. member for Ceres (Mr. Roux).

I do not know whether my informant is correct, but a man who trades in a small way tells me that under the proposals of the Minister his taxation in the way of licences is to be trebled. He will be liable under this Bill, when it passes into law, to pay £3 as a mineral water dealer, because he sells a few bottles of lemonade and ginger-beer.

Not if he is a general dealer. The general dealers’ licence covers everything.

Let me put it to the Minister. This man as a matter of fact, keeps a small shop and he sells mineral waters. He also bakes and sells bread and cakes. He is a baker and he is liable to pay, in addition to £3 for selling mineral waters, £5 as a baker. Then he will be liable to pay £5 as an eating-house keeper. He also sells fruit and he will be liable to pay another £2 for selling oranges and bananas, making £15 in all.

No, no.

Perhaps the Minister will tell us what this man will have to pay, because it seems to me that if these licences are to be taken out by each person who carries on the businesses mentioned here, they will be very heavy, indeed, and some of these people have very great difficulty in making a living at the present time.

In the case of the general dealer, he will be able to sell all the articles mentioned by the hon. member (Sir Thomas Watt) without taking out the additional licences. That the Bill will provide for. The eating-house keeper is quite a different business. There is no affinity between that and the business of a general dealer. I wish hon. members would read the terms of the resolution, which sets out—

We have not seen the Bill.

I will give the hon. member the assurance that in the case of the general dealer he will not be required to take out a licence to sell mineral water, oranges, bananas and the other articles mentioned by the hon. member.

The pitiful case described by the hon. member for Dundee (Sir Thomas Watt) does not move me very much, because it sounds somewhat like a monopoly. This man seems to be a regular William Whiteley. Still the Minister’s arguments were not very convincing and I feel that I must range myself alongside those who have been opposing some of these licences. I confess that they seem somewhat anomalous. I agree with the hon. member—I believe it was the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. Krige)—who drew attention to the fact that you are directly taxing very heavily people who are providing, at all events, certain sections of the population with the necessaries of life. Take the question of the baker. I have yet to learn that any good case has been made out for charging the baker £5 merely to enable him to carry on his business. I can understand that you should register these people so that you have got them within your purview, so to speak, so that you have them under your supervision, but let the charge be for registration. Don’t pick out these people to raise revenue from in the form of taxation. That principle is wrong. I am afraid you. Mr. Chairman, will not allow me to discuss the question of principle at this stage. Then these licences are inconsistent and anomalous. In the case of the dealer or speculator in livestock or produce, the licence is £10. That man frankly, is a speculator and he is going to make money as an intermediary somewhere. He pays £10. But when you come to the wholesale butcher, who supplies meat to the retailers for sale to the public, the licence is £75, while the retail butcher gets off with very little less than the speculator, namely, £7 10s. That does seem to me to be a contrast that is by no means admirable, and I would suggest to the Minister that before he brings in this Bill—because, of course, he is still drafting it—he should consider very seriously the advisability not of levelling up so much as levelling down a bit. I can see no justification and no reason at all why you should, just for the sake of raising revenue, pick haphazard upon these people, especially those who are performing a public service.

I would point out to the hon. member (Mr. Madeley) that I am not imposing these licences, they exist already. I am making them uniform. These gentlemen who, he says, do a public service, such as the bakers, already pay a licence. In terms of my undertaking to the provinces, I am making these licences uniform.

Yes, but I do not think it is right for the Minister to shelter himself behind that. In many cases he has extended these licences and increased the taxation on the people. Take the licence of £75 in the case of wholesale butchers, that does not exist in the Cape Province, or anything like it. What the Minister is doing by this is to extend the taxation on the people. I have got the exact figures as regards the banks. The banks will have to pay more as a result of these licences going through. I agree with the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Madeley)—we don’t often agree —but in this case I agree with him that these matters show the evil results of heavy licences. Licences should be simply registration fees and not methods of raising revenue. In the first place, they increase the cost of living. You put a tax on the baker, the man that supplies the very necessaries of life, of £5, and a tax of £75 on the wholesale butcher.

He can well afford it.

That is not the point; he has got to take it out of his customers. It is the consumer who has to pay this £75 and the more you make the tax the more the consumer has to pay. Then you put a tax of £7 10s. on the retail butcher. The people who consume meat have to pay this £7 10s. You raise the cost of that man’s working expenses and it falls on his customers. As I say, it increases the cost of living. Then there is a tax on the fresh produce dealer. My hon. friend the Minister says that “general dealer” will cover this. I hope that he will make it absolutely clear in his Bill, because we all know that Ministers come and Ministers go, but the officials always go on, and they will interpret this clause, not my hon. friend. The officials will say—

They go according to the law. I hope that my hon. friend’s assurance about the general dealer’s licence covering this will hold.

But the law deals with it.

Well, we only hope the Bill will make it quite clear. I accept the word of the Minister as to what he means: but that is not the question: it is how the officials will read and interpret it when he leaves the Treasury benches. I can give him cases already where his officials have read it as it was not so intended to be read by Parliament. Then there is another point I want to draw attention to. Surely my hon. friend wants to encourage business, and yet he goes and puts a £10 licence on the ostrich feather dealer.

You ought to pay him a bonus.

I should have thought so, too; I quite agree with my hon. friend. These heavy licences—and they are extraordinarily heavy; I do not know of any country where they are as heavy—must restrict business; they must tend to monopoly. Take the £75 for the wholesale butcher. That is not going to allow everybody to try his hand at that business. It is going to restrict trade to a few people. The same with baking; if a man has to plank down £5 first he will think twice before he starts. The same with the retail butcher, who has to pay £7 10s. All this tends to monopoly; it must be so. The Minister is not putting this on established businesses only; a man has to pay this before he starts, when he does not know whether he is going to succeed or not. It must tend to the restriction of trade generally. Take the boarding-house keepers. My hon. friend should know that boarding-houses are frequently run by poor widows who are left badly off and who take over boarding-houses, because they know something about housekeeping. Such a woman is very often short of cash, there is no doubt about that, and yet she has to pay £5 before she opens the door. It is all very well my hon. friend laughing, it only shows he does not know the conditions in large towns.

She must have an output of £1,000 before she pays a penny. Where is that a case of “poor women.”

Where is that in the schedule? There is nothing there. I cannot conceive how you are going to judge—gross receipts or net receipts or what? I still think the officials will get the best of my hon. friend yet. There is another point. I see there is a pedlar here. Good Lord!—“Outside urban area, £2.” Is he going to tax these poor beggars who sell matches? The pedlar who sells a few matches or bootlaces has to pay £1 if he lives in the town. I think it is simply monstrous, and I hope he will, at any rate, withdraw that.

I think the hon. member is really very unfair in his criticisms.

I do not think so.

I am bound by the rules to submit a resolution to this committee as far as my proposals are concerned. I cannot bring in the Bill. The hon. member jumps to conclusions about certain matters not before the House, but which are dealt with in the Bill. If the Bill was here he would see that all these matters he has mentioned, in regard to poor widows, retailers and so on, that provision is made for them. The resolution is “subject to such exemption and modifications as will be contained in the Bill.” The hon. member will have the Bill as soon as the rules of the House will permit him, and not before. To show the unfairness of his argument, he says I am sheltering myself behind provincial councils. Of course I am, and I am entitled to do so, because I am not levying the taxation myself, in spite of what he says. He complains of the licence for ostrich feather buyers. These gentlemen have paid the £10 licence in the Cape all along.

Conditions are very different now in regard to ostrich feathers.

Every one of these taxes is existing in one or other if not all the provinces. I think the House has accepted the principle that we should make these licences uniform. No one more than my hon. friend and the people with him in business, general dealers and merchants, has agitated so much all these years for this uniformity; and I am doing them a service. I do not think the general public worry very much about it. I am doing this very unpleasant task at the instance of my hon. friend and other people in business with him. I think it very unfair for him to make these criticisms. The Union treasury does not get a penny of these licences; but I have to preserve to the provinces the revenue they are getting from these sources. In the case of the Free State, for instance, my hon. friend will be interested to know that the Free State makes a great sacrifice of revenue in the levelling under this Bill. I have not been able to give them the revenue they were formerly getting. That, unfortunately, was unavoidable. I repeat in regard to the objection as to many of these licences, they are not being imposed by me; they exist in the various provinces.

The reply of the Minister indicates how difficult is the position of the ordinary member of Parliament in these matters. We seem to have no control. We cannot propose anything effective; we cannot move any increase. If we move a reduction we dislocate the whole scheme of the taxation. We cannot suggest anything in the way of modification because it may possibly’ come under the Bill, which we have not yet seen. I do not blame the Minister, who is only carrying out the procedure we have unfortunately been used to for many years, but I hope it will be a lesson to the House that unless we give Parliament proper control over taxation and expenditure we are wasting our time. This is the time when we should be in a position to see that proper taxation is levied and that taxation is cut down as far as possible. I am glad the Minister relented a little in regard to one matter I brought up before we went into committee, and which the hon. member for Ceres (Mr. Roux) also dealt with this afternoon. I hope the Minister will consider some way of relief also in connection with the general dealer. I do not want the Minister to think that I am suggesting increased taxation here. I am only suggesting that there should be a fairer method. Here, as in the ease of the importer, you put a limit in this ease of £100. I do not want these people to pay excessive taxation. Let the amount taxed be £100, or whatever you like, but let all pay alike at the same rate without limit. When a big firm has 20 branches, although there is a licence for each. I take it they render a return for their whole business.

It is for every’ place of business.

I suppose the account is rendered from a central office in the town.

It is not on turnover. It is on stock.

What I suggest is that the provision which is made here, as in the case of importers, empowers the province to give the big man an advantage. Let them all pay at the same rate. But when you put in your percentage and say the tax is to stop at £100, the result is that the small man pays very much more than the big man. That is the inevitable result. I cannot move anything, as if I move “subject to a maximum payment of £100 to be left out, I should be told that it increased taxation and that I cannot move it. The Minister said that the task of the Minister is unpleasant, but I can assure him that that of the ordinary member is much worse. The Minister is supported by a large majority, but it is very difficult for an ordinary’ member’s constituency to understand that a member cannot move anything effective. They think a private member of Parliament has far greater powers than the rules allow, whereas we can only make our protest without doing anything effective. The hon. member for Ficksburg (Mr. Keyter) is great on the control of expenditure and taxation, and I hope he will help in getting the rules of the House altered so that we can do something. It is only a Minister can propose these things. It is supposed to be the very essence of Parliament to be able to control taxation and expenditure, but when it comes to the acid test, we have no control at all.

I would like to ask the Minister if he would explain this speculator’s licence, £10, because, as it stands, it seems that almost every farmer will be brought under that definition. A man has spare grazing and buys oxen to feed and sell again. It is really a bona fide farming operation. I would like to know whether that kind of dealing comes under that item. I take it that the Minister, by shaking his head, means that it does not. In the Transkeian territories, round the small magistracies, there are two or three little eating-houses owned and run by natives, where the natives attending court go to have food. I do not suppose these men make £5 in three months. Would the Minister consider reducing the licence in their case to the present amount of £1? This tax is levied by proclamation in the territories. If the Minister is going to fix it at £5, it is going to kill everyone of these places.

I hope the argument of the hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street) (Mr. Alexander) will not appeal seriously to the committee, in regard to the alteration of our practice, that a private member cannot propose taxation or increase it. That would strike at the root of our responsibility. I wish to draw the Minister’s attention, very pointedly, to the position of the butcher and baker in the country towns. These are most precarious businesses.

No.

In all my experience in the country, I have never seen a butcher make money yet.

Quite right.

You often find they commence for a couple of months or so, and then close down. I am speaking now of the grain districts, where the baker can buy his grain from the farmer and go to the local miller to get it milled. They are not in the hands of the big millers. The Minister stifles competition by imposing this tax of £5 on the baker and £7 10s. on the butcher. I hope when the Bill comes, he will make some alteration in regard to this.

I should like to ask the Minister if he could give us any information as to the method he proposes in the Bill of arriving at the average stock. The general dealer’s licence is to be based on average value of stock in hand. Is he simply going to take the stock at the beginning of the year, and again at the end and divide it by two? Otherwise I am afraid there will be very great difficulty in arriving at an ordinary dealer’s average stock. I take it that that point can be brought up when the Bill is before us. I should like to know if he will be prepared to extend the proviso which he has to part 2, to the other parts of the licensing proposals. That would get over a great many difficulties which have been mentioned on both sides of the House, of people, more particularly the small country people, who deal in small quantities and many varieties of things. For instance, you get a general dealer dealing in mineral waters, fresh produce, patent medicines, and refreshments, and if the Minister would accept the proviso to this part, similar to the proviso he has accepted for the professional licences—

I told you the general dealer does not pay extra for this.

But he does to-day.

If hon. members will not accept what I say, they will have to wait and see what I put in the Bill.

I hope the Minister will do me the favour of explaining precisely what he means. On several occasions he has said he is helpless and cannot alter the schedule because it embodies provincial taxation. Does he mean that all we are doing is passing a resolution enabling the provinces to tax on these points, or a resolution saying that such taxation shall be imposed? I read it in the latter sense. If that is so the Minister is entirely wrong, and is misleading us when he says that he cannot help himself, because this is provincial taxation. Whatever the provinces have done the fact remains that we as a Parliament are definitely considering the imposition of these licences. If that is so we have the right to deal with everyone of them, and the Minister has the right to alter them. The. Minister is not bound by the previous customs of the provincial councils. As I read it the Minister is levying these licences or taxes as a sort of refund to the Consolidated Revenue Fund, for moneys he is passing over to the provincial councils; in other words he is imposing this taxation and handing it over to the provincial councils. He can alter it, vary it, or cut it out entirely, and obtain the money from some entirely different form of taxation. I think it is perfectly patent, in view of the pregnant words of the hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street) (Mr. Alexander) that we can make suggestions if we cannot make substitutions. We certainly have the right to suggest. The argument of the Minister that the provinces have had all these taxes in the past carries no weight with me. The Minister is not bound by the customs of the provinces. I am not going into all the arguments that have been advanced, but to show how foolish the schedule is, take the case of a laundry. There can be no excuse for that. You deliberately impose on a steam laundry an annual fee of £10, and on a hand laundry £5. Why, in Heaven’s name? Surely we want the nation to be clean. I realize the Minister has to stand by the Bill, but he should seriously turn his attention to some more equitable and advantageous way of raising revenue.

The hon. member is quite wrong in several of the points of view he has put forward. In the first place the revenue does not go to the Consolidated Revenue Fund. Under the second schedule every penny raised will go to the provinces. What we are doing is carrying out part of the arrangements made at the Durban conference with the provincial executives. Licences are a provincial source of revenue, and the provincial councils can deal with those licences as they have done in the past. Whether my hon. friend likes the view they have taken of this matter or not, they are entitled to do so. They asked me at Durban to make these licences uniform, but to retain them. If the House does not want to pass any of these licences it can do so. I have in some cases increased the licences, but in many instances I have reduced them, but I am bound in terms of my agreement at Durban to give to the provincial councils, more or less, the revenue they formerly derived.

Suppose we don’t pass them?

Then we would not be carrying out the arrangement, and the provinces would be in a worse position than they are to-day.

You would find some other money—all they want is the money.

If Parliament is agreeable to assign them some other source of revenue from which to get the money, I presume they will be satisfied, but unfortunately I am not able to assign any other source to them.

A land tax.

There we differ. Unfortunately we all view these matters from different standpoints.

Unfortunately we do, you and I.

The provinces have been obtaining certain sums from these revenues, and if we take away from them the right in future to increase these amounts, and we pass a Bill giving them very much less than they had before, it would not be playing fair with the provinces. That is what I meant when I said the House was not imposing taxation, but doing our best to make existing taxation uniform. This is all part of the arrangement which has been arrived at. If I accepted the various amendments to cut out various people, I am at once in a difficulty, for some of the provinces would not get the revenue they are now receiving.

Particularly Natal.

Natal and the Free State. This is a very much more important matter to the smaller provinces than to the larger. You could cut out some of the items and it would not make very much difference to the Transvaal and the Cape. I have considerably reduced the Free State licences. It means a considerable loss of revenue to them and that would have been a serious matter. The House would have viewed the matter very seriously if I had suggested a professional licence of £20 as exists in the Free State. I have altered it. If you go too far in this direction you upset the whole scheme and difficulties arise which we cannot face. For that reason I implore members to consider the position of the treasury in this matter. We are not concerned in this revenue, but we are trying to do a difficult task which I have undertaken on behalf of the provinces because it has been represented that it is essential that as far as possible you should place these various people, professions and trades, in the same position throughout the country. You cannot have a scientific scale of taxation. You must have anomalies. We have succeeded in giving to the provinces the revenue they are entitled to and I don’t think any licences can be pointed out that will be too burdensome for the people concerned.

I am glad to see the Minister has made a small concession as far as millers are concerned. I ask for the same concession in the case of small motor garages. There are many of these in the country and many of them are attached to blacksmiths shops.

It is only a £3 licence; don’t let us split that.

I suggest that for the large garages he increase the amount to £5 and gives relief to the smaller ones.

Did I understand the Minister to say that the general dealer would be exempt from the licence?

That is so.

That would be rough. Take the dealer in produce, such as wool, skins, etc., which amount to very large sums and the storekeeper who carries big stocks of general goods, groceries, drapery, etc. He would be in a position to be exempted from the tax, inasmuch as he holds a big stock. I think that would be unfair. I would also like to know how the department of officials are going to arrive at the average value of the stock. Some firms turn over the stock two, three and four times a year. As one who is in business, I should feel some difficulty in arriving at the average stock and I would like to know on what principle the administration are going to arrive at the value.

This principle of valuing the stock has been in operation in the Free State for many years and there has never been any difficulty. The categories are very wide and there have never been any administrative difficulties in the Free State. When a man applies to take out his licence he knows whether he falls within the values of £10,000, £15,000 or £20,000. He could always arrive at the value of his stock for the whole year to within £5,000.

I want to raise the question of the wholesale butchers’ licence of £75 under section 7. I have not had any representation made to me on the point, but a flat rate tax like this is going to press hardly and unequally on the wholesale butcher on the Rand. The former tax was on turnover. I admit if you have a wholesale butcher with a large business supplying a large number of retail butchers, the amount of £75 is in no way excessive. There are, however, many butchers on the Rand who are wholesale butchers, but their business is in a small way. They congregate at the abattoirs because they have no premises or offices of their own, and they do their business exclusively at the abattoirs. The wholesale butcher with a small turnover should not be made to pay the full amount as the Minister has agreed in the case of small men in business. I ask him to consider whether something could be done to create a limit for which the £75 is payable and under which a small amount, say £25 should be paid. My suggestion is to fix the gross annual turnover at £15,000 and, under that the smaller amount of £25 be paid, and over it £75. I must express regret that the Minister has found it necessary to exclude from these licences the moneylender’s licences. He said he was as anxious to tax the professional moneylender as anybody, but the difficulty was in creating the definition of a moneylender which would suffice for taxation purposes. At the time I heard him say that, I had a doubt as to whether the difficulty was as considerable as that. In England they have a Moneylenders Act, the Act of 1900, and in that the term “moneylender” is defined as—

Do you think that definition will satisfy this House?

Why not? Are we more exacting than the English House of Commons? I think the House generally would welcome the tax on moneylenders and the Minister can find all the definition he wants in the English legislation. If these other people should pay the tax, then the moneylender should pay it. I have no hesitation in saying that on the Rand it is one of the greatest evils that ever cursed this country, and on the Rand they are a sore in the life of the people. It is a, matter for regret the Minister has found himself driven to this conclusion. Why have I, as an advocate, to pay the tax, whilst the man thriving on moneylending is exempt? I ask the Minister to consider the matter. I don’t think he will find the House captious in arriving at a definition of moneylender. I think this House is in the mood to help him to restore that tax of £50 upon the moneylender to this schedule, and I hope he will do it.

In regard to item No. 9, eatinghouse keeper, £5. I would like to ask the Minister whether the hotelkeeper, who carries on a licensed victualler’s business, will have to pay that licence.

The eatinghouse keeper is not an hotel keeper.

In regard to this schedule generally, I am glad the Minister disavows responsibility for it, because I must say, when I look down the whole column, it seems to have been drawn by some lawyer accustomed to preparing a bill of costs which somebody else has to pay. If, however, the convention held at Durban agreed to all these licences, then we, in Parliament, will have at least somebody upon whom we can put the blame, and we shall be able to point out to our respective constituencies that this schedule had been agreed to at that representative conference of the executives of the various provinces. What I would ask is this: Has the Minister had any latitude in regard to these licences, and, if so, has he adopted the maximum or minimum amount? It is all very well to have uniform licences throughout the country, but if this is to be a uniform maximum, then it is an unfortunate thing for many of these dealers.

I do not want to be misunderstood. This schedule was not considered at Durban. What was considered there was that these licences had to be made uniform, and that the provinces had to get, more or less, the same revenue that they had got from them before. Since then the provinces have been consulted. I have dropped some of the licences, and I have really decreased their revenues. That is the trouble. The provinces expect me to give them, more or less, out of these licences the amount which they formerly had. This schedule was considered afterwards, not at Durban.

Generally, it has been accepted that a licence is merely a registration fee. If a man is dealing in imported goods those goods have to bear customs duty. If they are products of the country, the cheaper they are distributed the better for everybody. There are ways and means of getting essential taxation which need not come down to all these harassing licences on these various activities. I would impress upon the Minister that if he has the latitude to do so he should take the minimum and keep it as low as possible. The more you treat licences as necessary registration only the better. I would like to emphasize the point made by the hon. member for Hanover Street (Mr. Alexander) in regard to the licence of £100 limit on the average value of stock. The system adopted is absolutely indefensible and unfair. To the extent of the stock carried must be the potential capabilities of a business, and therefore it can only be assumed that when we make a maximum of £100 we are making a present once more to the fat man. Generally speaking, one can only say that this is a very badly-arranged schedule. We can only hone that when the Bill which is to contain “definitions, conditions and exemptions” comes before the House, we shall not have it pleaded that we have already consented that these licences shall be charged, and are, therefore, bound to pass the Bill in the form in which we have this schedule. I hope when the Bill comes forward we can still press for the reforms we consider essential. I would urge the Minister also to consider whether, as these licences are not to be payable before January 1st. 1926, the provinces may consider the position of licences in the meantime.

I should like to know if the hon. Minister can give me the same assurance with reference to laundries, whether poor people are excluded there as well.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Schedule II, Part I, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Schedule II, Part II,

I want to make an appeal to the Minister in regard to the second portion of the proviso. He there makes a provision that a professional man, who has begun to practise his profession, shall not be required to pay these licences for the first two years. The proviso reads—

That, to my mind, does not go nearly far enough. In the Cape. I understand, at the present moment these licences are not payable by any professional man in the first three years of his practice. In the Transvaal, it is true, that no such exemption is made, but the licences are one-half of the figure which it is proposed now to make them. I do not know what the Minister’s experience was when he first commenced to practise his profession in the Free State. It may be he jumped at once into a heavy and lucrative practice; but I want to assure him that there are numbers of young advocates practising throughout South Africa—I can speak more intimately, of course, of my own profession—who do not make £10 in three months, some not in six months. I say it is a wrong thing to make a youngster starting to practise his profession pay these licences on the same basis as a man of experience and with a steady practice. It is not sufficient to say that in the first two years he should nay half these rates. What I would ask the Minister to accept is this, that instead of “half the rates” he would insert the words “No licence shall be payable.” There must be some elasticity in this: and I am going to move in place of the word “two.” make it “three” and say, “No licence shall be payable.” I do that, because I think every professional man in this House will agree that the first three years of practice in most professions are almost entirely a dead loss to the practitioner. There may be attorneys, advocates, doctors and dentists whose experience is otherwise, but the general experience is that that is so. I am speaking with special knowledge of the bar on the Band and in Pretoria, and I know that some of them do not make this sum of £10 gross in three months of practise. The hon. member for Yeoville comes from the same bar as I do and the Minister, at any rate, is a professional man, and so are others in his Cabinet; and I ask him and them to look back on the days when they first commenced work, and to lend a sympathetic ear to the appeal I am making. I know men struggling to get a foothold at the bar who sometimes do not get three meals a day, and who often have the utmost difficulty in paying the rent for their chambers. I am speaking from personal knowledge. Here you are doubling the Transvaal rate, and the exemption the Minister is proposing to give is simply to hold it over for the first two years. A man fairly established in practice can pay this. He may not want to do it, but he is able to do so. I move—

I want to ask the Minister why, in the case of attorneys, practising in the Transkei and Glen Grey they should pay half the ordinary licences. I understand, or at least I fancy, the reason is that probably in the native territories there is not the same scope for an attorney as in the rest of the country: but will the Minister take into consideration the ease of the attorneys practising in Zululand, who are in exactly the same position. If there is any exemption required in the case of the Transkei and Glen Grey, I think Zululand professional men have the same claim to consideration. I hope the Minister will insert the word “Zululand.” I know if I move it the Minister will probably object, but it seems only fair that if these attorneys in native districts should pay only half the ordinary licences, that it should apply to all native districts. From my knowledge of Zululand, I can say that the attorneys there are in the same position as in the Cape.

I may say in regard to this matter that representations have been made by the Cape provincial authorities. I was quite agreeable; I only wanted to meet them. If the case is the same in Zululand, and if the Natal people are agreeable, I have no objection; but representations have not been made to me by the Natal provincial authorities. In regard to the point raised by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell) that is, of course, a matter of detail. The amount of revenue involved would not be very great, and if the House feels that that concession should be made—

Hear, hear.

No.

Well, it is in the hands of the House. If the House thinks we should meet the struggling professional man, the amount of revenue involved is not very big, and the Government has no object in pressing it.

I must say that I cannot understand the arguments of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell). He conies here to plead for only one profession. Why not for the other professions also? Why not also for the trader who is commencing, and why not also for the farmer that he should pay a little less quitrent in the beginning. He pleads for people who make the most money, and if that was not the case, they would not be so well represented in the House here. It appears to me that the Minister has also made concessions to the attorneys. An attorney must pay a licence of £10, but if he also wants licences to do work as conveyancer and notary he obtains certain rebates. If he carries on those professions he undoubtedly makes money out of all. If we look at Part III. then we find that an advertising agent, auctioneer, valuator, etc., do not enjoy these concessions. They get no rebate if they wish to take out more than one licence, and I would suggest the omission of all the words after “provided” in Part II, to the end of the part.

I think that the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. van Niekerk) does not thoroughly understand the position. An auctioneer, whether he is an attorney or not, must have a separate licence. It is regarded as a separate profession, but a person has to be an attorney to be able to hold a licence as notary. These are, therefore, separate professions which, in reality, ought to be one. Now there are, in this case, three licences, because there may be people who prepare conveyances, but possibly do not perform the other work, and it is, therefore, not at all unfair. As regards the amendment of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell), I must leave it entirely to the House to decide upon. We feel the fairness of the exception, and it also exists in the Free State, but I will leave this to the House to decide upon.

I just want to draw the attention of the hon. Minister to No. 8, licence for dentists. The licence is now fixed at £10. and I think that that is rather high. It is well known that, during the past few years, a large number of our young people have gone to America and other parts of the world to study dentistry. About ten years ago things were different. Then dentists were rare, and, I believe, that they then had fairly large incomes. I once, indeed, heard of £1.500 and £2,000 per annum. But it is no longer so to-day that dentists from big towns, such as Pretoria and Johannesburg, go to the outside villages because every village has practically now its own young dentist established there, and I know personally that their income is not large. I therefore, think that it is not fair to make their licence the same as that of doctors. Mr. Chairman, shall I be in order in proposing an amendment?

Yes.

Then I move—

I should like to associate myself with the appeal made by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell), with regard to the exemption of these young practitioners, despite the arguments of the hon. member opposite. There is another point I wish to put to the Minister. I understand that the rate which is now to be charged on, attorneys is to be applicable to each member of the firm. I would like to point out to the Minister that, so far as Natal is concerned, this will make a very considerable difference to the practitioners. Previously the licence was £5, and I believe it was only paid by the firm. Now the Minister will appreciate how great is the difference if, in that province, it is to be paid by each member of the firm. I should like to know whether there is any possibility of redress in that regard. Would it not be possible to make this higher payment apply merely to the firm and not to the individual member?

Under this schedule, an accountant is to be charged £10. This is the first time that such a licence has been made applicable to Natal, and, in the same schedule it is stated that a professional man, taking out an additional licence, can get it at half rate. The only licence he would be likely to take out would be that of conveyancer, £3. But in the next schedule there are two other items, namely, agent or stock and share broker, which many accountants have to cover. So it means practically a licence of £28 less £1 10s. rebate in respect of conveyancer. That would be the highest licence any professional man would have to pay. Will the Minister look into this item, which would appear to operate heavily on a single individual? If there are any partners in a firm, according to this, every partner would have to pay a similar licence. In the case of three partners it would run up to £100. I am sure the Minister does not intend that such a large sum should be paid by individuals.

I regret it is impossible to deal with this matter in any way by allowing the licence to be taken out by a partnership.

I do not suggest that. I say a single individual should not pay £28 10s.

There should actually have been a consolidated licence in the case of an attorney. A man might want to take a conveyancer’s licence and not an attorney’s licence. If an attorney wants to carry on any other occupation such as a broker or auctioneer then he has to take out these licences. But he does not get them for half fees.

*I also regret that I cannot accept the amendment of the hon. member for Lydenburg (Mr. Nieuwenhuize). I do not see why an exception should be made in favour of this profession. The young professional man is met, and especially if the amendment of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell) is accepted.

I would like to support the amendment of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell) and to appeal to the committee to consider the position of a young professional man. I am not speaking merely for lawyers, but for other young fellows who qualify—either here or abroad—as lawyers, doctors, dentists and so on. For the first few years they have a very hard time of it. As to the remarks of the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. van Niekerk) if I am in this House when the Minister of Finance imposes a licence on farmers—that may come—then I will stand up with the hon. member in saying that for the first few years young farmers should be let off very easily. I hope the committee will take a reasonable view of the matter, and give a very necessary relief to these young men who are starting their careers as professional men, for at the start their incomes are very small and they have very great difficulty in establishing themselves.

I hope the Minister of Finance will go even further and will state that he will accept the proposal of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell). I was relieved when the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. van Niekerk) sat down, for at the beginning of his remarks I thought he was going to impose a licence on farmers himself. The amendment is a very reasonable one. There is no body of men who give such free services to the public as medical practitioners do. I believe the licence is £5 in the Cape and £20 in the Free State.

And nothing in Natal.

If the Minister will only say he accepts the amendment.

No.

I appeal to the Minister as a professional man to accept it, and not leave us to divide on it.

I hope the committee will not accept the amendment. I want to know why one particular class of the community should be picked out for this preferential treatment.

Why are you exempted as a journalist?

The employer pays the tax and I am an employee of a newspaper, and they have just put an extra tax on the newspapers. I object in principle to favouring one particular class of the community. A butcher has to pay £7 10s. in his first year, and all men starting in business have to pay the full amount of the tax, but it is now proposed that professional men—who already receive considerable help from the State in their education—should be exempted at the start. If the Minister has any money to give away he can utilize it by raising the income tax exemption.

The hon. member has forgotten that a butcher can start without spending a penny in education, but an attorney has after passing the matriculation, to serve three years’ articles, during which he has to pass four expensive examinations, the fees for which are very high. He then has to pay heavy admission fees. No man can be admitted as an attorney without spending £500 after passing his matriculation examination. If a butcher can find £500 he can start business straight away, whilst a young attorney has to spend his capital in qualifying and then has to start and wait for clients as he cannot advertise. All we ask is that the man who is starting should be given an opportunity of making an opening for himself. I think the suggestion of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout is a perfectly fair one. If the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) (Mr. Reyburn) knew what privations these young professional men had to endure during the first three years of their career and the struggle they had to pay their fees, even he would not speak as he has done. We are not doing the public any good by saying we are not going to help these young men. The older practitioners do not object to the tax which they can afford to pay. Let me say to the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. van Niekerk) that the same provision we are making here to free a man from the tax for the first three years is made in regard to young settlers. The Government lend him large sums of money—

Don’t forget the settler gets fleeced and the lawyers fleece them.

That is a remark we expect from the hon. member and it is as about correct as it is in good taste. A man going on the land besides getting help from the Government is as a rule given long credit because they know the farmer cannot pay his debts until he gets his crops in. The young professional man does not get that credit and the position for him is a serious one.

I should like to support the motion of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell) and I hope that the Minister of Finance will accept it. I wish to appeal to members of the committee to consider the position of young professional men. We want as far as possible to encourage our young men to go in for the professions. Many of us feel that the Government should do something in that direction and that the poorer of our lads should also have such an opportunity. I know personally that there are young professional men that have to pay debts when they are qualified. Their studies and preparation cost them from £1 000 to £2,000, and I repeat that many of them commence work with a heavy burden on their shoulders which they take years to pay off. Circumstances have also changed for the worse for those young men. The opportunity of obtaining a lucrative practice is no longer what it was years ago and I shall therefore be glad if they can be met in this way.

The hon. members over there are not considering this matter on its merits. The hon. member for Bloemfontein North (Mr. Barlow) only referred to lawyers but as a matter of fact it applies to fourteen types of professional men. My hon. friend’s cheap sneers at the lawyers are all right for the public platform but not for this House. The hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Reyburn) in opposing this amendment is going against the principles which are always enunciated from those benches, that is the need to support the small professional man, to help the small professional man starting his practice and is struggling along against the man who has been going for years and has a big income. We are pleading for the man who has just started and the first few years are years of desperate struggle for these men, years in which his fate is going to be sealed as to whether he is going to be able to carry on or not. He has to try to make his way in the world and during these three years he must be protected against the big man in the profession by being excused this tax. How these hon. members who are always advocating protection for the small man can vote against this amendment I cannot understand. It is a principle we have been fighting for years and what applies to other branches surely applies logically to the professions and that is why I support this amendment.

I can support this amendment not being a professional man myself. I expected enthusiastic support from the members of the labour benches. I have heard them frequently say “what are we going to do with our boys?” Here is an opportunity of helping the boys and the opposition comes from those benches. It is an enigma to me. I am sure many of the members of this House who know parents who deprive themselves of the pleasures of life for the purpose of paying their sons’ fees for a good education so that they can adopt some profession in life. The hon. members will agree the most difficult thing in life is to make a start and now you are going to handicap these young men leaving our colleges and universities, some of them having borrowed money, to qualify, and at the start you say we are going to handicap you by putting on a £10 tax. Why do it? Give every man a chance in this country. I hope this House will not make this mistake. To my mind it will be doing a harsh thing that will do the country harm and I hope the House will rise to the occasion and show chivalry by allowing young men to start in life without having to provide £10 before he can do so.

It is a question of class legislation and not chivalry.

The whole of these licences are class legislation.

Take the position as it really is. As is a general thing the professional man is better able to carry on because his people are better off than in other trades. As a rule a man going into the professions is better off than the man who is a mechanic. Have we not got too many professional men in this country? Do we want to encourage any more lawyers in this country? We don’t want to encourage the lawyers in this country. I would rather put on a tax so as to stop boys from becoming lawyers. We have got too many of them. I am not referring to doctors. I am prepared to help the doctors, because the doctors help the people. The lawyers don’t.

They do.

The lawyers have got the most sheltered trade in South Africa. They have got a strong trade union, and if any member of the Law Society cuts the rate of wage—

They cannot do it.

Exactly, we have got it out of the mouth of one of them. If he cuts the rate of wage, he is not only expelled from his trade union, but he loses his livelihood. If a carpenter works under the rate of wage, he may be expelled from his trade union, but he can still work as a carpenter. If a lawyer gets up against the Law Society he is expelled from the Law Society and also loses his living. Who has he to appeal to? He appeals to one of its own ex-members in the person of a judge. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Take the number of lawyers you have got in South Africa and find out the income tax that is paid, and you will find that the lawyers pay a higher income tax per man than anybody in this country. They are the only people to day who, you can really say, are making a fat living. Go to the “Government Gazette” and find how many lawyers you see in the bankruptcy court. This House is a house with a large number of lawyers in it, but, as far as I am concerned, we are not going to vote for any class legislation here. Why should a professional man be treated differently from anybody else? All the arguments in favour of this have come from the lawyers, with the single exception of my hon. friend the member for Beaconsfield (Col. Sir David Harris) who, as we know, has a very’ humane heart.

I have listened attentively to what the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow) has said, but if he has ever talked nonsense it is to-day. He makes good speeches when he speaks on subjects he is acquainted with, but this afternoon he has been talking about something he knows nothing about. He talks of insolvencies. I do not believe that he has properly investigated how the comparison works out, but if he goes on as he is doing, then he is doing his best in any case to make attorneys, etc., bankrupt. It is, moreover, not only attorneys that we have to do with but all professional men. He makes personal attacks. What does he as an individual pay as taxation? He has, I hope, surely one or another occupation? What does he pay? Nothing. But he wants to make it difficult for other people to carry on professions. He talks about class legislation. We have here to do with the class which is singled out to pay taxation. Why? And what I am very sorry about is that even your farmers oppose, although they well know that it is just the sacrifices the professional people make in the interest of the farmers themselves. This, then, is their gratitude! As has already’ been said, this is only a matter of encouraging people who have just commenced to work for a living. We hear so much from hon. members of my party about independence. Well, here we have the case where we want to encourage people to become personally independent, and I am astonished that hon. members on this side of the House are still against this amendment. I think it is a cheap way of saying that your attorney is a man who can well pay taxes. It is unfair towards a young man who is beginning to make his living.

I should like to congratulate the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. J. F. Tom Naudé), upon his admirable speech, and I hope it will make an impression upon the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow). That is rather doubtful, because the hon. member is very brave; he forgets that on the side of the House where he sits, the right-hand section of the Pact, the majority of its members are professional men, lawyers. I should think there must be about 15 of them. Hon. members, perhaps, were very often led astray by their appearing in this House in the guise of farmers. Their constantly doing so may have misled the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North), but if he will make enquiries he will find that a very large number belong to this profession which he has been so vigorously attacking. The hon. gentleman says he is not going to approach these questions with any view of class legislation. Am I correct in saying that that was his statement? He agrees with me. Well, if that is the case, why does he not move that the whole schedule of these licences be struck out?

I would like to.

Well, the hon. member always tells us he is a free agent in this House, with a very great deal of courage. Why does he not take the opportunity of backing up his opinion? I am quite sure he would get a good number to sympathize with him and support him also. Let him show his independence by trying it. He would get more people to support him than he imagines. I think he was rather wrong when he said these people make a great deal of money. Now I also have some knowledge of the conditions, especially in the province of the Cape of Good Hope. I know there are a certain number of professional men, who, owing to circumstances and great ability, are making large incomes; but there are also large numbers of young professional men who, for years and years, have a great struggle to make a living. When the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) (Mr. Reyburn) talks about his desire to tax these people and even to increase it. I make bold to say that there are a large number of young professional men in this country, perfectly capable and perfectly competent, whose parents have scraped together the money to give them a profession, who are not in as good a position financially as many of the skilled mechanics in this country. Of that, there is no doubt whatsoever.

I never said that.

As years go on and, as numbers of young South Africans take up professions in this country, the struggle will go on also. I will give the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow) my sympathy and, if he likes, my vote, if he moves this schedule be deleted.

I notice that in all this eloquent advocacy, the principle is not gone into in any way, that is, the principle advanced by this side of the House. Any one starting in anything is bound to have a struggle; but why don’t we hear that eager advocacy when it comes to building up the trade of, say, a commercial traveller.

He does not have to go through a university training.

Of course not. It is only those men who have been specially educated, and who have had special advantages, who ought to have also this other special advantage! Let me put a particular case. The hon. member for Beaconsfield (Col. Sir David Harris) used his eloquence in regard to young professionals, and said we want occupations for our boys and should encourage them. Well, take a young boy trained to sort and learn the value of diamonds, who wants to become a diamond buyer; will the hon. member say that this young man also should have three years free before he is asked to pay his licence as a diamond buyer? Certainly not! Though he may have given years, to enable him to become a successful buyer, there is no plea for that boy, although he may be a boy of poor parents; but the moment we come to professions which are legally protected, we hear this advocacy, that they should have a further advantage. I put it to my hon. friends who are lawyers: Is it not a fact that the day they take out a licence to practice they can charge the full fees?

No.

I am surprised to hear that from the hon. member. The very taxation of legal costs shows that there is a tariff to which they must work.

Yes.

When these gentlemen come out as actually qualified; then they are able to make full fees, and surely if there is one profession that ought to have been silent here it is the parasitic profession of law. I suppose if there is one thing which is looked upon as provocative of bad feeling and misery, it is the legal profession. In fact one of my lawyer friends told me that one of the hardest tasks he ever had to learn was how to make up a bill of costs, in a scandalous way, for an unearned amount. However, it is no use complaining; they are there; but some day the world will wake up to the fact that it has evolved a system of law that is far too expensive. In the meantime we have to put up with it. The hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow) is right in stating that we have too many lawyers, but I plead with the Minister for a profession of which we can’t have too many—the most altruistic profession we have—that of doctors. Looking down this column of licences, you find that we are going to charge £10 to a medical man and only £10 to a lawyer. The hon. member for East London (North) (Brig.- Gen. Byron) made a very eloquent appeal in regard to medical practitioners, and certainly we should have a much fairer licence fee than is scheduled. In these professional licences, the lawyer is undoubtedly favoured as against other professions. I appeal to the Minister to impose a registration fee for doctors not more than £2 at the most. It is impossible to have too many doctors in the country. In the case of an epidemic we don’t turn to the legal but to the medical profession which always comes to our help. What lawyer would get up in a middle of the night to attend to a case and leave his warm bed? If he did you would have to pay a fee of one hundred guineas with “retainers” and “refreshers” without limit.

I think, seeing that the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell) has won his first point, he should be content with that and withdraw this particular amendment.

I thought you always pleaded for the “under-dog.”

I have yet to learn that the lawyer, in any case, is an “under-dog.” I might point out that three years without paying any licence whatever is a very unfair thing to ask for. The plea put up was that a man just starting in his profession for the first few years of his practice earns little or nothing. It may be so, I am not against giving a certain amount of relief to these men, but at the same time, unless the relief is made general, it is not a fail’ thing that it should be applied only to the professional classes. Take a newspaper owner. A newspaper does not make any money for some years, but the owner has got to pay his full licence all the time. Until members of the professional classes are prepared to support every section of the community I do not think it is fair to give special exemption.

May we hear from the Minister, before you put the question, Mr. Chairman, whether he is going to adopt the same procedure in connection with this amendment as he adopted with the previous amendment, of leaving it to the House?

The principle is the same. It is really one amendment but the Chairman has to put it twice.

It may be somewhat on the same principle, but I think it is going a little further than the first amendment. While I deeply sympathize with the legal fraternity, who are having such a hard struggle to make ends meet—apparently it is only the legal fraternity who, to a large extent, make their influence felt in this House, in getting concessions—had it not been for the number of lawyers we have in this House, this thing would not have been done. My point is this: While I deeply sympathize with the struggling barristers of this country, at the same time I cannot for the life of me see if the legal profession are going to get this benefit, why the Minister should not be prepared to leave it to this House to reduce all these licences. Let us have the same treatment for the lot. Here, for instance, you have canvassers selling shares and land, and you are charging them £50 a year. Why penalize these men to the extent of £50 per annum? Once the Minister adopts this procedure of leaving one particular item to the free-will of the House, then, to be logical, he must allow the same thing in respect of the other items in the schedule. I am quite sure people such as these canvassers are having a far harder struggle to make ends meet than the barristers. I suggest it is a dangerous procedure, because you will find sufficient interests in this House to join together to defeat almost every item of the taxation we have down. Many of us would have liked to take up a certain line in connection with other taxation, but it has not been done. The committee has taken this line in regard to a particular item, and I hope they are not going to go any further; because it is not fair to other sections of the community who are being heavily taxed. Canvassers and other men mentioned in the schedule are far more worthy of the consideration of the Minister and of the House than many of these barristers.

I just wish to ask the hon. Minister whether, if we make proposals in connection with farmers’ affairs, he will also take them into consideration as he has done here?

It seems to me that we have here a great difficulty. The attorney only serves articles for three years. The farmers sons train for more than three years in farming and then the former make £5.000 to £6,000 per year. They become rich, and the farming class remain poor. Now things are being made so easy for the attorney. It is said that there are now so many of them. But what about other people?. They only require a bundle of papers and a small pot of ink and then they can go and look for business and make money, and the farmer and other people have much greater difficulties in starting.

I understand that we are now also requested to delete the word “half,” so that the professional men should pay no tax from the beginning. I think that we are now going really a little too far. The House has already met the professional men, and I think that we should not accept this. The strong argument which has been mentioned is that the professional people cannot make a living from the beginning. My experience is that if a new doctor, attorney, or dentist, comes to a village, then the old doctor, etc., is always frightened in the beginning. But they always say: We give the new man two years, and then all the clients will come back to us. Why should we now then take away the obligation entirely from them of paying licence money during the first two years? I admit that an advocate finds it hard in the beginning, but the other advocates are so kind that they always put a little work in the way of the new man. I think that we shall actually be going too far if we accept this amendment.

I should like the hon. Minister to answer my question. I want to know whether the hon. Minister is also prepared to give the same opportunity to the farmers as to the attorneys? Even the hon. the Prime Minister, who is also an advocate, voted with the Opposition in this matter. I want the same privilege with regard to farmers’ interests.

I can actually not understand what the attitude of the farmers’ representatives is. We must understand that young men that we are meeting here are often farmers’ sons. We should like to see farmers’ sons occupying those professions, and then we try again to baulk them by licences. It is said that there are already too many attorneys in the country. That is an additional reason why we should help them in the beginning. I am in favour of this amendment to exempt them for the first three years.

I agree with the principles of the amendment; but I think, if we approve of this principle, we should extend it to shop-keepers and all others who pay licences. We know that the first three years are the most difficult for anyone, whether he is a professional or business man. I shall vote for the principle, because it is a good one, but I hope the Minister will extend it to all other persons concerned, whether they are shopkeepers or follow any other walk of life.

I agree with the hon. member for Liesbeek (Mr. Pearce) but I should like to know from him and other members whether they are prepared also to exempt young farmers’ sons who are just commencing farming. The young farmer has to have a buck wagon, a cart, and has to pay his rent, etc., otherwise he cannot farm. I think that what is good for one class is also good for another class. We must not resort to only exempting a privileged class.

Mr. Chairman am I in order in moving the reduction of the licence for medical practitioners?

No, I am sorry it is too late.

Schedule II, Part II, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Schedule II, Part III,

I would like the Minister to give a definition of the vague term “speculators in futures,” the licence for which is put down at £25. Is this to be applied to produce, in a previous item there is a tax on dealers or speculators in produce? Or is it intended for young men and women who propose to be married.

If the hon. member had been carrying on this calling in the past he would have known that this licence was in existence. It is an old Cape licence, and has to be paid by all persons who buy options on crops, mohair, wool, feathers, etc., for the purpose of removing or selling the same.

Has anybody ever paid that licence? I don’t think it has ever been enforced. I have never paid it nor have I ever been called upon to pay it.

I think that the Minister should institute a careful enquiry into this matter. If speculators have deceived the Government and not paid the tax then a law must be passed to catch them.

Will the ordinary house and estate agent who tries to sell land come within the category of canvassing for sale of shares on land for which the proposed tax is £50? Why is the licence fixed so high. Is it that some particular evil exists in canvassing for land—if so why not stop the canvassing altogether?

In the Free State we would very much have liked to have stopped this canvassing. This licence is payable both in the Free State and in the Cape. In the former these people have certainly been carrying on their business in such a way that we would like to prohibit it entirely. The licence is not payable by an estate agent who conducts his business in his office.

If an estate agent gives a man a job as a canvasser, and he carries on a perfectly honest straightforward business then this canvasser will have to pay £50 a year in order to earn a livelihood. Is a licence of £50 a year going to stop a dishonest man?

No, they will employ a good class of man.

The people who are making the least money out of it are the people who will not be able to pay the £50, so that people who are carrying on a straightforward business will be crippled. This high licence will simply encourage the dishonest man who wants to make as much money out of a scheme as possible. Is the Minister prepared to leave this to the open vote of the House?

No.

Is the Minister prepared to leave any of these items to the open vote of the House?

No.

Would he be prepared to accept an amendment in favour of reducing the auctioneer’s licence of £5 a year, and the canvasser’s licence to £2 10s.? I hope the Minister will take this canvassing business seriously, for I assure him that he is going to play into the hands of speculators—the very class of people he says he wants to stop.

We have a very good Companies Bill which the Minister has agreed to put through as soon as possible and in which provision is made against any mala fides by men going round the country selling shares. Will the Minister consider the clause in that Bill and tell us whether the provision there is not a sufficient safeguard for the public? This tax will practically debar any man going round selling land. I shall be glad if the Minister will tell us whether he has thought of the Companies Bill in connection with this tax.

I understand the Minister to say that where an estate agent is conducting his business in his own office he does not pay the £50 licence.

Yes. That is so.

This requires consideration. A man may be carrying on a type of estate agency business on a large scale, I refer to the sale of land held under mining title for the establishment of townships. These agencies are invariably given to political friends. They are in consideration of political services. Such townships are advertised solely in the interests of the seller, and I know of one or two instances where agents selling this class of land have made incomes extending to five figures in a year. If they are to be exempted from paying the £50 there is an injustice somewhere. A lot of such land sold is not in the interests of land settlement or development, because it may prove to be left unoccupied for several years, or its value may deteriorate, so that residential sites sold for £80 to £150 may and often does come to be worth only from £5 to £15. Such transactions involve, not only loss to the buyer, but also to the local authority which has to provide capital sums to supply services which are not remunerative. There will be a great inequality if it remains as at present. It would be wrong to ask a small country estate agent or one in a town doing casual business, to contribute to the revenue to the same extent as the big concessionaire agent in the populous districts. I ask the Minister to take that into consideration, and try and remedy the position.

I ask the Minister why a man who keeps bagatelle tables pays only £4 for each table, and a billiard table keeper pays £12 for each table. I understand billiards is a game of skill, and that bagatelle is more of a game of chance than billiards.

Oh no.

Then if they are equal, why are they charged differently?

In the original draft there was a licence of £10 for trustees of insolment estates. That has disappeared from the list, and I would like to know the reason why. I understand this class of business is very profitable, and it is often thought that this business should be controlled more than at the present time.

I just want to ask the hon. Minister what is meant under part 3 by “speculators in futures,” Does that mean “brokers’” In many cases a farmer taking an option on another farm and yet does not buy it. Or he takes an option where he thinks there are minerals. I should like to know what the position is in regard to this matter.

I want to suggest to the hon. Minister that the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Waterston) is perfectly correct. The only person who will be able to afford to pay the £50 is the rogue, but the decent man wanting to sell shares and land in a straightforward way will be the man who cannot afford to pay £50. The crook can go round the country in a swell motor car, selling worthless shares, or rotten land propositions, and the £50 will be a small matter to him as he will easily get it back from his victims, and the proper way to tackle the problem, in my opinion, is to tighten up the law so as to prevent such men from indulging in such fraudulent practices.

I should like to know from the hon. Minister whether anyone who sells shares of co-operative societies will fall under this namely, under the licence of £10. A number of farmers possibly meet and decide to establish a dairy factory, and they find it necessary to sell shares amongst each other. It is not right then to make them pay a licence of £10. It may also occur that farmers wish to build a local cold storage chamber to export meat. I should like to know from the Minister whether the licence will apply to them, and if he cannot exclude them.

Will the billiard table licence have to be paid by clubs and licenced premises which have already paid the ordinary liquor licence?

It has always been a separate licence.

Might I ask the Minister if he is prepared to hold this over for further consideration. I stated before that I had had personal experience. I am not in the business now, and have not been in this particular business for three years. When I was, we employed a canvasser at £30 a month, but if we had had to pay this £50 tax we should have had to discharge him. Every company and agency employing canvassers will have to pay £50, otherwise they cannot send their men out. Probably the Minister has not gone into the question very deeply.

I do not think we should hold the thing over. Here we have an instance where it does not mean much revenue. In the Free State the licence has been brought in to prohibit this business of men going round the country. I have no particular interest in pressing this on the House. I will take the sense of the House as to whether they want this sort of thing or not. If the House does not want this licence, it can go. It does not mean much revenue; it won’t affect the Provinces to any extent. I will take the sense of the House on this point.

*The hon. member for Albert (Mr. Steytler) has asked whether anybody who sells shares in a cooperative society will be exempted. No, of course everybody who sells shares of any kind will fall under it. We do not intend to specially exclude co-operative societies. Then the hon. member for Pretoria (South) (Gen. Muller) has asked what must be understood by “speculators in futures.” The licence will be taken out by persons who buy options over harvests, ostrich feathers, wine, brandy, wool, mohair with the object of removing the things when they are ripe or sufficiently grown for trading in.

†The hon. member for Pretoria (East) (Mr. Giovanetti) asked about billiard room licences. The billiard room licence has always been a separate licence from the ordinary hotel licence. It will be payable in respect of all public tables, but tables used at clubs will be excluded. The hon. member for Springs (Mr. Allen) raised a question about the licence for estate agents who deal in blocks of land and do an extensive business in that way. We provide a licence for an estate agent of £5. We have not attempted to graduate the licence so as to make it more in the case of a man who does a big business, but there is a licence payable by this individual of £5. The hon. member for Boksburg (Mr. McMenamin) raised a question about dropping the licence for the administration of estates. He will see that that is a business done as part of the ordinary business of trust companies or of lawyers or accountants, etc. It is part of the ordinary business of these people, and we have not dealt with it as a separate licence. It has been pointed out to us that the cumulative effect of these licences would be very heavy in respect of their occupations and professions if we require a separate licence to be taken out in respect of each of these matters if there is a licence already.

What about the bagatelle table licence?

There has been in existence a licence for bagatelle tables for some years. The hon. member wants to know why the licence is less for bagatelle tables than it is for billiard tables. I believe it is owing to the fact that the game is not so extensively played as billiards, though I must say I do not know very much about the thing myself.

I would suggest that a proviso be added to Part III, something on the following lines: That where such agent as mentioned in (7) offers or advertises for sale, or acts as agents for the sale of, residential plots in a township in excess of ten in number, he should have a higher licence to pay. It seems to me that a great injustice is being done here. I know that enormous profits are being made from this class of business and a £5 licence is quite negligible when compared with charging a doctor £10 for his licence. A man with a small 10 foot by 10 foot wood and iron office, containing two chairs and a table, may handle hundreds and thousands of pounds worth of business each year, and yet he has only to pay a licence of £5. No special training or knowledge is required and there is no risk of capital invested. I would suggest that here is a field for not only securing more revenue but for placing a just tax upon people who are not contributing to the prosperity of the community in an essential way or in proportion to the profits of their business.

This gentleman whom the hon. member (Mr. Allen) wants to get at, if he carries on such a large and remunerative business, has probably got to employ a few people to help him in the sale of lots, and if he does that he would have to pay the £50 licence. A gentleman who has to sell a whole township obviously could not do that unless he sent people round to get sub-scribers or purchasers for these lots. That is; the gentleman we try to catch under the £50 licence. The other man is the man who is doing an ordinary bona fide business and transacts the usual estate business. If you attempt to base your licence on the extent of business that would upset the whole scheme, and we would have to go on quite different principles from those which have been in existence in the different provinces.

I would like to call the Minister’s attention to the question of the licence charged to boards of executors or trust companies. £50 for head office and £25 for each branch. I would like to know why a difference should be made between these trust companies and banking institutions, which get off with a licence of £20. The banks usually charge from 8 to 11 per cent. interest, and these trust companies only charge 5 per cent. and 6 per cent. and are sometimes the salvation of a district. In my own district there is a small company with a capital of only £8,000. This tax will mean ⅝ per cent. on that small paid-up capital, which I consider is, rather heavy. I think the Minister ought to adopt a sliding scale, and that the bigger trust companies should pay a higher and the smaller ones a smaller rate.

In reply to the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Mr. J. P. Louw), I would say that we have taken over these licences as we found them in two provinces. In the Free State it has been £75 for the head office and £50 for each branch. In the Transvaal it has been £50 right through. The hon. member will see that we have reduced the rate considerably. He asks why a difference is made in licences between a trust company and a bank. That difference exists in the provinces already. A trust company transacts a class of business which the banks do not transact. In addition to that these companies transact practically all the ordinary banking business. All sorts of work is done by these companies and the majority of them are doing very well. With the modification I have made, I think the hon. member will see that these companies come off very well.

I want to point out to the Minister with regard, to the matter raised by the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Waterston) a question in regard to Item 8, shares or land. The Minister will know that under the proposed companies law to which he has committed himself there is a most strict provision with regard to the sale of shares in any company. If the proposed company law is passed, then these present provisions would become entirely unnecessary, and you are going to form an encumbrance in regard to this tax which will be unnecessary. Then, in regard to the sale of land, I quite agree with the Minister that there are some cases where people go about selling land at fabulous prices or making representations that are not well founded; but I know also of land companies, people who lay out townships, very high-class companies, people who employ only the most honourable men, who have contributed to the development of the country in various ways. If you pass this tax it means that in the case of a company which, for instance, appoints ten people to act as canvassers, that they must pay £500 in licences every year. You make it absolutely prohibitive you close up all development in connection with town development. Take the Caledon municipality. The Caledon municipality is on the point of laying out a new township. They have a perfect right to appoint canvassers to sell that land, but if you pass this law nobody can be employed unless he pays a licence of £50. I say let us pass a law so that if any venture is put on the market by which people could be defrauded, such a venture could be dealt with under the company law; but this is not the way to help on the development of the country; it will retard the progress of the country.

It is difficult to give a reply to the speech of the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. Krige). I have not the least objection to all the schemes he is talking about Kleinmond and all the other places. But I just want to say here that in my district about 50 plots in a place with the name of “Mountain View” have been sold. It is represented as “freehold.” Those who buy the plots will not pay taxes. Five years later they received notice that the ground was sold because they did not pay taxes.

Where is that?

In the Transvaal.

Oh.

Let me remind my hon. friend that Kleinmond also was sold as “freehold,” but that later there also ground may be sold up for taxes. The poor victims who bought the ground for £25 or £30 in Mountain View subsequently learned that their ground was sold for 15s. to pay the tax. Seventy plots were sold on one occasion at 15s. per plot.

Where is that?

In the Transvaal.

Oh.

If things are different in the Cape Province I just want to remind hon. members that we are all in the Union, and that if canvassers are to be sent out to sell plots for little townships that are laid out they cannot be very good little townships. There is nothing in which there is so much abuse as in the plots in townships which are sold by canvassers. The canvassers come to our people there in the backveld and they usually come with very nice tales. It is said that this and that little village will become the Brighton of South Africa. That the place is oh so very healthy. The young lady who came to me even used the name of the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. Krige) as someone who owned plots at that seaside resort, but I was too old a bird, and did not allow myself to be led astray. But beautiful diagrams are shown of that ground and when you see the diagrams you immediately get a desire to buy. All sorts of tales are told, it is said that this and the other great man is going to live there, and that consequently the plots will greatly appreciate in value. My hon. friend at my side here says that there is a post office at every corner. Yes, that is the kind of representation made to people. In the Free State the evil of canvassers was so bad that it was said: We are going to put the tax as high as ever possible. The hon. Minister has here also put the tax fairly high, but far from high enough to my liking. There are certain good cases. But nearly all the things in the world are launched with the best intentions, but what the canvassers will do later is another matter. The hon. member for Caledon knows that in practice it cannot be controlled. The hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Waterston) has said here that he also was formerly in that business. Well, the less we say about that kind of business the better, because there are few people who did not come out deceived. I myself have some of the plots in Mountain View township, one of the good townships. If the hon. member for Brakpan can sell them I shall be prepared, I believe, to pay him 50 per cent. commission. In my young days, when I was still younger, and used to go in for those kind of things, I bought plots in Orange Grove and Mountain View, and if he can dispose of them I shall be glad. No, I think this tax must be high, so that casual people should not be sent out to sell valueless plots by nice talking and erroneous representations.

I am sorry that the hon. member for Bethlehem (Mr. J. H. Brand Wessels) has insinuated that I have a personal interest in Mossel River and Kleinmond. I have no interest in them, but I know those two places. I am the representative of that constituency, and I have never heard a word against the promotion of those companies. The first word that I have heard against them has been to-night. I only mentioned them as an example, and I have not the least interest in them personally.

I want to move the deletion of section 8 altogether. The Minister said he was going to leave this matter to the House. Although there are numbers of fraudulent businesses going on and people canvassing for shares and so on, this is not the way to stop these people. You might as well tax burglars. I suggest the best way to do is, as suggested by the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. Krige), to tighten up the company law when we get the chance. I move—

I am opposed to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Umbilo as I do think that we want a jolly stiff licence on those glib-tongued gentry who go round selling doubtful shares and land in the country. I should like an assurance from the Minister that mutual building societies, benefit societies, and such like, will not be roped into sub-section 6, either as executors or trust companies. I believe that is not the intention, but I would like to have the definite assurance from the Minister. I did not hear the Minister’s reply in regard to co-operative society’s shares being sold. In the event of a co-operative society being registered, will the secretary or anybody selling shares or enrolling members, come under this definition of “canvasser”? Under the Co-operative Societies Act only members can and must be shareholders, and therefore to canvas a man to become a member ipso facto means to canvas for the sale of shares of such co-operative society. Will the Minister make it clear that this licence will not apply in the case of these societies?

No. He must be canvassing for shares. I do not know what the position would be under the co-operative society’s Bill—whether there is an exception there—but I do not propose in this Bill to exempt this kind of shares. Anybody canvassing for shares would automatically come under this Bill. I will consider this point in the meantime.

I know what the intention is, but if you ask a man to become a member, you, ipso facto, canvass for shares.

If hon. members knew what is going on along the country side in connection with these canvassers of land then they will not try to protect them. If they knew how many thousands of pounds were lost by farmers through being deceived then they will make the licence £1,000. In the Transvaal ground was sold at X; nearly every motor contained two canvassers. They painted the thing very beautifully. A church to the value of £52,000 was to be built and many people had bought ground there expressly to be nearest the most beautiful church in the country. I was one of those who was caught but I wrote at once to the company that I refused to pay any more unless the conditions were fulfilled on which the ground had been sold. I was released because I had not signed for the payments. Everywhere in the Transvaal such ground was sold and we must prohibit such fraud.

I hope the Minister will pay a little attention to what the hon. member of Albany (Mr. Struben) has stated, which is quite correct. When you want to form a co-operative society, you often get seven members together, and they are empowered under the law to form a co-operative society. Then one or other goes round to encourage brother farmers to take shares. These shares are not disposed of for the purpose of making money, but to get a sufficient number of people interested. I hope the Minister will look into this, and exclude these societies.

I do not think there is any difficulty. This is a licence that has always existed in the Free State, and I understand also in the Cape, and the question has never cropped up.

I think they have been excluded by legislation.

I do not propose to provide for it here. I do not think there is any difficulty; otherwise it would have cropped up in the past; but I will look into the matter.

I have risen to support the amendment of the hon. member of Umbilo (Mr. Reyburn). I can quite understand the feelings of resentment of a good many members of the House. I know there have been some bitter experiences; but they must not allow their just feelings of resentment to run away with their judgment. It does not follow that you are getting at the right men. I understand hon. members are quite satisfied that this amount should stand. They say that, in the case of a canvasser selling shares or land, a thumping licence should be put on. I understand the member for Wakkerstroom wants to raise it to a £1,000. Quite a laudable object; but the point is this: The mere payment of £50 by a canvasser is not going to make him honest, and the imposition of this licence will not enable the Government to get at the principal, who may be quite as culpable as the canvasser. On the other hand a canvasser may be perfectly honest, but does not understand that he is engaged in selling worthless land or shares. Are hon. members prepared to be swindled, so long as the canvassers pay a licence of £50? I will ask the historical and injured member of Wakkerstroom (Mr. A. S. Naudé), that if the canvasser pays a licence of £1,000 is he prepared to be swindled?

No, for if he has to pay £1,000 he will not come round.

Will you prevent a swindle being perpetrated by charging a licence of £50?

But you will have fewer of them.

What you will do by charging £50 will be to give the State a shale of the boodle. In fact you will ask rogues to get into the business, and you will keep honest men out of it. There are hundreds of people honestly engaged in insurance work who would like to take up the sale of shares in honest flotations, but a heavy licence would prevent them doing that. The mere fact that a man has to pay a licence would not make him honest. Then what has the poor old auctioneer done that you should raise his licence?

I am decreasing the auctioneers’ fees in some parts of the country.

There are very few auctioneers in South Africa doing well—sooner or later they come a cropper. I am deeply pained to see the Minister of finance ranging himself on the side of wickedness; he is starting a campaign against the Church, and is proposing to tax clergymen. Otherwise why this licence of £25 for speculators in futures?

I think the Minister would be well advised to accept the amendment of the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) (Mr. Reyburn). Supposing a broker receives instructions to go round and see if he can sell a parcel of shares—does he thereby become a canvasser? It is quite a common practice in regard to land and property to ask a broker if he can find a customer, and he canvasses for one. How is it proposed to distinguish between a broker who is trying to sell land and a canvasser?

An occupational licence is required to be taken out by every person who has a shop or place of business, and who is working for remuneration, and has to be paid by persons who do not otherwise come under the Bill, who work for monetary compensation.

The Companies Bill is going to be re-introduced, and judging by the feeling of members of the select committee which dealt with that Bill, and by the attitude of members when the Bill was in Committee of the Whole House, there will be very few changes in it. Under this Bill it will be very difficult for a company to go to allotment unless very strict provisions are complied with. If the company is not floated honestly, the allotment of shares can be set aside; while another good clause to prevent swindles taking place lays it down that no promissory note or bill of exchange, except when payable on demand, shall be accepted in payment of shares. This clause will give a man such as, for example, a farmer, three months in which to enquire into the bona fides of a company. A canvasser who accepts a promissory note or other document which is not payable at sight, is liable on conviction to a fine of £100. We are going to have this very strong safeguard under which we shall not allow promissory notes to be accepted, and we make the canvassers liable to a heavy fine, and besides we charge them £50 for a licence, so that we make it nearly impossible for any man to go round the country selling shares. It is putting a burden on canvassers such as has not been put on any other body of men.

I wish to express my regret at the omission of moneylenders from the Bill. They were included in the other Bill, and if there is one class of men who should pay a tax, it is the class called “moneylenders.” The Minister says he found a difficulty in classifying this type of gentleman. In the Cape Province we have a Usuary Act, and last session the Minister of Justice was asked if he was aware of the usuary that went on in Johannesburg, and he stated he was aware of the fact and intended introducing legislation this session. In the Cape Province the rate of interest is limited to 20 per cent. for small amounts. Is it not possible to say that anybody lending money at a higher rate than say 10, 15 or 20 per cent., or any amount fixed by the Government, should be called a moneylender. If the Government admit that it is beyond their ingenuity, and the ingenuity of their advisers, to classify a man calling himself a moneylender, I can only say the Government have managed to frame Bills dealing with more difficult subjects. It is unfortunate the Government has omitted this form of taxation.

Before you put Part III, Mr. Chairman, I would like to move a further amendment now, viz., that—

The hon. member cannot do that now. The committee has already decided that Item (8) remain part of the schedule as printed.

On a point of order, I would like to be perfectly clear on the question. I understood you to put the amendment moved by the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Reyburn) that the whole amount be deleted.

The first question was that Item (8) stand part of the schedule, and the committee decided that the words should remain as they stand.

But the motion by the hon. member for Umbilo was that the whole amount be deleted and the committee has decided against the deletion of the whole amount.

The question I put was that this item stand part of the schedule, that the words be retained, and the committee decided that the words should be retained. I am sorry to have to inform the hon. member that I cannot accept an amendment at this stage.

I wish to move a proviso to Part III. In Part II the committee decided to give preference to professional men who have only been in business up to three years. There are several members on these benches who are quite in favour of that, but we did not support it because we thought it was rather unfair to make a distinction between these particular people and others. I am now going to give the committee an opportunity to restore its good name in that respect by placing, as far as possible, everybody on the same footing and to move a proviso which will have the same effect in so far as Part III is concerned. I therefore move—

If the committee agrees to this, it will put the holders of occupational licences in exactly the same position as the holders of professional licences. I think the feeling of the committee on the previous debate was that in the case of the young professional man starting practice he required all the assistance that Parliament could give him. I hold that in the case of the other people who are starting business they are equally entitled to the consideration of this House.

Before you put that, Mr. Chairman, would I be in order in asking if the Minister would be prepared to accept the amendment?

No, I regret I cannot,

What is fair to one is surely fair to another. Why should the professions be entrenched as against the men who have far greater difficulty in fighting the battle of life? Surely members of these favoured professions do not want it all their own way; surely they will accept this proviso as being equally meritorious with the one they were in favour of? Take for instance these unfortunate canvassers for the sale of shares or land. The same argument applies; and particularly so in regard to auctioneers. It takes an auctioneer a long time to make anything like a living. Will members opposite explain on what principle they stand by, gentlemen who are launched into life with splendid professions fully equipped for the battle of life; and as has been pointed out, have had their fine training so largely at the cost of the community? The colleges and universities which they attend have been paid for not by themselves but by the State; their fees are not nearly enough to pay for the professors employed to teach them. These gentlemen now want another advantage on top of that, when they say “we should be specially exempted for three years.” Then we come to the unfortunate men who invariably have to go through a period of training in regard to their occupations, and surely it is perfectly right to say if this proviso is required in connection with the specially privileged classes, then to be fair and honest we must have an extension of that proviso to these others also. We should see to it that we make no difference between the rich man’s child and the poor man’s child, between the university man and the man who graduates in that harder university, the grim struggle for existence.

I do not agree with the hon. member for Pretoria (West) (Mr. Hay), a bit. There is a world of difference between these two items, to my mind. All these professions are entered by young men as a life career. A young advocate or young doctor earns mighty little during the first few years, but I do not think a fellow is going to set up as a billiard table keeper, for instance, Unless he is certain of making a fair living the first year. I think the two are in a totally different category.

I am surprised at this motion by the hon. member. He really wants people that have a billiard table should permit of playing for three years without paying a licence. It is ridiculous to propose such a thing. It is so nonsensical that we cannot even talk about it. He proposes something that he knows cannot be accepted. Then the hon. member for Pretoria (West) (Mr. Hay) still wants the Minister to say that the House will be permitted to decide on the matter.

I think the Minister of Labour has lost the whole point of the argument of his follower. I have no wish to see the country overrun with canvassers, but apparently it is desired that these canvassers should have three years in which to qualify in that glibness of tongue, so that they will sell shares in a better way than if they came on the scene at once.

The hon. member is quite content to see swindlers in South Africa forming limited liability companies, and carrying on swindling in a big way, but when it comes to the poor canvasser, the hon. member is prepared to accuse all these men of being dishonest.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, has the hon. member any right to impute to the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls a willingness to condone swindlers?

No, the hon. member is not entitled to make these statements.

From the hon. member’s statement he is quite prepared to tolerate cheating in a big way, but he is down on the poor canvasser. In nine times out of ten the canvassers think that the propositions they are selling are really genuine. Hon. members are allowing their prejudices to run away with their sense of fair play. Many men who are down and out rather than accept charity go round and canvas and do so honestly, and that decent type of canvasser should not be condemned in the wholesale manner in which the hon. member has condemned canvassers.

He is not taxed.

It is the same type of mam Why not select the canvasser who sells photographic enlargements? Is the hon. member prepared to put a heavy tax on that sort of thing? We have a law to deal with a man who deals in swindles. As to the amendment of the hon. member for Boksburg (Mr. McMenamin), I entirely disagree with the Minister of Labour who says you have young men who leave universities and have a very hard struggle in the first few years of carrying on their profession, and that they are entirely on a different plane to the men who go into business. In the one case an individual is born with a silver spoon in his mouth and it is argued that he should have a certain time in which to build up his practice, but the other man is given no time at all. There is a very dangerous movement on foot in South Africa. Many men who have been members of the working classes and who have proved themselves in business have been victimized by the employing class, and then they have launched out in business on their own. There is a movement developing on the part of the mercantile community to make the licence they have to take out as high as possible.

Absolutely incorrect.

There is a movement in this direction in the Transvaal to the end that a man who goes into business has to guarantee that he has a certain amount of capital behind him. Just as they have made the professions a close preserve, so we find the commercial community adopting the same tactics to-day.

What about a close preserve for the trade unions?

The Minister should leave the whole matter to the open vote of the House. Hon. members who supported giving privileges to the legal fraternity should show their real sympathy with the other classes of the community who are trying to earn an honest livelihood, by supporting the amendment of the hon. member for Boksburg.

I do not know whether hon. members on the cross benches intend us to take this little ramp of theirs seriously, but if they do they are going to injure the very man they say they are going to help, for if the amendment goes through, the moment a canvasser reaches the stage of having to pay a higher tax he will be fired by his employer. A canvasser is really only a temporary occupation. There are very few professional canvassers in the country. They usually take it up as a last resort, and give it up as soon as possible. If the amendment is passed, the moment a canvasser has reached the three years’ stage, when the tax has to be increased, he will be fired, so they are damaging the very people who are the subject of their plea.

The hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) earlier in the evening voted for a concession to one particular profession we are told that that profession is overcrowded and that competition makes success doubtful. As canvassing and law demand similar talents, such as fluency of language and debating ability, we can assume that many of those crowded out of the profession proper fall back on canvassing, etc., for a livelihood. I would not like to see what is given to the bona fide legal practitioner kept away from those who have professionally the same claim, but who have been forced to use their talents in a different field. If the hon. member for Zululand looked at it from that point of view he might alter his sweeping condemnation of the amendment. Then the tax on billiard tables is paid by a poor section. The section who are compelled to act as billiard markers are, in many instances, returned soldiers and broken-down mining men, who cannot do strenuous work. Generally they hire the tables from the lessees of the premises and run them for themselves, and it is they who have to pay, thus you put a heavy licence on those least able to bear it. That is an inequality which requires rectifying and the amendment has an element of rectification in it.

I would like to draw the attention of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Col. Reitz) that we are not only asking for the licence exemption to apply to canvassers of shares and lands. That is incidental; we have 11 others in the list. It is not merely the canvasser who is the unfortunate sport of conditions he is not answerable for. Surely it would be easy to prove that the majority of these 11 different occupations are engaged in trying to build up their businesses. That was the argument used in respect of the particular profession referred to. The Minister of Finance has made it easier for his own profession. By throwing it open to the House as a non-party item to decide, it is clear he was favouring a particular section. We are pleading for men who have not got the same educational advantages as those who have obtained the exemption of three years at half licence fees. We are asking merely that these others shall also pay a half licence for a similar period. It is not as if we were asking that they be relieved of all licence money. They have got the same right to live as the more privileged class, and the House should acknowledge that principle. I hope the hon. member who moved the proviso will press it to a division so that we may see who will stand by the people generally and not merely by a supposedly superior class.

It is a great pity that so much heat has been brought into this discussion. Apart from the question as to whether we acted rightly or wrongly in dealing with the professional licences, the hon. member who advocates this amendment should not forget that we have a far more deserving class even than those which have been mentioned. The fact is that we have passed over the general dealer, a class that has a very great struggle to exist in many cases, and given that section comparatively no privilege and allowed the privilege to the higher class. There is one argument which the Minister used, and which I think is a very fair argument in one respect, and that is that the talk about silver spoon and everything of that kind is quite a misapprehension. From my own knowledge and experience, if you take the profession of accountancy, I make bold to say that there are very few in that profession who ever knew what it was to have a silver spoon in their mouths. I am sure there are many working men whose sons to-day are engaged in professions simply owing to the sacrifice of their parents. The “silver spoon” argument is an unfair argument, a class argument. In regard to the vote that was taken, I must say that I had great hesitation in supporting it, although I did vote with the majority. It caused me a good deal of thought as to whether I should vote for the proposal or rot. An argument has since been brought to my notice which, I think, is of some weight and that is that these men have no previous means of earning a livelihood of any kind up to the time of entering the professions. In regard to the billiard table licences, what has pained me most is that clubs are not to pay the licence, but persons, who do not go to clubs, have to use tables on which a licence has to be paid. The Minister stated that this licence would not apply to clubs. I think that two-thirds of the members of the clubs are in a very much better position to pay a licence than persons who have to go and play on tables that are licensed. Now a great deal has been said about the auctioneer. The average auctioneer knows what he is doing and he is generally successful. I do say that I hope this House is not going to stultify itself in not giving this privilege to the poor unfortunate dealer, and then giving it to this class. We must be consistent. If you go up and down our shores you will find that the average general dealer is a man of much less means than those who come under this class. He depends far more upon his skill in his trade than anything else. I hope the House will pass this vote now. The professional man has given five years of his life without any reward at all, while others have been earning from the start. It is too late for this amendment now.

I second the appeal of the hon. gentleman who has just sat down that the House should be consistent, though he rather marred his own argument at the windup. He said it is too late, yet he voted for the inclusion of this very amendment in Part II. If it is too late now, it was too late then. I can second the hon. gentleman’s own appeal for consistency, but in himself, most emphatically. The member said a good deal of heat was being engendered. That is just my complaint; there is no heat. The only heat on this occasion is, I think, internal combustion. I see no evidences externally in any part of the House. I want to see as much excitement on the part of say the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell) in the determined effort to get this even treatment for these other gentlemen, uniformity, not only in regard to amounts, but in regard to application. I want to see as much excitement in regard to justice in Part III as in Part II. What is the essential difference? The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Col. D. Reitz), who picked on canvassers, said that when they have been employed three years they will become so proficient that their employer will sack them. That is a most extraordinary statement. There may be some ground for it; I have seen it in millinery and drapery establishments where young ladies, who have been taken on as apprentices, at nothing a year; when they have been two or three years there, and are efficient, and look like demanding a salary, are discharged, and somebody else is taken on, at nothing a year, in their place. My hon. friend has missed the point. What the hon. member for Boksburg (Mr. McMenamin) desires is not the total elimination of these licence fees, but the halving thereof. What is the objection to giving the same relief to the advertising agent or contractor? That is a business that is essentially one for working oneself into. No one can start as an advertising agent and be successful right away. I concede the point that the actuary and the accountant have cost their parents something for their training; but that is not the point. What about the man trying to build up his business? If it is right for the advocate, actuary, accountant, consulting engineer, conveyancer, etc., etc., to have an opportunity of building up their business, why not the advertising agent and the appraiser and assessor? Surely the appraiser has to prove himself. As my hon. friend suggests, he has got to be well appraised before he can be looked upon by the public as a good appraiser. Is that not a case where it is competent for us to ask that he should have the benefits accorded to the advocate? Then can an auctioneer start auctioneering right away and have the confidence of the public? Certainly not. That is essentially a profession where you should give relief and, at any rate, when you realize that you are going to charge him £20. We are only asking that he should be charged half rates —£10—which will still be such a big slice out of the earnings, for the first three years, of the poor unfortunate auctioneer. My hon. friends would deal well with the billiard table keeper, but what about the “speculator in futures.” There you should give him three years to get right for the future. The stock and share-broker has also to earn the confidence of the public, and has to get into the inner circle, which costs him money, and yet you are going to charge him right from the start. I think there has been an excellent case made out to apply the same conditions to this set as to the former ones, and I am really astonished to find how inconsistent the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell) is in this matter. Joking apart there is no case made out for treating this class of people differently to the people whose licence we have reduced.

We would have been closured about two hours ago if we had done this.

I move—

1. (a) a tax, to be called the general tax, of one pound, to be paid by every adult male native who is domiciled in the Union or who has resided therein for a continuous period of twelve months immediately preceding the date on which the tax becomes due;
2. (b) a further tax, to be called the local tax, of ten shillings, to be paid in respect of every hut or dwelling in a native location within the Union by the native occupier thereof but not by any such occupier who is the owner of any allotment of land held under quitrent title in the location in which such hut or dwelling occupied by him is situate.

I would like to raise a question on this matter. I think there is going to be some difficulty in regard to the administration of this law. It is proposed to levy—

I want to call my hon. friend’s attention to the fact that there are in Cape Town—and I believe in other big centres—some hundreds of men who are full-blooded natives, as far as blood is concerned, but who have been born here in Cape Town or in the Cape district. I mention the Cape because it is the district I know best, but I think this question will affect other parts of the country as well. These men have been brought up as coloured men, they are thoroughly detribalized, and they speak only Dutch or English, as the case may be. How are you going to administer the tax as regards these people? I have one in my employ as a gardener. He is a full-blooded native to all’ intents and purposes, and yet as regards speech, mode of living, etc., he is a Cape coloured man. What are you going to do in regard to collecting the tax from men of that type, who have become mixed with the Cape coloured men and become one of them and who are yet full-blooded natives? I am not raising this in any captious spirit. I would like to know whether it has occurred to the Minister, or his officials, as to how cases of this kind should be dealt with.

The proposed definition of a native in the Bill reads as follows—

Yes, but these people do not reside in a native location. They only reside amongst the coloured people.

Then they would only pay the general tax under the Bill. The hon. member will know that in the Free State a tax is payable by all natives and coloured persons. In regard to coloured persons in the Free State, it is proposed that they shall remain under the existing Free State Poll Tax Consolidation Ordinance. They won’t come under this Bill. All natives whom we propose to tax under the Bill must fall within this definition. If a native does not fall within this definition, he is not taxed. If he is a coloured person and does not live in a native location as a native, he will not fall under this definition.

That I understand, but in the Western Province they don’t live in a location. On my farm I have 25 natives, avowedly natives, who reside there. I have, at the same time, 70 coloured people. They live in some cottages I have prepared for them there. What is going to be the position of these? These 25 natives—are they going to pay this tax? I have only mentioned this example because I know it personally, but there are scores of natives working under these circumstances, especially on this side of the mountain. What is going to be the position in regard to them?

This tax of £1 on every adult male native is an entirely new tax at any rate in the Cape Province. Our farm natives have always hitherto been free from taxation and this is a new principle with us. I therefore wish to urge upon the hon. Minister that natives who are in permanent employment on farms should be exempted from tax. I can give the House the assurance that workmen on the farms are so scarce to-day as I have almost never known them to be since I have been a farmer. I know that farmers can sometimes get no natives at all and I myself recently had no natives on my farm. I think that the tendency exists to-day with natives to go to the towns and villages. How many do not remain in the locations? I think that it is in the interests of farming that these natives should be excluded from the tax. The hon. Minister will possibly say that he will lose much money thereby, but let me bring to the notice of the Minister that the natives who work on farms from January to January contribute much to the production in an indirect way and in the last mentioned way will bring much more into the treasury than by the tax of £1. I think that the hon. Minister will confer a great benefit to the farmers of the Cape Province if he accepts my motion because we must remember that the farmers in my neighbourhood do not any more employ unattached natives. The kaffirs work from January to January and when they are tired they go to Kaffraria to rest a bit and then they come back. Our farmers do not have any more unattached natives. I do not know what hon. members in the Free State and Transvaal think about it but that is the position in the Cape Province. Therefore I move—

By permanent service I mean service going from January, every day, Sundays included and if I require him during the night I call him—

I am very sorry that I cannot concur with the hon. member for Albert (Mr. Steytler). I maintain the very opposite. I think he will make a great mistake if he exempts the farm natives from the tax. In the Transvaal it is almost the only time that we can get natives to work on the farms, when they have to get money to pay the taxes. My hon. friend will also experience this and I think that it would rather be better if we made the tax higher. I see that the tax will apply to natives who have been working twelve months in the Union. I am afraid that the natives will come from Basutoland and Swaziland and work here for nine months then they will return to evade the tax and subsequently come back. I should like to direct the attention of the Minister to the fact that he should not permit the evasion in that way. I should also like to say something about the coloured people in the Transvaal. There are coloured people in the Transvaal and I should like to know what taxes they have to pay. The white people pay the poll tax and I should like to know whether the coloured people are also subject to that tax.

I wish to protest against paragraph (a) for these reasons: It is a discriminating proposal singling out the native for a special tax. I remember that the Minister, when introducing these measures, stated that the native must pay tax because he does not directly contribute to the revenue of the country. He indirectly contributes a great deal and, under the fiscal proposals, will contribute a great deal more. My second objection is, that the native is being harassed, harried and worried by the tendency of certain legislation of this session of Parliament. We are driving him to despair, if not to desperation, by making his lot too hard for him. For these reasons, I protest against the proposal marked (a).

I wish to put a question or two to the Minister. This says “all natives”; I am credibly informed by a member of this House that he knows a full-blooded native worth £20,000 who pays income tax. Will he be exempt, or will he be required to pay? It is a well-known fact that there are natives who pay income tax. Are they to pay the ordinary income tax that Europeans pay and this extra? There is another point: In the Cape Province, you have a large number of natives who are registered voters. In many cases they reside inside the municipalities and are paying local rates and assessments upon what they occupy. Are they to be put in this category? If the Minister had brought it in to assess everybody a pound for a poll tax, there would have been no injustice in it. I come from a district which has a large number of factories, and you get the native and coloured man working side by side and receiving the same pay. Under this the coloured man would be exempt and the native would be required to pay. Very otter the coloured man is drawing higher wages than the native, but they both live under the same conditions and occupy houses almost of the same class. If this is made applicable to native locations, the residents in the Cape Town native location will be asked to pay. The same with regard to the New Brighton location at Port Elizabeth. Most of the men who live at the New Brighton location work either for the railways, shipping or the stores. The Minister should not press this forward to-night, but should re-introduce it in some manner in which it will not be oppressive. I move the following amendment—

We should now take the adjournment, and thus give the Minister an opportunity of considering the matter. If the Minister does not accept the amendment I shall oppose his proposal with all the energy I can command—not in a factious way—and shall raise every reasonable legitimate objection against legislation of this kind. The House has been very reasonable, and this question is worthy of a discussion at a different hour from 11 p.m.

The Bill will provide that all natives who pay income tax up to 30s. will be exempt. The other class —natives who are voters—will pay the tax.

The Minister has not replied to my question as to how this will affect coloured persons.

I just want to call the Minister’s attention to the position on the diggings. There are about 30,000 white people who find a means of existence there, even if it is very slender. They are practically relief workers, who do not live at the expense of the State but provide for their own maintenance. According to information I have, the tax for natives in locations on the diggings has so far only been 5s. and 10s. put tax. Now at one stroke an increase of 100 per cent. is proposed. I am afraid that will make the position impossible. Many persons have already left the big diggings in my neighbourhood for the Transvaal and Hopetown to see if they can make an honest living there. For the moment they have big expectations, but in almost all the cases it soon appears that what at first appeared well paying propositions end in very little. If the diggers are not met I fear that in the near future 30,000 white men and 60,000 natives in the Cape Province will come and hang as a burden on the neck of the Government. I hope that the hon. Minister will take the position at the diggings into consideration and not tax a native that works there so heavily. It will press very heavily on the white men and natives. The diggers are helping each other on. If one finds a stone to-day worth £500 then he pays off a couple of hundred pounds off his debts, £200 he keeps for himself and £100 he divides up amongst his friends, so that they can also get on a bit. We must help the people as much as possible; they have a very hard time, as has already been mentioned here. Twenty per cent. make a good living, 30 per cent. a poor one, and the rest live from hand to mouth.

It seems as if the discussion will take some considerable time. I move—

Agreed to.

House Resumed:

The Chairman stated that the committee had agreed to resolutions on death duties and licence duties and that he would bring up a report at a future sitting.

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