SOUTH AFRICA.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 16725, 28 April 1920, Page 3

SOUTH AFRICA.

PROFITEERING BILL. By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. CAPETOWN, April 20. ■ln the Assembly, General Smuts, replying in the Profiteering Bill debate, refused to accept a Labour amendment for the discharge of the «Bill and the reference of subject to a select committee with the instruction to introduce an amended measure providing net only for the punishment of profiteer's but for tho prevention of profits in excess of the people’s means, tho extension of municipal enterprise and the distribution of tho necessaries of life.

General Smuts declared that tho whole country was dead against such extreme measures. He did not believe in a Socialistic State. State socialism was already obsolete. It was the Labour members who wore behind the times. He was willing to allow the Bill to go to a select committee for remoulding after it had been read a second time, but if it failed to pass the second reading tho Government would consider itself impotent to find a remedy and would make way for another Government.