Earlier in the Session a question was addressed to the hon. the Minister of Health as to whether his Department had undertaken any recent investigation into the mental health of persons addicted to dagga. The reply from the Minister was: “No, but cases suffering from this state are frequently treated in our mental hospitals with good results.” A further question was asked as to whether any investigation had been conducted to establish the degree of dagga intoxication of persons arrested for breach of the peace, and if so, with what results. The answer was again “no”. There was a supplementary question in which the Minister was asked whether he did not think the time had arrived when some form of investigation should be conducted. The Minister’s reply to this question was that it was a debatable point.

I submit that the time has come to set into motion the machinery in regard to an investigation of the whole aspect of dagga. I believe that the present position cannot be allowed to continue. I think South Africa can offer the lead to the world in this respect. As far as I am aware other nations of the world have conducted no particular research into the various aspects of dagga, or marijuana, as it is called in some countries. I suggest that a full investigation should now be conducted into dagga itself, into its effects, into the extent of dagga intoxication in individuals, and in determining the effect of dagga on drivers involved in road accidents. I also believe it should include the question of its general use and the moral deterioration of teenage dagga-smokers. I should like to ask the hon. the Minister whether he has given serious consideration to the recommendations Nos. 184 to 198 of the report of the interdepartmental committee which was appointed to investigate the abuse of dagga, particularly in regard to the mental health, the physical welfare and the moral effects on the citizens of our Republic. I believe our Republic is particularly vulnerable as far as this dagga threat is concerned. Firstly, because dagga-smoking among the non-Whites has been an ancient custom in South Africa. I also believe that South Africa offers a most favourable climate for the cultivation of dagga and the nature of our terrain makes the growing of dagga a very easy operation and a difficult one to detect. I believe the need for an investigation is apparent because as far back as 1949 an inter-departmental committee was appointed to inquire into the traffic in dagga and its abuse as a habit-forming drug. The report was published in 1952 and was referred to by the Cape Coloured Commission of Inquiry dating as far back as 1957. That commission recommended that more active steps be taken to deal with the eradication, the sale and the consumption of this habit-forming drug, dagga.

There are several points arising from the committee’s report which I think are worthy of serious consideration. One is that the evidence throughout points to the Native as the largest grower and trafficker. Another very serious point which I believe particularly affects our young people is the fact that all evidence produced before the committee, was to the effect that the smoking of dagga combined with the drinking of strong liquor, or concoctions generally, induced a much stronger and more dangerous intoxication and that the effects were always harmful. As far as statistics were concerned, I want to say that statistics concerning the Bantu have been published, but I do not think that they are a true reflection of the position, in that in the rural areas of the country it would be difficult to establish the extent of dagga smoking and dagga trafficking, but in 1949, there were over 12,000 prosecutions, and in 1962, the figure had risen to 17,645 arrests. As far as the Coloureds are concerned, the position seems to have remained static. The figure of prosecutions and arrests has been round about the 3,000 mark per year in the period 1949 to 1962. The committee itself when it published its findings, was unable to give figures in regard to “White” contraventions of dagga legislation, but it was said in the report that the evidence indicated that the habit was largely confined at that stage to hoboes, criminals, prostitutes, youths and young men from poor homes. But the committee said, and that is the significant part, that the indications were there that boys from better-class homes were indulging in the secret smoking of dagga. But what do the recent figures show in respect of the White population, and particularly the youths of South Africa? In 1955, in the age group of Whites under 17 there was one conviction and in 1962, in the same age group, the number of convictions had risen to 31. Taking all the age groups, the under 17, the 17 to 21 and the over 21 age groups, they show that the number of convictions rose from 378 in 1955 to over 1,000 in 1962. If we consider that the increase from 1 to 31 in the age group of under 17 was indicated by the statistics, I believe that it is time that we should take notice of the trend. The number of arrests and convictions, I believe, is only half the picture. It is impossible for the police, for the welfare workers and others interested in this problem to arrive at an assessment of the extent to which it influences our young people. The hon. Minister admits that he has no separate figures concerning the cases of dagga treated in the various hospitals under his control, but if you ask the medical men who work in these mental hospitals, their answer is that the dagga patients are quite easy to identify. They have the distinguishing mark, they have it on their hands, and they have the tattoo mark on their cheek and it is this mark which indicates to the traffickers in dagga those who are purchasers and whose purchases can be treated as confidential. So the medical men in the hospitals know the difficulties. There have been recent indications that the judiciary in the land is concerned with this problem. I would like to refer briefly to the recent case of the Klerksdorp axe-killer, when the Judge commended a medical man at Potchefstroom for his expert knowledge of medicine when he gave evidence, and he went on to say in his summing up—

But the fact that dagga may influence the behaviour of people in the committing of crimes is something that we cannot disregard for any length of time for our own safety. Then only recently, this week, two persons were sentenced for filthy dagga dealings, and what did the magistrate say—

I wonder whether the Minister is going to take cognizance of this problem, or is he going to pass by on the other side of the road? [Time limit.]

When the House adjourned last evening I was explaining what I meant by uneducable mentally retarded children. Perhaps it is enough to say that they are those who are not classified as mentally deficient but who are neither sufficiently intelligent to attend the provincial administration’s schools for special education.

I have never been able to understand why this type of child should fall under the care of the Department of Health. Had it been a case where the intelligence of such children could be improved by medical treatment or psychological treatment, I would have understood it but science has not yet advanced as far as that and will probably never advance to that stage. All you can do is to increase the extent to which the child can use his intelligence by means of suitable training and that is the task of a Department of Education. In the few minutes at my disposal I just want to say what I think should be done in the circumstances: The State itself should undertake the care of these children and the Department of Education, Arts and Science should also be brought in. A considerable number of these retarded children can perform useful work, something which is essential for their own happiness; there are numbers whose brains have been injured and numbers of cerebral palsied children who need that after-care which their parents cannot give them. The institutions must have proper accommodation facilities and they should be erected on the platteland away from the bustle of city life. Experience has shown that these children can best be handled and disciplined when they are kept separate. The institutions must be fitted out as after-care institutions so that they can give a permanent home to all those who cannot adapt themselves to ordinary life. Moreover those institutions must also provide sheltered employment. It is a fact that even cerebral palsied children who have had years of training cannot adapt themselves to the ordinary sheltered employment offered in factories. We shall therefore have to see to it that opportunities are created for these children to do productive work. Last but not least we must see to it that the trained personnel is available and that a scientific programme is drawn up. Because research has so far yielded nothing in this field it is essential that the work be arranged properly. Such an undertaking will cost money and if our estimate is correct it will even cost a lot of money, but a prosperous country like South Africa dare not say it cannot afford it. Not only is it in the interests of the unfortunate children but it is also in the interests of the families from whom they are taken away. We need not argue about the effect the presence of such children have on the family. There can be no question of that family living a normal life. When you visit such a house you find that a sombre atmosphere prevails there; the exuberance of life is lacking. The detrimental effect on otherwise normal children in such a family is incalculable. Many of those children enter life as problem people for the simple reason that they did not get the social training which would have enabled them to adapt themselves to ordinary life.

I know this matter is near to the heart of the hon. the Minister and I trust he will soon have an opportunity of doing something in this direction.

Perhaps I should deal with the points which were raised here to-day. The hon. member for Durban (Berea) (Mr. Wood) raised the subject of dagga-smoking. I want to tell him that I feel the same way that he does and that I am grateful that he shows so much interest in the problem. It is certainly a social problem to which we dare not close our eyes. The State would like to eradicate this evil in South Africa. The fact that I had to reply to the hon. member’s questions in the past in the way I did was due to the fact that we are dealing here with a medical department. Unfortunately my Department is not able to eradicate that social evil. I can give the hon. member the assurance that had it been within our power to try to eradicate this evil of dagga, we would have tried to do so. Therefore, as far as its medical aspect is concerned, I do not think an inquiry is necessary. If the hon. member can advance other reasons in regard to the medical aspect and suggest what can be done, I will consider it. I think, however, the hon. member should really direct himself to one of the other Departments.

The hon. member for Prieska mentioned a matter in regard to which all of us in this House are sympathetic. Every person who comes into contact with that sort of person, and particularly the families of the sort of person to whom the hon. member referred, must surely have the greatest sympathy, and the hon. member may be sure that this Department and I myself will do what we can to assist such families and those unfortunate people with low intelligence. What we have to do with them at the moment is, of course, something which the Department is continually doing. In this regard I want to tell the hon. members for Prieska and Bloemfontein (East) (Mr. van Rensburg) and Kimberley (South) (Dr. W. L. D. M. Venter) that they have delivered very sound pleas in this regard. They said that the time had arrived for the State to institute a comprehensive investigation in order to determine how the various services for the mentally retarded in South Africa could be co-ordinated and improved, and how provision could be made to relieve the burdens at present resting on the parents. I can tell those hon. members that we already took the first steps some time ago. We instructed our Department to initiate such an investigation. This problem at the same time also affects other Departments and other bodies, and all of them are being consulted at the moment in regard to the constitution of an investigating body. I hope that when this House meets again we shall perhaps have better news for those hon. members, and that a picture will already have been obtained of what the State should do in this regard.

Perhaps I should just point out to hon. members that in fact we started a few years ago to make provision for the children referred to. One of the first steps was to convert Westlake Hospital, which then was still a tuberculosis hospital, into an institution for mentally retarded people. At the moment there are already 180 mentally retarded Coloured children in this institution, and we are busy rebuilding the hospital and expanding it, and when it is finished we think that we will be able to accommodate approximately 600 Coloureds in it. Hon. members will also remember that last year we were almost on the point of taking over the Tempe Institution at Bloemfontein for conversion into a large institution for White mental defectives. The preliminary arrangements with the municipality have already been made. When we reached that stage it unfortunately happened that Tempe became necessary for much more important military purposes, and as the result of that our plans were unfortunately wrecked. Hon. members may, however, be assured that as soon as the findings of the envisaged inquiry are submitted, the Department will not delay in giving attention to that matter.

The hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher) yesterday opened the debate in regard to the health aspects by making the allegation that tuberculosis in South Africa was fast increasing and that the additional cases we trace every year prove that tuberculosis is spreading increasingly. It is difficult to convince the hon. member that that is not so. I can merely tell him that that is not the opinion of the Department. Where increasingly more cases are discovered, the Department can only ascribe it to the fact that the methods of tracing it to-day are much better. The tracing to-day is much more effective and comprehensive than in the past. Taking everything into consideration, we can only come to the conclusion that tuberculosis is not increasing; I think we can even say that we are gradually overcoming it, but not at a very fast tempo. I shall come in a moment to the reasons as to why we cannot quickly overcome it with the present methods. I want to state, however, that it is our conviction that tuberculosis is not increasing, but that we are simply tracing many more cases. In recent times we have been using increasingly more X-ray units. In South Africa there are 343 places where X-ray photos of suspected cases of tuberculosis are taken. They are at departmental hospitals, provincial hospitals, the hospitals of local authorities, mission hospitals, mine hospitals, S.A.N.T.A. centres and also private doctors—everywhere in the country arrangements have been made for the tracing of tuberculosis sufferers. But our method of tracing it is not as good as some people would like. It has repeatedly been suggested that everybody in South Africa, without exception, should be X-rayed to ascertain whether he has tuberculosis. However, that would not have the desired result. It is no use examining a man to-day, when he can contract tuberculosis in a month or in six months’ time. If that is the principle, he should be examined regularly, every six months or every year, and the cost of those plates is 20c each. Therefore hon. members can calculate for themselves what considerable costs would be involved, apart from the enormous number of people who would be required to do it. Therefore the Department applies the method that all the contacts of tuberculotics should in the first place be traced, and through doing that our results have improved considerably and we have much more chance of success than we would have if we tried to examine every member of the public. The effect of this efficient method of continually tracing suspects is that we are succeeding in discovering so many new cases.

In the combating of tuberculosis, however, we have problems. We have the problem that we are dealing with a tremendous population, some of whom are backward, and some very primitive—people who are not aware of our standards, people who do not apply our methods of hygiene, who do not realize how the disease is transmitted from one person to another, and it is practically impossible to educate everybody and to ensure that they do not spread the disease from person to person and from family to family. Then we are still faced with the further problem, which is quite understandable in the case of primitive people. We have experienced in our hospitals that a person must be treated for from three to six months. When he has been treated in hospital for three to six months, one can usually succeed in curing him. But thereafter the patient must receive out-patient treatment for a year or two, where he regularly gets his pills in order to immunize him against a new infection. But now we find this unfortunate position in South Africa with our primitive populations, that as soon as many of them who are in hospital begin feeling well they simply desert the hospital. The result is then that not only does the disease spread to more people, but the tragedy is that the disease begins to show a resistance to the remedies available to us to-day. That person then becomes a chronic suffererer and becomes a double danger to the community, because now there is practically nothing that can be done for him. That is our great problem. That is why I appreciate the attitude adopted by the hon. member for Odendaalsrus (Dr. Meyer) in asking whether the time has not arrived for us to apply a measure of compulsion in getting these people to submit to treatment. There is much to be said in favour of it when one is dealing with this type of case, but now one has another complication. The moment one says that people will be compelled to stay in hospital for months, they will hide and conceal their disease and infect more people.

Can the Minister tell us how many people desert from the hospitals?

I do not have the figures here now, but it is a fairly large number. Certain municipalities in the country came to see me and said that this desertion had assumed such proportions that they implored the Government to make the treatment compulsory. But I now want to pass on to the next problem.

It is that we should allow the persons who do not have tuberculosis to develop a resistance so that they will not become the victims of tuberculosis. That is the ideal. The ideal in the combating of tuberculosis is to find a vaccine with which to inoculate the healthy persons in South Africa so that they will not develop tuberculosis. If we can do that, it will just be a matter of time before tuberculosis in South Africa is wiped out. But now there is not a 100 per cent effective vaccine. Until a year or two ago we used the old B.C.G. vaccine, which was most ineffective. It could give a certain measure of immunity, estimated at 60 per cent, but it had the disadvantage that if one inoculated someone with it and he reacted positively to tuberculosis, he developed a serious attack. And that is so unpleasant that it is necessary first to test every person before inoculating him. This test takes quite a few days. Now hon. members will understand what our experience was, particularly with the Bantu. One tests a Bantu today. He must come back in five days’ time to be inoculated, but he simply does not turn up. Our experience has been that no more than 50 per cent of these Bantu ever turn up again. Therefore in connection with the old B.C.G. we were faced with many difficulties. But in the last year this B.C.G. was much improved. The new B.C.G. was tested out by Dr. Dormehl on a large scale and it was found that one could inoculate people with it without having a preliminary test Therefore we now have a vaccine which can be used very easily. But it is not yet 100 per cent effective; it is only 60 per cent effective, and it is still subject to the fact that in the event of a person being very malnourished he is again exposed to tuberculosis infection. In any case we have now decided to use B.C.G. on a larger scale. Last year, as an experiment, we applied it to the Bantu population of Johannesburg, in the south-western districts of Johannesburg. The City Council of Johannesburg sent teams into these Bantu areas. They combed every house and vaccinated all the susceptible cases, particularly the young people, with B.C.G. Last year the city council vaccinated 162,000 Bantu and discovered that of the Bantu under 20 years of age 14 per cent reacted positively, a comparatively high percentage. Unfortunately the Peri-Urban Areas Board was not able to do anything in this regard last year, but it has undertaken to do its share this year. When this has been completed, hon. members may be assured that the Department will take the matter further. This year already we decided to inoculate all new-born babies and children and all those who have been in contact with sufferers, and all children in orphanages and institutions, with the new B.C.G., and also all persons who run the risk of contracting tuberculosis, such as nurses and medical students and all Defence Force recruits and all workers in the mines and in industry and in the compounds. We estimated that for this we would need approximately 3,500,000 doses, but now there is a new difficulty, namely that there is a great demand for the new B.C.G. all over the world and that this year, or rather for the financial year 1963-4, we shall be able to obtain only 500,000 doses. Therefore we could not get as much as we really required. But I expect that in the coming year we will be able to obtain more doses. At the same time we are active in the Native areas. Where there are large concentrations of Bantu, as in the Transkei and the Ciskei, we have teams which continually, once a week, examine these people and trace all contacts in order to inoculate all persons who show signs of tuberculosis, and in that way to try to eradicate it as soon as possible. The work I saw being done there is really wonderful, and evidences the greatest altruism and unselfishness.

The hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher) pointed to another problem, the shortage of medical men, as he called it. Now, whether there is a shortage or not depends on the standard one accepts. It depends on whether the standard one accepts for South Africa is that of, say, Cape Town, or that of Ethiopia, or England. If one takes into consideration that the ratio of medical men to the population varies tremendously in the countries of the world, one asks oneself what standard one should accept. In Holland and England and Australia the standard to-day is one medical man to every 1,100 of the population. In Ghana it is one to every 25,000, and I think in Ethiopia it is one to every 180,000. In South Africa it is one to every 1,800. Therefore in South Africa the ratio is not very far from that of England and Holland. But the question is whether the British and the Netherlands standard is correct, or whether our standard is more correct. One should remember that in Britain and Holland they have homogeneous, civilized populations, but here the same White doctor looks after the Whites and also the Bantu, the Asiatics and the Coloureds; they are all his patients. Now one asks oneself what the right ratio is. Because among the Bantu particularly one finds the peculiarity that they do not always believe in the White doctor. They do not always believe in our medicine. Many Bantu still believe in their own primitive witchdoctors or herbalists. In South Africa to-day there are numerous such doctors who are registered because the Bantu prefer them to the White doctors. Is it now correct to expect us to have a doctor for every 1,100 Bantu, when many of those Bantu do not want that doctor? We cannot apply the same standard which is supplied in Europe, and that is realized to-day in the medical world. Therefore it is interesting that the Medical Association found some time ago that there is no over-all shortage of medical men. The Medical Association, in other words, found that in South Africa, according to their standards, there is no shortage of medical men. They say there may be a shortage in certain areas, but not in South Africa taken as a whole. Professor Snyman, the Vice-President of the Medical Council, and a man who is au fait with all these matters, holds a different opinion. He thinks a shortage does exist, and his estimate is that by the year 1965 there will be a shortage of 2,000. I do not want to judge as to who is correct. I just want to say: Let us assume that provision has to be made for more doctors in South Africa. Then the question is how we are going to increase their numbers. We can only do it by immigration, which we have already seen is not a very effective measure, or by training our own youth as medical men. The present production of our universities is about 308 doctors per annum. After investigation, it appeared to be reasonably easy for all our universities to increase their output of doctors by between 180 and 250 a year. Hon. members will also have noted in the Press that certain universities have declared themselves to be prepared to train even more doctors. Because the problem in South Africa is not that there is a shortage of students who want to become doctors, but the facilities for training are limited. Therefore, even though we agree with the statement of the hon. member for Rosettenville that there is a shortage of doctors, it seems as if we are already fairly near to the solution, viz. the additional output of between 180 and 250 new doctors a year. It cannot be done in one year, but in the course of four or five years.

The hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford) referred to the medical auxiliary services and for the necessity of registering those services. At the same time he reproached the Department by saying that some time ago a certain Bill was submitted to the Minister and that nothing had been done about it. If I understand the hon. member correctly, I think he probably referred to the Supplementary Health Services Bill which was introduced in this House about ten years ago, long before my time; and ten years ago this House referred it to a select committee. They then found that the various interests of all the various professions could not be covered by one Bill and therefore they decided not to continue with it. In other words, a select committee of this House decided not to continue with it. If my information is correct, the Medical Council is at present reconsidering the whole matter, and I want to assure the hon. member that when the Medical Council has considered it and they submit proposals to me or to the Government, I will treat it with the greatest sympathy.

The hon. member for Durban (Central) also referred to the salaries of nurses. He alleged that nothing had been done for nurses for years. I think he unfortunately stated his case too strongly. If he had said that what was done for nurses was not what we would have liked, I would have agreed with him, but when he says that nothing was done he is exaggerating, because in 1954 and in 1958 and in 1963, in each one of those years, the nurses’ salaries were in fact increased, in fact not as much as the hon. member or all of us desired, but still it was increased. Of course, in regard to the nurses, we have to face the fact that they form part of the servants of the State, and it is not possible for any government to single out any particular group from that large mass of State employees and to improve their positions without considering the positions of the others. The salaries of nurses must always be regarded from the point of view of those of other officials. As the hon. member knows, their salaries were considered for a considerable time by the co-ordinating council, that body which consists of representatives of the Central Government and the provinces, which analyses and considers all such matters. Recently this Council made certain recommendations. Those recommendations were accepted by the provinces, but are still under consideration by the Public Service Commission, and what will happen I cannot say at the moment. But I hope that something can be done also to improve the salaries of the nurses in our service.

The hon. members for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) and Durban (Central) attacked me because some time ago the salaries of certain nurses, the private nurses, were fixed at a certain maximum. But the hon. members have forgotten what the position of the Minister is in regard to this determination. The Minister does not determine what the salaries of nurses should be. The bodies which guard over the salaries and interests of nurses are the Nursing Council and the Nursing Association. The Nursing Council proposed those limits to the Minister after consultation with the Nursing Association.

But surely you do not accept every stupid proposal?

Surely the Minister does not blindly accept all recommendations?

Yes, it may be correct that I have a discretion, but in view of the fact that these two bodies proposed it in the first place, the Minister had to give it serious consideration. When eventually certain objections were raised, the Minister again drew the attention of those bodies to it, and they then decided to repeal those regulations.

The hon. member for Houghton made a very wild statement, which I do not think is to the credit of the nursing profession. She said that when the salaries of private nurses were fixed, 300 of them resigned and left the profession. That is not in line with my knowledge of the nursing profession. As I know them, nurses have a very splendid profession and they are not mercenary at all. They are not people who will simply abandon that splendid profession just for the sake of money. They would at least first have waited until they had approached the Government to remedy any injustice towards them. But the hon. member’s allegation that the nurses immediately abandoned the profession and sought other work where they would earn more is a terrible allegation against the profession.

The hon. member for Durban (Central) mentioned another problem. He objects to the fact that the members of the nursing profession are compelled to become members of the Nursing Association. Here the hon. member touched on a point which affects the whole of the labour world. Everywhere in the labour world we find that where there are groups of persons who do the same work they belong to associations which practically have a monopoly; it is the closed shop principle. No member may practise that profession unless he is a member of that association. It is in fact a very sound principle, because such an association is there to promote the interests of its members by, inter alia, improving the conditions of work, salaries and pensions. When an increase in salary is obtained for the nurses, it is not only obtained for the members of the association, but for all nurses. It is accepted right throughout the labour world as unfair that members should receive the benefit of the work of these associations if they do not participate in the activities of those associations and do not help to bear the costs. It is very difficult to accept the standpoint of the hon. member.

What about the reregistration fees?

There I can agree with the hon. member. That a person ceases to be a member and thereafter has to pay R8 in order to rejoin is something to which I have objected for a long time already. We have already taken steps to see whether the Association will not change it, and I have every hope that eventually they will agree to do so.

Is that not a regulation which the Minister can remedy?

Yes, but no Minister wants to enforce the rules. I prefer to have their co-operation.

Tell that to the Minister of Justice.

Does the hon. member for Houghton mean that there is co-operation between her and the Minister of Justice? [Laughter.] The hon. member raised another interesting point for which there is much to be said. I undertake to consider all the points she raised and I will refer them to the Nursing Council and the Nursing Association before I make any decisions. There is, however, one point on which I cannot agree with her. The hon. member for Houghton, as one could expect from her, said that it was wrong to pay the White doctor in South Africa more than the Bantu doctor There I do not agree with her. I think it is ethically correct, and to pay them both the same would be unethical. I shall explain why. The Bantu doctor is a person who should serve his own people. He should derive his income from the Bantu population. Surely it would be unfair for any doctor treating the Bantu to tell them that they must pay him as much as he gets from his White patients. One also finds that the White doctors who treat the Bantu do not charge them the same fees that they charge the Whites, but much less. It would be very unjust for any Bantu doctor to tell his patients: I am Black and you are Black, and you must pay me just as much as the White people pay their White doctor. He cannot expect that. It would be quite immoral. He is part of the community and has to live with them, and he gets part of their earnings. Now the hon. member says: Yes, that is right, but in the hospitals the State must pay the Black doctor who treats Black patients just as much as it pays the White doctor who treats White patients. But the moment one does that, it means that all the Bantu doctors who have an obligation to their own people will be attracted away from their own people and will go to the hospitals, because there they will earn more. The result will be just the opposite of what the hon. member for Rosettenville pleaded for, namely that there should be more doctors for the Bantu. The standpoint we have consistently adopted in this country, viz. that there should be a difference between the salaries of the White and the Bantu doctors, is absolutely sound and moral.

The Whips are at my heels and I shall have to hurry. The hon. member for Durban (Central) was in great form yesterday, because he also dared to do something else. He dared to attack our mental institutions, and he said that some of them were antiquated even before they were built. But I have never heard of a medical service being attacked because the building was perhaps 50 years old; I always thought that one should attack the medical service itself. Just let me remind the hon. member of the actual facts. If the hon. member has regard to the results achieved in these mental hospitals, to the number of those discharged in relation to the number of patients admitted, it will give him a very clear picture of the efficiency of such an institution, because if you admit ten patients and discharge ten, it means that you have effected a 100 per cent cure. In 1960 our discharge figure was 75 per cent, in 1961 it was 82 per cent, and in 1962 it was 78 per cent. In other words, of every 100 patients who entered the hospitals, 78 left. I forget for the moment what the figures are in America, but our hospitals here compare very favourably with the mental institutions in America. That is the first test of how very successful our hospitals are and how excellent the services there are. But if the hon. member is not satisfied with the results, let me tell him what the opinions are of people who investigated our hospitals. A number of years ago a Professor Rimke from Utrecht, Holland, a famous psychiatrist, visited the country. When he left here he wrote a report in regard to our hospitals and said the following—

But we need not only take what was said a few years ago. We can take what was said recently, this year, when a certain professor, the president of the World Federation for Mental Hygiene came to South Africa. He, inter alia, went to Stikland and I just want to read what he said—

I think that as an intelligent medical man the hon. member will agree with me that he said the wrong thing yesterday. I do not think he really intended making such a strenuous attack on our institutions. I think he will agree with me that our institutions are really good ones.

May I ask the hon. the Minister whether he realizes that the number of patients in mental hospitals, in spite of what he has said, has not been reduced, but is steadily increasing?

I have already said that 87 out of every 100 who enter the hospitals are cured. There are always approximately 13 out of every 100 who are incurable, and therefore from the very nature of the matter the number increases. I admit that, but that is no proof that the treatment and the results obtained in these institutions are not excellent. I really think that this redounds to the credit of the heads and staff of all our institutions, and I want to express my appreciation to those people who do so much wonderful work with so much self-sacrifice.

The hon. member for Durban (Central) attacked us on another point. He said that we were neglecting the mental patients, because according to him the hospitals were overcrowded; there was not enough space. But I want to ask the hon. member: What is overcrowding; when is an institution overcrowded? When is a ward overcrowded? It all depends on one’s standard. In so far as the Bantu are concerned, we know that while we as Whites think that three or four persons should not sleep in one room, 20 Bantu will sleep in one room and perhaps still not think that there are too many of them. We know it is their habit to do so. In other words, what is overcrowding in respect of the Whites is not necessarily overcrowding in respect of the Bantu. The O. & M. Section of the Department indicated some time ago what it regarded as overcrowding. It estimated that there should be so many square feet per person—I forget what it was—and according to that yardstick it is to-day being alleged that our mental institutions are overcrowded. But that is in terms of an arbitrary standard. Before that standard was laid down, there was never any talk of overcrowding, and nobody thought that our hospitals were overcrowded. But in spite of that we always try to arrange these hospitals according to White standards. We are continually expanding hospitals and building new ones. May I just remind hon. members that just recently we built the institution at Stikland in the Cape, which immediately provided accommodation for an additional 1,500 patients. Last year we opened the non-White sanatorium at Randfontein, which accommodates 700 patients. We started an Indian hospital at Springfield, near Durban, with 200 beds. On 1 April this year we again opened a new institution at Randfontein to accommodate 1,050 patients, and at the moment we are planning two new big hospitals in the Bantu areas. The one will probably be built near King William’s Town and the other at Mafeking. We are still negotiating in regard to the land. Each of them will accommodate at least 1,500 patients. In other words, when these hospitals are completed, which we hope will be within a year, there will be additional accommodation for another 3,000. Therefore we are systematically busy increasing the accommodation. We provide this accommodation not according to Bantu standars, but according to the best White standards.

I said a moment ago that I should like to reply to the other points raised by hon. members, but I know that the Committee is in a hurry to pass on to the next Vote.

I appreciate that the Committee is anxious to get on to another Vote but there is one matter I must raise with the hon. the Minister. The question of malnutrition, kwashiorkor in particular, has not been touched on in this debate, and the hon. the Minister knows that I am particularly interested in this disease and in the question of nutrition. I am glad to see that the hon. the Minister has raised the amount that he intends to vote this year for the combating of nutritional diseases by means of subsidy payable to local authorities, to R65,000. I am very pleased about that; it is a step in the right direction. I just want to say that this, of course, is just touching the surface of the problem and I hope that the hon. the Minister will bear this in mind. Kwashiorkor was only made a notifiable disease in the last quarter of 1962 and, as the hon. the Minister knows from the figures which he gave me, over 15,000 cases of kwashiorkor were notified during 1963. Sir, this is just the top of the iceberg. If there is that number of notified cases of kwashiorkor, the hon. the Minister can be perfectly sure that a very much greater number has not been notified (a) because these patients in the sub-clinical stages are not brought to see doctors and (b) simply because the figures are not yet complete. I realize that this is an enormous problem that we have to solve. It is a question of getting the local authorities to co-operate in the matter of using this subsidy. I know that not all the local authorities have made use of the ministerial allowance. The other point is that I would like the hon. the Minister to consider, with his Department, ways and means of combating this disease without needing the co-operation of the local authorities. A simple method is to use skim milk powder in maize; in other words, every pound of maize which is bought and used by the African population should be fortified with high-protein skim milk. In this way we could blot out this disease almost overnight because the protein contents of skim milk is enough to offset any of the dangers of malnutrition. I know that the argument will be used by the hon. the Minister that if he does this the milk is used not only by children who get kwashiorkor but also by adults who do not get kwashiorkor, but I want to point out to him that adult Africans also suffer from nutritional diseases, if not kwashiorkor then pellagra and many other nutritional diseases, which can be offset by a higher protein intake. I would like the hon. the Minister to give his careful attention to a much easier way of combating nutritional diseases, not only kwashiorkor but adult nutritional diseases, by the use of skim milk powder in meal.

I just want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he is prepared to reply …

Order! I want to point out that we are in Committee of Supply. Hon. members may make speeches but they cannot carry on asking questions.

Vote put and agreed to.

On Vote No. 26,—“Agricultural Technical Services (Administration and National Services)”, R11,000,000,

I want to point out that under the item “Minister’s Salary”, hon. members may also discuss Vote No. 27 “Agricultural Technical Services (Regional Services and Education)”, R10,700,000.

May I claim the privilege of the half-hour? History has taught us that civilizations that have neglected the fertility of their soil went under. It is of the utmost importance that the fertility of the soil should be preserved and that soil erosion should be combated as far as possible in order to secure one’s continued existence. There are certain things which are endangering our continued existence in this country. This year we have spent gigantic sums of money on defence, more than R200,000,000, because there is the possibility of a threat from overseas, but our continued existence is also being endangered by soil erosion and because we are losing the fertility of our soil. The first-mentioned is a possibility but the last-mentioned is a reality, our continued existence really is being menaced by soil erosion and the neglect of the fertility of our soil. We are combating soil erosion at the present time; our officials are doing splendid work; they are doing their best in connection with the matter, and they are certainly making progress in regard to combating soil erosion, but as one of the periodicals expressed it the other day: “It is the pace of the tortoise.” It is being done much too slowly to meet the danger threatening us. Ten to 12 years ago Dr. Ross said that we had already lost 25 per cent of our production potential completely, and that we can never recover it again. I believe that since then we have lost a further portion of our soil, and that the total loss we shall never be able to reclaim is more than 25 per cent now.

But that happened under the United Party régime.

Very few people really appreciate the extent of this danger threatening our country. In this regard I am thinking firstly of the city dwellers. The vast majority of city dwellers do not appreciate the threat constituted to our country by soil erosion. There are farmers even who do not realize fully the danger facing us. Last year’s departmental report says this, among other things—

There are many of our farmers who exert themselves to combat soil erosion and who are aware of the dangers, but there are many farmers at the present time who are not aware of this danger threatening us. At the present rate at which we are applying soil conservation, the plans we made 18 years ago will not be completed before the year 2020, according to a committee which reported recently. Mention is made in the report to the fact that we have 152,000 farms of which only 26,000 had been provided with plans in 1962. Since then that figure has been pushed up; I think it is 29,000 now. Only 29,000 of our 152,000 farms have been supplied with plans to date. Of course many of these plans have not been carried out as yet, and I believe that here and there there are some fanners who are neglecting their duty to carry out those plans. Then we find that 63,000 applicants applied for and are still waiting for planning; 63,000 have not applied to date; they have done nothing at all. These are the fanners, or at least a large section of those who have not yet become aware of the importance of soil erosion in our country. I honestly believe that the rate of soil erosion is still increasing; that we have not as yet reached the stage where we can say that our losses are no longer increasing and that we have now stopped the rot. Mr. Chairman, I recently read a very important statement in a newspaper by Mr. van der Merwe, the director of Soil Erosion. It reads as follows—

I do not want to read the whole report. It merely shows that there are large areas where the danger is great, and where the rate of soil erosion in my view is still increasing, and that we have not yet reached the stage where we can say that we have stopped the retrogression and that we can now start doing reclamation work. Of course our country is subject to droughts which aggravate this problem, for droughts denude the earth; the grass or other cover is removed and when rain falls on it the erosion is so much more rapid. We have a country with an uncertain rainfall, a country where in many parts we get too little rain, with the result that we do not have the best agricultural land in the world. So we have to do everything in our power to see to it that we keep what we have and that we should recover as much as possible of the land we are losing. Of course there are great areas which we cannot reclaim. I have said already that I believe that the rate of loss is still continuing to an increasing extent. Recently, when the experimental farm at Kleurfontein at Carnarvon was opened, one of the senior officials gave a lecture there, and there he also told us that the infiltration of the desert from the west was still continuing and that desert grasses were now being found as far as Middelburg even. Dr. Ross told us that our soil losses amounted to 300,000,000 tons per annum. The hon. member for Kimberley (North) (Mr. H. T. van G. Bekker) challenged me here to prove that this is so in fact; he says this was the position more than eight years ago. In other words, he makes the point that the losses eight years ago stood at 300,000,000 tons, but that in the meantime the position has improved. Well, I cannot prove that Dr. Ross made that statement less than eight or ten years ago; it may well have been eight or ten years ago, but I should like to quote what he said this year—

But surely you are not showing that I was wrong.

The hon. member made the point that the losses ten years ago amounted to 300,000,000 tons, and that now it is no longer so much, and I am refuting that statement. In any case, the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. Heystek) mentioned a figure here last year; he said the loss now amounts to 400,000,000 tons, and Mr. van der Merwe also said that our losses amount to 400,000,000 tons. I shall concede readily that these figures of course are mere estimates, and it is possible that 300,000,000 tons was a little too low and 400,000,000 tons was a little too high. But what I do accept is what the experts also accept, namely that we have not yet reached the stage where we have stopped the retrogression; the losses are still increasing. I gain the impression that hon. members opposite refuse to admit the dangers actually threatening us. The hon. member for Kimberley (North) expressly created the impression that the position is not as bad as we are suggesting.

I said a tremendous amount has been done to improve the position.

I myself said here that much good work has been done, and that progress has been made, but in spite of that I believe, as the experts do, that we have not yet reached the stage where we have stopped the rot. In other words, our losses at present are greater than ten or 12 years ago. That is the point I wish to make. The hon. member for Kimberley (North) created the impression last year that we have reached the stage where the losses are less than formerly. It is of the utmost importance that we should save all we can save, because our population is continually increasing. I should like to read what the Secretary of the Department says in this year’s report—

I should like to make the point here, that we are still suffering staggering losses. I attribute the fact that we have made such slow progress to the fact that we do not have sufficient officers to do the work for us, and I blame the Government for that.

Who says we have enough?

I accept that the hon. member knows that we have an insufficient number of officials, but then it is his duty to see to it that we get more officials to tackle this task, which is of the utmost importance for our continued existence.

Can you produce them?

Put this side of the House in power, and we shall indeed get them. If the United Party had governed after the war, there would have been 1,000,000 more White people in this country to-day; there would not have been a shortage of technicians; we would then have had the requisite number of trained men for it. Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Minister said, last year, that if he could double the number of scientists in our country, they could hardly do the work that has to be done. In other words, according to him we ought to have twice the number of technical officers we have to-day. As regards extension officers, surely there is the biggest shortage, for the necessary information is not being conveyed to the farmer. I know many different methods are being employed to convey this knowledge to the farmer; I know the radio is being employed, and that films are exhibited, but it is not sufficiently effective. The fact of the matter is that the knowledge which ought to be imparted to the farmers, is not conveyed to them, and that the work which should be done is not being done. Sixty-three thousand farmers have not yet even applied to have their farms planned; they do not know how important it is that this work should be done. Sir, the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs recently visited Calvinia. He was approached by the farmers’ association there. The farmers’ association was dissatisfied because the Department of Agricultural Technical Services refuses to grant them concessions and rebates unless their farms are planned. The report is to the effect that there are 70 farmers in the district waiting for planning. The Minister on that occasion said there was shortage of trained people to do the planning. In the meantime the farms are retrogressing and our soil is being neglected to an increasing extent.

90 per cent have already been planned.

The hon. member refers to the 90 per cent which have already been planned. If he makes inquiries he will find that only 29,000 farms out of 152,000 have been planned. That is not 90 per cent by far. The hon. member probably is thinking of districts which have been declared as soil conservation districts; that is quite correct. [Interjection.]

Order! The hon. member for Bloemfontein (District) will have an opportunity to make his own speech.

Mr. Chairman, the report of the Veld Trust is of the greatest importance. They say this—

There is a lack of application of scientific methods because we do not have the extension officers required to convey information on it. No knowledge of new inventions is being conveyed. As I have said already, there is a waiting list of 63,000 applicants who simply cannot have their farms planned because the requisite officers are not available. Sir, it is a tragedy to me that the bonus and subsidies paid in respect of soil erosion works has this year been reduced by R350,000 under this Vote. In the Loan Estimates there is a decrease of R250,000; that is exactly 25 per cent of the previous year’s figure. The salaries of the officers dealing with soil conservation amounts to about R1,000,000. Subsidies and loans to farmers over the last 17 years amount to R19,000,000, and other loans R31,000,000 in other words, an average of about R4,000,000 per annum is being spent on soil conservation, whereas we are spending more than R200,000,000 on defence.

Do you object to that?

If the hon. member will wake up he will know that we said this year that we are quite in agreement on that. But I say this danger is as great as the other one. If we can afford to spend R210,000,000 on defence, then we can afford to spend more than R4,000,000 on this.

The hon. member for Christiana asked last year where we have to get the people. If we were to pay bigger salaries we would be drawing them from the private sector and then we would push up the salaries private enterprise would have to pay; you will be robbing the private sector of important people. If this Government could train the young farmers’ sons whom they are driving off the farms…[Interjections.] I refer to the 28,000 who have already left the farms; I refer to the 2,400 who, according to the Deputy Minister will have to leave the farms annually.

May I ask the hon. member a question?

I have ruled that I shall not permit hon. members to ask questions in Committee of Supply. They can themselves participate in the debate.

The fact remains that under the policy of this Government thousands of farmers have to leave the farms and move to the cities. The Government can at least train those young men to do this work. Let us train the White people who are at the present time doing semi-skilled work at a low wage, at a youthful age, to do the technical work for us. The hon. the Prime Minister said last year that the training of technicians was being neglected. The Prime Minister said this Government had neglected it. Much more must be done to train those people to do the necessary work. The people are available, but the Government was negligent and did not see to it that they were trained. So I say this Government can be blamed for not having done its duty to the country. The Government is guilty of not having done its duty in regard to soil conservation. Much more can be done. Many people do not realize the seriousness of the position prevailing in this country.

Now I should like to deal briefly with another subject, namely the locust plague we have just had again. Last year, when we were discussing this matter also, the hon. the Minister told us, as did the hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Stander), that the plague was completely under control. I think they meant the Government is under the control of the locusts for during last summer the plague was four or fives times worse than in the past. They said it was under control. In other words, we had to accept that the campaign had been successful and that we would not have a locust plague during the past summer.

Those are the little locusts of your time that have just been hatched.

Possibly, Mr. Chairman. The Government tackled the work of combating the plague in an inefficient manner. I have been informed that during the last plague, e.g. an aeroplane sprayed a swarm of locusts. Just before that a lorry also sprayed a swarm. Subsequently a second aeroplane came along and for the third time again sprayed the swarm to death.

Those are fairy tales.

I shall tell you another story, and this is not the kind of fairy tale we heard last year when I referred to 100,000 morgen under one man and hon. members said it was not true. That was the actual truth. One man cannot control 100,000 morgen. You have the position that a camp is situated at a certain spot. The lorries go out in the morning and spray a swarm 40 or 50 miles away, and in the evening the lorry returns to the camp. The most effective time for spraying a locust is early in the morning and late at night. It is very difficult to spray a swarm during the day because they are then migrating. One cannot spray the fliers during daytime at all. I say the Government will never exterminate the locusts unless it has the closest co-operation of the farmers. It just cannot do it. The small swarms easily build up into big swarms. That is what happened last year. The Government will have to invoke the closest co-operation of the farmers. The farmers are only too willing to assist in spraying, but the Government refuses to supply them with spraying material; refuses to accept their assistance. The Government will not be able to manage on its own, because only the farmer on the farm is able to kill those smaller swarms, those small swarms which lay the eggs which are then hatched again. When the next outbreak occurs, it will be a tremendous one. Do not tell us that the plague is under control, because it is not. Last summer the swarms migrated deep into the Free State where they had not been for a long time. This Government cannot overcome the locust plague without the closest co-operation of the farmers.

I do not blame the hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Connan) if he really loves the soil, for being concerned, just as the Government is concerned, about the erosion that is taking place. But I do not think the hon. member is fair when he says the Government has not done everything in its power to stop soil erosion in South Africa. I agree that we have not yet reached the end of the story. I also agree with the hon. member that there is not enough personnel. The Department knows that as well as he does. There is a general manpower shortage in the whole country. You have that in the Department of Agriculture too.

The hon. member for Gardens has given the Minister advice on how to eradicate the locust plague. Now I should like to make an appeal, not only to the hon. member for Gardens, but to all hon. members of the Opposition: Come and help the Department of Agricultural Technical Services to solve our agricultural problems. It is your country as much as it is the country of the Government. The Department of Agricultural Technical Services—and nobody in this House will deny this—possesses a mass of knowledge it has gained by way of research, but it cannot convey that knowledge, on soil conservation, on general agricultural matters, to the farmers because there are not sufficient extension officers. Mr. Chairman, you yourself know that at the present time there is only one extension officer for every 450 to 500 farmers. That is not enough; I agree. Hon. members also know that the Department has done everything in its power in the past, and is still doing so, to convey this information to the farmers. The Department does this by means of radio talks, by means of “Boerdery in Suid-Afrika”, by means of multitudes of pamphlets which are sent to the farmers.

Now I wonder whether hon. members opposite have ever looked at this annual report; are they aware of the new plan of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services? This plan of the Department is to harness the farmer himself. The Department already has the plan suggested by the hon. member for Gardens. The object of the whole system is that the farmers in every district should establish a programme committee locally, and various committees must render services under that programme committee. There must be a planning committee under the Soil Conservation Act; there must be various programme committees for the various agricultural products. Hon. members may laugh, but I may just tell them that this system has been in operation for two years at Bethlehem, and I tell you, Mr. Chairman, this is the answer to our problems. We also have a shortage of extension officers at Bethlehem. We have such a programmee committee system in Bethlehem with which there is integrated the Central Farmers’ Association, the Soil Conservation Committees, the Department of Agriculture as well as the Agricultural Co-operative Society. They have established a broad programme committee consisting of men from the Department, farmers and representatives of the Co-operative Society. At the present time they are busy co-ordinating the mass of knowledge possessed by the practical active farmer and the mass of knowledge possessed by the Department of Agricultural Technical Services and transmitting that knowledge to every farmer who is a member of the Bethlehem Co-operative Society, that is to say, to more than 2,000 farmers. They have received information from all the members of that co-operative society, information such as how they work with maize, how they plough, how they fertilize, etc. They have tabulated all that information, and together with the knowledge of the Department, that programme committee is at the present time, after two years, able to give the farmers a properly compiled programme at the commencement of the wheat season in which they are told when they should plough their wheatlands, how deep they must plough, how they have to cultivate the soil to combat weeds before planting the wheat, what kinds of wheat they should sow, when they should sow, how much fertilizer should be administered, etc. My friends, I can assure you that that new system is catching on with the farmers. That system is helping the Bethlehem farmers to exploit the maximum production potential of that district. [Interjection.] No, it is not only Bethlehem. Had you read the report, you would have seen that there are 80 such programme committees throughout the country. But I think the Bethlehem committee is the only one which also integrates the Cooperative Society. The Co-operative does the administrative work; they also finance the whole thing by sending all the circulars to the farmers. They have also approached all the fertilizer agents to hold discussions with them. They have told the fertilizer agents: We are warning you; if you prescribe fertilizers for the farmers of this area, and you do not do so in co-operation with this programme committee, and if we discover that your directions for fertilizers to the farmers are wrong, we are going to boycott you as a group. The result is that at the present time the fertilizer agents are in close co-operation with the farmers of the whole area. The farmers are helping themselves with the assistance of the Department. It has been discovered that the fertilizer for winter wheat has been completely wrong and too expensive in the past. They have ascertained that phosphate only is required where in the past farmers had used expensive balanced mixtures. The consequence was that the farmers did not make the profit they should have made. I honestly believe that within five years that programme committee will establish an agricultural system in Bethlehem under which any farmer will be able to go to the Co-operative and ask: Does it pay me to plant beans in Bethlehem? The reply will be forthcoming: It is not an economic proposition. As a result of the self-help system established by the Bethlehem farmers, with the assistance of the Department, the district will produce to its maximum.

There is an economic committee too, and that committee tells the farmers that it does not pay to produce this or that kind of agricultural product. In other words, those farmers are going to concentrate upon those products that are remunerative to them. Who can blame them? The prices of agricultural products do not fall under the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services, but nobody can blame a farmer if he refuses to produce a product which is not remunerative. The result is that the farmers of Bethlehem will become financially selfsupporting and independent.

Now I should like to make this appeal to hon. members this afternoon. Study that system. It is really worth while. Drop your destructive criticism. Come forward with constructive criticism. If that system is adopted throughout the country, among the sheep farmers too, that system in which soil conservation is included also, we shall not feel the shortage of manpower in the Department of Agricultural Technical Services so much. We cannot get away from that fact; the manpower is not available. Therefore I should like to appeal to hon. members: Encourage the farmers to help themselves by applying this new system in every district in the country. If we do that, I think we shall build up a flourishing farming community in South Africa.

I was very interested to hear the admission from the hon. member for Bethlehem (Mr. Knobel) that there was a shortage of manpower and that that was one of the reasons why we could not make progress. Up to the present we could not get that admission from the hon. the Minister. It was only last year, when he was taxed with the same problem, that he denied that there was any manpower shortage, particularly as far as veterinary surgeons were concerned. But I shall deal with that matter a little later.

I want to follow upon what the hon. the member for Gardens (Mr. Connan) has said in connection with soil conservation. That is probably the most important agricultural legislation that has ever been placed on our Statute Book but I maintain that it has not been administered the way it should have been because of this manpower shortage. That is why I say it is extremely interesting to hear the hon. member for Bethlehem saying that it has been held up because of that shortage. Sir, 2,600 farmers are being taken off the land and I suggest to the hon. the Minister that he starts with some of those farms. Soil conservation is extremely important in this country. The reclamation and rehabilitation of our soil is going to mean much to the future of this country but I suggest to the Minister that he makes the necessary provision at the earliest possible date to meet the wants of this country. While we have extension officers stationed in individual districts they just have to sit in their offices; they can make no headway with the planning. Many thousands of farms have still to be planned and many thousands have to be planned for which no applications have been made.

I want to deal with this question of the shortage of veterinary surgeons. This is something which is very seriously affecting this country. Thousands of small and large stock have been lost in this country because of both internal and external parasites and unknown diseases. We have reached a stage where we realize that we have these parasites, but we have this serious position that when smears or specimens are sent in, the vets say they are from unknown causes. We have to overcome that and the way to overcome that is by research. I know the Minister will tell me that there are modem preparations but the Minister is failing to take advantage of the opportunities offered by these new preparations. The country is hoping for something to help it to overcome its difficulties. I want to tell the hon. the Minister that the use of some of these remedies is causing such a serious loss of life that they have to be abandoned. I can mention two that can be followed up. In the case of one, if there is any measure of senecio poisoning the loos is as much as 20 per cent. If we take it a stage further: If the same preparation is used without immunization against enterotoxaemia it produces a loss of nearly 25 per cent. Does the Minister now realize that his field research is failing. It is urgently necessary that that matter be attended to. The hon. the Minister does not seem to take these matters seriously. Is he quite satisfied that this state of affairs should continue? The hon. the Minister must realize that the previous Minister was able to deal with the position. Under the previous Minister one person was able to keep a whole district under control. What has gone wrong since then? Does the hon. Minister realize that today we are losing more stock in one year, from external and internal parasites plus unknown diseases than we have lost from east coast fever in 20 years. The Minister is prepared to do nothing about it, yet the matter is so simple; he could apply a remedy without having a single man in any particular district. But the Minister refuses to accept it. Sir, what can we do about it? It has become an extremely serious matter. The hon. the Minister can wipe out 80 per cent of the losses and thus improve the entire stock of this country. I want to ask the Minister why will he not accept this? Why does he not apply a system whereby he would bring this to a standstill? The Minister need not bother about the progressive farmer; he can look after himself. That is the one bugbear as far as the progressive farmer is concerned. It is not the progressive farmer who causes the difficulty but the farmer who refuses to dose, refuses to dip. I put this to the hon. the Minister: How soon will he get an invasion of one of these serious diseases again? The Bantustans have now been established and those Bantu refuse in any circumstances to use these new preparations against which there is no immunity at this stage. Everybody west of the Bantustans have to use the new preparations. The Minister knows full well that the ticks that convey east coast fever become immune as a result of arsenate of soda. What does the Minister propose to do about that? I shall leave it at that, Sir, because I see the Minister is becoming agitated. I can assure him that the sooner he overcomes that difficulty the sooner will he be doing a service to this country. At the same time I hope he will find the necessary manpower to deal with those matters which I have raised earlier.

There is one subject which is of great importance to us. We have the position that the farmers of this country are subsidizing the production of bags and woolpacks. We can only supply 2.6 per cent of the requirements. We are also faced with this position that over the last ten years alone we have had to subsidize the production of bags and woolpacks to the tune of some R16,000,000. Is the Minister satisfied that that state of affairs must continue?

That falls under the Minister of Economic Affairs.

I know it does; but you are the Minister of Technical Services and you are supposed to protect the farmers. Is the Minister going to sit there and see those farmers subsidizing the manufacture of bags and packs to the tune of R16,000,000 over ten years? We are not producing enough jute in this country to meet the country’s requirements but we cannot increase the production so that half the country’s requirements at least can be met. But where we can import bags at 18c and 19c and we manufacture them at 36c, where we can import wool packs at possibly 75c but we are required to pay R1.75 for them, I think the Minister is neglecting his duty in not approaching the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs.

You had an opportunity of approaching him on this subject; why did you not?

I have done so, Sir. But I am trying to get you, the hon. the Minister of Technical Services, to approach him with a view to saving the farmers of this country not less than R850,000 per annum in subsidizing something which they can ill afford to do today. [Time limit.]

I should like to express my appreciation to the hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Connan) for the speech he made here this afternoon. But my appreciation only relates to a portion of his speech, for here and there he was somewhat malicious. That was unnecessary. I appreciate his speech, Sir, because we shall get somewhere if we get constructive criticism. I do not think this vituperation across the floor of the House will get us anywhere, especially when we are dealing with an important matter such as farming.

I rise to raise a little matter which I regard as of the utmost importance to our country, namely the protection of our cattle population. If we look at the statistics, we find that during the past 24 years our cattle population has hardly increased at all, the question: What is the reason? One of the reasons which may be given is that more meat is being consumed because the population has increased. The second reason which may be given is the periodic droughts afflicting the country. I assume that this is to some extent the reason why our cattle population has dwindled and does not increase. But in my humble view it is because we do not sufficiently protect our cattle population. We do not sufficiently protect our young cows and heifers. If we go to the auctions at the present time, we shall find that at least two-thirds of the cattle offered at that auction are breeding cattle, and if we look who buys the cattle, they are the speculators who send those cattle to the meat market. At least two-thirds of those cattle go to the meat market, and only one-third comes back to the farmer. I am not pleading for one moment that breeding cattle should not be sold, nor that some of them should not go to the meat market, but I should like to ask the hon. the Minister whether it is not possible for legislation to be introduced providing that breeding cattle under a certain age should not be sent to the meat market in order to protect our cattle population?

Now I should like to convey to the Agricultural Union of the Transvaal—and I am sure the whole House will approve—my sincere thanks, for the great deal done by them during the recent droughts and still being done by them in the interests of those farmers in the Northern Transvaal to save their breeding stock and to preserve them for the country.

I should like to make an earnest appeal to the hon. the Minister to see whether something cannot be done. We know that all the countries exporting meat have virtually intimated already that they will not be able to export meat for many more years. Our own agricultural unions also say that within such and such a time we shall have a shortage of meat in our country. I predict that this will be so in fact unless we protect our cattle population, and particularly our heifers and breeding cattle.

It was interesting to listen to the two previous speakers on the Government side. I am sorry the hon. member for Bethlehem (Mr. Knobel) is not here at the moment. He is a responsible person and his speech amounted to this that the farmers have to look after themselves; he frankly admitted that the Department of Agricultural Technical Services did not have the manpower and was not in a position to assist the farmers. I am very sorry to say this but it was actually an admission on the part of the hon. member that this Department is actually redundant. He referred to the planning programmes and he said an extension officer had to be present when such a farm was planned. He told us about the wonderful things that were happening but he did not add how many districts in the Republic of South Africa were without extension officers. The hon. member for Kuruman again spoke about the decrease in our cattle population and he said the reason was the number of young oxen and heifers that were being sold. That is true. But the reason is that our two Ministers of Agriculture do not look after the farming community and the farmers are compelled to sell their breeding stock. To what did the speeches of the hon. members amount? They amounted to this, Sir: Farmers save yourselves; we cannot! We give up! What an admission on the part of responsible people like the hon. member for Bethlehem and the hon. member for Kuruman, two members who do not often speak in this House and who will surely not talk nonsense. I regarded that as an important admission. I want to say in addition that when I wanted to read the Minister’s statement of policy for this year I found that he had not yet made a statement of policy in the Other Place. It seems to me that he agrees with the two hon. members. He has no statement of policy to make. What is the position? That the farmers have made it their business to develop a stable farming system suitable to the area and the climatic conditions, a system that will push up production to the maximum without doing any harm to the soil or the natural resources.

Yes, that is the ideal.

Yes, we all agree that that is the ideal of the farmers. But surely that is what the farmers are doing.

Not all of them.

Most of them do. The hon. member for Bethlehem must not tell me that the farmers do not do that because he spoke about the planning committees and said: “Farmers save yourselves; we cannot! I go further and I say the Government also says that. Here I have that wonderful publication Panorama which is sent overseas. It tells us about the wonderful things that are happening in our country in regard to farming. This is what they say—

They then refer to the tremendous increase in the production of maize. They say—

Then they continue—

Then the hon. member for Bethlehem tells us that things are so bad in Bethlehem that farm planning is still in the hands of the farmers and that they are now trying to save themselves. But this publication goes on—

So this article goes on and when you see the quantity of meat and butter, etc. that is produced you cannot help but say “This is what the farmers are doing”. The farmers are farming better and producing more every year. The farmers comply with the standards they have set themselves. But the farmers have a Minister who, as I have already said, has not yet made a statement of policy this year, a Minister who, I have a strong suspicion, is as slack to plead the cause of the farmers with the Cabinet as he is slack to make a statement of policy. I cannot believe that we would not have had the necessary manpower to act as extension officers had we had an energetic Minister who pleaded the cause of the farmers. I am not talking about what is being spent in other directions, what is being spent on defence, but I am thinking of the small amount which is being spent on technical services as the hon. member for Gardens has explained to us this afternoon. I remember the huge surplus of R128,000,000 which is lying idle in South Africa. I wish to state that the one person who has been by-passed in this prosperity is the farmer of South Africa and the reason for that is not that he does not want to help himself. He does everything he can to help himself but het gets insufficient guidance. According to the report of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services there are simply not sufficient staff to render the services. I wish to congratulate the head of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services on this report.

Hear, hear!

I have always done that. The few who are there are excellent men who do their best. But even the head of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services admits the following—

Listen what he mentions, Sir—

In other words, there is a shortage in all the branches of Agricultural Technical Services. On another page he says the following—

[Time limit.]

I agree with the hon. member for Gardens that a big and responsible task rests on the shoulders of the Minister. Not only is he responsible for preventing the deterioration of the soil of South Africa, but he is responsible for building up that soil from which we have to make our living. For the rest he has to protect our water supplies in South Africa, a subject on which I do not want to enlarge at the moment. In the third instance he is responsible for protecting and safeguarding the health of our animals. That is why I agree in the main with the statement made by the hon. member for Gardens that an enormous task rests on the shoulders of the Minister. But where the hon. member for Gardens accuses the Government and the Minister of not doing their duty I think it is my duty, on behalf of the farmers, to congratulate the Minister and his Department on the tremendous amount of work they are doing in spite of the shortage of manpower. It is true that there is a shortage of officials. The hon. member for Gardens says this Government is chasing the people off the platteland. That hon. member and other members on that side have for years been talking about the 28,000 persons who are disappearing from the land. When did that report appear and to what has this figure of 28,000 now increased? During what period did these 28,000 disappear? Mention one country in the world where the tendency is not for the people to move from the platteland to the cities. That applies all the more in the case of South Africa. Does the hon. member for Gardens tell me that he wants a reversal of this movement from the platteland to the cities to a movement from the cities to the platteland? Let the hon. member get up and suggest that the Government takes steps to reverse this movement of the population to the cities to a movement back to the platteland. Land is not becoming more plentiful in South Africa and the population is growing. You must consequently have a movement towards the cities when there is development in the country. Let me remind you, Sir, that those farmers have done an enormous task in the cities. Those young men from the platteland are in the departments. They have done us an enormously big service. They have conquered a field which has lain fallow in the urban areas for the farming community. But let us come for a moment to the figures given by the hon. member. He has made an accusation but what about his own figures? He talked about 63,000 farmers who had applied and whose applications had not yet been dealt with. Is that correct? How many have been dealt with?

29,000.

That is more than the number of farmers in the country.

Farms.

The hon. member spoke about farmers. That figure is as reliable as the figure of 29,000 farmers whose farms have already been planned. In any case the figures must be given in the right context. According to the latest census figures there are 107,000 farmers in the country.

152,000 farms.

The hon. member did not talk about farms but about farmers, applicants.

I now want to come to the hon. member for King William’s Town (Mr. Warren) who spoke about our technical services. He referred to the report of the Department. I read in the report that more than 63,000,000 doses of vaccine against a large number of stock diseases have been administered during the past year. That figure has never been reached in the past. I do not want to give the details of the increases. In the case of blue tongue the number of doses increased from 19,000,000 to 26,000,000, in the case of pulpy kidney from 18,000,000 to 20,000,000. A new medicine has been discovered to combat lumpy skin disease. We have many diseases, ailments and difficulties in this country but I think we can congratulate the Department of Technical Services on the work they have done in the circumstances. The Department has a total of 931 scientists assisted by 606 technologists at its disposal for this work, and during the year covered by the report 215 contributions were made to scientific periodicals, etc. The hon. member for Drakensberg referred a moment ago to the speech of the hon. member for Bethlehem. I do not think I have ever known an hon. member in this House to get up immediately after another member and give such a completely different version of the original speech as we have had this afternoon. I am surprised that a lady can make herself guilty of such action. What the hon. member for Bethlehem said he said with reference to what the hon. member for Gardens had said, namely, that there was a manpower shortage. We all admit that. The hon. member for Bethlehem then gave examples of what was being done in Bethlehem where the Department was being assisted by the farmers. But the hon. member for Drakensberg adduces from that that we have thrown in the sponge and that we admit that the Department is powerless. I am disappointed in the hon. member.

I also want to say something about our cattle population. We accept the fact that there has not been a marked increase in our cattle population over the last few years but I am not such a pessimist as the hon. member for Kuruman. During 1938 to 1963 the number of cattle slaughtered in South Africa rose from 665,000 to 1,555,000, an increase of 134 per cent. With the assistance of the Department of Technical Services the farmers managed to keep up the pace and provide the necessary meat. What is encouraging in these circumstances is the fact that the number of breeding cows and heifers has risen from 45 per cent in 1937 to 61 per cent while the percentage of oxen has dropped.

The hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Wentzel) was very shocked because I analysed the speech of the hon. member for Bethlehem but immediately afterwards he himself analyzed the speech of the hon. member for Gardens and he said the hon. member for Gardens could not count and that there were more farmers than he had said.

I did not use those words at all.

The hon. member mentioned figures and said the hon. member for Gardens was wrong with his figures. He said the population was increasing and for that reason so many farmers had to leave the farms annually. All the speeches we have had from that side have acknowledged the fact that not sufficient people receive technical training. I said that the men who were there did their best but of what use is it if the officials do their best when it will take 80 years to plan all the farms in South Africa? Of what use is it if they do their best when only 26 per cent of the farms have already been planned and if it will still take 80 years with the existing manpower to do the balance of the planning?

The hon. the Minister said last year that many farmers either did not want to or had no inclination to learn. I am quoting from the Hansard report of the Minister’s speech last year. But at the same time the hon. the Minister availabled himself of the discussion on his Vote to state that it would in future no longer be necessary for a farmer to submit the planning for his own farm in order to get a servitude as long as the district had been planned, and further conditions attached. If that is not an acknowledgment of the hopeless shortage of manpower and the ineffectiveness of the information service I do not know what is. The report is complicated. I have quoted from page 3 where they deal in particular with the shortage of scientists and the reasons for that shortage. They say the following in the next paragraph—

Surely this is an extremely general statement which does not convey what is really intended! It is a generality. We find the following in the next paragraph—

Then they go on to talk about the district committees and the soil conservation committees. It once again amounts to this that the farmers themselves have to assist because a number of farmers serve on these soil conservation committees and planning committees together with an agricultural technologist or an extension officer.

Must the farmers not do anything then?

The farmer is busy farming and that is a full-time job. He sometimes works till late at night and gets up at the crack of dawn, in case the hon. member does not know it. The point I want to make is that it is difficult to get farmers to serve on the planning committees because that means they have to sacrifice their time. It is difficult to get a progressive farmer, who has his hands full, to serve on them; you cannot expect him to give attention to these matters. I think the farmers should be encouraged. I do not know how but I want to ask the Minister to think about it and to discuss it with his Department. It is very unsatisfactory to expect farmers to leave their farms for days on end. Often they have to deal with agricultural technologists who have no experience, people who have to go armed with a map because they have no knowledge of the area. The hon. member said there was one extension officer to every 450 farmers, not farms. I hope the hon. member for Christiana is listening. I maintain that it is impossible for that extension officer to know all those farms and to know them so well that he can plan them. The extension officers are dependant on the farmers in that district. My difficulty is that the progressive farmer is so busy that he cannot spare the time, as much as he would like to, to attend to the planning of the various farms.

This report is very technical, too technical. The hon. member for Somerset East asked me whether I understood it I said I did not. I know more or less what they are talking about, but it makes my head spin. On page 14 they talk about calcium nitrate in black turf soil, etc.; they talk about the extra treatment of light soil with acetic acid, 2 per cent to 5 per cent solution, with Heaven alone knows what else added to it in the case of clay soil; carbonic acid solution has given the best results and they say the maize crop was 60 bags per morgen of inherently brackish infertile soil in Natal treated with a balanced fertilizer. They say that one ton of sulpher per morgen per annum lowered the PH of the soil to such an extent that it affected the vegetation; they talk about gypsum treatment of 5 tons per morgen which increases the carrying capacity of the soil and brings about an absorption of sodium. I cannot even get my tongue round it. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Somerset East says that is not necessary when you are a goat farmer. I grant him that but the point I want to make is that this report is far too complicated. I agree that it is a wonderful report but I am pleased that the farmers of South Africa are not going to read this report because if they do and they realize that they have to pour a lot of sulphur and 5 tons of gypsum over one morgen of land they will all leave the land. [Time limit.]

It is understandable in an agricultural debate such as this that one will hear about all the plagues of Egypt, the locusts, etc. In addition one still has to put up with the speech of the hon. member for Drakensberg (Mrs. S. M. van Niekerk). I really want to discuss another aspect of our agricultural technical services this afternoon I want to address a few words to the Minister in connection with the foot-and-mouth disease which has once reared its head in South West Africa. I want to say immediately that this disease can be disastrous to South West and perhaps also to the Republic. It is not only a danger as far as the marketing of stock is concerned, but as far as the whole economic life of the country is concerned and here I refer in particular to the marketing of animal products like wool and even fruit. It can paralyse the entire export market of the country. The position is that about a week ago this disease again broke out on four farms in my constituency after we thought we had got rid of it. So far it is only confined to those farms but one shudders to think that it may possibly again rear its head in various places in South West; I am not even thinking of what may happen if it breaks out in the Republic. The Middelland constituency where this disease has once again made its appearance is one of the largest cattle producing areas in the whole of South Africa. Approximately 1,000,000 of the 2,400,000 cattle in South Africa are to be found in the four districts of Gobabis, Okanhandja, Otjiwarongo and Windhoek, all of which for the major part fall in my constituency and, to be exact, they have a cattle population of 973,376. Because of the outbreak a few years ago the South West Administration, with the assistance of the Republic, embarked on a tremendous campaign to combat that disease. It cost the South West Administration alone R5,000,000 in cash without even mentioning the other hidden costs. I notice from the Odendaal Commission’s report that they estimate that as a result of the joint affect of the drought and the foot-and-mouth disease (during the drought the cattle could not be moved because of the restrictive measures applied in respect of the disease) no fewer than 131,740 animals died in South West. I am merely mentioning that figure to bring the seriousness of the situation to the notice of the Minister. The Minister indicated in 1962 that attempts were being made at the time to do research work in connection with foot-and-mouth disease. I should like to know from the Minister what progress has been made with that research and with the possible erection of a research station in the Republic. Not only can the disease have alarming after-affects on South West but also on the Republic and where a large number of farmers in South Africa, like the majority of the farmers in South West, are mainly dependant on cattle farming it is the duty of the Minister to tackle this question of foot-and-mouth disease with all the possible means at his disposal. At the moment we still get our vaccine from Britain. I think the time has arrived for us to try to manufacture that vaccine locally, particularly the vaccine S.A.T.I., which is the best vaccine against the germ we have in South West at the moment. I should like to know from the Minister what progress has been made and when South Africa will be able to depend on its own research for her vaccine.

But there is also another small matter I wish to touch upon and that is the question of the measle infection of cattle that are marketed. I have done some research work and I find that in 1963 no less than 3.4 per cent of the total number of cattle intended for slaughter in the controlled areas were kept back. In addition .6 per cent were totally rejected. That means that 4 per cent, or four out of every 100 of the stock slaughtered, suffered to a greater or lesser degree from measle infection. The position is that when an ox is slaughtered, a cut is made just below his shoulder and if a measle is found more cuts are made to see whether seven or more measles are present. If fewer than seven of those measles are found the carcass is detained and if more than seven are found that carcass is totally rejected. I do not know whether that is a very satisfactory method of identifying measle infection, but it more or less amounts to this that of the 1,635,000 cattle slaughtered for commercial purposes in South Africa in 1963 in the controlled and uncontrolled area, a total of 65,415 carcasses were infested. That shows you to what extent this disease is already with us. I think the time has arrived for the Minister to have this matter investigated, to see whether measles amongst cattle cannot be eradicated in some way or other. You may say a measle is merely a little snail, Sir, and that there are many people who in any case eat snails on a large scale in the form of abelone or oysters or periwinkles and all those ghastly things but I do want to say this that this particular snail is really dangerous. I believe when it gets into the brain of a human being he can go completely mad. I am not suggesting that those people who eat oysters and all those other things are completely sane but I do want to emphasize that the measle snail is really a dangerous kind of parasite.

It is, of course, correct that there should be deep interest displayed in a Vote which deals with one of our most important industries, agriculture, because no less than R4,800,000,000 has been invested in agriculture, and that capital investment, it is estimated, annually increases by R100,000,000. Consequently more capital has been invested in agriculture than in all the industries and the mines together. But over and above the fact that so much capital has been invested in this industry, it is of course the basic industry on which depends the continued existence and the life of our nation. Therefore agriculture will always be one of the industries in this country to which any Government must devote the greatest attention. I am glad that the hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Connan) today touched on a very important matter dealing with our soil, because the soil is really the determining factor in this important industry. Therefore it is essential for us to do everything possible to protect and preserve our soil. Soil conservation, which lies near to his heart, is therefore worth while taking to heart. I want to tell him that if perhaps here and there he has made an appointment which I cannot accept, which is almost an exaggeration of the position, I do not blame him for it, because I accept that he did so in order to show his earnestness in regard to this matter. He says, however, that there are reports which indicate that our soil conservation programme has up to now not put an end to this problem, and in fact that there are experts who allege that this problem has increased by 25 per cent, and the hon. member says he thinks it has increased by even more than 25 per cent, and he quotes Dr. Ross and the Veld Trust. I want to say in all respect that the Veld Trust, however important the work is that they do, and however much one appreciates their interest in our soil, is certainly not the highest authority in this sphere. Therefore we would be making the greatest mistake, seeing that there is a State Department which is particularly responsible for soil conservation, by regarding the Veld Trust as the highest authority in that sphere, because the information they obtain they get partly from the Department and the rest they guess. There are no scientific facts to support the propositions expounded by them, because if that is so then I ask myself whether it is necessary for us to continue in our attempts to conserve the soil and to stop erosion, because it would mean that while we were busy doing so erosion increased to such an extent that the work which was done was really futile. If we are to accept that this is what happened in the past, while our efforts continued over a long period, then we have to accept that there is little hope of our combating it effectively in future. It is said that the State does nothing and that we cannot combat it, but hon. members have perhaps not looked at the 1946 Act. What are the basic principles of that Act, the Soil Conservation Act? It is that the responsibility is placed on the farmer himself to combat erosion. That is why provision was made for the committees. These committees do not consist of State officials, but of farmers, elected by the other farmers, and supplemented by the Minister, where these committees are large, by appointing other farmers also. The point I want to make is that no effort to conserve the soil has succeeded in any part of the world, nor will it succeed in South Africa, unless one can gain the co-operation of the farmers through the guidance one gives them to make them realize how serious the matter is. One cannot take the farmer by the scruff of the neck and say he must have his farm planned. Am I to act as a policeman or a dictator? If we do that we will get nowhere. And that principle was right, because I do not think we would have achieved the same measure of success through coercion. I think I should take this opportunity of thanking the farmers all over the country for the energy they displayed, within the limits of their financial capabilities, in putting their hand to the plough and protecting the soil for future generations. The function of the State is to educate the farmers to become aware of the necessity for doing so and secondly, where it is a national matter and something which one protects not only for oneself but for future generations, to give the necessary stimulus and assistance to farmers to tackle this work. That is why the subsidies paid for soil conservation works amount to anything from 33 per cent to 50 per cent.

It is said that only 28,000 farms have been planned and that it will take another 80 years, and the hon. member for Drakensberg says she reads it in this report, but the report she has in her hand was the Department’s annual report for the year 1962-3. I ask the hon. member to show me where that nonsense is printed in that report. Surely it is nonsense. Where is it stated in the report that only 28,000 farms have been planned and that it would take 80 years.

At page 77.

She says that it will take 80 years to plan all the farms for which application has been made. It is not only as the result of lack of guidance and of a consciousness on the part of the farmers of the necessity for doing so. There are also other reasons. The statistics show that since this terrible drought struck various parts of the country, much less soil conservation work was done by the farmers than before. Why? Because the man says he can receive a subsidy of 50 per cent, but where must he get the capital from, after the setbacks he has suffered, to cover the other 50 per cent? In other words, there are also climatic factors which at the moment slow down the tempo of soil conservation works, and it is not all due to the lack of guidance or the shortage of officials. I think that taking everything into consideration, we have achieved a great deal.

Now the hon. member for Gardens asks why there is a decrease in the Estimates. It may create the impression, if one does not know what the position is, that there is now a decrease in the emphasis we put on the necessity for soil conservation. There is a decrease in the item for soil conservation, but that is not due to the fact that we now do less work in that regard, but to the fact that since last year we have been applying a method of financing different from what we had before. We discovered that malpractices had arisen because we granted loans to farmers to do work which we had approved of. The man got the money under certain conditions, free of interest for a period, and after completion of the work he had to pay interest and redemption. But then we discovered that malpractices were taking place. Some people—fortunately not many—took those loans but used the money for other purposes. Now we have changed it so that when a man applies for a loan we give him just as much money for one year as we are convinced, and he can assure us, that he needs to do certain work in that year, and if he completes the work within that time and he wants to continue there need not be an interval in between, but he can immediately obtain a further loan to carry on for the next year. Instead of giving all the money at the same time, for three years, we now give it in instalments, every year, and that is why the amount provided in the Estimates is less than it was before. I may just say that there is no reduction in the amount of money granted to this Department. From 1959-60 to 1964-5 the Department’s Estimates increased from R15,400,000 to R21,700,000, an increase of R6,292,000, or 40.8 per cent, in these few years. This year’s Estimates show an increase of R1,850,000, or 9.3 per cent more than last year. Therefore steady progress is being made.

I now want to come to the manpower position. It was said that now for the first time we admit that we have a manpower problem, particularly in respect of technically trained people. But that has often been admitted by the Government already. I have already admitted that we have a shortage of these people. I appointed the Rautenbach Commission to make a study of how we could make better use of the available manpower so as to bring about a smaller loss in man-hours by researchers and technologists. I am sure that never before has a report been submitted which was implemented sooner than this one was. It resulted in a large-scale reorganization in the Department, which brought about greater efficiency, with the result that we made available bursaries for 166 extension officers and research workers to study further. Even before that investigation we started giving the extension officers an extra year’s instruction at the Pretoria University in the method of giving guidance, so that they could be more specialized in that very important work. It is one thing to have knowledge, but a different thing to impart it to other people so that it sinks in and better results are achieved. It is no use telling a man what to do unless one does so in a manner which stimulates him to apply it in practice. We accepted this report the year before last, and since then we have post-graduate training at the University of Pretoria to no fewer than 159 extension officers.

I just want to mention a few figures to show what we did to improve our manpower position. In the period from 1948 to 1963 we granted undergraduate bursaries to no fewer than 1,166 students, which cost us R1,211,490; to 54 postgraduate students, which cost R30,000; to 184 postgraduate students for overseas study, which cost us almost R500,000. All this was done in the first place better to equip our officials who have to give guidance to the farmers, but in the second place we assisted these technologists by giving them assistants who could perform certain work which was not of a highly technical nature. The less specialized technical work can therefore be done by these assistant technologists, leaving our technologists free to do work of a more technical nature. We also made every possible attempt to increase the administrative assistance to our technologists and extension officers, so that they could keep themselves busy with the actual task of education and giving guidance as far as possible.

I now want to make an announcement here in regard to the question of subsidization. Representations have been made to us, in order to give a greater stimulus to the farmers in the present circumstances, to improve the basis of extending the costs of soil conservation works, taking into consideration present-day money values. My Department, with the approval of the Treasury, has therefore introduced amended tariffs. It amounts to an average increase of about 20 per cent for soil conservation works, including fencing, reservoirs, drinking places, silos, etc. These higher tariffs will be applicable to all works which are finally inspected after 6 February. In order to enable applicants to complete the same number of works as before, the increased prices, the maximum subsidy per farm unit for the various groups of works was increased accordingly. The subsidy for the provision of water was increased from R1,200 to R1,500; for fencing camps from R600 to R750; for the prevention of brack, from R600 to R750, and for combating brack, from R1,200 to R1,500, with the proviso that the amount for the prevention of brack and the combating of brack jointly shall not be more than R1,500.

The hon. the Minister says that the subsidy may not amount to more than R1,500. Is that per annum?

One finds certain farms where certain steps have to be done to prevent the soil from becoming brackish; then one finds certain soil which is already brackish, and where one wants to combat it. In passing, I just want to tell the hon. member for Drakensberg (Mrs. S. M. van Niekerk) that she should not speak derogatively about gypsum, because that is one of the important things one requires in order effectively to combat brackish soil.

No, I did not do that.

For those two items jointly, the prevention and the combating of brackish soil, the State is prepared to grant a subsidy of up to R1,500 per farm.

Mr. Chairman …

Order! I regret that I cannot allow the hon. member to put a question again. The hon. the Minister may continue.

I think I have more or less replied to the matters raised here by the hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Connan), which I regard as important.

While I am now speaking about representations made and criticism voiced on the part of the Opposition, I just want to tell the hon. member for Drakensberg this: Even on this side of the House, where perhaps she will not expect it, hon. members have considerable respect for her opinions when she talks about agricultural matters, because that is a subject she knows. I have already listened to speeches of hers which made me feel inclined to congratulate her, but the speech the hon. member made here this afternoon was in the first place unworthy of her; it did nothing to add to the prestige of the hon. member, and I think that her speech must be a tremendous disappointment to all the farmers in the country, because it was not worthy of the agricultural industry. The hon. member uttered a few generalities in an attempt to belittle the Department. For example, she referred to the report and said that it was so complicated, but at the same time she congratulated the Department on having issued such a thorough report. Her great difficulty in regard to this report is that it is so terribly technical. I want to tell the hon. member that the technical research projects to which that report refers are set out in other scientific publications one of which consists of no fewer than 425 pages. Our scientific publications are read not only in South Africa and in Africa but all over the world. It is a scientific publication which is lauded by scientists of repute all over the world as being of the best. It compares with the best scientific publications issued by any Department of Agriculture in any of the Western countries. But those publications are so technical that she will not be able to understand it at all. I immediately want to tell the hon. member that she is not the only one who will not understand it; I do not understand it either because I do not have enough technical knowledge. But now the hon. member for Drakensberg should not think that it is worthless because she cannot understand the report. The hon. member has really raised nothing here to which I have to reply, because she in fact complained about the scheme referred to by the hon. member for Bethlehem (Mr. Knobel), a scheme which I instituted to interest our farmers more in agriculture. One can only achieve higher productivity and greater efficiency in agriculture, not through the contributions of the State because the State itself does not farm, but if one can educate the farmers and assist them to be more efficient. And how can they do so? They can only do so by making the best possible use of the information made available to them in regard to combating the problems with which they are faced in their particular area, in so far as the Department responsible for the research has solutions for those problems. But when we have that information and impart it to the farmer, the farmer must still apply it. In other words, much educational work has to be done, and unfortunately our farmers throughout the years did not have the necessary guidance, and the educational facilities were not available to make all of them aware of the necessity for having agricultural training in some form or other in order to equip them more efficiently to cope with their onerous tasks. The world does not stand still; new technological measures must be applied as competition becomes keener, and in his struggle to make a decent living on his farm the farmer is compelled to manage his farm as a business, and if he wants to do that he must have knowledge of many things in order to make a success of it. We went out of our way to encourage farmers to pay more interest to the guidance given and to participate in it actively. The hon. member for Drakensberg says that it is an onerous task and she asks how a practical farmer who has to work hard can be expected to take part in this. But then one may as well say that other organizations in the country like the Chamber of Commerce and the Chambers of Industries and the medical men must get people from other professions to encourage interest in their own activities. The farmer must be interested in his own industry, and he is prepared to do so. We got the farmers to participate when we established these study groups. That is quite a new approach, in order to see whether we could not achieve success along those lines. We commenced this experiment about two years ago and we have already established 80 such study groups which have an active membership of over 4,000 farmers, spread all over the country. It is considered that there are only approximately 700 farmers who received agricultural training when they started farming. Every year about 3,000 farmers enter agriculture to replace those who have died or who have retired. By means of these 80 study groups we reach more than 4,000 farmers today, or in other words more than the number who yearly enter the industry. These study groups are under the leadership of specialized extension officers, assisted in the various areas by officers who have specialized in particular subjects. They then form the liaison between the extension officer in the field, the research station in Pretoria, or wherever it might be, and the farmers. In other words, these farmers are really receiving agricultural training under this system. There is so much interest evinced in these study groups that my instruction to the Department is that we should extend this system as fast as possible, because I regard it as the greatest break-through in agricultural guidance which we have ever had in this country. The accusation is made against us that we are old-fashioned, that we are dead and without vitality, that we think of nothing new and do nothing. I can understand people who do not know what we are doing to-day saying that sort of thing. There are people who think that they do not sin when they say the wrong thing because they know no better, but is it fair to make such accusations under these circumstances? Later on I will mention certain other things to show that the Department is on its toes and that we are busy modernizing and tightening up our whole guidance service and everything in connection with the dissemination of knowledge to the farmers.

The hon. member for Kuruman (Mr. du Plessis) asked that we should do something in regard to the slaughtering of stock. He said that our herds had not increased, whereas our consumption of meat has increased, but I think that the hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Wentzel) effectively replied to the hon. member by pointing out that our slaughterings had increased by about 130 per cent, while our cattle population had remained practically constant. Now there must be certain obvious reasons for that. The other matter which was raised here, namely whether one should by legislation or by way of regulation prevent people from marketing female animals, particularly cattle, under a certain age, is one that does not rest with me but with my colleague, the Minister of Agricultural Economics and Marketing. I just want to point out that in certain circumstances one may be doing an injustice to the farmers by telling them that they may not market or sell their stock under such circumstances. I am thinking, e.g. of drought conditions, etc. But I just want to remind hon. members that my colleague, the Minister of Agricultural Economics and Marketing, will announce certain steps, under his Vote or perhaps even before we reach his Vote, which the Government has already taken, and decisions which the Government has taken, over and above the steps taken by the Government last year in drought-stricken areas. These steps are particularly being taken with the object of preserving our breeding stock and our stock population.

The hon. member for Middelland (Mr. van der Merwe) raised the question of foot-and-mouth disease, which is, of course, a tremendous problem. The last outbreak of foot-and-mouth in South West Africa was about two or more years ago, and on that occasion all precautionary measures which could possibly be taken, and which were known to scientists and experts all over the world in respect of the combating of that disease, were taken in South West, and I can only speak with great praise of the work which was done there. The Department as such and I as the Minister were strongly criticized by the people in South West because the quarantine measures remained in force for such a long time. As a farmer, I can well understand why the farmers there felt unhappy about the fact that restrictions were imposed on the movements of their cattle for such a long time. Where in the past we had to combat foot-and-mouth disease in the Republic, we received the same sort of criticism from our own farmers. I myself have already quarrelled with my Department and the veterinarians in this regard.

The hon. member asked what progress we had made with the establishment of the Research Institute which I announced last year and which the State decided to establish near Pretoria. Well, we have already acquired the land and the plans have been drafted. I do not think a start has yet been made with the building. As hon. members know, we build through public works, and there is always delay because we are dealing with a Department which has to ensure that the money voted for the erection of buildings is spent properly.

I am therefore not complaining that Public Works delayed us; they did not. We hope to receive tenders shortly for the building of that Research Institute. In the meantime, I sent one of my most efficient officials, who is also well equipped, due to his scientific background and training, overseas about 18 months ago to make an intensive study of the most modem methods applied at Pirbright in England, and at the large research institutions in America. Fortunately we have always had the heartiest co-operation from the International Research Institute in Britain. They have assisted us now again. We have always received our vaccine from Pirbright, and we have again obtained it there in order to cope with this problem in South West Africa. For the information of hon. members, I just want to say that this vaccine is the S.A.T.l. But we are not dealing with one virus only; there are about three of them. We have a few related viruses, and the problem is that if an animal has been vaccinated against one virus, it is not immunized against the other. In other words, if research in South Africa is to be effective, it must be done simultaneously in regard to all those viruses which are known here, and not only in respect of the one virus. We hope that this will be a great contributory factor in the prevention of foot-and-mouth disease. We have, of course, made tremendous progress in the Republic in respect of wire fences over long distances. I may just say that this Research Institute which is to be built in Pretoria will compare favourable with the most modem of its kind in the world.

The hon. the Minister who has just sat down has said something here to-day which we on this side of the House have been saying over the past 15 years and that is that if the results of research are not made known to the farmers that research is absolutely worthless as far as the farmers in South Africa are concerned. The hon. the Minister says that it is his intention to modernize these extension services so that that information will become available to the farmers of South Africa. He mentioned the example of study groups and programme committees which are being organized at the moment, study groups consisting of specialists who will be able to make the latest developments in the agricultural industry known to the farmers. That is something which we have been advocating over the past 15 years.

Prove it from Hansard.

I said it last year and I said it in this House this year during the second-reading debate on the Agricultural Research Account Bill. However, we want to thank the hon. the Minister if he does intend to see to it that the results of research are made known to the farmers. At this stage we want to tell the hon. the Minister that he will succeed in doing this for the simple reason that he has not penetrated to the root of the problem and the root of the problem is this: Where are the extension officers to do that work? Precisely the same thing applies to soil conservation. The hon. the Minister knows that he cannot apply soil conservation in South Africa unless farms are planned, and that farm planning has to be done by extension officers. Why have the hon. the Minister’s efforts in connection with soil conservation failed in the past and why will they continue to fail in the future? The hon. the Minister says that he needs the assistance of the farmers. The farmers are giving him that assistance but he is not succeeding in his efforts because he does not have sufficient extension officers at his disposal. Unless the hon. the Minister solves that problem none of his wonderful plans will succeed. That is the pivot around which the whole question of soil conservation and extension work in South Africa turns and agricultural research is of no value either unless that information reaches the farmers. The hon. the Minister is surprised when we say that it will take 80 years to plan every farm, but we say that on the basis of the figures supplied by his own Department and from which we have merely drawn an intelligent conclusion. On page 77 of its report the Department itself states that so far only 28,992 farms have been planned. That is the number of farms that has been planned during 16 years of Nationalist rule; that is the number of farms that has been planned over the period of 20 years since the Soil Conservation Act was placed on the Statute Book. Sir, there are 152,000 farms in South Africa. If the Government has taken all this time to plan about 30,000 farms since the Soil Conservation Act was placed on the Statute Book, then it will take the Government four times as long to plan the balance of the 152,000 farms.

The hon. the Minister has told us that he is going to move certain amendments in connection with the question of subsidies. Naturally we on this side of the House and the farming population of South Africa will be grateful to him if he is prepared to increase subsidies, but even that step will not assist the hon. the Minister because it will not place him in a position where he will be able to plan farms; it will not place him in a position where it will be possible for extension officers to plan the work which the farmers are prepared to do and where technical officials will be able to visit the farms to make surveys and so forth.

The farmers do that themselves.

I challenge the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. F. H. Bekker) to mention one case where the Department of Agriculture over the past 16 years has given a subsidy to a farmer who has done all the work himself and where that work has not been approved by an extension officer.

We do not all get subsidies.

I know that that is so, but the hon. the Minister has told us that it is the duty of the Department to educate the farmers and to give them the necessary guidance. There are thousands who cannot afford these works and that is why provision has been made for the payment of a subsidy. It is an encouragement. Sir, the hon. the Minister referred contemptuously to the work that has been done by the Veld Trust. He practically suggested that one should not pay too much attention to their figures; that one should really take those figures with a pinch of salt. He said that most of their figures were based on guesswork; that half of their figures were obtained from the Department but that the other half was merely guesswork. The Veld Trust says very clearly in its latest report that it is afraid that unless steps are not taken now to bring the necessity for soil conservation in South Africa pertinently to the attention of the public, not only to the attention of the farmer but also to the attention of the city-dweller, we will not make the progress that we ought to make. Indeed, they say that we have not made the progress that we should have made. The hon. the Minister ought rather to be grateful to Veld Trust for the services they are rendering.

Then there is another matter which I want to bring to the notice of the hon. the Minister. I want to begin by saying that although the hon. the Minister’s Department is not as important as that of his colleague, the hon. the Minister of Agricultural Economics and Marketing, the work of his Department is becoming more important every day. In this regard I am thinking particularly of the unenviable position in which so many of our South African farmers are finding themselves to-day. I do not think it needs much imagination to realize that in the case of many farmers extension services and research and things such as soil fertility, mechanization, stock diseases, pests and plagues and the effective combating thereof, may mean either success or failure. In the first place let us look immediately at the farming population of our country. What is their position? The vast majority of our farmers have had no vocational training. The same thing applies to the young farmers who enter the agricultural industry every year. The farmer is continually being warned that he must become more efficient; he is continually being advised to make sure that he keeps abreast of developments in the agricultural industry. Vocational training and a sound management ability are essential qualifications for the modern farmer. The hon. the Minister has told us that it is the task of the Government to educate the farmer and to guide him. Let us look at this report of the hon. the Minister’s Department and see what they are doing to assist our farmers. Let us look at page 75 of the report where they deal with the question of agricultural education. In 1963, there were 560 students at our agricultural colleges; in 1962, there were 517. This represents a small improvement. Elsenburg is mainly responsible for this improvement. What was the position at our universities? In 1963, there were 176 B.Sc. students in their second year; in 1962 there were 195—a decrease. In 1963 there were 169 in their third year and 215 in 1962. This represents a large decrease. In 1963 there were 211 in their fourth year and 197 in 1962. Let us take all the degrees together, degrees like M.Sc., B.Sc. and doctorates in agriculture. In 1963 this figure was 933 as against 948 in the previous year. We notice a slight improvement when we look at the tables in respect of other agricultural students who passed their examinations. According to Table VII, there were 306 in 1963 as against 258 in the previous year. In spite of this improvement in this one sector the position still gives one cause for alarm, or it certainly ought to give us cause for alarm when we realize that only about 20 per cent of the approximately 3,000 young men who enter the farming industry annually have received agricultural training of some sort or another. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) (Mr. Streicher) tried to prove something but he did not know himself what he was trying to prove. In the first instance he said …

You did not understand what he said.

Talking about not understanding one another, I would advise the hon. member for Drakensberg (Mrs. S. M. van Niekerk) to read the report of the Secretary for Agricultural Technical Services once again. She and I live in the same hotel and she can come and talk to me in the evenings. Since we are talking so much about information and the lack of information I am quite prepared to give her some information to enlighten her. Moreover, I am prepared to do it free of charge.

The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) says that the hon. the Minister has admitted that the Department is unable to convey to the farmers the results of the research carried out by the Department.

No, I said that they must be conveyed to the farmer.

Very well, to satisfy the hon. member let me substitute the word “must” for “unable to”. Of all our Government Departments the Department of Agricultural Technical Services is certainly one of the Departments of which we have most reason to be proud. Does the hon. member agree with me or not? Does the hon. member admit that our research in South Africa ranks with the best in the world? Does the hon. member admit that our veterinary research ranks with the best in the world?

I know that.

Very well. The hon. member knows it—and that information is made available to the farmers. But the hon. member tells us that that research does not help at all because the results of the research do not reach the farmers. Whose fault is that? Think of all the periodicals, for example. [Interjections.] If the hon. member talks a little less and listens a little more he might also learn something. Agricultural periodicals are published for the benefit of farmers. If people do not make use of the information that is given to them, is that the fault of the hon. the Minister? The hon. member’s main grievance is that there are insufficient extension officers. I agree with him there. We need more extension officers. But when the hon. member suggests that one cannot apply soil conservation, that one cannot make progress unless one has an extension officer at one’s side, then I say that he is wrong. I want to refer him now to the same page to which he also referred—page 77. This is the page which I think the hon. member for Drakensberg knows almost by heart because she tried to prove by means of the information contained on that page that we will still be struggling for the next 80 years to have all our farms planned.

You do not understand.

The hon. member must not become upset because she cannot understand these things. I did not understand everything either until I started to learn. There are many things that she will learn to understand if she will only show a little desire to acquire knowledge. I want to quote the following from page 77 of the report—

They go on to mention the various methods used. By means of the information contained on this same page I can prove to hon. members, who maintain that no progress has been made, that progress has in fact been made.

The hon. member over there complains that there are not enough agricultural students at our colleges and universities. He quoted certain figures and complained that the number of students had not increased as it should have increased. We agree with him in that regard, Sir, but whose task is it to send people to an agricultural college or to a university? I want to remind the hon. member of the saying that one can lead a horse to water but one cannot make it drink!

Are you saying that to the farmers?

I say this to the farmers who do not want to make use of the information made available to them by the Department of Agricultural Technical Services. The hon. member for King William’s Town (Mr. Warren) said just now that he was not concerned about the successful farmers; he was concerned about the other farmers. That, of course, is our problem and it is also the problem as hon. members opposite see it. The hon. member for East London (City) (Dr. Moolman) need not think that he will be able to make any political capital out of it by telling the farmers that I said that they must make use of the information that is made available to them. The hon. member is aware of the fact that many farmers do not make use of that information. There are many farmers who do not even follow the example set by neighbouring farmers. If anyone tells me that he wants to improve his farming methods but that he does not have the opportunity to do so because he cannot obtain the necessary information, then I say that that is just so much nonsense. There is no such thing. I agree that we would like to have more extension officers. They are necessary and we can make very good use of them. Let me take this point a little further. Hon. members who make such a great fuss about the shortage of extension officers try to suggest that the Government has been lax in ensuring that the necessary extension officers are placed at the disposal of the farmers. But the agricultural industry is not the only industry which is experiencing a shortage of trained staff. Take any industry, Sir, and you will find that there is a shortage of trained staff in that industry. South Africa is not the only country which finds itself in this position. There is a shortage of trained personnel throughout the whole world. Why should the position in South Africa be any different? We heard to-day under the Health Vote of the shortage of doctors. The position in this country is no different from that in the rest of the world.

The Prime Minister says that it is your fault.

The hon. member reminds me of the bee which extracts nectar from the same flower. I have no idea where the hon. the Prime Minister said that. We shall have to wait, therefore, for the hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Connan) to enlighten us in that connection.

Having said this, there is one request that I want to put to the hon. the Minister. Certain hon. members have referred to me contemptuously as the “goat farmer”. I make no apology for the fact that I am a goat farmer. Indeed, I urge hon. members not to put all their eggs into one basket. Goat farming may perhaps be to their advantage as well. I wish I had been a goat farmer only. Perhaps I would then have been better off! The goat farmers have one small request to make. They do not ask for subsidies; they do not ask for extension services; they do not even ask for bells—they buy them themselves. All they ask the hon. the Minister is to see whether he cannot bring about an improvement in his Department’s weather forecasts, particularly when a sudden cold snap is expected just after shearing time.

We want to thank the hon. the Minister’s Department for what they have already done in connection with the combating of contagious abortion amongst goats, although a solution to this problem has not yet been found. Even though the hon. the Minister has made one of his best veterinary officers available to the farmers in the goat-farming area, Dr. Van Heerden, and even though he has placed a mobile unit at our disposal, there are, unfortunately, still many farmers who are losing a big percentage of their lambs, and who are still suffering heavy losses. If the Department can do any further research in connection with this matter and find some solution to this problem, it will be greatly appreciated by the goat farmers.

This side of the House has no objection to it if the hon. member for Somerset East (Mr. Vosloo) wants to make a plea for the Angora goat farmers in the Eastern Province or in any other part of the country, because this is an industry which means a great deal to South Africa.

The hon. member for Somerset East is very indignant because we on this side have asked for more extension officers, but at the same time the hon. member agrees that we ought to have more of these officials.

I am not indignant.

The hon. member for Somerset East has one of the largest constituencies in the country. If you look at the map on page 84, Mr. Chairman, you will find that there is an extension office at Somerset East; there is no office at Pearston; there is one at Jansenville; there is no office at Steytlerville; there is no office at Kirkwood, and so I could go on to show what the position is in other constituencies. Extension officers are no longer a luxury article.

You are wrong again; that is a citrus research station.

Mr. Chairman, I am quoting from the report of the hon. the Minister’s Department. That is the position not only in the case of Somerset East. I do not want to single out the hon. member’s constituency. Take the constituency of Graaff-Reinet, or constituencies in the Free State or in any other province. Why have the study groups and programme committees been a success in those areas where they have proved successful? It is because the lead is taken by an extension officer. But what becomes of the numerous districts which would like to organize a study group but which do not have an extension officer to take the lead? The hon. member for Drakensberg (Mrs. S. M. van Niekerk) was quite correct when she said that the progressive and busy farmer did not have the time to organize these things. It is necessary to have an extension officer in every large district so that he can take the lead in this regard. If that is done, the Department of Agricultural Technical Services will be able to convey the results of the good work that they are doing at the research institutes to the man who really needs it—the farmer himself. Only then will we be able to say that the Department has been successful.

I concluded my remarks just now by saying that only about 20 per cent of the 3,000 young men who enter the farming industry annually have received any kind of agricultural training. I really think that this is a tragedy. Which other profession would tolerate such a position, Mr. Chairman? The general standard of the industry must necessarily suffer as the result of this shortcoming. The fact that the farming industry has achieved the success that it has achieved can only be ascribed to luck rather than good judgment. The agricultural faculties at our universities can accommodate about 1,200 students but only about 250 of these obtain a B.Sc. degree in agriculture, and only 20 per cent of them take up farming. The fact that most leaders in agriculture are aware of this position is reflected in the remarks which they make at public meetings or even in agricultural periodicals from time to time. We expect something to be done by the Government to improve this position. I see great dangers for our agricultural industry, an industry which is going to make unprecedented demands upon farmers in the future, unless our farmers are trained. Many farmers will have to fall away as a result of the fact that they have had no agricultural training. Training in agricultural schools no longer meets our present-day requirements; our farmers should at least receive their training in agricultural colleges although the minimum requirement should really be agricultural training at university level for the man who is going to be connected with an undertaking in which large sums of money are invested. The man whose capital investment is not in the neighbourhood of R20,000 or R40,000 is a small farmer to-day. A man who invests about R100,000 in his undertaking is often only an average-scale farmer. Who should be at the head of such an undertaking? A person with Std. VI? Or somebody who has perhaps taken a course of two months at an agricultural college? Or somebody who takes a course in wheat production or in wool production for 14 days? Do we imagine that we can make a success of our farming operations in those circumstances? Do hon. members want to tell me that this matter does not require the attention of the Government and of the hon. the Minister? The hon. the Minister cannot stand on the sidelines in this matter. He himself must participate in this match. His task is not only to make training facilities available; he must ensure that the maximum number of farmers make use of these training facilities. That is his task. I am convinced that vocational training is not adequately emphasized in the case of farming. The importance of intensive vocational training for the young farmer should be emphasized from time to time, particularly amongst matriculants. Hon. members may ask how this should be done. What we should do is what is done by the Police Department. The Police Department approaches the schools and asks pupils to join the Police Force. If young lads want to move to the platteland to become farmers, why is their attention not drawn to the fact that there are facilities available for them at colleges and that they should make use of those facilities; that it is essential that they receive the necessary training if they are to make a success of their careers as farmers. I think the Department should emphasize the necessity of vocational training for the farmer in every pamphlet or document which it issues.

I want to conclude by saying that an untrained farmer will be a burden to the State in the future and a disappointment to himself because the demands which the industry is going to make upon farmers in the future are going to be so great, the competition is going to be so keen and the knowledge which the farmer will need is going to be so comprehensive that nobody will be able to make a success of farming unless he has had intensive training in his subject.

The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) (Mr. Streicher) mentioned the question of study groups and said that this was a policy which his party had been advocating for the past 16 years. This policy which he maintains they have been advocating for the past 16 years—I do not think that he can show me one Hansard report to prove his claim—has been condemned by the hon. member for Drakensberg (Mrs. S. M. van Niekerk) herself. The hon. member said in her speech to-day that this policy of the introduction of study groups is a policy of surrender, a policy in terms of which the Department tells farmers: Help yourselves; we cannot help you any longer!

I did not say that.

She has passed judgment upon their own so-called policy.

It is true that there is a shortage of manpower in every sphere in South Africa to-day but this is so because of the prosperity in South Africa. I think hon. members are inclined to put the cart before the horse. They now say that it is the fault of the hon. the Minister that there is a shortage of trained staff in his Department. But hon. members must not forget that a large number of technicians are trained annually; many bursaries are made available by the Public Service. But as quickly as these people are trained, just as quickly are they drawn into the private sector of our economy. The private sector pays better salaries. That is the reason why there is a shortage of manpower in the Public Service. They must not blame this fact on the hon. the Minister or his Department; they must blame it on the fact that we are a progressive country and that we are making great progress in every sphere. Or are they not pleased that things are going so well with our country?

I rise actually to associate myself with what was said by the hon. member for Kuruman (Mr. Du Plessis) who made a plea for our livestock in this country. I also want to plead for the protection of our livestock in South Africa. I note the following from the report of the Department—

There are a large number of schemes in operation for improving our livestock.

I say that we must guard against the thinning out of our herds of livestock. The hon. member for Kuruman mentioned the fact that so many female animals are slaughtered and that our livestock suffer a setback because of this fact. I want to point out that stock diseases also play havoc with our livestock. There are a large number of diseases which claim the lives of numbers of our livestock annually. But there are also other diseases which cause infertility amongst livestock with the result that our stock do not reproduce as they ought to reproduce. We have a scheme of inoculation against anthrax, a scheme in terms of which animals are inoculated annually and I want to ask that a similar scheme be set up on a national basis in the case of contagious abortion. This disease claims many victims amongst our livestock. I doubt whether 10 per cent of our herds are free from contagious abortion. When one buys stock at an auction to-day one can be almost sure that most of the female animals that one buys are infected with that disease. It is a disease which is prevalent throughout the country and I want to ask that a scheme providing for inoculation against this disease be set up as in the case of anthrax.

The same thing holds good as far as lumpy skin disease is concerned. Lumpy skin disease also results in some measure of sterility amongst stock. I want to ask that we should resort to inoculation on a nation-wide basis in the case of lumpy skin disease as well. Then there is another disease which I want to mention—tuberculosis. This is a disease which affects the dairy industry particularly. I think that it is just as important that tuberculosis be combated on a nation-wide scale.

I also want to point out that we have a great shortage of veterinary officers. There are 80 posts in the Public Service and in the field for veterinary officers and 77 of these posts are filled. This is a very high percentage, but to spread 80 veterinary officers throughout the whole country is to spread them very thinly. Their numbers ought to be supplemented by the veterinarians in private practice. But what do we find in the case of the veterinarians in private practice? Most of them are found in centres like Johannesburg, Bloemfontein, Cape Town and Durban, in all the large centres and not in the platteland centres. Why are the private veterinarians to be found in the large urban centres? It is because they find it far more profitable to practise there and to doctor the pets of the city-dwellers. That is far more profitable to them than to live on the platteland and to assist the farmers in combating stock diseases on their farms. I think that serious attention must be given to this matter. I realize that the Government cannot supply veterinary officers for every district. That would be absolutely impossible. But I do think that a system should be introduced, more or less on the lines of the health services in the case of human beings. I think that district veterinary officers should be appointed; in other words, private practitioners, people who are in the same position as district medical officers. I want to emphasize this fact. It is necessary that something be done in this regard. I can speak from personal experience. If I need a veterinary officer I have, for example, to get the Government Veterinary Officer from Bethlehem, a distance of more than 90 miles. When he is most urgently needed he is usually out on field service and is not available. One has then to seek the services of a private veterinarian. The nearest private veterinarian to my farm is at Vereeniging, which is also a large urban centre. This man takes care of the pets of the people living there. This costs me a large sum of money. Accordingly, most farmers argue that it does not pay them to call in a private veterinarian over those great distances unless he is being called to attend an animal which is particularly valuable. An animal which is discovered to have a disease may perhaps die of that disease but if the disease is infectious or contagious the farmer may suffer heavy losses to his entire herd. And so, if no subsidy system for the utilization of the services of private veterinarians can be brought into being, I feel that a system providing for the appointment of district veterinary officers, more or less on the lines of the system providing for the appointment of district medical officers, should be introduced. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) said that the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) (Mr. Streicher) was interesting, but the hon. member for Heilbron is very strange to my mind. He followed the example of many members on the Government side—something which was also done by the hon. member for Somerset East (Mr. Vosloo)—by contending that we are dealing here with one of the best Departments that the Government has ever had, the Department of Agricultural Technical Services. Shortly after this he also said that one could take a horse to water but one could not make it drink. The implication of what he said and of what the hon. member for Bethlehem (Mr. Knobel) and other hon. members said here is that we have a wonderful Department; the farmers are the ones to blame. [Interjections.] It does not help to argue; we cannot have our cake and eat it. If things are not going well with agriculture in South Africa—and things are not going well with agriculture in South Africa—although the Treasury is bulging at the seams, if the farmers are experiencing almost a depression, then something is wrong somewhere. It is not merely a question of drought. If it was necessary to increase prices as happened recently, then things are not going well with the farmers. There are two alternatives; either there is something wrong on the part of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services or there is something wrong on the part of the farmers. I say that the Department cannot be such a wonderful Department, and that all the fault does not lie with the farmers. I still want to see the man who will dare to stand up in this debate and contend that the South African farmer is an inferior farmer to farmers in any other part of the world. But the farmer here has facilities which the farmer in another country does not have. He has reasonably plentiful and cheap labour, although I do not say that it is the most efficient labour. He has the facilities to enable him to produce in competition with products on the world market on the same price basis and he does not do so. That is why something is wrong somewhere, and the hon. the Minister and the Government and hon. members opposite must not resent the fact when we try constructively to discuss the question of what is wrong. We simply cannot believe that the system of agricultural services in this country is so perfect and that the farmers are so inferior that they are found wanting in comparison with farmers in Australia and America who have to make use of the most expensive labour. Something is wrong somewhere.

I want to devote my time to the question of research. The hon. member for Heilbron also spoke about research, and he mentioned the shortage of manpower in this regard. I want to discuss the question of the utilization of our available manpower. It is of no avail to us to talk about a shortage in this regard. The shortage is there. We have to make the best use of the manpower we have available. I want to say that I want to pay tribute to the Department for what it has done in the sphere of agriculture with the assistance to a large extent of scientists and experts in the rest of the world. In this regard I think particularly of hybridized seed and the question of its cultivation, the cultivation of pure seed and the question of larger crops. But we have lagged far behind as far as animal husbandry is concerned. Do you know, Mr. Chairman, it is a shame and a blot on our country that while in 1959-60 our cattle in this country numbered 12.29 million …

The old story once again.

It may be an old story, but you can listen to it again. We do not even have that number of cattle in the country today. Our sheep numbered 38.7 million at the time, while to-day they number about 34 million. Let us go further and examine this situation. Statistics tell me that of those slightly more than 30 million sheep, 2.8 million died in one year. That is two million out of 30 million, or approximately a 10 per cent loss, and it is divided up in this way: 1¼ million died of disease; nearly one million because of drought and ¼ million were killed by predatory animals. Where are we living that we can still produce statistics of this nature in connection with our livestock? What are we doing in connection with research as far as droughts are concerned? Are we combating droughts as we ought to combat them? Have we done everything that we can by way of research to combat drought or do we suffer the same set-backs every year as far as our livestock are concerned because of drought? Do we make use of our available products in combating droughts? Have we studied the position properly? I know that the Department has already done a great deal in connection with the question of drought feeding, but are we doing these things properly? One does not always want to quote other countries as examples, but when we look at Australia, which experiences the same drought conditions as we do and which has built a canal to carry water 4,000 miles to the desert areas in order to produce food for the animals there during time of drought, we ask what we are doing. This is the sort of thing we mean when we say: Do not say that we criticize the Department unnecessarily. We are critical because we are suffering losses. Our livestock are stagnating, and have been retrogressing for the past 30 years. We know this is so, because in 1930-1 the numbers of our livestock were far higher than they are this year. In discussing the question of research as far as drought is concerned, I want to associate myself with what was said by the hon. member for Heilbron. This is not something that I do easily. I want to say that one of the worst diseases and one of the diseases requiring the most research in this country is contagious abortion, which he also mentioned. This disease has resulted in the fact that the increase amongst our cattle is only about 50 per cent and the increase amongst our sheep is just under 60 per cent. This disease is perhaps the most important reason why our livestock are increasing so slowly. Crop farming is being practised extensively to-day, and it is recommended that our farmers should practice mixed farming. They are urged to farm with stock as well as crops, because the stock are necessary as far as the fertilizing and the maintenance of the soil are concerned. But we cannot breed the stock to enable us to farm in this way. It is not the large number of slaughterings that holds us back, but the fact that we are not breeding the animals which we ought to breed. We have only a 55 per cent calf production instead of the 80 per cent in Australia and the 88 per cent in America. Surely it is worth our while to make use of our available manpower in this connection? These are the projects which we discussed with the hon. the Minister the other day when we asked him to set up an agricultural research station, so that he would not simply be dependent upon the directorates for advice in regard to the direction to be taken by research. This is probably one of the most important aspects of research—to ensure that maximum production is achieved in the breeding of animals. It is only in this way that our herds of livestock will be built up. I want to make a special appeal to the hon. the Minister to give particular attention to whether the advice which he must have in connection with research cannot best be provided by a council of this nature. I also want to ask him to give special attention to the question of animal husbandry which is lagging very far behind crop farming in this country. [Time limit.]

I do not want to discuss what was said by individual hon. members opposite because I consider this to be a waste of time although there are one or two points that I want to discuss. I want to ask the hon. member for East London (City) (Dr. Moolman) whether he will deny that in every sphere of agriculture South Africa is to-day exporting very much more than she ever exported in the past. [Interjections.] It is a fact that our production in South Africa has greatly increased. We are producing better quality wool than in the past and, with fewer cattle, we are still producing all the meat our people in this country require. We are simply turning over our meat far more quickly than was the case in the past. These are the best proofs in regard to what has been done in the sphere of research. But I also want to say this: The hon. member suggests that we insinuated that a farmer was either a bad farmer or a good farmer. But does the hon. member want to try to tell this House that there are no bad farmers in South Africa? Is there any profession which does not have its share of inferior material?

Mr. Chairman, I have said that I do not want to discuss what was said by hon. members opposite; I regard this as a waste of time, but there are certain matters which I want to bring to the attention of the hon. the Minister in this debate. Both speakers on that side referred to the question of contagious abortion. Sir, contagious abortion can be combated at source. Any careful farmer can combat this disease. But I want to make a plea to the hon. the Minister in regard to another subject. I discussed this matter in this House in 1953. I want to express my disappointment that we have not yet made any further progress in the combating of epivagenitis. We have not yet succeeded in making a break-through in regard to combating this disease. I think that we can do more in this regard; that we can instruct more people to study this particular matter and to make experiments in this regard. I regard it to be one of the most deadly diseases in South Africa. Furthermore, I want to congratulate the Department on what it has achieved in so many other spheres as far as the inoculation of stock is concerned. Mention has already been made here of lumpy skin disease and contagious abortion, both of which were feared diseases in the past. I am satisfied that we shall make the necessary breakthrough in this regard in the future, notwithstanding the disappointment that has been expressed by that hon. member who is of the opinion that we are lagging so far behind in this regard. Far from our being behind as far as the combating of stock diseases is concerned. I think that we are ahead of other countries of the world in this connection. Two weeks ago we had a debate here on research in South Africa, a debate in which I had the privilege of participating. I do not want to repeat what was said during the debate, but in the sphere of research South Africa need stand back for no other country in the Southern Hemisphere. A country like America has already invited some of our scientists to America to do certain research work there, and our scientists have done very well there. I admit that our farmers are struggling at the moment; there is no doubt about that. There is not one single part of South Africa which has had its normal rainfall over the past year, and, of course, the country as a whole suffers as a result of this fact. It is obvious that under these conditions there should be a shortage of certain agricultural products as a result of climatic conditions over which neither the hon. the Minister nor his Department has any control. I want to repeat something here this afternoon which I have said on so many occasions in this House over the past ten or 11 years. There have been many people who have decided in the past that fodder banks should be built up by the State. I have said during a debate in this House that no Government, no Department, can build up a fodder bank. I just want to emphasize what I said in this House on that evening when I quoted what I as a lad from the Cape Province had said when I was a child, and I stand by it—that the building up of a fodder bank is a matter which is in the hands of individual farmers. Every individual farmer must take his own precautionary measures to combat drought conditions. Because the individual farmer will in the future be able, through the medium of research, to protect himself against drought, I think that it is the duty of the State to do the necessary research in this regard.

The Minister said that the farmers cannot erect fences because they do not have the capital.

Sir, the hon. member there received an invitation from my hon. friend here, the hon. member for Somerset-East (Mr. Vosloo), to acquire a little wisdom. I want to recommend to her that she go for her first lesson to-night when the House has adjourned!

Mr. Chairman, there are so many things of a constructive nature which we can say in a debate of this nature and there are also so many things which we can say of a destructive nature. But we will gain nothing in a debate such as this by trying to make political capital from what is said here or to score debating points off one another. I do feel that there is one point that I must make before I resume my seat. I want to go further than the hon. member for Kuruman (Mr. Du Plessis). I think that this House as such should express its gratitude to the Transvaal Agricultural Union for the magnificent effort that it made in saving so many head of stock in the Northern Transvaal. I think that we have had adequate proof here that it is not necessary to spoonfeed the farmer. The farmer in this country has always been an independent person, more independent than people in other professions. Let us look for a moment at the legislation which is passed each year by this House to protect other groups in some or other respect and compare that legislation with legislation which is passed here in the interests of the farming community. It is absolutely necessary for the farmer to retain his individuality. In this case the farmers’ own organization went along of its own accord and saved thousands of stock from the abattoirs in Johannesburg, thus saving thousands of farmers from ruin. I do not think that we ought to allow this debate to come to an end without expressing a word of appreciation for what organized agriculture did of its own volition to save the farmers from ruin.

How did they do it?

Sir, it is time the hon. member read his newspapers or listened to his radio. I personally am proud of the fact that organized agriculture took that step of its own volition.

I want now to make a request of the hon. the Minister. Because we have a shortage of staff and because certain necessary planning has not been proceeded with, I want to make this request of the hon. the Minister. In cases where farmers have planned works and built those works themselves of their own accord, I think that in connection with approved works the State ought to assist those farmers and pay them a subsidy in respect of those works. I can assure the hon. the Minister that if this is done it will stimulate agriculture. It will be an acknowledgment on the part of the Government and the Department which I am sure will make a very big impression upon the farmers. [Time limit.]

The hon. the Minister quite correctly stated that in discussing agricultural matters we must remember that our soil is a basic factor. I want to echo this view. I want to mention a few points which I consider to be of great importance at this stage. The one point that I want to make is that although we have made reasonable good progress as far as soil conservation works are concerned there is one direction in which in my humble opinion we have not kept pace with the danger threatening our agriculture and that is in connection with bush encroachment. Mr. Chairman, that silent enemy has been creeping up on us now for some time. It comes from so far away that most of us who travel by motor-car never see it. It is to be found in the bush country; it is in South West Africa; it is in the Upington area; it is in Kuruman, it is in Vryburg, in Mafeking and it is even encroaching upon the bushveld from the Western Transvaal right up to the Northern Transvaal.

I do not want to be ungrateful. I want to thank the hon. the Minister and his officials for what they are already doing in this respect. I do not think that we realize the scope of this danger. There are large parts of the country in my constituency where the farms have become unsuitable for grazing over one-third of their areas. This is really a matter which gives cause for alarm as far as the farmers in those areas are concerned. I want to ask the hon. the Minister to have that matter investigated. He must ascertain the scope of the threat. If we do not do so it will eventually become completely impossible for many farmers to reclaim their land even though the State were to assist them in this regard. I am not asking that the State should combat this evil at Government expense but I am asking that the State investigate the matter so that we can ascertain the most practicable way in which to assist farmers to enable them to combat this evil. A great deal has already been done in regard to soil conservation. The hon. the Minister has again this afternoon announced further improved steps which he is going to take in order to try to stimulate the improvement of the soil. But I dare not remain silent in this regard. I think that we are far too complacent as far as bush encroachment is concerned.

I want to raise another matter. In those parts of the country where drilling operations are very expensive and where in any case this is a very doubtful undertaking I want to ask the hon. the Minister to see that provision is made for the animals there and to ensure that water is made available to those areas by means of pipes, water for drinking purposes only. I am convicted that in the long run the expense in this regard will be less than the large amounts spent annually on the fruitless drilling of boreholes which, if not a complete failure immediately, fail within some months because the little water that collects there becomes exhausted. Thereafter the farmer has to start drilling from the start again or else the Government has to make further subsidies available.

There is another very important matter which I cannot neglect to mention in the few minutes left to me. It deals with that dangerous disease as far as the cattle farmer is concerned—measles. Not only is this a threat to our cattle herds but it also constitutes a threat to our people in this country. It is a disease which is communicated to animals by human beings; that is its cycle. It has been mentioned to-day that 4 per cent of the cattle in the controlled areas are infected with measles. This is not something to be taken lightly, Sir. This is a serious state of affairs. It merely serves to indicate to us the state of affairs as far as the people in those areas are concerned. I want to make an earnest appeal to the hon. the Minister, in consultation with the Department of Health, to declare war upon the measle evil in South Africa. That evil must be eradicated. The farmers and the country cannot afford to allow that evil to continue. [Interjections.] My hon. friend says that the problem must be solved by way of sanitation. I wish that I had the time to discuss this matter. It is an argument but it is not a solution. We must start with the Bantu areas.

When business was suspended I was discussing the question of contagious abortion. This is not such a great problem although it does have a very serious affect upon the increase in the numbers of our livestock. It can be eradicated provided we have the technical staff to trace the disease amongst our herds. It will remain a problem and the farmer will not be able to diagnose the disease unless he can undergo a course in veterinary science to enable him to discover whether an animal is suffering from contagious abortion or not. I want to make an appeal to the hon. the Minister to include this course in the agricultural courses followed, including the short courses. More attention must be given to veterinary science so that farmers will learn to detect the presence of diseases which they can combat, as in the case of contagious abortion.

A far more serious ailment amongst our livestock is fibrositis for which we have no counter at this stage. Research must be made to enable us to find a remedy for this disease.

Is it as bad as they say it is?

I think that it is worse than people think. The hon. member for Middelland (Mr. Van der Merwe) spoke about foot and mouth disease but I want to discuss a more simple disease, blue tongue. Blue tongue makes it impossible for us to export an animal from South Africa to any South American country, except from the northernmost part of the country where sheep farming is not practised. I do not know whether the hon. the Minister and his Department are aware of the fact that it is not possible to export a sheep from this country to Argentina or Uruguay or Brazil. As many as 25,000 pedigree sheep per annum are exported from New Zealand to the countries that I have just mentioned but we do not have the privilege of being able to export one sheep to those countries. I do not maintain that we can eradicate blue tongue in one year. We have the means to combat it but we cannot give a guarantee that this disease will not be spread to another country. This brings me to what is to my mind an extremely important point when discussing scientific research and the correlation and co-ordination of scientific research between South Africa and other countries. We have had the sad experience, because of the policy that we are following in this country, of having being expelled from the Scientific Committee for Africa South of the Sahara.

Whose policy?

The apartheid policy?

The apartheid policy of this Government which has resulted in our having been expelled from many international organizations. We have been expelled from medical organizations, scientific organizations and sporting bodies. I hope it will not be necessary for me to mention them all by name. I am speaking now of this important agricultural body which deals with scientific co-operation between the countries to the north of South Africa, countries which are exposed to the depredations of every parasite imaginable, countries which are a haven for locusts which have proved such a danger to us in the past. We have now lost our point of contact, our liaison with those countries and we are no longer in the position of being able to combat those dangers and control them in Northern and Central Africa. We have lost our connections with these countries and we are therefore exposed to danger. We are in deadly danger because we have lost our scientific connections with the countries to the north of us. I want to put it in this way: Because of the qualifications which the hon. the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services has and because of the staff at his disposal, under the circumstances which have developed, which are perhaps beyond his control, the circumstances under which we have lost our liaison and co-operation with the other countries on the Continent of Africa, the hon. the Minister must go out of his way to obtain co-operation in the sphere of science and research with countries which are still prepared to co-operate with us. The hon. the Minister has already discussed this matter and has told us about the publications of the Department which are distributed in many countries. I accept this fact but that still does not mean that a committee has been formed to obtain co-operation in order to encourage the exchange of scientific ideas, of experiments and of results. This will only be possible if a body of this nature is established and the hon. the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services is the man who can stimulate co-operation with these countries. I spoke about the countries of South America. I want to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to the fact that as far as animal husbandry, veterinary science and the breeding of stock is concerned, the South American States can teach us a great deal. Argentina is one of the stock farming countries of the world with the highest production and its herds are amongst the healthiest that one can find. Their percentage of calves is higher. There are therefore certain things which we can learn from them and also, which we can teach them. This can be done through the medium of a joint scientific and technical committee. But it goes even further than that. I want to tell the hon. the Minister that there is no technical committee of wool-producing countries in the Southern Hemisphere whose members even talk the same language in connection with the quality and the clean yield of wool. If nothing untoward happens, a deputation will be leaving Johannesburg for London this evening in connection with the meeting of the International Wool Organization which is to be held there. Earlier this evening I was asked what I meant when during the recent agricultural debate I spoke about the assistance which the Government could make available by way of this sort of technical assistance and co-operation between the countries. I explained what I meant. I want to make a special appeal to the hon. the Minister to take the lead in this sphere on behalf of the South African Government and to ensure that, if possible, the discussions which are due to be held between the South American countries and the other countries in the Southern Hemisphere producing wool will be of such a nature that assistance and guidance will also be given at Government level so that it will be possible to bring a scientific and technical committee of this nature into being. [Time limit.]

The hon. member who has just sat down contended that we have lost our contacts with countries to the north of us; he also said that this has happened as a result of our apartheid policy. I want to ask the hon. member what he is prepared to concede in order to restore those contacts. He has another opportunity to speak, and I have put a very pertinent question to him. The hon. member made an accusation, and I want him to have the courage of his convictions to stand up and to say what he is prepared to concede in order to restore those contacts. If he does not reply to that question, I am sure he will not resent the fact if I say that I do not have a very high opinion of his courage. I am very sorry that the hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Connan) is not present here. In any case, the hon. member for Drakensberg (Mrs. S. M. van Niekerk) is here. The hon. member for Gardens, followed faithfully by the hon. member for Drakensberg and also by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) (Mr. Streicher), spoke about extension officers and said that there was a critical shortage of these officials. The hon. the Minister stood up and gave us a very clear reply in this regard. He told us how much money was being spent to obtain the services of these people and also told us how many of them were being trained. But, notwithstanding this clear statement, the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) actually had the gall to stand up again and say that there were no extension officers available! Heaven help us if it ever were to happen, but if the hon. member were to become Minister of Agricultural Technical Services to-morrow, I want to ask him where he would obtain the services of these people if trained officials were not available. From the remarks made by the hon. member one can only conclude that these people are available, but that the hon. the Minister does not want to appoint them. That is the only logical conclusion that one can draw from his remarks, and let me say, his remarks were ridiculous. Where is he going to obtain the services of these people?

They will come.

Does he know of them? If he knows of them, I want to accuse him of gross infidelity to our country and to the farmers whose cause he is trying to plead. Why does he not tell the House where these people can be found? Or does he perhaps have a little sausage machine with which to turn out extension officers? Unless he can tell us how the services of these people can be obtained, his arguments count for nothing. Laying down a smokescreen will avail him nothing. He is not serving his country and the people of the country in that way, and certainly not the farmers.

I want to discuss a few matters with the hon. the Minister in connection with the problem of internal and external parasites in livestock. To start with, I want to express my appreciation for the services which are being rendered to the farming population by Onderstepoort. It is very difficult to imagine what would become of the farmers in the Republic if we did not have an Onderstepoort. It has been pointed out that over the past year Onderstepoort has made no less than 63,000,000 doses of vaccine available to farmers. What does disturb me somewhat is that, as far as small stock are concerned, our farmers have begun to develop the idea that one have to have a syringe in the one hand and a spoon in the other in order to combat these internal parasites. I want to ask the hon. the Minister to see whether we cannot find some other means of combating these parasites. The position is becoming untenable. There is another matter which I also want to bring to the attention of the hon. the Minister. The hon. the Minister of Health deemed fit to appoint a commission recently to inquire into the high costs of medicines. I ask myself now whether we cannot also do something in this direction in regard to our livestock. There are certain types of medicine which are producing very good results at the moment, but apparently these parasites eventually develop an immunity to these medicines. I should like attention to be given to this particular matter. Then there are the external parasites, and in this connection I want to refer particularly to the paralyzing tick. I know that I will be told immediately: “Put your stock through a foot dip; that is effective.” I admit that. But there are farms where it is virtually impossible to build foot dips because of the mountainous nature of the countryside. This then means that one has to drive one’s stock some miles in order to put them through a foot dip and so rid them of this paralyzing tick. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister can instruct Onderstepoort to do research into the possibility of discovering a vaccine to combat the paralyzing tick? It is a parasite which can cause tremendous losses amongst stock in a very short time, and we must do everything possible to combat it. [Time limit.]

Perhaps I should begin replying now to the remarks made by the last few speakers. The first speaker opposite, who spoke after I last replied, is the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) (Mr. Streicher), who touched on a very important aspect of agriculture. I want to tell the hon. member that I welcome constructive criticism. He did not start off very well, because he stated that I am only now doing what the Opposition has been saying for a long time. I think he should have put it the other way round, that what they are only now saying I have been doing for a long time. Then he asked where the extension officers are, because, he says, that between 1953 and 1963 there was practically no increase in their numbers. I want to tell the hon. member that extension officers and trained scientists are not people one can produce mechanically. In the past ten years, from 1953 to 1963, the number of trained extension officers increased from 101 to 246, therefore an increase of 145 per cent as far as they alone are concerned.

I should like to say something more about the educational aspect, because I want to make certain announcements. But before I come to that, I want to point out that the hon. member made certain remarks in regard to what I had said about the Veld Trust, and he said that I did not regard them as the highest authorities in respect of agricultural matters and soil conservation. He says that I spoke disparagingly about the Veld Trust. I said that the Veld Trust had rendered valuable services, but it happens in the case of associations, whether they work in this sphere or in another, that their work does not bear as much fruit as it ought to, and that is also the case in regard to the Veld Trust. While these people have a real task to perform, I do not think it is their task to give publicity in the newspapers and to say that they will investigate this and that matter, and then come along with the solution to the problems. It is very easy, when one has not made a thorough study of it, to grasp at something and to agitate for something which is good, but which does not fit into the framework. Then one does not really make progress. I think the Veld Trust has a very important task to perform, particularly in the light of what the hon. member for Gardens also said, namely that, in regard to soil conservation and nature conservation, the general public, also in the cities, should be made more aware of the necessity for they themselves also making a contribution in that regard. There is work for them, but not in the spheres where the Department of Agricultural Technical Services is better equipped and has more specialized knowledge than they have. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) also said, quite correctly, that in 1948 our agricultural colleges had the capacity to train 339 students, but the hon. member did not give the full picture. The capacity at our agricultural colleges has in recent years, since the National Party came into power, been increased to take 660. The hon. member says that the number of university students is decreasing. Well, all the agricultural faculties at the universities in our country are the responsibility of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services. It is our officials who are the professors and lecturers there under the supervision of the university. Those people are paid by our Department and they are our officials, and their names appear on our complement. Now the hon. member says that the number of graduates is only 205 every year.

250.

Very well, 250. But what the hon. member forgets is that it takes an agricultural student four years to obtain his degree, if he passes every year. If we now take it that 250 receive their degrees at the end of the year, the hon. member should bear in mind that those are the students of only one year, and they are those who pass, and there must be at least three times as many in the other years of study. But what I want to tell the hon. member is that in regard to agricultural training there are ample facilities at our universities. Now the hon. member says it is the work of my Department to fill up the universities with agricultural students.

I did not say that.

The hon. member said that was the Minister’s task, and that it was really our responsibility. The hon. member intimated that it was the duty of the State that these faculties should be filled. I say no. I want to ask hon. members and the farmers outside to encourage their sons to receive agricultural training, either a graduate course or a diploma course or some other course, because I agree with the hon. member that a need exists in that regard. But with the development in the agricultural sphere and the competition there is and the ideals we have for our agriculture, a farmer really cannot make the success of agriculture which he would have been able to make had he had scientific training of some kind. But we cannot take these people by the scruff of the neck and put them there. We have our bursaries and attract as many students to the universities as possible. But I agree with the hon. member that more opportunities should be created for courses at the Departmental agricultural colleges to train prospective farmers. Two years ago I clearly stated that I thought that the courses we gave at our agricultural colleges were not keeping pace with the development of our country and the needs in the various areas, and that many good reasons existed as to why these courses should be reviewed. We already have five agricultural colleges in the country, and they are full. A sixth one has been approved for the Transvaal area, and will be established at Roodeplaat, just outside Pretoria, within the course of a few years. But that takes time, and much money is required. When that agricultural college has been established at Roodeplaat, it will make provision for another 150 students per annum. But the 660 students who can be accommodated at our agricultural colleges today can, with modernization and stream-lining of our diploma courses, be increased to such an extent that I think their numbers can be doubled. That is why two years ago I appointed an expert Departmental Committee, which made a study of what was done in other countries and how they tackled the training of young farmers to fit them to cope with their conditions. It further had to investigate our curriculum and make a study of our technical training for prospective farmers, and ascertain what was outmoded and what we could eliminate and what we could modernize. They submitted proposals to me which I have already approved of, viz. that we should abolish the two-year agricultural diploma course and shorten it to one year, and then to apply the most modern educational methods in the light of all the experience gained in our country and in other countries, not to equip the man any the less because he studies for only one year instead of two years, but by the application of more modern methods perhaps to teach him more in just the one year. The things which are of basic importance to the farmer in a certain area will be concentrated on. Now our agricultural colleges are spread all over the country and the courses we will offer at Grootfontein. Elsenburg, Cedara in Natal, etc., will be directed towards the needs of the particular area and the knowledge of agriculture students there should have. Our experience is that many graduate students go to the farm and find that there are certain elementary things with which they have to deal every day which they never learnt about at college. We want to make them more practical farmers in certain areas. He can then choose which agricultural college he wants to attend. All this can of course not be done in one year, but we hope that in the foreseeable future, if we start now, we will be able to increase the numbers to twice as many as we have now.

Accompanying that, I want to retain the ordinary short courses in certain specific areas and in specific subjects. I even want to expand them. Those are the courses lasting a week or a little longer. They are really refresher courses. But I want to do something else, and I have already decided to do so. I want to institute a course which is a little longer than this, with special agricultural subjects, which may last from six weeks to two months or even three months. We have not yet taken the final decision as to how long such a course should be. That has not been finally decided yet, but that is the object and we will institute it as soon as possible. In the same way that we have sheep and wool courses and poultry courses and dairy courses, I want to institute longer courses in the various essential spheres such as will be of great interest to the various areas, at these different agricultural colleges, so that not only people who have previously taken courses can receive that training, but also farmers who have never had any agricultural training at all. They can attend these courses for two or three months, and it will not take them away from their work for a year or two. We are also devoting attention to this, in consultation with the university authorities, to see whether we cannot institute something for farmers who want to be educated which falls between the four-year graduate course and the one-year diploma course. That is the direction in which we are moving, to impart agricultural education to as many farmers as possible during a short period every year, thereby better equipping them for their future. Then there are also the study committees which I mentioned this afternoon. I think that is something which is better than what we have at the moment. I now want to announce that this is what we have decided to do. I think it will be a break-through in the educational aspect of agriculture.

The hon. member for Somerset (East) (Mr. Vosloo) asked that we should do more research in regard to the problems of the Angora industry. I am glad that on behalf of the Angora farmers he has expressed appreciation for what the Department has already done. We do not intend abandoning that research; much still remains to be done and we will definitely continue that research. I do not want to say that we will be able to expand that research, but if the necessity for it arises and we have the staff available, we shall even do that.

The hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) asked that we should devote special attention to the combating of research in respect of venereal diseases among our stock, which have a very deleterious effect on our stock. Well, we are busy doing that. He said that more people should be employed in that regard. The success one achieves in regard to this sort of thing does not necessarily depend on the number of research workers occupied with one project, because research is a wonderful thing. It can be conducted for years without any success being achieved, whether two or ten people are engaged in it, and then a certain person may deal with it and perhaps achieve success. But we are aware of the problems, and in respect of venereal diseases we have certain preventive measures and treatments. We shall continue to see to what extent we can evolve not only preventive and curative measures, but also measures which will completely eradicate that disease. But those contagious venereal diseases constitute a problem which will still give us a headache for many years to come, and we shall be very lucky if we are able totally to eradicate it. I am not so optimistic as to think that that can be achieved soon.

The hon. member also asked that we should make available more veterinarians and that we should perhaps devote attention to employing veterinarians on the same basis as district surgeons. We shall go into that. In regard to the availability of veterinarians, he says that the diagnostic centres are all in the cities. Whereas in the past ten years we have increased the number of our State veterinarians from 83 to 130—those whose services we retained and who did not enter private practice—we should like to have even more, but the demand for their services in the private sector is so great, and the remuneration is so much better, in their opinion, that it is not so easy to increase their numbers, in spite of the fact that we increased their salaries and gave them greater opportunities for promotion, such as the creation of new posts. There are still not enough of them for us to have as many of them distributed throughout the country as we would like, but what we are doing is this. Recently a start was made with the establishment of regional diagnostic centres as an integral part of our veterinary field services. In other words, at certain places in the rural areas we establish a diagnostic centre and we put a veterinary surgeon there and give him certain research facilities so that he can do certain diagnoses there and also certain research work, and what he cannot manage to do there is done at Onderstepoort. In that way we decentralize as far as possible in order to cover the whole country. The volume and diversity of the work is gradually being extended. At the moment there are such diagnostic centres at Stellenbosch, Allerton, Louis Trichardt, Grahamstown, Ermelo, Bloemfontein, Grootfontein, Johannesburg, East London, Queenstown and Mossel Bay. Quite a lot of work is also being done at Skukuza already. The number of diagnostic centres in the process of erection and the number planned, depending mainly on the availability of professional staff, will commence operations during the present year at Potgietersrus, Kroonstad, Dundee, Mafeking, Estcourt, and possibly at Vryburg and Upington. Diagnostic centres are also being envisaged later at Ixopo, Eshowe, Nongoma, Kimberley, Calvinia, Rustenburg, Potchefstroom, Beaufort West, Nelspruit, Groblersdal, Vaalhartz and Sibasa. [Interjection.]

Order! The hon. member for Sea Point (Mr. J. A. L. Basson) is talking just as loudly as the Minister.

I mention these things to show that the Department has not been so out of touch that it has not realized these things before and has not already made attempts to cope with these problems.

Now I come to the hon. member for East London (City) (Dr. Moolman). He said a few things which I do not really wish to reply to. He said that we were so isolated as the result of the Government’s policy of separate development that we belonged to no more technical bodies, not even in Africa South of the Sahara, and that we were losing so much. Now I want to tell the hon. member this. The Government does not just follow this policy of separate development because it finds it nice to do so, but because it really believes that it is the only policy which will ensure to the White man in this country, in his White area, supremacy for all time, and for that I think no price is too high. If it is true that we are as isoloated everywhere in the scientific sphere as the hon. member says, and that we are losing so much, then the price we are paying is in my opinion still not too high. But these countries in Africa which he mentioned, and where he says we have lost so much, should not be mentioned to me. We gave those states a hundred times more than we lost or than we could get from them. There we really rendered widely humanitarian services, and if these people to the north of us are so stupid and short-sighted that they want to cut off their nose to spite their face, and think that will harm us, they are totally wrong, and the hon. member is also wrong. If he reads the report of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services, he will see on page 7 what links we still have in the scientific sphere with African states, with neighbouring states such as the Portuguese territories, the Protectorates, the Federation, etc. We have not been completely ousted. But some people’s political ambitions really go to their heads and they lose their perspective. We gave the lead there, and we have more to give to Africa in the scientific sphere, particularly in the agricultural sphere, than any other country in the world, and if they refuse our services simply for political reasons we shall refuse to offer them our scientific knowledge, but we shall give it to them if they ask for it. Onderstepoort has certainly rendered tremendous services to Africa and also to Europe by means of the vaccines it manufactures, amounting to 63,000,000 doses last year. That is available to other countries, but what has our experience been? Some of those countries sorely need these things, but they do not want to approach our Government because politically they differ from us. They want us to destroy ourselves so that they and their kindred spirits can take over, and we are not prepared to allow that. Now they use UN and its organizations, such as F.A.O., which approach us with a request to supply certain things to those countries. But the policy of my Government, and also of my Department, is to write to those people and to say that if one country needs something from another, there are certain diplomatic channels through which any such request should be made. One must approach the country from whom one wants something, and if they approach us in that way we are prepared to give it to them. But there have been instances where they decided they would let their animals die first before they would ask us for anything. Well, let them then suffer the harm. But we are prepared, if they ask us properly, to render these services to them, but we are not prepared to do so in a devious way, so that an international body receives the credit for having assisted them, and not South Africa.

The hon. member says things are not going well with the farmers. I differ from him. I do not say that things are going as well with all the farmers as we would like, but I shall go so far as to say that, apart from the farmers in the drought-stricken areas, things are going well with our farmers in South Africa, and, except also for another section which perhaps has never been plagued by drought, but that is not the fault of this Government alone; it is the fault of the course of history and the default of previous governments, also that party opposite when it was in power, which results in the fact that to-day we have an appreciable percentage of farmers who have to try to make a living on uneconomic agricultural units. When I rose in this House and said that those uneconomic farm units constituted the great canker in our agriculture, I was criticized. I said one could do what one liked on an uneconomic unit, but sooner or later, if a drought or any other setback came along, one would go under, and therefore serious attention should be devoted to the matter. This is not something which just resulted from the sub-division of land. Perhaps at that time the State did not look far enough into the future either and granted units which were too small, or which now appear to be too small. But that is not something which one can remedy in a day. Therefore, we must evolve a long-term policy with a view to the future. To-day there is nobody in this House who differs from me, but what was the reaction at that time? There was a political campaign that this Minister said that the small farmers must leave the land, and I never even used the words “small farmers”. [Interjection.] But those hon. members could make no political capital out of it, they could not get a single farmer to support them. I never spoke of a small farmer, but of an uneconomic unit. When is it uneconomic? I can mention uneconomic units which are more than 2,000 morgen in size. [Interjections.]

Order! I must warn those hon. members that if they interject again I shall take steps against them.

In some areas of our country 3,000 morgen may be an uneconomic unit, whereas in other areas ten morgen may be an economic unit. Now, where does the smallness come in? It was just a political point which those people tried to exploit through lack of a proper policy. Just the other day one of those hon. members made a speech, and one could swear that they are now claiming as their brain-child the idea that uneconomic units can only be coped with by means of a long-term policy of consolidation.

Now the hon. member says things are not going well. Of course things cannot go well for everybody under such circumstances, but is that now the fault of my Department? I do not want to claim that my Department is so perfect that we never make mistakes, or that we can comply with all the needs. But if ever there was a Department, and also a Minister, which wanted to do everything possible for the development of agriculture in South Africa, it is my Department and I, and I am not saying this in my own behalf, but on behalf of the Government, because it is Government policy to do so.

The hon. member mentioned a few other matters. He says our cattle population is decreasing. I am sure he got his figures from the Bureau of Statistics. But the hon. member knows how those statistics are compiled. The farmers receive a questionnaire asking how many cattle they have and how many have died, and I am a farmer myself, but heaven knows I have never yet paid so much heed to those forms, which we call the “pumpkin lists”, that I could swear that everything I stated in them was the precise truth. The farmers are not keen on filling in these forms and they inflate the figures in regard to the animals that have died because they are afraid of the Receiver of Revenue. [Interjections.] But I admit that venereal diseases affect the expansion of the cattle population. The hon. member says he wants to see a great plan evolved in this country to prevent the animals from dying in times of drought. But was the hon. member out of the country when we announced the Orange River Scheme? One cannot mention any country, not even Australia, which in proportion to its population has tackled such a large scheme, which can really serve as a fodder bank to stabilize agriculture. And that is not the only scheme. Under the Water Affairs Vote I will tell the House what the tempo was of the development of water conservation, and I am convinced that there is no other country, in proportion to its population, which has made more money available per capita in this respect than the Nationalist Government of the Republic of South Africa during the past five years. I know there are problems in regard to blue tongue and other diseases like venereal disease which affect the increase of our stock, but I now want to say this so that the world may hear it. I know that our calving and lambing percentage is very low. But one can go to the areas where it is worst, in the heart water areas of the Northern Transvaal. At Mara and Towoomba we have two experimental farms where we do research and breeding. In the same area one will find a farmer who can show a calving percentage of 75 per cent, and two farms further on, a farmer who cannot even show 40 per cent. His calves died, not so much as the result of contagious abortion or venereal diseases, but as the result of the lack of proper management and supervision, and that is what one finds all over the country. The one man is much concerned about his animals, while the other just trusts to luck. I wonder how many people there are in the Northern Transvaal in that heart water area who inject their calves within a certain period after they are born. Do you know what the general opinion is? The majority of people say that the mother has been immunized, and the calf drinks its mother’s milk and therefore she immunizes it. But now calves die which should never have died, not because the remedies are not available or the guidance is not there, but one finds farmers who will not spend a sixpence to keep that animal alive, and who would rather take the risk of their animal not dying, but it does die. We must try to stop our people from thinking along those lines, by means of giving them guidance. Therefore there is one important task we have to perform, and the Department alone cannot perform it. The more advanced farmers must cooperate with us in disseminating these ideas among other people. That is why the hon. member for Bethlehem said that these attempts we are making are really to assist the farmers to help themselves, and that is the correct standpoint, because, as the result of it, the farmers will again become proud of their independence.

When did they lag behind?

Some of them were always lagging behind, and I shall tell you why. This is a new country with new diseases, and there was a time when the State did not have the answer to all the problems of the farmers. But to the extent that we gradually find the answers, the farmers will suffer a smaller loss if they care for their animals better. That does not mean that we want to put the onus and the whole of the burden on their shoulders. As a Department we shall continue to try to find the remedies we do not have as yet, by way of research, but there is also a duty on the farmers to help themselves. That also applies to what was said by the hon. member for Pretoria (District) (Mr. Schoonbee). He said that if there were no officials to plan the farms, the farmers should be allowed to do so themselves, and I should pay them the subsidies. But it is not really we who do the planning, but the district committees whom we train to do that work. We give courses to those people to assist the Department in that planning, and I want to express my thanks to the members of the district committees who render those services without compensation, just for the sake of agriculture. And we do find those voluntary workers. Just as the National Party grew as the result of the efforts of voluntary workers, so agriculture is also growing as the result of the services of voluntary workers, and that is the best kind of growth one can have.

The hon. member for Vryburg (Mr. Labuschagne) referred to bush encroachment. I know that is a matter which lies close to his heart. We have the problem that bush is steadily encroaching, but my officials tell me that this takes place as the result of certain grazing methods which are applied. I do not know whether that is so, but we are making experiments in that regard, although it will be a long-term project before one can prove it. But I believe that bush encroachment would not have been so bad had it not been for untimely burning and over-grazing. He also spoke about measles. That is, of course, a very difficult matter. The real carrier of measles is the human being. The animal can only get it from human excreta, and therefore it is useless trying to kill it by injecting the animals; It must be tackled at the source. In this country, with its multi-racial population which has different levels of civilization, that is one of the greatest problems we have. Here it is also a matter of education, the education of the White employer on the farm, and also the education of the Bantu employee. It is a problem as the result of which the farmers lose much money, and it is something in regard to which research is being done also by the Department of Health, because it affects the human aspect, but we are consulted in regard to those projects and we are au fait with them.

In so far as the paralyzing tick is concerned which the hon. member for Kimberley (North) spoke about, I may say we are doing research in that regard. We know that we can dip to kill it, but we are doing further research. The hon. member for King William’s Town feels that I should take more drastic action and have compulsory dipping and inoculations in certain areas. It is very easy to say that it should be made compulsory. If one makes it compulsory, even if one has the powers in terms of the law, one must still ensure that it is carried out. I would rather not use compulsion, because, unless my inspectorate can be extended sufficiently, I would rather ask the hon. member to assist me to educate the people to do so. [Interjections.] Compulsion does not work so well in practice. Education is better than compulsion. That is my reply to what has been said up to now.

I have listened most carefully to the replies given by the hon. the Minister during the course of the debate this afternoon and this evening. I want to say frankly that the main impression I have of the Minister’s replies to the points that have been raised by this side of the House is that the Department is perfect and that there is nothing wrong with it. The services that it provides are perfect. The attitude of the Minister was that there could not be a better Minister of Agriculture. Who are really to blame are the inefficient farmers of South Africa.

You are talking nonsense.

The Minister says we are talking nonsense. He says we should look at the backwardness of the cattle farmers of the North Western Transvaal. They will not even apply primary methods of inoculation to prevent the heart water disease. That is a severe criticism of the cattle farmers who suffer under severe drought conditions at the present time in the North Western Transvaal. It is nothing else but a severe criticism. In fact, as far as the Minister is concerned, they are a lot of backward people who do not know how to handle or develop cattle. What are the facts? The facts are that to serve the entire North Western area—the whole of the Rustenburg district—there is one young extension officer who is 24 or 25 years of age. It is impossible for any farmer to get hold of him because he is booked up for weeks ahead with appointments with farmers who want to see him. That is the primary reason. Let us take another example. As far as this Minister is concerned most farmers are frauds and bluffers as far as the Receiver of Revenue is concerned because he said here this evening that the industrial census forms he receives are completely unreliable. The implication is clear. To the Minister farmers are crooks and they have to be handled that way. There is no other way to handle them because you cannot rely on anything they tell you. I am, however, going to leave the Minister there because I want to refer him to another industry—a most important industry whose revenues are approximately 30 per cent of the wool cheque. I refer to the tobacco growing industry. Last year I had occasion to raise certain issues regarding the troubles of the tobacco growers in the Rustenburg and Marico areas, the areas which produce over 50 per cent of our tobacco crop. As a result of the unsatisfactory replies given by the hon. the Minister to me in that debate he was compelled to call on his Department to organize a farmers’ day at the Rustenburg Tobacco Research Institute in order that he could appear before the farmers in that area and put right the wrong statements he made in this House. The attitude of the Minister to me at that time in regard to the tobacco growers was precisely the attitude that he adopts towards the cattle farmers of our country, as exampled here to-night. He said that a very large percentage of the tobacco farmers do not follow the advice of his Department. They adopt incorrect methods. They will not listen to what he says.

Why do you not make sure of your facts?

I have them here in front of me and if the Minister contradicts them. I shall use another opportunity to quote them to him.

You are most irresponsible.

This is what the Minister said last year. In order to rectify the position he organized this farmers’ day at the Tobacco Research Institute. He appeared there as the guest speaker. I think it was in September last year. He there dealt with certain aspects of the tobacco industry. He made a certain approach towards it. Let me point out that this is an industry which supplies one of the largest sources of revenue to the Government by way of taxation—approximately R70,000,000 per year. It is an industry worth, in its gross production, approximately R35,000,000 per year. It is an industry faced with considerable surpluses and the disposal of its crop. In the 1963 crop surplus for example, approximately 16,700,0 lb. of tobacco was unsold. The estimated crop surplus for the 1964 season is something like 17,000,000 lb. of tobacco. The total crop production estimated for this year is approximately 69,000,000 lb. in weight of tobacco. It is clear from the exports and the internal consumption that the tobacco industry is going to have a surplus—an undisposed crop—of something like 40.000,000 lb. in weight of tobacco at the end of the current year. The bulk of the revenue in respect of the tobacco industry, apart from that which is internally consumed, is derived from the export of tobacco. This country is a small producer of tobacco as far as the world supply is concerned. The total production of tobacco in our country only represents 6 per cent of the total world supply. We find difficulty in disposing of our crops. In the main the exported tobacco is sold at a lower price than the price paid to the producer in respect of tobacco sold on the internal market. There are two very good reasons for this. There are certain problems that the tobacco producer and the industry face. There are two main reasons why our crop is so poor and why it is sold at a lower price than the internal market price. The first reason is that tobacco and smoking tastes vary from country to country. Smokers’ tastes in overseas countries are not the same as the smokers’ tastes in South Africa. There is the other problem of the development of the necessary varieties that can fit these particular tobacco tastes in order to achieve an adequate export market. Beyond any shadow of a doubt we have one of the finest tobacco research stations in the world, but there is this problem of the marketing and the selling of the required varieties of tobacco and the giving of the necessary advice to tobacco producers.

Order! The hon. member cannot discuss that under this vote.

May I point out, Sir, that the tobacco research account falls under this Minister. That is what I am dealing with. One of the objects of the tobacco research account is to deal with the marketing of tobacco. I quote from the Act: “The moneys in the tobacco research account shall be used … for aiding publicity in the Union or elsewhere in connection wth the marketing of South African tobacco.” That Fund is entirely administered by this Minister and not the other Minister.

When the Minister attended this meeting in Rustenburg he recognized the feelings of the tobacco growers at that time because he stated at the very beginning of his address when he started to deal with the problems that the tobacco producers face—

That is the Advisory Committee that was established as a result of the passing of the Act of 1960. Why are the tobacco producers concerned? R5,000,000 was voted for this Fund. It has earned interest of approximately R100,000 but the total expenditure from the Fund, to my knowledge, does not even exceed the interest it has earned since it was established. There is not a single word in the Report of the Department about an Act administered by the Minister’s Department dealing with what has been achieved by that Fund. The prime function of the tobacco research account was to establish and investigate marketing procedures for the disposal of South Africa’s tobacco production and to give advice in respect of the varieties that should be produced by the farmers in order to develop an adequate export market. Under the Minister’s administration for a period of approximately four years little or nothing has been done in this regard. The Minister administers this fund. His Department administers it. His Department controls the expenditure of the fund, but all that we have heard is a statement made by the Minister at this meeting in the major tobacco producing area of the country, namely that he has established an Advisory Council to go into the methods of producing more tobacco, when already we have one of the finest tobacco research institutes concerned with this particular problem. [Time limit.]

It is very clear that the hon. member for Turffontein has completely changed his front in this House. He has now become somebody who talks on agricultural matters. He has made such progress that he is beginning to talk nonsense about tobacco. He does so because he no longer has an opportunity of doing so when Railway matters are discussed. He has always been the main speaker of his party on that subject. He has now become the main speaker of the Opposition on agricultural matters. The hon. members for Port Elizabeth (West) and Cape Town (Gardens) will have to be careful otherwise he will replace them in this House when it comes to agricultural matters. That is why the hon. the Minister need not take much notice of the attacks made by that hon. member.

I wish to refer to the question of the harm that is done to our soil, or surface erosion, which, to my mind, is a matter of utmost importance and one to which the Department of Agricultural Technical Services must give its attention. When I travel by aeroplane over parts of our country, particularly in the North-Western Transvaal, I am struck by the number of wounds that have been inflicted on our land. These wounds deface the surface of our best grassveld farms. It is to a great extent due to uncontrolled and irresponsible mining of low-grade ore by mining companies. It may be argued that this is a matter which falls under the Department of Mines but the protection and the preservation of the surface of our land rest with the farmers and the Department of Agricultural Technical Services and that is why I raise it under this Vote. Millions of rands are spent annually to preserve the surface of our soil in a positive way. I want to put it to the Minister that there are farms which are being completely destroyed. After the mining companies or the owners of the underground rights have finished their prospecting and their mining, they turn their backs on those farms where they have operated and go away. The owner of the surface is powerless to restore that surface which has been destroyed. After they have finished the work hundreds of holes and ditches are left just like that. The Mines Act (Act 27 of 1956) provides that relevant mining concerns are only responsible for making safe any dangerous shafts and holes which can be dangerous to humans and animals. The owner of the surface can take legal action and try to restore the surface but he is usually at the losing end. I want to know this: Who is ultimately responsible? Should the Department of Agricultural Technical Services, through their soil conservation section, subsidize the farmer for restoring the surface that has been destroyed or is that the duty of the farmer alone? It will cost thousands of rand. We know our country is rich in minerals. We know that more and more options are taken on underground rights and that exploitation takes place on a larger scale every year.

Order! The hon. member is wandering too far away from the surface.

Sir, I am remaining on the surface. I am talking about erosion, the destruction of the surface of farms whose economic value has decreased to such an extent that there is no longer any market for valuable units, because the surface has been destroyed by unsystematic activities. The mining companies simply leave all holes and ditches which are shallower than about 10 feet. Such a farm then deteriorates in value. I want to suggest that the Department of Agricultural Technical Services should negotiate at high level with the Department of Mines so that a regulation can be laid down whereby the company which is responsible for that surface destruction can be held responsible to repair the damage. Those holes can be filled cheaply if the same machinery with which they were originally dug is used. I am making this point on behalf of various farmers’ associations in my constituency. You have the same problem in the surrounding constituencies of Lichtenburg, Ventersdorp and so forth. I have already received serious complaints in connection with this matter. I have already submitted this matter to the Department of Mines, but without any results. The reply of the Department is usually only confined to giving an interpretation of the law. Only the deep and dangerous shafts have to be rendered safe. The existing mining Act protects the owners of underground rights much more than the owners of the surface, and that must be changed.

I wish to raise another small matter. This is in support of what the hon. member for Vryburg has said in connection with bush enroachment. The hon. the Minister has already replied to that. He told us that research was being done in connection with the combating of bush enroachment. He also said that it was often due to injudicious grazing. We cannot be satisfied with that. We have to accept the fact, no matter what the basic cause may be, that bush encroachment is getting worse. Useless bushes have destroyed the grass coverage of thousands of morgen on many farms. This problem must be tackled speedily. The question arises whether beneficial use cannot be made of those bushes that are uprooted. For example, the question should be investigated whether the wood of these bushes cannot be converted into wood pulp, shavings or used for the manufacture of paper. There is an unlimited supply which can perhaps be put to beneficial use in reducing the costs connected with the uprooting of the bushes.

In further support of the hon. member for Vryburg I wish to point out that increased losses are suffered because beef carcasses are rejected at the abattoirs because of measle infection. Attention must be given to this matter not only by the Department of Health but by the Department of Agricultural Technical Services. The reason for this is that it does not help to try to treat the animals. General guidance should be given to the farmers as to what they should do to keep their farm labourers, who are mostly the carriers of the tape worm, clear of it. We are living in a multi-racial country and our non-Whites are not accustomed to live according to hygienic standards. It is consequently hardly possible for a farmer to try to meet this ever increasing problem. There is an alarming increase in the figures available in connection with the percentage of measles infected carcasses at our abattoirs. The fact that human beings are the carriers and that it is the non-Whites who are actually making the position worse is confirmed in South West Africa where there is a higher incidence of this disease amongst the cattle found in the vicinity of towns and cities. The figure is … [Time limit.]

It seems to me that the last speaker got mixed up with alluvial diggings. He was grousing about the fact that when certain people started turning over the earth there was no authority to rectify the position. It seems to me that when these licences were granted the Government should have seen to the matter. They would then probably have satisfied the hon. member. I should like to say that I have seen alluvial diggings and I do think it is an ugly sight to see lovely earth turned over—all gravel and no grass. I should like to leave the matter there.

I should like to address the Minister on the question of the research into and production of fibre. I hope the Minister will not indicate to me that I am possibly dealing with matters that some of the other Ministers have to deal with. We have a very peculiar and difficult position to deal with when we talk about fibre production in this country. The Minister has been sympathetic. I have followed very closely what he has done over the years and I must say that he has been very willing to reply to matters I have raised. I notice in the annual report of his Department that, on the question of fibre production, certain protests have been made. I think I must credit the Minister there for the progress that has been made. In the closing paragraph dealing with this matter, however, he says that with the recent findings they feel that it will not be long before they, that is to say his Department, will be in a position to bring about sufficient fibre production to meet the needs of the country and so relieve us of this unholy position that we are entirely dependent on overseas countries for fibre. I should like to say that I felt happy about the position. As I read the position at present, however, and as a result of various questions which have been put to the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs the position seems to be far from rosy. The amount of fibre necessary for the manufacture of grain bags and wool packs for the needs of this country is approximately 50,000 tons. In 1961 830 short tons of fibre was produced. In 1962 1,065 short tons was produced. In 1963, which is more important, only 1,187 tons of fibre was produced. When you see that the target is 50,000 tons, you must agree with the phrase which was used by our leader at the Cape. He said: “We are certainly tortoising along”. I see very little prospect, if any, of us attaining that limit. Already we have been told that price fixation in respect of local production has been increased to R130 per ton—I do not know whether it is short or long, but we must satisfy ourselves that it is short tons. The imported price is still lower. You can therefore quite understand that when we do ultimately reach the stage of producing our bags and packs from locally produced fibre, unless some method is found whereby we can obtain that fibre on a more economical basis we will be far above the world cost of production. In 1961 the total content of locally produced fibre in articles manufactured in this country was 1.8 per cent. In 1962 it rose to 2.3 per cent and in 1963 it rose again to 2.6 per cent. I think, Mr. Chairman, being a farmer yourself, you will admit that that is not progress. I do not want to go too far at this stage because earlier on the Minister disclaimed responsibility for the cost of wool packs, etc. According to reports and information we have received from the Minister of Economic Affairs, the Government’s policy is to maintain the present system of mills which are operating in this country. Such mills, as you know, are operating almost entirely with the imported commodity. We are told too that the production of jute fibre will be encouraged so that farmers in various areas will be able to produce it and that ultimately the production will be carried on in the Bantu areas or in the Native Reserves. With the production increasing as slowly as I have just mentioned, when can we possibly expect to arrive at a stage when the production here will be sufficient to satisfy the situation in this country? It is a sad thing to say, but I think that never before—I have been associated with this question of jute for more years than I should like to remember—have I found the position as shocking as it is at present.

I have never found that the farming community of this country could be exploited as they are being exploited at present. I think it is a shame. It is a situation that this Government, unless they take it in hand, will regret because they are exploiting the producer to maintain the policy they have adopted to keep mills running in this country. They tell us that they are doing it because they are scared of sanctions. If sanctions were imposed on us by the very countries that are supplying jute to us to-day, we would have nowhere to turn to. What is 1,600 tons when we need 50,000 tons? When is the Government going to wake up to the position that they cannot go on like this? The sad matter I should like to refer to at this stage is that the producer is being exploited and he does not know about it. I have never heard anybody on the other side of the House say that what I have said is correct. They know it is perfectly correct. They are exploiting the farmers without their knowledge. Year in and year out millions of rand are being lost to the farmers because the Government insists on this policy and allows the fibre to be imported at a price which is shocking to-day. The Minister of Economic Affairs told us that raw jute, if imported from Pakistan, was costing the same price as the manufactured article. He said they would continue in this way because they wanted to be independent. I told the Minister years ago that he had a very difficult task. I say it again to-night. I am not blaming him. I am not saying that he is not doing his best. But the Minister has to take the blame ultimately. We cannot carry on with the position as it is to-day. I shall say again that I believe that the producer in the country has no knowledge at all of what is happening at this stage. I think the time has arrived that a commission should be appointed to investigate the position and to see just how we can meet this difficulty and the jam that the Government has got itself into. [Time limit.]

I should like to put a few matters to the hon. the Minister. In the first place, I should like to refer him to the question of the tsetse fly. It causes some concern that the tsetse fly in the neighbouring states to the north of us has been moving southwards for some considerable time. As you no doubt know, they have already advanced to within about 30 miles of our northern borders. I notice in the report that reference is made to the fact that the Department has sent a spraying unit to the north, and that they have also established a permanent committee to fight the tsetse fly. It is gratifying to note that these steps have been taken. It seems there is some progress in eradicating the tsetse fly. It is a menace to our country. The tsetse fly is the host of nagana and sleeping sickness. If these diseases were to enter our country, I think very great difficulties will arise for our cattle farmers, particularly in the Transvaal. There is the danger that the tsetse fly can come along the courses of the Limpopo River, down through the Kruger Game Reserve, and from there to the adjoining cattle farms. It will be a tremendous blow to our cattle industry. I should like to know what progress has been made in that campaign, and whether there is the necessary co-operation. Another point is the question of foot-and-mouth disease. In that case also reference is made to an interterritorial committee which has been established to investigate the question of foot-and-mouth disease, as well as the planning measures which are required. Mention is made of the high commission territories, Northern and Southern Rhodesia, Moçambique, Angola and South West Africa. I should like to know whether that committee is still in operation and whether the necessary co-operation is forthcoming to take measures to prevent the spread of foot-and-mouth disease.

The next point is the question of research at the research stations and institutes. When I look at the map on page 14 of the Annual Report of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services, where the research institutes are indicated, I notice that in the Transvaal low-veld—Northern and Eastern Transvaal—there are virtually no research institutes, except the sub-tropical research institute at Nelspruit. There are research stations at Alkmaar and Barberton in the east and the cattle research stations of Mara and Messina in the north. The northern and eastern lowveld of the Transvaal, which are really the great vegetable producing parts, are not really provided with research stations and experimental farms. When we refer to the report, we notice that in 1950 that region produced 9,000 tons of vegetables. In 1960 that production was stepped up to 158,000 tons, whereas the total production of the Republic was 307,000 at the time. In other words, those parts produce more than half the vegetables consumed in the Republic. I think it is very essential that attention should also be given to those areas, in order to provide them with research facilities. Annually 42,000 tons of sub-tropical fruit, excluding bananas, are produced there. So it is a very important region for the production of vegetables and fruit. I think it is essential that consideration be given to that area to do the necessary research work. We are very grateful for the research institute at Nelspruit which occupies itself mainly with research in respect of citrus fruit, as well as vegetables and subtropical fruit. In view of the fact that additional land has been acquired there, there is a prospect that the activities there will be capable of considerable expansion. We think there are parts where we should have special facilities for research because all the conditions differ from those at Nelspruit, e.g. In the lowveld the area which produces most vegetables, is the area Kaapmuiden-Komatipoort. The moisture content of the air and the climate are completely different from that at Nelspruit. I think it is essential that an experimental farm should be established in that lowveld region to supplement Nelspruit. Further north there is the Blyderivier where there is an entirely different type of soil and climate. I think one could well provide that region with a research station or experimental farm to serve the needs of the local people.

This is a great and important vegetable producing part, and there are great possibilities for the future. There is a variety of new crops that can be grown, and in connection with which research is necessary. For instance, a start has been made with the production of coffee. Years ago the Department conducted certain experiments in connection with the growing of coffee. The results were not sufficiently satisfactory to the Department to enable them to tell people they could proceed with the production of coffee. In spite of this, we are convinced that good coffee can be grown in those parts. There is a person in the Komatipoort area who has knowledge of coffee. He planted coffee and the results he achieved were outstanding. There is sufficient land available for the production of coffee to satisfy the requirements of the country. A start has even been made with the production of tea. However, further research is necessary in this regard. There are possibilities for the production of sugar even. It is possible to produce a variety of products in those parts, and it is in the interests of the national economy that attention be given to those parts, and that greater provision should be made for research stations to supplement the services already rendered by the existing stations.

I want to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to the rabies position as reported by his own Department. In the Department’s report for 1963 they record a marked increase in the incidence of rabies throughout the country, especially in the Free State, the Cape Province and South West Africa. That leaves very little of South Africa which is not caught in the grip of rabies. Almost the whole of Natal and East Griqualand are already in quarantine and have been in quarantine for nearly four years. There is a recorded report of 360 cases which have been examined and found positive. I doubt whether at any other time in the history of this country there have been 360 positive cases of rabies. To think that the disease is steadily spreading in this country, a disease which is shockingly fatal to humans when acquired, and that the Minister is apparently not doing very much in connection with the matter is something which is causing a great deal of disquiet to anybody who has the interests of the humans of this country at heart. The hon. the Minister should make his policy quite clear at this stage. Other countries have been faced with epidemics of rabies and it is now possible to eradicate the disease. Dr. R. A. Alexander who used to be and probably still is employed in the Minister’s Department, a world authority on rabies and who is certainly the greatest authority this country has ever produced on the disease, states the following in this report—

This has been the experience in Central Europe following the tremendous increase in the incidence of the disease in all classes of animals after World Wars I and II. This very happy state of affairs was brought about by the mass immunization of domestic dogs as a supplement to the control of domestic nets and the ruthless destruction of ownerless dogs. When H.E.P. vaccine made its appearance, Malaya embarked upon its classical rabies control programme which was so eminently successful. Now Malaya is not anything as vast a country as South Africa nor is it as rich as this country. The results of this campaign were confirmed by critical field trial in Israel by way of a health organization team who demonstrated conclusively that final control was dependent upon mass immunization of dogs as a measure supplementary to but not as a substitute for so-called police-control measures.

Coming nearer home we have available the experience of Southern Rhodesia. In spite of the fact that over a period from 1951 to 1957 there were 115 confirmed cases of rabies in slightly more than 700,000 dogs vaccinated, the incidence of rabies decreased from a peak of 149 cases in dogs and 24 in other animals in 1954 to two cases in dogs in 1961 and not a single confirmed case in any other animal. From the mass of data there emerges one salient and important point, i.e. that rabies can be eliminated from a given region, with the possible exception of Canada and a limited portion of South Africa, by the regular continued immunization of all dogs from the age of three months by a single injection of vaccine, the destruction of ownerless dogs and the control of the exit and entry of all dogs combined with the education of the people. These measures should be supplemented by an adequate diagnostic service and the maintenance of the necessary supplies of serum and the treatment of all our animals. These facts stand out like a pylon in the desert. There remains only the provision of the necessary funds should it be decided that the control of rabies, with a view to its ultimate eradication, is to be undertaken. Give them the green light and the funds and the medical and veterinary professions know exactly how to set about the task.

Mr. Chairman, at the very, very best, the most you can say for the Minister’s policy is that he is trying very weakly to control this disease. He is not attempting to eradicate it. He is allowing it to spread throughout the country. It has reached fairly close to Cape Town. We know of the case at the Karl Bremer Hospital roughly about three to four weeks ago. A young boy was brought there and he died.

It was many years ago that it got as near as Cape Town.

That does not excuse the Minister from not doing more than he is doing at the moment. A man in the Minister’s own Department says all he needs are the funds. [Interjections.] Nothing can explain away the fact that the human population of this country are exposed to a terrible disease like hydrophobia, a disease which is almost always fatal in humans. There is a higher incidence of this disease in this country as far as I can judge, although I speak subject to correction, than ever existed. The Minister’s own Department says it is spreading throughout the country.

Accidents are also almost always fatal to human beings.

You cannot compare accidents with hydrophobia. You get bitten by a dog or some other animal and you die. It is almost entirely fatal to humans. It is one of the most painful and distressing deaths that anybody can suffer.

Order! Who said “shut up”? Did the hon. member for Drakensberg (Mrs. S. M. van Niekerk) say “shut up”?

No. Mr. Chairman, I said: “You are talking like a child”.

Hon. members must be careful in what they are saying.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to raise two matters of practical importance with the Minister. I should like to ask the Minister what progress has been made with the experiments and what results have been achieved with the experiments the Department partment is conducting in the Klipveld complex between Lichtenburg, Koster and Ventersdorp, in combating the quick-sickness bush. I think the Minister will know what is involved.

The second matter I should like to deal with, is in regard to the growing of maize seed. I think the State and the Department should play a more active role in the growing of seed, particularly the growing of mealie seed. We are in a difficulty, and the difficulty is that valuable irrigable land which is extremely suitable for the growing of mealie seed is sometimes rendered useless for that specific purpose as a result of the fact that we are unable to get the necessary isolation. I should like to ask the Minister whether some scheme cannot be developed whereby farmers who wish to concentrate upon the growing of mealie seed, and who possess suitable land, can be protected against the wantonness of people who will not always grant them the requisite isolation zones.

I have just been listening to the criticisms of the United Party. I must say the criticism is very superficial. A few things emerged very clearly. I cannot blame the Opposition too much, for they also are the prey of the difficulties in our agriculture to which I should like to refer briefly. Mr. Chairman, I think we can say with great safety that every agricultural entrepreneur at the present time operates within the framework of an accepted, virtually traditional, democratic economic system. Our great difficulty as agricultural entrepreneurs is that we are caught between a paradox of two economic systems. I should like to mention them: We enjoy freedom on the one hand, and on the other hand we are caught in a guided economy. We have partial State intervention in respect of soil erosion, in respect of controlled prices, storage, transport, but in respect of production, organization and registration we enjoy freedom. There is partial guidance on the one hand and absolute freedom on the other hand. Our process of production operates on a completely different level from that on which our marketing process operates. The construction on which our agricultural policy is based—may I call it our philosophical theoretical construction—no longer exists at the present time. There is vagueness and lack of clarity in respect of the basic construction on which our agricultural policy is founded. I should like to ask whether we have a clearly viable, economic theoretical construction on which our agricultural policy is based. Certain problems are rooted in this: Is the existence of uneconomic units not the result of the existence of this paradox? This paradox that on the one hand, particularly as regards our marketing process, we are bound to a guided economy and that we are enjoying absolute freedom in respect of the production process. There is no State intervention in respect of the registration of producers, or in respect of production or organization on the farm. But as soon as we get to the marketing level we have interference. Is the result of this paradox not this almost historical uneconomic farming system which we have in the country in many respects? I should like to ask a second question: Is the absence of a scientifically based philosophic theoretical construction of agriculture not also a cause of certain problems of our inability to find the correct solution for certain problems? Is this conflict between partial State interference and the absolute absence of State control or State guidance on the other, not the cause of us sometimes getting ineffective and unproductive results in spite of well-meant guidance, information based on the best research, but not only in respect of the information, but also in respect of the provision of credit in agriculture? When we see the unproductive results that sometimes flow from adequate well-meant financing, which sometimes flow from scientifically well-meant research and guidance, we have to ask whether the time has not arrived for the two Agricultural Departments to establish for us, once and for all, a proper philosophical construction on which our agricultural policy may be based. So I am pleading for intensive coordination between the two Departments of agriculture on this common philosophic theoretical construction.

Furthermore I am pleading for a system of partial State intervention in any future financing. It simply is no good giving money and providing credit facilities if that provision of credit is not accompanied by guidance to the man who receives it. [Time limit.]

I wish to congratulate the last speaker on having the courage to criticize the policy of the Department. The paradox he was talking about sounded like some new form of verminosis; what his point was, I do not know.

I want to deal with the question of farm labour. But before I do so I should like to say something about the farming census form to which the Minister referred. The difficulty is that the questions are never the same. The questions are not standardized. I started off by marking off my farm books in certain columns so that I could give the information asked for. But the next year you get a totally different set of questions. Had the questions been standardized it would have been quite easy for the farmer to answer them accurately. The present position is that you have to analyze your whole year’s workings in order to arrive at the figures the Department wants. I spent some three days not so long ago to try to get the correct information. Another difficulty is that the census year does not end on the same date as that of the financial year. Had that been the case you would have been able to get the information by looking up your income tax form. I suggest to the hon. the Minister that he discusses this matter with his colleague.

The question I want to raise is the removal of Bantu from the South Western Cape and replacing them by Coloureds. I hope the Minister will take up this matter with the hon. Ministers of Bantu Administration and Development and Community Development because this is having very serious repercussions on the whole of the Western Cape. Local bodies such as divisional councils are sacking their Bantu Labourers who used to do the unskilled work and replacing them by Coloureds. I know of two divisional councils which used to have large road gangs consisting entirely of Bantu.

Order! The Committee is dealing with Technical Services.

This is a question of farm labour, Sir, and surely technical labour comes under technical services? Surely one of the most important aspects of technical services is the supply of technical labour and mechanization. But if you say I cannot discuss mechanization I shall sit down.

The hon. member must try to confine himself to technical services.

I am giving the background of what is going to be very technical. You see, Sir, the farmers have gone in for mechanization at the suggestion of the Government. The farmers now find it difficult to get people to operate those machines. By doing away with the unskilled Bantu, these local bodies are to-day taking on Coloured workers who should really be doing skilled work. The young Coloured workers take on the job because they have regular hours; they work eight hours per day; a lot of time is spent on the lorries going backwards and forwards to the camp and these local bodies can pay any price. The result is that Coloured labour is being taken very rapidly off the farms. The difficulty is this, that you cannot discuss the question of Coloured labourers with the Minister of Bantu Administration and you cannot discuss the question of Bantu labourers with the Minister of Community Development. So I have to address myself to the farmers’ representative, namely, the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services. They tell you that you can get Bantu labourers in the South Western Districts if you apply for it. That may be so in theory but it is not of any use in practice. On the advice of the Government the country has gone over entirely to mechanization and the farmers need skilled men to drive those machines. If you want to lower your costs of production you have to go in for mechanization. It is no good your training a Bantu labourer to drive those machines for the simple reason that the moment he gets his licence to drive the lorry or the combine or the tractor it belongs to him although you have paid for it. These Bantu labourers go off for six months in the year and very often they do not return. They can now get jobs in urban areas because they are skilled in driving lorries or a car or a combine. So you see, Sir, it is no use training him for the job on the farm. Nor have you Coloured labourers available because they are used by local bodies to replace the Bantu who are being sent out of those areas. This is exceptionally bad for the Coloured man himself. I know the Government say they want this area to be the area of the Coloured man, that the working facilities here should be available to him. But the fact is this that he should learn to become skilled while he is young. If we are going to get our Bantu labour cut down we have to have trained men to drive these highly complicated machines to work our farms.

I know many areas where large numbers of farms are up for sale. Those farmers will sell at any price because they simply cannot get the labour. I know of areas where there are five to ten farmers in a single district who are prepared to sell their farms at any reasonable price. They want to farm, they want to retain their farms, but they cannot run them because they cannot get the labour. We are told that 2,500 persons are leaving the land annually and the removal of the Bantu labour is merely expediting this exodus from the land. I was most surprised to hear the hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Wentzel) almost welcome this. He did not object to this exodus. He says it happens in every country. Well, Sir, the basis of any sound country is a good yeomen population. They are the people who keep a country on a level keel. In times of crisis it is usually the countryside which keeps its head.

[Inaudible.]

My hon. friend over there suffers from political lockjaw. He never gets up to speak himself. The fact that the Whites are leading the countryside is largely due in the first instance to the ideological policy of this Government. [Time limit.]

In the short time at my disposal I should like to reply to a few of the matters raised. I should like to start with the previous speaker. I listened attentively to what he said I should do. But when at the end of his speech he said that the whole problem was attributable to the ideological policy of the Government I realized I could not help him. He will just have to take up that problem with the Department of Labour. I disagree basically with him. The fact that Bantu are introduced into the Cape to do skilled work, such as industrial work, will not ensure that the Coloureds remain on the farms. There are other factors tempting the Coloureds to leave the farms. There are higher wages, better facilities and a multitude of other factors. Nobody would like to see the farms denuded of labourers. I think one solution is to utilize our labour more productively, and we should pay those we use more productively better wages to make it more attractive to them. There are respects in which the State might be able to help. There is housing, etc. In the cities the State provides housing for the Coloureds, but the State does not subsidize Coloured housing on the farms. I shall bring these matters to the attention of my colleagues.

The hon. member for Marico (Mr. Grobler) referred to the mines. We are negotiating with the Department of Mines in respect of problems that are being created. But on the other hand, surely the owner of the farm knows, when he issues prospecting options, that the surface of his land will be adversely affected if those options are exercised. I do not know to what extent the Mines Act can be amended. I do not know to what extent the owner can insist that if the mining company proceeds to exploit …

May I ask a question?

No, I do not have enough time. The hon. member should rather discuss the matter privately with me at a later stage.

The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Mr. Dodds) referred to the production of fibre.

I can assure the hon. member that I am very sympathetically inclined towards fibre production. As far as we have investigated the matter, my Department is quite sure that technically it is possible to produce bag fibres, but we are not so sure, taking the cost of imported fibre into account, whether it can be done economically. But there are other developments in the fibre field. People are using wood fibre, synthetic fibres such as plastics, etc. This has had an influence on the necessity of producing fibre even at a high cost and subsidizing it to support the industry.

Because of the lack of time I cannot reply to the other questions. I hope hon. members will forgive me for not replying to all their questions. I shall reply to them in writing if that will satisfy them.

Vote put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Progress reported.