With your leave, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a brief statement in regard to South-West Africa and the United Nations Organization. Because South Africa has repeatedly stated its case, in and outside UNO, on the manifestly unlawful decision of the General Assembly on 27th October, 1966, with regard to South-West Africa as embodied in Resolution 2145, I have instructed our representative there not to take part in the present general debate of the Special Session because the Government does not wish to create even an impression that it considers itself bound by that unlawful resolution or that it will let itself be illegally prevented from administering the Territory in accordance with the spirit of the Mandate.

With your leave, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement in regard to the Rietbok disaster. I want to announce that the organization appointed to conduct the search for the wreck of the South African Airways aircraft ZS-CVA (Rietbok) has now submitted its report. In its report this organization emphasizes, inter alia, that its attempts to find and salvage wreckage were hampered and frustrated by the natural conditions which prevailed out at sea near East London. These included a very strong ocean current, at times as strong as up to 8 knots, whereas accepted practice usually allows deep-sea diving in currents exceeding 4 knots only in cases of emergency, no visibility near the ocean bed and rough seas. It is seldom if ever that at least one of these conditions does not prevail in that area and it appears that it will be fruitless to continue the search. On the strength of its experience the organization is of the opinion that the wreckage has been scattered over a considerable area. This opinion is supported by the fact that the pieces of wreckage which were washed ashore at Bredasdorp are believed to be parts of the Rietbok. It is doubtful whether any wreckage of the Rietbok which may possibly be salvaged at this stage can shed any light on the cause of the accident.

I move the amendment as printed in my name—

To add the following paragraph at the end of the Clause:

1. (d) by the substitution in paragraph (j) of subsection (2) for all the words preceding the proviso of the following words:

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Bill reported with amendments.

Amendments in Clause 4 put and agreed to and the Bill, as amended, adopted.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to make a small correction. During the discussion yesterday I stated that the salary of a postman was R2,400. I made a mistake. The salary of such a person, including the value of his uniform, is R1,644. My calculations were made on that basis of R1,644.

Mr. Chairman, I rise immediately not only to reply to what the hon. the Minister has just said but also to what he said yesterday and to the calculations he made of what the additional costs would be to postmen and Post Office staff because of the fact that they must pay income-tax on the value of their uniforms. The hon. the Minister spoke of a small correction which had to be made. Let me just tell him what an enormous error he made and how big the actual correction is.

Before coming to that, however, I want to tell him that I take exception to his statement that what we said yesterday in the interests of the Republic of South Africa had ulterior political motives. I may rightly ask why I did not see the chairman of the National Party’s postal affairs group, or its secretary, who is here to-day, in this House yesterday when this important Vote was under discussion. Did their absence perhaps have ulterior political motives? Let us just find out where they were yesterday.

The hon. the Minister levelled the charge yesterday that I was pleading for the Post Office staff because I wanted a concession to be made so that such concession might be used for assisting rich people to evade the income-tax paid by them in respect of their cars and houses which they received free of charge. What utter nonsense. Let me spell it out very clearly to the hon. the Minister. In the first place, I am not opposed to people with high incomes who can afford to do so having to pay income-tax on the free houses and the free cars which they have for their private use. I do not want that to be changed. Does the Minister understand that? In the second place, let me just mention in passing that there are many rich people, like the hon. the Minister himself, who has a free car and a house for which he pays very little, and I am not sure that such cars are always used for business purpose only. Does he perhaps pay income-tax in respect of the private use of his car? In the third place, I believe that it is a glaring injustice that the Post Office staff have to pay income-tax on their uniforms. I repeat that to the hon. the Minister.

The Minister took the example of the rich and the poor. Let me also do so. When a rich man receives a car free of charge from his employer for exclusive use in respect of his work, he pays no income-tax on that, but when the poor post office worker receives a uniform from his employer for exclusive use in his work, he does in fact pay income-tax on that. In other words, if the rich man is favoured, then that is done by the hon. the Minister and his Government. But here, to me, is the most important indictment contained in the nonsense of which the hon. the Minister rid himself yesterday. I have his Hansard here and this is what he said—

Tears come to one’s eyes. Unfortunately this statement of the hon. the Minister is completely untrue. The figures furnished by him are misleading. How misleading they are I shall now tell this House. His figures are out by 1,300 per cent which I think is a record as far as incorrect figures which have been furnished in this House are concerned. Here are the figures based on the information I have obtained partly from his Department, partly from the Commissioner for Inland Revenue and partly from a mathematician of the University of Cape Town. The white postman in the Post Office earns, as the hon. the Minister said, between R840 and R1,600 and then that goes up, I think, to R2,400 per annum, in the case of inspectors. The majority of them receive between R1,000 and R1,600. The important point is that the married man on that salary scale pays 8 per cent income-tax. The value of the uniforms, according to the calculations for income-tax purposes, varies between R24 and R30. The additional income-tax, and now the hon. the Minister may make his own sums, on that amount of R24 at 8 per cent per annum, does not amount to 18c per annum as he said; it amounts to R1.92, namely 13 times as much, as the figure he gave this House.

This is not a paltry amount. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister knows that if a Post Office worker takes that R2 and buys a savings certificate each year for the 40 years which he spends in the service of the Post Office, and if those savings certificates earn interest at 5 per cent per annum, the total value which he will be able to set aside over the period of 40 years will amount to no less than R250. That is the extra burden which the hon. the Minister is imposing on the Post Office staff by means of this taxation on their uniforms. Multiply that figure by the number of Post Office employees, namely 16,000, and you will see that this extra taxation amounts to more than R4 million for that period. The hon. the Minister spoke here of l½c per month. He is 1,300 per cent out with his figures.

Then the Minister wants to tell us that there are no complaints. The hon. member for Middelland said things were so wonderful in this country. I admit that the postal services in Otjiwarongo may perhaps be wonderful, but between Cape Town and what other place are they wonderful? Here I have an example from Sunday’s edition of the newspaper of the hon. the Minister himself, namely from Dagbreek, written by Dirk Richard, the editor of Dagbreek. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I do not want to reply to the speech made by the hon. member for Orange Grove who has just sat down and who launched his odious annual attack on the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs. We who have been members of this House a few years longer than the hon. members who recently came to this House, know that it is the annual practice of this hon. member during the discussion of this Vote, to rid himself of all the hatred and envy he has been able to muster. I wonder what the hon. member expects. We who sit here listening, one side opposite the other, one speaker opposite the other, try to the best of our ability to determine what intentions the person has who speaks in the interests of our country and people, but we find that as far as that hon. member is concerned, he simply rises to make objectionable statements. His entire speech, from beginning to end, consists of objectionable statements. He tries to humiliate the Minister. We know that for many years it has been the intention of the Opposition to try and break this Minister and to humiliate him within his own ranks. That is what the Opposition is perpetrating.

I want to avail myself of this opportunity to tell their mouthpiece, the hon. member for Orange Grove, “The more you lash this Minister, the more you try and humiliate him, and the more you insult him, the closer you unite this side of the House”. I want to ask this hon. member a question and I want to do so with every good intention. Throughout the years he has been unable to achieve anything by his actions. He was once more doing conjuring tricks with a few figures which I do not want to discuss. I do not know how many of those figures are reliable and how many are not. The hon. member blows off steam and makes a fuss. From the moment he gets on his feet until he resumes his seat we only have objectionable statements. I just want to tell him that for a long time we have had enough of this kind of behaviour. It will be a good day in this House for us and for him and his Party when that hon. member realizes that he cannot achieve anything by behaving in that way, and that he will never be able to achieve anything by behaving in that way. Besides, he ought to know that he cannot break a Hertzog. That is what they are trying to do here.

Order! The hon. member must discuss this Vote now.

I just want to say—this is my personal opinion and I think this House will agree with me—that this Minister has one of the most difficult portfolios in the Cabinet. [Interjections.] Yes, that is so. As regards his staff, he is dependent on the Public Service. As regards his buildings and extensions, he is dependent on the Department of Public Works. As regards his finances, he is dependent on the Department of Finance. Only when all these Departments have agreed, plans for what we want in our constituencies may proceed. I have in mind my own constituency, for example, and I boast about that. Approximately ten years ago, particularly on the farms, there was a small number of telephones. At present there are thousands. As far as the Department of Posts and Telegraphs is concerned, that is the type of service and extensions we have received. But yet complaints are made that we do not receive sufficient attention and service. I just want to tell those hon. members that they do not know this Minister. They do not know his Postmasters-General who have succeeded one another. As far as I am concerned, they are the most approachable men in our Government. I say that with all the conviction at my disposal. Just look at the way some people act towards this Minister, one of the most courteous people on either side of this House. We have felt for a long time that this matter has gone too far. If hon. members want to criticize the Minister they may do so. If they want to make suggestions which are in the interests of our country, irrespective of the constituency to which they apply, we welcome that. But we do not welcome an odious tyranny such as that we witness here every year. One gets sick and tired of it. The senior members of the United Party ought to revolt against that kind of spirit. It is not worthy of this House to act in such a way. We do not achieve anything by doing so. We are doing much more harm than good. One would like to be on good and friendly terms with the Opposition, but these things cause bad feelings and estrangement. That hon. member is responsible for that.

I just want to mention something in connection with the service we get from this Department. We know that there is a backlog of 20,000 telephones at the moment. When these 20,000 cases which we have on record have been dealt with, there will be another 100,000. The service which is desired in this regard is insatiable. I now want to come to the staff, about whom the hon. member is also dissatisfied, and the services they render. There is a large scarcity and shortage of technicians. In many respects we require highly qualified people to render these services for us. There is even a shortage of the people who deliver our letters on the streets and at our homes in the towns. Now the Minister is blamed for that. That, too, is done in such a way that it gives offence. I just want to tell the Minister that he must not take offence. He should repudiate that with the contempt it deserves. As far as this side of the House is concerned, and I believe that side as well, there are sufficient members who appreciate what is being done. I want to congratulate the Minister most heartily. [Interjections.] Yes, make yourselves ridiculous by speaking against the truth and the facts. What do you contribute to this House and to the debates by adopting that kind of attitude? What contributions do you make for our country and for your constituencies. Even your constituents do not agree with you. Come to my constituency and see whether you find that kind of attitude amongst your people.

Order! The hon. member must address the Chair.

I want to convey my thanks to the Minister as well as to the Postmaster-General. I want to tell them not to pay any attention to attacks of this kind. That is not criticism. I am sorry, but I cannot call it criticism. The country is grateful and there are sufficient members in this House who appreciate what has been done. We thank them for everything they have done.

Mr. Chairman, one day I shall write a little poem or a song about the hon. member for Lichtenburg. It will be entitled “O, die donkie is ’n wonderlike ding”. [Interjections.] Why that hon. member uses his precious time in this House to make a personal attack on me, I do not know. I quoted figures and facts in my speech and I am waiting for a reply from the Minister. To satisfy the hon. member for Lichtenburg for a little while, I am not going to state my own views in the next few minutes. I shall state the view of a person for whom, I think, he has great respect. I am referring to the editor of Dagbreek, Mr. Dirk Richard who, under his own name, wrote in that newspaper last Sunday about the wonderful Post Office services we have to-day. Remember, I am not the one who is trying to break the Minister. This comes from the editor of Dagbreek. This is what he wrote. The heading is, “Letters that arrive late.” He has not yet heard of Otjiwarongo.

Mr. Richard says (Translation)—

Yesterday we heard how happy the public was with the services that are being rendered and how excellent they are. Here their own newspaper writes that the public does not feel happy about them. Then Mr. Dirk Richard goes further by saying—

“Time and again”, not merely in a few cases. [Interjections.] Do hon. members not agree with the editor of Dagbreek, the newspaper of which the hon. the Prime Minister is chairman? Then Mr. Dirk Richard says—

Yes, he says that a messenger on a bicycle is faster than a telegram. Then the editor of Dagbreek en Sondagnuus goes on to say—

Is the hon. member for Lichtenburg accusing me now of disparaging the Minister? I do not think that I have quoted more than 10 per cent of my own words so far! But let me continue. The editor writes that the complaints may possibly have been exaggerated, but then he goes on to say the following—

I repeat: “We cannot continue this way.” Then he continues—

If the hon. the Minister or other hon. members do not want to reply to me, if they prefer to make their usual personal attacks on me, let them kindly reply to what Mr. Dirk Richard wrote in Dagbreek the day before yesterday.

I just want to reply briefly to another point that was raised by the hon. the Minister. He said that he did not know about complaints made by the Post Office staff. Have you ever heard such ignorance? Does he not maintain contact with the staff associations of the Post Office?

When did I say that?

Yesterday afternoon.

I did not.

The hon. the Minister wanted to know what dissatisfaction there was.

[Inaudible.]

Oh, the hon. the Minister does not know about any dissatisfaction. There are three and more Post Office staff associations for the various groups. They publish their magazines regularly. They have personal interviews with the Minister. But in spite of that he tells us that he does not know about any dissatisfaction. Allow me to quote from the editorial which appeared in the latest edition of the Postal and Telegraph Herald and which was written on behalf of the Post Office staff. It says the following—

But presumably the hon. the Minister knows nothing about that. The editorial goes on to say—

I say, “Hear, hear!” because they are doing good work. The article goes further—

But the hon. the Minister is not aware of this dissatisfaction. He has not yet read this editorial, an editorial in a magazine which is representative of roughly 10,000 of his own workers. The article continues—

Once again I say, “Hear, hear!” to this. The article goes on to say—

And then the hon. the Minister says that he does not know about any dissatisfaction in the Post Office!

But when did I say so?

Yesterday afternoon —I am quite convinced that the hon. the Minister made that remark yesterday afternoon.

I did not.

If he did not say so, then I accept it. But subsequent to that he admitted that there was dissatisfaction. He accepts that the writer of the editorial is right. Then I accept that we shall receive a reply from the Minister in regard to these complaints and in regard to the points mentioned here, infer alia, “Anomalies and weaknesses in the 1966 salary structure; unadjusted overtime rates; unadjusted subsistence and travelling allowances; unsuccessful representations in regard to a five-day week, and still no acceptable housing scheme”. Here we have the complaints, here we have the dissatisfaction. If the Minister admits that there is dissatisfaction, let us hear from him what the reply to this is, and in particular, let us hear from him not in vague words, but in exact terms, what his reply is to this tremendous charge which is being directed against him by the editor of the largest Afrikaans Sunday paper in South Africa—a Nationalist Party publication, Dagbreek— namely Mr. Dirk Richard.

Mr. Chairman, it is so striking that, when the hon. member for Orange Grove rises here to speak, things always assume a totally slanted appearance. They are so totally slanted that one really wonders whether the mind from which they come is not slanted, too. Let me remind you of the words the hon. member used a moment ago. According to him, if the Minister admits that there is dissatisfaction, he is also admitting that all the complaints are true! Have you ever heard such a thing? How can any sensible person say such a thing? [Interjections.] I agree with hon. members. The first deduction that one makes, is that such a person is not sensible. But let me give you another example. Yesterday I mentioned that postmen earned R2,400 a year and that the extra tax they paid on their uniforms—because that was what the discussion was about —only amounted to 18 cents a year. The figures I furnished were provided by the Revenue Office; they are not my own figures. I said that they were paying an extra 18 cents a year. I corrected myself a moment ago; I admitted that I had made a mistake, namely that they did not earn R2,400 a year, but R1,664 a year, including their uniforms. I made a mistake there and I admitted it. What was the hon. member’s reaction to that? He said that my figures were wrong. According to him a married man pays a certain amount which he mentioned. But I did not mention a married man yesterday; I mentioned a married man with two children.

He still pays 8 per cent.

The extra tax paid by a married man with two children amounts to 18 cents only. Can you see now what the type of argument is the hon. member advances?

I stand by my figures.

You will fall by your figures, too.

The hon. member sets about it as follows: When I quote figures in respect of a married man with two children, then he uses those figures in respect of a married man, in an attempt to prove that I am wrong. Surely, there is a great difference between the two cases. However, I can understand the hon. member’s concern very well. In all associations irresponsible writers are to be found from time to time. The writer of the article the hon. member quoted wrote it in an irresponsible manner. I think that every sensible postal official who is a member of the Postal and Telegraph Association, will admit that these are imprudent words, and I am convinced that they will assist in seeing to it that this sort of imprudence does not continue.

I can understand the hon. member’s concern. Yesterday I tried to analyse what the actual motive was behind the attacks of the hon. member and the Opposition. Their motive is simply that of trying to catch a few postal officials’ votes in the election which is being held in Johannesburg to-morrow. But they will not succeed in doing so. There is one thing which Post Office officials have learnt. They may be angry sometimes—any person gets angry at times—but when they regain a sensible outlook, then they admit to the truth. They know the truth. The truth is that from that side of the House they have never received anything but misery. But from this side they have never received anything but fair treatment. It stands to reason that grievances and difficulties arise from time to time. They cannot be remedied at once, but this side of the House has never refused to remedy them, and besides, we did not give the post office worker an increase of 1½ cents a month. I think it is an insult to a person to give him 1½cents.

Let us go back into the past, back to the period of ten years during which the United Party governed this country. In those ten years the Post Office workers were given only one small raise, and they received that after there had been a go-slow strike. But since the National Party came to power, we have given the staff increases in salary every few years. We did so in 1951 and in 1953 and in 1955 and in 1956 and in 1958 and in 1963 and in 1965. On an average we have been granting increases to the Post Office staff virtually every two years, and we did not grant them 1½ cents a month, because that is an insult. I think that the Post Office officials will regard the conduct of the hon. member as a further insult, because he thinks that he ran buy them with 1½ cents to vote for that side of the House.

But I want to go even further. The way he acted as regards Dagbreek, is typical of the hon. member. We shall leave it to the hon. member for Brakpan to deal with that, but I shall only deal with it in broad outline. Mr. Richard of Dagbreek said that such and such were the shortcomings in the Department of Posts, but the reason for those shortcomings is the shortage of capital, and he elaborated on those things which had to be put right. The Post Office is not to blame for the shortage of capital. This hon. member, who supposedly rose to adopt an honourable attitude, keeps silent about the actual contents of that article, and he merely deals with a few phrases in which he points out the unfortunate position in which the Post Office has been landed owing to the shortage of capital. Surely, that is not worthy of this House. Such conduct is not even worthy of the United Party itself. Or are those their standards? If those are not their standards, is it not time the Opposition put a stop to this sort of conduct? I do not intend to go into the other points now. I shall discuss all the problems later, but I thought it was time I corrected the hon. member.

The hon. member for Orange Grove really thought that by dragging Mr. Dirk Richards into this debate he would score a few points, but the hon. member has done this House a great disfavour. The hon. member did not read out to the House the entire article as it had been drawn up by Mr. Richards of the Dagbreek. He only read out certain things which suited his purpose. Nobody on this side of the House has denied that there is a shortage of telephones or that there are delays in the delivery of letters. The hon. member for Welkom said so yesterday. What have we had in this debate up to now? The hon. member for Orange Grove had a few things to say about complaints. What did the hon. member for Parktown talk about? He said that he had been unable to purchase a postage stamp over the week-end. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (City) complained about his telephone account which had been incorrect, and the hon. member for Simonstown complained about a doctor’s telephone which had been cut off because he had not paid his account. Those are all the complaints we heard in this entire debate, and when the hon. member for Orange Grove had nothing further to say, he happened to spot the leading article by Mr. Richards. But he should have gone further. After Mr. Richards had referred to those things, Mr. Richards went further, and I think it was very unfair of the hon. member not to quote that as well. Mr. Richards said (translation)—

He stated further—

And then he went on to say—

He then goes further, and I agree with this, and I have on previous occasions raised pleas in this House in regard to this following statement of his. He said that—

It would have been better if the hon. member had pleaded in this House for all those ties binding the Post Office to be loosened, because they are the cause of all his complaints. But the hon. members of the Opposition are exaggerating these complaints, and why? Just for to-morrow. But I want to tell them that they are going to be very disappointed over the result in Johannesburg (West) because the National Party is going to have the greatest majority there which it has ever had in that constituency. [Laughter.] You laugh? We shall see on Thursday or Friday. But I say that we will have the greatest majority there.

But just let us look at this matter. Here the Post Office is being blamed for things which are not being done, but has that hon. member ever thought of the wonderful service which the Post Office is rendering when it pays out pensions? I am now asking the hon. member for Umbilo whether he has ever had a complaint to the effect that the pensions of elderly people were not being paid out in time? Has any member in this House ever had a complaint to the effect that there was a delay or that a mistake was made with the payment of 251,690 pensions each month by the officers of the Post Office? Instead of rising to their feet here and expressing their gratitude and appreciation for that service which is being rendered by the officials, they turn their noses in the air as if it was merely something which has to happen. Hon. members of the Opposition are supposed to be the champions of the under-privileged, but when this great task is fulfilled, i.e. when the Post Office sees to it that the pensions of our elderly people and the under-privileged, both White and non-White, are paid out in time and correctly, then not a word is said about it. The amount which the Post Office is paying out to-day in respect of pensions to Whites, Coloureds and Indians, totals R87 million per year and there have never been delays in the payment of those pensions, but that hon. member comes here and complains about a few letters which were delivered late and a few telephone calls in regard to which there were delays. If the Post Office were able to obtain all the capital it would like to obtain, then those delays would not have occurred. Is it the fault of the Post Office that there are delays, or is it due to the tremendous industrial growth in the country? Show me another country where so many householders own so many telephones as in the Republic of South Africa. That hon. member comes here with the ridiculous idea that people should have different telephones, and his colleagues say that it is no longer a luxury to-day to have a telephone in one’s motor car. But when Johannesburg wanted to import such a system, how many people were prepared to have telephones in their motor cars? I would say that it is a ridiculous idea that there should be a telephone in every motor car. This Republic of ours cannot afford it.

Who suggested it?

One of the hon. members on that side. He said it here yesterday.

You are shouting so much that you are choking.

That hon. member chokes in his mind; that is his trouble. All that that hon. member knows about is a Marino sheep and when he was in the wool industry he made a mess of that. In addition he was also thrown out by the Ossewa-Brandwag because he was a poor general. [Time expired.]

I do not want to follow the hon. member who has just sat down but I would like to give him some advice. I think he should watch his blood pressure. The hon. member has tried to show that everything in the garden is lovely as far as the Post Office and postal services are concerned.

I did not say that.

We accept that this organization cannot spend as much money as it would like to spend on the necessary services because it is subject to Treasury control; I think that is the point which the hon. member tried to make. We accept that but what the hon. member does not want to admit is that the Post Office has not kept pace with the expansion which has been taking place in South Africa. I think the hon. the Minister will accept that that is so. Sir, there is no denying the fact that there is a dearth of telephones. In Sea Point people have to have what they call party-lines in fiats. The hon. member who has just sat down has challenged us to mention a single country in which everybody has a telephone.

Every householder.

In America everybody has a telephone …

That is not true.

Sir, I am not prepared to compare America with South Africa, because there the telephone services are run by private enterprise and in this country the Post Office is a Government undertaking. I would be wrong therefore to compare the two countries, but I have heard people say that it is quicker to get through to Johannesburg via New York than direct.

Nonsense.

However, I have not risen to join in the private fight which has been going on here; I would like to talk about the Coloured people, and I want to remind the hon. the Minister that there is still discrimination between the wages of white employees and those of Coloured employees in the Post Office. Sir, I have asked before and I will continue to ask for the removal of this discrimination. The hon. the Minister is probably aware of the fact that the Coloured Postal Union passed a resolution last year as well as the year before asking for equal pay for equal work, and I think that that request is fully justified. The hon. the Minister must know that there are Coloured people in the employ of the Post Office with 30 years’ service or more, doing wonderful work. They have to do the same work as certain white people and yet they are getting hundreds of rand a year less than the white employees. Sir, that is something which no Government can justify. No Government can justify the proposition that people should be paid not according to the work they do but according to the colour of their skin.

Sir, I would like to refer to a case that was brought to my notice a few days ago. I have spoken to the Public Service Commission about it, because I realize that they are the people who fix salaries, and I have had a very courteous reply from them and an undertaking that they will go into this matter. I would like to associate myself with those hon. members who have expressed appreciation of the courtesy that has always been extended to us by the Postmaster-General and his officials. I have always had the highest regard for the services rendered by the Post Office and I want to thank the officials for their courteous service. I do not deal with postal officials very often, but on the few occasions on which I have approached them they have tried to assist me in every possible way. Sir, to show how the Coloured people are treated, here is the case of a man who had had 17 years’ service as a packer. The hon. the Minister will know how important it is to have packers in the Post Office service. This man has a wife and children and after 17 years’ service he gets R64 per month. He has to travel a long distance to work because he has been moved out of the city under the Group Areas Act. His third-class train fare costs him R2.57 per month and he has to pay 8 cents a day in bus fare. His rent is R2.56 per week. How does the Government expect a man with 17 years’ service and with a wife and children to live decently and properly on R64 per month with these expenses?

For the first time now they are also deducting 5 per cent of his pay for pension purposes· This brings his salary down to about R62 per month. I challenge the hon. the Minister to prove to me that there is any white man in the service who, after 17 years, only earns R64 per month. Why must the Coloured people be discriminated against in this way? Sir, I leave this matter in the hands of the Minister. I know that he may not have the power to do anything about it but I want to ask him to use his influence with the Commission to see whether this unsatisfactory position cannot be remedied. Sir, there seems to be job reservation in the Transvaal and other provinces as far as postmen are concerned. I notice that the volume of mail handled has grown from 1,109,000 odd to 1,141,000. The report says that during the year 710 male administrative assistants and 1,127 women assistants left the service and it then goes on to say—

As far as white employees are concerned—

But then there is this little ray of sunshine—

There is an enormous number of resignations and there is not sufficient people to provide the staff required for the delivery of mail. Why are Coloureds taken on temporarily? Why can you not take them on permanently? Why can we not have sufficient staff whether they be White, Coloured, Indian or Bantu to deliver the letters which form such an important aspect of our economy? Sometimes if you do not receive an important letter in time— unless it is a letter of demand which you do not want to get too early—may cost a lot of money if it is not delivered. Why can we not have a service completely staffed by people who are there to staff it? The Minister says that they can get them but why can they not be permanent? If the Minister tells me that there is prejudice, then let us forget this prejudice.

I want to remind the hon. the Minister, and especially new members, that in places such as Paarl, Somerset West and Stellenbosch there is not one white postman. They are all Coloureds who deliver the post. There has never been any trouble and why can that not be the case in Pretoria or Johannesburg? Why should there be this prejudice about getting a letter delivered at your front door by anybody who does not have a white skin? After all, the Coloureds are inside your home looking after your washing and clothing and food and even your children. Why can they not deliver a letter to the front of your house? [Time limit.]

Mr. Chairman, I do not want to follow up on the argument raised by the hon. member for Boland. The hon. the Minister will reply to that. What I want to discuss to-day is the fact that we as representatives of the northern municipal areas really do have a problem. When I speak of a problem then it is not the type of problem which the hon. member for Parktown discovered he had over the week-end when he found that he did not have a postage stamp. Our problem lies in the direction of the provision of telephone services in our area, an area which has in recent years experienced what is almost a population explosion. To-day I want to restrict myself, for the purposes of these representations, to the municipal area of Parow and Epping which is being served by the present Vasco exchange in that area. It is logical that the demand for new services in this area in particular will be so tremendous. It is so because we find that the greatest percentage of the white population of the Peninsula is to be found living in the northern municipal areas. If one takes the building activities there into consideration, then it is also obvious that the population there is going to be as tremendous an increase in the near future.

We are fully aware of the tremendous task which the hon. the Minister and his Department have already performed in this respect and are grateful for it. We are grateful for the fact that they have succeeded in meeting the ever-increasing demand for telephone services as far as possible. If, in all fairness, we were to analyse all the factors then it is definitely an achievement to find that the total waiting list to-day has only slightly more than 30,000 names on it. Of those 30,000 applicants on the waiting list, approximately 10 per cent are at the Vasco exchange. In order to cope with this situation the Department has already installed auxiliary equipment which has accommodated approximately 1,000 additional numbers. We also expect further equipment to be installed during the course of the year for 2,800 additional numbers. When it is installed it will replace those 1.000 numbers on auxiliary equipment so that we will actually have a net addition of 1,800 numbers to that exchange.

But despite this addition there will, in other words, still be a waiting list of over 1,000. Let me say at once, before the hon. member for Orange Grove finds in this a reason for rejoicing, that it is definitely not as a result of lack of planning on the part of the Department that this is the situation. On the contrary an automatic exchange for the Parow area has already been approved in principle and a site for that exchange is available. Because that is so, I feel myself at liberty to-day to bring it to the attention of the hon. the Minister and offer it for his serious consideration that we must consider at this stage erecting an emergency exchange on that site where we can locate those 1,000 numbers which are at present going through the auxiliary equipment in the Vasco exchange which will ultimately be eliminated. I feel that we may in this way possibly be able to cope to a certain extent with the situation at present prevailing there until such time as the new exchange has been completed. Naturally this goes hand in hand with the fact that attention will also have to be given to cable works in the area.

You will allow me to make particular mention of the Tiervlei area in this regard because in the present state of affairs it sometimes happens that there are deserving applications which have to remain unsuccessful because the cable lines in large parts of Tiervlei are not adequate. In view of the progress which has been made in Tiervlei and the building of the training hospital there, we can expect additional demands to be made in this regard which will make urgent capital works there essential. We realize the problems of the hon. the Minister and his Department and we know that our problems there arise from the tremendous development which we have recently experienced. Nevertheless we want to thank the Minister and his Department in anticipation, not only for the sympathetic ear which they have given to us in the past in this respect but also for the sympathetic way in which they are going to afford us relief in future.

Mr. Chairman, I should also like to express my gratitude and appreciation to the Minister and the Postmaster-General and his staff for the good service which is being rendered throughout in the postal and telegraph services in this country. The United Party has once again adhered faithfully to its tradition in the person of the hon. member for Orange Grove who did nothing else but express destructive and negative criticism without making any positive or constructive contributions or making any proposals in regard to how matters could be improved. They have also once again indicated that they neither are nor cannot be consistent, for last year the hon. member for Orange Grove uttered a series of Jeremiads here. He did not then propose a reduction in the salary of the hon. the Minister, but this year he did in fact do so, together with fewer less important complaints. The hon. member complained that there had been a delay in the despatch of several telephone accounts, something which he gave no proof of. He also complained of the shortage of telephones but forgot that mention is made in the Report of the number of telephone exchanges, which have increased by 5.7 per cent. He also forgot that there was an increase of 6 per cent in the number of telephones which were authorized and put into operation. He also forgot that the number of subscribers who shared telephone services had increased by 7.2 per cent. In addition the hon. member complained about the tax which has to be paid by uniformed staff on their uniforms. I wonder how many members of the uniformed staff save R1.93 in one year or a few cents per month, for that is what it amounts to. For the sake of convenience the hon. member omitted to mention the increase under sub-head A which makes provision for an increase of R6,101,000. That is an increase in the officials’ remuneration of 9.2 per cent, in respect of salaries, wages and allowances, and also of vacation saving bonuses. That is apart from board and lodging, transport expenses and motor car and bicycle allowances. Sir, I should like to read to you what the reaction of the staff and the staff association to this was. I am not going to read the entire report, but only one paragraph. It reads as follows—

A Press statement to this effect was also subsequently released by the Association of Posts and Telegraphs.

Under sub-head E—Miscellaneous Expenditure—there has been a reduction of 2.8 per cent. The decrease is R13,800. Under sub-head G there has been an increase of R793.000 in respect of expansions in the Department in order to provide improved and more effective services. The staff of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs must keep pace with this expansion. That is why it is with appreciation that we take cognizance of the good work which they are doing. Under sub-head H there is also an increase of R467,000, for the expansion and maintenance of the telephone system. That is an increase of 16.6 per cent. The hon. member for Orange Grove has not reacted to replies furnished by the Minister on 24th January, 1967 (Hansard, column 18), i.e. that representatives of commerce and industry supported the increase in local calls as a measure for more effective development of post office services.

I should like to raise a plea to the Minister to investigate and ascertain whether it will not be possible to combat the manpower problem in the telephone exchanges by making more use of blind and physically disabled persons. If we can draw these people, who can perform those functions quite efficiently, into the telephone services it would certainly result in great benefits, and will to a large extent combat the manpower problem. I then want to ask the Minister whether it is possible to have an inquiry made into the establishment of a post office in Moot Street, Hercules. We would be highly appreciative if it could be possible to order an investigation to be made into that matter. and if it could be found that such an amenity could be established there. Then I want to make an appeal to the community to acquaint itself with the contents of the first part of the telephone directory which contains information and instructions in regard to telecommunications. I also want to make an appeal to the public not to hold unnecessary telephone conversations and to keep conversations as short as possible so that other people may also make use of the telephone lines. This applies particularly in regard to party-lines on farms where people sometimes talk unnecessarily. As regards the delivery of post, it would be a good thing if all people in the community would locate their letterboxes in as convenient a place as possible so that it is easily accessible to the postmen. Much time can be saved by doing this.

Mr. Chairman, I am the first member of the official Opposition who has been able to speak since the hon. member for Brakpan practically exploded on the other side of the House. In the main I want to speak about certain improvements I should like to suggest in the telephone directory. Before I get to that, I must react to the fireworks that came from that side of the House. I want to say at once that I personally find the staff and the employees of the telephone department extremely courteous. I start by saying that. But I should like to say immediately that yesterday we were answered in the allegations we had made against the hon. the Minister in regard to the operation of the service, by being told that there were no such shortages and inadequacies in the service at all. This was the type of answer we had from the hon. member for Middelland. Today we have had a different situation. The hon. member for Brakpan has completely conceded the correctness of the criticisms we made.

Not the petty ones.

The hon. member conceded the very far-reaching criticisms which were made yesterday. He attempted to justify them and excuse them on the basis of this article and its answers, namely the fact that the Post Office service was controlled by the Public Service, that the Treasury were not allocating adequate funds, that the Public Works Department was not building enough post offices and that the Public Service Commission was controlling staff and pay rates. That is just where we feel that this Minister is falling down so badly. He is having even less than average success in persuading these Government agencies to do their duty by the Post Office Service and the country. The Post Office staff are not being backed up adequately by these important agencies of the Government, which the Minister must persuade to give him more generous allocations. This is the great point.

Having said that, I want to get on to certain suggestions in regard to the telephone directory. The telephone directories are probably the best-selling large size book, if not any book, in South Africa. A } million copies of the Cape directory alone are printed. I do not doubt that over i million copies of the Witwatersrand and Pretoria directories are printed. The total must be over a million per year. The suggestion I want to make is that the introductory pages to these directories, with their information and instructions, should be carefully scrutinized and improved. There being a million telephone books, these are in the hands of presumably a million people many times a day. They should be a model of clarity, accuracy and ease of handling. I believe indeed that if they are improved in this respect many of the delays and wrong numbers ’phoned— especially when one telephones trunks or special numbers of that kind—could be eliminated.

I should like to give a few examples. In the first place I think that some of the headings could be much more informative. If one simply takes the very first page of the Cape directory one finds a large amount of type and very little indication in the headings to this type of what it is all about. I do not doubt that people decline to read it. If they were the sort of heading which one finds in a newspaper, which tells one what it is all about, very clearly and concisely, people might then read on. I could suggest for this first page the following sort of heading instead of the existing headings: “Changes coming early in 1967” —“Calls from Peninsula to country exchanges” —“Durbanville and Somerset West go automatic”. If those things were stated there, or something like that, people would know exactly what the first page is about and they would not have to plough through a lot of unattractive type in order to find out; I do not believe that they will in this modern world.

There is another small matter of the same kind. Under “contents” on the next page of the directory we have the various contents arranged. I suggest that “Emergency Calls” could be given much heavier type so that it stands out. “Mountain Fires” could be thrown in with the other emergency calls. I would suggest that since one is not adhering to alphabetical order there, one could put “Police” at the top. I am aware of the fact that on the page opposite there is very clear information in regard to calls to the police, and I think that this is an indication of what can be achieved with better headings.

Then I want to plead for a better order of arrangement of this whole part of the telephone directory, both as regard the pages and the items themselves. I would suggest that “The Contents” should be on the very opening page. In the “Contents” could be a clear reference to any particular important notice, such as those which we find on the present page 1. If one examines the contents in relation to what appears in the first 15 or 20 pages, one realizes that quite a few items are omitted or are not clearly referred to in “The Contents”. For example, as regards “Charges”, there is no actual item in the alphabetical list of “Contents” under the heading “Charges”. It is true that the word “Charges” appears at the very end of a sentence on the headings with reference to trunk calls, namely, “Trunk calls which can be dialled direct, and charges …” But anybody looking up in “The Contents” to find out what the charge for any particular call is, is much more likely to find it if the contents list contained the actual subheading “Charges”.

I also believe that the code for phonograms should be included with the other code letters of a similar nature, things which one tends to look at from day to day. These are found on page 5 and they relate to the “booking of trunk calls … overseas calls … enquiries … The code to dial to ascertain the correct time …” and so forth. I would suggest that “Phonograms” should come in between “Enquiries” and the code to dial “to ascertain the correct time”. In fact, the first reference to phonograms is on page 6, where the number is given as “0-90”. That is not referred to, however, in the Table of Contents at all. One actually finds “Phonograms” tucked away on page 9, where one should not really find it at all.

I would then suggest that all the various charges should be collected together in one place and, as I say, referred to clearly in the Table of Contents. At present we have references to charges on pages 8, 9, 13 and 14 and telegram charges are on page 24. I am here referring to the “List of Charges”. It would be much better if they were collected together and put at some other place.

I have merely given some examples of ways in which, to my mind, the introductory section of the directory could be made much clearer and more informative, and much more in accordance with the modern world and the time people devote to these things. I believe that sensible high-lighting, as I say, by good headings, better arrangements, and, above all, arrangement of the most important numbers, perhaps near the front of the book—as has been done in some cases—would achieve a much more satisfactory introductory chapter.

Mr. Chairman, it was pleasant to listen to the hon· member who has just resumed his seat since he did try to express constructive criticism here, in contrast to the hon. member for Orange Grove. But we do not attach too much importance to what the hon. member for Orange Grove said: Politically we regard him as the arch-Paul Pry in this House. Things that are pried into, however, usually suffer from a bad smell, and the person who pries is usually known for what he pries into. We want to tell the hon. member for Orange Grove here this afternoon that those people whom he mentioned so much, the people who were supposed to have so many complaints, the Post Office and the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, display a much greater loyalty towards their country than that displayed by the hon. member. After all they are people who are proud of the fact that they do not merely work for money and amenities, as the hon. member wants to imply here. I think the hon. member has done the Post Office people a gross injustice. If he thought that by his actions here he would win a few extra votes in Johannesburg (West) I can assure him that many of the people of whom he spoke so much and who would otherwise have voted for the United Party will vote for the National Party to-morrow morning when they hear what he had to say here.

I can, and it is with pride that I do so mention what the Post Office is accomplishing for the public with the little it has at its disposal. In the first instance I am thinking of the network of exchanges which have been established throughout the rural areas and which enable our urban dwellers to dial the country towns directly. I think that that is a great step forward and one for which we are all very grateful. It is a great time-saver for us. It results in the facilitation of business transactions which have to be finalized. However, I find it a great pity that this service has not yet been introduced in my constituency. There is in my constituency an exchange which is situated only eleven miles from the city and which still does not have direct dialling. However, I hope and trust that the hon. the Minister and his Department will soon devote attention to that specific area.

I want to make specific reference here this afternoon to the good service which is being rendered by the officials of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, as well as to what the Department is accomplishing with the available manpower. In my constituency there is a training centre where people are being trained to do technical work in the Department. I cannot do otherwise but mention the good work which is being done there and the thorough training which the young men are receiving there. We are grateful to the Department for establishing those facilities there which will enable our young people to be trained properly for their task. The same applies to all the other services of the Post Office where they are performing a tremendous task in an excellent manner with extremely little manpower. But it happens too often that as soon as the Post Office has completed the training of these people and they have had sufficient experience to enable them to do good work for the Post Office those officials are enticed away from the Post Office by the private sector with a promise of larger salaries. I take it that many of those people who entice Post Office officials away in that unethical manner are the same people who complain to the hon. member for Orange Grove that the Post Office is not rendering the service they expect of it. I think that the hon. member for Orange Grove would be doing the country a great service if he were to tell those friends of his who are doing that kind of thing—they are mostly the large industrialists who are supporters of the United Party—that they must put a stop to that practice in future and must not lure trained staff away from the Post Office, for they would then get better service from the Post Office. But those people are not themselves prepared to incur the costs of training staff, and find it very convenient to prey on something which the State has already accomplished, particularly the Department of Posts which has a very thorough training system. Those members of staff who have been trained in the technical section, as well as in the telephone section as switchboard-operators, are people for whom there is a very great demand in the private sector. No man who is in charge of a large business undertaking can get a woman to control his switchboard as efficiently as those whom he entices away from the Post Office. This is a practice we cannot condemn strongly enough; it ought not to be done. If we expect the Post Office to render the service we would like to have we ought not to make use of such piratical methods. We should rather see to it that those people are given the necessary support in order to continue with their task in the Post Office.

In the same connection I want to say that the general public also has a duty towards the Post Office officials. We find so often that the women working on the exchanges, or even in the phonograms section in a large centre such as Johannesburg, complain to us how unpleasant it is to work there because the public with whom they have to deal every day are so unmannerly in their behaviour towards them. I think it is the duty of the public to take the difficult circumstances and the pressure under which these officials work into consideration, and not merely to demand the quick service which they think they are entitled to. One of the hon. members said yesterday that it is as essential these days to have a telephone as it is to have a motor car. That may be, but if one wants a call put through and it is not done as quickly as one would have liked, I cannot see how one can demand to be put through immediately. Those officials endure a great deal on account of the unmannerly way in which the public treats them. I do not think we can condemn it sufficiently enough and I think it is our duty to support the Minister and all the high-ranking officials of the Post Office and persuade the public to adopt a politer attitude towards the officials. I know many people in the Johannesburg Post Office, the largest in the country. We come into contact with them a great deal. In general those officials are satisfied with the treatment they are receiving from the Department, with a few exceptions here and there, but that one will find everywhere. They speak with the highest praise of the treatment they are receiving from the Department, but what they complain about most is the impatience of the public with which they have to deal every day. That happens to the man behind the counter and to the women working in phonograms and to the women working the exchanges. The public simply does not want to concede that those people have a difficult task to perform.

In conclusion, just this. In my constituency, in Kliptown, there is an exchange situated in the non-white area, where almost all the non-Whites of Johannesburg are concentrated. That exchange also serves a considerable number of Whites. As a result of the location of that exchange, in the non-white area, it is very difficult for the Post Office to find suitable women to work in that exchange. [Time expired.]

Before proceeding with this discussion I should like to pay tribute to and express the hope that the Postmaster General, who is at present on the sick list, will enjoy a speedy recovery and we all hope that he will soon be able to give his full attention to his work.

We are dealing to-day with a motion to the effect that the Minister’s salary should be reduced, and because there is a motion of this nature we cannot let the opportunity slide of replying to the Opposition in regard to certain aspects. The hon. member for Parktown, the great economist of the United Party, said yesterday that the Post Office must render service and cease making profits. Let us analyse this argument a little on the basis of what was said here by the hon. member’s colleagues. The hon. member for Orange Grove spoke about pink telephones and he wanted to see a film which he had posted the same day on television that evening.

When did I say that? Is it in my Hansard?

The hon. member insinuated as much with reference to the argument of the hon. member for Middelland. But that was not all. The hon. member complained about one wrong account, and the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) complained about another wrong account. I also wanted to complain about a wrong account, but subsequently found that it was I who was in error and not the Post Office. The hon. member for Orange Grove spoke about the many hours which the staff has to work overtime, and the hon. member for Parktown said that he wanted to buy a postage stamp on a Sunday after church. But who is going to do that work? The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) said he wanted a public telephone in every “public space”. That could be in any place, and for that reason I shall not react to what he said. The hon. member for Orange Grove spoke a little too soon, because to-day his question has been replied to by the hon. the Minister. Yesterday he asked for a satellite, and to-day he received the reply informing him what the costs of such a satellite would be. He asked why we did not go into the possibility of having a satellite station, and received the reply that the station alone would cost R6 million. The hon. member for Parktown said they wanted better service and that we must cease making profits. With what do hon. members of the Opposition expect us to supply those services? In any case it is a matter which has already been thrashed out in the Budget Debate, and I shall leave it at that. Mr. Chairman, I should like to bring a matter of importance to the attention of the hon. the Minister and the Department of Posts, a matter which I take very much to heart and one in which each one of us has at one stage or another probably been concerned with. I am referring to the small Post Office saving book which each one of us carries in our pocket. In March, 1966, there was a total of 1,762,912 open accounts in the Post Office Savings Bank Account, a decrease of more than 28,000 in comparison with the figure for the previous year. In 1966 R129.5 million had been invested in the Post Office Savings Bank, on which the investors were earning interest of more than R4 million. We must accept therefore that the Post Office Savings Bank book which is put away in so many different places and is often never used again, plays an important role in our economic life. In 1966 there were 112,000 Post Office Savings Bank investors whose accounts had remained inactive for seven years. What is the reason for that? In this regard I should make an appeal to the parents of our country. In the primary schools an active attempt is being made to encourage thrift amongst the children. They are being encouraged to open a Post Office Savings Bank account and to bring their savings to school each week, even if it is only a few cents, to add to their savings account. Unfortunately we subsequently find that when these children leave the primary schools those booklets are put away somewhere and in many cases are lost. I wonder whether the Department of Posts could not make more active propaganda in order to encourage thrift amongst our youth. We ought to encourage our youth to save not only while they are in the primary schools, but throughout their school career. This would also serve to foster in them a greater sense of responsibility. By influencing the children to invest their loose five cent pieces in the Post Office Savings Bank, we can make that inactive money which is lying around in homes to-day productive, because what is happening to-day in many cases is that children put their loose five cent pieces in a bottle or in the cupboard and that bottle is only opened to buy Christmas presents with or to take out a few coins for the Christmas pudding. It is not necessary for me to state that the Department can make a major contribution in this regard by making the book more attractive and by making more publicity in order to encourage thrift. It may even be possible for us to make money-boxes available to families, and when grandfather draws his old-age pension at the Post Office at the end of the month, he can take the money-box along and deposit the childrens’ savings in their Post Office Savings Bank Account. Such a money-box could also be of great value to pensioners. It would encourage them to set aside a few cents per day for a little vacation.

Then there is a problem in my constituency which I should like to bring to the attention of the Minister. There are four or five towns, the boundaries of which form part of my constituency. Most of the people living in those areas are settled on agricultural smallholdings. Unfortunately, we still have the old farm system of party-lines there, and if Tant Sannie has to have an operation then all the neighbours know the details. There are many businessmen who are leaving the city and are settling on agricultural smallholdings just outside the city. Unfortunately they cannot make use of the farm telephone system for business purposes and I should like to ascertain whether it is possible to accelerate the automation of the farm line system in areas such as these which border on the urban areas.

I do not want to reply to what the hon. member for Brentwood said here except to say that the hon. member stated that members on this side wanted the Department of Posts and Telegraphs to exist for the sole purpose of rendering service, irrespective of whether it renders that service at a loss. That is not what we said. What we did in fact say was that the Department should be inspired in the first instance by the service motive and not so much by the profit motive.

Then I also want to tell the hon. the Minister that if his Department wants to increase the tariffs for telephone services, then we do at least expect to receive better services, and I think that we can say without fear of contradiction that over the past two to three years the telephone services have deteriorated considerably. Mr. Chairman, I should like to quote from the April edition of Assocom what the business world has had to say about the increased telephone tariff—

It is not we who said that, that is the opinion of people in the business world.

I should like to bring a few facts in regard to the telephone services to the hon. the Minister’s attention and ask him to go into those matters. But before I come to that I just want to reply to the accusation made by the hon. member for Lichtenburg to the effect that hon. members on this side are doing everything in their power to place this Minister in an unfavourable light in the eyes of his own members. Mr. Chairman, when we attack the Minister then we do not attack him as an individual but in his capacity as Minister. I will agree readily with the hon. member that the hon. the Minister is one of the most courteous persons I have ever known. I do not like attacking him but as head of the Department he is responsible for the shortcomings in his Department. We are sitting here as the official Opposition and it is our duty to criticize if things go wrong in his Department. While I am talking about the telephone service I want to draw the hon. the Minister’s attention to the fact that—I do not know what the reason for this is—there are cities here in the country where the telephone service is extremely poor, while there are other cities where it is exceptionally good: Heaven preserve you if you want to put a long distance call through from Bloemfontein, particularly if you dial before 6 o’clock in the morning. It is almost impossible to do so. The same applies to Cape Town and Pretoria. There are centres where it is easy to put through a long-distance call.

I should like in this regard to bring an experience of my own to the hon. the Minister’s attention. On three occasions last month I dialled the main line echange from 5 a.m. to 5.15 a.m. in an effort to put through long distance calls. On one occasion I dialled for five minutes without getting a reply; on another occasion I dialled for 1½ minutes without receiving a reply. And on the third occasion, on 6th April, which was a public holiday, I waited nine minutes and still received no reply from the main line exchange. On each occasion I dialled the superintendent and on each occasion I was given the same excuse, i.e. a shortage of staff. Surely there are not many people who want to make use of the telephone service on public holidays. The few people who try to put through calls before 6 o’clock in the morning do so in order to avail themselves of the cheaper rates, l want to give the hon. the Minister the assurance that it is one of the most frustrating experiences to sit waiting for nine minutes after having dialled the exchange without receiving a reply from them. I want to go further and state that here in Cape Town the service was different two years ago. The superintendent informs me that this year, and I think last year as well, a method has been introduced whereby one team of persons take the calls and then hand over the calls to another team of persons to put them through. The result is that one can never find out who was responsible for a delay.

Can you tell me what other place you were telephoning from Bloemfontein when you experienced delays: Perhaps I could then explain the matter to you.

From Bloemfontein to Pretoria in recent times. I have already said that the position here in Cape Town was different two years ago. Then it was possible for the operator, without having to replace the receiver after you had booked the call, to put you through to Johannesburg. Louis Trichardt, East London or any other place. Today, however, it often happens that after you have booked a call, say after 5 in the morning, you can go and make coffee and empty the pot, merely to dial 95 at 6 o’clock and ask that the call be cancelled. I should be pleased if the hon. the Minister could give us an explanation as to why this is the case here in Cape Town. We experience this kind of thing every day. It has happened often during this Session. Compare this with my constituency where I have a farm line at my disposal but where I can nevertheless be put through immediately to any other exchange. A do not know what it is attributable to—perhaps the one exchange has more main line channels at its disposal than another. That is our experience therefore, an experience shared by probably every farmer sitting here who has tried to make a phone call before 6 in the morning. After a long wait one must submissively cancel one’s call and try again the next morning. We would be very grateful to the hon. the Minister if he could effect an improvement in this regard.

A certain hon. member said in the course of this discussion that the public are impolite to the telephone and postal officials. But I see the matter this way, that the public has such a hard time getting served that, if this were to be taken into consideration, they are exceptionally polite. But some of the telephone officials, not the senior post office staff tout the ordinary officials, are not always very polite. For example, if you inform him politely that you have been waiting for three-quarters of an hour already and want to know why you cannot be attended to, he will inform you curtly that you can go and complain to the superintendent. That is the kind of rebuff one sometimes gets. It is something one ought not to experience from officials. I do my very best to get the public to treat all government officials politely, because they are working under difficult circumstances. There is always the problem of staff shortage. We must be polite to them, because they are officials, and may not argue back, but I must say that there are some of the telephone officials, particularly the juniors who answer you rather abruptly when you ask them in a very friendly way why you have to wait so long.

You must admit, however, that this is a nerve-racking service.

I should like to ask the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs a question on a subject I raised with him two years ago and about which I then received a very courteous reply from him in the recess. I want to ask him whether he is now prepared to reconsider the question of reducing telephone charges on Sundays and public holidays—that is, on days on which telephone charges, for long distance calls, are 50 per cent higher. The point I want to make in support of this is that the long delays experienced during ordinary business hours are to a large extent occasioned by calls which could easily be made on a Sunday or a public holiday. In England and America the practice is contrary to that followed here. There the cost of long distance calls on Sundays is reduced for the very purpose of distracting people from using the telephone services for long distance calls during ordinary business hours. Two years ago the Minister told me that he did not consider this suggestion feasible because he did not want to keep his staff on over public holidays and on Sundays if he could help it. He was, however, hoping to be able to do something about it when he had more automatic exchanges. Well, we now have more automatic exchanges. We have direct dialling systems connecting many of the great centres, something which is to our great advantage. But I say the time has come for him now to revise this practice of an additional charge on long distance calls on Sundays and certain public holidays, those which rank as Holy Days like Christmas day, Ascension day, Day of the Covenant, and others. The Minister I think must realize that whatever his staff may want, he and his Department are there to serve the public. The more of these long distance calls diverted to public holidays and Sundays by virtue of a lower charge the less it would be necessary for him to keep his staff on overtime during the normal working week.

I am perfectly aware of the fact that it is the duty of an opposition to act as the watch-dog in the House of Assembly over the interests of the public. And I have no objection to the Opposition’s fulfilling that role. Before proceeding to the real matter I want to discuss, I, as a Coloured representative, want to say that whenever I have approached the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs with the difficult and unique problems I have to deal with from time to time in connection with the postal services, and with telephones in particular, I have never come back empty-handed. Some plan was always devised to help the people I represent here. I want to record my appreciation for that. I do so in all sincerity, because what I am saying here, is a fact.

However, I want to confine myself mainly to the shortage of postmen in the postal services and the difficulty of finding such people. When I went to live in Lynnwood, Pretoria, in April, 1964, all the postmen there were Whites. We became accustomed to receiving our mail between 11.30 and 12.30. Round about that time one could go to one’s post-box and one would probably find one’s mail in the post-box. Large postal articles, such as Government Gazettes, were placed on top of the post-box and nothing further was done about them. But to my great surprise I saw a Coloured postman standing in front of my door one morning with a mail bag on his back. He gave me the heavy postal articles that there were. When I saw the Coloured postman standing there I felt as if I were in Cape Town. When I asked him whether it was now the practice to deliver heavy postal articles at the door, he replied that those were his instructions and when I asked him since when there had been Coloured postmen in Pretoria he replied that 11 of them had been appointed three days before. About two months later I attended a function one evening. The people attending the function were mainly Government supporters, all from the Lynnwood—Waterkloof area. When at some stage or other the conversation turned to the delivery of mail I pointed out that there had been a change in that Coloured postmen were being used. I made further inquiries as to the effect it had had. I can assure the Minister that not one single person expressed dissatisfaction at the fact that his mail was being delivered by Coloured postmen. As a matter of fact, everybody was highly satisfied over the fact that he was now receiving his mail between 9.30 and 10 in the morning instead of at midday. I personally experienced the switch-over in Pretoria when Coloured postmen were appointed for the first time. Not one single complaint was raised. Everybody was only too pleased to receive his mail earlier and that the heavier articles were delivered at the door. It was the first time in history that that was done in Pretoria. If it could be done so smoothly there, I want to make an appeal to the hon. the Minister and his Department. There is a serious shortage of white postmen. To me this is a hopeful sign. It is a sign that the economic and educational level of the Whites has improved to such an extent that they are no longer available for that kind of work. When I raised this matter a few years ago. it called forth the comment that white postmen might, be dissatisfied if Coloured postmen were employed. I think the white postmen we have should be informed of the position. They ought to accept it as a sign that the position of the white population group has improved if Whites are no longer available to do that kind of work.

It then follows naturally that the replacements for those Whites who are no longer obtainable may be drawn from the Coloured community. We had the experience in Cape Town a year or so ago that transport companies were no longer able to find suitable Whites as bus conductors and drivers. On a route where a Coloured was never seen in uniform on a bus before, namely the route from Cape Town through Ysterplaat, where we have mainly Afrikaans-speaking people belonging to the middle income group, to Milnerton, where we have well-to-do people, we now find Coloured drivers and conductors serving on the buses. Those people are proud of their work. They are proud of their uniforms. They are courteous. That is what the public wants and not one single complaint has been raised. Everybody is satisfied with the service that is being rendered. As far as our Coloured postmen are concerned, I predict that the hon. the Minister will act as he has acted in Pretoria. The hon. member for Waterkloof assured me to-day that ever since he became member for Waterkloof he has never had any complaints in that area about the fact that Coloured postmen are employed there.

I want to bring it to the notice of the hon. the Minister that the source does exist from which he may draw replacements for the Whites that cannot be obtained. There is another aspect that I also want to bring to the notice of the Minister. The Minister has corrected himself in respect of what he said in the House yesterday when he mentioned the figure of R1,644 for White postmen. I neither want to go into the matter nor analyse the difference in respect of that amount. It will be interesting to know what the Coloured postman gets for doing the same work. I want to emphasize and I want to point out that we find the phenomenon among the Coloured population group —for as long as I can remember it has been a fact, and those of us who have any experience of our Coloured community will agree with me—that when a Coloured person reaches the same educational and economic level as the White man he leads the same kind of life. The uniforms of these Coloured postmen cost the same as those of the Whites. They are dressed in the same way. They want to better themselves. They eat the same food as the Whites. In private life they wear the same clothes as the Whites. When they go to church on Sundays they also want to be smartly dressed in suits, which cost the same as those of the Whites. I want to plead with the Minister to use his influence with the Public Service Commission so that these things may be taken into consideration as far as the salaries of those people are concerned so that, even if their salaries can as yet not be quite the same as those of the Whites, the salaries which will be paid to them will come as close as possible to those of the Whites. There is also another aspect involved here. A postman must be a person of integrity. He must be a person who will not be tempted to open a parcel or a registered parcel and steal its contents. We have had such cases among Coloured postmen, just as we have had such cases among White postmen. I am of the opinion that if a person’s salary is such that he is able to withstand that temptation, we shall have fewer of those cases. If the salary is better and if it can be placed on the same level as that of the Whites the hon. the Minister will draw the cream of the Coloured population as postmen. On the strength of the experience I had in Pretoria I can give him the assurance that the public will be satisfied with that because their mail will be delivered more efficiently and in good time. After all, that is the only thing which counts with the person who receives his mail. I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister to give this his serious attention and not to allow himself to be put off his stroke because there may be some dissatisfaction about the fact that Coloured postmen are employed. If there is any dissatisfaction, it may occur only on the part of the White postmen and their association. They should bear in mind that some other source has to be found if they cannot provide the people. The Minister has the source at his disposal and he can use that source for the benefit of South Africa.

Before dealing with the position in general, I should first like to dispose of the last few questions put to me in the last 10 or 20 minutes. The hon. members for Outeniqua and Boland asked that Coloured postmen, when they take the place of Whites, should be appointed permanently. This affects a very important principle, namely that here in South Africa we cannot have goodwill, happiness and contentment among the different nations and races if one of them should feel that its existence is threatened. There has to be a place for everyone. Because we know that the White man has a higher standard of living than the Coloured, the Bantu or the other races, it is absolutely essential that the White man should be able to get a higher salary for his livelihood. This is essential. If we leave open all the posts held by a White man so that they may be occupied by a Coloured, it means that very soon the White people will be ousted everywhere. The moment we apply the rate for the job, as the hon. member for Boland suggested, it will soon spell the beginning of the end for the White man’s security. He will be ousted everywhere by those sections of the population which have a low standard of living. We need not argue about that now. We know that. We have argued about that numerous times. It is not an illusion; it is a fact.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? In which way has the White man been prejudiced in Paarl, Wellington and Stellenbosch?

The hon. member should get this quite clear. I referred to cases where a White man previously held a post. For the time being there is no White man for that post. Then, if Coloureds are available, Coloureds are appointed to that post. The trouble starts once the economic upsurge has passed and the White man needs that place again. Then the injustice arises. We have to look to the future. We cannot merely think of the present. If hon. members are correct, namely that it will never happen that the White man will want to occupy those posts, then no injustice has been committed. The Coloureds could then stay there. At the back of their minds hon. members know that that time will come again. That is what they want to prepare for. For that reason we dare not make a concession.

The labourers in the work teams of the Post Office used to be Whites. Now they are Coloureds. Does the hon. the Minister envisage that we shall return to the times when Whites did that work? It is my belief that we shall be able to continue …

Order! The hon. member may only ask a question.

By the nature of matters circumstances change, and it sometimes happen that over a very long period Whites shift from a certain labour sphere to another labour sphere.

Higher up.

No, not always necessarily higher up. Let me give you an example. Take all the building workers, the carpenters, the bricklayers, here in the Cape. They are mainly Coloureds. In that respect they did not go down. The White man in other parts of the country is still a building worker and a carpenter. It is simply a matter of a change in the pattern, and if such a change takes place, such a situation will eventually come to be accepted. We have to bear in mind that the pattern of life is changing continually, to a greater or lesser extent.

The hon. member for Houghton asked whether the time had not come to provide cheaper telephone facilities on Sundays. According to her such a step would encourage people to make more use of the telephone on Sundays and perhaps less on workdays. I appreciate her thought—I think there is a good deal to be said for it—but I regret to tell her that I do no believe the time is ripe for such a step. I shall tell you why the time is not ripe. At the moment we do not have enough staff. We are still experiencing a staff shortage. The position is much better than a year or two ago, but it is still not quite right. In the first place it will mean that the people who have to work some overtime even now will have to work on Sundays as well. We must have regard to humane considerations, and we want to give our people as much time as possible to rest in between.

Could you not arrange a system of rotation?

Even in a case of rotation we will be imposing an additional burden on those people who are already overworked. There is another problem, however, and I shall tell you when this problem will be solved. I shall shortly deal with the whole capital position, which I shall then explain. But until then, just the following: As a result of the capital position we have had so far we have a shortage of exchanges, of main line services and also many other lines. As a result the Post Office Service is overtaxed. The officials at the exchanges deal continually with people who want to get through and who then become dissatisfied. For their part they find it hard to get through to other exchanges. The officials are continually under stress. The result is that until such time as we have adequate capital for our exchanges, for our trunk-lines, for our microwave system, it will be impossible for us to encourage people to telephone more frequently or even to make more use of the telephone service over the week-ends. As soon as we have adequate long-distance facilities and automatic exchanges—and I hope we shall be able to provide them in a matter of three to five years—we shall be able to devote further attention to the suggestions of the hon. member for Houghton, suggestions which I myself regard as very sound.

If I should live so long-thank you.

I hope we shall have the privilege of having the hon. member with us so long.

Also in this connection, I have to solve the problem of the hon. member for East London (City). I think the hon. member made a mistake regarding the places he called. I shall now explain the difference. At present we have few channels on our long-distance lines, say, for example, between Johannesburg and Cape Town. If we had many channels, however, the problem of prompter service would be solved only partially. In addition we also need automatic trunk-line exchanges. The moment our micro-wave system is established, our problem will be halfway solved, and once the automatic dialling has been introduced that problem will be solved completely. We have made a good deal of progress with our micro-wave system. This system is already in operation from Durban to Johannesburg, as far as Bloemfontein and beyond Bloemfontein. We hope that by the end of July it will be completed as far as Port Elizabeth, and that by the end of the year it will be completed as far as Cape Town. This will be possible if the apparatus is delivered in time. We hope that by the end of the year the system will extend to Cape Town. Until such time as we have our automatic trunk-line exchanges here, however, our problem will not be solved entirely. Once these have been installed, a person will be able to dial anybody on the Witwatersrand or in Pretoria or in Bloemfontein or elsewhere automatically. With a view to the development of this system we already have automatic exchanges in certain places. We have the micro-wave system up to Bloemfontein. In Bloemfontein we also have an automatic trunk-line exchange which can dial to Johannesburg. If a person from Bloemfontein therefore dials Johannesburg, he gets through automatically at once, unless there is a fault in the system. Normally a person gets through automatically. But if a person wants to make a call in the opposite direction, he will not get through as yet, because so far no automatic dialling has been installed from Johannesburg to Bloemfontein. That is the problem. That is why I suspect that the hon. member for East London (City) made an error. If he tried to get through to Port Elizabeth then, because our micro-wave system has not yet been installed and the automatic system is also still lacking, it is possible that he will still have to wait as a result of the overloading.

If I make a call from East London to Cape Town, the East London automatic system operates immediately and the East London exchange dials Cape Town. Does the same not apply if the call is made in the opposite direction?

No, unfortunately that is not the case. We first install the automatic trunk-line system in one city, and then the call can be made automatically. But to make a call in the opposite direction such an exchange has to be installed on the other side as well. That is how the system is working at present. That is what frequently causes dissatisfaction, because if people got through so quickly in one direction they expect to be able to get through just as quickly in the opposite direction.

Before I deal with the crux of the problem as a whole, I just want to deal with a last point raised by the hon. member for East London (City). I hope hon. members will be most indulgent to our postal staff, particularly to our telephone staff. If an official has to handle overloaded lines, if he receives complaints from all directions, if everybody is impatient because he cannot get through, it is a great strain on the poor man’s nerves. Hon. members can imagine how they would react if they were in that operator’s shoes. They get insults, complaints and nasty words all the time. Eventually the operator becomes so tense that he sometimes gives a rude reply in return. He is not always as courteous as he should be, even if he is usually the most courteous man in the world. I think our telephone staff are very courteous people.

In fact, they are trained for that. Hon. members must understand, however, that until such time as this system is ready, the problem will not be solved completely. I hope that by the end of the year there will already be an improvement in the system, and that our problems will be solved completely in a few years’ time. Until such time I want to ask the hon. member to show some patience.

If I may now start dealing with the major problems mentioned here, I first want to say that there is very little for me to reply to after the thorough drubbing members on this side of the House have given the Opposition. I think we have had very good and sound speeches from this side of the House. The hon. member for Pinelands, however, gave us an example of how a fair and restrained speech should be made. That was clear from the reactions elicited by his speech. Unfortunately we cannot say the same for all the speeches made on that side, and particularly not for the one made by the hon. member who posed here as a man with a sound knowledge of income tax. We should remember that when One deals with a department of posts there must be errors. The telephone department is not a small organization. It is an enormous organization. One cannot expect such an enormous organization, which is saturated with the human element, to function better than a machine. The best machines get out of order from time to time, and the best human being also makes mistakes from time to time. If one takes into consideration that it is such an enormous machine, and one listens to the small number of objections made, such as those of the hon. member for Parktown, who asked for the luxury of telephones of different colours and that there should be people to supply him with stamps on Sundays, and that while there is a shortage of Post Office staff—apart from those luxury complaints, there were very few other complaints which were substantiated; and if one takes into consideration the small number of complaints, it proves that despite the difficult circumstances in which the Post Office finds itself, its work is still being done very efficiently. As the hon. member for Middelland said yesterday, I think it is actually a feather in the cap of the Post Office.

We should not forget that the Post Office has more than 1.1 million telephones in service, which have to be kept in order and which are in operation most of the time. If there is such a large number of telephones, one cannot expect no errors to occur.

That means that there are 12 million accounts a year.

Yes, and we have 1,500 million calls a year. If one takes into consideration, furthermore, the letters that have to be delivered, the position becomes even more complicated. We deliver more than 1,100 million letters a year, and all of them are delivered and handled manually; and they are not handled on one level only, but on all levels. They are handled after one puts them in the letter-box and they are handled from there to the Post Office, and they are handled when they are sorted and put into bags, and they are handled again to get them to the station, and thus I could continue, until they are eventually delivered. All this is done by human beings. Surely it is unreasonable to expect that with such a tremendous deal of handling of mail there will be no errors? There must be errors if it is done by human beings. We must just see to it that the errors are within reasonable limits all the time.

There is another fact about the Post Office which we should also not lose sight of. It is not a rich man’s service. One does not get a large amount of money for every letter one carries. It is a service for everybody, rich and poor. For the 3c a man puts on a letter it is even carried by air-mail and delivered to the person to whom he addressed it. It has to be a cheap service, and if one has a cheap service where everything has to be handled from the moment it is mailed until it is delivered, and all that for 3c, one cannot go to infinite expense on that service. One dare not use the maximum security methods. One cannot appoint only the best and the most highly-paid staff who will be absolutely precise. It must be a service for everybody, and such a service also has its quota of errors. We could easily make the Post Office an excellent service in which no mistake is ever made in the telephone department and in which there will never be mistakes about letters, but one cannot get that at 3½c a call, or at 3c by air-mail or 2½C by surface mail. Then one would have to pay 30c or more, and how many people would then be able to use the Post Office? The fact that it is a service for everybody compels us to make it a cheap service, and we must therefore be prepared for a certain number of errors.

Let me just give you a picture of the criteria for whether or not we actually have a good service. I want to take all our registered letters, because we keep a record of those. During the past year we handled 26 million registered letters. If a letter is registered, it means that it is registered when it is handed in and once again when it is delivered. There were 26 million, and of that number the losses were 1.4per 10,000 letters. During the previous year it was approximately the same, but the last two years showed an improvement on the past. The losses are considerably lower than in the past. In other words, notwithstanding the overtaxed circumstances of the Post Office as a result of the shortage of capital, the service did not deteriorate but actually improved.

Let me just for the sake of interest compare our service with that of other countries, because this is also a criterion by which to determine whether our service is good or bad. I want to take one of the countries which is always referred to as one of the most efficient countries in the world, the U.S.A. I want to read some quotes from U.S. News and World Report—

Then they say the following about the delays—

I want to make one further quote. He says—

I am not mentioning this to disparage the services of other countries, because they have problems of their own I am not saying that there is something radically wrong with their service, but I do want to say that this is a good criterion by which to measure the efficiency of our postal service. We have not had nearly such severe complaints in South Africa.

Let me just mention a further criterion for the efficiency of our service. I want to compare our position with that of Australia. Australia despatched 2,256 million postal articles and it cost them R101.6 million. Let me double ours to reach that figure. Ours is approximately half of that. If we doubled ours it would come to 2,282 million postal articles which is very close to the figure in respect of Australia, but ours cost R67.2 million for almost the same number of postal items. In Australia it costs R101.6 million, and here it costs R67.2 million. Is that not a good indication of efficiency? But let us take Great Britain. There 11,533 million postal items were despatched, and to do so cost England R635.8 million. We despatched approximately a tenth of that number of postal articles. If we had despatched ten times more, it would have been close to their figure and then our cost would have been R336 million, as against the R635 million it cost England. This is a very good criterion for the efficiency of our own service. We should say there is nothing radically wrong with our postal service.

As far as the telephone problem is concerned, we received three complaints. The first complaint is that one gets the wrong number if one makes a call. One dials a man and gets the wrong number. Let me compare our position with that of England. I want to apply the test—this is the only scientific test—of how many times one rings and gets the wrong number. How many times does one fail to get the correct number on the first dialling? From every 100 diallings one makes in England, 16.6 are wrong. In France 65 are wrong from every 100 one dials. In South Africa one gets the wrong number only ten times out of every 100 diallings. Is that not wonderful? The reason why it is wonderful is this: We admit that we have great difficulties with regard to capital here in South Africa, but despite our great difficulties with capital we can still provide service of this kind. Is this not an achievement? I think it is truly something South Africa can be proud of. We need not be ashamed.

Let me come to the next complaint. The next complaint is that one has to wait too long before one gets through. You will remember, Mr. Chairman, that some two years ago one could get through to Johannesburg immediately, but since then matters have become more difficult. At the moment the delay between Johannesburg and Cape Town is …

Anything.

… I am speaking of the peak hours …

From one to five hours.

If one wants to get through from Johannesburg to Cape Town the delay is 190 minutes, whereas two years ago one could get through almost immediately. There are two reasons for that, and one of these is the tremendous development in South Africa. South Africa has developed so tremendously that the lines we laid between Cape Town and Johannesburg are no longer adequate. That is in fact the reason why we are now installing our micro-wave system, which will provide a virtually unlimited number of channels. We hope that by the end of July this system will be completed as far as Port Elizabeth, and as far as Cape Town by the end of the year.

Why was it not foreseen?

No, we foresaw everything. Our problem was to find the necessary capital. We foresaw everything; even now we are foreseeing our difficulties, but there are problems which have to be solved before we can provide all the necessary services.

We are not soothsayers and witchdoctors.

Even if our micro-wave system is through to Cape Town by the end of the year, we shall not get the 100 per cent service we should like to have, because the automatic trunk-line dialling system will still not be installed. The automatic dialling system will be installed on more or less the following dates; everything has already been planned: In Pretoria it will be installed in October this year, and in Port Elizabeth in December this year, but in Cape Town we shall not be able to have it before 1969-70. Cape Town will therefore not be able to enjoy the automatic service and the benefit of the micro-wave system to the maximum before 1969-’70.

A third grievance aired here was that one has to wait so long to get a telephone. Mr. Chairman, I do not want to say that we incline too much towards luxuries in South Africa, but we have all come to know the luxury of the telephone, and in South Africa almost everybody wants a telephone. Of all the Western countries South Africa is third highest on the list as regards the number of telephones per white person. There are more telephones per white person in South Africa than in all other Western countries bar three. England, for example, has 18 telephones for every 100 Whites; France has only 12 for every 100.

Do you keep separate statistics of the number of non-Whites who have telephones and the number of Whites who have telephones?

For the sake of convenience we included the number of non-Whites who have telephones with the number of Whites who have telephones, because the number of non-Whites who have telephones is insignificant compared with the number of Whites. For every 100 white persons in South Africa there are 37 telephones. If one bears this in mind, one appreciates on what a vast scale the telephone service has been installed in South Africa, and that despite the enormous distances in South Africa. Let me now deal with the time it takes one to get a telephone. As a result of the economic upsurge in many parts of the world, one nowadays has problems with the installation of telephones everywhere; there are waiting lists everywhere. Let me now compare our own position with that of other countries. In Paris there is a waiting list of 313,000; in West Germany there is a waiting list of 295.000; in England there is a waiting list of 200,000; in Japan there is a waiting list of 2 million in South Africa there is at the present moment, I estimate, a waiting list of approximately 48,000. Let us now compare how long it takes to install a telephone. In Geneva one has to wait from three to six months to have a telephone installed; in Paris one has to wait 14 months; in Italy one has to wait three years before one can get a telephone, and we estimate that here in South Africa one needs not wait longer than one or two months; this is the average waiting period. Unfortunately I do not have the exact figures.

Under the United Party Government one had to wait for ever.

I now come to the real reason for the problems we are experiencing with our postal service and our telephones in South Africa. The actual reason is the capital position. I want to tell you what the actual position is, and then I want to tell you what our solution to that is. As you know, the pattern of the Post Office was laid down in the Constitution in 1910. The pattern laid down in respect of the Post Office was virtually that of a Government Department, and at the same time the postal service and in particular the telephone service was actually still regarded as a luxury, as something one wanted only it one did not know what to do with one’s money.

That does not apply nowadays.

Once a pattern has been laid down it is not so easy to change it. Not only was that pattern maintained under the United Party Government, but it was developed. Despite the tremendous development during the war years and the necessity for telephones during the war years, the United Party Government spent only R4 million a year, a total of R40 million, on posts and telegraph services during the entire period of ten years. On the average it spent the paltry amount of R4 million a year on these services, with the result that when the National Party came into power there was a leeway of more than 60.000 telephones although there was not an upsurge such as the present one and although the population of South Africa was not nearly as large as now.

Over what period was that?

Over a period of ten years.

Was the United Party not in power for 14 years?

Actually 11 years.

You have your figures wrong again.

Was the United Party not in government from 1934 to 1948?

I am not sneaking of the present United Party: I am speaking of the Smuts United Party. I am very glad that the hon. member has clarified the matter. He has now given me an opportunity to state the position more clearly. I am speaking of the time when that party governed, not the old United Party. Since the National Party came into power a flood of capital has been put into postal and telephone services. During the past 11 years of National Party Government P164 million has been invested: not R40 million, but R164 million, four times as much a year.

But it costs much more to-day.

The National Party Government reduced the leeway until eventually there was a leeway of from 9,000 to 10,000 telephones. The National Party Government reduced the leeway of 60,000 in the time of the United Party Government to between 9,000 and 10,000. It is only as a result of the tremendous development in the past number of years and as a result of the fact that we could not get the necessary capital that the telephone leeway increased once again.

But then we were engaged in a war.

Mr. Chairman, in the past few years our economic growth rate was more than 7½ per cent in certain years. New cities have arisen in our midst; we have seen Palaborwa arise; we have seen Hammarsdale arise; we have seen Isando arise—all enormous industrial complexes where telephone services and postal services were needed on a tremendous scale, and I am just mentioning a few. Our large cities expanded as never before. Sections of cities were virtually rebuilt. All this has taken place in the past number of years, and this development is making enormous new demands of the Post Office and of the telephone services. Our white population increased by 120.000 a year. Unless one has adequate capital to provide all those essential services, it is understandable that the position as regards the number of persons to whom those services can be made available, will deteriorate gradually. It is understandable that there will be a reduction in the number of telephones available, for example, and that the waiting list will grow.

Mr. Chairman, to obtain the capital necessary for our Post Office and telephone system we have always been dependent on loans from Treasury. We could get only as much capital as Treasury could make available to us. It was not always possible to raise just as much capital as South Africa needed. There were always times when it was difficult to raise capital, and in those years when it was difficult to raise capital the amount that could be allocated to the Post Office was much smaller than the Post Office actually needed. To put it into figures, during the past ten years we received approximately 11 per cent less capital every year than we regarded as essential for postal and telephone services. In other words, at 11 per cent a year we have fallen in arrears to an ’mount of R36 million in the past 11 years. This is our first big problem, namely that in the“ Post Office we do not have adequate capital available to expand those services which are so essential to the country. Now there is another problem. [Interjection.]

Yes, there are problems. The reason why the hon. member cannot see the problem is the reason why they are sitting on that side of the House. There is another problem, and that is that even if Treasury could and wanted to allocate the capital to the Post Office, Treasury cannot know in advance how much it will be able to borrow the following year. Because the international money market, where the money has to be borrowed to a large extent, is not always predictable, it means that Treasury cannot always assure us in advance that we shall be able to get the amount they would perhaps like to give us eventually. After many years they gave us a guarantee that we could get only 80 per cent of what we actually needed. In other words, the progress of the Post Office was therefore restricted to that 80 per cent on which we knew we could rely, because we have to order in advance if we want a telephone exchange.

One cannot buy a telephone exchange off the shelf. It takes from 18 months to two years to manufacture a telephone exchange. If that telephone exchange is to be manufactured, it must be ordered in advance. In other words, all the telephone exchanges which are needed and all the cables which have to be manufactured must always be ordered 18 months to two years in advance. If one can obtain only 80 per cent of what is required, you will appreciate that for the remaining 20 per cent one is actually always tied down. There has to be forward planning as far as the buildings are concerned. An automatic exchange cannot be installed without a building. The buildings have to be available and the land has to be bought. Everything has to be planned in advance, but we know only up to 80 per cent what capital we may get.

Now we come to the next problem. I first want to analyse all the factors of the problem. The problem is that even if the Post Office shows a profit—and the Post Office is showing a fairly good profit—it has always been the practice that that profit may not be used by the Post Office. All profits which are made have to be surrendered to the Consolidated Revenue Fund. In other words, all profits are surrendered to the Exchequer, and once they have been surrendered to the Exchequer and have been absorbed by current expenditure, the State has to borrow money abroad to a large extent to meet the capital needs of the Post Office.

You will appreciate the peculiar nature of the situation. A profit is made, but the profit may not be used and must be surrendered to the Exchequer, and the State will then borrow the money by means of which the postal services can be expanded. You will appreciate the position in which we find ourselves as a result of this state of affairs, because in this way we did not get enough capital, and of the capital we could get we were assured only up to 80 per cent. The fact that we are not allowed to use our own profits, meant that we always had 11 per cent less capital than was essential for the expansion of the Post Office. This had the result that in due course the waiting list for telephones grew gradually, until in December there were 38,000 and now, in the last few months, it has grown by an additional 2,000 a month because the capital could not be provided in advance for all the telephones, dialling equipment and other apparatus needed by the Post Office. As a result of the fact that we do not have the money to buy Post Office exchanges and because we dare not order the other apparatus, we have the situation that of the 93 exchanges on the Witwatersrand, in Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban, there are already 31 exchanges which cannot accommodate one extra telephone line. In other words, people who are dependent upon those exchanges can get a telephone only when someone else cancels a telephone. In Johannesburg a new luxury hotel is being built in the central part of the city. I think it will cost roughly R4 million, but the situation in the Johannesburg Exchange is such that it will not be possible to provide that hotel with one extra telephone unless someone else cancels a telephone service. In the central area of the Rand extensions which will cost R85 million are being planned for the next two years. In the Johannesburg Exchange there was not one extra line available for that central part of Johannesburg.

Everywhere in the country there are at present places where telephone services cannot be supplied—not as a result of short-comings on the part of the Post Office, but as a result of the shortage of capital. Then there are places where it is still possible to connect telephones, but where cables and exchanges cannot be installed. That means that the waiting period becomes longer and longer. This state of affairs will be aggravated when the cable between South Africa and Lisbon is completed, which it is expected to be in 1969. Here in South Africa we shall not have the facilities to utilize that cable to the maximum. It will mean a great loss to the Post Office. In the meanwhile we are all dissatisfied because a telephone service is no longer a luxury but a necessity.

You are therefore admitting that we are all dissatisfied.

Yes, I admit that. But it is no use simply saying that we are dissatisfied, without suggesting a solution. The question is, what is the solution? I think I have demonstrated how impossible it is to continue with a system in terms of which all profits are surrendered to the Exchequer, and then to rely on the State to raise loans for expansion. Loans are not always readily available. As long as this system continues, therefore, we shall simply not be able to solve our problems. We cannot take it for granted that Treasury will be able to give us the money we need. In view of the fact that we cannot get it from Treasury, only one other method remains—the Post Office must go and look for the money itself. We must now choose: Either the Post Office itself must raise the money, or we must allow the present state of affairs to continue. I do not think we want to see the present state of affairs continue to deteriorate. On the contrary, we want to solve the problems. We must therefore devise a method of finding the capital we need ourselves. The first step will be to see to it that the profits which are now surrendered to the Exchequer revert to the Post Office, in order that we may use them for expansion. Then we have to find funds to augment the capital we still need. The Post Office profits for the past year, i.e. 1966-’67, are estimated at R18 million, but for this expansion the Post Office actually needs R30 million. We know that Treasury cannot give us this shortfall. Under these inflationary conditions, in particular, it cannot give it, for are the hon. members on that side who have so many complaints about telephone shortages and Post Office problems not the ones who are always telling us that the State should not spend any more? Are they not the ones who on the one hand say that the State should not spend any more, but who complain on the other hand that there are not enough telephones and telephone facilities? That side of the House has always consistently adopted the attitude that the State should spend less Consequently we cannot get it from the State, because if the State borrowed the money for us and we spent that additional money on the expansion of the telephone service, then according to their own arguments it would be inflationary. That goes without saying, because then one would merely be adding the required R12 million to the excessive money which is already in circulation in South Africa. Therefore one cannot get the money from the State. One has to withdraw the money from the pool of money which is in circulation. The only way to expand the Post Office, and in a way which is non-inflationary, is to withdraw money which is in circulation and then to put it back into circulation. Then it is non-inflationary. In other words, one has to get it from the people who use Post Office facilities and telephone services. Now the best and most equitable means of getting it from the user is to make those users pay who make most use of it, those people who are responsible for the tremendous shortage of telephones, the tremendously long waiting lists. And who are those people? They are mainly commerce and industry. They are the ones who have expanded so tremendously in South Africa. They are pre-eminently the ones who are crying out for more telephones. Consequently the most equitable means is to get the capital from them. If one wants to get that extra R12 million, and in fact from the user, it has to be obtained from those who make most use of the facilities, namely commerce and industry. We have carefully considered all the possible ways of raising this extra R12 million. Eventually we came to the irrebuttable conclusion that there was only one method, namely to raise the cost of telephone calls from 2½c to 3½c. It is estimated that this will give us from R10 to R14 million. In other words, it will give us just the amount we need for the expansion, maintenance and development of the Post Office. Now the attitude adopted by the State was as follows: to the present moment the State has put between R330 and R337 million into our telephone network, if one includes this year. It gives that capital to the Post Office as a nest-egg. As from now on, however, the Post Office has to raise its own funds. In view of the fact that from now on the Post Office user is going to provide the capital, the State undertakes not to withdraw any profits from Post Office services. It is not going to surrender any of that to its own exchequer, but is going to let everything accrue to the Post Office user.

To see to it at the same time that the Post Office reaches the highest level of efficiency, we have appointed a small commission of inquiry, headed by the well-known economist, businessman and auditor, Dr. Wiehahn. His fellow-members are Dr. Rieckert, economic adviser to the Prime Minister, the Secretary for Finance, the Paymaster-General and the Postmaster-General. We feel convinced that when this commission brings out its findings and the recommendations, we shall succeed in making the Post Office as efficient as any institution could hope to be.

Hon. members on the opposite side, and in particular also the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, said that we were acting in an inflationary way and that we were furthering inflation in the country. I contend that exactly the opposite is achieved by these means. We are not furthering inflation. Our entire action is deflationary. I have given you the first reason. As I said, it is that we withdraw money from the pool in which it would have been in any event. Of the money which commerce and industry would spend in any event, they now surrender a small portion to the Post Office, which is going to re-invest it for their convenience. Secondly, it is deflationary for the following reasons: Hon. members on the opposite side have so frequently reminded us that one of the forms of inflation is inefficiency. They said that inefficiency was one of the causes of inflation. But now this improvement in the Post Office system is aimed precisely at dealing with the inefficiency which exists in the postal service at present, as a result of the shortage of capital. We are now going to increase the efficiency. The expenses of the man who now has to employ special staff in his large undertaking to ensure that his calls get through to the persons he wants to call, who perhaps has to wait minutes or even an hour and a half, are now eliminated. Within the foreseeable future he will be able to get his call through automatically and quickly, almost immediately. In other words, there is a considerable increase in the efficiency of that business undertaking, for not only does that undertaking economize, but because it can get through quickly on the telephone network, it means that its profits are going to be increased. In actual fact it means that that undertaking is now going to do business it could not have done otherwise. You see, Mr. Chairman, that this action by the Post Office and this entire new method of financing is actually anti-inflationary and to a certain extent deflationary. I think that if you asked the Minister of Finance he would agree with me. I think, Sir, that if you were an economist you would also agree with me.

The hon. member for Orange Grove queried one of my statements. I stated on the radio that I had interviewed representatives of commerce and industry and that they had approved of this increase. Let me now repeat what I said. It is absolutely correct and I hold to that, and I want to give hon. members proof of that. In the first place I met the representatives, the elite, the big guns of commerce and industry and explained the whole position to them. I also explained the alternatives to them. When I had finished, they told me that they agreed with me; that to them it actually seemed to be the only solution. Later the Postmaster-General met the representatives of commerce and industry. After they had discussed the matter once again, he assured me that they had adopted exactly the same attitude again. He then confirmed the discussion by letter. The letter he sent to them was never refuted by them. In other words, if one writes a letter to a person to confirm something and he does not refute it, it is an acknowledgment that the position is as one put it to him. The letter reads as follows, and because I do not want to mention the names of the persons and the bodies, I have changed a formal word here and there (translation)—

Naturally all members of organized commerce and industry are not of the same calibre. Many of those members are strangers who came to South Africa to get rich quickly and who thought that they could simply shift all the burdens onto the people of South Africa. One therefore finds a difference in approach. The responsible leader is the man who has regard to the interest of the country as well. The responsible leaders, as I told you, said that they endorsed these proposals. It is not surprising that long afterwards the members said, no, they rejected them. I have never denied that, but neither have I ever sought the co-operation of every businessman and every industrialist. We seek the co-operation of the sensible people, of the leaders of those industries. I think you have to agree with me that the leaders of industry, the representatives of commerce and industry, agreed with me that it was in actual fact a good solution.

The hon. member for Orange Grove alleged here that we had made a great mistake in our decision on the cable. He asked why we had not rather joined the British cable, the British cable which encircles the world. The facts regarding the British cable are as follows: The British contemplated a cable around the world, and it has been laid between England and Canada, and from the west coast of Canada to New Zealand, to Australia and up to the East—I forget the exact place. There was an arrangement in the form of an informal understanding between Britain and us that the next phase would be a cable between England and South Africa. But the moment South Africa became a republic the authorities in England said that they would no longer proceed with that phase at all. At that stage the hostility towards South Africa reached such a pitch that they simply failed to honour this “gentlemen’s agreement”. But not only this: We also heard many hostile comments from many quarters, from many politicians. Many hostile opinions were stated about us. We have reached the stage where by next year or the beginning of 1949 we shall have to have extra facilities. The 54 radio channels we can use on our shortwave system to the world abroad are virtually saturated. They are already in full use. We cannot get any more either, because the spectrum band has reached saturation point. Because it is saturated, it is essential that we should get extra channels to the outside world. We then decided, in view of what had happened, that the very best would be to have our own cable, of which we would then have control, so that we would not be left at the mercy of any politician who may in future have the say in other countries. Would the hon. member hold that against us? Would he hold it against us that we resolved on this cable, which is a most profitable undertaking? It is most profitable. We are going to lay the cable and we have assumed control over and responsibility for the cable. We have control over that cable, and nobody else. Would the hon. member really plead that we should commit ourselves to the laying of a cable controlled by other countries, countries which are not always friendly to us? I think it would have been far from wise to do anything of the kind. This cable, as I told the hon. member, will now provide us with 360 speech channels. I do not want to go into its details. We were fortunate to raise a loan from a large consortium of British banks. This consortium is going to supply us with 80 per cent of the cost of the cable, and in fact through the London Merchant Bank, S.G. Warburg & Co. we are very grateful to them. We got the loan on very favourable terms. Now I think, Sir, that you will agree with me that it is a gain to South Africa to get a cable which will, moreover, be most profitable, a cable we shall share in partnership with the International Telephone and Telegraph Company. They will provide us with a great deal of the know-how, and they have gained us access to sources which are essential to us. We shall have a cable which they regard as profitable, a cable which we control and which will not be in the hands of other governments.

Yesterday the hon. member for Orange Grove made a further allegation. He alleged that a certain group of experts had come to see me in South Africa and that they had proved to me that through the satellite system we could get as many channels as we wanted….

I did not say that—I said a limited number was promised.

If I remember correctly, the hon. member said: “As many as we need.” Let us examine the number. The satellite system is still entirely at an experimental stage. They are considering launching satellites in three regions in particular, which will remain in a constant position in relation to the earth. One of the first they launched successfully was the “Early Bird” or, as it is called at present, “Intersat I”. It was synchronized and was a success. Then they produced their second series of satellites and the first one they launched—that was last year—was a failure. The second satellite in the new series was launched on 11th January, 1967. This launching was a success. The third satellite was launched on 22nd March, over the Atlantic Ocean. It was supplementary to the Early Bird”. If one has regard to the number of channels available, one wonders why only .3 per cent of the channels were allocated to South Africa. The new one which has now been positioned above the Atlantic Ocean has 360 channels, and the preceding “Early Bird” has 240 channels, therefore a total of 600 channels. As I said, South Africa was allocated only .3 per cent—that is, three thousandths of the number of channels. Now one may calculate for oneself that three thousandths of 600 channels gives only 1.8 channels. As I told the House, our 54 speech channels will be saturated by the end of next year, and we shall then need many more. All we can get from the satellite system is 1.8 channels. And then we first have to erect a parabolic receiver in South Africa. A receiver of the standard used in America will cost us R6 millon—and that for 1.8 channels! On the other hand we shall get 360 channels on our cable, for our own use. It has the tremendous advantage that we shall control that cable and that everything will be secret, and that everything will not be uncertain, as in the case of the satellite, but will be safe, clear-cut and calculable. Therefore the hon. member’s argument that we should rather have dispensed with the cable, either to join a possible British cable in future or to use a satellite, is not so wise.

The hon. member for Simonstown also raised some problems. The first was that we had disconnected a doctor’s telephone because he did not pay his account. This is not easily done. With regard to doctors in particular it is done only after they have been warned repeatedly. But apart from that, there is at present a service by means of which everybody will be warned, at a charge of 50c, that his telephone may be disconnected. We have made this known to many people and also to many doctors, but there are many people who do not always have the time or the will to take care of their own affairs, and then they forget unintentionally. Perhaps it was the same doctor who called me one night, and we had him reconnected at once. But if he had taken the trouble to come into contact with the superintendent, the latter would have gone out of his way to reconnect him immediately.

I asked two questions which have not been answered. The first relates to the cancellation of the post for Postmaster Grade 4.

Yes, that post has been abolished, because a tremendous number of new opportunities for promotion have been created. Obviously not everybody is considered for such promotions. Let me give an example. Quite a few of these posts have been abolished and regraded to make it possible to create more opportunities for promotion. Previously there were more than 10,000 posts and we have now reduced them to just over 4,000. In other words, we have upgraded all the others in order that there may now be better prospects. There were posts carrying a salary of R6,000. Previously there were only six such posts, but to improve the position of the staff in order that there may be more opportunities for promotion we increased those posts to 45. Previously there were 63 posts on the scale R4,000 to R6,000. We increased them to 544. The posts under R2,000 have been reduced so that many of them have a higher grading. It so happens that some of those Postmaster grades have been abolished, but many people have been promoted to higher ranks.

But what became of the former incumbents of those posts?

There is a number of them who were not promoted. They retained the same rank, but with an increase of one notch. They received an increase of one notch throughout the service, and some received promotion which made it possible for them to advance two notches.

In my second question I asked how the efficiency bonus functioned.

We have various merit committees who deliberate on the qualifications of every official. Every person then receives certain marks for his good qualities, and his poor qualities are also taken into consideration. Then the merit committees from all over South Africa meet once a year and there the final assessments are then approved. According to these merit marks it is then determined what progress each one will make, and also how rapid their progress will be and how many notches they will advance at a time, because some receive one notch and others more than one notch, and it is also determined what bonuses they will receive for certain services. That is the method according to which promoton takes place.

The hon. member for Parktown asked some questions. The first difficulty he mentioned was his experience at the Main Post Office in Johannesburg. All parcels which are subject to customs duty are examined there, the official makes the assessment and receives one’s money, and naturally it takes some time. There are enough officials for normal hours, but there are also the peak hours, and if one turns up during the peak hour one has to wait some time, as happens in every business. The hon. member was very impatient because he had to wait half an hour. He was most dissatisfied about that, but at most of the banks one has to wait more than half an hour if one goes there during the peak hours, and there one does not become dissatisfied. I agree with the hon. member that one should very much like to provide all these facilities to the public in full, but we still have the problem that we do not have enough staff. Once there is no longer a staff shortage that problem will also be solved. The hon. member also spoke about postage stamps and he asked whether there could not be stamp vending machines from which one could buy postage stamps. Well, we always need to have them, but for the past few years, from 1961, our coinage system has not been finalized, and where we made changes we found that people were not using the correct coins. Hardly has the machine been corrected, or people put the wrong coin into it and then it does not function and people become even more dissatisfied than before. That is the position. As soon as we are certain that the sizes of the coins will remain unchanged, we shall import those machines once again. We shall then have a better system than we have at present.

The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) also raised the question of public telephones in the Bantu area, at Pietermaritzburg, in Hammarsdale, or wherever it was.

In all Bantu areas.

As I explained to the hon. member, we have the difficulty with the Bantu that many of them are vandalistic.

I admit that.

We try to put public telephones where they will always be under surveillance. We try to place them on the porch of a shop or in a place where they are conspicuous, but despite that we find that this state of affairs arises continually. If I understood the hon. member correctly, he said that we should try to arrange it so that the telephone was installed inside a shop or inside a dining-house.

Inside the Post Office.

If there is room, it will certainly be inside the Post Office, but as soon as one does that there is the disadvantage that the man who wants to put through a call after working hours will not be able to do so. The hon. member mentioned the man who wishes to call a doctor or the police. That usually happens after office hours. We would not be meeting that need if the telephone is inside the Post Office. We are now in the dilemma of either not meeting that need, by putting the telephone inside a shop, or of trying to met the need by putting the telephone on the porch, but if we put it on the porch we know that it will be out or order from time to time. If the hon. member can think of premises which will meet the requirements of calls after office hours, and where the damage will not be so great, we shall be only too grateful to receive suggestions from him.

I think the hon. the Minister has misunderstood me. My request to him was whether he would consider the establishment of public telephones within premises such as he has mentioned in order at least to provide the prople with some service. At the moment they are getting no service.

That is exactly what we are doing. We give them the telephones, but as the hon. member admitted himself, they get out of order very quickly. Surely we cannot do more than that. We give them a telephone; they break it. What more can we do? When we find that the telephone is out of order we repair it, but so frequently we find that the telephone one has repaired is out or order again within two hours. At the moment we simply have no other solution, unless one were to put the telephone in a police office, but I do not think the Bantu would then like to use that telephone. Mr. Chairman, I think I have now replied to virtually all the points that were raised.

What about the employment of non-White postmen?

I have dealt with that, but I just want to explain the position to the hon. member once again. You see, it is essential that we should provide security to the white man as well. The white man knows that now, in a time of prosperity, there is work for him, but if a period of adversity arrives he wants his humble job back. In order to provide the white man with this degree of security, those posts which he occupied previously must always be open to him in future. We have to do that; surely we have to provide our own people in South Africa with a livelihood. One cannot always simply leave the white man to the mercy of the black man, who can oust him everywhere. There are now temporary openings for Coloureds, but in future those openings may perhaps not be there any longer because a white man needs that job, and then the Coloured can return to the work he did previously. Surely it is only fair that we should afford protection to the white man as well· As I have said, there is of course the possibility that the pattern in South Africa will change over many years. The hon. member was probably absent when I mentioned the example of the building industry in the Cape. In the building industry in the Cape the Malay has replaced the white man almost completely as a brick-layer, as a plumber and as a carpenter. That is the case only in the Cape. In the Cape the white man is no longer protected in the building industry, but in the building industry in the Transvaal and in the Free State he is still protected. The pattern may change, but as the pattern is at present we cannot consider depriving the white man of that livelihood.

What about the question I asked the hon. the Minister in connection with telephone directories?

I appreciate the points raised by the hon. member very much. The telephone directory is a source of problems to all of us. The first problem is that there are two languages, Afrikaans and English, and this makes it very difficult to find the ideal arrangement for the telephone directory. But now the question is: What is important? Certain people regard the tariff as important; others regard something else as important, and the information in the telephone directory is arranged in accordance with what the staff regard as important. I have had many discussions on it with the staff, in an attempt to improve matters, and I am very grateful for the hon. member’s suggestions, but I want to ask him to come and talk to me when he has the time; then we could go into the entire system, and we shall be only too grateful to be able to make improvements. We plan improvements for the next issue and we shall be grateful if the hon. member could assist us in that.

Sir, quite strangely I find myself in agreement with more than 50 per cent of what the hon. the Minister said in his speech earlier this evening. As he will remember, he admitted in his speech that there were deficiencies; he admitted that the services were inadequate; that there were shortages of capital and shortages of personnel. He freely admitted the correctness of all the other accusations that we made against him and his Department. He also admitted that the accusations made by the editor of Dagbreek, Mr. Dirk Richards, were well-founded, but what we do not agree on are the methods proposed by the hon. the Minister to deal with these problems and, secondly, we do not believe that the hon. the Minister can solve these big problems. In fact, in the course of his speech he underlined the fact that the services were inadequate. In a very short little statement he said that there was now a waiting list of 48,000 applicants for telephones. That figure is 4,000 higher than the figure which he gave me when I asked him a question a couple of weeks ago. In other words, in the past couple of weeks there has been a sharper rise than at any other time over the past 10 or 15 years. The hon. the Minister also underlined this by this other statement of his that “everyone was dissatisfied”—in the hon. the Minister’s own words; he and I agree that everyone is dissatisfied. With these few words I shall now leave the Post Office and go on to another topic.

Sir, yesterday I mentioned the fact that we on this side were perturbed at the fact that the report of the S.A.B.C. had not yet been tabled. The hon. the Minister promised that he would give us a reply but we have not yet had that reply. The report should have been made available to the Minister on 30th April, and he still has seven days’ grace to table it. Surely with this Vote under discussion at the moment it would only have been common courtesy to have let us have a copy of that report so that we could discuss it during the Vote. It means that we have to discuss the S.A.B.C. now with a report which is more than 15 months old while the hon. the Minister has the latest report with him at the present moment. I say that that is a very unfair advantage that he has in a debate such as this. I shall not say much about the S.A.B.C. Others following me will have more to say about it. I can only say that my atittude and the attitude of this side of the House on the S.A.B.C. remains unchanged. We are disaatisfied with the information we are getting from the S.A.B.C. We believe that it is an organization in which the Broederbond is boss. That is a matter which will be elaborated further by speakers to follow me.

I want to raise another matter and use a certain word which has become almost unmentionable in Nationalist circles. The word is “television”. In using that word I again wish to plead with the hon. the Minister, I again wish to ask him, I again wish to demand from him that we should start introducing television in South Africa as soon as possible. If he refuses that, let us hold a referendum to find out what the popular opinion is. The hon. member for Middelland compared our telephone services with those of Ghana. He started this idea of comparison with other countries in Africa, so let us, too, compare our television services or lack of them with those of Ghana and other countries. Ghana has three television stations, we have none. There is a television station in a place called Gabon and I doubt whether the hon. member knows where that country is. There are 11 stations in Morocco, namely in Casablanca, Carracas, Marrakesh and eight other towns. Upper Volta has a television station. Egypt has 17 television stations. But let us leave Africa. Great Britain has 48 television stations and the U.S.A. has 600—and South Africa has none. How can the Government conduct conversations with other countries in Africa, and say that South Africa is a civilized country and is the leading country on the continent when we are behind Ghana, Cameroon, Upper Volta and other countries when it comes to television?

There has been no change whatsoever in the stupid arguments used by that side of the House. I am sorry that the hon. member for Innesdal is not here, but he has put his views on record and I can make those views known in this House. He wrote an article in a paper called Vrouevolksdiens, an estimable paper for the estimable ladies of the A.C.V.V. In the latest issue he told the country what the basic difficulties concerning television were as far as the Government itself was concerned. It is a fantastic tale that he has to tell. I can only read some of the headlines:

This is something bad in the eyes of the hon. members on the other side. It offers what already exists:

The hon. member for Innesdal says this about television in this article:

So it goes on. The people who benefit by television are the “deksmouse” the idea pedlars “vir die liberalistiese, kommunistiese beleidstrewe wat in die universele idioom die idee van Christelikheid verkondig om volksliefde en werklike geloof te bestry”. He goes on:

The hon. member for Innesdal wrote a few more paragraphs: “Kleur sal nog ses maal duurder wees.” He adds: “Dit is onversadig-baar” and discussed “die verbiedende koste en tydsfaktor.” I wish I could read everything. Mr. Chairman, you would be amused by what the hon. member now adds. He goes on: “Dit breek en los kulture en sub-kulture op. Dit vee grense gelyk en dit vee die waardes van ge-meenskappe weg. Dit vernietig die siel en individuele bestaan. Sy invloed is onsigbaar en onaantasbaar.” Television, he alleges, cultivates super-hypnotism, “super hipnotisme”. It cultivates “die dwang om aan te pas”. It causes “die verlies van ’n sin vir werklikheid”. It brings us down to “die peil van die nie-blankes, wat die maatstaf sal wees in Suid-Afrika”. He goes on: “Dit is ’n magtige middel vir aftakeling van die volksidentiteit en daar-naas is dit ’n veldtog wat gevoer word met die basiese doel om die verskillende dele van de bevolking te laat vermeng tot ’n enkele volk.”

If this is such an evil poison for the minds of human beings throughout the world, why is it that the Department of Information is manufacturing television films to-day? Why is it that the S.A.B.C. has a television unit? Why does the National Film Board manufacture television films? Why does the South African Tourist Corporation give this “poison” to our friends in the Western world?

There appears to me to be a definite political schizophrenia in the minds of the Nationalist Party when it comes to television. What they need in this case is a political psychiatrist. I believe they have one in their own ranks, in no lesser person than the hon. the Prime Minister, the hon. gentleman who has such a great ability for changing images. Surely he can change the image of South Africa as regards television and give us the image which appears on this square screen of the television instrument.

Why can we not hear from the Prime Minister whether there is any posibility of bringing television to this country? I believe television is inevitable, but it is time we made a start. It is time that a start was made by the Prime Minister himself. I hope that the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs will inform the Prime Minister of this and tell him of the demand which exists. We believe that the hon. the Prime Minister, who is such an adept person at changing images, will probably be able to change the image of this country in regard to television for South Africa as well. He could even say that there is no change in policy. He could say that television was a terrible evil, so let us introduce something called “visual broadcasting”, which could help family life in South Africa—“visual broadcasting” and not television, which could safely be installed in the Cango Caves … [Time expired.]

In his speech the hon. member for Orange Grove tried to ridicule the article written by the hon. member for Innesdal. In that process he wrecked his own plea by reading out to us the true facts which appeared in that article, facts he could not refute. Year after year the hon. member makes a plea here for television to be introduced. I must assume that his party shares his sentiments in that regard, becaue during the general election last year they made it part of their political platform. They tried to keep back their own policy, to conceal matters of policy and to traffic in television. I should very much Ike to ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition a very pointed question. I am sorry that he is not present. I should very much like to know whether the United Party is really serious about the introduction of television. We cannot listen to the hon. member for Orange Grove all the time. Will the hon. the Leader of the Opposition or one of those frontbenchers state plainly that, if the Unted Party were to come to power now, it would immediately introduce television in South Africa? I should very much like to know whether they will do that.

Yes.

It is very interesting to receive this reply, because at the moment it is being broadcast very loudly outside that the man in the street is having a terribly hard time because this Government is neglecting his interests. The United Party, which is the official Opposition, now advocates the introduction of a luxury. Its initial cost will be R60 million at least. The maintenance cost will amount to at least R50 million per year. It will be very interesting to know how they will solve the problem of inflation—with which we are struggling and which they say every day they will solve—in this manner. How are they going to combat the problem of inflation with this luxury? If 500,000 families that can afford television sets can be found in South Africa, it will mean that they will have to spend an additional R100 per year; this is merely in respect of the ordinary black and white transmissions, transmissions which are now having to make way for the more expensive colour transmissions.

Why has Rhodesia not come to grief yet?

A very ridiculous question. What are we going to get for these tremendous amounts that will have to be spent on television? What will the United Party get for them? The hon. member for Orange Grove has not yet told us what advantages this will bring along for South Africa. But what do we get in return? Nothing but a third class cinematic image, poorer than that of an ordinary cinema—a very indistinct and blurred image and much smaller· That is what we will get in exchange for the enormous amount it will cost the country. One often wonders whether the United Party has ever considered the full implications of introducing television in South Africa. What sinister motives are behind their plea for the introduction of television in South Africa? Year after year the hon. member for Orange Grove in particular makes the accusation against this side of the House that the Government is abusing Radio South Africa in order to make propaganda for itself. The United Party should actually have adopted the attitude that the Government should not be given another powerful weapon with the aid of which it might make propaganda for its policy of developing the various races along their own lines, because that is what television can imply for the Government. But why do hon. members over there fail to notice this danger? There is the United Party Press which joins the United Party in their insistent demands for television to be introduced—do they realize that television would greatly reduce the revenue they derive from advertisements?

So that is the reason.

If the United Party does not notice these things, what then is behind their agitation? Is it because the United Party believes that it will obtain some form of assistance or other from television? Do they know that in order to keep television going in South Africa, we shall of necessity have to import films from England and the United States?

So that is the reason.

Do they realize that most of those films are in a suggestive way designed to break down all lines dividing people, to promote integration and to undermine the survival of the Whites here in the southernmost corner of Africa as a nation with its own identity? It seems therefore as though that is the quarter from which they expect to receive help, otherwise fail to see what their actual motives are for making that plea. If that is not the reason for their pleading for television, then they should furnish us with further information in that regard.

It was suggested here that television could exert a very powerful educational influence. Can hon. members of the Opposition be so childish as to believe that? If they really believe that, I want to advise them to read what world-famous figures have to say about television. A well-known figure such as Stuart Cloete says that 98 per cent of the television programmes transmitted in America are absolute rubbish; that 50 per cent of them are made up of violence, crime and sadism. Television, he says, can be described as a school of crime, because it does not only illustrate how crime is committed, but it even supplies the modus operandi—for instance, how to make a bottle an instrument of murder; how a person may be stabbed to death with a knife; how to batter a man to death while he has to crouch as he gets out of a car; how to commit arson; how to tie up people; how to put girls out of action, and so forth. Children who have to look at these things every day, store them away for the day they may lose their self-control or commit some crime or other for the thrill of it. That is what Stuart Cloete thinks of television. Then there is the view of Commissioner Hennoch, as he stated it before the American Federal Communications Committee. He described television programmes as an ever-increasing stream of crime, violence, murder, brutality, unnatural tensions and atrocities which is being poured into the living rooms of American families. The Ulster Society for Teachers of English says, inter alia, “We consider particularly disquieting the cult of violence … the close-ups of knifings and stranglings with criminals or gangs, the exploitation of sex, often linked with violence or sadism.” I can go on in this way by quoting the opinions of other authorities in this field, but I think that we have more than enough reason to be grateful to the Government for keeping this evil away from us. A German physicist and philosopher, Dr. Weisäcker, said that the atom bomb destroyed man’s body, but television destroyed his soul. [Time expired.]

There are still a few things which cause a minor stir on the part of the Opposition—one of those things is not the hon. member for Orange Grove, but television. I have tried to follow the arguments put forward by, inter alia, the hon. member for Orange Grove, but I must say that when one tries to read his speeches calmly, one finds his arguments even less coherent than when one listens to him. As a matter of fact, the theme song “Bobbejaan klim die berg” is very well suited to the atmosphere created by the hon. member for Orange Grove when he speaks about television. The arguments used by him and some of his colleagues in this connection are typical United Party arguments—their arguments are not based on any sound principles of our South African way of life. What is more, they show no understanding of our struggle for survival in the international sphere, nor do they show any signs of idealism—in other words, all their arguments are nothing but senseless logic-chopping. We have been waiting for many years now for the United Party to give us a scientific analysis of the merits and demerits of television, an assessment of television and its influence on every facet of our way of life here in South Africa —for example, on the educational, on the economic, on the social and on the spiritual life with its aesthetical and ethical norms and so forth. If I can do anything to stimulate the hon. member for Orange Grove to undertake further research, I want to read to him what various church bodies have to say about television. The following was said by the Rev. L. F. van Niekerk, a minister of the D. R. Church, on his return from Rhodesia after he had stayed in that country for seven years [translation]—

The same as the radio.

We are dealing with television now, not with the radio I read further—

It now depends on those hon. members to refute these profound arguments on the part of the Christian religion. I continue and I want to read to you what the National Council of the Churches for Christ in America has to say. This Council says that this means of ass communication is forced to present programmes and advertisements without taking into consideration the effect they have on the viewers. Sir, I want to give you a few other examples. This is what the Free Church Federal Council has to say—

I shall leave out a few bodies and I shall deal with something which will be particularly stimulating to the hon. member for Musgrave. This is what The Roman Catholic Body in England and Wales has to say—

The following was said by Dr. J. P. Oberholzer in an article “Die Christen en sy Wéreld” in Die Transvaler, after he had also used these particular arguments against television [translation]—

Finally, I want to quote for the information of hon. members from none other than the Sunday Times. It is rather significant if I have to quote from the Sunday Times, because I can really use nothing else to convince hon. members. This is what a certain Mr. Robert Lacey wrote in that newspaper—

Is that Shakespeare?

No, it is Robert Lacey, but when looking at the hon. Opposition I remember something else Shakespeare said, namely, “Good wombs have borne bad sons”. However, I read further—

That is what the Opposition is badly in need of in any case—

He goes on in that vein. I now want to issue particularly this challenge to the Opposition: I want to accuse them of preying on, and wanting to make political capital out of, the weaknesses of human society: they want to prey on the aberrations one finds in human society, in that, on the basis of either unacceptable un-South African principles or an unrealistic approach to the whole question of television, they want to present television to the South African electorate as something which is the best thing for South Africa in the times in which we are living. In holding up television to the electorate as the sole attraction, they are confirming their own downfall, because in doing that they do not care tuppence for the maintenance of order and prosperity in our society.

You know, Mr. Chairman, it is quite incredible! Even the hon. the Minister sat in amazement at the new reasons that have been given by the two hon. members who have spoken immediately before me as to why we should not have television! The hon. member who has just sat down, quoting from what someone had said, said that television produces a state that thinking for yourself is almost old-fashioned. He says that television does that. Good heavens, Sir. Thinking amongst hon. gentlemen over there for themselves has become old-fashioned—without television! If they have a little light in them, in their lives, it might make them appreciate that the world does not end on the shores of the Republic. It is one of the great things that one could have. The hon. member who has just sat down, read from the gospel according to St. Albert. Now, Sir, I had a Nationalist candidate standing against me in the last election. One assumes that he is a responsible member of the Nationalist Party. He is a member of the provincial council in Natal. I am referring to Mr. Gert Claassen. He came forward during the election and said that he was in favour of television. He said that he was in favour of it. I have no doubt at all that he got some extra votes on account of that. [Interjections.]

Order!

What one wants to say to these hon. members is, in the first place, that it is 1967. This Minister’s thoughts have been here too long; this Minister has been in this department too long. Members must now think of what we should have in 1967. The hon. member for East London (City) put a question to the hon. member for Algoa. He asked what had happened in Rhodesia, where they have television: Has that country gone down? Have their morals been undermined? Have they, or haven’t they? Let us ask this hon. member whether he has ever seen television. Has the hon. member for Algoa ever seen television?

Yes.

You have? Where did the hon. member see television? [Interjections.] The hon. member says that he has seen it. Well, does he now regard himself as being undermined? Did he realize that his morals were likely suddenly to collapse? Is he demoralized by this? Or isn’t he? [Interjections.] One has never seen anyone so scared of anything as this Government is of television. One wonders why. One hears these tales of horror that all these films will produce; that T.V. programmes will produce more and more, as it is alleged has happened in other countries, shooting and burning and pillage and rape, and everything else. But have hon. gentlemen on that side not forgotten one thing, that if television were introduced it would have to be done under the aegis of the S.A.B.C., that it would be controlled by law by the S.A.B.C.? When one considers the way in which they twist and turn the medium which they have, of broadcasting, one is amazed— until, of course, one comes to this House— why they are not prepared to use a much more powerful medium for propaganda purposes. One wonders. [Interjections.]

They have no faith in the S.A.B.C.

An hon. member says that they have no faith in the S.A.B.C. Well, when I look at hon. members opposite I am wondering whether those who put out this propaganda have any faith in their ability to put it over on television.

I wonder whether hon. members appreciate that this medium is the modern medium of communication. We have been told that all we will get is a third-class, small picture. I wonder if the hon. gentlemen have thought of the old people who sit at home. They could have controlled programmes, educational programmes. This is perhaps the greatest service that television has done for this world. In Canada they estimate that it saves people from going “mental”, those who live by themselves. You go and talk to all the old people, Sir. Apart from that, the hon. gentleman also asked the question would we, the United Party, when we came into power, give the people television? The answer is very simple. My hon. Leader said that we will give the people television. Then the question is asked: At what cost? We are not going to force people to have television. You can have television if you want it, If you want to know whether it is worth introducing, or not, and whether it is going to be supported, you will have to do what the hon. member for Orange Grove suggested: Have a referendum to find out what the people think, and then they can have it. Perhaps the hon. gentleman, when he asks us whether we will have it now, would consider whether at this moment South Africa is not terribly short of teachers, and, instead of having these conversations on the S.A.B.C., eductional programmes could be broadcast. Regarding conversations on the S.A.B.C., I want to refer to the scandalous performance last night about the future of the English-speaking people and whether they can be absorbed or cannot be absorbed. Instead of such conversations, hon. members might perhaps turn their attention to educating people through this medium with our shortage of teachers. I want to ask the Minister whether he listened to the radio last night and whether he listened to this extraordinary programme.

What was wrong with it?

What was wrong with it? There you are. It lasted for an hour and a half. The subject of this programme was “The future of the political and cultural life of the English-speaking people.” It concerned the question whether they had a future in public life, the English-speaking people. What an impertinence to ask, to put on this matter as a subject for debate—whether we, as English-speaking people, have a future in the political life! What an impertinence! Of course, one must appreciate that the answer was obviously posed before the question was posed. Who did they have on the panel? What persons did they have who understand the English-speaking people? They were Mr. Blyth Thompson, who got a thrashing at the hands of the hon. member for South Coast when he stood as a Nationalist at the last election. Then there was Mr. Dennis Worrall. Who is Mr. Dennis Worrall? He is one of the few English-speaking people who have backed this government’s policy. Is that right or wrong? [Interjections.]

Order!

Then there was Professor Anna Neethling-Pöhl, Dr. Webb—to give it some respectability—and Mr. McCormack, as the Chairman, who is a senior official of the S.A.B.C. There was a chap called Kalpin there too. Who are these people, that they have the right to talk about the future of the English-speaking people in public life? The future of the English-speaking people in public life is what they will make of it, and they have made of it what they have, and they have their representatives. When these people wanted to represent them, they were rejected. That is the simple fact of the matter. How can the Minister allow a programme like this when you have a man like Thompson saying that, if the English-speaking people operate their thinking outside of what he calls “separate development” then they will be put “further out of tune with South Africa.” I repeat: “Further out of tune with South Africa”, not “further out of tune with the Nationalist Party” or “further out of tune with the power string that may be at the moment.”

That is the policy of South Africa.

There you are. There you have it. The hon. member says that it is the policy of South Africa. I say that it is the policy of the Nationalist Party—and the Nationalist Party itself does not know what that policy is. [Interjections.] Tell us what it is then. If Dennis Worrall is an example of it, and he is one of their spokesmen, then it is even more confusing and confounded than it remains at this moment. [Interjections.] Perhaps the hon. member for Brits will get up and tell us what it is. What does separate development mean? He says that it is part of South Africa. Where is it part of South Africa? Where? Will he tell us? [Interjections.]

Order!

Then we have someone else saying—and this is a very subtle way of doing it—that the English-speaking people are all liberals. That is the next thought that is put across.

No.

Oh yes, oh yes, because Mr. Worrall says that it is a mistake of the state of the thinking of the English-speaking people that they think we can be a multi-racial country and live happily ever after. That is what he says. It is all right to use the word “multi-racial” in that sense, and then one can get over to them that if they are liberals they will get nowhere and they have no place in South Africa, because they must think the way the hon. Chief Whip of the Nationalist Party thinks. We can, if we are Nationalists, have in South West Africa, for example, a multi-national place. Tell me what the difference is between “multinational” and “multi-racial”? Last night we had a programme devoted to the English-speaking people and they are told by what is supposed to be a panel that knows something about it, that they have a future only if they exhibit themselves publicly within the ambit of the framework of the Nationalist Party policy.

Mr. Chairman, in this debate we have again had one of those strange things which first of all set one thinking and then cause one to wonder, “What is behind it all?” The hon. member made a covert and virulent attack on the S.A.B.C. a few moments ago· It was an attack. At the same time he said— as was pointed out so clearly by the hon. member for Algoa a moment ago—that television should be introduced and handed over to the S.A.B.C. Now is that not strange? Does it not strike every thinking person as being something very strange? It is very strange that a man should heap every possible abuse on something—as they have been doing all these years in respect of the S.A.B.C.—and that they should then say: No, we must introduce television, and hand it over to the S.A.B.C.! That really sets one thinking. [Interjection.] I am afraid the hon. member will never reach the top—he will always remain at the bottom. I think the hon. member is bottom of the class, as the expression goes. There is something very strange, there is a motive behind all this. There are those in the minority, such as the hon. member for Pine-lands, who are too honourable to be able to see the motives. There are very good reasons behind all this. Let me now come to one of the principal reasons. The principal reason is why one has always been able to see the difference between this side of the House and that side of the House. It is still the same. It has been the same ever since the National Party was first established. It has been the same since before the Anglo-Boer War. That side stands for the financial power groups, the rich, and this side stands for the people. [Interjections.] Very well, let us analyze that. [Interjections.] Very well, give me the answers. Tell us. Has any one of those hon. members ever told us what the advantages of television are, advantages of which any sensible person can take notice? interjections·]

Everybody knows it is a good thing.

Very well, let me ask you. I say “sensible persons”.

We find it in all the countries of the world, the major countries.

Is that an argument? [Interjections.] Some people simply cannot see through the matter. There are so many of their fellow countrymen making money out of it that they can no longer stop it. [Interjections.] Of course. That is the principal reason. That party has always been the party that has pleaded for the mining groups, for the rich merchants, for the rich industrialists. They are now in the first place looking after their large profits, for themselves and for their friends. These are not flights of fancy. May I remind you, Sir, what the plans of those hon. members were shortly before the National Party came into power? Do you know that if the National Party had not come into power, television would have been introduced in South Africa at that stage already? [Interjections.] I am glad you agree with what I am saying, because I am merely showing what you are. Do you know, Sir, what their plans were?

May I ask the hon. the Minister the following question: What profits is the Opposition making out of the postal services or the S.A.B.C.?

Order! If hon. members want to ask questions, they must be sensible questions. [Interjections.]

I think all that the Chairman meant was that if the hon. member wants to ask a question, it must be an intelligent one, [Interjections.]

What is the reply?

Surely it is nonsense to suggest that the Opposition is making money out of the Post Office.

Of course you are talking nonsense; that is what we are saying: you are talking nonsense.

I think the hon. member is rather beside himself. [Interjections.]

Order!

Let us see the picture clearly. The plan was a pre-arranged affair, and it was that they would divide up television among the large towns and that they would then give a sector to each of certain friends of theirs—and it had already been decided who those friends would be. One would get Johannesburg and the Rand, another Durban, another Cape Town, and I think the one they did not like so much would get Bloemfontein.

I challenge you to say who they were; I challenge you to mention their names. [Interjections.]

They had already decided that television would be introduced and that it would be divided up in that way. I am not saying that I know who the persons were. [Interjections.]

But the whole story is untrue.

I know that they were going to hand it over to a number of their friends. [Interjections.] Now, we all know that if we sold opium to the people, we would get very rich. If one could sell dagga to one’s people, one would get very rich. Here that side merely has a new method—they have a mixture of opium and dagga. It is spiritual opium and spiritual dagga. They do not care what effect it will have. [Interjections.]

Order!

They have never cared what happens to the people of South Africa. Their only concern is whether they and their friends are making profits. That is all. If they could introduce those means in South Africa, then, even if they destroyed every child after that, even if they brought the people to complete ruin, they would not care two hoots. [Interjections.] That is one of the first points. Let us now first pose the question: “What are the advantages of television?” The hon. member comes along with the story that a nation can be educated by means of television. How? Just tell us, how? Would a child or a nation be educated through the introduction of the ordinary commercial television, with the films that are shown on commercial television?

But it has been used for that; I have seen it; I have seen it in Australia, where it is being used for educational purposes.

The poor hon. member— as the saying goes, “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing”·

But you have no knowledge—that is the trouble.

Now they come along with the story that it will educate. Let us just analyse that education for a moment. They say that we shall not need teachers. That is what they have said, that teachers will not be necessary. Let us take a look at the matter. Imagine what would happen. The school-children would all go to school and they would sit in a classroom in which there would be television. There would be no teachers. What would happen? There would be chaos. But not only that. [Interjections.] Yes, Sir, you just have to forgive some of the hon. members; some of them are already very close to the retiring limit.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. the Minister a question?

Order! I am not allowing any further questions. The hon. member must please resume his seat.

On a point of order, Sir. I submit that any member is allowed to get up and ask a question and if the speaker …

In a debate like this, where the House is in Committee of Supply, there is no limitation on the number of times a member may address the Committee and as any hon. member can get up and speak after the hon. the Minister has spoken, it is not necessary to allow the putting of questions.

It may not be necessary, but a member can get up, Sir, and he can be refused.

Yes. but the questions put until now were not of the quality which I think should be put. The Minister may proceed.

On a point of order, Sir, it is not for the Chairman to decide the quality of the question.

It is for the Chairman to decide whether he will allow questions or not. Hon. members are trying to poke fun at the whole debate.

Provided a question is relevant, the member is entitled to put it. The member speaking can say whether he will answer it or not; it is not for the Chairman to say. [Interjections.]

The Chairman can decide whether he will allow it or not.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order … [Interjections.] Hon. members opposite have no interest in the rights of private members in this House, Sir. But I have. You are cutting across the rights of private members. We are entitled to put a question and the man who is speaking may say, “I am not going to answer it” or “I am not prepared to allow a question”. But that is for him to determine.

Order! But every member has the right to speak after the Minister. A member can make ten speeches on this Vote.

With all due respect, Sir, that is not in fact the case in practice. In practice, as you know, times are set for these debates, and when that time is up it is the end of the matter. There may be a number of members who would like to speak …

The Chair has no official knowledge of such arrangements.

I say that hon. members’ rights are now being cut across deliberately by your ruling, if this is to be a ruling. Where do we go from here, if this is so?

The hon. the Minister says that he refuses to reply.

Well, then he must say so to the hon. member.

[Inaudible.]

Order! The hon. member must resume his seat.

I want to say that the Chairman shall not make a determination in that fashion, so as to prevent private members from putting a question to the hon. gentleman who was speaking at the time.

The Chairman has the right to do so. At the same time, the hon. the Minister said that he was not prepared to answer any more questions.

Are we to take it that the Minister is refusing to answer the question?

Yes.

I only have a few minutes to go. Perhaps, if the hon. member does not mind, he can put the question to-morrow. [Interjections.]

Please allow the hon. the Minister to answer. The hon. the Minister is trying to reply.

I say that we only have a few minutes to go. It will be better if the question is put tomorrow, if you do not mind.

Then we can put the question to-morrow. Thank you.

The hon. member was obstructing.

Don’t you interfere either—leave it to the Chairman. [Interjections.]

Order! Order!

It has nothing to do with you at all. [Interjections.]

Order! Will the hon. member resume his seat, please? Let the hon. the Minister proceed.

Mr. Chairman …

You can resume your seat, too. [Interjections.]

Order!

You talk about rights—I also have rights. Mr. Chairman, I want to raise a point of order. In the House of Commons, in terms of the rules of that House

What do you know about the House of Commons?

I know something about it. [Interjections.] The hon. member is now being clever in his stupidity. On a point of order, Sir, I said that the hon. member had been obstructing. In terms of the rules of the House of Commons an hon. member even has the right to make use of obstruction. It is permissible. Why are hon. members making such a fuss … [Interjections.]

Order! An hon. member is not allowed to say that another hon. member was obstructing; that is for the Chair to decide. The hon. Minister may proceed. [Interjections.]

Order!

Perhaps I should interrupt the conversation by referring to the question asked by the hon. member for Orange Grove a while ago. He asked why I had not furnished him with this report of the S.A.B.C. The position is this. A roneoed copy of the report has been supplied to me. The printer is still printing the report. It is not customary to lay it upon the Table before it has been printed. There was nothing that prevented the hon. member from asking me for it, and I would willingly have given it to him.

May I please have it before to-morrow?

Yes, you may have it with pleasure.

Progress reported.