Mr. Speaker, I move—

As this is an agreed measure, I shall not detain the House long. Recently the question of the extent to which a witness appearing before Parliament or a committee enjoys protection against any subsequent criminal or civil action was brought pertinently to the notice of Mr. Speaker. After carefully examining the existing provisions of the Powers and Privileges of Parliament Act, Mr. Speaker came to the conclusion that these provisions were not sufficiently clear and accordingly referred the matter to the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders for its consideration.

This Committee in turn has gone fully into the matter and has unanimously decided that the amendments contained in this Bill are necessary in order to make quite clear to what extent protection is enjoyed by members and by witnesses.

Briefly, the position will be that a member of this House or of the Other Place will enjoy full and absolute protection in respect of anything he may say in Parliament or on a committee, whether as a member or as a witness, and no action can be taken against him outside Parliament. If a witness in the opinion of the presiding officer answers fully and faithfully all the questions put to him and his replies are relevant to such questions, he will be entitled to a certificate which will protect him against any civil or criminal proceedings for anything said by him in his evidence or for any act or thing done by him before that time and revealed by his evidence.

I am sure that members will agree that these provisions will avoid any further difficulties in this regard, and as the Bill has the unanimous support of the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders, I have pleasure in moving its Second Reading.

We on this side of the House agree with the provisions of this amending Bill. We feel that it clarifies the situation in a most satisfactory manner. It means that the privileges of a member are protected absolutely and that a witness before Parliament or a select committee is virtually in the same position as a witness before the Supreme Court in South Africa. That means that he enjoys privilege unless what he says is false, unless it is irrelevant or unless it is actuated by malice. We think that is the correct position. We do not feel that a witness is entitled to absolute privilege and we feel that there should be this measure of responsibility in the interest of accurate testimony before select committees of Parliament. We feel that this amending legislation sets out what I believe has always been the intention of Parliament in this regard.

Bill read a Second Time.

Bill not committed to Committee of the Whole House.

Bill read a Third Time.

Order! Before calling upon the next hon. member, I should like to say that I have considered the putting of questions in Committee of Supply by members to a Minister while the Minister is addressing the Committee. I wish to point out that in Committee of Supply there is no limit on the number of times members may address the Committee, nor does the Minister’s reply close the debate. By putting questions to a Minister while he is speaking, members are in fact indirectly circumventing the provisions of Standing Order No. 91 whereby the time allotted to private members in Committee of Supply on the Estimates of Expenditure is limited to 100 hours. I therefore feel that, except in exceptional circumstances of which the Chair will be the fudge, members must reserve any questions they wish to put to the Minister until the Minister has completed his speech. If members wish to put such questions to the Minister, the Chair will then allow them to do so and the time taken up will be deducted from the period of 100 hours. In conclusion, I should like to make it clear that if the Whips have arranged for a certain period of time to be devoted to a particular Vote, the Chair has no official knowledge of such arrangements and will accordingly not prevent any member who wishes to do so from addressing the Committee.

When this House adjourned last night I was referring to the peculiar attitude which that side of this House was adopting, the people who in recent times have constantly been directing our attention to the enormous problem of inflation, who have constantly been pleading for expenditure to be curtailed, who are conscious of the fact that each time one brings additional money into circulation one is simply boosting inflation. The same hon. members of the Opposition who have been advocating that point of view consistently now come forward here with demands that television must be introduced, the introduction of which will cost the country R40 million or R50 million, or perhaps even R60 million and which may in addition cost some R50 million per annum. They make this plea in spite of the fact that if one has to introduce television one will have to have an enormous number of technicians; in spite of the fact that new people will have to be trained. As it is we have a shortage of labour, a shortage of technicians, a shortage of qualified people at the present time, but yet one has to give an additional boost to the inflation which already exists for the sake of introducing a luxury such as television. This is the first peculiarity in regard to the attitude adopted by the United Party. But to me there are other peculiarities and yesterday in particular we saw what they were. The United Party has been conducting a campaign against the S.A.B.C. for many years. For many years they have been saying that the S.A.B.C. is nothing but a propaganda machine of the Government and of the State, and now they actually come forward and advocate the introduction of television. Not only are they advocating the introduction of a new instrument which will have enormous propaganda value according to them, but they are asking for that propaganda machine to be placed under the control of the S.A.B.C., which they shortly before branded as being a propaganda machine of the State. Sir, if that is so, then there must be some obscure reason for that. Then hon. members of the Opposition must have ulterior motives. I do not want to go into all those ulterior motives but I nevertheless want to remind the Committee of some of them. The first ulterior motive is that they are of the opinion that some of them and their friends will be able to make large profits from the introduction of television.

Shame!

If one introduces something new and one is blind to its consequences because one wants to benefit a few of one’s friends, then that is a shame. I just want to remind you. Sir, that when the National Party came into power in 1948, the United Party had completed its plans for the introduction of television in South Africa, but they did not want to do so under the S.A.B.C. Oh no, at that time it was not to be a State institution. No, if I remember correctly, their original intention was to divide television into four different stations, namely the Rand, Durban, Cape Town and Bloemfontein, and these stations were to be given to certain hand-picked friends of theirs. Various other people were also to be concerned in the matter and they thought that it would be possible to make a large profit from television. The United Party had one motive only. It wanted to introduce television in order to ensure a few people of a profit and in their own words, “damn the consequences”. That was its attitude.

Do you have any proof of that?

Yes, the proof is there.

You may not tell untruths here.

Order!

What I am saying here is absolutely true.

But prove it.

I referred to that before in this House. If the hon. member were to consult Hansard he would find the proof in that.

You must not lie.

Order! Did the hon. member for Sea Point use the word “lie”?

I said that that was an untruth.

Did the hon. member not use the word “lie”?

Yes, I did.

Then the hon. member must withdraw it and apologize.

I withdraw it and I apologize. It is merely an untruth, but it is a big one.

Mr. Chairman, this fits very nicely into the picture of the United Party· It has always given thought only to the interests of those people who are bent on making big money from South Africa. The United Party has always been the Party of the mines; it has always been the Party of the industrialists; it has always been the Party of the big merchants. Not so long ago Mr. Oppenheimer, one of the biggest mining magnates in South Africa, was the United Party’s deputy leader on the Witwatersrand. Mr. Oppenheimer is no longer a member of this House, but he left a follower here in the person of the hon. member for Yeoville. For many years the hon. member for Yeoville was the liaison officer of the Chamber of Mines, the heart of the mining interests in South Africa. But that is not all; Mr. Oppenheimer has sent us a reinforcement, or rather a reinforcement to see to it that the United Party implements his policy; he has sent us the hon. member for Hillbrow.

Order! Now the hon. the Minister is really digressing very far from the Vote.

Sir, I must point out to you what the reason is for these constant attacks from that side of this House on this side as far as the introduction of television is concerned.

I shall be pleased if the hon. the Minister were to confine himself more specifically to the Vote.

Let me come to a second motive. The opposite side of this House realizes that in television, which, as the hon. member for Algoa said, simply is a small house bioscope through the medium of which one is able to present bioscope programmes in people’s homes, one has a powerful force to determine the way of life and the social pattern of a country. Television is a medium which absorbs an infinite number of programmes; it devours them. If television operates for 7½ hours a day it requires at least three bioscope programmes per day and in one week, to keep the figure low, it requires 15 programmes; let us not put it as high as 21. Television absorbs bioscope programmes on a tremendous scale. Hon. members of the Opposition know that powerful countries, such as England, cannot provide sufficient programmes for their television networks by themselves. They have to import programmes from other countries. The position has improved progressively but one still has exactly the same position in England at present. If television programmes have to be imported into South Africa, from where will we get them? We will get the programmes mainly from England and America. Mr. Chairman, on television to-day one sees one way of life being followed consistently. Friends of mine who have just returned from England have told me that one cannot see a programme in England to-day in which they do not show you White and Black living together, in which they do not constantly make propaganda for the races to be mixed. In this way the English way of life is being undermined. Hon. members opposite are very keen that that propaganda should be made on a large scale here in South Africa. It will fit very nicely into their pattern. It will fit very nicely into their pattern of undermining the separate way of life, our apartheid, which we have here in South Africa. They are prepared to hand over to the S.A.B.C. the television network which they would like to have established in South Africa, because they know that the propaganda which the S.A.B.C. would be able to make on television, should it want to do so, would not offset the harm which those programmes would do by undermining the way of life of the white man in South Africa. There is much more behind it than simply that. Let me mention a further effect which the hon. members naturally understand intuitively. We all know that a television system is extremely expensive. We know that if we want to introduce a decent television system into a country such as South Africa, it would cost between R40 and R50 million per annum. We also know that there is no sensible Government which will give a subsidy of between R40 and R50 million per annum for keeping such a television system in operation. That means that it will only be possible to keep such a system in operation in South Africa if that is done by means of advertisements. In other words, it will be possible to establish and maintain such a television network in South Africa only if the advertisers can find that R40 million to R50 million per annum. Now, you can understand that the advertisers who have to provide that money and who have to pay very high prices will only do so if they can prescribe what those programmes are to be. That is the case everywhere in the world. Where commercial television is introduced, the advertiser, and not the State or any other body, determines what the programmes are to be. White people will not be the only viewers of those programmes. There will naturally also be non-white viewers and that will be one of the principal motives, namely that the black man and the Coloured man will also be television viewers of the commercial programmes. There is one advertising technique which we must never forget. This modern technique of advertising is that if one wants to get people to buy something one must make them dissatisfied with the thing they have. If one wants to get a person to buy a new car, one must make him dissatisfied with the car he has, because that creates the urge in everyone to buy something new all the time. At present the urge is being created in all of us to buy new cars and why is that being done? To make people ashamed of last year’s model or to make out that last year’s model is not as good as this year’s model. When we come to clothing, the idea is created that the clothes which one has are out of fashion and that one ought not to wear them; one ought to wear the new fashions. At present advertising is based on this principle. At present the principle is that a new market has to be created by convincing people that what they used to have is not as good as what they can have to-day. I have nothing against advertisements; I am merely outlining their effects to this House.

Now you have to take cognizance of the effect of advertisements on the black man in South Africa. If the black man looks at this powerful medium of advertising, it has the effect on him that it creates in him a feeling of inferiority about the things he already owns and a yearning for new things which may be bought whereby a feeling of dissatisfaction is automatically created in that black man. If the black man cannot buy those things, he in actual fact feels dissatisfied and then seeks a cause for his dissatisfaction. Under the influence of the agitators he finds that cause too readily in the white man. Sociologists in America have made analyses. American sociologists tell us at present that the feeling which the Negro in America harbours against the white man in America has in recent years been accentuated for the greater part precisely by the advertisements on television in America. In America the black man harbours a feeling against the white man which has no precedent in the past. In America Whites are in the majority. If we are going to create a situation in South Africa where the black man is going to be dissatisfied and is going to blame the white man for his dissatisfaction, you can realize that that will create a situation in South Africa that will make the vast majority of black people dissatisfied with the white minority. These are situations which will be created and which will make the position of the white man in South Africa extremely difficult. The Government’s task will be made extremely involved. At the same time the pattern in the country will be undermined. There are many motives but the few I have just mentioned will suffice. In the past I have often drawn attention to other effects which I do not want to repeat now. I think I have now replied to all the questions which were put to me.

Mr. Chairman, will the hon. the Minister tell us whether he is insinuating that our countries of origin, the ones from which we get all our immigrants, have been unwise or stupid for having allowed television? Or alternatively, is he suggesting that the population of South Africa is not intelligent enough to distinguish between good and bad programmes?

Mr. Chairman, when I listened to the hon. the Minister telling us about television, I felt that television programmes I had witnessed in other countries could not have been true. I do not know whether the hon. the Minister has ever seen a family sit around the “telly” in the evening. It keeps the younger people at home. They do not go gallivanting as they used to do and spending a lot of money. It is now an established part of the home life of people throughout the world. There is nothing evil about television. I agree that the arguments advanced by the hon. member for Algoa and the hon. member for Rissik deserve some attention. The hon. member for Algoa dealt with the question of finance. The figures he juggled with were R60 million to introduce TV and then R50 million afterwards. I wonder whether the hon. member knows that radio did not come to South Africa in that way. How did radio come to this country? It was not through the Government but through private enterprise and people who were interested. I was an early experimenter in radio before there was broadcasting. Eventually men got together and worked out a system for broadcasting. Through the enterprise, I think, of Mr. I. W. Schlesinger we got the African Broadcasting Company. When the Government felt that it should take this over and have it controlled by a broadcasting board …

Was that the United Party?

I think it must have been because the United Party was a very strong party with foresight. When they introduced this system they said that they would have a broadcasting board. Unfortunately the power that was given to the Minister to nominate the members of the board has been responsible for a good deal of the dissatisfaction with broadcasting. It is quite possible, I should like to suggest to the hon. member for Algoa, that private enterprise and Government enterprise could again be used. The hon. the Minister is obsessed with the idea of Hoggenheimer. When he talks about mining houses and Mr. Harry Oppenheimer he becomes almost incoherent.

Where is Hoggenheimer to-day? He is with the I.D.C., investing for the Government. This new kind of operator we have in South Africa, the entrepreneur in South Africa, the directors of the companies appointed by the Government, are the people who have the power to-day, not the chairmen of mining houses. The hon. the Minister is one of these Hoggenheimers to-day. May I congratulate him. He is a member of a flourishing company, namely Afrikaanse Pers Beperk. I read the report last year. There is another director sitting next to him over there. There is another one going over to Europe, the hon. the Minister of Education, Arts and Science. I can understand their concern about the introduction of television, because television is the most efficient modern advertising medium. For that reason the Press is naturally jealous of television.

The hon. the Minister said last year that the English-language Press was accepted as being slanted, twisted, and that it distorted the facts. He said all that in one sentence. He does not like the English-language Press, but the English-language Press has never been enthusiastic about television. The Press in any country is not enthusiastic. The hon. the Minister felt, in a statement he once made, that the Afrikaans Press would probably suffer more and that the profits would drop. But the profits were pretty high last year. They had a 20 per cent dividend, which is pretty good, I think. The Minister is also in a very privileged position. He is a director of this “company”, the Government, because he is a Cabinet Minister. He is the director of Afrikaanse Pers, and Afrikaanse Pers trades with the Government. He is doing very nicely, if you look at these publications we get, printed on behalf of the Government Printer by Afrikaanse Pers, Dagbreekpers or Voortrekker-pers. However, that is the financial side. It need not cost a penny to introduce television, if it can be introduced through private enterprise in the beginning, with an understanding with the Government. That has been done over and over again.

Now I come to the hon. member for Rissik. He speaks about the moral effect. I do not think there need be any difficulty about that because these programmes are controlled. Hon. members feel that young people should not see certain programmes. Well, remember what St. Paul said: “Prove all things. Hold fast that which is good.” That is what we should do. It does not help us to say to young people: “You may not listen in to Lourenço Marques because Lourenço Marques has pop music and our programmes do not have so much pop music.” They will do so. What we have to do is to show them what is good so that they will learn to appreciate it. The hon. member said that learned people who had come back from other countries had found that it had a depraving influence on young people. That is nonsense because the standard of education in Britain, for example, is higher now than it has been for two generations. The standard is better than ever. [Interjections.] I am not saying that it is because of television. I am saying that it has had no depraving effect on the young people of the country. The hon. the Minister feels that we will treat it in the same way as radio broadcasting. I do not have very much good to say for radio broadcasting. The hon. member for Durban (North) gave us a very good example of what was happening in radio broadcasting. He told us that there had been a broadcast on Monday evening. I was fortunate enough, or unfortunate enough, to listen to a good deal of it. I agree with him when he says that it is a piece of impertinence to put over a programme of that kind as representing the feeling of the English-speaking people of this country. Here we have a Nationalist Party candidate who was defeated in the last election and other people who are not leaders of the English-speaking community telling us where we have fallen short in South Africa. We have not become Nationalists. That is what it amounted to. After all, we have a contribution to make in this country and I think we are making it. I am in one way pleased about that broadcast. Last year I pleaded with the hon. the Minister to revive the spirit of 1953. In the General Election of 1953 both political parties were allowed to broadcast. The Government has never agreed to another broadcast for a very obvious reason. They were so completely outclassed by the members of this side. [Interjections.] [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I do not want to reply directly to the hon. member for Kensington. I have had to reply to him on so many occasions and I have dealt him so many blows that now I should like to raise another matter first. In the first place, not for a long time—as a matter of fact. I think not since I have been sitting in this House—have I been a witness to such a rude attitude being adopted towards a Minister as that observed he-e by me to-day on the part of the Opposition. I am referring to the attitude adopted towards the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs. We on our part, and I want to say also the nation on its part, want to thank the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs most sincerely for the form and consistent attitude adopted by him in regard to this question of television. If that does not apply to the nation as such, he at least has the gratitude of the conservative section of the population, be they Afrikaans speaking or English sneaking. The hon. member for Kensington mentioned what improvements there had been in the standard of education in Britain over the past 20 years. Fortunately he did at least add that he did not want to attribute that exclusively to the fact that that country had television. But what of the superficiality which has been introduced into that nation’s values over the past 20 years? May that not perhaps be attributed, as I should like to point out in a moment, to television?

Yesterday, in view of the fact that there is a shortage of teachers, the hon. member for Durban (North) outlined, inter alia, in what way television could replace the basic function of the teacher to a certain extent. Or that at least was the implication of his words. The hon. member may know something about law but if that is what he believes he knows preciously little about education. The teacher can never be replaced. He can never be replaced by television or anything else. The presence of the teacher in the classroom is a basic requirement.

In the countries which have television, television is the most powerful medium of communication. A scholar put it as follows—

In other words, it is a mass-communication medium which is as powerful, influential and effective as the Press, the radio and the film combined. We know that the effect of that is that this mass-communication medium can incite feelings more than any other medium. If the producer of programmes makes it his object to incite feelings there is no easier way of achieving his object than employing the medium of television. It completely dulls one’s sense of objectivity. It is definitely true that it is the medium which captivates one’s eye and ear to such an extent that it effects a radical and drastic change in community life and in everyday life. Television, as a medium, is what people make of it. The television viewer is not the one who really decides what sphere of thought and what ideas are to be carried into the family circle; the one who does that is the one who collects the material, the producer of the television material and programmes. The producers of the programmes are the ones who determine to what influences the masses are to be subjected. The producer of the programme knows human psychology. He knows very well that if the ordinary person is sitting in a relaxed state in front of a television set he has a receptive mind and in most cases does not adopt a critical and sceptical attitude to what is being dished up for him. We know, and this has also been stated by commissions of inquiry appointed in England and in other parts of the world which have television, that parents do not allow their children to go and see films depicting violence—the so-called blood and thunder films. However, those same parents are powerless when that same type of material is presented on television. The parent himself does not even have control over those television programmes. In that way the youth is subjected to violent films, to immoral films, to sadistic films. Those things which the right-minded parent wants to keep from his child at all times are shown to the child.

If television really is so innocent, and if as a medium it does not have the influence which hon. members of the Opposition and other supporters of television allege it does not have, then it really is very strange that there are so many people from all walks of life in countries all over the world where they have television who have been engaged for many years in heated arguments about the advantages and the disadvantages of this medium of communication. Educationists, theologists, psychologists, moralists, politicians and other leaders of society are the ones who are constantly writing and arguing whether or not television is a good thing. After all those arguments and after all that controversy, there has never been agreement amongst those people. What is the obvious answer? The answer is that people who think, people who still care about a nation’s ethics and morality have a constant fear as to what the eventual effect of television will be.

I have referred to investigations which have been instituted. Various investigations have been instituted. Various commissions have been appointed and have reported. Those have been quoted here time and again. In England in particular there have been such commissions of inquiry. I just want to refer to three disadvantages of television as I see the matter. The first is: It interferes with parental authority. The second is: It disrupts routine in the home. Yesterday one of the hon. members opposite said television was instrumental in building up the family circle. I maintain that it destroys the family circle.

What do you know about it?

What do I know about it? But what does the hon. member really know about it? In the third place, television clashes with the duties the child has at home and at school and it undermines his school-work. In the few minutes I still have at my disposal I, as an educationist, should like to discuss the latter disadvantage. In 1964 a survey was conducted in Waikato, a farming district in New Zealand. The survey was conducted amongst 400 children between the ages of 8 and 13. On the average these children spent 26 hours per week viewing television. At that time television broadcasts were made for 50 hours per week. The time spent in viewing television programmes increased in relation to the children’s ages. Eight-year-olds spent an average of 25i hours per week in front of television sets. Twelve-year-olds were at their posts for 27 hours per week. Now I should like to furnish particulars which are even much more important. These particulars do not relate to England or America but to Germany in fact. In 1965 Professor Fritz Stückrath, an educationist of Hamburg, conducted a comprehensive investigation into different schools in his city. For this investigation he used 1,800 pupils of all ages attending all kinds of schools. His findings were as follows. I ask hon. members who like to speak of the educational advantages of television to pay close attention now. He found that primary school children between the ages of 6 and 10 spent 35 per cent of their free time in front of television sets. As regards children over the age of 10, this figure increased to more than 40 per cent. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member who has just sat down makes one realize that every country, of course, has its people who are narrow-minded, superstitious, afraid to take a forward step, rarely adopting any new invention—“verkrimp” in other words. Every country has this sort of person, whether it be Germany, England, America, or South Africa. Every time there is any advance in sight these people are wary of taking advantage of these things. I believe that if anybody from any other country is listening to this debate this afternoon, they will be absolutely amazed that at this stage of development in television, one should still be listening to these incredible arguments about television affecting the morals of countries, about television breaking up family circles, such as the argument that has just been advanced. But this is one of the great modern means of communication and every single modern country has adopted television in some form or another. Countries in the rest of the African continent are not highly developed, not highly industrialized, not nearly as wealthy as South Africa, and yet they have television. There is no reason why we should have radios, there is no reason why we should have motor cars, there is no reason why we should have jet aeroplanes, there is no reason why we should use antibiotics. There is no reason for all these things, Sir. [Interjections.] Mr. Chairman, may I be given an opportunity of speaking without this chorus behind me.

Order!

Thank you, Sir. This is, as I was saying, one of the great accepted modern means of communication. If there are bad programmes on television, as of course, there are, this is still surely no reason for discarding the whole system of television. Other countries have programmes which are greeted with a fair amount of derision or which are criticized by academic people, but at the same time there is not the slightest suggestion in Germany or America or England, or anywhere else, that television should be abandoned because there are some bad programmes. On the contrary, the whole trend is towards improving the standard. To-day, if any of these hon. gentlemen watched television in America or in Britain, they would find that they have a vast choice of programmes to watch at any one time. There are many channels with different programmes on them. There are educational channels, there are sporting channels, there are news broadcasts, there are all kinds of channels that one can watch. The amount of solace that this wonderful means of entertainment brings to old people, to sick people, to lonely people, to people who are living in far-off places and who are unable to enjoy the current sporting and other events, is quite unbelievable. Yet hon. members come here and condemn the entire system because of these nebulous reasons. Well, I think that we should just “come clean” on this issue. All of us know what lies behind this. It is not the lowering of morals. It is not the advertising referred to by the hon. the Minister. Good heavens, half the time on the S.A.B.C. one is listening to these awful jingles advertising some or other product, making people worry apparently because they do not own the latest brand of motor car or model, or whatever it is, of kitchen appliances. That is absolutely no argument at all. The hon. the Minister does not suggest that he cuts off his revenue from the S.A.B.C. because advertising is assisting the inflation. It has nothing to do with morals because there are films shown in this country that many people would hesitate to allow their children to see. There is no reason why high standards cannot be maintained on television as well. There is only one reason why we don’t have television and that of course is a political reason. It is well known that it will be extremely expensive to translate enough programmes into Afrikaans so as to prevent the destruction of the propaganda machinery used by the Government over the Afrikaans radio. Of course there might also be another reason which has just occurred to me. In America and other countries television is widely used at election time, and between elections as well, to enable the voters to meet the people who rule them. Maybe the hon. members opposite have quite good insight with which one does not credit them normally, and realize that if the voters are to be confronted with the faces of their rulers and the speeches they make over television, it is highly unlikely that they will vote for the Government. They realize that they would not stand up to the test of television performances. I have seen some of them, as a matter of fact. I had the honour of sharing a programme with some of the hon. members opposite, and I later saw the programme overseas, and I must say it was a bit frightening. [Interjection.] I admit that I was not particularly impressed by my own performance, but I could certainly see how hon. members opposite would shrink away from the idea of putting themselves on television in front of the voters in South Africa.

But we address more public meetings than you do. Why did you only address one public meeting in Johannesburg (West)?

I can only say that it surely cannot mean that South Africa will indefinitely deny itself the benefits of television. I must say that I for one feel positively deprived when I go overseas and see what a magnificent educational and cultural medium television is, and then I wonder why our people here should be deprived of it. I sincerely hope that it will not be too long in the future before the Government will be able to overcome the attitude which we have had thrust down our throats now for the last 20 years, and will allow South Africa to enjoy all the benefits of television.

Amendment put and the Committee divided:

Tellers: H. J. Bronkhorst and A. Hopewell.

Noes—92: Bekker, M. J. H.; Bezuidenhout, G.P. C.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, M. W.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Brandt, J. W.; Carr, D. M.; Coetzee, B.; Coetzee, J. A.; Cruywagen, W. A.; Delport, W. H.; Diederichs, N.; Du Piessis, H. R. H.; Du Toit. J. P.; Engelbrecht. J. J.; Erasmus, J. J. P.; Fouché, J. J.; Franks, S.; Froneman, G. F.; van L.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Haak, J. F. W.; Havemann, W. W. B.; Hertzog. A.; Heystek, J.; Horn, J. W. L.; Janson, T. N. H.; Keyter, H. C. A.; Knobel, G. J.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, S. F.; Kruger, J. T.; Langley, T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J.; Loots, J. J.; Malan, G. F.: Malan. J. J.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, J. A.; Martins, H.E.; McLachlan, R.; Meyer, P. H.; Morrison, G. de V.; Muller, H.; Muller, S. L.; Otto, J. C.; Pansegrouw, J. S.; Pelser, P. C.; Potgieter, S. P.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Rall, M. J.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Raubenheimer, A. L.; Reinecke, C. J.: Reyneke, J. P. A.; Roux. P. C.: Sadie. N. C. van R.: Schlebusch, A. L.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, H.; Smit, H. H.; Smith, J. D.: Stofberg, L. F.; Swanepoel, J. W. F.; Swiegers, J. G.; Torlage, P. H.; Van Breda, A.; Van der Merwe, C. V.; Van der Merwe. H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Merwe, W.L.; Van der Wath, J. G. H.; Van Niekerk, M. C.; Van Staden, J. W.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, M.J. de la R.; Viljoen, M.: Visse, J. H.; Volker, V. A.; Vosloo, A. H.; Vosloo, W. L.; Waring, F. W.; Wentzel, J. J.; Wentzel, J. J. G.

Tellers: J. E. Potgieter and P. S. van der Merwe.

Revenue Vote No. 24 and Loan Vote C, as printed, put and agreed to.

Revenue Vote 25,—“Health, R28,936,000“, and Revenue Vote 26,—“Health: Hospitals and Institutions, R16,650,000”:

I would like to avail myself of the privilege of the half hour. I want to quote a few words from one of the latest reports of the Public Service Commission. The commission, in referring to the malaria allowance formerly given to certain servants of the State and subsequently removed by the Public Service Commission, says—

Then in another paragraph it goes on—

And yet, Sir, on the 28th of last month we learned from more than one newspaper that the Dstrict Surgeon and the Assistant District Surgeon of Komatipoort had stated, firstly, that there had been a very serious outbreak of malaria in the area for which they are responsible and in other areas, and that they went so far as to say that African staff employed to eradicate mosquitoes had been paid off long ago. Moreover, they stated publicly that they had not been issued with prophylactic drugs for distribution. Sir, I think that this unfortunately displays a sense of irresponsibility and, although I hesitate to say it, to some extent ignorance on the part of the Department, because anybody who has any knowledge of the mosquito knows that you cannot get rid of it. You can obtain some control over its breeding; you can control its numbers but you cannot get rid of it and what is worse is that in an area such as northern Natal and the northeastern Transvaal there is always, and so far as anybody can tell there always will be, a pool of carriers of the malaria parasite, so that no matter what is done in those areas there will come times when the mosquito will breed freely and will find a plentiful supply of parasites on which to feed and to carry to humans. The truth of the matter is that the Department has been lulled into a sense of security (which incidentally was not shared by the hon. the Minister of Transport) by the fact that there have been many dry years. This year, however, has been a wet year, and this is going to happen over and over again. With cycles of drought and flood there will always come years in which the mosquito will break loose from control. That is what has happened now.

I regret to say that some people have paid the penalty by ill-health and others have paid the penalty of death. This is what has deceived the Department of Health. They told the Public Service Commission that they had practically eliminated malaria in that area. Even today I understand that when the courts of Natal go to Empangeni they get a special malaria allowance. The apparent failure of the Department to appreciate the gravity of the threat from insect-borne disease makes· one fear for the possibility and even the probability of serious problems arising from climatic and ecological changes which must inevitably result from the numerous dams now under construction by the Government, in particular the Orange River, the Okavongo, the Tugela and the Pongola schemes. At least three of these rivers have climates somewhat similar to that in the northern Transvaal. They are not altogether similar but they can, under certain conditions, take on the same type of climate. Climates vary from year to year; as I have said there is drought and flood. There can be in summer along the Tugela, certainly around the Pongola and certainly on the Okavongo, areas suitable for the breeding of insects which carry disease. I am sure it will surprise the House to know that such conditions have been known to occur as far south as Knysna. In other words, there is really no part, except perhaps the Peninsula, which can be said to be free from insect-borne disease. The dangers are inherent in these new irrigation and hydro-electric schemes. They will create conditions for the intensification of bilharzia and for spread of Arbor virus, that is the arthropod which carries disease, including the tick.

During the last decade the arthropod-borne virus unit has identified about 25 different viruses whose occurrence in South Africa was unknown previously. Several of them are known to be important causes of animal and human diseases which include Rift Valley fever, Westnile fever, sindbis, Wesselsbron and others which have not yet been identified with any specific illness. The life history and ramifications of these viruses and the importance of the others in causing human or animal disease still have to be defined. I want to emphasize that these have still to be defined. In few instances has the life history and intermediate host been fully investigated. The mosquitoes carrying them have been identified in several instances but the life cycle and the natural history including, and this is important, the reservoir hosts in the wilds, are still unknown. These vast irrigation schemes in addition to providing water for irrigation and industry provide ideal breeding places for snails and the mosquitoes which mainly transmit viruses. Already the country, and this happens chiefly in the Free State, has lost thousands of lambs from Rift Valley fever, which also caused many cases of illness among veterinary surgeons, farmers and their labourers, some of whom have not yet, after some five years, recovered completely.

The known presence of these viruses in a limited area where conditions are favourable poses a potential threat if conditions ever become favourable elsewhere as they undoubtedly will when vast amounts of water flow through hitherto arid regions. Mr. Chairman, we would like to be assured that those in authority are fully aware of these dangers and the need for their control. We wish to be assured that the conditions will be under constant study and surveillance by those best qualified to undertake this research. We ask what arrangements have been made to investigate and watch developments so that there will be an early indication and fair warning of impending outbreaks threatening man and beast. I have not found any evidence. In this Budget I have found no reference to any special provision for this work, unless the appointment of a Government ecologist at a special salary refers to this. There is no evidence of assistance for such a man nor is there a laboratory available. In the 1965 report of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research there is no evidence of special research. We hope that the hon. the Minister will enlighten us. Cases of illness caused by these viruses have been found in Vereeniging, Vanderbijlpark, Durban and lohannesburg. In the autumn of 1956 visitors to the Bushveld bordering on the Kruger National Park between the Olifants and Letaba Rivers suffered a serious dengue-like illness with prolonged convalescence but which has not yet been fully investigated.

I want to relate the history of the arthropod-borne virus unit in this country. It was started by the South African Institute for Medical Research in association with the Rockefeller Institute, some ten years ago, and it made great discoveries. It went to Tongoland and camped there in order to investigate thoroughly the mosquitoes, the birds, the viruses and the small animals which might possibly be carriers. After two or three years the Rockefeller Institute withdrew its financial support, but the C.S.I.R. agreed to replace that financial support and allowed its workers to continue with their task. But, and this is the point to which I wish to make special reference, this year the C.S.I.R. reduced its grant to less than half. As far as is known, publicly at any rate, the Department of Health has no funds of its own with which to conduct medical research. There was a commission some years ago which recommended that all medical research should be given to the C.S.I.R. Here we have a danger growing, a danger to which I drew attention some three or four years ago. This danger is not only ignored. What little has been done by institutions which are interested in this matter is actually discouraged. I think that the hon. the Minister of Health carries a burden on his shoulders. If he does not carry out his duties properly in this connection, future generations will not forgive him.

Mr. Chairman, what would otherwise have been a meritorious speech was spoilt to a certain extent by the opening remarks made by the hon. member who has just resumed his seat. He is an honourable member of this House and I blame him for not having made enquiries about the situation to which he referred before he made those statements. I am referring to the so-called outbreak of malaria at Koma· tipoort. The hon. member relied on a newspaper report which by all accounts is, if not devoid of all truth, to a very large extent lacking in all the elements of which the truth is composed. In the first place, reference was made to “a very serious outbreak of malaria in the Komatipoort District”. According to the information at our disposal, only 58 cases were reported in that area during the period January to the end of April. That is definitely an increase as compared with the number of cases reported in previous years, but there are very good reasons for that. The most important of those reasons is the fact that, owing to the higher rainfall that region has had of late, there are many pools of water. Mosquitoes, which are the carriers of this disease, have to a very large extent extended their colonies and multiplied their numbers by breeding. In addition it is doubtful whether we always have the wholehearted co-operation of our neighbours on the other side of the river and whether we can always rely on the measures they take to combat this disease. We find, therefore, that that mosquito which is infected with malaria also crosses the river, thus infecting people living on this side of that river.

A further accusation made by the hon. member was that “African staff have been paid off”. That is devoid of all truth. In that district there are at the moment a senior health inspector, two health inspectors, three white technical assistants and 47 Bantu labourers. They have been working there for the last few years. None of them has been dismissed recently. The staff there has not been reduced. A further accusation that was made was that “prophylactic drugs have not been issued”. That is not true either. The hon. member ought to know that the same medicine that is being used for the treatment of malaria is also being used for the prevention thereof in carriers. If there is any truth in this newspaper report, I charge the district surgeon and his assistant in Komatipoort with also having created the impression that they only had a limited number of tablets at their disposal and that they did not receive any pills for the purpose of treating those people. The same tablets are being used for both the prevention and the treatment of malaria. We must realize that these tablets are quite often distributed by the field staff and not by the district surgeon only. In the case of prevention, these tablets are taken once every four days. The dose for those cases that already have malaria is one pill six times a day. The same tablet is being used in both of these cases. For the sake of convenience and in view of the fact that these pills are being made freely available to the Bantu and the indigent, these tablets are being made available by the field staff. When they pay visits to Native huts, and so forth, these pills are simply handed out and the people are told how to use them. In recent times large numbers of these tablets have been issued by the field staff. The hon. member who has just resumed his seat, mentioned the fact—and he was quite right in doing so— that we shall never succeed in exterminating the mosquito that carries malaria about and that that is perhaps one of the major problems as regards combating malaria. However, we should at least try to treat the carrier of that germ—in this case, man—and to rid him of that germ. As a matter of fact, this is being done. In that area alone 44,000 blood-smears have been taken recently to determine whether or not those people were suffering from malaria. In those cases where the tests are positive, these people are being treated actively with pills, the so-called Chloroquin, an anti-malarial drug. These people are treated actively with that drug and in that way they are freed from the germ. Amongst these people alone more than 80,000 pills have been distributed recently. One finds it a pity when responsible bodies make irresponsible statements about the true state of affairs. I should like to assume that that report in the Sunday Press is inaccurate and that it is not a true reflection of what was said by the bodies in question. If that was in fact done, I want to object strongly to the irresponsible conduct of these people. They are people who have been charged with a very responsible task, namely that of combating diseases in their areas.

It is strange that it is reported in the Press that there has been an outbreak of malaria and that hundreds of persons are suffering from it. It is said that many of them are not even being seen to· Until a few days ago these bodies had not yet contacted the Department of Health officially so as to notify them officially of the true state of affairs. When people are entrusted with responsible duties, we expect them to realize what their responsibilities are and to release themselves of their responsibilities through the responsible channels. Therefore I am sorry that these reports were published by the Press, because the Department of Health is engaged in a gigantic undertaking. The practical problems in regard to combating malaria constitute a gigantic task. It is a task which has to be carried out in a very extensive area. It is an exacting task. It is not fair that the general public should be made to suspect that task which is being carried out with such conscientiousness. You can imagine what impression is being created by that report, namely that those areas have now been infected with malaria and that it is dangerous for all visitors to enter them. We do not deny that infection does in fact occur. This morning we heard over the radio of a boy who had been on holiday at Richard’s Bay and who had the misfortune of contracting malaria. We are very sorry about that, but that is the sort of case that occurs. But isolated cases should not be exaggerated so as to give the impression that that is a general state of affairs. I want to appeal in particular to the inhabitants and the employers of that area. We find that those people employ foreign Bantu from foreign territories. They give them accommodation on their farms, and in many cases those foreign Bantu are the very carriers of malaria. I want to emphasize very strongly that facilities in that regard do exist. Those people are in the privileged position that they may have blood-smears taken of such Bantu labourers so that it may be determined whether or not they are carriers of malaria. I want to urge those people to avail themselves of these facilities. All Bantu employed by them, foreign Bantu and even Bantu known to them, should be taken to the district surgeon so that blood-smears may be taken to determine whether or not they have malaria. The preventive treatment of that disease is very simple. There is no excuse for any person who does not avail himself of the facilities the State makes available.

Order! Before calling upon the next speaker, I just want to point out that Vote 26.—“Hospitals and Institutions, R16,650,000”, is closely connected with this Vote, and that I shall allow hon. members to discuss both. Consequently I declare that Vote open to discussion as well.

Mr. Chairman, before we go any further, I want to ask your permission to pay tribute to a person who was very closely associated with the medical profession and all the health aspects of this country. I am referring to the tragic death of Dr. A. P. Blignault, late editor of The South African Medical Journal. I can assure you that through his illuminating editorials he brought many health problems to the notice of practising medical practitioners. In an efficient way he fostered what was noble in the medical profession among his colleagues. In addition he repeatedly brought to the notice of the medical practitioner and the public many problems—problems to which we are also referring here to-day—such as bilharzia, malaria and other health problems. With these few words I pay tribute to his memory.

Sir, I do not intend to elaborate further on what the hon. member for Durban (Central) said here, except for saying the following. That well-known old proverb, “You may take a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink”, is nowhere more applicable than it is in regard to health problems. Let us take malaria as an example. How many of us go to Lourenço Marques and the Bushveld without putting a few tablets into our pockets and ensuring that we do not contract malaria? How many of us go swimming in some dam or other without taking the trouble to find out whether that water is infected with bilharzia or not? All these responsibilities are now being passed on to the hon. the Minister and the Department. Last year there was rabies in South-West Africa; this year there is malaria. If an hon. member on that side had read this morning’s newspapers, he could possibly have brought up here the case of diphtheria that was reported at Philipstown. The Department cannot be blamed for the fact that these sporadic cases still occur in these civilized times in which we live. We must lay the blame at our door and at that of the public, because we are not taking enough trouble to prevent these diseases. Have hon. members ever come across those tragic cases where parents say they are sorry they forgot to have their children immunized, when those children are dying from diphtheria? How much trouble did those parents take? I want to ask the hon. the Minister to do everything possible, including radio broadcasts—even if it is through Fanus Rautenbach—and to make more propaganda so that people may pay heed to these dangers every day. These are diseases which we can prevent; these are diseases we can cure. we cannot simply go on asking why the Department did not do this or that. The people in Natal know that they have malaria there; they grew up there. The entire country knows that if one goes to Natal or to Zululand, that danger does exist there. We cannot lay the blame on the Department all the time.

Now I want to express a few thoughts on kwashiorkor. I should like to bring a certain aspect to the notice of this House, to the notice of the hon. the Minister and to the notice of the general public. Hon. members should not laugh at me now. Neither of the lady members is present at the moment; consequently I have nobody to support me, but I should like to discuss the question of breastfeeding. Kwashiorkor, which has now become a notifiable disease, is a disease which is caused by nutritional deficiency and malnutrition. It is essential, in the first place, to examine the first nutrition a child gets after birth. We do not want to say later that he is not getting the right nutrition and that there are nutritional deficiencies, and so forth. His first nutrition is important, and it ought to be breast-feeding. A recent survey conducted by the National Council for Child Care showed that 75 per cent of those mothers giving birth in the Cape, do not breast-feed their babies once they leave the maternity home. After six months fewer than 50 per cent of the rest still feed their babies themselves. Even amongst the other population groups we find a noticeable drop in the number of mothers who feed their babies themselves. Hon. members will perhaps ask me why I consider breast-feeding to be so essential. Mothers’ milk has certain properties which are not to be found in any other baby foods. In the first place, it has high nutritional value. For a baby this is the best nutrition. This is the only baby food which contains the necessary ingredients in the right proportion. The digestibility of mother’s milk surpasses by far that of any artificial nutrition. We know from experience that indigestibility may give rise to diseases of the gastro-intestinal tract which, in turn, may subsequently give rise to the so-called kwashiorkor and other nutritional deficiencies. We know that if a child is not fed correctly during the first few months of his life, his entire development is retarded. We know that the child gets certain immunity factors through breast-feeding, antibodies against certain diseases which cannot be obtained from a bottle. They render the child immune. The child who is breast-fed does not contract measles or something of that nature while he is still under six months of age. In addition there are other antibodies in her milk which give the infant resistance, something he can only derive from drinking mother’s milk. We often refer here to mental aberrations, and a great deal has already been said about that. There is no doubt about the fact that seen from the psychological angle, breast-feeding is of paramount importance to both the mother and the child. It gives the mother that sense of fulfilment, of contentment, which is so essential to motherhood. And yet we find that fewer and fewer mothers are breast-feeding their babies. In addition breast-feeding gives the child a sense of security, contentment and belonging, which is the birth-right of every child. It has been found that the incidence of mental aberrations is higher amongst children who were not breast-fed by their mothers during the first six months of their lives. The bottle is an impersonal thing; we can understand that it waters down the mother-child relationship. In present-day society it has also been found that breastfeeding has a socio-economic aspect. It is much cheaper. It has been found that when a mother in the lower-income groups has a baby, she buys expensive artificial baby foods, because she feels that she has an obligation to the child, the new-born baby she does not feed herself, the result being that the older children get less to eat and become prone to kwashiorkor and other nutritional deficiencies. If one pays a visit to the larger hospitals in the summer months and sees the hundreds of children admitted there during the first few months of their lives because of gastritis—commonly known as gastro-enteritis—and if one makes inquiries, one will find that in the case of a very large percentage of them the lack of mother’s milk was the cause. This is as a result of the hygiene factor. No matter how hygienically one prepares artificial baby foods, the danger is always present that the child may pick up a germ which may cause gastritis. [Time expired.]

It is quite understandable that the hon. member for Brentwood and Cradock should side with the Department in regard to the outbreak of malaria. The hon. member for Cradock said it was not a serious outbreak and that it should not be described as such. I would say that the Press statement by the Department of Health gives a different view, and I think the correct view. In the statement which I received to-day it says that several cases of malaria have already occurred, and what is particularly disturbing is that amongst these, are adults and children who have developed the dangerous cerebral form of the disease. What the public is perturbed about is the fact that there are apparently some serious statements being made by doctors who are in the area and come under the control of the Department. These are the important things that one of those doctors, at any rate, has said. He is the district surgeon of Komatipoort and a denial has not yet appeared in any of the newspapers, although this was dated the 30th of last month. He repeats that the African staff employed there to eradicate mosquitoes were paid off long ago. But perhaps that is not so important as some of the other things he said. He starts off by saying that the Department of Health had done exactly nothing to prevent the outbreak of malaria in the Transvaal Lowveld. Now, if he is exaggerating and is not telling the truth, I think his statements are due for investigation, because he has at any rate set in motion a trend of thought which makes the public feel that the Department was caught on the wrong foot and that the population of the area has been left unprepared for such an outbreak. It is understandable that after a long drought we should have rain, and if the rains are heavy it is the duty of the Department to keep its machinery in gear so that they can go in immediately and take the necessary action to, if not eradicate the mosquito, which is almost impossible, at least to dampen the breeding activities of the mosquito. The district surgeon of the area is also reported to have made a statement that no issue of prophylactic drugs for free distribution to the Bantu in the affected areas had arrived. I feel that he would not have said this if in fact he had either got tablets for the treatment of malaria or for prophylaxis. I can only go by what I read, because the Department has not yet issued a statement to contradict the statements made by the district surgeon of Komatipoort. Again I would say to the Minister that what is important in this whole business is, firstly, that we are dealing with an outbreak of malaria which may become serious if action is not taken immediately. That is the first point.

The second point is that the doubt which exists in people’s minds must immediately be allayed; and, thirdly, that now, as the hon. member for Cradock said, we must go all out to re-educate the people who have become lax in the matter of prophylaxis. We must reeducate them to the dangers of what may happen in the area if they do not follow the instructions of the Department. It is the job of the Department to ensure that proper facilities are given to the people in the area to know what is available to them in the way of prophylactic measures. They should be advised how to deal with this disease. I want to leave it at that. I do not want to get into a fight on this issue of malaria. All I say to the Minister is that if these things have not been done, will he please do them immediately. That is what is important.

In the few minutes left to me I want to deal with what I consider to be a very serious matter. This is something that is happening in South Africa at the moment, and which is happening also in other parts of the world. A cult has come into being in this country, as it has in other countries, which gives itself the name of Scientology. This cult is gaining momentum and that is what I am perturbed about. I asked the Minister some time ago whether he would consider holding an inquiry into this cult, and his reply was quite unsatisfactory, in my opinion. He said he did not think the time was ripe for an investigation; that he was still collecting material. But I want to tell him that the report of the Board of Inquiry which investigated Scientology in Australia—of which the Minister has a copy, although I do not know whether the Minister has had time to read it—makes some serious allegations against this cult. In its conclusions it will be seen that they say that Scientology is denounced because the evidence has shown that its theories are fantastic and impossible, its principles perverted and ill-founded, and its techniques debased and harmful. It says that Scientology is a delusional belief system based on fiction and fallacies and propagated by falsehood and deception. Those are the words used in that report in Australia. I do not know very much about Scientology, but I have been inundated with letters, cuttings and extracts, which make me wonder whether something should not be done to prevent it from becoming a grave assault upon the people of this country. I would say that one of the most disquieting aspects of this cult is its security check, a check which they introduce at the beginning of an instruction on Scientology. To show how dangerous this check is, I have here a part only of a security check memorandum. This is the sort of questionnaire which is put to the individual. It starts off by asking the following questions—

The person who is being interrogated has to answer “yes” or “no”. But then it goes from there to something far more serious and this is the sort of thing it develops into—

Have you ever looked at television?

These are the questions which people filling in this questionnaire have to answer—

Of course, if you happen to answer “yes” to any of these questions you can be blackmailed for the rest of your life. Here I have a letter from a woman who was caught up in this cult and who says—

[Time expired.]

I shudder to think what will happen if the scientologists of the hon. member for Rosettenville were to appear on television.

They do that.

And then hon. members on that side still ask for television!

Mr. Chairman, I should just like to say a few words about malaria There is one thing which is particularly alarming to me, and I am sorry that hon. members on that side did not mention it when they read out to us that newspaper report. The district surgeon to whom that report refers also made a remark about the so-called danger of blindness that is supposed to result from using these antimalarial prophylactics. I would have expected a colleague reading out this report here to have raised, in his capacity as a medical man, a serious objection to that remark. I am sorry that these prophylactics—which work very well, and which we are using to combat malaria—were made to seem suspect, because we are unable to control the mosquito, especially in a year such as this one in which it has rained so much, as the hon. member for Durban (Central) rightly remarked here. Mr. Chairman, there is no truth whatsoever in the suggestion that these prophylactics cause blindness. We do know that if these prophylactics are used to excess—I emphasize “to excess”—they can cause temporary blindness, but this is quite impossible when such prophylactics are used in prescribed doses. I think that that report has caused very serious damage to the combating of malaria. Just as damage is being caused because people do not have their children immunized against polio, etc., in good time, this report will cause a tremendous amount of damage if it is not corrected. That is why I want to state here very positively that there is absolutely no risk attached to the use of these pills as anti-malarial prophylactics.

There is one other matter that I should like to bing to the notice of the hon. the Minister, and that is the question of dentists. The number of dentists in relation to the population in South Africa leaves much to be desired. The ratio stands at approximately 1 in 20,000. A more ideal ratio would have been 1 in 2,000. We know that there is a shortage of medical practitioners and that that shortage is gradually becoming bigger, but as far as dentists are concerned, the shortage is even more serious. In 1931 there were 684 dentists in South Africa; in 1960 there were 1,319. In other words, over this period of 30 years the number of dentists in our country was not even doubled.

The reason for that is not quite clear. There seem to be sufficient training facilities. The present faculties of dentistry are not full to capacity. The cost involved in the training of a dentist is a major factor. It costs a university approximately R3,400 to train a dentist. It costs an individual approximately the same amount to be trained as a dentist, and then it costs him approximately R5,000 to set himself up in practice.

According to calculations a dentist may regard approximately 43 per cent of his gross income as net income. In other words, his overhead expenses are exceptionally high. Over the past 30 years the number of dentists in South Africa has nearly doubled itself. In contrast to dentists, the number of doctors has trebled itself. I should like to draw the hon. the Minister’s attention to the fact that the drain as far as dentists are concerned, is particularly high. Three years ago a number of dentistry students qualified as dentists at some of our South African universities, and only one of them remained in this country. Last year approximately 1,000 professional people left South Africa with the intention of returning later. It is estimated that the number of dentists amongst these 1,000 people is disproportionately high, namely 150 to 200. You will appreciate that this is an exceptionally high figure. We are, of course, aware of the fact that a very large percentage of these dentists are dentists who leave the country in order to join the British Medical Service. The British Medical Service is, of course, a Utopia for dentists, because over there these people work for a salary and they probably earn three or four times as much as they would have been able to earn in South Africa. The fact that these dentists leave South Africa, presents us with a very serious problem, namely that the State has to spend approximately R3,500 or R3,400 to train a dentist and within a few years, or within a year after he has qualified, he goes abroad. I want to concede that a very large percentage of them return to South Africa, but you will agree with me, Sir, that if a large number of them spend quite a number of years abroad, it presents South Africa with a very serious problem. [Time expired.]

The hon. member for Fauresmith has raised a very important subject this afternoon and I trust he will forgive me if I do not follow him in that trend of thought. I wish to refer to the revelations made by the hon. member for Rosettenville on the question of scientology, just very briefly. I wish to quote from the Saturday Evening Post of the 21st March, 1964 where reference is made to the founder of scientology, one L. Ron Hubbard. The article itself is entitled: “Have you ever been a Boo-Loo?”

I leave the matter at that.

On page 133 of the Estimates there appears an item, under this Minister’s Vote, relating to 23 senior Government health inspectors and a proposed expenditure of R49,000 odd. I would be grateful if the hon. the Minister could, when he replies, indicate what the functions are of these newly appointed senior Government health inspectors.

Then I want to refer to the subject of medical services and medicines for old-age pensioners. During the session of last year this subject was raised under the Vote of the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions, but you, Mr. Chairman, quite rightly ruled that it was a subject which should be raised under the Vote of the Department of Health. Before I raise this matter with the hon. the Minister of Health I wish to quote from the reply that the hon. the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions gave in this House on the 15th September last year (Hansard, volume 17, column 2117)—

A little further on he adds, “But I do not know exactly how it functions”. Well, I want to tell the hon. the Minister of Health that this system is not functioning satisfactorily. A contributory cause to this dissatisfaction is a result of the pensioner failing to inform himself on what basis he is entitled to receive these free medicinal services. This aspect of the problem, I submit, lies fairly and squarely at the door of the hon. the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions. As a matter of fact, he has admitted as much this session, because when this matter was again raised this session he admitted that there was a problem when it came to a pensioner having to be referred to a district surgeon or to the police for a certificate, before he could be treated by the district surgeon. He also indicated that the biggest problem concerned those aged persons who live by themselves. He felt the time had come when endeavours should be made to establish better co-ordination. I want to tell the Minister of Health that this system is not working as it should. For this, there are primarily two reasons: Firstly, pensioners are not as informed as they should be and, secondly, the department itself is not supplying a complete and satisfactory service to the old-age pensioner, who for the purpose of receiving this service, is regarded as being indigent. I want to make it clear that I do not attach any blame to district surgeons themselves. As a matter of fact, I believe there are many dedicated men within their ranks and that they are doing their best with the facilities at their disposal. However, I do blame the system. But when one comes to apportion blame, two distinct areas have to be considered—the urban and the rural areas. Before dealing with that I think it may be as well if I give certain figures to indicate how many district surgeons there are in Government employ. As late as September last year the Minister indicated in his reply to a question of mine, that there were 46 full-time district surgeons, none of whom received drug allowances and, consequently, were not in a position to supply the people they treat with medicine. In addition to that, there were 450 part-time district surgeons of whom 384 received drug allowances and were responsible for supplying medicines to indigent patients.

It would seem that there were part-time district surgeons who have no drug allowance who could not therefore supply medicines directly.

To return to the question of the country areas I want to cite a particular case which was reported to me and which I believe took place in 1963. It concerns a district surgeon in a country area and according to the particulars given, he treated over one year 263 white patients and 711 non-white patients, a total of approximately 1,000 patients during that year. These were paupers and indigent patients and I have indicated that old-age pensioners are included for this purpose as indigent patients. This district surgeon received a drug allowance of R100 per annum for 1,000 patients who passed through his hands, paupers and indigents who were entitled to receive free medicine. This particular doctor indicated that medicine ordered from the Department of Health was usually delayed from four to six weeks and his comment was, “it is not possible to supply patients with the best medicine”. If one takes the broader picture in the country areas, one finds as a result of a survey, also conducted in 1963 and, if I may say so, a very thorough and authentic survey, that 60 per cent of the reports which came in, indicated that they regarded the services given by the district surgeons or assistant district surgeons as being adequate, while over 35 per cent indicated that the services were inadequate and 5 per cent indicated that they regarded the services as far as medicines were concerned as being unsatisfactory and inadequate. It is quite obvious therefore that in this regard there is a great deal of room for improvement. More or less a third of the results of the survey show this.

When we come to the towns and cities, I believe that the pensioners there find themselves in quite a number of difficulties. I am well aware of the work that is done by the provincial hospitals and the services provided for old-age pensioners by hospitalization and the ambulance services, but I am thinking of the pensioner who has not been told clearly what facilities are placed at his disposal. I placed myself in the position of an old-age pensioner and I set about trying to find out how I would get medical services perhaps late at night, services, which I as a pensioner, felt did not merit a trip to hospital by ambulance for treatment, after hours. I looked in the Cape Town telephone directory and I found that no mention is made alphabetically of district surgeons. There was mention of district nurses but no mention of district surgeons. There was nothing under the heading “medical” in the classified medical section and under government departments I found “Health, department of”. There I found listed “District surgeons” giving their residence telephone numbers but no indication of the address or the area and no indication of any after-hours services which could be expected from them. Then I looked at the Durban telephone directory and I found that a different system prevailed there. Under the heading “District surgeon” in the alphabetical section, the telephone number and address of the district surgeons’ office was given. There was nothing under “Medical”. Under “Government Departments” it appeared under a different heading, namely this time under “State health department”, and the address of the senior district surgeon and of the district surgeons with their telephone numbers were given but no indication was given of after-hours services. This applied to Johannesburg and more or less on a similar basis to Pretoria where after-hours numbers were given. Also in Bloemfontein after-hours numbers were given. There is however no uniformity in the information available to old-age pensioners in regard to after-hour and emergency services in so far as district surgeons are concerned. [Time limit.]

Mr. Chairman, I should like to discuss some matters with the hon. the Minister in connection with national health and particularly as regards the health position in caravan parks and camp sites. I want to say at once that a set of regulations was in fact promulgated on 10th February, 1967. which is to come into operation at the beginning of next year. I am convinced, however, that those regulations were designed to deal only with health, and that the broader aspect of the matter was never noticed or taken into consideration, particularly as the entire object of the regulations will be defeated if one complies with those regulations, because the smaller parks will then all have to close. If they are closed, the travelling public will lose that great service. They will be forced to return to camping by the roadside or in the bush. Then we will defeat the object of those health regulations altogether. These regulations provide that for every four caravans there should be two flush lavatories, a place to wash, a place to iron, a scullery, etc. I do not want to go into this at great length because my time is limited. It means that the cost of establishing such a park will be so high that no private concern will be able to do so. I have a fairly good knowledge of the building industry, as I was associated with it for a long time. I did not rely exclusively on my own knowledge, however; I made personal inquiries from quite a few building contractors and obtained their opinion. What I heard from them is the following: If a caravan park is to provide parking for 20 caravans, there must be ten lavatories, ten bathrooms, four washbasins, four scullery basins, four ironing boards, eight shaving and hand basins, and the same for the ladies on their side. According to the regulations there must also be a house for a caretaker. Then there must be the same facilities for the servants who may accompany the caravans. Bedrooms and facilities for them must even be erected outside the parks. If we have regard to that aspect and also to the fact that the caretaker’s house, which has to be on 10,000 square feet of land, must have at least two bedrooms, then it cannot be built for less than R10,000. That ablution block cannot be built for less than R10,000. The land cannot be bought for less than approximately the same amount, namely R10,000, because a quarter of that land has to be set aside for playgrounds. etc. This means that the outlay is R30,000. If we take it that at the current rates 8 or 9 per cent has to be paid in interest on that money, and the maintenance costs are calculated at 3 to 4 per cent, it means that such a park will have to bring in at least R3,900 or R4,000. Then the caretaker still has to be paid. Then the servants also have to be paid. That means that on that park for 20 caravans expenses of at least R6,000 a year have to be recovered. Every caravan stand must therefore yield R300 a year. Statistics show that in our country the caravan occupation of parks is 10 per cent. That means that in respect of 20 caravans, R300 has to be collected on each in 30 days. That means that we shall have to charge R10 a day per caravan if such a park is to be established. I therefore want to put it to you that such a caravan park will never be established

These regulations go even further in that people may no longer camp in the same caravan park. They may not even stay there for the night. Consequently another park has to be established. In other words, a second set of those ablution blocks must be erected for the man who merely wants to stop over for the night, which is impossible. If these regulations therefore make an end to the parks, we shall force the people to return to camping in the bush. Not only will we lose them because those people lose the service; we shall harm and lose the tourist trade which is being built up in our country. Mr. Pierre Basson, director of our tourist trade, said that in the coming years, up to 1970, the number of tourists could increase to 500,000. From the report of the Department of Tourism I learn that of those 500,000 tourists 83 per cent are on holiday, and that 46 per cent of them tour by road. If those people travel by road, I want to know where they are going to be accommodated. Now the regulations provide that those people must have a place to stay, but where? The caravan park disappears. Only the large towns could still keep such parks. The private man can no longer do so, and because this will be the case, I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he will not be so kind as to meet a deputation. Owners of caravan parks could be represented. Perhaps members of the caravan clubs could be included. There could also be some members of the camping clubs. We cannot simply allow the tourist trade in South Africa to go under completely as a result of a set of regulations which has regard to one aspect only, namely the question of health, and which had no regard to the other side, namely costs. I want to plead that we should meet these people. For my part, if I am asked to assist in getting those people, I should very much like to do so. I want to go further and say that if we had to close these camps and parks we would deprive our middle income group of their right to go on holiday, because those people cannot go to an hotel at R700 a month, such as those of which we have heard here recently. A family with three children cannot spend R700 a month in an hotel. Those people travel with caravans or tents or trailers. In that way they go camping in these camps which are now to disappear. I plead for these people, because I have been caravanning since 1948 and I therefore know the position. It appears to me, now that these regulations are separating the two services, that the idea is cropping up that camping is a sign of under-development. I want to tell you that this is not the case. Clubs have already been founded in respect of caravanners and ordinary campers. Those clubs are patterned on international standards. Their facilities are as good as any one could get. They are as good as America could produce. Allow me to tell you, Sir, that at this moment no fewer than 37½ million people in America are under canvas, as they put it, namely in tents. Thirty-seven and a half million people in America are in camps every year. In France there are 7½ million. France aims to provide 4,000 more camps by the end of 1970. In West Germany there are more than 6 million and in England more than 2½ million. What is wrong with South Africa, that we cannot accommodate our people in these camps and that rather than assisting these camps we are suppressing them by means of this set of regulations? I want to plead that the hon. the Minister should review this set of regulations before they come into operation next year. That is the only way. Sir, now that we have introduced the speed limit of 70 miles per hour, there is the tendency among almost 60 per cent of the population to buy smaller cars. Because a small car cannot pull a caravan, there is the tendency nowadays to build light aluminium trailers on which light nylon tents and other equipment are transported, which are just as good to live in as a caravan. The travelling public is making use of this. They are travelling all over the country. They are visiting the sights in the country. They are viewing the development of our country by means of this method of travelling. They stay there and spend the night in these camps. Now these camps are to be eliminated because a caravan park has to be split in two. There must now be two sets of ablution blocks. There must be two entrances. There must be two camps. I want to put it to you that these people feel as though the campers are a section of the population who suffer from leprosy because they may no longer stay or spend the night in the same camps. Why cannot these camps or caravan camps be graded as our hotels are graded? The better type of people who want to indulge in this kind of snobbery and who do not want campers in their camps, could then stay in one kind of camp. The second best group could then stay in a park where tents and caravans are provided for, etc.

Finally I want to plead for one further aspect. I referred to the high costs involved in this. I want to plead that it should be permitted that in certain parks, where owners make application, facilities should be created for permanent caravanners. It will help to solve the housing problem. I would rather house my children in a caravan park, where they are off the streets, than in those cement prisons of vast blocks of flats where the parents are afraid to allow their children out of doors. There the child has to be locked up in the house day after day. I think these caravan parks can be of great benefit to us. The hotel is only the apex of the pyramid in the “accommodation” concept. The caravan parks and the camping parks, however, form the foundation. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I want to take advantage of the Vote of the hon. the Minister of Health to ask him whether the time has not arrived for him to consider the appointment of a commission of inquiry into the whole situation in regard to the provision of hospital facilities for the people of Johannesburg. For years now this, the largest city in the whole of the Transvaal and in the whole of South Africa, has suffered from the most grossly inadequate provision of hospital facilities. The hon. the Minister, as the Minister in charge of the health of the community, can no longer, I believe, allow this neglect to continue. I am sorry that the hon. member for Benoni is not present to-day. He was an M.E.C. in the Transvaal province. On his shoulders, to a large extent, and the shoulders of his colleagues in the Transvaal province, rests the responsibility for the inadequate provision for hospital facilities in Johannesburg. He was the first to complain about the negligence of the Johannesburg City Council not very long ago.

I want to point out—or I would have, had he been here—that the Provincial Council of which he was an executive member has for years insolently—it is the only word that I can use—turned a completely deaf ear to all the requests that have been made for better facilities for hospital patients in Johannesburg. I should like this commission of inquiry to have as its terms of reference an inquiry into the delay in the building of the new Johannesburg hospital, which is a scandalous disgrace. It is an ugly, shabby old building which stands in the middle of Johannesburg which is the largest city in the whole of South Africa. It should also inquire into the misplanning as regards (he whole hospital situation there; the staff shortages; the lack of accommodation; the lack of beds for patients; facilities and equipment which are quite inadequate, and the hopelessly inadequate equipment for research facilities at this, one of the largest hospitals in the Republic. The sick people of Johannesburg wait weeks and weeks for bed accommodation. To get an appointment at the outpatients department can also take a matter of weeks. I accuse the provincial authorities of a scandalous neglect of the provision of suitable accommodation for Johannesburg’s ill people. Johannesburg provides well over 50 per cent, I am sure, of the total revenue of the province, yet it is the most neglected city as far as hospital accommodation is concerned. I say categorically that there are hardly any more beds available for Johannesburg’s sick people to-day in the Johannesburg General Hospital than there were some 30 years ago. Wards have been closed, whether through lack of staff or other causes I do not know. The private hospitals to-day have beds taken over by the Johannesburg General Hospital for certain of the specialized departments because the hospital itself is unable to provide those facilities. This is no joke, Sir. First of all, the cost is much higher, but secondly and most important of all, it means that private patients are deprived of urgently-needed beds in the Johannesburg private nursing homes, more particularly medical cases. It is virtually impossible for a physician or a doctor to-day to get a medical case admitted to a private nursing home in Johannesburg. So the fact that the hospital has taken over these private beds has not helped the situation as far as the sick are concerned.

There is a new thing that has come into existence recently, and that is zoning of patients. Patients may not go to the Johannesburg General Hospital, although they live in Johannesburg and though they pay rates and taxes to the city council and also taxes to the province. They are zoned out to Edenvale which originally was meant to be a chronic sick home. I might point out as a diversion that there is absolutely no accommodation for chronic sick in Johannesburg. This is another reason for the shortage of beds in the Johannesburg General Hospital, which is meant to be the great teaching hospital for the Witwatersrand medical school. This means that beds are occupied by chronic sick for weeks and months and, indeed, even years in the Johannesburg General Hospital, beds that are urgently needed for acutely ill people. This is another aspect which the commission of inquiry, which I hope the Minister will consider setting up, will investigate, and that is the complete lack of any facilities for the treatment of the chronic sick who really need nursing aides rather than skilled nursing and a different sort of medical attention altogether.

So far as out-patients and casualty departments are concerned, I can only say that the facilities provided by the Johannesburg General Hospital are mediaeval. I do not mean the attention given by the devoted nursing staff and medical staff at the hospital. They do the best they can under the most difficult circumstances. Out-patients and casualty departments are run in basements at the Johannesburg General Hospital. At the end of the hospital grounds stands a vast skeleton of a building. They have been building that “thing”, brick by brick, for nearly four years, to the best of my knowledge. Two years ago the director of hospital services, when he was asked about the situation in the Johannesburg hospital, stated that the hospital as such would be completed in ten or 12 years’ time, but that the out-patients and casualty departments would probably be ready “within 18 months”. That was two years ago. Here we are now, two years later, and the skeleton of the building is exactly the same as it was two years ago. I want to say that there was a spate of activity just at the time of the provincial council elections two years ago, and since then nothing has happened at all. A few Africans potter around the building, doing heaven knows what, and there is no appreciable improvement in the building at all. There is just no improvement whatever. I say that it is disgraceful that the students of the largest teaching hospital in South Africa should be deprived of the facilities of seeing patients under decent conditions and doing general research work under decent conditions. This is another term of reference which I commend to the commission of inquiry, namely the lack of facilities for proper research at the Johannesburg General Hospital.

I want to point out also that the situation is so bad that at the Johannesburg General Hospital they actually destroy the records of living patients after five years. They have no accommodation for the storage of records even. X-ray plates are destroyed while patients are still living. It is bad enough that they destroy the records of patients who have died, because those records are still very important as far as research is concerned. But to destroy the records and X-ray plates of living patients is unheard of in any modern hospital. Yet this has to be done because according to the hospital authorities themselves, they simply do not have the accommodation to keep these old records. So, if a patient returns to hospital in a few years’ time, after five years say, the doctor in charge of the case is unable to see how the disease has progressed. It is a scandalous situation.

When one looks around at other big cities, at Durban with its spanking-new hospital, at Pretoria with its great new hospital, at the facilities which are presently being provided at Bellville, one wonders how it is that in Johannesburg it is impossible apparently to get the authorities to move as far as the provision of decent services is concerned. Of course it is due to bad provincial administration. I am sorry, but I am afraid that the hon. the Minister of Health must now take some responsibility for this situation. It has been allowed to drift on year after year after year, and apparently nobody can make any headway with the provincial authorities in the Transvaal. Therefore it is now essential, I believe, for the hon. the Minister to take the reins into his own hands and to appoint a commission of inquiry into this hopelessly inadequate provision of facilities in Johannesburg. This is a very serious matter. The people of Johannesburg feel very strongly about it indeed. They feel completely neglected and they feel that they have been discriminated against. I believe that they have a very strong case indeed in their contention, particularly, as I say, if one music talk once again of hard materialism, when one considers that the people of Johannesburg are the people who supply the largest percentage of revenue to the coffers of the province.

Mr. Chairman, I do not want to cause a flutter in the dovecote this afternoon, and I also hope that what I am going to say will not be seen in that light. This afternoon I want to make a plea for a group of men and women who perform a most important and essential auxiliary medical service in our country, men and women who have helped thousands and thousands of patients, namely the chiropractors. Now I want to say at once that I am not speaking of the men and women who are not trained chiropractors. I am speaking of those who underwent four years of proper training and who gained a doctor’s degree, men and women who really have a thorough knowledge of their profession and of the entire human body —particularly as regards the anatomy of the body—and who really know what they are doing.

If I glance through this Chamber, I can assure you that no fewer than eight Ministers or their wives have been to one particular chiropractor in Cape Town for treatment. All of them benefited from it. If I look around —I am not going to mention names—I see at least 12 hon. members who, themselves or their wives, are receiving treatment there. I know about numerous officials who received treatment from only one particular chiropractor and benefited from it. I can give the Minister the assurance that the chiropractor to whom I referred a moment ago has been visited by numerous doctors from Cape Town for treatment of spine trouble, and if not they themselves, then members of their families with spine trouble. A medical practitioner may not send a patient to a chiropractor, however, because if they do so they are reprimanded by the Medical Council. I could give chapter and verse to prove what a chiropractor can do for people who have spine trouble. I could give examples of people whose condition deteriorated considerably rather than to improve after they had been treated by a medical practitioner. I could show you X-ray photographs of the back before and after treatment by the medical practitioner, to show that the patient’s trouble became worse. Then I shall also show the X-ray photograph of the back after the person had been treated and cured by a chiropractor. Another difference is the fact that treatment by a medical practitioner costs R400, as against R40 for treatment by a chiropractor. Why cannot these trained chiropractors, people who obtained a doctor’s degree after a four year course, be registered just as “ophthalmic opticians” are? My own brother and his son are “ophthalmic opticians”, trained people. They received proper training at Glasgow. But despite that they never received recognition. Meanwhile however, the position has changed and now they can be registered and are recognized. I therefore want to plead that those chiropractors who are properly trained should also be registered in order that we may eliminate quacks. And it is not only I who feel that way. A large percentage of the public feels that. In the Cape Argus of 1st May. a lady wrote as follows—

Once again I want to make a plea for the registration of trained chiropractors. I am not doing so only on behalf of myself, but also on behalf of numerous other members in this House and members of the public who really benefited from treatment by properly trained chiropractors.

I do not want to express an opinion on the question whether or not chiropractors should be recognized because my own knowledge of chiropractors is limited. As a matter of fact, it is confined to one occasion when I went to one and he twisted my neck to such an extent that about four weeks after that I began to ask myself whether the cure was not worse than the disease.

Wasn’t he a quack?

I wouldn’t know. However, as I have said I do not want to offer any suggestions on the subject. The hon. member for Kimberley (North) referred to the sanitary regulations laid down for caravan parks. I take it he was referring to those regulations gazetted by the hon. the Minister earlier this year—I think it was in February—which had a much wider application than merely to caravan parks. Amongst others, they contain very stringent building regulations for rural areas where there is no local authority. This does not affect the Cape very much because except for one or two places in the Transkei—places in the vicinity of Port St. Johns and Umzimkulu—we have a local authority which controls this sort of thing in the Cape, namely our divisional councils. In some of the other provinces, however, these regulations can mean a very real financial burden on the land-owners concerned. However, as this is a subject which will be dealt with later on by another hon. member I shall not pursue it any further at this stage.

The hon. member for Durban (Central) referred to the dangers which could arise on these large irrigation schemes through the proliferation of insect life—resulting from these large areas under water and from the raising of the water table in areas under irrigation. In this connection I should like to bring to the attention of the hon. the Minister the fact that very recently Rhodes University at Grahamstown in conjunction with the C.S.I.R. set up a limnological research unit to be known as the Institute for Fresh Water Studies. It has been designed specifically to study, amongst other things, the problems arising from the increase of fresh water insect life due, particularly, to those very large areas which will be placed under irrigation by the Orange-Fish River Project—that is, right down to the sea at Port Elizabeth. Sneaking as a member of the council of that university, I want to express the hone that if this research unit can be of any assistance to the Minister and his department they will indeed make use of it.

The particular question I want to deal with here this afternoon, relates to the control of tuberculosis in the light of the very large sums of money we are being asked every year to vote for this purpose. Let me make it quite clear that I am not criticizing the size of the amounts we are being asked to vote. It is indeed essential that this disease be brought under control and for that a great deal of money is necessary. So I am not criticizing the size of the amounts. The only criticism I have, if it can be called that, is to suggest that the time has perhaps now come for greater emphasis to be laid on prevention rather on cure. In this connection I should like to know from the hon. the Minister the reason why the amount voted for the purchase of B.C.G. vaccine, which many medical practitioners feel perhaps offers the most promising avenue for the control of the disease, has apparently been pegged at R80,000 in the Estimates for both this year and last year, and I think also for the year before. Is that due to the fact that the Minister perhaps still regards the use of this vaccine as merely experimental, and if so, when does he feel that results will be achieved, and does he intend increasing the use of the vaccine in future?

The amounts for tuberculosis control voted are very big indeed, and I think publicity should be given to the matter, because unless the public realizes just what tuberculosis control is costing the country they will not be fully aware of the extent of the problem, and perhaps they will not be as aware as they should be of the need that they themselves contribute towards a solution of the problem. This year there is an increase in the amount of general expenses for the control of tuberculosis amounting to some R400,000, the figure being R13,830,000. Added to that there is accommodation at mission hospitals, which is the relatively small amount of R25,000, and then we have the amount for actual tuberculosis hospitals of R3,462,000, making a total of R17,317,000. This is indeed a staggering amount. To this also, as far as direct State expenses are concerned, should be added some portion of the salaries of the administrative personnel of the Department as such, because a certain amount of it should be allocated to tuberculosis control. It excludes also the amounts spent by local authorities throughout the country. For example, the Albany Divisional Council is spending an amount of something like R5,250 per annum, which is only one-eighth of the amount they actually have control of, because the remaining seven-eights is of course contributed by the Central Government. But if we think that there are 92 divisional councils in the Cape and they are presumably all spending money on tuberculosis control, then the amount spent by the divisional councils, many of whom have a much bigger population in their area than the Albany Divisional Council, must be a very considerable sum indeed. There is, further, the amount spent by charitable institutions such as S.A.N.T.A., but apart from the direct cost of controlling the disease, there are the indirect costs to the country and to our economy. There is the loss of efficiency of the workers both before it is absolutely established that they are suffering from the disease, and also after they have received treatment. There is the loss of man hours during treatment when the patient cannot work at all, and then of course there is, lastly, the absolute loss of man hours if the disease results in permanent incapacity or the death of the patient. This expenditure is increasing every year. In 1952’-53 we were spending only some R2.8 million, which amounted to 19.6 per cent of the Health Vote, whereas this year, with our expenditure of R13.8 million, it amounts to no less than 47.7 per cent of the Health Vote. The expenditure on tuberculosis hospitals approximates 21 per cent of the total Hospital Vote. Despite this five-fold increase in the amount spent in 15 years, the notification rate up to the end of 1963—we have not a report covering the later period by the Department —was not decreasing. In 1961 it was 58,500, and in 1963 it was over 67,000. Since then there has been a slight drop, and in 1965 Dr. Du Pré le Roux, the president of S.A.N.T.A., said the figure was something like 67,000. The Minister has pointed out, quite rightly, that this increase in the notification rate is largely due to the more widespread use and the better utilization of X-ray and other detection methods, but nevertheless it is still alarming. Dr. Le Roux has pointed out that an average of three white persons a day were still contracting the disease in that particular year. [Time expired.]

In the times in which we live it is commonplace to say that ours is a time of rising costs, but nevertheless I want to take this opportunity to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to an item which in recent years has become so exorbitantly expensive that I think the House should give its attention to it. This is the indispensable and absolutely essential spectacles. Because the Minister wears spectacles and many members of this House also use that convenience, and even you, Mr. Chairman, I can surely take the goodwill of the House for granted in the plea I am making.

I acquired these spectacles recently, and they cost me more than R33. I paid R6.60 of that for having my eyes tested. I want to make it clear that I have no objection to that. The specialist who is trained to test one’s eyesight does a very personal job for which years of training is necessary, and it requires a great deal of hard work and money on his part to build up a practice. But when we deal with the spectacles as such, I have in mind these, which cost more than R27. I should like to analyse this simple little thing for you. It consists of a simple plastic frame, some trivial little screws and two quite ordinary pieces of glass which are ground in a certain way. Now I want to tell you. Sir, that nowadays that grinding is done by a machine in a factory. It is no longer done by hand, as in the old days. If one considers that this simple article costs more than R27, one could say, as our forebears said, that it is blood money. If one could do without spectacles, we would not have objected so strongly, but the fact of the matter is that spectacles are absolutely essential. I myself and many others would be useless in society if we did not have spectacles to help us in our work. To us they are quite as essential as the food we eat. To that must be added the fact that people who wear spectacles are compelled to have the spectacles replaced every year. The eyes of most of us are such that we cannot use the same spectacles very long. That means that every year or two, when the spectacles are replaced, one has to go through the whole process again and pay the cost. If we presume that in a family a father and the mother and perhaps two of the children all have to get new spectacles every year or two, you will appreciate that it will mean a tremendous drain on their resources. In the past spectacles did not cost as much as they are costing at present. Some years ago one could buy spectacles, for which one has to pay R33 or more at present, for less than R15. The point I want to make is that there is an enormous and unjustifiable profit on the manufacture and sale of spectacles. I want to make an appeal to the hon. the Minister that he should appoint a one-man commission to go into this matter and to report on it, and that action should then be taken in accordance with that report.

Before I call upon the next speaker, I want to ask hon. members not to raise their personal affairs in the House.

The matter I should like to bring to the attention of the hon. the Minister is not a personal one. It affects the town in which I live, i.e. Phillipstown, where there are plus-minus 6,000 or 7,000 non-Whites and approximately 1,000 Whites in the town and the district, and where there is no doctor. The nearest towns are De Aar and Petrusville, which are approximately 30 miles from Phillipstown. It is extremely difficult, particularly for the non-Whites, to reach a district surgeon. The time of the district surgeons in Petrusville and De Aar is so limited that they cannot always go to Phillipstown in serious cases. I just want to ask the hon. the Minister whether some plan cannot be devised, with the assistance of the Medical Association, to make a doctor available to a town such as Phillipstown, which has none at the moment. In any town, of course, one finds many aged people and poor people who need medical attention, and because there is no local doctor their suffering at times of illness is particularly bad. Perhaps the solution will be to increase the salaries of district surgeons. Then it will perhaps be worth their while to take up an appointment as a district surgeon in a rural town.

The last two hon. members who spoke, the hon. members for Mossel Bay and Colesberg, will forgive me if I do not follow them. They have dealt with purely local matters. I want to refer back to the hon. member for Bethlehem who spoke about chiropractors. I do not want to get involved in the pros and cons of this matter, but I would like to ask the hon. the Minister whether he would be good enough to give us the opinion expressed in the Mönnig Report on chiropractics. I believe that the hon. the Minister has received this report, and I am sure that this Committee would value the opinions expressed in that report.

Then I also want to refer to the hon. member for Kimberley (North), who unfortunately is not here at the moment and who spoke about the ridiculous regulations which have been drawn up in regard to caravan parks and camps. I agree with him that the implementation of these regulations will necessitate terrific expenditure and I do not entirely see the necessity for these regulations. I am very glad that the hon. member has now supported the plea which I made in this House during the Budget debate for the withdrawal of these regulations, and for consultation with other bodies on these matters before they are implemented on the 1st January, 1968. I am very pleased to have his support and I hope the hon. the Minister will give us a statement in that regard this afternoon.

Sir, the hon. member for Berea mentioned 23 senior health inspectors and the cost of R49,300. I also want to ask the hon. the Minister whether these are the inspectors who are going to be required to implement the regulations published in the Government Gazette? I also want to advise the hon. the Minister that it was only three or four weeks ago in this House that we passed enabling legislation to allow the provinces to pass their own legislation to control this very thing, and at this moment the Natal Provincial Administration is in the process of drafting an Ordinance which will comprehensively cover the control of caravan parks and camping grounds. Sir. there is no need for this duplication and I want to add my plea in this respect to that of the hon. member for Kimberley (North).

Sir, I want to speak this afternoon on bilharzia. We had an interesting and informative debate earlier this Session on this subject, and in the course of his reply the hon. the Minister said (col. 2802)—-

Sir, I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. the Minister; I have no grouse against this statement but I am rather confused, and I am sure that this Committee is confused, by earlier statements made by the hon. the Minister, such as the one in column 2799 where he said—

How can the hon. the Minister really believe this? Surely the welfare of the people is his concern and that of his Department. When one looks at the pitiful amount which is allocated in the Estimates for the control of bilharzia, a pitiful R35,000, it is no wonder that he has an inferiority complex with regard to research into the control of bilharzia and that he says that they cannot be compared with the large, rich pharmaceutical firms which are conducting research into this disease. Sir, this is once again an instance of the buck being passed; this is what we have had throughout the years. The buck has been passed from Minister to Minister, from Department to Department. As I said in the course of the debate that we had here earlier this Session, somebody must take the lead and I am pleading with this hon. Minister to take the lead in this regard. He is in a position to do so. Bilharzia is a public health problem. It is his duty and that of his Department to attempt to collate the efforts of the many bodies concerned and to do something about control measures.

He must chase the snails and kill them.

The Minister, in talking about research, also said—

I am glad that he agrees with this side of the House. We are also convinced that we are close to an actual break-through in this regard, but medical researchers in this country are looking to someone to take the lead and to give them the necessary funds and, above all, to give them the necessary encouragement. If that is done then this break-through will soon follow. The latest annual report of the C.S.I.R., the report for 1965, after referring to the annual report on medical research, goes on to say at page 30—

Sir, I would like to add “and because of lack of encouragement”. All I am asking the hon. the Minister to-day is to take the lead and to make the necessary funds available either through his Department or through negotiations at Cabinet level with his colleagues, and that he should give the scientists the assistance and the encouragement they require. I am sure that our scientists in this country (who are capable) will then find the answer, the breakthrough to which the hon. the Minister referred, in this terribly debilitating disease. Sir, South Africa cannot afford the loss in man hours which is occasioned by this dreadful disease.

I want to pass on to the question of typhoid. We have had reports of an outbreak of typhoid at Jamestown; we have had reports of other minor outbreaks throughout the country, but I want to deal particularly with the reports of typhoid in the Hammarsdale area and the information we have had, which seems to conflict. In reply to a question on the 4th April the hon. the Minister told us that we had had 22 notified cases at Hammarsdale in 1966 and that for the first three months of this year two cases had been notified. According to a report in the Sunday Tribune of the 9th April, the district surgeon at Camperdown said—

Sir. who is right and who is wrong? Is it this hon. Minister or his Department or somebody who has given false information or incorrect information? We even had the hon. the Prime Minister sticking his neck out and putting his foot into it here when in reply to the hon. member for Pinetown he castigated the hon. member for exaggerating. He was fed with the wrong information by this Minister’s Department. We also have a most interesting statement in the Natal Daily News of the 7th April, where the senior Bantu Affairs Commissioner for Port Natal says—

How much have they improved. Sir? We have a statement by the District Surgeon on 29th April, which reads as follows—

There were six cases in one month in one small community. The Chief Bantu Affairs Commissioner, who has the control of that area, says that it is contained and that everything is under control. In this report of the 29th April, the District Surgeon repeats that he personally has notified 40 cases in the last six months. What about cases which were reported from Edendale Hospital, Grey’s Hospital. and King Edward VIII Hospital? What about cases reported by other doctors? These are what he has personally reported. Is the hon. the Minister afraid to face the consequences of admitting to an outbreak there? His figures are incorrect and unless we have a satisfactory explanation, his facts can only mislead the public.

Before I close, I have one further point I wish to make. In view of the statements which have been made by the hon. the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister of the Transkei with regard to the Transkei Government taking over the portfolio of Health, I wonder if this Minister will make a statement. This is a matter of serious consequences. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I shall not try to reply in detail to what the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) said, particularly since he spoke about a specific epidemic of typhoid fever, except to associate it with what I wanted to say in reply to the arguments of the hon. member for Houghton. I just want to read something to the hon. member in regard to the investigation into the cases of typhoid fever, which occurs every year in the Report of the Department of Health, and which also occurred in last year’s Report. Last year the Department of Health issued a serious warning. The hon. member is concerned about this epidemic. The hon. member should not merely shift the responsibility onto the Department of Health. I quote—

You understand that, Sir! The easiest solution, if one experiences serious difficulties, including those which are of a local nature, is to sav: “The Government must solve it.” A division of responsibilities exist. Local and provincial authorities have responsibilities in respect of these contagious diseases as well and not only in repect of combating those diseases but also in respect of the assistance which they are able to render the Central Department in combating these diseases. I do not want to quarrel with the hon. member. Nor do I want to quarrel with the hon. member for Houghton, who raised an argument which in my opinion deserves the serious attention of provinces, local authorities and the Central Government, since we are dealing with this Vote. It is a fact which cannot be denied that there are shortages throughout the entire country in respect of these contagious diseases, hospitalization and other services which have to be supplied. But it is of no avail seeking the reasons for these shortages and the deficiencies which do exist in other bodies each time. I should like to remind the Opposition and particularly the hon. member for Houghton, that the provision of essential services has always been checked by a problem in regard to which we have not been able to find a solution and in respect of which the hon. Opposition must also adopt an attitude.

There is, for example, a continual protest on the part of the Opposition against something which they see fit to regard as an undermining of the power of local authorities. Upon going through these Estimates we are continually aware of the fact that there is an overlapping of activities, an overlapping of provision of services, and what results from that is a continual shifting of responsibilities to another body. Several commissions have already been appointed to give attention to this matter. As far back as 1944 such a commission was appointed because shortages had existed even at that time. But that commission could make no progress whatsoever because local authorities wanted to protect their so-called autonomy. But I am convinced that these problems could, to a large extent, be solved if we could at least obtain the cooperation of the Opposition, co-operation in this sense that they should refrain from continually over-emphasizing individual cases in order to try and bring some Department oi other into discredit but should help instead to find a positive solution to make the provision of these absolutely essential services by the Central Government possible. They must not take sides with local authorities which are always bent on protecting certain so-called rights. The hon. member for Houghton is one of those persons who have a lot to say about the autonomy of the Johannesburg Municipality and of the Transvaal Provincial Council when some change or other may have political advantages for her. That is why I say that a positive approach to this matter could eliminate and solve many of the local problems which hon. members have mentioned here.

I want to pause for a moment to say a few words about the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District). He is still a young member of this House. Had he been a member of this House for a longer period of time he would have been more careful when making allegations in this House. It appears that the hon. member obtains much of his information from newspapers. The hon. member must realize that newspapers are not always correct—they either exaggerate things, or they hear them incorrectly. A sensible man will therefore not rely solely on newspaper reports. So I want to advise the hon. member that when he wants to raise matters in this House it would be in his own interests to make certain that the facts he wants to mention are true facts. In order to cover up his faulty information the hon. member made allegations against the Department to the effect that the Department was concealing the facts and refusing to admit to them. But what is the use of concealing facts? What the Department actually wants is to know whether the problems exist, so that it can try and solve them. Surely it would be stupid of the Department to close its eyes to difficulties when its task is precisely that of overcoming those difficulties.

The hon. member made use of the campaign which is being waged in Natal in regard to the outbreak of typhoid fever in Hammarsdale. But in this regard it is interesting to note that even the Bantu of Hammarsdale are objecting to these stories which are being spread concerning them. In this regard I received a telegram from the Georgedale and District Bantu Landowners’ Association from which it is apparent that even the Bantu are so perturbed by these stories that they have sent a letter to the Department in which they ask the Department not to take any notice of those stories. The Bantu themselves say that the stories are untrue. [Interjections.] That one should be corrected by the Bantu is already an insult. One must first make sure of one’s facts before presenting them here.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. verbose member did not participate in this debate; perhaps he will do so in a subsequent debate.

The hon. member for Petermaritzburg (District) returned to the subject of bilharzia and said that this Department and the Minister did not want to do anything which would constitute a genuine attempt to tackle the study and the prevention of bilharzia. The hon. member is a sensible man and surely he must know the State cannot compete with the enormous pharmaceutical firms which are spending millions on research into these remedies. They have a large staff of chemists who are continually applying themselves to a study of these remedies. Is the hon. member not aware of that? Does he really want the State to duplicate everything which is being done in the world, not only in South Africa but also in the U.S.A., England, Germany, France, Switzerland and all the other countries in the world? Does he want the State to do research on a tremendous scale into remedies for bilharzia?

Listen to my point again.

That is the misfortune. What the hon. member has to say is so obscure that an ordinary, sensible man cannot understand him.

The point is the coordination of this research.

“The co-ordination.”What is the difference? It is of no avail saying, “you must co-ordinate”. What must one coordinate? Must one co-ordinate a remedy which is being experimented on with a disease? Is it not silly? Is it not simply for the sake of making an allegation like that? There are firms which are engaged on research. They have not yet discovered any remedies, but they are working on them and fortunately there are indications that they may perhaps succeed in doing so. There is a remedy—I mentioned the name last year—which is on the market today. I think it is a Swiss remedy. The name is Ambilhar. This remedy is, now that we have it, being examined by the Department to see whether it is effective and safe, and in what way it might be dangerous. It has now been discovered that Ambilhar has certain aftereffects. In some cases those after-effects are very serious, so that it cannot be recommended for general use. One can use it for a case which is kept under strict surveillance, where it is utilized under supervision. But one cannot use it on a mass scale. At this stage one still cannot use it in any way to try to eradicate bilharzia in South Africa. After all, that is still our great task.

Therefore I think it is far-fetched to expect the Department to co-ordinate and apply in practice, quite apart from the work which it already has, imaginary remedies which are not even on the market yet and have not been brought to us yet. I think that if there is any department which is doing a lot in regard to bilharzia, then it is in fact my Department. Not only is there the Department, there is also the Planning Board, from which the Department receives guidance, and which consists of experts from all over South Africa and which, now that Dr. Clark is the chairman, meets each month to discuss the problems. The Department is therefore going out of its way to achieve the highest efficiency in all these respects. I repeat: I do not think one can for one moment expect more from my Department in regard to bilharzia than what it is actually doing to-day. I do not want to go into everything we are doing again. Last time we discussed it in the debate. The State has its own research institutions, of which there are three. They are not doing research into remedies, but into other aspects of the matter.

The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) has asked my opinion in regard to chiropractors.

No, not your opinion; only the report.

No, I wanted to tell the hon. member that I would not give him my opinion in regard to them. But I can just inform him what the provisional report was. In the first place, the report deals with the theory of chiropractics, i.e. what is regarded as being the so-called scientific background. The commission found that they could in no way accept the so-called scientific statements and theories in regard to chiropractics. They were forced to disapprove of them. In fact, they dismissed them. But the commission did not go into the question whether chiropractics was of any practical benefit to the community and whether it really, the theory aside, cured people. One can have a theory which is wrong and nevertheless be able to do the right thing. In other words, the commission, in my humble opinion, did not dispose of its task. My decision was that we should go into the matter further, but that we should first really ascertain whether the chiropractors were achieving practical results. If we could achieve that, so that we could ultimately come to a decision as to whether or not it had any benefits, or had them only in certain circumstances, we would be able to submit the report to this hon. House. I think it is only fair towards any profession that one should not judge it only on its theory, but that one should first investigate the actual results before coming to a decision in regard to it.

The hon. member for Albany referred to a new Research Institute, which is associated with the Rhodes University, for the purpose of undertaking certain studies in regard to insects. I want to assure him that, if there is any respect in which we can be of assistance or where we can make use of the services there, we would be only too glad to do so. The hon. member referred to the tremendous amount which we were spending to-day on the control of tuberculosis. It is not quite the half of the Health appropriation, but it is nevertheless almost half. At the moment, however, there is little we can do besides what the Department has been doing all these years in regard to the use of B.C.G.-vaccine. In the Estimates there has been a certain amount for the B.C.G.-vaccine for the past few years, as the hon. member said. More than that, the Department and the country has, as a result of a lack of adequate facilities, not yet been able to utilize fully. The entire Department and the local authorities utilize it where they can, but we are dependent, not only on our own people, but also on the various local authorities throughout the country and the amount for that purpose is quite adequate, ’t is not that we have reduced it.

The hon. member for Houghton raised a problem here which is a very thorny one for us because in reality it falls under the Provincail government. The Provinces are terribly strict in regard to their own powers and rights.

You appointed a cornmission to inquire into nursing.

Yes, but it was nursing which covered every field of hospitals and related matters. Here the hon. member wants us to make investigations into general hospitals only. We are continually making investigations into our own hospitals, but if we were to make investigations into general hospitals, which fall under the Provinces, I think that that would evoke unfavourable reaction from the Provinces which would perhaps not further the good cause. I should like to advise her to make representations to the provincial authorities. I am certain that they will be much more sympathetic than appears on the surface.

The hon. member for Kimberley referred to the regulations which have been promulgated in regard to the caravan parks. What actually happened was that the Department issued trial regulations. The regulations are the first of their kind, I think, to be proclaimed and we are awaiting criticism in regard to them. They have been issued so that the public may criticize those regulations and point out what the deficiencies are, and, if they are convinced that there are in fact deficiencies, they can explain them to the Department. I am certain that no regulation will be promulgated which will have the effect of doing away with caravan parks. Naturally we should like to afford our public, which is being herded together in our cities, as many opportunities as possible of making use of the open air and veld outside. If the hon. member or any of his voters have any problems in this regard, I want to recommend that they get in touch with the Department as soon as possible. They can be assured of very sympathetic treatment.

The hon. member for Berea referred to the problem of our aged persons, in regard to the medical services of district surgeons. One may expect that if our elderly people are asked whether they have grievances then most of them will always feel that they are not being dealt with entirely satisfactorily, because, Sir, it is a free service. You know, Sir, that anybody receiving free services, is often more demanding than the person who has to pay for that service. If one receives a free service then one often wants more service than one wants when one is paying for that service.

Many of them do not know the extent of the free services.

You are quite right, that is a subsequent point. Now I want to tell the hon. member this. According to our regulations all elderly persons, those persons receiving an old-age or a disability grant, are entitled to medical services from the district surgeon. But district surgeons receive their drugs and their allowances according to the actual services which they render and the quantity of drugs which they make available. A book must be kept of all those things, and as a result of the bookkeeping the district surgeon is usually required to get permission from the magistrate before supplying the necessary service or drugs. It depends entirely upon the district surgeon in question. Many district surgeons will give elderly persons the necessary treatment and will then go to the magistrate to report the case and have a note made of the service which he has rendered. I think that where there may perhaps not be a good service, it is attributable to the fact that there may perhaps not be a good understanding between the patients and the district surgeon.

In the big cities it is difficult for them to know these things.

Now the hon. member has said that there is no place where it is possible for the elderly persons to find out who the district surgeons are, the consultation hours and where they may be visited. I should like to make use of the hon. member’s suggestion to see whether we cannot introduce something like this, also as a section of the telephone directory. Perhaps that is a possibility.

The hon. member for Rosettenville referred here to “scientology”. I have read that report, and I accept that it is an unfavourable report. It is a report dealing with one of the Australian states which was published by a certain advocate. The state appointed an advocate to investigate the matter. Now there are certain points of criticism which have been raised in regard to that report, and one of the points of criticism is that Hubbard himself did not have an opportunity of appearing there in person to justify himself. That may, or may not, be good criticism, but it nevertheless shows one that it would be dangerous for us here in South Africa to rely simply and solely on the report of another country. What the Department then did was to try and get in touch with persons who had been the victims of “scientologists”. However, it was extremely difficult finding them. Except in one or two cases it was impossible to get in touch with them. If hon. members can help us by referring us to such persons so that we can go into the matter, investigations could be instituted and a study made of the entire matter to determine whether there is actually any harm in it, what the harm is, and the extent thereof, and then we will certainly have to consider taking steps.

We investigated the amounts which are being sent overseas to the institute of Ron Hubbard in England. As hon. members know, the institute receives a certain allowance from its local “representatives” here in South Africa—it has given them peculiar names, but I have forgotten what they are— and also in other countries. However, the amount which was being sent overseas was so comparatively small that it gave us the impression that the scope of “scientology” in South Africa is also very limited. We may be wrong. As soon as we have gathered enough facts in regard to “scientology”, as soon as we know enough about what is happening here in South Africa, hon. members may rest assured that we will give our serious attention to the matter if it does appear to be an undesirable movement.

The hon. members for Rosettenville and Durban (Central) referred to the report—1 think it was in the Sunday Times—in regard to malaria in the vicinity of Komatipoort. This just shows one again how extremely unreliable newspapers can sometimes be because, as the hon. member for Cradock pointed out, the so-called facts mentioned there are factually totally incorrect. I do not want to repeat the facts which the hon. member for Cradock mentioned. The facts which he mentioned, are absolutely correct. There is a large staff, we have a large staff there. Work is continually being done there. All the houses and all the huts are being sprayed. The huts, houses and buildings all along the rivers are being sprayed. The service is a continuous one. The figures in regard to the outbreak of malaria are not exaggerated. I think the hon. member also referred to them. This year there have so far been 58 cases. In the previous year there were 33 cases. There are more cases this year, but we tried to trace the origin of these cases. Up to date all the indications point to the disease having been imported. There are carriers entering the country who in turn infect other people.

Actually we have to approach the matter of malaria from two points of view. As far as the rest of South Africa is concerned we want to eradicate this disease. We have in fact eradicated it. Except for certain border spots we have eradicated malaria in the rest of South Africa. The border spots border on Mozambique and Rhodesia, and in those spots the germs are being carried into South Africa by immigrating Bantu who are carriers. As a result of that other people can be infected. All that we can do in the border areas is to control it there. One cannot eradicate all the mosquitos there, but one can control them. One can do so by tracing all the carriers. The Department is taking blood-smears. I think 82,000 blood-smears were taken last year of Natives who were in any way suspected of being malaria carriers. We are doing this systematically in order to trace the carriers, and by so doing to eliminate the danger of malaria being brought over the border. Now it is a peculiarity of malaria—this is a discovery which was made by the research unit of the Department at Tzaneen—that if one is able to reduce the mosquito population and the carrier population to a certain level then malaria is no longer transferred. It sounds very strange and it almost seems to be non-scientific, but it is a fact. Therefore, all that we must try and do now, is to try and keep down the mosquito population in places where the mosquitos breed and also see to it that the carriers in the vicinity are reduced. That means that the control of malaria in South Africa is easier now than we originally thought. I am just mentioning this to indicate that the Department is continually busy with research into malaria and the combating of malaria. I found it very interesting to read this little Press report. After the report in the Sunday newspaper, the Rand Daily Mail of the 2nd came out with this little report—

Those were only “suspected cases”. That proves that even the newspapers had discovered that the fairy-tale about the tremendous outbreak of malaria in the Komatipoort area was totally exaggerated. I also want to assure hon. members that there is absolutely nothing in what that district surgeon said about the neglect of the Department and about what was not being done. He said he never received tablets from the Department, but the Department does not always give the preventative tablets to the surgeon. They can get them if they want, but the Department itself issues the tablets. Where there is a mass treatment of the population the Department itself issues the tablets. That is perhaps the reason why the doctor made the wild accusation that no remedies had been issued to him.

The Minister has not replied to my question about the handing over of health services to the Transkei Government.

I think that at the present moment it is not yet practical to allow the control of health services to leave our hands. As you know, the doctors are mainly Whites, and the moment one hands over the health services to the Transkei Government most of the Whites will leave and the services there will no longer be of the quality which we would like them to be. For the present, I think the hon. member may accept that it will be impracticable to hand over the services.

I want to ask the Minister please to reply to my question as to whether he was taking any interest in the virus unit of the C.S.I.R.

I know that some of the C.S.I.R. funds are being spent on that. At the moment the matter is being considered by the C.S.I.R., by our Department and by the Medical Institute. It has not yet been decided what role that unit will play. I shall go into the matter but I can give no final answer at the moment. However, I hope that if we are unable to finance that service there will be other services, doing the same work, which we will be able to subsidize.

The hon. member for Colesberg referred me to the problem they had in Philipstown in regard to doctors. It happens from time to time that there are no medical services in certain towns. The same position recently prevailed in one of the towns in my constituency too. I just want to tell the hon. member what we have done in those cases, because I am certain that this information will be useful to him too. We got in touch with the deans of the medical faculties of our large universities immediately and asked them to make an effort to supply us with medical assistance at the earliest opportunity. Not long afterwards a young doctor established himself there and to-day he has a flourishing practice. Perhaps Philipstown can do the same.

Would the Minister advise us of the contents of the telegram received from the Association?

Unfortunately I did not bring the telegram along, but I shall give a summary of the position. In that telegram they said that the statements which were appearing daily in the Press in regard to the typhoid epidemic in the Hammarsdale area, to the effect that Bantu were dying of the disease each day, was totally unfounded, and that the district surgeon had also denied that they was true. According to the district surgeon there was only one case of somebody dying from typhoid fever. The aforementioned body, under these circumstances, pleaded that no action should be taken as a result of those Press reports.

Votes put and agreed to.

Revenue Vote 32,—“Agricultural Technical Services: Administration and National Services, R12,594,000”, and Revenue Vote 33,— “Agricultural Technical Services: Regional Services and Education, R15,376,000”:

May I request the privilege of the half-hour? It so often happens that an appeal is made to the effect that farming in South Africa should be made more efficient, and I think that that appeal is being made more often than ever before in the circumstances in which we find ourselves to-day after this tremendous drought which the country has had to endure. But it is usually added by implication that farming in South Africa is not efficient. In that case a finger is specifically pointed at the farmer himself. I think that one is only entitled to point a finger at the farmer if the House of Assembly itself, and the hon. the Minister and his Department, i.e. the authorities, have done everything in their power to help the farmers in South Africa to be more efficient, and only when every step which may be taken by the authorities has been taken will we be entitled to point a finger at the farmer of South Africa. The attitude of this side of the House is that the industry must in fact be an efficient one and that it must be made to be efficient, but that there are certain basic ideas which must Jae emphasized in order to be able to make the agricultural industry an efficient one. I think it is the task of the hon. the Minister’s Department to help the farmers in this respect. The first basic idea we want to express is the following: The ideal state of affairs would of course be for every farmer to have been thoroughly trained. I think that in the new conditions prevailing to-day hard physical labour is no longer the only requirement for successful farming. To-day tremendous demands are being made on the intelligence of the farmers of South Africa, demands which test their knowledge of business matters, and demands which test their scientific knowledge. All these things are essential to enable the farmer to adapt himself to the new circumstances.

That is a business entrepreneur.

Precisely. This is the first time the hon. Chief Whip on that side and I are in agreement. I hope that his contribution to this debate will be as sensible as his interjection. Mr. Chairman, unless the farmer is able to adapt himself to the new circumstances prevailing to-day, he cannot depend on being successful. In the first instance he should be able to read and understand the results of scientific research. He needs not only intelligence but also a knowledge of his subject, something which in my opinion may be soundly inculcated by means of a good vocational training. I am convinced that as far as the training of the farming population is concerned, we have a tremendous backlog to make up, particularly when compared with many of our fellow Western countries, where 80 per cent to 100 per cent of their farmers have received training. Here in South Africa only about 20 per cent of our farmers have been trained for the agricultural industry. Of course the problem is always to bring home this important point of departure to our present farming population. If we cannot bring it home to the present farming population, then we shall at least have to see to it that the farming population of the future is better trained than the farmers we have to-day. The fact that there are so few practising farmers who have received vocational training does not mean that we should simply fold our arms and say that there is nothing we can do about the matter. There are always ways and means in which knowledge can be brought home to the untrained farmers who carry out their farming activities mainly on the grounds of experience which they have gained over a number of years. That brings me to the second requirement necessary to make farming in our country more efficient. I do not believe that any magisterial district in this country can be without an extension officer, and I must say at once that we on this side regret that we do not have the latest report of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services. We also regret not having the latest report of the Soil Conservation Board. Since these reports are not available to us we will have to rely on figures contained in former reports submitted to us by the hon. the Minister. In the past the Report of the Department always gave us a picture of the network of veterinary offices, as well as information offices throughout the entire Republic. However, that information does not appear in the latest report, and I hope that the hon. the Minister will bring it home to his Department that it is useful to be able to refer back to that map which was published in the past to show us precisely how many information offices there were and how many magisterial districts or soil conservation districts, etc. etc., were properly covered by agricultural extension officers. I am convinced that the demand which we make that every magisterial district should be properly covered by an extension officer is not an exorbitant one. We concede at once that these agricultural extension officers are perhaps of less benefit to the trained farmer, but they are of inestimable value to the untrained farmer. Even to the man who has had a good training in other directions, the extension officer is of inestimable value, because he can visit the local office of the extension officer and discuss with that officer his farming problems. At this stage those people are simply not available; we do not have enough of them. I do not want to take up the time of the House by quoting figures in this regard. Mr. Chairman, I say that the extension officer is of inestimable value for the untrained farmer, and that is why we think that the extension officer should not be overloaded with administrative work but should in particular be able to spend his time on the farms in his district. I have gone through the latest report which we have at our disposal again, and I notice that our extension officers had to write approximately 12,000 advisory letters and that they had to make and reply to thousands of thousands of telephone calls. I admit that it is very important for these things to be done; it is quite essential, but how many of the office hours of the extension officers are not being devoted to work which is merely of an administrative nature, and which could be done as well if they had the assistance of a clerk or administrative assistant to do that type of work? We do not want those people in their offices. We are particularly interested in them giving lectures and addressing the farmers. That is the type of work which they must do. That is quite correct. That is where they are of the greatest value and of the most benefit to their profession. I think that we are wasting the time of the few extension officers we have by having them sit in their offices and reply to telephone calls, however important that may be. I want to tell the hon. the Minister that he will have to do something in regard to the welfare of his extension officers. The number of officers is hopelessly inadequate to be at all conducive to efficient farming. We want to tell the hon. the Minister that the State must realize that in this field, as in so many others, it will also have to compete with the private sector. The extension officers will simply have to be drawn to this Department, and we will simply have to take steps in order to keep those people. I want to make the point again that if 80 percent of the farmers are not trained people and we do not have the extension officers available, then I would like to know how we are going to ensure more efficient farming? It simply cannot succeed. It is impossible to apply our soil conservation practices. It is impossible to undertake our farm planning properly unless we have those people. It is the request of this side of the House that we should take the bull by the horns and see to it once and for all that we have those people. It is not necessary to discuss the methods which have to be followed by the extension officers. Those people are trained for that purpose. The only demand which we on this side of the House are making is that they should be afforded the greatest degree of freedom to perform their task and should be relieved of the so-called “red tape” which we hear so much about. The hon. the Minister announced a year ago that trained farmers would be used for farm planning and particularly for the application of the Soil Conservation Act. They will be part-time officials. They will be able to do approximately 2,000 working hours per year for which they will be paid and they will be able to claim approximately 7 cents per mile for every mile they cover in the execution of their task. It is a very good principle. The hon. the Minister is taking steps to assist in alleviating that shortage of extension officers. However, we would like to know from the hon. the Minister what progress has been made with that scheme. How many of our various soil conservation districts have already made application and have put at its disposal people who are capable of doing this kind of work. We can understand that it is an emergency measure. It is an interim step towards bridging this difficulty, but then one should also be able to see the progress which is being made when such a step has been taken.

The third requirement that we lay down for effective farming is the question of sound veld conservation and the building up of our soil fertility. The most important requirements which may be laid down for efficient farming will avail us nothing, not even if we had well-trained farmers and all the extension officers we needed, if attention is not given to the soil itself. We on this side are convinced that the efficiency of our agriculture cannot be increased unless drastic measures are taken to conserve our soil.

You say drastic measures. Would you elaborate on that a little?

Yes, we shall tell the hon. the Minister what we have in mind in that regard. We say that drastic steps must be taken in this respect because we believe that the backlog is getting increasingly larger. The longer we delay with the question of soil conservation, the more it is going to cost South Africa in future. It has been calculated that we are losing approximately 250 million cubic meters of soil and topsoil annually. To do all the work which is necessary, according to the calculations of some experts, will cost approximately R600 million in order to conserve our soil and veld properly.

If we could succeed in doing so with that amount, then it would be a very good investment.

The hon. members on this side of the House are usually very conservative in their estimates; that is why I believe that the longer this matter is delayed, the more expensive it will be. I regret having to repeat to-day what we have said on a former occasion here. However, I am making no apologies for the fact that we are having to repeat it, since the problem remains the same. In our opinion what is being done in regard to this matter is hopelessly inadequate. We believe that the individual farmer is simply not able to take those drastic steps and undertake his soil conservation work in the way he ought to. He is financially incapable of doing so. The drought of the past five or six years has not only exhausted the soil, it has also drained the finances of the farmers. There were times when the farmers undertook those works with the utmost pleasure. Those were the times when they had fantastic financial surpluses and were making good profits, but in the past few years they have not been able to do so. We are aware that the hon. the Minister and his Department have increased the subsidy as far as soil conservation work is concerned, and we welcome those steps. The report of the Soil Conservation Board which we do have at our disposal indicates that there has been an improvement and attributes the improvement to the fact that the subsidies have been increased. But if one drives through the Karoo and the outlying areas, then one sees the large amount of soil conservation work which is still to be done. If one discusses that problem with the farmers they say: “With the greatest pleasure. I realize the value thereof; I would do it if only I was financially able to do so.” I think that that is the attitude of most farmers; for that reason they have reached the stage where they feel that the share of the State in this respect will have to be much greater than it has been up to now if this problem is going to be solved. That is my view when I say that drastic steps will have to be taken when it comes to our soil conservation work.

I should also like to say a few words about the veld reclamation scheme of this hon. Minister. Here is a very good principle. The principle is an excellent one, i.e. the conservation of our natural veld and the withdrawal of a large portion of our veld from production. However, the application of this scheme is limited. According to reports which appeared in Landbounuus and in the Press, there are only approximately 847 farmers who are participating in this scheme.

There are 1,000.

That is only 153 additional farmers. It is only being applied in those drought stricken areas which were declared to be disaster drought areas. I think there are many other areas of the country which endured a drought but which were not declared to be disaster drought areas. We want to tell the hon. the Minister that he must consider extending his scheme to those areas as well. It is only being applied in the North-Western Transvaal and the North-Western Cape. However, I think that there are certain parts of the Cape, quite apart from the North-Western Cape, where he could fruitfully investigate the matter and where he could perhaps apply this scheme. There is one thing in respect of this scheme which also worries me. That is the fact that the hon. the Minister found it necessary some time ago to issue the warning that there had been certain farmers who had withdrawn themselves unilaterally from this scheme. Why did the hon. the Minister have to warn those people? It appears as if those farmers do not realize the value of the scheme· Perhaps they have found that it did not pay well enough. If it does not pay well enough, we wonder whether the hon. the Minister should not take steps to revise his scheme and, if necessary, to increase the benefits of that scheme. If that is so, that is what he must do. One observes from letters written by farmers to the Landbouweekblad, the Farmers Weekly and other agricultural magazines, that most of them are not very interested in this scheme, simply because it does not pay them. We are sorry that there are people who are withdrawing unilaterally from this scheme, because in a certain sense they had entered into a contract with the hon. the Minister’s Department and the State. We are concerned about the fact that they are prepared to withdraw. If we can do anything to make the scheme more attractive then I do not think we must hesitate to do so because the principle of the withdrawal of large tracts, particularly the natural grazing areas is, in my opinion, quite correct. It is one of the steps which in my opinion we will be able to take in order to regain our natural grazing. Those are the three requirements which we lay down at this stage in order to make agriculture in South Africa more effective. There are other requirements which can also be laid down. They will be put to this House by other hon. members.

If there is one requirement which I as a cattle farmer could lay down, then it is that we ought to have enough veterinary surgeons in this country. They are simply not available. There are not enough of them. There are many people who are pondering this problem to-day.

One moment you say that they are simply not available, and the next you say that there are too few of them.

I am talking about the State veterinary surgeons. They are simply not available. There are private veterinary surgeons. Most of them are in the cities and the larger towns. In the outlying areas those people are extremely scarce. The hon. the Minister is aware of that. That is why certain proposals are made from time to time in respect of what can be done to draw those people. There is one proposal which I like very much. I want to submit it for consideration by the hon. the Minister. It is that instead of trying to draw State veterinary surgeons, we must draw the private veterinary surgeons. We must afford them the opportunity of working for the State, as in the case of district surgeons. The moment we are able to do that, we have the man who will be able to look after his own practice and who will also be assured of support from the State when it is necessary to enable him to do his work. To get a man to go to a place such as Beaufort West or Prieska as a State veterinary surgeon and then to allow him to do private work, will not succeed. The man will immediately be accused of looking after his own practice. If we do the opposite, I think that the hon. the Minister would be in a position to entice those people into the country areas. I do not want to have to tell the hon. the Minister why this is essential. He realizes it as well as I do, if not better. Take the example of a ram breeder. If a ram breeder has, for example, invested R20,000 to R40,000 in a few hundred breeding ewes, and a disease were to break out amongst that stock, one would be able to realize what tremendous damage that man would suffer if he could not get hold of a veterinary surgeon quickly enough. I know of scores of farmers in my constituency who have lost thousands of rand as a result of the fact that, irrespective of whether it was a beast, a horse, or a sheep, they could not get a veterinary surgeon to their farms quickly enough.

How many have been saved?

Of course many have been saved, but that was where the veterinary surgeon was close at hand and where he could get to the farm at short notice. If I have to ask for a veterinary surgeon, that man has to travel 95 miles back and forth in order to reach my farm. By that time all ten or 20 sheep may be dead, or a person may perhaps have lost an important horse or an important beast. That is why I say that it ought to be our ideal that every magisterial district should have such a man at its disposal so that he can look after our animal population, and so that diseases and epidemics can be restricted to a minimum. Those are steps which we on this side believe can be taken to make agriculture in South Africa more efficient. These are matters which we have mentioned previously, but precious little has been done about them. Let me say at once to the House that even if these are the same matters we shall not hesitate to mention them every year until something is done, not only to the satisfaction of that side of the House, but also to the satisfaction of this side of the House. We shall continue to do so every year because we feel that it is our duty to present these problems and possible solutions to the House and to the Minister.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Newton Park devoted his speech to ways of making farming in South Africa more efficient. It is a quite commendable subject. I am rather pleased to be able to say that the tenor of his speech tonight was not merely critical. He also made a useful suggestion here and there. I want to tell him that this Government realized for more than a year ago that something drastic had to be done in respect of fanning and agriculture in South Africa. As a result an important commission was appointed to go into all facets of agriculture, to make a diagnosis of the ailments of agriculture and to prescribe a cure or a modus operandi in accordance with that diagnosis. While that commission is engaged in its work, I do not believe that that hon. member and I myself will serve any good purpose by criticizing too much. For that reason I am grateful that he did not merely criticize. Yet there were points here and there on which I did not quite agree with him. In the first place he said that the administrative work undertaken by the extension officers was too much. It is a pity, because there are too few of them. It is a manpower problem which is common in our country at present as far as trained people are concerned. Here it is a question of creating a balanced service with regard to extension work. If we do not have the people we need, we have to make the best use of the manpower available. One should like to carry labour specialization to its final conclusion in any Government Department with good coordination, but it is simply not possible. The hon. member himself explained to us what a shortage of these people there was. Then he said that it was necessary to compete with the private sector.

Business suspended at 6.30 p.m. and resumed at 8.05 p.m.

Evening Sitting

When the debate was adjourned, I was dealing with the statement by the hon. member for Newton Park that the Department should compete with the private sector. I am sorry, but I think he knows that in many cases this is not possible. The State has to apply rules to regulate its staff; it is bound by procedure and certain standards. This gives rise to the protection enjoyed by Public Servants, and as a result they enjoy a certain degree of security, and we should also cultivate in our officials that attitude towards the Public Service. But to seek to compete with the private sector, which is not bound by budget procedure, salary structures and salary scales, is an impossible task. I do not want to comment any further on the discussion by the hon. member, because in my view he also dealt with concrete matters in more than one respect. He spoke of certain problems which are being experienced. In respect of veterinary surgeons he even made the suggestion regarding part-time veterinary surgeons. I am inclined to believe that it is an idea which merits investigation, and I hope the hon. the Minister will take it into consideration. But in so far as he spoke about soil conservation. I want to tell him that he should at least have had regard to the special endeavours of this Department, particularly in the past year or two, in its campaign against erosion by means of brochures and films and this fine publication we have received on veld deterioration, and the increase in the subsidies to combat veld deterioration and soil erosion. He is aware of the attitude of the hon. the Minister, who is contemplating prosecuting people if they fail to meet their commitments in this veld reclamation scheme. He should also have had regard to the special activities of the hon. the Deputy Minister in his fight against soil erosion. But he admits that there are improvements, and the general tenor of his speech to-night was that he was merely stating the policy of his Party. Well, in this respect we could also present many problems. We are all seeking the solutions. These solutions, as I told him, are perhaps to be found in the comprehensive endeavours made by the Government through this committee, which will investigate agriculture in its entirety and then report on it.

I just want to speak briefly on something in which the ladies may perhaps be more interested than the men, and that is the karakul industry, the black gold, as we call it in the North-West, the fur industry. The karakul industry is a young industry in South Africa. It started in South-West Africa only in 1907, and until the 30’s it was practised mainly there. But even some years ago more than two million pelts were marketed in South-West Africa, and in 1965 more than one million pelts were marketed in the Republic. Jointly these two industries yield more than R20.5 million in foreign exchange to South Africa. In addition karakul wool has also become an important item and yields more than R1 million in foreign exchange, and the karakul meat trade is something which should not be disregarded either. At present the Gordonia district, which I represent, produces 30.4 per cent of the karakul products in South Africa. With reference to what the hon. member said about the drought and its disadvantages to the farmers, the karakul industry is one industry which in the years of drought succeeded in surmounting its problems to such an extent that approximately two-thirds of the farmers showed progress during these years of drought from 1960 to 1965. This young industry is not a temporary one, nor is it an industry which is subject to great fluctuations. It gives us this constant foreign exchange income. It also offers great possibilities for research, for the development of these pelts. To assure us of a higher income in foreign exchange, research has to be undertaken on colour types, on hair qualities, genetic criteria and the hereditary value of the various pelt qualities. The reason why I raise this matter is that in Gordonia research on the karakul industry has been in progress for some years, and it is research which extends over a long period. There is a farm of 12,000 morgen at Upington on which 4,000 sheep are kept. [Time expired.]

The hon. member for Newton Park started off by saying that more training should be provided for the farmers. Now I can do my good friend a favour. I may just refer him to the replies made by the hon. member for Pretoria (District) and the hon. member for Waterberg to the motion introduced by the hon. member for Albany at the beginning of the year. There he will get the complete answer to that problem.

The hon. member said that he simply had to repeat all the same old things this evening that had been said over the years in regard to agriculture. Pliny died in the year 79 A.D., and this evening, 1888 years after his death, one can still read what he wrote in his book Historia Naturalis, namely that something new would always come out of Africa, and in that regard he was both right and wrong as far as the United Party is concerned. There is always something new as regards the multiplicity of their policy statements, but there is never something new as regards policy statement itself and as regards the content of their speeches. There he was wrong.

When the hon. the Minister took over the portfolios of Agricultural Technical Services and Water Affairs a few things were noticeable. The first of these was the unmistakable joy we saw in his heart over the fact that as a practising farmer himself he could again devote his attention to the things that were dearest to his heart. In the second place we noticed that he continued to discharge the responsibility borne by him with the devotion to duty with which he performed his duties from the outset. We think of the long journeys which he undertook in the drought-stricken areas of Transvaal and on which we accompanied him, and of the way in which he went into the problems of the farmers and told them, “You are downhearted, but we are grateful that you have not become despondent”. In addition there are his anxiety and concern over the general position of the farmer, without his displaying one single sign of lack of confidence in the future of agriculture or in the integrity of the farmer, without his having any lack of faith or showing any despondency. That is how we got to know him. Sir, you will think that I have a big request to make to the hon. the Minister, but that is not so, except that I shall at a later stage continue our representations in connection with water conservation in the Waterberg. In addition there is the courage he displayed in taking unpopular steps in the interests of the country during this period of unprecedented drought. There is his profound humanity and his sympathy with the farmer, and the great appreciation we have noticed on his part for the work of his predecessor. There is also his appreciation for the excellent work being done by the officials of the Department, and his deep gratitude to them in that regard.

But I want to say something about finch control. We have had a great deal to do with damage caused by finches and floods. On behalf of my constituency I want to convey our special thanks to the Department this evening, and in particular to Mr. Dirk Lourens. the official in Pretoria who was concerned with the extermination of the finches. Every year millions upon millions of finches invade the North-Western Transvaal from Botswana, and time and again it costs thousands upon thousands of rands to combat them. It is estimated that 40 million finches were exterminated in the North-Western Transvaal last year. Before I forget, I also want to express my thanks to the private companies for the assistance rendered by them and the machines which they placed at our disposal, and particularly to the pilots who risked their lives in undertaking the task of spraying the finches at night. It has to be done at night and the aeroplanes have to fly low over the bush, and it is very dangerous work. We know that in my own constituency a pilot was killed in this way in the vicinity of Gilead this year. In the constituency of the hon. member for Potgietersrus a man was also killed a year or two ago while he was spraying finches, and in the constituency of the hon. member for Marico an aeroplane crashed this year, but fortunately the pilot managed to escape with his life. We are filled with gratitude towards the men who carry out this work in order to save the kaffir-corn crop for our farmers. We want to pay tribute to those men and to convey our sincere sympathy to the bereaved of those who lost their lives.

There are various factors, such as moonlit nights and rain during the night, that make finch control more difficult. There are many problems in connection with the spraying of finches. One of these is to get them to concentrate on a few morgen at night where they can then be sprayed. A second problem is that some of our farmers are rather reluctant to have spraying carried out on their land, and there is no measure in terms of which they may be compelled to do so. Rain and moonlit nights make the work more difficult, as I have said. Then, too, there are certain companies that are very selective and that only want to spray here and there where it is the most profitable. There is a shortage of aeroplanes. In Waterberg, Marico and Roedtan five were put out of action within the space of a few weeks when we sprayed the finches there. No fewer than 11 private companies helped to save the kaffir-corn crop. One aeroplane was even brought over from Moçambique, and a commercial aeroplane was converted for spraying purposes, all through the efforts of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services, in order to save the kaffir-corn crop for the farmers, and to a large extent it was in fact saved. Accordingly I also want to express my thanks to the Department of Agricultural Technical Services, to both the Minister and the Deputy Minister, and to all the officials concerned, from the highest to the lowest. Time and again it was only necessary to make one telephone call to the office of the Secretary and on each occasion I would receive a full telex message from Pretoria two days later setting out the entire position and explaining how the finches were continually being combated and how millions were being exterminated. Mr. Chairman, we exterminated 50 million finches last year, and so did Rhodesia, and do you know what has been done so far this year? One hundred and ninety giant concentrations over a total area of 3,500 square miles have been exterminated. I have made some calculations here on the estimated basis that one finch can consume two bags of grain a year, and I find that in South Africa alone, during the period of one month which the finches have to destroy our grain, they could consume eight million bags if the Department of Agricultural Technical Services did not apply any control measures. In a normal year we have a crop of 2-f million bags. If such a quantity were available, they would consume eight million bags of grain and cause our farmers losses to the amount of R25 million at current prices.

Sir, I now come to veld reclamation. [Time expired.]

I hope the hon. member will not expect me to follow him and to pursue this subject of finches.

How did he count them?

That question I can answer; he counted the squeaks and divided by two, so he knew how many millions there were.

Sir, there are two matters which I would like to bring to the attention of the hon. the Minister before I come to the particular matter I would like to deal with. On page 174 of the Estimates I notice that item Q, “Veterinary field services” is being cut this year by R95.300 and that item R, “Plant Pest Control” is being cut by R103,200. I hope that the hon. the Minister will be able to give us some details in regard to these cuts. I must say that the cutting of the item “Veterinary field services” by R95,300 is a tragedy. As in the case of plant pest control, so too in the case of veterinary field services, it is penny wise and pound foolish to cut these items because if there is an outbreak of disease the cost to the country is so much greater. Whatever items may have had to be cut so as to get the necessary money for the purpose of providing these services, it would have been wiser to cut those items. Sir, I would appeal to the hon. the Minister, if pressure has been brought to bear on him by the Minister of Finance …

It has nothing to do with personnel.

Perhaps the hon. the Minister will give us an explanation later on, because it fills me with alarm as I think it must fill every farmer in the country with alarm when I see that our veterinary field services, which are so important to us, have been cut by such a large amount. Then I want to refer to one last item and that is an item which appears under V, “Grants-in-aid, Contributions and Subscriptions”. I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister to treat this item very carefully. It seems to be, if not exactly a Benjamin, then a ewe lamb. I refer to the item which is fifth from the bottom of the page, “Centraalbureau voor Schimmelcultures”. Whatever “Centraalbureau voor Schimmelcultures” may be, it has not got an English name in my copy of the Estimates. Only R20 is being provided, so presumably it was such a little, unimportant item that they decided not to give it an English Christian name. But whatever the position may be, perhaps the hon. the Minister will tell us something about this little item.

Now I come to the main point I want to make. I listened to what the hon. member for Gordonia had to say in connection with the improvement of our labour on our farms. Here I want to make an appeal to the Minister, an appeal which has been made in past years, and that is for facilities for the training of the Bantu who work on the farms. Sir, throughout the years virtually each farmer has trained his own Bantu. I am leaving out the Cape where the Coloured people constitute the labour force. I want it to be clearly understood that I am not referring to those folk at all. I am talking about the areas in which the Bantu are the labour force. I am referring to the Bantu whom we ourselves train and then so often lose. Those of us who grew up on farms—and I suppose the hon. the Minister was one of them—graduated from herding, learning how to plough, attending to the milking, to inspanning the oxen. All the work on the farm we as youngsters did ourselves; we did it as a matter of course, and our Native servants followed precisely the same procedure. But, Sir, those days have past, and to-day the white farmer is virtually a man in the managerial class, and very often the successful farmer is the man who is a good manager. He is a good administrator of the activities on his farm.

A good organizer.

Yes. he is a good organizer. He is in the managerial class. He no longer himself inspans the oxen or takes the whip or holds the plough handle. As our farming activities have gone forward, it has become more and more necessary that we should have properly trained Bantu. We will have to pay them higher wages; there is no doubt about that. The whole tendency is upwards and we will have to continue to pay higher and higher wages, but we want to get productivity with it. Under the system which exists at the present time, where you train your Native workmen and they then leave you for perhaps a month or two, you are compelled to take other Natives in their place and when they return you cannot get them because of the labour bureaux. They are now disposed of to somebody else. A Native on your farm whom you have trained and who has learned to be of some use to you—perhaps as a tractor driver with a licence—leaves you for a month or two and the next thing you see is that he is lugging big cases for somebody or other in a warehouse; he is doing purely manual labour for somebody to whom he has been draughted by the labour bureau. Sir, this is all wrong; this is not the way to handle our labour to the best advantage. This is the point with which the hon. member for Gordonia started to deal and then he seemed to stop and he went off at a tangent. Sir, we have to get the best out of our labour. The economy of the farming community in this country is dependent not only on competent managerial ranks, on competent white farmers, but it is equally dependent upon competent lower ranks, upon the Bantu workmen who are still the labour force as far as our farms are concerned. Sir, we want training facilities for them so that they can be trained and we want to be allowed to keep them. I see no reason why a farmer who is willing to pay a good wage to keep a first-class Native in his employ, should not be allowed to keep him if the Native is willing to stay there. I see no reason why a system cannot be evolved whereby that Native can be retained by that farmer. If he has to go back to his kraal for a month or two and a temporary Native is taken in his place …

There is nothing to stop you from keeping him as long as you pay his wages.

Sir, the hon. the Deputy Minister is talking nonsense.

No, I am not.

He suggests that there is nothing to prevent me from keeping that Native if I continue to pay his wages. In Heaven’s name, has he ever seen a Native servant? Does he know what will happen if I tell my Native servant, “You can go home and I will pay your wages while you are at home”? How long does he think it will take before that native will come back to work for me under those circumstances? How long would he, a white man, work for a master who allows him to go home and who continues to pay his wages while he is at home? No, this is a case of proper technical training as a national policy, and then the maintenance of the relationship between that servant and that master by administrative means when once the trained Native has been accepted and is prepared to work for that master. Sir, I do appeal to the hon. the Minister to adopt this national policy, not in relation to homelands for the Bantu or anything of that sort but in relation to the necessary, properly trained Bantu staff for the farmers who, if they are to keep their heads above water today, must be well-trained themselves and must have well-trained staff as well.

The hon. member for South Coast will pardon me if I do not follow him in his argument, because he asked the hon. the Minister to reply to his representations. I should very much like to come back to the argument of the hon. member for Newton Park, who complained about the shortage of extension officers, veterinary surgeons, research workers and other scientists. The hon. member did not tell us where the scientists, research workers, veterinary surgeons and extension officers were going. Sir, we all know every well where they are going. They hardly spend six years in the service, fully trained by the State, before they are enticed away by the fertilizer companies and the fuel companies. If the hon. member wanted to make a good suggestion to-night, he should have asked the Government to take away the subsidies given by the Government to those fertilizer companies, because if they can pay these people twice as much as the Public Service their profits are obviously too large. If that is done, this practice of enticing away people will soon stop.

I should like to refer to Vote 32, item T, in respect of which R33,500 is requisitioned for the Agricultural Engineering Services section. This amount represents an increase of only R600 on the previous year’s allocation. I should like to plead that as soon as the country’s financial position permits it, more ample provision should be made for funds for this most important section. It is interesting to note that from 12,000 to 14,000 new tractors, most of them for agricultural purposes, are sold in this country annually. The number of tractors in the agricultural industry increased from 87,451 in 1955 to more than 126,000 in 1962. More than 69,000 lorries, 83,000 stationary engines, 154.000 disc-ploughs, 14,000 power-driven threshing machines, 10,000 combines, 43,000 wagons and trolleys and 184.000 windmills are in use in agriculture. In 1966 the cost of maintaining and repairing this farm machinery amounted to R38 million. Apart from fertilizers and fuel this is the third highest cost item in the farmer’s production costs. Mr. Chairman, in view of the imminent further intensifying of agriculture, and the progressively decreasing labour supply, which is such a source of concern to the hon. member for South Coast, more and more mechanization can be expected. Thus research and effective mechanical cotton-picking machines and groundnut harvesting machines have become urgently necessary. In this it is incumbent on the Agricultural Engineering Services Section to take the lead in order that effective mechanization development may keep abreast of the growing demands made of the farmer at present. I want to express the hope that the hon. the Minister will seriously consider, through co-operation between this Section and organized agriculture, having a farm safety code drawn up timeously and also having it enforced. Concomitant with the increase in mechanization I have outlined to you, the accident risk is also increasing. This risk shows a tendency to increase more rapidly than the number of farming implements. At present criminal proceedings may be instituted against a farmer in certain cases for culpable homicide if labourers are injured by unprotected driving shafts, belts and moving parts and open gears, such as those of the old open power-heads that we know—the water pumps. There have been such cases of criminal prosecutions in my constituency. The farmer has no recourse whatsoever because the manufacturers of those farm implements are not subject to a safety code. We also find that road vehicle accidents in which tractors are involved in the rural areas are increasing alarmingly. From 1958 to 1965 the number increased from 200 to 460. The number of people killed as a result during the years concerned increased from 53 to 117, and the number of injured from 149 to 452, and those are not vehicles which C3n travel at 70 miles an hour. Mr. Chairman, it is an alarming increase and it gives rise to a great loss of effective productivity on the farm. The number of accidents which occurred in 1962 as a result of illegal mechanical conditions and which caused temporary disability of workers was 586 in the case of Whites, Asiatics and Coloureds and 4,027 in the case of Bantu. Accidents which occurred in 1962 as a result of the actions of Whites, Asiatics and Coloureds, accidents for which the labourer himself was responsible, caused temporary disability in 205 cases. With regard to Bantu the figure was 1,348. What it is at present, I cannot say. As it is, I obtained the figure in respect of 1962 only with the greatest difficulty. This is a gloomy picture. The State, the manufacturer, the farmer and the labourer himself will also have to give serious attention to designing safe agricultural machinery and also to their safer use on farms. For that reason it is pleasing that in the course of the past week we had a talk on this subject on “Landbouradio”. One has to commend the section for the positive service they are performing. The Agricultural Engineering Services Section is the appropriate section to complete this task.

The last point I want to raise is one in which the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) should support me. These Estimates provide an amount of R2.600 as a grant-in-aid to the Royal Agricultural Society of Natal. With the assistance and support of the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) I want to request the hon. the Minister to suspend this grant until such time as that Agricultural Society has a less “royal” aspect.

Let me say that the Agricultural Society referred to by the hon. member who has just sat down, a Society of which I am proud to be a member, is very proud of that name; it is proud of its charter and will continue to observe it notwithstanding the attempt by the hon. member for Pretoria (District), as well as others, to take that name away from them. That Society is part of the history of Natal and the hon. member’s suggestion is merely an extension of this wicked programme we heard over the radio on Monday night and which we discussed earlier.

However, the hon. member gave us an awful lot of statistics about the engineering division and asked for a greater allocation to it. He spoke about the operators of farming machinery, about the dangers attached to it, about safety measures, and about other matters while forgetting the most important thing of all—the training of that operator. The hon. member for South Coast raised this matter first and asked for the department to train Bantu farm labour or at least to give some assistance to the farmer to do it. Where the farmer himself trains his labourers he loses them again on account of the policy of the hon. Deputy Minister of Bantu Development. In a radio talk on the 22nd May, the hon. the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services said, according to a report in the Natal Witness of the 23rd May, that the great task of agriculture during the next ten years was to combine the energies of the farmer with that of the scientist in order to ensure an improved system of conservation farming. He went on to say that this does not consist merely of the control of soil erosion but also of scientifically planned and judiciously applied systems of farming, which aim not only at the prevention of loss of soil but also, and in particular, at the development of the potential of all our agricultural resources. This is what the Minister said. But unfortunately he did not refer to our most important resource, a resource we are wasting at the present moment—our labour. Our labour force, both white and nonwhite, is being completely disregarded by this hon. Minister and by this Nationalist Government. I cannot agree more with the hon. the Minister when he said the time had come for the Government …

Training of labour is not my job.

But I am appealing to the hon. the Minister. I know he and other hon. Ministers are always passing the buck; each one says it is not his job. We also saw it last year when I raised this particular issue no less than four times. But each hon. Minister only passed the buck. No one is prepared to face up to the fact that our labour needs training, particularly farm labour. The farmer needs stability and security; he knows that the labour he has trained he will not be able to keep. The time has come when we expect this Government to act. Why do we have people like Mr. L. B. Knoll when he addressed a congress on productivity, saying “opleiding van plaasarbeid in die vorm waarin dit in die ny-werheid bekend is, bestaan feitlik glad nie in die landbou nie”.

Order! I think this is a matter which should be raised under the Vote of the Department of Bantu Education.

May I submit, with respect, Sir, that I am dealing with farm labour as a whole and not only with Bantu labour. I am dealing with the training of labour for the farmers. I submit this is the function of the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services.

Order! There is no item on these Estimates covering this particular matter.

I am referring to it under the Minister’s policy. The reason why Mr. Knoll can make a statement like this is that there are no facilities for the trainig of farm labour in South Africa. I know about the two training centres in the Transkei to which the hon. Deputy Minister will no doubt refer me. But of what use are they to farmers in South Africa? They are not getting any labour from there. But why are there no facilities in South Africa for the training of labour? It is because this labour is almost exclusively non-White. When a farmer in the Orange Free State enquired from the Secretary for Bantu Administration about the possibility of establishing training colleges he replied: “Bantoelandbouskole in die blanke gebied sal strydig met ons beleid wees.” Therefore they cannot allow it. That is the answer. It is the old old story of apartheid gone mad. We have to work with the non-Whites, we have to use them as labourers but we are not allowed to train them within the white areas.

Never.

There is the hon. the Deputy Minister again saying they will never train them within the white areas.

Why don’t you train them yourself?

The Natal and East Griqualand Fresh Milk Producers Union, realizing the dire necessity for trained labour for the farming industry, asked the Government to allow them to establish a training centre for the training of non-White labour for farmers. But what was the answer they got? The non-Whites will be trained in their so-called homelands. Is the hon. the Deputy Minister prepared to train Bantu and to make them available to the farmer? Is the hon. the Minister or the Government prepared to make them available? What is the use of training them in the Bantu areas? The farmers do not see them. Hon. members on this side have pleaded with hon. Ministers to do something about it, but every time we get the same answer—no. Meanwhile, the farmer admits that he is employing too many labourers. We know that every farm labourer in South Africa only feeds ten persons, in comparison with one labourer in the United States feeding 30 persons. Why is it? Because those labourers in the United States have been trained to do specific jobs. Mr. Chairman, wastage of our labour resources can no longer be tolerated, least of all on our farms. It is that industry which utilizes its labour to the maximum of their capacity which will make a beneficial contribution to South Africa’s economic progress. But, on the other hand, the price of inefficiency in the utilization of our labour—and I hope the hon. the Minister as well as the hon. the Deputy Minister will take note of this …

You are incapable of training Bantu labourers. You are even incapable of being trained as a politician.

Well, there are no facilities for me to be trained—not even as a farm labourer.

I know the United Party has no facilities to train someone like you.

It is the duty of this Government to assist the farmer in this regard. The hon. the Minister knows that farm labourers are expected to work with expensive machinery, with valuable animals and they are expected to show a degree of responsibility and they must be stable. But what is being done to encourage the farmer to develop his labour, labour which is essential to him? Because, without the food we have to produce this country will get nowhere. The producer is directly affected by the level of labour efficiency. In other facets of our economic life, in industry and commerce, screening tests are used to determine the aptitude and the abilities of labour units. When the results of this screening can be followed up by training, efficiency can be greatly improved. Moreover, the labour turn-over is reduced. This is very important. In our farming industry there is a compelling need for properly selected and properly trained labour. Individual farmers cannot operate training schools. [Time expired.]

Order! Before calling upon the next hon. member to speak, I just want to say that if hon. members want to continue speaking on the training of Bantu, a matter which in my view comes under a different Vote, they should dispose of the matter now, because then I shall not allow them to raise it on the other Vote.

I should like to say something with regard to the argument of the hon. “Royal” member for Pietermaritzburg (District), but unfortunately the matter on which he spoke was ruled out of order by you. I nevertheless hope you will permit me to make one observation, namely that according to the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) the success of agriculture in South Africa, as far as the Department of Agricultural Technical Services is concerned, depends on the training of skilled Bantu farmers. To me that seems to be the entire “Royal” object of his argument. But it is quite clear to us what the United Party’s attitude is in respect of these matters, and therefore I do not want to go into it any further. I want to come back to a statement made by the hon. member for Newton Park. He spoke of a tremendous shortage of extension officers. I contend that in some respects this shortage has had a good effect on our agriculture. I say that because it presented our farmers themselves with an opportunity to participate in the activities of the Department. Recently the Minister made an announcement to the effect that young farmers may now also assist in assessing fences, surveying contours, etc. They are paid for that. They are compensated for their travelling expenses, and also paid a salary. It is a very good opportunity which is afforded to our young farmers, to allow them to perform this service. At the same time it also gives them the necessary knowledge of soil conservation and creates in them a stronger awareness of the objects of soil conservation. We want to thank the hon. the Minister for this concession made by him. But I want to continue.

Apparently the hon. member for Newton Park is not aware of the development which has taken place with regard to the implementation of the Soil Conservation Act in so far as it affects the work of soil conservation committees. Recently endeavours have been made —and very great success has also been achieved in this regard—to get members of soil conservation committees to take soil conservation courses and farm planning courses. I myself attended some of these courses, and I may tell you that the courses have made a tremendous contribution to farm planning. At the same time it also means that the services of the extension officers, people who are in such short supply as it is, are made more readily available. It has come to my knowledge that certain members of certain soil conservation committees can cope, independently of the extension officer, with planning a farm, drawing up the required farm schedules, and carrying out the entire farm planning quite independently of the extension officer.

But this matter has also been taken further. Organized agriculture is now beginning to assist the Department of Agricultural Technical Services. To me one of the problems has always been the fact that in the field of organized agriculture we concentrated more particularly on the marketing and price aspects of agriculture. We did not bother very much about the production factor, the technical section of agriculture. As an example, I want to refer to what the Natal Agricultural Union said. They decided to form a kind of liaison committee with the Department of Agricultural Technical Services in order to convey to the farmer all the research work undertaken by the Department. The idea was to establish liaison between the Department and the farmer through the farmers’ own organization. In this regard I want to quote what appeared in Georganiseerde Landbou. With reference to this liaison committee, the writer said the following—

You will therefore note that the farmer himself wishes to take part in the activities of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services. For that reason I maintain that it is important that we should see the positive aspect of these shortages, and that we should act accordingly.

I should just like to say something about soil conservation in South Africa. Recently the hon. the Minister said in the Other Place that the Soil Conservation Act was now 21 years old and that it was therefore necessary to take an inventory to see what the position was and what adjustments had to be made in future for the better implementation of this Act, and what action had to be taken for the better promotion of soil conservation and curbing of soil erosion. In the past 21 years 815 soil conservation districts have been proclaimed. These cover plus-minus 113 million morgen and represent the major part of our country, namely something like 90 per cent. A few areas, which are urban areas, are excluded and do not come under this.

Now it is important to me, in view of the fact that we have reached the stage where the entire country has been drawn in organizationally, through the establishment of soil conservation committees, that to be able to continue with the work we have now reached a new phase. The new phase is the following. As we have now fostered the proper attitude on the part of the farming community as regards applying soil conservation, we should now give further assistance and stimulate the matter even further. A good deal of progress is being made in drawing up farm plans, although this is not yet applied satisfactorily. I feel that the stage will in fact still be reached where in respect of rendering auxiliary services to our farmers by way of stock loans and production credit, the State will also have to take into consideration the degree of soil conservation applied by the applicant on his farm. Production credit cannot be granted to people who then proceed to fertilize their soil incorrectly and consequently diminish the fertility of the soil. This actually means that indirectly the State is contributing to the neglect of soil conservation. A responsible Government such as the National Party Government cannot and will not do this. I feel that when it comes to rendering financial aid to a farmer this factor should also be taken as a criterion.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Bethal, who has just sat down, said that it was the policy of this side of the House, to quote his own words, “om geskoolde Bantoeboere op te lei”. Now, that is exactly the policy of the Government because that is exactly what they are doing in the Bantu homelands. I have no quarrel with that …

Order! I now rule that the question of teaching Bantu must be raised under Bantu Education and not under this Vote. The hon. the Minister has nothing at all to do with this matter.

Mr. Chairman, I want to respect your ruling, but I must say this. Hon. members on that side of the House will pay no attention to sensible suggestions as regards the training of farm labour, whatever race they happen to belong to, sensible suggestions such as sending properly equipped mobile instructional units round to our farms to train our labour of whatever race they may be. [Interjections.]

You must train your own labour.

The hon. gentleman says that we must train our own labour. I suppose he expects us to train our own sons, for example (and we do a lot of that, instead) of sending them to an agricultural college. [Interjections.] Really, Sir, I think that the hon. the Deputy Minister must get his thoughts into line on this question.

I want to come back to the question raised here earlier, a question I raised last year, namely the shortage of veterinary surgeons. Last year I raised this matter in connection with the question of the establishment of a second veterinary faculty. There is no argument that we are indeed short of veterinary surgeons. In fact, the hon. the Minister agreed that that is so last year. He said, and I quote from Hansard—

Last year the Minister turned down the request for a second veterinary faculty. He said that it would be very nice, that it would be a good thing to have, but it costs a lot of money, and in the meanwhile we could expand Onderstepoort. I do not want to pursue this argument unduly, but I want to say to the Minister that I am certain that this is an incorrect decision on his part. If we were to establish a second faculty we would get a large number of scientists from overseas, willing to explore the veterinary problems that we have in this country, just as happened in the days of Dr. Theiler, when they came to our country because there were veterinary problems here that needed solution. I also want to say that, however high the standard at Onderstepoort is—and it is something of which every South African can be justly proud—the existence of a second faculty would act as a stimulus to Onderstepoort.

It would give them a friendly sense of rivalry and would raise the already high standard of veterinary surgeons in our country. Then there is also the technical consideration that when you get classes of more than 30— and the classes are about that to-day, the intake is up to 45—-you find practical difficulties, especially in regard to their practical classes. There is no doubt that at the present rate we are doing very little to overcome the shortage of veterinary surgeons in our country. The shortage of those surgeons is costing the stock farmer in this country a tremendous amount of money. According to the latest Statistical Yearbook, in 1962-’63 we lost by death from disease approximately 295,000 cattle and 1.172,000 sheep and goats. If we put that at a very low estimate, and excluding poultry, horses and pigs and other farm animals, it amounts to over R20 million. We should not merely be attempting to increase the number of veterinary surgeons in this country, but we should be attempting to use those that we already have more efficiently.

I now want to come back to what was said earlier by the hon. member for Newton Park in regard to the use of part-time veterinary surgeons by the Government. One of the good innovations the hon. the Minister has made since he took over this Department was the use of trained farmers to relieve the pressure on technical officers in the extension services. We welcome that. Similarly the Department of Health has used a system of part-time district surgeons for many years. For example in 1966 the Department of Health employed no less than 450 part-time district surgeons as against only 46 employed full-time. I do appeal to the Minister to consider very seriously indeed the use of private veterinary surgeons who are practising in the country areas on a part-time basis in order to carry out routine duties for his Department. As far back as 1962 at a veterinary congress at Onderstepoort the then Minister of Agricultural Technical Services said that the Department was formulating a scheme similar to this for tuberculosis control in cattle. What has happened to this scheme? Five years have elapsed but nothing seems to have happened. According to Dr. Steyn at the South African Veterinary Medical Congress in Pretoria in 1965, one of the Department’s objections was that it would be impossible to exercise control over part-time employees. I do not know whether that is the objection, but, if so, I should like to ask how the Department of Health manages to exercise control over its part-time employees. I am convinced that these private practitioners in these country areas have a very big role to play in this regard. I think it would help to offset to some extent the trend whereby about two-thirds of the people who go into private veterinary practice go into practice in our cities. The reasons are that practices in the country areas—due to the distances involved and the high charges they consequently have to impose on their customers who need veterinary services—are not always remunerative. If their earnings could be supplemented by a Government salary in the same way as part-time district surgeon’s earnings are supplemented, it would considerably increase the chance of attracting those people to the country districts where they are needed in order to cope with stock diseases. There is no doubt that this would relieve the pressure on our State veterinarians. I could cite many instances. When recently there was an outbreak of rabies in my area the State veterinarian had to spend a tremendous amount of his time going around and doing a routine job of inoculating dogs against rabies. This could well have been done by a private veterinarian who could at the same time have worked it in with his normal calls on the customers who asked him to come and treat their animals. I am sure that such a system would work to the advantage both of the State and the private veterinarians and would certainly go a long way towards easing this shortage.

There is another entirely different matter which I should like to raise, namely the question of the control of the Karroo caterpillar, commonly known as the “ruspe”. For many years there has been no research in this regard. A year or two ago an officer was reappointed at Grootfontein Agricultural College in order to do this research. This caterpillar is spreading into districts where it was never known before. In many Karroo areas the farmers almost fear a good season because a good season brings these caterpillars out in great numbers. [Time limit.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Albany has raised several matters, and if I were to deal with each of them you would have to permit me to borrow some time from the Minister, otherwise I could not do justice to them. The hon. member started with the training of farm labour, proceeded to veterinary surgeons, and eventually reached caterpillars. I do not intend responding to this, although I am indebted to him for one matter he discussed here, namely that relating to the training of veterinary surgeons at a centre other than Onderstepoort. I am most grateful for the support he is giving us, but I think he is convinced that we shall get it at Stellenbosch before he gets it in the Eastern Province. I should like to speak on a matter for which I have only ten minutes available, namely research in the Western Province. We could also adopt a countrywide approach to this matter, but I should like to see it against the background of the Western Province because here there is a very strong feeling that applied research in particular has been somewhat neglected and that perhaps just a bit too much time is being spent on basic research. I do not want to disparage the value of basic research in any way, as it was done in the past, because we are convinced that basic research is the pedestal and foundation on which any practical research can be based. But in this regard we are thinking in particular of the tremendous progress made in other parts of our country in recent years, particularly in respect of genetics and maize breeding. I should like to present it to hon. members against this background. In recent years tremendous progress has been made in the field of the hybridizing techniques as regards maize, with the result that there has been a considerable increase in production. When I was at Stellenbosch and we learned about the production in different parts of the world, we were told that Egypt, with a yield of 20 bags a morgen, had the highest production. If I am not mistaken, I can well remember that the other day the hon. member for Standerton held out the prospect that 25, 40, 50 and even 75 bags a morgen were not beyond practical possibility. Now we feel that here in this part of the country where we are primarily dependent on wheat, and secondly on fodder crops, particularly lucerne, we should also plead in this connection, where research is being undertaken to bring about an increase in the production in these two different fields, that in this period of economizing there should be no economizing in respect of research which is undertaken with a view to bringing about greater productivity. I want to plead that when expenditure is curtailed there should rather be saving in other fields than in expenditure which is concerned specifically with the promotion of higher productivity. We plead with the Minister that particularly in respect of buildings, staff, and sometimes also in respect of transport, he should not allow a straw to be laid in the way of research.

There is not much regarding which I differ from the hon. member who has just sat down. I fully agree with him that there is not sufficient research being done, especially in the Western Province and I will support him in his plea to have more research. I want to come back just for one minute to the hon. member for Gordonia, who said that we should not criticize very much now, because a year ago this Government realized that there was something wrong with agriculture, and therefore they appointed a commission to investigate the agricultural industry. We on this side realized many years ago that there is something wrong with agriculture in this country. I think about four or five years ago we introduced a private member’s motion m this House, asking the Government to appoint such a commission as they appointed recently. If they had appointed a commission at that time to investigate, they would have reported years ago. That report could have been implemented and the position could have been much better than it is to-day.

I think the Minister will not object if we are critical. I want to tell him that the criticism that we offer is in connection with something of national importance. I can assure the Minister that we on this side are not making any political issues of this debate. We are not trying to score any political points. We genuinely realize how serious soil erosion in this country is to-day. I know the members on the other side of the House realize it as fully as we do. Therefore, we think that we are right in bringing this matter pertinently to the Minister’s attention. We feel that we should do so and I think that it is our duty to do so. Last year we also stated what the dangers were, and how disastrous soil erosion was. We compared it with the destruction of a war. I think the hon. the Minister will remember that. As far as voting money for building up the defences of this country is concerned we have stood by the Government and we have at all times been prepared to do it. I want to give the Minister the assurance that any money the Government is prepared to spend on soil conservation will be wholeheartedly supported by this side of the House. But I want to say at once that progress has been made in connection with soil conservation. More farms have been planned than were planned three, four, five or six years ago. But the progress that is being made, is far too slow and is not keeping pace with the soil destruction that is also taking place. Therefore we plead that far more should be done in order to rectify the damage that has been done and at a far greater pace than what we are doing it now.

The hon. the Minister said only a fortnight ago that the desert was creeping forward a mile a year. During the past 20 years the desert has encroached northwards at the rate of a mile a year on an average. Coupled with this, was the general deterioration of the veld in most of South Africa’s grazing areas. His own Department says, according to Landbounuus, in an article under the heading: “Beter propaganda nodig om veld te red”:

One can go on. I did not want to read it all. Here is a picture showing the Deputy Minister on the west coast and the tremendous progress made by wind-blown sand on the west coast. In this article he states that we will have to expropriate some of those farms in order to do something to stop that process. He also states: “Farmers must not overtax the veld. I wish to make it very clear to those participating in this scheme, all farmers of soil conservation districts, that there will be a strong temptation, either to back out or not to give the veld a proper opportunity.” I shall come back to that. “Stop this frightening loss of soil”, and so one can go on. I do not want-to read it all. I first want to mention the fact that there is to-day a tremendous number of people who realize that we are not catching up with the destruction that is taking place.

Do you think we could ever stop soil erosion entirely?

I do not know whether we can stop it entirely. I do not suppose so. But we can improve our position so that we can some day attain the situation where the destruction is less than the reclamation. If we cannot do that, then there is no future for this country. I maintain that there is not enough drive on the part of the Government in connection with this matter. Too little is being spent and there is an acute shortage of officials. The hon. member over there said that he did not think that the fact that there was a shortage of extension officers was a great factor, because it taught farmers to be more self-reliant.

I am sure the hon. the Minister does not agree with him. I am sure the Minister would appoint far more extension officers if he could get them. I quite agree that it is right that the farmers should take a more active interest, and I quite agree that they are beginning to take a more active interest, but the fact still remains that I believe that if we had far more extension officers the Minister would take them like a shot. To-day, as the position is, there are terrifically long delays in getting an extension officer to visit and to plan a farm. I know of a case just recently where a young farmer wanted an extension officer to visit his farm to advise him in connection with dry land lucerne. He had made a weir across the river and he had made the necessary lands at great cost, and some of the lands did well and some did not, and he wanted further advice but he had to wait two years to get it. Does the Minister realize what a tremendous amount of frustration that caused?

I have mentioned that the hon. the Minister spoke about the advance of the desert at the rate of a mile a year. If this goes on it will cost very much more to remedy the position. The sooner we stop it, the less it will ultimately cost the country. Therefore we should get on with the job. [Interjection.] The hon. the Deputy Minister agrees with me and yet he does not get on with the job. That is all we want. If we leave it too late, it will ultimately cost the country hundreds of millions of rands more than it will cost now. Last year I warned that I did not think the Minister’s scheme of veld reclamation, the subsidization of the withdrawal of one-third of the veld, would really work. [Time limit.]

Before I respond to the statements made by the hon. member for Gardens and the hon. member for Newton Park, I want to make a very cordial and serious appeal to the S.A.B.C. For the past month or so a talk on our soil was broadcast every morning by Dolf van Niekerk. In those talks he drew the attention of listeners in a masterly and striking fashion to the importance of the soil of South Africa. To me it was such an important and impressive talk that I should like to ask them whether it is not possible to make a repeat broadcast of those talks by Dolf van Niekerk on our soil for a month or so every year. I mention this because I consider it so important in relation to the value of the soil of South Africa, and one is reminded involuntarily of the words that the heritage of our fathers should also be preserved for our children. Only last year the hon. the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services took a stand on this matter.

I now come to the hon. member for Newton Park, who, although the hon. member for Gardens claimed that the United Party was not trying to score political points in this debate, could not refrain from adopting the attitude that he requested the Government to search its own heart before putting it to the farmers or even accusing them that they were not doing their duty. Then he also said that it was the task of the Minister and the Government to carry out this function. Having referred to the talks by Dolf van Niekerk. I should like to produce some proof by quoting from Veldagteruitgang in Suid-Afrika, a survey carried out by a certain Mr. Heslinga, of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services, Orange Free State Region, Glen. I want to point out that since 1920 people who undertook research have been aware of the position with regard to soil deterioration. A certain Dr. T. R. Simm said the following, amongst other things—

That was in 1920. In 1923—and then it was not the National Party which was in power and which had to search its own heart—there was the Drought Investigation Commission, which said the following—

And I want to underline this. In 1923 it was found to be essential that the individual should also bear his responsibilities. I want to submit here that even if a government and a minister were to make large amounts available for soil reclamation, it would be of no avail unless the farmer also made his contribution and cooperated wholeheartedly. If this was true in 1923, it is even more true to-day. Also in connection with the question of dessication and grazing research, a certain Dr. I. D. Pole-Evans asked in 1934 to 1938 that the Government should have a proper inquiry instituted and should take the necessary measures with regard to veld neglect and the deterioration of our soil. No, those hon. members should make a better study of the history of soil erosion and veld deterioration before accusing this Government and the Minister. An official, Dr. Verbeeck, who spoke on meat production and drought problems in the Republic, said that the natural grazing of the country had long been over-taxed and that in general, but in particular in regions with a rainfall of 20 inches and less a year, there had been no decline in over-grazing since the inquiry of the Drought Commission in 1923. Years afterwards the United Party was still in government in this country, and what extraordinary and superhuman efforts were made by our predecessors in an attempt to counter this problem! It would have cost millions of rand less if they had been alert at that time, but we know them as people who are not interested in the soil and in the farmers of South Africa, except when it comes to making some political gain from the matter.

I now come to the present hon. Deputy Minister of Agriculture. They are the ones who tell us to search our own hearts, but listen what the hon. the Minister said on 19th November last year—

This proves that the hon. the Deputy Minister is aware of the situation and takes it to heart, because he loves the soil of South Africa. The present hon. Minister of Agricultural Technical Services also said on 16th May, 1966—

He referred to the conditions brought about by soil erosion in our grazing. There is tangible proof that it has been a problem in our country through the years, and I blame the previous Government because they did not make those vast sums of money available timeously. An hon. member referred to the large amounts spent by this Government on Defence. Why did not the Government of that time set aside a small portion of the tremendous amounts they spent on a senseless war in order to stop this problem timeously and to introduce better methods of preserving our soil? This question of the income of the farmer cannot be divorced from the task of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services. It is my humble opinion that soil conservation is one of the most important tasks of this Department. In these Estimates we have tangible evidence that we are not the only ones who appreciate this, but through the years the Estimates have produced proof of that through the large amounts made available for research, for combating soil erosion, for veld conservation, for subsidies on camp systems, etc. The fact of the matter is that 83 per cent of our farmers are not yet applying the camp grazing system, and if that is the case the soil cannot rehabilitate and reclaim itself.

I conclude by saying that unless the question of soil conservation in South Africa, and also of water conservation, is regarded as a matter of national interest—and in this I do not want to draw in only the farmers, but also the consumers in the cities, who also have to do their duty, and not, like many hotels in Cape Town … [Time expired.]

I do not think that we on this side ever suggested that this Government was solely responsible for soil erosion, and that soil erosion only started since they came into power. There is no doubt that it has been going on for many years. It went on in the time of the old S.A. Party Government and it went on in the time of the old Nationalist Party Government, and it again went on in the time of the United Party Government. It has been going on a long time and we are not blaming this Government for the fact that there is soil erosion. The hon. member did not listen. We are suggesting to the Government that this question should be tackled with all the determination at their disposal.

I was talking about the veld reclamation scheme, and I said that last year I had my doubts as to whether it would really be a success. The idea is undoubtedly excellent. I wholeheartedly support the idea of withdrawing portions and subsidizing the farmers, but I think the subsidy is too small. The farmers find themselves in such a poor economic position to-day that they have to do the best they can in order to get an income on which they can subsist or exist, and under those circumstances they cannot withdraw these portions of ground, and I hope that the hon. the Minister will reconsider the scheme and make it more attractive to the farmers because it is an excellent scheme and it is certainly one that we should put into practice. Sir, the farmer simply have not got the necessary capital today. I think this point was also made by the hon. member for Newton Park. As a result of their poor incomes, aggravated by droughts, they find that they have not got the necessary capital and that they cannot implement these schemes and the Government will have to give them greater assistance in order to enable them to implement these schemes.

Reference was also made by Mr. Wouter van der Merwe, one of the regional officers, to the fact that we are not getting our propaganda over to the farmers.

We have been busy with this the whole afternoon.

Sir, the farmers in this House are fully conscious of the necessity of this work but the hon. the Minister will agree with me when I say that not all the farmers outside of this House realize the necessity of this work. We are not succeeding in bringing home to them the seriousness of this matter.

Surely we are not speaking here for the benefit of members of this House only.

No, the hon. the Minister is quite right; that is the point I am making. Sir, I say that better methods should be used to bring home the necessity of this work to the farmers, and in this connection I want to make a suggestion. I think it should be possible for the Government to make films depicting the state of the country as a result of soil erosion.

We have them.

The Government should make films depicting the conditions in the country and showing what remedies can be applied. These films should be short films; I would suggest that they be 10-minute films, and then the hon. the Minister should approach all the cinema companies and ask them to exhibit these films throughout the country.

My attention was distracted for a moment; will you please repeat that point.

I am suggesting that short films be made showing the ravages of soil erosion. The exhibition of these films should be accompanied by a short talk on the remedies. The films should not be longer than ten minutes and they should be shown throughout the country. They should not cost very much to make. If the Government were to make, say, a dozen short films of different conditions of this kind, one film could be shown in, say, Cape Town for a week. After an interval of a month another different film should then be shown. If this were done, people would hot get tired of these films and at the same time they would make an impression on the mind of the public. In this way we will educate our urban population. These films should be shown in all the country cinemas. Let the farmers and members of the public see exactly what the position is. I believe that we can make much more effective propaganda by letting the people see what the actual position is. It will be much easier for us then to bring home to the farmers and to the public the gravity of the situation. Sir, I believe also that direct contact with the farmer is necessary and that is why I believe that extension officers are absolutely necessary. The new scheme of using farmers who are trained is an excellent one. I remember that in the thirties when the old soil conservation scheme was brought into being, the farmers did the work. As a matter of fact, I was one of those who went round the country and took levels and determined where walls should be built. The system worked very well.

Surely you were not a farmer then.

I was; why should I have not been a farmer? I happened to be more than a farmer; I happened to be well-trained in the use of instruments. I had a colleague who was an out-and-out farmer and he did very good work in this connection. Under this scheme there was closer contact between the people who knew what was to be done and the farmers, and the result was that the farmers became more conscious of what was actually necessary.

Sir, I would like to raise one other matter and that is the question of fodder banks. I think that the Government should assist farmers to build up fodder banks on their farms to enable them to withstand perhaps not the very severe droughts but at least the seasonal droughts and droughts of medium severity. The farmers should be assisted by way of subsidies to build the necessary sheds. Railage on the transport of fodder should be subsidized in the same way as maize is subsidized.

I have enough troubles of my own; that is a matter which does not fall under me.

Sir, the hon. the Minister has broad shoulders; I am quite sure he can carry a few more problems. I think it is necessary to have these fodder banks and some assistance and encouragement should be given to farmers in order to build up fodder banks. I also think that in times of severe drought farmers should be able to withdraw their stock—and here I am thinking particularly of sheep—from the veld and feed them at home where they cannot trample out the veld. That should be encouraged and the farmer should be given assistance in this connection.

There is a great deal of danger in that idea too.

There may be some danger attached to it but I would rather have my sheep withdrawn from my farm when it is in a very bad state and feed them at home, if that is at all possible, than to have them roaming across the veld and tramping it out.

The last matter I wish to raise is the question of “dik kop”. We have had terrific losses this past year again, as in many other years, as a result of “dik kop”, especially in the Karoo areas. I think there is one farmer near De Aar who lost 1,000 sheep through “dik kop”. I know that research is being undertaken. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister will be good enough to tell us what degree of success has been achieved and whether more cannot be done in this connection. The losses are terrific every two or three years as a result of “dik kop”. We would like the Minister to tell us what has been done and I hope he will be able to tell us that much more will be done about this in the future.

The hon. member for Gardens has now spoken twice. He and some other members of the United Party remind me of a fresh-water angler. When they get to a river, they sit down on this bank and reel off as much line as possible and then they cast the line over to the other side; and if they sit on the other side, they cast the line towards this bank. In other words, I want to suggest that the Opposition is always devising wonderful plans which are simply not practicable. One will have more respect for them if they count their blessings and appreciated that they are living in a country such as this and that they are assisted by the Government, particularly as regards technical services. I want to give one example. Throughout the Republic of South Africa most of our people are fond of meat, and if it were not for the Department of Agricultural Technical Services we would quite possibly have reached the stage where instead of meat we would probably be compelled to eat those chickens which never see any sunlight. Mr. Chairman, in particular I should like to convey to the Government the gratitude of Zululand and the portion of my constituency which borders on Zululand for the fact that the Department of Agricultural Technical Services took such capable action in preventing foot-and-mouth disease from spreading from the endemic regions in our neighbouring stages to the Republic of South Africa. Mr. Chairman, our people in the Republic of South Africa do not appreciate the implications of just this one step taken by the Department of Agricultural Technical Services to prevent the spreading of foot-and-mouth disease. If the Department had not acted timeously, it would have meant that we would not have been able to export; it would have meant that we would not have been able to export our hides and skins. The mere fact that foot-and-mouth disease is in fact endemic in our neighbouring states is already being used against us in countries to which we could have exported other articles, but the Opposition does not realize that. Mr. Chairman, one takes off one’s hat to this small group of technicians in the Department of Agricultural Technical Services, who have to perform their task under extremely difficult circumstances. I would even suggest that fertilizer and other firms which entice away our able technicians are committing a crime towards our country. They are committing a crime towards our farming population and towards our progeny.

I wish that I, like the members of the United Party, who always have a solution to everything, could offer a solution to the problem that this flood of people, the cream of our technicians, are drawn off by private initiative which offer them higher salaries and then simply recover their additional costs from the willing consumer. We know that from time to time the Department sends technicians overseas to do research, and in this regard I should like to suggest that these officials, before they are sent overseas, should be required to sign a contract in which they undertake to remain in the service of the Department for at least some years after their return, in order that they may first transmit the information they gathered at State expense to the people for whom that information is intended, namely the farmers of the Republic of South Africa, before they sell their services to other people. If a man is sent overseas at State expense to do research and resigns from the Public Service as soon as he returns and then uses that knowledge for the benefit of some other employer who is prepared to pay him somewhat more than the Department is able to do, then it is not quite what I consider honourable. That brings me to another matter on which I should like to say something. Unfortunately our time is too limited to hold a discussion on such an interesting matter as groundnuts. Here I should like to pay tribute to Mr. J. P. F. Sellschop. In the field of oil-seeds Mr. Sellschop is a world-famous person. He has done a tremendous amount of research and he has written many articles and pamphlets on the subject. Here I should like to refer to a most informative article in Boerdery in Suid-Afrika of February this year, in which he gives a full discussion of groundnut cultivation here in the Republic. Most people in our country know very little about groundnuts. They may buy a packet of peanuts in the street to feed the squirrels or to eat at a rugby match, but they do not even know what kind of groundnuts they are eating; they do not know how they are cultivated and where they come from. I think the Department of Agricultural Technical Services should inform the Republic in this regard by means of a publicity campaign.

Because I have only a few moments at my disposal, I just want to say that one of the greatest problems experienced by the farmers in the country in growing groundnuts is the fact that groundnuts get leaf-spot if it rains too much, with consequential loss of leaves. I mention this because in America a remedy has now been developed which consists of a compound of copper and sulphur. This remedy cannot be manufactured in the Republic because the industries are prohibited from doing so. as this compound is not permitted by schedule. It eliminates leaf-spot virtually completely, and the loss of leaves—and to the cattle farmer and people who do feeding this is of great importance—has been decreased from 40 per cent to 13 per cent. They cultivate groundnuts—and now hon. members should listen closely—where the average rainfall is 50 inches a year. It is cultivated at an altitude of 100 to 500 feet above sea level all along the Atlantic coast. Perhaps the sugar-growers can consider cultivating groundnut varieties when they face an over-production of sugar. The surplus production of sugar can be replaced by groundnut cultivation at virtually the same income. In America technical research has shown that a farmer can make a very good economic existence on 23 acres and can provide for his family if he plants groundnuts on that land and cultivates it thoroughly.

It is interesting that in all these agricultural debates the United Party has concentrated on the question of labour in relation to farming. From time to time they pleaded that we should train non-Whites for this kind of work. It would seem as though the non-Whites have become so important in our economy that we cannot do without them.

But that is true.

I do not agree. Because I happen to be in the fortunate position that my wife and I have five sons whom I plan to put to work, as I learned to work when I was a child.

If you want a Bantu, he has to be an ignorant Bantu.

I do not want any Bantu—I want my own people to work with. The whole quarrel started because they wanted to drag Bantu labour into every sector. Now I want to give certain interesting figures in respect of groundnut cultivation. It is a comparable aspect, because under absolutely difficult circumstances it is cultivated on the one hand by mechanical means and on the other hand by manual labour. But that manual labour does not consist of Bantu, because then the amount would have been twice as much as it is at present. It is interesting to note that by means of mechanization the Americans lowered their production costs, compared with costs on manual labour, from 16.94 dollars to only 4.4 dollars. We should rather spend our money on research instead of using it on continual wage increases to follow wage increases offered by commerce and industry, irrespective of whether or not there is an increase in production. Then we would follow the example of these overseas people who are farmers just as we are, after all, and thus bring down our production costs. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I am sure that both sides of this House are exceptionally concerned about the question of soil erosion and veld deterioration. However, the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens said that he felt that this Government should tackle this whole problem with more “determination” and more vigour. In the same breath he said that the Minister had broad shoulders and that he could carry a great deal. Well, I assume therefore that the hon. member will also accept the announcement made by the hon. the Minister last year, namely that even if he were to become the most unpopular Minister in South Africa, he would see to it that this problem was tackled vigorously.

I want to discuss a problem which is closely related to soil conservation, and more specifically to veld conservation. On a certain occasion last year I discussed this matter, but owing to the fact that my time had expired I could not finish my speech. I want to discuss the problem of bush encroachment. I do not want to discuss this matter merely because it concerns my constituency. I think that bush encroachment has assumed such major proportions in our country that it does indeed concern the whole Republic, and principally the cattle pasture regions of the Republic. The Minister is thoroughly aware of the magnitude of this problem, of the tremendous deterioration of the veld in the cattle pasture regions as a result of bush encroachment. We want to suggest that this is a problem which is very closely connected with veld deterioration, with the entire veld and soil conservation pattern, and that is why we feel that this problem can be dealt with under the soil conservation system. We believe that farmers can be rendered assistance, and that assistance should be rendered in respect of their farm planning so as to combat this problem. I do not want to suggest that the Department has not done anything so far. On the contrary, they have already done a great deal, amongst other things by means of co-operative trials which are being conducted in conjunction with farmers in order to cope with this problem. In Vryburg, for instance, all the shrubs growing on a certain morgen of land were taken out by way of experiment, and it was determined that the rate of pasturing of that piece of land was five morgen per head of cattle. On the adjoining piece of land, where shrubs had not been removed, the rate was 22 morgen per head of cattle. That merely goes to show what tremendous economic implications this problem has.

We have already accepted that the Government should render assistance in respect of veld reclamation by means of the introduction of the veld reclamation scheme which was introduced by the hon. the Minister. Accordingly we may plead for assistance to be rendered under the soil conservation system so as to enable farmers to try to reclaim these pieces of land on their own. For that reason I want to ask the hon. the Minister to devise something under the soil conservation system and to make such provision in farm planning as may combat this problem of bush encroachment. I want to emphasize the fact that our farmers are willing to combat this problem. They realize that time is running out, that the rate at which bush encroachment takes place in the cattle pasture regions is so rapid that it will not be long before the yield per morgen will be very low. As I am saying, the farmers on their part are also willing to render assistance. After all these years of adversity and droughts, it will be appreciated highly if the Government would introduce a scheme whereby loans may be granted to these farmers on the same basis as that on which we are carrying out soil conservation works at present, on the same basis as that on which we are providing water, on the same basis as that on which we are providing camps. I am convinced that this is a practical scheme which can in fact be implemented so as to help farmers to help themselves. This is the plea I am making here to-day. I am addressing a serious request to the Minister, not only on behalf of my voters, but also on behalf of all of our cattle pasture regions where this problem has definitely become a serious and threatening danger.

Mr. Chairman, we had a very interesting occurrence this evening. The hon. member for Vryheid complained that the officials are not retained by the Department but that they are lured away by other interests, by the fertilizer companies, by feed manufacturers, and so on. At the same time the hon. the Deputy Minister for Bantu Administration told us that farmers do not pay enough for their Bantu labour. It seems to me that farmers are losing out on both sides. On the one hand we have the Deputy Minister telling us that we do not pay enough for our labour, and that that is why we do not retain our labour. He points the finger at us, at the farmers of South Africa, saying that we do not pay enough. On the other hand the hon. member for Vryeheid complains that staff are leaving the service of the Department, but he will not draw the same conclusion namely that they are not retained by the Department because their conditions of service are such that they will not stay. As I say, the Deputy Minister accused us of not paying our labour enough. Is it not true that the cost structure in agriculture has been going against the farmer for years, year after year? I believe that the Deputy Minister has done agriculture a disservice by the statement that he made here this evening.

I want to have a few words with the hon. member for Pretoria (District), who raised the matter of the Royal Agricultural Show. I am afraid that this is a most surprising occurrence. I am surprised that an hon. member such as he is, one who had such a long connection with organized agriculture, should get up and plead with this Minister for the discontinuance of the grant made to that agricultural society on the ground that it has the name “Royal”, when this hon. Minister himself regards it as an honour to be asked to open the Royal Agricultural Society show. And not only the Minister, but also the Administrator of the Free State, the Administrator of Natal, and many other prominent people in our country. I really believe that this hon. member either is not serious or else he is taking a very warped and a very “verkrampte” look at the affairs of our Society, because, Sir, this is an old, a very ancient, a very proud and a very worthy Society which has done a great deal to further the interests of farming in South Africa. But that that hon. member should come with this suggestion—I am surprised at him: I expected better of him in the past but I will not do so in the future! I want to tell the hon. member that we are not scared of him, anyway. He can go on pleading with this Minister as long as he likes —that is the name of our Society and we will maintain it.

I want to raise with the hon. the Minister the occurrence of the disease “scrapie” in sheep. It happened recently. There have only been a few cases, fortunately, which have been reported. The problem with this disease is the following. Sheep were imported from overseas and given a clean bill of health by the veterinary department in England and by the veterinary department in South Africa. They were bought and imported in good faith, and accepted on farms in good faith as being clear and clean of any kind of disease. But, because the incubation period is quite a long time, when the disease makes its appearance the whole flock of sheep has to be destroyed, due to no fault whatever on the part of the farmer. The Act lays down conditions for valuation of the whole flock. There are values which are fixed. The sheep are destroyed and then the farmer is paid compensation on the basis of 80 per cent of the valuation. This is also the standard practice in respect of other diseases.

It happens in the case of Newcastle disease also.

That is correct, yes. But I am asking whether a case cannot be made out here for the 80 per cent to be ignored and a 100 per cent compensation to be paid to the farmer concerned, in this particular case, where a clean bill of health was received from both veterinary authorities concerned. A farmer cannot know of the presence of the disease, he does not have the ability to know that his sheep have a disease of this nature, and I feel that the Minister might well consider this favourably. There is no question here of any mala fides on the part of the farmer. The farmer bought these sheep in good faith. There is no question of the law of the land being breached, and the law is laid down for the protection of all farmers.

That farmer also gets an ex gratia refund.

I want to state that the cases that have been sent up to the Department have been treated very sympathetically indeed. I am not complaining as to how they have been treated. But here we have a farmer who encounters a disease of this nature, a farmer who has committed no breach of the law, and who has a clean bill of health. When this disease makes its appearance, he has to make an immediate changeover to another type of farming. Any farmer here knows what that means. He has to slaughter all his sheep and immediately embark upon some other form of farming. In the case of a sheep-farmer, he has to change to some sort of animal-farming, and that costs a tremendous amount of money-Inevitably there must be a certain period before the new type of farming produces an income. I feel that in this case the Minister might well reconsider and say that in this particular case there could be a 100 per cent valuation payment made, because I do think that this is a particularly deserving case. I feel that it is a matter of principle, and on that basis I raise it with the Minister.

Mr. Chairman, it seems to me the hon. members for Mooi River and Pietermaritzburg (District) are very sensitive regarding the use of the word “royal”. I have the greatest respect for any person’s sentiments, but it is not for hon. members …

They are bigoted (verkrampte) jingoes.

That is just what I wanted to say. It is not for hon. members of the Opposition to talk of bigots, because if one wants an example of bigoted people— they are sitting there! [Interjections.] If we listen to the complaints of hon. members on that side in regard to farming in Natal then it is clear proof to me that Natal is still a “little England” and that they cannot adapt themselves to the Republic of South Africa. They are supposed to have all those problems there. We do not have those problems in the rest of the Republic. I do not know where they get hold of all those complaints.

What problems are those?

The problems which you have just raised here.

But ask the Minister about them.

Listening to the hon. Opposition it would almost appear that we are all tenant farmers of the Government. It appears to me hon. members on the opposite side think we are farming for the Government, or that we are the foremen of the Government, for there are hon. members here who even want the Government to train their farm labourers for them. How many industries approach the Government to train their apprentices for them? They do it themselves. It is your duty and mine to see to it that our labourers are trained. [Interjections.]

Order!

The hon. Opposition has lost all initiative. They want the Government to do everything for them. We on this side have fortunately not fallen into the same kind of bigoted attitude as the Opposition has done. We utterly refuse to be dictated to by the Government and do not, as happens in Russia, want everything from the Government. We want to retain our own initiative. We must make a contribution from our side as well. We must not always be going to the hon. the Minister and telling him that he must supply us with this and that. We are independent, as well as proud farmers. As you know, any industry requires knowledge, skill and organizational ability. Farming to-day is not what it used to be in the old days. The farmer to-day must be a scientific farmer. I want to concur whole-heartedly with the hon. member for Newton Park when he stated that many of our farmers are not properly trained. But on the other hand there are many untrained, intelligent farmers who are making a great success of their farming. In this regard I want to refer to a saying of the old German Chancellor, Von Bismarck, i.e. that only fools want to learn from their own experience—he always preferred to make use of the benefit he could receive from the experience of other people.

It is a fact that, as a rule, the farmers do not want to run the risk of making tests and carrying out experiments. It is an expensive process. For that reason it is necessary that we should receive the necessary information in this connection from the State. We are very pleased that the Department is always prepared to give us the necessary information when we, on our part, take the initiative. Allow me to mention an example, something which happened in my constituency and which is still yielding excellent results. In one of the wards, i.e. Badfontein, the farmers established their own regional development committee with a view to ascertaining what new product they could introduce in that vicinity for the farmers to farm with. As a rule the people had been very poor in the past; they had farmed in the old way with mealies, and with wheat on a small scale. In conjunction with the Department, under the instructions of Professor Tomlinson and others, they then decided to cultivate soya-beans there. They tackled the matter scientifically, under the guidance of the Department and the extension officer of Lydenburg. In the first year they had a crop of 2,000 bags, and this year they are expecting 30,000 bags of soya-beans there. That is clear proof that when the farmers are prepared to do something on their part, the Government is always prepared to help them with the necessary information so that they may make a success of their farming activities.

Since I am talking about instruction, I feel that I may request the attention of the hon. the Minister and ask him to consider establishing a State demonstration farm in the Lydenburg constituency on the western side of the plateau, where we have the middle-veld and the bushveld regions. The Lowveld has its subtropical research station at Nelspruit. The cattle farmers in the north-eastern parts of the Transvaal have stations at Mara and other places where they can carry out cattle farming tests. At Ermelo we have a sheep research station which can give the farmers the necessary assistance there. Now we have the middle region of the Transvaal which is mainly an irrigation region. The farms there are all under irrigation. They have a kind of mixed agronomical system there, because they cultivate a variety of products. Now do you know, Mr. Chairman, that those poor people never receive instruction close to home. One poor information officer cannot do all the work. Apart from his services they have to rely on the Pretoria Horticultural Department. I feel that we will be doing those farmers a great service if we could supply them with a demonstration farm and then show them how to farm with the various products under irrigation in that particular area.

I should like to elaborate on the subject of soil conservation, but I fear my time is so limited that I would hardly have introduced the subject when I would be called to order. Just allow me to say this. I believe that soil conservation alone, soil conservation as such, cannot solve the problems of South Africa. I am not talking now about the farmer’s problem only, but also about the future problems which are staring us in the face. We must view this matter in a very much larger, in a very much wider context. In this regard I want to quote from what the hon. the Minister said some time ago at a certain function which he attended. He had the following to say—

That is what the hon. member said in his opening speech at the Riversdale agricultural show. There you have it, Mr. Chairman. We cannot do all this in one generation. I remember very well that in the thirties our Government asked a certain Dr. Bennett from America to come here in order to inform us about soil conservation. Since those years South Africa has been intensely busy conserving its soil. But a great task still lies ahead for us.

Recently I flew from Johannesburg to Cape Town, and flew over the Orange Free State. It is a beautiful name—for me it is just as fine a name as royal is to the Natalians! However, I saw a frightening thing. Looking at the scene from the air—it was just after the generous rains—all that one sees is one large dust cloud as far as the eye can see. Those sort of scenes make us restive. I think that the time will come when, with proper regional planning, it will subsequently be necessary, and unfortunately so, to restrict the freedoms of the farmers and to dictate to them in regard to soil conservation. [Time expired.]

A moment ago I was discussing the karakul industry. I said that near Upington there was a research farm, 12,000 morgen in extent, on which 4,000 sheep are being kept. I am asking for an extension of the existing facilities for karakul research at the earliest opportunity possible in order that the intensity of grazing may be reduced there and experiments in grazing and management may be rendered possible. This is connected with another matter, namely agricultural research services in general in that region. For many years now a separate ecological region for that part of the north-western Cape has been advocated. At present that part has been divided into three sub-regions. Those people are grateful for the better extension facilities that have already been provided there. Here I am referring specifically to the northern Cape. I want to refer to a block of buildings for research at Upington, a block which has already been planned years ago and which has now become an urgent necessity for that region. Trained people are available, but at present they have to perform their duties under very poor circumstances. The result is that there is an imbalance as far as the problem of manpower and the problem of buildings are concerned. Research services have not been co-ordinated very well. I do not want to allow this opportunity to slip by without my making a serious plea to the Minister for speeding up this project which will concentrate all research for that region in one block of buildings. I heard recently that this project would be delayed for five years— as a matter of fact, I hear that many buildings for agricultural technical services will be delayed for periods varying between five and 30 years—buildings which will cost R15 million in all. Now I want to ask that this group of buildings should be placed very high on the priority list of the infra-structure of agricultural technical services. We have boards of control that have often in the past rendered assistance in various places by utilizing their funds for the purpose of providing buildings and diagnostic centres. Is it not possible for us in this respect as well to give consideration to making the funds of our boards of control available to agricultural technical services, funds which may subsequently be paid back over a long period? That will mean that the State need not incur major expenditure at once.

I wish to associate myself with the hon. member for Gordonia in pleading for research. Before coming to that, however, I want to refer to something that was said there by the hon. member for Lydenburg. He wanted to make a little political capital by saying that the United Party, with all their pleas, wanted to make all the farmers bywoners of the Government. That is a stupid argument. To think that an hon. member wants to make political capital out of the matter when hon. members on both sides of the House are pleading for research! He even went further and said, in regard to the training of manpower for our farmers, that we were asking for something for which we ought not to ask. Mr. Chairman, I am aware of your ruling in regard to this aspect, but I do want to say that when an hon. member pleads here for unskilled black labour as against skilled labour, then he knows nothing about farming.

But I said that I also wanted to speak about research. I want to speak about research particularly as regards veld recovery and information work in connection therewith. I identify myself with what was said by the hon. member for Newton Park, namely that it is a pity that the latest annual report of the Department only goes up to the year 1965. Consequently we do not have more recent statistics at our disposal. But even in the annual report for 1965 we find the following, on the very first page—

I endorse what is stated here, but I want to ask the Minister, if that had been the position in July, 1965, what then was the position in December, 1966, i.e. 18 months later, after continual droughts and denudation of the veld? If we cannot carry out additional research into veld reclamation, I think it will hardly be possible for us to restore our veld. It is not something that can be achieved within the space of a year or two. It is simply the way of nature that after long periods of drought the first plants to appear are the annuals, such as devil’s thorns, some “brack” herbage, and various other plants, plants which are unable to withstand a drought. If we cannot stabilize veld reclamation and carry it through over a long period until at least such time as perennials appear, we shall find ourselves in the same position as that which developed in ancient times when the Middle East, the birthplace of civilization, with its large and green pasture-lands was trampled to such an extent over a period of centuries that it became the desert area of the world. The same will happen to the pasture-lands in this country as far as our stock-farming is concerned. Here I want to confine myself to the Karroo in particular. The veld is becoming seriously denuded there and yet the farmer is still overstocking his veld in an attempt to recover his costs and to rehabilitate himself financially. To my mind it is particularly important that research should be carried out in this regard. I think it was the hon. member for Albany who referred to the Karroo caterpillar. As far as its pasturage is concerned, the Karroo is subject to parasites in greater measure than is any other part of the country. I know about the army worm and the problems experienced in grass-veld areas at times, but in the Karroo this position applies every year for years on end. When the first rains have fallen after a long period of drought the Karroo caterpillars make their appearance as soon as the shrubs push out their first shoots. They destroy the veld. As a matter of fact, the farmers say that the veld stinks and does not want to grow again. That was the position over large areas this year. Years ago entomologists at Grootfontein conducted research into methods of controlling the Karroo caterpillar. They then imported a parasite, I think it was from Australia, that fed on the Karroo caterpillar. They marked off an experimental plot on my land and carried out tests there. But as happens in the case of many experiments, this experiment also came to naught after a year or two. In any case, we did not achieve the same measure of success with it as we had achieved with cochineal in controlling prickly pears. A few moments ago another hon. member referred to the way in which thorn-bush was spreading all over the place. It is the same type of problem. But in the case of this problem we do have a solution —one can destroy the bush and one can reduce its incidence through applying correct grazing methods. But the Karroo caterpillar is busy destroying the Karroo because it is devouring the shrubs completely· Even if it does happen once in ten years that a shrub runs to seed and that ten small shrubs come up where there was only one before, then the caterpillar comes along and nibbles down those shrubs to such an extent that they never grow again. I therefore want to make a special appeal to the hon. the Minister to see to it that research is conducted into the powers of recovery of this vast area, which is suitable for nothing but stock-farming, and particularly sheep-farming. Unlike the grass-veld regions the Karroo is restricted to stock-farming, and it is an area which extends from Laingsburg up to Steynsburg, an area of 400 by 300 miles. In the case of the grass-veld areas there are alternatives. This evening we heard of an attempt to cultivate groundnuts in an area which has a rainfall of 40 inches a year. But there are many other products which can be cultivated there. That, however, does not apply in the case of the Karroo. The Karroo is, as I have said, restricted to stock-farming, and particularly sheep-farming. So, if we are concerned about our sheep-farming, about our wool, which earns us R100 million a year in foreign exchange, and we are concerned about our people there, people who form the backbone of the country for the very reason that they have so many adverse conditions to contend with, then we must do something about the matter. I therefore make an earnest appeal to the Minister to have research undertaken into the reclamation possibilities of this area.

Then there is another matter in regard to which I want to submit a plea to the Minister. It is a matter which I already discussed privately with him on previous occasions. I do not want the Minister to restrict veld reclamation work to the disaster-stricken areas, of which, as far as I know, there are only two in the Republic at the moment, namely one in the Northern Cape Province and one in the Northern Transvaal. I cannot see why an area cannot be declared a disaster-stricken area if only certain parts in that area can be described as being disaster-stricken. I have already told the Minister, and I now want to repeat, that the financial incentive to the farmer to conserve his veld cannot be regarded as an economic proposition. [Time expired.]

The problem I see in connection with the part which South Africa should play on the continent of Africa, is one which arises as a result of the shortage of scientists we are experiencing in the field of agricultural technical services. Foot-and-mouth disease has been mentioned here. Five years ago it was stressed in South-West Africa that research would be carried out in the field of foot-and-mouth disease in order to develop a vaccine which could be produced locally, and that it was the intention to establish a research institute for studying the viruses which cause foot-and-mouth disease. The object was that it should be possible to carry out this diagnosis locally instead of having it done by the Pirbright Foot-and-Mouth Disease Research Institute in England. Now, the shortage of experts has been mentioned repeatedly in this debate.

Progress reported.