I move—

In the first place this Bill provides for the amendment of certain definitions and in the second place for a change in the procedure followed in connection with the investigation of a charge against an officer on account of misconduct. As regards the amendment to the definition, a change is effected in the definition of “the force” and “a member of the force”. This relates specifically to changing the designation “special constable” to “temporary member”. The reason for this is as follows. The Force makes extensive use of temporary members or, as they were in the past special constables, and they are usually retired members of the Force. It happens so frequently that a sergeant or a warrant officer stays on as a temporary member and that he is then described in the Act as a special constable, although he is a sergeant or a warrant officer. You will appreciate that in the past this caused some embarrassment, and for that reason it was in fact found necessary to correct the position by way of regulation. Now we also want to rectify it in the Act, in order that he may be defined as a “temporary member” and no longer as a “special constable”. We also find that a definition of “Minister” is changed from “Minister of Justice” to “Minister of Police”. The S.A. Police is under the control of the Minister of Police, and in terms of section 10 of the Interpretation Act the State President has already placed the administration of the Police Act under the control of the Minister of Police. Therefore it is now also corrected in the Act.

Then hon. members will find that as regards the actions of the State President with regard to commissioned officers, we are abolishing the actions which may possibly be dealt with by him in so far as they relate to suspending, reprimanding or reducing members of the Force in seniority in rank. In considering this matter, and also the procedure which is subsequently set out for the consideration of a complaint against a commissioned officer, I should like hon. members to take into account that the Police Force has changed tremendously since the Act was placed on the Statute Book for the first time in 1912 until to-day. At the moment the Police Act is Act No. 7 of 1958, but in actual fact it is merely a consolidation, and these stipulations were in fact introduced in 1912. Now hon. members should bear in mind that in 1912 there were only approximately 100 commissioned officers in the Force, while at the moment there are approximately 1,300, and one could appreciate that the State President should not be burdened with many of the trivialities with which commissioned officers may perhaps be charged from time to time. It is in fact for that reason that it was felt that as the State President is responsible for the appointment of a commissioned officer of the Force and is consequently the only person who can approve a reduction in seniority of rank or who can dismiss such an officer, the State President retains that power as far as his actions are concerned, but we now remove that suspension and reprimand, as I said a moment ago. We are also removing them as regards the powers of the Commissioner in the proposed clause 3. Hon. members will see that suspension and reprimands are dealt with in clause 5. There the Minister or the Commissioner are granted authority as a temporary measure to deal with the suspension of commissioned officers of the Police Force.

As far as the other matters are concerned, that is, the procedure followed in connection with the preferment of a charge of misconduct against an officer, the old procedure was most cumbersome, and we are now trying to simplify it considerably. In terms of the old procedure a preliminary investigation has to be carried out. Evidence is adduced in full and the evidence is forwarded to the State President, and on the basis of the evidence the State President may then appoint a board consisting of three or more members to investigate the matter and then to take the necessary decisions in connection with punitive measures, etc. The board is then appointed and investigates the matter de novo. In other words, all the evidence adduced in the first place during the preliminary inquiry is adduced all over again at the inquiry by the board and the board then makes recommendations to the State President in connection with the punitive measures to be applied. This is a most cumbersome procedure, and as I said a moment ago, it is felt, in view of the expansion of the Force and the large number of commissioned officers in the Force at present, that the State President is burdened to a too large extent by trivialities which may arise. For that reason we are now simplifying the procedure. It is now provided in clause 4 that the Commissioner or a commissioned officer appointed by him may prefer a charge of misconduct against an officer of the Force. That officer may then plead; he may admit guilt or deny guilt, and then the Minister may appoint a board to inquire into the matter. We also provide that this board need no longer consist of three or more members, as previously, but that it may consist of only one or more members. This board then inquires and finds the officer guilty or not guilty. If he is found guilty, it is also provided that the officer may appeal to the Minister on his conviction. If the conviction is upheld, the board makes certain recommendations to the Minister in connection with the punishment. As you may appreciate, the Minister can then reprimand or suspend or something similar, but if the charge and the conviction is of such a serious nature that the consideration of dismissal arises, the Minister can make a recommendation to this effect to the State President, to discharge or dismiss the officer. This then as regards the procedure. Furthermore, in clauses 6 and 7 there are simply consequential amendments where “special constable” is changed to “temporary member” of the Force. I move.

We on this side of the House support the Bill. As the Minister has said, it only makes for more speedy administration and with the development of the Force, as he has pointed out, such changes have to be made.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

I move the amendment as printed in my name on page 490, as follows— That the following be a new clause to precede clause 1 of the Bill:

1. The following section is hereby inserted after section 1 of the Mafeking Waterworks (Private) Act, 1932 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act):

“Municipality subject to certain provisions of Water Act in the exercise of its powers.

IA. (1) The powers conferred upon the Municipality by this Act are conferred subject to compliance by the said Municipality with the provisions of sections 11, 12, 21, 22 and 30 of the Water Act, 1956 (Act No. 54 of 1956), as if the use of water by the said Municipality were used for industrial purposes, and any subterranean or other water taken, abstracted or used by the said Municipality, were both subterranean and public water.

(2) Subsection (1) shall not be construed as relieving the said Municipality of any duty imposed upon it in terms of any provision of the Water Act, 1956.”

I just want to avail myself of this opportunity to express my thanks for the fact that the hon. member for Vryburg was prepared to have this important amendment inserted in this Bill, because this amendment actually puts the Bill in order. If this Bill had been passed in its original form, it would in my opinion—and this is how all of us felt—have been a violation of the recognized principle of the allocation of subterranean and surface water rights by the State. I am also very grateful that this Bill was submitted to a Select Committee.

Order! That is not under discussion now.

I just wanted to say that there are certain points of view arising from this report which one may surely mention here.

Order! The hon. member may discuss that at the Third Reading stage.

New clause put and agreed to.

Clause 1:

I move the following amendments—

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Clause 2:

I move the following amendments—

In line 44, after “shall” to insert “not”; in line 46, to omit “rate of abstraction from” and to substitute “natural flow of”; in line 47, to omit “and” where it occurs for the first time, and to substitute “but shall, subject to the provisions of the agreement concluded between the Municipality and the Roux family on the 10th May, 1967, be entitled”; and in line 49, after “Valleifontein” to add “presently owned or hereafter acquired by the Municipality”.

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Clause 3 put and negatived.

Preamble:

I move the following amendments—

Agreed to.

Preamble, as amended, put and agreed to.

Title of the Bill:

I move the following amendments—

Agreed to.

Title, as amended, put and agreed to.

Bill reported with amendments.

New clause to precede clause 1, amendments in clause 1 and 2, omission of clause 3 and amendments in the Preamble and the Title put and agreed to and the Bill, as amended, adopted.

I move—

I just want to make a few observations in connection wi h the implementation of this Bill, because I have always adhered to the principle that subterranean water should be used very judiciously. If we had passed this Bill in its original form, it would in actual fact have been a violation of the sound principle of the allocation and use of subterranean water. For that reason I tried to say a moment ago and am now repeating that I am very grateful that we are passing this legislation in this form. I am not quite satisfied with it, of course. In the report of the Select Committee on the private Bill there were two issues which came to the fore very clearly and of which we should take note. The first is that through a representative whom the Town Council of Mafeking sent to the Minister—a year or so ago—they cautioned and objected against the large-scale abstraction of subterranean water by farmers in the dolomitic area adjacent to the Grootfontein. I have the documents here and can substantiate this. They submitted that the abstraction of subterranean water had a tremendously adverse influence on the flow from the Grootfontein and the supplies available to Mafeking. Afterwards they came along with a Bill and asked for unlimited large-scale abstraction of subterranean water. Even in the form it has now assumed they have also obtained the rights in terms of section 5 to use the borehole which has already been sunk and also two other boreholes for that purpose. In the second place it is apparent from this evidence that municipalities and other concerns which want to undertake expansions should ascertain in advance whether there is water available. They should not first undertake the expansions and then place the State and the Minister before an accomplished fact and ask for legislation to provide for the abstraction of subterranean water and its diversion over long distances to the dolomitic regions. From the evidence given before the Committee it is quite clear that Mafeking does not have its own water potential to provide for any large-scale expansions in future. In this Bill it is now provided, and its application will amount to this, that Mafeking obtains rights which would never be granted to any farmer in a proclaimed area in that dolomitic region. However, I am more satisfied with the Bill in its present form. In its original form it provided, amongst other things, that the municipality of Mafeking should have the unlimited right to augment the rate of flow from the Grootfontein artificially.

Order! The hon. member is now discussing parts of the Bill which have been withdrawn. We are not concerned with those now.

Sir, I have to refer to that to present the matter in its full perspective; otherwise I cannot substantiate my argument that there is still cause for concern, even if the Bill is passed in its present form.

Order! Has the hon. member any further arguments if those parts against which he objected fall away?

I shall then conclude by saying that in its present form I find the Bill more satisfactory. The municipality of Mafeking will at least be subject to permits to be issued by the hon. the Minister in terms of sections 11, 12, 21, 22 and 30 of Act 54 of 1956. I trust that in future the provision of subterranean water for expansions in municipal areas or for the establishment of industries in areas which are far from the sources from which the necessary water has to be obtained, will be dealt with very carefully.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.

I move—

That the Bill be now read a Second Time. This amending Bill proposes three amendments to the Price Control Act of 1964. In the first place the Price Controller is empowered to inform any person by letter of a price control notice to place any article sold by such a person or any services rendered by such a person under control. Since the commencement of the Price Control Act of 1964 it has been found that the existing provisions in the Act, i.e. that all price control notices should be issued by way of publication in the Gazette, hamper the Price Controller in the proper execution of his duties because this procedure causes delay and frequently gives rise to unnecessary costs in cases where only a few persons are affected by a determination which is made. Hon. members will recall that my predecessor, with a view to the battle against inflation, urged the public repeatedly to bring cases of unjustified price increases to the attention of the Price Controller. The Price Controller in fact receives evidence of many such cases, but his hands are bound to a large extent because the relevant articles are not subject to maximum price fixing and because he cannot take action against profiteering on such articles unless maximum prices for them are fixed by notice in the Gazette. Because it is usually individual dealers who are involved in actions of this nature, it is frequently not possible to justify the necessity of fixing the price of the article concerned on a general basis, with the result that no action can be taken against the dealers concerned. Hon. members will appreciate that if maximum prices are to be fixed for all the articles with regard to which the Price Controller receives complaints from the public in connection with unjustified increases in prices, the list of these articles would grow very rapidly. This would entail considerable costs and also a waste of manpower. If, however, the dealer concerned may be directed by letter under such circumstances not to exceed certain maximum prices, it will obviate the necessity for a general fixing of maximum prices by notice in the Gazette and will ensure that no unnecessary burdens are imposed on dealers who were not guilty of incorrect actions, or on the office of the Price Controller.

A second amendment which is contained in the Bill as printed and which empowers the Price Controller to lay down fixed prices for articles, I shall withdraw when the Bill is dealt with in the Committee Stage, as I have already intimated in the Press, and I have placed an amendment to this effect on the Order Paper. These provisions were included in the Bill in the light of representations received from dealers and manufacturers to the effect that the Department of Commerce and Industries should do something to protect them against disrupting price cutting and price discrimination. Subsequent to publication of the Bill, however, strong representations were received from both the Federated Chamber of Industries and the Vereniging van Kamers van Koophandel against the inclusion in this Price Control Act of powers to determine fixed prices, but I want to make it clear that they were not the only ones to make representations to me. Other representations were also received from bodies and persons who insisted that we should proceed with this Bill. I should like to read the views of these bodies to the House, without mentioning their names—

Then there is another one—

Here is another one—

These are only a few of the representations made to us to the effect that we should proceed with the principle contained in the Bill. The question is: Why are they making these representations? I quote again—

This is one of the arguments which is advanced, but there is also another aspect which we should take into consideration, and that is the fact that in certain fields of our industry there are strong groups which show monopolistic tendencies, and we find that when a young undertaking seeks to enter the market in that field, it is barred because that undertaking, in the specific locality where it starts a small undertaking, sells its goods or delivers its article at a price far below the price at which it delivers them in other areas, with the deliberate object of giving the small undertaking no chance to find a market for its product. There are several fields in which we are constantly receiving complaints from new undertakings that want to establish themselves and that are exposed to that kind of competition from larger undertakings. Basically these are the two aspects of the problems brought to our attention. But in the light of this apparent disagreement between organizations involved in commerce, I am prepared to refer this aspect to the Board of Trade and Industries for investigation. The Board of Trade and Industries is at present engaged in another inquiry into price maintenance agreements, and this inquiry will now tie up with that. At this stage I therefore do not want to say anything more in this regard.

But there is also a third amendment in this Bill, and this is contained in clause 6. In the first place the type of transactions in respect of which the conditions may be prescribed in terms of section 9 are extended by making it possible for the Price Controller also to announce conditions in respect of lease-lend and hire-purchase transactions or any other kind of transaction, as defined by him in the notice concerned. This provision is intended to enable the Price Controller to take action against evasion of the prescribed hire-purchase conditions. This evasion usually takes place by adopting other names for transactions which are essentially sales transactions but which are presented as a different kind of transaction simply to evade certain prescribed conditions. This includes, for example, leasing transactions in terms of which the seller supposedly leases goods on the condition that upon the termination of a certain period of lease or upon the payment of a certain amount in lease money, no further payment will be collected from the lessee, and that the leased goods will then become the property of the lessee. As a result of evasion of this nature the effective implementation of the relevant control measures is frustrated to a large extent.

In addition, new provisions are being introduced in section 9 of the Act with regard to the validity of contracts. Firstly, it is provided that substantial compliance with any condition specified by the Price Controller in respect of a particular type of transaction shall be regarded as compliance with that condition. This provision is inserted in the Act in order to provide the courts with some discretion in deciding on the culpability of persons who enter into contracts in conflict with conditions prescribed by the Price Controller. Minor deviations from these conditions as a result of errors in calculation or in the stipulation of the prescribed deposit or instalment terms, which may have the result that too low a deposit is charged or that too long terms are allowed, need therefore in future not necessarily be punishable. Moreover, the courts will in future have the discretion to decide that a seller who grants a buyer respite for the payment of instalments and thus varies the term stipulations of the contract in such a way that they no longer comply with the prescribed term conditions, shall not be punishable if circumstances obtain from which it is clear that when the parties to a contract deviated from the prescribed conditions, they were compelled to do so by unavoidable or unforeseen events and were not deliberately intent on contravening the prescribed conditions of the contract, for example if on account of illness or loss of income the buyer is unable to pay his instalments regularly. Secondly, it is provided that cheques or other negotiable instruments shall be made payable to the seller within 21 days. This provision is necessary to prevent evasion of payment conditions prescribed by the Price Controller, in that buyers pay by cheque and the sellers then undertake to delay offering these cheques at the banks for payment until the buyer has the necessary money in the bank to honour the cheques. This provision is also necessary to establish a fixed basis in terms of which the courts may judge contracts if offenders are arraigned before them.

Thirdly, it is provided that contracts entered into in conflict with a prescribed condition shall remain operative contracts notwithstanding this contravention of the conditions. The parties to such a contract will therefore be empowered to enforce in court the rights obtained by them in terms of such contract, but, of course, they remain punishable under the Act for contravention of the prescribed conditions. This provision is introduced in the Act to meet the problems which arise when the seller grants respite of payment and the contract may therefore be declared inoperative in terms of the existing legal provisions. If a contract is regarded as inoperative after respite of payment because it no longer complies with a prescribed condition, it will have the result that sellers will not be prepared to grant respite of payment even when a buyer is unable to pay on account of illness, for if the contract were regarded as inoperative, the buyer would be able to return the article, which had been in his use for some time, to the seller, and demand the return of the money he has already paid. It is therefore clear that the seller, rather than to grant respite of payment if the contract will thereby become inoperative, would rather take back the purchased goods from the buyer if the latter could not pay an instalment. The new provision, in terms of which the contract will not be inoperative if it does not comply with a prescribed condition, is therefore to the advantage of both the seller and the buyer. Furthermore, this provision will not essentially prejudice the object of conditions prescribed under section 9, because the penalties laid down in the Act are severe enough to prevent contracts in conflict with the prescribed conditions from being entered into on a large scale.

When the Act of 1964 was introduced, it was opposed by this side of the House. As you will remember, Sir, we were quite willing to renew the War Measures Act, under which price control was exercised, year by year as long as it was deemed necessary but we did not think that any case had been made out for permanent legislation on the subject. Indeed it was only fairly recently that that view was not shared by speakers on that side of the House. However, I just want to place on record that that is still our view. We do not like price control as a permanent feature of legislation, but that is the law, Sir, and you would quite rightly have something to say if I pursued that subject any further, so I shall not do it.

What we have to consider is whether the Bill before us seeks to extend the powers of the Price Controller, to tighten price control, and how it is proposed to do it. When the Bill was first introduced, there were provisions in it, particularly the controller’s power to fix minimum prices, as well as one or two other provisions, which we would have had no option but to oppose, but since then the hon. the Minister, as he has explained has had time to consider the matter further and he has now placed six or seven amendments on the Order Paper which to a large extent remove most, if not all, of the objections which we had to the Bill. Indeed he is leaving the Act very largely as it stands at the present time. That being so, we shall not oppose the Second Reading of this Bill. But there are one or two points we would like to raise with the hon. the Minister both here and, depending on his reply to the debate, possibly in the Committee Stage as well. In four clauses it is sought to give the Price Controller, as the hon. the Minister has pointed out, the right, instead of acting by way of notice in the Government Gazette, as has always been the practice, simply to write to a particular individual person.

Sir, we think that is wrong. We think it is wrong for two reasons. In the first place we think that it is going to be extremely difficult to implement. The hon. the Minister said that if the Price Controller had this power, he could write to an individual person, and if that did not produce the necessary results, he might later have to fix a general maximum price and publish a notice in the Gazette. It was not quite clear whether by that he meant that if the Price Controller was going to fix the maximum price for the article in question for the whole country, he would be bound to publish it in the Gazette or whether he could do it simply by way of a letter to the manufacturer or to the importer. If that is so we think it is wrong. At the present moment, as far as I can see, there is nothing in the existing Act—in fact I understand it is being done now—to prevent the Price Controller, with all the authority of the Government behind him, from writing to any particular person whom he thinks is charging exorbitant prices and advising or telling him that he should reduce that price and warning him that if he does not do so steps will be taken to fix the price. But there are more people involved than simply the person to whom the Price Controller intends to write, whether that person is the manufacturer or the wholesale distributor or the retailer or the consumer, because under clause 3 not only is anybody who sells at above the maximum price guilty of an offence but anybody who buys at above the maximum price is also guilty of an offence, and therefore if the maximum price is fixed, it seems to us that it is quite essential that that should be publicly announced, and the only way to do it is though the Government Gazette. If it is done through the Government Gazette then the various trade organizations, who study the Government Gazette, and the Press will get to know about it at once and nobody will have any excuse for not knowing what the position is.

It seems to us that this is unnecessary and might lead to serious complications, because if the Price Controller were to fix a maximum price and not publish it in the Gazette, it might mean that he would have to write thousands of letters if he is going to achieve any purpose. We think that the Price Controller has sufficient authority behind him and sufficient power to-day to deal with a case of this sort. In fact, I think cases have arisen where the Price Controller has been able to cope with the position. I think the question of cinema prices is a case in point where the Price Controller was quite able to control the position simply by correspondence and by dealing direct with the people concerned who, in that case, were in effect the manufacturer or the importer of the articles concerned. The Price Controller handled the situation very well and we think that the Minister would be wise to let the position stand as it is at present.

The hon. the Minister referred to the question of delays and costs as an argument against the publication of notices in the Gazette. But, Sir, what delay is there? Unless things have changed very much the position always used to be that you only had to give a week or less than a week’s notice to have measures of this kind included in the following Friday’s Gazette. As to the question of costs, where you are dealing with an article which is in common use throughout the country and which involves large sums of money, I cannot believe that the cost of printing a notice of that sort, which after all is simply a charge between one Government Department and another—the money stays in the Government’s hands really—is an argument for not insisting that the widest possible publicity should be given to any action that the Price Controller might wish to take. Indeed, it seems to me that from his own point of view, his hands would be strengthened. The more people know what he is doing and the more they are satisfied that he is fulfilling his function of preventing profiteering, which is really what price control is for, the more will they back him up and assist him, so I cannot see any reason at all why all maximum prices which are fixed by the Controller should not be published in the Gazette in the ordinary way as they have always been published.

Then I come to clause 6 which proposes a new section 9. This clause may have very wide implications. One of my colleagues will deal with this matter in greater detail. I understand that the hon. the Minister in his interview with organized commerce and industry, explained to them exactly what the purpose of this clause was and he gave fairly explicit assurances as to what he was not going to use it for. Of course, this practice of leasing things is a very old established, recognized practice in industry and in business. I know of one very major industry in this country where the machinery is never sold; it is always leased by the manufacturer. It has always been like that. It is quite a common practice for big business houses to lease the machinery used in the offices. It is perfectly legitimate; it helps them and I am not sure that the Government does not do it too. Under this clause, as it stands, all that could be interfered with and done away with by the Price Controller. The hon. the Minister gave assurances on that subject but he did not repeat them this morning and I hope that when he replies to this debate he will repeat them in this House and make the limited reasons that he has for wanting to give the Price Controller the powers contained in this clause, perfectly clear to this House. Depending on his reply to this debate, we do not propose to oppose the Second Reading, and, again depending on his reply, we may or may not have further discussions during the Committee Stage.

The Minister in his opening remarks referred to price control as a means of handling inflation. In this connection may I remind him that when the 1964 Act was before the House the then Minister said this—

As the hon. member for Constantia pointed out the object of this measure is to stop profiteering. But I should like the hon. the Minister in his reply to tell us what he regards as profiteering. What does he regard as being a reasonable price and a fair return on capital? Because this is what it comes down to in the final analysis. The principle of price control has already been established and therefore, Mr. Speaker, you will not allow us to discuss it. But neither this hon. Minister nor his predecessor has ever indicated what is regarded as being a reasonable return on capital. I believe, however, that this hon. Minister’s predecessor a few years ago did indicate that he regarded a 15 per cent return as a reasonable return on capital in a competitive system and having regard to the prevailing rate of interest. But since those days interest rates have risen and to-day the hon. the Minister may have other ideas of what is a fair return on capital. I think we are entitled, against this background, to ask the Minister what he regards as constituting a reasonable price?

The Minister in his opening remarks also referred to certain amendments he proposes to make in the Committee Stage, amendments which he had already placed on the Order Paper. It is because of these amendments that we are not opposed to this Bill. I should, however, like to draw the Minister’s attention particularly to clause 2 (b). In paragraphs (a) and (c) the Minister proposes to omit the words “price or” and “charge or”. But I notice that he does not propose the omission of the words “price or” in paragraph (b) of the clause. It appears to me to be logical to omit these words also in paragraph (b) in view of the fact that he does so in paragraphs l(a) and (c). So, there must be some special reason for retaining these words in paragraph (b). If so, we should like to know what this reason is. I should like to point out again that we are debating this Bill against the background of the amendments which the Minister has said he would introduce and we are giving our support to this Bill in anticipation of these amendments being carried through. We are, therefore, supporting this Bill in good faith. Therefore, the Minister should give us an indication why it is not proposed to amend also paragraph (b) of this clause.

I should now like to come to clause 6 of the Bill. This clause provides for the control of lease agreements. In this connection I should like to know from the Minister whether it is his intention to prohibit these agreements altogether. As the hon. member for Constantia has said, lease agreements have become customary to-day, not only for industrial machinery, motor-cars and in some cases furniture but also in respect of business equipment because this type of equipment is being leased to a large extent to-day. In the computer world, for instance, it is almost an exception for a computer to be purchased. The development of the computer is such that after a year or two a computer may be obsolete. Consequently, people using computers prefer to lease a computer because by doing that they may be able to come to an agreement with the supplying house concerned for any modifications or improvements to be embodied in the plant being used. In that way they can keep their plant up to date. This clause gives the Minister very wide powers.

If it is the object to protect the individual against the unscrupulous dealer then it has our support. There are occasions where the ordinary man does not buy a car under hire-purchase agreement but under a lease agreement. Well, he may not know that the lease agreement provides for a lease which eventually may mean his paying a considerable amount more than he would have paid for that vehicle had he bought it under an ordinary hire-purchase agreement. As I say, the car dealer or the financial organization behind the car dealer is putting such a person in a position where he has to pay a considerable amount more than he should pay under normal conditions. As I have said, it this is the object of this clause then there is some support for it. But where in the ordinary cause of business a fair lease charge is made and the arrangement is a reasonable one we see no objection to it. Agreements of that kind should therefore be allowed to continue.

I should also like to support the views the hon. member for Constantia expressed with regard to notices in writing. We should like to have further details from the Minister in this connection because it does seem to us that there should be more publicity given to price determinations. If it is the object only to inform individual firms without a notice in the Gazette one can see objections to the practice. For instance, people may be in ignorance of what has been done. Subject to these remarks we support the Second Reading of this Bill.

As the House is already aware, we on this side are going to support this truncated Bill. Let me, however, say immediately that we do not like controls of any kind. I think our position has been made clear in this House from time to time. However, there may come a time when however much you may object to the principle of controls, a form of control may become necessary. We on this side of the House have for a long time been asking the Government to take more stringent measures to curb inflationary trends. Furthermore, we welcomed the measures the Government took towards the end of last year and since. The major aspect of this Bill is that it is in furtherance of those objectives. There are now only two principles left in this Bill. The first principle is that maximum prices can now be fixed not only by means of notice in the Gazette but also by writing individual letters. Like my hon. colleagues, I do not like this at all. We shall, therefore, discuss it in more detail in the Committee Stage. Price control, as we see it, is a public and not a private matter. Once a control has been imposed it should be with the full knowledge of the public. I know the hon. the Minister has said that there may be a single person or a single organization who is overcharging. Here one of two things can arise. Either competition can stop this overcharging or, if there is no competition and the person concerned has in effect a monopoly, there is the Monopolies Act which can deal with the situation. I can see no reason whatsoever why any notice cannot be published in the Gazette.

The second principle of this Bill is in clause 6. It allows the Price Controller to intervene in instalment selling and to bring leases within the definition of sales. The Minister has told us that what he is trying to do is to bring within the orbit of the Price Controller sales which are being disguised as leases. It is important that one must realize that the rights given to the Price Controller are purely permissive. This is an enabling Bill—it enables the Price Controller to do certain things. We are not saying to him, for instance, that he is getting authority to do this or that. All we are saying to him is that should certain circumstances arise which may affect the economy of the country adversely he will have the power to intervene. I think it is important that this should be realized. The Bill says the Price Controller “may” prohibit the sale or lease of any goods. It lays down specifically the circumstances under which he may do so. The first thing he has to do is to give notice to the seller that the sale of the goods concerned is prohibited. But an important rider is being added, namely except on the terms laid down by the Price Controller—in other words, he is not saying to a dealer he may not sell these goods; he is saying that a dealer can only sell these goods on certain conditions. Here again I think it is important that this is realized. By implication, if not in fact, I think this will only apply to cases where the purchase price is payable in instalments. The other important provision in clause 6 is that such a prohibition only becomes effective if the goods are to be sold with a lesser deposit than that required by the Price Controller or if the goods are to be sold over a longer period than the period determined by the Price Controller. So, here is not a complete prohibition in any shape or form. It is a prohibition only in the sense that once the Price Controller has said that certain goods may be sold at a certain price, upon a certain deposit and the payment of certain instalments and the dealer complies with these requirements the seller is free to sell. The prohibition only becomes effective when the seller does not comply with these conditions.

Certain leases are included in the term “sale”. After listening to the hon. the Minister it seems to me that the purpose appears to be to include what are in effect sales disguised as leases. It must be tied up with a disposal of goods—in other words, there is no intention to do anything in so far as the normal lease of a house, for instance, is concerned, or normal leases of that kind. It will, therefore, not affect straightforward leases. I think I can sum up the position by saying that we are giving the Price Controller wide powers, that I do not think we can deny, but the power is not to prohibit the sale of goods; the power is to lay down the conditions under which goods can be sold. This is really what we are doing. We think that this is necessary to-day. As I said, we on this side are vitally concerned with the closing of the gap in the inflationary measures. We know that there is an enormous volume of business being done to-day in motor cars, furniture, and electrical appliances, which are being sold under contracts of lease when they are in effect sales. The purpose of these leases is purely to evade the provisions of the Hire-Purchase Act. We agree that this should be stopped because it is not in the interests of the buyer, nor is it in the interests of the country. It may be in the interests of the seller, because we are encouraging people to spend beyond their means on goods that they cannot afford during a time when the country cannot afford to allow this to happen.

The prices at which these goods are being bought and sold are very much higher than the normal prices at which they could be bought and sold under normal circumstances, even under hire-purchase agreements. We know that the seller in many cases is adding as much as 20 per cent to the price of the goods and this again is having serious effects on the economy of the country. High interest rates can be charged by organizations that finance this type of transaction, and they can afford to pay these high interest rates because they are drawing the money from the public at high rates of interest. By doing so they are diverting funds from institutions and organizations, such as building societies, to which we on this side and, I believe, hon. members opposite, believe that the funds should be flowing. This will have the effect in some measure of not only doing the task that the Minister wants here, but other things will flow from it which I think are also a factor in the movement towards the ultimate reduction of the interest rate of this country. It is because these things are necessary, because of the times in which we live, because of the inflation that we are trying to overcome, that we support the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the attitude of the hon. members of the Opposition and the way in which the hon. members for Constantia, Pinetown and Parktown have lent their conditional support to this Bill, and the way in which they pointed out certain problems. It is clear that they appreciate that there are certain practices in commerce which are prejudial to the consumer. They are in fact also prepared to co-operate if those malpractices can be eliminated. That is their attitude. The hon. member for Constantia also outlined in principle why they were opposed to price control. I have already taken note of their attitude in this regard.

I never said that; I said that I was against permanent control.

Yes, the hon. member said that he was opposed to permanent price control, and that he felt that such restrictions should be renewed from year to year. As regards price control, I just want to say the following: There are few articles which are subject to price control through publication. Then there are quite a few other cases where price control is virtually in a voluntary form. Here I may refer to tyres, fuel, cement, cans in which goods are preserved, condensed milk, and so forth. It is possible to establish price control on a voluntary basis, particularly when one deals with large organizations and well organized undertakings throughout the country. There are, however, other cases which have to be put right. What we are therefore asking in principle here is that the powers may be extended in order that it may not be necessary in such cases to publish in the Government Gazette in the first place.

It has been said here that it is not good practice simply to give notice. It may nevertheless happen that one feels that a certain dealer in a certain town, or an undertaking which trades throughout the country, is selling a particular article at too high a price, and it is now asked that such a case should be corrected by letter. I think it was the hon. member for Constantia who said that this was now being done even in cases where such an article was not subject to price control. But I do not think the hon. member is quite correction saying that. I have been assured that correspondence takes place only in those cases where price control has been agreed on voluntarily. In cases where there is no such voluntary agreement, those persons are not asked by letter to reduce the price. The hon. member also referred to the prices of admission to cinemas. I understand that notices in this connection did in fact appear in the Government Gazette after an appeal had been made to the concerns involved not to increase the prices of admission.

Now the question is this: Should price control take place by way of written notice in such cases where there are perhaps only a few articles which are sold in this way, or where only a single undertaking is involved? I feel that this discretion should in fact be given. I shall see to it that it is not exercised in many cases. As a result of the appeal made to the public last year by my predecessor, we find that they did bring sudden and unjustified price increases to the notice of the Department. Now the question is this: Should publication take place in cases where there was in fact an excessive charge, or can the matter be disposed of merely by writing to the person or undertaking concerned? I feel that if the article or undertaking in question is not found throughout the country, publication is perhaps not justified.

If hon. members on the opposite side insist, I am prepared to consider a possible amendment on these lines. I shall do so if hon. members feel strongly that even in cases where only one undertaking or a group is involved, and after it has been ascertained that file position is in fact as alleged, it should appear in the Press for the information of others. It is just that I fear that it may be somewhat unfair to certain undertakings to do so. Nevertheless, if hon. members feel that it is a better solution to have publication take place after there has been correspondence, I shall be prepared to consider such an amendment. With co-operation I may even have a possible amendment drawn up.

I may as well give an example of a case in which it was even necessary to take quick action. Certain undertakings in Natal decided suddenly to increase the price of their articles in Natal.

We are getting trouble again in Natal.

Yes, and I am sorry. They were contacted by telephone. Some years ago, on a previous occasion, there was even an announcement on the radio that it could not happen. Sometimes it is necessary to take quick action. There have therefore been cases where it was necessary to act in this way.

The hon. member also referred to certain problems which he wanted to anticipate. He pointed out that hire-purchase transactions or lease contracts were customary. It is true that in commerce and even in industry it is becoming the practice to an increasing extent to lease many expensive articles on a lone-term basis. I am now thinking particularly of electronic computers. It is by no means proposed to curb this. I think that for many undertakings it is impossible to raise the large amounts for purchasing these expensive articles and in addition to meet the costs of repairs. These items are usually of a very technical nature. There is not very great competition as far as they are concerned. I think it is an essential service which is rendered to industry in this connection.

I now want to refer to two instances. We find that certain articles are usually sold under a hire-purchase contract. We may consider motor cars—the hon. member for Pinetown also mentioned them. Motor cars are usually sold under a hire-purchase contract. We find, however, that certain concerns are evading those conditions completely. There is no minimum deposit which has to be paid, no period is laid down, and consequently, in view of their ignorance or because they want to obtain an article which is perhaps completely beyond their means, certain persons have to be protected against their own ignorance. There is also another reason, and that is the following. As far as hire purchase is concerned, one of the means of combating inflation is measures to bring about a reduction in the buyer’s demand or in the consumption. For that reason the Hire Purchase Act was in fact used in this country in the past to curb the inflationary tendencies by prescribing higher deposits and by providing that the purchase price should be paid in full over a shorter or a longer period. But this means that if the Government should perhaps decide as an anti-inflationary measure to restrict hire-purchase transactions by increasing the deposits or shortening the period, those provisions may be evaded by entering into a contract which is actually not a hire-purchase transaction. This is a further basic reason why this provision is necessary. I do not think it is in any way intended to oppose the good and essential practice of hire-purchase contracts.

The hon. member for Pinetown asked what we regarded as a normal profit. It sometimes happens that in financing motor cars more than 30 per cent profit is made. I do not want to go into this any further, because I know that my colleague the Minister of Finance is dealing with certain amendment to the Usury Act. Basically this type of financing comes under the Usury Act. On the other hand, the provisions of the Usury Act are not of application to hire-purchase transactions.

The hon. member referred us to certain provisions of clause 2 and said that to him they did not seem to be quite correct. I shall have a look at that, and perhaps I shall have a further discussion on it with the hon. member. As far as fixing prices and charges for certain services are concerned, I think it is the basic principle not to proceed with that but to refer the whole matter to the Board of Trade and Industries. I shall correct it there if it is at all possible.

I think I have referred mainly to the fundamental objections raised by the hon. gentlemen. I appreciate that it is perhaps a difficult measure to implement. The intention is not, however, to intervene unnecessarily in any way in private initiative or commercial practices. These amendments are called for only with a view to application in those cases where some disruption is caused or where the existing Act cannot be applied effectively. I move.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to break a lance for the angler with the hon. the Minister, in respect of the Bantu areas. In saying this I am referring to Bantu areas along the coastline of the Republic of South Africa and also Bantu areas in the interior of the Republic which offer fresh-water angling. I want to make it quite clear that I am not rising to plead for the interests of the commercial fisherman. Be it far from me to advocate their interests in this connection. This morning I am concerned only with the sporting angler, the person Who goes fishing for relaxation, and to whom angling is a sport.

I want to tell you at once that the establishment of cities and towns and their expansion are making inroads on the angling resorts. Day by day his angling waters are being cut down by various factors. There is the allocation of various areas for different population groups along the South African coastline, which has given rise to further restrictions for the angler throughout the country. I would almost say that it will not be long before an angler will be an unwelcome guest on the South Coast of Natal as a result of the tremendous expansion which has taken place there. As towns and cities expand, the angler will have to suffer further restrictions from time to time.

Further restrictions are imposed by the demands of Departments such as the Departments of Forestry, Water Affairs, Transport, Defence, Bantu Administration and Development, etc. In the same connection it should be borne in mind that existing popular angling resorts, for example St. Lucia, cannot meet the demand of the anglers in South Africa during peak periods.

Against the background of all this it should be appreciated that no other sport has expanded as much as angling during the past one or two decades. No other. Anglers in South Africa have increased until at present there are approximately 400,000 to 500,000 of them. No other sport equals this. It is on be half of these sportsmen that I am making these representations to the hon. the Minister this morning. I shall try to discuss this subject again when we come to the Vote of the Department of Planning, when I shall deal with a further aspect. But now that this Vote is under discussion I want to suggest in the first place, and this is my first request, that the Minister should enter into consultations with the Government of the Transkei in an attempt to persuade the Transkeian Government to provide the white angler of the Republic of South Africa, who may be regarded as a tourist in the Transkei, with good angling facilities. Just as the Republic is trying to draw tourists from every quarter, I believe the Government of the Transkei will also endeavour to draw tourists from the Republic of South Africa and even from all over the world. For that reason it should provide the facilities along the Transkeian coastline which will induce these white anglers to go there. They should be provided by the people of the Transkei. This will be a source of revenue to those people.

I have been saying that all along. I agree with that.

If you agree with me, I think I may be on the wrong track.

I have long been pleading for that.

Then I am beginning to doubt. The second request which I want to make relates to the coastline between Sordwana and the Mozambique border. This area is situated in a Bantu homeland. I want to ask that anglers should receive more encouragement there and should be drawn to those areas, because it may be a source of revenue to those homelands. The Whites should be enabled to go there. The control over those angling resorts which may be established by the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development may perhaps be placed in the hands of the South African Angling Union.

Are you speaking on behalf of them?

No, I am not sneaking on behalf of them; this is a request I am making on behalf of the anglers of South Africa. But if I am to recommend a body to exercise control over those areas on behalf of the anglers, then I say that the South African Angling Union may be considered. It is realistic to make this request for the simple reason that in white South Africa we grant beach areas to the Bantu. In all the controlled areas along our coastline in white South Africa the Bantu of the Republic may go angling. Those areas are open to them.

In the white areas?

No, not in the white area, in the controlled areas. In the controlled areas in white South Africa the Bantu in South Africa may go angling. It is open for all angling to all the population groups. The Bantu in South Africa may go angling in those controlled areas just like any other population group. There would be no objection if the white angler were prohibited from angling in areas situated opposite Bantu towns on the coastline of that homeland.

But may the Bantu go angling in a white area?

No, he may not go angling in a white area. I said that he could in fact go angling in the controlled areas. If the hon. member cannot understand that, he may come and talk to me in a moment and I shall explain it to him. However, I am not going to waste the time I have available by explaining to him. We are not asking that the white angler should be admitted to coastal areas opposite the Bantu towns in the Bantu homelands. Nor shall we request admission to swimming areas for the Bantu in the Bantu homelands, because, by the same token, we do not expect the Bantu and other population groups to be allowed at our swimming areas and opposite our residential towns in the Republic.

Let me say this. The Sordwana-Kosi Bay-Mozambique border complex is an angling resort in world class. It is on a par with Bazaruto and St. Marthino. In 1963 61,158 people from South Africa visited Mozambique. In 1964 the figure was 70,146. In 1965 it increased to 75,686. In 1966 the figure was 75,926. It is an increase of more than 14,000 within four years. Now I say this. If each of these South Africans spent R50 in Mozambique, they paid an amount of R4 million into the coffers of Mozambique. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member who has just sat down will forgive me if I do not follow him. He has touched on a very interesting topic, a topic on which I think we could spend quite a good deal of time with considerable profit.

I want to refer for a moment to the remarks made here yesterday by the hon. member for Marico, who is not here at present. I want to say that I think that it is regrettable that he made the speech yesterday in regard to certain developments in Zululand. We in this House have to deal with a multitude of matters of varying degrees of importance, but there comes a time when we are dealing with matters of supreme importance, of critical importance. I deprecate the hon. member making a speech as he did yesterday on an important matter. I must say that I agree with the hon. the Minister when he said that he hoped "hat as far as possible the names of individual Bantu leaders would not be used more than is absolutely necessary in this House. There come times when, for various reasons, because of reasons of State, it is necessary that names shall be used. But unless that is the case—and it was not the case yesterday—then I deprecate it if names are so used. I think that it was very unfortunate that the hon. member spoke as he did. Because, Sir, it starts a certain train of thought running, it gives rise to certain effects.

I want to say that, whatever the hon. member may have thought in regard to the position in Zululand, when he uses the name of the Paramount Chief he is wrong. It is a pity that he said what he said. I am trying to choose my words, because I do not want to be guilty of causing any of the ill effects which can flow from the kind of speech which we heard here yesterday.

The position is that the Government is pursuing its own policy a policy with which I disagree but which is nevertheless the policy of the Government of South Africa. As far as the people of Zululand are concerned, it is the policy of the Government of South Africa. The Government wishes that policy to be accepted. But it also wishes it to be acceptable. Up to now the policy has not been accepted there, it is not acceptable. Negotiations take place from time to time. Here I want to repeat what I said here yesterday. These folk are some of the most law-abiding, responsible people that we have got in the whole of the Republic. And it is a good thing that it is so—for all of us. They are some of the most loyal and law-abiding people, and they are people who inhabit our country on the northern border where we are situated next to another country in which difficulties have arisen. Grave political difficulties have arisen there. The people who live on our side of the border are our Zulu people. They occupy a strategic position as far as South Africa is concerned, which is unique because of their own past history and their present situation. They occupy not only the country on our northern border but also the country on our seaboard there.

The Government may take measures—and I hope appropriate measures—not to force these people into anything. What is their attitude to the proposals that have been made? Their attitude is that they are a conquered people and they can be ordered to do certain things. And they will carry out orders. They do not understand what consultation means because they do not understand the politics of the white man and the political way which white people have of dealing with their political affairs. They understand the position of a conquered man who is given an order and told to carry it out. Their position is quite clear. They say, “If we are ordered, we will do what we are told, loyally and to the best of our ability”.

I think that what the hon. the Minister said yesterday was of the utmost importance when he said that he will compel none of the Bantu people by force to accept independence. That is what the Minister said yesterday. That is a statement of surpassing importance to South Africa. When the Minister made that statement and committed the Government yesterday, he was saying it also to those people who at the present time are going slowly and haltingly along the line which the white people have cast for them. They are going slowly because they are a cautious people. They want to see where this path leads. They want to see whether it has, in fact, the benefits which are claimed for it by its proposers. They want to see it operating successfully somewhere. There is only one place in South Africa so far where it can be operating successfully, and that is in the Transkei. They want to see it being successful. They are cautious. That is why I say that the Minister’s statement was of surpassing importance.

I want to plead with the Minister. As far as possible I want him to get hon. members on both sides of the House not only not to mention the names of individuals here, but to keep this issue out of the party politics of the white man here in Parliament. This is not a matter to be trifled with. What we say here can be so easily misunderstood when you get up onto the Lebombo mountains. We must always bear that in mind. It is misunderstood sometimes by white men a long way away from Cape Town. The inner meaning of what is said here can so easily be misunderstood. It is looked at from the point of view of the background, the tradition and the language of the folk concerned, not the background and tradition and language of the people who are speaking here in Parliament.

So I plead with the hon. the Minister to go slowly with these people. Deal with soil and water conservation and with the practical things of life so that they can see for themselves the benefits that flow from the Government’s policy. Those are things which are acceptable to all sides of the House. We all want soil and water conservation measures carried out. It can be demonstrated that it is beneficial. Those are the practical things of life, but when it comes to political considerations and our ideas of politics I ask the Minister please to go slowly, and as far as possible on both sides of the House let us keep those matters out of the debates here so that the people there can see the fruit of the tree, so that they can see other people experiment on the lines they are being asked to follow, and when they have seen the success of the experiment that will be the time to press them to take similar steps. But in the meantime they stand back, and I believe they are entitled to do so and so say: Do not force us, and if you are going to force us, do not say you are asking our opinion, but order us to do something and we will do it. That is clear to me, and I understand how those people think. In the meantime I say the Minister should neither order them nor force them to try to give him advice as to what their people think about it. The people will declare themselves. I just ask the Minister to go slowly with these things and to keep the emphasis away from political considerations.

The hon. member for South Coast will pardon me if I do not follow him in his approach. I should like to make a few observations in respect of the Bantu in South-West Africa, and to make a specific request to the hon. the Minister. As we know that South Africa is sincere in her endeavour to do certain things in respect of the Bantu in South-West and as we know that this is founded on the equitable principle that she wishes to provide every ethnic group with its own opportunity for development towards self-determination, I should like to refer to the speech the hon. the Minister made in Ovamboland recently, in which he proved once again that South Africa was sincere in her intentions with the various Bantu groups there. I quote—

With reference to this speech by the hon. the Minister and to the accusations levelled against South Africa throughout the world at present, to the effect that we neglected promoting the material, moral and social welfare of the inhabitants, I think it is necessary that it should be placed on record in this House and that the Minister should give us information again in connection with his announcement in Ovamboland on the expansion of the economy of that population and on this expenditure of R30 million during the next five years. Yesterday the hon. the Minister referred to a five-year plan, and I assume that there is also a five-year plan for Ovamboland. In this connection I should like to make a request to the Minister. What about the other population groups there, such as the Okavango’s, the Damara’s, the Nama’s, the Herero’s, the Eastern Caprivians and the Bushmen? We know what has been done. We saw that in this comprehensive report South-West African Survey, for which we are very grateful and which showed what has already been done for these Bantu population groups in South-West. But we feel that in future a great deal more should be done and is going to be done, and I am therefore making this request to the Minister to give us a clearer exposition of the plans of his Department in respect of the development of this Bantu population with a view to leading them to self-determination and self-reliance. But one also appreciates that in this aid programme there are many problems, because it is a vast country covering more than 300,000 square miles, which varies from rich and fertile land to sandy deserts, and where the rainfall varies from nil in the desert regions to a tropical rainfall. What is characteristic is that the population in the territory have retained their differences through the ages. They differ in physique and in appearance and in ethnic origin, and they differ in language and in culture, and they are at different stages of development. These different ethnic groups regard themselves as separate nations and prefer to continue as such in future, and not to be dominated by some group or other. Locality has also contributed towards underlining these differences, in their eating habits, their hunting customs, their farming methods, and everything else. It is therefore essential that in this aid programme it should be very clearly apparent that these different population groups, each with its own traditional customs and its own language and culture and way of life, should be preserved in this way to ensure peaceful co-existence and thus to achieve the maximum development for each ethnic group and the maximum development for the territory in its entirety. As these population groups practise the agricultural industry, I want to submit that in respect of mining and industries this has been neglected to some extent, but that in future we should concentrate on agriculture. In order to be of assistance in this field, certain things are most essential and should receive attention. The first is the provision of water. A great deal has been done in that regard, but perhaps the Minister may tell us in more detail what is planned for the next five years. There is fencing and the improvement of their stock. One finds large stock-farmers among them, also sheep farmers, and in the different regions in which they live we find that they are restricted to certain types of farming. There is control over stock diseases, and then there is the problem of impressing upon them that it should not merely be a self-supporting economy but also a marketing economy, and that these animals should be marketed. Many of them still have the idea that the number of their stock is actually a status symbol, and they are not eager to sell them. However, there are problems in respect of the marketing aspect and there are too few veterinary surgeons, because in the northern regions, where the largest numbers of stock occur, lung disease and foot-and-mouth disease are endemic. I therefore want to make this request to the Minister, that very good control measures should also be imposed in respect of stock diseases and that veterinary services should be emphasized and that it should happen in such a way that they will not jeopardize the entire South-West African economy by marketing animals deriving from those regions, but that by controlling those stock diseases they may be freed of those diseases in order not to harm the entire South-West African economy, which is based on agriculture. In respect of all the other developments, such as transport, the creation of infrastructures, health, education and social services, I should also like to know what the Minister’s further plans for the future are.

Yesterday and to-day we heard nothing but attacks from the Opposition on the creation of the homelands. The Opposition attacked the Minister and the Government on everything that has been done and that is to be done in the homelands in future. I wondered whether we should not forget about the Opposition, because in my opinion it is mischievous of them. They will not understand what is being done there, and they will not see that the homelands are becoming reality and they will not see that we are continuing with that work. But I want to say that the homelands have become reality and that we should take every opportunity to explain the homelands and their planning to the urban Bantu. If we have the co-operation of the Bantu in the large cities and if we cultivate love in them and the realization that it is their homeland as well, and land which will be their land, we shall achieve great results in future. Where large schools are established in the urban Bantu townships, I have wondered whether those schools should not be transferred to the homelands in order that the Bantu may learn from an early age that his school is in his homeland; the country which he inherited from his fathers and which he must learn to love, and the country which he must help to develop for his nation and for posterity. If one cultivates love for his own in the child, I believe we shall achieve results. Furthermore, I also want to plead with the Minister, like the hon. member for Wolmaransstad, that homes should be established in the homelands for the aged Bantu who are no longer able to work in order that they may also have the privilege of finding a place of rest in their own country. If we can assimilate the aged people and the youth in those homelands. the ordinary Bantu will follow. The homelands are reality and we know that in future that ideal should be developed. How can we get the urban Bantu to understand that? Here I want to thank the Minister for the fact that a year or two ago he enabled the various large Bantu advisory councils to undertake a tour through all these Bantu homelands. It was worth the trouble. I also know that the Department of Bantu Administration is doing a great deal to take Bantu businessmen through the different homelands, because we need these businessmen as well, as they have already achieved great success in the Bantu townships. They have proved that in business the Bantu is quite as astute as any White. If those Bantu from the cities could also establish businesses in the homelands, I know that they will achieve success there as well. It was said yesterday that there were Whites in the homelands who owned certain businesses and that those Whites had taught the Bantu and had to get out now, but I may assure those hon. members that on the Witwatersrand we have Bantu businessmen nowadays who are quite as capable as any Whites. Just give them a chance in their own homelands and you will see the results. I thank the Government for the assistance rendered to those persons. Mr. Chairman, as you know, the establishment of Bantu townships has been under heavy fire in the past, but I may give you the assurance that they are a success, and just as they are a success, we on this side believe that the Bantu homelands have become reality and that in future they will be a great success.

The hon. member for Stilfontein, towards the end of his speech, became quite lyrical about the establishment of Bantu townships in white areas. I almost thought for a moment that he was going to plead with the hon. the Minister to leave them there and perhaps even to extend them further. Sir, he also referred to Bantu businessmen and I agree with him that many of the Bantu businessmen have progressed. We know that at the present moment there is a congress of Bantu businessmen from all over the country sitting in Cape Town, and I say:

More power to the Government’s elbow; let us develop more of these people. The hon. member for Stilfontein also spoke about Bantu homelands which he says have become a fact, and he says that the Bantu must be taught to love their homelands. Sir, I submit that they have always had what this Government now calls a homeland. We have always had the reserves; we have always had the Bantu areas which they have considered to be their homes, and I do not think that they regard them any more as their homes to-day than they did before.

Sir, yesterday we had the hon. member for Aliwal waxing lyrical about the “rooigras” which is now growing in the Transkei and about the greater carrying capacity of the Transkei, the fact that the Transkei can now car’-y more stock and so on. During a debate earlier this Session I asked the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Development, when he also waxed lyrical about the amount of money that we had spent here, whether the carrying capacity of the Transkei had been increased. Sir, I still have not had any answer from the hon. the Deputy Minister, and I think this applies not only to him but to his colleague, the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration, who yesterday also told us about the fantastic sums of money which had been spent on the Ciskei and so on and about the employment opportunities which had been provided in those areas. Sir, I want to put this question to both those hon. Deputy Ministers: Has the carrying capacity of the Transkei and the Ciskei been increased, not only with regard to stock and agriculture, but from the point of view of people? Can more people get employment there to-day?

Yes, definitely.

How many more people can get employment there now? Yesterday the hon. the Deputy Minister gave us certain figures in respect of the Ciskei and the Transkei, and the figure he gave us was 5,300. He went further and said that he had now provided for the employment of all the natural increase in the Transkei and the Ciskei.

I did not say that; why did you not listen?

I am afraid then that I must have misunderstood the hon. the Deputy Minister and I accept his statement.

I will tell you what I said. I said that we are nearly in a position where we can absorb the natural increase in the Ciskei. The figures prove it.

What I would like to know from the hon. the Deputy Minister is whether he has provided employment yet for all the people there? Let us forget about the natural increase for the moment. Can he give employment to all the unemployed people in the Ciskei and the Transkei?

Not on your life.

What is the good of talking about providing employment for the natural increase when we have not yet given employment to the people who are there at the present moment? The other day in the debate on the Economic Affairs Vote I asked the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs if he knew how many people were employed in border industries. He could not tell us. I wonder if either the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development or one of his Deputies can tell us that?

I can tell you.

The hon. the Deputy Minister says that he can tell me but only the other day he told me in this House, in reply to a question, that these figures were not kept by his Department. [Interjections.] My question was quite unequivocal. I asked:

“How many Bantu are employed in border industries?” The hon. the Deputy Minister told us that he could not give us the figures. Sir, this is the same Deputy Minister who last year said to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition in a debate here: “Do you know how much it costs to employ one Bantu on the Witwatersrand?” He gave us a figure of R6,000. I want to ask him whether he knows how much it costs to employ one Bantu in the border areas?

Yes, it has been worked out.

How much is it?

R3,000 to R4,000.

The hon. the Deputy Minister gave us a figure for the Witwatersrand which is a capital-intensive area, where there are many factories which have spent millions of rand and are employing a minimum of people. But the hon. the Deputy Minister took this area and he gave us a figure of R6,000. Has he asked himself what it costs to give employment to one Bantu in the border industries? As I explained here the other day, it has cost nearly R400 million to establish these industries in the border areas, and we do not know how many people are employed there. I hope the hon. the Deputy Minister is going to tell us to-day. But if I accept the figure which is given by the Permanent Committee for the Location of Industries and the Development of Border Areas, it works out at R9,200 per individual Bantu employed in what are labour-intensive industries, not capital-intensive industries.

Where did you get that figure?

From the annual report. They give the employment figure as 44,600, when the work is complete, not now.

Where did you get the figure as to the amount invested?

I got that figure from inquiries into that report and from answers to questions asked in this House. But, Sir, let us leave that for a moment. The hon. the Minister yesterday, in reply to the hon. member for Transkei, gave us three ways in which he was capable of handling the removal of the white people from the Transkei. He went to great lengths to explain that the method adopted by this Government was the most humane, the most humanitarian and the best economically and so on, but the question is this: Why should those people have to move out in the first place? Why cannot they be left there? None of them wanted to move out; they were all very happy to remain. They are now being compelled to move out. They want to move out now because they must. The hon. the Minister said to the hon. member for Transkei yesterday, “What about their businesses? They do not want to sell their businesses”. Sir, they are being compelled to sell their businesses.

Nonsense.

No, Sir, this is not nonsense. Take a village like Mount Frere. How many businesses are there in Mount Frere which have been zoned for white occupation?

How many?

Fourteen. How many are zoned for Bantu occupation? Four. How many white residential sites have been zoned for those 14 white businesses in Mount Frere? Six—six white residential sites for the proprietors and all their white employees, so they are not being compelled to move out; they are going of their own free will! I ask you, Sir! I cannot follow the argument of the hon. the Deputy Minister. This, of course, raises the question of how separate is separate development. As the hon. member for Transkei said, here they are compelling people of different racial groups, by legislation, to live next door to each other. My own brother-in-law in the Transkei is compelled to live with Bantu people on either side of him. He is not objecting: he is not opposing it and he never has. It has been accepted by the people in the Transkei, but this Government has first said that it is wrong and then they come and compel it by law. Let us go further into this question of separate development. How separate is separate development when you can have a statement by the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education that Soweto is wrong as a Bantu township on the outskirts of a city. but Umlazi, Imbali and a few others like that are all right. What is the difference? [interjections.] Sir, I know what the hon. the Deputy Minister will say. He will say that they are in Bantu homelands but since when have they been Bantu homeland? These places have all been established on what was white-owned land. Umlazi township is established on land which at one time belonged to the great-great grandfather of the hon. member for Pinelands. He owned the land on which Umlazi township is now established: it was subsequently a sugar farm. What about Imbali outside Pietermaritzburg? That was all white-owned land. What has the Government done? It has bought and is buying UP additional land to link this to the Swartkops location. [Time expired.]

The hon. member who has just sat down became so entangled in figures that he reminded me of a saying I once heard: “The figures do not lie, but liars can figure”. With reference to the wise words spoken by the hon. member for South Coast a moment ago, I want to tell you a story, Mr. Chairman, of what happened in Natal where a Bantu Commissioner had to explain the Government’s policy to the Bantu. He did so in his own language. The wise men, some of them grey-beards, sat there and listened attentively, and the Bantu Commissioner wondered how they would receive it and how they would understand it. One of the wise old men sat there and made this gesture with his hands, a gesture as though he had something in his hands which he was passing from one hand to the other, and the Bantu Commissioner, who understands the Bantu, knew at once that what he said had been well received, because the wise old man wanted to indicate that it was such a delicate matter that one should handle it the way one handles an egg; if one drooped it, it would break. I am therefore grateful that the hon. member for South Coast used such wise words. The hon. member for Houghton would do well to take notice of that; she would do well to read and study the hon. member’s speech, because the question occurs to me: How many people does she represent here to-day? She has regarded herself as the advocate and as the patron of an under-privileged group. She believed, of course, that it is only the non-Whites who are under-privileged. There are also Whites who are under-privileged. She pleaded their cause here, but she did so in such an inciting, inflammatory way that I wonder how many of them to-day …

Order! The hon. member may not say that another hon. member incites people. He must withdraw that.

I withdraw it, Mr. Chairman. These people were spurred on to deeds which landed them in trouble while the hon. member is sitting high and dry in Parliament.

I want to come to another matter, namely this: In my constituency and also in other large centres there are persons who do not accept the policy of separate development with the enthusiasm with which it is received by those of us who are filled with idealism, and they are undermining the policy of the Government, which makes the laws which apply in this country. Them are many Whites who in conflict with the law permit Bantu to be accommodated on their premises, where they spend the night and from where they leave the next day for their various places of employment. There are certain suburbs of certain cities where there is even a regular bus service to transport these Bantu from the suburbs to their places of employment. I want to make an appeal to the hon. the Minister to do everything in his power to clear up that situation as soon as possible. It gives rise to a great deal of dissatisfaction among the Whites, both supporters of the Government and those who are not supporters of the Government, and it is a matter which in my view should enjoy very serious attention from the Government.

It was very nice of the hon. member for Germiston (District) to devote so much of his precious ten minutes to me. He need not worry about my feelings or political reactions in this House, lonely little soul though I be. I manage fairly well on my own, but I do appreciate the sympathetic attitude that he adopted.

Let me rather get back to the hon. the Minister and some of the things he has said. I hope I made it clear last night before the House adjourned that as far as I am concerned, I shall use any published report, no matter what the source, in this House and that I do not consider any of these church reports or any other kind of published report as sacrosanct. I shall use them. But what I want to know from the hon. the Minister …

You misuse them.

Well, I did not misuse them at all. I quoted from the report which was accepted by the Cape Synod.

It was not.

It was. The hon. the Minister cannot deny that. All he said was that later at a general meeting of the Synod in Bloemfontein that particular paragraph had been rejected. But that did not mean that the Cape Synod had not accepted it. I challenge him to prove that the Cape Synod did not accept it. What is more, I want to know from the hon. the Minister whether he was trying to tell this House that the Dutch Reformed Church Synod in Bloemfontein not only accepted, but stated that it approved of migratory labour.

I read out to you what it decided.

He said that they partially rejected what had been said and they thanked the Government or expressed their appreciation for what the Government was doing to reduce the migratory labour system and to emphasize rather the development of the border industries. Does that sound like approval? Of course not.

Will the hon. member for Houghton accept the guidance of the Dutch Reformed Church in every respect or only in certain respects so that she can twist matters to her own advantage?

Mr. Chairman, I object to the use of the word “twist”.

Order! The hon. the Minister is not allowed to say that the hon. member is twisting matters to her own advantage.

But, Mr. Chairman, I did not say that the hon. member was twisting matters now.

The hon. the Minister said that the hon. member would only accept what she could twist to her own advantage.

Mr. Chairman, I think the hon. the Minister should be requested to withdraw that word.

Order! I think the hon. the Minister must withdraw that word.

Very well, Sir, I shall withdraw the word, but I want to point out that I did not say that she was twisting matters now.

I am sorry, Mr. Chairman, but I cannot accept that explanation. Should the hon. the Minister not withdraw his allegation that I would use and distort only what I like in regard to the Dutch Reformed Church?

Order! But the hon. the Minister did withdraw the word.

Well, I am sorry but I did not hear him do so.

I did do so. Apparently the hon. member is asleep while she is on her feet.

I cannot understand why the hon. the Minister should become so furious. He must learn to control his temper. The hon. the Deputy Minister must also learn to control his temper. [Interjections.] May I ask your protection. Sir, from these volcanoes that rumble behind me? I might say extinct volcanoes, but they rumble nevertheless. I can never stand up for 10 minutes without this incessant rumble going on behind me. I want to tell both the hon. the Minister and the Deputy Minister …

Order! Hon. members must give the hon. member a chance.

… that abuse is a very poor substitute for argument. In fact it is no substitute at all. Neither of those hon. Ministers have answered at all any of the objections I made to the system that the Government is implementing as far as the migratory system is concerned. I say to the hon. the Minister quite unequivocally that I am quite certain that there is no church in this country, be it the Dutch Reformed Church, the Anglican, the Roman Catholic or the Jewish Church, which system. Everybody knows it is a bad system would in any way defend the migratory labour sociologically. He knows that as well as I do, because the report that he read out from the main body at Bloemfontein expressed its appreciation to the Government for what it was doing to reduce the migratory labour system and not for what it was doing to increase the system. All the sound and fury and all this tremendous excitement, because I dare to quote a Dutch Reformed Church report, mean nothing to me. This is a lot of nonsense and the hon. the Minister knows it himself and his anger certainly does not deceive or divert me.

I was very interested to see the announcement of the new five-year plan for Africans which is reported in the Press to-day and which the Minister mentioned yesterday. One thing I want to say is that I am glad to see that a larger percentage is being set aside for economic development, namely for secondary and tertiary development in this five-year plan, than was set aside in the first five-year plan. I hope the hon. the Minister is listening to me. It might please him more than last night’s speech. The first five-year plan set aside, I think, R141 million and R76 million of that was for housing, of all things, and not in the urban areas, of course, because that does not fall under this Vote at all. That is the municipality’s responsibility via the National Housing Commission. That amount was for housing in the Native reserves and in the so-called border areas. I do not believe all of that R76 million was spent on housing. As far as I can make out from the answers given to me by the hon. the Minister over the years, something like R102 million was spent in all between 1960 and 1965 plus R16 million that was spent in the Transkei. Of that something like R25 million was spent on housing. Last year an enormous amount was spent on housing, namely about R32 million out of a total amount of R61 million in the Bantu areas, that is in homelands and in the border areas. I think, of course, that this is a most unproductive expenditure. It is highly unproductive. It simply means that rural villages have been set up to provide housing for the families of the workers endorsed out of the urban areas, and those who have been removed from agricultural occupations in the reserves and who presumably are to be the reservoir of labour, either for the border industry areas, or for any other schemes like the Orange River development scheme. Or else it is migratory labour which is going to be allowed to come into the towns. This to me is unproductive expenditure.

Nonsense.

I am not interested in that hon. member’s opinion, anyway. This is again more abuse but no argument. To me the important matter is to spend more of this money on agriculture, to make the reserves more productive, which they badly require in order to provide for some of the existing population. I think the hon. the Deputy Minister has had a pipe dream again about being able to provide sufficient employment for all the natural increase in that population, but at any rate it will not be on a reasonable standard of living. Of course one can keep people living below the breadline and say you are looking after them. The hon. member will perhaps tell us something about the average income of a family in the reserve entirely dependent on agriculture. Would he like to give us a figure in that regard?

I will not fall into the trap of this argument of the Institute of Race Relations and their phoney figures.

But this is a very important question. I should like to know what the hon. the Deputy Minister considers to be an adequate income for, shall we say, a normal family of five living entirely on agriculture. The hon. the Deputy Minister knows that, when the Tomlinson Commission reported, the average income of a family of five in the reserves was £40 a year. That included not only the amount which was realized on the sale of agricultural products, not only the amount consumed by the family of five, but also the earnings of the migratory worker in that family. I want to know now what figure is considered adequate for supporting what he calls the natural increase of the reserves. I think we will find it is very low indeed. I think we are entitled to have this figure, because all these figures are meaningless if they are not at least adequate for subsistence living. I still believe that to the greatest possible extent the reserves are going to be dependent on the earnings of migratory workers.

Get your friends to pay the Bantu better.

I am quite happy to have my friends pay their Bantu better, but the hon. the Minister of Finance made a statement that he hopes very much they would not be allowed to increase African wages, because this would increase the inflationary tendency. Has the hon. the Minister forgotten that? Everybody is entitled to these rises except the African labourer who has to keep down inflation. But never mind these diversions; let us have a figure of what the hon. the Minister considers to be adequate for a family in the reserves, living off agricultural earnings only. That is number one. [Time expired.]

Twice last night and again this morning the hon. member for Houghton tried to tell this House what the policy of the D.R. Church was supposed to be in connection with this matter. But I want to point out to her that the report to which she referred was a preliminary report to the Cape Synod. The Cape Synod did not accept this report because the Cape Synod is not a policy-formulating body. The report was therefore forwarded to the General Synod in Bloemfontein, which is the policy-making body. Here I have the Christian Minister, from which she quoted yesterday, as well as other documents following it. I now want to demonstrate to her how that original document changed. For example, paragraph 2 of that report was substituted completely and was not, as the hon. member alleged, accepted as it appeared in the Christian Minister. Paragraph 9 was amended; paragraph 10 (a) was substituted; a large portion of paragraph 14 was omitted—rejected completely; paragraphs 15, 16, 17 and 19 were amended; paragraph 20 was referred back to the study committee concerned for further study; paragraph 21 (a) was substituted. We now come to paragraph 22—this paragraph which the hon. member quoted here yesterday and with reference to which she then asked the Minister: “Will the Minister kindly produce any statement which runs counter to what I have read out?” From paragraph 22 the hon. member quoted words which are not in the final resolution of the General Synod. [Interjections.]

Order!

The Cape Synod referred this document to the General Synod.

Is this the Cape Synod’s report or not?

Order! The hon. member for Houghton has had an opportunity to address the House.

Sir, may I ask the hon. member a question?

It is not necessary —I understand very well what the hon. member wants. She wants to suggest to this House and to the outside world that the D.R. Church has taken a stand on this matter which differs from that of the Government. To that end she appeals to what is published in the Christian Minister. The hon. member wants the outside world to believe that the policy of the D.R. Church is as is published in the Christian Minister. Well, I am telling her that that is not the case. The policy is as recorded in the minutes of the General Synod. Yesterday, the hon. the Minister quoted from these minutes of the General Synod. If the hon. member would also consult this document, she would find neither the words “alarming” and “cancer” there, nor the sentence “by virtue of God’s laws … which she also quoted. What right has the hon. member to declare the Christian Minister the organ of the D.R. Church? No ad hoc commission of the General Synod can bind the General Synod, any more than a committee of this House could bind the House to a resolution or a report. Let me tell the hon. member once again, and I conclude with this, that this, as it is written in the Christian Minister, was rejected by the General Synod.

Mr. Chairman, I shall try to make a positive contribution to this debate, and hon. members of the Opposition will forgive me if in order to do so I do not pay much attention to them.

In recent times there has been particular emphasis on the urban Bantu. I should now like to say something about the Bantu in the rural areas and on the population ratio in those areas as it has changed in the past number of years. I just want to quote some figures. Whereas 46.6 per cent of the Whites lived in the rural areas in 1911, this percentage was only 18.3 in 1958, and according to a recent survey made in the Transvaal only 8 per cent of the population in the rural areas in this Province are white. There are various reasons for this state of affairs—amongst others, the process of industrialization in the course of the past few years, which in particular has caused the urbanization of Whites. Our people in the rural areas are aware of the problems in this regard and would like to help to bring about a better population ratio in the rural areas. The farmer in agriculture also wants to contribute his share. But here certain problems exist which I should like to bring to the attention of the hon. the Minister. One of the labour systems prevailing in the rural areas is that of squatters, a type of labourer which is in temporary employment and living on the farms. Committees have been appointed to regulate this labour. Under this system the farmer can build up a supply of labourers on his farm, a reserve from which he may then draw his labour during seasons when labour is urgently needed. It is a system which has also made its contribution to upsetting the relationship between the population groups in the rural areas, namely through the further blackening of the rural areas. It is now the policy, and quite rightly, that this type of labour should be abolished. This means that as far as seasonal labour is concerned, agriculture has to rely on labour from the homelands, but in the homelands the recruiting organization is not what it should be. As a result the farmers are not so eager to co-operate as regards rationing labour, and for that reason it is not being implemented as it should be. There are, of course, the Bantu labour councils which have to regulate all forms of labour on the farms. There are also some farmers on those councils, and they are therefore directly concerned with determining the labour demands of farmers on the farms. We can appreciate that these people will not be so conservative as regards rationing this labour. They do not have a reserve of labourers on their farms any longer, but now have to rely solely on seasonal labour from the homelands. We are therefore very grateful that the hon. the Deputy Minister recently announced at Lichtenburg that this type of labour was now to be reorganized in order that there could be more effective mobilization of labour in the homelands. Amongst other things, the hon. the Deputy Minister said that consideration would be given to a system under which every Bantu in the homelands would be required to have himself registered as a work-seeker.

The time has also come that we should bring it home to these people that their major export product, through which they can stimulate the economy of their homeland, is their labour, which they can export. For that reason this product must be of a higher quality. They must appreciate that they have to compete with labour from other homelands. They must appreciate that in agriculture we can draw labour even from neighbouring states. We must therefore make it clear to these people that separate development also means self-development.

I do not want to follow the arguments about the activities of labour bureaux or deal with the question of the registration of labour in any detail. However, I should like to say that we on this side of the House, and I think all civilized people— “civilized” in its best meaning—are utterly and totally opposed to any sort of movement whatsoever involving the compulsory drafting of people into any particular labour direction against their will. [Interjections.] Any indication that the Government is going to force any person to perform any particular work would be repulsive to every decent instinct of a civilized person. I hope, therefore, that it wil be quite dear … [Interjection.] Does the hon. member for Heilbron, who has made that interjection, not agree with me? Does he disagree with me? Does he believe in forced and compulsory labour? [Interjections.] Mr. Chairman. all of them are shouting and screaming and making noises. But let them get up and tell me whether they disagree with me or not. Le* them say that it is not repulsive to civilized people.

What do you mean by “compulsory labour”? Is it slavery?

Any labour which is performed under duress except labour performed by a person sentenced by a court to perform such labour.

Where in South Africa is such labour performed?

I say in discussing compulsory registration of labour let us be careful that we do not create the impression …

That is not what you said.

Let me then say it again: We on this side of the House are totally opposed to it and so would any civilized person be. Let us therefore not create that impression. Let us be careful not to create that impression. But there is another aspect of the Government’s policy with which I should like to deal.

Are you in favour or are you against compulsory registration of unemployed Bantu?

I am opposed to interference in the private life of any person. If the Government is sincere in its policy and in its intention that the Bantu homelands are to be homelands for the Bantu where they can live as they wish to live, then it would be wrong to use them as a reservoir of compulsorily registered labour to be taken out of the Bantu areas for employment in the white areas because the white man may need labour. My answer therefore to the hon. the Minister’s question is that I would be opposed to any compulsory registration which has as its object the forcing of people to register and then to force them to work, either for the white man or anywhere else, against their will. I couple my objection to the concept of forced labour, something to which we are all totally opposed. But let me relate this question also to the overall policy of the Government. I have here a statement which was made by the hon. the Minister of Mines and Planning last year. I quote from the S.A. Digest—

I want to take this statement as a basis—the fact that the Government is working with black nationalism and not against it.

Business suspended at 12.45 p.m. and resumed at 2.20 p.m.

Afternoon Sitting

Mr. Chairman, before the House adjourned for lunch I had warned the Government that it should not create the impression that it was contemplating forced labour in South Africa. I want to make it quite clear that that does not mean that we are opposed to the registration of “work-seekers”. We have always supported the labour bureaux and the registration of those who are seeking work or those who are in the white cities under permit. I asked how the Government could reconcile the statement made by one of its Ministers that it was working with black nationalism and that the Bantu within their own areas would control their own affairs, with the suggestion that they were going to compulsorily register, within the Bantu areas, labour which is to be forcibly taken from the Bantu areas to the white areas. But that is not the only danger. In recent weeks we have had a number of confrontations between the South African Government and the Government of the Transkei. I do not have time to quote them. I have a report here which states—

There is another demanding the amalgamation of the Ciskei with the Transkei and saying that it is in accord with the policy of the Republican Government. We have had statements about the take-over of departments which have been denied by the Ministers of this Government. I want to know how these conflicting views are going to be reconciled. Here we are now having head-on clashes and direct opposition on specific policies with the Transkeian Government. It states that it will not allow its citizens to be kept out of the work centres of South Africa, and it makes statements about taking over departments, about consolidating the Transkei and the Ciskei, etc., and our Government makes different statements. Where is this confrontation going to lead us and who is going to have to give up? Will it be like the Ndamse case where the white Government had to give way, or is the Bantu Governments of the Transkei and the other Bantustans which will have to give way?

I now want to refer to another matter. I want to take the strongest exception to the fact that the Minister should during the course of this debate—whilst we are discussing his Vote—issue to the Press a vital statement on the development of the Bantu areas, a statement outlining a five-year plan with an expenditure of R490 million over five years. Yet we are busy in this House discussing these very matters. He goes behind the back of the House and issues to the public through the Press a statement on the five-year plan of the Government. We take the strongest exception to this. Seeing that the Minister has decided to do that, now let him stand up in this House and give us the details of that plan. Is this just eyewash or is it real? The last five-year plan was started in 1961, and was due to expire at the end of 1966. We now find that for a whole year while the original five-year plan was in operation, a second five-year plan has also been operating. I say that the figures given for that year of overlap between the last five-year plan and this new one are completely out of proportion to what this House has voted. The figures are not nearly similar. I call upon the hon. the Minister to give this House the information not only concerning his plan but also what he has spent on the last five-year plan in relation to what the original plan intended and to reconcile the money which we are now being asked to vote with what he has told the Press are his plans for the Bantu areas. We want to see those areas develop. We want to see them given an opportunity to increase their carrying power. We do not believe that this Government is going about it in the right way. Therefore we are particularly interested to know that there is a plan. We want to hear how that plan is going to cope with the Bantu who are to be removed within the next few years from the white areas of South Africa. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman. the hon. member for Durban (Point) need not get so hot under the collar. I think the hon. the Minister gave an adequate reply to that yesterday. He indicated that the proposed five-year plan was available at the Department and he even invited the Press to go and get it there to give a full report on it.

I want to deal with another matter. I am glad that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is here, because this is in fact with reference to a remark made by him earlier this year in a debate which took place in this House. I first want to say that on that occasion the hon. the Leader of the Opposition referred to the so-called “federal concept”. I want to confirm that in my view it is perhaps the best description for that, because I do not think it is a “federal system”. Let us therefore leave it at a federal concept. I would then be grateful if the hon. the Leader of the Opposition could give us more particulars in this regard. He mentioned some of the units which would be included in the federal concept. I want to ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition whether he could not name some more units. Here he mentioned the Transkei, the Ciskei. Tswanaland, Zululand, etc. I want to ask him whether it is not possible to enlarge further on that in order that the voters of South Africa may also know what the attitude of the Opposition is in respect of this matter.

What I actually want to refer to is the important statement made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition in this debate. The hon. the Prime Minister asked him this question: Why, then, is this the policy of the United Party, in contrast with the policy as announced initially by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, namely that the eight representatives of the Bantu which he envisaged in this Parliament could eventually also be Bantu? With reference to that statement the Prime Minister asked him why he was discarding that and only provided for there being Whites. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition then said, and I do not want to quote him incorrectly: “The answer to that is very simple. Pressure mounts, and at that stage the pressure in the country was very bad as a result of the policy of this Government.” That was the reply of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. Now I want to say at once that this statement made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition implies this important admission, namely that before this recent announcement the United Party did in fact envisage that the eight representatives of the Bantu in South Africa would eventually also be Bantu. The second important part of the admission is this, that now that the pressure has decreased, the Opposition has reconsidered its position. Now it is prepared to state that those eight representatives will be Whites. At the moment the implication is, firstly, that the U.P.’s policy is subject to pressure. It is a quite logical deduction, that the U.P.’s policy is subject to pressure. In other words, if pressure mounts it will change its policy as it has in fact done it. If the pressure decreases it will adjust it once again. It is a very important change of front in the policy of the United Party. Its policy is now subject to pressure. Not necessarily from members of its Party, but also from people in the country and abroad. It is a very important admission. In other words, if the pressure which prevailed were to apply again, the Opposition would again be prepared to state that the eight representatives of the Bantu in this House would be Bantu. Surely that is quite logical. That was its attitude. Because the pressure decreased. it changed its policy. Now it is also logical to assume that if that pressure mounts again to the same extent, the representatives will again be Bantu. Now the question is: What other aspects of the United Party’s policy are subject to pressure? Which policies of the United Party in this country are subject to pressure and which are not? Is its policy in respect of the Bantu in general, or of the Bantu in the cities, or wherever they may be, subject to pressure or is it not subject to pressure? This is not a debate on economic affairs, etc., but I want to know what other aspects of the Opposition policy, apart from their Bantu policy, are subject to pressure. I should like to hear that from the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

Now I want to say that if as a result of pressure the United Party’s policy can jump from eight white representatives for the Bantu in this House to eight Bantu representatives in this House, I should like to ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition what a jump his Party is prepared to make, for example in respect of the numbers to represent the Bantu here. As the hon. the Leader of the Opposition explained, they will be represented by eight people. Now I want to ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition: Is the jump from eight to ten, for example, or to 12 or 20, indeed so large as from eight white representatives to eight Bantu representatives? In my modest opinion this is not even at issue. To admit that the policy has changed from one position to the other is indeed a jump which we have never seen in this country. Now I want to ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition: If the same pressure is exerted on him in respect of the numbers in this House, what jump is he prepared to make then? To how many would those eight representatives be increased? That is the second question I want to ask.

Thirdly, we have heard a very important admission in respect of our politics in South Africa. This is, namely, that a party will pursue and formulate its policy in accordance with the pressure exerted on it. We see that as something new in our politics. In other words, a party has its policy, but that policy is of no consequence. It depends on the degree of pressure exerted or not exerted on that party. In other words, an absolutely new element has been introduced in our politics in South Africa. This is the fact that the United Party’s policy is now no longer a consistent policy, but will depend on the degree of pressure exerted on it.

I also want to know how much pressure has to be exerted before the United Party is prepared to abandon its fundamental principles completely. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition must give us more information on this. I also want to know whether the fact that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition announced to the country and to the world that his policy would be adjusted according to the pressure exerted on it, is not in effect an invitation to the impure elements in this country actually to exert pressure on the United Party. We should bear in mind that that party is now the Opposition, but if that party ever came into power, in particular, I want to know whether it is not an invitation to the impure elements in this country to exert pressure in order that the United Party may yield. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, with the short time at my disposal, I do not intend enlarging on what the hon. member for Middelland, the whip on the other side, has been saying. It is quite obvious that he has been trying to draw our attention away from the real issues at stake. We are not interested in red herrings from any whip on that side. We are only concerned about the issues at stake to-day in South Africa. For that reason I do not want to waste any time.

I should like to get on with a few points in regard to which I should like clarity. Coming from the border area of the Eastern Cape, I am naturally concerned, and so are many people in that area, about the so-called “white corridor”. At the beginning of this year the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Development was on the point of telling us what their plans were, I think. But then his time expired —I have his Hansard here—and we never heard the final decision or his answer. I think it is time the Government cold us now, and told the urban as well as the divisional authorities of the East London complex and the farmers, the businessmen and the industrialists just where they stand. I think it is time that the inhabitants of this area were told just what corridor between the Kei River and East London is gradually being bought up for Native occupation. I should like to know whether farms are being sold to the Government for Native occupation in this area. I also want to know whether the Government has taken options on properties in the so-called white corridor. It is no use the Deputy Minister making all sorts of wild promises which are pointless to us in the Eastern Cape unless the Government can give us a positive assurance. The industrialists there, or those we endeavour to encourage to come to the Eastern Cape and the border area, are naturally worried because they do not know, nor do we here, whether, in the very near future, their industries will find themselves in a black area or in a white area or in fact in an industrial area.

They are not worried. They are very happy.

You are kidding yourself. Not only that, Sir, it is a tragedy, because the hon. the Deputy Minister is kidding many people outside as well. This particular area covers thousands upon thousands of morgen, stretching from the Orange River in the north, and from the Kei River in the east to the Great Fish River in the west and the Indian Ocean in the south. This is the area which we would term the Ciskei and the Northern Cape. I know that much of the land in this area has already changed hands. It is no use the hon. the Deputy Minister shaking his head. We know that close to Kidd’s Beach land has changed hands. The Government has been buying land there, and we find it difficult to-day to encourage industrialists to come to this area because no one can give them a guarantee as to what the future might bring. At the same time we have all this loose talk about taking the labour away from the Western Cape and settling them—a lot of people would call it dumping them—in the Eastern Cape. I should like to know what the Government’s reactions were when Chief Matanzima recently said that negotiations were going on to persuade the South African Government to relax the influx control regulations as the Transkei had no industry to absorb the thousands of its citizens. Now, what is taking place? I think it is only right that the hon. the Minister should tell us to-day what negotiations have taken place and what the Government has decided in regard to that request by Chief Matanzima. It interested me, when the Minister mentioned last night, that if the Black people are not ready for independence they will not get it. How long will Chief Matanzima and his party be able to reject resolutions like those introduced in the recent meeting of the legislative Assembly in Umtata, demanding independence before 5th May? How long will they be able to continue rejecting resolutions of that sort? [Interjection.] Nobody promised them independence before 1959. It is only this Government that has done so, and of course there has been pressure from U.N. also but the promise of independence to our black people has not satisfied one single state outside our borders. What I am interested in are the boundaries of this so-called Bantustan. Unfortunately we have not been able to ascertain just what these boundaries are. We would very much like to know, and I think we could demand to know, where these boundaries are. It is our birth-right and privilege to know. Where have you ever heard of any business or any establishment negotiating on a certain transaction, not to mention promising independence, and when once all the business has been concluded and agreed upon, then we decide where the boundaries will be? I have never before heard of such a business transaction taking place, and I believe it is our birth-right to know where those boundaries are. Does the hon. the Minister stand by the 1936 Land and Trust Act of General Hertzog, or does he not?

Do you stand by that?

Yes, the United Party stands by it. I would like to read a certain resolution which was accepted at my party’s congress in 1959—

Will the Minister give us this pledge as well? This is what we must know. [Time expired.]

The hon. member for East London (North) will forgive me if I do not follow him too far in what he said, but in the first place I want to say that I think it was a short-sighted action on his part to have discussed the so-called corridor here if he did not know that the Department was engaged in clearing the black spots there. For what purpose will the Department clear black spots? To make it a black area? In the second place I do not think that it was very intelligent of him to have discussed the borders of the Bantu areas here, because had he only consulted the 1963 Act of the Transkei, he would have seen very clearly that that Act defines the borders of the Transkei.

But we do not know that.

I want to leave the hon. member at that, because I should like to come to the hon. member for Durban (Point), who, in my modest opinion, displayed more cheek than common-sense this afternoon when he said that the Government must be warned that it must not create the impression of so-called “forced labour”. I want to tell the hon. member for Durban (Point), and also the Opposition, that I think the hon. member for Durban (Point) must be warned that he must not get up and speak of “forced labour” in this House. For whom does he do so? He is merely doing so for consumption abroad. I want to issue a challenge to him. Will he get up he e and mention one single example of “forced labour” in South Africa? Why then does he speak of “forced labour”? A front bencher of the United Party should not say this type of thing. It is merely a reflection of two things. One of these is that the hon. member for Durban (Point)—and we like him— occasionally drops a small bomb merely for the sake of politicking, and secondly, in doing so he is merely reflecting the complete bankruptcy of the United Party as far as Bantu attains are concerned. The whole attitude of the United Party in regard to Bantu affairs really reminds me of the soldiers who were on parade when the sergeant-major gave the order, “Raise you left foot and keep it in front of you”. One of the soldiers, however, raised his right foot instead of his left foot. The sergeant-major looked at this and said, “Who is that fool standing with both feet off the ground?” In its approach to Bantu affairs the United Party, as well as the hon. member for Houghton, is standing with both feet off the ground because they are so unpractical and unrealistic in this connection. No, our problem in South Africa is not at all one of “forced labour”. Nothing like that exists and it is a pity that those words have been introduced into the debate. Our problem is precisely that the supply of labour is so enormous that we are forced to keen labour out of South Africa. That is our problem, and not the opposite, which was the impression the hon. member tried to create. I want to say emphatically that I take exception to that term “forced labour”.

Then I want to come to the hon. member for Transkei, who asked here yesterday whether the policy of apartheid would make South Africa a happy country and would offer South Africa security. I do not want to deal with that at length—I wish I had the time to do so—but I just want to make this point: If one considers what has happened in South Africa over the past 20 years, then I think I am right in saying that the exceptional security and stability we are enjoying is actually one of the wonders of the world. No less a person than Dr. H. J. van Eck made a comparison in a Hoernle Memorial lecture a few years ago between the industrial revolution in South Africa and those in America and Britain, and he showed that South Africa had had a more rapid industrial development during the past 20 years than either of those countries. What did the great authorities, such as Engels, for example, prove in connection with revolutions? They undeniably proved that “riots were endemic”, at their best riots, and that in the so-called welfare state of Great Britain, were endemic and where they had not been endemic they had become bloody revolutions. But South Africa with all the odds against it, in spite of even the United Party and the other people who wanted to make so much political capital with an eye on countries abroad, has succeeded in passing through such a period of rapid industrial development without those characteristics having been applicable to South Africa. What has happened in South Africa is really a miracle and one asks oneself to what that may be attributable? The reply is quite simple. The reply is that that may, in the first place, be attributed to a strong National Party Government.

In spite of the National Party Government.

I may assure the hon. member that scientifically that is correct. In the second place it may be attributed to the economic stability we have in South Africa and in the third place it may be attributed to the implementation, justly and fairly, of the policy of apartheid and the policy of separate development in South Africa. Therefore we have the stability and therefore we have presented the world with this miracle over the past 20 years. I think the time has arrived for the United Party to realize that.

But I want to come to another important aspect in this connection and that is that in 1960, when the development of the border areas was commenced—something which is, as the world is beginning to realize in spite of the Opposition, an important component of this real miracle which has taken place in South Africa—the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said—

He said that the Government would not manage to make a success of the development of border areas. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District—for no particular reason we simply call him “botter-bulletjie”—got up this afternoon and asked in a theatrical fasion, “What has the development of border areas brought South Africa?” I should like to mention the following facts to him: The hon. member for Houghton also questioned the availability of facts relating to the results of the development of border areas. Particularly in the light of the United Party’s attitude, the party that said that it was impossible to make a success of the development of border areas, I now want to mention the following facts to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition: In the past 67 years more than 190 new large industries were established as a result of the development of border areas by the National Party Government. Does that look like attempting the impossible? Mr. Chairman, the total direct additional investment in the secondary industries in the border areas alone up to the end of 1966, i.e. in 6j years, amounted to R220 million.

What did Tomlinson ask?

I may tell the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that this Government spent more during the first period of the development of the Bantu areas than the amount recommended by the Tomlinson Commission, and he ought to know that, whereas he said that it was impossible to make a success of the development of border areas, which was the attitude of the United Party. They said so repeatedly.

When did we say that?

I quoted a moment ago what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said in 1960. Over the past six years the development of border areas alone has been responsible for the employment of 58,000 persons in industry and of this number nearly 50,000 were single Bantu workers.

[Inaudible.]

Mr. Chairman, is the hon. the Leader of the Opposition making a speech now or am I?

May I ask a question?

No, I have very little time at my disposal. The development of border industries under the National Party Government has been responsible on its own—and I put the figure at the absolute minimum—for the placing of 125,600 Bantu who have found homes and livelihoods in the Bantu homelands. [Time expired.]

We heard a great deal yesterday and to-day about the Transkei, the Ciskei, Natal and Zululand. I would like to draw the attention of the Committee to the other side of the country and refer to the position of the people north of the Orange River in regard to Bantu development. Sir, the first thing that springs to mind is this: The hon. member for Senekal said in the course of a speech recently, either at Albertinia or Riversdale, that the Western Cape, from which the Bantu were going to be removed, extended as far north as the Orange River, even into the Division of Hay, but strangely enough, the City of Kimberley was excluded. My purpose this afternoon is to inquire what the Government’s intentions are, in regard to that part of the country in relation to the development of Twsana-stan, which is going to be founded in the northern part of the Cape Province. Sir, recently the municipality of the City of Kimberley decided, in view of the fact that the Cape Province was building a new hospital, to build a new hospital in the Bantu village which comprises some forty odd thousand people and which has been developed to a considerable extent and advanced in every possible direction for the benefit of the people who live there. I would like to ask the hon. the Minister whether it is true or false that the Department of Bantu Administration and Development has intruded into this decision to the extent that the hospital which was to be extended at Kimberley in the form of a brand-new hospital for Bantu alone …

Order! On what Vote is the hon. member speaking?

On the Minister’s Vote.

The hon. the Minister does not control hospitals in the white area.

Sir, this is not in a white area. The hospital happens to be in a Bantu reserve at a place called Papierstad. They are building a hospital at Papierstad, 80 miles away from Kimberley, for the benefit of the Bantu. It is being built by the Department of Bantu Administration and Development.

The hon. member may continue.

The whole fact of the matter is that deputations have visited Government departments to inquire exactly and precisely what is intended, and I speak on behalf of the Bantu in that part of the country, who want to know where they stand in this regard. It has been said that the Department of Bantu Administration and Development is going to build the hospital. I would like to know from the hon. the Minister how many beds are going to be provided at Papierstad, which is in the Taungs Native reserve or on the boundary of it, and what the future prospects are for people who take ill, 80 miles away at Kimberley and in the adjoining towns and who have to go to be treated as far as 80 miles away.

The second point I wish to raise in the limited time at my disposal is this. The hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development has referred to the fact that the status of Bantu who have worked for ten years for one employer or who have lived in an urban area for 15 years, and who have the right to live there as a result of those qualifications, may be altered. What was more or less a threat, was aimed at the heads of the persons concerned, that they will be required to carry passports from a homeland with which they are not associated in any shape or form and which they know nothing about. They are the descendants of people who were born in the Transkei or Zululand or some other Bantu territory two or three generations ago. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether or not the new Bantu urban councils, which are being set up, and will be set up, in terms of the law, in the Bantu villages on the perimeters of urban areas, are going to be Bantu councils constituted from foreigners, from persons carrying passports. What are their functions and duties going to be? Will they be supplementary to or complementary to or in conflict with the existing authorities in the form of municipal councils, who control the Bantu villages at the present moment? I think it is a point on which the country needs elucidation and on which an explanation from the Minister is long overdue. I should also like to ask the hon. the Minister what the future of municipal employees in the Bantu service is—municipal employees of all municipalities affected by these Bantu Urban Councils now being brought into being. Finally I should like to ask the Minister whether or not it is his intention, in applying the law in regard to the employment of Bantu labour on farms, to employ white inspectors to visit farmers or is he going to employ Bantu inspectors? Is it his intention to employ Bantu only in due course in the Bantu administration? My information is that white inspectors are to be appointed in the Department of Bantu Administration but officials of the Bantu Affairs section of municipalities are more or less advised that their future is limited. Is that so? Have they any future in Bantu Administration or should they do something on their own to get out and go to some other section of the municipal service?

Another question I should like to ask from the hon. the Minister is by what standards does his department judge whether or not a person is a Griqua? You may or may not know, Sir, that applications for identity cards and later registration of births are being forwarded to the Department of the Interior, applications by persons who claim to be Griqua. If there is any doubt about these persons they are sent to the Bantu Affairs Commissioner’s office where they are dealt with by an official who then decides whether or not they are Griquas or Bantu. I should like to know by what standards is it decided whether these persons are Griquas or Bantu? What is a Griqua? That is the burning question—we should like to know what a Griqua actually is. What is the definition of such a person? At the present moment officials have these persons appear before them and they then decide, arbitrarily I think—although I am subject to correction—on what grounds an individual can claim to be a Griqua or not.

They have to wear dark glasses perhaps.

Whatever the grounds are we should like to know because there are hundreds of applications before the Department of the Interior at the present moment. An explanation is, I think, long overdue.

It is difficult for me to reply to what was said by previous speakers. Such a variety of ideas was expressed that even the Minister is going to find it difficult to connect up everything. To-day I should like to let the emphasis fall on the attitude which exists between White and non-White in this country. In order to implement our policy it is important for that attitude to be good. It is so that the attitude of the Bantu towards the Whites and towards our policy has improved gradually and that has happened in spite of the agitations which have been launched by the United Party from time to time. This Government, without distributing alms and without currying favour with the Bantu, has made an attempt to enable the Bantu to develop on their own strength—even if that is going to take many generations. I am not speaking of the non-Whites in the cities of whom a few United Party members have experience—I am speaking of the 90 per cent of non-Whites who are still completely uneducated. If we have to give an account of our stewardship over the past 20 years, we shall be able to point out that in 1948 only 733 Bantu children attended school and that 2,064,000 attended school last year. Between 1948 and March, 1966, 253,000 dwellings for non-Whites were constructed at a total cost of R242 million. A short while ago the hon. member for Houghton wanted to know what the income of an average Bantu family was. She referred to the findings of the Tomlinson Commission that that figure came to £40 per annum. However, she did not take the standard of living of the Bantu into account. Nor did she take into account that the Bantu in South Africa were better off than all Bantu in other countries in Africa. Nor did she take into account that the income of the Bantu had increased from R285 million, which it was in 1948, to nearly R1,000 million in 1964. Sneering references are made to the Bantu Development Corporation. Hon. members do not realize what harm they are doing by referring sneeringly to such a noble undertaking. Out of 5,000 applications received by the Bantu Investment Corporation, it was only possible to help 14.7 per cent. Why? Because the Bantu is gradually beginning to realize that he will not be able to raise a loan for the establishment of a wholesale business without the guidance of the Whites. That requires staff, training and time. But these things will develop in the course of time amongst the Bantu. The European civilization has many centuries behind it. Development does not come overnight. First one has to develop spiritually. The Bantu himself has to put his shoulder to the wheel and has to decide to help his own people. This is a process which will take time. But I say that this Government, if we look back on what has already been achieved, is playing the game. I happened to come across the following letter written by a Bantu to the manager of the Bantu Investment Corporation. He writes (translation)—

In the first place I should like to say thank you for the door of progress which is open to the Bantu and which is open for the Bantu in their own areas. After I had noticed how my brothers and sisters went to appeal for and also received assistance, I myself went to appeal for assistance at that door which is always open. I went through that door and I received the desired assistance.

To-day I am the proud owner of my own house built according to my own likes on a site I myself selected in the New Umlazi Bantu township. All these things could only be realized with the assistance of the B.D.C. (Durban branch). I express my gratitude for the support which I was given at that door and especially to the staff of the B.D.C. who largely contributed to the realization of my ideals.

My fondest wish to you is “Forward” with the upliftment work which is highly appreciated by us, and may that thankfulness continue to live in our hearts. With humble apologies, Yours sincerely, Alfred Kubeka.

I mention this so that hon. members may see that the Government is playing the game. To this hon. Minister and his Deputy Ministers I should like to quote these words of truth which we learned when we were small—

This Government is trying to play the game as far as the black man is concerned. I am sincere and honest when I say that.

Let me conclude with the following, because I was told to speak for six minutes only. There is one matter which I should like to bring to the attention of this Minister and the Deputy Minister, namely the labour tenants’ system in our country. I am now going to say something unpopular, and that is that I, as a farmer, regard the labour tenants’ system as something monstrous. It is unfair to expect that the Bantu has to work on the farm for the right to live there. More and more districts have decided on their own through the Transvaal Agricultural Union that the labour tenants’ system has to be abolished. We are wasting labour with this system. We are grateful that labour control boards have been established. We are grateful for that and for the fact that it is possible to exercise control over labour through them, because in some rural districts labour is definitely being wasted. The days are gone when three Bantu were sent to plant a gatepost. We must begin to mechanize completely and to become completely efficient and to make full use of the labour we have to the best of our ability. Unfortunately there are farms in our country to-day which are in the hands of Whites but which actually are Bantu farms. Therefore I want to tell this hon. Minister and the Deputy Minister, “Continue on the road which has been taken and convince those people that we have to utilize our labour more effectively”. There is nothing wrong with making use of casual labour. The American farmer who has not been able to mechanize, makes use of, for example, Mexican casual labour. In our case we may make use of the casual labour of the homelands, Mr. Chairman, I have taken seven minutes.

Mr. Chairman, my hon. friend who shares a bench with me will forgive me if I do not follow him in what he said. My time is as limited as his was. The hon. member for Houghton made a statement to-day in connection with the subsistence group in this country. These are the people who live from hand to mouth. That was an irresponsible statement which may create a wrong impression outside. The subsistence group in South Africa to whom she referred represents only 2 per cent, as compared with 30 per cent for the whole of Africa. The idea that our Bantu homelands are living below the breadline is a fallacy which she would like to broadcast to the world. I think the world is already beginning to realize what the hon. member for Houghton is and how she acts. I am convinced that it will be proved in the future that the development of border industries was one of the major and vital tasks of making a success of separate development. My statement is confirmed not only by the R220 million which has already been spent on border industries, not only by the 46,000 Bantu in employment, but also by the attendant large-scale development which is taking place in this new era. Just look at the development of Bantu townships in the Bantu homelands while border industries are developing. That is something grand to see. Last year the Department carried out its full programme. Nearly 13,000 houses were built by the Department within one year. In the past five years no less than 78,000 sites were laid out with all the additional plans, services, church sites and facilities for sports. All these things were established for the Bantu. But what is the psychological effect of these things on the Bantu? To-day the Bantu realize that these are their own things. He has ownership of his own house. This develops a pride and a love in the Bantu for the things which are his own. Now I want to make the statement that in years to come you will find that the Bantu is going to contribute to an ever-increasing extent to the development of the homelands. The official Opposition is always willing to try to belittle the Bantu Investment Corporation and it is not nice to listen to people who are not even prepared to read a report. If one consults the legislation dealing with the Bantu Investment Corporation, one sees what the objects of the Corporation are. It is not merely a question of injecting capital into the homelands. The Act contains much greater and more important objects. What is the Corporation’s biggest problem? Its problem is that the Bantu’s lack of specialized knowledge constitutes the greatest single obstacle to more rapid development. The Corporation accordingly considers the training of its human material as one of its most important functions. The cost incurred in respect of investigations and aftercare services amounted to R83,845 for the year under review and is regarded as an indirect investment, the value of which cannot be measured in terms of money. That is the trouble with the Opposition. Everything they tackle is always measured in terms of money. They represent certain financial powers which would like to create a situation in the Bantu homeland areas which the entrepreneur may exploit in a vulture-like fashion. That is what is so extremely bad. If this Government were to allow that, namely free white capital and not on an agency; basis as at present, we would create the biggest problems there within a few years that had ever been created in the entire Republic as well as in the homelands, because there are certain people who have no principles apart from materialism. I am convinced that this Government and this Minister will always guard that that, something for which the Opposition like to plead, does not happen. The development of border industries and the development of the Bantu homelands are developments which are interrelated and which cannot be divorced. The development of border industries and of the Bantu homelands should continue on this basis where border industries must have priority and where the development of the Bantu homelands must take place on a scientific basis. If one were to deal with human material arbitrarily and were to inject money without taking cognizance of the evolutionary reaction of the Bantu one would be doing the Bantu a disfavour. Our policy is to make a success of the development, to make a resounding success of border industries and the attendant development of the homelands.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Primrose said that the Government through its agencies has given employment to 58,000 Africans in six years. I think that was what he said. Because of that figure, he claims that the Government’s policy is a success. If the Deputy Minister’s policy of getting 5 per cent of the Africans out of the urban areas is to be carried out, they certainly would have to do much better than that. This is nothing to boast about. The Tomlinson Commission, which reported over ten years ago, found that it would be necessary to take 50 per cent of the population off the land in the reserves. What then does this figure of 58,000 mean? How is that helping to solve the problem? The Tomlinson Commission also found, quite rightly, that the Bantu in the reserves at the moment are part-time farmers and part-time industrial workers. They said that under that system they can never achieve anything. They have got to become efficient in one or the other. If you are to rehabilitate the reserves agriculturally, the farmer in the reserves has to become an agriculturalist. He cannot do that unless he can farm on an economic basis and unless he can farm all the time. What is one of the problems of the department of the Minister in making these reserves agriculturally viable? One of the difficulties is that there are too many people on the land. The Tomlinson Commission dealt at length with that point. Unless the Minister or the Government can find alternative work for those people who are living on the land, they will have to remain on the land and the land will never become viable. Yesterday the Minister announced a five-year plan. I want to associate myself with the remarks of the hon. member for Durban (Point) when he condemned the Minister for the manner in which he did so. What right has the Minister to say to members of Parliament: If you want to know what our five-year plan is, you can get it from the Press? I am giving it to the Press. What do we get in the Press? We have a short statement as to what is envisaged. The figures in the Cape Times are the same as the figures in Die Burger. I checked them. But how can we compare these figures with the estimates of revenue and the Loan Fund? It is impossible to say for instance how much has been budgeted for in regard to the economic, secondary and tertiary development of the reserves. Education we can check up, but the physical development we cannot. How can we compare at all? I want to say that if we are to judge this plan by the last plan, it is going to achieve nothing. Time is pressing. The Tomlinson Commission stressed that time was most important and that the matter was one of urgency. We could not dilly-dally and proceed as this Government is doing. We had to embark on an energetic plan. We have lost 12 years since the Tomlinson Commission reported. How much additional work has been provided? The Deputy Minister told us yesterday about the Ciskei. He said that he is now almost providing—he has not done so yet— work for the natural increase in the Ciskei. But that is the Ciskei as it was before Mdantsane was established. Now that Mdantsane has been formed it is going to grow into a big town and there is going to be a bigger natural increase in the population. The Africans are now being sent out from the Western Province and other places to Mdantsane. More and more work will have to be found. If all they have been able to do in border industries in the Eastern Province is to find work almost to satisfy the natural increase of the Ciskei, when are they going to find work to satisfy not only the natural increase, but also all the people living in the Ciskei? The whole effort has been made around East London. Nothing has been done, I repeat, for the main reserve in South Africa, where the biggest concentration of the population is. Nothing has been done at all for the Transkei. Until you can show us how you are combating the problem of the Transkei, we say that you are not facing up to the problem.

Will you help us if we want to face up to it?

Sir, what has our attack been? This Minister has been away from the country for a long time, but he will remember that before he left for overseas, I was attacking this Government for not developing the Transkei. He will remember that. I want to tell him that while he has been away, nothing has been done except to establish a deboning factory. [Interjections.] In 1965 a question was asked as to how many industries had been established in the Transkei since 1948.

The same old story.

Yes, exactly. It is the same old story. Nothing was done. Employment was provided for less than 1,400 Natives in the Transkei. The impression was given by the Minister yesterday that this ten-year plan was something great and something to stir the country. Reading the big headlines in Die Burger, one would get that impression too. But how much of this money is going to be spent …

The Cape Times had bigger headlines.

No, I am sorry. The Deputy Minister’s facts are wrong again. Die Burger had them across the top of the page and the Cape Times put them on the side of the page. The position has now become so bad that we have to check every word the hon. the Deputy Minister says, especially after his effort when he spent 4½ hours defending home language instruction, and then just turned around the other way and supported the contrary motion here. I should like to get back to the Minister. I want to ask him whether he is going to give the members of Parliament the opportunity of seeing this five-year plan. We had the opportunity last time. His predecessor, Mr. De Wet Nel, gave us the opportunity. We made notes about the plan. I want to know whether he is going to give us the opportunity now. Why could that document not be given to members of Parliament in this side of the House? It is a printed document. It is not as though it had only been cyclostyled or typed in his office. It is actually a printed document. It is in book form, printed by the Government Printer. Why can we not be given some copies? Is it that they are afraid that we will see something? It is impossible for us to debate this five-year plan on the short notice we have been given. The Minister only told us about it last night. Why did he not tell us about it before? Why did he not tell us about it when he embarked on it in 1966? Why does he only tell us about it now?

It must be like Piet Botha’s secret weapon.

Yes, and afterwards we find it is not a secret weapon. Unless this Government can produce proof that it is going to develop the reserves so that they can take the people off the land, it is going to achieve nothing. The figures in regard to the five-year plan, as they appear in these newspapers, do not show that anything is going to be spent on industrial development. There is economic development there, but what does that amount to? It is a negligible amount. That amount is for shops, dry cleaning shops. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, hon. members of the Opposition really astonish one. The hon. member made a big fuss about the five-year plan. He said that that plan had not been made available and that hon. members consequently could not discuss it. This five-year plan is a job for the Department. But here is the plan for this year, namely the Estimates, which make provision for R93 million. Why have we had no discussion on that? Such a discussion has not even been opened. Not a single item of this Vote, both on Loan Account or on Revenue Account—jointly these items amount to more than R93 million—has been discussed. Not a single word has been said in that connection. We have not been questioned about a single item. Only one statement was made, namely that ten years had been wasted and that nothing had been done.

But that is merely an overall amount.

An overall amount? Every amount to be spent, in whatever homeland and for whatever purpose of Bantu Development or Bantu Administration, appears in these Estimates. Now hon. members want the five-year plan, because, according to them, ten years have been wasted. Sir, they just have to confine themselves to the annual Estimates which are presented to us. If they think that nothing is being done, they should criticize the Estimates if they see their way clear to do so.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member should not start issuing further challenges again. I first want to deal with one of his challenges. He wanted to make out that this side of the House proposed compulsory labour …

That is untrue.

The hon. member subsequently added registration. He wanted to create the impression that this side of the House in point of fact was in favour of a kind of slave labour under which people would be compelled to do certain work and to go to wherever they were sent. The hon. member tried to create that impression here. He even went further than that. Before lunch he wanted to make out that his party was not even in favour of the registration of labour. That charge was actually levelled at us before lunch. But then he was approached by his Whip and other people and it was brought to his attention …

That is untrue.

It is not untrue. After lunch he sang a different tune and then he said that his party too was, of course, in favour of the registration of labour, as we all along knew it was. No, he will not get away with that type of insinuation. I said, and I will repeat it, that our new plan concerned the compulsory registration of work-seekers, also in the homelands, and that that would be the instrument which we would employ to obtain a better division of manpower and that we would use it as an instrument to assist work-seekers to find work. The hon. member may now continue …

Only work-seekers?

How many times do I have to repeat it? This concerns the registration of work-seekers. If people want to be idle there, they may certainly do so, but then I have failed in my task, because I do not want there to be a single idler. But I leave the matter at that.

I should like to come to the hon. member for East London (North) who so badly wanted to know where the borders of the Ciskei would be and then piously came forward with his party’s attitude in regard to the 1936 Act in which regard he wanted to confirm that there was not one jot or tittle of the 1936 Act which his party did not want to implement. But if he confines himself to that Act, why does he ask me where the borders are? After all, the borders are defined in that Act, in the Schedule. However, his people are not satisfied with the borders as defined in the 1936 Act. He mentioned congress resolutions here, but I may tell him that as long ago as 1933 the congress of his Agricultural Union objected to the bonders as defined in the old 1913 Act and asked for consolidation to take place in the Ciskei. But if he now stands by the 1936 Act, I want to ask him whether he should not in that case proceed to purchase every released area in the Ciskei? I challenge him to give me the reply across the floor of this House. Do I have to proceed to purchase that fine developed area to the north of Alice, released area No. 20, which is defined in the Act? The hon. member must speak now. He does want to know where the borders are and that, after all, is really one of the borders of the Bantu homeland. Why is he so quiet now? But he can also reply to me later. He also made an allegation in regard to options on land which we wanted to purchase in the white corridor. Yes, I did use the words “White corridor” at meetings, but I ask him what options have been taken? Our Department does not take options on land. We make offers and it is for the people to accept them or not. However, he has to tell me what offers have been made to owners in the white corridor to which he referred. But I want to tell him that there are black spots in that white corridor, and that is the area which extends from the west of the Kei River to where it will eventually be decided will be the best place for those scattered scheduled areas to be linked up with the Ciskei. Some of those black spots have already been cleared or are already in the process of being cleared to the extent to which we already have compensatory land. However, the hon. member also knows that we have in fact purchased compensatory land for those areas in respect of which requests were made for their clearance but that even more land will have to be purchased and now I am referring to Kwelera and Mooiplaas and Umgwali and others. He knows every one of them. Requests have been received and from time to time requests are still being received for those places to be cleared. If those hon. members want to be helpful so that we may obtain the necessary compensatory land in terms of the 1936 Act, then those areas can be cleared. But that is not the method which he wants to follow, because then he loses every little bit of political advantage which he can get in the Eastern Cape by using this argument and by sowing suspicion against the Government by telling the people that their land is in danger and that the Government is engaged in turning white land into black land. But the hon. member praises the Act and piously pretends that he will adhere to that Act, but why does he not tell the people that that Act which he praises involves, as far as the Cape Province alone is concerned, 678,198 morgen of quota land which still has to be purchased? Why does he not tell the people that they should now assist the Bantu Trust to acquire that land nearly 700,000 morgen in extent as well as the necessary compensatory land for the scattered black spots which are a problem to us and which will assist us in creating a White corridor in this important and most developed area of the Eastern Cape? No, it does not suit him to do so, because it holds no political advantage for him. Therefore we have this casting of suspicion and that is why he asks us to say where the borders are going to be. He should now stop listening to gossip and to those people who say where the borders are going to be, the know-alls and the people who say that options are being taken on land. Not a single option has been taken on land there. [Time expired.]

This side of the House has been extremely unhappy and dissatisfied about the fact that the hon. the Minister has not given us the new five-year plan, and we are above all dissatisfied that he has not given us a more detailed explanation of all the items and of what this will achieve. The Deputy Minister has said that there are certain Estimates before us every year and he asks us to be satisfied with that. But the Government is embarking here upon a five-year plan of expenditure with a very special reason, to which I shall come back, and it is most essential that we should be able to see what is entailed in this plan. We need to see what the objectives are and we need to see what the expenditure is, and we need to see how it will be used. We need to see how many people are going to be taken into employment in it. We need to see the plan as a whole so that we can judge whether it will be likely to achieve any of the objectives the Government wishes to achieve by it.

It must be remembered that there is a big difference in the approach to development between this side of the House and the other side. We wish to develop the Reserves fully so as to give homes and jobs to the Native people in those areas so as to restrict to a minimum the numbers of those who must find employment outside. But the other side of the House has to embark upon this expenditure in the Transkei in order to try to put some life into this lifeless policy of apartheid. They are bound to make this expenditure in order to try to keep back the numbers of Natives who are flooding into the cities in the white part of South Africa and who are multiplying there. It is for this purpose, to try to get a little nearer to the ideal of separation, that this money is year after year being poured into the Reserves by the Government. It is therefore most necessary for one to be able to judge from a full exposition of this five-year plan whether it is likely to get anywhere near to achieving that aim. The hon. member for Transkei and others on this side of the House have shown, by a comparison with the expenditure under the previous five-year plan and the enormous expenditure on border industries, that what is going to be achieved by this further R500 million which is to be spent in the next five years is just a drop in the ocean. In terms of Government policy, it is going to give job opportunities to Natives on a very limited scale in the Transkei area. If we had a full analysis of the figures and a full exposition by the hon. the Minister as to what he hopes to achieve in the way of employment opportunities through this five-year plan, I am quite certain that every single member on the Government side would vote against this expenditure. They only vote for it because they have been led to believe, especially by the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education, Mr. Coetzee, that everything is going wonderfully, and that these people will be flowing back to the Bantu reserves and that he is prepared to stake his reputation on that. When this type of talk is indulged in, hon. members lean back happily in their chairs and vote this money; but they would not vote for it if they knew that this enormous expenditure is not going to stop the flow of Bantu to the white urban areas in the slightest—not to any significant extent. It is not going to draw back to the Transkei the enormous number of Bantu who are at present in Johannesburg and in the other main cities of South Africa. Sir, we condemn the fact that this House and particularly hon. members opposite should be asked to vote money for something which is not going to achieve its purpose although the public may be deceived for a while longer into thinking that there is some validity in this policy. I do not believe that there are many hon. members opposite who really believe that they are going to achieve what this policy is supposed to achieve, but it makes them happy to believe it, and unfortunately we waste more and more time instead of facing up to the true situation and the true facts in South Africa.

Will your plan check the flow?

I would therefore like to say, after listening to this debate and in the light of recent developments, that my hon. friends on the other side have lost their way in regard to Native policy. There was a time when the Nationalists knew where they were going under their Native policy, or to put it more accurately perhaps, there was a time when they were being dragged in a certain direction in accordance with a definite stated policy to a definite end and that was in the time of the late Dr. Verwoerd; but now they are no longer being dragged in that way. The aim is no longer clearly one of sovereign independence. They no longer know where they are really going under their Native policy and they do not even know which is right. I want to say to hon. members opposite that on two great fundamental matters they do not even know what their own mind is. This party, on the other hand, does. Hon. members opposite do not know which is the right policy, whether to have the Native reserves becoming independent states or to have them as part of South Africa. We had a statement from the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development in the Other Place the other day that they could obtain independence or that they could remain part of the Republic. Sir, what must we make of a Government that does not know what is best for South Africa in this regard? Hon. members opposite do not know where they are heading. All their measures are heading in one direction, but when they get there they will probably be told that that is not what the Natives want. The result is that they are building on a completely false basis. This party, on the other hand, knows where it is going. We say that we want white leadership and that there will be federal elements in the whole set-up. Sir, we are told that the great advantage of the policy of the Government is that it allows self-determination for the Native peoples while the policy of the United Party does not. Sir, I say that that is not correct. The policy of hen. members on the other side shows that they do not know their own mind and it therefore offers these two completely different alternatives, that is to say, either independence for the Bantu states or to be part of South Africa; but they do not allow self-determination in the sense of a completely free choice any more than we do, because if the Natives come along and decide in terms of this right to self-determination that they want “one man one vote” in the Republic, then hon. members opposite will immediately say: “Oh, no we will not allow that”. Well, if they cannot do that, then they have not got self-determination. They are limited to certain choices under the policy of hon. members opposite. But they do not even know which is the best choice for South Africa. As I have said, according to hon. members opposite, these Bantu states can either be sovereign independent states or they can be part of South Africa. Sir, what kind of Government have we got when they do not even know their own minds to that extent?

In connection with the speech made by the previous speaker on the opposite side, the hon. member for Pinelands, I just want to say that he had a good effect on me this afternoon. I am sorry that he did not speak sooner so that he could have had this effect on me sooner. As hon. members know I have been concentrating heavily during this entire week, for five days, first in the Other Place and now in this House. I have sat listening to hon. members for five afternoons; I shall not mention all the things I have had to listen to. But the hon. member for Pinelands had this effect on me: He supplied me with a few moments of light recreation. I want to thank him for that and I am very sorry that he did no speak in the middle of the day because I actually needed the light recreation more then than I do now, because I am near the end now. The hon. member stood there and spoke in a very serious vein, trying to scoff at us. But he merely succeeded in supplying me with enjoyable light relief, and I am grateful for that.

In the first place I want to reply to the hon. member for Transkei, and I come at once to the five-year plan. The hon. member for Transkei condemned me a moment ago for announcing the five-year plan yesterday in this way and referring him, as he claimed, to the Press. Mr. Chairman, let us consider this matter closely. I stated very emphatically yesterday when the question whether there was a second five-year plan was put to me—because the first five-year plan is a thing of the past— that in the same way as there had been a first five-year plan so there was a second five-year plan, and just as in the case of the first five-year plan it was a normal departmental working document, and the fact that the book had been printed made no difference. Ours is a very large Department with hundreds and hundreds of officials who have to handle the book and we can have it printed if we want to do so: why not? The book which has been printed does not have t" be distributed publically. It is a normal departmental working document, and surely it is not the case that normal departmental working documents have to be distributed at random amongst the public or amongst members of Parliament, or that they should be laid upon the Table. I dealt with this point here yesterday but the hon. member apparently did not hear me. I said that it was a departmental working document and that it would not be laid upon the Table, in the same way as the previous one had not been laid upon the Table. I want to tell the hon. member that we have many departmental working documents and I can show him other departmental working documents as well, some of them in printed form and others which have not been printed. Does the hon. member want to suggest now that I should show every member of Parliament every departmental working document which contains interesting and important particulars? I did not show this departmental working document to our members either. Why should I? If I do that then I shall in due course have to throw all the files open to be scrutinized by all.

You said that we could get it from the Press, and that is what I objected to.

I shall reply to the hon. member on that point. That is the first way in which the hon. member would obtain that information—from the Press. Pressmen, as the hon. member knows, are in a hurry; they run about; they want to scoop each other. While I was still talking they nearly bowled my Private Secretary over in their rush to get hold of books. That is why I knew that before the Opposition or anybody else could get the information from me the Press would already have it. But if the hon. member is worried about that minor point I am prepared to have him, as apparent leader of the Opposition Bantu Affairs group …

The shadow Minister.

The shadow Minister? No, a spectral Minister, because one can still see a shadow, but one cannot see a spectre. I am prepared to have the hon. member come to my office, and I shall also offer him a cup of coffee or tea.

But will you give me a book?

The doubting Thomas!

Can I get a book?

Yes, I shall give you a book but you cannot keen it because my departmental working documents do not leave the Department and cannot be kept by people outside the Department, but I shall let the hon. member scrutinize the book. I want to say more now about the five-year plan.

Must I read it there in the office?

I want to leave the hon. member in suspense a little. I shall reply to that question in my office. I do want to save a little tension for him, a little excitement. Let us remember very well what was done on the previous occasion. On the previous occasion there was also a five-year plan, and, just as now, my predecessor let the Press have a look at the five-year plan a considerable time after the five-year plan had been in existence, and I take it that he let the hon. member or other hon. members also have a look at it. I am also prepared to do that. I want to inform the hon. member that if I do that it is a voluntary offer on my part because I am under no obligation whatsoever to do so. It is a confidential departmental working document and we cannot in this way distribute departmental working documents to anybody and not even specifically to members of Parliament. I do not do this with hon. members on this side, nor can I do it with hon. members on the opposite side. It is a special concession therefore and does not create any precedents.

I want to remind hon. members of what I said yesterday in regard to that plan. I mentioned the amount and I said it must be borne in mind that that amount which stands in that book is not a law of the Medes and the Persians. In the very first year of that five-year plan we encountered difficulties as a result of credit restrictions and other causes which had not been foreseen when the plan had been drawn up in this respect that we were not able to obtain as much money as we would have liked. This will probably occur again before the end of next year as well: We do not know how long these restrictions are going to last. In fact. I want to say here that, and now hon. members on that side must try and play football with this if they want to—actually they must play soccer, because that is more kicking than catching …

You have been caught out and now you are afraid.

No, no. I think that what I am going to do with my Department is to reconsider the numerical aspect of the planning of that five-year plan in order to be able to make provision for such unforeseen setbacks as one may experience. Therefore I want to issue a very clear warning: The hon. members must not come and ask me after five years …

You will not be there.

Oh, yes, I shall, if I am spared, in five years time I will still be here if my life is spared. As far as politics are concerned, I will still be here, but equally as far as politics are concerned I do not know whether the hon. member for Transkei will still be here. I sincerely hope that he will still be in the land of the living. In any case, I cannot guarantee the way in which those amounts are spent. The intention of that five-year plan is to give us a properly planned framework of development for all these facets which are necessary, and of course the framework must be interpreted in figures. But those figures are not a law of the Medes and the Persians—that must be understood very well. I do not want to be reproached with this later. If we should exceed this mark, if we achieve more than is envisaged in that plan, then I am saying now in advance that I do not want the Opposition to come along and praise me for it.

You need not be afraid of that.

I know I do not have to be afraid of that.

What about the overlapping with the original five-year plan?

There is no overlapping —it follows up on that plan. That poor hon. member always has the wrong end of the stick. There is no overlapping. To tell the truth, there is a period of, I think three or four months, between the five-year plans which is actually uncovered. Because the previous five-year plan ended at the end of a calendar year and the new five-year plan begins at the beginning of a financial year. There is therefore no overlapping.

But there was only four years in your first five-year plan.

No. In regard to the first five-year plan I just want to remind the hon. member for Transkei of what I said last year. He has stated here that we have again drawn up a five-year plan and that we are again not going to achieve anything with it. The hon. the Deputy Minister has just replied to that. The hon. member had such a lot to say about the Tomlinson report. The Tomlinson report is a piece of work which we have put to very good use. It is not a report which is accepted by the Opposition. We began debating the Tomlinson report in this House in 1956. Hon. members can look up what the Opposition had to say about that report. The Opposition did not want the Tomlinson report. But now they are very piously pretending here to-day that that report is the salvation of everything and that if we do not carry out the report then we are going to fail. We have issued a White Paper in regard to the matter and stated precisely what aspects of that report we accept without question and what aspects we have to consider first. Because what is a report of a commission? It is not a law of Parliament. It is a proposal made by a group of people. One assimilates many of their ideas. In many respects they stimulate one to think in a quite different way and to strive to attain the same goal perhaps in a quite different way. I want to repeat what I said here last year to this hon. member. In our first five-year plan we spent R6 million more per year than the Report had recommended per annum for a period of ten years.

Why does Hans Abraham want a commission appointed in order to see what they are doing?

Where is the hon. member running to now? He is now running to Mr. Hans Abraham. I have never in my life thought that the hon. member for Transkei would want to call in Mr. Hans Abraham as a partner in a clash with me. But that is what the hon. member is doing now.

Against you I call anybody in.

Yes, and you will still come off without a stitch. Now I want to warn the hon. member on the opposite side in advance: He is now in for a second shock …

What was the first one? I missed it.

The first one was this five-year plan. Now there is a second five-year plan shock for the hon. member.

Yesterday the hon. member for Etosha asked me certain questions here in connection with my recent visit to Ovamboland. The hon. member referred to what was said in the speech, which is known, and he pointed out that, judging from what they said there and what was reported in the Press, the Ovambos had displayed a great deal of interest. That is correct. The Ovambos displayed a great deal of interest in what we are offering them there. In connection with that I also want to make something known which was not made known previously. I am doing this to indicate that the Ovambos are really interested in the offer which was made to them there that they could be given greater tasks to perform in their development towards self-determination. After the conclusion of the proceedings the Ovambos drafted a letter which they forwarded to the hon. the Prime Minister. As you know, it was the hon. the Prime Minister who had instructed me to go and address this meeting of Ovambo chiefs, headmen and councillors. The letter was sent to the Prime Minister and he asked me to publicize it here. It has not been publicized before. It contains nothing new for it is merely a repetition of what they said there. But it is just a short letter, and I feel that I can quote it here. The letter is dated 21st March, 1967, at Oshakati. It is addressed to “The hon. the Prime Minister, Parliamentary Buildings, Cape Town”, and reads as follows (translation)—

This was signed by the seven leaders of the seven tribal areas, namely Uushona Shiimi of Ogandjera, Shokongo Taapopi of Ukualuthi … etc. I shall not read the other names because it is not necessary. Sir, the hon. member has also asked me what is going to happen now. I stated at that meeting that what I had said to the Ovambos there applied to the other Bantu nations as well. It is now up to them to ask. We are not compelling them. It is with great pleasure that I am able to tell you that I recently received a message from the Okavango area to the effect that one of the number of tribes there has already raised the matter themselves from their side and said that they also want something similar to what is now being offered to the Ovambo people. It will therefore be possible to hold further discussions now with the Okavango Bantu on that basis. As I have said, they number five tribal groups, and certain of them have in fact raised the matter. Now, while I am discussing South-West Africa affairs, I also want to deal with the question of the hon. member for Karas. This is also where the hon. member is going to receive his second little shock. The hon. member for Karas asked me, arising from what I had said at Oshakati when I referred to the development work which was being offered to the Ovambo there: What about the Bantu areas in general in South-West Africa? I just want to tell hon. members that we have also drawn up a five-year plan for the Bantu areas of South-West Africa. Its cover has also been printed by the Government Printer, but it is also a departmental working document.

[Inaudible.]

Yes, it appears to me that it is a shock to that hon. member. This plan covers all kinds of physical and economic developments. It is a plan involving a sum of approximately R60 million. Everything which I said a moment ago applies mutatis mutandis here too. That is an estimate for that amount. It cannot be guaranteed that it will be available each year, because it depends upon the availability of funds, upon departmental appropriation, budget circumstances, etc. In addition we must remember that circumstances are very difficult in the South-West Africa areas. They are very distant and isolated. Certain of those people are a little reluctant to co-operate with us, and in the implementation of this five-year plan set-backs and delays could be experienced. These are all things for which we must prepare ourselves as part and parcel of the undertaking. Of course, I am making an appeal to those nations to cooperate with us and our officials in these matters. However there are sometimes many distorted views in regard to these matters. I can only hope that, as in the case of certain of the Bantu nations in South-West Africa, that the light will also penetrate to others who have not as yet seen the light and that they will come to realize that this developmental work is in their own interests and that it is essential for the development of their areas, and that they should co-operate with us in that regard. I am now furnishing these details to the Press. They can also obtain them and publish them if they want to. [Interjection.] Since my Deputy Minister has already said so now, the hon. member can have a look at that book as well.

I have nothing more to say about the hon. member for Houghton. The hon. member for Klip River said something to which I must refer briefly. He appealed for facilities for sporting anglers in the Bantu areas and also in the Transkei. He spoke in particular about a strip along the northern part of the Natal Coast. I just want to say that it is our policy —and I would rather apply it more strictly than more leniently—that the establishment, in regard to angling, of white interests and white rights, which has in certain places even taken the form of pieces of land obtained by people, should be guarded against. They are even insisting that the size of those pieces of land be increased. They are erecting buildings there and they want all kinds of facilities in the Bantu areas, which is not right. The Bantu have a limited percentage of the coastal area of South Africa. It is not right for us to deprive them of the facilities in which they will also in due course be interested, and are to a certain extent already interested. That is why I cannot be content with even certain rights of control being granted to outside bodies so that they can exercise control over such angling sites in those areas. In general therefore, we feel ourselves more inclined to restrict the angling possibilities for the non-Bantu within the Bantu homelands than to expand them.

That is also the case in the Transkei.

Yes, of course. I lost sight of that aspect. As far as the Transkei is concerned, the Transkei Government of course has the say in regard to those coastal resorts and not us.

The hon. members for Bethal and Standerton both touched upon the question of farm labour and labour tenants. They discussed farm labour in particular. I think that it is desirable to make some general comment on this matter. One can of course discuss it at great length, but that is not necessary. I want to emphasize that our feelings as a Department in regard to this matter are similar to those of organized agriculture, i.e. we feel that the labour tenant system should gradually disappear because it is an anomaly, because it is not a type of work which we want to maintain for ever, or even extend. For that reason we made provision in the Act a few years ago for labour control boards. Where labour tenants were still legally registered on farms the labour control boards could do the work of the labour tenant boards plus the other work in respect of full-time labourers throughout the year. Hon. members who are practical farmers, will know that labour tenant control boards could previously only control the labour tenants. We are therefore doing away with labour tenant control boards where it is possible for us to make the necessary arrangements. If there are still labour tenants on the farms they can be dealt with through the labour control boards which are being established, and which is also doing the other work in addition, i.e. the work in respect of fulltime labour. But the position is that we should very much like to see, as I gathered from the pleas of those hon. members, that we progress to the stage where our agriculturalists have a stable workers’ group of full-time Bantu workers on their farms. Whenever it is necessary this group can be supplemented by seasonal workers or temporary workers who work for short periods of time. In principle this is nothing new. I am pleading, and recently at Lichtenburg the hon. the Deputy Minister also pleaded, for an extension of this system on an organized basis. Hon. members know that in the Western Cape temporary workers are recruited for the packing of fruit and other work. We are all acquainted with the old system of Bantu shearing teams which travel from one farm to another to shear sheep, etc. What the hon. the Deputy Minister has previously advocated the farmers should do is the correct solution, i.e. that in so far as there has to be supplementary labour, labour to supplement the full-time Bantu, the agricultural organizations should also consider doing this in an organized way in the same way as those shearing teams go to work in an organized way. With a view to that it was suggested—it was explained here this afternoon—how we could expand the bureaux system further so that the network can be extended. Just as the industrialists, householders and shop-owners can obtain Bantu labour, so there should be a wider network of organizations through which Bantu labour can be obtained. The bureaux must also be established within the Bantu homelands where the Bantu workseekers must have themselves registered, so that their names may be entered in records and so that, if there is a demand from an urban area for industrial or commercial workers, or from farmers for teams of shearers or for other temporary purposes, there may be proper registrations on record, on which basis it will be possible to distribute the Bantu workers. That is the position as a whole. That is the tendency in our policy in regard to Bantu labour on farms. I can only say that the entire Free State has already agreed to the proclamation of districts—they have already been proclaimed—as districts where labour control boards may replace the labour tenants system. There are also a number of districts in the Transvaal, for example Delmas, Pretoria District and a few others which have already been proclaimed. It is expanding. We are doing this in consultation with organized agriculture. We are asking them to take the initiative and apply to us for registration because the boards usually consist of two local farmers from the district under the chairmanship, as a third member, of the Bantu Affairs Commissioner. That is the picture and I hope that that development will be encouraged. I think hon. members in general agree that that is the most sensible way along which development may take place.

I now come to the Sancho Panza of Natal, the hon. member for Durban (Point). The hon. the Deputy Minister has dealt effectively with him for having intimated here that we are tackling something in the nature of forced labour.

I only warned against it.

The hon. member must not think that I am so stupid that I could not understand what he was insinuating. I understood very well what he said, but I understood equally well what he was insinuating. When he speaks that hon. member always says less than he is insinuating. He always does two things simultaneously. He speaks and he insinuates. I understand both. The hon. member must know that I am acquainted with these matters which he discussed. I do not think I could be reproached for being presumptuous if I told him that I am better acquainted with them than he is. It is my duty as well. When he discussed these matters then I know what he is insinuating by what he is saying, unless of course it was done in ignorance. Then he must state openly that it was done in ignorance because I shall then forgive him and I shall not even deride him for his ignorance. Anybody can be ignorant in regard to a matter, even the hon. member. But the hon. member linked the two matters together. I have noted it down here that he is against compulsory registration with which he associates the possibility of compulsory labour. He linked the two concepts together in one breath, two things which cannot be associated with one another anywhere in our legislation or administration. Only convicted people can be compelled to do certain work, not free Bantu. The hon. member knows that. If he did not know that before, he knows it now and then he must not in future eat so blatantly, shamelessly and greedily out of the hand of the hon. member for Houghton when it comes to a matter like this. Because that is the way the hon. member for Houghton speaks. That is her story. [Interjections.]

[Inaudible.]

It seems to me the hon. member for Houghton does not know it, but the hon. member for Durban (Point) is eating out of her hand and doing so very greedily. I do not know what hon. members are laughing about. What I am using is a perfectly normal metaphor. They should not tempt me to use other metaphors.

The compulsory registration of workseekers in Bantu homelands is an old institution. Work-seekers in the Bantu homelands have always had to register themselves with the district officials, i.e. our Bantu Affairs Commissioners. Now we are extending the system in order to render better services to those who want to work and ought to work. The United Party is moaning and groaning about the lack of work for the Bantu. We want to establish more Bantu labour bureaux, in the tribal areas as well. Some of the tribes have already made use of that system, inter alia, in the Ciskei. Before this system had even been established properly, the tribes seized upon it eagerly and began to apply it. Now I am asking the hon. member: Where does he get the moral right to present that system as compulsory labour, as a lot of Opposition newspapers have unfortunately done during the past few weeks. They did not do so out of ignorance, because they had complete speeches before them on which they could base their reports, but did so with harmful intent. The hon. member has merely gone and repeated the story now, either that or he is eating out of the hand of the hon. member for Houghton.

That was voluntary registration. It was the work-seeker’s own choice to have himself registered.

The hon. member is sitting there dreaming again. He should rather keep quiet about these matters. Just now I shall get him into even greater difficulties. It is a reprehensible thing for the hon. member to have linked these two matters together. By so doing he is not furthering the good relations which he maintains we must have between Whites and Bantus in South Africa. The hon. member also referred to the speeches of Matanzima according to the newspapers, speeches which he recently made before his congress, when he used the so-called “knob-kerrie” metaphor. I did not attend his congress. I do not know what he said. I cannot say whether he was reported correctly or incorrectly. I have complained on various occasions of newspapers having reported him incorrectly. That may be.

It was Die Burger that quoted it.

It makes no difference where they get the reports from. I cannot vouch for them. I do not know what he said. But let us assume that he was critical in regard to the sending back of his people. That I can understand. But now I want to tell you this. This is authentic. Let us listen now to what Matanzima said a few weeks ago in his legislative assembly during the discussion of his Vote in regard to “Influx Control”. He also referred here to other speeches made by him. He dealt with this point and you shall hear what his attitude was. That attitude, coming from him, I can understand.

From Hansard?

Their Hansard is not available yet; I am quoting from his speech—

Hear, hear!

Just look at the mentality of an opposition. It only cries “hear, hear” in regard to certain things.

I do not think it is necessary for me to say anything further about this matter. In addition I also want to refer to a few words which the hon. member spoke which were not correct either. As I said just now, the hon. member says with only half a word a great deal more by insinuation. He also spoke about Matanzima and said in the same breath, “In the same way as they have given way to Ndams”. Must we now drag in the whole Ndams case here? Sitting here is the hon. the Prime Minister, who was Minister of Police and of Justice at that time and who handled the whole case, and he will interrupt me if I say something wrong. It was not a case of, as the hon. member said, our giving way to him. Certain restrictions were imposed on Ndams by the Minister of Justice and certain representations were made and after consultation with me the Minister of Justice refused the representations, and subsequently, at the end of last year, the new Minister of Justice found that it was then in order to lift the restrictions on that Bantu person, and that is why they were lifted.

Just as in the case of Good fellow at Rhodes and Hill at Durban university.

This is another example of the hon. member for Durban (Point) eating out of the hand of the hon. member for Houghton. As soon as one subjects a Bantu person to restrictions then a hue and cry is raised against that action and the moment one lifts the restrictions there is another hue and cry.

Not from me.

What must one accept now?

My question was who would give way if there should be a clash of interests between the two?

If you and Helen clash, she will give way.

I can let what the hon. member had to say about the five-year plan suffice, because I dealt with it a moment ago.

The hon. member for East London (North) had quite a lot to say, but the hon. the Deputy Minister dealt with it except for one aspect, i.e. the, as he called it, land request of Matanzima. This is another of the notorious newspaper reports of last year in which it was stated that Matanzima had allegedly said that he wanted all the land between the Umzimkulu and the Great Fish River. Matanzima denied it within two days in a statement which he issued. I dealt with the case fully the other day in the Other Place and I do not want to deal with it equally fully now. Matanzima pointed out that there had been a stupid confusion between two things, namely the linking up of geographic areas as opposed to the linking up of systems and governments. He talked about the linking up of the Ciskeian government system with that of the Transkei, and it was presented as if to imply that he was speaking about a linking up of geographic areas, of the land, and then he stated very emphatically, something which he said again in this speech from which I have just quoted, that he made no claims on white land in that large area between the two rivers. He said that if he spoke of unity there he was speaking about a unity of Bantu territories. He said so again very emphatically in his speech here and to save time I will not read the whole thing out because I want to try and finish up. He said: “I only referred to the existing Bantu areas and such other land as may be bought”.

Do not stop there. He spoke about the “existing areas between the two rivers”.

Now we shall have to waste time because here we now have Sancho Panza on his way to the windmill. The hon. member must remember that I am not sitting now with the Cape Times report in front of me, I am sitting with the text of the Chief Minister’s speech in my hand, and I am reading from it.

Yes, but did he make that speech?

The hon. member for Pinelands has a lot of time. When the Transkei Hansard is published he can go and make comparisons and see whether I have deviated. He said—

That is the entire passage as I have it here, I have nothing more to read in regard to this matter. He also speaks about the amalgamation of the Transkei and the Ciskei, but that is actually concerned with the system of government, whether the territorial government of the Ciskei should be joined to the parliamentary system of the Transkei, yes or no, but that is not the point at issue here.

In other words, he wants part of Natal. [Laughter.]

There the hon. member now has another new thing with which he can go and play football.

I think that it is fitting that this should have been the first time that the hon. member for Karoo spoke again in this House. The last time he spoke it was also my work which was being discussed. I am very glad that the hon. member is now in such a condition that he can once again participate in the debates. The hon. member asked me about the hospital position in the region of Kimberley. Now I must remind the hon. member that I am only concerned in so far as it concerns hospitals in the homelands. As far as the rest are concerned, namely a hospital in the Bantu area of Kimberley, it is a provincial matter. There was talk of a large hospital, a regional hospital, for the Bantu at Kimberley, but the latest planning is to abandon that plan. A hospital will be built at Papierstad by our Department within the Bantu area. It will be a large regional hospital for a large region in the Transvaal and also for a large region in the Northern Cape and also at Kimberley and there will in fact be less important hospital facilities for outpatients, etc., at Kimberley and other Bantu who do not fall into that category of treatment will then be removed to the larger hospital for treatment there. This development of regional hospitals at scattered centres, where practically all kinds of work can be done, specialized hospitals, and, lower down the scale, smaller hospitals and clinics, is a development which is taking place on a worldwide basis as well as here in South Africa. It is within that framework that planning is now being considered at Kimberley, but it has not yet been finalized. The hon. member also wanted to know two other things from me. The one was what was going to happen in regard to the urban Bantu councils. If the Bantu all receive passports, a possibility which I had envisaged, what is going to become of the urban Bantu Councils? Here I want to remind the hon. member of the fact that the Xhosas of the Transkei already have Transkeian citizenship of their own and despite that fact they still serve in the urban Bantu Councils of Welkom and will serve in the Councils of other places. When the Transkeian Xhosa obtained their citizenship we stated clearly in their constitution that they would not be dealt with as foreigners here, and similar provision can also be made for others.

Then the hon. member asked me about the classification of a Griqua. Now, I am in a slight spot of bother here. A Griqua is not classified as a Bantu person. This is done under the Population Registration Act and I cannot answer for that. It is they who must decide whether a person is a Griqua, and if they decide that he is a Griqua then I have nothing to say about that. But if they decide that a person is a Bantu, man or woman, then he falls under the Passes Act which is under our jurisdiction and then we have our criteria which we have to apply.

Your Department makes the classification; not the Race Classifications Board; that is my point. The officials of your Department classify the Griquas.

No, the classification of Griquas takes place under the Population Registration Act.

No, the officials of the Department of Bantu Administration undertakes the classification.

Perhaps the hon. member should rather come and argue this matter out with me at a later stage.

I want to conclude by referring to something which the hon. member for Pinelands said, and which I did not reply to a moment ago. Sir, to-day we have had a revival of an old political term. To-day we have again heard from United Party side the term “White leadership”, after many years. The term was defunct and now it has been resurrected.

It was not defunct.

The hon. member said that it was not defunct. It seems to me it was in cold storage: it was frozen and now it has been resurrected. Sir, I want to conclude by putting this question to that hon. member. I am going to continue asking this question. My hon. friend, the hon. the Minister of Planning and Mines, continually asked this question in the past: Are the Bantu going to sit in this Parliament as representatives? Just as he posed that question time and again, I am going to continue posing this question: Mention to me one responsible Bantu leader or Bantu body which has already stated that— not Bantu leaders whom the United Party hopes will say this, but on which has already stated this—that the Bantu are prepared to remain forever under a policy of “White leadership” in a common political system and remain subservient to the Whites governing over them? I am asking hon. members to furnish me with one name.

Give me the name of one person who will not demand more than what you are now offering the Bantu.

They will demand more and I read out to you a moment ago that Matanzima had said that when the time was ripe they were going to ask for more. We know that the Bantu will ask for more; it is a natural thing to do, and we are preparing ourselves for that. But hon. members on the opposite side are not preparing themselves for the implications of their policy; that is the difference.

Votes put and agreed to.

Revenue Vote 46,—“Bantu Education: Special Education, R298,000”, Loan Vote Q,— “Bantu Education, R1,600,000”, and “Estimates of Expenditure from Bantu Education Account, R29,754,000”:

Mr. Chairman, it is customary in discussing this Vote to consider the two aspects of Bantu education. The first is finance and the other is the professional aspect. The professional aspect is concerned with the work in the school, the progress made by children, the admission of children and, the most important feature of all, the supply of teachers for our schools. We have had ample opportunity to discuss that aspect of education this Session. We had a private member’s motion introduced by the hon. member for Randfontein and then another private member’s motion, again on Bantu education, introduced by the hon. member for Houghton. We have really had five hours of discussion during this Session on that aspect of Bantu education.

In deference to the wishes of the hon. the Deputy Minister I should like to say a word about the accounts of Bantu education. I have on various occasions said to the hon. the Minister that we opposed the establishment of a Bantu education account. We considered, of course, that Bantu education, like any other Department of Government, should come under the general Revenue Account. But the change has now been accepted; we have a Bantu Education Account. We also expressed our disappointment that the Government had decided to make a contribution to this fund of R13 million per annum and the fact that that amount would be pegged. Throughout the years that amount has remained constant. Sir, it cannot remain constant in these days because the value of money has depreciated. The amount remains constant in these days because the value of money has depreciated. The amount remains R13 million but what can be done with R13 million to-day is quite a different story. We know from the statistics that we get from month to month that the depreciation in our currency is approximately 2½ per cent per annum, so that in the 12 years of Bantu education, the depreciation has been 12 times that amount, i.e. 30 per cent. Sir, I wish to be conservative. I will not take a figure of 30 per cent; I do not wish to have any discussion about the percentage, so I will make it 25 per cent. Every member will agree that during the 12 years the depreciation has really exceeded 25 per cent. What then should the Government’s contribution be to the Bantu Education Account? It should be not R13 million. but R13 million plus 25 per cent. Hon. members can see immediately that that would be an additional R3½ million, so that instead of R13 million, the amount that should be contributed this year by the Government should be R16.25 million I think that is fair. But that is only half the story. What we have to bear in mind is this: Of what amount has this account been deprived over these 12 years? Two and a half per cent the first year, of course, then 5 per cent the second year, and so on. It is a simple arithmetical progression to say that the average amount over the 12 years—I emphasize “the average amount”— is a half of the R3.25 million, i.e. R1,625 million per annum over a period of 12 years. If we take the total amount, it means that this account over the years, while we have been building up Bantu education, has been deprived of 12 times R1,625 million, which hon. members will see immediately is R19½ million. Sir. this account is not receiving a fair deal at the hands of the Government. That is the point I wish to make. But it goes further. I wish to discuss the finances. Looking at the Auditor General’s report, I see that in the most recent report, that is, for the year ending March, 1966, we are told that over R1 million on Revenue Account was surrendered; it was not used. One million rands of the amount voted was not used. The Auditor-General explains why the Department did not use this R1 million, but the fact remains that Bantu Education lost R1 million. What happened to that money? That R1 million actually had to be surrendered and went back into the General Revenue Account—not into the Bantu Education Account, but into the General Revenue Account. It did not go into the Bantu Education Revenue Account, not into the Bantu Education Account, but into the General Revenue Account. At the same time the Auditor-General tells us that the Bantu Education Account is in the red to the General Loan Account. The Loan side is in the red to an extent of nearly R8½ million—R8,429,000 to be correct. We are told that they owe the Loan Account R8,429,000 and that at the same time they had to surrender R1 million of their Revenue Account. During the Budget Debate we heard the hon. the Minister of Finance tell us that he was considering cash budgeting. If there is one Budget that should be a Cash Budget in South Africa it is the Bantu Education Account. Why should the Account have to surrender R1 million on their ordinary expenditure, on their current expenditure account, when they are R8½ million in the red on their own account? We should say that that R1 million will go to reduce their debt to the Loan Account. I put that up to the hon. the Minister. That is the first point I wish to make on finance.

My next point is this. I have to try and get through as much as I can in a short time. As I say, I do not want to discuss the professional side too much, because in our discussions we said that on the professional side there is not much cnance of building up a very good system when only one pupil in about 1,500 is in standard X, and only one in about 9,000 matriculates. How can we build up a staff of teachers, how can we build up a very strong Department of Bantu Education if that is our problem? There are almost 2,000,000 children in school and with 2 million children at school they have not sufficient teachers. The result is that teachers are not well-trained and the pupils are not well taught. I do not blame the professional staff; the members who have to administer this account have an exceedingly difficult time.

Now I wish to touch on one aspect of the professional side. We have been told, and we are told on official authority, that it is the policy of the Government to take all secondary education, almost all secondary education, to what they call the “homelands”. In other words, if Bantu children are living in a city they will have to go to a Native reserve to receive their secondary education. That is the policy. The obvious question is this: What are they going to do when they get there? Where are they going to live? Where are the children leaving Soweto and the other big towns going to live there? How are they going to get there? I am now quoting the authority of the department, from the Bantu Education Journal of November, 1966, where they discuss this. I will give one or two extracts. We find the following on page 3—

That is the story. What are they going to do when they get to the homelands? The Department makes provision here for a system of boarding houses. These are not Government boarding houses; it is not what we have in the Coloured Education Department. In the Coloured Education Department the churches establish the boarding houses, but not here. They advocate a system of child farming amongst the Africans. I quote from page 5 of the above-mentioned publication—

[Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I think that the hon. member for Kensington does not do justice to what we are doing for Bantu education in this country. He concentrated on the fact that expenditure was pegged at R13 million, and he will not take it amiss of me if I say that he seeks to create the impression that that R13 million is all that is being spent on Bantu education in this country. However, the picture is a totally different one. He referred to the depreciation of money and pointed out that at present it was approximately 25 to 30 per cent less. What he did not add is, of course, the R1½ million which is being spent on Bantu university colleges. What he did not take into account at all, are the taxes that are also being employed—every cent of Bantu tax is being spent on Bantu education. We must look at the picture this presents to us.

Up to 1958 only 80 per cent of Bantu taxes were spent on Bantu education, and the highest figure occurred in the year 1957-’58 when it amounted to just under R4 million. But what has the picture been since then, now that 100 per cent of their taxes are being spent on their education? It increased from just over R4 million in 1958-’59 to more than R6 million in 1963. In 1964 it was more than R7 million; in 1965 it was more than R7,600,000. The estimated amount for this year is R10. million.

That is what the Bantu themselves are paying.

It does not matter. That is part of our policy—it is part of our policy that the Bantu themselves should pay for their education. They receive that basic aid from us. Owing to the improved method of collecting taxes there is not the slightest doubt that the amounts spent on Bantu education in South Africa have increased fantastically over the past 15 years.

Let us just take a look at the way we have progressed. I am at a loss to understand how an hon. member, a person who has dedicated his whole life to education, can fail to show appreciation for the progress we have made in connection with Bantu education. I just want to tell the hon. member what the basic principles of this Government are in respect of Bantu education. I am referring first to education for the Bantu by the Bantu. This aims at training the Bantu so that he may serve his own community. The Bantu must accept responsibility for financing their own education, over and above that tremenous fillip of R13 million we are giving them. To a very large extent the Bantu themselves determine the development of their own education. It is therefore a waste of money to go and spend more in an artificial way. As UNESCO pointed out, in doing so we shall only be doing a disservice to the under-developed nation. The moment more is forced upon them than they can absorb, the result is not only that money is wasted, but in addition that they are not being provided with such education as may serve their interests in the best way.

Let us see what progress we have made. Here in South Africa we prefer to establish the education of the Bantu on the broad basis of general literacy, because in doing so the Bantu can be better stimulated to develop in all spheres, and to apply the traditional system of financing, as I mentioned a moment ago. Let us look at the progress we have made over the past few years. In 1953 the number of Bantu schools was 5,665. By 1965, ten years later, it had increased to more than 8,800, excluding the Transkei. That number of 5,665 in 1953 included the Transkei. By 1965 it had increased to 8,800, excluding the Transkei. Here we have a remarkable figure, namely that the number of pupils in 1953, including the Transkei, was 858,000. Up to last year this had increased to just under two million, excluding the Transkei. Have we not made fantastic progress in connection with Bantu education in South Africa? I am the first one to admit that we cannot keep pace as far as Bantu teachers are concerned. But that is not our fault. The Department goes out of its way to make provision for the training of Bantu teachers, male and female. We are doing everything in our power to train them, and it is not our fault that we do not have enough teachers. It is the same problem we experienced amongst the Whites. Look at the progress we have made.

In 1953, including the Transkei, there were just over 21,000 Bantu teachers, male and female. That figure increased to 34,000 last year, excluding the Transkei. That is tremendous progress we have made in that regard. In 1953, 45 per cent of the Bantu population between the ages of seven and fourteen attended schools, and in 1963 the school attendance in that age group was 83 per cent, almost twice as many within a period of ten years. Let us compare this with the same age group in other countries of Africa. In South Africa the figure for the age group seven to fourteen is 83 per cent. In Kenya it is 60 per cent. In Algiers it is 55.8 per cent; in Liberia, one of the countries that has so much to say about us, it is merely 34.2 per cent; in Malawi, 35.5 per cent; in the Camaroons, 61 per cent; in Libya, 59.7 per cent; in Togo, 49 per cent; in Somalia, merely 4.8 per cent, and in Mauritania, 12.9 per cent. The figure for that age group in South Africa is virtually 40 per cent higher than that of any other country on the continent of Africa. Let us go further. In 1953 our percentage of literacy was 21.8 per cent. In 1960 it was 39.7 per cent, and in 1964, 50 per cent. That is in respect of the whole Bantu population. In 1963 approximately 80 per cent of the Bantu population between the ages of seven and 20 were literate. I say that this is a record of which we may be very proud. It is a record which did not simply come about all by itself, but resulted from the dedication of both the Department of Bantu Administration and the Bantu themselves, as well as the Bantu’s enthusiasm for becoming literate and being educated. Let us go further and take the number of Bantu passes in standard six and how they have increased. In 1960 the pass figure was 37,530. By 1966 it had increased to 59,100. The 1960 figure includes the Transkei but the 1966 does not. If the Transkei is excluded, the number of Bantu who passed the examination every year, was almost doubled over the past seven years. The total number of Bantu who have passed standard six, is estimated at 580,000. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I have listened with interest to the figures of the hon. the Deputy Minister in regard to Bantu education and his comparison with those of other lands. I want to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister one question. Which of the other lands he mentioned can claim the nucleus of white people to offer the training, guidance and tuition which we in South Africa can offer to Bantu pupils? His comparison is not a fair one. One comparison which the hon. the Deputy Minister did not apply, was a comparison with Rhodesia, because when we come to weigh up what Rhodesia does in the way of Bantu education, I do not believe that our record is such a good one. The Rhodesian Government itself gives more to Bantu education than we do proportionally. I want to return to the question of the five-year plan. The five-year plan also covers Bantu education so that I feel that I am entitled to refer to it under this Vote as well. I should like to refer the hon. the Minister and the hon. the Deputy Minister to a very interesting booklet which I do not think is generally available in the Republic, but which is published for external consumption and issued through the Department of Information in America. It is called Progress through Separate Development, South Africa in peaceful transition. It contains some very interesting articles and remarks. I should like to deal with the Tswana people, but I realize that I would be out of order. I want to refer particularly to an article entitled, “Let the World take Note”. The author of this article is none other than Dr. Muller, the Minister of Foreign Affairs. This is what he says on page 27:

You see. Sir. this is the bi-focal policy of the Nationalist Party. For outside consumption they talk about the five-year plans that do not come to fruition. But the hon. the Minister nearly went into orbit about the five-year plan which is past and the five-year plan which is to follow, here. I wonder which is right. Is this plan ever likely to come to fruition? When we put the spotlight on Bantu education in this five-year plan, I believe that the spotlight tends to cast lengthening shadows over Bantu education itself. The nearer the subject comes to the light, the greater will be the shadow. It is an elementary fact of physics. I believe that until the Government reviews the decision which it took in 1953 in regard to the pegging of funds for Bantu education, the Bantu university colleges, about which so much has been said, will remain expensive reminders of the failure of this Government to face up to the needs of Bantu education.

I want to refer to the position that exists today, because I believe that it is a serious position, namely the fall-off in the number of pupils and therefore the limitation on the source of university pupils for the Bantu university colleges. These are the latest figures. I received them in answer to a question put to the Minister on the 5th May. They deal with figures as late as the 30th September, 1966. From these I have calculated that out of every 28 Bantu pupils attending primary schools, one will reach secondary school and out of every 374 pupils attending primary schools, one will reach high school. Out of every 1,183 Bantu pupils in primary schools, one will reach matric. If this is something to be proud of, I am afraid I cannot go along with the hon. the Deputy Minister.

Compare that with the position 10 years ago.

Compare the matric results of 10 years ago. It is rather a disappointing comparison. The hon. member for Umhlatuzana should look that up and see for himself what the position is. Once the church schools had to give up training matric pupils, the drop took place and we are still recovering from that. I want to put it to this Committee that the main difficulty is an economic one, because not only are the Bantu contributing by means of the general tax to which the hon. the Deputy Minister referred, but they are contributing directly and indirectly. They are paying general tax, they are contributing on a fifty-fifty basis for schools in the white area, they are contributing on a fifty-fifty basis for the maintenance of schools in the white area, and they are paying for their books. When it comes to books, the latest assessment of what this involves the Bantu parent in, is given as follows. This applies to Natal, but I think it is very similar to other provinces. These are round figures. For class books from sub form to form V text books cost R103 and exercise books and extras cost R16. School fees and levies come to R28. Boarding fees amount to R120. Examination fees are R14. This makes a total of R281. Also included in the liabilities which a parent is faced with in sending his child to school, are school uniforms and a school case. As the hon. the Deputy Minister has told us, most children attending secondary schools will be called upon to go outside the urban areas and attend the secondary schools in the Bantu homelands. They will therefore be called upon to become boarders. Clothes have to be provided, and also train fares to and fro, even if it is only at the end of term. Then there are bus fares, levies for sport, for medical expenses, etc. It has been estimated from a reliable source that the cost to put one child through a one-year matric course amounts to a quarter of the income of the average Bantu family in Durban. That is in Natal. The position throughout the country in the other provinces is very much the same. I believe that the volume of evidence on the inadequacy of Bantu education cries out for parliamentary intervention.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Berea joined the ranks of the long line of prophets of doom we have found on the other side of the House in the last few days. They are making predictions that never come true and will never come true. I can appreciate that the hon. member and hon. members on the other side do not like the idea of a five-year plan. Their five-year plan is one that can be told by any child, it is the story of the nine little nigger boys who went out and of whom only five returned. Then the five of them went out again and eventually only one returned. In another five years’ time very few of them will be left. They will therefore not be able to discuss the fruits of the five-year plan. I should like to congratulate the Minister and his Department on the high standard that is being maintained in publishing this fine publication, namely the Bantu Education Journal. It was printed on glazed paper. It contains a rich variety of data and interesting articles. It has been illustrated abundantly with newsworthy photographs and it even contains a correspondence column. It is a publication in which every education department in any part of the world can take pride. I make bold to say that I do not believe that there is a white education department in South Africa which circulates such a useful publication. Not only do I believe that it can be an important contribution and an important aid to the Bantu teacher, but I also believe that it may render a major contribution in furthering his self-respect and his professional dignity. However, this publication is not all that is fine in the Department of Bantu Education. It merely reflects a very thoroughly planned and well-organized department that is doing excellent work under extremely difficult circumstances. Few people realize what enormous proportions the activities of this Department assume. If one looks at the numbers that are at school, one finds that over the past ten years they have virtually been doubled. In 1956 approximately 1,100,000 pupils were attending schools. Last year there were approximately 2 million. This number already represents approximately 17 per cent of the total Bantu population in South Africa. It is a percentage which is much higher than is the case in any other African state. If these increases can be maintained, far more than 3 million Bantu pupils will be attending schools in another ten years’ time. It must undoubtedly be a tremendous task to provide this tremendously increasing number of pupils with equipment, school buildings and books.

But it is not only in scope that this Department is doing great work. In essence and in content, too, this Department is performing a gigantic task. As a matter of fact, I maintain that the Department of Bantu Education is engaged in the greatest act of salvation that has ever been performed in the history of South Africa. This Department is engaged in uplifting a nation that has for many years been the herdsmen and the hewers of wood and drawers of water to the stature of people with self-respect, people who can think and act for themselves, people who take pride in their language and their culture and their history, and people who will indeed be able to render a major contribution so that their people may save themselves. The basis and the starting-point of Bantu education is that of preparing the youth to serve their own communities. I am quoting from the Bantu Education Journal—

There was a time when this basis and starting-point of Bantu education was quite different. It was the time when that Party was in power. At that time the starting-point of Bantu education was to break down the language, the culture and the traditions of the Bantu, to free the Bantu from his tribal background, to make those things appear ridiculous, old-fashioned and savage to the Bantu child. He had to forget those things as soon as possible. He had to learn to speak English. He had to acquire British habits and the culture of the British. He had to wear Western clothes. If he did not do so, he was made to appear ridiculous. In other words, the object pursued by Bantu education at that time, under the régime of that Party, was to make a Westerner out of every Bantu child. What was the result? Educated Bantu looked down on their own people with contempt. They referred to “lobola-paying, blanket-wearing kraal Bantu”. They refused to extend a helping hand to their own people. They tried to live like white people and among white people. They wanted to share in the privileges of the white man. How could one blame them? Their system of education did in fact prepare them for that.

When the educated Bantu saw that they could not achieve these things and that they could never or would never become white persons and could not be accepted as such, they realized that they were travellers to nowhere. Then they became frustrated and paralysed. In the course of time a grievance was born in their hearts. They started hating the white man. They became communist agitators. Many of the educated Bantu of that era we do not find amongst their own people at present, but abroad, members of many of the so-called freedom movements directed at the Republic of South Africa. Fortunately there were also a few individuals who realized that one could only live one’s life to the full when one was at the service of one’s own people. They are doing useful work amongst their own people at present. The policy of this Government, namely the policy of separate development which means good relations with the various states and various peoples in South Africa, necessarily entails that the homelands of these peoples must be developed, and developed as soon as possible, but this should in fact be done by employing as far as possible their own means, their own spiritual properties, their own natural talents, their own labour and, where possible, their own capital as well. We know that once these people have, with our aid and assistance, developed themselves for their own benefit, it will not only be to their own advantage, but also to that of the Whites and the entire country. That is why it is the aim and object of the Department of Bantu Education to train every child in such a way that he may be at the service of his own people and that he may be a useful citizen. The progress that has been made is indeed spectacular. The hon. the Deputy Minister has already mentioned it here. Two million Bantu pupils are attending schools—and there are approximately 9,000 schools—and they are being instructed by more than 34,000 teachers. Last year 871 matriculants passed. Provision is not only being made for academic training, but a male Bantu youth can also receive technical and manual training. He can be taught the following things brickmaking, painting, baking, concrete work, plastering, carpentry, joinery, cabinet-making, plumbing, drain-laying and sheet-metal work, motor mechanics, electrotechnics and wiring homes, and building construction. Many of these Bantu, once they have been trained, will also be able to render an important contribution to developing the infra-structure of their own homelands. Bursaries are offered to the more intelligent Bantu pupils so as to encourage them to study further. A large number of bursaries are offered by the Department itself and by local authorities and churches. In all there are 1,482 bursaries, to the aggregate amount of R56,000, which are available to Bantu pupils. This major and extensive work of the Department of Bantu Education is frustrated by a shortage of funds. Apart from the R13 million that comes from the Treasury and the R1.5 million that is being voted for university training, the Government has afforded the Bantu peoples a splendid opportunity for actively developing the education of their children into something grand by deciding that all Bantu taxes should be spent on education. That is the chief source of the Bantu Education Account, but unfortunately this source has been disappointing so far. It is actually difficult to understand that a population of 12 million people merely yields R10 million in taxes when the education of their own children is at stake. This amount must undoubtedly be increased threefold or fourfold eventually. I think that just as in the case of the Whites, the time is ripe for a P.A.Y.E. system to be introduced for the Bantu so that they may pay their taxes. I think that this is perhaps a controversial idea, but I nevertheless think that the money that is obtained through the sale of spirituous liquor to the Bantu, may perhaps be paid into the Bantu Education Account. Last year the municipal drinking places in the Bantu townships of Port Elizabeth alone yielded more than R1 million, and they are merely selling one-third of the liquor the Bantu obtained, because liquor dealers outside those townships specialize in selling liquor to the Bantu and they deliver liquor on a large scale in those Bantu townships; in this way they attract approximately two-thirds of the Bantu liquor trade. [Time expired.]

I only want to reply to two or three of the statements made by the hon. member for Algoa. The first is to tell him that whatever he may think in regard to the Government’s concentration on trying to re-establish tribal customs and developing pride in the African people, the Africans in South Africa live in a modern industrial country and they do not want to return to their tribal structure. The Africans want only one thing and that is to share in the benefits of the development of Western civilization, and they are not interested in wearing tribal clothing and sitting around a pot in the tribal areas. They want consumer goods of all kinds and they want a share in the general development of the modern industrial society, and nothing the Government does to try to put them back in that old mould is going to work because they are moving ahead together with the rest of this country. [Interjection.] Sir, could I be allowed to speak just for five minutes without interruptions?

But you are continually interjecting yourself.

Order! The hon. member is addressing the opposite side of the House instead of addressing the Chair. But I will see to it that the hon. member gets an opportunity to make her speech.

I am grateful to you, Sir. The point is that if we are going to consider this financial aspect of the Bantu Education Vote, I want to say to the Deputy Minister that this is, of course, the only section of the population which is expected to contribute specifically to its own education, or that has a separate fund for it. There is no separate fund for Coloured or Indian education or for the Whites. The education for those groups is expected to be paid for out of the national coffers, but the poorest section of the community has to pay for its own education. There can be no justification for that. I cannot agree with this separation at all, but even if one could agree with it in principle, the basis on which it is done is quite unjust, apart from the valid point made by the hon. member for Kensington about the reduction in the value of money and the point made by the hon. member for Berea about the Africans having, over and above their taxes, to contribute monthly fees and to pay for all their books. I want to point out that the Africans contribute an enormous sum by way of indirect taxation which is not taken into consideration at all. The percentage of their contribution to the national income is far higher than the R13 million plus the R1.5 million for colleges which is allowed for it. [Interjection.] The Minister cannot compare the contribution made indirectly in labour and in indirect taxes to the national income and equate it with what this Government allocates to education.

The second point I want to make is that we all make glib statements about Bantu education in this House and the Department puts out reports talking about “unparalleled achievements”, and the Minister talks about the great advances that have been made, and the Government tells us over and over that 80 per cent of the children are at school and that there is a high degree of literacy among the Africans. But I do not think we really know these figures, because when I asked the Minister earlier this year to tell me about the number of children turned away from school at the beginning of this year in the Witwatersrand region only, he said he did not know. I also asked him to tell me what shortage of accommodation there was for African children throughout the Republic, and his reply was that the information was not available and that to obtain it a comprehensive survey would have to be undertaken. Well, I suggest it is high time that he undertook just such a survey, so that we can really understand what the facts are in regard to Bantu education, and how many children come clamouring for admission to the schools which are available, particularly in the urban areas, and how many are turned away. In Port Elizabeth alone we were told that something like 2,900 children were turned away. I asked a question about it and the Minister replied that this was the responsibility of the Municipality of Port Elizabeth. because in 1965 they did not put in an application for schoolrooms at all. On the 12th May, however, there was a denial of this by Mrs. Holland, the Chairman of the Bantu Affairs Committee at Port Elizabeth. She said that they did put in a request for schoolrooms, and although this year they were told that they had been granted additional schoolrooms, they were still waiting for the money to come through. So I do not know whether all these allegations of municipal responsibility not being carried out are correct or not. I think it is time to have a proper survey into the whole position of Bantu schools. I do not believe we have this enormous literacy rate among African children. I do not believe that anyone can be functionally literate who has only spent the two sub-grades and maybe the first two years at school. Most of them leave before Std. 2, and according to the Eiselen Commission, unless a child has had four years at school, to all intents and purposes that schooling is wasted. So how the Government can claim this high literacy rate among African children is beyond me, because the vast majority of children do not have those four years at school. To give these figures of hundreds of thousands of children who are at school today is all right as far as it goes, but it does not go very far. It does not even go up to St. 2, so I discount entirely the claims of functional literacy among African children. The Minister correctly said that they had made many attempts to increase the number of teachers. May I just have the Deputy Minister’s attention here and put it to him that the emphasis is on the wrong side. The emphasis should not be on primary education at this stage, but on secondary education in order to produce the teachers, because unless you have teachers you cannot go in for a massive primary education system. This must be obvious to everybody. The number of teachers has not increased in anything like the proportion that is required. That is probably due to salaries as well and the absolutely niggardly increases that Bantu teachers have had. They start at too low a level. It is like starting with R1 and raising it to R2 and then saying that the increase is 100 per cent. Of course it is 100 per cent, but if you start too low it does not help. They have to get an increase that means something. But the emphasis should be on secondary education if we really want to educate an African people who can play their part in the general development of this country and even, according to Government policy, in the development of the reserves, because as things stand at the moment, they are not going to have the professional people, the engineers, the teachers, the technicians, the doctors and the nurses, to play their part in the development of the reserves. We must start by increasing the number of secondary schools. I agree absolutely with what the hon. member for Kensington has said about the building of secondary schools, only in the rural areas. Sir, it is a terrible thing to do. It means that the most advanced section of the African people who are in the urban areas are denied easy access to secondary schools. It is impossible for those parents to pay boarding fees over and above everything else, and apart from that the parents are dead scared that if they send their children to secondary schools in the rural areas, those children forfeit the right to re-enter the urban areas. Great difficulties are placed in their way if they wish to come back into the urban areas. The tendency therefore is not to take advantage of the schools which exist in the rural areas. If the Government is really serious about wanting to present South Africa as an advanced country, advancing the education of the African people, they will have to rethink their policy on three major lines, firstly the financial side, secondly the whole question of placing the emphasis on secondary schooling, rather than on a broad basis of primary schooling where the children get three or four years of schooling in the lowest possible grades and then leave, and thirdly, of course, on the question of where these secondary schools should be placed. They should obviously be in the urban areas. I believe that the Government is making a very serious mistake as regards the way in which it is handling this whole question of Bantu education. [Time expired.]

I want to begin by saying that I believe this is the most important Vote in the whole of the Estimates, this Bantu Education Vote. Sir, I believe that this Government is treating Bantu Education as a step-child of the Department of Bantu Administration and Development, and when I hear from the hon. member for Kensington that over R1 million has had to be surrendered on this Vote during the past year, I believe there is something very seriously wrong indeed. I say that this Vote is the most important Vote in the Estimates because you are dealing here with the mind of the Bantu people. Surely what we in whit e South Africa are trying to do is to win the struggle for the mind of the uncommitted people of Africa. We are trying to win that struggle for the Western Christian values that the white man stands for. Surely the way in which we should do that is through education, through bringing home to the Bantu people the values that we stand for, our traditions, our background and everything that the white man has to offer. I believe that the function of the Bantu Education Department is to educate, to uplift, to offer new horizons, to bring home to the Bantu population the tremendous world that lies open to them through education, through progress, through co-operating with the white man. I do not believe that this is faced with sufficient seriousness by this Government, and I believe that that is borne out by the pegging of the amount of money made available to Bantu Education in this country. Sir, I am the first to concede that there are difficulties, that there is a shortage of teachers and that there are problems in providing buildings and so on, but I believe that education is the most potent weapon that the white man has. Sir, the hon. member for Algoa has drawn the attention of this Committee to the fact that so many educated Bantu have turned to communism. Why? They turn to communism because of the rejection by this Government of everything that they expected from the white man. That is what turned them to communism, and you see exactly the same process going on to-day where they are being forced to look to the Bantu homeland areas for their secondary education. These people are increasingly becoming part and parcel of the economic system and the society of South Africa. They recognize themselves as playing that part, and here they are being met by a blank wall; they are being told by the hon. the Minister and the Deputy Minister and officials of the Department that the parts they are playing in South Africa to-day are not recognized; that they are rejected; that they are to go back to their own areas. This is what is being said to Bantu people in our urban centres who are carrying on their backs the whole of the economic life of South Africa. I believe that this is terribly short-sighted. I can see no explanation for it; I can see no justification for it. Sir, the hon. member over there shakes his head. How would he like it if he had to go some hundreds of miles away from where he is living for his secondary education, not by choice but forced to do so because no facilities are provided close to his home for secondary education? Sir, has every person not got the right to have education provided for him as close to his home as possible? Is that not the efficient way of doing it?

Bring the school to the children.

Is that not what happens throughout the Western world? Local schools are made available to the population as a whole. [Interjections.] Sir, I do not accept that for one moment. This is something which is the result of the ideological policy of this Government.

However, I do not wish to continue in that vein. I wish to make a special plea here to the hon. the Minister for the development of the system of Bantu farm schools. As one who lives on a farm, I believe that this system of Bantu farm schools is one of the biggest stabilizing factors that one can have in the relationship between the white employer and his employees on the farm. I believe that this is a system which ought ‘o be developed in the interests of the farming community and the labour involved in that farming community. Sir, I made a very rough calculation and my figures may be a little bit out, but I see that there are about 221,000 pupils in some 2,500 farm schools, and in those farm schools there are some 4,000 teachers, which gives us a pupil-teacher ratio of one teacher to 50 pupils. Sir I do not think that is satisfactory. I know that there are problems also in getting teachers to go to these remote areas, to the farms. The Government will experience that same difficulty when they want teachers to go to the Bantu homelands. But I do believe that inducement can be offered and I do believe that the system of educating Bantu farm labour on the farms offers a tremendous advantage in that you are not orientating the Bantu labour on farms to an urban type of life, which I think is something which is causing a tremendous degree of instability in the whole of the platteland to that particular section of our Bantu labour population. I believe I am correct in saying that many of these farm schools are found on a voluntary basis by farmers. They have to be maintained by the farmers or the local community for two years before the Department takes them over, and when the Department takes them over, the Department then become responsible for the salaries of the teachers. The local community has to make some contribution towards the establishment of the school and its maintenance for a period of two years. I believe that this is the system which should be extended. I believe it is a system which will be of considerable benefit to the farming population and I would like to see it improved where it is possible to improve it, particularly in this matter of the relationship between the number of teachers employed to the number of pupils.

Mr. Chairman, I have so much to say about the hon. member for Mooi River that I would rather say nothing.

Is that so!

I have just as much to say about the hon. member for Houghton, but as far as she is concerned, I would also rather say nothing. I want to make a few observations on the fundamental approach and the practical implementation of our policy in respect of Bantu education, particularly in the light of the transfer of management and administrative powers to the respective Bantu nations in the Republic of South Africa.

Not only were the fundamental arguments raised by the Minister in speeches in the course of the year founded rightly and realistically, both inductively and deductively, on our multi-nation contact situation in South Africa, but his view of the place of the education facet within the Bantu’s own pattern of life is equally correct. The total human growth process is assisted, fostered and directed by the education facet. For that reason the Government is now taking the broader elements of the enculturation process together with the rudimentary elements of the Bantu’s traditional educational and teaching system and causing their crystallization into the modern formal and informal methods and facilities of education.

Bantu education will now also have as its object not only the training and planning as regards the Bantu’s political and administrative structure; not only will it be instrumental in creating closer links between the various ethnic groups and their other fellow-tribesmen who five in other places; not only will it contribute towards independence as regards the Bantu’s legal and court system, his economy, finance and social development, etc., but under the guidance of the Government his education will grow and gradually be handed over to the Bantu himself.

With a view to maintaining educational policy and uniform educational content and standards, sustained central control is exercised by the Department of Bantu Education, firstly, in respect of certain professional services and, secondly, in respect of certain administrative services—for example, the registration, classification and grading of community schools, statistics, the Bantu educational advisory council, control over teacher-training schools, other State schools and universities. The ethnic sub-committees of the educational advisory council which are already in existence are to be developed into full-fledged advisory councils for each ethnic unit. Thirdly, certain accounting responsibilities will initially be retained, for example, control and supervision over accounting and the preparation and distribution of salary cheques.

The other responsibilities are entrusted to the Department of Education and Culture of the territorial authority on the understanding that certain services will be provided in cooperation with other interested Departments. The functions can be transferred gradually as the Bantu become equipped for them. I shall now mention a few as examples. Firstly, there is the planning and establishment of new schools which, as was previously also the case, will be submitted to the Department for the necessary registration. Secondly, there is the expansion of existing schools. Thirdly, there is the erection and maintenance of school, hostel and office buildings. Fourthly, there is the provision of water, light and sanitation services. Fifthly, there is the payment of rentals and insurance costs, water and lights to those particular concerns, for example church and other bodies, from whom they rent the buildings in question. Sixthly, there is the payment of travel and subsistence costs of members of school boards and other officials in the service of the Bantu authorities. In the seventh place there is the provision to community schools, hostels and offices of furniture and other equipment which they will require. In the eighth place there is the creation, subject of course to the approval of the Secretary for Bantu Education, of educational posts in accordance with fixed formulae and within the limits of the money provided. In the ninth place there is teachers’ appointment, promotion, granting of leave, transfer and discharge and the formulation of the necessary conditions of service. In the tenth place there is the employment, with the approval of the Minister of Bantu Education, of administrative staff at offices, schools and hostels. Furthermore, there is the Budget for the abovementioned services and also for the promotion of language, literature and arts. There are also translating services and State publications, and the provision of study bursaries and loans.

Finally I want to say something about the organization and staff. A regional office for every separate nation which will serve as a seconded office of the State Department of Bantu Education in Pretoria, will be created. The function of this office will be to exercise professional control over both those schools which come under the territorial authority and certain Government schools in that Bantu area, as well as schools in white areas in the districts concerned. Furthermore, the regional office will assist the Education Department of the territorial authority through advice and guidance.

The office is headed by a regional director, assisted by some white administrative officials and one or more white inspectors. However, all Bantu officers, as well as professional officers, for example inspectors, are to be transferred to the Department of Education and Culture of the respective territorial authorities. Where necessary, some of these Bantu officers may be seconded to the establishment of regional directors of the relevant territorial authority.

The control officer of the Education Department will be in liaison with the chief control officer of the territorial authority in respect of local co-ordination, and with the regional office in connection with matters referred to the Head Office in Pretoria. The regional office itself will exercise control over professional services. The establishment of Bantu and white officials of the control officer will be determined by way of investigation.

The territorial authority executive committee member in charge of education will be assisted by an educational committee, and this educational committee will comprise all the chairmen of the various school boards for the area concerned. In areas where there are fewer than five school boards, both the chairman and the deputy-chairman will serve on the committee concerned. That educational committee must be in contact with the relevant sub-committee of the educational advisory council.

School boards, as constituted at present, and their functions are retained, but they will come under the territorial authority and its executive committee. School committees as constituted at present and their functions will be retained unchanged.

Consideration will have to be given to the possible transfer of professional services to the territorial authority.

At this stage it should be mentioned that the Bantu Education policy of the Government is in full swing. Personally I am satisfied that this policy is founded on the best educational scientific principles. I am satisfied that it has regard to the full reality of our ethnic contact situation here in South Africa, and that in course of time the Bantu will indeed be able to exercise full control over his own education within a certain period from now on.

Mr. Chairman, I do not intend to follow the hon. member who has just sat down, but as he has set himself up as something of an expert on Bantu education, I would ask him to support me in my plea which I will direct at the hon. the Minister. I want to refer the Minister to Table 1 on page 22 of the Annual Report for the Calendar Year 1965 of the Department of Bantu Education. This table sets out the number of schools under the control of the Department as 7,220 odd as at the end of 1965. In 1960 there were 7,721 schools. It would, therefore, seem that there has been a drop of 500 schools, although elsewhere in the report we read of an increase of 180 schools. Can one assume, therefore, that the drop of 500 schools was brought about by the closure of religious schools or church schools? As I say, there has been a drop of 500 schools over the past five years.

Which column is that?

I am referring to Table 1, Summary of Schools on page 22. The present figure given for church schools is 509. In 1954 the Catholic Church alone had over 800 schools, 688 of which were subsidized schools. Now it has 490 schools, none of which are subsidized. The total of church schools is now shown in the table as being 509, none of which are subsidized. In this respect I should like to refer the Minister to a question he answered for me on the 16th May. His answer to a question of mine was that: “Certain church authorities prefer to establish, maintain and control their own schools and such schools are registered as private schools which means that they receive no assistance from the State”. I wonder whether that is in fact the position. Do they in fact prefer to receive no subsidy? I suggest rather that it is the Government’s policy that leaves them with no alternative. Another interesting feature is the composition of the remaining schools. The figure given for community schools is 3,883 and farm schools 2,521. It is interesting to note that out of the 7,000 schools shown on the table, over 4,000 are in the so-called white areas. If one was to look at the figures for the 509 church schools, you will find that these church schools cater for 82.0 pupils or about 5 per cent of the total number of Bantu being educated in the Republic. Furthermore, and this is the important point, this table shows quite clearly that these 82.0 pupils are being educated at no cost whatever to the Government. I do not believe that from the Government’s point of view you can get any cheaper than that—82,000 Bantu children educated in this country out of charity, 82,000 whose parents pay in fact twice for their education because they also have to pay poll tax. Now we have learnt from the hon. the Deputy Minister that for their secondary education they are going to have to travel to some Bantu homeland at some considerable cost to them as well. I believe that in no aspect of this Government’s administration have they shown just quite how cheap they really are. Here we have 82,000 Bantu people educated at private schools at no cost to the Government. We have 3,000 community schools and approximately 2,000 farm schools for all of which the Government only pays a proportion of the costs. Who in this country is then paying for the education of the Bantu? It is the Bantu themselves. I believe that we should bow our heads in shame because we allow this thing to go on. I, therefore, again turn to my hon. friend who spoke a short while ago and I say that if he is really concerned about Bantu education, he must have a little closer look at this report. The Government does not pay a brass farthing to educate so large a proportion of the population. If we look at these schools a little closer, what do we find? We find that one of these Bantu schools last year had a 100 per cent pass in J.C. and only one failure in matric. This is in respect of the school at Marian Hill whose reputation is known beyond the borders of South Africa. Generally the standard of these church schools is higher than at the Government-controlled schools. It is these church schools which are in fact supplying the material to the university colleges. If it was not for these church schools, the enrolment at the university colleges would be a good deal lower than it is now.

Sir, if you look at a report which shows the matriculation results for the years 1953 to 1964, you will see that this report alone shows the role which the church schools have played in Bantu education. While the church schools were allowed to play their full part, the percentage passes in Bantu education was a great deal higher than it was in the years that followed. There are 1,900 teachers in these private schools, and the Government does not pay a penny of their salaries either. Some years ago, when the Government withdrew the subsidy from these schools, these teachers experienced tremendous drops in salary and hardship in order to continue teaching. The report shows as well that 14 church schools closed last year, while two new ones were opened. The year before, 11 church schools were closed. I should like to know from the hon. the Minister how many of those 14 schools and how many of the 11 schools which had to close the year before, closed because they could not make ends meet. I should also like to know how many of the 1½ million books, at a cost of R400,000, which was supplied free to schools according to this report, went to these church schools. I do not believe that the Government can blithely sit back and ignore the part that these church schools are playing in our education, and say that they will have nothing to do with them except control them through their inspectors and make them carry out the functions of the department without paying a single penny towards them. Nobody is asking the State to finance church schools, but I do say that it is the duty of the State to finance any denominational school when the State is not in a position to supply a school of its own. If this principle were applied, fewer church schools would be forced to close than are closing at present. This is a principle which has been accepted in other parts of the world. In no instance should the subsidy to a church or a denominational school be withdrawn unless the State can supply a school in that area.

Mr. Chairman, we on this side of the House find it very difficult to debate the question of Bantu education with the Opposition, particularly because of their negative approach to the whole matter. We now find ourselves in the position, as the hon. member for Rissik said, that we simply have to carry on without their support or even encouragement, or without their giving us reason to criticize them. I do want to refer to the hon. member for Berea. A moment ago he spoke about the number of pupils in matriculation classes. I just want to tell him that in 1955 the number was 674. It increased to 1,405 in 1965, which is an increase of almost 115 per cent. I say this just for his edification.

But I want to continue. Since it came into being the Bantu Education Department has succeeded in laying the basic foundation for the education, teaching and training of the Bantu youth of our country. In course of time the progress has been accompanied by tremendous forward bounds. It has indeed been remarkable. I am of the opinion that we are now on the brink of a new phase, of which I want to outline certain features. In the report of Bantu Education there is already an indication of this awareness of a new spirit of adjustment and change. On page 1, for example, the report states that pupils are more adaptable to the constant changes of to-day’s labour market and to strange business conditions, as well as being able to master new methods and techniques. The ideas which are set out in this report are sound.

But it is necessary that Bantu education should tie up to an ever-increasing extent with the objectives of the Department of Bantu Administration. Meticulous co-ordination is essential. Education and teaching centres must necessarily form economic and social focal points. In course of time these focal points change into points of attraction—we find this in white areas, and it1 is also the case in Bantu areas. We should like to discourage the creation of points of attraction for the Bantu in the white areas, whilst encouraging and stimulating such points of attraction in Bantu areas. It is alarming to see that in Bantu residential areas in white areas and in other areas there are 4,079 schools, compared with 3,143 schools in Bantu areas—a ratio of 4:3 in favour of schools in white areas. This tendency must be stopped at all costs. We must do so through drastic planning measures. We simply cannot continue establishing any more Bantu schools in white areas.

Another aspect which is to a certain extent related to the foregoing, is also mentioned in the report of Bantu education. The report states that broadly speaking the era of the unskilled worker is drawing to a close and that there is a great demand for a new kind of worker, the trained and skilled artisan, the technician, the educated person who has knowledge of the new techniques and who can adapt himself to conditions that have changed.

In this connection it is essential that the importance of the location of institutions for training these people should be emphasized. Because this kind of training is expensive, territorial decentralization is understandable to a certain point. There are many good reasons for a policy of not locating these institutions in or near white areas. As far as these forms of education are concerned, co-ordination between Bantu education and Bantu administration, and perhaps also the Department of Labour, is essential. Bantu Education will soon have to devote attention to training and certifying Bantu artisans in Bantu areas. One should take care not to over-emphasize the technical and trade training at the expense of other fields of training, fields which must in fact provide the opportunity for the technicians and artisans to enter the labour market. But it is a wide field. It is not merely a matter of technicians and artisans. We need clerks, bookkeepers, managers, typists, post office clerks, bank clerks and others. Employment bureaux, health services and other services rendered by the State require trained people, and then there is also a demand for waiters, barmen, etc., in other tertiary industries.

But apart from the ordinary training facilities which have to be provided, there are other methods to which attention may be given. The training of technical staff, of artisans and office staff may perhaps take the form of in-service training. This possibility has not yet received the attention it merits. As far as this is concerned, the Department of Bantu Education may provide guidance to a larger extent.

In my view it is also quite justifiable that Bantu staff will be recruited for administration and trades in white areas with a view to the development of the Bantu homelands.

Another possibility is offering short courses for specific orientation and training. In this regard it is pleasing to note in the report of the B.I.C. that they employ these methods of technical assistance, offering advice, of training, and also of after-care.

Finally, I have a request of a local nature. The presence of other race groups in Zululand, north of the Tugela, is at present being investigated. The problem which arises is to replace the workers who are at present employed in hotels, offices, shops, mills and garages. The workers who are there at present have to be replaced, because they are members of other race groups. Add to this the unavoidable development awaiting that area, and you will appreciate that a real problem is experienced in this regard. I have received representations from various quarters for the establishment, inside a Bantu homeland, of a technical college where a variety of courses can be offered, courses which will be able to meet the needs of both the homeland and the area with which we are concerned.

The hon. member for Zululand has referred to the establishment of educational institutions for Bantu in the Bantu homelands. The hon. the Deputy Minister as well referred to this matter as did various other hon. members. But I am surprised that the hon. member for Zululand referred to this. He was a lecturer at Ngoyte and he knows the circumstances under which students went there— the difficulties, for instance they experienced to find accommodation; difficulties they encountered in going from the urban areas to a rural area. The hon. Deputy Minister referred me a while ago to Hammarsdale. Has he seen the conditions under which students in the secondary school at Hammarsdale have to live? Does he know of the new industry that is being developed in the Bantu areas under decentralization of secondary education? If the hon. the Deputy Minister has seen it, is he satisfied with conditions? I want to appeal to him as well as to the hon. the Minister to do something about this immediately—and not only at Hammarsdale but throughout the country. These conditions exist everywhere where there are institutions. Let us do something about providing accommodation for students if the Government's policy for decentralization of these higher education institutions is to be continued. Are the Bantu university colleges a magnificent achievement or are they premature white elephants?

Have you ever visited one of them?

Yes, I have. Let us go back to 1953 and see what the position was then when Bantu education was taken over by the Department of Bantu Administration. The immediate effect was that they lost most of the trained staff they had.

How did this affect the matriculation figures? In 1953, 259 Bantu matriculated. In 1960 it dropped to 182, nearly 60 per cent of the previous number. Why was this? There was a vast increase in the overall number of pupils, particularly in the primary grades. But secondary school education deteriorated rapidly, resulting in relatively fewer Bantu passing the matric examination. Also it is resulting inevitably in relatively fewer Bantu going on with secondary education. That is what this country needs, particularly if this Government's policy of separate development is to succeed. The Bantu must qualify in huge numbers to help their own people to develop. Fewer students, particularly, qualify to become teachers, for the same reason. How can the Bantu, as I said earlier, develop separately without qualified people to educate and train them and to assist in their development? For the same reasons very few Bantu secondary schools are able to teach the essentials for a student to go on to higher learning, for example Latin, mathematics and science. There are no qualified teachers, as you have heard the hon. member for Kensington say.

It is a system inherited from the United Party.

If the system inherited from the United Party had been continued, there would not have been this shortfall.

These subjects are basic subjects which are required for students studying for bachelors degrees in arts and science. The result is that, when these students go to the university colleges to-day, they have to start with elementary lessons in Latin and science. The Bantu Education Commission resulted in this takeover, but the minority report at that time foresaw all this and recommended to this Government that for an interim period the development of secondary education should take prime importance; the development of higher education centres, such as the university colleges, should be left over. This, however, was rejected and now we see the results. To justify the establishment of the university colleges the Department has had to admit students without matriculation qualifications. They are there, undertaking diploma courses. Not that I am decrying that. At least we are putting them to some useful use.

They are not university students.

They are not, but they are attending these universities for diploma courses and they are going to make a useful contribution to the development of the Bantu people. In 1963, 36 per cent of the students at these university colleges were not matriculated. In 1965 there were still 35 per cent of them who were not matriculated. In 1965 there was a total of 939 students. Seven were studying for masters degrees and 24 were studying for honours degrees; 566 were studying for bachelors degrees and 342 for diplomas. There has been an improvement in the number of students studying for degrees, but is the Minister satisfied that he is turning out sufficient graduates fast enough for separate development to work? I mentioned Ngoye earlier. The hon. member for Zululand was there. In the six years since Ngoye has been established, what have they turned out? Forty one B.A. graduates, seven B.Sc. graduates, nine graduates with honours in the arts and 62 with diplomas in teaching or in commerce. This has been achieved with an average attendance of over 50 lecturers. In the colleges there are 939 students and 192 lecturers. The ratio of students to lecturers is five to one. In addition there is all the capital expenditure that is required. The question is: Can South Africa afford to make such poor use of our limited, and I mean limited, number of qualified persons and our limited financial resources? Is the Minister satisfied?

In conclusion I would like to say that it appears from the foregoing that the answer to the question that I posed earlier is that these colleges were premature and that they have up to now remained white elephants. I appeal now to the hon. the Minister and the Deputy Minister to take a realistic view of this position. Let us do something. Let us go on and no longer keep them as white elephants. Let them now serve the purpose for which they were intended and let the Bantu people of South Africa benefit from this.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to deal with all the points of interest raised by each of the speakers on the opposite side. I shall not reply to all points, of course, but only to those which are of interest.

The hon. member for Kensington made his customary introductory speech and, as could be expected, had a good deal to say on the fixed amount of R13 million. On this occasion I do not want to go into the comparisons which he drew in connection with the shortfall which, as he alleged, developed as a result of the depreciation of money. It is a common phenomenon. But the services which are rendered to the Bantu prove to us that there is no reason to review the amount of R13 million at this stage, as the hon. member would so much like us to do, particularly not if the correlation between the taxes which have to be paid and the educational fund is still unfavourable, as is the case at present, as a result of indifferent payment of taxes. Last year I dealt with this in great detail and I actually do not think it is necessary to give very serious attention to it again now. But I would not have been sorry if we as Whites had also had such a fund to tie up our education with certain achievements that we as a community have to produce.

We have that.

No, the hon. member knows that. He said himself that this was the only one of the race groups in South Africa in respect of which such a special education fund existed. I said last year that it was proper that in the course of his development the Bantu should be taught that one of the most primary requirements for any civilized person is the payment of taxes. One cannot qualify for being regarded as a civilized person unless one is also prepared to be a taxpayer. I think it is a very good principle to correlate one’s civilization with the payment of taxes as far as the advancement of a nation is concerned. L is also a very good savings requirement. But then the hon. members on the opposite side should appreciate that seen from an over-all point of view the Bantu are getting more and more education. Everybody who should receive education and who is able to do something with education receives L. The Deputy Minister and others quoted some figures here. There is no need to repeat them. They are such general facts as that our percentage of Bantu who are enjoying education is higher than that of other countries in Africa. Even more attention is to be given to all this work which we are now going to undertake in connection with activating the Bantu authorises. It goes without saying that more attention will be devoted to education. I predict that this will be one of the reasons why the Bantu will realize more effectively than before that the payment of their taxes is essential to them in order to achieve those objectives which they can achieve through education. I think it is a very good principle that these two are linked. It is not something that we have to be ashamed of and for which we have to apologize to anybody. The progress in education is obvious in every respect. If one considers the number of children at school, the number of teachers, the matriculants and all the different aspects which one may use as a criterion, one will see that progress is being made in Bantu education, which not only keeps abreast of the available funds but also of the needs they have to supply. I also want to say here what I have said in another context in this House, namely that it is of no avail to develop the Bantu in only one aspect of his development process, with the result that his development in this aspect outstrips and outpaces all other aspects of his development completely. In the field of education it will also be wrong if we do not maintain the balance between the general level of civilization and development of the nation as such and its intelligentsia, whom it gets through its educational systems.

There are simple ways of demonstrating spectacularly how education is expanding. It has been pointed out to me that if one studies the statistics they indicate that the schools of the Bantu are expanding to such an extent that it means in effect that one school per working day is being established for Bantu education in South Africa. There is an increase of approximately 75,000 school-children a year. That means 1,500 classrooms, or at least 150 schools of ten classrooms each. That tallies with the other figure which I mentioned here, of one school per working day.

If we compare the reality with readily laid down criteria, we have no reason to be as pessimistic and negative as many hon. members on the opposite side have in fact been to-day.

The hon. members for Berea and Pietermaritzburg (District) referred most disparagingly to the university colleges. They referred to them as “white elephants” and “premature”.

They were not referred to disparagingly.

It was most disparaging. I wonder how the hon. member would feel if I called his party a “white elephant”? If an institution is called a white elephant, the hon. member should not tell me that it is not a disparaging remark. Of course it is a disparaging remark. I want to tell the hon. member that in the short period of their existence the university colleges have achieved a tremendous deal, and that despite the tremendous opposition and tremendous derision which they initiated. This is also proved by their expansion. I shall now quote some figures in this regard. Since 1964 they have expanded a great deal. From 1964 to 1966 the number of students increased by 283. In 1965, 145 degrees and diplomat were awarded at the colleges. Are these white elephant degrees, are they failures? Are they not rather Bantu who can go and render services to their people, services which are essential? [Interjections.]

Order!

The hon. members must give me a chance. I was never …

Order! I want to point out to the hon. member for Waterberg that the Minister is replying to the debate.

Not only did more students attend the colleges, but courses were also expanded. I am now speaking from memory, because I did not look up these particulars. There are two things which occur to me immediately. In recent times courses in law have been introduced at one of the colleges, for example. A degree course in agriculture has also been introduced at one of the colleges for the Bantu. Thus further courses will be introduced. Indeed, so many new courses are added that one’s memory cannot keep up with them. I therefore say the hon. members are most unfair and most disparaging when they say that the institutions are white elephants and are a failure, as has in fact been said. The hon. member for Berea used the word “failure”, and the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) spoke of “white elephants”.

It was also complained that there was too little education for the Bantu schoolchildren. In this connection regard should not only be had to the number of schools and the expenditure in that respect. I have indicated that in my view the expansion of education for Bantu schoolchildren has been proportionate to the needs. I want to point out that it is wrong to think of a shortage of money and facilities as the sole reason why there is not a greater increase in the number of Bantu schoolchildren. There are other reasons as well, and because those other reasons are human reasons, I do not want to discuss them and I hope they will never be discussed. We must have due regard to those reasons, however, and see to it that we make the best of the Bantu who do come forward to receive their education. That is why they come, and that is why there is a selection of Bantu who come forward from the community and who get the education they require.

The hon. member for Berea referred to the schoolbooks. He asked that books should be provided. In fact, he almost pretended that schoolbooks were not being provided at all. I could give the hon. member many details, but I do not want to do so. I just want to mention one fact at once. In 1955-’56, R197,200 was spent on books which were made available free of charge to primary schoolchildren. These were the graded textbooks. Readers to the amount of R177,000 were also made available. Books were also made available to teachers. I know that the Bantu authorities raise funds by special levies imposed by them— every week I have to approve such cases for submission to the State President—and used to pay for all kinds of school facilities which they offer their pupils. It is therefore quite wrong to say or to pretend that Bantu school-children all have to buy their books themselves. Then I must remind hon. members of the fact that in our White education there are many cases of children whose books have to be bought. This is in addition to all their other expenses.

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

If there is time, you may ask it at the end of my speech. I am trying to beat the clock—and it seems as though it is going to be hard to do so.

The hon. member for Houghton raised her customary objection, of course. Listening to the hon. member for Houghton one would think that the expenditure on Bantu education was only what came from the R13 million or from their taxes. I want to tell you that if we take the full picture in respect of education, as well as all the other developments of the Bantu which come under another vote and which were discussed on that vote, and if we relate all these, then it is apparent that the Bantu is getting a tremendous deal in services from money made available by this Parliament. This is amply justified by all the contributions they are in fact making, even in the form of indirect taxes. The picture must be seen in its full perspective. When we discussed education here, the hon. member spoke as though this was all that the Bantu received for the money contributed by him.

The hon. member for Houghton also said that secondary education should be concentrated on. But all forms of education are concentrated on. Secondary education has also shown its usual increase, as from 1955 to 1965.

The hon. member for Mooi River also spoke about secondary education. He spoke about farm schools. The farm-school figure shows a great increase. The hon. member spoke as though there was stagnation. He did not say that directly, but he spoke in such a plaintive tone that one would think stagnation had set in as far as the farm schools are concerned. It did not. Between 1955 and 1966 the number of farm schools in South Africa doubled. It increased from just over 1,200 to more than 2,500. An average of ten to 15 farm schools per month are established, according to the methods which are being designed. The hon. member is shaking his head. Now I do not know what his point was. There is no intention to allow stagnation of the position, to restrict the number of schools.

I am very grateful for the attention the hon. member for Rissik devoted to those aspects of the expansion of Bantu education in the new perspective in which we are now seeing it.

I now come to the hon. member for Port Natal. He spoke about private schools. I want to remind the hon. member that there is a long history to private schools and their take-over by the Department of Bantu Education and the establishment of the State Bantu schools and the community schools, etc., under the Department of Bantu Education. I think the hon. member should go and look up that history. I do not think we want to go into that history again. I think that now even the hon. member for Kensington does not feel like discussing those matters again.

Why not? Why do I not feel like it?

Oh, there is still some life in the old charger! Very well—we may then do so on some other occasion.

Of course, yes.

Very well.

Whenever you wish.

It is not I who wish to do so. I said in fact that I did not wish to do so, because I did not have to. The initiative for this discussion is therefore with the hon. member for Kensington. The resolution was adopted here, a resolution by this Parliament, that the private education be taken over. Now I want to ask the hon. member whether he thinks it would be fair or whether it could be reconciled with the implementation of Bantu education under the Bantu Education Act so far, if we suddenly started subsidizing private schools, in any form whatsoever; concerns which were not prepared to transfer their schools to the Department of Bantu Education? Surely that is unthinkable. Surely we have to be logical. That would mean that everything would have to be turned back, that everything would have to be given back. No, those schools are not getting that subsidy; they are not getting assistance, for reasons which are easy to explain and on which we took our decisions years ago. The hon. member must see it in that light.

Now I want to tell the hon. member that the church schools which were closed were not closed because we did so. We did not order them to close. Many of the church schools— most of them—which have closed down, did so for other external reasons, and one very important reason is that they are no longer getting the support from individual Bantu which they got previously. As a result the schools went into a decline. The Bantu either preferred to send their children to a State Bantu school, or mostly to establish their own community school. This is a school which they themselves control directly. What control have the Bantu parents and community over the existing private Bantu schools?

They closed when you withdrew the subsidy.

No. If a school declines to such an extent that it no longer justifies its existence, it has to close down. This is a natural phenomenon. It happens in any community. Now the hon. member should not try to impress us with the good results of certain schools mentioned by him. I admit that the private school mentioned by him produced good results, but the hon. member should bear in mind that those good results were based on selected pupils. That school is not a public school in the sense in which a community school is a public school which can be attended by anybody who wants to attend school. At that school which the hon. member mentioned and which he praised so highly they select their pupils. They do not select the worst, of course, but in fact the best pupils, and consequently those results will also be better. It is not a good comparison which the hon. member made here. I do not want to mention the name of the school. It is not necessary. The school does its good work, and we appreciate that. But it should be realized that with selected pupils it is easy to produce good results in comparison with other schools which are public schools in the true sense of the word.

Believe it or not, the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) succeeded in talking about Hammarsdale even on the Bantu Education Vote. Since January he has been talking about Hammarsdale on virtually every vote. I am sorry that no provision exists for changing the name of a constituency, because I think he could then be called the hon. member for Hammarsdale.

Then the Nationalist Party would never get in there.

In respect of the schools there I want to tell the hon. member what I said last year and what I have said again this year. I want to tell him that Hammarsdale will also get its schools. As soon as that Bantu township of Hammarsdale is established, schools will also be provided for in that planning.

There are schools, and many schools.

Yes, but better schools will then be established in the township. They will get better schools in the township. The hon. member also referred to the students at the university colleges who, as he put it, were unmatriculated. This is the kind of description the hon. member should refrain from. Those students are not unmatriculated; they do not have matriculation exemption, which is something else. But there are people who read these speeches and draw completely incorrect conclusions from them. In fact there are people who are fed on that kind of speech. Those persons who are admitted to the university colleges as students are students who do not have matriculation exemption to enable them to take degree courses. However, they can take other courses. They probably have the Standard 10 certificate. According to my information no students are admitted to the colleges without a Standard 10 certificate. The hon. member said they were unmatriculated. Students without exemption are admitted to our white universities as well. They do have a Standard 10 certificate, however, and they go there to take diploma courses. The hon. member should therefore not give representations of that kind in this House.

I think I have now dealt with most of the outstanding points.

Will the hon. the Minister agree to granting members of Parliament permission to visit any Bantu school or institution, as white school board members are granted in their own areas? May we go and visit any of these schools and see them on our own, not only when invited, whenever we wish to do so?

If the hon. member would mention to me which schools he would like to visit, I will ask the Secretary for Bantu Education to assist him to visit those schools to see, hear and experience everything he likes to see there. He is welcome.

I do not want to inspect the schools or spy on them; it is not that at all. I want to see the school instead of just talking about it here.

The Minister said that he would reply to my question if he had time. I want to ask him whether he is aware that all other racial groups have much more favourable conditions offered to them in regard to books than those enjoyed by the Bantu? Does he think that is fair? Does he not think that is discrimination?

It is definitely not discrimination.

Mr. Chairman, I have had many complaints from African teachers who have been dismissed by school boards, and they say that they are not given a hearing and they are not even told why they are dismissed. When I complain to the Department I am told that this is done in terms of the Bantu Education Act. I wonder if the hon. the Minister would undertake …

The Deputy Minister handles those things and he can reply to you.

I have letters …

Every single one of them can appeal to me, and most of them do.

Well, I have appealed and I got a reply that the matter has been disposed of in terms of the Bantu Education Act. May I ask the Deputy Minister if I may raise privately with him the cases I have in mind?

Yes.

Votes and Estimates of Expenditure from Bantu Education Account put and agreed to.

Progress reported.

I The House adjourned at 6.30 p.m.