I am not on my feet to raise any real objections, but merely to ask what the hon. the Minister’s interpretation is of the effect this amendment will have on clause 14 of the Bill. As the hon. gentleman will know, a restriction has now been placed on the powers of the State President to extend the powers of the various councils, or whatever they may be called. In terms of clause 14, however, the State President may by proclamation make laws, repeal laws and amend laws in connection with the Native areas as determined under the 1954 Act. Now I should like to know from the hon. the Minister whether this amendment to paragraph 22 of the Schedule also constitutes a curtailment of the right as set out in clause 14, or whether or not he feels that that right is still wide enough to be used for extending the powers of the councils.

In my opinion the amendment made to paragraph 22 of the Schedule is merely aimed at making it possible to grant to the councils additional powers which may be granted to them in respect of matters about which they may make enactments and which they may administer, and I do not think that the amendment restricts the powers of the State President to do things which he may do in terms of clause 14.

Will he still be able to extend their powers?

If the list of matters about which the legislative councils may make enactments is to be extended, that can be done in terms of the procedure in paragraph 22. In terms of clause 14 the State President, in my opinion, may issue proclamations relating to other matters within those areas, which falls within his powers, and in terms of clause 4 the State President may by proclamation make constitutional changes in the form of self-government.

Amendment in Schedule put and agreed to.

Bill, as amended, adopted.

(Third Reading)

Mr.

Speaker, I move—

In terms of Standing Order No. 68, I intimate that the time for the debate will be extended to three hours, excluding the reply of the Minister in charge.

This Bill has emerged from the Committee with one change as to which there is in my mind a little uncertainty still, despite the explanation given by the hon. the Minister. That change affects paragraph 22 of the Schedule. As I understand it, it means that the State President can no longer by proclamation extend the powers of the councils referred to in clauses 5 and 8 of the Bill. According to the Minister, he can still bring about constitutional changes in those councils because he still has the power under clause 14 to make proclamations in connection with those matters over which the Legislative Assembly in terms of section 22 of the South West Africa Constitution Act cannot legislate. It would appear that the further power in paragraph 22 of the Schedule, dealing with matters on which the State President or the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development may make regulations, is also subject to the new amendment, and it requires the approval of this House and the Other Place by resolution. That is an improvement. It means that the powers of these councils cannot be extended, despite the powers of the Minister under clause 14, to a point where they can be said to have a large measure of autonomy, almost to the extent of independence.

It means that this House and the Other Place will be consulted from time to time in respect of the powers given, but we shall not be consulted concerning changes in the constitution of those councils, and the powers of the Minister under clause 14 are still so wide that we may find ourselves still faced with developments which involve the creation of councils very different from those at present envisaged in this Bill. When one looks at the schedule one finds also that the powers already conferred concerning subjects which can be covered can be given a very wide interpretation. There is no doubt whatever that there is still a great deal of scope in terms of the Bill as it has appeared amended from the Committee and the Report Stage, and it places us in a position where the Minister has set us on a certain course by his advice through the Cabinet to the State President. The powers of the State President in terms of clause 14 are still so great and the scope so wide that, when taken with the powers that can be given to the councils in the schedule, we can still see those areas developed to a stage where we are past a point of no return and we may be faced with a situation where it is not possible to deny them the ultimate objectives which are envisaged by the direction in which this Bill seeks to see them develop. That direction is very clear from the preamble and from the White Paper. In the White Paper it is regarded as an irrevocable first step. What is that direction? That direction is that a number of groups, the overwhelming majority of which are insignificant groups or communities, with the possible exception of Ovamboland, are going to be regarded as nations. We have had a good deal of talk about the definition of a nation in this House. There has been some rather smart and slick debating on this subject. I think the answer is quite simple: You are a nation if the world recognizes you as such, and you are not a nation if they do not. There are many nations that are far more powerful and far bigger …

If that is the definition of a nation, what about Rhodesia?

I do wish the hon. Chief Whip would not keep on interjecting. He obviously does not understand the situation. Whoever said Rhodesia was a nation?

I am putting it in quite a friendly way.

The hon. gentleman says he is putting it in a fancy way. It is so fancy it just is not true. [Interjections.] Or does he say he puts it in a friendly way? Mr. Speaker, you can understand why I did not appreciate that because it is so unusual for the Chief Whip to be friendly. The question with Rhodesia is whether she is recognized as a state, not as a nation. That is something quite different. The question is, as I was saying, whether they are recognized by others as a nation, not so much their own desires. We find that these insignificant groups and communities, with the possible exception of Ovamboland, are now to be recognized and regarded by us as nations. That is what this Bill means. And they are to be accorded the right of self-determination in respect of independence or not. This right of self-determination is no inherent right. As far as I am concerned, I want to say at once that in deciding whether a group or community, or what this Government chooses to regard as a nation, should be accorded self-determination, it depends not just on the interests of that group. It depends upon the interests of the whole of South West Africa and, I believe, the interests of the whole of the Republic. I am not prepared to support legislation which in advance is giving that right of self-determination, regardless of the interests of the rest of South West Africa and regardless of the interests of the Republic, which is the trustee of South West Africa at the present time. All this is being done in an attempt to foist on South West Africa a solution of its racial problems which fits in with the ideology of the governing party at the present time. They are having to stress and strain things, and they are adopting a solution of this kind despite the fact that it will be clear from the effects of this Bill that that solution is going to prove impracticable, dangerous and futile. I say that it is going to prove impracticable, and I say it deliberately. Whatever the position may be north of the red line, outside the Police Zone, the fact of the matter is perfectly simple, namely that as far as the south is concerned, the distribution of the population is such that any attempt to apply this plan is going to mean movements of population which, relative to the numbers of people involved are going to be as big as any movement—and perhaps bigger—that we have seen before anywhere else in the world. It is no good the hon. the Minister telling me that certain members of certain groups have moved into the areas designated for them. People who have no employment, who are suffering from poverty and who are having difficulty in continuing to exist, are prepared to clutch at any straw. It may well be that in these areas they will have a better chance of existing than they have at the present time. But here we have various groups, of whom only very small percentages are in the areas set aside for them. I thought that approximately 5,000 out of the total of 44,000 Damaras were in the areas set aside for them. I believe from one other speaker that the figure is as low as something below 3,000. We find in regard to the Hereros that only about 11,000 people are in that area, out of a total of 65,000. The 11,000 people in that area are also not all Hereros. We have been told that this will be applied to the Tswanas. We do not know what area will be set aside for them, but we do know that, in terms of the Odendaal Commission’s report, the area recommended to be set aside for them is occupied by only 465 Tswanas, according to a count taken in 1960. Admittedly their total numbers are not large. When you start talking of groups of this small size, you begin to see relatively what that movement of population will be.

The point has been made that these people are being asked to accept no longer citizenship of the whole of South West Africa, but citizenship of small areas—areas less viable, areas poorer, areas in which their rights will be limited geographically in respect of the whole of the territory. It is difficult to persuade either this side of the House or the world that that is an improvement in their position. The whole plan seems doomed to result in the creation of a series of nation states which are going to be given the right of self-determination, which can have independence, which economically are totally lacking as far as viability is concerned. There is a lack of capital amongst them. They are doomed to slow development for that reason, and because the land will be vested in the native tribes concerned, and if the policies applied here in the Republic are applied there, foreign capital will not be able to be used in their development. These units will be insignificant. Will they ever get any real international recognition when they start seeking for international funds for development? It is all very well to talk of an occasional island here and there that has been recognized by the United Nations. We have seen the swing in the other direction lately. We are faced with the question “What will they mean?” What is the position going to be if some of them opt for independence, and some of them do not? Whose interests are we going to look to? Are we going to look to the interests of the Territory or of the group concerned? When one looks at this whole plan it seems so impracticable that one cannot understand anybody taking it seriously. And yet it is before us in a Bill in its final stage in this House to-day.

Not only is it impracticable; it is dangerous. The whole scheme is dangerous because, as has been indicated, any development to independence has implicit in it a change in the international status of South West Africa. I know the hon. the Minister likes to talk of the international character of South West Africa.

You are under pressure now.

The hon. gentleman says I am under pressure. I am under pressure. The pressure is not to burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of some of these interjections. This hon. Minister cannot change the opinion of the International Court. That Court said South West Africa had an international status. It said so in an advisory opinion.

Yes, in an advisory opinion.

Exactly! No one has ever denied that.

Is that binding?

The hon. member asks whether it is binding. The strange thing about the International Court is that it can reverse its judgment. Stare decisis does not apply in the International Court. What we want to avoid very much, is that it changes the last decision it gave in respect of South West Africa. What this hon. Minister is inviting, by the proposals he is making and the direction in which he is going, is that this matter lands up there again. It is no good asking me “Is the advisory opinion of the International Court binding?”. The International Court is not bound by previous decisions. The principle of stare decisis is not applied in the permanent court of international justice. They can change their judgment to-morrow. Do we want to land there again? Why invite another consideration of this matter?

You are just being irresponsible.

When they do not have an answer, I am irresponsible. I must let them blunder in and make fools of themselves in South West Africa. I must not warn them, because if I warn them, I am irresponsible. Do they really think that these jurists in the international world are not as well aware of these matters as I am, and they ought to be? Why did the hon. the Minister in introducing the Bill not deal with the possibilities here and say what his defence is? Or did he not know about it?

You are adopting the same attitude as the Herero.

No abuse will stop me from doing what I believe is my duty in the interests of South Africa and not in the interests of cheap party politics. That is all we are getting now. Sir, can you see what they are doing is that they are relying on the fact that they believe the mandate no longer exists?

Yes, in your integrated South Africa.

Order!

We cannot argue on the merits. All there must be is interjections and abuse across the floor of the House. Where is there a decision of that court, or an opinion of that international court, that the mandate no longer exists? If one should look at the judgment one finds that it was given wholly without prejudice to the continued existence of the mandate. Every single one of the minority judges declared that the mandate still existed. Even our own judge on that court was not prepared to deny the continued existence of the mandate as an institution. Whether implied or not, is another matter. Can we afford to be so confident? Can we be so irresponsible as to go ahead with legislation of this kind without having regard to what the consequences can be, which is what I must consider here during this third reading. I therefore say that it is a danger externally. It is also a danger internally. It is dangerous internally because this policy has, if these various states are given independence, all the dangers attaching to the Bantustan policy, which the Government is applying here in South Africa. It has them all. The south of South West Africa looks like a currant cake with its white spots and black spots. If we look at those states to which independence may be given by virtue of self-determination, and at the borders of those territories, then those dangers are even greater than here in South Africa. That goes for the Kaokoveld, Ovamboland, Caprivi and for Okavangoland. Earlier on I raised the question of the consideration of this matter against the terrorist backdrop as it exists in Africa at the present time. Have I had any reply from hon. gentlemen on the other side? All I have had from them is that they will not give them independence until they are friendly towards us and they have developed to a certain stage. These hon. gentlemen have not been to Angola to see what is happening. I took the trouble to go and I want to tell hon. gentlemen on the other side that I do not believe that they have really read in our newspapers what really happened on the 15th March, 1961, when the terrorists came into Northern Angola. I do not think that there are many here, if any, who know what that meant or what the atrocities were that were committed. I want to say to that hon. gentleman that if they give independence to areas here—independence which they cannot control—they are playing with fire, the seriousness of which they do not appreciate. [Interjections.]

Listen to it, Sir. All this noise from gentlemen who have never heard a shot fired in anger in their lives. The only things they have ever shot are things that cannot shoot back. [Interjections.]

Order!

Let us go a little further. I pointed out the cutting of our lines of communication with the North and the turning of Angola’s flank. I wonder if they realize what that means? I wonder if they realize what opportunity there is in that territory for terrorist forces to come in with the support of the communist countries? I wonder how many of them have seen the weapons with which these people are armed at the present time?

We have seen them. We know them.

That hon. member says that he has seen them. I only want to say, very simply, that to somebody who has had to handle weapons in anger before, these are extremely sophisticated weapons. A lot of them are better than the best we have got.

That is why you supported the Communist Party?

That is a disgraceful statement.

Listen to the childishness of the sort of remarks we get from the other side. [Interjections.]

Order!

I want to go further. What is going to be created? A lot of have-not nations; nations economically poor; states economically poor; ripe for exploitation by the communist countries of the world. How is this Government going to stop it? I spoke about the possibility of our reaching the situation where we will be grateful if it were possible for us to get oil from Angola. There is, however, oil in the province of Luanda and in Kabinda across the Congo River. It is being pumped not on land, but at sea and it can be very easily brought down and landed and piped down to us by pipeline. The hon. member said that I did not know my geography. The pipeline will have to be about 1,000 miles long. What about it?

Through terrorist country.

What about it?

That is the point. [Interjections.]

That hon. gentleman has changed sides. He stands with me. He wants to keep control of that territory, just as the Portuguese are keeping control of Angola. And then there is the usual argument, namely that they will not be given independence until we are sure that they are stable communities. Will this Government never learn from what has happened in the whole of the rest of Africa that once you have promised people independence the time-table is taken out of your hands? [Interjections.] Listen to the noise, Mr. Speaker. Not one of them can say that the time-table remained in the hands of the metropolitan power. It was taken out of their hands.

They applied your policy.

There is not one state in Africa that applied our policy. There are quite a lot, however, that tried to apply the policy which this Government is trying to apply at the present time. That is why this policy is so dangerous. It is a futile policy because it is going to solve nothing. I do not believe that it can ever achieve the purpose which is designed for it in the policies of this Government. The units are going to be too insignificant. They are not going to be viable enough. They are going to be too insignificant to be either viable, prosperous or secure.

Why are you so frightened of them then?

The hon. gentleman asks me why I am so frightened of them. I am frightened of them because of the probability that they will allow communist countries to use them as a jumping off place against South Africa. [Interjections.] Listen to all the interjections. Do they realize that there are already Russian warships in the Indian Ocean which far outnumber our own Navy?

And you are assisting them.

How am I assisting them? I am warning this Government not to give them additional bases, and what are they trying to do? They are trying to give them additional bases and allies right within territory which we control at the present time. What are they going to do in addition? They are going to foist on the international community six or more mini-nations. Already responsible nations in the world are concerned at the proliferation of these small nations. One was refused admission to the United Nations not so long ago because it was too small. A voice is going up demanding some correlation between the privileges of nationhood and the responsibilities of such. They are wondering why they should have the say they do.

Does the hon. the Minister really believe that the world is going to welcome this plan to create these tiny little nations scattered about in odd corners in South West Africa? Is this the only solution? The hon. the Minister knows that there are alternative solutions which avoid the criticisms, which maintain white leadership, which maintain control by the Republic in the spirit of the mandate and have none of the risks inherent in this Bill. Sir, we are against this Bill because it represents once again and gives an indication of the gulf between the thinking of the Government and the Opposition in respect of the solution of multiracial issues in South Africa. You see, Sir, we believe that different peonies and different nations and different races with different standards of civilization and different stages of development can exist in harmony within the framework of one State …

With supremacy (baasskap).

… as they have done not only here but in many other parts of the world.

Where?

Switzerland, to start with.

You have white races there.

We have that belief but this Government is afraid. It lacks confidence in the future of the white people and in the ability of the white people to maintain their position. It is this fundamental cleavage which causes them to run dangerous risks in the interests of a policy which is futile, impracticable and dangerous and can never be carried out. That is why we are against this Bill.

I should like to emphasize again this afternoon that this measure is primarily an enabling measure which seeks only to grant forms of government to the under-developed Bantu nations of South West Africa. I want to state that this measure could even be utilized to carry into effect the stated policy of the Opposition, where they speak of communal councils, and the development of these councils. I expected the Leader of the Opposition and his party to have acted with great responsibility in this matter. They could have acted with great responsibility if they had interpreted this measure in accordance with the views of their own policy. But what did the Leader of the Opposition, in his irresponsibility, do? He seized upon this measure, not in order to advocate that unity and to create what is desired by all the Bantu nations of South West Africa. Those members of his party who recently accompanied us on a visit to those areas must have informed him that those people had said that they were looking forward to this legislation. I was there when the chiefs said this to us. They said that they were looking forward to this legislation and that unanimity in this Parliament would be of exceptional value to them. But, what is more, unanimity in this House would also have had a particular significance in the sense that we could have presented a consolidated front to the world. But what did the Leader of the Opposition, in his irresponsibility, do? He looked for controversial points. He spoke about international status. He said that we were tampering with that international status, and that this measure would provide U.N.O. with a springboard from which to launch further attacks on us. He was doing nothing more and nothing less than to take the part of U.N.O. and tell them what to do.

They are a U.N.O. Party.

That is not all, Mr. Speaker. He not only seized upon the question of international status. We maintain that this legislation will make it possible to guide those nations towards developing their own forms of government. It may take 10 years, it may take 20 years, or it may take 100 years before they gain that independence. Must we discuss the question of independence here at this early stage? Why does he drag it into this debate? We are only pointing out the direction here; this legislation does not deal with independence. It merely indicates the direction. The substance of this legislation is not immediate independence. The substance of this legislation is that only in the preamble does it indicate the direction in which we want to move. Perhaps the actual question of independence will only become relevant in 50 years’ time. But the hon. the Leader of the Opposition seized upon this direction which is being indicated here as if it was the substance of the measure, in order to incite feelings abroad against South Africa. That is the only reason he did so, and that is why I say that he acted with the greatest irresponsibility towards South Africa. He was equally irresponsible when he tried to conjure up the spectre of terrorism which would supposedly develop amongst those nations. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Pinelands accompanied me on that journey to Ovamboland, two or three weeks ago, and he will know that they will be the first to hand over terrorists to us— this is the phenomenon which we are finding amongst the Bantu nations there—because there is a friendly and mutual understanding between us; because we treat them with honesty, and that is why they will hand over those terrorists to us. Recently, as a result of terroristic activities, quite a few thousand Bantu from the Portuguese territory came over to us because they felt safer in Ovamboland and Okavongoland. We had to send them back to the Portuguese territory. Sir, the policy which we are following is in fact the best investment with which to combat terrorism in that area because you will then, under this policy find no fertile soil for terrorism. But now the hon. the Leader of the Opposition comes forward in his irresponsibility and what does he do? He actually comes up for the terrorists; he encourages them. He actually says to them: “Here a fertile soil is being created for you”. He prompts them; he actually invites them to come here. [Interjections.]

He is egging them on.

He is in fact egging them on.

May I ask the hon. member whether he is prepared to throw these Bantu nations to the wolves, to the terrorists? [Interjections.]

They are receiving fair treatment.

On a point of order, Sir, is the hon. member for Heilbron in order in saying that the Leader of the Opposition is encouraging terrorists?

Order! I would be glad if hon. members would not make so many interjections, so that I can hear what the hon. speaker is saying. The hon. member may continue.

The hon. member’s question, as I understood it, is whether the Government, through this policy, now wants to throw the Bantu nations to the wolves. Sir, we are not throwing these nations to the wolves. On the contrary we want to develop those nations and get them onto our side so that they will not stand at the side of the terrorists and so that they will not fall prey to those terrorists. That is why we are following this policy, and you know, Sir, there are grave doubts in those countries where this policy is not being followed, because their policy does not win the Bantu to their side but drives them away, because they have a national consciousness. That national consciousness will be ploughed under by the integration policy of the United Party, and then one would be making an enemy instead of winning him over to your side. You must actually harness his nationalism to help you fight terrorism. I want to point out that there is a major difference between the approach of the United Party and that of the National Party in regard to this matter. I just want to re-emphasize that the standpoint of the National Party in regard to this legislation is that we judge what is expedient and what is desirable for the welfare of all the nations of South West Africa, but the standpoint of the United Party is not like that. It asks what is expedient and what is desirable for the convictions and the standpoints of the U.N.O. That is why the Leader of the Opposition takes it amiss of us for now having introduced this legislation because he said it did not meet with favour abroad, and that it had been introduced at the wrong time and that we were inviting dangers. In other words, he repeated here this afternoon what he said in his Windhoek speech about two years ago when the Odendaal report was published. Then the Leader of the Opposition held a meeting in Windhoek and stated there, for the benefit of the outside world, and South West Africa, that they must remember that he had a policy which was acceptable to the outside world. That which is expedient for the outside world is his policy, and not which is expedient or desirable for South West Africa or for South Africa. He repeated it again this afternoon. He said that this legislation should not be carried out, because it is not expedient to the outside world; it is not desirable to the outside world and for their convictions and their view of matters. In other words, they want to butter up to those people, and then I ask myself the question what is behind it all?

You know it is untrue.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw those words.

I withdraw them.

I am asking again, what is behind it all and what is the motive and the intention of the Leader of the Opposition in adopting this approach. The hon. member for Primrose said yesterday what he thought of it. I do not want to repeat what he said, but I can form a good idea as to why the hon. leader is doing it.

You say one thing and think another.

In this measure the necessary foundations are being laid to enable each of the separate Bantu nations of South West Africa to exercise their own right of self-determination along the way to distinctive nationhood and independence, each within their own homeland. The Leader of the Opposition made two objections to that. In his second-reading speech he spoke of the fragmentation of South West Africa and he reiterated this afternoon that he is not prepared to grant the right of self-determination to these nations “regardless of the interests of the other groups of South West Africa and of the interests of South Africa”. To his mind what is involved here is the question of the right of self-determination. Let me just say a few words about fragmentation.

The fact that there is a Northern Territory and a Southern Territory is a historical development, as the hon. the Leader also indicated here. There is a Northern Territory where there is a certain coherence, where there is a consolidated area and where four of these Bantu nations are living. Now he maintains that in the Southern Territory there is such a wide distribution that this is not practicable. The words he used were “It is not practicable”, and it cannot be implemented. That is why he could not advocate it. What is in fact the significance of this legislation for the southern part? Do you know that in the southern part there are only two Bantu nations to which it applies? In the southern part it applies only to the Damas and the Hereros. If there has ever been a nation who was nation-conscious and whose ethnic consciousness has been well developed, then it is the Herero. In fact, it is the Hereros in South West Africa who are conducting the greatest agitation at the moment as a nation against our policy. They are more aware of their Herero nationality than any other nation in South West Africa is aware of their nationality. Now the hon. member also stated that of these Hereros there are only approximately 11,000 living within their own homeland. In any case, he did not read the Odendaal report, because if he had read it, he would have seen that his figure is wrong. There are in fact 15,000 living in that area of theirs, out of a total of 35,000. There are approximately 20,000 who are living outside that area. That is true, but it is not as the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said, that they do not have a basic homeland. They do in fact have a basic homeland. He who lived for many years in South West Africa ought at least to know this. He ought to know that Ovitoto and Waterberg East is their basic homeland. He must have passed through there with his eyes closed when he was there if he does not know that, and if he looked at the report of the Odendaal Commission, he would have seen that the Commission gave them a large piece of territory which would be enough for the full 35,000, to accommodate them where it was possible to settle them.

We come now to the other nation, the Dama nation. We all know the Dama nation. He is the Klip Kaffir of South West Africa. He was the slave of practically all the other nations in South West Africa. They are in fact distributed over the entire South West Africa. Approximately 5,000 of the 44,000 are in fact in one area. But we must remember that they are to-day the greatest supporter of the National Party’s policy of self-development. In fact, the Department is being overwhelmed to-day by applications from members of the Dama nation who want to be settled in their area. And if the hon. member were to glance at the Odendaal Report again, he would see that the report not only sets aside an area for them as their homeland, but also a large piece of territory which includes the entire district of Welwitzia which runs to the Kaoko Veld. According to that report they are now being given the largest part of the lands which have to be purchased. And they are anxious to be established there. In fact, developments have already taken place in their area. The Uis mine, the tin mine of Iscor, is in fact situated in their area, and a great deal of town development is in progress there. So, there is every hope that with their co-operation they will be established there. If the policy of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition were to be implemented, where he states that he is not prepared to allow them to exercise their right to self-determination but that it should first be regarded in the interests of the other nations of South West Africa as a whole and also South Africa, what would the position then be? He knows that if a single multi-racial state should develop the Ovambos would overshadow all the other nations in South West Africa, including the Whites, as far as their numerical strength is concerned. Because as compared to the Whites, together with the Namas, together with the Damas, together with the Hereros, they are by far in the majority. They comprise far more than half. They alone would be able to govern South West Africa as a majority government.

Will even this policy of the Opposition be acceptable to countries abroad? The hon. the Leader said it was in fact the case that it would be acceptable to the countries abroad. Does he think that this policy of his, a policy whereby a small group of Whites must retain unashamed dominion, will be acceptable to the United Nations? Does he think it can be acceptable? I cannot see that happening. For then a Wilson, the U.S.A. and the Africa states as well as the Asiatic states at the United Nations will all have to undergo an intellectual conversion for then they will have to tolerate in South West Africa a white minority government while they want a Bantu majority government in Rhodesia, for example, and while they are even prepared to apply boycotts against that country in order to enforce their will on it. How can he speak such nonsense in this House? He has said that what he advocates has succeeded in many countries. When we asked him where, he mentioned Switzerland. He could not mention a single case where there are two different nations which are living amicably together in one country. Take Europe for example, where we can mention the best examples. There is Cyprus. Why did he not mention Cyprus as an example? That is a country where the Greeks and the Turks cannot get along. Why did he not mention all the Africa states? Then the hon. member for Yeoville came along with his example of Nigeria.

Sir, it was the most ridiculous argument I have ever listened to. He maintained that the rebellion in Nigeria had arisen because our policy was being followed there. Just imagine! That argument is a ridiculous one. Does the hon. member not know that what is being fought there is a tribal war? People who did not belong together were grouped together there. People who did not belong together out of inner conviction were forced together, the Ibos together with the other tribes. Now they have rebelled. Under our policy we would have granted the right to self-determination to the Ibos, and then the Biafran rebellion would never have been necessary. What do the hon. the Leader and the hon. member for Yeoville want? They want a rebellion in South West Africa. The minority groups, the Hereros, must rebel again so that they can be mowed down and scattered by a majority government. That is the direction in which their policy is heading.

I am really astonished at the Leader of the Opposition in that he is now attaching so little value to that right of self-determination. I remember how, in 1945 and 1946, the then Leader of the United Party, the late General Smuts, made a special trip to Lake Success, and wrote a preamble to the United Nations Constitution. In that preamble he laid great emphasis on the question of the right of self-determination of nations. But here the Leader of the Opposition comes along and does not even want to hear of it. How far can one deviate from the course of one’s former Leader?

I should like us to reflect on this matter. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition stated that we were in fact advocating fragmentation. But according to his policy he is also advocating a federation for South West Africa. He spoke about a federation of the north, and the south with South Africa apparently, because he stated that there would subsequently have to be incorporation. Now I want to ask him two questions. Would the application of his federation policy in South West Africa not amount to fragmentation? Is it not a fragmentation of the north which he wants to lump together in one group, and the south which he wants to lump together in another? The hon. member for Bezuidenhout also advocated this. Does it not amount to a fragmentation of South West Africa? But apart from the fragmentation argument, has he considered that if he wants to incorporate those territories with South Africa in terms of a federation, he may possibly be affecting the so-called international status of those areas? Surely this is the case. Surely this is the case, but then it would happen much sooner than it would in terms of our policy. We are going to wait until they develop over a period of years and have acquired responsibility, and then the international situation would have changed considerably from what it is to-day.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition also said here this afternoon that fragmentation would lead to there being citizenship “of a smaller area”. Now I want to ask the hon. the Leader a direct question: Is he an advocate of world citizenship? After all, that is, according to his argument, the greatest right one can acquire. Is that what he advocates? Does he set the value of citizenship of a large area above that of a small nation? Surely not. I am convinced that he is not advocating world citizenship. At any rate, he did say that he still appreciated the citizenship of South Africa. It is the citizenship of a small nation; that is true, but at least we know that we are citizens of our own nation, and I would rather be a member of and have citizenship of my own small nation and my own small country, than have world citizenship where I would mean nothing. Apparently that is his criterion. Now he maintains that those people are going to get citizenship over a smaller area, citizenship of their small nations only, and that is why it is inferior. Why will it be inferior? Why is the citizenship of a small area and of a small nation inferior in comparison with that of a large one? Was that why they always ran after the British Empire in the past, because they preferred citizenship of a larger entity? I think that any man with self-respect, who honours and respects that which is peculiar to him, a person who is in fact a nationalist, will be proud to be a member of his nation and of his country, no matter how small or how insignificant it may be.

I now want to conclude. The hon. the Leader said our scheme is dangerous. Now I want to say this to him. If there has ever been anything which has been dangerous to South Africa then it is the kind of speech the hon. the Leader made here this afternoon, dangerous in the sense that it encourages the outside world to take further steps against us.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

This kind of speech serves as an incentive to the enemies of South Africa beyond our borders to take steps against us. It is in fact dangerous. But there is nothing dangerous in our affording every nation in South West Africa the right to get what they deserve, a right allocated to them by the Almighty to be a separate group, a separate nation, with a distinctive goal, a distinctive identity, and with a distinctive ideal.

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to follow the hon. member who has just sat down too far, but I think that there are one or two points which one should deal with. Firstly I want to say that he had a lot to say about a sense of responsibility. He actually criticized my hon. Leader for a speech he had made on the grounds that it was irresponsible. A more irresponsible speech than that made by the hon. member for Heilbron, I do not think we have heard in this House for a long time. [Interjections.] Firstly I want to say that it flows quite clearly from the hon. member’s speech that he is not prepared to accept the principle which my hon. Leader laid down, namely that where you have these small groups of people, such as many of the groups of South West Africa, their interests must take second place to the interests of South West Africa and of the Republic of South Africa. The interests of the small group cannot take precedence over the interests of South West Africa and of South Africa. In his whole speech, the hon. member for Heilbron threw out and repudiated that principle. He hammered at the point that each one of those small groups is entitled to self-determination, and that their interests therefore take precedence over the wide interests of South West Africa and of the Republic. That, I think is a fair interpretation of the speech the hon. member made. He went on to challenge my hon. Leader to show where small groups of different ethnic derivation were living in harmony together. When my hon. Leader mentioned the example of Switzerland to him, he did not like it. Just let us test his point of view for a moment. I wonder whether he has ever heard of the Balkans, and what happened there when they tried to divide up the different ethnic groups and give them each nationhood and statehood?

They caused two world wars!

Precisely. As the hon. member says, that set-up caused two world wars. The hon. member may not have heard the phrase “peace is indivisible”. Perhaps it was before his time. A part of the concern of big nations, as a general policy with regard to dealings with small nations, is to prevent cold wars from developing into hot wars. The trouble with the Balkan states was that there was hardly time for a cold war to start, before it had flamed up into a hot war. That situation led to two world wars. I ask the hon. member for Heilbron to study the history of those Central European states and then see where his own argument gets him when he says that it is desirable that we apply the Balkanization principle to the non-European peoples in South West Africa. We on this side of the House suggest, with the absolute assurance of history behind us, that it will lead to precisely what happened in the Balkans on those two occasions.

They were civilized.

Let us say that they were relatively civilized. I am saying nothing about the civilization of under-developed peoples in South West Africa. I merely want to say to the hon. member that he must be careful if he is going to rely upon a principle like that. It is fallacious. It falls down at the first test. One of the matters we on this side of the House are concerned with is that what takes place there should take place peacefully and with as little upset, difficulty and trouble as possible.

And with supremacy (baasskap).

The hon. member who interrupted there is a Whip.

No, he is not a Whip. [interjections.]

I am sorry. I beg the pardon of the hon. Whip. The position is that we probably all seek the same thing in South West Africa. We seek a development of the under-developed peoples there in order to bring them into the twentieth century and in order to bring them up. That kind of process has led to a lot of trouble and all sorts of difficulties the world over. But it brings me to the question of whether this Bill was necessary at this stage, bearing in mind all the birth pains that go with developing modern, viable nations in the year 1968, especially when you are dealing with people who are undeveloped as the folk are there. I want to mention what the hon. the Minister said the other day in Committee. I think he has accepted the broad correctness of what I say. As far as the Ovambo are concerned, they have been living there in peace and harmony for the past 50 years under tribal law and custom. They were governing themselves under tribal law and custom, and there were no difficulties, I asked the hon. the Minister yesterday whether, in terms of this Bill, any legislative council established in South West Africa would be able to recruit or maintain a Police Force. The answer was: No. So-called tribal messengers as the term is here in South Africa, would still continue to be the vehicles for dealing with criminal cases in terms of their own courts. That is entirely in line with tribal law and custom. The Administrator of South West Africa, in terms of existing legislation, the Minister himself and the State President all have certain powers to deal by proclamation with the making of laws for that portion north of the red line, and also other portions of South West Africa, south of the red line. They already have those powers. [Interjection.] I know. I heard the accusations which were thrown at me the other day. I have heard them thrown at my hon. Leader. There was the question of our lack of responsibility for drawing the Government’s attention to the dangers that are inherent in this measure at this time. If the Government is determined to go on with the measure, I say that it should have taken the initiative—it has the initiative, because it is the Government—and seen to it that a measure which received the broad support of both sides of this House should have been brought before Parliament. That was not an impossibility. For the Government to have been so reckless in its irresponsible attitude towards the future of South Africa and our deepest interests as to bring a measure like this before Parliament and the world on a one-party basis, is to my mind most reprehensible. When we are dealing with this question of the position in South West Africa, we on this side of the House feel that we have to be safe within the ambit of the four corners of the Mandate. Whether the Mandate is to be applied or not, it is, I think, by common consent accepted that we have an international character. I shall not say an “international status” if the hon. the Minister does not like if.

The court said “status”.

Yes, the court said “status”, but I shall say an international character. Why did the Government not use the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs in this debate? We are hearing about what is to happen at the United Nations, and the weakness of our case there or the strength of our case, the International Court and all the rest of it. There was one man on the other side of the House—a Minister who is carrying a terrific burden at the present time in the interests of South Africa. I am not in his political party, Sir, but when he fights the case of South Africa, he fights the case for all of South Africa. He fights the case for us on this side of the House as he does for hon. members opposite. The Government had the right to call him as a witness and use him to speak in this debate. Why have they not done so? He listened throughout the whole of the debate the other day. He is au fait with all the views that were expressed. If we are putting forward a wrong point of view in regard to the United Nations, why did they not use the man who could contradict it and show us that we were wrong? [Interjections.] They did not call the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration, I know, but I am talking about people who know what they are talking about. I am saying that the Government had the opportunity. They have such a man. It is still not too late. The Government has an expert witness. Why do they not call him? I say that they will not call him because he dare not give evidence on their behalf. They will not call him because they know that he must in all honesty—and he will in all honesty—say that the Opposition is quite right and that this is an extremely dangerous measure at this time and under these circumstances.

The Bill is, as I have said, untimely and out of place. Now that we are in the last stages of this debate and now that the Bill is about to become law, I should like to say that it is an ideological and pragmatic theory. That is what this Bill is. Our duty on this side of the House is to bring the Government face to face with the facts of life. We have to explain to hon. members opposite in simple, gentle language and in words of two syllables that, except for Egypt, there is no Father Christmas left in Africa. When I hear remarks, particularly speeches like that of the hon. member for Heilbron, I am quite certain that in his mind he believes that on about the 25th December a political Father Christmas will come along and solve all our problems as far as South West Africa is concerned. That is a myth. There is no political Father Christmas left, except in Egypt.

We have to face realities, and the angry interruptions, including those from the hon. the Minister of Agriculture, who has now left—and I hope they are recorded in Hansard— come from that side because they realize that they do not know the answer to their own problems. This is an angry reaction of ignorant members who are faced with the situation of which they have had no proper warning and no real concept. As it has been made clear, they became more and more frustrated at the feeling that they cannot handle it. This is beyond them, and they do not have the answer to this problem. Then came the angry interjections, almost rude interjections, Mr. Speaker, although, with respect to you, entirely Parliamentary. But there it was. That was a psychological reaction which one expects under the circumstances. We have had it so often. This is merely further evidence of the truth of what I am saying. Hon. members do not have it, and nobody is trying to make any attempt, including the hon. member for Heilbron, to get down to deal specifically with the points which my hon. Leader has made and reply to those points one by one and to say “this is the answer”. They have answered none of our points, including our first point that there are no nations. That was a term that the hon. the Minister three years ago used first in this House. I have the speech marked in Hansard. I remember it so well. He stood up here and said: “Hon. members on the other side are inclined to talk about different races. I do not like that term.” The hon. the Minister is smiling and nodding his head; he remembers it so well. That was when he first introduced the new concept. He said: “I do not like the term ‘races’; I prefer the term ‘nations’. In South Africa we have eight Bantu nations. We have a Coloured nation, an Indian nation and a white nation. They are all nations.” That was in his speech in Hansard of only three years ago. This question of nations is now being built up. We have to become familiarized with it by usage. My hon. Leader pointed out that these little tribes may be states, but they are not nations. We have reached the stage where we have to deal with these little states which the Government is proposing to establish. Many interjections were made when my hon. leader was dealing with the question of the Mandate, and our position in South West Africa. May I say in passing that, no doubt, hon. members will have seen that the day before yesterday Finland has already lodged an official complaint at the United Nations against this Bill. That was two days ago. What has South West Africa got to do with Finland? But it is a nation, a member of the United Nations, and it has shown the trend; it is a feather in the wind at the moment. But surely it is indicating the danger, when a nation like Finland can make a formal objection to this Bill. So, as I have said, we have reached the stage where we are dealing with the Mandate and our position there in South West Africa, particularly in the area norths of the red line and in the area south of it, which are the subject matters of this Bill.

There is one point that emerges from this, so far as I am concerned, as to the security of South West Africa and of the Republic. That relates to the possible leapfrogging of the terrorists across Angola to a new enclave which the Government is now seeking to establish as set out in the preamble to this Bill and in the White Paper. Let us bear in mind that, so long as we have the present relationship, we can legally go in and deal with terrorists in that area. We do not want that changed. We do not want anybody, either at the United Nations or elsewhere to raise the point as to whether we have a legal right to go in and put in our police troops, if necessary, as the case may be, to deal with the terrorists in that area on the ground that we are ourselves responsible for having created a situation where we no longer have any legal right to act, because it becomes a matter of legal argument. How far the legal argument can go, has been shown again in the debate on this Bill, where differences of opinion can arise, where differences of opinion arose in regard to the judgment at the Hague, carried in our favour by the narrowest majority. The dangers and the difficulties I am not going to elaborate on; I am not a lawyer. It is not my place to do so. But I simply say that we must be wide awake as to the possibilities that are there. We must see to it that at no time can we be put in the position that our right to send in our Police to deal with terrorists in the area which is the subject of this Bill, can be questioned. That should be beyond any question of doubt whatever. I see the hon. Chief Whip nodding his head; he is agreeing with me that that is so. We must have the right to go in there. Oh, he shakes his head. Does he say we must not have the right?

Nothing of the kind; why pick on me?

I thought the hon. Chief Whip was nodding his head. He was shaking it and saying “No, no”.

We differ fundamentally as far as these matters are concerned. You know it. You are wrong and I am right.

What we are faced with then is this: Here is the Bill which is providing for Government by proclamation. I was interested yesterday when the hon. the Minister said that the proclamations in due course would go before the Select Committee on Bantu affairs here in this House. They will be dealt with by that Select Committee and reported upon, so that they will come back in the form of a report, which comes back annually here and can be debated in Parliament. I understood him to say that that would be the procedure to be adopted when he was replying to my hon. Leader yesterday. That will give us some opportunity then to deal with some of these particular matters. What it will not give us an opportunity to do, because we are in the minority on this side of the House, is to outvote the Government in regard to any of the proclamations that are proclaimed by the hon. the Minister or the State President at his request.

Amongst other things I see amongst the powers now to be handed to the proposed legislative bodies, namely the Legislative Councils, is the right of mining. Now I want to deal with that for one moment, because we are dealing with an area, which from the point of view of mines, may be an extremely rich area. Here again I would draw to the hon. the Minister’s attention, notwithstanding what the hon. member for Heilbron said, the position in the Middle East as regards those small nations there which are oil rich, and the situation which has arisen there, including the news to-day as to what is faking place in Yemen. The position is that we are creating a situation which, from every point of view politically, internally and internationally, is likely to be a focal point for further trouble and further discord, which can start locally and then spread. This will give other people the opportunity, if they choose to take it, and they have never been slow to do so, to claim that there must be some intervention in our affairs.

The hon. member for Heilbron again made the same old claim, the hon. the Minister also did so yesterday, and said to me—he was addressing me at the time: “Does the hon. member for South Coast not know that with regard to terrorists up there at the present time, the Ovambo people are actually apprehending them and handing them over to the authorities?” This is the second big illusion that the Government has. The first one is that they can create these separate little states and that they will remain friendly with each other. The second one is that the little states will remain friendly with the Republic of South Africa, with the Central Government. Here again I want to warn the Government that there is no case yet known in history, not in modern history, since the infiltration methods adopted many years ago by the Russians and now being improved upon by the Chinese, where that situation has remained. He only has to look at what was Zanzibar, and now Tanzania to see what happens when they get in, and the upset of existing order. There was no need for it: there was no need to provide a fertile field for possible infiltration of those ideas and those concepts. We are rushing the good folk here forward on a path that they have not chosen.

Now I want to come to the third illusion and that is that the people in South West Africa, in the areas dealt with in this Bill, have asked for this development. Sir, I want to deny it absolutely flatly. I deny it completely and absolutely; they did not ask for it. I go further and I defy the Government to get half a dozen people in Ovamboland, which is the biggest state of the lot, who can sit down and without the Bill in front of them, tell you what its main essentials are. They do not know. How could they have agreed to it? It was never put before them. What was put before them was a Government plan, mostly verbal. We are told that this Bill that we have before us was asked for by the Ovambo’s.

But surely we are the guardians and they are the wards?

What about “baasskap” now?

This is the normal relationship between guardians and wards.

Sir, we have the hon. the Chief Whip on that side on the right line at last, and I wonder whether he will now go on to explain to us when the guardianship ends. He will probably say what the Minister says.

Of course, it cannot be permanent; that I know.

He is going a bit further now; he says it cannot be permanent, but when does the ward become free of the guardian?

Ultimately, by means of self-determination. That is logical.

Sir, that is the sort of reply you get every time from hon. members opposite. Even the hon. the Chief Whip, who was a schoolmaster, and who should have known that when he puts something on the black-board he has to prove it, even for a little class of little children, comes to Parliament and goes back on all the principles that he ever applied to himself and to the children in his classroom when he was a schoolteacher. When you ask him: “When will the ward he free of guardianship?” he says “ultimately”. Mr. Speaker, this is Parliament; what kind of nonsense is this?

This is development. You cannot say when that stage will be reached.

We are dealing here with a tribal people living under tribal customs for centuries and who, for at any rate the last 30 years, have controlled and governed themselves and looked after their own affairs, without discord, without trouble with us in the Republic and friendly with their neighbours to the north, with no difficulty and no trouble at all. The Government now comes along and gives them the concepts of modern political philosophy, and it starts off by saying: “They have asked for it.” I repeat, “I deny it”. This Bill has not been accepted by the Ovambo’s nor by those people what understand what they are talking about and I doubt whether there is a half a dozen of them, and when you go away from Ovamboland to the others, it is even less than that number. Sir, this Bill itself is the framework, the basis, the foundation …

The Ovambo understand it much better than you do.

… but the day-to-day administration and the ruling of the areas up there must be by proclamation, and to what extent are those proclamations going to be approved by the people to whom they are to be applied? If it is claimed that they have seen this Bill, how far have they seen the proclamations which are to be issued? I do not know how many proclamations there will be but there must be proclamations, because this Bill is not itself an administrative instrument. It provides for a administration which is to come by means of proclamation. Sir, these people know nothing about these modern concepts, and they know nothing about it in terms of our technical developments of the year 1968, the year in which we live and in which they will have contact with other people from other countries elsewhere. Let me leave it at that; the hon. the Minister will know to whom I am referring.

They are now propagandists for the policy of one man, one vote.

Sir, this brings me again to the question of mining. They do not understand this, but they are being told that they can control mining. That is one of the matters in respect of which they will be permitted to make ordinances or laws; power can be conferred upon them and then mining will come under their control in terms of a proclamation that may be issued in terms of the Schedule to this Act. I hope that the hon. the Minister will tell us something about this, because the mining rights in that territory, as I pointed out in regard to the Middle East, can be of immense value, of incalculable value. It would appear from the previous legislation that we have had dealing with the setting up of development corporations, that they can also be established in this area, and it would appear—I am only assuming this from what is before us—that the Government’s intention is that such matters as mining in these territories shall be dealt with by means of corporations. I would like to know from the hon. the Minister when he replies whether in fact that is so. How is he intending to carry on the operations, for example, of mining, which is likely to be the one carrying the greatest value and therefore the greatest risk to us? Sir, I say “the greatest risk” owing to the fact that human cupidity has never altered throughout the ages; it is still there and already it has been manifest in other countries towards us. What do we do if there is a rich strike of oil in that area? Do we give them self-determination and sovereign independence, or what has the Government in mind? We must not rule this out as something that is unlikely. It is not only not unlikely, it is probable. I would ask the hon. the Minister to tell us what happens in that case.

Then, Sir, you get the picture so far as the-small states are concerned. Can you imagine the position of a State which acquires a valuable mine, whatever the nature of it may be—whether it be base metals, precious metals or oil—and which refuses a share of the proceeds to the surrounding states, whereas at the present time such moneys would be the undivided joint fruits of the nations in South West Africa; they would all be entitled to a share. Sir, this is the kind of thing that immediately leads to trouble when you bear in mind the old principle again that the point of contact is the point of friction. [Interjection.] Yes, it has happened in South Africa in the past, as we know to our cost. I hope that the hon. the Minister will explain to us just what the intention of the Government is in regard to the development of mining rights there and their exploitation. Here then we have to deal with these principles which in every single case lead us to the inevitable conclusion that as far as our external relations are concerned we are going to be in trouble, come what may.

With regard to our internal relations with the good folk in South West Africa we are laying the foundation now for trouble and for schism and division and difficulties as between State and State and, as between South West Africa and the Republic, cause for still greater division, whereas in past years we have been trying to heal the breach and we have been trying as far as possible to accept one another as virtually part and parcel of, at any rate, one sort of State, even if we are kept divided, to a limited, formal extent, by the mandate. Sir, for these reasons we are against the Bill.

The hon. member for South Coast has just touched upon two arguments which are not new, but which he emphasized anew, for I have in fact heard no new argument in this debate.

The hon. member for South Coast asked why we had not introduced this measure here with the approval of both parties; in other words, why we had not consulted the United Party so that we could introduce an agreed measure here. In the first place I want to ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition the following: Whom should we have consulted? The United Party in this House or the United Party in South Africa. Because the two parties have different standpoints; the hon. member for Pinelands will admit this, and the hon. member for Yeoville knows it. Whom should we have taken into consideration? Should we have consulted the United Party in South West Africa, or should we have consulted the hon. the Leader of the Opposition here?

In the second place I want to ask this question: To what extent would the hon. member for South Coast be prepared to accept a compromise—up to what stage? Would he have accepted this legislation as we have it here to-day, and if not, in what respects should we have conceded to the wishes of the United Party? Why did he not rather confine himself to that point and tell us to what extent they would have made a concession? Why did he not rather adduce proof of the fact that the United Party would have been prepared to have made a compromise? No, he left it at that; he threw it into the air and then left it hanging there. In the third place I want to ask: If the policy of the United Party is one which you can subject to compromises, then surely it is no policy. Surely a policy is not something one can change from day to day in terms of compromises. In that case, surely such a policy is mere opportunism. In that case surely the hon. member for South Coast and his Party have no policy. That is why I say that that idea which he expressed but merely left hanging in the air is for those to catch who would like to catch it.

But the hon. member also made another important statement; he stated that the people in Ovamboland did not know what this measure implied. I am sorry that the hon. member for South Coast did not undertake the tour to Ovamboland together with us and the hon. member for Pinelands inter alia. We met two of Ovamboland’s most important headmen, namely Moshimashimi and Elias Paulus. They spoke to us and I remember very well that they emphasized repeatedly that they wanted nothing to do with the U.N., and that they placed their full confidence in this Government in view of the fact that this Government had already made it apparent that it wanted to lead them along the road to self-government. Mr. Speaker, the question which was put by members of the United Party to those persons by means of interpreters was significant. I found the replies to the questions equally significant; it was very apparent to me that the United Party could not get the better of them. For example they made this statement to the Ovambo headmen; they said: “Look, you have stated that you are pleased that you are in good hands, and that you are quite satisfied to be in the hands of the Government. You have confidence in the Government. But if you are led along the road to independence, and you know that the Government wants to give ultimate independence to those people in the Transkei, then surely you are throwing yourselves to the wolves; then you will subsequently reach the stage where you will simply be left to your own devices. What then? Do you still want to continue with these powers of self-government?” What was the reply?

Who said a thing like that?

Hon. members of the United Party in my presence; members of the Other Place. It is not necessary to mention their names; I was present myself. Mr. Speaker, do you know what those chiefs replied? They replied: “No, we understand the Government in quite a different light. The Government has brought us to this stage; we understand that it is setting our foot on the road to self-government, but that it will also see to it in the future that the wolves do not come and snatch us away.” I was amazed, Mr. Speaker. Those headmen in fact demonstrated to me that they knew what they were talking about. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition took it amiss of us because we are now stating: The Opposition is criticizing the legislation and they are leaving South Africa in the lurch because they are doing this in full view of the outside world and the U.N. He stated that in the last resort it was their task in this Parliament to criticize the Government. I agree with him wholeheartedly. It is the task of the Opposition in Parliament to act as the watchdog over the Government, and I have no objections to its carrying out its duties as a watchdog punctiliously, but I have grave objections if it plays the part of a scorpion. If it opposes this legislation in the House but does so with a sting in the tail, and the sting is the appearance it presents to the United Nations, then I object to that.

The Leader of the Opposition stated that we were altering the international status of South West Africa. If there is one assertion which I think was a pity to make in this House, then it is this one, and I want to state very clearly that I am convinced that the Leader of the Opposition knows that this is not correct, and each member opposite knows that this is not correct.

What is not correct?

That we are altering the international status of South West Africa with this legislation. The Leader of the Opposition stated that the mandate still exists, and he quoted an opinion expressed in the World Court case of 1950 which found that the mandate still existed. But take careful note now; he quoted from an advisory opinion which was given by that Court on 11th July, 1950, at a time when that Court did not have all the facts before it. It merely offered an advisory opinion which in any case was not binding upon the parties. But what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition omitted to mention is significant. He omitted to quote other important authorities in that field. I want to quote to him what I think the greatest authority in the field of the mandatory system said in respect of this question. I want to quote this to him from Hansard of 21st January, 1947.

Whom are you quoting?

The late General Smuts, who is not only regarded as being the father of the mandate, but who was also present at the time and in fact formulated the wording of section 77 of the manifesto, in which the new trusteeship system is introduced. In the debate Mr. Louw, subsequently Minister, asked this question by way of an interjection: “These are not mandate territories”, and the late General Smuts as Prime Minister replied: “South West is no longer a mandate territory.” And in 1947, after he had been to the U.N. and had played a part in drafting the manifesto in respect of the former mandate territories, that is what he said. But do not think the hon. the Leader of the Opposition would quote it. But I want to quote something else to him which he also refused to quote, and I hope he did not do so deliberately. He omitted to quote this, and it is a question from the judgment of the recent session of the World Court. The Court found in respect of the same matter that—

And so on. In other words, neither the United Nations nor any other body is entitled, according to international law, to claim that the agreement in respect of the old mandate must still be complied with. That is significant, and now I want to know why the hon. the Leader of the Opposition quoted an advisory opinion of 1950, which everybody knows was of no value in any case …

What did you just quote?

The finding of the Judge President of the World Court. But he omitted to quote General Smuts, whom I regard as the greatest authority in this field, and he omitted to quote the most recent judgment of the World Court in this field. Apparently he did so to suit his arguments in this regard.

I want to return to another matter which was dealt with in this debate, namely the question of self-determination. Now the hon. the Leader of the Opposition knows that in his speech this afternoon in the third reading he virtually tried to make this idea of self-determination appear ridiculous. I now want to read from the manifesto of the United Nations, article 1 (2). These are the objectives of the United Nations—

We know that the right to self-determination in the field of international law is practically identical to the freedom of the individual on the human level. We know that this system of self-determination began to take root after the First World War in particular, and that that in fact was the reason why the Union of South Africa was not allowed to annex South West Africa at the time; those people had to be given the right to self-determination. That was the condition.

How does one set about granting a nation self-determination? In the first place I must admit that there are many definitions of a nation to-day, but the hon. the Leader of the Opposition wants to give the northern part of South West Africa its own legislative assembly and establish them as a separate nation. These are the Ovambos, the Okavangos, and the Natives of the Kaokoveld, etc. But what is the difference between them and the Hereros or the Damaras or the Tswanas or the Namas? Why does he want to discriminate against those in the south? But if one wants a nation to realize its right of self-determination, then one must take various steps. In the first place one must mark off the boundaries of that nation. One must know who has the right to self-determination within those boundaries. One must know who is a Herero and who is a Damara and who is an Ovambo. In other words, demarcation in the territorial field is extremely essential, so that one can at least know who it is who must exercise that right to self-determination.

But not for the Coloureds.

Apparently that hon. member has the Coloureds on his brain, and he will continue to have them there for a long time.

The second step is to place that nation on such a basis that the possibility of achieving self-determination is within its reach. One cannot give them another course altogether and state that they now have this right to self-determination. If you are going to throw them into the pot with many others, then it is not the right to self-determination. Surely that is impossible. This is the second step, and the third will be to develop them so that they can reach a state where one can say to them: Now you have enough experience: now you know who you are you know where your boundaries are, and now you can exercise your right to self-determination. Then you can say to them that they can, if they want to, integrate with adjoining nations, but of course they can only integrate if those nations with whom they want to integrate also have the right of self-determination. In other words, if the Hereros want to integrate with the Ovambos, then it is not only the Hereros who should exercise the right to self-determination, the Ovambos should also have the right to say that they do not want to do so.

Or with the Whites?

Then the Whites can also exercise their right to self-determination and state: We do not want you with us. Suppose the Whites want to integrate with the Hereros, then they are also able to say: No, we do not want you. This is so because both have the right to self-determination, and not only the one. Surely that is obvious. The next step will be to place self-determination within their reach to such an extent that they can develop in that direction which they ultimately foresee for themselves.

But let us take the policy of the United Party in respect of this matter. Their idea of two legislative assemblies for South West Africa amounts to this that they want to grant the Ovambos in the north the right to self-determination and their own legislative assembly, but do not want to grant the right to self-determination to the Damaras or the other southern Bantus. They want to force them in another direction. In other words, the United Party is prepared to grant the right to self-determination to one group, but it is not prepared to apply the arrangement throughout.

I should also like to deal with the idea of economic independence which the hon. member for Yeoville and various other members raised in the second-reading debate. Hon. members proceeded from the premise: Suppose they are separate nations that are carrying into effect their right to self-determination, what about their economic position?

I want to put the question: If a nation can in fact carry into effect its right of self-determination, is its inadequate economic position the decisive factor which determines that that nation should not have the right of self-determination? Surely that would be a ridiculous idea. In other words, did we first ask the nations we have on the earth to-day whether they had enough potential and whether they had developed so far economically that they could go further, before they could ask for freedom? What was our own position in South Africa? Did we not state that we wanted that freedom and that once we had freedom we would endeavour to obtain economic independence? But in the last resort, if economic independence is the key to political independence there will be no nation in the world which will be able to lay claim to political independence. The hon. member for Yeoville knows that the international world trade and economic structure is such that one nation is dependent upon the other.

You misunderstood my argument.

Were all the Western nations subject to the economic factor? But in respect of the Bantu homelands of South West Africa, must they first be economically independent before they can become politically independent?

Now the hon. members are asking what the potential is. I readily concede that the economic potential is important in the life of a nation. That is why one finds the Japanese trawling for fish or the British concentrating on secondary industries. They cannot rely on primary industries. Their most important source of revenue is out of secondary or tertiary industries. But what is the case in respect of the Bantu homelands of South West Africa? In the first place I want to state that no survey whatsoever has been made to determine the economic potential of the Bantu homelands, or of South West Africa as a whole, because it is not such an important requirement. A thorough investigation of the mineral riches has not yet been made, and the other potentials are not yet being fully exploited. Of course it does not merely depend upon the mineral wealth, and not only upon the availability of land and capital, but also upon the human factor. There are many other factors which determine economic independence. But if one adopts the attitude that in future the most important economic future of the Bantu homelands in South Africa will be based on agriculture, then one can say that those homelands are very well off. In fact, these homelands have some of the best and most fertile soil in South West Africa, ft is calculated that a sound economy is built up when only 25 per cent of the population make their living from agriculture. In South West Africa, in the white areas, this figure is 33 per cent. In other words, those Bantu homelands have the potential in the direction of industrial development to which there is simply no ceiling, but which is unlimited. I am thinking for example of the fact that in the Bantu homelands of South West Africa are situated 90 per cent of the water resources of the entire South West Africa. That means a potential for hydroelectric power. Just think of the agricultural development possibilities. The value of the supply of wood is calculated at R86 million, and this can be an important stimulant to economic development. So one can go on. However, I want to reply to the question which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition also posed a few times. He stated that these areas are very small, and he asked how those people could subsist there. I have already indicated that economic independence is not a pre-requisite for self-determination. It is interesting to note that when one compares the distribution of land between the Bantu nations in South West Africa with any other comparable situation outside South West Africa, one finds that they are very well off. In Damaraland it works out to 108 hectares per head. Hereroland 167, Kaokoveld 530, Okavangoland 150, and Ovamboland 123.8 hectares per head, which in fact is the lowest figure of all. If one compares this with areas in Africa, one finds that the figure in Ethiopia is 5.9, in Ghana 3.5, in Kenya 8.0, in Liberia 8.6, in Nigeria 2.6, and in Swaziland 6.7 hectares per head. In other words, the area with the poorest figure in South West Africa is at least three times better off than any of these other countries—and I selected them quite at random—in Africa. I also want to compare these figures with countries in Europe and elsewhere, although I concede that one cannot really compare them with any countries outside Africa. I should like to mention the figures to the hon. member for South Coast. In Denmark the figure is 0.9, in France 1.2, in Italy 0.6, in the Netherlands 0.3, in Britain 0. 9, and in the United States of America only 5.0. In other words, as far as land distribution is concerned. Ovamboland which is the most badly off of all the areas in South Africa is at least four times better off than the United States of America. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition presented to Parliament his policy for the solution of the problems in South West Africa, i.e. the solution of his two Parliaments. It is significant, and I should like to mention a few figures, to show that if one were to throw representatives of the Bantu areas into their parliament in the north one would find the following picture. The Ovambos will comprise 80 per cent of the population, the Okavangos 9 per cent, the Kaokovelders 3 per cent, the Caprivi natives 3.6 per cent, and the Bushmen 3.9 per cent. These people the hon. the Leader of the Opposition now wants to bring together in the same legislative assembly. Does he know what the results of this are going to be? Does he think that the Kaokoveld natives, the Caprivi natives or the Okavango natives will obtain one seat in Parliament? Does the hon. member for Yeoville think so? It will of course be a majority vote. The Ovambos, who comprise 80 per cent of these people will govern. In other words, the Ovambos will obtain the right to self-determination in this Bantu area of the United Party. Not one of the other Bantu homelands will have this right to self-determination. They will he condemned to remain in the Opposition benches forever. The Ovambos will govern them, not because they are the best political party, but because they are in the majority. The other Bantu nations will be in the minority. They will remain in the opposition benches not because they offer an alternative government, but because they will never during their entire existence be able to form an alternative government. They will form an opposition, and be aware of their numerical minority. They will hate the government. Their feeling for the government will not be one of an opposition which does not like the government, but it will be one of hatred. They will hate the government because they will know that the nation on the government side is in the majority and on the basis of the numerical superiority and nothing else, the government will always remain in power and they will always remain in the opposition benches. Let us take the legislative assembly in the south. One takes an interest in the situation there because this is precisely where the Whites also enter the picture. In this Parliament, the Whites will comprise 36 per cent of the numbers, the Damaras 22 per cent, the Hereros 17.5 per cent, the Tswanas 1.3 per cent, the Rehoboth Bastards 5.6 per cent, and the Namas 17.3 per cent. That will be the proportional representation in this legislative assembly. If it is not proportional nobody will accept that system. Do you think for example that the majority of those native groups will accept it if the Whites comprise the majority in their legislative assembly? Of course they will not accept anything of the kind. Nowhere in the world has such a position been accepted. Why should they be doomed to accept it in South West Africa? Suppose we were to leave the Whites out of the picture, we would have the situation that the Damaras, the Hereros and the Namas will more or less be the minority groups, whereas the other groups will be doomed to sit in the Opposition benches in the federal parliament for all time. I am now asking the hon. member for Yeoville whether he wants this situation there for all time? According to the policy of the United Party the minority groups will never have any say in the government. They will never be able to envisage that they will also have a say. On the basis of the population figures alone they will be doomed to sitting in the opposition benches forever. I do not know how much knowledge the hon. member for Yeoville has of the Bantu nations of South West Africa, but I can give him the assurance that there is an enormous difference, for example between the Hereros and the Damaras. They cannot understand one another’s language; they do not have the same morals or customs; they do not follow the same religious procedure; they know nothing of one another. During the past century they have been in a continual state of war with one another, and one must normally expect that if the situation is tampered with, according to the pattern of the United Party, ill-feeling and even revolution will arise there again. Even to-day there are signs of hostility amongst the various Bantu nations. We have found this in the different locations where they were merely thrown together. Only since we settled them separately have they been able to develop separately, and now they can also appreciate one another. If the United Party were to apply its policy as announced here on those nations they would not only be doing a disservice to the Whites of South West Africa, but it would also lead to the downfall of the minority groups in South West Africa. Neither will they in any way succeed in persuading the United Nations to approve this policy of theirs, because it comes into direct conflict with the principle of self-determination, the principle which is explicitly mentioned in the manifesto of the United Nations.

Mr. Speaker, I am not going to follow the hon. member for Middelland in any great detail in his arguments, in the latter part of his arguments any way. It does seem to me that he does base all his assumptions on the hope that the individual nations or races or tribes in South West Africa to whom he has referred, and according to him who are constantly at odds with each other, will remain in these territories which are now being set out in the Bill and that they will never get together in the rest of South West Africa at all. But of course this is not the case. These are not self-sufficient areas which are being set aside. Thousands of these people come out and work in the common hinterland of the so-called white South West Africa, and therefore I think his whole assumption falls away. He is talking as if we are going to have completely segregated little nation-states set upon a territorial basis. As far as I can see this is not going to happen by virtue of this Bill at all, not in ten years, not in 50 years, as the hon. member for Heilbron said. Indeed he said he had no idea when it would happen. The hon. Chief Whip said it would happen ultimately. So I believe the assumption is quite invalid.

I think another invalid statement which the hon. member for Middelland has made concerns the legal status of South West Africa. I am not going to argue with him about the international “status” or international “character”. two words which have caused so much concern for the hon. the Minister and the hon. member for Middelland. In fact the advisory opinion of the International Court decided on the word “status”. I am even prepared to accent the word “character” for the sake of argument, although in law the only existing definition is that concerning status— “international status”. The 1966 World Court decision did not unset the Advisory Opinion handed down by the World Court in 1950. The hon. member for Middelland is incorrect when he says that the South West African World Court judgment removed from the U.N. or from any member state of the U.N. the right to query the mandate. All the judgment decided was that the litigants had no locus standi, and nothing else. It ruled that member states of the U.N. do not have the locus standi to challenge the way in which the mandate is being administered. That has had one effect and one effect only, and that is that it has removed the question of South West Africa from the legal arena and out it firmly back into the political area of the U.N. again. Surely that is obvious from all the resolutions which have been passed at the U.N. following the World Court decision. Whether South Africa accepts the validity of those resolutions or not is immaterial. The fact remains that the resolutions which have been passed show that the U.N. considers that South West Africa is still within its jurisdiction. Not only General Assembly resolutions have been passed to this effect but the Security Council unanimously passed the resolution which concerns the right of South Africa for instance, to continue with the Terrorist Trial on the basis that the mandate had been rescinded.

Are those resolutions international law?

I am not saying they are international law; what I am saying is it is ridiculous for us to ignore that this is what is happening in the U.N. It is quite ridiculous.

The hon. member for South Coast mentioned that Finland had already lodged an objection to this Bill and I have no doubt there will be other nations doing the same thing. If I remember correctly, when we discussed in 1964 the recommendations of the Odendaal Commission, the Government took great umbrage at the fact that certain friendly nations had sent warning notes to the Government asking them not to proceed with the political recommendations of the Odendaal Commission.

You are wrong there.

The hon. member need only read the reports of debates to see that considerable umbrage was taken that so-called friendly nations should have dared to issue these warnings to South Africa about continuing with the political recommendations. The late Prime Minister made it clear that although he was not continuing with the political recommendations, it was not because he was taking any notice of these friendly warnings. He was doing it of his own free will, he said, and because he thought this was the right thing for South Africa to do. I think it would be interesting for this House to know whether any warnings of this nature have now been received from these friendly nations, nations that are our trading partners and with whom South Africa is on good terms.

What interested me about this whole debate and what I found very noteworthy was the fact that there had been so many conflicting points of view put forward from the Government benches, or rather they tackled the debate—because they all agreed with the contents of the Bill—from different points of view. I would say the hon. members opposite could well be divided into the hawks and the doves in this debate. We had the hawks who have come screeching defiance about world opinion. We had the hon. members for Primrose and Heilbron, who screeched their hawklike defiance of the world. They were not going to yield to the pressure of world opinion, they were not interested in what the U.N. says, and so on.

And you are the dove.

No, I am not the dove. Interestingly enough we had a dove in the form of the hon. member for Brakpan; he was the dove. We listened to him cooing away in his second-reading speech where he told us in fact that South Africa was very “with it” and was indeed taking heed of the general direction of political development in the world and that we were anticipating what was undoubtedly going to be demanded by the different nations in South West Africa, and that is “uhuru”. We were anticipating that this cry was going to come, and in all our generosity and benevolence we understood the real need for even these small nations to have their own identity, to find their national identity, and so benevolently South Africa was making this offer. There were a few other doves too. There were a couple of South West African doves, who were cooing away in the same manner. It interests me, for I am very interested to know what is the real basis of the legislation. Is it because we can now go ahead with what the Odendaal Commission recommended in 1964, but which we wisely put to one side then because the World Court’s decision had not yet been handed down? Or is it because we want to anticipate all the needs for nationhood, which as far as I know, have not been demanded by anyone? There has been no outcry. None of the demands that the hon. member for Middelland anticipated, has in fact been made. It is the Government who, of its own volition, has initiated these ideas towards self-determination for these nations, to the best of my knowledge. Why do hon. members believe that when the cry for independence comes, the Government is going to consider that that is the right time for the granting of such independence? If it is so fortunate that at the time when these nations do demand independence, because they are being put on this path now, and the Government happens to agree that that is the right time, then I anticipate no difficulty. But what is going to happen if the Ovambo, the Damaras or one of the other tribes, races, or nations in South West Africa decide that the time has come, for after all, the Government has sown the seed of this idea, but the Government does not agree, then what? Is it going to say no?

Wait and see.

I will have to wait and see. But the interesting thing is this: I wonder whether the hon. member for Benoni realizes how dangerous this can be? Because if the tribes demand it, and the Government says no, having planted the seed of self-determination in their minds, and it is then going to have to restrain those nations by force from getting their independence, does the Government really think that the world is going to sit back and watch this happening? Does it really think that this falls within the purview of no interference in the domestic affairs of another country, particularly with the peculiar international character of South West Africa? I do not know why the Government assumes that its plans for independence for these nations are going to correlate in time with the desires of the independent nations for actual independence, and not just a promise of independence; not just what the hon. member calls the “empowering” of this Government to give independence, but the actual granting of independence to these territories. The other point I want to make, is that the Mandate, whether one admits that it exists or not, nevertheless influences the whole scene of South West Africa. The Mandate did not envisage the cutting up of South West Africa into small territorial units. The Mandated Territory was given as one indivisible whole and was to be administered as such by South Africa. South Africa as trustee was expected to administer the territory for the benefit of all the inhabitants, with particular emphasis on the development of the indigenous peoples. That was the basis of the trust which we took over and on that basis I believe we must continue to exercise our trust. In those days the territory was inhabited by about 200,000 non-Whites and about 20,000 white people. The duties devolving on the trustee were in relation to the whole population of South West Africa. The revenue of the whole territory was meant to be used for the benefit of all the races, of everybody living there. There is no justification, to my mind, for the acquisition of separate parts of the territory for the separate benefit of any of the races living in South West Africa, and that includes the Whites. I see no justification for the exclusive use by the Whites of South West Africa and the exclusion of the other races from that particular area south of the Red Line. To-day the population of South West Africa, I believe, is in the vicinity of about 450,000 non-Whites, the vast majority of whom, of course, are African tribes, and 96,000 Whites. I say again that for this entire present population of South West Africa the public economy and the public resources, as such, should be used.

We have no right to demarcate exclusive areas for Whites or indeed for any of the other separate races that live in South West Africa. This is the whole quarrel at the United Nations. The whole quarrel at the United Nations is because South Africa has imposed race discrimination in the territory of South West Africa, that there is this demarcation between what I would call a subsistence economy on the one hand, that exists in the area north of the red line and within the boundaries of the reserves inside the police zone, and the developed economy of white South West Africa on the other hand. That is the demarcation line between the subsistence economy and the more affluent part of South West Africa. It is obvious that the non-Whites have not really enjoyed the accumulation of wealth which has in fact taken place in South West Africa over the last 40 years. They have not enjoyed it. We know that, because of the big differences in wage rates paid to the white people and to the non-white people in South West Africa. We know this particularly, because the migratory labour system is employed in South West Africa. This is always the link between the subsistence economy of the African tribes on the one side, and the industrialized or developed section belonging to the more affluent white people of the country. It is the same in South Africa. The migratory labour system is the link between a subsistence economy and a developed economy. This is the basis of the quarrel which the United Nations has with South Africa regarding the way in which it has discharged its duties as a trustee for South West Africa. I believe the quarrel is going to continue. So, if the doves, like the hon. member for Brakpan and other doves on the Government side, think that the promise of ultimate independence and self-government in the far-distant, non-foreseeable future to the South West African tribes is going in any way to assuage the arguments and the objections that U.N. has against South Africa, they are quite wrong.

There is only one way in which we can remove the objections against South Africa at the United Nations, and that is the removal of race discrimination. This has always been the bone of contention. No Bill like this is going to be of any value. We have to remove the discriminatory practices. We have to improve the economic conditions. They have, as I say, been improved over the last four years, but there is a great deal that remains to be done. Remove all the stigmata of apartheid and then we might have and will have a chance at the United Nations, for this in fact is the only quarrel that they have with South Africa. But to believe, as I think some members on the other side quite honestly and sincerely believe, that a Bill promising self-government to under-developed areas in South West Africa is going to remove the political aspects of South Africa’s handling of the trust which was given to it under the Mandate is, I believe, wishful thinking. For the reasons that I believe this does not touch the fringes of the problem, which is the removal of real discriminatory practices in South West Africa, and that the majority of those people are still going to have to leave their areas and spend most of their working lives in the developed affluent part of South West Africa, which South Africa has excised for the benefit of the white people, I must vote against the Third Reading of this Bill.

Any student of South African politics will, if he has been following this debate or if he were to read it later on, very soon see the difference between the policy of the United Party, on the one hand, and that of the National Party on the other hand. It is a good thing that this is the case, particularly when one considers that when new generations enter the political arena they might perhaps tend to forget what the sins of the United Party were. The United Party often disguises its sins in such a way that it may be difficult for the younger generation to be able to form a judgment. But I should like to make available to any person details in regard to the attitude adopted by the United Party as against the attitude adopted by the National Party, so that any person may examine them carefully. If such a person were to lay down two requirements for a political party—(1) the preservation of the Whites and (2) a party that can handle contact situations between Whites and Blacks in such a way that it will be possible for peaceful friendly relations to result—he would not hesitate for a moment to pursue the policy of the National Party. The foundation of the National Party’s policy— also as far as the Native nations of South West Africa are concerned—are so sound that they will afford the fullest possibilities to future generations, possibilities they will not even be able to develop to the full in their own lifetime.

Before I continue, I want to express my particular thanks to the hon. the Minister who is handling this Bill, and give him the assurance that those students of our politics who lay down these two requirements for a political party will, even when they examine it with a most critical eye—the eye of an economist, of a sociologist, of a theologian, but especially that of an ethnologist—find nothing in this Bill and in the hon. the Minister’s argument which deviates in the least from any scientific views. This Bill gives certain assurances to the Native nations of South West and to other persons who are concerned in this matter. The first one is that the National Party will see to it that that territory which rightfully belongs to the various population groups, will never be alienated from them. All over the world there are in these times many people who are looking at South West with greedy eyes, people who are not interested in the nations in that territory, but in the mineral potential South West Africa offers and in appropriating these riches for their own selfish purposes. But the National Party gives those Native nations the assurance that their right to their land will not be alienated from them. On the contrary, this Government gives them the assurance that it will be possible to develop their own territories in such a way that it will not only be to the benefit of each individual nation, but also to that of South West as a whole. In the course of time boundary-lines will be defined there so that it will be possible to give satisfaction to each group. Another assurance that is being given to them, is that their traditions, their own character, their own culture—that which is peculiar to themselves—will not be destroyed. The National Party will not exercise its trusteeship in respect of those people in such a way that those people would lose their own identity. That is why I find it so amazing that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition could even question the meaningfulness of the existence of tribes and the possibility of those tribes, each with a different origin, developing into national identities in our modern world. With this legislation the National Party gives them the assurance that it will not interfere with their identity.

Another assurance given by this Bill, is that there will be peace in South West Africa. On looking back at their own history over the past century or so, they will see that their coming to and stay in South West were fraught with unrest and wars. Even to-day there are people who would like to start wars in that territory. But this Bill implies the possibility of that unrest being eliminated completely, and the most outspoken propagandist against law and order in South West Africa will not be able to achieve anything. Another assurance given by this Bill, is that there will be prosperity. Any person, even a U.P. supporter, must concede that over the past 20 years, in South West Africa as well, there have been signs of exceptional prosperity. The prosperity South Africa wants to give to the nations of South West, is not merely a temporary kind of prosperity; those people will not only benefit from it as far as the present is concerned—it is prosperity which will give those groups orderliness and stability. Nor will it be prosperity which would be enjoyed by certain persons only. Every individual member will be able to share it, irrespective of whether he does so in a family context or in any other context.

Furthermore, this Bill bears testimony to the fact that the Whites of the Republic and of South West Africa are accepting responsibility for the Native nations, and will follow it up with goodwill and zeal. But it also places responsibility on the Native nations themselves, for we believe that they have the potential gradually to look after themselves in this modern world in which we are living. On the part of the Opposition there were objections to the possibility implied in this Bill, i.e. that the various Native nations in South West could develop towards independence. Basically it is an objection to the continued existence of the Native nations of South West. One gains the impression that the Opposition does not want those Native nations to continue their existence in accordance with their own traditions. By implication that attitude also proves to us in the Republic that the United Party is not kindly disposed towards the individual character of any population group here, nor towards that of the Whites. The Opposition’s objection is that this Bill affords the Native nations the opportunity to become conscious of their nationhood. In his speech against Nationalism as such, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition quoted from the works of Emerson. Unfortunately I was unable to obtain a copy of Emerson’s works; that is why I have had to try to arrive at a conclusion on the basis of this quotation alone. Well, I must say that according to that quotation the national aspirations of the Black man in Africa are very vague and weak. All I could really deduce from the quotation, was that if one were to accept Emerson’s concept of Nationalism, Emerson would kick the bucket. Since we are dealing here with definitions, I just want to refer the hon. the Leader of the Opposition to a small publication, “Nationalism in Colonial Africa”, written by Thomas Hodgkin, in which, inter alia, he has the following to say about nationalism—

Then he devotes the rest of this work to the growth of nationalism in the colonialized parts of Africa. Mr. Speaker, I want to leave the question of nationalism at that and say to hon. members of the Opposition, especially to the backbenchers who have so much to say in the late afternoon, that apart from these there are scores and hundreds of other works on the rise of nationalism which they can read. [Interjections.] Sir, I do not want to talk about the new Leader of the United Party. This Bill fully implies the possibility of the growth of a national feeling, because nationalism or the feeling of a national or cultural comprehensiveness does exist in a certain social group context and is found in that even where there is only a rudimentary form of a political facet in the specific pattern of living of that tribe or nation. In other words, if a group, tribes or tribal units in this particular case, have an identifiable pattern of living—which they do have, as one would find if one read any ethnological work on the Hereros or the Ovambos—with a resultant political facet, then that group has a right to individuality and the maintenance thereof. And, Mr. Speaker, woe betide those who want to destroy their existence. I want to read out to you, Sir—and this is for the benefit of the hon. learned member for Hillbrow as well— the following excerpt taken from a work of a well-known ethnologist, Prof. P. J. Coertze, in which he deals fully with the concepts of races, culture and nation (translation)—

Nationalism in this regard, when we are dealing with Native nations—tribal ties, be they the tribal ties of the Herero or of the Ovambo or of any other tribe as we find them in Africa—is one of the surest methods of warding off the ideology of Communism; and when we take an interest in Africa, which we as inhabitants of Africa should do, it is our task to keep the communist ideology away from Africa, and one of the surest methods of doing that is to preserve and maintain the tribal background, the tribal traditions. It is in this regard alone that the inhabitants of South West Africa itself will be able to ward off the onslaught of terrorism, because the communists, in Africa as well, seek the disintegration of the tribe. They want detribalization; they want the social structure to be freed from the economic structure, and the economic structure from the political structure. They are, therefore, seeking disintegration in order that they may step in and thus create their own communist order so that they may enslave the people of Africa. Communism seeks to create doubts in the minds of our Bantu nations. We may not allow such doubts to be created, as bodies and persons abroad want to do with our own young people by encouraging them to despise what is their own, to doubt whether what is their own, is the best for them.

But, Mr. Speaker, this legislation makes it possible for these nations, for these groups of people, to develop politically along their own lines. It will be possible for the technocracy— for in this respect we cannot really speak of democracy—to develop in a variety of spheres in Africa as well, but one has to leave that to the political structures of those persons. The Opposition wants to destroy the traditional political system of the Bantu, and by doing so they want to change their entire pattern of living. Through its policy the Opposition will only afford opportunities to the frustrations of people who have had political independence for centuries, no matter how rudimentary or primitive it may be in their eyes; they want those political frustrations of the people to be canalized into a central government, and in that way one would not only destroy the Bantu, but also everything in South Africa, i.e. what was established by both the Whites and the non-Whites. If one wishes to follow the opposite of this legislation, one would repeat certain things which we experienced in the past in regard to the history of political contact between Whites and Blacks in South Africa. I want to repeat a few of those things here. In the first place, one would once again have the possibility of the Bantu being subjected to the Whites. One might find that the old wars between the Whites and the Blacks in South Africa would start once again. All the knowledge the Whites and the Blacks here in South Africa have acquired in respect of one another in the course of centuries, might be destroyed once again and the old wars might be fought anew, the result being that the Whites, with their better technological equipment, might, more so than in the past, bring about destruction amongst the Bantu. The second factor that was connected with this in the past, was that the authority of the chief was being undermined. The earlier colonial powers, from which the United Party originated, never recognized the authority of the chief. The chief is such a central figure in the Bantu community that when one undermines his authority, one undermines his educational system, his attitude towards religion, his authority, one undermines his educational system, his attitude towards religion, his authority and order, and if we want to have peaceful co-existence here we cannot allow the authority of the chief to be undermined once again. Think of what happened in the past. The policy of the United Party was to establish White-orientated boards in Bantu areas. Think of the things Matthew Blythe did in 1882 and what resulted from that, for instance the Native Laws and Customs Commission and the Glen Grey Act as well as the establishment of White-orientated boards in white areas. In this respect I am referring to the Stallard Commission in particular. All of these are things which either brought about conflict between the Whites and the Blacks or which brought about integration.

Another very important thing that happened in the past and will be repeated if the United Party were to come into power, is the granting of the franchise to the Bantu. Then one would have a repetition, in some form or other, of the Cape of Good Hope Constitution Ordinance of 1852 and the revival thereof in the South Africa Act, 1909, in sections 35 and 152, in terms of which the Bantu had the franchise along with the Whites. We might have a revival, in some form or other, of the Natives Representative Council established in terms of the Representation of Natives Act, 1936. Mr. Speaker, this Native Advisory Board had the power to give advice. However, this advice did not convey anything other than the aspirations of certain Bantu to form part of a greater political unit. That is why the advice of this Natives Representative Council was always rejected, with the result that one found frustrations, both amongst those Bantu who had political aspirations and amongst the Whites.

The consequences of the attempts at westernizing the Bantu politically—these things which the United Party wants to do—can briefly be summarized in the following two points: The Bantu started regarding the whole of South Africa as their fatherland. This is very important, and I think that even to-day the United Party does not disagree with this, namely that they regard South Africa as the fatherland of everybody who lives inside the borders of South Africa. If one were to find this element amongst the Native nations in South West Africa, i.e. if the Ovambos were to regard the whole of South West Africa as their territory, or if the Hereros were to regard the whole territory as theirs, including the territory of other tribes, then one would once again have cause for conflict, not only among the various Bantu groups, but also between the Bantu and the Indians, the Coloureds and the Bantu as well as the Whites and the Bantu. This is another very important matter: If one does not follow the course the National Party is following, if one follows the course of the United Party, then one would have the origin and the rise of political movements amongst the Bantu. Mr. Speaker, people make two mistakes in respect of the Bantu. There are many people in society who think that the Bantu are not human beings, that they have no pattern of living. But, on the other hand, there are people who think that the Bantu are identical with the Whites. One cannot deprive the Bantu of political rights. They have had these rights for many centuries because they are human beings and live according to a human social pattern, and if one does not want to grant the Bantu political rights, if one wants to withhold such rights as the United Party wants to do, then the African National Congress and organizations of that nature will once again develop. I want to read out to you, merely to refresh your memory, what the objectives of the African National Congress are (translation)—

A typically communist expression—

I just want to put this hypothetical question: If the United Party had not been brought to a fall in 1948 and if their policy in respect of the Bantu and the political future of the Bantu had been implemented, where would this fatherland of ours have been to-day? Along with the agitations we had in 1960-’61 pressure was brought to bear on South Africa by the outside world. [Interjections.] Sir, if one were to exchange this Bill, with the consequences it implies, for the policy of the United Party, there would be chaos. I am in full agreement with what is being said in this book, “Die Beïnvloeding tussen die blankes en die Bantoe in Suid-Afrika”. This is what the author has to say in this book (translation)—

For that reason I want to conclude by saying that if one were to follow the United Party’s policy in respect of the Native nations of South West Africa, it would entail unrest, adversity and destruction, but if one were to follow the National Party’s policy there would be peace and prosperity in South West Africa as well. There would be defeat for our enemies, and there would be an intensification and a deepening of our friendship with our friends all over the rest of the world, and for each separate nation in South Africa and in South West Africa there would be a home for its future generations.

It was with interest that I listened to the speech made by the hon. member for Rissik. It is obvious that he took a great deal of trouble with his speech, and he presented it with conviction. It is almost a pity that he could not have been at Stellenbosch last night to state his point of view there. [Interjections.] I find it rather a pity that in the course of his speech he made a few statements which are obviously untenable and inconsistent with reality. The hon. member will not take it amiss of me if I draw his attention to those statements. One of these was his statement to the effect that Communism sought to weaken the tribal or group or national ties, and that Communism believed that by doing this it could further its own cause. If the hon. member would read the speeches of Stalin and Lenin for instance, and they are available in our Parliamentary Library, he would find that Communism specifically concentrates on exploiting and utilizing the group aspirations and the national aspirations of colonial nations in particular. At the moment Communism is doing this in the Middle East by stimulating Arab nationalism against Britain and against Israel. The most important ally Communism could find, according to their own statements, is frustrated nationalists or people frustrated within a group context. I think the hon. member misunderstands the position altogether if he thinks that one can combat Communism by encouraging the nationalism of small groups that are poor and backward. By doing that, one would simply be providing a breeding-ground for Communism.

The second thing that astonished me was the hon. member’s statement that it would be in the interests of the Native population of South West Africa to retain their tribal ties. Anthropologically speaking tribal ties are an anachronism in the world to-day. In cases where there are real progress and industrialization, and where there are real expansion of the economy and diversification of activities, tribal ties are the first to disappear. This is a primitive phenomenon, and only a group of people or a government which wants to restrain the advancement and the progress of people and which wants to retard the progress of people towards a fuller life, would try to make those people retain their tribal ties. I find it astonishing that the hon. member who has in other respects shown that he wishes to further the interests of the Native nations, could have made such a reactionary statement. I think that he has not considered this matter fully.

This afternoon we once again had a very interesting phenomenon on the part of hon. members opposite. We heard how angry they became and how they virtually accused us of treason and questioned our patriotism, and that their wrath was kindled because they made such a poor showing in this debate. It was the reaction of frustrated people, of defeated people. I can understand that, but what one cannot forgive, is that hon. members opposite, such as the hon. member for Heilbron, can question the patriotism of the Opposition simply because we are doing our duty and warning the people of South Africa against the dangerous and possibly fatal consequences of the rash steps taken by the Government. This is our duty, and all the invective of hon. members opposite will not deter us from performing that duty. It is as though one sees an infant running towards a precipice or being on the point of falling into a fire, and is told not to give warning and to keen quiet, because it would call the mother’s motherhood into question if one tried to save the child. In the same way we dare not be silent if, owing to the Government’s policy, South Africa is heading for a disaster. In such a case we must issue warnings, and nobody can call our love of South Africa in question if we issue warnings in the interests of the country. [Interjections.] Hon. members opposite must see what progress we are making. [Laughter.] They would be astonished. I think it is very important that hon. members should not laugh. We are making progress in this respect, i.e. that we are finally bringing home to members of the Government the impossibility and the indefensibility of their policy. I call the hon. member for Heilbron as a witness. This afternoon the hon. member also made mention of the preamble to the Bill in which reference is made to the object of the Bill, i.e. to develop the Bantu nations to independence. [Interjections.] The point that was made, was that that preamble, in which the object of this Bill is defined, namely to lead those small national groups, those tribes—not nations, but tribes—to sovereign independence, is only an indication of a course to be followed. Then the hon. member for Heilbron says with a sweeping gesture, as if by doing so he is invalidating all our arguments, that that course of development will not be realized for at least 50 years or perhaps more. Over the 20 years during which the Government has been in power, the main difference between them and us has been their claim that their policy is the right one for South Africa, but now we are told that we need not be afraid of their policy, and they, too, are no longer afraid of their own policy, since it will not be implemented for 50 years. This is the National Party’s flight from the realities of their policy. Now they want to pacify the nation by saying that the National Party’s policy is dangerous; they cannot reply to that argument, but according to them the nation need not be afraid; it may be 50 years or more before that danger arises. It is just like a government that says: We are heading for a goal, and we are directing all of our progress and the course of history in South Africa towards a goal we want to achieve, but do not worry, for we shall not achieve that goal in your lifetime; your children will perhaps be punished, but you are safe in you lifetime. What an approach! But that consolation to the nation does, of course, imply a terrible fallacious argument, i.e. that the Government does not have the right to assure the nation, nor does it have any grounds for doing so, that their goal will not be achieved within the next 50 years, that their goal will not be achieved before most of the voters alive to-day will already have died. They do not have any right to give that assurance, because if they consider these matters and want to be sincere, they must admit that they cannot control the timetable. I remember how, after the Second World War, Britain started appointing commissions to investigate the political situation prevailing in the then Gold Coast. They gave the assurance that the independence of the Gold Coast would not be realized during the lifetime of this generation; that it would have to proceed slowly and that Britain would determine the timetable, but two or three years later the Gold Coast was independent because they took the bit between the teeth and bolted. Here I have an interesting quotation dealing with the observations of a person who has exceptional experience of colonial administration in Africa. That is what the Government wants to do: they want to establish small colonies in South West Africa. The following was said by Lord Milverton, a person who has experience of colonial administration in Africa and who was also governor of several colonies in Africa, and you may find it, Sir, in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, volume 36, on p. 71—

Therefore, that story of more than 50 years does not count at all. Neither the Government nor anybody else can determine the timetable. Once one establishes the machinery for nations to become independent and promises them independence, one creates an irrevocable situation later on. That is why the United Party is opposed to the establishment of that machinery and to those wild promises being made, since it is not in the interests of South Africa, nor is it in the interests of the tribes and nations concerned. [Interjection.] I am very grateful for the interjection made by the hon. member for Jeppes in which he wanted to know how long it had taken the Afrikaner nation to become independent in the Cape Province. That is the next point with which I want to deal. I take an exceptional interest in this new illusion. [Interjection.] That is a very old trick of the Minister’s. If I have to respond out of courtesy to interjections made by the opposite side, then he raises criticism of this nature, and it does not become him at all. That is typical of the Minister’s discourteous attitude towards all of us. [Interjections.] I say that we are now coming to this new illusion the National Party wants to create, namely that it is its policy to grant to all groups that are desirous of having it, their national goal, and even to grant them the territories in which they can realize that goal. That is what lies behind the interjection made by the hon. member for Jeppes. If it is their policy to grant national independence to the people of the Kaokoveld, 10,000 of them, and to the 44,000 Damaras and the 35,000 Hereros, what about the 2 million Coloureds who are living amongst us? Recently we heard a long speech made by the Minister of Labour on behalf of the Cabinet, a speech in which members of the National Party were warned that no territory could be set aside for satisfying the aspirations of the Coloureds. Where is the logic and where is the sincerity of this policy? And what about the Indians, the East Indian population of South Africa? Where does one find the same concern about their national feelings, their own identity and about their realizing themselves as a separate nation on their own territory? Or do the Indians, in the opinion of the National Party, form part of the Afrikaner nation of the Cape? If that is the case, they must tell me, and if it is not, why do we find this dualism under the National Party? On the one hand the Hereros form a nation, but the Coloureds of South Africa and of the Cape are nothing. If this is not the case, why do we find this dualism under the National Party? On the one hand the Hereros form a nation, but on the other hand the Afrikaans-speaking Coloureds of South Africa are nothing. Let us be logical; let us be sincere; let us approach these matters with real insight. This merely serves to convince us again that this concept is linked with an ulterior motive.

That is an evasion of my question.

The hon. member for Jeppes is quite correct; it is an evasion of my question; it is an evasion of reality. He has worded it very well.

No, it is an evasion of the question I put.

Why is a national existence of their own in a homeland of their own important for the Hereros, for the Damaras, for the Namas, and Heaven knows who else, but not important for larger, more advanced, more civilized communities in our midst here in the Republic of South Africa?

Order! That is not the question which is being debated now.

Mr. Speaker, with respect, I am not debating that. I want to know what the principles and the contents of this Bill are based on.

Order! The hon. member must abide by my ruling. He may proceed with his speech.

This is a new illusion that has to be created for the nations of South West Africa, for the outside world, and for the South African electorate, i.e. that nationalism is so important; it is so extremely important for each nation to have its own territory. This is a new illusion. However, it does not link up at all with the developing concept of true nationhood.

He has been “switched off”!

No, no … It has no connection with the real modern developing concept of nationhood. The hon. member for Primrose gave us a definition of the concept of “nationhood”. He mentioned several factors, such as the will to be a nation, cultural unity, a common language and other things, but he omitted those things which, in the world to-day, are more and more evident under the concept of nationalism, and that is the concept that there must be over-riding interests which make the inhabitants of a particular state feel that they belong together and should be together in order that they may survive. That is not all. In a publication I read recently, a nation is described as follows—

Where did you find that?

I found it in a discussion dealing with the Western European unity which is developing, especially among the Scandinavian nations and the nations of the lowlands of Europe, the Benelux countries. We see to-day that a higher form of nationalism is developing amongst them. The hon. the Minister cannot say that this is wrong, because this phenomenon has already reached a very advanced stage. This nationalism is developing successfully. This is necessary in the interests of the greater majority and this is our main criticism on this Bill. It seeks to promote the interests of the miniature groups, of the small groups, of the insignificant groups, and it does so at the expense of the larger groups, of the real unity of South West Africa itself. This is unforgivable on the part of the Government; this is short-sighted on the part of the Government; this makes it impossible for a responsible Opposition to support the Government when it comes to a matter as important as this one.

We must be grateful, and South Africa will still be grateful, that there is a sound alternative policy in contrast with this rash foolishness on the part of the Government. The hon. member for Rissik must not say that we want to disregard and dominate the smaller groups in our community, as was also said by the hon. member for Middelland. Our policy is a much better one, because we know how communities differ; that is why we want to organize them into communal boards so that they may further their own interests and retain their own identity. But when it comes to those matters which affect all the communities jointly, where the interests of one community cannot be separated from those of the others, we believe that there must be a central parliament where the civilized ones will set the pace so as to give the expression to the interests of the greater majority, the communal interests of everybody. The Government and the National Party—no, not the National Party, because it does not exist any more—the Government is trying to cause disintegration and destruction, whereas positive interests require unity and solidarity.

Mr. Speaker, I know that the hon. member who has just spoken, has to leave the House, and therefore I just want to refer briefly to him. Unfortunately he did not say so much to-day that I need to refer to him at length. To my mind the hon. member actually revealed himself in two capacities to-day. Towards the end of his speech he tried to explain to us that a large economic community, such as the one they are organizing in Western Europe, represents the formation of a nation. In that regard he revealed himself as a kind of economic holist, if there can be something like that, someone who wants to bind people together on an economic basis only, people of different origins, of different languages, with totally conflicting interests and no common historical background at all. Just because they may have certain economic interests, interests which in any case are not even so strong as to enable them to weld themselves together into a unit immediately, he thinks that it is a new nation which is developing there. That that should come from someone with the level of development of that hon. member, that we should listen to such nonsense in this day and age! He also revealed himself again as a kind of theatrical preacher. We have often heard him in this House as a theatrical preacher, and in this connection I want to remind him of a Dutch proverb which goes, “Verlos my van die preektoon, Heer; gee ons natuur en waarheid weer.” (Lord, deliver us from preaching men; give us nature and truth again.) As far as his theatrical pulpit manner is concerned. I want the hon. member to consider whether he could not rather …

And who is preaching now?

It is not theatrical; it is natural; and that is just my point. The hon. member’s pulpit manner was altogether theatrical.

He just gives one the text.

Should the hon. member strike his pulpit pose in a natural way, it could perhaps find acceptance. I just want to say to the hon. member that it was dismal to hear from him that tribal connections in the Bantu communities were an anachronism which must die out and be destroyed. I wish he could have seen the bitter cynicism on the face of the Natal leader when he said those things. The Natal leader is someone who knows the value of the tribal connection among the Bantu. It would have been quite sufficient for the hon. member if he could have seen how skeptically the Natal leader looked at him.

My time is limited, and I want to begin with the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. The general tone of both the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for South Coast, as well as other hon. members who spoke in this third-reading debate and in earlier stages, creates the impression that they as a party have been left with a deep-seated spiritual calcification from the days of imperialism. It is an imperialistic calcification. That party still sees all these developments in the light of the imperialistic views of old and presently I shall come to a specific example which the hon. member for South Coast quoted, and then I shall refer to another world development to show that what I am saying is correct. Here we still have to deal with Victorian imperialistic ideas which that side now wants to project into modern developments where we are today trying to give national communities such as those in South West Africa and in the Republic their own forms of government and to develop these.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition made several statements and they actually boil down to this, that we should act in such a way that we would not lose our friends in the outside world. In actual fact the Leader did not make this statement here to-day, but other speakers from his side said it in previous debates, i.e. that we would not satisfy the U.N. or U.N. circles with this kind of legislation. He did not say that to-day, but some of his lieutenants said it earlier on. I repeat: It is not a criterion which we can try to apply.

Nor is it our criterion.

Then you must go along and correct the hon. member for Durban (North), because he said it here in previous debates. All this confirms what I said previously, namely that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and his Party adopt it as their criterion that we should allow outside parties to dictate to us what we should do in our country in respect of Bantu affairs. What they said here, confirms what I said hastily yesterday afternoon in concluding, namely that the scheme offered by the United Party, especially as far as the southern sector in South West Africa is concerned, is completely in line with what the U.N. wants for South West Africa. I am referring to their offer of a mixed, collective, communal governmental context as the hon. member for Yeoville mentioned a moment ago in his final statements. As I say, this scheme agrees in every respect with what the U.N. desires for South West Africa.

No, that is not so.

Yes, the electorate will take note of this …

They will not believe it.

… and the South West African electorate in particular will take note of this. I say that the project which the United Party is suggesting in terms of its policy, especially for the southern sector in South West Africa, the police zone, is one which is identical with what U.N. circles are suggesting for the whole of South West Africa, namely a conglomerate in one. That is the United Party’s project for South West Africa. They can try to get away from it as much as they like, but it has gone on record in the words which that side uttered in these debates.

The Leader of the Opposition again harped on the same old string as he did the other day when he said that this measure was externally dangerous for us because it could land us in the International Court. What is in fact the position? The position is that those who can take us there, and who would perhaps want to do so, to-day maintain that we may do nothing in or in respect of South West Africa. Even if we had not introduced this Bill, they would still have persisted in the view that we may do nothing in or in respect of that area, because they had allegedly deprived us of our authority over that area. There are many other things about which they can take us to court if they want to do so. To suggest that if a court case develops again, it will be due to this legislation, is to my mind an irresponsible statement by the Leader of the Opposition, and it must be strongly repudiated by this side. The people who want to take us to court are not concerned about “what” we are doing, they are concerned about the “that”. They will complain “that” we are doing things for the people, whether it be right things that we are doing in connection with South West Africa or wrong things. It is the “that”, not the “what”, that counts with them. They do not want to see us have any connection with South West Africa whatsoever. It will make no difference whether good or bad things are done. I want to say this to the hon. the Leader: Even if he were in a position to pilot through an integration measure here to-day in connection with South West Africa, a measure in agreement with his conception, people abroad would not have been satisfied with that either. What those people object to, is that we are trying to continue with our duties in South West Africa; they want us to do nothing there and to stay away from there; and they also want the Leader of the Opposition to stay away from there. Consequently I say that he would have the same trouble with them, in spite of his race federation concept.

The hon. the Leader also said that with this Bill we were creating “have-not” nations, small nations, he said, possessing little or nothing. I said yesterday already that we are not creating nations—the nations are there. We are recognizing them, the nations or the peoples. They are there. We are recognizing them and these schemes are being designed for them. If nothing were done for those small nations in those areas, what would they then possess? Then they would possess nothing, or even less than they do now, and they would be even more subject to frustration. Because the hon. Leader’s argument was in fact that, since we are allegedly creating such small nations with no possessions, they would therefore be subject to frustration. I say that they, who have nothing, would be even more subject to frustration. The other possibility is that under the hon. the Leader’s scheme of race federation and white leadership and the utilization of all resources and assets by the Whites, development would take place. Then I ask: What frustration would there not be then in those small nations if they were deprived of the few assets in their areas by white entrepreneurs and white authority under the scheme of the Leader of the Opposition? There would be much more frustration. There would rather be rebellion, insurrection and such disasters, because then one would be taking away by force what perhaps lies locked up for them in their own areas.

But then the Leader of the Opposition in fact at once contradicts himself with his own scheme because, while he says that we should not create nations because they would be “have-not” nations, they said more outspokenly in the previous debate, by way of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, that they did not mind as far as the northern areas were concerned, those three areas outside the police zone. They do not mind if those people want to develop, even towards independence. Let them go then; then they are not “have-not” nations. They do not mind about that. I do not know which of these two standpoints of the Leader of the Opposition I must accept as their attitude.

We heard again from the Leader of the Opposition how the “white leadership” alias race federation, of their party was the alternative. He mentioned it here as the alternative. We have already discussed it a great deal in this Chamber, also its application in respect of the Bantu in our four provinces. It is not necessary to repeat all those arguments here. We know what the essence of that “white leadership” of theirs is. It is that, in respect of all manifestations of human interest, of their national development, those groups are only given a certain measure of freedom, that there are ceilings to all their development possibilities. There will be a ceiling to their political development, because they can only get a fixed number of representatives, eight in the case of Bantu representatives, in this House. There is a ceiling to their economic, educational and all other types of development as a group. They must be submerged in the greater mass.

May I put a question to the hon. the Minister?

No, I am sorry. I should very much like to have you do so, but the hon. the Leader knows that my time is limited. I do not have unlimited time. If, towards the end, there is a moment to spare, I shall give him a chance. That policy of “white leadership” is his policy of ceilings which he wants to construct over these small nations, which he then wants to bind together in one conglomeration. According to the hon. the Leader that can cause no frustration, can lead to no friction, trouble or fratricidal strife in terms of his own concept, because, after all, they are all one another’s brothers in one context.

I also want to come to the hon. member for South Coast. The hon. member said that the interests of the various groups, as he called them, in South West Africa, indeed also in South Africa, may not be given priority over those of South West Africa as a whole. In this utterance of his we still have the old obdurate and calcified remainder of the imperialism in which he and his party are embedded. He still labours under the delusion that units can be forced together, that one can keep them together and that nothing adverse will result from it. He has not yet learnt what happened on the island which they held up to us a few years ago as the model of a federation, like their race federation. In this House, Cyprus was held up to us as a model race federation scheme. We hear no more about it. Why not? Because that race federation idea which they saw in Cyprus, has in the meantime passed away. At that time we also heard of Nigeria as the model federally organized state. Where does Nigeria stand to-day with all the tribal wars, group wars, the secession of Biafra and so forth? Other members have spoken enough about that and I need not elaborate on it. This is what the hon. member for South Coast still relies upon. What a Rip van Winkel! What a living dreamer!

Has South Africa recognized Biafra?

I am grateful to the hon. member for Pretoria (District), who gave me a very interesting newspaper cutting from this morning’s Transvaler, in which it is reported that a very small nation applied to the United Nations to be assisted in regaining its independence, which it maintains it had. It concerns a small nation on Ocean Island, as they call it, the Banabans. The people were removed from there by Britain and placed on a neighbouring island because their island was very rich in phosphate. That phosphate is now being exploited. Those people say that they want to return to their country and that they want to rule it alone. The report states (translation)—

Listen now to the following words. Here one finds the same obdurate and calcified imperialism of that hon. member to which I referred. The former Minister Hart goes on to say—

The hon. member wants to retain Ovamboland until everything which is buried there, which is of value, is exhausted, and then they can have it. The hon. member for South Coast displayed exactly the same attitude a year or two ago with reference to the question of oil in Zululand when he asked: “Can that oil belong to the Zulu?” He said that it dared not. “Oil for the Zulu? No fear! First exploit it and then give the country back to them.” That is what I am referring to when I say that there is a calcified, imperialistic sediment in the party opposite. I repeat what I said here in my reply to the second-reading debate. As far as the future is concerned, and the development of all these various nations in South Africa, small ones and large ones, our salvation lies in the mutual dependence of these nations upon one another thereby to ensure a proper form of co-existence. If we do not want to recognize that inherent, inborn right which was given to them by their Creator, then we as Christians must not try to lead or to help them on this subcontinent. We are then in the process of becoming roving thieves, as in this case, in exploiting the assets of a place and afterwards saying: “Of course, now you can have your country back, with independence as well.”

I should just like to repudiate categorically a statement made by the hon. member for South Coast when he referred to my friend and colleague the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He said that he was sure that the Minister of Foreign Affairs did not welcome this Bill and disapproved of it. Let me now just say to the hon. member: This is, to put it bluntly, a stupid statement of his.

The hon. member ought to realize that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, like all the other Ministers, is a member of a Cabinet which carries joint responsibility for every Act— whether it has one clause or 19 clauses, like this one. Whether it is a simple or a complicated one, everyone carries the same responsibility. To try to play one Minister off against another, is a petty argument from someone who is devoid of arguments to conceive and put forward. The hon. member for South Coast said that it was an illusion that the independent countries would remain friends of South Africa. To say such a thing, I think, amounts to reckless irresponsibility. It appears to me as if the hon. member for South Coast and other friends of his are doing their level best to dispel, avoid and prevent any friendship which we can obtain from the Bantu nations here on the southern tip of Africa—those living with and next to us— just as much as they can. Now I want to ask the hon. member bluntly: Is the hon. member prepared to accept the friendship of the Bantu nations in South Africa towards us as Whites, if that friendship is based on the policy of separate development? Is he prepared to welcome that friendship if it is based on separate development? As quiet as a mouse. The hon. member ought to be grateful for the friendship which we have already brought about. And let me say to you, Sir, that there is practical proof of this.

You ought to be thankful for the rules of the House too, very thankful. You are taking advantage of those rules, and you know it.

That hon. member now sits there in his choking rage and says to me that I know the rules of the House. Is that hon. member himself not at present taking advantage of those rules, behind which he is sheltering, in making interjections? Are there not rules in respect of interjections as well?

We expect this behaviour from the new liberals.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, evasion, just like abuse, has never been an argument. That much I can say to the hon. member for South Coast. I repeat the question to the hon. member for South Coast and to anyone else, also the Leader of the Opposition. If under the rules of the House they are not allowed to reply to the question now, they will have plenty of time to do so in the more than a month in which we will still be here together. In fact, I give notice that we are going to put the question to them later on when debates in which it will be relevant come up again. The question is: Are they prepared to accept the friendship of the Bantu nations in South Africa towards the white man if it is based on the policy of separate development? I hope that we shall get a reply to that question in due course. [Interjections.]

Order!

We shall put a counter-question in respect of our policy.

We look forward to the reply. The hon. member for South Coast also said that the people of Ovamboland—and he only referred to Ovamboland—had not asked for the legislation which is now before the House. Now I want to say to the hon. member that the members of those various nations took note of the Odendaal Report at the time—one and all. It was explained to them by my predecessor and by me, especially by my predecessor, who visited the homelands. It was explained to them and the Odendaal Report was given to them and they have been able to study it over a period of four years since its publication. But after the Odendaal Report had been received by them and they had taken cognizance of it—in whatever way they did so—requests were made to us. Requests had already been made to the hon. the previous Prime Minister that they also wanted to progress along the road of self-government. Those requests were repeated to the present Prime Minister last year. This Bill and the proclamation which must spring from it, were specifically discussed with the Ovambo leaders personally in Oshakati by officials of my Department. This took place a few months ago. There it was discussed with them personally. They inspected it. I find it absurd that the hon. member can suggest that this Bill has fallen out of the blue and that those people knew nothing of it. It is something which I cannot understand at all. Then in the last few moments I come to a number of other points.

Why did you not follow what I did say? Why do you manufacture a thing like this?

According to the rules of the House I want to allow the hon. member to put the question to me properly.

I said that there are not six members of the Ovambo nation who could understand the Bill and explain its provisions.

We submitted that Bill and the proclamation to many more than six persons in Ovamboland. Many more. And even this printed Bill was sent there after it had been tabled. I say that there are more than six people. [Interjections.] If the hon. member would just listen. I say that there are more than six people in Ovamboland who acquainted themselves with the Bill.

The hon. member specifically asked me about the mining and oil exploitation which may perhaps take place in Ovamboland. I do not know if there is any oil, nor do I know how many mines there will be. The legal position is that the rights in respect of minerals are vested in the Trust and the South West Administration. And as far as the South West Administration is concerned, it is something which may be dealt with in the readjustment legislation which may follow. But this is the position. Those rights are vested in the Trust and in the South West authorities. Exploitation there of any mining deposits there may be—and which may be profitable—can best be tackled in the present phase of development, and considering the knowledge possessed by those nations, by either a corporation such as is mentioned in the schedule to the Bill, or by a corporation and the trust in collaboration with Whites who can be used for that purpose—just as we have used Whites for years and still do so to-day for such work in Bantu areas in the four provinces of our country. With that I have replied to the hon. member’s question in principle.

The hon. member for Houghton made many irresponsible statements, but I only want to say something about one of them. That hon. member suggested that the mandate granted us no right to divide South West—I think she used the word “division”—into these areas. I say to the hon. member that the mandate likewise does not prohibit us from doing so. I have the mandate’s stipulations with me.

In my opinion section 2 can indeed by interpreted thus, because it states that we can adapt our own legislation and administration to the particular circumstances of those nations in that area. Therefore I think that it can indeed satisfy that. But let us remember what the spirit of those times was—from 1918 to 1920—when that mandate was drawn up. Then we had already reached the stage in the Union of South Africa that the 1913 legislation, which set aside Bantu areas, had been accepted. It formed part of the pattern of our country’s administration that there be separate areas for Bantu nations. The hon. member for Houghton also asked me what would happen if in the future a nation asked for independence and the Government refused it. The hon. member ought to know that politics is the science of the practical. We are not going to reply to those questions to-day which perhaps lie many years into the future and may perhaps never arise. In fact, we believe that the way in which we are co-operating with the nations is such that progress will be made in a sensible way, and that in all matters such as these a proper understanding will be established among one another by way of mutual negotiation.

Motion put and the House divided:

Ayes—113: Botha, H. L.; Botha, L. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, M. W.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Brandt, J. W.; Carr, D. M.; Coetsee, H. J.; Coetzee, B.; Coetzee. J. A.; Cruywagen, W. A.; De Jager, P. R.; Delport, W. H.; De Wet, J. M.; De Wet, M. W.; Diederichs, N.; Du Plessis, H. R. H.; Du Toit, J. P.; Engelbrecht, J. J.; Erasmus, A. S. D.; Erasmus, J. J. P.; Frank, S.; Froneman, G. F. van L.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler M. S. F.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Haak, J. F. W.; Havemann W. W. B.; Henning, J. M.; Herman, F.; Hertzog. A.; Heystek, J.; Janson, T. N. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Keyter, H. C. A.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kruger, J. T.; Langley, T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J.; Le Roux, J. P. C.; Loots, J. J.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, J. J.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, J. A.; Marais. P. S.; Marais, W. T.; Maree, G. de K.; Maree, W. A.; Martins, H. E.; McLachlan, R.; Meyer, P. H.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Otto, J. C.; Pansegrouw, J. S.; Pelser, P. C.; Pienaar, B.; Pieterse, R. J. J.; Potgieter, J. E.; Potgieter, S. P.; Rall, J. J; Rall, J. W.; Rall, M. J.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Raubenheimer, A. L.; Reinecke, C. J.; Reyneke. J. P. A.; Roux, P. C.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schlebusch. J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, H.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Smit, H. H.; Smith, J. D.; Steyn, A. N.; Stofberg, L. F.; Swanepoel, J. W. F.; Swiegers, J. G.; Torlage, P. H.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Uys, D. C. H.; Van den Berg, M. J.; Van den Heever, D. J. G.; Van der Merwe. C. V.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Merwe, W. L.; Van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; Van Staden, J. W.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Vuuren, P. Z. J.; Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Venter, W. L. D. M.; Viljoen, M.; Visse, J. H.; Visser, A. J.; Volker, V. A.; Vorster, L. P. J.; Vosloo, A. H.; Vosloo, W. L.; Waring, F. W.; Wentzel, J. J.; Wentzel, J. J. G.

Tellers: G. P. C. Bezuidenhout. G. P. van den Berg, P. S. van der Merwe and H. J. van Wyk.

Noes—33: Basson, J. D. Du P.; Bennett, C.; Connan, J. M.; Eden, G. S.; Emdin, S.; Fisher, E. L.; Graaff, De V.; Higgerty, J. W.; Jacobs, G. F.; Kingwill, W. G.; Lewis, H. M.; Lindsay, J. E.; Marais, D. J.; Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Radford, A.; Raw, W. V.; Streicher, D. M.; Sutton, W. M.; Suzman, H.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Waterson, S. F.; Webber, W. T.; Wiley, J. W. E.; Winchester, L. E. D.

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

Motion accordingly agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Chairman, when the House adjourned last night, the hon. member for Durban (Point) was shedding crocodile tears about the action taken by the Government to curb and to investigate the malpractices and the negligence of certain textile dealers. As usual he came along with distortions of what hon. members on this side of the House had said, inter alia, what I had said and what the hon. the Minister had said. He went further and he even distorted his own words, contradicting himself from time to time. Above all he shed crocodile tears about the complicated nature of the tariffs and claimed that we had said they were so simple. No one on this side of the House used those words. We said we admitted that they were not simple, but were complicated, and inevitably had to be complicated, and that efforts were being made to simplify them as much as possible. At the same time it was also said that the complicated nature thereof was being exaggerated by hon. members on that side of the House, and that they were using it as a smokescreen to attack this Government on what it was doing. We said that those concerned in the matter—and there are at least four parties—must necessarily know their work and, if they are unable to interpret the tariffs, it is very easy for them to consult either the Department of Customs and Excise or the Board of Industries, I myself have done this several times and I received a reply fairly quickly. This is not all, however, because I should like to put a question to hon. members on that side of the House. These tariff laws are consolidated by this House year after year. Have hon. members on that side of the House ever got up to object to the complicated nature thereof?

Yes.

Not since I have been in the House.

That is not very long.

It is three years already. They have never objected …

That is not true; we have.

Not during the past three years since I have been here. I want to point out that some of the malpractices are in fact connected with the measures promulgated during the past few years. The hon. member had hardly finished shedding the last crocodile tears, to tell the truth, he had not yet dried them away properly, when he contradicted himself. He said that it was not the complicated nature of the tariffs, and he asked where the infringements were taking place. I quote what he said—

Is that true or not?

It is true. The hon. the Minister said so too. However, you contradicted yourself here. You said that this actually was what happened in practice. This is what we also say. The hon. members on the opposite side must not keep on exaggerating their case in this way. They are damaging their own cause; they are damaging the traders themselves.

The other aspect about which they shed crocodile tears, is that the Department allegedly did not act quickly enough. The hon. member for Durban (Point) said—

Now I wonder whether that hon. member has any further information. Does he have further information that it has been happening over a long period? If he did have such information, was it not his duty to bring it to the notice of the hon. the Minister? If he did not bring it to the notice of the hon. the Minister, he is, indirectly, co-responsible for this. As a responsible person on that side of the House he should have done that. As usual, that hon. member has no notion of what is going on. I should like to put him right. What is involved here is not the normal convictions here, the normal infringements as have been known all these years, or acts of negligence which take place from time to time. What is involved here is a new wave of malpractices and a new wave of acts of negligence which have been committed during the past year or two. For the hon. member’s information I want to say that these relate mainly to new regulations and measures introduced by the Government with a view to closing certain loopholes in connection with textiles. Some of these loopholes were closed round about the end of 1966. The protective tariffs were circumvented in a lawful way and consequently did not have the effect the Government thought they would have. This side of the House then introduced new protective measures that went into greater detail. This acted as an incentive to the traders to find new ways and means of importing their goods at lower tariffs. This was in 1966, and in 1967 the Department pinned them down. Who was asleep? No one. The Department could not have done it more quickly. We are not dealing with the normal infringements here, but with the abnormal and renewed wave of infringements. That hon. member should apologize to the Department for having accused them of being fast asleep. He does not have his facts straight.

The last matter about which the hon. member for Durban (Point) shed crocodile tears was that the hon. the Minister allegedly took such drastic action against those whose declarations were not in order. Please note, their declarations are not in order, they are incomplete or false, but the Minister is not allowed to take drastic action, especially not at a time such as this! I want to ask the hon. member what action the Minister should take to put a stop to this; what action must he take to eliminate the malpractices? What action must he take to compel people to study the Acts so that they may comply with them properly? All he can do is not to act, and then these malpractices and acts of negligence will continue. Is this what the hon. member wants? I am disappointed in the hon. member for Durban (Point), because he ought to know better. I expected hon. members on the opposite side to support this side of the House in order to stop these malpractices, so that the protective measures of the Government could be effective. Then our industries would be protected against unreasonable malpractices and unfair imports. Instead of doing that, they put up a smokescreen by blaming the hon. the Minister and his Department for the malpractices which are now being discovered. If that side of the House continues in the style of the hon. member for Durban (Point), they must not expect the people to trust them. Then they must expect us to accuse them of in certain respects wanting to accept co-responsibility for continuing those malpractices and acts of negligence.

Mr. Chairman, after the speech the hon. member for Florida made last night, I am not surprised that he did not start to understand the very basis of my whole argument last night. The hon. member has now said that I contradicted myself because I stated firstly that the documentation was complicated and that I misrepresented his statement by saying that he said it was easy. I do not have the Hansard in front of me, but the whole speech made by that hon. member was to the effect that a fuss was being made about nothing. He admitted that it was complicated, but he said that the people in the business should be able to handle it easily. My point was that it is not easy and was a tangled jungle, an impenetrable jungle, of regulations and definitions. Then I went on clearly and said that that was not the issue and that the rackets were not coming from documentation so much as they were coming from pricing. I went on to prove—and that was the basis of my argument last night—that because a racket had broken out in false pricing, the innocent importer was being punished because of clerical errors and minor errors in documentation. I even quoted from the GATT agreement to show that even GATT stated specifically in the agreement which we signed that a technical clerical error should not be the basis of an abnormal punishment.

How do you know it is clerical errors?

I will come to that. I repeat that we on this side of the House have made it absolutely clear that we are 100 per cent behind the complete eradication of any criminal rackets which may be taking place. We take exception, however, to the shooting with a shotgun at the whole of the industry; the smearing of the whole industry and the hardship being brought about to the industry. I want to give one example, as I do not have time to give any more. A particular firm has a promotion lined up, waiting. Advertising space is booked; cinema screen space is booked; everything is booked. A consignment is being held up and they cannot even find the reason for the hold-up. They are told: “It is no use even asking for three weeks; we are not even prepared to go into the matter for three weeks.” It is that sort of case which is making the importer fed up, disgusted and disgruntled over the victimization of innocent people because of the rackets of the dishonest. That is the gravamen of our complaint, that the innocent people are being smeared and punished because of the failure of the regulations to control rackets. Sir, the hon. member over there asked me when I got to know about this. If he looks at his Estimates he will find there an item “Customs Investigation Officers: London, New York, Cologne, Berne, Brussels, Tokyo and Geneva” and if he wants to look up old debates in this House—I am not going to educate him—he will find that debates took place here on the investigations which those officers had to make into documentation, values and so on and so forth, provided by exporters. Anybody who has ever been involved in any application for tariff protection will know that allegations of dumping, of false current domestic values and of price dishonesty on the part of exporting countries, have been made time and time again by the very industrialists who have applied for protection. Sir, I am not going to waste more time trying to educate that hon. member with regard to the past history of malpractices which have taken place.

I want to come to another aspect of this problem, and I want to say that the task is not being made easier for the Minister or for the industry by the dissatisfaction within the Department itself. The hon. the Minister and the Government—this was before the hon. the Deputy Minister’s time—have placed some of the top officials in a very difficult position because men have been promoted from other Departments into the Customs Department without the experience needed in what even the Minister admits is a complicated organization using a complicated procedure. I have here a letter received only this week, dated the 9th May, and posted on the 12th. The letter says, inter alia—

Sir, I do not blame that person; I blame the Government, because they have appointed as head of the Department a person who served in other Departments of State from 1928 until 1959 and never once in the Department of Customs. He served in Bantu Administration, in the Police, in the South West Africa Administration and on the Public Service Commission. The people in the Department who were superseded included a person who had had unbroken service since 1922; there were others who had served in the Department since 1923, since 1926 and since 1928. Sir, I do not know the gentleman concerned; he is no doubt efficient, but in a complicated Department like this you cannot expect the head of the Department to take over the intricate detail of customs when he is pitch-forked into it with no background. What happens? The other members of the staff of the Department who had spent 20 or 30 years in Customs must inevitably feel aggrieved. I have had complaints in this connection. I quote from a letter—

So it goes on to deal with complaints. Sir, I submit that a very good service, comprising some outstanding, qualified, loyal and dedicated men, is having its spirit broken because due attention is not being paid to the demands of that Service. Sir, look at the salary scales. I have a letter here marked “confidential”. Here the post of uniformed officer is being offered on a salary scale of R750 × R90— R1,560. This salary is offered to a uniformed outdoor officer, a person handling the control and the checking of perhaps millions of rands worth of imports. The salary scales show that 400 out of the 436 uniformed staff earn less than R200 per month and that the starting salary is R840. Sir, these people have the tremendous responsibility of dealing with millions and millions rands worth of imports, and I suggest that if we did away with some of the jet-propelled promotions and gave due recognition to the people who have spent a lifetime in the Service, in an effort to close these loopholes without panic and without shooting wildly at the whole field of importers, we would have much more success. Surely, Sir, it is possible to deal with malpractices, but are we not too busy dealing with petty things? I saw, for instance, a parcel of sample pens opened in the Customs Office one day. It was held up because there was a gift paper knife in the parcel of pens and this was regarded as a dangerous weapon. In that case a traveller was unable to sell for some two weeks while he had to obtain a police permit, and this, that and the other, because there was a paper knife amongst the samples of pens sent to him. Sir, I watched this happen. When he said to the Customs Officials: “Can’t I give you the paper knife as a present?” they said, “Sorry, regulations are regulations; we must hold up the whole consignment.”

Is that not illegal?

The paper knife could have been held and the pens could have been released. It is the petty, piffling things that annoy the importer and that annoy the people who have to deal with the Department. [Time expired.]

To-day we witnessed the tragic spectacle here of the hon. member for Durban (Point) making a filthy attack on the Department and the officials.

No, on the Government.

No, the hon. member leveled a charge against the head of a Department.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the word “filthy”.

I withdraw it. The hon. member should really have raised this matter under the Public Service Commission Vote, but let us analyze the matter in more detail. Should the head of a Department specifically be a man who has worked in the same Department all his life?

Then he will at least know something about it.

The head of a Department must administer the Department and it is not necessary for him to have served in the same Department all his life. What would happen in the Public Service if persons could not be promoted from one Department to another? Then you would have a cul de sac in every Department. You might find that all the capable men who could become heads of Departments, were stuck in that one Department. I think it is extremely unfortunate and very poor that hon. members of the Opposition, including the hon. member for Pinetown, who did the same thing, do not attack the Government, but attack officials who cannot defend themselves here. [Interjections.] Yes, the hon. member for Pinetown did this. He asked whether the head of the Department was an expert. I obtain his Hansard; it stands here; he cannot deny it.

Read what I said.

I will read it out in a moment. Hon. members of the Opposition may attack the Government on matters for which the Government is responsible, but they must not attack officials who cannot defend themselves. I think this is a case of kicking a man when he is down. What is the position in this Department? These cases of fraud, as the hon. member for Florida clearly pointed out, occurred in 1967. Is there any departmental head in the world who can prevent theft and fraud? These things are kept secret; they are not simply revealed to one, and it is not so easy to discover these irregularities. In this case falsified documents were handed in. I find it very strange that hon. members should attack the Minister and the Department now. You will recall, Mr. Chairman, that two years ago we had the same experience here in that hon. members of the Opposition attacked the previous Minister of Finance, Dr. D�nges, about certain irregularities and fraudulent actions which had been committed in the insurance business. I also spoke at the time and the Opposition accused us of virtually anything, and what happened? They opposed us when we said that we were going to bring the guilty persons to book. I may just say that three of them are in gaol to-day and that further things are probably going to happen. While the Minister and the Department had a police investigation carried out, and all the officials who could possibly be spared were used to solve these matters, and although the hon. members declared emphatically that they do not want to see the guilty persons go free, what were those two members doing indirectly? They were trying to protect those guilty persons. Last night the hon. member for Pinetown said—

Then he also made other accusations. He said that innocent people were being dragged into the matter; the Minister’s statement the other day was such that the guilty were not being brought to book, but that the public were being slandered, the wholesalers were being slandered, and the guilty persons were not being dealt with. Let us just see what the hon. the Minister said in his statement, and then the hon. member for Pinetown must tell me where he finds in this statement that the public is being accused, or that innocent persons are being dragged into the matter, as he said. The statement reads as follows—

The Department of Customs and Excise has taken steps to prevent any further contraventions, but despite this the number of cases which come to light are increasing and new methods of evasion still come to light.

The investigations have also brought to light the irregular use and disposal of materials allowed under rebate of duty for industrial use on a big scale. This is a very disturbing matter if regard is had to the fact that goods to the value of approximately R340,000,000 are admitted under rebate of duty annually.

Then I want to read the following paragraph. Here the Minister expressed himself in the strongest terms, to which that hon. member might have had objections. This reads as follows—

Here I have now read it to you. What exception can that hon. member take to this statement of the hon. the Minister? Secondly, must the Government not give warning then? Did the hon. member for Durban (Point) want those people to be left to themselves, and the Minister to keep quiet, so that these crooks, these defrauders, these racketeers, money-robbers or whatever they are, can go free? Why do these two hon. members take exception to this statement? Then they come here with all these ulterior motives and all these insinuations they are making here, instead of getting up and thanking the Minister for his timely action and of congratulating the Department. But they try to run down these people, the people who see to it that public money is not swindled in such a way. I think both of those hon. members owe the heads of the Department an apology. I think we could perhaps have received much more detail from the Department or from the Minister, but we know that a police investigation is in progress and surely those things cannot be revealed here at present. Now I want to know from those two hon. members why they object to the hon. the Minister’s warning the public, the innocent public? Secondly, why do they object to the Minister’s warning the traders in this statement? After all, a trader is no ignorant man. If one is an importer and does business, surely one has some intelligence. The hon. member told us he left commerce three years ago. Was he an idiot when he was in commerce? Surely he must have been intelligent and surely he must have known what was going on. Or did he merely import without knowing what was going on? Does he not know what business principles are and does he not know what the law requires of him? Is this what that hon. member did when he was in business?

My complaint was against the unnecessary delay.

No, when that hon. member was in business he knew what the requirements were. In the first place one must, if one enters the business world, equip oneself with the necessary knowledge, and if one wants to import one must know what the regulations are. If one is a medical doctor and one performs an operation on a patient, one does not do so without having any qualifications, and if one performs the operation without knowledge, one commits a crime. These traders who enter the business world without the necessary knowledge and without having acquainted themselves with the import rules and regulations, also commit a crime, and I think the hon. the Minister told these people in a very friendly and striking manner to acquaint themselves with the rules and regulations. [Time expired.]

In regard to this matter we have had only two speakers on the Government side. The hon. member for Florida spoke on this matter and I regret that he is not present at the moment, because he made statements which he cannot substantiate. I first want to deal with the hon. member for Sunny-side, who did not say a single word about either the merits of the matter or a possible solution to the problem. He merely attacked what hon. members on this side had said, as though the Department was not the responsibility of the Minister in charge. [Interjection.] The hon. member need not interrupt me. I kept quiet while he was speaking. The statement was made here that the guilty parties should be brought to task, but hon. members on this side leveled the charge at the Minister that he might have made this statement untimeously and might have phrased it too severely, because the country had gained the impression that all importers deliberately evaded the payment of customs duties on a large scale. Anybody who knows anything about textile imports, knows what the position is, and I want to confine myself specifically to the question of textile imports, as that was the question to which the hon. the Minister referred for the most part and to which the hon. member for Florida replied to the exclusion of anything else. But before I proceed, I want to say this.

The hon. member for Florida said there were four parties concerned in this matter who ought to know everything about the specifications of textiles and who ought to know what was payable in customs duties. But there are not four parties concerned in this matter. The system has not been changed over the past 20 years. There is a factory representative in the country, an indent agent, and he represents the factories in other countries. Let me say in passing that we do not have inspection officers in all the overseas countries from which we import. We do not cover half of the countries from which we import textiles. There are overseas manufacturers who sell their textiles in this country through an agent to a buyer, an importer, and then there is a clearing agent, and these are the only four concerned in the matter. The agent of the exporter, on the other hand, has a specification, which he cannot guarantee, and with which he has been provided by the exporter. He might know what amount would have to be paid in customs duties according to the specification provided to him. He might know; I do not believe that he always does. These are the four parties concerned, but only two of them know exactly what is going on. The clearing agent is not in a position to know. He knows what the customs duties are on the article as declared, but he bases that solely on the documents he has received. If the customs office stops the clearance of the articles, if it is not cleared as such, inspections concern Customs on the one hand and the buyer and seller on the other hand. In that case the two other parties are not concerned in the matter at all. Consequently it cannot be alleged that four parties are concerned in the matter. This system has remained unchanged for a long time. Everything has been based on that system.

In the declaration the following particulars have to be furnished: The type, the composition, the width and weight, the price per yard of the textile, any other instructions which may be given and the method of payment. These are the only things concerned in the transaction. But it has changed. Twenty years ago there were only nine itemized specifications for textiles. To-day there are far more than 200. In addition there is the mixing of fibres. There are so many man-made fibres that there probably are not five people in this House who know the names of all fibres. The number of fibres is increasing day by day. And as the number increases day by day, the percentage of mixing increases likewise. I make bold to say that 50 per cent of the staff of the Customs Department have no knowledge of the specifications of fibres such as acrylon, dacron, wool, cotton, rayon, etc., nor of the analysis thereof. They simply accept them as such. But if he objects to the specifications and the price—the weight surely is a simple enough matter—the matter has to be referred to Pretoria and thereafter it is subjected to overseas inspection. Let us get away from the idea that, as far as this matter is concerned, we are leveling the accusation at the Government that it has failed to do its duty in this regard or that the statement by the Minister has been too wide. I contend that as far as textiles are concerned, the formula will have to be simplified and the grouping of textiles will have to be introduced, otherwise the situation will remain impossible in any event. The most alarming statement came from the Minister himself in his speech yesterday. In June of last year fines were increased to a large extent. The fines used to be—I am speaking under correction— 10 per cent of the value of the material. These were increased to 80, 90, and in some cases, to 100 per cent of the value of the material. We have heard that there has been no decrease in the number of offences since that time. If I had to make any deduction, I would say that it was so profitable to commit offences that those people did not care two hoots about those fines. They simply paid those high fines, in other words, 80 per cent more than the price of the material, and then simply continued the irregularities.

What I want to make this House understand, is that the system, as far as textiles are concerned, is too involved by far. There are numerous itemized specifications which people cannot understand. Often when the clearing agent approaches the customs officer for clarity in respect of the specifications of a certain material, even the customs officer is not able to help. This is how difficult and complicated the whole situation has become at this stage. I want to suggest to the Minister for his consideration that an attempt should be made to clear up the matter. This is not merely a local complaint. The Minister indicated that this was also the case in Australia and in other countries which imported large quantities of textiles. Over the past few years fibres have been mixed on a tremendous scale. We are unfamiliar with this. This mixing of fibres and new fibres which come on the market every day is something unfamiliar. If we do not simplify the matter by means of grouping fibres which are similar, these malpractices will be uncovered with a great deal of difficulty if at all. I should like to know from the Minister whether I am correct in this regard. Discussions conducted over the last few days and the evidence given in this connection, indicate that only 20 per cent of the cases were ones of deliberate evasion. As much as 60 per cent of the errors made in this connection, were clerical and other errors in documents which did not constitute a deliberate evasion of the provisions of the Customs Act.

I should like the Minister to deal with this in his reply, because if this is the situation namely that only from 20 to 25 per cent of the cases analysed up to now constituted deliberate evasions of payment by means of false invoices and declarations, and that clerical errors were involved in from 50 to 60 per cent of the cases, then that is proof that the matter should receive more attention and that something should be done in connection with the simplification of the specifications of textiles imported into the country.

I should like the Minister to deal with this in his reply, because if this is the situation, namely that only from 20 to 25 per cent of the cases analysed up to now constituted deliberate evasions of payment by means of false invoices and declarations, and that clerical errors were involved in from 50 to 60 per cent of the cases, then that is proof that the matter should receive more attention and that something should be done in connection with the simplification of the specifications of textiles imported into the country.

Mr. Chairman, a party must indeed be politically bankrupt if it has to employ inaccuracies and misrepresentations, as hon. members on the opposite side did, in order to try and create the impression that matters are critical when they are in fact under control. I am speaking of inaccuracies with reference to what was said here by, inter alia, the hon. member for Pinetown. He said certain things here yesterday and according to his Hansard, which I have before me, he said the following—

He spoke of “most importers”. The hon. member for Sunnyside quoted virtually three-quarters of the statement of the hon. the Minister verbatim. I also have that statement in front of me. In this statement, as printed and as read to this House, the impression was not created or given anywhere that the Minister had allegedly said that, “most importers are participating in this racket to try and defraud the Government”.

That is not all. In the same speech the same hon. member made certain misrepresentations which were placed on record and which must be rectified. He tried, inter alia. to leave us under the impression that the poor importers were being penalized at present as a result of faulty invoices and other documents reaching him from overseas exporters, documents which were allegedly faulty because the exporters or their staff, to use the hon. member’s own words, did not have full command of English, the so-called commercial language of the world. He said that the documents arrived here in an incomplete form and that goods were held up as a result of that. He mentioned a number of items here, and I quote from his speech once again—“general trade description, composition by weight, type of construction …” and so on. Then he continued to say, “If this information is not included in the documents, what happens is that the ship enters the docks and the whole shipment is held upwhilst a decision is awaited from Pretoria”. Surely that is not true. This creates the impression that when the ship enters the docks, the documents suddenly reach the importer and that he can determine only then that they are incomplete. But what happens in practice? The hon. member knows what happens in practice. Other members and I are importers ourselves. When the order has been placed and accepted, the goods are shipped by the overseas suppliers. Then the necessary documents, the bills of landing, the specified and standardized invoice, and usually a bill of exchange as well, are sent by airmail to the bank through the agency of which the irrevocable letter of credit has been issued. Those documents reach the bank of the importer within a matter of five to seven days from the date of the consignment of the goods. Those documents are then offered to the importer for the acceptance of the bill of exchange. When the bill of exchange has been accepted, the importer is given possession of the full document. Then it is his duty to check whether the documents in his possession are complete and correct. He has to ascertain whether the goods are in accordance with his order. He has to ascertain whether the material is that which he ordered. In the meantime the ship is on its way here, but the ship does not arrive here within a matter of five or seven days. I ascertained from local shipping agents to-day how long it takes a ship to arrive here. Those cargo boats take from three to six weeks to reach our harbours. But in the meantime the documents have already been in the hands of the banks, in the hands of the importers, and it is his duty to forward the documents, along with the import permit if one is required, to his clearing agents who then await the arrival of the ship. The last person to check the documents to see whether they are correct, is in point of fact the clearing agent, and there still is sufficient time for determining whether they are complete and correct. Therefore the statement of the hon. member for Pinetown regarding the incomplete state of the documents, the so-called “clerical errors”, which were referred to repeatedly, is a pretext for raising dust, or otherwise I have to interpret it as an attack on the Government’s policy of protection. Then hon. members opposite must be honest and put it that way. Then they must say that they are not in favour of the policy of protecting local industries. They must not conceal their attack behind attacks on departmental officials, on their inefficiency. Then they must not try to create the semblance of irresponsibility and negligence on the part of the Government and/or the Department. We have always had dishonest people with us and they will probably remain with us for all time. Hon. members know full well that in South Africa alone many millions of rand are spent every year by the authorities and by the private sector to combat diamond smuggling. I do not know the exact amount, it may be R10 or R20 or R50 million. Hon. members who read newspaper reports and have access to law reports, will know that this type of offence is continuing. In the same way it is not possible to combat summarily the complexity between importers, indent agents and suppliers, as the hon. the Minister put it in his statement.

Another wrong impression was also created here and it may not simply be left on record. It was said from the opposite side that the Department was so terribly incompetent and unwilling to render assistance to prospective importers when they asked for assistance. But what happens in practice? Hon. members Who have knowledge of these matters should say here what does in fact happen, and they must not come here with vague and false accusations. As the hon. the Minister repeated in his statement yesterday, the following procedure is followed in practice. The importer bears the final responsibility for the payment of import duty. In his own interest he must decide what he wants and what he needs for the purpose of his business or his factory. He then gets in touch with the indent agent, who is the agent of the exporter, and he provides the samples, as he has to do. Hon. members should have mentioned the fact that no duty is imposed on samples. On the basis of the samples, of the description of the contents, and of the price—the “free-on-board” value—the importer decides what he wants to buy and takes the responsibility that he made the correct decision. If the importer is uncertain about the description furnished to him by the importer’s agent, then it is his duty to make inquiries with the Department. The Department is always prepared to say, “Look, this item is a mixture; this item can be interpreted in various ways; therefore we must get an analysis”. The analysis is then made. Hon. members on the other side failed to mention this. As the hon. member for Durban (Point) said, the analysis is made upon payment of R40. The analysis is undertaken by the textile technologists of the S.A.B.S. Hon. members on the other side failed to mention that South Africa has at its disposal a number of brilliant people in the textile technology department of the S.A.B.S. Hon. members failed to mention that the work done by those people are of world standard. If a bona fide importer who wants to keep within the limits of the law should have any doubts as to the contents of any particular material, he may have it analysed without any difficulty and have the nature of the contents ascertained, and on the strength of that analysis by the Bureau the Department is prepared to give a decision, which they are bound to adhere to. This, however, was not mentioned by hon. members on the other side. They tried to hide behind the so-called complexity of the system and the so-called complexity of the forms. If hon. members want to hide behind that, they must answer this question unequivocally: Do they want the protection afforded to our local textile industry to be withdrawn completely? Must overseas competitors be allowed to export their goods to South Africa without any levy or import duty being imposed? [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, we have listened to an interesting lecture on the procedure followed in the normal import of textile piece goods. There is no doubt that the hon. member has given a fairly clear exposition of what normally happens. But he has missed the whole point of our arguments, which is that we on this side have no sympathy with the person trying to evade the rules, but we believe that in their search to try and catch the racketeer the Government is panicking too much and the Department is panicking too much over technical and clerical errors and is unfairly and unnecessarily harming the innocent importer because of clerical mistakes. This is causing hardship not to the guilty but to the innocent. These are quite simple things to establish. It is quite easy to establish where there is a clerical error and it is quite easy to see where there is an apparently fraudulent attempt to evade the payment of duty. But where a person is making no attempt to evade payment of the duty, where there is for instance a simple fault in the description, which must be quite clear, because the goods are there to be examined, then there is a different situation. I know of one case where the word “undyed” was left out. One can see whether material is dyed or undyed because it is there in front of one’s eyes. In a case such as this there is no attempt to defraud, it is simply a clerical mistake. The bill of entry is correct, the goods are there, they are examined, and then they are held up. That is the sort of thing we are objecting to.

The hon. member started off by quoting the hon. member for Pinetown. I just want to make certain that I get this right. He quoted from the speech made by the hon. member for Pinetown and said, “It is unfortunate that the general impression left by the Minister’s statement is …” and then he continued. Is that what he quoted?

I quoted from the speech of the hon. member for Pinetown, as follows—

I repeated the words “most importers”.

I want to establish this because I want to place this on record. The hon. member for Pinetown stated at the very beginning of his speech—

The hon. member made it absolutely clear that it was the Press statements. He went on to deal with the statement that organized commerce was to blame, which had been corrected, and so on. He made it absolutely clear that he was referring to the whole atmosphere created by the Minister’s statement. The hon. member, again for the sake of the record, referred only once to the Department when he said: “One is entitled to ask whether the head of the Department is an expert. Is he a man who has had a lifetime of experience in customs and excise?” That was the only reference.

Now I want to come back to the allegation by the hon. member for Sunnyside that the hon. member for Pinetown and I had attacked the Department, the officials. That was the only reference by the hon. member for Pinetown. I particularly paid tribute to the experience, the dedication and the desire to serve of the Department. I particularly said I do not blame even the head of the Department; I blame the Government for putting him in charge of a Department which has such a technical and highly involved procedure. That is not attacking officials; that is pointing out a cold fact. I had to stop because of time, but I particularly wanted to go on to deal with some of the dissatisfaction in the Department. I dealt with the shockingly poor pay. I referred to the payment of R70 per month as a starting wage for a uniformed officer of the Department, a man with tremendous responsibilities. But it goes much further than that.

I want to deal with the question of transfers. There are these unnecessary transfers. I have asked questions in this House, I do not want to give a lot of figures now, and there seems to be a tendency just to shove people around, very often towards the end of their service just before retirement. Many of those people resign rather than take the transfer. It is this sort of thing that creates dissatisfaction. Here is a Department with onerous and highly responsible duties. My plea is that proper consideration should be given to the responsibilities of the officers of this Department. So far from criticizing them, so far from attacking the officials, I am pleading for them to be given their just due, just the opposite of what the hon. member for Sunnyside alleged. But I criticize the Government for the situation it has created.

I want to come back to what I call the unnecessary regulations which need looking at. I want to give an example in the minute or two I have left. If you get a parcel which has arrived by air parcel post, for instance, you collect it in Durban from the section of the post office concerned where there is also a customs official on duty for certain hours. What I am about to relate has actually happened to me, I am not talking from hearsay. You present your documents and your import permit; you get your parcel, the goods are identified and checked and you get your parcel. But if that parcel comes in by full airmail instead of air parcel, then you cannot collect it. This is what happens. You go to the customs official and he tells you: “Sorry, we do not supply the forms; you must go to an agent.” In this case he gave me forms. But usually one has to go and buy the forms and complete them. Then one has to go to the customs office on the Esplanade to get them stamped and go back to the original office, and by the end of the whole procedure you have spent about two or three days over it. This sort of red tape annoys the importer. It creates a reaction amongst the people themselves, amongst the staff themselves, who try to be helpful but who are tied by this ridiculous red tape and regulations which should be cleared up. What is happening is that the small importer is being driven to the agent. He has to go to a clearing agent. I will quote from examples I have here. In one instance freight and insurance charges amounted to R17 whilst the agent’s account was R35. In the next example the freight cost R25 and the agent charged R45. We are nearly doubling the costs of simply receiving items into South Africa by making it so involved that the ordinary small importer cannot handle it himself. I feel this whole issue should be thoroughly investigated and a proper solution found to all these problems which I have raised.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order 23.

House Resumed:

Progress reported.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.

Mr. Chairman, it is a little difficult for me to react to all the matters which have been raised, particularly in view of the fact that the hon. the Minister, when he made a statement here in the House on Wednesday evening, informed the House, towards the end of his statement that—

Since then a very general discussion of this matter has, notwithstanding that statement, taken place. On the one hand I feel that it is my duty to put the matter as clearly as possible to the House. On the other hand I am hesitant, at least in respect of the pending cases and problems, to furnish too many details, in view of the problem which the Minister foresaw here which is in fact a real problem.

Mr. Chairman, you will recall that a very constructive discussion took place here on Wednesday night under the Treasury Vote. Unfortunately I cannot say the same in respect of the discussion which has taken place under this Vote—Customs and Excise. The matters raised here were not phrased in the spirit of discussing the problem and finding solutions for the future, but in the spirit of trying to gain a little political advantage from what has recently taken place in the Department of Customs and Excise. Hon. members on that side tried to make use of this. Inter alia, they criticized the Department, or rather the officials of the Department. They maintain that they were in point of fact leveling criticism at the Minister who is in charge of this Department, but nevertheless they also criticized the officials. They criticized the existing regulations and the tariffs which were being applied. Inter alia, they stated that criminal offenders were being made of innocent people, and so they went on. To my mind, what it actually amounted to was that they wanted to make a plea here for the people who were contravening the laws and the regulations of the country …

Nonsense.

… and that they were trying here—whether they were doing so consciously or unconsciously I do not know, but one cannot but come to this conclusion—to make excuses why steps should not be taken in these cases. The hon. member for Durban (Point) laid particular emphasis on the fact that innocent people were being caught here and that innocent people were being punished, and it was that he was objecting to. But, Mr. Chairman, it happens everywhere in life that the innocent and the guilty must to a certain extent endure inconvenience in any case because we are compelled to expose the miscreants and the guilty persons. That is why we must simply endure it; we cannot do much about it, but the hon. gentleman must kindly not stand in our way if we want to do our duty and enforce the laws of the country, particularly to protect our industries here in South Africa.

I should like to give a short survey of the position. The fact of the matter is—and I want to emphasize this—that this entire matter has been presented by the newspapers as being of greater magnitude that it really is, and perhaps there is a measure of excuse for the fact that it has been presented in this way. Hon. members on that side have on various occasions referred to the amount of R340 million which was referred to in the statement. I would just like to make it clear that this R340 million does not refer to textiles. I do not know whether hon. members on the opposite side misunderstood it, but this R340 million refers to all the goods which are subject to a rebate, and that includes everything from textiles to spare parts for motor cars. This amount was mentioned to indicate of what magnitude the activities of the Department of Customs and Excise is, and how important it is that there should be proper control in the implementation of the duties of the Department and proper co-operation between the Department and the people affected by it. That is why I want to make it clear that the R340 million does not represent textile goods only. The textile goods which are subject to a rebate amount to plus-minus R28.5 million, and in fact the rebate granted on that R28.5 million is in the region of R1.8 million. The magnitude of this matter is most definitely not as great as was implied in the newspaper reports.

That is just what we wanted to say.

If that is what the hon. member wanted to say then he expressed himself very badly in any case. But then we do not have an argument in respect of those matters, and I am certain that we will still have an argument in respect of other matters.

Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Pinetown is not here to-day. He let me know that he would not be able to be here. The hon. member spoke here about the importer who is being punished by virtue of the fact that the seller in the other country perhaps made an incorrect entry on the invoice. Sir, the only way to exercise control is to hold the importer responsible for the correct completion of the various documents. Hon. members will realize that it cannot be any other way. The manufacturers or the exporters are not under the jurisdiction of the courts of the country. It is only the importers or the buyer who is subject to the jurisdiction of this country, and that is why it is essential that we should hold the importer responsible. It is and it will remain his task to ensure that the manufacturer or the seller completes the invoice according to the requirements of the country to which the goods are being shipped. That is the way things are done here, and that is the way it should be done in any country, and that is the way it will be done in future.

The hon. member for Pinetown asked whether there had been any laxness on the part of the Department, and whether it was the buyers or the importers who were responsible. Sir, I hope that I will succeed in the course of expressing the few ideas I want to express here, in indicating to you that it is the task and the responsibility of the importer to see to it that these things are done properly. What we have experienced and discovered since last year indicates that there is not only gross negligence on the part of importers, but that deliberate deception is also being practised in order to derive financial benefit from that, with the result that the country and its economy is going to be prejudiced by those actions. That is why I say that the importer must continue to be held responsible. The hon. member for Pinetown referred to the complicated tariff. We must admit that it is a complicated tariff. It is a complicated tariff particularly because we have a growing economy, and in particular, growing industrialism in South Africa. The tariffs laid down are not laid down by the Department of Customs and Excise. The tariffs are recommended from time to time by the Board of Trade and Industries, and the recommendations of the Board in respect of rebates, etc., is referred in the first instance to the Minister of Economic Affairs. The tariffs play a supplementary role in protecting and promoting our industries in all their various ramifications here in South Africa. It is for this reason that the tariffs are complicated, and, particularly during the past year or two, they have become even more complicated, for at the beginning of 1965 we adopted the Brussels designations. It has recently become even more complicated, therefore and this greater complication has, as in other countries, as I shall indicate, created greater opportunities for finding loopholes, and practising deceit to try to avoid paying taxes.

The hon. member for Pinetown said it was taking so long that they were forced to sign admissions of guilt, but it is strange that not one of them have as yet gone to court. It is possible for them to go to court, but they have not done so yet, and I want to ask the hon. member what that points to? If one has a good case, then surely one goes to court. In the Department of Customs and Excise certain officers are specifically trained in textile wares. The hon. members referred to the head of the Department, and asked whether he was an expert on textiles. Is that not a ridiculous question? Of course the chief cannot be expected to be an expert on textiles only. He is the head of the Department who has to cope with the entire administration, and I am not going to aver here that he is an outstanding expert on textiles. I said a moment ago that the value of the goods which are subject to rebate alone is R340 million, of which textiles comprise only R28 million. Why should the hon. members expect us to have to appoint an expert on textiles? What about all the other things?

That was not the hon. member for Pinetown’s question.

In conclusion the hon. member for Pinetown alleged inter alia in his speech that “other hon. members on this side will give details of factories having to close down and people put out of work”. I am still waiting for that. I am still waiting to hear about factories which were closed down and people who were put out of work. I am still waiting for the examples which were supposed to have been put forward from that side of the House as a result of the delays which there had supposedly been, caused by the Department, but up to now we have not received any such examples. I do not know why hon. members on the opposite side make such wild allegations if they cannot prove them. I have copies of documents here, and I would like to make them available to hon. members, if they are interested in them. The one is the invoice and the other document is the bill of clearance. I have examples of the invoice in front of me. It does not contain insurmountable difficulties. The hon. member for East London (City) also mentioned that it was a totally impossible task, and that the complexity of these tariffs was simply impossible to overcome. I also have here a few cases where a sample of the material was attached, as the regulations now make provision for, where the description was beautifully set out in the invoice. It is not a terribly complicated document, and the accompanying bill of clearance which has to agree with the description in the invoice, is not so complicated that the difficulty becomes an insurmountable one. But hon. members wanted to offer excuses as to why importers could not comply with these complicated regulations—I do not know why—but the only result that will lead to is that there will be more fraudulent practices than there are to-day, unless of course we throw overboard all our attempts to protect our industries in this country, and to supply the necessary revenue to the country to which it is entitled.

I now want to come to the hon. member for Durban (Point). The hon. member must remember that in Afrikaans we are often inclined to compare a great noise with an empty tin. The hon. member has recently, and particularly in respect of this matter, tried to make a great noise, but he did not actually achieve anything by doing so. I think it is my task to say something in that regard. The hon. member has just referred to the hon. member for Florida, and he said: “If the hon. member is in the trade he will know that three-quarters of what he said is utter nonsense.” It puts me in mind of one of my friends who was a lecturer at the University of Cape Town in the Department of Education, the late Eddie Pells. During the War he was in the homeguard and one night when the sergeant-major gave them a lecture on weapons, he asked Pells a question and the reply was not to the sergeant-major’s liking. When the sergeant-major said to him: “Well, Private Pells, it is impossible to get anything into your nut; I wonder what you do in private life?” Eddie stood up and said: “Sir, I teach teachers to teach.” The hon. member for Durban (Point) as compared to the hon. member for Florida, put me in mind of that incident. The hon. member for Florida, with his experience, is the one who can say: “I teach teachers to teach.” The hon. member for Durban (Point), on the other hand, is a layman, according to the assertions he made here, but in spite of that he is prepared to say three-quarters of what the hon. member for Florida said is absolute nonsense.

The hon. member for Durban (Point) objected, to the fact that the amount which now has to be paid to the Bureau of Standards for the examination of materials is too high. It has increased in recent years, I will admit. Originally it was only R8 and later it increased to R16. Recently, particularly as steps were taken and the tests were carried out, far less tests were carried out by the Bureau. On the basis of the fact that the staff there have to be kept on on a very expensive basis, the cost has been increased so that to-day it amounts to R40. But now I should like to ask the hon. member for Durban (Point) whether he is aware of the fact that in cases where it is acknowledged that the importer is correct, he does not pay that R40, but it is paid by the Department of Customs and Excise? I should like the hon. member to give me an indication of whether he is aware of the fact that when the importer is acknowledged to be in the right, where the test shows that the description on the invoice is correct, the importer does not pay the R40.

Yes, in certain circumstances.

The hon. member says he is aware of that. Only where the test is made by the Bureau and it is found that an incorrect description was given on the invoice, and that a higher tax is payable, only then does the importer pay. But if the test shows that the description is correct and that the importer is not liable to heavier duties, then the Department pays for that. Provision is made in the Estimates for that. Now my question to the hon. member is the following. If he is aware of that, why did he mislead the House the other night by bringing the House under the impression that these importers are responsible for the payment of that R40?

It depends upon who asks for the tests.

The hon. member said he was aware of that. If he is aware of that then he deliberately brought this House under a false impression the other night.

Order! The Deputy Minister may not say that.

I withdraw the statement that he did it deliberately. I shall describe the facts of the matter as follows: The hon. member knew that only if the importer was guilty did he pay the R40.

Or if he requests the test, in order to have his goods released.

Then he pays the R40, but when the test is requested by the Department, and it is found that the importer was correct, then it is paid not by the importer but by the Department.

What percentage of the tests carried out are requested by the Department?

I cannot give that information at the moment, but I shall try to tell the hon. member before I have finished. I am not dealing with that now. I am dealing with the facts of this matter. The hon. member stated that he knew this, but nevertheless he tried to create the impression in this House—no, he actually said so—that these people were objecting because they had to pay the R40, and that it was too high. I maintain that surely this is not the way in which debates should be conducted in this, the highest council chamber in the country.

You are wresting my words out of context completely. Read my Hansard.

The hon. member tried to create the impression here, to such an extent that even other hon. members reacted to it. In fact, those hon. members are still under the same impression and I call them as my witnesses. Why does the hon. member complain if the importer is wrong and he is compelled to pay that amount? For surely he is only getting his just deserts? The hon. member stated, “samples are submitted …”

Read the sentence before that.

Very well. The hon. member said—

In this way the hon. member tried to bring the House under the impression that all these people were responsible for the payment of this R40. But even if he did not try to create that impression what is his argument directed against if that importer has to pay that amount only when he has committed a contravention? Surely the importer is then getting his just deserts, and he must pay that amount. Then I and the hon. member probably have no mercy for him, because there are sure signs of deliberate deception on his part in regard to the importation of goods and the payment of customs duties. I repeat, the hon. member tried to bring this House under a wrong impression. Apart from that, the arguments of the hon. member are no arguments under these circumstances.

I now want to come to another matter which the hon. member also referred to here. The other day the hon. member came to me with a case. He is after all the person who is pleading for innocent people. Recently he came to me and asked me to help him in a case where a consignment of cotton had been held back because the invoice had not been completed properly. I explained to him that the Department has been forced to act very carefully at the moment as a result of certain events which have come to our attention. Nevertheless we investigated his case. In the meantime the Department also received objections from industrialists that there had been irregularities in regard to the importation of these articles. In any case, we investigated the hon. member’s case. It then appeared that the invoice was incomplete in this sense that they had omitted to mention whether the cotton was coloured or whether it was plain. A higher duty is paid on plain cotton. For this reason the consignment was held back. The Department cannot allow these incorrect descriptions of consignments to take place in documents from day to day, from week to week, and from month to month, but it must make an attempt to compel the manufacturers, through the importers, to furnish proper descriptions. After all, we cannot make an incorrect calculation based on invoices which have been filled in incompletely or incorrectly, except of course if you go and examine the consignment itself. Does that hon. member expect that the consignment should be opened for a physical inspection in each case where the invoice has been filled in incorrectly or incompletely?

Was the bill of clearance properly made out?

I shall explain everything that happened here. I think the hon. member is going to regret the fact that I raised this particular matter. The hon. member cannot expect the Department to adopt the attitude that documents can merely be filled in in a slipshod way and that the Department has to make a physical examination where there is any doubt in regard to the description of the consignments. Surely we cannot do that. In the first instance, we must teach the people to complete the documents properly, and in the second instance that they must be honest and that they must furnish a correct description of the goods in these documents. In this case, the description of the goods was not an incorrect, but an incomplete one. Now we can not allow them to omit information at will, and expect the Department to institute an investigation. Our instructions are that the documents must be filled in properly and correctly. The regulations make provision for that—and not only for correct returns, but also for proper completion in every respect. In this case the invoice was incorrect and the bill of clearance was correct. The invoice was incomplete. In any case, the hon. member and I agreed that the Department would make the goods available to him on the condition that the importer in question would come to the Department and he undertook to furnish an explanation as to why the invoice had not been completed properly. That was the agreement the hon. member and I reached. But what happened subsequently? I have the file here. From this it appears that subsequently various other consignments of similar goods to the same buyers have arrived, but we are still waiting to-day for an explanation on their part. In the meantime the Department has decided that, since they did not come and furnish that explanation, they will be penalized. And you must remember that the hon. member stated that these are honourable people, and that they wanted to co-operate with the Department. In any case, the Department then decided to impose a nominal penalty of 5 per cent in this case, and it was paid by the importers. But up to the present they have still not furnished us with an explanation. If the hon. member’s clients wanted to co-operate with the Department then surely they could have given us the explanation so that we could clarify the matter in future.

They had to pay that because their machines were standing still.

The hon. member is saying the wrong thing now. The agreement between him and me was that the Department would make the goods available on condition that they would in due course furnish the Department with an explanation. But we are still waiting for that explanation to-day. Now I ask you, what is behind it? What is behind the attitude of that “honourable” firm, as the hon. member called it? My contention is that the clearance agents, or some such persons, want to force the Department in some way or other to refrain from applying the regulations strictly, and by so doing to keep the door open to them to continue with their incorrect procedure of the past. I am not saying that those people are amongst those offenders who are deliberately practising deception. But what I do expect of them—the hon. member will perhaps come to me again—is co-operation with the Department of Customs and Excise, and he can go and tell that to his clients. If this is an example of good people, what must we expect from the bad? The hon. member stated that these irregularities were not being committed in the form of incorrect entries. I just want to inform the member that he is totally wrong as far as that idea which he expressed is concerned. He said that it would be absolutely foolish, if a piece of the material was attached to the invoice, to make an incorrect entry. I do not have the time to furnish the House with examples of that, and take up the Committee’s time, but I want to assure the hon. member that we can refer him to cases where one piece of material was attached while the package contained another type of material on which a higher duty was payable. The hon. member can take my word for that. I am prepared to give him examples of that. That is what happened. Since the Minister of Finance has at this juncture made a statement to bring the malpractices to the attention of the public, we did not do so to expose a “racket” as they called it here in its entirety. Only the actual facts of the case were made available to the public in the statement, and particularly to the people who have to co-operate with the Department in regard to these imports. That is why it was essential. I agree with the hon. member that the greatest difficulty we are experiencing is in regard to the manipulation of prices. He said 90 per cent. I do not believe 90 per cent is correct, but I would go so far as to tell him that in the majority of cases we have to do with manipulation. I should like to furnish the House with two examples.

The one example is that where there is a higher priced article, the rebate is higher. Then they place a higher price on the imported article by way of an agreement between the importer and the seller, the overseas manufacturer, and then it becomes subject to a greater rebate. By means of some or other kind of manipulation that money is channelled back through another source to the importer. That is the one case. But the other case was explained to this House by the hon. member for Durban (Point) himself. A variety of goods are imported and then higher prices are loaded on to the one and lower prices on to the other, so as to obtain a greater rebate on the articles which have been imported. The hon. member is aware of this. He mentioned that example to the House. It is so. But now I want to say to the hon. member: He told the Committee that I have knowledge of the fact that it has been taking place for years. No credit redounds to the hon. member for having made that assertion.

It is investigated every four to five years.

The Department is always engaged on it. The hon. member said: “I was in the textile industry myself. Three years ago I left. I knew what was going on.” But he is a member of this House of Assembly, and he is a responsible man, and he has never stood up in this House or gone to the Minister and said that they should do something about it.

But you have the investigation.

Very well. A moment ago the hon. member wanted to create the impression that we were not giving this matter our attention. Now he is giving that as an excuse for his not, as a responsible man, having brought to our attention the fact that we had in fact investigated the matter.

Did you or did you not investigate the matter?

The fact of the matter is that this part of the fraud is the most difficult of all. The hon. member will agree with me, because bow are the people to be brought to book? We do in fact have agents overseas who institute investigations there, because it is essential that we know the factory price as well as the free-on-board price. It is necessary for the purposes of our tariffs that this be determined. The tariffs are determined on the basis of the highest of the two.

But, Sir, in regard to these manipulations, it is not possible for us to establish this. The hon. member will agree with me; it is extremely difficult. It is only now that we have, through the agency of the police, impounded documents in the offices of importers so that one can, through their correspondence, establish whether such agreements had been entered into between the manufacturers and the importers. If the hon. member or any other hon. members can suggest to me another method of pinning down this price manipulation and seeing to it that a stop is put to these fraudulent practices, I would gladly listen to them. But then they must not come forward with this type of speech which has a prejudicial effect rather than a constructive one.

The hon. member also referred to GATT and read out a section to us. I also have it here and I can also read it out to the House. He read out to us an article from the GATT agreement, which amounts to this that one should impose only a light punishment in cases of clerical errors. That is all very well. Does the hon. member now want to hold up this condition of GATT to us and imply that we must not take steps in cases where we suspect people of cheating or irregularities? Surely it does not stipulate that one should neglect one’s duty as an official of a Department of this country. That is why we will not do so. GATT does not state that we must impose penalties.

I was not talking about that.

Why did the hon. member read out that article from the GATT agreement? There is only one purpose for which he could have read it out …

You yourself gave an example of a 5 per cent penalty for leaving out one word in an invoice.

Very well then, but that is all it is. It is a nominal penalty. The article of GATT, to which the hon. member referred, reads as follows—

That is all that is stated here, “substantial penalties”. Does the hon. member want to tell me that 5 per cent is a “substantial penalty”? Of course not—

That is what we are trying to do. The hon. member surely does not expect me to impose a penalty of less than 5 per cent. If I am not to be allowed to impose a penalty of 5 per cent, then what must I impose? Arising from the article which he read out to me, I deduced that all the hon. member wanted me to do was to shrug my shoulders and do nothing, to let matters take their own course. I am not prepared to do that.

I should like to conclude. The hon. member referred here to our officials—and I see it has also been reported in this morning’s Press—and stated that the uniformed officials were working with millions of rands and earning a meagre salary. Very well, then. I am not going to discuss the salary. This is not a matter over which the Department has exclusive control. I only want to say in passing that these officials fall into the same salary scales as all the other officials in the Public Service. They also fall under the control of the Public Service Commission. That is all I want to say in passing. He did in fact say something which is incorrect and that is that they were working with millions of rands. Sir, it is not so. The people in uniform do not work with the clearance of imported goods. They only work with passengers arriving by ship or by aircraft. The imports are handled by the administrative staff and these people do not in any way deal with those millions of rands to which the hon. member referred and to which the newspapers also referred this morning. It is a misleading representation of the true state of affairs.

The hon. member for East London (City) also spoke. He did not say much more than was said by other hon. members, except for one point which is actually in conflict with the arguments of that side. He admitted that this kind of thing was not only occurring in South Africa, but also in numerous other countries of the world. I want to emphasize that this is in fact correct. That, in itself, is an indication that this class of goods lend themselves to irregularities such as we are now experiencing in South Africa, and such as other countries of the world are also experiencing.

I stated that that was the case, and that that was the reason why the system should be simplified.

Yes, I shall come to that. Because this problem is now being experienced here, it does not necessarily mean that we are the offenders, and that our administration is not efficient. I should like to read to the Committee what has been said in this regard by the Australian Minister of Customs and Excise, but it is a rather long article. It amounts to precisely what we have just said. Here is also a report which appeared in the Pretoria News of 26th September, 1967, which read as follows—

That is precisely what I mentioned a moment ago. The report concludes—

They therefore have this kind of problem in Britain, as well as in other countries. All that the hon. member proved therefore was that these articles lend themselves to irregularities of this nature because the system is such a complicated one. For the sake of our growing economy and for the protection of our industries it is essential that the system be complicated; otherwise we cannot afford the great variety of protection we want to afford in South Africa.

The hon. member stated that it must be simplified. I want to admit that the system is in fact a complicated one, and we are at present making attempts to simplify it. An additional member has been appointed to the Board of Trade and Industries, in the person of Professor Reynders particularly for the purpose of trying to effect a simplification of the tariffs. I want to give the House the assurance that we will try, and we are in fact engaged on this, to simplify the tariffs. However, I want to say to hon. members that they must not expect the Government to allow relaxations and so encourage irregularities even further than was the case in the past.

Vote put and agreed to.

Revenue Votes 23,—Health, R32,180,000, and 24,—Health, Hospitals and Institutions, R17,375,000:

Mr. Chairman, by the courtesy of my colleague from Durban (Central) I will be speaking during the first ten minutes of this debate. He has been good enough to delay his contribution until a little later.

It seems to me that the pebble which I dropped into the pond of Scientology last year has caused not just a ripple but a great wave of resentment, particularly of course from people who are interested in Scientology. When I spoke last year and asked for an inquiry to be held into the affairs and practice of Scientology I did not think that there would be such a wave of resentment. I did feel that if this cult, or as it is now called, this religion, was for the benefit of the country, its adherents would have no objection to a commission of inquiry investigating or seeking further elucidation about their practices. There has been so much resentment because of my efforts in this direction that this sort of letter has been going out, especially to Parliamentarians. I wish to quote one sentence from this letter I have here—

Many other letters have been circulated, letters in which I am given quite a lot of prominence. I wonder why these people are putting up such a spirited defence? What is it they fear? They have gone further than that. I have been given a few letters and brochures which are quite startling. They emanate from Ron Hubbard who, I understand, is the leader of Scientology. What is printed in these letters is quite shaking because it does affect Members of Parliament particularly. I am going to read a few excerpts from this particular letter I have here because I consider them to be so terribly important. The letter deals particularly with the critics of Scientology. Listen to this—

This sort of allegation is very serious. They adopt these tactics in an effort to stop people criticizing them. Indeed, it is almost a matter for Mr. Speaker to deal with. It goes on—

This is the sort of thing that is published and used as threats to silence the critics of Scientology. The pamphlet goes on to say—

I think our police force, our courts of law, our system of justice are adequately equipped as far as the combating of crime is concerned. We do not need another police force; we do not need another investigating force to see if crimes are being committed in this country. If one has the courage to stand up and ask for an inquiry, it should not be possible to blackmail one into silence. Sir, this is the sort of thing that happens; this comes from one of the professors at a very prominent university in our country, a professor who is interested in studying Scientology to see what it is all about. He was called upon to see a doctor who had some experience in Scientology matters and in Scientology practice. When this doctor was asked if he would speak about Scientology, this is what happened—

Sir, this is the thread that we see throughout. People who want to give evidence are afraid to do so because of the threat hanging over them. You will remember, Sir, that last year I read out some of the questions which form part of the security check. People wishing to join the Scientology movement are asked whether they have ever committed any of the crimes listed in the questions. If they answer “yes” and admit having committed one of these crimes, one can imagine how the sword of Damocles will be held over their heads if they should ever attempt to criticize this organization. This letter from a professor at one of our universities goes on to say—

People are afraid to come forward to give evidence. Sir, I do not know what the hon. the Minister can do in this matter, but I appeal to him to help those people who are seeking help, to help those people who are already suffering because of persecution by these people; to help those people who wish to leave Scientology because they have found that it does not fit their way of life. [Time expired.]

The hon. member for Rosettenville spoke about Scientology and asked the Minister to appoint a commission of inquiry to investigate this movement. I do not know very much about Scientology, but on the strength of the little knowledge I do have of it I should say that it is rather unsavoury, and I would not be sorry if the hon. the Minister would have this movement investigated so that we may come to know more about it, for to my mind it could possibly have a detrimental effect on our population. I think that if we were to investigate this movement it could only be to the good.

I should like to say a few words about the classification of and the responsibility for medical services under the present system in South Africa. We all know that the present system was introduced when South Africa became a Union and that the system has become so outdated that it is being criticized from all angles. Years ago the Government appointed the Borckenhagen Commission to investigate the financial relations among the Government, the provincial councils and the local authorities. We are also aware of the fact that the Borckenhagen Commission submitted an interim report on health services. We are also aware of the fact that the Schumann Commission drafted a report as well. I cannot discuss the latter report as yet, because we have not yet had access to the report of the Schumann Commission, nor has the Government indicated as yet whether or not it is going to accept the recommendations made by the Borckenhagen Commission. That is why I feel that it is not permissible to say very much about this matter at this stage. However, I just want to point out to the hon. the Minister that these commissions approached his matter from the financial angle. My personal opinion is that to approach health services from a financial angle, is to adopt the wrong method. I feel that the only basis on which one should approach the health services of the country, is to do so on the basis of what is in the best interests of the patient. The financial aspect must be of secondary importance. Since we shall not have finality within the next year or two, I should like to ask the hon. the Minister whether he could come to our assistance in a few cases in respect of which I feel that there is dissatisfaction and that improvements can be effected. In this respect I want to refer to patients who are dependent upon district surgeons for the medical services they receive. At the moment the aged, the social pensioners who draw pensions owing to disabilities which make it impossible for them to earn a living, as well as those who do not have the necessary means to call in a private practitioner, must obtain from the magistrate an order authorizing the district surgeon to provide them with medical services. When these people are suddenly overcome by illness over a weekend and telephone the district surgeon or ask another person to telephone him and to ask him to give them medical treatment, the district surgeon immediately asks them whether they have obtained an order from the magistrate. If they say that they were unable to obtain an order, the district surgeon refuses to treat these poor people. What are they to do then? Then they telephone a private practitioner and ask him to visit them. If the private practitioner asks them why they telephoned him and not the district surgeon, they say that they are private patients. Some doctors insist on being paid in cash by the patient. The aged do not have the ready cash, and then they must try to get another doctor who is prepared to call on them and to wait until the end of the month. As a rule these old people cannot pay the private practitioner’s fees, and if they do manage to pay such accounts, they have to go without food. They are charged R5 for a night or week-end visit by the doctor, and in addition to that they have to pay for medicine, because they buy it on a prescription made out by a private practitioner. It means, therefore, that these poor people have to pay R10 or R11 to receive medical attention, and then they have to go without money for the rest of the month. I feel that this is an injustice that has to be remedied, and I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether in the case of old-age pensioners and social pensioners an arrangement cannot be made whereby it would be sufficient for them to show their pension cards to the district surgeon when they visit him for treatment at his surgery, or when he visits them at home? This procedure will to a large extent eliminate these difficulties experienced by the aged, and I want to ask the hon. the Minister to be so kind as to attend to this matter as soon as possible.

Then there is another matter that I should like to bring to the notice of the hon. the Minister, and that is the fact that at present many more people are suffering from mental diseases or disorders of the mind than before. We find that the increase in the number of mental patients is not only attributable to the fact that the population is increasing, but also the percentage of the population suffering from some form of mental defect or other is steadily increasing. This can only be attributed to the tensions experienced by the people to-day as a result of the increased industrialization of the country and the fact that people are called upon to render services for which they are not properly equipped. This causes constraint, and then these people have to seek the aid of psychiatrists. For instance, here in the Cape we even heard that there is, as compared with the previous week, a daily increase of 60 in the number of out-patients examined by psychiatrists. This is how the pressure is steadily increasing, and it is also for that reason that more people are being admitted to mental hospitals. Therefore I want to say at once that we are grateful for the fact that the (Minister and the Government are aware of this need, and that they are having a hospital built at Mafeking—a hospital which is still under construction—where more room will be made available. We have also been informed that the Government intends to have a new mental hospital for Coloureds built at Kraaifontein. We are very grateful for that, but we also know that the planning and the construction of such hospitals take a great deal of time. But with the aid of the new drugs available to doctors and psychiatrists to-day, it is possible for them to give these mental patients much better treatment and to bring them back to normal life much sooner than was the case before. The over-crowding at hospitals does not help the patients to recover more quickly, and that is why we want to ask that, if possible, as much extra accommodation as possible should be made available for mental patients as soon as possible. As I am saying, I realize that it will take some time before this provision can be made, but I am asking that, in spite of the inflationary trend, this aspect should have preference. I also want to ask the Minister to give attention to the therapeutic sections at mental hospitals. After these people have been treated and their mental condition has improved, they go to the therapeutic section where they are rehabilitated so that they may be returned to the community where they must once again pull their weight and where they are once again subjected to the tensions that are to be found in society to-day. We find that many patients are unable to receive this occupational therapy, because there is insufficient ward space and other facilities at these hospitals. If the Minister could make these facilities available immediately, I feel that it would be possible for us to treat these people, to discharge them from mental institutions and to re-instate them as useful citizens of the country within a much shorter period of time.

Order! Before calling on the next hon. member, I wish to announce that I am also putting Revenue Vote 24,—Health: Hospitals and Institutions, R17,375,000, in order that the two Votes may be dealt with simultaneously.

I want to continue for a moment or two on the subject I have been talking about, and I want to draw attention to the attitude these people take towards their critics. If it is the intention at some time or other to have an investigation, I want the Minister to be forwarned of how they speak of their critics. As the Minister knows, Scientology has been barred from the state of Victoria in Australia. They had the Anderson Commission there, which found against them. They say here in their booklet, “Kangaroo Court”, talking about the people of Victoria—

Then they go on and say that Victoria consists of the riff-raff of the London Slums, robbers, murderers, prostitutes, thieves, coming from Newgate and Bedlam. What I want to bring out is the attitude that these people have to persons who criticize them. They can never say anything good about their critics. They sink to the lowest possible depths in condemning those people who criticize them. I want to leave it at that, because there may be one or two other speakers dealing with this matter.

I now want to deal with a matter which I think is most important for us in this country, and that is the incidence of tuberculosis. I want to bring to the notice of the Committee that in 1964 there were 66,701 cases notified, and in 1967 69,261 cases. There has been an increase of approximately 3,500 cases in this period. The source of the explosion in the spread of tuberculosis might quite easily be in the Transkei. The Minister was good enough, in answer to a question I put to him, to give certain figures concerning the areas in the Transkei which are affected by tuberculosis. In the Tsolo area there were new notifications numbering 994 out of a population of 48,000. These are approximate population figures. I cannot vouch for them. They were taken at the last census, and we know how difficult it is to get a correct census figure. In Butterworth there were 134 new notifications in a population of 32,000. In Umtata there are 1,095 new notifications out of a population of 70,000. In the Cape Divisional Council area we had 3,066 notifications. These are startling figures and one wonders how the Minister has been spending the vast sums of money that have been voted for combating tuberculosis. He must know more about the subject than we do, but I was rather disappointed, to say the very least, to find that the Minister has only got three mobile X-ray units in the whole of the Transkei to deal with this infection which is spreading through the whole of South Africa through the migrant labour system. One wonders what steps the Minister now intends taking to combat the spread of this disease. We know that there have been negotiations between the United Municipal Executive and the Minister, but the Minister has to put his foot down and say that no Bantu can leave his homeland in the Transkei, or any other homeland in South Africa, unless he has a chest clear of tuberculosis. He has to be X-rayed before he leaves his homeland, and if there is any suspicion of tuberculosis in his lungs he must not be allowed to go and spread the disease in other parts of the country. That of course is becoming a terrible danger to us. Remarks made by doctors working in the area are quite startling. They say that tuberculosis education, for instance, is non-existent in the Transkei—absolutely nil. We have also heard from reports that because of the shortage of beds and because of the unsatisfactory way of dealing with contacts there are children who are sleeping in the same huts and virtually in the same beds as persons suffering from tuberculosis. So, the Minister has a vast job of work on his hands, and he has to tackle it. He has to find the personnel to help him to tackle it. He has to spend as much as he possibly can on getting sufficient X-ray units and persons capable of taking X-rays. The Minister must make sure that he isolates those who have the disease from those who still have healthy lungs. I do not have the figures, but I think the number of deaths due to tuberculosis in the Transkei may be shocking, if the information we have is correct. I am not going now into the question of the number of beds that are available. The Minister himself admitted in this House that there was not sufficient beds. He has to try to double the number of beds available and that means that he has to erect new buildings, personnel to man them and doctors to look after the infected persons. To-day vaccines and the new treatments are available, but is the best use being made of these facilities? Why is there such a backlog? Why does the number of notifications of tuberculosis cases keep on increasing? The Minister says it is because of the process of sifting that they are undertaking at the moment, and that through this more cases come to light. That may be the case. I think that from contact alone this disease must be spreading throughout the Transkei like wild fire.

I said the Minister would have to find more personnel. Doctors who are to operate in the Transkei have to come from our universities and the Minister should use his influence to see that more doctors are trained, more African doctors especially, because until this is done we shall never be able to combat this disease. The latest figures in respect of university passes indicate that only 11 Bantu qualified as doctors in the whole of South Africa. According to the figures I have taken out, there is only one new doctor every year for every 10,000 Whites; one Asiatic for every 13,000; one Coloured doctor for every 100,000 Coloureds; and one new doctor for every 1¼ million Bantu. [Time expired.]

As a medical practitioner I cannot but agree with the hon. member for Rosettenville’s plea for the combating of tuberculosis. The incidence of tuberculosis is alarming, and this may perhaps be attributed to the fact that we in South Africa are dealing with fragmented health services as was also mentioned by the hon. member for Geduld. The shortage of doctors presents us with many problems, and the fact of the matter is that it is virtually impossible for the provincial administrations, to which the major share of our convalescent services have been assigned, to continue those services if they do not have their own medical faculty. Therefore I hope that as far as this matter is concerned, the hon. the Minister will use his influence as far as the Orange Free State is concerned.

But this is not what I want to talk about to-day. We are experiencing a wave of heart-transplants, and consequently we are inclined to overlook things which are not quite as sensational. And yet these things are just as important, if not more so. The primary goal of any health service is to preserve health and to restore health. To-day I want to confine myself for the most part to measures taken for the purpose of preserving health. Here we have two aspects: The health of the individual as such, and the health of the nation; in other words, public health. In the majority of cases the individual does not know what is being done under the heading “Public Health”. We have, for instance, the chlorination of water, the extermination of mosquitos and malaria— to mention but a few. When we come to the individual aspect, it is something with which the individual himself should be familiar. To a certain extent the law plays a part and the individual can be compelled to do his share. In this respect I am thinking of vaccination against smallpox, for instance. But on the other hand there is a very wide field in which the individual must act on his own initiative. All the State can do in this field, is to provide him with guidance.

Large-scale research is being carried out in our country. The National Institute for Food Research, for instance, is doing valuable work. But they are the professional research workers, i.e. the people who are searching for a solution. In addition there is the large group of medical practitioners who discover the problem and find the idea. But if a research worker finds a solution, it does not necessarily mean that the problem has been solved. The public should first be made aware of the solution. That requires co-ordination among the research workers, the medical practitioners and the administrative officers of the Department of Health who have to provide guidance. Until the result of the research has reached the general public, it only has scientific value. That is why it is so essential for us to be able to inform the public—we must help these people to help themselves. In actual fact we should, to use a phrase we hear so often nowadays, move outwards from the medical circle, from the Department of Health to the public outside so as to teach them to help themselves.

I call to mind a visit to a sick Bantu lad on a farm in the Free State in the days when I still practised medicine. The diagnosis was pellagra—nutritional oedema. When I asked the farmer whether he did not have skimmed milk with which he could feed the Bantu lad, the farmer replied that he did have a great deal of skimmed milk but that the Bantu regarded skimmed milk as food for pigs. You see, Sir, here we had an obvious solution for the disease from which this Bantu lad suffered, namely a protein deficiency. The solution was at hand, but the necessary guidance was lacking.

But are the underprivileged the only people suffering from malnutrition? Do we all realize that the food on which we are using our teeth, will determine whether or not we may in future become possible patients for heart transplants? Do we have any idea of the value of brown bread? Is it so impossible to raise brown bread to the level of a status symbol, particularly if we consider what tobacco manufacturers have been able to achieve with their advertising campaigns? Hon. members will ask: Do these people not receive the information? They do receive a great deal of information. In the Press they are being bombarded with information from all angles. But this information is in actual fact nothing but a highly sophisticated sales technique. Hon. members may open any newspaper. I took only one edition of a Sunday paper. When I had finished reading about all the problems, the new Ruiterwag organizations and Rapportryers, I started looking at the advertisements. Here is one of them: “Illuminating new facts about sugar and your diet” by the South African Sugar Association. The impression is being created that, if one wants to lose weight, one should eat sugar. One can go further than that: “ ‘Miracle skin cure’ scandal.” This is an advertisement that was placed in order to advertise a cure for certain skin disorders— money was paid in by certain people but they did not get anything in return. In another newspaper one finds the following heading: “The Pill.” This pill is meant “for men and women”. It helps for just about everything. “Are you tired, miserable, irritable, listless, sluggish, headachy, nervy, depressed, uncomfortable, bilious?” I think it would also bring the United Party relief from “political frustration”! On another page they even advertise a new hair-restorer. The hon. member for Rosettenville and I would tell you that there is only one solution for falling hair: resign yourself to your fate. We can continue in this vein. In addition people are being swamped with pamphlets in their letter-boxes. “ ‘Longevity diet’ can add up to 25 years to your life.” And so it goes on. Hon. members will ask: What should we do? There are quite a number of bodies and persons that are trying to provide guidance, but there is no coordination whatsoever. The Department of Health provides guidance. They must provide guidance in regard to personal hygiene. Municipalities provide guidance, also in regard to personal hygiene. The Department of Agricultural Technical Services has officials who provide guidance in regard to diets. The Nutrition Association of Southern Africa also provides guidance in this regard. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Rosettenville informed me that he would have to leave the House by 12 o’clock, and for that reason I just want to reply, as a matter of courtesy, to a few of the important points he raised here.

The first point he raised was the possible action we could take in regard to Scientology. I want to say straight away that I think all of us disapprove of the tone of those threats to which the hon. member referred. To my mind threats of that nature do not belong in our country. It is not proper to make use of threats in order to silence a person who is criticizing one. If one has a good case, that case will stand on its own legs and threats will therefore not be necessary at all. I agree with him; I think we condemn it altogether. But once we have condemned it, we should ask ourselves whether we are entitled to go any further. The hon. member was very fair in the way he stated his point of view. He said that, if these people were committing any offence, if they were contravening the law, the police had the power, and had also been instructed in terms of our legislation, to take immediate action. Therefore if our laws are being contravened, the remedy does exist, and that remedy is the action taken by the police. However, the question is whether or not we can go any further or whether we should investigate the matter. Now we are faced with this difficult problem, namely that we as a democratic country and nation respect the freedom of every person to do as he pleases, as long as he does not contravene the laws of the country. If we were to investigate that person on the strength of any rumour, story or gossip, would we not in fact be creating an inquisitional state of affairs? We must be extremely careful, not only to make it impossible for that accusation to be leveled, but also to ensure that we shall never lend ourselves to making any person in our country feel unsafe when he expresses criticism, or does something, or enters a new field. Such a person must not harbour the fear that as a result of this an inquisition could be instituted against him. I want to say at once that if any malpractices are brought to our notice, the least any government has to do is to institute an inquiry. This Government will not hesitate to do so either. The position is that up to now I have been unable to find any accusation or fact which has been brought to my notice and which would justify such an inquiry. I am not the only one who finds himself in that position; the British Government finds itself in the same position to-day. For the information of the hon. member, I want to quote from a newspaper to point out to him what happened in the British Parliament recently. The report reads as follows—

I assume that he did not have any other proof either. Therefore we have the position that in England, where they also have a system which is very much like ours and where they also have the freedom which we grant our people, there is insufficient evidence to convince that Government that it should take action. We must bear in mind, as the hon. member for Geduld pointed out, that at present life is full of tensions. It is a fact that owing to the tensions that are attendant upon the modern way of life, there are more tensions that prey on the mind of man and more causes driving him to mental aberrations. In numerous cases and in increasing numbers we find people who, owing to domestic difficulties, social difficulties and difficulties in their profession, are inclining more and more towards the border of mental derangement. We know that this is in fact the most expensive field of medicine in which to effect cures. We know that people who visit psychiatrists—people to whom modern techniques of psycho-analysis have to be applied and who have to receive other treatment—have to receive prolonged treatment and that they have to pay exorbitant fees. Here we have a group of persons— whether they are right or wrong, I do not know—and they claim that through their methods they can bring relief to scores of people. I have examined the available literature on scientology as well as the Anderson Report that was published in Australia. One does not like all the suggestions that are made in those publications, but it would nevertheless seem as though they are achieving results. I do not want to say that this is the case, but I do want to tell you about a strange experience. I expected people who accept scientology in South Africa to be lost people. If that had been the case it would have been accepted by ignorant people. But do you know what my experience has been? I was really astonished at some of the people who approached me as a result of articles that had been published, and especially as a result of the hon. member for Rosettenville’s intention to introduce a motion on scientology in this House. Prominent people came to me to discuss this matter, and they assured me that they did not see anything wrong in this movement, that it had in fact helped them tremendously. We shall never hesitate when it comes to investigating something which is obviously wrong, provided that the necessary evidence does exist. But on the other hand I feel that we do not have the right to take action, unless the necessary proof is in fact available. I want to give the hon. member the assurance, as I told him in private on a few occasions, that if he can furnish me with prima facie proof, I shall take action. The submission of prima facie proof is, after all, the system in accordance with which we take action. If he can furnish me with prima facie proof to the effect that this movement is wrong or has detrimental effects, then an investigation would be justified. I want to assure him that if I am furnished with proof, we shall not hesitate to take action. But up to now I have not received such proof.

The second point the hon. member raised, concerned the alleged high incidence of tuberculosis in the Transkei. I want to tell him again that I appreciate the friendly and reasonable way in which he stated his point of view. He could have stated it much more vehemently; he could have made it appear much worse. Not so long ago there were two newspaper articles, one of which appeared in the Natal Mercury and the other in the Daily Dispatch. They are virtually identical reports Having read those articles, one could have asked oneself the following question: “What are our newspapers heading for now?” But hon. members can judge for themselves, and now I want to sketch as accurately as I can the actual conditions prevailing there. This is the basis of the entire attack on the Transkei health services. The report stated, “An uncontrolled T.B. epidemic is raging in the country”, and they quoted Dr. Mitchell. Dr. Mitchell referred to the whole of South Africa and he said that the tuberculosis situation in the whole of South Africa was a sort of epidemic. However, it is not an epidemic that originated this year; it is an epidemic that has been in existence over all these years. In a certain sense one can agree with him. We know that it is a serious problem and we know that we have to do a very great deal to eliminate that problem. Now I want to ask hon. members to look at this year’s Estimates. We are spending approximately R50 million in respect of health services, and of that amount we are spending more than R28 million on tuberculosis. That means that between 57 and 60 per cent of the total amount appropriated for health services is ear-marked for the combating of tuberculosis alone. That is why I think that hon. members will accept that we are all fully aware of the danger of tuberculosis and of the necessity to combat it effectively. It is, of course, not such an easy problem. According to the version in the Daily Dispatch the situation has allegedly deteriorated now, but that is not true at all. Let us look at the comparable figures. We do not have reliable figures for the Transkei only, and I shall therefore take the figures in respect of all the Bantu in the whole of South Africa. In 1963 there were 57,401 cases of tuberculosis of which we were aware. In 1967, i.e. four years later, there were 58,751 cases, an increase of 1,350. But one should not forget that the Bantu population had, of course, increased in those four years.

It is being accepted to-day that the Bantu population increases at a rate of 8.8 per cent over a period of four years. Therefore, on this basis, the number of cases in 1967 should have been 3,701 more than it was in 1963, but, as I have said, there was only an increase of 1,350 cases. That proves two things to us, namely that the situation has not only not deteriorated, but has in fact improved. Instead of 3,701 the increase was only 1,350. Therefore, the allegations made in the two newspapers, i.e. that there had supposedly been such a tremendous outbreak of tuberculosis in the Transkei, simply cannot be true.

Of course, we do not want to close our eyes to the fact that problems do exist in this regard. Of course, there are problems. The hon. member also referred to another accusation leveled in these very same newspapers. In the first place they maintain that the Bantu are not receiving any instruction in respect of tuberculosis. Let us consider the one million or more Bantu in the Transkei who are still very backward and uneducated. Those people have as yet not adopted our hygienic standards at all; nevertheless, we must teach them what tuberculosis is and how to prevent it. They do not believe in germs. Most of them believe that if they have a pain in the chest it is because a bird kicked them there. Nevertheless, we have to inform those superstitious people about methods of combating tuberculosis. Now I want to ask hon. members how they would set about it? After all, this is a very serious problem. It can be done in a few ways. As regards adults, it is only possible to provide them with guidance when they themselves take ill. Our experience has been that to tell a healthy Bantu about the methods of preventing tuberculosis, is like talking to a brick wall, because he simply does not listen. But when one speaks to a sick Bantu, then he starts to listen. In other words, the best time to educate them in regard to this matter, is when they are sick. That is what we are doing. We have 15 teams working throughout the year to immunize, examine and help those people. Every team is continually engaged in carrying out this task of educating the Bantu. At all magistrate offices and at other places as well we have had placards posted explaining to these people what tuberculosis is, but we know that this does not help much. School children are also being furnished with this information. We have films which we show to them so that we may point out to them the dangers of this disease. In this way we are trying to bring home to them what tuberculosis is and how to prevent it. Therefore it cannot be alleged that we are not educating them in this regard. The hon. member did not say this, and I respect him for that, but this is what certain newspapers maintain, and it is quite untrue. They do not know what they are talking about.

Let us turn our attention to other problems. The hon. member referred to another accusation that appeared in the same newspapers. According to them we are allowing infants to remain in the same house with their sick parents or with other sick people. But they alleged that we were permitting even worse things than that to take place. When Bantu parents are admitted to hospital, we give the infant to the parents. However, we have good reasons for doing that. We know that if a Bantu infant is separated from his sick mother, and sent to other members of the family, to the grandmother for instance, it does not take long before that infant is dead. We must not think that the grandparents know how to bring up small children. In the first place, the grandmother cannot breast-feed the baby. They may have forgotten how essential milk is. They feed the infant on gruel, which, one could almost say, they force down the infant’s throat. We know that if this is done the infant eventually dies. That is why we give the infant to his mother, but we take certain precautionary measures to protect the infant. When the mother feeds the infant, she wears a mask. That is not all. We also vaccinate all the infants with B.C.G. and if their reaction is positive, if they do have tuberculosis, we give them I.N.H. We cure the infant. Now we have this strange phenomenon, namely that in our large hospitals, for example the King George V in Durban, no infant has ever contracted tuberculosis from the sick people there. The infants who arrived there, were sick when they were admitted to hospital, but so far not one of them has been infected. I am emphasizing this point, because it proves to us that where the newspapers are trying to make propaganda out of our so-called incompetence, the very reverse is true; it proves the wisdom of the Department and it proves how thoroughly we act in every respect. We must not forget that we have in our service a person such as Dr. Dormer. Dr. Dormer is a world figure to-day. He is undoubtedly an outstanding person. Although he has retired, he is doing research work which is of the utmost significance to us. I think hon. members will concede that we can hardly do more than we are doing at present.

I want to go further and mention further criticism that was leveled at us. In these very same articles it was said that hospitals were not being built; that there were not enough hospitals. I myself am also convinced that we should have more beds, but as regards hospitals, I can say that in each of the past 10 years a new hospital was built for tuberculosis patients. No fewer than 11 hospitals were built in the past 10 years. It is not a question of our not building hospitals. We are not the only people who build hospitals; we finance the missions and the ecclesiastical institutions so that they may built hospitals. As I have said, 11 hospitals were built in the past 10 years. The number of beds and hospitals to meet this situation is therefore increasing all the time. We must also be mindful of the fact that we are going to master tuberculosis. T.B. is, not unconquerable; we are going to master it sooner or later. At the present moment there are most encouraging signs. Over the past few years Dr. Dormer has been indefatigable in the research work he has been carrying out. His research work deals for the most part with the various new pharmaceutical drugs that are being marketed. He has new drugs and new techniques, which he has been testing of late and which hold out to us a very great deal of hope. To understand this, let me explain to you this problem in regard to tuberculosis: Our present technique is to administer to a patient certain drugs—I.N.H. or P.A.S. or a combination of the two, or oreomycin—while he is in hospital. It takes approximately six months and then he is no longer positive. Then we discharge him from the hospital, because one cannot keep these people away from their families for ever. The moment they feel well, they want to leave the hospital, but we try to keep them there for six months. Then we allow them to go home, but it is essential that, probably for 18 months to two years, they should get their pills from the out-patient clinics. They must take these pills and they must do so continuously. The problem is to bring home to the Bantu the necessity of this, because the Bantu believe that the white man’s medicine is all very well, but that they have been bewitched or “kicked”. One must bring home to the Bantu the fact that those pills are absolutely essential for his complete recovery. He tells one that he has been cured and then he stops visiting the clinic. If his chief forces him to visit the clinic, one finds that as soon as he leaves the outpatient clinic, he throws the pills he has geen given under the nearest bush. I have personally come across bushes under which lots of pills were lying. That Bantu now become a chronic case; that bacillus becomes resistant to the drugs we have, and you can appreciate what a problem it is to cure him then. In this entire set-up the weak point—the Achilles heel—is the out-patient treatment, for one cannot depend on the Bantu. Nor can one depend on the Coloureds and the Asiatics, but this is more especially true of the Bantu and the Coloureds. Dr. Dormer has now discovered that with some of these new drugs and with his new techniques—he administers them intravenously—he can shorten the period of hospitalization from six to four months, and the beauty of it is that the person concerned does not require any subsequent out-patient treatment. This has as yet not been proved one hundred per cent, but, in the first place he tested it on the nurses at the hospital. He applied it in a group of mines on the Witwatersrand, and with that treatment he can reduce the incidence of tuberculosis by 75 per cent. I mention this to you, because I think it is worth knowing that very significant research is being carried out at our hospitals. It is not only significant, but also very encouraging. If one looks at this picture, one asks oneself whether the time has not arrived for us to be careful not to be saddled with a large number of white elephants all over South Africa; in other words, with unnecessary hospitals. Even if we feel that we should have more beds, hon. members will nevertheless concede that we dare not proceed too rashly. We dare not build hospitals all over the country in a haphazard way, particularly in view of the fact that the figures do not indicate, as the newspapers report, that there is an increase in the incidence of tuberculosis, but that it is in actual fact remaining steady. I do not want to say that there is going to be a decrease, although the figures indicate that we are mastering the disease. Mr. Chairman, I think that I have now dealt with the points raised by the hon. member for Rosettenville.

May I ask for the privilege of the half hour? The hon. the Minister has replied on the question of tuberculosis and Scientology. In regard to Scientology I appreciate his difficulties. I myself have had a fair amount of experience of patients who have suffered at the hands of scientologists, and while accepting the hon. the Minister’s difficulties, I would urge upon him not to relax his efforts to find a way. Sir, the hon. the Minister of Justice has a similar problem in regard to the question of immorality, and he has found a way to obtain evidence; he has appointed a select committee. I would have liked to suggest that the hon. the Minister of Health should consult with his colleague to see if perhaps between them they cannot find some way of meeting this evil, because it is an evil. In regard to tuberculosis, I see the difficulties which the hon. the Minister has, but he has omitted to draw attention to the fact that with all his medicines and with all the fine work of Dr. Dormer, the main cause of his failure is the malnutrition amongst patients when they become outpatients. That is one reason. If he were to tackle that point, in addition to ensuring that the patients take their pills, he will have greater success. Dr. Dormer is working against a brick wall of malnutrition.

Sir, other members will deal with the question of tuberculosis. I want to turn to a matter which is the subject of great public interest, and that is the question of abortion. We all know that England has recently made abortion legal. Abortions in this country are practically all illegal. Abortions are performed by doctors under certain directions and for certain reasons, but the reasons are circumscribed and are very carefully considered before therapeutic abortion is carried out. Nevertheless any doctor performing an abortion operation is in danger from the law. Sir, there is a new spirit moving through the world. There are countries other than England which for a long time have agreed that abortion should be legal. I am not advocating that abortion should be made legal in this country, but I am advocating that the hon. the Minister should have an investigation into this question; that he should consider whether he should not at any rate advice doctors as to the circumstances under which he feels an abortion may be carried out. In the past, in considering whether an abortion should be carried out, the main consideration has been the health of the mother. Most medical men are agreed that where the continuance of the pregnancy will threaten the health or the life of the mother— some go so far as to say that the only consideration is the life, not the health, of the mother—then therapeutic abortion is justifiable and they are prepared to carry it out. The problem in England arose from the fact that there is a free hospital or free medical service and that the doctors there were not prepared to terminate a pregnancy free of charge. The English Act has gone further than we go in this country in recognizing which can be regarded as justifying an abortion. This change has come about because it is now felt, with the advance of medical knowledge of the workings of the mind, that grave damage can be done to the mind of the mother by the continuance of an undesired pregnancy and the arrival of an unwelcome child. This is the main problem. To-day in Britain the doctors are being compelled, under their contracts with the National (Health Service, to take into consideration the mental harm that can be done to a mother if an abortion is not carried out. This is the crux of the problem. There are other problems such as whether a doctor should terminate a pregnancy due to rape. That means that the doctor must be the judge as to what is rape, which is not a position he desires to be in. But the question of the termination of an unwanted pregnancy is one which the Minister should investigate.

Another point which has been accepted in Great Britain is the effect of a further child upon the social welfare and the life of the family. A family with three or four or perhaps five children, the youngest being in the region of 15 years, is suddenly faced with the pregnancy of the mother and the effect of such a new child on parents whose financial circumstances cannot tolerate the bringing up of another child, is taken into consideration. I think this is a just and fair consideration. Further, medical knowledge of heredity has progressed so far that in a great many instances a deformed child can be predicted. It is now possible by the examination of genes to predict with 75 per cent accuracy that a Mongol child will be born. It is possible to predict within a 50 per cent probability that a deformed child will be born, a hydrocephalic child whose life is not worth living. Must the doctors preserve every conceivable kind of monster in order to keep within the law, or may they be justified in carrying out the termination of the pregnancy? In Britain to-day there are 18 genetic advisory councils with clinics. There are 50,000 deformed children, deformed not only in limb but in mind, which is more important, born every year. These children are a burden on the state and on their parents. Are we justified in our country in allowing this to take place on a similar scale? Can we afford to have hospitals, doctors and nurses used to care for these children once they are born? It is no good asking the doctors to carry out euthanasia on these children; they will not do it, because it is repugnant to them. But it would not be repugnant to them, except on some religious ground, if the doctors were allowed to terminate such pregnancies without fear whatever, and with the justification of the law behind them. This is a question which I would like the hon. the Minister to investigate.

Then I want to turn to another matter, and that is the question of the asbestos in the atmosphere. There has been great excitement about Prof. Barnard’s heart transplant, but there have been many other discoveries in South Africa which have not received (the acclaim they deserve. But between the years 1958 and 1961 Dr. Sleggs made a great discovery. He discovered that one of the cancers of the lung was due to asbestos in almost every instance. That was a great discovery. It was the only discovery in which we have been able to trace definitely the cause of a cancer, but it received very little attention. In May, 1961, I drew the attention of the then Minister of Mines to this fact, and the Sunday Times took the matter up and made inquiries, but they say that wherever they went they met with a hush policy; they could get no reports from the scientific bodies. They were told everywhere: “No comment”, and that position has continued. We are as ignorant to-day of the incidence of mesothelioma as we were in 1961. I think it is the duty of the hon. the Minister to make mesothelioma a notifiable disease. It is of the greatest importance that the extent of this disease be known. We want to know how much it exists in the country, because asbestos is in practically all our lungs. We find in Durban that in 67 per cent of the post-mortems the lungs contained asbestos. In Johannesburg 49 per cent contained asbestos. In the city of Pittsburgh in America 41 per cent contained asbestos, and in Miami, which is a seaside town like Durban, it had fallen to 28 percent. I think it is generally accepted that the greater part of this asbestos in the lungs of the average person, persons who have not been working on mines, comes from factories in or near the towns, and above all it comes from the brake linings of motor cars. If they could find a substitute for asbestos in the brake linings of cars, we would have much less trouble with lung disease due to asbestos, but so far they have not been able to do so.

I know that a great deal of research is taking place, but so far it has not produced anything tangible. One must understand that asbestos is the only known substance which is indestructible. Where it is, there it remains. We know that in some instances asbestos is unintentionally used for making roads without the danger being realized. I believe experiments are now going on in America. It has been stopped in this country wherever possible. For this purpose the hon. the Minister should ask his colleague the Minister of Labour to make it compulsory that every industry using asbestos should be listed, because asbestos is used in many secret processes and the men working there do not know that they are facing that risk. This problem is so serious that one of the hon. Ministers’ own medical men investigating this question found that by taking a light paint-brush and going over an asbestos cement roof which had weathered for five years, he was able to obtain an appreciable amount of asbestos fibres which were lying on the roof and which the first wind would have moved on, and probably had been moving on. The same thing can be found with the asbestos cement flower-pots and benches, because the cement weathers out, the binding factor weathers out and the asbestos fibres are freed, and it is the smallest fibres which are the most dangerous ones. The percentage of deaths from lagging, which would hardly be considered a dangerous occupation, is about one in six.

There is one death from mesothelioma in six people who carry out lagging. This has been found in shipyards where a great deal of asbestos is used for lagging pipes.

What is the experience in the asbestos mines?

Asbestos in small quantities will not give rise to asbestosis; it will give rise to cancer. It does not need much asbestosis to produce cancer, but it does of course need a great deal of asbestos in the lungs of the miner to produce asbestosis, and the working life of a miner in an asbestos mine was shown in the last report we had from the Department of Mines to be about seven years; whereas the working life of the miner in the gold mine is in the region of 20 years or more before he has to get out. In regard to asbestos in mines, cases have been found of grownups who as children played on the dumps. Cases have been produced where a mother washed the overalls of her two daughters after they came home from work. The daughters did not develop cancer, but the mother did. There has been the case of two brothers working in other places with their two sisters working in an asbestos factory and they developed cancer of the lungs. Asbestos affects this Minister because it affects the Railways where they convey asbestos fibres. It affects the Department of Labour and it affects the Department of Mines and overall it affects the Minister of Health. That is why I have drawn his attention to it. It has even been found that through ignorance respirators have been packed with asbestos fibres. It is time that the conspiracy of secrecy, the conspiracy of silence, must be defeated. 'I asked the Minister of Labour a few years ago about the regulations for workers in asbestos factories, and the reply I received was that the matter was under consideration. Up to now there are no regulations and the Minister of Labour is making no effort, as far as I can see, to find these cases and to find out which are the factories using asbestos and to find out how to protect the people working there. Above all the Minister of Health is responsible for air pollution and the air pollution with asbestos is a danger which walks with all of us.

The hon. the Minister’s duty is to protect the health of the people. His duty overrides provincial boundaries. I want to draw his attention to a discovery, which is now five or six years old, namely the discovery of a means to foresee, by sometimes as much as three or four years, the onset of cancer of the womb. This is the commonest killer of women. A man called Papanicalou, a worker in New York, discovered that by a simple personal examination it was possible to foretell that women had in their wombs the cells which would later develop into a cancer. The test is simple. It can be carried out by trained nurses. At one time one province wanted to use technologists, but the Medical Council has objected and said that it can just as easily be done for women by women. It needs certain special laboratory examinations. I think this is like polio against which persons can be vaccinated. The Minister should make available to the women in this country laboratory facilities in every conceivable area for tests to be done. He should subsidize the laboratories and the hospitals to provide the technologists and the nurses who will be occupied in examining the women.

If I may return to mesothelioma, I think the hon. the Minister should make free facilities available for the examination of tumours of the lung or suspected tumours of the paritonium that may be mesotheliomous, so that we in this country, at the expense of the Ministry of Health, will have accurate knowledge of how many of our people are suffering from this dire disease of mesothelioma from which nobody has ever recovered. We should make facilities available throughout the whole country for the examination of women and of the specimens which are obtained from the women without any cutting or scraping.

Mr. Chairman, you will notice that this is the first human being to speak on the Health Vote this morning. I represent the material in the hands of the doctors which enables them to raise this science to such heights as they have already done, as you all know. I therefore want to speak on behalf of that material. I should like to urge to some degree that we remove the medical treatment of the nation as a whole from the three-tier control and place it under unitary control under the National Government—a better word than central government these days. I may possibly return to this at the end of my speech if I have a minute or two to spare. The hon. gentleman who has just resumed his seat will not take it amiss of me if I am so modest as not to dare traverse the field which he has just traversed, although I listened to him with great interest.

I want to speak about a disease which is not a disease at all. I want to speak about the victims of migraine and the possibility of research in that connection. Migraine means, literally translated “half a head”. Now hon. members must not think that persons who suffer from migraine are persons with half an intelligence. You will hear quite the reverse from me in a moment. The fundamentals in connection with this matter compel one to admire the victims of migraine. One only has to listen to what is said. The exact causes are not known and there is no cure. Ninety per cent of the victims launch the headaches themselves. It lies moored in the harbours of one’s life until after one’s sixtieth year and then, if one is very fortunate, it takes to the open sea and disappears. Dazzling stars, fluttering moths and other visual disturbances are sure signs of its approach and it sometimes comes for 24 hours, but sometimes it even lasts for a few days. It is an excruciating pain, the worst imaginable according to the Nursing Journal of July, 1966. I also want to say to you that I often argue with my wife—I did not want to put it like that—about my migraine. I am told—and you will not take it amiss of me—that birth-pains are the worst pains that one can experience on this earth. The migraine which one sometimes gets, believe me, is more than sufficient to bring twins into the world. But no attention is paid to it.

The victims of migraine possess an incredible amount of energy. They have also a very high intelligence, as you have perhaps discovered by now. They are tremendously sensitive but not pettily sensitive (kleinserig), because that is senselessly petty (seer kleinig), as Langenhoven said. They are also very good-looking. Just look.

What are the actual causes of this impossible ailment? As I have already said, the causes are not really known, but it is attributed, inter alia, to stenosis of the cerebral blood vessels, and this fact is already beyond my comprehension. The other cases can be summed up as follows, namely spiritual and physical fatigue, tension and worry, careless eating habits, eye strain, grievances, frustration, resentment, boredom, excitement, tense tours, spending sprees, especially if the wife has the purse and is running around the shops, haste in the execution of one’s work under the pressure of one’s own whip, a strong sense of responsibility, alcohol, seafoods, allergies for strong smells, fright, loud noises, sleeping late, excessive smoking, chocolates, pork and sharp light. Here one has a group of people for whom the song was written “Look not to this world for thy salvation”. What must they do? Twenty-two things which we encounter every day and we may not come into contact with them, see or hear them. The condition could be greatly alleviated if one only knew exactly what was happening to one.

However, this remains no more than a consolation to those people. Migraine is unfortunately the ailment for which people take the largest number of poisonous substances. One drinks anything if one thinks it will rid one of that pain. It is for these reasons that it is so important that we should discuss it and think about it, to see what can be done by means of research in this connection. The people suffering from this ailment belong to a group which is indispensable to society. This malady has several phases. Teenagers develop a nauseous headache until they eventually, if you will pardon me the expression, vomit, and then there is an improvement. Youths and young adults develop a bilious headache. Those who are advanced in years develop certain equivalent conditions which dispel the headache, but which constantly irritate one. I should like to mention them, namely irritability, stress and strain, vivid images and a reliving of past experiences. These are all things which take the place of the migraine. Treatment?

It is said: Lie flat on your back in a dark room with a wet compress on your stomach. There must be no pillow beneath your head. The room must be quiet and dark, you must eat sparingly and drink a lot of water. What is more, when taking drugs and other remedies, one must first eat something. These drugs are not remedies and are not effective either, because one is treating a symptom and not the disease. They are habit-forming, and that is why they are so dangerous. I am asking our doctors to give a little more attention to the migraine sufferers in our midst. I do not want to deal with the prescriptions, because that is the work of the doctors, and the chemists must see to it that patients get the remedies, as long as they are not harmful. Surgical treatment can sometimes be applied. When the pain occurs in the same spot for years on end, there is surgical treatment that can be applied.

I know of a certain man who went to Germany for treatment and then returned with worse migraine attacks in addition to a long cut down the side of his neck. The doctor always wants to know from the patient what is the matter with him. A certain doctor said to me: “Come to me with 101 complaints, but please not with a headache.” The learned expert findings are so disappointing. Dr. Harold Wolff and his colleague in America, they are both attached to the Cornell College, prescribed the following remedies. They say, be less fastidious, try not to do exhausting work at the difficult times, avoid unnecessary vexation and worry, and if you are over-sensitive—be different. But that is not so easy. Surely some research should be done in this regard. Just fancy: “Be different!” People are born so that they are in first, second, third or top gear, and migraine sufferers are all born in top gear.

When others lie, they sit; when others sit, they stand; when other stand, they walk; when others walk, they run; when others run, they sprint; and when others sprint, they fly! They are not persons who allow manhours to be lost as a result of their troubles. On the contrary, they work. The politician delivers a brilliant speech—just listen!—the minister delivers an interesting and compelling sermon, the sportsman plays good rugby, and the house wife is a paragon of virtue and industry. They do all this while suffering excruciating pain, and when the pain has passed, they almost want to burst with energy. Is it not worthwhile that more research should be undertaken in this connection? Should we not offer them a little more assistance? You know, Sir, medical science has now progressed so far that it has penetrated to the lungs, the liver, the stomach, the kidneys, the brain and now also to the heart. It has done this with great success, and we are grateful. Must the migraine victims now content themselves with the latest breathtaking medical discovery, namely the statement: “If you are a migraine sufferer, be different.” I am glad that I have had the time to make these few points about migraine.

In the minute or two remaining to me, I want to say something about what I referred to at the beginning of my speech. The Borckenhagen Report is somewhat dated; the Schumann Report is still in the sweat-cloth. I am not saying this disparagingly. The fact of the matter is that we can say very little about these two reports at this stage. However, I just want to point out one tendency in this connection. We know that the provinces are doing tremendously good work in many fields of life, but I think that we must try to change general health services into another gear. Instead of having them under three-tier control, we must concentrate them under a single control, namely under the Central Government. The machinery must be changed down a little into another gear to make it more efficient, I should say. Our country has a heterogeneous population, and our health services may collapse because we have these tremendous differences in respect of standards of living and concepts of hygiene among the population groups, and we simply cannot envisage the consequences of that, South Africa would be on the bottom rung of the world health protocol ladder.

Mr. Chairman, I will leave the hon. the Minister to deal with the problem of migraine. I want to come back to the subject raised by the hon. member for Durban (Central) when he asked for an inquiry into the whole question of a change in the law relating to abortion in South Africa. The Minister will remember that this subject recently aroused public interest following a congress of the South African College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists which was held earlier this year. There was a symposium on the subject of a change in the law as it affects abortion and it was noted that there was considerable division of opinion both among the medical men themselves and also among the legal men who were invited to take part in this symposium. I think the hon. member for Durban (Central) is correct when he says this is a subject which requires proper inquiry before any changes are made because quite obviously a subject like this transcends medicine per se. It has important legal significance and it has religious and social significance as well. Therefore I think it is important that the hon. the Minister should consult with his colleague the hon. the Minister of Justice, who told me in answer to a question earlier this Session that he had referred this whole matter to the Department of Justice. I think this goes beyond the Department of Justice. It is something that requires a proper judicial inquiry so that evidence may be taken from medical men, legal men, religious leaders, and social welfare workers, all of whom I think are much concerned with this problem.

As the hon. member has pointed out there have been many changes introduced in Britain. Last year the Abortion Act of 1967 was passed and very far-reaching changes were introduced in the law in Britain. Therapeutic abortions can now be legally performed whereas there was formerly no legal basis for abortion at all. In other words, if the mother’s health is in question, if it is suspected that the foetus is being affected and a deformed or retarded child is likely to be produced, the doctor can act in terms of that Act. Abortion following rape is now also lawful. The social clause which was objected to very strongly by doctors in Britain and from which they have disassociated themselves, as indeed they have from the rape clause in the Act, was re-introduced in the House of Lords and accepted in the final draft of the Act. So those are the four main reasons in terms of which lawful abortions may be performed in Britain to-day by doctors, providing at least two medical men agree.

The hon. member for Durban (Central) pointed out that in South Africa there is no legal justification whatsoever for an abortion. But no doubt on many occasions doctors have had to decide to terminate the pregnancy in order to save the woman’s life. But doctors always have to contend with the law here in South Africa and I do not think it can be left to the Minister, as suggested by the hon. member for Pretoria (Central), to give an indication to doctors where they may break the law. I do not think that should be his function at all. I think if we are going to make changes, they must be changes made through the law. I realize there are many difficulties involved here reaching beyond purely medical considerations, and therefore it is necessary that a proper inquiry be conducted. At the moment the law turns a blind eye on many such instances of abortion, and that is something which is accepted as necessary because of the social implications and also the health and medical implications for the mother.

The whole reason of course why one wants to put this on perhaps a more liberal basis is because of the question of “backstreet abortions” which are carried out as a result of the fact that there are no legal means whereby abortions may be performed in this country. I know that in other countries statistics have shown, interestingly enough, that there has not been a marked decrease in the number of backstreet abortions following the legalizing of abortion in countries such as Sweden and in Japan as well. When the law was changed so as to legalize abortion it was not found there was a marked drop in the statistics of these backstreet abortions which, of course, are to be deplored under any circumstances because they are performed very often under the most dangerous and unhygienic conditions leading to the death or severe illness of the woman concerned.

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

Afternoon Sitting

Mr. Chairman, before we adjourned for lunch the hon. member for Waterberg spoke humoristically here about his headache. I just want to say to him, as the Dutch put it: “Hoofdpijn is geen pijn, maar een soetlief te hebben en niet by haar te kunnen zijn, dat is een pijn.” (A headache is nothing compared to the heartache of being separated from one’s sweetheart.) It seems to me that if one is so worried about one’s headache, then one is too old for the sweethearts.

When the hon. the Minister replied to a question in connection with the scientologists he told us how difficult it was and how long it took doctors and experts to restore mentally deranged persons to normality. He said that these people might have something. I do not want to say that they have something or that they do not have something, but I want to say that the best place for mental patients to go for treatment is still our existing State institutions. The patient receives excellent treatment and proper nursing care there and they are as well if not better accommodated than in any of the private institutions we have in South Africa to-day. In saying this I do not want to suggest that these institutions are perfect. I think, however, that we can be proud of the progress made in this branch of the Health Department over the past 20 years. There has been a great deal of progress and expansion and we find that a number of doctors are rendering dedicated service there, although they could do much better for themselves outside.

However, I want to speak about another headache, a world headache, which is also a headache to us in South Africa, namely the population explosion, and I want to refer to what this Minister and his Department can do to help in this connection. If we want to grant future generations an opportunity of leading full and happy lives we should not completely lose sight of the problem of numbers. We should take active steps in connection with this explosion. Surely our primary task in South Africa is to eliminate poverty and want and to afford all our people an opportunity to make a decent living and to feed, educate and house their families properly.

I do not for one moment want to suggest that South Africa is over-populated to-day. But we have an enormous leeway to make up. There is a hopeless shortage of housing. Many of our people are living below the breadline and we do not have enough schools, hospitals and other institutions. Let us look at our population figures for a moment. There are about 16 million people in South Africa at the moment. Statistics show that there will be about 34 million people in South Africa by the end of this century, that is to say, the figure will more than double itself. Can we see ourselves building as many houses, hospitals and other institutions over the next 30 years as there are at present? Surely we cannot succeed in doing that. We simply do not have the means and the people to do it. We can only make up this leeway by reducing this rapid increase.

It is unfortunately the position that large families are more common among the underprivileged classes, the people who have neither the knowledge nor the means to plan their families. Welfare organizations throughout the country tell us that these people are in fact prepared to accept this planning, but that what is lacking is the means and the knowledge. I want to make it quite clear that I am by no means advocating the use of legislation to control this matter. I am only asking for the necessary knowledge and means to be provided.

In the Budget we see that there is in fact an increase of R40,000 under this head. However, I want to submit that this is not enough by any means. The world as such accepts this idea of family planning to-day. We find it in places to-day where we would not have expected it ten or 20 years ago. India and Pakistan practise it on a large scale. India succeeded in reducing their birth rate by 28 per 1,000 in the first two years of their programme. They hope to have reduced the birth rate by 56 per cent by 1985. Similarly Pakistan hopes to reduce the birth rate by half in the next 25 years. Family planning is also practised and State-assisted in countries such as Japan, Korea and Turkey. Even in Egypt, which so many of us know so well, there are at the moment over 1,300 State institutions where assistance is rendered to people in this connection.

But we do not only find it in the Eastern countries. Let us look at a country such as America. Five years ago America spent R1,500,000 on family planning. By last year that figure had grown to R19,700,000. In that country funds are freely available for clinics, aid centres, etc. In countries such as Italy and Spain we also find that this idea is supported by the State. What is more, we find that church organizations are also changing their ideas in this direction. This morning we heard from the hon. member for Houghton and the hon. member for Durban (Central) about the tragic cases of abortion. The relevant Department of the U.N. tells us that it estimates that approximately 30 million of these abortion operations are carried out in the world every year. This will not be necessary if proper programmes exist throughout the world to help these people before they are forced to take these drastic steps. Once a child has been born, his health and bis welfare must be looked after, but at the present rate of increase we simply cannot do it. Feeding schemes, medical schemes, etc., are all very well, but they will not solve the problem, and every effort should therefore be made to check this rapid increase. My plea is that the Minister and his Department should make more funds available for this purpose in order to assist the welfare organizations, which are doing good work, in their task. [Time expired.]

I do not know why the hon. member for North Rand missed the discussion of the Social Welfare Vote, but he did in fact make out a good case here in connection with certain social welfare problems, ones to which I shall make further reference in the course of my speech.

Mr. Chairman, during one of the debates last year an hon. Minister made the following statement here with reference to the question of research. The Minister said he approached the team in charge of a certain research project and asked them, “What are you investigating?” and the reply was, “We are seeking the truth.” The hon. the Minister then said, “And what do you want to do with the darned truth?” Mr. Chairman, because we are so steeped in the spirit of adventure, discovery and research, also in this country in particular, we have already conquered the world in which we live as well as the space surrounding us to such an extent that the earth no longer is the limit of our destiny but the springboard for the pursuit of our dreams of the future. The fact of the matter is that we have virtually reached an optimum degree of development in the field of knowledge and technological skills in terms of human welfare and happiness, and in order to ensure further progress, we must now return to the era of planning. The question therefore is, “How can we, without any harm to mankind, control and utilize the knowledge we have acquired?” In order to retain the progress we have made, we must now move in the direction of purposeful and imaginative planning. In the field of medicine and health, planning essentially means health guidance and health education, and this has to be undertaken on the widest level possible. Health guidance must be aimed not only at the specific, but also at the changing world in which we live. We have to think, as the hon. member has just said, in terms of the population explosion which is taking place and in terms of what that population explosion implies for us. We can accept that the population of the world will double itself within the next generation, and this will give rise to a lack of living space which will cause major problems. We must also think of the further implications of the increasing number of aged persons, of the problem of urbanization and of the problem of food supplies. Mr. Chairman, the basic cause of our failure in respect of the welfare of mankind, is to be found in our inability to make the new knowledge and the benefits which have resulted from developments equally available to all communities which are able to utilize it. The question of kwashiorkor was raised here, and the question was asked why the hon. the Minister did not do something in that regard. Here I just want to give the striking example of Tolstoy who held a piece of bread in his hand, and asked, “What shall we do with this? Shall we eat it by ourselves; shall we share it; shall we give it away, shall we sell it, or shall we use it to gain the favours of the less privileged?” As regards the question of food, particularly in changing world circumstances, there is one outstanding aspect, and that is the possible shortage of proteins in the supplies. We can deliver a long lecture on kwashiorkor, but we must also take a wide view of the matter and have regard to the fact that as far as food supplies are concerned, our great shortage in future is going to be in the provision of proteins to the masses. Therefore our task of health guidance and education is an enormous one. I should like to bring to your attention a few of the more specific tasks or our guidance services and of our health education programme. I want to refer briefly to one example of certain complaints which we shall be able to combat by means of guiding and educating the community. We have all read this pamphlet entitled “Kankerkwak bely sy Sondes” (Cancer Quack confesses his Sins). It is surprising to find that this man who for many years robbed thousands of victims and maimed them horribly, should now, after all those years, reveal these evils to the public, evils of which the Department and the scientists have all been aware. He is ashamed to walk in the street. Mr. Chairman, we cannot simply come here and say that we want legislation for putting an end to the practices of quacks. In the same article we read what Professor Fichardt of the Department of Radio Therapy at the University of Pretoria said. He said, “The public is protecting the quack”. This is true to a certain extent. I quote further (translation)—

Members of the public believe that he has a secret remedy which can cure them.—

Mr. Chairman, is this not a wide field which can be covered by health education and health guidance? We speak of kwashiorkor, as I have already mentioned. We have to educate the people and tell them, to use simple language, that one cannot live on porridge alone; one needs porridge and meat. (Health guidance should not only be effective in times of disaster. We simply have to persevere and persist in giving such guidance. We know human beings and we know the public. If there is one case of smallpox in the Cape, the entire country knows about it, and everyone has themselves immunized against smallpox, but in the meantime three or four children of neighbours die of diphtheria. Surely this is a state of affairs which can be prevented.

I want to conclude by quoting from what was said by the head of the Department of General Medicine at the University of Cape Town—

Mr. Chairman, during the half minute I still have at my disposal, I should like to refer to the representations made by the hon. members for Houghton and Durban (Central) that a commission of inquiry should be appointed to investigate the advisability of legalizing abortion to a certain extent, and to investigate not only the advisability of legalizing abortion, but also of introducing certain relaxations. The hon. member for Durban (Central) probably still is a member of the S.A. Medical Council which deals with the discipline of doctors. Surely the Medical Council will submit proposals to the hon. the Minister with a view to the possible introduction of some further relaxation which may prove to be necessary. But I can by no means agree with the hon. member for Houghton that we should legalize abortion.

I did not say that at all.

The hon. member clearly suggested that in pursuance of what was happening in other countries such as Finland in which abortion has been legalized. The hon. member said we should also take the social aspects into consideration. [Time expired.]

The hon. member who has just sat down obviously either did not hear me or did not understand what I said. I said that no laws could be introduced without a thorough inquiry into the whole question of the legalizing of abortion, which carries with it not only medical implications but social implications and legal implications and also religious or ethical implications. Therefore I asked for an inquiry; I did not for one moment suggest that we should simply legalize abortion. The hon. member obviously did not understand me. I am quite sure that the hon. the Minister did understand me.

Sir, I want to deal with another matter which I think is very important indeed in S.A. and that is the whole question of kwashiorkor. I was interested to read that Government Notice No. 527, which was published on 5th April, 1968, rescinded a previous Government Notice, which was published on 14th September, 1962, in terms of which kwashiorkor had been declared a notifiable disease. It appears, according to a report that appeared in Die Burger that the Under-Secretary for Health stated that—

The disease is now completely under control and there is therefore no reason why kwashiorkor should remain a notifiable disease.

The facts of the matter are, according to an answer that I received to a question which I put about kwashiorkor, that there has been a drop in the notification of the incidence of kwashiorkor since. 1964, when the number of cases notified was 14,130, to 1967 when 10,826 cases were notified, There has therefore been a steady decrease over these years. But in 1967 there were still 9,765 cases of kwashiorkor notified among the African community. I might say that the Department then was still sufficiently concerned about the high incidence of this preventable disease, which is, of course, a nutritional disease which can easily be rectified by means of additional proteins such as skimmed milk, that the scheme was actually extended to cover the homelands, and a grant of something like R20,000 was made available for this purpose. It is a pity that the disease is no longer notifiable, for two reasons. Firstly, it is impossible now to trace whether or not the extension of that scheme to the homelands has had some really significant results, because the disease is no longer notifiable. Secondly, I think it is a pity because I do not agree with the Under-Secretary for Health that the figures reveal that the disease is completely under control. For one thing there were nearly 10,000 notifiable cases amongst Africans and, for another thing, the incidence amongst coloured people has steadily gone up. In 1964 there were 753 cases notified and in 1967 there were 1,046 cases of kwashiorkor notified, in other words, an actual increase among the coloured population. I cannot understand the rational of saying that the disease is under control when there has in fact been a steady increase as far as one population group is concerned, and still a very considerable number of cases notified in the case of South Africa’s major population group, that is to say, the Africans. I think it was a wrong step for the hon. the Minister at this stage to have made kwashiorkor a non-notifiable disease. I want to point out that whatever the number of cases notified, this is really just the absolute tip of the iceberg because where nutritional diseases are concerned it is well known that for all the clinical cases that appear on the scene there are thousands more in the sub-clinical stages of disease. Since kwashiorkor is a very serious disease and, what is more, one with irreversible consequences in so far as it has an effect on the mental development of the child which is irreversible in later years, I think it is terribly important that we continue to have it, firstly, as a notifiable disease and, secondly, that we extend the measures of preventing and combating the disease. I do not think there is any good cause for this complete lack of concern about continuing to notify kwashiorkor. It is a function which should be exercised by the Department in an ever-increasing way. We will have a generation of children with mental retardation as the result of the disease having been contracted in infancy, after which it is irreversible. Such people are not able to take their correct place in society and be productive members of society. I believe, too, that the extension of the supply of skimmed milk in an effort to prevent the disease should be continued. I know that more municipalities are now making use of the facilities for the supply of skimmed milk, but what I am troubled about is that although the number of local authorities participating in the scheme increased from 25 to 32 in the Transvaal and from 48 to 58 in the Cape during the past year, the actual amount of milk powder used has dropped by over 100,000 lbs. I wonder what steps are being taken by the Minister’s Department to encourage the local authorities to distribute greater quantities of skimmed milk. I also hope that be is not considering in any way decreasing the subsidy to the local authorities that are prepared to take advantage of this scheme, because as I say, this is a serious disease which has irreversible consequences.

I want to conclude by saying a few words on the subject raised by the hon. member for North Rand, in regard to family planning. I agree with him that this is a very important matter and that we ought to continue our efforts to put out propaganda, etc., to make the public aware of what facilities already exist in the family planning centres. Now I know that this service is available to all groups and I am very much in favour of its being made available to all groups. It is by no means the non-white group only which should be informed about the essentiality and the importance of family planning. I think it is something which every civilized country is undertaking. But what concerns me is that if one reads articles in the press by Africans, or by white social workers, they all deplore the way in which the propaganda seems to emphasize the need for non-Whites to go in for family planning; in other words, putting the problem too much on a racial basis, although I know that the services are available to all races. In fact, this propaganda is having quite the opposite effect to what is intended, because what it is doing is to make Africans and other non-Whites look upon these exhortations that Whites should continue to have more children and that non-Whites should restrict the number of children they have., as a sort of plot against the non-Whites. As a result they refuse to co-operate because they think it has a political context which it should not have at all. Therefore I think we should be very careful about the type of propaganda we put out in this regard. I think it is seriously undermining the efforts of social workers to put across family planning education among non-Whites where it is very necessary. It is also, however, necessary among Whites and we should be very careful not to over-emphasize the planning aspect among non-Whites which, as I say, is likely to have just the opposite effect to the effect we hope it will have. It creates the sort of feeling that there is a population race on in South Africa and that Whites are being encouraged to increase the number of their children, while non-Whites are being encouraged to have fewer children, whereas in fact, at certain income levels and for certain reasons of rational family planning, this education should be extended to everybody and the propaganda should be equally devoted to all races.

I do not feel like replying to the arguments of the hon. member for Houghton, but I think that it is nevertheless necessary to try to clear up an incorrect impression she has just given this House once again. I believe that every person who thinks for himself will be able to clear this up for himself, but I think this should nevertheless be done for the information of those people who may be influenced by the statements she has just made here in connection with kwashiorkor and family planning. The hon. member for Houghton sees in any positive steps which are being taken in the interests of all the communities in this country, discrimination against the non-Whites, and this has become a refrain from her. [Interjection.] If the hon. member wants to argue about this, I just want to ask her to read the Hansard report of her speech at a later stage. Why is it necessary to speak time and again of the incidence of kwashiorkor amongst non-Whites, and why is it necessary to emphasize that in spite of the withdrawal of the provision that kwashiorkor is a notifiable disease, there still is a high incidence of this disease amongst non-Whites? I shall try to explain the background of this to the hon. member for Houghton in case she is open to conviction. In case she is not open to conviction, as I despair at times, other people will at least know what the true facts are.

When kwashiorkor became a notifiable disease, it was tackled by the Government with the assistance of local authorities and the provincial administrations in a positive and effective manner. It was not tackled merely on the basis of providing powdered milk and a few other things which the hon. member for Houghton mentioned. One of the major steps taken by the Government, and one which was supported by the Department of Health, was to look for the cause of kwashiorkor and to try to eliminate that by means of providing proper housing.

Let me mention one example. I see that the hon. member is laughing, but I want to tell the hon. member that if she wants to laugh, she should read what the provincial authorities of Natal said about what was happening in Cato Manor at the time when kwashiorkor was assuming alarming proportions in Cato Manor. Immediately after those housing conditions had been improved, two results became evident. The first was that the people were living in better and more hygienic conditions because housing had been improved and that this was decreasing the incidence of this disease. The second was that because there was proper housing it was possible to do proper follow-up work as regards the incidence of disease among the occupants of those houses. The delegates from Natal said at a meeting of the United Municipal Executive that the seemingly higher incidence of kwashiorkor should not be seen as proof that the disease was spreading, but that it should be seen as one of the results of the fact that cases of kwashiorkor which never used to be traced could now be brought to the attention of the authorities for treatment. This enabled the authorities to treat those cases. Cases of which the authorities were not notified 20 and 30 years ago and which therefore never came to their attention, could then be reported and were treated. That is why higher figures were recorded in respect of the incidence of kwashiorkor.

What is more, the municipalities which assisted in this regard—(and which, I want to say in passing, deserve the gratitude also of this House)—and the provinces which co-operated in combating this disease, found, after better housing had been provided as well as better after-care by the health departments of the municipalities, that other circumstances existed to which attention should rather be given. I regret that I have to say this, but these are real facts which have even been discussed at a high level. The provision of powdered milk did not have the desired effect. According to the evidence of responsible officials and councillors, the powdered milk provided for children suffering from kwashiorkor often did not reach the patient. Numerous people gave evidence that that powdered milk, which had been provided at a very reduced price because it was subsidized, not only landed in the wrong hands but that it even happened, where patients were cared for in homes, that that milk was used by other members of the family and not by the patient. There were even cases of that milk being sold so as to obtain money to buy other things instead of the milk being used by the people suffering from that disease. Officials of the health departments emphasized the fact that proper control also had to be exercised over the distribution of antidotes, which all of us naturally regard as essential and which we welcome, and that that placed a heavy additional burden on the health officers of local authorities.

I also deem it necessary to reply to the second part of the speech of the hon. member for Houghton in which she dealt with the matter which the hon. member for North Rand had raised in a responsible manner, i.e. family planning. Also in this regard she had to tell the world that there was discrimination against the non-Whites. If there are people amongst the non-Whites who interpret the propagation of family planning amongst them as discrimination against the non-Whites, then it is the duty of someone who has influence amongst the non-white population, like the hon. member for Houghton, to say to the non-Whites that family planning is to their advantage. If family planning benefits those homes into which children are born for whom proper care cannot be provided, then family planning surely is to the advantage of the non-Whites, not only as regards the country as a whole but also as regards the best interests of those children in a home whom the parents will subsequently not be able to clothe and feed properly. I think the hon. member would have made a much greater contribution had she made a positive statement here to-day to propagate family planning amongst the non-Whites in particular. I want to agree that this is not a subject on which one wants to have too much discussion in this House and that it is one which must be handled with the utmost care. This also applies as regards the manner in which it is to be propagated and encouraged. But to make out as though there were discrimination against the non-Whites as regards the advocating of family planning, is, in my opinion, very irresponsible.

I want to mention one other matter in connection with the Vote of the hon. the Minister. I paged through the Vote as well as through the debates of last year and the year before last. From the debates of this year I noticed that the Opposition, with the exception of the hon. member for North Rand, found no reason for paying tribute to the Department for the outstanding work being done in our country. I am referring to our doctors such as Professor Barnard and his team, as well as to our research workers and those people who are not always in the limelight, people such as the ordinary district surgeons and nurses and the people who are providing health services in all corners of our country. If one pages through this Vote, one also notices that by far the largest percentage of the amounts appearing on the Vote is to be spent on the provision of direct services to the people of our country. If one examines this a little closer, I think this country as well as the world should take cognizance of the fact that on this Health Vote a large percentage of the funds is being made available by the white taxpayers for the care of those less well-to-do non-Whites who are in distress. This is done by the Whites of South Africa for those people, and the Whites do not broadcast or talk about it but they make these funds available because they know that it is their duty and their privilege to do that for those non-Whites.

Mr. Chairman, I noted with appreciation my hon. colleague’s closing remarks in respect of district surgeons. The matter which I now want to touch upon, is one of several which are causing a measure of dissatisfaction among these people, who are also doing excellent work in the country districts in supplying the medical needs of the lower paid and the indigent. Owing to certain bottlenecks in the system, the district surgeons are weighed down by many frustrations in this great work which they are doing. I want to suggest that these frustrations are largely attributable to the fact that there are several controlling bodies which have a say in the various fields in which the district surgeons have to carry out their functions. In stating the problem and expressing a few thoughts in connection therewith I want to link up with the idea that, although our individual district surgeons are doing excellent work, we must definitely pay attention to the lack of co-ordination and the divided functional control which these people are subject to. We must come to a decision as soon as possible about a system aimed at co-ordinating our public health services and controlling and financing them properly, so that we may eventually establish an efficient service which is directed at the person and the patient and under these circumstances can only be beneficial to our society.

As part of his remuneration a district surgeon receives a fixed medicine allowance. In certain cases the allowance is very generous, but we-find that in the majority of cases those district surgeons are not only responsible for the provision of medical care, but also for the supply of medicines to a very large number of patients, both white and non-white. With the high and ever-increasing cost of medicine, especially of antibiotics, we find that the majority of district surgeons simply cannot manage on the fixed allowance granted to them, that they cannot meet the demands made upon them. Because of financial considerations they are therefore forced to resort to cheaper remedies; to remedies which are perhaps less effective. This state of affairs must necessarily affect their integrity and break down their adherence to the high ethical norms which are intrinsic to the medical profession. Sir, you must believe me when I say to you that the high ethical norms which are intrinsic to the medical profession are based on the fact that the patient is entitled to the best which medical science can offer him and that that is the only way and the only basis for a proper and sound health system.

I want to bring to your attention one case which has come to my notice. A certain district surgeon received a medicine allowance of R960 per year. At first glance this appears to be a generous allowance. But in one particular year he had to provide 2,921 indigent persons with medicines, apart from their treatment, which means that he only had 32.5 cents per patient per year with which to supply medicine to them. This is hardly the price of a bottle of aspirins. I immediately want to state it as a fact that where these cases are brought to the attention of the Department of Public Health, they adopt a very sympathetic attitude and that, as a rule, adjustments are made in the amount of the allowances payable. However, we find in practice that the adjustments are only made a year later, after the district surgeon has incurred the expense and has suffered a financial loss. If he then submits his case to the Department of Public Health, his allowance is adjusted, but no adjustment can be made in respect of the year that has passed. I am therefore not complaining about the Department; I am complaining about the system which is responsible for this state of affairs.

Here in the Cape we have a system in terms of which, in cases where hospitals have a full-time medical staff, out-patient services are rendered and where the indigent patient can also obtain his medicine free of charge, at government expense. In certain cases there are also clinics and health centres in the non-White residential areas where the non-Whites can also receive this service. However, now one finds the anomaly that where there is no outpatient service at a particular hospital, the White patients are not entitled to receive medicines there free of charge. The Cape Provincial Administration follows this policy for a very good reason, and I have no fault to find with that reason. But it leads to tremendous confusion among the patients, and to dissatisfaction as well. We quite often find that a patient is referred from a small town where there is a hospital without an outpatient section, to a larger hospital where such facilities do exist. He then receives a prescription or a supply of tablets to control his condition. Upon returning to his home town he finds that he cannot obtain that medicine, which in many cases is expensive, from the hospital, and that he again has to rely on the district surgeon with his limited medicine allowance, which then simply cannot meet that need. As I have said, this only leads to confusion and to a disturbed patient-doctor relationship. We all know that a healthy relationship is essential to good medical practice.

I am aware of the fact that this matter is also receiving the attention of other bodies which deal with this, but I believe that it is also for the Department of Public Health to devote serious attention to this problem with a view to reaching a compromise with the Provincial Administrations in an attempt to find a formula whereby indigent patients in all hospitals, whether it has an out-patient service or not, can receive medicines free of charge. From the nature of the case an allowance will still have to be paid to the district surgeon for the ordinary cough mixtures, the ordinary aspirin, the ordinary mixtures for stomach complaints, and so forth, but this amount will be considerably less, and such a formula will lead to more efficient provision of medicines to the more indigent patient.

I just want to refer in a few words to certain hon. members, among others the hon. members for Houghton and Durban (Central), who spoke about the question of abortion. This question is a very delicate one. It is a matter which we must treat with a great deal of care and circumspection. In this connection I just want to read to you from a paper recently read by Professor S. A. Strauss of the University of South Africa on this matter—

Before we in this country commit ourselves by legislation as far as abortion is concerned, we will have to have thorough investigations instituted into all the moral aspects, all the religious aspects, yes, into all aspects having a bearing on this matter. I believe that only in that way can we tackle this matter.

Mr. Chairman, I want to say at the outset that I agree entirely with certain expressions of opinion which have fallen from hon. members opposite, and particularly from the hon. member for Cradock in his opening remarks, with reference to the necessity for improved co-ordination as far as medical services are concerned, and to the hon. member for Brentwood, who went to some lengths to emphasize the necessity for purposeful and effective actions in the field of national health and medical research.

I want to follow on those comments and associate them with the hon. member for Wit-bank’s tribute to the doctors, nurses and paramedical personnel throughout the length and breadth of this country who are rendering such phenomenal service for the health of our country. But are they not reaching a stage when they are becoming overloaded and overworked and suffering from degrees of frustration, which might have disastrous results so far as our health services are concerned? I want to examine one or two aspects. I hope the hon. the Minister may be able to assist us in these general approaches which I wish to raise.

The first one is the fact which has been obvious for years in this country, namely that there is a growing shortage of trained medical practitioners. As I say, it has been obvious, and the number is now getting as high as estimates of 4,000 additional practitioners required in this country. But one loks to the Government opposite to find where there has been some planning to meet this particular problem. I am afraid I may be referring to this hon. Minister a problem which has not been entrusted to him as far as the Cabinet is concerned, but it seems to me that the time has arrived when there should be some Central Government authority for health services. Because, Sir, over the last few years, when one has asked what is happening about the training of Bantu doctors, the Minister of Bantu Affairs said: “The matter is under consideration”. When I asked about Coloured doctors, the Minister of Coloured Affairs said last year that the matter was under consideration. Last year he said that something would be done at the Western Cape University. When I have asked about Indian affairs “the matter is still under consideration”. In so far as the training of white doctors are concerned, it is not that the potential is not there. Every medical school has to turn away hundreds of would-be medical students every year. But nothing is done by this Government in the interests of health to see that the medical school which is long overdue in the Free State, for instance, is opened. The hon. the Minister, I realize, is in some difficulty in this matter, but after all, the responsibility of the national health is his. The Minister in a debate in this House in February of 1967 said that, if we are to have a good service, there must be no overlapping. The Minister went further and said overlapping is annoying; it is extravagant. Constant conflicts occur. That seems to be happening somewhere, because now we find, after all the discussion of this question of trying to find out where the responsibility is for the training of medical practitioners, the Minister of Planning issues a statement. In October of last year the Minister of Planning said that his department, on behalf of the Government, has appointed a committee of investigation to inquire into the necessity for further training of doctors. But in the composition of this Committee he has only appointed one member of the hon. the Minister of Health’s own Advisory Council. A new body of people has come into being to deal with and to advise on a continuing problem.

Then I want to deal with the question of nursing. I want to say here in this House to-day to the hon. the Minister—and I think he is aware of it; he should be aware of it— that a crisis in nursing services in this country is imminent. I do not believe that there is one important hospital in this country that has its full quota of trained nurses. I do not believe that there is one in the whole country. In view of the replies which we have had, the position is the same in respect of the State and military hospitals. What is being done? When this matter was raised in the Co-ordinating Council for Health Services in 1964, the hon. the Minister appointed a commission. In 1966 the hon. the Minister said that he would have the report by the end of 1966. In 1967 he said that he would have the report by the end of 1967. Now, in 1968, we are still sitting here waiting for the report. No independent body and no body entitled to handle nursing can act, because of this commission which is sitting on this matter. I therefore want to appeal to the hon. the Minister to endeavour to have this matter brought to light, because there is an imminent threat of a serious breakdown because of the lack of trained personnel. I can offer various possible solutions, but they have been offered to his commission already. I believe that this commission has had time to report.

Finally I want to come to another aspect, namely the question of divided control. Hon. members of this House who have had anything to do with medicine at any level, be it local government, provincial or Central Government, will agree wholeheartedly with the hon. the Minister when he says that the overlapping leads to friction and frustrations. What is being done? I think that the hon. member for Geduld was quite correct when he referred to the existence of the Schumann Commission Report, which the hon. the Minister of Finance tells me contains recommendations regarding hospital services and the control of them.

The hon. member for Geduld said: “Dit word ’n bietjie verouderd.” It is getting stale and out of date. It has been in the hands of the Government now for four years and no action has apparently been taken, or at least, if there is action, nobody in the country is able to correlate that action as against the recommendations of the commission itself. I believe that these problems are becoming so pressing that they brook no further delay in being attended to. I want to put certain questions to the hon. the Minister, and I hope that perhaps he will be able to give the country and us here to-day, some replies on these specific questions. Has the Government made up its mind in regard to the responsibility for the training of doctors? Has the Government made up its mind and placed the responsibility in the Cabinet, in the hands of one hon. Minister, or is the matter still controlled according to race groups? Secondly, I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he can indicate now whether that nursing report is getting near completion.

I know that he must be frustrated, because he told me in 1966 that he was expecting it in that year, but he did not receive it. If that report is not near completion, cannot some action be taken by his own statutory bodies which he already has in his Department to deal with these problems? The third point is the question in regard to his views on the co-ordination of curative health services. Does the hon. the Minister think that some coordination can be brought into being under the present circumstances, or does he think that it will need new legislation of a far-reaching nature in order to bring this about? The fourth question is that of medical research. Are all the aspects of medical research going to be co-ordinated under one ministry, or are they to continue as they are at the present moment, namely divided under various Ministers. One finds for instance the Department of Social Welfare making a contribution in the Budget for family planning. One finds now under the Department of Health a contribution for some other overlapping aspect of research. It does seem that research should be brought under one Ministry. I appreciate the support which I have received from the Government benches for this suggestion because I believe that that coordination is long overdue. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I hope the hon. member for Green Point will not mind if I do not follow up what he has just said but my time is very limited. I should like to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to the growing feeling which there is amongst the members of the public to-day about the increasing costs in our country of medicines and especially of drugs. With the exception of people who belong to medical aid funds to-day, it is actually very expensive for the man in the street to take ill and to be treated with drugs and narcotics to-day, and he can virtually not afford this, because the different types of tablets and antibiotics have become exorbitantly expensive. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether it is not possible for him to make an appeal through the instruments which he has at his disposal, such as the South African Medical Council, to member doctors to try as far as possible, in cases where two kinds of tablets which are equally effective are available, to prescribe those which are available at a lower price. A few years ago the Government appointed a commission under the chairmanship of Professor H. W. Snyman to investigate the high cost of medical services and medicine in South Africa. That Snyman Commission reported as long ago as July, 1963. It was found that there were too many drugs of the same kind on the market and that the variety of narcotics and drugs which pharmacists had to handle was too large. It was also found that many doctors too no notice of the fact that drugs prescribed by them were very expensive.

For instance, South Africans spend an estimated amount of approximately R50 million on antibiotics every year. The public is very ignorant about these matters. The hon. member for Fauresmith touched on this matter this morning. It is for the doctors of our country to display discretion in the matter of prescribing pills and the price of those pills. I want to ask whether it is not possible for doctors to furnish only the generic name of a drug in a prescription to a pharmacist, so that it may be left to the pharmacist to provide the patient with the cheapest narcotic. Drugs always tend to go out of fashion. I have been informed that they are often replaced by other drugs which are only slightly more effective but which are sold at much higher prices than the old drugs. Pharmacists have also informed me that their shelves are often packed with narcotics which have gone out of fashion and that they do not know what to do with those narcotics.

In conclusion I want to raise a matter with the hon. the Minister which actually justifies a much wider discussion. I raised the same matter last year on another Vote, namely the question of city noises. I know that the Bureau of Standards has drawn up a code in respect of the various types of noise in the country, such as traffic noises, etc. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he cannot perhaps inform this House what he is contemplating in this direction. In the latest issue of the Reader’s Digest there is, for instance, a very stimulating article about what has been done in the city of Dortmund in Germany by means of legislation to combat city noises. City noises are becoming more and more of a menace to us and may be prejudicial to our health in South Africa which is becoming an industrial giant. I should like to hear from the Minister in what way it will be possible to combat this menace.

Order! I just want to tell the hon. member for Pietersburg that it appears to me as if he is reading a newspaper. He knows, of course, that hon. members may not read newspapers in this House.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Green Point is known for not making bitter political statements. This afternoon he tried again to make a very positive contribution to this debate. In at least one part of his speech, however, he was at fault when he referred with a great deal of emphasis to the so-called chaotic position of our health services at present.

I said that there was a threat that it would reach such a position.

Yes, even if it was only a threat. In the very limited time at my disposal I shall not be able to touch on all the aspects of this matter. I want to say at once, however, that in this connection this hon. member was completely off the rails, because he tried to suggest something which is not really true. The opposite is really true. As far as nursing services are concerned, I want to say that excellent and spectacular progress has been made over the past few years. If one considers the question of numbers only, one sees that as far as general nurses are concerned, the total number of registered nurses increased from 23,336 in 1963 to 29,482 in 1967. In order to prove this point I can furnish many more figures, but the fact of the matter is that services have not been improved in terms of numbers alone. If one considers what is being done in various other fields to train these people and to provide skilled manpower, it simply astonishes one. We need only have regard to the number of training schools. I cannot even mention all of them this afternoon, because it will take me ten minutes to mention all the schools in which nurses can be trained. In addition there are our universities such as the Universities of Pretoria, Stellenbosch, Natal Potchefstroom and the Orange Free State, which are all offering degree courses at the present time. The position simply is this. The United Party, through the hon. member for Green Point, has raised this matter for one reason only, and that is to try to make some political capital out of it and to create the impression amongst the outside public that this Government is not looking after the interests of every person in South Africa as far as his health is concerned.

There is, however, one other matter about which I am much more concerned and which I have to bring to the attention of the hon. the Minister. There is a political group in this country which at present goes as far as to make scholarships available to certain persons so as to enable them to attend super-liberal universities in other countries to receive their training at those universities and to return here with only one object in view. That is not to nurse the Progressive Party, but to return to this country to indoctrinate other nurses with whom they come into contact and through those nurses to indoctrinate other persons as well, such as the poor helpless patient who is most dependent on that nurse at the stage when he is confined to his bed. I am not going to mention names, but I have the proof. The fact of the matter is that a person was sent from Johannesburg on a scholarship of R4,000 …

Order! I just want to point out to the hon. member that the administration of hospitals falls under the Provincial Councils.

Mr. Chairman, I want to submit to your ruling, but I want to point out to you that the Central Government makes a large contribution to those services.

Order! The hon. member is now going into administrative details which are irrelevant now.

Mr. Chairman, I shall submit to your ruling, but I should really have referred to another case in Natal of an atheist who has been sent with the money of the taxpayers …

Order! I want to point out to the hon. member that if he wants to raise these matters on the strength of the fact that the Central Government votes money to the Provinces, he should have done so under the Provincial Administrations Vote.

In conclusion, I should like to ask whether the time has not arrived for introducing job evaluation in respect of the work being done by different groups of nurses with a view to the better utilization of the services of the professional nurses. In that case assistant nurses, practical nurses, orderlies or registered nursing-aids can be given more routine work to do, while the purely professional work can be done by the more skilled group. This will bring about a better utilization of the available manpower and will also enable us to establish a more effective health service in South Africa.

Mr. Chairman, I will not attempt to follow the hon. member who has just sat down. I think you very correctly pointed out that he was on ground which does not fall under this Vote. I wish to raise with the hon. the Minister the problem which we in Natal have to face in the creation of the vast chain of State dams which are bringing to us unrivalled opportunities of water sport and the consequent danger to the public of bilharzia. We have discussed this matter before. Last year we had a private members’ motion in this regard. It has also been discussed on other occasions, but I want to make a special plea to the hon. the Minister in regard to a point I raised the other day. The problem we face is this. The Midmar Dam, for instance, is on the point of being developed by the Natal Parks Board, who will be spending an amount of R5 million there. Their estimate is that when the dam is developed to its ultimate capacity it will be visited by a million people per annum. That is the case with only one dam of three dams which are within 30 miles of my farm, namely the dam at Midmar, the dam at Craigieburn and the proposed Albert Falls Dam, which will complete the development of the Urngeni River as far as industrial purposes are concerned. Both the Albert Falls Dam and the Midmar Dam are within 20 miles of Pietermaritzburg and within some 50 miles of Durban. The hon. the Minister can see the hazard which is posed to the health of the very great urban populations of (Natal, especially of Pietermaritzburg and Durban, as a result of bilharzia in what will become these playgrounds of the province of Natal. We have discussed before the question of control and research and of finding what factors control the spread of the parasite and the snail and what can be done to eliminate the snail. It is a problem about which we in our area have very decided views. The Minister’s Department makes a monthly survey at Midmar. They have told us that there is no bilharzia there. From the Midmar Dam to where the Albert Falls dam will be is a distance of some 15 miles which is not an impossible distance for a Bantu to travel. The Minister himself has made the point on many occasions that the difficulty in controlling bilharzia is to bring to the consciousness of the Bantu the need for the utmost attention to sanitation where these large bodies of water are concerned.

There are three problems connected with this matter. One is the snail itself and there is a great deal of research being done overseas to-day to find a suitable selective molluscicide which will enable us to control the snail. The second problem is the population and the Minister has already told us of the difficulties in this regard. I think that everybody here will accept that it is an insurmountable problem at our present stage of development. The problem of training the Bantu to be sufficiently sanitation conscious to be able to control the spread of bilharzia under these circumstances is almost insurmountable. The third problem is whether the water in these areas is cold enough to prevent the parasite from living and whether the water is sufficiently rough to prevent the parasite from becoming established there and to prevent the snails from becoming established there. Another consideration is whether the fish and bird life is of such a nature that it will be able to control that snail population. We in our area are convinced that the coldness of the water is a major factor which is going to enable us to go ahead with our plans for tourism and that sort of thing without creating a major hazard but, Sir, we do not know. When I made the point to the Minister of Finance the other day that the Minister should be allowed to introduce experts from overseas on a contract basis, on the basis that they could repatriate the money they received here for their services, I specifically had in mind this problem of bilharzia. I am convinced that we could obtain the services of world authorities on this matter and that the Minister could reasonably ask the Department of Finance for additional funds for this purpose. He has a surplus of R180 million; no inflationary conditions will be created by the extra expenditure because the money will be repatriated and the Minister will be able to obtain the services of some of the top men in the world to investigate specifically these physical factors in order to establish whether there is control over the bilharzia snail and the bilharzia parasite in these areas which are going to be developed into some of the major tourist centres of the Republic of South Africa. Make no mistake about that. As I have mentioned already, the plans of the Natal Parks Board make provision for one million people at one dam only in Natal. Sir, while we are talking about the Midmar Dam and the specific question of a million visitors to Midmar, the Minister’s Department raised an objection, as I understand from the reply to a question which I asked recently, to the establishment of the Montrose Bantu Township, which is going to be established within a mile of the edge of the water at Midmar. I want to ask whether the Minister has withdrawn his objection or whether his Department is satisfied that there no longer exists a danger to health through the establishment of that township, which we are told is planned to house some 32,000 Bantu, within a mile of one of the major sources of water both for industrial and residential use in Natal, because half of the white population of Natal live in Umgeni Valley in which the Midmar Dam is situated.

What is the name of the farm?

Montrose. The Bantu Administration Department is planning to establish a Native township there. Sir, I do not want to give the impression that I am discouraging or in any way taking issue with the Department of Bantu Administration at this stage: I am asking the hon. the Minister to tell me whether his Department has been satisfied by the Department of Bantu Administration that there is not a serious danger of pollution of the Midmar water from the township which is to be established there, because I know that the District Surgeon in Howick is profoundly disturbed already at the effect on the water of Midmar of the location at Zenzele, which is already within some hundreds of yards of the edge of the water at Midmar Dam. I would be most interested to hear from the hon. the Minister whether he has been satisfied and whether he can give us the assurance that what is being planned at Midmar does not represent a serious danger of pollution to the Midmar water. This is a matter of concern to the whole of our area. People come from Durban and from all over South Africa to Midmar now, before it is developed; there is an Olympic sailing course there and people come there in their hundreds. You see little children dashing in and cut of the water every Sunday when it is warm enough, and it is in the interests of those people particularly that I ask whether the Minister will consider the question of importing experts from overseas. I did not have a reply to my question from the hon. the Minister of Finance, but I do believe that this is an avenue which the hon. the Minister could well explore. It might give us an indication as to Whether that area will be safe for future use by the children of that area.

Perhaps it will be as well for me just to deal with the last question first. The hon. member will forgive me if I perhaps do not share his opinion of world experts. It would interest him to know that many of these world experts come to South Africa to see how we combat bilharzia. I therefore doubt whether we shall be able to learn much more from them than we and our experts already know. I therefore do not think that it would really be a fruitful field of investigation. I do not think the hon. member expects me to deal with the problems of bilharzia and its control again. One of the first things we must do, as he clearly said, is to control the snails, and secondly we must control the sanitary habits of people. An important aspect which the hon. member touched upon in this connection is the place where the new Bantu township is to be erected. The hon. member will pardon me if I have to wait a while for the latest information on that. I very much want to make the hon. member happier than he and the Natalians perhaps are at the moment, by quoting to him from an article written by Dr. Elsdon-Dew, Director of the Amoebiasis Research Unit of the Department of Parasitology in Durban. Look, bilharzia is a problem, but it will interest the hon. member to hear that I myself have attended symposiums where doctors differed among themselves as to whether it was actually a problem worth mentioning. In this article Dr. Elsdon-Dew asks: Is bilharzia a problem? This article appeared in the “South African Medical Journal”. He says: “Let us estimate that there are about two million cases of bilharzia carriers in South Africa. If there are so many, and if it is a problem, then in the first place we would expect all our hospitals to be full of sufferers from the disease, but where are they? Where are the patients? Not in our hospitals.” He then says that he was struck by the effect which bilharzia had on the Bantu. Dr. Elsdon-Dew says that if one wants to discover whether someone has bilharzia, one can only do so by very careful examination; one cannot simply see it in a man; one cannot detect it in his actions. One must examine him closely; one must examine his bladder; one must examine his urine and everything. He says that researchers found that there were very few really detrimental effects on patients. He says that they made surveys of Bantu villages which were 100 per cent infected with bilharzia and also of Bantu villages where there was no bilharzia. He says that they compared the Bantu with one another in all respects, and he says that, strangely enough, they found no medical difference between them. They did not find any psychological difference between them, and they did not even find any difference in their intellectual capacities and in their working capacities. Dr. Elsdon-Dew says that we must remember that man has lived with bilharzia for millions of years and has probably adapted himself over this tremendously long period. He describes it as “a sort of equilibrium which has been established” between man and the parasite. He says, in addition, that we must be careful; that we should not concern ourselves unnecessarily; that we should not create too much anxiety among the public about bilharzia. It is a problem and we want to solve it, because we want to keep our people healthy and free from what we regard as parasites, but we should not be unnecessarily concerned about it. I still think that the real solution will come when the Swiss remedies at present being tested by us, appear to be effective. Then I think that the problem of bilharzia will largely be a problem of the past.

Mr. Chairman, let me now come to the hon. member for Green Point. The hon. member is such a plausible person and it is a pity that he always exaggerates his case. I am afraid that he is always inclined to put his case much more strongly and much more sharply than is justified by the facts. The hon. member spoke of the terrible shortage of nurses and said that we were doing nothing about it. He asked: “What is the Minister doing? The Minister has done nothing.” Let us look at the figures. In 1965 we had 32,422 nurses; in 1967 we had 35,266, an increase in these three years, therefore, of almost 30,000. We are getting an extra 1,000 nurses a year and then the hon. member says we are doing nothing.

No, I say that there are vacancies.

It is all very well to say that we have not yet reached the ideal situation. I do not say that there is nothing in what the hon. member said, but I say that unfortunately he exaggerates everything.

There are clearly not enough.

We think that there is still a shortage. We do not know, but that is what we think, and that is why we appointed a commission of inquiry. I do not think that I ever said to the hon. member that the commission’s report would be submitted at the end of this year or during next year. I can only hope that we shall receive the report at any moment, but that is only a hope and I cannot commit myself by saying that the commission will issue its report shortly. The position is not at all as serious as the hon. member suggested. But let us go further; let us look at the position in regard to doctors. The hon. member said that it seemed as though this Government was doing nothing about increasing the number of doctors; that it seemed as though the Government was not concerned about the position. But let us now ask ourselves whether there is really a shortage of doctors. This is a question which the doctors ask us all the time and which the Medical Association has asked us. What norm must apply in determining whether there is a shortage or not? Let us compare the position in this country with the position in other countries. In the United Kingdom the ratio is one to 1,100 of the population. In a country such as America it is one to 750. What is the correct norm? Our population consists of Whites and non-Whites. Whites go to doctors for the latest treatment, but the Bantu, for the greater part, do not yet believe in our doctors; they still believe in their “nyangas”. Is it then correct to say that in their case the ratio should be the same as in the case of Whites? This is a difficult problem in our country. In our case the ratio is one to 1.900, which is not so excessive, even if we include the Bantu. In America the ratio is one to 750 and the Americans still say that there is a tremendous shortage of doctors. They want to demand too many services from the doctors. They want to summon the doctor for every minor ailment; they do not want to take the trouble to go and visit the doctor; the doctor must visit them. They regard the doctor almost as a kind of servant of the public. It depends on what services you expect of a doctor. If one is willing to go to the doctor’s consulting room, then one needs much fewer doctors. One needs many more doctors if they must ride around after each patient and visit him on his farm or wherever it may be. I say that it is a problem.

The hon. member says that we are doing nothing about our doctors. The hon. member will recall that when this problem was raised a few years ago, the Minister of National Education approached the universities and said to the existing universities: Look, it will be much cheaper for you to train extra doctors than to establish new faculties. We made extra funds available to them and we persuaded all the universities to make provision for extra training, and it was calculated that by the end of 1970 probably an extra 100 young doctors per year would be trained at Stellenbosch, Cape Town, Pretoria, Witwatersrand and Durban and 180 per year by the end of 1972. Now we must not forget that a few years ago 308 doctors were trained per year in South Africa, and an extra 180 in 1972 will be a tremendous increase. It is almost two-thirds. I am only mentioning this in order to say to the hon. member that we have very great appreciation of him, but that he is very much inclined to overstate his case. In the first place he must acknowledge that this Government is doing a great deal to increase the number of doctors. You will probably know that the Minister of Planning said that he was appointing a commission of inquiry into medical training and medical faculties. The problem is therefore being tackled.

Is the Minister of Planning responsible for that now?

The Cabinet is responsible for the co-ordination. The Minister of Planning undertakes the investigation, but his findings are referred to the Minister of Education, who must implement them, and the Minister of Health then receives the benefit.

The hon. member for Turffontein raised the point of whether it was not possible to prescribe to doctors that they should use the cheapest remedies. I do not think that doctors, who are trained in their profession to use their own discretion, will easily allow someone else to prescribe to them how to use their discretion. But there is after all something encouraging in respect of what the hon. member said. This lies in the fact that when we appointed a drugs control council, we appointed a council which would advise every doctor in the future. That council will make known its findings about all drugs. If it finds that a cheaper remedy is just as good as a more expensive one, I think that every sensible doctor will follow the advice to be inferred from that, and prescribe the remedy which is as good but cheaper, to his patients.

The hon. member for Cradock called attention to the position of the district surgeon. We are very deeply indebted to these people, because they are doing extremely important work for the State. At the same time we also try to make it possible for the district surgeon to provide all drugs and facilities which he deems necessary. As far as his drugs allowance is concerned. I should perhaps remind hon. members of the fact that the drugs allowance is based on certain figures. Every year we receive the figures from doctors all over the country and on the basis of those figures we increase or decrease the allowance, and usually it is increased. But that is not all. It is not necessary, as the hon. member said, that he simply has to wait until the end of the year. If he can make out a case, he can get in touch with the Department at any time and the Department will reconsider the matter immediately. And if expensive remedies are required for treating any special illness or for anything, there is no reason why he may not approach the Department in any particular case either. I therefore think that in that regard the doctors need not have any serious problems; they only need to approach the Department. We greatly appreciate their services and we should like to make it easy for them to do their work.

The hon. member for Houghton and also the hon. member for Durban (Central) touched upon a delicate question, namely family planning. I do not think that the hon. member need be concerned at all that these services are not intended for everyone in South Africa. They rest on very sound medical and scientific grounds. The first is that it is much better for parents to spread their family out if they do not have the financial means to raise quite a few children simultaneously. It is much better for the health of the parents and even for the children, and it is much better for the whole community. For this reason I think that people who do not make use of the opportunities which the State provides for them are foolish, and there are many such opportunities. For fear that its efforts may be misconstrued, the State does not go out of its way to enlighten the public about the matter, but we refer it to the Council for Maternal Welfare, and as you have seen from the statements, generous provision has been made for this council. A generous amount has been placed at their disposal in the Estimates by way of subsidy. They do all the information work and in addition the State makes the necessary means available to them free of charge, or makes them available to every doctor in the country. Considerable services are therefore being rendered by the State, but, as the hon. member will understand, we must be very careful not to create the impression that this is a propaganda move aimed at the non-Whites.

The hon. member for Houghton again raised the question of kwashiorkor. I tried, in reply to a question which she put to me, to give the reason why it had been removed from the list. The kwashiorkor scheme is not a scheme to feed the Natives or to feed the sick; it is primarily an educational scheme. We just want to teach our population that everyone has a simple and cheap remedy on his doorstep, namely milk. We want to teach them that if they use milk, they need not feel concerned about the health of their children at all. Now, as a result of this, we have introduced a scheme which the State subsidizes by 5 cents, the local authorities subsidize it by 5 cents, and it costs the patient 5 cents at the most. But the request to the local authorities is that those people should be taught to give their children more milk. Natural milk is the best food of all. This is therefore an educational scheme. By means of the surveys we have made we have discovered what the pattern in the country is. We know the pattern of the incidence of kwashiorkor among the population of South Africa and among the Bantu in particular, and we are urging the local authorities to introduce these schemes everywhere. I think I have already supplied the figures to the hon. member. We are achieving considerable success in this regard, but unfortunately there are also local authorities which are not always willing to go to the trouble of introducing these schemes.

But it is not under control yet.

The idea is not to bring it under control; we simply want to have the population educated so as no longer to allow their children to be undernourished. We know the picture. We would have retained it as a notifiable disease had it not been for the fact that we met with opposition from the doctors. You must understand that we already have a whole series of notifiable diseases, and doctors object whenever we add another one. The hon. member must remember, as I said, that we are extremely dependent upon the district surgeons and on their goodwill and benevolence, and we dare not prejudice that goodwill. When it is no longer necessary to retain some of these diseases as notifiable diseases since we know what the picture is, and since the schemes can simply continue as before, we remove those diseases from the list at their request, because to-morrow or the day after there may be another disease which must be made notifiable. This happens all the time and, what is more, it is not our intention to make a disease notifiable for ever. We only do it for as long as we think that we do not have the pattern, so that we do not know where to apply a scheme. I do not think the hon. member need be despondent about the future. I think that things will continue as before. The fight will continue as before and I think that we will achieve the same results whether the disease is notifiable or not.

The hon. member for Waterberg mentioned a very difficult problem to us, namely the problem of migraine, but he himself gave such a good solution that I am unable to improve upon it. I think the only person who will be able to improve upon it is the pharmacist who discovers the remedy to cure it. I can assure him that such a pharmacist will make a fortune.

The hon. member for Durban (Central) spoke of cancer of the uterus. The hon. member knows that to-day we place our laboratory services at the disposal of all local authorities free of charge. Any local authority can send us a specimen at any time and the services are rendered free of charge, and in that way we are trying to help in combating this problem. The only difficulty we have, is the shortage of cyto-technicians. What we have in fact done, is to create facilities for the training of cyto-technicians, and training courses have been introduced for them. At the same time an additional list was drawn up by the Medical Council, which adds cyto-technicians to the list of medical technologists. In other words, we have now given them a status in life and we thereby hope to get more people to become such technologists. This is as much as we can do at present. I do not know what more we can do.

The hon. member also referred to the problem of mesothelioma, but this is actually a problem which does not fall under this Department; it falls under the Department of Mines like pneumoconiosis. We have in fact no say in the matter. I just want to point out to the hon. member that it has not yet been proved at all that it is only pure asbestos which is the cause of this disease. The question to-day is whether it is not asbestos combined with nickel. If that is the problem, then of course it is necessary to ensure that the two minerals are separated.

May I ask a question? The Minister says that pneumoconiosis, which includes mesothelioma, falls under the Minister of Mines. Surely the Minister of Mines is not going to accept responsibility for all types of pneumoconiosis, throughout industry and amongst the public generally?

No, only for the mines.

But this is a problem which affects the public generally.

The hon. member said that asbestos is found everywhere. The figures which we as a Department have at our disposal show that the people who suffer from mesothelioma, are people who have worked on the mines. There are a great many cases of which we do not have particulars as far as their origin is concerned, but the large majority of cases which have come to our attention, are all people who have worked on the mines. Until such time as the particulars indicate that people also contract asbestosis in the cities, it is a mining problem. As soon as the hon. member can indicate to me that city-dwellers who have not worked on the mines are also contracting the disease, it will of course become a broader problem. However, at the moment the disease is only encountered in persons who have worked on the mines.

The position in regard to mesothelioma is that we do not know what cases are occurring. We only find the cases among the miners. But there is much more asbestosis amongst workers than there is on the mines. That is the reply the hon. the Minister of Mines gave me last year, and it still holds good.

As I told the hon. member, we have the particulars, and in cases where we can determine where the people come from, it appears that they all come from the mines. The moment that it is determined that the disease is also contracted in places other than the mines, then the matter naturally becomes a broader one, and not merely one for the Department of Mines. But our facts at present indicate that it is only a matter for the Department of Mines.

Will the hon. the Minister then make it notifiable?

I cannot say what we will do, but we will certainly go into it very carefully. There is one problem which I have not yet dealt with and that is the problem of abortion. The hon. member for Houghton gave a very clear reply to the suggestion that was made. Abortion is illegal in South Africa to-day, and it is not for the Minister of Health or for any other Minister to say to doctors that they can simply commit abortion. What exception would this House not take if the laws which it makes can in this way be undermined by a Minister? It is prohibited by the law, and unfortunately it is impossible for the Minister of Health or any other Minister to give instructions that a different course of action be adopted. The Minister of Justice told us that he would appoint a commission to inquire into the matter. The hon. member for Houghton said that it would be a judicial commission and that it would perhaps have to deal with police matters and problems. I think that both she and the hon. member for Durban (Central) may rest assured that the Minister of Justice will give due consideration to all health aspects and all social aspects as well. I think that we may safely leave the matter in his hands.

Will he call for evidence from all these people?

I do not know what procedure he is going to follow, but we can rest assured the matter is quite safe in his hands.

The hon. the Minister was going to reply to the points raised about the Bantu village at Montrose.

Unfortunately I cannot say at the moment what the effects of that will be.

Votes put and agreed to.

Revenue Vote 25,—Agricultural Economics and Marketing: Administration, R2,440,000;

Loan Vote O,—Agricultural Economics and Marketing, R400,000; Revenue Votes 26,— Agricultural Economics and Marketing: General, R77,975,000, and 27,—Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure, R2,380,000; Loan Vote D,—Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure, R34,550,000; and Revenue Votes 28,—Deeds Offices, R1,147,000, 29,—Surveys, R2,815,000, 30,—Agricultural Technical Services: Administration and National Services, R14,100,000, and 31,—Agricultural Technical Services: Regional Services and Education, R15,730,000:

Mr. Chairman, may I ask for the privilege of the half-hour.

I do not think that this would be an inappropriate opportunity to say, on behalf of the agricultural group on this side, that we were deeply shocked when we learned about the death of Dr. J. G. van der Wath. He was not only an eminent leader in the field of agriculture in South Africa, but he did a great deal for our wool industry in particular, both here in South Africa as well as abroad. We were grieved to learn about his death a few days ago. I think our agricultural industry and our wool industry in particular will sorely miss his presence in the future. It is tragic that our wool industry was deprived of the services of such an outstanding leader like Dr. Van der Wath at the very time when our wool industry finds itself in difficult circumstances. On behalf of this side of the House, and I am sure that I am speaking also on behalf of hon. members opposite, I want to say that our sympathy goes out to his family and relations in their sad bereavement.

On a previous occasion we on this side of the House alleged that the assistance offered in these Estimates was inadequate to keep the agricultural industry on its feet and our attitude has not changed in the meantime. We on this side are of the opinion that the Government regards the agricultural industry as the Cinderella of national affairs. The National Party and the Government are celebrating at the moment, and I want to remind them of the fact that one section of the population, those concerned in one specific industry, are not celebrating at the moment because they find themselves in difficult economic circumstances. I hope that the Government will give us the answers to our problems during the discussions we will have to-day and in the course of the next few days on this question and particularly on the question of agricultural economics and marketing, and that the Government will give us not only its short-term answers, but also its long-term answers, so that we may learn in what way this industry is going to be placed on a sound footing. For the past 20 years we have been looking for the answer which the Government must give, and for the past 20 years more and more farmers have been leaving our rural areas as they are no longer able to make a financial success of their undertakings. We on this side of the House will readily admit that conditions in the agricultural industry have been aggravated to a considerable extent by the protracted droughts with which we have been afflicted, but at the same time it cannot be denied that the annual income of many farmers has decreased as a result of price manipulations put into practice by the Government from time to time. I must refer at once to the decision taken by the hon. the Minister and the Mealie Board when the new prices for the new year were announced, the prices which will apply from 1st May, 1968, to 30th April next year. Last year it was said that the price of mealies had to be decreased because an enormous crop was expected. The crop was indeed large. But a considerably smaller crop than that of last year is expected for the new year. In spite of that the mealie farmer will receive a lower price for his product than that which he received last year. The following report appeared in Die Burger on 19th April this year (translation), “This year farmers will receive 5 cents less for a bag of white mealies and the same price as last year for yellow mealies”. It is anticipated that the costs to the Mealie Board, particularly in respect of storage, etc., will increase. The price which the farmer will receive will be lower. But the price which the consumers of mealies in South Africa will have to pay, will not be lower but higher. Under these circumstances, and in view of the fact that the Government knew that this year’s crop would be considerably smaller than that of last year, I regret that the Government has been placed in the position that it has had to decide and announce that the price for mealies for the following year would be lower than that for last year.

But the mealie farmers are satisfied.

I cannot understand how the mealie farmers, according to that hon. member, can be satisfied when they were not satisfied with a reduction of 22½cents last year, in spite of the fact that they had a crop of approximately 109 million bags. How they can be satisfied with a further reduction of 5 cents per bag when their crop is nearly 50 per cent smaller than their crop last year, is beyond me. I have used this example merely to illustrate the extent to which the Government has been manipulating prices over the past number of years, something which has also brought about a considerable decrease in the income of farmers.

You know nothing about mealies.

I may not be a mealie farmer, but one need not be a hen to know an egg. The hon. member knows that we have all the information which he has and that we are in an equally good position as that side of the House to make a study of the matter. I want hon. members opposite to reply to my questions. They must reply to me as regards the policy which they followed last year and they must reply to me as regards the policy which they are following this year in respect of the mealie farmer. We on this side of the House concede that in many cases the droughts caused a considerable decrease in the income of farmers. But if there is one outstanding feature, it is this: In spite of the decrease in the income of farmers there has been a tremendous increase in their production costs. I should like to quote what we find in paragraph 3 (7) on page 22 of the provisional report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Agricultural Industry. I quote—

And you want to make the farms even smaller.

No. Where does the hon. the Deputy Minister get that from?

You have just said that the people are leaving the farms.

The hon. the Deputy Minister says that I want to make the farms smaller. He is talking the biggest nonsense. If that were the policy of the United Party, how could we be in favour of something like the Orange River project which is aimed at increasing the population of the rural areas? Let me tell you, Sir, what else we find in this report. We find that the net income of 35 per cent or approximately one-third of the farmers is less than R2,000 per annum whereas 17 per cent have an income of less than R1,000 per annum. I know that hon. members opposite will allege that many of these farms are uneconomic units. We are also aware of that fact. But I am quoting these figures to illustrate that there are certain sections of our agricultural community whose financial position has reached an extremely critical stage over the past few years. I contend that the Government has failed to combat this state of affairs. We on this side of the House contend that rehabilitation measures for placing the agricultural industry on a sound footing have become more essential now than they have ever been before. We rate and judge these Estimates in that light. We expected the Government to have adopted a sympathetic attitude. We alleged that the amount voted in these Estimates exceeded the amount voted last year by a mere R14 or R15 million. The hon. the Minister of Agriculture then said that I and other hon. members on this side were completely mistaken. He said that for the current year this Government was voting, directly and indirectly, no less than R200 million—I have his Hansard here—to keep the agricultural industry sound. He alleged that the figure was R200 million. That was how the farmer was being assisted, according to the hon. the Minister. Now I just want to say this: If that story of the hon. the Minister were true—I hope to show in due course that it is untrue—we on this side of the House would naturally not have any case at all. Secondly I want to say that, if that story of his were true, then the hon. the Minister need never be concerned about the depopulation of the rural areas. Then there would not be a stream from the rural areas to the cities. On the contrary, there would be a stream from the cities to the country districts, because then the agricultural industry would most definitely be the most profitable industry in South Africa. What is the true state of affairs? On Revenue Account …

You would return there yourself.

Where?

To the farm.

I just want to remind the hon. member about what happened in a rural constituency, namely Swellendam, only a few weeks ago. If that hon. member had canvassed there or had held meetings there, he would have discovered what the attitude of the farmers in that constituency was. Many of those farmers voted for the United Party for no other reason than dissatisfaction about the way which that side of the House neglects them when it comes to their problems. There are many hon. members sitting on this side of the House who were there as well and who will confirm what I am saying here. What is the true state of affairs as far as these Estimates are concerned?

In the first place R124,500,000 is being voted on Revenue Votes 25 to 32. On Loan Account the amount comes to almost R99,500,000. Therefore the amount which the hon. the Minister is in actual fact making available is not R200 million, but R223 million. But surely that is not the whole story. How much of this money is to be given to the farmers for nothing? What part of these amounts is to be spent on salaries for officials who do not make any contribution to the development of the agricultural industry in South Africa and who are merely doing administrative work?

Do not talk nonsense.

I want to ask hon. members this. Twelve thousand officials and workers are employed in all these Departments. How many of them are actually productive in the agricultural industry? How much of this amount which is to be spent, will be used to finance loans, money which is not given, but which has to be repaid by the farmers of South Africa? Secondly, how much of this expenditure represents subsidies, not only for farmers, but also for the consumers in South Africa? Why did the hon. the Minister not bring in these points? But now he says: “Look, provision is made for R200 million on the Estimates; that is the extent to which we are assisting the agricultural industry in South Africa.

I did not even mention that subsidy figure.

The Minister of Economic Affairs may just as well get up and say: “Look at my Estimates; this is the extent to which I am assisting manufacturing industries in South Africa.” If I were to compare that to the Estimates of the hon. the Minister of Agriculture, where would that leave the hon. the Minister of Agriculture? If I were to take the manufacturing industry in South Africa with its turnover in this country and the small amount which is being voted in these Estimates for that industry and were to compare that to the tremendous amount which the hon. the Minister of Agriculture is receiving and to what is happening in his industry, it would be clear that this Minister ought not to be the Minister of Agriculture at all. He ought to resign. It would then appear that he is logging even further behind the economic activities in the country, than is supposed.

May I put a question to the hon. member?

No. The hon. member will get another chance.

Tell us what help you need.

We will give the answer to the farmer from Port Elizabeth Central. I have already said that a large portion of this money which is being voted, represents subsidies on wheat, dairy produce and other produce from which consumers in South Africa deserve just as much benefit.

Are you opposed to that?

No, I am not opposed to that. I want to prove the contrary of the hon. the Minister’s argument, namely that the assistance which is being given to-day, is inadequate under the prevailing circumstances. A few years ago the Government received advice from Mr. Bührman, one of our leading figures in the South African Agricultural Union. He maintained that one would be able to rehabilitate this industry only if one were prepared to put a large sum of money into it. And it will cost a great deal of money to rehabilitate the industry.

In what form should the money be put in?

We shall tell the hon. the Deputy Minister that as well. Let me tell him that we have already made a previous statement. In the course of this debate I hope to have the opportunity of comparing what they say should be done to what we say should be done.

Last year you were much better than you are to-day.

We want to say that this Government has already cost the country considerable in additional expenditure as a result of the fact that it commenced certain schemes too late. We know that. The Orange River scheme is an example of that. Now we want to ask them, “As far as the agricultural industry is concerned, do they want to make the same mistake of delaying too long, of causing great inconvenience and of taking even larger amounts out of the taxpayer’s pocket in the future, just because of the fact that what they will do will be done too late?”

My contention is that any talk of inflation to-day makes no impression on the farmer. If the Government says that success has been achieved in combating inflation, and they boast about that, the farmer out there asks, “Why, when we have reached this situation, do we have to pay interest at 8½, 9 and 10 per cent?” The farmers say that wages and salaries are still increasing in all sectors, which has a tremendous influence on the costs of services in the country. Nowhere is there any possibility in sight that production costs are going to decrease. Everyone’s salaries and wages show an upward trend; nowhere a downward trend. But the farmers are expected to accept price adjustments on a lower basis. He is advised, “Increase your production per unit, and then you will cover this increase in production costs, and you will still make a considerable profit”.

Is that wrong?

The hon. member is also correct as far as this is concerned. It sounds perfectly correct in theory, but in practice it does not work out that way.

It does work.

I am now going to mention examples to the hon. member of undertakings which are controlled by this Government.

Let us consider the Railways. Are they transporting less to-day than they did 20 years ago, and have the tariffs been reduced? No. Escom to-day produces millions and millions of units of electricity more than it did 10 or 15 years ago.

In the same factories?

Has there been any decrease in the price which the consumer of electricity has to pay per unit at the present time? Let us consider Iscor, another undertaking in which the Government has a large share. Iscor is producing many more tons of steel.

May I put a question to the hon. member?

That hon. member is a doctor. I am convinced of the fact that many more patients consulted him during the past few years in which he has been practising as a doctor than did so during the year in which he started his practice. Now I want to ask him whether there has been any decrease in his fees per patient as compared to the fees he charged when he first started? But, Sir, because the farmer of South Africa is able to increase his production per unit, he is expected to accept a low price adjustment so as to absorb the increase in production costs.

Since when has the Railways been transporting more per unit?

The hon. member should simply consult the Report of the Railways. There has been a fantastic increase in the volume of traffic.

Per locomotive?

I really do not feel like arguing about that absurd point with the hon. the Deputy Minister. There are dozens of examples which I can quote to him. Let me simply take the example of the car manufacturing industry in South Africa. Is the present number of units which is manufactured in Port Elizabeth, the same as the number of units manufactured 20 years ago? Has the price which the prospective owner has to pay remained the same? No, it has not, but that is expected to happen as far as the agricultural industry is concerned. When one suggests this solution, it sounds fine in theory. But when it comes to implementing it in practice, it simply does not work. I can also mention examples of farmers in the Karoo who have increased their wool production by 40 or 50 per cent over the past 15 or 20 years. They have even increased their surplus stock by 200 or 300 per cent. When one inquires from those people what their present turnover is, one learns that it is exactly the same as it was 15 or 16 years ago. But in the meantime there has been a tremendous increase in production costs, which resulted in one thing only, and that is that the profit margin has become smaller and smaller. That is the reason why the majority of farmers in South Africa find themselves in financial difficulties to-day. Now we maintain that they must be rehabilitated in the first place.

How?

I shall tell the hon. member how I think it should be done. We stated this very clearly a few weeks ago and I hope that hon. members opposite will discuss that during this debate. We are not afraid of that. What I found strange, was that that statement appeared in the Press, but that not one hon. member was prepared to touch on the matter during the Budget debate. Why were they not prepared to do so? They were not prepared to do so because of the fact that what is stated in this provisional report of the Commission of Enquiry into the Agricultural Industry coincides in many respects with the proposals made by us.

What proposals?

I shall mention to the hon. the Minister the first proposal which we made. We said that in view of the fact that inflation had caused a tremendous increase in interest charges, the Government should ensure, especially when it came to longterm financing—and this refers to mortgages— that interest would be subsidized to a maximum of 2 per cent as from 1st January, 1966, i.e. with retrospective effect. In addition we said that any farmer who had been assisted by the Land Bank or by the Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure, should be allowed a longer period within which to repay those loans. We also expressed the hope that the Land Bank would see its way clear to decrease even its interest charges to those of the Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure. In addition we said that those farmers who had incurred debts during the last three years of the drought and who had persevered on their own, with their own means and without their having approached the State or their having availed themselves of the assistance schemes of the State should also receive assistance under the present circumstances. They find themselves in serious financial difficulties. They must be assisted to consolidate their debts at a rate of interest of 5 per cent per annum. Secondly, they can make use of this system if they are able to furnish proof that they incurred expenses during the last three years of the drought and that they did not avail themselves of any of the Minister’s assistance schemes. In that case they can obtain a 50 per cent subsidy on that expenditure. Now the hon. the Minister will ask me immediately why they have not made use of that. I want to tell him that they have been unable to do so, because in many districts the hon. the Minister waited until the last moment before he was prepared to declare them drought-stricken areas. We have already discussed this matter with the hon. the Minister.

That is not true.

It is true. I want to tell the hon. the Minister that there were certain drought-stricken districts in 1965-’66 and that we repeatedly requested him to declare those districts emergency grazing areas. The hon. the Minister waited until the very last moment before doing so. He waited so long that certain farmers could avail themselves of his assistance schemes for a period of two months only. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, firstly I want to say that we on this side of the House associate ourselves with what the previous speaker said in connection with the death of the chairman and officials of the Wool Board. It is a great loss to them, and we also wish to convey our sympathy to the next of kin.

I do not want to reply to all the nonsense spoken by the hon. member who resumed his seat a moment ago. I just want to deal with one point, namely where the hon. member read to us from newspapers and periodicals that certain officials in agriculture and other bodies had allegedly written how dissatisfied the maize farmers were with the price of maize, and that this year the maize farmers knew that if the price remained virtually the same as last year, they would have only half the income which they had last year. I cannot imagine how any government can give the farmers of the country the same income with only half the crop they had the previous year, when they had the biggest maize crop ever in South Africa. In the same breath the hon. member objected to the consumers of maize having to pay a few cents more.

I compared them with the producers.

The price to the farmer decreases, and in any case it is only in the case of white maize that the price is being decreased by five cents. Yellow maize remains the same as last year. Because the consumer has to pay a few cents more this year, he is concerned. If he would examine the position, he would see that the maize industry as such is again being subsidized by R25½ million this year. Does he expect the Government to subsidize one commodity to such an extent that the other commodities, in comparison, fall behind completely?

I should like to thank the hon. the Minister and the Government very much for making it possible for us as Mealie Board to continue giving that price to the producers. Those hon. members think that last year’s maize has now been exported and that there are no losses. Last year we had a crop of 106 million bags, and not 109 million bags, as the hon. member said. His information is outdated. The latest information is that it was 106 million bags. Of this quantity, approximately 23 million bags are still to be exported. If we take into account the fact that the export loss is approximately 90 cents a bag at present, the hon. gentlemen can calculate for themselves what the position with the new crop is going to be, which was estimated at 53½ million bags when the Government gave the farmers that price. The Board took it to be 57 million bags because they know it always happens that the crop proves to be larger than the provisional estimate. Besides, a second estimate already amounts to 59½ million, and I foresee the next estimate to be even higher and that the final crop might come to 65 million bags or more. Normally we use only about 48 million bags ourselves. This means that approximately 17 million of this new crop will have to be exported, plus another 23 million of last year’s crop, which brings the figure to 40 million. When we decreased the price last year, the stabilization fund stood at R35 million. With the big crop of last year the stabilization fund will be exhausted if all the surplus maize is exported, and it will not get in a sufficient amount with the five cents the farmer has to pay to the fund on the new crop, apart from the nine cents the Government is good enough to deposit in the stabilization fund as well. I predict to-day that this time next year the Maize Board will be saddled with a possible deficit of approximately R10 million in its stabilization fund. If the Government had yielded last year and had maintained the price of maize at R3.50 …

But you asked for it yourself.

Yes, but the Mealie Board was very grateful that the Government did not grant it. The Mealie Board calculated it like this on an estimate of 87 million. When we came to the second estimate …

How does the Mealie Board estimate then?

It is not the Mealie Board that does the estimating. The hon. member should learn a little arithmetic and should find out where it comes from.

He does not even know that.

That crop estimate is made by the farmers themselves. It is sent to the Department, and is then processed. If the Government had yielded, there would have been a loss of at least 10 million more. We would then have had to say this year that an increased levy must be imposed on the farmers in order to be able to cover the loss. I am glad to be able to say that the Government, seeing that we might have a large deficit on the export of maize, agreed to lend that deficit to the Mealie Board. If the Government lends that money to the Mealie Board and next year the crop is 100 million and 50 million has to be exported, it will mean that if the foreign market remains as it is, we will need anything between R30 and R35 million to cover those export losses. We cannot expect the Government to give the R35 million over and above the subsidies normally granted. The farmers would then have to pay large levies next year. They must already prepare themselves that if we have a crop of 100, 90 or 85 million bags next year, they will have to pay a levy and will obtain a lower price, even lower than it is this year. We must see the matter as it really is. It does not help us to bid against each other. Outside, certain bodies are against one another in order to obtain the highest price. The Agricultural Union quotes a price and then Sampi tries to outbid them by asking for a higher price, because it wants to be popular with the farmers, just as certain members on the opposite side of the House also want to be popular with the farmers. In the same breath they request a higher price for the farmers and say that the price the consumer must pay may not be increased. How they can reconcile those two things I do not know.

There is also another aspect I want to mention. Our farmers cannot expect merely to plant more and more maize. During the past ten years the area of land planted with maize increased by approximately 50 per cent. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Ladybrand has been speaking about a subject which is very dear to his heart, a subject about which he knows a great deal, so much so that I think that we could almost refer to him as the hon. mealie for Ladybrand. I do not think that he would be annoyed if we were to call him that. I want to say that it appears that the debate has developed to the stage where different commodities will be dealt with by hon. members. I want to ask the hon. member to excuse me if I do not follow him on the question of mealies and the price of mealies. One of the hon. members of this side will deal with that question.

I want to address the Committee in regard to the dairy industry. I know that this will make my noisy friends on my left very happy but I do feel that this is something that we must discuss with the hon. the Minister. In a report in the Natal Witness of 15th March, 1968, the following appeared—

This statement was made by Professor A. Hulme, the new chief of the Natal Region, Department of Agricultural Technical Services. He went on to say—

That is exactly the opposite of what the hon. member for Newton Park said just now.

No, this is not what I say; it is what Professor Hulme said. [Interjections.] If the hon. the Minister will give me a chance he will understand the point I am trying to make. I want to say that the dairy farmers in South Africa have accepted this challenge. They are trying to put their industry on a sound footing. They have formed study groups, they have launched a national advertising campaign. This is going great guns and I believe that it is increasing consumption. They have even instituted their own research organization. The Natal and East Griqualand Fresh Milk Producers Union asked the Government to assist them. They got no assistance from the Government and they have now on their own established their own research organization.

What kind of research does it undertake?

I think that the hon. the Minister should know himself. This concerns his department. A report in NAUNLU of the 8th September, 1967, reads as follows:

I say to them: Good luck, more power to their elbows and get on with a good job! The fact that the dairy industry has done its best to get back onto a sound footing and that it is achieving that, is indicated by the following statistics. In 1965 South Africa imported more than 21 million pounds of butter and in the same year South Africa produced only 80 million pounds. This meant that we imported over 20 per cent of our local consumption. In 1967 only 9 million pounds of butter was imported and local production was a little over 105 million pounds. This means that we only imported 9 per cent of the butter the country required. The dairy industry has made a tremendous recovery and has made great gains in production in spite of the Government. What is the Government doing to stabilize this industry to the point that we will not once again have over-production? Is the Government doing anything about finding more markets? I wonder whether the hon. the Minister and his department have once again considered the old school milk feeding scheme. This is one way of stimulating consumption and the dairy industry in this country.

There are certain things which are disturbing when one considers the broad aspect of the dairy industry in this country. There are certain, what I shall call rackets, for want of a better term, which seem to have evolved. I want to ask the hon. the Minister what he and his department have done and what they intend to do in the future, in regard to these so-called rackets. A report appeared in the Sunday Times of the 11th February, 1968, under the headlines “Farmers call for milk racket probe” and it reads as follows:

The report goes on to show that during the summer months there is a tremendous surplus of fresh milk in the Johannesburg area. In fact, up to 35,000 gallons of skimmed milk per day has been thrown down the drain. I am sure that the hon. the Minister will admit that this has happened. But the report goes on to allege that this tremendous surplus in production has been caused by dairies adding cheap milk powder and water to fresh milk.

And then you want to make milk powder out of the surplus milk.

I do not suggest that anything be done with it at this stage. If the hon. the Minister would only listen, he would realize that I am asking him whether he has investigated this allegation. If he has investigated it, will he advise us as to the outcome of the investigation and the steps he is taking to see that it does not happen again? The hon. the Minister talks about turning the surplus skimmed milk into milk powder. It is alleged in this report that the milk powder which was used was not even produced in South Africa. It was produced in Germany and then imported. We want to know from this hon. Minister whether he is prepared to protect this industry. Has he investigated this matter? What was the result of his investigations and will he take the necessary steps to see that this does not happen again?

There is another factor which is worrying many milk producers, namely the question of an imitation fluid milk. On the 5th April I asked the hon. the Minister whether the selling of imitation fluid milk in the Republic has been brought to his notice, whether it has been introduced with his approval and whether he would make a statement in regard to the matter. The answers I got were three noes. He was therefore not even prepared to make a statement in regard to the matter. He said that he was not aware that this was being sold in this country. I do not know whether it is being sold in this country or not, but I consider it the duty of the Minister to investigate it and to find out whether or not it is in fact being sold. I want to refer to the “Agricultural News” of the 12th January, 1968, in which a report appeared stating:

This American writer goes on to say:

This appeared in a report from the hon. the Minister’s own Department. What I want to know and what I am sure many dairy farmers in this country want to know from the hon. the Minister, is what is he doing about this? Is he aware of this imitation fluid milk? Is his Department prepared to consider the selling of this “milk” in this country? Is he prepared to protect the dairy industry to the point of prohibiting the sale of this milk in this country?

These are the points which I have raised briefly in these ten minutes and to which we would like answers from the hon. the Minister. I have told him of the steps I consider his Department can take to stimulate the dairy industry in this country and to put it back on a sound footing.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member who sat down a moment ago asked the hon. the Minister some direct questions, to which he will no doubt receive replies. I should like to confine myself to the general statements which were made by the hon. member for Newton Park, and which other speakers on that side are continually making, in respect of agriculture. The impression the United Party is constantly creating is that the farmers of South Africa are having a very hard time. They are constantly creating the impression amongst the public outside, amongst the 90 per cent of the population who are not farmers and who are not directly connected with the industry, that the farmers are a lot of plodders and that they are constantly begging the Government for more money, assistance and all sorts of alms. Now I want to tell the Opposition that they must start looking at this matter realistically. They must begin to realize that these stories of theirs do not do the industry, which I presume they are trying to serve in their way, any good. They must stop criticizing the agricultural industry in this way, because it is doing the industry itself infinite harm. I should like to read out an opinion here which was expressed by a leader of agriculture at one of the agricultural congresses last year. It is a very sober opinion and a very sound opinion. I hope that those hon. members will take more notice of this agricultural leader. I am referring to the chairman of the Natal Agricultural Union, Major H. Urquhart. I am reading from a report issued by the South African Financial Gazette. This is a purely economic periodical which approaches the whole matter from an agricultural economic point of view. This is the report given by the periodical in respect of a speech made by Major Urquhart at the Natal Agricultural Congress—

This is a completely realistic attitude. Since many of our big agricultural commodities, such as maize, among others, have become dependent on the foreign price because our producers are producing to a large extent for the foreign market, the foreign price must necessarily have an influence on the producer’s price. It cannot be otherwise, or do these hon. members expect the taxpayers of this country to continue subsidizing one part of the agricultural industry to an ever-increasing extent, and that ever-increasing producer’s prices will be paid for those products without the Government at the same time taking powers to limit the production or to intervene drastically as regards the way in which that product is produced in this country?

But I want to go further. The hon. member quoted from the provisional report of the Marais Commission. He made certain statements which have nothing whatsoever to do with the principles of this report. Especially as a result of the criticism expressed by hon. members on the farmers as a whole and the poor light in which they are representing the agricultural industry, I just want to mention to them that the commission says on page 34 of its report (translation)—

In other words, the vast majority of the farmers of South Africa—that is how I interpret those words—consists of enterprising, progressive and financially stable farmers who are well adapted to the diverse requirements of modern agriculture. I quote (translation)—

Then the commission goes on to mention the other two groups. I do not have the time to quote what the commission says, but the second group consists of people who land in difficulties as a result of circumstances and then have to be granted State assistance under certain circumstances. They do not recommend anything new to be done. What appears in this report in respect of financial assistance to farmers is virtually a literal confirmation of the policy of the hon. the Minister of Agriculture. The agricultural policy of the Government is, according to the evidence given by this commission, as sound and as correct as can be. Certain other things are recommended, but those recommendations in no way detract from the principle of stability and the firm basis on which the agricultural policy of the Minister rests.

It is based on subsidies.

Sir, my entire criticism of the United Party is that they are constantly asking the Government to take more and more of the taxpayers’ money. That hon. member would do well to have a talk with one of the agricultural leaders or with the chairman of the Natal Agricultural Union. Hon. members of the Opposition should pay some attention to the very sound point of view which the chairman of the Natal Agricultural Union put at the Natal Congress. The problem with hon. members of the Opposition is that they do not pay any attention to the sound, basic things that are also being said by agricultural leaders in this country. No, what they do is to quote certain statements made by agricultural leaders out of contexts in order to make political propaganda in that way. I think that by doing so they are doing the agricultural industry infinite harm. The latest annual report of the Secretary for Agricultural Economics and Marketing testifies to the fact that the agricultural industry is doing very well. [Time expired.]

Sir, I was most interested to hear the last remark of the hon. member for Winburg. He quoted from the departmental report to show that things were going well with the agricultural industry. Sir, there has never been a time in the history of farming in South Africa when the debt burden of the farming community has been as high as it is to-day, and there has never been a time when the interest rate on that debt has been as high as it is to-day. I want to know how the Government proposes to get the farming community out of the trouble in which they find themselves to-day. The farmers to-day owe this Government more money than they have ever owed before, at a higher interest rate than ever before. They owe the commercial banks and the commercial institutions more money than ever before. Sir, what is there that can be done to get the farming community out of their difficulties? The hon. member for Winburg quoted Major Urquhart. What Major Urquhart said at last year’s agricultural congress in Natal was this—

When the farmer is in financial trouble, the obvious thing for him to do is to step up his production by greater efficiency, where he can, in the hope that he will then have a greater income with which to redeem his debts. But Major Urquhart goes on to say—

He was referring to this lower price realization—

I want to know whether the hon. member for Winburg supports that contention? Sir, if there is not a stable price fixed, and if we do not strive for a stable price realization throughout the whole of the agricultural industry, how does a farmer know what he is going to get and how can he plan to redeem the debt which he has hanging round his neck like a millstone? Surely to goodness, without the Government making some kind of effort, either by redeeming the debt of the farmer or allowing the farmer to redeem his debt through his own efforts by giving him a decent and a guaranteed return on the products that he produces, how can he make up the leeway in which he finds himself to-day? I say again that there has never been a time like this when the farming community has been so deeply in debt as it is to-day. Sir, I am raising a matter here which concerns my own people and I expect some help and support from hon. members on the other side, including my hon. friend the hon. member for Vryheid.

Is that for the Royal Show?

Sir, my hon. friend picks me out every year about the Royal Show. I would point out to him that this year the State President is opening the Royal Show. He is doing us that very great honour, and I am sure that that hon. member would have been only too pleased if we had invited him to come. Perhaps he is upset because we have not done so.

Sir, the point I wish to raise with the hon. the Minister is the position of the wattle farmers. I do not want the hon. the Minister to say that I am talking about Forestry, because I am not talking about Forestry; I am talking about the position of the wattle farmer in relation to his Agricultural Credit Act. I specifically raised this very point when the Bill was debated here. I raised the question of the conversion of wattle into other crops and I pointed out that should the wattle farmer turn to some other timber sort, he would only start getting a return in about ten years’ time, and I went on to say (Hansard, vol. 17, col. 613)—

Now 8½ per cent, if he can get it to-day he is lucky—

Sir, this was on the 11th August, 1966.

Under what Bill was that?

This was on the Agricultural Credit Bill which that hon. Deputy Minister piloted through the House, if I remember correctly. I went on to say—

Sir, that is precisely the position in which these people find themselves to-day. I raised this point specifically with the hon. the Minister at the time, because people were then bonding themselves to the hilt to get out of the wattle industry into the sugar industry, and I made the point then and there that if things went wrong, desperate measures would be required by this Department to salvage those people. This is precisely what has happened, and I am sure the hon. member for Vryheid will agree with me that many people in that area who went into sugar to-day are in a far worse position because of continuous frost and drought, they are almost in an irretrievable position.

“Aikona.”

I can assure that hon. member that there are many people there who are in very serious trouble indeed as a result of the actions of this Government. Sir, it is not only that; it goes further than that. Where the wattle industry is shifting its emphasis from the Pietermaritzburg and the Paddock factories into the area around Grey-town and into the Transvaal and the area of the hon. the Deputy Minister, those in my area are going to find themselves exceedingly embarrassed over the next ten years to maintain their farming position while they convert from the wattle industry to something else. They are going to become a burden upon the Minister’s department, but we have this position that where the man’s security is his wattle quota, the Land Bank will not accept it because there is no guaranteed price for the quota. My request to the hon. the Minister to-day is that he should investigate means whereby the quota of a wattle farmer can be considered as security for a loan by the Land Bank, because many of these people are going to have to convert into some other kind of crop. Whether they are going to grow mealies or whether they are going to grow wool, they are at the same time going to have to find money somewhere at the present rate of interest in order to be able to convert. Sir, that is precisely the position; we are going to have to find money at to-day’s rates of interest, with a security which the Minister’s Department, through the Land Bank, does not recognize as being a proper security.

One other matter I would like to raise with the hon. the Minister is the question of loans from the Land Bank to bona fide farming companies. This is a development which is coming into being in our area; people who are farmers are going into the production of milk particularly, on a very big scale indeed, in order to attain the utmost efficiency. In one particular instance they are producing over 1,000 gallons of milk a day. The request has come from the Mooi River Farmers Association that the Minister or the Land Bank should consider making loans available to bona fide farmers who have banded themselves together in a company in order to purchase farms and to develop them to the maximum efficiency. Sir, the production potential of our area on this basis …

The hon. member for Newton Park does not want to do that; he says that the platteland becomes depopulated if you have companies operating there.

Sir, the position is that by enabling the farmers to remain there, by enabling them to put their land as capital into the farming company, you are enabling them to stay there, but allowing their friends to come in and help them and to take shares and to run the farm with the maximum efficiency in order to secure the greatest possible production.

Why must the Land Bank help them?

Sir, I am making a request to the hon. the Minister. I do not want him to fight with me before he has considered what I am asking him. I do not want a hostile attitude from the hon. the Minister when I am asking him for something which is in the interests of the farming community. I have come here with the request from one of my farmers’ associations …

But why must the Land Bank help that sort of company? The Land Bank is there to help individual farmers.

Sir, these are bona fide farmers who are looking for a means of increasing the efficient production of farming products. They are farmers, not big commercial interests seeking help.

Who will manage these farms?

These people are farmers who have banded themselves together and they now seek the assistance of the Government to be able to develop their property to its maximum production. I believe that they have a genuine case to put to the hon. the Minister, and that the Land Bank should be encouraged to lend money on a venture of this nature, because here you have people who are already in farming; they are people who know the risks attached to farming, and if they are prepared to approach the Land Bank for assistance in this way, I believe that they are deserving of assistance, I ask the hon. the Minister, in spite of his hostility, if he will reconsider the matter.

In the introductory sentences of the speech made by the hon. member who has just resumed his seat, the hon. member criticized the Government in the same way as the introductory speaker on that side of the House did, and stated that what was being done was not enough, and he elaborated extensively on this point. I merely want, with all due respect to the two hon. members, to point out that during 1966-’67 slightly more than R1,300 million in revenue was contributed by the agricultural sector to the income of the State. If the hon. members were to analyze the Estimates, they would see that out of the Revenue Account 11.76 and out of the Loan Account 20 per cent is being ploughed back into agriculture. It is obvious that the State is ploughing back far more into agriculture than it is directly deriving from the agricultural sector. That is why that entire series of arguments, which covered a very wide field, fall away.

But I do not want to dwell on that, I want to come to item ‘ K ’ of Revenue Vote 27, which deals with the National Parks Board. In the Estimates under this Vote, it is stated that an amount of R120,000 is being appropriated as a grant-in-aid to the Parks Board. In addition the Parks Board is receiving, as a loan, an additional amount of R150,000 from the Department of Agricultural Credit to make provision in its Estimates for essential capital expenditure in the various parks. However, the interest on this loan is so great that it is more than the increase in the allowance this year of R100,000 to R120,000. In addition the National Parks Board is also receiving from the Transvaal Provincial Administration the amount of R15,000 and R10,000 from the Cape Provincial Administration, and nothing from the Natal Provincial Administration. The Department of Transport is also making a substantial contribution to the tarring of roads in the National Parks. This year it amounts to a total of R600,000 of their capital appropriation. But apart from that the Parks Board is thrown upon its own resources for the major part of its income, and it is doing so in a way which redounds both to its credit and to that of the country. The Kruger National Park remains its most important source of revenue. It is calculated that out of a total tourist income of R1,113,000 during this financial year, the Kruger National Park alone will produce R1,017,000 with a trade turnover of approximately R1,703,000. The Kruger National Park already attracts an annual total of a quarter of a million visitors, of which approximately 20,000 are from abroad, and the pressure of visitors to the Kruger National Park is steadily increasing. What it means to the country and to the farmers en route to the National Park in monetary terms is incalculable, but we have reached the point where we are faced by the incontrovertible fact that the Kruger National Park simply cannot accommodate any more people than it is accommodating at present. If it were to accommodate more the purpose for which it was created would be defeated. This purpose is in the first place of course to keep that part of the country in the most untouched condition and to conserve nature for posterity, and secondly, and equally important, to offer the flustered city dweller a place where he can stay for a while, away from it all in natural surroundings. For that reason I am to-day asking the Minister and the House to consider how the National Parks Board can be assisted in developing this major national asset at an even more accelerated rate than at present. Our task is to establish more new national parks which will alleviate the pressure on the Kruger National Park, and at the same time develop and make known the natural wonders of other equally unique areas.

To-day, under this Vote, I should like to thank the hon. Minister for the work of inestimable importance which he has already accomplished in the promotion of our national parks, but at the same time I want to ask him to grant an increase in the annual amount from R120,000 to R250,000. Such an increase would, while the opportunity is still there to save and to conserve, enable the Parks Board to take more rapid and more efficient steps. At this stage such an increase would, in my humble opinion, produce within a short time a greater yield in the material and spiritual sense than, with respect, to keep in existence by artificial means, half worked-out gold mines, in spite of the possibilities of an increased gold price. In our national parks we have a steadily growing asset instead of a dwindling asset, and it is this growing asset which needs a healthy booster on the part of the Government.

I base my plea for an increase in the allowance on the fact that there are undeveloped areas in our country which offer the same potential as the Kruger National Park, and we may not allow big capital which is in non-South African hands to deprive the Parks Board of this birth-right of ours. It is a fact that at the present private bodies are purchasing this land for the specific purpose of trying to develop monopolistic conditions in this industry, which is the birth-right of the National Parks Board. I want to conclude with a few examples of places which are crying out to be developed as national parks.

In the Transvaal I want to mention the Makapan Cave complex near Potgietersrus, a complex where the finest and most important caves in the country are to be found, with a variety of cave formations and cave life which cannot be equalled by any other part of the country, and where the best examples of primitive life in Southern Africa are to be found. Apart from that, this region is representative of our typical bushveld trees and shrubs, with the concomitant insect and bird life. The natural bushveld game is still present there, the kudus, red buck, bush pigs, and others. In addition this complex is situated near to the main road to the north, and it is practically half way between the Rand and the two northern gates of the Kruger National Park.

Just beyond the Soutpansberg, further north, is the Mapungubwe area, the mysterious Hill of the Jackals, where over the centuries valuable remains of a stone age civilization have been conserved on the crest of this hill in the Mopani bushveld world. Mapungubwe remains a place of mystery, and its doors are waiting to be opened by our people and natural scientists. What is more, it is also of military strategic importance, because this mysterious hill is almost opposite the confluence of the Sashi and the Limpopo Rivers where Rhodesia, Transvaal and Botswana meet. Equally strategic, from the veterinary as well as the military point of view, is the far northeastern coastal strip of Natal, the region which stretches from the boundary of the Portugese territory to Ouraput southwards along the coast to north of Sordwana Bay, a strip of approximately 54,000 morgen, which is not of much use for agricultural purposes, but which biologically-speaking is an interesting coastal strip with swamp and forest conditions in the interior and rich corral reefs in the ocean which makes it a virtual paradise for the angler who wants to fish from the rocks. And once again the place is within easy reach of the Kruger National Park, which is so overcrowded.

Sir, a western maritime coastal park, with adjacent Namakwaland and the desert, with its particular desert veld and animal life, can in fact become one of the world’s most interesting coastal and desert regions, particularly during the charming spring season. [Time expired.]

There is one thing I am disappointed about this afternoon, and this is that we do not have the full public gallery here which we had this morning. I would have like the public to hear the weak defence of the agricultural policy of this Government. What a pity those people are not here this afternoon to listen to this weak defence. We are mainly discussing the Agricultural Economics and Marketing Vote and it is noticeable how hon. member opposite have avoided this particular point.

If you wanted an audience, why did you not get some of your own supporters to come here?

They say “Ons bydrae is tog nul”, but when it comes to an argument across the floor of the House, then frequently they ask us: “Wat is julle oplossing?”; and the moment we give them the solution, they run to the platteland and say that they have the solution.

The farmers to-day—and there is no denying it; I do not only believe it, but I know it— have more debt than they had during the depression of 1933.

All the farmers?

Yes, agriculture in general. The farmers owe more money to-day than they have ever owed in the history of South Africa. Farmers have very high debts, and of course when debts increase under this Government, the rates of interest go up, so we are forced to pay very high interest rates. [Interjection.] I will wait to hear the speech of the hon. member for Christiana, but I wish he would give me a chance, because I only have 10 minutes. Apart from the high interest rates, agriculture of to-day is faced with very high production costs, but the tragedy is that with everything inflated, the farmer’s income is low. Therefore the farmer finds himself faced with the problem of high finance, and indeed it is high finance, for the small farmer to survive now, when never before he had so much debt.

You are talking nonsense.

If I am talking nonsense. I wonder what the hon. member thinks of this statement. This was said the other day, on 15th March this year, just about at the time of the Budget. This man said—

Who said so?

This was said by the Nationalist Party Provincial Councillor for Queenstown. The hon. member should now say that he spoke nonsense. He added that the farmers were caught fast between rising expenditure and decreasing income. But when I said that, hon. members opposite said I was talking nonsense. [Interjections.] Yes, that is what the Nats, say outside this House, but when they come here then they just thank the Minister. However, this gentleman went on to say—

Yet when we on this side of the House talk about it, it is “nonsense”—

[Interjections.]

Order! Will hon. members please give the hon. member a chance to make his speech.

I am not surprised, Mr. Chairman, at these interjections; it is because they do not like what their own provincial council member has to say outside this House. However, whether they like it or not, they have to listen—

Well. I want to endorse what the Nationalist member in the provincial council for Queenstown says here. In the Cape to-day we have 32,000 active farmers. If we want to maintain this number, we shall have to find 1,050 new farmers every year to make up for the death or retirement of existing farmers. This is a very serious problem. Yet, when one listens to hon. members opposite, everything is fine in the agricultural garden. It is time we faced up to the facts. During the Budget debate this side of the House, quite correctly, accused the Minister that the budget relating to agriculture, was a mini-budget. In defence of that the Minister said—

So, all the Minister had to say in defence of this, was that R200 million was wrapped up in agriculture. But this we know. But in spite of this, what is the agriculturalist receiving to-day to compensate him for the severe drought conditions he suffered under, for so many years? What compensation does he receive for the high interest rates, high costs of production and a low income?—a piffling amount of some R14 million.

Where do you get that from?

The hon. member wants to know where I come by that. Well, it comes from the hon. member’s own Minister. The hon. member should only read his Minister’s remarks and statement on the Budget. He said R3 million was for economics and marketing; R10 million as a contribution to the fund of the Land Bank. While on this, let me say that I have to do with the Land Bank very often especially now during the credit squeeze. I know that this R10 million can be swallowed up within one hour. It is a small amount. I know there are other amounts contributed for this purpose but not from this budget.

If you know, why don’t you say so then?

But I did say so. The hon. the Minister cannot accuse me of not knowing about the position of the Land Bank; I know everything about it. But as far as the recent budget was concerned, only R10 million went to the Land Bank. Then there was R1 million for the Wool Board for publicity and research, and R150,000 for publicity and research in connection with wattle bark. All these amounts total up to R14 million only, and if the hon. the Minister can find more than this amount from the budget we shall be very pleased indeed. R14 million is all there is. Before the budget people asked me what I thought the farmers and agriculture generally will receive from it. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the previous hon. member began his speech by saying that we were always asking them, whenever they had complaints: What is your solution? I really expected him to suggest a few solutions. He continued with this inventory of problems which he furnished to us, as he viewed the matter from his side, until his time expired. I am still waiting for a positive suggestion. That is why I am not going to follow up any further on what he said. I have something more important to deal with, for I want to discuss a part of our country where the farmers have not all deteriorated as he intimated in respect of the general state of our farmers.

I want to refer to the provisional report of the Commission of Enquiry into Agriculture. It was with interest that I took cognizance of a recommendation, according to item D of the terms of reference of the commission, to institute a special investigation into and to make recommendations on the rehabilitation of agriculture in areas which had been subjected to severe drought conditions. Also amongst these areas which were subject to periodic droughts, was the area which we know as the Kalahari, namely the area north of the Orange River on the north-western side of the Cape Colony. There is, as regards Gordonia, which extends over an area of approximately 20,000 sq. miles, a cattle area within Gordonia, covering approximately 2½ million morgen. In respect of this area and its population the commission made recommendations which to my mind were particularly far-reaching and which I cannot let by without comment. For various reasons, but particularly in order to conserve the vegetation of this large area, it was recommended that farming activities should gradually be ceased in this area. It is an area where more than two-thirds of the karakul farmers have made progress during the past five years. It is an area where there are ¾ million sheep and between 40,000 to 50,000 head of cattle.

And ten United Party men.

Yes, if there are as many as that. Last time I was there I did not see one. The recommendations on page 46 are (translation)—

In addition it is recommended that owners there should gradually be bought out. Although the praiseworthy motive behind this recommendation is not being doubted, what is actually being done is that a kind of death sentence is being passed on an area which, for a generation or longer, has accommodated a farming population, an area in which thousands of sheep and cattle were saved during the past drought. It is an area in regard to which Mr. G. W. Oosthuizen in his M.Sc. thesis on karakul farming in Gordonia stated that during the last few years no seriously ruinous conditions had been found on one proprietary farm in the Kalahari area which had adequate cattle-watering points. Hon. members must take into account the fact that I am speaking of proprietary farms with adequate cattle-watering points. It is an area where there has in fact been a lack of awareness in regard to soil conservation in the past. I admit it. But it is understandable. It is a young country. There was a lack of operational insight amongst the farmers, and soil conservation did not enjoy top priority. Only now has it begun to acquire momentum. Yet the present information officer there testified to the fact that a drastic change has taken place in the approach of farmers to soil conservation. Apart from a few proprietary farms, particularly where overgrazing took place, and to State-owned land which was leased during the droughts and where the soil was trampled, I am able to say that the situation in the Kalahari at the moment is no poorer than it is in any other part of our country with comparable soil conditions. In fact, I think that the Kalahari is quite privileged in this respect that the development of farming which is now beginning to take place there is already at a stage in which positive steps are being taken to promote conservation farming on a scientific basis. In other parts of our country deterioration of grazing land took place a long time ago, before this era of conservation farming was ushered in. In this region conservation farming is coming into its own. I cannot therefore express my complete satisfaction at this, I almost want to say defeatist, approach on the part of the commission. After all, it is true that, particularly in the case of privately owned land, the farmers are trying to apply soil conservation. We must admit that until as recently as 1966 it was Government policy to lease the land in that area to trial lessors. The person remained there from five to ten years and was then entitled to proprietary rights. The condition was that he had to ensure that he had an adequate water supply. With all due appreciation for this policy, which was merely aimed at establishing our farmers there and assisting them, it did lead to the downfall of many a young farmer, because he had to search for water, and had to incur expenses. The widely distributed cattle-watering points gave rise to trampling of the veld. During periods of drought the veld was leased out quite injudiciously. The sense of proprietary interest was not present in the man leasing the land, to the same extent as one finds on proprietary land, because if one looks after one’s own, one looks after it better. To my way of thinking and also to that of these people too much was initially taken out of the soil. This was partly because it belonged to the State, and because there was ignorance in regard to the utilization of grazing land. I am pleased that the State has now decided to give those remaining farms, or at least I hear this is the policy, to owners by way of tender or in some other way, so that the people will then be able to conserve to better effect what is their own. This community is undergoing an evolution in that they are already utilizing the soil to better effect and are in fact looking after it. It is a community which is represented by really sound human material. As far as our farmers there are concerned, I want to advocate that this recommendation of the Commission be approached with great circumspection. I want to advocate that the people living in that part, a very attractive part of the world, where people are now establishing themselves on newly acquired properties on which they are beginning to apply the new conservation methods, should be allowed to remain there. As opposed to the recommendations of the Commission I should therefore like to suggest to you the more positive approach. Let us, if we have confidence in our soil conservation methods and in our ability to control this and to guide the people by means of information, let us through the distribution of information and research try instead to exercise veld control even more efficiently. I regard the rapid development of experimental work on the karakul experimental farm Massakloutjie, which is already the property of the State, as being of extreme importance. I think it ought to enjoy top priority. Those people will then be given the information in regard to farming conditions which prevail there, as well as information on an inductive scientific basis, by research undertaken in those areas. These farmers were perhaps too optimistic in regard to the carrying capacity of their alnd, particularly in times of favourable rainfall when the grass comes up to one’s waist. But nobody, not even this Commission, has as yet been able to establish for certain what the carrying capacity of that land is. They have not even been able to establish the correct ratio between large and small stock. I am therefore advocating that these people be allowed to remain there. I am certain that if the hon. the Minister displays confidence in those people, the desert will bloom within a few generations, and these people will show that a newly developing farming generation has been established which will be of great benefit to South Africa.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Gordonia raised a specific point that is referred to in the Marais Commission Report. It deals with the fact that the report recommends that certain areas be taken out of grazing in his particular area. I do not wish to comment on that particular fact other than to say that I believe that the only way of saving thousands of morgen of pastoral country in South Africa from complete desiccation, will be to take it out of grazing. I do hope that in the years ahead of us the Government will institute plans to see that this approach is implemented in a big way. I do not want to follow this particular argument further, but I want to raise another aspect with he hon. the Minister of Agriculture. This is that I am concerned that we do not have, at the present stage, any long-term agricultural policy which really looks like rehabilitating the agricultural sector in South Africa. When the hon. the Minister spoke during the Budget debate I asked him whether he suggested that the proposals made in this particular Budget to be the long-term plan for agriculture. The hon. the Minister said that it was not so. I think that we, as the Opposition, are entitled to demand that at some point, and as soon as possible, the Government does put its cards on the table so that we know in what direction we are going. I have said before in this House, and I want to emphasize it again because I think it is a most important point, that unless the Government accepts the principle of creating a department of finance that is able to finance agriculture at rates of interest which the industry can bear, no other means that they can think of will rehabilitate the agricultural sector in South Africa. It has been proved over and over again that the industry is not in a position to bear the rates of interest which are currently being charged in the private sector. I feel that the Government must face up to this fact. We on this side of the House have often pleaded that there should be a department of agricultural finance. We stressed this point when the new department, the Department of Agricultural Credit, was debated in this House. The Department of Agricultural Credit is in no position to finance agriculture to the extent which agriculture needs financing. Something much bigger has to be contemplated. I think that we have to accept, and it is a fact that the farmers in South Africa are sick and tired of the subsidy concept. As long as the farmers have to face up to the fact …

What about Newton Park?

I will come to your point. The farmers are sick and tired of the subsidy concept. They have got to get on to something that is more permanent and more satisfactory. This patchwork subsidy system of the Government which it is now introducing is no system for getting agriculture back on to its feet. A previous speaker has said that he is satisfied with the present basis of agricultural financing in South Africa. The present basis is one of subsidy and patchwork, and it we persist with that policy agriculture will never play the part it ought to play in South Africa. I want the Government to create a department of agricultural finance which makes available to the agricultural sector finance at a rate of interest which the agricultural sector can bear. I want to go a step further. The Government has already accepted this principle in that the Land Bank charges a rate of interest of six per cent and the Department of Agricultural Credit charges a rate of interest of five per cent. The Government has therefore acknowledged that that is the rate of interest that agriculture can bear. The subsidy system is a kind of system whereby, if you are going to put up a fence, you have to get someone to come and measure it for you. You then wait for two years and then you get a subsidy on it. If you want to make an earth bank, you get a subsidy on it. It is patchwork stuff that cannot help the industry one iota. That hon. member knows this fact as well as I do. If he does not realize this and if he does not propound what I am propounding here now he is not speaking in the interests of the farmers he represents in this House. If the Government is prepared to take the steps I am recommending and they want to implement this policy properly and it is based on long-term planning and they are prepared to make this money available, I believe that it will be in the interests of agriculture if they do impose certain controls when they lend that money. Time does not permit me to explain the whole system in full but I want to say that when the Government has established such a financing department, I would say that it would be reasonable to expect that the people who qualify for assistance from that department should be farmers who have proved themselves over the years to be farmers worthy of that assistance. What has happened in the past is this. Many people who have had subsidies are people who have not really farmed in the interests of the land. But if they introduce this system, and that is the golden thread running through the Marais Commission report, they will help those people who are saving their country. I want to say that if you have a financial institution that is big enough and generous enough to be able to help the people who deserve the help, we are going to take the first step towards rehabilitating the agricultural sector in South Africa. I should like to make one suggestion, although I could make many others because I think that the Government is in need of a lot of help. I would like to suggest that it might be well that in these farming areas you award a man a conservation certificate which he earned because he has proved himself to be a farmer of merit. If he should have such a certificate in his possession, that should be the open sesame for him to get the financial assistance that he should be able to get from the Government at a difficult time such as this.

I have figures here to show how inadequate financing is at the present stage as far as the agricultural sector is concerned. Over 7,000 farmers have applied to the Department of Agricultural Credit for assistance. 3,400 of those people had their applications turned down. Surely that is proof enough that the facilities the Government is offering at this time are hopelessly inadequate. I think the hon. the Minister will agree with me when I say that if he reviews the activities of the Land Bank the position could be improved. I want to say nothing against the Land Bank because I consider it a very well-run organization. But the money that the Land Bank is making available is also hopelessly inadequate. In many cases the farmers being assisted by the Land Bank to-day are not those farmers who have carried the brunt of the burden through all these years. If you are a farmer and you have played your role in the agricultural sector, farmed in the proper way, and adhered to conservation principles, if you go to the Land Bank for assistance to-day, in nine cases out of ten you are unable to get assistance. [Time expired.]

Chairman directed to report progress.

House Resumed:

Progress reported.