When addressing a few complimentary words to the hon. the Deputy Minister of Agriculture just before the debate was adjourned yesterday, I heard cutting remarks from the Opposition front benches to the effect that I could not address the same compliments to the hon. the Minister of Agriculture. I now want to add another dissillusionment to all the disillusionments suffered by the Opposition in recent times, and that is the following: When we had a record maize crop the year before last and the price of maize was a very contentious matter, a very large meeting was convened at Kroonstad under the auspices of the Free State Agricultural Union in order to discuss this matter with the hon. the Minister of Agriculture. Literally hundreds of maize farmers turned up and attended the meeting, at which there was a highly emotional atmosphere. After the Minister of Agriculture had made a very frank statement on the whole matter, those maize farmers who were present and who had come to agitate for a higher price for maize adopted a unanimous motion of confidence in the present Minister of Agriculture.

Mr. Speaker, just before the debate was adjourned last night I showed how most of the Western countries are experiencing enormous problems with their agriculture, also the two richest agricultural countries in the world, i.e. the United States of America and Canada. The authority I quoted yesterday evening, came to the conclusion that one of the main causes of their problems was the injudicious subdivision of land. I want to suggest that it is one of the major causes of the agricultural problems in this country as well, and I trust that we shall as soon as possible get a comprehensive act dealing with this matter in the right way, and I want to express my thanks for the interim measures which have been taken in the Transvaal.

Mr. Speaker, hon. members of the Opposition painted a sombre picture of our agriculture. I concede that there are many serious problems. I have already done so, but there are also splendid rays of light. Take for example the figure in respect of our net agricultural revenue. In the year 1959-’60 it was only R310 million; in the year 1967-’68 it was R666.2 million. I want to mention another figure, that in respect of maize production in the north-western Free State over a period of five years. In the years 1954-’55 to 1958-’59 the average production per morgen was only 9.78 bags. In the years 1963-’64 to 1967-’68 the production increased to 13.98 bags per morgen. This is certainly the result of improved agricultural methods being applied by the farmers, but it is most definitely also attributable to the excellent information and research services provided by our agricultural Departments.

The real reason why I got up to-day was to say a few words to this House in connection with the maize industry, which is experiencing a major crisis at the moment.

But the farmers are satisfied with the Minister!

I think I have already dealt with that effectively. Especially in the north-western Free State and in the northern Free State, the parts that I know well, the situation is extremely poor this year, solely as a result of the fact that in spite of a good Government and a good Minister of Agriculture the last two maize seasons have been ruinous. The point has now been reached where even strongly-placed crop farmers are finding themselves in serious financial difficulties. With respect, I want to say that ordinary Government financing and the existing ceilings are inadequate for this area. A strong farmer who has reached his limit at the commercial bank and who then has to turn to the Government for assistance cannot manage on the present ceiling of R4,000 for a production loan. On behalf of my constituents I am very grateful for the statement made here by the hon. the Deputy Minister, but my interpretation of this statement is that it does not go far enough, because it does not cover the cases of cooperatives having to grant new advances for production, especially to the category of farmer I mentioned a moment ago. I want to plead for the extension of this aid so that co-operatives may be able to obtain ample funds to provide production credit to crop farmers for the new season. I would appreciate it if my request could be considered and if a decision could be given soon, because many farmers will be in need of credit with the new wheat season being at hand.

Then I want to plead with the hon. the Minister of Finance that extensive relaxation of credit control at the commercial banks for agriculture should also be considered. In addition I want to plead for the abolition, within reasonable limits, of restrictive legislation in respect of participation bonds. This type of financing is a very important form of financing of small farmers in many parts of the country, and the existing legislation has a crippling effect in this regard.

Then I want to ask that the periodic large maize surpluses should carry much less weight in the determination of the price of maize in the future.

In other words, supply and demand does not count.

The hon. member must just listen, then he will find out what my standpoint is. It is of course easy to be wise after the event, but the past four years have taught us a lesson in this regard. In 1966 we had to import maize on a small scale. In 1967 we had a record year; in 1968 we had a mediocre year, and in 1969 we had an extremely poor year. I am speaking under correction, but I think in the 21 years this Government has been in power, we have only had one record maize crop which really created export problems. Furthermore there is the additional argument that experts calculate that we shall have 6.000 million mouths to feed in the world by the year 2000, and in order to feed them we will have to increase wheat production by 100 per cent and animal production by 200 per cent. In other words, very soon the accent will no longer fall on surpluses in this country and in the world. I want to plead that the Government should absorb and spread out the shock of the odd surpluses which there may still be, by making advances to the Stabilization Fund from time to time at a reasonable rate of interest.

Then I want to be so bold to-day as to ask, very respectfully, for a reasonable increase in the price of maize this year. I am asking for this in the knowledge that the Government also has to do justice to the consumer. Of course, this problem can be solved by means of larger consumer subsidization. Sir, I have also obtained the opinion of an economist; I do not know whether he is right; I give his opinion in good faith as I received it from him. His opinion is that if maize carries a weight of two in the determination of the cost-of-living index, the consumer price index will rise by only 0.2 if a 10 per cent increase is granted in the price of maize. He also concedes that a small indirect increase may follow. I want to express the opinion that this will not be too heavy a burden on the consumers.

In conclusion I respectfully and urgently want to ask that the Marais Commission bring out an urgent interim report on crop farming and make a specific finding on the evidence submitted to them in regard to the provision of short-term credit for agriculture.

Mr. Speaker, I make no apology for entering the debate on agricultural matters. I want to speak particularly about the citrus industry. I do this, despite the fact that I am an urban representative, because I have been a citrus farmer for some 23 years. I am also a member of the local co-operative pack house. I can therefore claim some knowledge of the citrus industry.

Let us examine the industry to-day. We find that this industry earns between R25 and R30 million per annum. It is significant to note that over a three-year period, earning R26 million per annum, the amount that eventually goes to the grower is only R1,621,000. Out of that he has to cover his agricultural costs and other expenses. This industry has had a proud record. It has been self-supporting, and more self-supporting than many of our agricultural industries, except in 1931 and during the war years. It has the proud record of climbing by way of production from the tenth largest citrus industry in the world in 1960 to approximately the ninth in the world to-day. There has, therefore, been progress, but it is somewhat questionable whether this sort of progress is worth-while considering the position the industry finds itself in to-day. The first question I want to pose is this: What has the industry done for itself? I think it is acknowledged on all sides that it is an efficient industry. It is well-managed and when the industry ran into trouble in 1960 it employed world-renowned consultants and the whole industry was overhauled after an inquiry lasting for a full year. The result was the admiration of all the other citrus industries in the world. They tried to find out what the policy was and what had been done.

It is also said that the industry should get a better price for its products and I think it can be said that there has been a very aggressive sales policy and that the best price that can be obtained has been obtained, particularly overseas. The criticism is sometimes made, and it has been made by the hon. the Minister of Agriculture, and the question why the citrus farmers do not increase their market is asked. It can be said that the market has almost reached saturation point. Let us look at the figures for a moment. In 1951 there were 6,210,000 half-cases of citrus fruit sent overseas to five countries. By 1966 there were 18,211,000 half-cases sent to 16 countries. I think that is a magnificent achievement in opening up new markets and obtaining outlets for the products. It is also said that too high a price is being paid for farms, but when you examine the position in the citrus industry, you find that these farms have been well held. Most of them have been held for years. I am the fourth owner of the farm on which I farm, including the Voortrekker. The farms, therefore, do not change hands quickly and readily, but they are well held. I make this point to show that these farms, in the main, were not acquired at expensive prices. If you talk to a citrus farmer to-day, he will tell you that he could not make citrus pay, even if he had inherited the farm free of debt. This brings the industry to the cross roads.

I particularize by referring to the area of which I have a knowledge. The pack house there has 180 members who farm with citrus. Obviously it is not all the citrus farmers in the area, but I would say that 80 per cent of these citrus farmers in the area belong to the pack house. At the moment only six of that 180 members can be said to be full-time citrus farmers. Where have the others gone? The others have gone to take employment in the towns and on the platinum mines which are nearby. Fortunately the mines are booming and they have been absorbed into the platinum industry, placing their farms on a caretaker basis. When we inquire at the Land Bank about loans made to citrus farmers—obviously I cannot get absolute details of individuals, because that would not be right—we find that, by and large, the farms are bonded beyond their true value. I must say that I give full credit to the Land Bank and the manner in which they have dealt with the farmers and their difficulties. The point I want to make, to emphasize the seriousness of the situation, is that many of these properties with Land Bank and other loans are bonded beyond their true value. Let us look at the trading results. In 1950, if you disposed of 30 lbs. of fruit, taking the overseas and local market, you would expect to get 28.17 cents back. By 1960 you were losing 1.6 cents on the same amount of fruit. It is, therefore, almost not worth while. People hang on, spending the same amount of money and hoping that this is going to come right. One has to realize what the citrus industry is up against. Other countries subsidize their citrus industries very heavily. In Israel, during the 1966-’67 season assistance was given to the citrus industry to the extent of R4 million. In February, 1967, there was a devaluation of 18.7 per cent in Brazil and later a further devaluation of 15.7 per cent. In America, half the cost of Florida’s citrus industry’s advertising overseas is paid by the Department of Agriculture. In Australia the citrus industry is subsidized and in Italy the industry is subsidized to the extent of R400,000 for advertising. In a little country like Sicily half a million rand was allocated towards promotion and finding new markets. We then have the added difficulty of the possible disappearance of the British market if she should join the Common Market. You therefore have to look to see what the remedy is. You cannot extend your markets to any great extent, although there is a possibility of exporting to America in the off-season and also the possibility of exporting to Japan. There is some hope for this, but that will not put the citrus industry right.

We have got to examine where the trouble lies, and the trouble really lies in rising costs. Most of the costs in the citrus industry are controlled by the state. The state controls a large percentage of the oncosts in the distribution and marketing of fruit, namely the railage to ports, pre-cooling and handling, the charges at ports, the wharfage and ocean freight. I wish to give some figures now, comparing what it cost per half-case in 1947 with what it cost in 1966. In 1947 these charges absorbed 28.435 cents per half-case, and by 1966 the same items absorbed 84.6 cents per half-case, which is an increase over that period of 197.5 per cent. If one takes specific items one finds the position is far worse. For instance, for pre-cooling in 1947 it was .098 cents per half-case and in 1966 it was 5.37 cents, a percentage increase that amounts to thousands. Handling is the same. In 1947 it was .088 cents and in 1966 it was 5.89 cents. These seem small items but when they are added up with the thousands and millions of cases that go away of course they amount to globular sums. That is the part of the oncost charges which the state controls. If we look at the overseas distribution we find in 1947 it was 15.175 cents per half-case and in 1966 it was 36.65 cents, an increase of 141 per cent, 50 per cent less than the increase of the Government charges. Within the organization itself the expenses it was responsible for and which it could control entirely increased only by 114 per cent.

When we go to the other section of the costs, namely the grower’s costs, we find in 1947 his cost was 50.3 cents per unit whilst in 1966 it had risen to 85 cents, an increase of 68.9 per cent. It is not a great deal when you consider the position, and I think it can be said quite rightly that the industry itself has controlled its cost far better than the Government has controlled the cost as affecting the industry. The Government has been warned from time to time; they have been warned that if it increased these costs it would bring disaster to the citrus industry, particularly in regard to the freight rate, which, of course, is a matter of agreement which the Government negotiates and is one of the biggest items as far as citrus is concerned which is sent overseas. What happens is this. There is a general rate applying to fruit, and although citrus is shipped in the “cheap” season, in the winter months, it pays a general rate and is actually subsidizing the freight for other fruit growers. I have no complaint because other fruit growers might get a lower rate, but why should the citrus grower be penalized? It has been shown they can get freight outside of the conference lines very much cheaper than the conference lines can give you to-day. It is an established fact, and I see the hon. the Deputy Minister agrees with me, that they can get it cheaper outside of the conference lines. I believe the agreement can be altered if circumstances which were not foreseen at the time of making the agreement, arise. Well, I believe such circumstances have arisen because the position is so parlous in this industry that the Government could easily go to the conference lines and say, “In this respect we must have a review”. But nothing is done.

These representations that I am making now have been made to the Government two years ago, and except for giving R½ million for an advertising campaign and another small matter, that industry has not been helped. We are almost at the commencement of another citrus season and the people concerned see disaster waiting for them. On a previous occasion when this industry was in trouble, the Government of the day came to its assistance and gave assistance to the extent of nearly seven cents per unit by reducing the charges which I referred to under the control of the Government.

The assistance asked is almost 20 cents per carton of which nearly 13 cents would be a reduction in freight rates. It is urgent, it should be done, unless the Government wants the citrus industry to go to the wall in this country. If that is its desire, then it must continue what it is doing now, namely just sit and take no action at all. The growers themselves are doing something, they are using their imagination and their initiative, but in contrast the Government’s attitude appears to be the very reverse.

The Budget is not too far away and I hope these representations will not fall on deaf ears as they have fallen for the last two years. I cannot press this matter too strongly; these people face disaster, they face bankruptcy.

Mr. Speaker, I listened attentively to the hon. member who has just resumed his seat. He devoted his entire speech to the citrus industry, I must admit that I do not have the knowledge of the industry at my disposal to enable me to furnish him with a full reply here, and that is why I am not going to try to do so. Nor is it my intention to state that the matter he presented here has no merit. I think the Government is aware of the problem and that it is sympathetic towards the problems being experienced by the citrus industry.

We want more than sympathy.

I am also under the impression that the conference shipping lines gave the Citrus Board a concession of R400,000 and that the Department of Finance approved a reasonably large amount in the form of devaluation assistance to the industry. I also understand that further discussions are still to be held next week. I do not want to argue with the hon. member. I want to say to him that in so far as he was putting a matter here which can still receive consideration I have no doubt whatsoever that it will in fact receive the necessary consideration in the right places. I can only discuss these matters in so far as they affect my Department. As far as the aspect of the discussions with the conference shipping lines is concerned, which are arranged from time to time for a period, we will certainly bear his remarks in this connection in mind.

I want to inform members on this side of the House that I am sorry I have to take up their time because I am aware of the fact that there are members who very much wanted to discuss further matters in regard to agriculture. However, I feel that I must rise to break a lance with the hon. member for Albany in regard to the speech he made yesterday afternoon. After I had listened to the hon. member I sat alone last night thinking: “Did the Government keep its word to the pineapple farmers? Did the Government act correctly and fairly towards them? Or did we act as the hon. member tried to prove we had acted yesterday afternoon? The hon. member stated that the Government only has time and only has assistance for large groups and that it does not take the needs of the smaller farmer into consideration. I want to say to the hon. member that I differ from him completely. I shall try to prove this. Yesterday afternoon the hon. member did not prove that statement or allegation—I almost wanted to call it that insinuation of his. This morning I shall try to prove that the Government kept its word to the pineapple farmers, and that it did in fact help the pineapple farmers. When devaluation took place the hon. the Minister of Finance made the following statement (I am reading only the part in question)—

That was the statement made by the hon. the Minister of Finance. Hon. members said yesterday afternoon—I did not try to verify this—that the Minister of Agriculture had on a specific occasion stated that the Government would accommodate the pineapple farmers in regard to devaluation losses.

No, I was talking about the exporters.

Yes, you stated that as a result of devaluation the exporters would be accommodated. Let us just rectify the basis of the matter. Last year 135,000 tons of pineapples were produced. Of that amount 4,000 tons were exported in the form of fresh produce. Now, in order to bring this background knowledge of ours completely up to date, I just want to read out to the House the prices which were received in respect of the exportation of fresh pineapples. I shall read the free on board prices. In 1964 2,228 tons were exported, and the price per ton, free on board was R112.37. In 1965, 1,829 tons were exported, and the price was R118.15. I would very much like the House to take note of the competitive prices which the pineapple farmers received for their fresh produce, which was sold in the nine principal urban areas of our country. In 1965 the price of this internally marketed produce was R66.78 per ton. In 1966 the free on board price for fresh export pineapples was R130.95. The internal price was R79.45. In 1967 the export price increased even further, and stood at R134.07. The internal price increased by a small amount. It was then R79.83. In 1968 there was a slight decrease in the export price. It decreased from R134 07 to R128.33 per ton. The internal price, expressed as a percentage, decreased to a far greater extent. It decreased from R79.83 to R67.97. Thus, for the pineapple farmer selling fresh pineapples, or who only sold a portion of his crop in that way—which is a very small portion, according to what I have just read—there was an even greater decrease in price in respect of his internally marketed pineapples than there was in respect of his overseas marketed pineapples.

What percentage of the drop in the internal market was due to exports from Swaziland? *

The hon. member is now mentioning factors which influenced marketing. Let us accept this now. Let us accept this for argument’s sake. I am not an expert in that field, but let us accept for argument’s sake that the internal price, which dropped considerably, was partly attributable to this factor, i.e. that pineapples were imported from Swaziland. But what was the position on the overseas market? The hon. member, who represents pineapple farmers, knows that pineapple prices in the world today are extremely competitive. The hon. member knows that they are planting pineapples in many of the developing countries, and that the quantity of pineapples offered on the overseas markets are increasing on a large scale. The competition being experienced by pineapple farmers from farmers in Malaya is very keen. If the hon. member wants to take market factors, demand factors and other supply factors into consideration. I must point out to him that half of this produce is being sent to the United Kingdom. The hon. member is also aware of the fact that in the United Kingdom there are stricter control measures in respect of their economy and in respect of the finances of the ordinary citizens of that country. There the decrease was only from R134 to R128.5. This decrease over there one can attribute almost exclusively to keener competition from the other producing countries.

Now I want to ask the following: Did the Government keep its word to the pineapple industry? I have read out what the hon. the Minister of Finance said. The pineapple prices are determined each year, as the hon. member knows, by negotiations between the canners and the producers. The Government approached the canners and said to them: “We ask you, if it is in any way possible, not to decrease your price to the producer, and we undertake to compensate you for all your losses which should arise as a result of devaluation.” Now who has received that money? I am now putting this question to the hon. member.

What did Langeberg do?

No, wait a minute.

They reduced the price by R2 per ton.

I am talking about the Government now. You are now accusing Langeberg, but yesterday you were accusing the Government.

The farmers received nothing.

Order! I cannot allow another speech from the hon. member.

Mr. Speaker, I am now addressing the hon. member, and in all earnest to the pineapple farmers. I want to point out that the Government gave an assurance, and that the Government honoured that assurance. R782,000 was paid out to the canners on the basis of this assurance which was given, namely: “Keep your prices to the producer as high as possible. We will compensate you”. According to what the hon. member quoted yesterday, and what I furnished to him in the House R6.86 per ton was paid. The canners had to submit accounts in respect of their sales schedules overseas, in respect of their payments to the producers, in respect of their actual costs, and in respect of their interest costs, i.e. what they had in fact paid. Not one single cent was calculated as a return for them on their capital. There was no profit whatsoever. The benefit of this payment was transferred to the producers. The compensation paid to the canners was fully and exclusively on the basis of the assurance which the Government gave them. They were asked to keep the pineapple farmers prices as high as possible, and they were given the assurance that the Government would compensate them for that. The hon. member can raise this matter again in the Budget debate, but it is my firm conviction this morning that the Government kept its word to the pineapple farmers, and that the Government honoured the undertaking it gave. The fact of the matter is that the pineapple farmer would have been worse off to the tune of R6.86 per ton if the Government had not rendered this assistance to them. The hon. member cannot deny this, and this, therefore, is my reply to him and to the pineapple farmers. I want to express the hope that the newspapers circulating in those areas will also state the matter in this way. I can just give the hon. member this additional piece of information, i.e. that a deputation of pineapple producers is coming to interview the Minister of Agriculture next week in order to discuss the problems of the pineapple industry further. There is not much more I can say about the canning industry. I do not think the hon. member succeeded in proving his case. In fact, I think he wanted to bring this House under the impression, an erroneous impression, that the Government was allegedly sympathetic towards the big industrial groups and not the farmers. I believe that I have given abundant proof to the effect that the Government has kept its word to the farmer as well, and that the farmer did in fact derive financial benefit in that the Government kept this promise it gave.

The farmers do not think so.

Now I just want to make a brief statement on bioscope prices, a matter which was raised by a number of hon. members here. Bioscope prices were put under control a number of years ago. Now it is easy to understand that bioscope prices can differ from one Province to another, because entertainment tax differs from one Province to another. The calculation of expenses in regard to bioscope prices are based on various things. There is, for example, the cost of imported films; the wages of cinematographic operators and other service staff, rentals for the premises municipal taxes and so on. To my mind therefore it is quite understandable that bioscope prices should differ from one Province to another, and even from one city to another. Hon. members will know why there is a difference between prices during the week and prices over the week-end. In my opinion this difference is aimed at achieving a more balanced capacity attendance. This year I have only been to bioscope once, in Sea Point. To my surprise I only paid 40 cents for the best tickets. Here therefore one has the other side of the picture again. Bioscope owners would like to attract people during the week as well.

You probably saw a Wild West film.

After all, it was an ordinary bioscope and the price I paid was the normal price for a week-day. If week-day prices are now going to be increased and those for the week-ends decreased, it could mean that bioscopes will stand empty during the week, while over the week-ends there will not be sufficient seats for everybody. That, I think, is the reason for the difference between the week-day price as opposed to the week-end price. Unequal attendance at bioscopes of course increases the unit costs, and these must be recovered. In any case, let me put the matter in this way, if bioscope prices were not controlled and prices were not calculated on the basis of actual costs it is possible that the cinemagoer would by this time have had to pay much higher prices than they are in fact paying.

Allow me now to refer briefly to the cost of living. It surprised me that some of the hon. members opposite stated in their speeches that we must not talk to them about percentages. We must not tell them about percentages and index figures because bus fares, for example, alone had increased by 40 per cent. This is an example they quoted. But where will we end up if one person states that he bought a watermelon along the road for so much, and another one said that a bus ticket now cost so much, etc.? Surely there is only one basis on which we can argue, and as far as that is concerned, the hon. member for Parktown and others will probably agree with me. There is only one basis, and that is the basis of a scientific calculation of the cost of living, as we are doing. Let us now form an opinion on the position in the light of this scientific calculation. How should we go to work here? In the first place. I would say we should compare our position with that in other countries. The hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs has already stated that over the past ten years South Africa has occupied second position among all the countries in the world as far as that matter is concerned. Is that not a wonderful achievement? I cannot read out all the figures to you now. I do not have the time to do so. But let us consider the position in November. 1968. Even the cost-of-living index in the U.S.A. increased by 4.5 per cent. In many countries there were increases, greater increases than the increase of 2.7 per cent in South Africa. Where did this increase occur? Let us, in the first place, consider house rents, because if one wants to live, one must have a house. If we were to set the index figure for 1958 at 100, we find that by November, 1968, house rents had increased to 135.4. flat rents to 120.1, electricity and fuel to 125.2. while electrical appliances dropped to 95.5. The total as far as housing is concerned, stands at 130.2 if all components are taken into account. I concede that this increase was a little above normal because we stated that the cost of living over a period of 10 years had increased by 24 per cent. So this increase as far as accommodation is concerned, is a little above normal. For foodstuffs the figure was 128.5. Fresh vegetables is the item which increased by far the most. Fish increased to 139.2, meat to 139.7, fruit to 145, sugar and associated products to 147. But, as I have said, the average for all nutritional components is 128.5 as against 100 for 1958. As far as clothing is concerned, the figure for November, 1968 is 102.2 as against 100 for 1958, an increase therefore of 2.2 over a period of 10 years. All the components were taken into account, for example: women’s clothing, girls’ clothing, men’s clothing, boys’ clothing, babies’ clothing, material, knitting wool, manufacturing wages, etc.

What was the average increase for all these things?

I shall come to that in my summary. In addition there is transport, because people have to make use of transport to get to their work. In November, 1968, the index here stood at 123.6. Let me say something here about public transport. The hon. member opposite has stated that the bus tickets he now buys have now increased in price by 40 per cent. While I do not want to condone this, the fact of the matter remains this, that if fares were to be pegged—something which is not impossible—the question remains whether the public will then have the necessary services. Are buses going to run as the public want them? That is the sort of question we will then be faced with. The hon. member stated that he had to pay 40 per cent more for his bus ticket. But, as I have indicated, public transport in general increased to 121.3, i.e. an increase of little more than 2 per cent per year over this period of 10 years. What has increased a great deal is miscellaneous items. Alcoholic beverages, for example, stand at 145.1, medical services and requirements at 144.9, communication at 169.8 … I do not intend to suppress the figures. In respect of all miscellaneous services the average increase was 135.4. Therefore, if one takes all these things together, I just want to point out again to the House that the most important increase is to be found under these miscellaneous services. Servants wages, I may just add, increased to 150.2. If one adds all these things up, the increase up to November, 1968, was 124.9. I have said that this compares very well with the achievements in the rest of the world in respect of controlling the increase in the cost of living in their countries.

What happened in the case of our earnings? In factories, on a basic figure of 100 in 1958, the figure in 1966 was 147.3. The cost of living figure of 1966 was of course lower than that which I mentioned for 1968. It was 118.3, and we must therefore compare all these figures with 118.3. In factories the income increase in 1966 was to 147.3, in mining 144.3, and in the Central Government 141.2. All compared to the basic figure of 100 in 1958. Since the consumer’s price index, the cost of living, has once again increased by 3.4 per cent, but during this period the average annual wages of workers of the Central Government increased by 16.2 per cent and the salaries and wages of employees in private industry over that period, after 1966, increased by 5.5 per cent. I am not mentioning this so as to imply that we are indifferent to the needs of the man in the street, the man who earns a fixed salary, but in order to point out that comparatively speaking our people are still better off than they were, in spite of the increase in the cost of living. Of course this is also proved by the increase in the real per capita income. Every year this increased by approximately 2½ per cent, as hon. members who have studied the Estimates know.

Now I would like to react to what hon. members said here. I think three hon. members said this, and one hon. member from whom I did not expect a thing like this also said the same thing, i.e. “the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer”. Now, is that true? Was there ever a time in the history of South Africa when the ordinary citizen possessed as many goods as he does to-day? I wonder, if I go into the houses of those hon. members and have the right to have a look around myself, how many radios, portable radios, and motor-car radios I will find there—from two to six per family.

But you will not find a T.V. set.

Yes, is this the only good argument the hon. member can produce? Sir, there is an increasing living standard and an increasing participation of the ordinary people in the facilities and the goods of life. Hon. members cannot get away from that; it is so, and I do not think that hon. members have in any way proved this allegation. All our standards of living are going up, including those of the less well-to-do people, including the non-Whites. They too are sharing to an ever increasing extent in the prosperity of the country and in the goods they can purchase from the salaries they are earning for the work they can do. What more can any man desire, any head of a family, than that he can get good work if he is capable? With the progress which we are experiencing in South Africa, every man in the country has this assurance that he can get good work. If he can do his work well then he can earn a good salary, and even if the cost of living should rise, and even if the purchasing power of our money should decrease, then he is still better off this year than he was last year, as can be proved by these undisputable figures and facts. Every young man growing up in South Africa has the opportunity of qualifying himself. There are bursaries. In fact, there are people who are queuing up to make it possible for him to learn, if he wants to learn, and to give him work, and he need not even pay back his study debts. He can progress to the highest level of our economic life. As regards the fact that hon. members now want to arouse suspicion here about people who are becoming richer, they must go to the heart and the soul of our economy, that is where they must concentrate their criticism, and they must then tell us that this system of free enterprise in South Africa must be changed by the Government. We must now prohibit people from progressing in life, from developing this country, from displaying initiative and obtaining a proper remuneration for their spirit of enterprise. That is actually what hon. members are saying. We maintain that the people who are in the forefront of the economic process in South Africa must be rewarded for their trouble, in the same way as people running the economy in all fields must be rewarded, as they are in fact being rewarded.

Mr. Speaker, we were interested when the hon. the Deputy Minister intervened in this debate. We were hoping that we would at last get an answer to the charge contained in the amendment moved by the hon. member for Constantia, who pointed out that two sections of our people were not sharing in the prosperity of South Africa, namely the farmers and the pensioners. The Deputy Minister gave a long list of figures to show how the cost of living had risen, and he gave an equally long list of figures to show how certain groups of the population have had their incomes increased to keep pace, and more than to keep pace, with the increased cost of living. But it is remarkable that in his whole speech he did not refer once to an increase in the income of farmers, or to a satisfactory increase in the income of pensioners. He completely avoided the very points made by the Opposition in this debate. Of course he had no answer and that is why he tried to draw a red herring across the trail. As far as the cost of living and the value of our money are concerned, there is one complete answer to any attempt by the Government to say that the position is satisfactory, and that is what is happening in the investment field in South Africa. People have lost confidence in the rand. They will no longer, except by special inducement, lend money if it is to be repaid in an equal amount of rands eventually. They are rushing to the Stock Exchange and they are investing in land and property because they know that the value of their money depreciates under this Government constantly and continuously, and so they are trying to hedge against inflation. They have lost confidence in the money of South Africa. That is the simple fact. All you have to do is to look at the Stock Exchange and hear what the Minister of Finance has to say about his worries and his problems. But he does not say that the fundamental problem is that people are trying to protect themselves against the creeping inflation which has also become part of the policy of this Government. That is the simple answer, Sir. The answer of the hon. the Minister is typical of what we had from the other side of the House—an evasion of the issue—and one of the most interesting attempts at evading the issue was the repeated references to the new political allegiance of my friend the hon. member for Umlazi. My hon. friends on the other side derived great joy from the speech of the hon. member for Umlazi. Sir, I wish him joy …

You did not say that the other day.

I wish him great happiness in the Nationalist Party and, what is more, I will recommend to the United Party of Natal that we write off whatever he owes us. Our object with this debate, as I have stated, has been to draw attention to the plight of two very important sections of our South African nation. The object of hon. members opposite has been to draw red herrings across the trail and to avoid the issue, and the biggest red herring has been the hon. member for Umlazi, which is an interesting role in which he has been cast. The hon. member for Umlazi told us about the reaction that he got; he only received ten telegrams condemning his action. But he should come to the office of the Leader of the Opposition, and the secretaries will show the hon. member a considerable number of letters and telegrams which will be most informative to him. Obviously people who disapproved of his action have broken contact with him, and I do not blame them. As one of those people said—I have seen some of these letters—they are not prepared to waste 20 cents on a telegram to the hon. member for Umlazi. Another one said that she would not send a telegram because the Post Office would not pass the words of a definite number of letters that she would like to use in her telegram. I think the hon. member should go to the office of the Leader of the Opposition.

Sour grapes.

The hon. member made the point that he went to the Nationalist Party because he thinks that national unity can be advanced there. I do not want to argue that for the moment, but I want to challenge him to give one instance or one indication of where the principle of national unity has ever been denied, denigrated or abused in the United Party. I challenge him to deny that the idea of national unity is the warp and the woof of the thinking, the philosophy and the outlook of the United Party. I challenge him to deny that the United Party is a living example of national unity in action and in practice. Sir, it is not news when English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking people belong to the United Party, but when an English-speaking person joins the Nationalist Party or speaks English at their congresses, it gets headlines in the Press. That is the difference. Indeed, it happened that Dr. Verwoerd had to appoint people to the Cabinet before they had joined the Nationalist Party. Sir, that is the extent of national unity in the Nationalist Party. I think that we should see this in perspective.

You are trying to save the day for the United Party.

When did the Nationalist Party become converted to the idea of national unity in the sense of equality between English-and Afrikaans-speaking? Sir, we remember—and there are hon. members over there who should remember it; there are hon. members there who remembered it only the other day in the Nationalist Party; I need not refer to the incident—how Gen. Hertzog had to leave, a broken dejected figure, the congress of the Nationalist Party in 1940 because he wanted it written in the Nationalist Party constitution that they stood for equal political rights between English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking. An amendment was passed guaranteeing language and cultural rights but refusing to include the words “political rights”. Mr. Speaker, I want to quote the honest leader of the Nationalist Party of some years ago, one of the most forthright politicians we have had in South Africa. I did not agree with him and I cannot agree even with the memory of his policies. I refer to the late Mr. J. G. Strydom. This is what he had to say about the national unity which the hon. member for Umlazi now discovers in the Nationalist Party, after he had been in the United Party all his life. Speaking at Brakpan on 7th November, 1942, Mr. Strydom was reported in Die Burger of 9th November, 1942, to have said—

That was the philosophy of the Nationalist Party. Speaking in Pretoria on 29th June, 1948, Mr. Strydom was reported in Die Vaderland of 30th June, 1948, to have said—

One party, Sir. [Interjections.] Political allegiance was put above allegiance to South Africa—the one-party attitude. I again quote Mr. Strydom—

I am not making an issue of that, Sir. This was at the Transvaal Congress of the Herenigde Nasionale Party, in the Nasionale Klubsaal, as reported in Die Transvaler of 18th September, 1942. This is what Mr. Strydom said and this is what I want to bring home—

Sir, that is not national unity; that is a sectional demand that all communities should conform to the policies of the Nationalist Party, and I say—and I have witnesses to prove it—that even to-day the policy of the Nationalist Party as far as national unity is concerned is that they offer other sections in this country unity but it is the unity which the cannibal offers the missionary, complete absorption, utter digestion, loss of personality and loss of individuality. Sir, there is my evidence; look at the hon. the Minister of Forestry …

On a point of order. Sir, the hon. member must address me correctly.

Mr. Speaker, I think I will have your sympathy, because members of the Cabinet have been kicked out and about so much lately, that it is difficult for us to keep track. I think the hon. the Minister of Indian Affairs is an example that what the Nationalist Party is offering other sections in this country is unity based on complete absorption. Sir, my witness for this is Mr. Ivor Benson, who earned the gratitude of the Nationalist Party with his broadcasts and who had to leave the Nationalist Party, I will not say in disgust, but in chagrin, because, as he said, there was room only for “die gebonde uitkyk oor Afrikanerskap” of the Nationalist Party. Sir, I can quote Mr. Jones, who had tried for years to be a member of the Executive of the Nationalist Party in Natal and who had to leave because there was no real place for the English-speaking people in the Nationalist Party. I call as my witness Blyth Thompson who was a candidate of the Nationalist Party. As far as I know he is still a Nationalist. He is not happy and he has said so. He was a contributor to one of the Nationalist newspapers and he was stopped because he was too ardent in his pleas for true national unity. These are facts, Sir, but listen now to the hon. member for Umlazi, who has had experience all his life of English and Afrikaans speaking working together in the United Party, not selfconscious, not even aware of any differences, as South Africans. Now at this hour suddenly, on a Tuesday morning, out of the blue, he realizes that he must go and look for national unity elsewhere. Sir, he had other arguments. He told us why he could no longer support race federation and called it “ ‘baasskap’ in a gift wrapping”. Sir, I know the hon. member for Umlazi; he is a fine debater. I have had great joy listening to him tearing the hon. the Minister of Transport to pieces and he promised us that he would do it again this Session.

He may still do it.

One never knows; he may still do it. The hon. member is a man who makes sudden decisions. The hon. member says that the policy of race federation is “baasskap in a gift wrapping”. The words of the hon. member should be analyzed. What does he mean by that? What he really means is that it is white leadership applied with consideration and justice and with a sense of what is right and fair. That is the gift wrapping. But now he prefers the policy of the hon. the Prime Minister, which is crude, brutal “baasskap” with no gift wrapping whatsoever.

That is progress! But I shall come back to that in a minute. He condemns the United Party for standing for white leadership, and in the same breath he says that the Nationalist Party for 20 years has applied white leadership, and that is why he is joining them. What must one think of the logic of such an argument? What must one think of the motives which persuaded such a member to different political views? He made the amazing statement that under our race federation policy there may be friction between the haves and the have-nots if they are represented in the same parliament. But the friction in the world today between the haves and the have-nots is between independent states. The whole world to-day faces the problem that the United Nations is being abused under communist leadership by the have-nots against the haves of the world, because they have sovereign independence and so they can do it. The only countries where there is peace to-day, is where there is a unified government, a unified state, where justice can be done to all people by the same government in the interests of the community as a whole. Now he wants to separate the have-nots from the haves in South Africa, and give them political independence, and the weapons with which to conduct the battle between the have-nots and the haves. He states a premise and comes to a directly opposite conclusion. What must one think of the motives that persuaded him to join the Nationalist Party?

He spoke about the Coloured people and made the surprising statement-—I am sure I heard it wrongly—that they could not get into Parliament under our policy. Does he believe that? Now he is quiet. Did he make that statement, believing it?

I said it.

He said it, but he does not say that he believes it. I will tell hon. members why. In all his criticism of our policy he was criticizing that policy as it was before our union congress in 1967. That is the answer. Here is a Member of Parliament, representing a constituency, leaving the party which elected him to Parliament, because he criticizes a policy on the very points on which that policy was amended and improved in 1967. And he did not know it! That is not the only example. In 1967 we decided that the Coloured people could elect their own four representatives to Parliament, and they could be Coloured. Now, will the hon. member for Umlazi stand up and say that he thinks so little of the Coloured people that he believes, they will not elect their own people if they may? Does he really believe that? You see, Sir, he was talking utter nonsense, and he was discussing a policy that does not exist. [Interjections.] What is your problem?

[Inaudible.]

He spoke about the value of the vote. He said that they would now get their own council, the Coloured Council, and they would all be able to vote. But it is also the policy of the United Party and was the policy of the United Party before it was the policy of the Nationalist Party. When the Nationalist Party was still thinking in terms of a state within a state, when they had no Coloured policy, as they have no Coloured policy to-day, by the admission of the Prime Minister, that was the policy of the United Party. But it is also the policy of the United Party that those people will in addition have something valuable, something meaningful, namely representation in this Parliament. But under their policy, the Prime Minister tells us, the Coloureds are now getting something better than they ever have had before, namely a vote in an inferior, non-sovereign body in exchange for a vote in the superior, sovereign body. It is the same as taking away the rights of, say, the Afrikaans-speaking people to sit in Parliament, provided one gives them municipal franchise in Pampoenpoort. That is the logic of the hon. member for Umlazi. That is the sort of motive that persuaded him to join the Nationalist Party.

He will not go back!

He can try! Let him try! He spoke about the Indians. What is the policy of the Government in regard to the Indians? Where do the Indians fit into the concept of separate development? Where is their separate part of South Africa? Where is their elected council? All they get is a nominated council, the most inferior form of representation that human intelligence can devise.

Look at the Minister they have.

Yes. That is why I was going to save the Indians the final hurt by referring to the hon. the Minister as the Minister of Indian Affairs.

With regard to the Bantu I really want to join issue with the hon. member for Umlazi. He said that the Bantu are now on their road to development. The other day we saw the policy of the Government, of the Prime Minister, of the whole Nationalist Party, lying in fragments on the floor of this House. We are still awaiting an answer to our exposure of its failure.

All that happens is that while the United Party is making its policy more precise and stating it more clearly to the people, the Government is becoming progressively more vague. A little while ago they had “a state within a state” for the Coloured people; now they only have a hereditas damnosa for their children. That is all. The previous Prime Minister not so long ago told us that by 1978—some people stake their reputations on this—the numbers of Bantu would decrease in the white areas. Now we are told that numbers are of less importance. We are told, by implication, that they are not important at all. People can be in the white areas in their millions, but as long as they do not have political rights then they are in fact not there. That is the stupidity, the utter, rotten nonsense which is called a policy, and which motivates the hon. member for Umlazi to join the Nationalist Party. We are still waiting for the Prime Minister or any member of the Cabinet to tell us how they are going to resettle 400,000 black people a year in the reserves in order to make their policy work. That is the sixty-four thousand dollar question which they have not answered and the hon. member for Umlazi cannot answer. This is a policy in terms of which people are supposed to be put on the road to separate development and separate freedom, but where will the freedom be for the urban and the rural Bantu, the non-reserve Bantu, in South Africa? Where is his hope? It is the same hope which the Indian will find in his non-existent Indianstan and the Coloured man will find in his non-existent Colouredstan. There is no hope, no prospect, no development, no separateness, in fact. That is the policy of the Nationalist Party, which we are now told has attracted the hon. member for Umlazi across the floor of the House. I will bring the hon. member for Umlazi a witness to the policy of the Nationalist Party. Here is my witness. I want to quote from a discussion on the Physical Planning and Utilization of Resources Bill (Hansard, 30th May, 1967):

That was the hon. member for Umlazi. During the Committee of Supply (Indian Affairs) debate he said on the 25th May, 1967:

This is now the new hope for the Indians. A year ago it was completely debunked, on the authority of the hon. member for Umlazi. During the Committee Stage of the Separate Representation of Voters Amendment Bill on the 9th April, 1968, the hon. member said:

Now, this has become the most wonderful policy for the Coloured people, this policy of not doing anything but leave it to an unfortunate future generation to try and find a policy after a mess had been created by the Government’s lack of any insight in this matter. My time does not permit me to say everything I want to. I just want to fix the attention of hon. members on this. The hon. member said that the Government was dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s of their policy. Any impartial observer—I put the emphasis on “impartial”—can see that the Government is not dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. It does not even know what is an i and what is a I with regard to its policy. Since the advent of this Prime Minister the policy of the Nationalist Party has become increasingly vague, uncertain and devoid of a basic philosophy.

Is that the reason why …

Let me explain to the Prime Minister. First of all, the Prime Minister after all the debates in this House, after the constitutional crises that we had in this House about the Coloured people, has to make an admission that after 21 years the Nationalist Party has no policy with regard to the Coloured people. Dr. Verwoerd did not admit that, Mr. Strydom did not admit that, Dr. Malan did not admit that. They engaged this House in the most controversial legislation it had ever had because they had a policy for the Coloured people, even though it was wrong. They did not wait for the next generation. But this Prime Minister goes from the definite to the vague and he calls it progress whilst the hon. member for Umlazi calls it dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. In the case of the Indians there is no policy, in the case of the urban Bantu there is only uncertainty, and the excuse now is “Numbers do not count.” The most cardinal fact, the most tangible fact about the race situation in South Africa is that the number of Bantu helping us to produce the wealth of South Africa outside the reserves is increasing by leaps and bounds. That is the cardinal, the most striking fact of the situation in South Africa, but to the Government it does not matter. And because of this joyful euphoria the hon. member for Umlazi feels that he too must enter this world of illusion, this world of dreams, this world of phantasy. He too wants to remove his feet from the earth and float upon the wings of the angels in the Nationalist Party. Nevertheless, I wish him joy.

The hon. member said that we had said he would not get the nomination in Umlazi again, that we had said that before the last election and yet he did get it. Well, that may be true. I do not know who said he would not but he got the nomination. However, he only got the nomination because he then still had the support of the United Party as such, but in the next election it could have happened—and this is the point he forgets—that his nomination would be vetoed by the party authorities. That is what he feared. With every justification he feared that, because he was neglecting his duties as a member of Parliament in his constituency [Interjections.] I say that without any fear of contradiction. I can bring every politically-minded person who supported the hon. member for Umlazi as a witness to this fact. It was even discussed by the Natal executive of the party. My hon. friend the member for Umlazi must talk to the Natal leader of the Nationalist party.

We have already talked a great deal.

Yes, but he should talk to him about a particular point, and that is how a person can get the nomination and yet not stand as a candidate. The hon. member for Klip River will remember how he got the nomination in Stellenbosch, but never stood as a candidate of the Nationalist Party. He should explain that to the hon. member for Umlazi; they will have touching arguments which will bring light to the hon. member for Umlazi and light to the public of South Africa of what went wrong with the hon. member for Umlazi.

The hon. member for Umlazi also said he saw no need to resign his seat. I am not going to insist that he should resign his seat. It is a very difficult matter to insist upon because it is entirely an individual decision which is taken in the light of a man’s own conscience, his own insight, and his own morality. I cannot judge the hon. member. There have been differences of opinion with hon. gentlemen like Mr. Hamilton Russell and Dr. Bernard Friedman, and they resigned their seats. We have had hon. gentlemen like the Minister for Indian Affairs that the Government does not know about …

… and Mr. Norman Eaton, who joined you.

I am trying to make the point that this is an individual decision which a member must take for himself. I say there is one hon. member in this House who has no doubt about what the hon. member for Umlazi should do, and that is the hon. member for Maitland, who yesterday spoke so touchingly of all the things he and the hon. member for Umlazi had in common. But on 23.2.1967 the hon. member for Maitland said the following, and I quote from Hansard (Volume 19, column 1864)—

Then, unfortunately, the hon. member for Maitland was interrupted, and it is one of the great mysteries of life in South Africa that we may never know “the because”. I appeal to the hon. member for Maitland to complete that sentence, and to be consistent and join those tens of thousands of South Africans who think that perhaps the hon. member for Umlazi should resign. As I say, it is his decision, he has to sleep with his own conscience, and all I can say is: I hope he sleeps well. Of course, when one discusses this type of thing, it causes ribald amusement in the Nationalist Party. One must never talk about matters ethical, because they find it very funny indeed.

What about Norman Eaton?

I am giving an answer to the hon. member, will the Minister please be quiet! [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to follow the hon. member; I rather want to refer to what the hon. member for Von Brandis said, but it is none the less necessary to refer to the hon. member for Yeoville, who has just sat down. I think we found it very pleasant to watch such a storm in a teacup here this morning. I think the speech made by the hon. member was very clearly an attempt at rehabilitation, an attempt to put some heart into themselves. I think the hon. member talked himself out of heart, however, and it was in fact pathetic to watch him. I would suggest that where we often hear of cyclones and storms which blow themselves out, the next one that occurs in the Indian Ocean should be called “Little Marais” or something like that. I think that would be apt. I do not want to refer to the speech made by the hon. member any further, but I just want to say I am very sorry that the Opposition, which made a great to-do about the problems of the farmer, waited until 4 o’clock yesterday afternoon, and now suddenly leave all the farmers of the country in the wilderness with their problems and run after one little stray sheep. To me that is typical of that side. And then the hon. member opposite talks of “red herrings”.

I want to return to the problems of our farmers as set out by the hon. member for Von Brandis. He specifically touched upon the citrus industry. I want to agree with him at once that the citrus industry has many problems, and these problems have been stated by myself and other speakers in this House during the past years. I am nevertheless participating in this debate, because it is necessary that certain facts referred to in the plea made by the hon. member be put right.

The citrus industry established itself very firmly, in the first instance in the export market, by co-operating properly. The hon. member referred to the 16 countries in which our citrus industry is selling its products, and said our farmers had done an enormous amount, and the Government now had to render assistance, because the farmers had great problems. I just want to point out that in the years when I entered the citrus industry England was our only overseas market for this industry. This is typical of the way that party acted. Since this side came into power, it has been made quite clear that there is not only one foreign market and one country in the world. We expanded to all the countries of Europe, and we are now selling from Canada to Japan. It is the National Party that stimulated that idea, and I want to stress this particularly.

Then the hon. member said citrus properties “are bonded beyond true value”. I feel this statement is quite exaggerated. We know that the Land Bank is conservative in its approach to land values. To say, therefore, that the bonds are already higher than the true value, is in my opinion a complete exaggeration. The next point which the hon. member raised, and to which I want to refer now, was the question of freight and the conference shipping lines. If the hon. member had acquainted himself with the facts in that regard, he would have known that the citrus industry is free to withdraw and to enter into contracts. At this very moment there are ships available, particularly from Israel and France. If those shipping lines which are now making such attractive offers increase their freight charges, the citrus industry must not come back and ask again to be taken up in the conference shipping lines agreement, not ask for Government protection. In this connection I want to mention that in our negotiations with the Department of Commerce last year we did get a concession, although not as large as we wanted. I therefore want to stress the fact that the citrus industry can withdraw at any time to enter into contracts on its own. One point on which I agree with the hon. member, and which I also want to stress, is the question that, as far as freight charges are concerned, deciduous fruit receive preferential treatment as against citrus fruit.

It is also necessary for me to point out what assistance has been made available to citrus farmers by the Government. I want to associate myself with the plea for assistance to citrus farmers that was made this morning, but it is necessary, however, to place on record what has already been done in this respect. I want to thank the hon. Ministers concerned for the assistance that has been rendered to the citrus farmers. The hon. member referred to the assistance that was rendered previously, and also to the assistance rendered by other countries, for example Brazil, to their citrus farmers. The assistance rendered previously, however, was rendered during the war years and other times of emergency. I also just want to point out to him that Brazil is a country with a large shortage of foreign exchange. They nevertheless encourage their farmers to export citrus—and this is one of our problems—even if it is done at great losses. However, the small amount of exchange they earn in Europe is used by their Government, and the farmers are paid for it. This is the kind of commercial practice one gets which is actually immoral in my opinion, but they nevertheless occur. Another important factor is that the citrus industry in this country is to a large extent dominated by a small number of large companies. This makes the position a very difficult one. If, for example, the Government had said last year that it was going to grant subsidies, we would have found that a large percentage of the crop was produced by a few large companies and that we would not have helped the actual number of small farmers. Some of these large, established companies would have derived the most benefit from what the Government offered. The hon. the Deputy Minister need not be concerned, because I do not include him in this. However, I want to stress that the Government provided R¼ million for advertising, to which the hon. member referred. The Government, however, gave more than this; it was not only the R¼ million for advertising. You know, Sir, our position in the citrus industry is such that approximately half of our crop is already being marketed locally, because the standards are so high abroad. Processors have been granted a rebate and there is the devaluation assistance referred to by the hon. the Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs. In my opinion these matters are very definitely necessary. The reason why the hon. member does not benefit from the assistance—I, as a citrus farmer, do not benefit from it either—is that it was an express condition that assistance would be granted if the prices obtained were lower than those of the previous year. In other words, should the prices increase and neutralize devaluation, no assistance would be granted. For the most part citrus prices increased in relation to devaluation; therefore assistance has been withheld accordingly.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 30 (2) and debate adjourned.

The House proceeded to the consideration of private members’ business.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

In moving this motion, I want to emphasize at the very outset that we regard this matter as a very serious one and that we want to make a plea to the effect that the hon. the Minister will see his way clear to appointing an able commission of experts to go into this matter. I shall gradually motivate this request I am making here, in the course of my speech.

Sir, you may have wondered what made me introduce this particular motion at this stage. I want to say that I have heard it being said in the ranks of the scientologists that they know that a very great deal of pressure is being brought to bear upon me. However, they have not been able to determine the source of this pressure yet. They are quite right, because a great deal of pressure is, indeed, being brought to bear upon me. I just want to say here that this great deal of pressure that is being brought to bear upon me does not come from outside, but that it is the pressure which my conscience is exerting upon me since I have observed what is happening in our country and how an increasing number of prominent and responsible bodies are asking for action to be taken against these people.

You will recall, Sir, that for example, a newspaper such as the Transvaler, under a prominent headline published a plea on 7th February that Scientology should be exposed. It is not only the Press that has asked for this to be done. I have in mind, for example, the Dutch Reformed Church, which has appointed its own commission of inquiry because it has found that this movement is causing an enormous amount of harm in the church sphere. The National Council for Mental Health, which keeps a watchful eye over the mental health of the population of the Republic, has pleaded for this on many occasions and has expressed concern at the activities of these people. The same applies to the National Welfare Board. Voices have been raised from among the academics asking: “But can an unscientific body such as this be allowed to continue its operations?” Voices were raised in the Medical Council, the Medical Association and the Psychological Association. All these bodies have pleaded that action be taken against this movement. Several people have asked me what “Scientology” really is. Is it a cult, or is it a religion with its own particular church and bible? Is it a science functioning on a scientific basis or is it, as some people allege, merely a money-making organization which obtains a large portion of its money by means of blackmail?

The scientologists themselves say they are nothing but a religion and that they have their own church of “Scientology”. When one wants to answer this question of what Scientology really is, I can tell you, Sir, that history shows that the founder of this organization, namely Hubbard, founded the Hubbard Dianoetic Research Foundation in California in 1950. In 1951 differences which arose between him and the control board of that organization compelled him to withdraw from the organization. Then he started “Scientology”, which now has its ramifications in many countries of the Western world. But Hubbard himself retains full control. He is and remains the managing director of the organization. These facts do tell us something about the history and origin of this movement, without providing an answer to the basic question of what this movement really is. A major problem presents itself in this connection, because nobody has ever been able to obtain a clear definition from the organization itself of what Scientology really is. As regards a definition, we find, inter alia, the following in the report drawn up by the commission of inquiry appointed by the State of Victoria in Australia—

One of our professors referred to what was said by somebody who wanted to give a definition of this movement. He said that a certain writer who had tried to find out what this movement really was had said that, considering the prospects held out by the organization, the peculiar procedure followed by it and the fantastic achievements it laid claim to, one might just as well try to wrap a dozen live eels in one parcel as to give a definition of this movement. The same report I referred to described it as follows—

Scientology claims to be that branch of psychology which embraces human ability. Its theories are however generally impossible, peculiar and novel to itself in that it deals with a variety of real and imagined activities and conditions of the mind. Scientology may be classed as a kind of psychology, though often irrational and perverted. Its techniques are a conglomeration of procedures based on misconceptions of psychiatry, psychology, psychoanalysis and other sciences, as well as a heavy leaving of procedures that are its founder’s own brain-children.

In trying to find out what Scientology really is, we come up against the definition given by Hubbard himself. He said: “Scientology is the common people’s science of life and betterment.” However, he has given several definitions of one and the same matter. Mr. Speaker, where he has given a more detailed definition, you will perhaps be able to help me to understand it better. He said—

He also said: “It is the science of learning how to learn”. In trying to analyze the philosophy and the methods of these people, we should bear in mind the important concept which is central to the scientology movement. That is the so-called “thetan”. This is the name given to it by Hubbard himself. In 1951 Hubbard claimed that he had succeeded by means of scientific rather than religious or humanitarian methods in proving the existence of the “thetan”, which is related to the concept of the soul. In 1951 he based his Scientology on this concept. Further research into the so-called thetan, which is the most important concept in this philosophy, reveals that Hubbard says that it is distinctive and unique. It does not belong to a person in the same way his soul or spirit does, of which he can say it is his own. He says it is the self, and he says it does not belong to the person, because the thetan has inhabited thousands of bodies before. In other words, it is a form of reincarnation. He says the highest form the thetan can achieve is the stage of the “operating thetan”. In the “operating thetan” one has the supreme form of purity. He says the thetan has been put into a particular body, which the thetan then has to operate for a certain period. Mr. Speaker, when you buy a new motor car, you are the owner of that car. In the same way the thetan is the owner of the new body of which it has temporary occupation. Then there follows a whole process. This body is now “pre-clear”. The other two poles of development are called “clear”. That is the optimum person the thetan can achieve, but only when all elements of pain and all folly, etc., have been eliminated. It has to undergo a whole process of development. In the course of that process he has his disciples, namely the so-called “auditors”, who go round helping people to undergo this process of development and to reach the highest stage. But when dealing with people who have spiritual problems, one wants this work to be carried out by highly experienced and able people. This report from the State of Victoria in Australia shows that this is by no means the case in the Scientology movement. The following is stated in the report in this connection—

Can these people be allowed in a civilized world to continue to move about freely to deal with the spiritual welfare of people and to try to cure them? These people are equipped not only with things they will need when they interview people, but also with the so-called E-meter. An instrument similar to this one is to be found in any psychological laboratory, but Hubbard claims that he has succeeded in making this instrument so sensitive and delicate that he is able to measure the emotions of a tomato with it. A nail was thrust into the tomato and the needle of the meter went down, indicating how extremely sensitive the fruit was and the pain it experienced. This is the kind of people who are doing this work in our society.

When considering the claims made by these people, we realize what enormous claims they make in respect of what they are capable of. On 19th February a letter was published in the Transvaler in which, inter alia, the following was said by a person who wanted to defend Scientology (translation)—

These are the claims they make. Let us consider some of their claims. Scientology claims that it can cure 70 per cent of the diseases of mankind through its methods. Hubbard claims that Scientology is the only counter to the hydrogen bomb. He claims that Scientology can make one immune to colds. He says it can improve the achievements of space travellers. It can also assist the pilots of jet aircraft to avoid crashes. Another significant claim is that it can raise a person’s I.Q. with “1 point for every hour of auditing”. In this way, for example, he claims to be able to increase the I.Q. of a boy from 82 to 212. He goes further and claims that he can prevent people from growing old and that he can cure psychotic persons much more quickly and cheaply than psychiatry can. He can make a person leave his own body and let him stand in a corner to look at himself. We may perhaps regard some of these statements as rather exaggerated, but let us consider a few of them. If it is true that one can raise a person’s I.Q. in this way—and we have an enormous problem of mentally retarded people—or if one can really cure psychoses and psychoneuroses and all these things much more quickly and cheaply than State institutions and so forth can, it means that we shall render a tremendous service to mankind and that we shall be compelled to give these people the green light and to say to them: “Go ahead, because you are rendering a tremendous service.” And this in fact is what they say. They say they render greater service to mankind in a matter of ten minutes than all the scientists together can render in hours. But is this true? There is also another side to this picture.

A great deal of criticism is being levelled at this movement by people on whose word we have always been able to rely in the past. For example, we have in mind the protest raised by the church. They say that these people are putting forward a new idea which is not a religion and which wants to uproot and destroy established religion with all its blessings. This is the case to such an extent that the churches decided to appoint an ecclesiastical commission of inquiry, as I have said. Furthermore, church leaders have expressed themselves against the movement. I am thinking, for example, of the same article which appeared in the Transvaler and in which it was pointed out that persons such as the Rev. D. P. Beukes, Dr. Jan Grobler, the pastoral psychologist, and Professor A. B. du Preez had expressed themselves in very strong terms. Professor Du Preez said, inter alia (translation—

One can understand that the church objects to this movement, for when a movement publishes a booklet such as this, namely “Scientology and the Bible”, in which the Bible texts are given on the one hand and their parallel views on the other, one finds that it is not only in competition with what we regard as a sacred scripture according to which we must live, but, what is more, if one looks at the texts quoted in order to be rejected, as it were, by them, it will make every right-minded exegete’s hair stand on end. That is why one can understand that no church which is worth its salt can remain silent when people begin to play about with the Bible as these people are doing.

But it does not end there. For example, there is, as far as the churches are concerned, a holy sacrament such as baptism. Baptism is not only an important ceremony in all the churches, but something which forms a basic part of their faith. It is a holy sacrament. Now, this man, Hubbard published a book, “Ceremonies of the Founding Church of Scientology”, in which he said the following about baptism—

That is the thing I mentioned at the outset—

This is what baptism means to them. Can we tolerate such nonsense being expounded in an enlightened world, in an enlightened Christendom and in an enlightened age in order to impress people? And they themselves claim to have at least 25,000 members in South Africa among the white population alone and that their membership is increasing at a rate of between 20 and 30 per day. This is what they claim, but when somebody asked them. “What about the non-Whites?” they said, “No, for the sake of the policy of apartheid we do not want to interfere with the non-Whites.” People asked them: “If you have the truth in your hands and all the churches go out to evangelize the non-Whites, why don’t you do so too?” Their reply was that they were not quite aware of it.

We can continue in this way to show how ridiculous all these things are, but the findings of the commission appointed in Australia are very clear in pointing out the dangers of this movement where the following is stated on the very first page of their report—

But the findings of these people went much further than that. They state—

I say that when a responsible body submits such a comprehensive report and that is their finding, one cannot but say that this matter should be investigated and, if necessary, the organization stamped out.

But I want to go further and I want to say that we must not think that this movement is confined to the cities and the universities, etc. This movement has its roots even in the country areas. I just want to quote a few words from one of the letters I received and in which a minister of religion in a country town wrote to me saying that he was very grateful that a motion such as this would be brought before this House. He wrote (translation)—

Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons why I am pleading for this, is the self-righteousness of these people. I have mentioned blackmail. Do you know, Mr. Speaker, that these people have some sort of court in which people who are caught stand trial behind closed doors? I have certain information at my disposal in this connection which I want to read to you—

You can guess what this means—

And here are the “findings and recommendations” of the “chaplain’s court”. The “interested parties” are the same. On the first charge, “whether there is an irregular second dynamic situation” the finding was, “established as correct”. On the second charge, “whether damage has been suffered by Norman Herring as a result of his wife Zena Herring’s association with Maurice Pivo” the finding was, “Established as correct”. On the third charge, “whether training and processing has been impeded by any irregular second dynamic of the defendants”, the finding was, “Established as correct”. On the fourth charge, “whether a fine of not less than £1,000 or greater than £5,000 should be awarded”, it was recommended “that Norman Herring be awarded £1,000, to be paid by Maurice Pivo”. Mr. Speaker, can such things be allowed to happen in a society such as this, with all the opportunities it offers for possible blackmailing? But what do these people think of a government, of you, Sir, and of me and of churches and other people that criticize them? Here is the answer. In “Understanding: Difficult Scientology”, written by Hubbard, he says—

And this is what he thinks of scientists—

I have here one of the typical pamphlets which are sent to any party that wants to have the movement investigated—

If a body or an organization such as this, or whatever they are, is able to render such a great service to mankind and is so averse to any criticism or opposition, I say it is time that we opened up that sore and determined what the real value of this organization is. All the money they receive is derived from the sale of these so-called “E meters” and books and courses and such like. Mr. Hubbard, who is living in luxury somewhere, reaps the fruits of all this. Mr. Speaker, you must bear in mind that approximately 30 per cent of every population consists of people who are susceptible to the development of neurotic problems and it is these people to whom they appeal; it is among these people that their ideas take root. Every system of philosophy, every religion is prepared to throw itself open to criticism. To quote what an outstanding missionary once said to the students of India in respect of the Christian religion—

This is the attitude adopted by every religion and every system of philosophy and every scientific discipline. But here we have people who claim to have the key to all the problems of mankind, but heaven help you if you try to interfere in their affairs. Mr. Speaker, it may be that I have done them an injustice, it may be that I have misunderstood them, that I have not presented their interpretations correctly, but then there is all the more reason why a commission of inquiry should be appointed to conduct a searching investigation of this matter and to see whether these people may be allowed to carry on with their activities or whether they should be dealt with firmly and be prohibited as people who constitute a danger to the community, as is the case in those countries which have already taken action against them, namely Australia, Rhodesia, England and others.

I wish to congratulate the hon. member who has just sat down on the objective manner in which he has introduced this discussion and the convincing way in which he has put forward the facts at his disposal. Sir, there are two alternatives for an Opposition in dealing with a private member’s motion, either to accept the motion or to move an amendment. Sir, we are at one with the hon. member in this matter, and I will point out that the same day on which the hon. member tabled his motion, a motion was tabled from this side of the House in my name, a motion in almost identical terms and containing the same request, namely-

I believe that we are agreed on this. For the record, I would like to point out that concern and anxiety concerning Scientology have existed in the minds of members on this side of the House for some years. It is evidenced in Hansard itself, and reference to the indices of speeches in Hansard will show that this matter has been raised from 1966 onwards by the hon. member for Rosettenville, by the hon. member for Durban (Central) and by myself, both by question and in speeches. The participation of hon. members opposite has been confined in the main to the Ministers to whom the pleas or the questions were addressed, with one single exception and that was the hon. member for Geduld, whom I do not see in the Chamber at the moment, who admitted, in response to a speech made by the hon. member for Rosettenville, that he had little knowledge of this movement but that he would not be sorry if the hon. the Minister had this movement investigated.

Sir, I feel it is fair to detail some of my own activities in connection with scientology. My attention was first drawn to Scientology during my election campaign in 1966, when I was approached by people in my constituency who expressed concern at the effects which Scientology appeared to be having in family circles. They claimed that there was a disruption in family circles, between husband and wife and that there was an estrangement between children and grandchildren. I resolved to look into this matter. I went immediately to the people who, I felt, would have more knowledge of this than I did—the medical men in municipal, provincial and Government employ, officials in the Department of Health, and the psychologists, and I found that at that stage there seemed to be a certain lack of knowledge concerning Scientology. There was not a great deal of information about it in official circles in South Africa. After a visit to Rhodesia in 1966 I received certain information concerning the founder of Scientology which I felt would be of interest to the authorities here. In due course I made an appointment with the hon. the Minister for Justice, who is now the hon. the Prime Minister, to place before him the information I had gained. It was then obvious to me that the Department of Justice was concerned and active in connection with this question, because a file was kept and the Minister indicated to me that written complaints had been received from the public. More facts were collected and these further facts were forwarded to the new Minister of Justice for his information and consideration. I became more and more concerned because of the weight of evidence, complaints, and information which reached me. As a result of this growing concern I wrote to the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions, as I understood that there might be interest by that department, in this problem.

It sounds queer to me.

I do not think, Mr. Speaker, that if I read it again, it will sound any clearer to any of us. I believe it is claptrap. Now, Sir, who is Hubbard, the founder or the inventor? I believe that there is ample evidence to show that Mr. Huggard is an impostor and a fraud. He has degrees which have been discounted. The degree of Bachelor of Science and the degree of a Doctor in Philosophy have been discounted by the very educational institutions at which he claims to have attained the qualifications. Not only that, but he has renounced himself the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

I want to come back to the question of the clears, because I believe that it is something which the hon. the Minister should take into serious consideration. A breakdown in the names and addresses of the clears published in this list of 500 show that there are 247 clears in the United States of America, 131 in England, South Africa is third with 53, New Zealand 29, Australia 22, Canada 8, Denmark, Greece and Germany two each, Holland, Sweden, Switzerland and France one each.

Business suspended at 12.45 p.m. and resumed at 2.15 p.m.

Afternoon Sitting

Sir, when the House adjourned I was referring to the question of Scientology “clears”. I mentioned the fact that there were over 500, as listed by the Scientology organization, and that we in South Africa had this threat, that more than 10 per cent of them apparently emanated, or gave their addresses as having come from South Africa. Another interesting aspect of this matter is that “clear” No. 1 is or was a South African. It has been said in Scientology circles that the mantle of Ron Hubbard will fall on John McMaster, “clear” No. 1, who is or was a South African. I believe that this is a fact which we cannot disregard. It was not possible for me to go and listen to this man when he spoke in Durban, but I sent my son along as an observer. This developing situation is in S.A. something which I believe we must take into consideration.

When talking about the founder himself, I had referred to the fact that the degrees which he claimed to have gained by study, had been proved to be phony, or had been publicly renounced by himself. The history of Hubbard, as I have obtained from authentic sources, is that he has been married three times and divorced twice; and yet Scientology claims to be superb at healing marital difficulties. Another claim of Hubbard is that he is, or was, a science fiction writer. I wish he had stuck to that. From all accounts he proved quite good in that capacity.

There has been an attempt to define Scientology in this House to-day. The definition which has already been quoted is, as Hubbard says, simply that it is “the common peoples’ science of life and betterment”. My comment is that not many “common” people could enjoy the doubtful advantages of Scientology. It is an expensive cult to subscribe to. The fees are high; even the “E” meter, I believe, costs R100. I do not believe that it leads to “betterment”. Some people have said that it is impossible to define Scientology. One Pressman said that it was “like trying to giftwrap a dozen live eels” to define Scientology. But, the report went on: “it purports to be a sort of religion”. Significantly enough, it is not affiliated with any of the broad United States church movements. I submit for consideration my own definition of Scientology. I say that “Scientology is a pseudo-profound racket, embellished with a host of weird, invented connotations which appeal—(1) to the gullible; and (2) to people who may be in need of expert medical advice. It is publicized with all the gimmicry and skill of modern promotional techniques”. Reference has been made to the claims of Scientology. Scientologists themselves in their publications claim that “a burn or bruise or even sprains or breaks heal much more swiftly with Scientology assists”. They also claim that “Scientology in the hands of an expert (auditor) can cure some 70 per cent of man’s illnesses (sicknesses)”. In passing I would like to say that if there were any drug on the South African market which laid claims to such ability and such properties, I have no doubt in my mind that it would be under very strict control.

What is the reaction to Scientology in other countries? Obviously, this is a world-wide problem, and in certain countries it has been dealt with, I believe, most effectively. I have referred to the fact that Hubbard’s activities are mainly centered at East Grinstead in England; it is common knowledge that disciples and followers from all over the world endeavour to attend the instruction offered at East Grinstead. Large sums of money are required for this instruction. I think it is a matter of interest to our authorities here, to satisfy themselves about the extent to which money is leaving this country in the hands of people who wish to study Scientology at East Grinstead.

There have been developments in the House of Commons, which indicate that the people of the United Kingdom are concerned about the practice of Scientology. I have the photostats of the actual Hansard of the 6th March, 1967, when there was a debate on Scientology. The Minister of Health in the House of Commons indicated that he had tried to alert the public to the facts about Scientology and its potential dangers, because he considered the practice of Scientology to be potentially harmful to its adherents. Later on, on the 27th July, 1968, six steps were announced in the British House of Commons to curb entrance of foreign nationals who were entering the United Kingdom for the purposes of furthering their studies in Scientology. But this is not all. The latest development, which goes back just to January of this year, is that in the House of Commons it was announced that Sir John Foster, Q.C. (spelt with an “F” and not a “V”), would carry out an inquiry under terms of reference “to inquire into the effects of Scientology and to report”. It has been indicated that the results will be published. I believe these results will have particular significance to us in South Africa.

Then I should like to refer to Australia, particularly to the State of Victoria. Mention has been made of the Anderson Report. The commission was appointed in November, 1963; the report was published in 1965. The report recommended controlling legislation. It was recognized in Australia that there was a threat, because it was not long before the legislation was promulgated, debated and passed. I would refer hon. members to the Psychological Practices Act of 1965, “an Act to provide for the registration of psychologists and the protection of the public from unqualified persons and certain harmful practices and for other purposes”. Hon. members will notice that there is no reference to the term “Scientology”, but I am satisfied, from a study of the report, that this legislation was designed primarily to deal with the problem of Scientology. I feel that, like the previous speaker, I too should mention certain facts from this report. I think it gives hon. members, who may not have had access to or the time to study the report, some indication of what was felt in connection with this report. These are some of the comments. I quote from page 43:

Also on page 43:

On page 2 it goes on to say:

Paragraph 10 on page 11 reads:

Nevertheless, despite the fact that this particular cult has been banned in parts of Australia, the latest Press reports from Australia indicate that, armed with 2 million Australian dollars, scientologists are resolved to reestablish their activities in the State of Victoria in the form of a church. It is interesting that the 2 million dollars could be made available for this objective. When in the Anderson Commission’s report it was suggested that Hubbard himself should attend the deliberations of the committee, Mr. Hubbard indicated that he felt his expenses should be paid. Apparently, he was not able at that stage, or willing, to defray the cost of travelling to Australia to defend Scientology before the commission. The Premier of Australia, Sir Harry Holt, indicated that his government’s opposition to Scientology had hardened. He said: “We are dealing with a dangerous man.” I want to quote Hubbard himself, because I believe that this particular quotation has a certain significance. This is what Hubbard was alleged to have said:

Mr. Speaker, take it as you will, either that it is futile nonsense, or that it is a threat. I believe that we cannot afford to dismiss a matter like this. I believe that the seriousness of it has been accentuated by recent developments, where it has been shown that the attempt now is to establish Scientology as a religion in South Africa. We have seen from the evidence and the activities of scientologists that they, in many cases, are responsible for breaking up homes, destroying family life and separating husband from wife.

I just ask in conclusion, whether that has any relation to the concepts which we as a Christian nation accept.

Mr. Speaker, to-day we are indeed dealing with a matter about which we must decide whether we must laugh, or whether we have reason to cry. The hon. member for Kimberley (South) gave a very fine exposition of the aims of this monstrosity. We must call it a “monstrosity”. As the hon. member for Berea also said, so many definitions for this phenomenon have been given that further definitions will not clear this matter up. The hon. member for Kimberley (South), as well as the hon. member for Berea, said that this phenomenon, not to call it a monstrosity, was like a dozen of slippery eels one tries to bundle together. It is my considered opinion that we will get the eels into the water, but we now have to deal with what we are going to pull out of it. What we are going to pull out of the water, is an octopus. At the head of that octopus is this person, Hubbard, of whose history we already know something, who prides himself on being a scientist, on his being able to improve matters for people, that people are all equal and that any person can be improved by his scientific methods. We heard of the case where the I.Q. of a person was raised from 81 to 220! This can be done, they say, if one attends enough sessions. This person, i.e. Hubbard, allegedly studied nuclear physics at the George Washington University from 1930 to 1932, in which he claims a degree, which has not been confirmed by the University. He did receive a doctor’s degree in philosophy at the Sequoia University in South California. After investigation it was established that this university consists of an ordinary house, in which certain lectures are given. After that he started writing works of fiction. What is of great importance to me is that this person travelled all over the world with his father for a number of years as a Naval Officer and made an intensive study of Buddhism. Later on he also took a course in hypnotism. Now we must answer this question, i.e., what are the dangers? Are there indeed any dangers, and what do we know about them? This person, who has his seat in England in a small castle, in 1950, after he had published his first book, even went as far as changing the date. As from 1950 the years become A.D.O. and so on. He assumed certain powers for himself and he even granted his followers amnesty. So, for example, in 1963—A.D. 13 according to him—he issued a bulletin in which the following appears—

What claims does this person make? Firstly, he makes the spiritual claim that all people are equal, and man is fundamentally good, is not born in sin, and that man can fight against sin. He also claims to have the power of healing, as the hon. member for Kimberley (South) clearly pointed out. They hold the view that if one is a “clear”, one is able to look after one’s own body, and in that way one can determine spiritual and even physical health. These people do not want to be accused of quackery and therefore they approach other people by creating a subtle mental condition in them. Such people are told, “Maybe you are not sick; maybe you are just suppressed”, and anyone has the right to help someone who is “suppressed”, to achieve a better state of mind. I have here the “Report of the Board of Inquiry into Scientology” of Australia, and I want to quote what appears on page 45, where the Association claims the credit for certain healings that were brought about. Notice the ridiculousness of it all when it is seen from a scientific point of view, when in a circular the healing is attributed to “Dianetics”. The part in question reads as follows—

This is the ridiculous scientific approach of this person. This organization makes other claims as well. This sect, or whatever it is, or let me rather return to the person, because he is the starting point of the movement, also claims to be able to cure cancer. He says, inter alia, the following in his bulletin—

This is the processing of these poor people so that they become submissive—

This is something that has entered a person’s life and that they can eradicate by means of this process—

There are numerous other cases, as have been mentioned, for example, atomic burns, sinusitis, hay fever, yes, they can allegedly cure 70 per cent of the physical ailments. They do not only claim the ability to cure physical ailments, however, and this is where the sect or cult becomes dangerous. They also claim the ability to cure mental disorders in people. Who are the people that turn to this cult? Its basic premise is that it makes the good person better, the able becoming more able, the stupid person becoming less stupid; in fact, one can achieve anything until one eventually becomes “clear”. The ordinary people who go to them are fortunately not clear-minded people; they are persons who are mentally rather suppressed, persons who are unsure of themselves, persons who do have certain ambitions, but who cannot realize them. If such a person then believes, “I know I am going to improve”, he is caught in that net. We also find the following in this report, on page 124—

—he is worked up into a sort of ecstasy—

I may just add that the Board of Inquiry in Australia attended some of these sessions. I read on—

In this way the report discusses case after case. I have a newspaper clipping here in which mention is made of the “disappearance of children under the influence of an evil cult”. A certain Mrs. Dell said that her children underwent a dramatic change of personality after they had joined the movement and that they had even given up their university studies. This is the danger of this sect, namely that the mental health of a person may be affected. But the following is another danger we must take into account. These persons who attend the sessions are usually persons displaying some or other symptom, for example, depression, headache, migraine, or whatever the case may be. We are dealing here with pseudoscientific people who, as we have heard, become “auditors” after 20 sessions of one hour each.

Let us look at the report where it refers to a certain person who went through these sessions. They worked this person up into such a state of ecstasy that three days later he was admitted to a mental institution and was there certified as being manic in the worst degree. The commission referred to the psychiatrist, who said that these very sessions, where the person had been asked certain questions and where certain suggestions had been made to him, and where he had been worked up, had pushed him over the threshold of mental derangement. But this is not all. This Hubbard has great ability and a wonderful organization. I am sure his great science lies in the actual organization, so that he has information on and knowledge of every person who goes through some process or other until he becomes “clear”, when he is a “wonderful” person. He also has a strong influence on those persons and now I want to show how strong his hold on those persons is. I refer to page 137 of the above-mentioned report. He wrote a letter to headquarters in Melbourne in connection with a certain Horner. I am not going to mention many names here, but the following words appear in the report—

The greatest danger lies in this sort of activity, because it has already reared its head in South Africa too. Recently we had the court case of a certain Du Plessis, who had in fact been instructed to try and find out whether certain persons did not have anything in their pasts. The hon. member for Rosettenville was involved in this. This is something that is foreign to us. There are many cases in Australia and New Zealand. I shall quote a few of these cases. One headline in an Australian newspaper read as follows: “Cult spy guards his family”. The report read, inter alia, as follows—

Apparently a certain member of the Government. The report goes on—

He had to investigate 16 people. That was his task. Can we afford to allow this sort of thing in South Africa? Can we allow people’s pasts to be investigated? Mr. Speaker, one thing is certain. With that hold he has over his own people, and the hold he has over those who condemn him and over those who criticize him, we are indeed dealing with an octopus.

I go further. I have here a letter from a professor in theology. He wrote to me personally after I had asked him a few questions about his research in connection with Scientology. The letter reads, inter alia, as follows (translation)—

They pretend to be against communism. In the letter which appeared in Die Transvaler, and which was also quoted by the hon. member for Kimberley (South), it is stated: “Scientology is not foreign to the nation”. It was probably written by a scientologist. He does not say that he is one. This is what he said (translation)—

Sir, this is not all we have to deal with. We must decide whether this fraud, this cult, this octopus, is a religion, because they declare, as is done in this letter, that (translation)—

I briefly want to give a few quotations about this man Hubbard. Hubbard states that he has been in heaven twice. He has been on Venus once, and he has once passed over the Van Allen Belt—I do not know where that is. He believes in a Thetan, a mystical entity. He says the following:

He goes on to say—

Listen to the postscript—

Is this religion? In the same bulletin he goes on to say—

Mr. Speaker, I want to conclude by mentioning just one other facet of this matter. It is this. Is Scientology connected with communism? There is no evidence to prove that, but the scientologists have most certainly made use of a book called “The Brainwashing Manual”. I shall read a passage from it, which is also quoted in the report of the English Board of Inquiry. In its report the Board stated the following—

It is doubtful who the author of the book was. The Board maintained that the author was Beria, the chief security officer of Russia. He allegedly gave a lecture on this subject, which was then translated. The report states—

These are the people who say that they are anti-communist and that they are in favour of our Government. After this “Brainwashing Manual” had been analysed by scientists the finding of the Board of Inquiry was that the language and style of this were exactly the same as those of Hubbard. This is no proof that he wrote the book, but we do have proof that his people distributed it. It was found that one issue had been translated and that the “communism” had been replaced by “Scientology”. The word “comrade” had been replaced by “audit”, and so on. One paragraph of this amended edition of the book reads, inter alia, as follows—

Mr. Speaker, if we can make out a case, we must decide to-day whether we have any doubt as to whether this cult is an ideology foreign to our nation, whether it has any connection with the breaking down of our norms, and whether it is a church. I may just say that they sent us a splendid booklet, in which their views on religion, etc., are stated. And on the front cover there is a little chorister, as we have in certain churches, singing a little song!

It gives me great pleasure to-day to endorse the plea made by the hon. member for Kimberley (South) in the motion before the House. I am glad that the hon. member has not, in this instance, asked for a commission of inquiry, as this would involve a series of public hearings and subsequent publication of the evidence given. There is no doubt in my mind, from the evidence available to us, that the public has been and is being seriously hampered in its knowledge of the real objects of Scientology by the fact that on almost every occasion when the organization is publicly discussed either by individuals or in the Press, the person or the newspaper concerned has been served either with a writ of libel or, as I was last year, threatened with an action for defamation. It is, as we know, the common practice of this movement to hound people in this way who speak about the movement in public and not in a privileged Assembly of this kind. I am reliably informed, as I am quite sure the hon. member for Kimberley (South) is also, that South African psychiatrists generally are at present collecting all the available evidence they can about the damage being done by the Scientology movement in the field of mental health. For this reason, also, it would seem advisable for the hon. the Minister to consider the appointment of a departmental committee of investigation at this stage.

Now of course there is a background to this type of movement, of which I think we should all be aware. Perhaps my approach to the whole matter is somewhat different from that of some of the other hon. members. I believe the United Kingdom Minister of Health was correct when he said in the House of Commons in August last year—

The scientologists attempt to refute that suggestion. They have a leaflet, which was sent to me before I participated in the symposium at the University of Cape Town last year, in which they set out some principles, inter alia, that they intend to improve your ability to communicate to enable you to handle problems, to give you relief from the hostilities and sufferings of life, to give you freedom from the upsets of the past and to give you the ability to face the future and to change conditions. Well, all that sounds absolutely wonderful, particularly to the insecure person, I have no doubt. It is quite clear to those of us living in this modern world that unless a person’s psyche is reasonably developed or robust, many people can scarcely be blamed for feeling often, even if the reaction is not verbalized, rather like a meaningless cog in a vast machine.

I think we all of us feel sometimes, in the vast technological revolution in which we are involved, that this is something which is very much beyond our control and we do not understand as much of it as we would like to. In other words, people tend to feel a little bewildered and lost. One of the techniques developed by science from the days of Pavlov’s experiments with his dogs, to modern behaviourist psychology, as our medical friends will know, is this technique of brainwashing or manipulation of the human psyche. Like so many scientific discoveries, these techniques have often been commercialized.

We are familiar with them in other fields, by means of advertisements, jingles and slogans. We find a degree of it in politics, of course. The brainwashing of political prisoners has become a commonplace in communist countries. We find it in certain education systems and in religions and cults and movements, such as this one, and you even find it in psychological analysis itself, where the bona fides of the person concerned are not what they should be. But I think that perhaps this basic feeling of anxiety and insecurity, on which this movement relies very much for its adherents, is what drives people to support movements of this kind. As the hon. member for Kimberley (South) quite correctly said, it is our experience to-day that the accepted conventional religions often find it difficult to reconcile our present scientific knowledge and techniques with dogmas that have proved valid for people throughout the centuries, and so it is that people who are in doubt about these things turn to lunatic fringe movements of this kind and find they have a great appeal. They find it a means of getting outside themselves and their immediate difficulties. They think it is a means of allaying some of the anxieties which beset their lives. Scientology is essentially an amalgam of semi-religious and pseudo-scientific jargon and teachings which, I entirely agree with the hon. member for Berea, are basically something of a fraud.

On the surface, if you read this leaflet, the Scientology training programme would appear to be all sweetness and light, but I think we should bear in mind in discussing this matter—and I hope the hon. the Minister will bear it in mind—that the thinking and the action behind this type of movement are nothing new, despite modem psychiatric techniques, techniques which can be, and often are, in the hands of laymen, commercialized and abused. It is a demonstrable fact that throughout our civilization there have always been these curious marginal areas of the human mind, and I refer generally to the world of fortune-tellers and astrologers, occultists and scientologists and the like. They are as old as the hills; there is nothing new about them. It is merely that the one under discussion is making rather dangerous use of modern knowledge and techniques for its own purposes. Fortune-mongering and attempts at mind control, and things of that kind, can be extremely complicated and, as we have agreed here this afternoon, they can have very serious social consequences indeed. Hon. members have already demonstrated that the jargon used in circulars distributed to the initiated in the Scientology movement suggest all the magic and the mystery and the kind of inner secret code that always accompany this type of rather phony movement. I think the thing to remember, as I said in the beginning, is that the basic condition for initiation as an adherent and as a supporter is a state of anxiety, tension and insecurity. I make no bones about saying that without this situation the movement would have very few adherents at all.

This is the key, of course, to all the advertised courses of this movement, which promises to teach its followers how to translate anxiety into action and how, finally, to translate action into the wielding of power. Of course there is usually quite a lot of money involved and the technique of leading anxious people on, by holding a light in front of their eyes continuously and promising them a marvellous solution has very interesting possibilities, particularly for people in search of power over others.

We are agreed that Scientology may pretend to be a science, but of course it is nothing of the kind, although it has borrowed from science all along. But the trouble starts in any such movement when the anxiety of an individual is deliberately made use of by means of lengthy consultations, and costly ones at that, and a final diagnosis is very often never reached at all. This, I think, where it can be proved, and it has been proved often, is, as I said at the University Symposium—and I repeat it in this House—a confidence trick in the accepted sense of the word. The danger seems to me, from a medical point of view, to lie in the form of any psychological reconstruction, so called, that this may take especially in the hands of amateurs; because this type of handling of people in the psychological field, which is a new science, the science of mind, may alter forces within the psyche itself for better or for worse. It may give vent to long pent-up energies, many of which may not be constructive. It may also create a curious phantasmal world to serve as a substitute for the real thing, and there are very real dangers, as any doctor will tell you, attached to that kind of thing. Since the study of mind and psychology itself is so closely related to physical and mental disorders and it is a comparatively new science, very great potential dangers attach to any movement of this kind, which plays about irresponsibly in this field.

I say that the activities of an organization of this kind may take the form, and in fact do in certain aspects of a fraud against a vulnerable person. Medical science is now, I think, more than ever concerned to prove that by far the greatest amount of preventable illness and sub-normal health comes from the mind itself, and that better understanding and the prevention of factors which lead to maladjustment, frustration and unhappiness is the most favourable line of attack. For that very reason I consider, and I am quite certain the medical people consider also, that this is something which should be left entirely in the hands of the experts and should not be handed over to amateurs in this field.

Now the money-making procedures of the Scientology movement are elaborate and there is no doubt that the organization makes considerable profits from a variety of sources. Individuals who were present at the symposium in which I participated, under the aegis of the Rational Thinkers Forum at the University of Cape Town last year, without exception got up and testified, after the symposium was over, against the movement. The majority of them claimed that they had had to pay large sums of money for consultations and, on finding that the movement was unable to help them after all, when attempting to leave it, they were subjected to threats of exposure and even of defamation of a most unpleasant kind. May I say finally that Scientology leaders, as those of us who have been bombarded with literature from their public relations officers ever since we opened our mouths on the subject know, have an equally insidious habit of misquoting statements made by people in the public field and in the newspapers as well. After I had spoken at that symposium, I was sent a letter by their legal officer. Here it is. I was then informed that they had made a transcript of my address at the University that evening while I was talking. They then proceeded to quote what purported to be two statements made by me in the course of that symposium. I had very full notes with me at the time, and I have them here in my file today. The first statement is totally inaccurate and the second statement is accurate, except that they left out one sentence which was vital to the meaning of the whole point I was making, and in fact it made it very much worse than anything I actually said. I have the notes here to prove that.

They went on to say in this letter from their legal officer—

Well, this is characteristic of what happens to other people in this field. May I just say that at this symposium the other two people who spoke with me were Dr. Pascot, who is a senior psychiatrist in the Government Service, and Prof. F. J. M. Potgieter, professor of theology and doctor of psychology, of the University of Stellenbosch. I have no doubt that these two gentlemen received similar threats of actions of defamation after the symposium was over. The hon. member for Berea was present that evening and so he can vouch for the accuracy of everything I say here to-day.

My second example of how they misquote for their own purposes the things that are said by the Press comes in a document which purports to include a series of quotations from the overseas Press, proving that, in fact, the majority of people in Britain were very much against any kind of investigation being made into the movement. It so happens that one of the papers they quoted from is the English weekly paper, The Spectator, which we get at home and generally enjoy reading very much. They quote from The Spectator, but leave out sentences which happen to suit them and they end up by saying this, quoting The Spectator—

In other words the British Government should reverse its intention of carrying out an investigation. Having put in: “In fairness to all sides in this controversy, the Government should reverse its present stand” they leave a few dots and end the quote. That sentence should be completed with the words—I have The Spectator in front of me to prove it—“… and order an immediate and full inquiry into Scientology in Britain.” Mr. Speaker, this is the type of action they take in order to state their case. Quite clearly they have no scruples in misquoting anybody or anything they choose. I was interested to see that the Minister of Health in the United Kingdom, when he was discussing this matter in August last year, referred to the findings of the Anderson Commission, i.e. the Australian one, and said—

He went on to say this finally—

That was the British Minister of Health. In an article, which hon. members may have seen this week in the Rand Daily Mail of 19th February, the writer quoted a Mr. Gordon Cook, assistant public relations chief for the Scientology movement in Africa, as saying in response to a question—

All their pretentious claims that they are there merely for the purpose of assisting people are rather given the lie by that type of statement.

I would say, in conclusion, Mr. Speaker, that not only is the movement manifestly silly and sick, but I think it represents a real danger to the psychologically unstable people in our society. For that reason it gives me great pleasure to support the motion before the House this afternoon.

In the first place I want to extend my sincere thanks to hon. members who have participated in and who are still going to participate in the debate for the way in which they have discussed and will discuss this matter. I feel that no one who has been listening could have escaped the impression that we are dealing here with an awkward but a very serious matter. I want to say to the hon. member for Kimberley (South) that he has done the House of Assembly and the country a service by focusing attention on this matter. He did so in his customary thorough way, and I think I can say the same for the hon. members for Berea and Brentwood and the hon. member who has just resumed her seat. I listened to them very attentively because this is an important matter. What I found particularly striking was that the hon. member for Kimberley (South) said that apart from anything else he was rising to speak here because his conscience had told him to do so, and that he also said at the end of his speech that he had perhaps misinterpreted the movement; that perhaps it was not what he thought it was. In other words, he brought what his heart told him to bring to the House for inquiry with clear conscience. In the second place I am grateful for the tenor of the discussion because no requests were made here to the effect that the Government or I should base our judgment on the reports of other countries or people, and that is a very important thing. A second thing which struck me was that in this entire debate, an open debate on a matter—and I want to emphasize this—which is not a party political matter, not a single voice was raised in defence and this so-called Scientology organization. The Government must take very careful note of that. That is why I, on my part, want to put the standpoint which we have adopted up to now. When I took over this portfolio there were immediate requests from all quarters to the effect that this matter should be investigated, and I then adopted the following attitude; I think it was the correct attitude at that stage since I had not had an opportunity of taking this matter into consideration. I said—

1. (1) I have made no decision in regard to action, if any.
2. (2) My predecessor has considered an investigation, but did not finalize one.
3. (3) The Government …

Not only the Department of Health—

1. (4) It is not my intention at this stage to have a public inquiry instituted.
2. (5) The methods used by the cult to reply to criticism are unsavoury and reprehensible.

I think this was proved here to-day—

1. (6) Quite a number of complaints are being received from members of the public, in which they complain that the Scientology movement is obtaining money in an extortionary way from people who find themselves under the influence of the organization.
2. (7) The South African Medical and Dental Council has expressed its concern about this movement.

1. (8) It is my duty in the public interest to point out that there is nothing good to be said about charlatanism, and in many cases it results in uncurable, prejudicial mental and/or physical consequences.

That was my standpoint last year. Since then, as happened here to-day, there has been a tremendous public demand to the effect that there should at least be an inquiry. In Die Transvaler, for example, a strong plea was made: “Dissect Scientology”, and there was also a leading article. Other newspapers followed the example of Die Transvaler. These are newspapers which, without fear of contradiction, act so responsibly in matters like this that one must take thorough cognizance of their standpoint. In fact, I want to say this: With a few exceptions the newspapers have, as far as this movement is concerned acted very responsibly up to this point. The same demand was also made by various members of Parliament. The hon. member for Berea is correct; he came to discuss this matter with me. I may just say in passing that I did of course grant interviews to members of the House of Assembly, but I granted interviews to no one else, and I firmly refused to grant an interview to the scientology movement. I am merely mentioning this for the information of hon. members. In addition there were a great number of letters and other representations to the effect that an investigation should at least be instituted, and certain information was submitted which gave rise to doubts in regard to this whole movement.

Mr. Speaker, I have here before me certain opinions from Government Departments and from other sources. I am certain that hon. members will not expect me to reveal what the source is in each case, but I do in fact want to say that these opinions came from the most responsible bodies imaginable. What do they say? I quote (translation)—

Here is another—

This movement has caused concern throughout the world, not only in South Africa. I am quoting again: “At the moment it would appear that it is a threat to the psychological and psychiatrical professions. It is well known that Hubbard, the head of the movement, derives financial benefit from the organization.” I cannot confirm this, but I understand that he is actually stateless and that he lives aboard a ship in the Mediterranean—

And then the following—

(this is not a conditional statement)—

In addition I have here the opinion of the South African National Council for Mental Health—

Sir, I feel that I must state the situation precisely as it exists. The three Afrikaans churches, the Anglican church and the Methodist church have not yet adopted an attitude in regard to the organization. There is an inquiry, as the hon. member indicated. However, one must take cognizance of the personal opinions of eminent church leaders and what they say—

They go on to say—

These are only a few of the extracts which I want to read to hon. members. Mention was made here of the fact that the state of Victoria in Australia appointed a commission and subsequently declared the organization to be illegal. Mr. Hubbard cannot go to Britain nor Rhodesia. In August of last year the British Government took the following steps, and as we have all come to expect from the British we know that if they take steps against any organization it is late in the day; their doors are always open to any organization; they can go unchallenged in Trafalgar Square or anywhere else; this is a characteristic of the British nation. They took the following steps (translation)—

In view of the way in which Britain always acts. I think I can say that this was extremely drastic. On the 28th January, 1968, Sir John Foster Q.C., a Conservative M.P., was appointed to investigate the movement. This investigation was to be undertaken privately, but a report of his findings were to have been published. These, and the pleas presented, I have before me, and so has the Government, and I now think that any sensible person will admit that it would be serious dereliction of duty if we did not at least agree to a very thorough investigation into this organization and its activities, a very thorough investigation because we must know what is going on here. We will definitely have this investigation made. I will, on a subsequent occasion, announce who the members of the commission of inquiry are to be. This commission will function in the same way as ordinary commissions of inquiry. Nevertheless I want to give this House an indication of what the terms of reference of this commission will be. I cannot commit myself at the moment as to what the specific terms of reference will be but I do nevertheless want to give an indication of what they will be. It will be a committee of inquiry into the activities of the organization with the following terms of reference: To investigate and report on: Firstly, the aims and objectives of Scientology and to determine whether the organization as such is capable of achieving such objectives. Secondly, the methods, processes, practises, techniques and principles of the steps taken in order to achieve the envisaged objectives. Thirdly, the nature and amount of compensation levied or received by persons involved in the practice of the cult. We must also establish in what way and by which methods this money is collected, and the methods which are applied. Fourthly, the kind of behavioural deviations and diseases, or so-called diseases to which the devotees give attention. Fifthly, the way in which Scientology is being advertised. In the sixth place the possible beneficial or prejudicial results of the processes and lastly, the way in which persons under the age of 16 years are being implicated in this movement, and legal considerations regarding the consent of parents to having their children implicated in this movement. It is very important that we should also look at the youth aspect in this matter. As I have said, this commission will subsequently be announced, and will function in the normal way. We will also follow the procedure that the report published will as usual be considered by the Cabinet and that a decision will then be taken as to whether it is going to be published or not. I just want to say this here because this is the normal procedure. It is also the procedure that the Government cannot of course be bound in regard to recommendations in such a commission’s report. This is a democratic and correct way in which we should act.

There are also a few other things which cropped up and which convinced me even further that this matter should receive urgent attention. Arising out of what has been said here, there can be no argument about the fact that there is a big question mark next to the activities of this organization. That they follow strange procedures has been placed on record here. The fact that interrogations take place and that fines are imposed is also well known. If there is any vestige of truth in this, and I accept in the light of the evidence which is being brought in, that there is more than just a trace, this is in itself a reason for having an investigation instituted. South Africa is not used to this kind of thing, and if it exists it must be stamped out as we are stamping out Communism. The germ of blackmail are contained in this organization. The disruption of family relationships was also mentioned here, as well as the proportions which this organization was assuming in South Africa in comparison with the rest of the world. The last, and to my mind a very important point, is the type of person on which these people concentrate this precisely at a time when we are achieving an ever-increasing amount of success with psychiatric treatment.

Mr. Speaker, as you have probably noticed, I have not expressed an opinion on any of these matters. However, they are to my mind sufficient proof that a government is doing the right thing in having this matter investigated. There are a few other reasons as well. Perhaps something good can come of this, and one must never lose one’s sense of humour when one is dealing with this kind of thing. However, this is not humorous, I am coming to that later. An organization which states in its own publications that it is no longer doing certain things is admitting that it did in fact do those things. My opinion is that if the organizations has done what it claims to have done, that alone justifies an investigation. What do they say? I have here a booklet with the title “Report to Members of Parliament on Scientology”. This booklet was not addressed to us but to Members of Parliament in England. It contains this statement—

The last point is quite important, especially in these days in which we are living, i.e. “prohibition of any confessional materials being written down or otherwise recorded”. If this is so, i.e. that they are no longer doing these things, it is already reason enough to have this organization investigated, since these things were done. I said one must not lose one’s sense of humour. Hon. members spoke here about things which these people had themselves said. The hon. member for Kimberley (South) stated that they have an instrument which is connected up to a tomato, and then they determine what is happening in that tomato. I am not interested in this, but if that instrument really worked on pumpkins we could perhaps derive some benefit from it. If it is possible that they can increase people’s I.Q., then we must go into this matter very thoroughly. They also claim that the spirit of a human being can be separated from the body, and then that person can gaze at his own image from a distance. If one can succeed in doing that, one can put it to good use. Lastly, I do not know what this question of “clears” includes, but the opposite of “clear” is to my mind “muddled”. If one can obtain greater clarity in regard to certain things as a result of these activities it could be of value to us all.

Mr. Speaker, I thank hon. members for the fine contributions they made, for the responsible way in which this matter was presented, and particularly for the significant thing which happened here, i.e. that not one single member stood up to defend this organization or to oppose an investigation.

Mr. Speaker, it has already been said that we on this side of the House welcome this motion. We also want to thank the hon. the Minister for announcing the appointment of this commission. I think that from the debate here to-day, the hon. the Minister realizes what difficulties he will be faced with in getting people to give evidence before the commission. As the hon. member for Wynberg said, we as politicians are bombarded with masses of literature. There is one piece of literature in particular of which we as politicians should take note. I refer to something written by Mr. Lafayette Ron Hubbard, who is the head of this organization. He said:

His attitude to anybody who questions the bona fides of this organization is therefore one of intimidation. As the hon. the Minister quite rightly said, and I was pleased that he mentioned it, we in this country like Great Britain allow a considerable amount of freedom of religion. But I think that it is unfortunate that Scientology comes under the cloak of religion, because in all the documents I have read I have not found any reference to the teachings of the Bible to any great depth, other than references which are interpreted as being in favour of Scientology. As the hon. member for Wynberg quite rightly said, there is nothing new about this cult or the methods it uses. We have seen these methods being used in other parts of the world for the furtherance of Communism. We know of the power of brainwashing and of bending the mind. As has been quite rightly said here today you find that people who come under the influence of this organization are unfortunately the weak.

The methods of recruitment used by this organization are quite interesting. I received a pamphlet which was handed out, I believe, in the vicinity of Sea Point. It is an enrollment form which takes the form of a questionnaire. The questionnaire appears under the heading: “What can Scientology do for me?” This is an enrollment form and if you complete it you can of course go a step further in this organization. The leaflet says: “If you can say no to the following questions you do not need the help of Scientology and we would be very pleased to meet you.” Then certain questions follow, such as: “Do you worry about money?” Our answer would of course be yes. The leaflet also asks: “Would you really like to change your job yet fear to venture into something new?” As a politician, one’s answer is of course yes and no. Other questions are: “Do you ever feel that your children are naughty, spoilt and out of control? Would you like a happy marriage completely free of problems? Do you often mistrust other people’s intentions? Do you wonder what profession your child is best suited for? Have you ever felt that you have been unfairly treated? Do you ever wonder how on earth you could have chosen your marriage partner?” These are very intimate questions. Other questions are: “Have you ever worried about your children’s health? Do you ever dream of becoming a famous personality?” This might appeal to an untrained and weak mind and that is of course what it is intended to do. I have other documents here which for instance describe how you go through a security check.

These people have made much of what has happened in the United States of America. They have even sent out circulars. But the feeling of intimidation is always present. They tell us about the lawsuits that they are going to institute in the U.S.A. and they tell us what they are going to do with the money, etc.

There is a growing resistance against this organization all over the world. I know of a case here in Cape Town which involved a young man who was quite clever and had a bright future. His family hoped that he would go to university. Unfortunately he was caught up in this cult and he changed mentally completely. I am pleased to be able to say that he is gradually returning to normal and that he will be able to complete his studies. He was not up to the brainwashing and the advanced teachings of this organization. There are hon. members who have received letters from various people who are involved in this organization. The fear or prosecution is deeply rooted in these people. They have brought these matters to our notice but they have asked us not to mention their names. We hope that the people who appear before this commission will be protected so that they can come forward and state their case so that we can get as much evidence as possible about this organization. This organization might be above-board but the rest of the world has not found it so. I think that we will find the position to be similar in this country. When we see the cancer of Scientology growing in this country of ours with its small white population, we should stamp it out in its early stages. Like Communism this cancer could destroy our country. If we do not take action against it as soon as possible, it will do so. On behalf of this side of the House I should like to thank the hon. the Minister for the statement he made to-day in regard to this organization.

Motion put and agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

At first sight the wording of the motion might give the impression that the only issue arising out of the population explosion in the Republic is that of family planning. However, as any doctor will tell you the term “preventive medicine” covers a very wide field indeed. In fact it covers the whole spectrum of what is normally related to our Public Health Act. I could just as easily have used the term “social medicine” though I understand that this term lends itself to misinterpretation. As far as I am concerned preventive medicine involves deliberate programmes to deal with such matters as family planning, malnutrition, child clinics, health education, industrial hazards, such as air and water pollution, excess noise and other related subjects. I should like to remind the hon. the Minister that on the 20th February, 1968, I asked the previous Minister of Health whether a division of social medicine existed in his Department or not. I was told that such a division of social medicine had never existed but that if I had any ideas on the subject, they would receive serious attention. This motion is therefore an attempt to bring this matter to the attention of the hon. the Minister and I believe that it will receive serious consideration. Being a doctor himself, the hon. the Minister will know that it is far better and less expensive to educate the population in regard to health matters and, where necessary, to help with the provision of antidotes in anticipation of sickness or disease, rather than to let things deteriorate until the need for the hospitalization of serious cases arises at ever increasing cost to the authorities and patients alike. Hence, therefore, the term “preventive medicine.” This applies also to the population explosion and the whole question of family planning. There is no doubt that a lack of family planning gives rise to much malnutrition, over-crowding and unhygienic conditions and all the diseases which so often accompany those conditions.

I should like to deal initially with the population explosion and the need for famliy planning. I should like to say at once that I have deliberately raised this delicate issue with the Minister of Health, as I consider it imperative that this matter should not, under any circumstances, be allowed to impinge upon the political field, especially in view of our present political situation. The desirability of curbing population growth as a means of preventing starvation must be obvious to everyone in this or any other country. I think it is equally obvious, as any social worker in fact will tell you, Sir, that it is not possible merely to dole out the pill to ignorant people and hope for a quick answer that way. Any family planning campaign undertaken in the Republic, if it is to be a success, must obviously involve a degree of social and educational uplift as well, including better housing and higher wages. These things are all related. In the past 100 years, as hon. members may know, the world population has doubled, and at the present rate of human reproduction is likely to double itself again within the next 50 years, and unless steps are taken to prevent it, it is quite impossible for us to prevent catastrophes of one kind or another resulting from a situation of that kind. If we in this country wish to provide the opportunity for a full and happy life to our own descendants as well as to others, the problems of numbers must be faced and faced now. I wish, however, to make it perfectly clear that in raising this issue and making an urgent plea for greater subsidization and organization by the State of family planning services throughout the country, particularly amongst those sections of the population least able, for reasons of poverty and ignorance, to care adequately for the very large families they produce, I do not link this plea with a concomitant one for the restriction of feeding schemes or other campaigns in the field of preventive medicine. In other words, it is my view that family planning is an absolutely essential and important aspect of preventive medicine, but it is only one aspect of it. I think our responsibilities go much further than that.

Other nations have had to face these issues also. Japan for example is well on the way to solving its great post-war problem of overpopulation. Hon. members might be interested to know that in that small country planned parenthood has reduced the birthrate in the past 20 years from 34 live births per thousand to 16 per thousand. In South Africa in 1967 the figure was 22.9 Whites per 1,000, 43.3 per thousand among the Coloureds, 30 per 1,000 for Asiatics, and of course there are no reliable figures available for the Bantu.

I think what should concern us, if we are to keep the matter in perspective and deal with it on a rational basis, is not the population explosion as such but rather over-population in terms of the country’s resources and requirements. Over-population implies precisely what it says, namely the existence of more individuals than can be supported in reasonable health and comfort over the years. It is a condition in any country, not only in our own, which brings with it many attendant miseries. I submit that many of these miseries are already apparent within the borders of South Africa.

To fill the country to saturation point because of a failure to plan ahead in this field would lead, inevitably, to a sabotaging of the common good—that applies to everybody. What should be encouraged is not numbers but quality.

All the medical authorities the world over concerned with the problems of over-population are agreed that illiteracy has a direct relationship to the birthrate. It is for this reason, amongst others, that the problem of a family-planning campaign in South Africa assumes such complexity. Where do we begin? Formal education does not fall within the purview of this Minister’s Department; on the other hand health education very definitely does. It is correctly argued that if educational and living conditions in communities are improved, your population explosion will to a large extent automatically take care of itself. This has proved to be the case in fairly developed communities, particularly in highly industrialized countries. However, we in South Africa have another hazard, and a much greater one, and that is that our population growth is at present far outstripping the social advancement of the majority of our people, and unless something drastic is done and comprehensive research and planning carried out, there seems little chance that this unfavourable balance will be reversed in the foreseeable future.

I do maintain that no one has the right to tell other people, especially if they belong to another racial group, how many children they should or should not have. It is imperative, however, that individuals should be advised, that problem families should be helped, and that by running extensive family planning clinics we should try to give people the means to make the vital decision in favour of smaller families.

Under these circumstances, and approached in this manner, such a campaign will assume a positive and not a negative aspect, for parents can then be persuaded that they can do far more for their children, provide more of their material needs, assist them in their education, if they are able to space their families intelligently. Another important point is that the fact that this leads also to considerable improvement in maternal health which, in turn, reflects upon the general welfare of the family. With better education goes a better standard of living—these things are all related—as well as a lower illegitimacy rate, and therefore we have a healthier, better cared-for child population, and better and more productive workers in adulthood. A drop in the size of families is one of the results of improvements in living standards.

Here in this country we also have to take into consideration the fact that, where a population is likely to double itself within a period of 20 years, as is the case of the Coloured people of the Cape for instance, it becomes increasingly difficult for the authorities generally, all the Government departments, to catch up on the backlog in housing, health services, schools, and the teachers needed to maintain them. Unfortunately it is a fact that in South Africa to-day we devote far more money to dealing with the already chronically sick and the provision of hospital services than we do to family planning, medical research or to preventive medicine.

What is asked for in this motion is an urgent re-assessment of the whole scope of our public health services in the Republic. I do think such a re-assessment is badly overdue. We should begin by widening considerably the scope of our Public Health Act, which was drafted in 1919, and, apart from certain minor amendments, has not been seriously adapted to the changed conditions and problems now facing our public health authorities. The whole situation has completely changed. Many of this country’s most highly qualified medical people consider that the state of public health in South Africa is at a very low ebb. This is due in part to our outdated Public Health Act, and I hope the Minister will think in those terms. It is also partly due to the rapid changes in medicine and world conditions that we have seen in the last half century. The Minister himself, in a speech he made here in Cape Town the other day, referred to the growing density of our urban population. I think he should bear in mind also the fact that the public health service, both local and state, is very poorly paid, and that present entrants cannot compete with better-paid sections of the medical profession elsewhere.

I hope the Minister will support this suggestion here to-day, because let me remind him that preventive medicine is mentioned only once in the 1919 Public Health Act, and an amendment to implement this section is clearly indicated at this stage.

Let me deal with another aspect of preventive medicine. As far as one can ascertain, the state medical service does very little about preventing malnutrition for instance, despite the subsidy paid to local authorities and Bantu Tribal Authorities for the distribution of skimmed milk powder. When I wrote to the Secretary for Health in December, 1967, asking for information that would give me an “overall picture of Government attempts to combat malnutrition amongst all sections of the Republic”, Dr. Murray wrote as follows in reply—

In one of the papers which Dr. Murray sent to me in 1967, the departmental adviser on nutrition, Dr. J. M. Latsky, made an interesting comment. He wrote as follows—

The cost which was cited by Dr. Latsky in the early 1960’s, would quite obviously be very much higher to-day. This is all public money—quite apart from the fact that the children concerned in kwashiorkor cases are often seriously affected physically and mentally for life if treatment is not available at an early stage. Take the problem of tuberculosis. If ever a campaign of preventive medicine was required, it is in this field. In March, 1966, the Secretary for Health said that 40 people a day died of tuberculosis in the Republic—between 15,000 and 20,000 people a year. When I tell the hon. members how the amount voted under our Health Vote has gone up for this particular disease over the years, I think hon. members will be astonished. Let me tell them that 17 per cent of the Health Vote was allocated for dealing with tuberculosis in 1949, 42 per cent of the Health Vote was thus allocated in 1961, 55 per cent of the Health Vote was devoted to this disease in 1962 and, according to the Minister between 57 and 60 per cent of the Health Vote was devoted to dealing with tuberculosis in 1968. If ever there was a reason for preventive medicine, surely this is one. In 1967 there were just under 70,000 registered cases in South Africa and there were thousands of cases that were never registered at all. Of those 70,000 registered cases in South Africa 58.751 were Bantu, most of them were in the rural area. It is quite true as people say, that malnutrition is a cause of tuberculosis. In South Africa it is largely a result of poor feeding habits on the part of the non-white races. In part I think that is correct. In this field, of course, the role of the health educator, which is another aspect of preventive medicine, is absolutely vital. There is no doubt about it that poverty is also an overriding cause of malnutrition. I want to give the Minister two very brief examples of this. The findings of a 12-month field study undertaken by the University of Cape Town in 1967, as reported in the Medical Journal of July, 1967, were as follows:

Dr. J. F. Potgieter who is on the staff of the National Nutrition Research Institute said, as published in the Medical Journal in 1965:

So here it is the children who are most affected. It is to them that preventive medicine can be most profitably applied. We have had the South African National Tuberculosis Association pleading in its report at the end of last year and saying that ignorance was the big cause, and that health educators were the people who were needed most of all.

When I raised this question of health educators in the House last year, the hon. the Minister replied that there were 27 of them who had been trained by his department. The scheme to train them was started in 1965 and by 1968 they had been trained; 27 health educators only, none of whom were concerned with Europeans, Coloureds or Asiatics. All of them are employed by the Department of Health for work amongst the Bantu, of whom we have got 11 million in this country. Of these 27 health educators, six are in the Orange Free State, 13 in the Southern Transvaal and eight in the Transvaal—not one for the Cape Province, which includes the Transkei, where the disease of tuberculosis is rampant. The minimum educational qualification for a two-year health-educator course for a Bantu is std. 8. The hon. the Minister will probably agree with me that a greater effort could be made in this field in order to train more of these Bantu people, who have achieved std. 8. Why not put them through a special course and send them out to work amongst their own people where they understand the reasons for resistance to health measures? I am sure there are hundreds of Bantu with std. 8 qualifications, who are working with picks and shovels to-day, who could be recruited and subsidized and trained to work most profitably amongst their own people in this way. Rhodesia does it.

The system of tuberculosis control in Rhodesia is one of the best in Africa. I went into this in great detail with the Secretary of Health when I was in Rhodesia last year. The key to their system is that most of their health assistants are Africans. If you add up the number of Africans in Rhodesia registered with their medical council, who are competent to deal with health education, the figure is much higher than in South Africa. They have 883 African nursing orderlies, 116 health assistants, 126 African hygiene demonstrators, totalling 1.125. That is their number for 4½ million Africans. We only have 27 health educators for 11 million Africans in this country. I suggest to the hon. the Minister that this is something we should really consider very seriously. The Secretary for Health in Rhodesia told me that these fieldworkers in the health education programme are taught to demonstrate sanitation methods, water supply protection and simple domestic hygiene. They are also taught inoculation techniques and the treatment of minor injuries, and ailments. A programme of health education was in fact instituted in South Africa some years ago and it functioned for about eight years. However, it went out of commission altogether and no scheme has ever been implemented since. In 1965 Dr. Quass of the C.S.I.R. made an urgent appeal for the establishment of a department of nutrition, but nothing has been done about it. I think we should take this position of the deterioration of our health service over the years very seriously. In its last report, in 1955, the National Nutrition Council in South Africa expressed its great concern at the virtual disappearance of health education as a function of the Department of Health and recommended to the Minister that a division of health education should be re-established. Well, Sir, that is my plea to him to-day.

Before I conclude, I just want to say a word about food surpluses in the application of preventive medicine. Often in the Republic—not this year because we have a drought—but often the farming community finds itself with food surpluses of one kind or another. You know there is a whole series of control boards, established with the express purpose of dealing with primary production, either controlling or limiting production, or in order to see that the farmer has some kind of a guaranteed market. But how often have we in this country not found ourselves faced with an overproduction of milk, citrus, bananas, eggs, maize and beans? Yet no co-ordinating Government agency or scheme exists, whereby these essential human foodstuffs could be collected, processed and distributed to those who are most in need of them. Instead of this the taxpayer in South Africa, that is you and I, are faced with the need to provide very expensive and extensive hospital facilities for thousands who, with a little official foresight and imagination, need never become hospital inmates at all, particularly if they were assured of a balanced and reasonable diet. In the United States poverty even now affects 8 million people. In 1946 they introduced the National School Lunch Act and in 1966 the Child Nutrition Act. Now there are facilities for special milk, school breakfasts and a national school lunch. May I point out to hon. members that in the United States these programmes require community effort. They are not a welfare handout—they require community effort. School officials and local citizens run the programme among themselves and the Department of Agriculture’s consumer and marketing service, as they call it, administers and is responsible for the distribution of essential foodstuffs which in turn is subsidized by the federal government. I know this Government has subsidized primary produce of various kinds over the years.

I also want to remind hon. members that in 1964 we had just under 3 million Bantu, Coloured and Asiatic children in school where you could get at them and do something about their feeding problems. If each one of them received ½ pint of fresh milk or dried milk daily, the danger of contracting tuberculosis or kwashiorkor, on the grounds of malnutrition could virtually be prevented. I know that 1½ million gallons of dried skimmed milk was distributed to local authorities through the Milk Board and the Government during the last year, but we throw away millions of gallons every day also. This is a terrible thing. Information has been given to this House that in six days between January and December, 1966, 22,100 gallons of milk were thrown away in Pretoria. In Johannesburg over a period of 69 days between December, 1966, and February, 1967, 572,000 gallons were thrown down the drain. In February, 1968, the Minister told us that in Johannesburg between October, 1967, and February, 1968, 1.5 million gallons were thrown away in 124 days; imagine 1.5 million gallons of skimmed milk were thrown away! In 1968-’69, the latest figures, in a period of 13 months between January, 1968, and February, 1969, in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Bloemfontein and the Western Transvaal 3,383,000 gallons were thrown away. Surely, it would be much more intelligent to utilize these surpluses in a preventive health scheme. For the Minister of Agriculture to say to me to-day that the Dairy Board was negotiating with a firm in Lourenço Marques to purchase all South Africa’s surplus skimmed milk and other milk products, for those products to be utilized in another country, seems to me entirely wrong. I would really plead with the Minister to think in terms of preventive medicine in this field, because the alternative is underfed, disease-ridden communities, whose sickliest members have ultimately to be dealt with at a great cost by our hard-pressed hospital services.

Now, may I make a suggestion in regard to the distribution of food? I would like to suggest that the State should organize a food distribution scheme under the leadership of this Minister. It could include mobile markets, selling food on an economic basis in our sub-economic residential areas, and selling fortified maize, meat, fresh milk, milk powder, fruit, vegetables, groceries, margarine, butter, eggs, soya beans and groundnuts, all the things that contain the most necessary vitamins and proteins, including cheap cuts of meat and offal. In July, 1968, our Mealie Control Board had a surplus and was faced with the problem of disposing of 26.5 million bags of surplus maize. The Board expected to lose about R10 million on the current crop, but it hoped to recover some R6 million in the form of levies from producers and consumers. I would suggest that it would be much more effective and useful for producers and consumers alike if such a surplus were given to a Government-sponsored scheme for proper utilization locally—and I would stress the word “locally”—or even for the storage of the grain in response to the country’s needs. I think that the lead in these matters should be given by the hon. the Minister of Health.

In conclusion, I want to say that I think it is an indisputable fact that our general health services and the units responsible for them need overhauling. There are other aspects of preventive medicine which should receive attention but which I obviously cannot go into in any detail now, like school feeding, the wider distribution of pre and post-natal and family planning centres, including baby clinics, to deal with large-scale immunization and child welfare. Industrial workers gathered in factories could be given health education and family planning instruction as well. There should be creches for working mothers. This is a must in these days. There should be propaganda by the Department by means of films and film strips, visiting vans, closed-circuit television and talks and lectures, school visits, canteens, and food distribution units. There are all sorts of ideas which could be used.

I think, to sum up, the two main needs are a country-wide network of family health centres, which should be related to the density and distribution of our population and should be related also to the siting of our general hospitals. These family health centres should be in a position to deal with all the major health requirements of the population in a preventive sense. They could be run very largely by para-medical personnel, especially by qualified nursing staff under medical supervision, with the assistance of married women doctors, medical students, retired nurses and all sorts of people of that kind. They could give preventive treatment to a large section of the population at a vast saving of cost to the State. Ancillary services could be provided by mobile units for radiology, biochemistry and bacteriology, etc. I submit that such a scheme would stop the inundation of our hospital in and out-patient departments, which are under very heavy pressure at present. There is also the endless waiting time and travelling expenses, shifting from one hospital to another, and the present vast expenditure on drugs, which could be considerably reduced. I am very pleased to see that the Cape Province is taking a lead in this matter and has already embarked upon a scheme of peripheral clinics for the area of Greater Cape Town.

The other need, finally, is for the training of health visitors or educators—Bantu for the Bantu people, because they understand each other, Coloured trainees who could work among the Coloured population, where they so often need instruction of a different kind, particularly in regard to illegitimacy and alcoholism and the reduction of violence and basic hygiene in dealing with their children.

Now I want to say, finally, that it is quite clear that the economic background to poverty and inadequate housing is not the direct concern of this Minister, but I beg of him to see whether we cannot achieve some kind of coordination between his Department, the Department of Health and the Departments of Agriculture, Community Development, Housing, Labour, Social Welfare and Education. He is Minister of Planning and it would fall within his purview. Surely it is possible for us to devise some scheme, under his guidance, instead of just drifting on, as we are at the present moment, until the problem of overpopulation defeats us. I do think that our present practices and health services, which have not changed materially for 50 years, are hopelessly inadequate, and, what is more, they are vastly expensive. It is along these lines that I urge the hon. the Minister to give serious consideration to the motion before the House.

Many years ago I was already told that one should not argue with a lady; one would not understand her anyway. It was very clear to me when I began to read this motion that in terms of it one can speak about well-nigh everything, and that is what the hon. member for Wynberg in fact did. I do not think she can expect me to reply to everything she said; I cannot solve all the agricultural problems, all the family problems and all the medical problems in the space of a few minutes. I am therefore going to confine myself, as I understood the motion, to the question of the population explosion.

The population explosion is, of course, an international problem. As the U.N. also says in its publication, “The Future Growth of the World Population”—

At present the international population growth is about 5,000 persons an hour. In 20 to 30 years’ time it is calculated that it will be about 11,000 an hour. One of the first people who began to indicate the dangers of the population explosion was Malthus. However, this problem received more attention among philosophers than economists. Perhaps this is because the economists were all settled in the developed countries. The economists were of the opinion that salaries and incomes would determine the population growth. At that time, however, their field of vision was restricted to a fairly close horizon which only stretched as far as the streets of the cities. However, if one looks further, at the Andes mountain ranges, at Africa and Asia, the problem of the population explosion really becomes one of a fight against hunger. More than half of the world’s population to-day is still waiting in vain for the most elementary signs of progress and sufficient food supplies. An obstacle is that the population increase is greatest in the undeveloped countries. It is thus calculated that by the year 1975 the population increase per 1,000 per year in Europe will be 8, in North America 12, in Russia 15, in Africa 17, in Asia 23, and in South America 28, an international average of 20 per 1,000, or 2 per cent.

A person needs about 2,750 calories to be properly fed. In Asia, Africa and South America the average amount of calories available is about 2,150, a shortage of 600. In the other countries of the world there is sufficient food. Unfortunately for the present this group, which has the least food, comprises about 2,136 million as against 876 million in the other parts of the world.

That, then, is the problem; in order to maintain the same level of nutrition, although subnormal, the food position by the year 2000 must increase as follows: in Africa there must be an increase of 100 per cent, in Asia 150 per cent, and in South America 200 per cent. Biological necessity makes it necessary for the food production to increase two or fourfold by the year 2000 just to keep hunger at bay.

In addition we also find that the gap between rich and poor countries is becoming ever greater as the population growth speeds up. What then, is the cause of this population explosion?

The causes are twofold. In the first place, the death rate and, in the second place, the birth rate. Specifically as a result of what the hon. member pleaded for here, preventive medicine, the death rate has decreased to such an extent that the population increase has become tremendously great. That is as a result of this preventive medicine. In contrast to that biological necessity still existed, so that the birth rate did not decrease, and the result was a tremendous increase in population. In the middle of the 18th century we also had this tremendous increase in population in Europe. As a result of progress with that medicine the death rate decreased, and consequently there was a tremendous increase in population. About one million people a year emigrated from Europe to America and elsewhere. In this way, inter alia, South Africa’s White population came into being. What then, is the position in South Africa now compared to that in the rest of the world? As I have already put it, the problem of the population explosion is one of nutrition. In South Africa we calculate that by the end of the century there will be a doubling of the population. At present we are experiencing great prosperity. I have no doubt that by the end of the century South Africa will still have sufficient food to feed its people. The population explosion in South Africa can therefore not be seen in the same light as that in the rest of the world.

There is also this further aspect that we have two large race groups in South Africa, a White group and a non-White group. The position of the Whites is altogether different from that of the non-Whites. If there must be family planning, then the family planning among the Whites must be altogether different from that among the non-Whites. Mr. Speaker, it is worthy of note that between the years 1888 and 1901 the ratio of male immigrants to female immigrants who entered South Africa was 200:100. That is to say, there were 200 men for every 100 women. If one thinks of a population explosion, it is essential to think especially of the women. The group of men gathered together in a community would die out if they were not supplemented from outside. It is therefore important that we take stock of this figure of 200. If one considers that the immigrants which came here during those years were mostly English-speaking, if one looks at what the position of the English-speaking persons in South Africa is to-day, these figures are particularly informative. The average age of all members of the Presbyterian Church is 34.7 years, a tremendously disturbing age; that of the Jewish community is 34 years; of the Anglican Church 32.7, of the Roman Catholic Church, 32.4; the Lutheran 32.4; Congregational 29.5; Methodist 26.5; N.G. Kerk 24; Gereformeerde Kerk 23.7; Hervormde Kerk 21.7; and the Apostolic Faith Mission 19.4. If this is not a disturbing figure for the English-speaking portion of South Africa then I do not know what a disturbing figure is. Mr. Speaker, a nation which does not have its youth, has no future. It is for that reason that in South Africa we are also finding that what was originally regarded as an economic burden, i.e. too many children, is becoming an economic advantage for the Afrikaans-speaking portion of the population. I therefore say that if one thinks of population explosion, of family planning, one must not only think of family increases and decreases. In South Africa we are in addition faced with the particular problem of having different races here. If one begins to make propaganda for family planning, there are prejudices which one must break down; there are accusations which one may perhaps let oneself in for. The accusation can easily be levelled against one that one is engaged in the suppression of another race. Therefore the State can find itself in a particularly difficult position in this regard.

However, for me there is one particular way out, and this is the policy of the National Party. If one keeps Whites and non-Whites apart, if there is a boundary between the different races, anyone is at liberty to make propaganda on a large scale for actual family planning without any suspicion being aroused. Then and then only can one do it in the interests of that nation alone without bringing down on oneself the accusation of racial murder. Sir, just now I spoke of the biological necessity of the woman in the increasing of the population. It is known that the family takes root where the woman is, where the family is born, where they grow up; there is the child’s home, there is his mother country and there his family can be planned. That is why it is in the interests of family planning, of national planning, that this policy of separate development of each nation in its own area be implemented; that is why it is necessary for the women to remain in their respective homelands, the White women in the White homeland and the non-White women in the non-White homeland, and that propaganda for family planning be then made there in such a way that it is in the interests of that nation. Therefore I think that if we foresee future problems as a result of a population explosion, the solution is only to be found along the road the National Party is now following.

Sir, I agree with much of what has been said by the hon. member who has just sat down, but in the course of what I have to say I will also show to what a great extent I differ from him. Sir, in speaking in support of the motion proposed by the hon. member for Wynberg, I think I should analyze a real problem which she has posed, and in doing so I want to make it clear that I am not making a political speech, although there may be some political fringes which are unavoidable. The problem she poses is the problem of the population explosion. She added other items such as malnutrition, bad feeding and badly designed health projects, with most of which I agree, but basically this problem is the problem of the over-population of this country in certain respects and in certain areas. Sir, can we regard ourselves as a viable State with the rapidly rising non-White birth rate and a declining non-White death rate? We must ask ourselves whether we can carry on as we are doing at present. Obviously we cannot. We must control the population explosion where it exists and that is in the Bantu homelands. The problem which this motion poses, when analyzed, is solely one of over-population and is specialized over-population. This country has peculiarly difficult problems because it is multi-racial. We have one race battling to increase its numbers. The other races, on the other hand, while not battling to increase their numbers, are in the natural course of events increasing their numbers. Sir, it is clear that if the numbers of the non-Whites continue to increase at the present rate, the disparity between the number of Whites and non-Whites will become increasingly serious and could lead to the destruction of the most highly educated group. It is accepted by most people that in the final issue numbers will count. Educated people, like the Western Europeans, have for many years practiced birth control. They have now arrived at the so-called pill which is simple and about 90 per cent reliable. There is, however, more than one method of birth control, but for the moment I will discuss only sterilization. Sterilization without adequate medical cause is of doubtful legality. Speaking personally, I have not felt that to be a handicap in any way. I know it is felt by many of my colleagues in this country and used as an excuse to avoid it. There has never been a clear resolution on this subject. Sterilization of the male is a trifling operation without risk and without any effect upon potency. It is almost irreversible. But unfortunately it has at times carried a stigma, and it has been suggested, and even carried out largely by Hitler, that certain degenerates and criminals should be forcibly sterilized. This stigma must be removed. The idea that there is something wrong about sterilization of the male should never be allowed to develop. It should be the duty of this House to settle this point once and for all. It should be made clear that there is nothing illegal about it. This House should seriously consider making a public statement by means of a motion that sterilization is not illegal, and the reasons for which it should be carried out should be made known. Sterilization in the female, apart from the endocrinal sterilization of the pill, is not entirely free from risk. Nevertheless, it is frequently carried out when women suffering from some abdominal trouble request that they should be sterilized at the same time. When done under these conditions it adds nothing to the risk of the primary operation. This form of birth control is satisfactory. It is the most reliable method; it is fool-proof, but unfortunately it reaches too few people. It should always be voluntary. It is unlikely, unfortunately, to solve our present problem as the people concerned have not yet been educated to the point of appreciating that there is such a subject as biological patriotism, a patriotism which people seldom appreciated by the race, namely that of elimination from its own members. Mr. Speaker, in 1934 a British commission stated—

Some generations ago this country adopted a policy of helping its mentally handicapped citizens. We fed them, clothed them, housed them, and allowed them to increase in numbers. At first we felt some pleasure in the consciousness that our charges were being cared for. But now some of us wonder whether we have done the right thing. We got over that feeling because we argued ourselves into believing that we were doing the only thing possible. This is a serious problem to the people of this country. Are we to allow the degenerates and the mental deficients to increase and become an increasing burden on the people, or shall we attempt to persuade—there must be no question of force—these people voluntarily to undergo sterilization? This is a method of protecting ourselves from this increasing burden.

Charity in the sense of St. Paul, is Love and compassion, it is kindly action and it brings strength and happiness, pleasing Him that gives and Him that takes. But organized charity, and the charity of this country should be organized, should end in one or at most, two generations. The ideal benefaction is a start to lessen the need for charity. The true Good Samaritan not only feeds, gives water to and binds up the wounds of the robbed man, but he also takes care that there are no more robberies on that road. This is where the Department of Health could help. The number of those who need perpetual care is continually increasing. The number of those who are prepared to give charity is steadily diminishing.

We have so organized our policy that degenerates and morons are having children, which they do, as a rule, in greater numbers than the classes of people called upon to support them. Observers have noted some of the known inherited human characteristics and their mode of inheritance. There are few valid objections and many compelling reasons for making sterilization available to those who want it. Many a degenerate does not want a lot of children. If we put him on a par with ourselves on the matters of contraception and sterilization, he himself will have fewer children by his own wish. Eugenics show that planned families without sterilization is impossible.

I have shown what can be done. I know that our own problem is difficult and complicated. But other nations have solved similar and equally complex ones. Our problem is urgent; time is moving relentlessly against us, and we must act now. Let us consider what other countries have done under somewhat similar conditions. Defeat took the heart out of the policy of expansion of Japan. It was clear that the Japanese people had no place to go and that there were in addition 3½ million Japanese who had been ejected from the islands which the state had occupied before the war. These added to the millions of returned soldiers who were competing for_ the jobs in Japan. The Americans with their background could not suggest birth control. But they made it quite clear to the Japanese authorities that they could not tolerate Japanese expansion on the scale which industry and ambition has brought about before the war. The Japanese faced up to the problem and they introduced certain laws. The Americans were very careful to avoid the dangers of being accused of genocide. In 1948, three years after the war, the Diet passed the eugenic protection law which protected women whose health would be endangered by childbirth and also prevented the birth of inferior children. It also permitted sterilization for health reasons. In 1949 the law was amended to allow a doctor to take economic factors into consideration when he advised abortion. In 1952 the law was amended to permit approved doctors to produce an abortion without consultation. Also in 1952 the institute of public health began to try to avoid abortions, and they trained 36,000 contraception workers, who went out into the community and taught the women how to limit their families. Six years later the number of abortions was still 1,170,000. It is believed that the number was at least twice that, because they were not all reported. The Japanese people more and more are relying on birth control with abortion as a backstop in case of failure.

The Indian government was faced with worse problems than anybody else. It has ordered, although there is opposition, compulsory sterilization of all males who have more than three children and they pay 100 rupees to every sterilized male. Their advice to the newly married is: “Do not delay the first; do not hurry the second and do not have a third.”

The Swedes, who are probably the best organized family planning people in the world, have advocated birth control for many years, and have actually achieved their objective. The Swedes, feeling that they should do something in the way of foreign aid, and knowing that as a small country they could not afford large sums of money, decided to export know-how. They decided to export know-how in the form of birth control and family planning. They went to Ceylon and studied the question. They then sent a doctor into Ceylon. This doctor used Ceylonese personnel which he trained himself. He took two areas each with a population of, roughly, 7,000. It was a village about 20 miles away from Colombo, in a mountainous area, and inhabited by Tamils who are said to be on the lowest social scale among the Ceylonese. When he started, the village population was about 20½ per cent illiterate and had a recorded birth rate of 31.2 per 1.000. The other, a tea estate area, had 75 per cent illiteracy and a recorded birth rate of 39.5 per 1,000, which is amongst the highest in the world. That was in 1958. By 1960, only two years later, the birth rate of the village area had dropped from 31.2 per 1,000 to 27.1 per 1,000. By 1965 it had dropped to 23.9 per 1,000. It is a most incredible drop amongst uncivilized illiterate people in such a short period.

The Swedes relied entirely on education and they used particularly audio-visual aids. The difficulty which they had to face was that they had to convince the women that the women’s duty in a community of that kind was not to have a child every 10 months. Once the women learnt about this, they were avid for further information and they were among the first to accept and carry out family planning. The Swedes made it clear—and that is necessary here too—that their desire was to promote family planning and not to be genocides and merely suppress birth. To prove their point, they went so far as to help infertile couples to find the fault and to have children. They taught this programme to give better life to the women and to their children. Finally the Swedish Government issued unlimited contraceptive devices free of charge.

Until recently most underdeveloped areas with a death rate in the region of 40 per cent per 1,000, were compelled to adopt every possible means of keeping the population numbers up. They adopted such things as very early marriage and also polygamy, but once fertility control came in, it was found to be possible to train these people to plan their families.

The crux of the South African problem is the reduction of the non-White birth rate and particularly the Bantu birth rate in the homelands. This can only be achieved by careful education and by convincing the people themselves that we, the Whites, wish to help them and their children to a happier and fuller life. We want to show them that faced as they are to-day with the fact that their own areas cannot support their natural increase, something must be done to obtain control and allow the fertility of the country to catch up with those which live upon it. In England it has been found that planning by clinics, the setting up of clinics, is not of great value. The only method by which family planning can be propagated is by using women, because women will listen to other women. It is the women, in the years when I was much younger, who taught the other women of England to accept family planning. Unfortunately they were fighting for other things as well. The women, at the same time, were battling against the chackles of puritanism and the tyranny of men. Planned parenthood groups have been led by women. Specifically, these were aimed at freeing the women from the pain and drudgery of childbearing and child rearing, as well as from the consequences of male sexual exploitation. They achieved their object. Experience has shown that so long as the crusade for planned parenthood has been controlled by men, especially under the clinic system in England, it has not had great success. We, I believe, Sir, should send out women missionaries—I do not mean religious missionaries—into the Native and other areas to convince the women that family planning will give them with fewer children happier and healthier lives and will not estrange their husbands by denying adequate sexual satisfaction.

Mr. Speaker, in conclusion I propose subsidization of the study and teaching of genetics. Allow official legalization of sterilization provided with safeguards and publicly allow abortion where the mother’s health is in jeopardy and/or the prospect of an offspring which will be deformed in body or in mind is reasonably certain. Introduce, particularly in the Bantu homelands, a campaign led by women for teaching and training for planned families. At all cost, avoid the possibility of being accused of genocide. Leave it to the women to teach and the women to decide and leave it to social scientists, community development specialists, communication media specialists and the printed word to carry the gospel of planned families.

Mr. Speaker I listened with great interest to the hon. member for Durban (Central). He is always able to put a matter with fine scientific precision. However, when he spoke just now about his present age and his lost youth, I thought it just as well that he dealt with this matter which he chose to speak about to-day. He can speak about it far more objectively now than 30 or 40 years ago. I shall now be able to take his words much more to heart. He went into particular technical aspects thoroughly and I enjoyed listening to him. However, at the end he mentioned a few matters, some of which are already being implemented while others will indeed be dealt with by the hon. the Minister. The discussion up to now has centred on the question of birth control. I cannot blame the speakers who dealt with this question in that specific manner, because the translation in the Afrikaans section of the motion is “voorbehoedende medisyne” instead of “voorkomende medisyne”. However, in the English version of the motion I read the words ‘‘preventive medicine”. My “one-track mind” then changed and I then approached the whole matter as the hon. member for Wynberg had done. For this reason I want to confine myself to the crux of her motion, which in effect amounts, not to an indictment, but to doubt as to whether the Public Health Act as it exists to-day is able to meet the requirements of the times and whether it makes provision for the research and planning which we need, as far as health matters are concerned, in respect of our rapidly increasing population. For the specific coupling to the idea of population explosion she must, however, not blame the other gentleman, especially because they are people.

Understandably enough we would all feel concerned about the shortcomings in the Public Health Act, especially if they are legal shortcomings, which can impede the implementation of the functions of this particularly important department. I consider it a good thing that we should quickly sum up the functions according to the Public Health Act so that we can see what this Act contemplates, what it contemplated and what falls within its scope. The main functions of the Public Health Act, No. 36 of 1919, are summarized in Cluver’s Medical and Health Legislation, and they briefly boil down to the following: The prevention of the introduction of infectious diseases into the Republic from outside. Secondly, the prevention, limitation and suppression of infectious, communicable or preventable diseases; advising and assisting provincial administrations and local authorities in regard to matters affecting public health; the promotion or carrying out of research and investigations in connection with the prevention or treatment of human diseases; the publication of reports and statistical calculations; and in the final instance the collection and publication of facts relating to overcrowding and other aspects of public health, together with the comprehensive function of promoting public health. Overcrowding is also discussed and specific mention is also made in the functions of the Act that in the urban districts of the Republic facts about overcrowding and ineffective housing should be collected so that this question can be investigated and considered. These functions were initially much more comprehensive than was realized and through the years extreme demands have been made on the department. However, adjustments have been made and I wonder whether the hon. member has taken this into consideration. She must regard the adjustments which were made over the years in the Public Health Act in the light of modern developments and knowledge. The hon. member must also take into consideration that, through the years, the Department of Public Health has accepted many executive functions, which it could accept under these main functions. Some of these functions involved district surgeons, who must serve the country districts, port health, hospitals, hospitals for contagious diseases and also field work in connection with diseases such as typhus, bilharzia, malaria and tuberculosis. The department also had certain duties in connection with housing. The hon. member must remember that the demarcation of functions, also with regard to health, has been an historic problem over the years. The demarcation between the Central Government, the provinces and the local authorities is an historic problem which we inherited and which we have not yet solved satisfactorily. With almost every adjustment of the Principal Act we were faced with these problems of the relationships between the different levels of government. Many adjustments have taken place since 1935. Hon. members will remember the Gluckman report and the drastic recommendations which it contained. These recommendations boiled down to the fact that the Provinces had to forfeit many of their rights which they obtained with Union. Amendments were brought about to the Principal Act in the years 1944, 1948 and in the years from 1952 to 1956. All these measures made provision for moderate adjustments in the relationships between functions and finance. It was a give and take process, but up to now it has not yet been satisfactory. The different levels of Government do not know precisely what to do. They do not know where their functions end. When we hear about the Schumann and Borckenhagen commissions to-day, some of us raise an eyebrow, but these commissions were emphatically instructed to investigate these functional and financial relations very thoroughly and to report on them so that we could obtain more of a permanent decision in regard to these relations. We are all awaiting those findings. Drastic proposals may even be made. But this motion of the hon. member is also one which could perhaps entail reasonably drastic legislative change. I just want to read to the hon. member one of this commission s recommendations. Then she will see what the problem really is. On page 61 of the first interim report of the Borckenhagen commission, which is still to be considered by the Cabinet, this recommendation appears—

As the hon. member knows, she may also obtain this interim report. It is not a secret document. This recommendation will actually boil down to the fact that if we allocate preventive medicine, in the sense in which the hon. member uses the term, in toto to a sub-department of the Central Government, domiciliary services, i.e. district surgeons and district nursing services, must be added. Then we will be in conflict with recommendations which will be made to the Government. We are then putting the cart before the horse and in this sub judice matter we may then be going backwards rather than forwards. The problems which the hon. member raised are therefore broadly, as I said, already the task of the Department of Health. These recommendations can be implemented without another sub-department of the Central Government. But at this stage I also want to say that I welcome the hon. member’s initiative in submitting this matter to the House for discussion to-day. Hon. members will note that there is no amendment to the motion because we only want to discuss this matter amongst ourselves. But when we indicate shortcomings we must take note of what the Department of Health has already done and is still doing for the prevention of disease. The hon. member mentioned the problem of malnutrition and undernourishment. We must admit that it is a big problem and that it leaves much to be desired. Kwashiorkor still occurs a lot to-day. We know that the cost of the necessary powdered milk is being subsidized. But in this connection the question of education is, as far as I am concerned, of much greater importance. In my years as district surgeon I found that the carelessness and the ignorance of parents in respect of the nutrition of their children were by far the most important points. The mere supplying of food is not so important here, because we are financially capable of supplying it. The State is also willing to give these people the necessary proteins. I would say that the hon. member raised something of importance here, and that is that the South African National Nutrition Council, established under Act No. 14 of 1940, should be reactivated to take action and to function. This Council has a particular function, which is as follows—

We know that the council last assembled many years ago and that the hon. the Minister has just taken over the portfolio, but I nevertheless submit it for consideration. As far as education is concerned, I feel that the hon. member should really not be unreasonable. The Department has an education service and is doing its very best. There are two institutions in Natal and in the Transvaal which train educators and the facilities do exist there. If, in spite of all the efforts made to encourage the people, only 20 or 24 turn up, it is not the Department’s fault. Gathering information about nutrition, diseases, the prevention of diseases, and so on, is at present a continuous task, to which full recognition is given. But, Sir, to reach everyone is a tremendous task. The hon. member spoke about how important personal contact was. It is a tremendous task if one has to make personal contact with people to get them to an understanding of these things. Those persons who go around canvassing for votes know what I am talking about. This Department is already adopting modern approaches in the form of the Press and the radio. Over Radio Bantu one can hear how this kind of information is broadcast. But although they make use of the Press, the radio and also personal contacts, a gap nevertheless still exists, and in this connection I agree with the hon. member. I think that our agricultural departments do not co-ordinate sufficiently with our Department of Health as far as recommendations about nutrition and its use are concerned. It is no-one’s fault. It is simply the way things are; sometimes we do not understand one another. There is the question of immunization, of preventive medicine. I do not want to say much about this. I think that to-day we all know that it is one of the best developed divisions of our Department of Health.

However, I do want to say a word or two about family planning. That is something we cannot omit; none of the other gentlemen did so, and if I were to do so now, the hon. member could perhaps think it strange. Family planning is already being implemented by the White and Indian communities. Research by SABRA has indicated that 80 per cent of Natal’s Indians accept it. The increase in the White population is 22.8 per 1,000 per year, which is admittedly not high, but nevertheless amongst the highest in the Western world. The figure for our Coloureds is 45.8 per 1,000 per year; the nearest to that is India with 42 per 1,000 per year. It is therefore clear that they are in the explosive phase. Let me now read to hon. members what Dr. P. M. Robbertse the Chairman of the Human Sciences Research Council said about this—

We therefore have a vicious circle, and the question is: can South Africa afford it in the long run?

It is a good thing for us to speak about our different nations, but if there is a case to be made out for birth control, then that is how it is, and the matter has nothing to do with the races. It involves the family, with its capacity to keep its head above water economically. If there is thus a good case, we must admit that attention should be given to it. However, we must take into account that we have a heterogenous population in South Africa, and therefore this is a matter about which there are certain principles which must be taken into account when one applies this policy. I have worked out the following principles for myself in relation to the State’s function. There must be no coercion, there must be free acceptance by the individual, whether through personal realization or through education. The duty of the associations, such as the National Council for Maternal and Family Welfare, which has been giving attention to such problems on a personal basis for many years, is just as important as that of the State. However, it can be expected of the State to make available its existing organizations and staff, where it can facilitate the execution of such a task, and even to be prepared to supply these people free of charge with all these means. I now want to say that in South Africa to-day every under-privileged person can freely make use of all these means without it costing him a cent. That is the position, I am not going into it any further.

I was quite surprised because the hon. member made almost no mention of an extremely important aspect of preventive medicine which confronts us to-day, and that is the question of industrial diseases. Possibly the hon. member had it in mind. In this connection we do not have to change the Act. Section 3 of the Public Health Act states its general purpose as being that all preventable diseases may be prevented, and according to section 136 the Minister can make regulations to regulate trades and professions which can impair the health of workers. By means of regulations he can impose obligations in that connection which in my opinion are comprehensive enough for the Department of Health to take charge of preventive measures in the entire field of industries, which cause industrial diseases. We know of the chemical and physical materials which are liberated and which cause industrial diseases, and there are many more of them than we could ever imagine. We have benzine which is a destroyer of the blood, lead which is a paralyser, chrome which causes serious sores, with ferro-manganese, which causes Parkinson’s disease—and this is not Parkinson’s law, but Parkinson’s disease. There are sulpher and chlorine and gases. This is a problem which I should like to bring to the attention of the hon. the Minister, and I think that our Department, can play a greater role here to-day than it is doing. But there is something else. I think that the Department of Agricultural Technical Services should also give attention to industrial diseases which are applicable to that Department. I shall come back to that. There is splenic fever, there are certain kinds of pest control remedies which are used in the agricultural industry and which also affect people. These are all matters in respect of which there ought to be greater co-ordination and co-operation with the Department of Health. The establishment of an efficient medical inspectorate of industries under the Department of Health can be the solution here. I should like to put this to the Minister for consideration. The Department of Mines at present actually controls only one industrial disease, and that is pneumoconiosis with all its attendant or resultant ailments, other diseases such as silicosis, etc. There are also the mining ailments. However, it is all limited. The Public Health Act nevertheless makes provision for comprehensive control of all these diseases.

In conclusion I want to say this. The sub-departments which the hon. member asked about here this afternoon are really not necessary. There is encouraging action by this Government as far as medicine, health, research and long term planning is concerned. There is the Human Sciences Research Council, the Council for Medical Research, which is soon to be established, and think back to the Minister’s speech delivered a few days ago to the United Municipal Executive in which he specifically mentioned that attention will be given at high level to air and water pollution, to noise, to the planning and establishment of industries, which is important, and to housing for the less well-to-do masses.

I want to say to the hon. member that she and I may rest assured that these matters will be well attended to, to-day, to-morrow and the day after.

Mr. Speaker, when this world was put together, a most peculiar anomaly occurred. We have the heavens and the earth and the latter consists of the earth and the water and all the living things on the earth, The anomaly is this. The quantity of earth that we have got in our world remains constant but there is no real active mechanism which stops all living things from multiplying. Whether these living things are the little termites under the soil or whether it is man, they multiply. Nature, in man, has not really stopped procreation by any special mechanism which can be turned off or on at man’s will. What it has done, is that it has limited the period of procreation over a number of years; it starts at a certain age and it stops at a certain age. While this goes on, we find that the earth, which is remaining constant all the time, becomes more and more crowded with those living things which are multiplying. We in our wisdom are now discussing whether or not it is a good thing or a bad thing to stop people from multiplying. I sometimes think to myself, if the good Lord wished us to stop breeding for any particular reason he would have given us the mechanism whereby to do it. He has not done so, he has not done it with any of the animals or any of the insects or any of the birds of the earth. It goes on, it is perpetual, and I think it might be somewhat dangerous to interfere with nature, unless we are skilful enough not to stop nature but to help it along so that we can adjust it to our own needs without interfering with the balance. What happens in our daily lives, things that we read from day to day? The hon. member for Durban (Central) advocated that we should take a course to regulate the numbers of people living on earth. He did so with wisdom and understanding, and yet in the laboratories we find that man is devising ways and means of producing people in test tubes. What is this all leading to? Who does the direction and where is it going to end? The question of the population increase is, of course, becoming very serious, because of the shortage of land that we have on this earth. As I said, that remains constant, and every day that passes the land becomes more and more crowded and more and more valuable. More people and more animals and all living things want more of it because they have multiplied. I do not want to sound facetious, but we have reached a stage where for the first time in history man is breeding faster than the rabbit, and for the first time in history man is taking longer to die. As a result the balance is becoming disproportionate and we have more people looking for less ground. We must thus make sure that the ground which is available for this increase in our numbers is looked after very carefully indeed.

Let me just say in passing that in the ten minutes I will take over my speech at least 2.000 people will be born on this earth; so one can well imagine what the population increase is in a year. Now, three-quarters of the people born are from those families who are least able to provide for the newly-born. These people have the lesser share of man’s good things. They are the people who have to find housing, food, clothing and all the things that go with life. They have to try to keep a reasonable standard of living or they have to try their best to keep a mere existence going for themselves and those they bring into the world.

I have taken out a few figures to see how the population of the world has increased over the years. In the Nomadic Age it is estimated that 25 million people inhabited the world. In Roman times the estimated population was ten times that, namely 250 million. In 1650—I take that date for a special reason—the total population of the world was 500 million, and in 1965, approximately 300 years later, it had risen to 3,308 million. It took a million years of this world’s activities for the population to reach 1,000 million, but three centuries later it trebled itself and we can be sure that in the next 30 years it will double itself again. As I said, every ten minutes that passes we produce another 2,000 children. The beginning of the population explosion really occurred about 150 years ago, and it was at that time that people started to realize that the world was getting a little too small for the people on it. In South Africa we have approximately 18 million people now, and that will rise to 40 million in 30 years’ time.

While we are talking about our local problem, let me just tell the House what happened in Durban. In 1947, in Durban, there was an excess of Whites over Asians of 10,000, but in 1963 the reverse had taken place and there were 65,000 more Asians than Whites. The Asians have increased by 104 per cent and the Whites by 36 per cent. But what is disturbing not only here but throughout the world is that the amount of food being produced has fallen behind the population increase. We are now faced with the problem of feeding millions of people who cannot look after themselves. In South Africa we are much more fortunate than in other parts of Africa. We are much more fortunate than they are in South America. We must face up to the problem now that our population is increasing and we must stabilize the food supplies.

At this stage I want to tell the House that among the lower animals like the termites and the insects, the flowers and the vegetables we have on this earth, provision is made for storage of food. The dahlia has a tuber. The potato flower has a bulb. They store up food for the future. The termites, that lowest form of life, have probably the best storage apparatus known to man. But we, with our intelligence and with every know-how that has been devised, still allow 5 million gallons of milk to be thrown down the drain. It is a tragedy that that should happen. I am certain there is not a single one of us sitting here to-day who would not rather have seen the very last pint of that milk put through a process to preserve it. It almost breaks one’s heart to know that not only does this happen in the case of milk, but we see fruit lying under the trees or being destroyed because there is no sale for it or because it might be partly damaged in some way. We see our vegetables being wasted and we have this fact staring us in the face that we are not producing enough food for the people to buy at economic prices both for purchaser and producer. I plead with the Minister of Planning to devote some time to the problem and to enlist the help of all those who are willing to help, and to find ways and means of saving as much of our food as we possibly can. Let us refrigerate it, let us dehydrate it, let us divide it up and let us liquidize it, but let us keep it and give it to those people who need it. To me it means nothing to give a sporadic donation of food to a group of people who need it. To get a healthy population, the flow of food to them must be constant and must be within their reach. Rather than waste it, let us spend more money on preserving it so that they can get it. Let us make it something of which we can be proud in South Africa. This food question, of course, becomes so important that man’s whole life depends on the ingestion of it, the skillful preparation of it, and not the elaborate preparation of it. How can it best be used? If we can do that we will have no malnutrition in this country. We will not have to come here with figures to show how many children died of gastro-enteritis. We will not have any trouble about skin diseases in the young, which are due to malnutrition, or deficiency diseases. It takes time to do it and it takes money to do it, but we are a wealthy country and I think that we can quite safely start now with such a plan, because we have the people who would be willing to do it. If we can find better ways to preserve and save food and if we can find better ways to distribute food, then I will say that we here in South Africa have done a first-class job.

With reference to what the hon. member for Rosettenville has just said, I want to agree wholeheartedly with him that the waste of food is something which hurts and causes one to think very deeply. I think this is a matter which is worth our attention in view of the fact that there are so many who need food, not only in our country, but also and particularly in other countries. The world situation is a strange one. At times there is a surplus of foodstuffs which causes the Minister of Agriculture and the Government to find themselves in difficulties, especially when it is a good mealie year, but the rest of the world is hungry and yearns for that food. It is a strange world we are living in. But, having said that, I think it is also correct to say that the waste of food in our country is involuntary. In many respects we have to do with perishable products. Hon. members know, as I do, that in several quarters—local authorities, provincial bodies and on the part of the Government through the Department of Agriculture—research has been conducted in every possible way to see whether we cannot make more of our food available instead of wasting it. I am grateful to the hon. member for raising this matter. What is the solution? Together with all the other factors that play a part, there is also the simple factor of the economies of the matter. To that I cannot reply today, but it would be irresponsible of this House and I myself, as the person who is responsible for health matters, to leave it at that. I say that I do not know what the solution is, but the other factors involved here are the actual problems which have been insurmountable up to now as regards making this food available.

But I want to come back to a few other matters that were raised by hon. members.

†I should like to say to the hon. member for Wynberg that I appreciated the lucid way—and by that I do not mean “clear” in the sense of Scientology—in which she has put forward her views to-day. In introducing this motion, she put forward her views in a most constructive manner, and she was followed by members on my side and on the opposite side whose views were put forward very constructively on this most important subject of the health of our people. I think to-day’s discussion made it an important day in the health field and all members contributing have certainly given us the opportunity either to agree with what has been said or to give the relevant information. Some information has come forward already and therefore I am pleased that is was not necessary to move an amendment to this motion.

*Mr. Speaker, the first one that I would like to deal with is the question of the revision of the Health Act. The Health Act is an old Act. It is available in English and in High Dutch, and the time must come for this Act not only to be revised and consolidated, but also to be translated into Afrikaans and I am sure that that day will come and perhaps soon. But in saying that I should not like to leave the impression that because the Act is old, the Act as such hampers the activities of the Department of Health. Apart from inquiries within the Department, I have also made inquiries through my regional directors and they have given me the assurance that there is no urgent necessity for a revision of the Act. The hon. member for Gordonia has indicated what the functions of the Department are under the Act, and I think provision is made to-day for those functions which we should exercise. It is also true that the functions which the hon. member foresees for the sub-department mentioned in the motion, are all taken up at this very moment in the present Act and carried out by the Department of Health. The Schumann Report and the Borckenhagen Report have also been mentioned. I would like to suggest to the hon. member that the revision, translation and consolidation of this Act should wait until we have had a Government decision on these two reports.

*I am grateful to the hon. member for Gordonia for having raised this matter. I think it would have been wrong for us to proceed from the assumption that the mere way in which the Act was drafted hampered the activities of the Department. In addition I just want to point out that the Public Health Act has been amended on sixteen or more occasions; in other words, it has been adjusted to present circumstances, and I just want to mention two important adjustments. In 1963 provision was made for compulsory immunization against infectious diseases and for polio vaccine to be supplied free of charge. That was a step in the right direction. In 1965 the Minister was empowered to supply to local authorities any vaccine and other materials for administration to persons with a view to preventing the outbreak or controlling the spread of infectious diseases, and also to raise the subsidy in respect of salaries paid to public health nurses to ⅞ths. Hon. members will also recall that during the current session a minor amendment was once again effected in order that the earnings of learner sanitary inspectors and learner public health nurses might also be subsidized. I am merely pointing this out so that we may not perhaps create the impression here and particularly outside that the Act as it reads at the moment, is an ineffective one. I think we can safely content ourselves with saying that at the moment the Department as a whole is well equipped for making provision for preventive and social medicine.

† I would ask the hon. member for Wynberg therefore not to be adamant in her suggestion that a sub-department should be created. I think it would be a retrogressive step at this stage. I will indicate in what I have to say further that by doing other things in regard to certain functions which ought to be with the Department, we can perhaps strengthen the Department of Health and the functions that it has to perform.

*The question of health education was raised here. Let me say at once that health education is a very wide term. The Department has, as hon. members are aware, a health education section. An assistant chief medical officer, together with his staff, is in charge of this section. But in addition to that we must never lose sight of the fact that, although this is the setup at the head office, our regional offices, of which there are six—in Johannesburg, Durban, East London, Cape Town, Bloemfontein and Pietermartizburg—play a very important part in health education. I want to add that we also make very full use of the Press, periodicals and the radio, and that it has been quite some time since this was extended to Radio Bantu, because in their case it is of urgent necessity to provide health education. Since 1966 the Department has, as their biannual courses for health inspectors and for health visitors, who come from all over the Republic and South-West Africa, provided training in health education, and I am glad to say that this is having very good results.

Then, as far as the non-Whites are concerned, the hon. member mentioned the figure of 27 which was furnished to her in reply to a question last year. I think there must be a misunderstanding here, because according to my information the Bantu guidance officers being trained at Pietersburg are already 72 in number, and together with those who are now being trained in Natal, this figure will be much higher. Our problem is that we cannot find people who are interested in this training.

The hon. member also drew comparisons here with Rhodesia. I do not think that those comparisons were valid. I want to point out that virtually all the people employed in health services, not only those employed by the Department, but also those employed by local authorities, are specifically devoting part of their time each day to health education all over the country. In addition there are bodies such as the Red Cross and the Noodhulpliga which are also instrumental in providing health education. Generally speaking I think that with the limited manpower at our disposal we are doing everything in our power as far as health education is concerned. That is our problem.

Another matter that was raised here, was the question of food subsidies and the whole question of malnutrition. This question of malnutrition is one that should also be viewed in its correct perspective. The term ‘malnutrition’ is in common use at present, but you will recall, Sir, that for many years we referred to ‘undernourishment’, and that was not the correct term. Of course, there is undernourishment, but I think that it is correct to use the term ‘malnutrition’ throughout. The hon. member for Gordonia and other hon. members spoke here about the question of co-ordination among the various departments. I shall come to that later on, but nevertheless I also want to point out in regard to malnutrition that we have to contend with a terrible problem, i.e. once again the problem of health education. I just want to read out to you, Sir, an excerpt on nutrition from reports that have been sent to me—

This is one of the problems we have to contend with. In this regard there is one thing which we may not overlook, and this is also mentioned here—

Another point I want to emphasize, is the question of using high-grade proteins. As we know, the main nutritional deficiency disease is pellagra. I am not going into details. At the request of the Department of Health experiments are being conducted at the moment at the C.S.I.R. to see whether one may accept the eating habits of the Bantu; whether one should simply allow them to eat their mealie meal as is their habit and then to enrich that staple food of theirs with the necessary proteins and other additives. Mr. Speaker, I mention this as a thought or a possibility which is worth investigating; instead of trying to change the eating habits of the Bantu, we should rather respect them, as we do their other customs, and add to their staple food whatever it lacks at present. I mention this as a line of thought on which the C.S.I.R. is doing research at the request of my Department. In regard to nutrition I also want to point out that, although there are major feeding schemes for labourers—for instance, at the mines and other industries—hon. members will nevertheless be astonished to hear how many industries there are which do not provide the necessary meals, and here I include certain rural employers as well. I mention this for one single reason: I think it is imperative for employers to realize that the productivity of the employees can be enhanced considerably if they are provided with good food, and that to provide employees with good food is one of the best investments any employer can make.

Mr. Speaker, reference was made here to the National Nutrition Council which started functioning in 1940. The Nutrition Council functioned for approximately 18 years but is no longer in existence. There are good reasons for that. The most convincing reason to my mind is the fact that the council was too unwieldy and too big. This does not mean that when the Nutrition Council ceased to have meetings, all their functions were called off. These functions were carried on by the C.S.I.R., where a sub-committee is attending to these matters, a sub-committee on which both Dr. Latsky of my Department and, I understand, Agriculture as well, are serving. But I doubt whether this is sufficient. I am thinking along the lines of ascertaining very carefully, especially now that we have the Medical Research Council functioning, whether we cannot reintroduce a nutrition research council—perhaps smaller in scope—which could function better and more effectively, possibly in conjunction or in close liaison with the Medical Research Council. I agree entirely that it is possible for such a council to fulfil a major function in regard to the co-ordination of the functions of the various departments which are concerned with food and nutrition in South Africa.

† Then, Mr. Speaker, the question of the population explosion was raised and different thoughts were expressed by the hon. member for Durban (Central) and the hon. member for Rosettenville. This question of the population explosion is a fact of life to-day. It is a fact of everyday life, not only in our country, but in all the countries of the world. That being so is no reason for us to sit back and say: “Well, it’s happening to the whole world. We are not going to do anything about it”. I must say the hon. member for Rosettenville has pinpointed how exceedingly intricate this whole question of population is. I once saw a picture, we have all seen it, of St. Peter’s Square thronged with people. The caption of this picture indicated that in the not too distant future the whole world will be like this picture of St. Peter’s Square, with man shoulder to shoulder. I do not believe that our Creator will allow that, but because of the fact that I have that belief, it should be no reason for us to sit back and do nothing about it. Those hon. members who have spoken about this at length have also dwelt on the question of family planning. I must say, I always learn from the hon. member for Durban (Central). He was my teacher in surgery and he saw to it that I passed surgery. I have always wondered when family planning was instituted, especially in the U.K. where he was for some time. To-day he gave us the answer. I have the exact date now when family planning was instituted in the U.K., because the hon. member said to us: “When I was much younger, family planning was instituted in England.” I have got the date now and I would like to thank the hon. member for giving it to me.

*Mr. Speaker, this question of family planning is a matter which is thoroughly appreciated in South Africa. We have the National Council for Maternal and Family Welfare. You know, Sir, that they are doing a very great deal in this regard and that, in conjunction with and owing to the kind of offices of the Department of Health, they are steadily extending their activities. I do not want to say much in regard to this matter, except to make a few fundamental premises. The first is that family planning in South Africa is a measure for protection against disease conditions. Disease conditions can be prevented and adverse social conditions can be improved by family planning. The point of departure is children in a family which goes hungry, children in a family which is poorly dressed, children in a family which does not have proper sleeping accommodation, and the diseases attendant upon these conditions. All of this has a bearing on family planning in South Africa. The second premise I want to make, must be understood very clearly, and this is that family planning is a voluntary matter in South Africa. The voluntary aspect of family planning must be drawn through all the activities of the bodies concerned with this matter. The hon. member for Durban (Central) is quite correct in his view that ladies listen more attentively to ladies and also with much more effect. These are the practical matters we must consider, because the voluntary character involved should never be lost. Then I just want to point out that the National Council’s grants-in-aid already amount to R60,000 per year.

They want some more.

Yes, but I just want to finish this line of thought, namely that, whereas this is a voluntary matter in South Africa, it is not a matter which is undertaken as a matter of Government policy, as is the case in India and Japan, and which is made compulsory in a certain sense. In those two countries family planning on the part of the State plays an enormous role in regard to birth control which even exceeds the bounds of voluntary participation. This is not the case in our country and must not be allowed to happen here. The National Council is doing a tremendous deal in this respect. In this respect the family planning clinic facilities of the Department of Health are also very important. In their case these services and guidance in regard to family planning are provided by district surgeons. I also want to point out to hon. members that these services and the things that are connected with it are being provided free of charge—in other words, at the expense of the State. The Department also sees to it nowadays that the district surgeons attend refresher courses from time to time in order that they may be fully conversant with matters concerning family planning. Nor can I refrain from mentioning the function fulfilled by local authorities and provincial hospitals. In those cases where local authorities are taking charge of family planning, they themselves purchase what is required and are then refunded in full by the Department of Health. There is another aspect to this matter, and that is the reciprocal co-operation among Government departments as far as family planning is concerned. This reciprocal co-operation ranks amongst the best, and I must say that we are making progress as regards the voluntary participation of the population of South Africa. I do not wish to say more in this regard, but I think it ought to be clear to anybody outside this House that this is a grave matter which the Government wants to undertake and implement on a firm basis, namely the basis of voluntary participation.

The last thought that was raised here, was the question of industrial diseases. Let me say at once that one could discuss this matter all afternoon. But I do not think this should be done on a Friday! There is yet another obstructive factor, namely that as far as industrial diseases are concerned, the Department of Mines is doing a tremendous deal, also research, in regard to pneumoconiosis, asbestosis and the like. Amongst other things a conference will be held in Johannesburg in April at the invitation of the Government. The Government has made available an amount of R40,000 for that conference. The fact of the matter is, after all, that most countries in the modern world in which we are living have a medical inspectorate for industries, or something similar, within their departments of health. This is the point the hon. member for Gordonia advocated. Now I can mention to hon. members the other obstructive factor which is the reason for my not wanting to elaborate on this matter any further. A month or so ago I issued an instruction to the effect that this matter had to be discussed with the Departments concerned, namely the Department of Labour, the Department of Agricultural Technical Services and the Department of Mines—there may be more, but these are the three that come to mind now. I must admit that we are actually filling a gap to which we have not paid quite enough attention up to now, namely the question of industrial medicine in regard to diseases other than peneumoconiosis and the few others that are classified into the same category. However, I must say that it is inconceivable to me that these diseases could fall under any department other than the Department of Health. I think it would be a major step in the right direction if we could have such an inspectorate, or whatever one wishes to call it, which could be in charge of attending to industrial diseases.

I think I must leave this matter at that since I have tried to touch upon most of the matters raised by hon. members. In conclusion I want to say that there are many things that have to be done, and if we do them in this way, we shall get them done. After the discussions we have had here, after the information that has come to light and having perceived that all of us wish to do these things, I do not think that the hon. member for Wynberg will insist that this motion, namely to establish a sub-department, should be agreed to.

†I am convinced that the hon. member would have gathered from our discussion that pressing this motion would perhaps do more harm after we have had this fruitful discussion. Therefore I would like to suggest that this motion be withdrawn and that we carry on with a good job.

Mr. Speaker, we appreciate the objective way in which the Minister has dealt with this matter and the sympathetic reply he has given to the hon. member for Wynberg. On both sides, a high standard of objectivity has been maintained. At this stage I move—

Agreed to.

I move, as an unopposed motion—

Agreed to.

Last Friday, at a time when no one could reply to him, the hon. member for Yeoville thought it an opportune moment to leave with the country, over the week-end, a totally wrong impression about the hon. member for Umlazi, who is now sharing a bench with me. What we had here from the hon. member was a tirade, an accumulation of many emotions in the United Party. But, Mr. Speaker, I want to say to the hon. member for Yeoville: in that tirade against the hon. member for Umlazi he displayed his ignorance of the political history of South Africa, worse still, he displayed an inability to see the crossing of the hon. member for Umlazi to our side of the House in its true perspective. The hon. member began by reproaching the hon. member for Umlazi about certain moneys which he allegedly owes the United Party of Natal. Immediately after this on Friday we had a debate about a certain organization which has its own system of courts and of tax assessments. I do not know whether the United Party moves more or less on the level of that organization. But I do want to say this: As I see things, it is not Mr. Harry Lewis who owes the United Party something, it is the United Party which is deeply in debt to South Africa. That debt is in respect of its failure over a long period of years to answer the call of South Africa’s interests and to place this country’s interests first. As I know my country, South Africa, it will not, like the hon. member for Yeoville, recommend that that debt be written off, but South Africa is going to demand payment of that debt by the United Party and it will be paid in the form of ever greater support for the National Party.

In order to represent the hon. member for Umlazi to the country as a person lost in the wilderness of the National Party, the hon. member for Yeoville suggested that English-speaking persons who cross to our side of the House are very unhappy, and he mentioned the name of Mr. Blyth Thompson, who allegedly felt unhappy in the National Party. The hon. member for Umlazi was kind enough to show me a letter which he received from Mr. Blyth Thompson on the 12th instant, and which reads as follows—

He continued by saying that for the sake of convenience he was enclosing an article that he had recently written in an English newspaper, and this article by Mr. Blyth Thomson concludes as follows—

Why do you not give him a seat?

That is now the man whom the hon. member for Yeoville says feels unhappy in the National Party.

But over the week-end something else happened in consequence of the hon. member for Yeoville’s tirade, i.e. an article appeared in the Sunday Times which implied that the son of my hon. colleague here had intimated that my colleague should now resign his seat. The hon. member has informed me that his son telephoned him yesterday morning and said that there was no truth in it whatsoever, and that in addition his son had said to him—

What about his undertaking?

That is the image which the hon. member for Yeoville tried to build up of the hon. member for Umlazi. But the hon. member for Yeoville did not stop there. He went on to discuss the whole matter of unity between the two main population groups in the country. [Laughter.] An hon. member over there is laughing. He is welcome to it, because he is still going to cry a lot in the days that lie ahead. The hon. member for Yeoville said the following to the hon. member for Umlazi: I wish you joy in the National Party, but frustration and unpleasantness lie ahead for you, because the National Party does not really want unity between the two population groups.

Hear, hear!

An hon. member over there says “Hear, hear”. But the most disgraceful thing of all that happened then was that the hon. member for Yeoville quoted a previous Prime Minister of this country and a previous leader of our Party in proof of his statement. He quoted from the year 1942, long before the above-mentioned gentleman became Prime Minister, but he did not quote a single word from the days when he was in fact Prime Minister and in a position of leadership in the country.

Do you change so quickly?

The hon. member for Yeoville suggested that the late Advocate Strydom said in 1942 that in South Africa there was only room for the Boer’s outlook on life. But let us now get the background to this. 1942 was a time when there was no recognition for the Afrikaans language and for the Afrikaans section, and what was the Boer’s or the Afrikaner’s standpoint about this matter at that time? His attitude to life was this. In 1942 his standpoint was, as it had been 20 years before and as it is to-day, that one will only achieve true unity in this country when there is equal treatment for both language groups; and when he refers to the Boer’s attitude to life, he refers to the Afrikaner’s attitude to life, and he refers to the National Party’s attitude to life, as it still is to-day, and what is wrong with that? But I want to remind the hon. member for Yeoville that in that same year, i.e. 1942 a leading person on their side, a Minister of their government adopted a standpoint and said, “Our mass immigration scheme will eventually help to plough the Afrikaners under”.

Who said that?

The hon. member knows who said it; it was Colonel Deneys Reitz. [Interjections.]

You are telling a lie.

Order! Did the hon. member for Bezuidenhout say that the hon. member was telling a lie?

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I did say so.

Then the hon. member must withdraw it.

I withdraw it, but what he said is untrue.

Order!

But, Mr. Speaker, is that unparliamentary?

No, but the hon. member is merely repeating his words in another form.

May I say that what he is saying is not true?

Order! The hon. member may proceed.

Seeing that the hon. member for Bezuidenhout got up now, I want to deal with him. It is not necessary to go as far back as 1942 to see what the attitudes of the two Parties were in regard to national unity, but while I am dealing with the year 1942, let me also say to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout that he was the one who revolted against his own Party in that year when he wanted to have inserted in the constitution of the youth division of that Party that one of their aims was to make the youth more nationally conscious and to imbue them with a love for typically South African things. But then he got into difficulties with the leadership of that Party and that is one of the reasons why he left it.

I now come to a later year, i.e. 1960. After the hon. member had left this side but had not yet joined the United Party, he had a long interview with the Cape Argus, which gave him a build-up and said, “Watch this young man Japie Basson”. With reference to 1949, the correspondent asked him the following—

That is the little party which he had at the time. The report continues—

The hon. member for Yeoville complained that national unity does not come into its own in the National Party, but just look at what is going on in his Party. I want to ask the hon. member for Umlazi to pardon me if I make use of his metaphor of the other day, but I want to say that national unity in the mouth of the United Party is also something that is wrapped up in gift wrapping. Did that Party not fight the 1948 election with posters which, inter alia, stated, “Stamp out Nationalism”? Yet they speak of “national unity”. They wanted nationalism, the strength of any nation, to be stamped out.

That is nonsense; what about Hitler’s nationalism?

Before the election that Party issued a pamphlet in which it was stated that nationalism comes from the troglodites. That is how they made fun of the most important element in a nation’s life, i.e. the love for that which is its own, because they had no time for it.

That is rubbish!

Yes, the hon. member can say it is rubbish, but it is the truth. (Interjections.]

Order!

Then the hon. member for Yeoville challenges the hon. member for Umlazi to prove that national unity is not the entire philosophy of the United Party! Let us now test how these two parties stand in respect of this matter. Mention was made here of the late Mr. Strydom, who is alleged to have said that there was no place for English. Here in my hand I have a speech which the late Advocate Strydom delivered in 1955. The heading reads: “South Africa belongs to both sections—the creed of Mr. Strydom.” He said—

That is what Mr. Strydom said. That was his political creed. In English there is a saying, “The proof of the pudding is in the eating”. Let us see what happened to national unity during the times when the two respective parties had the opportunity of leading the country. Are the memories of United Party members so short that they have forgotten that in the days when they ruled, there was the greatest measure of conflict and disunity between the two population groups? At the same time, has there ever been a period of greater unity and ever-increasing unity in South Africa between the two sections than specifically under the National Party? That was in spite of sustained efforts all those years to make our English compatriots believe, “These Nationalists want to take away your language and drive you into the sea.” I recall that the late Senator Conroy said, at the time of the inauguration of the Voortrekker Monument, “Beware! When the monument is inaugurated there will be thousands of rifle commando members who want to shoot the English.” Such were the stories that were disseminated. Where do we stand, apart from an ever-increasing unity developing between the two sections? Where do we stand to-day in respect of bilingualism and the recognition of the two official languages? I venture to suggest that along the road of bilingualism under the National Party Government we are far ahead of other countries in the same position, for example Canada and Belgium. Last year there were a number of Canadian parliamentarians on a visit here. Among them was one Mr. Chatterton, who was born in South Africa, grew up here and also had his university education here. I asked him: “How does the situation in Canada compare with that in South Africa in respect of bilingualism, as you have encountered it during the three weeks you have spent here”? His reply to me was, “South Africa is far ahead of countries in the rest of the world that find themselves in similar circumstances”. He added that it was clear to him that a policy was being pursued here which made it possible for bilingualism to grow as it is growing here in South Africa.

But if, like the hon. member for Yeoville, we speak of the philosophy of the United Party in regard to this matter, let us see where the National Party’s view in this regard comes from. Reference was made here to General Hertzog’s leadership in the period when he called his policy in respect of the two language groups a “two-stream policy”, which was the correct one. The late Dr. D. F. Malan said the following in a speech in Durban in 1950 which he called a “heart-to-heart talk, as a South African to fellow South Africans”—

Here the United Party must listen—

Equal rights, not merely stated in writing and proclaimed, but carried out in practice—

There is the political philosophy of the National Party. A few days ago the hon. member for Kempton Park welcomed the hon. member for Umlazi to the ranks of the National Party and said to him that he was prepared to call him an Afrikaner as well. Whether this will be accepted everywhere is irrelevant here, but I want to say that what the hon. member said, and it was accepted as such by the hon. member for Umlazi, was a manifestation of the generous spirit of the Afrikaner. The Afrikaner never sees his aspirations as being in conflict with those of his English compatriots. He sees his aspirations as positive South African national aspirations. That is why Afrikanership, however broadly it may be described, will never contrast with South Africanism. National Afrikanership is the stimulus of South Africanism. It is the battery in the machine of nationalism in South Africa and that is why people who believe in the ideals of the National Afrikaner always welcome it whenever children of South Africa come home, as the hon. member for Umlazi has done.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Stellenbosch who has just spoken, went back a long way and I wonder why he did not go all the way back to the days of Simon van der Stel. He referred to old statements, speeches, placards—I noticed he omitted one placard, namely the notorious “Baster-plakaat”—and made certain statements which I think it is necessary to answer immediately.

The first thing he referred to was the question of levies paid by United Party members. I want to tell the hon. member that those levies are entirely voluntary. We, as a party, also do not pay members of Parliament to be information officers. We do not give them fulltime jobs as information officers. What amazes me is the fact that that hon. member got the job as the chief information officer, because the information he quoted to this House is not as accurate as it could be. The difference is that the National Party pays its members to put out propaganda, and that we in our party believe in it … [Interjections.] There are no members in these benches who are paid by the party to put the party views across the floor of this House. The hon. member for Stellenbosch also quoted a letter from one Blythe Thompson, a letter written to welcome the hon. member for Umlazi into the Nationalist Party. I wonder why he did not tell us something else about the history of Mr. Blythe Thompson. I wonder if he will not tell us why he was stopped from writing articles in the Nationalist Sunday Press. I wonder whose decision that was and why the Nationalist Party felt that his views were no longer acceptable to an organ of the Nationalist Party. I wonder why the hon. member for Stellenbosch does not tell us why Mr. Blythe Thompson issued a public statement saying that, because he did not feel at home, he felt that a new party should be formed consisting of English-speaking people who support the ideas of the Nationalist Party. In other words, he could not find a home. I wonder why he did not tell the House that the same Mr. Blythe Thompson, when he saw the results of his election, said: My gosh, look how those “hairybacks” have let me down. That is what he thought of his friends in the Nationalist Party. He called them “hairybacks”. I challenge the hon. member to deny it. That is the sort of unity they have—they call each other “hairybacks”! [Interjections.] He said it in Margate the day the result came out. There are witnesses for that, plenty of witnesses.

The hon. member for Stellenbosch dealt with another matter—the question whether the hon. member for Umlazi should have resigned his seat. The hon. member for Yeoville said that that was a matter for his own conscience. But I think it is necessary that we should know what the attitude of the hon. member for Umlazi was towards this question when other members left the United Party. I have here with me a photostat copy of the minutes of an executive committee meeting, the Provincial Executive Committee of the United Party in Natal. At that meeting there was present a Mr. H. Lewis, M.P. The date of this meeting was the 17th October, 1963. Four resolutions were passed at that meeting. One of these motions was one of full confidence in Sir De Villiers Graaff, the Leader of the party, and in Mr. D. E. Mitchell. This resolution was passed unanimously. It was, therefore, also supported by the hon. member for Umlazi. Another resolution passed at that meeting and one I wish to read, is as follows—

So, the hon. member for Umlazi, when other members of our party crossed the floor to the other side, was party to a resolution calling upon them to resign the positions to which they were elected while being members of the United Party. This, therefore, is not a question of debate but one of fact; it is a question not of what we ask of the hon. member but of what his own attitude is to the moral issue of accepting election under one party and thereafter crossing the floor. The view for which he voted and which was placed on record was that such people should resign the positions they held. There was another interesting issue which was raised at this meeting. This was under the heading “Finance”. Earlier on the question of contributions had been dealt with. In this resolution the following is recorded—

Here, then was a member of the executive who felt that M.P.s should take a greater part in fund raising and then went on to do sweet blow all in this matter of the collection of funds. This led to a discussion within executives of the party about the failure of the hon. member for Umlazi to play his part as a constituency representative. The hon. member for Umlazi also has the nerve to say that his divisional committee in Umlazi has not sought his resignation. But why does he not tell the public of South Africa that there has been no annual general meeting of his divisional committee for two years? There has been no meeting of his divisional committee during this period. One of the problems we had was his total failure to keep his organization going. However, the party has taken action and there is a divisional committee in part of that constituency. I can tell this House now that on Tuesday last I presided over a meeting of divisional chairmen amongst whom was the chairman of a major part of the Umlazi constituency. That meeting unanimously, without any qualification, adopted a vote of a full confidence in the Leader of the United Party, Sir De Villiers Graaff, and in the chairman of the party in Natal, Mr. D. E. Mitchell. At the same time that meeting called upon the hon. member for Umlazi to resign his seat in Parliament. That resolution was passed unanimously by all divisional chairmen in Durban, including the divisional chairman of Durban South, Mr. Kaltwasser. It was supported by the chairman of Port Natal covering another part of the adjoining constituency.

These, then, are the cold, hard facts. For the rest I leave this matter to the words of the resolution calling for the resignation of the hon. member for Umlazi, the wording being, “calls upon him as a man of honour to honour his written undertaking to resign his seat in Parliament should he ever cease to be a member of the United Party”. There I shall leave the matter.

What about Norman Eaton?

The hon. Minister is the last one to talk about this.

Did Norman Eaton join your party?

Order!

What I am surprised about is that the hon. the Minister left the United Party because we were too liberal. Now, however, he is sitting on the same benches with a member of the United Party who left us because we are too conservative! He now takes people to the left of us who find us too conservative. Let me ask the hon. Minister, when he is expecting the hon. member for Houghton to join the Nationalist Party? Because that is all that is required to give a true picture of this welcome which has been given. [Interjections.]

Order!

The hon. member for Stellenbosch dealt at some length with the question of unity, national unity, and the attitude of the Nationalist Party. I shall not attempt to go back into history. As a matter of fact, I do not need to, because South Africa knows the record of the Nationalist Party; it knows how recently in history it changed its whole approach and attitude. But let me say that long before the Nationalist Party ever dreamt of unity or thought of using the slogan of national unity, the United Party was practicing it. History will still record that the years from 1933 onwards were the golden years in the history of South Africa, in so far as race relations were concerned. This was said by no less a person than Mr. N. C. Havenga—the golden years in co-operation, he said. Who was it that broke that co-operation? Who was it that smashed that unity?—hon. members sitting on that side of the House. When they had had an opportunity to work together in true unity they rejected it and threw out their own leader. General Hertzog. They threw him upon the ash heap because he wanted to cooperate and had respect for the rights of the English-speaking people. That is the party that has the nerve now to talk about national unity and to say that they are able to create national unity but that the United Party is not.

Did Mr. Havenga sit here or over there?

Sir. I cannot give kindergarten lessons to people who have not got the mental capacity to benefit by those lessons. It would be a long and slow process to try to educate that hon. Minister and I am afraid not even I could succeed. Sir, if we look back in history, the one thing that has run through the history of the United Party like a golden thread is its dedication to the ideal of bringing together our people into a united nation. Every time that unity has been broken it has been broken by the Nationalist Party and its predecessors and those who sat on that side. Those of us who served South Africa in the last war know that in those forces you have a living dedication to national unity such as that side of the House can never even pretend to emulate. Sir, no one asked in the forces. “Am I English or Afrikaans?” We were South Africans, proud to carry the name of our country. Many of us were seconded and we not only wore the red tab but we had the words “South Africa” written on our shoulders so that everyone could know that we were proud to be South Africans, and wherever we were, English and Afrikaans alike, we put South Africa first. That was the one ideal to which we were dedicated in those days, and that spirit is marked by graves in every continent of the world. That spirit is marked by sacrifice, not to a party but to the South African nation. Sir, that hon. member talks about national unity and accuses the United Party of not believing in national unity. Sir, where was he when we were trying to bring the people together? What was he doing and what was he saying when we were trying to unite the people of South Africa? Our unity is not the unity of “bywoners” or the unity of “absorption”, it is the unity of equality, equality in every sense.

What success have you had?

We have had plenty of success.

Look at your numbers.

Sir, the hon. the Minister of Community Development is making a lot of noise. Do you know that on Thursday night the hon. the Minister started a speech by saying that the Treaty of Vereeniging was the biggest mistake that British Imperialism ever made; that the war of those days was still continuing. Does he deny it?

It was won in 1961 when we got a Republic.

Sir, when that hon. Minister talks in an election campaign, when he sweeps up emotions, then he says that the political battle of South Africa is a continuation of the Anglo-Boer war. That is his attitude, and that is the party that talks about unity. He says that they won that war in 1961 and then he asks the English-speaking people to back him to continue the struggle—a war that he went on fighting 50 years after it officially ended at the Treaty of Vereeniging. That is an admission that all this talk in the Nationalist Party of national unity is, in his own words, a sham when he says that up to 1961 they were still fighting the Anglo-Boer war. He cannot deny it.

Tell us about the Kaffirs at Dannhauser.

The hon. the Minister should not talk; he should be ashamed. I did not imagine that anyone could make the sort of speech that he made. Sir, that attitude is now confirmed by the hon. the Minister of Community Development. In his own words the first time that the Nationalist Party ever thought of national unity was apparently in 1961. If he were still fighting the war up to 1961, how could he have been fighting for unity, a unity which divided the people?

On whose side was he?

Let us ask that hon. Minister: Did he fight on both sides in that war? Was he a “bittereinder”, or was he a “hanskakie”? He fought on both sides. [Interjections.] No, when it comes to the building of a nation I am glad that the Nationalist Party has accepted our view but it will be the United Party which will put that ideal into practice and which will give content to it; and a couple of showpieces in a showcase, even if one of them is playing with a yo-yo are not going to make national unity. [Interjections.] What we want is not showpieces; we want the broad spirit of South Africanism, a cross-section of all the people of South Africa working together. [Interjections.] I do not need to battle with that hon. Minister; he is not allowed to play the yo-yo in this House, but that is about all he is any use for.

The hon. member for Stellenbosch touched on policy. I have not the time to deal at great length with what he said, but I noticed that he made no attempt whatsoever to defend the hon. member for Umlazi’s complete misquotation of United Party policy or to defend the fact that the hon. member for Umlazi did not even know the decisions of the 1967 congress of the United Party. In this House he gave as his reasons for resigning policies which he himself, as a member of the party and a member of that congress, had the opportunity to vote upon and which he accepted and stood for when they were changed in 1967 in regard to the Coloured people. But he did not even know it; he voted for it but he did not know. Sir, if a member leaves a party because he disagrees with policies which do not exist, what foundation, what substance, does it give to the reality of his convictions in regard to the things we are fighting over in the field of South African life? Because the real issues still remain. The real issues have not been touched, and that is what we have to get back to in South Africa. We can have these temporary red herrings, but fundamentally the problems remain unchanged, the problem of the failure of the Nationalist Party in the field of Bantu affairs, the failure of the Nationalist Party to produce a policy which can work and the admission of the Nationalist Party that its policies cannot, and in fact will not work. We are now getting day after day and week after week a conflict of views within the Nationalist Party. There is conflict of approach, but both sides admit the failure of their own party’s activities. We have on the one side people who say: You are failing because you are not going fast enough. On the other hand we have people who say: The Nationalist Party has been untrue to the character and the tradition of the Nationalist Party because it is moving away from its own policy. That is something which must be resolved on that side of the House, but there is one point of agreement among all the critics of the Nationalist Party. They all agree that the Nationalist Party is failing to produce an answer and that it is failing to implement the theories for which it stands. I find it interesting to read the Nationalist Press and see how this conflict is growing. Instead of coming here and talking of placards and statements in 1942, we have to get back and deal with the issues that face us in 1969. Our leader has given to South Africa a guide to the sort of destiny that we want. If the Nationalist Party are sincere in the line they take, then within the framework of our policy there is room for them to come with us. The differences between us are differences which depend on their sorting out their own disputes.

However there is one fundamental issue on which we have heard very little from that side of the House, and that is sovereign independence. We of the United Party stand for the maintenance of white leadership and political control. That is fundamental. That side of the House claims to stand for total sovereign independence for separate black states. That is the crux, that is the issue that we cannot run away from, that is the issue which the hon. member for Umlazi stated was one of his main reasons for leaving us, namely he did not believe in the maintenance of white leadership and political control. If he did not believe in that and he has joined the Nationalist Party, then the Nationalist Party must now tell South Africa that it believes in the abandonment of white leadership and political control. It cannot have both.

That is childish.

What is childish about it? If an hon. member says he has left us because we stand for white leadership and political control and he says that is “bedekte baas-skap”—if he leaves us and he joins the Nationalist Party—then that party’s policy must offer him an alternative. The only alternative to white political control is the abrogation of control. There is no other alternative—either you have control or you do not. Therefore the Nationalist Party stands branded by their latest recruit as a party which does not believe in white political control over the whole of South Africa.

Have you noticed, Sir, how in the debates this year we have heard virtually nothing about sovereign independence? We have heard nothing about this total sovereign independence which the Nationalist Party is to grant. The hon. the Prime Minister touched on it as the ultimate, but at Dannhauser the hon. the Minister of Community Development said it would take hundreds and hundreds of years. I quote him: “Hundreds and hundreds of years.” Now I ask the Prime Minister whether he accepts his colleague in the Cabinet …

Was it at Dannhauser that you referred to the Kaffirs?

It was at Dannhauser that we perhaps provoked the Minister, I do not deny that, but he is a Minister and he said at Dannhauser that sovereign independence would take “hundreds and hundreds of years”. His words were, “Die Bantoe is honderde en honderde jare agter die witman”. Does the Prime Minister now mean his policy is only to be applied in hundreds and hundreds of years’ time?

Mr. Speaker, I should like to make an announcement and I want to thank you for the opportunity of making it now. It deals with a completely different matter from the one which the hon. member may perhaps have in mind. The Department of Social Welfare and Pensions has drawn up an information pamphlet in which details about old-age pensions, war veterans’ pensions, blind persons’ pensions, disability grants, subsistence allowances and family allowances are made available for public information. This pamphlet is ready now and will be distributed free of charge by this Department as from to-day. It deals with the means test, assets, incomes, allowances, etc. In addition I just want to mention that pamphlets will be made available free of charge to all hon. members of this House.

Mr. Speaker, during this Part Appropriation debate hon. members on both sides of the House discussed a large variety of subjects, and that is of course their right. Hon. members have the right, in a debate such as this, to discuss any matter which they regard as being in the national interest. However, I hope that hon. members will understand that it is impossible for me in my reply to go into all the matters at length which have been touched upon during the course of this debate. Initially I want to confine myself to those matters which directly affect my own Departments.

To do this, I want to begin with this magic word which we heard so often, i.e. liquidity; liquidity in finance which is causing so much difficulty in the world, because there is too little of it there, and in South Africa, because we have too much of it. Hon. members on the opposite side of the House, for example the hon. members for Constantia, Parktown, Pinetown, Kensington and others, all expressed their ideas on this question of liquidity in South Africa, which is giving us problems, this excess of money the effect of which can be seen in the high Stock Exchange prices and the high prices of properties and which may be a factor in a possible upsurge of new inflationary conditions in the country. Hon. members know by this time that this liquidity is attributable to two factors.

In the first place it is attributable to this factor that we have succeeded in South Africa in making the measures which we applied in respect of inflation as effective as possible. I think it was the hon. member for Pietersburg who remarked here that it was as a result of the sound internal policy by means of which we kept inflation in check, kept it in check far more successfully than in most countries of the world, that we repressed the demand for goods and services, that we curbed imports and made more goods available for export, and that we succeeded in obtaining a more favourable balance of payments on current account for the past year. I think it speaks volumes for the economic financial policy of this Government that it has, through its internal policy, succeeded, as far as its trade balance is concerned, in obtaining a more favourable result during the past year. But hon. members also know that the liquidity which we are talking about and which has caused these problems on the Stock Exchange, as well as the latent inflationary conditions, is attributable to the tremendous influx of capital from overseas. This is partly attributable to the lack of confidence in the currency of other countries, but also, secondly to the tremendous confidence the world has in the economic and financial stability of South Africa.

During the past year—I have already mentioned this figure—a total of R400 million in capital flowed into South Africa, not only as a result of a lack of confidence in conditions abroad, but also as a result of the tremendous confidence in the economic position of South Africa. South Africa finds itself to-day in the almost critical position in which a country like Germany finds itself because its economy is so sound. That is why conditions are sound as far as its reserves are concerned, and as far as its liquidity is concerned, this is on the increase. It is a strange position in the financial world that countries such as Germany and South Africa, because they are economically strong, and because they followed the correct policy, found themselves faced with a liquidity problem. This liquidity which we have to deal with has had certain consequences in South Africa, to which hon. members have referred.

Hon. members on the opposite side all spoke about the unhealthy conditions on the share market, and asked what we wanted to do and what we would do to keep those conditions in check to some degree. I want to say at once to hon. members now that I have no intention of making any dramatic announcement here to-day in this regard. Hon. members know that there is a bill on the Stock Exchange, which will soon be before this House. I do not want to anticipate this legislation. Hon. members know that we have issued warnings. It has been said here that those warnings did not help very much. But hon. members also know that things happened last week on the Stock Exchange in Johannesburg which resulted in certain people burning their fingers. 1 predict that if things continue in this way, even more people will in future burn their fingers on the Stock Exchange. We are living in a capitalistic country, and it is not for us as Government to keep on introducing all kinds of control measures. One cannot by means of checks and regulations make clever people of those who want to be stupid. Those people who want to keep on burning their fingers will keep on doing so, and it is not for us to intervene, unless conditions start becoming really chaotic and would have a prejudicial effect on the economy of the country.

The second matter in which we are interested as a result of the liquidity is the latent inflation we have in our country. Hon. members on the other side have stated that it is no longer latent but is already here. The hon. member for Constantia mentioned the figure 3.4 here, but I think the hon. member made a mistake. It was not a 3.4 increase or a 3.4 rate of inflation, but the hon. member took the points by which the figure had increased since January, 1968, i.e. from 121.8 to 125.2 in January of this year. The rate of inflation for that period is only 2.7, which compares very favourably with that of the rest of the world. I do not want to say very much on this point, but I just want to mention two things which hon. members in this debate made such frequent reference to, perhaps in order to stir up emotions a little. The first statement they made was that “the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer”. I think that that is a very emotional and dramatic cry which the hon. members are uttering for the sake of effect, without their having acquainted themselves with the true state of affairs. In this connection I only want to mention a few figures, and now it seems strange to me that hon. members on the opposite side should have stated that they do not want to listen to figures and that we should not use figures as an argument.

I want to ask them what one must use if one cannot use figures in a financial debate? One’s emotions? That is tantamount to saying that we may as well throw our watches away and never look at them again and that we will tell the time by the rising and the setting of the sun. Let us, with reference to the statement “the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer” see what the actual figures are, as furnished by the South African Reserve Bank. Between the years 1962 and 1967 the real gross domestic product per capita in South Africa increased by 23.66 per cent. The income from property in respect of households at constant prices—and with income in respect of households we mean interest, dividends, rentals received, and the profits of non-incorporated business undertakings, i.e. the business side—increased by 33.75. Total wages and salaries in constant figures, increased by 36.15 per cent. These are the actual figures based on data furnished by the South African Reserve Bank, and they boil down to this that the increase in the gross domestic product during the second and the third quarters of 1968 accrued principally or entirely to salary and wage earners. I want to mention these figures again: Revenue accruing to households, i.e. for interest, dividends, rents and profits, 33.57 of the gross domestic product, while wages and salaries increased by 36.15 per cent. The wage earner and the salaried man, therefore, were much better off than the ordinary business man. In spite of this hon. members on the opposite side state that “the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer”.

Are you going to tell the poor they are not getting poorer?

If the hon. member had understood what I had said, he would have deduced that from what I said. But perhaps the hon. member did not understand. Recalling the hon. member’s speech of a moment ago I think he was a little punch drunk and that he did not understand very well what was going on. Hon. members on the opposite side also tried to make political capital out of the position of pensioners. They almost moved us to tears at the fate of pensioners in the country who are allegedly suffering such hardships as a result of the inflationary tendency in the country. Sir, we are aware of the fate of pensioners. Throughout its entire term of office this Government has increased pensions virtually every year. The Government gave them far more than they lost as a result of price increases and inflation. I shall take only one figure as an example. Between 1964 and 1968 consumer prices increased by 12.8 per cent, while the average social pension for Whites increased by 80.5 per cent. In the years 1948 to 1967 the price index increased by 81 per cent, while social pensions increased by 158 per cent. If hon. members would only look at these figures and would try to begin to understand these figures, they would see that the increase in social pensions took place at a much more rapid rate than the increase in the cost of living of those same persons. I come now to the question of inflation. I want to draw hon. member’s attention to what they actually presented to us. If we accept the liquidity of South Africa as a problem and we wanted to solve that problem there are a few recognized courses we should adopt. The first course we should adopt is perhaps to drain off part of the money in circulation and part of the liquidity by means of fiscal methods. That is the policy which the Government has been following over the past two to three years. With this policy it has succeeded in stemming the flow of inflation.

After having listened during the past few weeks to the speeches made by hon. members on the opposite side of the House, I must honestly admit here that they offered us little assistance in this regard. I cannot, as you will understand, discuss taxes to-day, but I do nevertheless want to point out again that when hon. members on that side request us to put a stop to this liquidity and this inflation and to take steps against it, one member after the other proposes each time, as they have again done during the past week, that this, that or the other tax should be abolished. They mention a whole series of taxes which should be abolished, without recommending anything in their stead. On the contrary, their proposals would entail that even more money would be brought into circulation. It is that inconsistency in the spirit of those hon. members which I simply cannot understand.

The hon. member for Rosettenville touched upon the matter of gold-mining tax. He asked us, whatever we did, not to create a situation where gold mines would have to close down as a result of taxation. I want to point out to the hon. member that the tax on gold mines is in fact a progressive tax, and that the tax on gold mines is such that mines with a low profit margin do not pay any taxes. Most of the marginal mines are paying no taxes whatever. On the contrary, there are about a dozen and a half marginal mines which are not only paying no taxes, but are receiving assistance from the State.

The hon. member for Kensington asked me about the American company Asia. He asked me whether it was right that this American-South African Investment Corporation should be exempt from taxation to such an extent and why South Africans could not have a share in that company.

Why is it an exception?

The hon. member will probably know that that company was established in 1958. In 1958 we had found ourselves in a situation where our reserves were dwindling rapidly. It was a situation in which the Government was doing its utmost to attract investments from overseas, in order to improve our reserves and our balance of payments. It was at that time, when there were not many people who, as a result of different factors, had enough confidence in South Africa to invest here that this American company came forward to invest an amount which subsequently increased to more than $30 million here in South Africa. They then entered into an agreement with the Government. The Government was glad to get that foreign currency, and they entered into an agreement with that company. They said to the company: If you will invest money here, we will not tax you on the capital profits which you make from shares and the sale of gold. Of course the intention in the first place was not that it should be a speculating company. The company intended investing here, particularly in our gold shares, purchasing gold, investing here as an investment company and not as a speculating company. The concession was granted to that company that it would not be taxed on profits which they made from the sale of shares or of gold. Under normal circumstances people are not eligible for taxation when they convert their investments into cash. One is only taxable if one begins to speculate in land or in shares. That was the intention with our actions in regard to that company.

Was that to have remained the position for five years?

There was no time limit.

Did they promise that they would invest in that way for five years?

They promised that they would keep their investment here for at least five years. The concession granted to them by the State was granted to them in terms of the Act of 1958, the Income Tax Act of 1941, as subsequently amended. In terms of that Act the Government has the right to grant such concessions to such companies. Once such a concession, as far as taxation is concerned, has been granted, it remains valid.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. the Minister a question? Was this company not granted more than that? Did they not also have the right to take money out of the country in gold, if they wished to do so after five years?

I did not deal with that matter because the hon. member for Kensington only mentioned the aspect of taxation. Other benefits were also granted to the company. For example, if they decide to realize their investments after five years, we would give them the dollars so that they could do so. That is to say, if they should want to sell their shares after five years, they would be allowed to take their money out of the country.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. Minister a question? Is this the only company which is enjoying that privilege?

It is the only company which I know of which obtained these privileges from the Government at that time. It was done as a result of the circumstances in which we had found ourselves in 1958. Now the question is suddenly being asked why South Africans were not allowed to invest in that company. But surely the reply is very clear. As far as foreign currency and reserves are concerned, it would not have helped us at all if South Africans had been able at that time to buy shares in sterling in that company. The reason why the Government allowed this to take place at that time was so as to obtain foreign currency. Foreigners, and particularly Americans, bought up those shares. In that way we brought more than 30 million dollars into the country at a time when we needed them very badly.

We are now talking about the draining oft of liquidity. I maintain that we can do so by means of taxation, and in that respect hon. members on the opposite side were not of great assistance to me.

The second way is to negotiate loans at home. We are negotiating such loans. The hon. member for Parktown asked me a question in regard to the difference between the R250 million I mentioned and the R400 million my colleague, the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs, mentioned. These figures cannot be compared with each other. My hon. colleague said that the liquidity in the country is calculated at R400 million, which ought to be drained off. I mentioned the figure of R250 million as the amount I hoped I would be able to drain off by means of the various loans which the State had recently introduced. With that I did not mean that the total liquidity was only R250 million. I am hoping to drain off R250 million by means of domestic loans, if all goes well. The other method of swallowing up this liquidity is of course by means of foreign loans. If we cannot draw off enough money at home, then we must let the money leave the country. In order to allow the money leave the country we need foreign currency. Sometimes it sounds strange that one should have to borrow money overseas in order to allow money to leave the interior of the country, but I think that hon. members know that we are not borrowing money overseas because we need the money, but because we need foreign currency; we receive the money and then neutralize it, but use the currency in order to allow money to stream out of the country from the private sector and in this way reduce liquidity in the country. In this respect the hon. member for Parktown asked me whether I believed that I would be able to get sufficient currency so that I would not be compelled to sell gold to such an extent that the price would drop below 35 dollars per fine ounce. I want to tell the hon. member for Parktown that one should of course be very careful in matters such as this, but after what I experienced in both America and in Europe, and in view of the knowledge I acquired there, I have every confidence that if South Africa needs the money it will be able to obtain foreign currency in the form of loans.

The hon. members for Constantia, Pine-town, Parktown and others put further questions to me. The hon. members for Parktown and Pinetown both asked me whether I was not being too optimistic in respect of the gold problem; whether I had reason to believe in the future of gold with a view to the different kinds of problems which are bound up with this. Yes, I am relatively optimistic; I am reasonably optimistic about all those problems, but one must be very careful in one’s attitude and one’s actions in this regard. In particular, there are three problems which stem from this, and I want to go into briefly. The hon. member for Pinetown asked whether, under present circumstances, I was not being too optimistic. In the first place I am thinking here of the problem of the marketing of our gold. The question is whether I have the right to be optimistic about the possibility of an arrangement being made in respect of the marketing of our gold. To that I want to reply that I think I have the right to be optimistic for three reasons. In the first place it has been my experience that people in America and in Western Europe are all desirous that a solution should be found to this problem of South Africa’s gold. The general view which one finds among bankers in the Western World is that South Africa conducted itself in a very responsible way in these circumstances, and from what one hears the view that South Africa was not fairly treated in this adjustment of matters because resolutions were taken in regard to gold, of which South Africa is the most important producer in the world, without South Africa having been consulted in those resolutions. South Africa is enjoying a great deal of sympathy among the financiers of the world. Most of them intend taking steps and all of them are desirous of a solution being found as soon as possible to the problem of the marketing of our gold. The second reason is that bankers and financiers in America and Europe are beginning to realize what the value and the position of gold is, and that one cannot solve the monetary problems of the world unless there is a regular flow of new gold into the monetary system of the world. They believe that a method has to be found by means of which a greater proportion of South African gold can be added to the monetary reserves of the world. I have here in my hand a publication, “Monthly Economic Letter: January, 1969” of the First National City Bank of New York. In this a section is devoted to the gold question of to-day and reference is made to a work by a certain Gilbert, who is an important man in this field, and with reference to that it is stated—

It is felt that something has to be done, for the sake of international monetary equilibrium, to add new gold to the monetary reserves.

A third reason for my being optimistic about the marketing of our gold is because it is being generally realized that the two tier system has in fact failed; that the two tier system is in fact a gimmick. We know that the Western nations did not expect this system to survive for long; that when the system was introduced in March of last year, they did not interpret it in the way they are being forced to interpret it now; that while it was at first stated in the agreement that they thought that there was sufficient gold in the monetary system and that it was not necessary to import any more gold, America subsequently, on 17/18th March, came forward with a request or directive to all central banks in the world to the effect that they do not purchase any more gold from South Africa. I do not think the Western countries interpreted it in this way at the outset, and when they accepted this directive from America, they did not think that it would remain in force for such a long time that they would still be prevented from purchasing gold from South Africa to-day, almost a year later. Most Western countries are eager to buy more new gold. They are dissatisfied with this two tier system, with its two piles of gold, one of which is monetary and the other free gold, two piles which have to remain separate. The world is not satisfied with that. They regard this system as a failure. It has not achieved its objects. For that reason I believe that they are eager for an agreement to be negotiated soon.

In the second place my hon. friends asked me whether I was satisfied that the price of gold would never drop below 35 dollars per fine ounce; whether we would not be compelled to sell gold in such a volume that we forced down the price to below 35 dollars per fine ounce. The reply to this question of course ties in with the reply to the question which I gave a moment ago, i.e. whether we will be able to obtain an adequate supply of currency in order to continue with our gold policy. But apart from that matter I also want to furnish a positive reply to this: As far as I can see ahead, I do not think that we need be afraid that the price of gold will drop below 35 dollars per fine ounce, for the following reasons. In the first place we have requested the International Monetary Fund to purchase currency against the offer of gold. I have already, in my introductory speech, mentioned that we definitely believe that it is our legal right to purchase currency with our gold. I have already mentioned that we are not alone in this, but that Western nations believe that we are right, and I have already mentioned that the managing director of the Fund, Mr. Schweitzer, and his staff and his lawyers, in other words the Fund itself, agree with us that we have the right to purchase currency in exchange for gold. We find ourselves in this legal position, and I am certain that if we ever found ourselves in the position one day where we could claim our legal rights, if circumstances were such that we could come forward with those legal rights, our standpoint would be maintained. This is the legal right to purchase gold at 35 dollars per ounce.

But there is a second reason I want to mention here. I do not think the Western nations will ever allow the price of gold to drop below 35 dollars per fine ounce. We must remember that it is not only America that has gold, but that the Western nations, the Governments and central banks, have far more gold than the U.S.A.; and those Western monetary powers would not like to see the gold price dropping below 35 dollars per ounce. It would entail a tremendous loss to them. Not only would it mean a tremendous financial loss to them, but it would give rise to chaos in the monetary system, and we can assume that the Western nations will do everything in their power to prevent the price of gold from dropping below 35 dollars per ounce.

In the third place, I really do not think it can drop below 35 dollars per ounce. At the moment it is floating about in the region of 42, 50, 70. If it were to drop far below that price, I think the gold buyers, whether speculators, hoarders, manufacturing jewelers, or industrialists, would again take a hand in the matter. I believe that the buyers would again take a hand, and as soon as the price fell to any considerable extent, they would once again begin buying up gold, and that they would build up the price again. So I cannot imagine the price of gold dropping much lower than it is at present.

In the fourth place, we must remember that the supply of free speculative gold is virtually exhausted to-day. This time last year, in April or May, the calculation was that 2,000 to 3,000 tons of gold had changed hands and that most of that gold was hanging over the market. To-day we think that those, say, 2,000 tons which had been hanging over the market and which could have come onto the market at any time, have dwindled so that all that remains are a few hundred tons perhaps, and that within a few months all that speculative gold would have been drawn away from the market; and if gold is no longer being fed into the market from the outside, the price of gold would of necessity either have to remain constant or increase. My friends have asked whether I feel optimistic about the maintenance of the price of gold at 35 dollars per ounce. I say that I think I have reason to feel optimistic about that.

The last question in which I was asked whether I felt optimistic was in regard to the increase of the official price of gold. Am I optimistic about an increase in the gold price? These are things one has to be very careful about. These are things which one cannot predict. There are so many incalculables in this whole matter. In his speech the hon. member for Pinetown mentioned the situation of America. During the past 18 years America has once had a surplus on its balance of payments. Last year America had a major deficit. This year for the first time in many years America again had a surplus on its balance of payments. How suddenly things change! One of the reasons why America had a surplus on its balance of payments again was that, apart from the control measures which it announced, there was a rebellion by a small group of students in France, and there was the entry of Russian soldiers into Czechoslovakia. Political factors which nobody could have foreseen and the extent of which it was impossible to measure, had an influence on the monetary position in Europe and this proved to be to the advantage of America. One does not know what financial and other factors may develop in future; these are things which nobody can predict.

But to conclude with the reply to this question as to whether we are optimistic, I want to say in the first place that I find that more and more people are prepared to begin thinking along the lines of an increase in the gold price as one of the methods of solving the monetary problems of the world. This is not the only solution. We must not imagine that gold or an increased gold price is the only solution to the world’s problems, but it is one of the methods. More and more people are beginning to think along these lines. I find that bankers, financiers, economists who years ago did not even want to discuss it, are now prepared to consider it as a possibility because they believe that if they are to be confronted by a choice of having an increased gold price or of having more and more control measures they would prefer an increased gold price to the control measures. In the second place, I believe this because, in my opinion, the attempt to demonetize gold has been a failure up to now. A few months ago our struggle was not so much a struggle to effect an increase in the gold price; our struggle was principally to maintain gold within the monetary systems of the world, when there were threats on the part of America that, rather than to increase the gold price, it would cut the ties between the dollar and gold completely, and would demonetize gold. I think that that danger has passed for the moment—but that does not mean to say that it cannot crop up again in future. Pronouncements were made by Europeans who did not want it, and even by the former American administration. This makes us think that, for the time being at least, we have won that point, that it is being realized that gold is an indispensable element of the international monetary structure upon which one must build, and that one may not deviate from that. To-day people are beginning to think that the arguments which we always put forward in respect of gold do in fact have some merit. Formerly they spoke about “the vagaries of gold production”; they could not rely upon it because gold production was so uncertain. But to-day they are beginning to realize that it is not so much the vagaries of gold production which were at fault. The production of gold has been reasonably stable during the past few years, but because the price of gold was so low the gold did not find its way into the monetary reserves. They were always talking about “that barbarous metal, gold”, and were asking whether the world should have confidence in this barbarous metal. But now they are slowly beginning to find that the metal may be barbarous, but the world has confidence in it; the world has a great deal of confidence in this barbarous metal, whether one wants to believe it or not, and whether one is able to explain it or not, than in the paper money made by people. The world is gradually beginning to realize now that if we disassociate our money from gold in the Western world, the day might come when Russia and the communistic countries may be the only countries which have a currency based on gold, while the West does not have this; and care must be taken to ensure that the West will in the distant future be able to have a gold system, a monetary system based on gold, so that it will not only be Russia who will have this. The world is beginning to realize that it is the easiest way of heightening liquidity. That is why I maintain that people are now beginning to think to a much greater extent than in the past, of an increase in the gold price as one of the possible means of solving the world’s monetary problems.

In conclusion I want to state that recently a new idea, or an old idea in a new shape, has made its appearance in the monetary sphere. This is the idea that the time has come for a readjustment of currencies in relation to one another. The feeling is that it is time we had a look at all the important currencies and their relations to one another, and that where necessary we will have to make new adjustments of currencies to one another. We welcome that idea. Since Bretton Woods when the parities of the various currencies were determined, a great many devaluations and revaluations of currencies have taken place. However, we have to accept that the relations between various currencies are not always the right ones. I welcome this idea because I believe that when the world begins thinking along the lines of a realignment of currencies, or a readjustment of currencies, people will find that the attempt to place currencies in a new relationship to one another cannot succeed unless it goes hand in hand with a revaluation of gold in relation to all other currencies. That is why we must welcome that line of thought, provided these things are done in the right way. How can they be done? An attempt at revaluing currencies can only take place in certain ways. I will mention the three most important to you. It can take place as a result of a crisis in the monetary world. If there should be a crisis and collapse, and chaos, then of course anything can happen. During such chaotic conditions currencies can perhaps adjust themselves, but in the process, however, the world can suffer great damage. So nobody hopes that readjustment will take place by way of a crisis. The second way is by means of floating rates of exchange. We read these days about floating rates of exchange; we read a lot these days about the idea that currencies should be allowed to move up and down along a broad margin. We do not have much faith in that system. We believe that it will introduce uncertainty into world trade, but it will cause chaos and that it will, not solve these problems. That is why we hope that if there should be a readjustment of currencies which might lead to an increase in the official price of gold, it will take place in this third way, i.e. the way of consultation, of discussion and of mutual agreement reached with one another, and that countries which play a significant part and which have influence in the financial sphere will deal with problems and give consideration to them in a peaceful way with one another and will in that way take the necessary steps towards solving our problems. In that I see a ray of light along this road which will lead to increase in the official gold price.

I want to conclude by expressing my gratitude towards the hon. member for Florida, who had quite a few important things to say about gold here. I also want to express my gratitude to hon. members on the opposite side for the judicious way in which they approached this matter without embarrassing me in any way. I want to say that although I am circumspectly optimistic, and this has to be my attitude, people should not deduce from that that we should allow ourselves to be enticed by that careful optimism on the gold front into the attractions of speculation in properties, shares and what have you. In other words, it should not be deduced that we believe that through an improvement in our gold position it would be remunerative to accumulate riches by means of gambling and speculation. Most of our shares are already overvalued, and the value of most of our gold shares are based on the doubling of the gold price. We must warn our people that whatever happens in future, and whenever it happens, the way in which a nation can become financially strong and healthy is not through speculation on what may happen in future but that the only way a nation can achieve economic strength and soundness is through labour and thrift. Those words which I used three years ago in my Budget, i.e. “work and save”, are still true. Whatever might happen in regard to the gold price—whether or not what we are expecting and hoping for will happen—nothing should be allowed to detract from the determination of our people to assist the gambling spirit and to seek their personal salvation in the prosperity of our country, in their ability to work and to save.

Question put: That all the words after “That” stand part of the motion,

Upon which the House divided:

AYES—100: Bodenstein. P.; Botha, H. J.; Botha, L. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, M. W.; Botha. S. P.; Brandt, J. W.; Coetsee, H. J.; Coetzee, B.; Coetzee, J. A.; Cruywagen, W. A.; De Jager, P. R.; Delport, W. H.; De Wet, C.; De Wet, J. M.; De Wet, M. W.; Diederichs, N.; Du Plessis, H. R. H.; Du Toit, J. P.; Erasmus, A. S. D.; Frank S.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Haak, J. F. W.; Havemann, W. W. B.; Hayward. S. A. S.; Henning, J. M.; Herman. F.; Heystek, J.; Horn, J. W. L.; Janson, T. N. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, S. F.; Kruger, J. T.; Langley, T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux. J. P. C.; Lewis, H. M.; Malan, J. J.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, J. A.; Marais, P. S.; Marais, W. T.; Martins, H. E.; Meyer. P. H.; Morrison, G. de V.; Mulder. C. P.; Muller, H.; Muller, S. L.; Otto, J. C.; 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.; Rossouw. W. J. C.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, H.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Smit, H. H.; Smith, J. D.; Stofberg, L. F.; Swiegers, J. G.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Uys, D. C. H.; Van Breda, A.; 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 Niekerk, M. C.; Van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; Van Staden, J. W.; Van Vuuren, P. Z. J.; Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Visse, J. H.; Visser, A. J.; Volker, V. A.; Vorster, B. 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 W. L. D. M. Venter.

NOES—33: Basson. J. D. du P.; Bennett, C.; Bloomberg, A.; Bronkhorst, H. J.; Connan, J. M.; Eden, G. S.; Emdin, S.; Fisher, E. L.; Graaff, De V.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Kingwill, W. G.; Lindsay, J. E.; Malan, E. G.; Marais, D. J.; Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Radford, A.; Raw, W. V.; Smith, W. J. B.; Sutton, W. M.; Suzman, H.; Taylor, C. D.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Waterson, S. F.; Wiley, J. W. E.; Winchester, L. E. D.

Tellers: A. Hopewell and T. G. Hughes.

Question affirmed and amendment dropped.

Motion accordingly agreed to and Bill read a Second Time.

I move—

Mr. Speaker, during the Committee Stage of this Bill, the hon. the Deputy Minister who is in charge of the Bill was asked whether the Workmen’s Compensation Act was being excluded from the operations of this measure. His reply was that the Workmen’s Compensation Act would be treated the same way as any pension policy. He said the following—

That is all very well, and that we understood was the intention, but we wish to point out the third party is very much adversely affected by the passage of this Bill—I am talking about the third party to an action for damages. If a workman claims against a third party for negligence, or a widow claims compensation for the death of her breadwinner, the third party would be more prejudiced than he would be in a normal case where a widow or other dependent sues a third party for damages for the death of the breadwinner. Let me give an example.

Let us take the simple case of a widow whose damages in respect of loss of support, apart from any award received under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, amounts to, say, R10,000, and she is to receive a pension under that Act the capitalized value of which is, say, R2,000. In that case in awarding damages to the widow the Court would deduct the sum of R2,000 above and award her the net figure of R8,000. The Workmen’s Compensation Commissioner, in a separate action, will be entitled to recover that amount, the amount of his outlay, being R2,000, and thus the insurer’s total liability would amount to R10,000. If, however, the present Bill is destined to provide that the capitalized value of the pension above is not to be taken into account in assessing the widow’s damages, then, in the first place, she will receive from the insurer the sum of R10,000, and also from the Workmen’s Compensation Commissioner the sum of R2,000, making R12,000 in all. The insurer would be called upon to pay R10,000 to the widow, ordered by the Court, but then again, in terms of the Workmen’s Compensation Act, he would also be called upon to pay R2,000 to the Workmen’s Compensation Commissioner, thus increasing his liability accordingly.

I wish to refer to an Appellate Division judgment in this connection, that of Bonheim v. South British Insurance Co. Ltd., A.D. 1962 (3) and at p. 266 Judge Ogilvie Thompson said the following—

—and this is what the Act says—

He then quotes the case of Table Bay Stevedores (Pty.) Ltd. v. S.A.R. & H„ 1959 (1) S.A. 386, also an Appellate Division case. He goes on to say:

That is what the judge held in respect of the Act, namely that workmen’s compensation was not to be approximated to insurance moneys, sick fund benefits and the like. While we agree that a workman should be able to obtain compensation, for which he has taken out insurance, I think it is quite wrong that the third party should pay the maximum amount which the court has found him liable for in damages and in addition pay the workmen’s compensation commissioner the amount which the commissioner has paid out for insurance moneys which he has received. I see the Minister is nodding his head. I think the Minister agrees with me. I do not think this is what is intended by this Bill. We raised the matter in the Committee Stage and it is only because of the answer given by the Deputy Minister, in whose hands this Bill is, that I now raise this question at the Third Reading, to show the Minister what the effect would be. I ask the Minister to consider the point I have made and perhaps introduce an amendment in the Other Place so as not to make the third party and the insurer liable to two people without receiving premiums. He is not receiving a premium for his liability to the commissioner. He is only receiving a premium in regard to the damage he has to pay out on behalf of the third party. I think the Minister will agree that it is most unfair to make an insurer or a third party—not necessarily the insurance company—liable in an extra amount, merely because the workmen’s compensation commissioner is involved in the case.

Mr. Speaker, I did not take charge of the measure personally, of course, but in view of what the hon. member has said, it seems to me to be a question that may be considered. Before promising to rectify the position in the Other Place, if this is in fact the position, I would prefer the point made by the hon. member to be considered by the hon. the Deputy Minister, who is in a better position than I am and who has studied the finer points of this particular measure—he did in fact go into this particular matter—and that we discuss the matter again at a later occasion. I think that will be more satisfactory. I therefore move—

Agreed to.

Debate adjourned.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

There are one or two remarks which I wish to make at this Third Reading, and which I hope the hon. the Minister will give consideration to before he takes this Bill to the Other Place.

Firstly, I want to lay emphasis on and ask him to give special consideration to the appointment of the president and vice-president. For the moment I will limit my discussion to the president. I asked the hon. the Minister previously, but unfortunately I was not here during the Committee Stage, to appoint a layman, that is to say a non-medical man, to be chairman of this council. There are various reasons which I could cite. One is that an independent chairman, who is uninfluenced by scientific reasons and is purely a person who is able to weigh evidence, is likely to be a more successful chairman than a professional man who uses his own knowledge to make his judgment, when his own knowledge actually may influence him in the wrong direction. There are many examples of where a layman is made the chairman of a very important project. Probably the most important project that the world has known, was the one known as the Manhattan project. That was when the Americans set out to produce a nuclear bomb. They had to do it as quickly as possible, because Einstein had convinced President Roosevelt that the Germans were already working on the nuclear bomb.

After a great deal of thought, consideration and consultation with his advisers, instead of appointing a physicist or a chemist, as it might have been thought would be wisest, because these were the people most concerned, he appointed an army engineer. When he was asked why he did that, he said he did it because he was convinced that the chairman of this project had to be a man who would get things done. He must not have anything to do with scientific work itself, but had to be someone who would get things done. When Dr. Schonland was sent over to England at the beginning of the Second World War to enter into the project of the development of radar, I heard him giving a lecture and he said: “When we decided to get on with this work we did not search for scientists who could do scientific work, but we took all the zoologists we could find. The zoologists were the men who really did the work, because we were able to start from scratch; they were educated and instructed men and they listened to what was said.” We have, in the C.S.I.R. a chairman of outstanding ability, namely Dr. Meiring Naudé. There is no doubt that he has made a great success of this council. But did we not lose one of the greatest physicists of the world when we took him off his scientific work and made him an administrator?

Lastly, I want to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to the catastrophe that could happen if, in choosing these men, the hon. the Minister chose the best doctors he could find. We are fortunate to have a surgeon of world standing among us at the present time. Think what a tragedy for research it would be if this man were taken from his work to-day, as Dr. Meiring Naudé was, and given an appointment as, for instance, the president of this council. The constitution of this council is not difficult, except as regards this particular key position and it has been found in at least one overseas medical research council which has produced great results, that a lawyer or an accountant or an ex-Judge made excellent chairmen for this council. I also want to refer to the form of voting. The form of voting which is proposed in this Bill is not suitable, to my mind. It is, perhaps, suitable in a council consisting of 30 or 40 members where you want to keep the attention of people and you want, if they do not vote, to make them realize that by not voting they are voting against. This is a small council of men, however, who are called together to make decisions, and recommendations; in other words, to make up their minds. In a council of this nature the ability to vote against by merely abstaining is disastrous. Each man in a council of this kind should make up his mind and vote “aye” or “nay”. By this system it is possible merely by abstaining from voting to accept no responsibility and in so doing to vote against. This is not the type of council, as I see it. I hope the hon. the Minister will give these remarks some consideration before he takes the Bill to the Other Place.

Mr. Speaker, it is true that the hon. member unfortunately did not have the opportunity of being present during the Committee Stage. I am grateful to the hon. member for having said that I should consider the matters raised by him. I am glad he phrased it like that, particularly with regard to the president and the vice-president of this council. I should like to tell the hon. member that I have already given the matter some thought and have again consulted others in this regard. I want to remind the hon. member that this Bill is the outcome of a great deal of consideration which has been given to this matter by the C.S.I.R. and its Medical Committee as well as the Scientific Advisory Council and other bodies and persons. I again raised this specific matter with them after the hon. member had made his speech during the Second Reading of the Bill. At that time I was strongly urged to retain this provision in the Bill in its present form. This is the first point I want to make. The second arises from the statement of the hon. member, i.e. “If this gentleman is a medical man his own knowledge might influence him in the wrong direction”.

†That may be so, but we must be very careful that his lack of knowledge does not influence him in the wrong direction. The third point I would like to make is the example the hon. member quoted in regard to the atomic bomb project. I can quite see that an engineer was appointed there and not a physicist or a biologist. After all, that was a project, whereas this is a purely scientific research council not undertaking a specific project where results must be produced within a limited space of time, but it will deal with different matters going on at the same time over many years. The fourth point I would like to mention is that the present position in the C.S.I.R. has created a need for a medical research council, because one of the difficulties was that, although there was a medical committee of the C.S.I.R., the final say rested with the C.S.I.R. Council. One of the difficulties mentioned in the papers before me advising the establishment of a medical research council, is the fact that on this C.S.I.R. Board there were too few or no medical men.

*The fifth point mentioned by the hon. member was that it would be a tragedy if we were to take one of our surgeons who had attained world standing from the great task he was performing at present and appoint him to this council. However, this also holds true for any other profession because this person will in any event have to be of such outstanding ability that if one were to take him from the legal profession, or from any other profession, it would be a loss to that particular profession, just as it would be an indirect loss to the medical profession. I want to tell the hon. member that after having given the matter much serious consideration I feel that this should remain as it is, and that there will be the greatest confidence in this council if it was laid down that such a person must have a good grounding in the science for which the council has been established.

Is it the intention to include dentists?

Yes, that is the intention. Dentistry is also mentioned in the Bill before us. As far as the form of voting is concerned, this was taken from the C.S.I.R. legislation, and I can only say that there it has worked well. I see no reason why in this particular case we must make use of a different form for the execution of the functions of this council. For those reasons I do hope that the hon. member will let the Bill through as it stands. In regard to the question of voting, I will certainly look into the matter again.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.

When the Committee reported progress, I was replying to a question which had been put to me by the hon. member for Durban (North). It concerned the question of wholesalers. I want to explain that all wholesale liquor licences issued since 1965 have been made subject to the condition that the wholesaler shall not deal with the public but with the trade itself. There have been certain misgivings as to whether this was quite in order. In view of the machinery created under the Liquor Act of 1963, the classification of hotels and the large number of new distribution points which came into existence, it has been felt that it would be undesirable to create further distribution points for the public by allowing wholesalers to trade with the public, except in exceptional circumstances. The provision we want to make here is that wholesalers, whose licences were granted after 1st January, 1965, shall not deal with the public unless they have been specially authorized to do so by the Minister on the recommendation of the National Liquor Board. This may be done in special circumstances. In order to make this completely water-tight, we also want, for the same reasons, to prohibit wholesalers whose licences were granted before that date and who did not deal with the public in the past, from dealing with the public in future, as this is a right which they have never exercised and consequently they will not be losing anything. Those who did in fact deal with the public in the past will make a sworn statement to that effect and they will be permitted to deal with the public. As I have explained, the whole premise is to prevent the creation of additional distribution points, over and above those which were in existence, or which were established with the classification of hotels.

Sir, we are indebted to the hon. the Minister for his explanation. He mentioned 1965 as the dividing line in determining which wholesalers should be allowed to trade with the public. Sir, I wonder whether there is any need really to have this restriction at all: whether there is any need to tighten up this provision at all, as is suggested. If there is a tightening up or a curtailing of the rights of wholesalers to sell to the public, for whose benefit is it being done? I think in all categories of trade in this country we look at the interests of the producer and we look at the interests of the consumer, and I can see no benefit to the producer in this proposed restriction of sales direct to the consumer, and I can certainly see no benefit for the consumer in this restriction. At the present moment the wine industry is doing its best to promote the sale of wine, and the consumption of wine at home as a normal way of life in South Africa. That is as it should be, with the very excellent wines that are being produced. One can visualize circumstances where a wholesaler is not readily accessible to a family, and the compulsory introduction of the middle man, accompanied by an increase in the price to the consumer, will cut right across the present system, with certainly no additional benefit to the producer, and I wonder whether this is really justified. The hon. the Minister has made mention of the obligations of classification, grading and so on. But one already knows that there is a considerable mark-up when it comes to on-consumption of wine. After all those are the people who are using the hotel facilities and the mark-up is there because they are consuming liquor on the hotel premises.

This refers to off-consumption.

Yes, I realize that. I am mentioning the fact that in the case of on-consumption, where the benefit accrues to the hotel or restaurant proprietor, there is a considerable mark-up on the wholesale price of wine. One regards that as justifiable because there are breakages; there is additional service. Additional facilities and amenities are provided. But why must there be a compulsory middle man in the case of off-consumption where a man desires to take his liquor or his wine to his home? In fact I shudder to think what the cost will be of some of these pleasant evenings when one is home if there is no means of securing these beverages through a wholesale medium. One finds that the man who buys in bits and pieces from the retail trade is paying a very much higher price, at least in the Cape Town municipal area and in the environs of Cape Town, than he would have to pay for the same commodity if he buys from a wholesaler on the cash-and-carry basis. Sir, there is another aspect. Most wholesalers who deal with the public have gone on to the cash-and-carry basis, with the result that no debts are being incurred. The buyer must pay cash for his liquor, and he gets the benefit of the cash price from the wholesaler. In spite of what the hon. the Minister has said so far, with all respect to him. I can find no justification for the curtailment of this facility to the consumer.

Sir, I do not want to cross swords with my friend and colleague who has just spoken, but there are other aspects of the problem which the hon. the Minister will no doubt deal with when he replies. There is, for instance, the question of supplying not to a genuine consumer but to a shebeener. That is one of the problems. I think it is also a question of vested interests; of people who are so hide-bound by regulation and by rule that the Minister feels that he has to compensate them in some way for the stranglehold on normal trade and that he therefore has to protect them to a certain extent. However, I want to raise two other matters which flow from this clause. The first is a minor one and that is the question of sales to the staff by a wholesale liquor firm. Technically, in terms of this provision, it would appear that wholesalers would not be able to supply their own staff members, which is the usual practice in any business. Whether it be a liquor business or any other business, there are usually special privileges for the staff to buy at cost price. I should like the hon. the Minister to clear that point.

The other point is this. The hon. the Minister says he is closing loopholes, but has he perhaps considered the request made to him on numerous occasions to limit the two gallons which may be sold, to one type of liquor? That tends to make it a much more genuine wholesaling of liquor than selling a mixed lot of two gallons, of which six bottles must be the same. If you are wholesaling, then you should sell in wholesale quantities. If you limit sales to two gallons of the same type, then you will make it more genuine wholesaling than it is at the moment. Those are the two points that I wanted to raise and I await the Minister’s reply with interest.

Sir, I rise to support the hon. member for Green Point. We have an Act to control the sale of liquor in order to avoid drunkenness, but I think this clause goes beyond that. I do not think it was ever intended that the Minister should control the trade or the profits derived therefrom. I think that is wrong. The Government has always advocated the principle of free trade, and I think that this clause cuts across that principle. Sir, while we have people who drink there is nothing that is of greater help to the householder or the small man than this facility to purchase his liquor in wholesale quantities. He is now going to be deprived of that privilege to a certain degree. However, while the Minister is imposing restrictions on the one hand, on the other he is giving farmers a free hand. I can drive up to a farm, the owner of which has no liquor licence, and I can purchase my liquor supply from him, provided, of course, that he produces the liquor on his farm. On the one hand the hon. the Minister relaxes the restrictions and on the other hand he tightens them up. Clause 23 introduces restrictions against the trade and I do not think that that was ever the intention of the Act. It was not intended that the Government should control profits as such. The Government’s policy all along the line has been free trade. One of the biggest liquid commodities sold in this country is petrol, for instance, and in that case the Government has said that there must be no control. If you read the report of the commission which was appointed under the Licensing Act, you will find that the tendency is to lift all controls, and here the Minister is introducing controls in respect of one section of trade.

Sir, I do not agree with the hon. member for Durban (Point) on the question of shebeens. You will always have shebeens. I think it is wrong for us to start interfering with the profit margin of the wholesalers. I think the Minister should keep out of that. I personally feel that the lid should be taken off completely as far as the Liquor Act is concerned; that there should be no restrictions. I think these restrictions are foolish. If we are going to allow liquor to be sold, we should allow it to be sold openly. But while we have these restrictions. I do not think that the Government should interfere with the profit margins of the wholesalers or the retailers. That is a matter for domestic control by the trade itself.

Sir, may I raise one more point before the hon. the Minister replies? Under subsection (2) (a) there is a proviso to the effect that a person may adduce evidence that he has been dealing with the public. There is no limitation placed on that. In other words, if a wholesaler was acting as a normal wholesaler but he had one or two customers to whom he regularly supplied, then that would be evidence that he was supplying the public. If the Minister wants to close the loopholes properly, then I feel there should be some minimum percentage of the sales to the public, say 75 per cent; in other words, it is a normal public wholesaler and not a wholesaler who in the past has not been selling to the public. It would not affect the present public wholesalers. It would affect future firms who may wish to convert to public wholesalers.

I should first like to deal with the point which the hon. member for Durban (Point) has just raised, i.e. to determine what a genuine wholesaler is. We have received representations in this regard. The entire liquor trade are in favour of this amendment, of course, except that they believe the amendment does not go far enough. In actual fact they want us to do what the hon. member for Durban (Point) has just advocated, and the entire liquor trade will naturally be very grateful to the hon. member for Salt River for the plea he delivered here today, which is the very opposite.

To come back to the question of sales to the staff of wholesalers, these exceptions can be made in terms of the conditions of the licence. One can make it one of the conditions that wholesalers may sell to their staff at the usual prices. Consequently there is no difficulty as far as this matter is concerned.

Is it necessary to obtain special permission?

In terms of another clause the Minister may lay down general conditions for all classes of licences, and this should be one of the conditions in the case of wholesale licences.

Do you intend doing so?

Yes, I think we may readily concede this. Then there is the question which was raised by the hon. member for Salt River with regard to the right of the farmer to sell on his farm. This is a right which farmers have always enjoyed. I am not making this concession now; this has been the position throughout the years. All farmers have the right to sell their produce. There are no restrictions on any farmer. Whether a person is a wine farmer or a maize farmer, he may sell his produce and he need not do so through another person. The only object simply is to introduce some order. Wholesalers have to deal with the trade unless there are exceptional circumstances, for example, if someone wants to enter the market with his product and ordinary trade does not want to handle his product. In that case we shall grant him a wholesale licence so that he may enter the market with his product. This is to the advantage of the producers as well as the public. But as a rule, wholesalers ought to deal with the trade and retailers ought to deal with the public. Surely this is what organized marketing is. We are not taking away anything from anybody. A person who had this right in the past, prior to 1965, and who can adduce proof that he has been dealing with the public, may continue doing so. If he has not been dealing with the public, he has never seen any necessity for doing so, and now we are providing that in future the position will be that he has not made use of such a right, if he had it, and that for the sake of order he should not do so in future either. And of course the other people who have not had that right since 1st January, 1965, are not losing anything either. I want to make an honest appeal to hon. members to pass this clause as it stands. I think it is in the general interest for this clause to be placed on the Statute Book in its present form.

The Minister says he does not wish to alter the position of those who traded with the public before 1965, but as time passes and as populations grow, what he is doing is to create a monopoly right in the hands of those persons who had that right in 1965. I concede that for the next five or six years it probably does not make much difference, but I should imagine that it is an unhealthy position when you are restricting the sources of supply to the individual indefinitely, irrespective of the growing demand of individuals desiring to trade.

I am making provision for this. Provision does exist in terms of which the Minister may allow this in future on the recommendation of the National Liquor Board, as the occasion arises.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 24:

This clause apparently gives someone with a wine farmer’s licence, the right without a further licence to sell liquor at a place elsewhere than the licensed premises. In other words, he can set up a depot at any other place without a licence and without any difficulty. There was an occasion, for example, in Malmesbury, if my memory serves me correctly, where a wine depot was set up in the town. Now it is proposed that this may be done without any licence at all, and in competition therefore with those who have paid their rather large licence fees and who are selling similar products in that same area. On the face of it, this again seems to give an advantage which, certainly on the face of the Bill and without there being a White Paper to explain the matter, appears to be discriminately against those who have licences and who are subject to the restrictions and difficulties of the Act. I hope the hon. the Minister will explain it.

This is not the case. In the past wine farmers have always had the right to set up wine farmers’ depots with the permission of the magistrate. If a wine farmer could satisfy the magistrate that it was in his interest to set up a wine farmer’s depot and that there was a need for setting up such a depot, he was granted permission to do so, and this still is the position. Here it has been drafted somewhat peculiarly and perhaps this is what has caused confusion in the mind of the hon. member. In view of the fact that we are providing in another clause that a wine farmer may in future operate on his own premises, on his farm, in other words, that he may sell his liquor on those premises under an ordinary authority from the Minister, we are providing here that if he sells at other premises he may only sell at premises authorized by the magistrate. This is a right they have always had in the past.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 25:

This appears to be an innocent clause, but the deletion of the word “major” before “structural alteration” is one which can lead to tremendous difficulty. I wish to plead with the hon. the Minister to leave the word “major” as it now stands in the Act. At present authority must be obtained to make any major structural alterations. In other words, a licensee may make minor structural alterations. As a result of the amendment here proposed, any structural alteration of any sort is prohibited without the permission of the chairman of the National Liquor Board. Firstly, there is no definition of a structural alteration, but there are decided cases. There is no definition in the Act itself. A structural alteration, for instance, would be a mirror being fixed to a wall, or a shelf. The tiniest little alteration or addition which is a fixed fitting is a structural alteration. It seems ridiculous that if a person wants to put up an additional towel-rack or a shelf in a toilet, he has to go running to the chairman of the National Licensing Board. It is understandable that a major alteration should be submitted for approval, or an alteration which will change the nature or character of the premises. But I will give the Minister an example of a recent prosecution. A person had a burglary through a window which was not used and was not necessary for health purposes. So the owner blocked up the window and was prosecuted because he had made a structural alteration. It is ridiculous when you get down to that level.

Now the hon. the Minister’s reply is going to be: Oh, but you only have to go the chairman of the local licensing board. I would like to hear the hon. the Minister’s explanation of how easy it is going to be to get authority for a structural alteration. I accept, and I think anybody will accept, that arising from certain abuses where not only major alterations were made but in some cases complete changes to premises were made without permission, it may be necessary to clarify the existing provision, and nobody would object to such a clarification. But the way this is being done will place an impossible burden on licensees. Without arguing the case further, I would ask the Minister at this stage please to reconsider the removal of the word “major” and leave it as the Act reads at present, or alternatively to propose some other amendment which will get at what he wants to get at, namely important changes, but which will not create the ridiculous situation that the slightest change of any sort will be regarded as an offence if permission is not obtained.

In the first place I should like to point out that the expression “major structural alteration” appears in the existing Act. Consequently that expression ought to give the hon. member for Durban (Point) no difficulty at this stage, because it is an old existing concept in the Act. What are we now doing here? We are providing that no structural alterations may be carried out without the permission of the chairman of the licensing board, and if it is a major structural alteration, he has to obtain the permission of the designated police officer. I want to concede that this will be in his discretion to a very large extent; he now has to decide when a structural alteration is such a major one that he has to consult the designated police officer and when it is not. On closer examination, however, the Act in its present form is not clear, because at present it reads as follows—

shall be allowed. Now he has to decide in every case which structural alteration is a major one and, what is more, the licensee has to decide what structural alteration is a major one and what structural alteration is a minor one. This obligation is present all the time. The very best thing to do is to provide that no structural alteration may be carried out without permission, and in this case he simply has to make application. The few things mentioned by the hon. member, such as the removal of a mirror, are trifles, and one cannot pay any attention to them.

But is that a fact?

No, it is a question of the interpretation of the Act; what is a structural alteration and what is not. What one has to take into account is a factual condition.

But there are court rulings in this regard.

It is not for me to say now whether or not it is going to be one. That is why the Act provides “no structural alterations” and a licensee, to be on the safe side, should rather make application to the chairman of the licensing board. If it is a minor alteration, he will give his permission forthwith, and if it is a major structural alteration he may give his permission after the designated police officer has been consulted.

Mr. Chairman, I am sorry, I cannot agree with the hon. the Minister. In the first place he has said that he is not going to discuss what structural alterations are, but he did not deny that the examples I gave him are in fact structural alterations. In other words, a person may not touch his premises without permission. The hon. the Minister says: “Oh, but it is a small thing, it’s going to be no problem and you get it automatically.” Let me give him a few examples. There was a case where application was made for structural alterations, not major rebuilding, just structural alterations, requested on 2nd December, 1968, which was granted on 30th January, 1969—two months. There was another case where it was applied for on 5th November, 1968, and it was granted on 12th December. That was very quick—three weeks. Another one was applied for on 4th October, and it was granted on 12th November—over a month. Another one was applied for on 22nd July, granted 30th August, and so on. It takes anything from three weeks to two months to get an approval. Now, let me put the situation to the hon. the Minister. These are plans for structural alterations, not for rebuilding. Just assume a person is carrying out a plan; the plan has been approved and envisages putting a door in a specific position. When the builders start knocking into the plaster they find that in that position they have struck a particular structural snag, for instance electrical wires. They cannot even change the plan by six inches without the permission of the chairman of the Licensing Board. That means that all these builders, plasterers and electricians are going to sit down and twiddle their thumbs for a period ranging from three weeks to two months, awaiting permission to move the door six inches. That is what this provision results in. The Minister laughs. It sounds ridiculous, but it is not me who is being ridiculous, it is the law that is being ridiculous. Some provision should be made. The hon. the Minister said that it is quite easy to simply ask for a change. Let me give the hon. the Minister an example. One liquor licensing area covers—I have picked one in Natal: Eshowe, Nkandla, lower Umfolozi, Mtunzini, Hlabisa, Mahlabatini, Entonjaneni, Nongoma and Babanango. All the people from the abovementioned places have to go to the chairman in Eshowe. Does the hon. the Minister know how far it is from those far outflung areas to Eshowe? If a person wants to put up an extra glass shelf in his toilet, he has to go all the way from say, Entonjaneni, to Eshowe to get permission. I plead with the hon. the Minister not to look at this in the light of what he is being told, but in the light of the fact of what he is doing. He is imposing, unnecessarily, a burden for which there is no need. Nearer home, for instance, you have Worcester, Tulbagh, Ceres, Montagu, Robertson and Swellendam; all those who want permission have to go to Worcester in order to get any alteration approved. I want to ask the hon. members for Swellendam and the other areas, whether they like the proposed procedure, that when somebody wants to put up a toilet fitting, he has to go all the way to Worcester to get the permission of the chairman of the Liquor Licensing Board of that area. The Minister might say that I am being ridiculous now, but later on we are going to come to clauses where he lays down a minimum penalty for certain offences. There is another clause which provides that in certain cases, not only for selling illicit liquor, but for any offence under the Liquor Act, a person can be debarred from holding a licence. With the clauses which are to follow, we are now creating an offence as a result of which a person could lose his licence if he had committed previous offences, because he will be committing an offence by doing the slightest alteration or improvement to his premises. I plead with the hon. the Minister, that if he is determined that his empire must control right down to the last screw of the last toilet paper holder and the last glass shelf in the last bathroom, if he must control every one of these tiny little details, keep control over everything, that there be provision for a post facto application. Let a person be allowed to make an alteration and then to submit it if it is a minor one. But as he is now doing it, namely placing a complete prohibition upon a licence-holder, is to my mind absolutely ridiculous. I therefore plead with the hon. the Minister to reconsider this matter.

Mr. Chairman, I have just ascertained from the chairman of the National Liquor Board that under the existing state of affairs people find themselves in an awkward position because they do not know whether a structural alteration is a major or minor one. At present they make application in respect of every alteration in any case.

Who requested this?

As far as I know this comes from the Department. If the hon. member will give me an opportunity to do so, I shall ascertain what representations I have received in this regard, i.e. if he wants to keep this debate going. No, it would appear that the organized liquor trade does not support this clause. That is correct. The organized liquor trade is not completely in favour of this clause.

They are criticizing the present procedure.

Yes, they may be criticizing the present procedure. At the moment they find themselves in the difficult position of having to decide what is a major structural alteration or what is a minor structural alteration. And they do it at their risk. This is the difficulty they find themselves in at the present moment. This is the difficulty of the people in the trade at the moment, i.e. they have to decide whether or not they are contravening the Act. In future they will know that no structural alteration may be made. Now the onus rests on the chairman of the National Liquor Board to decide when a structural alteration is a major one and when the permission and advice of the designated police officer has to be obtained.

So a man may have to travel 200 miles to ask if he can put up a toilet paper holder.

The hon. member should not turn this into something ridiculous. These are structural alterations and not additions.

The court ruling reads “any fixed installations to a building …”

The hon. member is turning this into something ridiculous.

Clause put and agreed to (Messrs. M. L. Mitchell and W. V. Raw dissenting).

Clause 28:

Mr. Chairman, will the hon. the Minister indicate whether other fermented beverages are the beverages referred to earlier in the Bill, that is to say beverages fermented from fruit other than grapes on the farm itself. Does the hon. the Minister not think he ought to have a definition of other fermented beverages put in the Act when this Bill goes to the Other Place?

It appears in the Act.

Mr. Chairman. I do not know if the hon. the Minister realizes that whisky, for instance, is a fermented beverage, because, like beer, it is made from a type of malt. Would the Minister therefore classify it as a malt and would it come under this clause?

No, it does not come under this clause.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 29:

Mr. Chairman, I object to this clause, as I would have objected to earlier clauses had I been here, which gives to the hon. the Minister complete and total dictatorial powers. The trend throughout this measure, and particularly in this clause, is for the Minister to do anything he likes. I do not know why we have a Liquor Act because it gives no certainty or security for licensees. The Minister can make conditions, he can change conditions, he can amend conditions, he can place restrictions, he can amend restrictions, and from day to day the Minister can change his mind and everybody has to just accept it. In various clauses of this Bill we see this trend towards the creation of a complete dictatorship over all licensees in the liquor trade.

When a person invests money or buys a business he likes to know where he stands. In every other business a person has rules and regulations, he has laws which lay down what he may do, how he may do it, and so on and so forth, but in the liquor trade a person can find from day to day that new rules and new conditions are imposed on him. One day he may be able to do one thing and the next day, at the whim of the Minister—which in fact means at the whim of the National Liquor Board—he cannot, or he must do something else. Here again we have a completely open and unqualified right to make restrictions and lay down conditions. I am prepared to go so far and say this. If the Minister requires such wide and such dictatorial powers then let him confine them to matters affecting the sale of liquor. But he goes far beyond that, he enters the field which should be controlled by the Group Areas Board, he enters into fields which should be controlled by other Departments, by the Hotel Board, by the hon. the Minister of Tourism. Let him confine his control, if he is determined to keep this control, to liquor matters, and not exercise control over matters which are not concerned with the sale or control of liquor. Instead of getting away from red tape we are creating more and more red tape. The Minister will accept that the organized liquor industry and the organized hotel industry are also totally opposed to this clause and they have recorded their objections thereto. It is a matter on which I feel very strongly. We are moving in the wrong direction. Instead of moving towards simplification and stability in the industry, we are moving away from it towards uncertainty and more and more red tape.

A man can take out a licence, he can submit plans, he can put up a building, and a week later the Minister capriciously can say: “Oh. I do not like those plans,” and that after the building has been built, or he can say: “I am not going to allow you to sell to this group,” or “I will not allow you to sell this particular type of liquor,” or “I am going to impose some other restriction on you.” And that after a person has invested his own money in either buying a business or putting up a building. Having done all this, he suddenly finds the Minister coming along and put any new conditions or restrictions as he may deem fit. Moreover, this is in addition to the hundred and one powers the Minister already has. Under classification this sort of thing has already happened. There are powers under classification, and I say they are being used arbitrarily. You have the nonsense that you cannot have a non-white entertainer in a white hotel.

You may call it nonsense, I do not.

Well, there are many country hotels which have a weekly dance, and all they can get is a Coloured orchestra, but the Minister says no, they are not allowed to have them.

Quite rightly too.

I can expect a verkrampte to shout, “heeltemal reg”, but what about the people who cannot enjoy their weekly dance because of this prohibition? In South Africa we have a number of outstanding non-white artistes, and now we are going to put up a wall so that Whites cannot listen to them.

Quite right.

All right, so it suits the verkramptes again—this is all part of the pattern. If the Minister says he thinks this is in order then it shows where he thinks on these matters.

There are also other points. There is the fact that he will not allow an Indian waiter to serve in a ladies’ bar. This, of course, is going to save white civilization, this will preserve the white man’s future, the fact that an Indian cannot serve in the ladies’ bar. But, Sir, he can serve in a lady’s bedroom in an hotel, although he cannot serve in the ladies’ bar. It is all part of this pattern of restrictions and yet more restrictions being placed on the industry. I wish to record my strongest objection to this growing tendency towards more and more control and more and more rights to take powers without Parliament having any say in the matter, in other words, ministerial authority over which Parliament has no control.

Mr. Chairman, I wish to support the hon. member for Durban (Point). We were told some years ago by the then Minister of Justice that South Africa was having a new pattern of drinking. He said we would see a relaxation as far as bottle-store licences and wine shops were concerned. He also said there would be a relaxation of conditions imposed on restaurants so as to encourage the tourist trade. What in fact is the position? Here in the Cape we have the unsatisfactory position …

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, the hon. member is quite out of order.

Mr. Chairman, I am speaking about the restrictions which the Minister can place on anybody who wants to apply for a licence. I do not know whether I am out of order. I am referring to a restaurant licence holder who is restricted. The way I read this clause the Minister is seeking power with which to impose further restrictions on licensees. He can vary conditions. That is how I read this clause, but I shall abide by your ruling. We find the unsatisfactory position that people go to well-known and large restaurants and they have to do something which is rather undignified, namely carry their own liquor to the establishments. I have been to Pretoria—it is quite a big place—and there one finds converted shops and what have you, all with liquor licences. Why is there the differentiation between the two cities? Why is this restriction applied to such a degree here? If one wishes to take tourists and others from overseas out to entertain them …

What you are mentioning now are all conditions.

The Minister is asking for greater powers, Sir, in this clause.

The clause says the Minister can lay down uniform conditions, and nothing else.

Yes, I realize that that is what the clause says, but the Minister is seeking greater powers to lay down more stringent restrictions. I take it when a person applies for a licence the Minister will have some requirements laid down as to what he expects the applicant to provide.

Uniform conditions.

Unfortunately many of these places look uniform to me, yet one gets a licence and the other does not.

Order! That has nothing to do with an application for a licence; it has to do with conditions under which an application is granted.

That is what I am trying to get at, Mr. Chairman, the type of building, the facilities offered. I cannot understand how you can have identical buildings and facilities in the two cities I mentioned, but the one qualifies and the other does not.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Salt River is wrong. That is not the case. In respect of restaurant licences, off-consumption licences, wholesale licences, bottle licences and temporary licences, everybody will be in the same position. We now have the power to impose conditions, but the position at present is that there is no uniformity. When a licence is granted to an applicant a whole stack of conditions is added. All we are doing here, is to take the power to draft uniform regulations and conditions for particular classes of licences, which will then be published. In this case a person knows that, if he is granted a wholesale licence, he is subject to certain conditions, as published in the Government Gazette. If a bottle licence is issued to a person, that person would also be subject to the conditions as published in the Government Gazette. This is all it means, and nothing else.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that that is what it means, but there is no restriction on the type of restriction or condition that the hon. the Minister could impose. The hon. the Minister could, as I read the Bill, say, for example, what kind of liquor should be sold by a certain class of licensee. He could say what class of person should be served by a particular licensee in terms of this clause. He could make it a condition that this class of licensee shall not sell to a specific race or to a specific class of person or he may only sell certain types of liquor to certain types of persons. I think the hon. the Minister will appreciate that, if in fact he were to impose such a condition, he could kill the very purpose of the existence of any licensee. There is absolutely no restriction at all.

An enormous amount of money is paid for these licences. I think the hon. the Minister should agree that, if a person is conducting his business upon a certain basis, having paid a certain amount of money, which is usually a very large sum, in respect of bottle-store licences, for example, surely he is entitled to know what it is he is allowed to sell and to whom he is going to be allowed to sell it. There are the fundamentals of his business, the fundamentals of his determination as to how much he is going to pay for it and what sort of investment it is going to be. Surely this power must be restricted, so that these conditions may be laid down by the Minister, except for certain matters which are excluded from the power to lay down these conditions. In other words, there are certain conditions the hon. the Minister should not be able to impose in terms of this clause. I hope the hon. the Minister, if the matter is viewed in that light, will appreciate that there should be some restriction on those powers; because the hon. the Minister shook his head when I said “as to what type liquor they may sell”, indicating to me in an innocent way that he did not have that in mind. But the power should not be there. The hon. the Minister’s successor or another board may feel differently from the way the hon. the Minister and the existing board feel at the moment. But these are basic powers so far as the business is concerned. One is dealing here with an industry which has a tremendous vested interest, estimated at something like R300,000,000. These powers really go much further than is necessary for the achievement of the hon. the Minister’s aim.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to explain once again. The point the hon. member is making now, corresponds to the point originally raised by the hon. member for Durban (Point). At the moment we have the power, in terms of clause 71 bis, to impose any condition in classifying a hotel. At the moment those powers already exist.

Everything except to make them love the baby.

Yes, possibly. I just want to tell the hon. member for Durban (Point) that, if there are people who are very sympathetic towards this industry, then it is the National Liquor Board and I. I do not think that they have cause for complaint. There is, therefore, no question of hostility which would result in conditions being altered left, right and centre.

But it happens.

It exists at the moment. What is more, a local liquor board can also, upon renewal, impose additional conditions. Those powers exist at the moment. But our difficulty is that they are not uniform. This clause aims at drafting uniform regulations in respect of the various licences. That is all it seeks to do. The powers we are exercising, are powers we already have. That is all it seeks to do. This is not something out of the ordinary or strange.

Clause put and agreed to (Mr. W. V. Raw dissenting).

Clause 32:

Clauses 32 and 33 both bring in investment corporations; in the one case the Bantu Homelands Investment Corporation and in the other the Coloured Investment Corporation. I will not press the matter at this stage, until I have heard his reply, but I would ask the hon. the Minister to tell us the extent to which he envisages that the Bantu Homelands Investment Corporations, dealt with in clause 32, are now going to become dealers in liquor. When I have heard the hon. the Minister’s reply, I should like to take the matter further.

This is an ordinary authority which is also being granted to them in terms of section 100bis, whereby a licence may be granted to them. That is all it comprises. The National Liquor Board will decide on how many there will be and will make recommendations to me accordingly. More than that I cannot tell the hon. member. In the past they could not exercise that right, nor could the Coloured Corporation; but now we are also authorizing them to claim that right for themselves. The extent to which that will happen, is a question in regard to which the National Liquor Board will make recommendations to me. I shall decide about it.

Mr. Chairman, we have the position where associations of not more than 20 people can obtain certain authorities. Here we are getting nothing more than socialism in liquor selling. In other words, in terms of this clause the State is now starting to become a liquor dealer, because these corporations are State corporations. At this stage they are still our State corporations under the control of the Government. They are now starting, and this is to make provision for them, to enter the field of private enterprise, to become sellers of liquor, in this case, to the Bantu. Is it now the intention of the Government that we are going to socialize our liquor sales in the various race areas, because that is the pattern developing here, or is this to be a temporary transitionary period whereby they will buy out liquor undertakings with the object of handing them over to the Bantu later in the same way as the Bantu Investment Corporation buys trading stores and then puts the original owner back as a manager? This opens up a complete new vista in the take-over process of the Bantu homelands. In other words, the State is now coming in to trade. We are interested in whether they are going to open up new undertakings or whether they are going to take over existing undertakings, and give authority for them, or what the position is. Because this to me appears to be a socialistic tendency of the State to enter into private trading.

Mr. Chairman, the position at the moment is that there is only one person, namely the black man himself who can in terms of section 100bis, obtain a licence in the Bantu homelands. Nobody else can obtain it. In this regard we are referring to Bantu homelands only. Now, the position is that we do not always have enough of these people. Upon the recommendation of my colleague the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development I felt that the Bantu Development Corporation should also be brought in so as to start undertakings and run them, I cannot say to what extent. However, they must also be enabled to obtain authority in terms of section 100bis of the principal Act. This is the case as far as the Bantu are concerned. As far as the Coloureds are concerned, this matter is being handled by the Coloured Development Corporation. The underlying idea is that what the Bantu Development Corporation and the Coloured Development Corporation acquire by way of profits should be ploughed back for the benefit of these people, whereas the individual licensee does, of course, keep the profit to himself. This does not mean that individual licensees will be excluded and that only the Bantu Development Corporation and the Coloured Development Corporation will be in the field. However, they are being enabled to enjoy the same privileges there.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 33:

Mr. Chairman, I do not want to deal with the aspect regarding the Coloured Development Corporation, upon which I have expressed my views, but with this question of non-South African residents who are shareholders in an authority. Firstly, I would ask the hon. the Minister to indicate what the reason is for having to have nearly two full pages in our legislation dealing with the matter of a person who owns shares in an authority and leaves the country; secondly, to indicate what he regards as a sufficient period of absence for a person to be regarded as no longer resident in the country. Thirdly, I would like to know from the hon. the Minister how many instances have occurred which lead to our law, which is already over-long and over-complicated, having to be extended by this amount. Finally, I would like the hon. the Minister to explain why it should be that a person who does own shares has absolutely no rights at all. Whenever there is any dispute the rights are in the hands of the people selling shares or the people left behind. In other words, the dice are loaded completely. His colleagues or his co-partners can do virtually what they like and a person has no redress at all. I ask the hon. the Minister to explain the situation.

Mr. Chairman, the fundamental premise is that section 100sex of the principal Act, which is being amended here, provides that these shares be given to groups of Coloureds resident in this country. When a person leaves the country permanently, there is no reason why he should hold those shares any longer. He can sell them and he is not being forbidden to do so. However, when he leaves the country permanently, he is no longer a South African, and why should we place him in this privileged position by allowing him to hold on to his shares? It must be borne in mind that these people do extremely well for themselves. However, when such a person wants to leave the country, i.e. no longer wants to live here, but still derives benefit from privileges created for a certain population group, it is not fair. With a view to this it is being provided that, if a person leaves the country permanently, he should sell his shares at an equitable price, determined by a chartered accountant, to another person of his race group. These shares may be sold to any other person of his group and not necessarily to another shareholder. This provision sounds very reasonable to me, and, what is more, the hon. member must remember that these people are getting all of this free of charge. There is no competition as is found in the case of an ordinary bottle store which has to worry about a quota. These people apply and get them for nothing. When a person gets something like that for nothing and does not want to use it in this country, but goes away, it seems reasonable to me to tell him that he should sell them. As regards the question of the period for which a person has to be absent, I must admit that it is difficult to determine when a person has left the country permanently.

Are there cases where this has happened already?

Yes, I think there have been cases of people who have left the country. However, I think this is a very reasonable provision, and I want to ask the hon. member not to insist on a change.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 34:

Mr. Chairman, this clause provides for the deletion of the word “housekeeper” from the group of persons who may be in the restricted portion of the premises. The original paragraph (c) of subsection (3) of section 102 of the Principal Act reads as follows—

This paragraph was put in for a very good reason, originally, namely to assist the small hotels where you possibly had a proprietor, his wife and a housekeeper, who were the total white staff. I accept that it was abused at certain hotels who used this to anticipate the half-way concession towards barmaids which the hon. the Minister is giving. It is a limited concession towards them and I think it can go very much further. Now that he is granting the half-way step, he is removing the housekeeper as one of those who can go into the restricted portion of the premises. With the concession he is granting, allowing barmaids in certain specified bars, I do not think that he will find that this will be abused any more. If he is determined however that the term “housekeeper” should come out, I would like him to replace it with the term “manageress” because there are many hotels which do not have a manager, but a manageress. The inclusion of the words in this clause: “the wife of a manager” clearly makes that a male occupation; so if the manager is a female she would not be the wife of the manager. She would be a manageress, and that, at least, cannot be abused.

A manageress could then be a barmaid?

No, it could not be abused, because you can have a number of housekeepers, but not a number of manageresses. You can only have one manager or one manageress. It does not seem as if that can be abused, but there are cases, possibly quite a number of cases, where there was a manageress instead of a manager. Now, if the licensee or the wife of the manager can go in, it seems logical that if the manager is a woman she should go in. After all, if there is a manager his wife can go in, but if the manager is a woman she cannot go in. This seems to be just a part of the nonsense, of things that just do not fit and do not make sense. It does not make sense that if a man is a manager his wife can go in, but if his wife happened to be a manageress then she cannot go in. I want to ask the Minister, if he is determined to take out the term “housekeeper”, to provide for the small hotel with a staff of two or three people by putting in that term “manageress”. If necessary he can have her registered, or whatever he likes, as part of the selection system he is going to use under the later clauses. This is a genuine matter and I ask the Minister to consider it.

I just want to tell the hon. member for Durban (Point) that the abuses that took place under the existing legislation in respect of housekeepers, were far more common than he was perhaps aware. Consequently I hope that he will not take it amiss of me if the licensee is now being deprived of this privilege. I shall consider the other point he mentioned, but at first sight it would appear to me as though precisely the same thing would arise there, i.e. that people would be appointed as manageresses in name only. If she is the licensee, then everything is in order: in that case I would have no objection and she would then have that right. But what is in actual fact a manageress of a hotel who is not a licensee?

She looks after the domestic side.

She does what the housekeeper would have done formerly, and that is the difficulty. We are faced with exactly the same difficulty as we were in the case of housekeepers. I have been very accommodating to the industry with this provision, to which we shall come later on, in regard to ladies in bars. I think the hon. member should rather give way as far as this point is concerned. This system lent itself to abuses, and I am afraid that the proposal made by the hon. member will also lend itself to abuses.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 36:

This clause deals with certain rights which the Minister may grant to the holder of a club liquor licence or a restaurant liquor licence, namely, to permit women and barmaids to be in clubs and restaurants. I should like to ask him to consider adding bar or wine and malt establishments to the group which may enjoy these privileges, which the Minister may grant at his discretion. He need not grant these privileges to establishments which he does not consider to be suitable, Sir, there are some very fine establishments which operate under a bar licence or under a wine and malt licence. If a restaurant is entitled to these privileges, it seems only fair that a bar or a wine and malt licensee operating a decent establishment should also have this privilege.

I have received a similar request from Fedhasa, which unfortunately, reached me at a very late stage. This is not a matter which I can simply decide upon across the floor of this House. It is something I will have to go into first. I promise the hon. member that we will go into his proposal to see whether his request cannot be granted at a later stage. I cannot do it right now; the request reached me at too late a stage for me to be able to consider it properly.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 38:

Here again the Minister is taking additional powers. It is the same old story and I will not repeat the objections in principle. In terms of this clause he can call for records and information. He can require “such holder or licensee to keep such additional records as may be specified in such notice of all liquor sold or disposed of by him during the period so specified”. There are already all sorts of records to be kept and there are all sorts of controls, and I should like the hon. the Minister to explain why he requires this, and if the answer is that it is to prevent abuses by suspected persons, then I want to ask him whether he should not incorporate in the clause that he may use this power where there is a suspicion of abuse so as to limit it to certain cases.

The hon. member is right. Abuse is taking place in this respect as well. This concerns the question of the selling of more than two gallons of liquor through a method of splitting the sale. The sale is simply split among several counter assistants. This is what happened in the past. The client buys ten bottles of liquor from one of the assistants; he buys ten bottles of liquor from another assistant and he buys ten bottles of liquor from a third assistant and none of them keep a record of the sale. The police know about this but the person who indulges in this practice does not contravene the law at present. We do not want to lay the burden of keeping more records on the entire trade. However, when a case of this nature is brought to our notice, the Minister will have the power to compel the licensee by notice to keep the necessary records.

I do not want to suggest that I am suspicious of either the hon. the Minister or his successor, but these are wide powers. I accept that the powers he is asking for are fair and essential but these powers may very well be used to require all bottle stores to keep all kinds of records. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he would not consider putting this matter beyond doubt in the Other Place by laying down that he may act in this way in cases where there is reason to believe that a licence is being abused, so that we will not have the position in future where a recommendation is laid before him by the National Liquor Board to the effect that all bottle-stores have to keep an additional ten records. This would mean additional work; additional offices would be required; additional officials would be required for the processing of that information, and it may not even be necessary for the purpose of the police. I, therefore, ask the hon. the Minister whether he would confine this power to cases where there is reason to believe that abuse is taking place.

I want to give the hon. member the assurance that what he anticipates simply cannot happen. He should bear in mind the number of licensees there are under sections 71bis and 64. If the National Liquor Board asks that fresh restrictions be imposed, the Minister will sign all the notices to licensees himself. I will have to sign a few thousand notices. In that case I would rather ask Parliament for the necessary powers. However, I do not think it will be necessary; after all, these powers will only be exercised in cases where abuse is definitely taking place.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 40:

This gives the Minister two more powers, firstly, to restrict the supply of liquor contained in bottles or other receptacles; in other words, it deals with receptacles, and the other deals with labelling. I want to refer in particular to the question of labelling. I do not know if the hon. the Minister realizes just what a few simple words like this mean in practice. The implication here is that he is going to insist on labelling in the case of off-consumption premises.

In particular cases.

Or generally.

It can be done generally. It deals with different classes of off-consumption or different areas. In other words, the intention is that labelling shall be re-introduced.

May be reintroduced.

Yes, labelling may be reintroduced. I put it to the hon. the Minister that for nearly a year labelling has not been compulsory, and I put it to him that in fact it has made no difference to the problems of the police in regard to shebeens. I would ask him whether he has had reports from those areas, which have not had labelling, to the effect that it has in any way hampered the police or that it would assist the police to trace crime if labelling is re-introduced. Obviously—and I am sure the hon. the Minister must recognize this—the shebeener is going to take the label off before he shebeens the liquor. He is not going to re-sell liquor with a bottle-store label on; he is going to take the label off. It is elementary; even the simplest criminal would think of that. All you are going to do therefore is that you are going to make the bottle-store stick on the tag and the shebeeners are then going to take it off again. This job of sticking on a tag for the shebeener to take off sounds very little, but I have done a little calculation to see what it involves. There is one individual firm in South Africa which it is estimated sells something like 88 million bottles of liquor a year for off-consumption. The estimated total number sold by them is over 100 million. That is estimated to be about a quarter of the consumption of the country. Let us assume that it takes ten seconds to label a bottle. By the time you have been sticking labels on all day, you will be lucky if you can label a bottle in ten seconds, taking it out of the case, labelling it and putting it back again. At ten seconds a bottle and at R15 wages per week, it would cost R75,000 to label the products of one supplier. To label the products of the whole country would cost some R300,000, just for the labour. Then you come to the label itself and that will be an extra R32,000 for the one supplier or roughly R1 million for all suppliers, which means that it is going to cost R1,300,000 to label all the liquor sold in South Africa, and that is putting it at the absolute minimum and assuming that the labelling goes on for eight hours a day at the rate of ten seconds per bottle. This will obviously have to be paid for by the consumer. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether it is worth taxing the consumer to the tune of R1,300,000 or possibly even R1,500,000 simply in order to have a label on the bottle for a shebeener to take off again? I want to ask the hon. the Minister to consider the entire deletion of this power to demand labelling, because I am quite sure that he must agree that it cannot serve the purpose of helping to trace illicit sales.

Sir, the hon. member for Durban (Point) has made all the points that I wished to make on labelling, but I do wish to make a plea for the abolition of the murder of the English language. Subsection (2) of the proposed new section reads—

The Afrikaans text reads—

Surely, Sir, the correct term is “methods of labelling”; otherwise it means that the manner in which you put it on can be prescribed rather than the method of labelling.

Do you lick it or spit on it?

Quite.

That would be bad manners.

I merely ask the hon. the Minister whether he does not agree that this is a terrible way of putting it.

If he will agree to the suggestion made by the hon. member for Durban (Point), then he can do away with that altogether.

Yes, quite. I want to add my voice to that of the hon. member for Durban (Point) as to the abolition of labelling, because what is the point? In the days when Natives could not buy liquor it might have been an easy manner in which to trace the source of supply, but then again in those days when anybody bought liquor from a bottle-store, his name and address had to be entered in a book. That does not exist any more, and I think the point made by the hon. member for Durban (Point), is made even more valid by this particular fact. Sir, what after all is a label? It is as easy to put on as it is to take off. Does the hon. the Minister mean that he wants “different manners” for the labelling of bottles? He might wish the label to be put on with one of these new glues—I cannot think of the name—which is supposed to stick permanently.

Then they cannot re-use the bottle

In that case, as my hon. friend says, the bottle cannot be used again. I hope the Minister agrees that “different manners” is not the English translation of “verskillende wyses”.

I credit the Minister with a certain elementary commonsense, and surely if we are going to have the labelling of bottles in this manner or by this method, whichever word he prefers, it is going to involve hand labour at a time when we are trying to get increased productivity and to conserve our manpower; because it certainly cannot be done by machine. In order to acquire such a machine one would have to have a certain volume of work, and the ordinary bottle-store owner will just get a labourer to do nothing else but stick labels on bottles. Surely we have got beyond that. In the whole of the bottling trade to-day everything is done by machine in the factory, but here it will involve hand labour of the most primitive kind at a time when we are trying to conserve labour. It does not seem sensible to do that.

No provision for labelling has ever been made in all these years in the Liquor Act itself. Provision was made under the other act, the Wine and Spirits Act, and last year it was felt it was necessary that provision should be made in the Liquor Act to introduce labelling whenever it becomes necessary, and I underline “whenever it becomes necessary”. Neither is it the intention to introduce labelling everywhere, but it may be necessary to do so in specific areas. The police strongly insist on this. The hon. member must not get the impression now—and this covers the point made by the hon. member Durban (North) as well—that since the Blacks can obtain liquor freely, the smuggling of liquor has stopped. The amount of smuggling taking place nowadays, is as much, if not more, as it was in the past and when this happens it is essential that we know where the liquor comes from. The liquor may be on a truck; it does not necessarily mean that one has to get it from the shebeen. It is not the intention to re-introduce labelling generally, but we should like to have the power—at the request of the police—to check the illegal trading of liquor and to be able to demand the labelling of bottles in certain cases. That is all we are asking for here. There is a difference of opinion in the liquor trade as far as this matter is concerned. The Witwatersrand Bottle Store Association has no objection to it at all, but Fedhasa, the Western Province Bottle-store Keepers and the Off-Sales Licensees Association have objections against this. They regard the proposed amendment as unnecessary and ask that it be omitted. They do not feel strongly about this, but they merely say they think it is unnecessary. However, we are inserting this at the request of the police. This is merely an empowering provision that it may be introduced in certain areas when circumstances necessitate it.

As regards the word “manners” as opposed to “wyses”, I am, of course, not responsible for the wording; this is something which the legal advisers and the Parliamentary legislator control. [Interjections.] Possibly the translators had something to do with it; it all depends whether the original text was drafted in English or in Afrikaans. However, I think one can say “different manners”, as well as “different methods”.

No.

I am not well up in languages and neither am I responsible for it; but I will have the matter investigated and I shall be glad to change this if there is a special reason to do so.

Despite the Minister’s good manners as opposed to good methods, I still object to this clause. It is another of those where the Minister says: I am not going to use it; I just want the power because I may want to use it in a certain area. But by the time we have finished there are so many powers as to create a complete stranglehold on the normal processes of trade. It is adding more and more. The Minister keeps on saying in reply to all these objections: I recognize your objection, but I want this power. But he is not going to sit there for ever, and in any case the Minister cannot himself take all these decisions. He must be advised on it, and it is all part of this build-up of regulation and rule and red tape. So, I ask that my objection be recorded to this clause.

Clause put and agreed to (Mr. W. V. Raw dissenting).

Clause 41:

I am sure the Minister did not expect to get past this one without some discussion. This is the clause which deals with these concoctions. I know very little about them. In fact, I cannot pronounce some of them, but the hon. member for South Coast can pronounce them and I think it would help this Committee if he tells us what some of them mean.

There are two drinks one comes up against all the time in the courts in Durban. The one is shimiaan and the other is gavini. Now gavini is being taken away together with the other two which will be pronounced for the Committee by someone else. Why is gavini being taken away? Gavini is, certainly in the courts in Durban, a very well-known concoction. When one speaks of gavini one knows what one is dealing with. Then it goes on to say that if any concoction, although called by another name, is similar or substantially similar to any of the concoctions named in (a) … So, when it is called something else, does one take judicial cognizance that this unpronounceable drink is in fact the same as barberton, or does the fact that barberton appears in this Bill mean that if it is called barberton it is in fact the same as any other concoction? I do not know what barberton is, or whether it is made from daisies or not, but this seems to me to be an odd amendment, an odd substitution and an odd deletion which requires some explanation to a layman like myself.

I do not usually participate in debates on a Bill of this kind, but in this clause we are coming to a matter which is of very great importance to the Bantu, particularly that class of people who can now get white man’s liquor but in the past had to rely upon concoctions prepared for them by shimiaan queens. But I want to pursue the line raised by the hon. member for Durban (North), and that is to ask why “gavini, maconsana or cwayicwayi” are being deleted from this clause. I hope the Minister will tell us what are the components of cwayicwayi which made him decide that it should be eliminated from the Bill. I think that before we agree that it should be eliminated, we should know what the ingredients are, and if possible the Minister should tell us how it is prepared. Under (b) it says that “any concoction which, though called by another name, is similar or substantially similar to any of the concoctions named in paragraph (a)”. Now I want to come to those names in (a), but amongst those which are now to be deleted are these three. I can assure the Minister that whether you call them by the names by which they are called here or not, they ought not to be deleted. Why does the Minister include qediviki? I should like him to tell us how that is made. Why does he bring that in? Does he know what qediviki is? It is no good the Minister shaking his head. How can he pass a Bill without knowing what he is talking about?

Qediviki has always been in the Act.

And what about its relationship to the three that the Minister is cutting out? Will he tell us about cwayicwayi? What is the difference between that and qediviki?

Although I know very little about these things, gavini, maconsana and cwayicwayi are all distillates of those mentioned previously here, i.e. hopana, qediviki and that sort of thing, and we are not excluding them. We are making provision under (d) for them, for distillates of any of the above-mentioned.

Why do you take them out at all?

It is only a reformulation and a modernization. Nothing is being excluded.

Does the Minister say that skokiaan or qediviki or hopana or barberton are not produced by distillation?

No, they are not.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 42:

This clause now provides that before liquor can be supplied, distributed or delivered, it must first be ordered and an invoice must be made out in a prescribed form. It is the prescribed form I want to talk about, because different people use different forms of accounting to-day. Big organizations may be completely mechanized, and the smaller bottle store may be partially mechanized, and another bottle store may have its accounts written by hand. I am not questioning the information which must be contained in this prescribed form as long as it is not a form of specific dimensions, or with a specific order, for the information required, so that it cannot be used in different forms of accountancy. I hope the Minister will give us an assurance on that.

This amendment is in fact a concession to the industry, and at their request I promised to do something. At the moment they have to open a day book and enter sales in it, and then they have to make out an invoice which has to be sent out and then they still retain a duplicate invoice, but that is entered in the day book as well. Now we are doing away with the day book if they supply us with the correct information we require in the invoice. The regulations still have to be made and they will prescribe what the invoice should contain. We shall not make it impossible for them, because we are in fact trying to simplify the position for them.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 43:

Mr. Chairman, I wonder whether the hon. the Minister realizes what a job he is putting on the Police by this clause. I accept that this is a change in wording, a cleaning up of the wording of the clause, but it imposes an obligation on the Police to report any contravention of any condition imposed by the hon. the Minister or by the National Liquor Licensing Board or a local licensing board. I draw this to the hon. the Minister’s attention because this afternoon we have been making more and more provision for conditions. In terms, for instance, of the structural alteration, in terms of the conditions laid down for classification you are going to have, if this clause is applied, the Police doing nothing but reporting contraventions.

You are always overstating.

No, I am not overstating. We are passing a law and when I say what that law means, the hon. the Minister says that I am overstating. In other words, is he making a law that is not going to be carried out? Is he making a law which he does not expect to be implemented? Is he saying that I am overstating when I am stating the facts because he does not in fact expect the Police to carry out what this clause tells them to carry out? That is the implication of the hon. the Minister’s interjection. If he has another answer, I will resume my seat and listen to him.

I said the hon. member was always overstating and that he ruined his own case by doing so. The hon. member said that all that the Police would do in future would be to report liquor contraventions. Therefore they will have no time left for other work. I then said that the hon. member was overstating. Of course it is important that any contravention or failure to comply should be brought to the attention of the chairman of the Liquor Licensing Board.

Does that include all the reasons for classification?

Any contravention must be brought to the attention of the Liquor Licensing Board. For what other reasons are conditions laid down? Surely the Police cannot witness a contravention and not report it. Surely they must bring it to the attention of the Liquor Licensing Board concerned.

You have missed my point.

If the hon. member will allow me, I just want to add the following. Section 79 (2) as inserted in section 137 (1) (b) refers to structural alterations carried out without authority. As far as I can see, that is all that is being added.

I agree that if there is an offence it must be reported. However, as it is now, this is not going to be only offences. This is going to be breaches of any condition and regulation imposed. For instance, it is laid down that before a hotel may classify it must have a bedside light. That is just one of something like 800 conditions for classification. I say that this clause means that if a policeman should walk into a bedroom and the bedside light is fused he would have to report it to the chairman of the Licensing Board because that is a condition of classification. If that condition is broken the hotel can theoretically lose its licence. Surely, it is not the intention to have this sort of ridiculous state of affairs that if the toilet paper is finished or a light is fused a policeman has to report it to the chairman of the board, because those are conditions of classification. This change of the wording means that a policeman must report every contravention of condition.

That is not the intention of it.

It is intended that a policeman should report every one of these piffling little things. So, it bears out what I have said that he would spend his time doing nothing but reporting this sort of thing. Now that the conditions are increasing, I suggest that not an increase but a decrease in reports should be made necessary, in other words, that a policeman should report material matters and contraventions which are an offence or which are deleterious to the condition of the licence as a whole, but not all this nonsense that it is going to involve.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 53:

Mr. Chairman, this clause provides for a minimum sentence for certain offences. The offences are very minor and I submit that it is quite unnecessary to have a minimum sentence for this type of offence, which can be committed quite unwittingly. A licensee dies and there are delays in getting his executor appointed and in getting a licence in his name in terms of the Administration of Estates Act. It may also happen in the case of insolvency that somebody carries on before a legal representative has been appointed. Thus he may in fact be committing an offence.

I submit that the hon. the Minister can achieve his object by increasing the maximum fine, as he has done, and that it is quite unnecessary to put a minimum fine. I will give you an example. For instance, under section 164 (a) of the Principal Act any person shall be guilty of an offence if he—

The Minister may say that this is a silly example but supposing a friend asks him for a bottle of whisky and he says that he will give him the bottle. The friend then says that instead of replacing the bottle of whisky with another bottle he will pay for it and then pays his friend the cost of the whisky. That in fact is a sale of that bottle of whisky. The hon. the Minister may say that there will not be prosecution in a case like that. But there may be a prosecution. It is to avoid cases of this nature being dealt with harshly by the court that we feel that the court should always be given a discretion in matters of this kind. Our party’s line has always been to oppose minimum sentences. The House knows that we have taken a general line to oppose minimum sentences because we always stood by the principle that it must be left to the discretion of the court. In a case like this, where there can be such a vast penalty imposed for what might be quite an innocent transaction, we feel that the court should be allowed to exercise its own discretion. In terms of party policy we have always allowed a free vote on any amendment to the liquor law. In fact, it has been usual for both sides of the House to treat liquor Bills as non-party measures and to allow a free vote. In this case, however, there is a principle involved. It is the principle of minimum sentences. Although this is a liquor Bill in which our members have been given, as usual, freedom to vote as they like, on this particular clause we are opposing it as a party because of the principle of the minimum sentences.

Mr. Chairman, I wish to support the hon. member for Transkei and I also wish to take the matter a little further. The hon. the Minister will remember I wrote to him asking him to incorporate an amendment into the Liquor Act regarding the situation that arises when an employee who is a licensee absconds so that the premises concerned are left without a licensee. There is provision for temporary relief in various instances, but there is no provision for an employee who is the licensee and who absconds. I wrote and asked for an amendment which would make it possible for a director of the company employing the absconder, or a partner, if it should be a partnership, to automatically act as licensee for a certain time. The Minister said it was not necessary; all that was necessary, he said, was that application should simply be made in terms of section 47 and the authority would be granted immediately.

Yes.

The Minister agrees that that is correct. But it is not correct in fact. It is correct in the Minister’s mind, it is correct in theory, but in practice that does not happen. I have here in front of me particulars concerning eight cases of this nature which occurred within the last few months. One case concerned an application under section 47 (3) which was made on the 4th February of this year and it was only authorized on the 17th February, nearly two weeks later. In the next case application was lodged on 20th November, 1968 and it was only granted on the 5th December. Then an application was lodged on 10th December, 1968, and authorized on the 18th December, the quickest of the lot, namely eight days. In another case application was lodged on the 4th of the month and authorized on the 17th. In yet another case application was lodged on the 13th June and authorized on the 4th July, a delay of just on three weeks, and so it goes on.

These are specific cases, not pie in the sky; this is not what may happen. If I had said delays of this nature could happen the Minister would say I am exaggerating. Well, I am not exaggerating now, these are facts of what happened. This means that for periods from a minimum of eight days to up to three weeks every one of these premises was selling liquor without a licence, they were contravening the law. This was not of their own fault, because they had lodged their applications, but there were these long delays.

Are they Natal cases?

No, these occurred mainly in the Cape. As I say, for from eight days to three weeks every one of these firms was breaking the law, every one was committing the offence for which there is now to be a minimum sentence of not less than R100 or imprisonment for a period of not less than three months.

Were they hotel cases?

Hotels and bars, and in one case off-consumption. The police should, in terms of the law, have arrested any one of these people, they should have been charged, and, in terms of this clause, they should be given a minimum sentence without the magistrate being able to exercise a discretion. Moreover, if it happened to be a second offence and they were fined R200, they could be barred from ever again having a licence. There are a tremendous number of licensees who have committed minor offences. I am referring to the clause which not only makes it an offence to sell without a licence but provides that any offence under the Act for which a certain sentence is imposed, disqualifies a person from being a licensee. Last year and this year people whose stock books were not to the satisfaction of the inspector and who signed admissions of guilt because it was the easiest way, far cheaper than defending the case, have a first offence already. If one of them died, or if a licensee absconded, and they followed the laid down procedure in terms of section 47 of the Act, they are all committing the offence of selling without a licence.

If the licensee of the President Hotel here in Cape Town dropped down dead at this moment, then that hotel should, in terms of the law, close its liquor doors immediately, because there is no licensee. We have pleaded for provision to be made for this gap in our legislation because the present situation is quite unsatisfactory. Moreover, we object most strongly to a minimum sentence being imposed for an offence over which the person might have no control and which can have far-reaching consequences on the whole business future of a company or a person. The Minister by his gestures now has indicated that again I am exaggerating and making a mountain out of a molehill. In other words, the Minister is in effect saying we are making laws in this House which he does not expect to be carried out. I say that is the implication of the Minister’s objection to our approach to this particular clause.

Mr. Chairman, let us just get this clear; this clause deals exclusively with a case in which business is carried on without a licence; it deals only with that. Minimum penalties are then prescribed. I purposely asked the hon. member whether those were Natal cases-—and he replied that they were Cape cases—because I want to tell him that the Natal Bottle Store Association specifically requested this. Furthermore I want to tell him that the organized liquor trade and Fedhasa specifically requested this and support it. It has always been possible, in the event of death, to lodge an immediate application under section 47, and since 1928, when the Liquor Act came into operation, we have not had one case of a liquor licensee being prosecuted in those circumstances—not one single one in all these years. There is not a sign of any such charge on record.

But the offence is clear, the offence is created.

Yes, I readily concede that what the hon. member is describing, can in fact happen. The licensee may drop down dead and for the next five or ten minutes or until such time as a licence is acquired, there is no licence, but no prosecution will ever be instituted in such a case.

I referred here to a case that took three weeks.

The hon. member may bring cases in which it took so long, to my attention, and I shall inquire about them, because it should not take so long. Under section 47 matters should be dealt with much more quickly, because they are all emergencies. If the hon. member would care to bring it to my attention, I shall contact the liquor licensing boards to see what the position is and to see whether things cannot be expedited. The liquor trade itself wants minimum sentences in the case of liquor business being conducted without a licence, and so does the Natal association. I therefore think this clause is very fair.

For the sake of the record, Mr. Chairman, I must deal with the hon. the Minister’s statement that Fedhasa and the Natal Bottle Store Association asked for this provision.

Yes, they did.

I put it to him that what they asked for was a minimum sentence for shebeening, what they are trying to fight is shebeening and the illicit liquor trade. What we are objecting to is the creation of offences which affect the legitimate trader because of technicalities. The Minister, in order to deal with shebeening and illicit trading, is laying down a minimum sentence which will have to be imposed upon the ordinary legitimate trader who, because of a technicality and because the machinery of the Minister’s own Department is slow, will be committing an offence for which there is a minimum sentence laid down. All the Minister has proven is that since 1928 there has been no prosecution for offences which are committed weekly, monthly, and year in and year out, so what he in fact is saying is, “We make it an offence but we do not prosecute”. He is creating an offence here and I ask the Minister to distinguish between the shebeener, the illicit liquor runner, and the legitimate trader.

What is a shebeener other than a person who deals without a licence?

It is bringing the person with a licence who, for some or other reason technically breaks the law, into the same category and subject to the same punishments as the shebeener. It would apply, for instance, to a hotel who illegally sold liquor at a function without the necessary temporary licence.

And that is wrong.

Yes, it is wrong, but would the Minister then consider that if for instance the Nationalist Party had a braaivleis and the hotelier who supplies the liquor did not take out a temporary licence, that hotelier should be given a minimum goal sentence if he had previously signed an admission of guilt for some offence? I must say I should not like that to happen at some function I had arranged. The Minister says it is wrong. He is creating an offence, and that is what we are objecting to, namely the creation of an offence with a minimum sentence which applies to a legitimate dealer. If the Minister wants to deal with shebeeners then he can deal with them in another way, and he can raise the maximum to R2.000 for all I care. But I say leave the punishment in the court’s discretion, do not bring in a minimum sentence, and do not bring the legitimate trader into the scope of these provisions.

Clause 53 put and the Committee divided:

AYES—92: Bodenstein, P.; Botha, H. J.; Botha, L. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, M. W.; Botha, P. W.; Brandt, J. W.; Coetsee, H. J.; Coetzee, B.; Coetzee, J. A.; Cruywagen, W. A.; De Jager, P. R.; Delport, W. H.; De Wet, C.; De Wet, J. M.; De Wet, M. W.; Du Plessis, H. R. H.; Du Toit, J. P.; Erasmus, A. S. D.; Frank, S.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Havemann, W. W. B.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Henning, J. M.; Herman, F.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Janson, T. N. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, S. F.; Kruger, J. T.; Langley, T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, J. P. C.; Lewis, H. M.; Malan, J. J.; Marais. J. A.; Marais, P. S.; Marais, W. T.; Martins, H. E.; Meyer, P. H.; Morrison, G. de V.; Muller, H.; Muller, S. L.; Otto, J. C.; 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.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, H.; Smit, H. H.; Smith, J. D.; Stofberg, L. F.; Swiegers, J. G.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Van Breda, A.; 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 Vuuren, P. Z. J.; Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Visse, J. H.; Visser, A. J.; Volker, V. A.; Vorster, B. 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 M. J. de la R. Venter.

NOES—27: Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Bennett, C.; Eden, G. S.; Emdin, S.; Fisher, E. L.; Graaff, De V.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Lindsay, J. E.; Malan, E. G.; Marais, D. J.; Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Radford, A.; Raw, W. V.; Smith, W. J. B.; Sutton, W. M.; Taylor, C. D.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Winchester, L. E. D.

Tellers: A. Hopewell and T. G. Hughes.

Clause accordingly agreed to.

Clause 55:

Mr. Chairman, amongst other things this clause provides that on a day which is a day for municipal elections it is not necessary for the pubs to close and that one may sell liquor as freely as one may on an ordinary day. It is not provided that this should happen on a day which is a day appointed in terms …

Order! This House has not yet adjourned.

It is not provided that this should be the case on a day appointed in terms of the Electoral Act for the holding of a Provincial Council election or for the holding of a parliamentary election. I wonder if the hon. the Minister would tell us what lies behind this. I would have thought that if ever there was an election where people might be induced to go and vote for someone on the basis that he might buy him a drink on the way, then it might be a municipal election, certainly not a provincial election or a parliamentary election. The obvious reason is that one is voting for a cause if it is a parliamentary election. One is voting for a party, not for an individual as such, but in the municipal elections one is voting for an individual. If one looks at the figures of the appalling percentage of people who vote at these elections, one would not be surprised if this in fact was so. This whole provision about liquor on an election day goes back into the good old days of yore in Great Britain, where it was apparently a common thing for people to be treated in the village pub on their way to the polls. This has somehow survived. Now we have this extraordinary event that the hon. the Minister feels that people probably cannot be trusted to vote properly on national matters while liquor is available, either for the Provincial Council or for Parliament. Apparently they can be trusted to do so in a municipal election. One wonders, in fact, whether, if people were a little less inhibited, they would not vote differently from the way most of them have done. I wonder whether this is not what the Minister is worrying about.

Our legislation has all these years been such that election days have been closed days. There has only been one exception, and that is municipal by-elections. In such cases it has never been a closed day. Experience has taught us that as far as municipal by-elections are concerned, nothing untoward happens. If nothing untoward happens at a by-election, the provision that it will no longer be a closed day could just as well be applied to municipal elections in general. We have not yet reached the stage where consideration has to be given to provincial elections and parliamentary elections, but we have definitely reached the stage that, as regards municipal elections, we can do away with the provision that such election days should be closed days.

Mr. Chairman, I want to refer to paragraph (h), which alters the definition of East Griqualand as follows:

There is another clause which also deals with this point, namely clause 58. Clause 58 also amends the definition of East Griqualand as it appeared in Proclamation No. 333 of 1949. The effect of amending the definition is that the district of Mount Currie—that is where Kokstad is situated—will now be licensed under this Liquor Act. At present Kokstad, Mount Currie district and the rest of East Griqualand and the Transkei are administered by the Transkei Liquor Proclamation. As I pointed out the other day, we have our own liquor proclamation there. [Interjection.] Clause 58 alters the definition in the principal Act. If the Minister prefers I will deal with it under clause 58.

Mr. Chairman, I could not follow the reasoning of the hon. the Minister who says that we have advanced far enough to allow liquor on municipal election days, but we have not advanced far enough to allow it on parliamentary or provincial election days.

He did not say that.

Well, that was the implication. He said we started by having open days on days of municipal by-elections, and now we have advanced to having open days on days of all municipal elections.

Experience has taught us that …

Why does the hon. Minister want to stop there? Why does the hon. Minister not start testing whether we are advanced enough to be almost adult and to have other elections …

That is not really under the Statute, you may notice.

You can start with by-elections. [Interjections.] Now I want to deal with another aspect here and that is on page 56, paragraph (d). This provides against a new danger to the morals of the people of South Africa, something which can undermine the whole of our national lives and that is the insertion of the words “any sweet containing more than 2 per cent alcohol by weight”. This is being done because of a case in which a departmental store sold chocolate liqueurs, and it was found that the chocolate liqueurs had more than 2 per cent alcohol. Really, Mr. Chairman, what are we getting to, if we are now going to legislate to stop people eating chocolate liqueurs? Has the hon. the Minister ever heard of a shebeen running on chocolate liqueurs? Has the hon. the Minister ever heard of a party where persons got drunk on chocolate liqueurs?

Oh, yes!

Well, I can understand if the hon. the Deputy Minister has had that experience, but frankly, I have never heard of anyone who could stomach enough chocolate to get himself drunk on it: Really, I think we are becoming ridiculous when we go looking for liquor in sweets and we pass a law to stop them being sold.

Is that what you use? [Interjections.]

Order!

As a matter of fact, I do not eat chocolate liqueurs; I do not have a sweet tooth. I like my liquor straight with a little dilution …

I told you he does not add any water!

… and I do not like mixing it up with sweets. However, this is a very ridiculous matter to us and I ask the Minister whether there is any justification for this sort of clause, this sort of provision to be added to the law?

Before the Act is amended as now proposed, it will in any case be an offence to sell liquor in chocolates. This is the case referred to by the hon. member. The hon. member euphemistically speaks of “chocolate liqueurs”, but it was ordinary liquor in a chocolate casing. There have been complaints in this connection and, to put it plainly, there is a difference of opinion among the various Attorneys-General. Some of them are of the opinion that the present provisions do not cover it, but most of them are of the opinion that they do cover it. The reason why this provision is included in the Bill is to clarify the position.

Mr. Chairman, I would like the hon. the Minister to give us some indication why it is 2 per cent by weight, and why it is not 2 per cent by volume? Once you allow these sweets to be sold, it is 2 per cent by weight. One does not control the volume of alcohol which is being sold in each of the sweets. In other words, the bigger it is, depending on the casing, the more liquor it can contain. If you have a huge chocolate liqueur, then you will get a sizeable amount of alcohol in it, depending on the size. I think it is right. So that you could apparently sell something with five tots of liquor in it, depending on how much you put around it. You could apparently, therefore, sell a sweet with five tots of liqueur in it, depending on how much chocolate you put around it. If you want to do so, it is possible, according to the definition in the Bill. I think that is so.

It seems like it.

Well, is the definition right? Should volume or weight then be the determining factor here? In any event, Sir, why has a figure of 2 per cent been decided upon? Surely this provision is not going to work anyway. I hope the hon. the Minister will indicate whether he is prepared to change this provision.

Mr. Chairman, this problem caused me difficulties too, i.e. the problem of whether we should go by volume or by weight. It can also happen that alcohol is put into a sweet in virtually solid form. We then consulted the pathologists. They recommended that the provision should be drawn up by weight. I readily concede, however, that one can make a very big chocolate with a little bit of liquor in it, and in that way one will not be contravening this provision. In that case one will have a large quantity of chocolate and a small quantity of liquor.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 58:

Sir, I was explaining earlier on that the effect of this amendment will be to bring the Mount Currie district under the Liquor Act. According to this provision the Mount Currie district will no longer fall under the Transkeian Liquor Proclamation. Hon. members may ask: What difference does it make if this area now falls under the Liquor Act? Why not have uniformity and bring this area under the Liquor Act? I should like to point out that we will not have uniformity in the Transkei if this amendment is carried, because different provisions will be enforced in the Transkei and Mount Currie. In the Transkei the Proclamation will be applied and in the Mount Currie area the Liquor Act. As people approach the Mount Currie district and Kokstad through the Transkei, they will fall under the Liquor Act. As they leave Kokstad again and pass through the Transkei on the other side, they will then fall under the provisions of the Liquor Proclamation. If they come from the Natal side to get to the Transkei, they will arrive at Umzimkulu, Bizana or wherever the entrance may be and they will find themselves subject to the Liquor Proclamation of the Transkei. As they get into the Mount Currie district, they will find themselves subject to the Liquor Act, and as they leave Mount Currie again, on their way down to the Cape, they will once more be subject to the provisions of the Liquor Proclamation. I say that it is wrong that people travelling through a territory like that should find themselves subject to different liquor provisions. This especially affects the traveller. He will not know exactly what his position is as far as the liquor laws are concerned, when he travels through the Transkei.

The licensees in Mount Currie are opposed to this change, and so are the residents in East Griqualand. I shall explain why. The licensees have met officials from the Government. The Minister was kind enough to send his officials down to meet the licensees. Lengthy discussions took place. The licensees put their case to the officials. The Minister has now taken just about two years or 18 months to consider their objections. He is now applying this provision. The licensees are opposed to this change in the first place because, under the Transkei Proclamation, they are not subject to classification. In other words, under that proclamation they can carry on with their licences as they are now, and under the Transkei Proclamation all hotels have off-sales privileges. Under the Liquor Act they will have to qualify for off-saïes privileges. They will have to be classified. This provision will therefore be a hardship on the hotels in that area.

In Kokstad itself there are two large hotels, but in the rural area there are three country hotels. Those rural hotels are more like clubs than hotels. They are merely clubs, supplying facilities to the farmers in that area. One hotel may be said to be more a hotel than a club, but the other two are, I submit, purely in the nature of clubs. This is important when one considers the advantages that the people living in the area have under the Transkei Proclamation when compared to the Liquor Act. On Sundays, for instance, under the Transkei Proclamation, any bona fide traveller entering the area is entitled to have drinks in the hotel. He may not order drinks in the restricted portion of the bar, but he may do so in the hotel without being signed on as a guest, and without having a meal. In terms of the Liquor Act he would have to wait for a meal or he would have to be signed on as a guest. In the Transkei it is traditional that sports meetings are held on Sundays. That is because of the nature of the area. In the old days the traders used to travel into the villages and they used to take part in sport on Sundays. This tradition has been carried on. It is still so in East Griqualand. The farmers then visit the particular areas where one finds these hotels. It is true that they will still be able to enjoy refreshments at those hotels under the Act, but they will then have to be signed on as guests. Somebody has to be the host. Somebody has to pay for the alcohol, whereas under the present system in the Transkei they can merely go into the lounge and order their refreshment there.

There are other provisions in the Transkei Proclamation which differ from the provisions in the Act. I pointed out, when dealing with an earlier clause, that women are allowed in the bars. They do not go into the bars in the bigger towns, but in the smaller areas they do in fact do so, where the hotels are, as I have said, treated as clubs. That is of course not in accordance with the Liquor Act, unless the hotel is especially classified and is then given that privilege. They are also entitled to have barmaids. I do not think that any of those hotels employ barmaids at the moment, but they are entitled to do so and they have done so in the past. If there had been a question of urgency in this regard, I could understand the Minister wanting to pass this amendment now. But I submit that there is no urgency in this matter. As the conditions in the Transkei change, as the towns in the Transkei, under Government policy, become blacker, as the Whites move out of the towns as the result of zoning, and as the Department of Bantu Administration and the Bantu Investment Corporation buy more hotels, as they have started doing in the Transkei, these towns will then fall under the provisions of the Transkei Liquor Act, which is different from the Transkei Liquor Proclamation. The Transkei Liquor Act has been passed by the Transkei Government. This Act controls licences in areas falling under the jurisdiction of the Transkei Government. As these Transkeian villages become blacker, they will eventually all fall under the jurisdiction of the Transkei Government, in which event the Transkei Liquor Act will apply to them. I therefore put it to the Minister, and I request, as the hoteliers have in fact requested, that he leaves this amendment over until the rest of the villages and towns in the Transkei do in fact fall under the Transkei Liquor Act. That will be the time for him to step in and bring Kokstad and the Mount Currie district under the Liquor Act of the Republic. But at the moment, if this amendment is passed, there will be three different authorities in the Transkei. There will be the Transkei Liquor Proclamation, the Transkei Liquor Act, and the Liquor Act of the Republic. I submit that there will be more and more confusion in the Transkei as a result of the application of these various laws. I appeal to the hon. the Minister. I submit that it is not too late. There is no urgency for this measure. He knows that the people in the area do not want this amendment. Representations have been made to him. I know that the general public do not want an amendment of this nature. The Minister himself has not given us any valid reason as to why it should be proceeded with at this stage.

Business interrupted.

House Resumed:

Progress reported.