Last night when the debate was adjourned I had given the tax figures paid by Bantu to-day and those which will be paid by them from 1970. These figures show that in the category of Bantu with an income below R360 per annum there was a saving of R1 per annum in direct taxation, but that this would be more than eaten up by the indirect taxation they would pay as the result of this purchase tax which has been introduced by the Minister. I had shown further that in the category of income between R361 and R650 per annum the Bantu would pay more in direct taxation, in addition to the added burden of indirect taxation in the form of this purchase tax. I want to say now that the majority of the Bantu, particularly those employed in the urban areas, fall into this category of income between R361 and R650 per annum. But if we go on from there we find that a single Bantu earning R651 would pay to-day R11.50 and will pay in 1970 R6.52, which constitutes a saving; he will pay less. A single Bantu earning R1,001 would have paid this year R54.50, and from 1970 he will pay R12.22, a saving of R42.28. And in the category R2,001 his tax would be reduced from R197.50 to R36.82, a reduction of R160. I have used as my basis of assessment here the P.A.Y.E. tax tables for Natal for the 1969 tax year, and the taxation proposals for 1970, as detailed on page 299 of the Minutes. So here we find the pattern which has appeared for the white man repeated for the black man. We find that this Budget is not only for the rich white man, but it is also for the rich Bantu, and it works to the detriment of the lower-income Bantu. It is a discrimination against them, and particularly against all of those who have incomes below R650 per annum.

In conclusion, I want to say that I associate myself with and support wholly the hon. member for Constantia in his amendment, and I wish to commend again for the attention of the hon. the Minister the suggestions made by my hon. friend as a solution to his problem for this year. In support of this I wish to quote to the Minister a statement which was made to me during the recess by a wealthy trader in Natal, who said that he welcomed this Budget. He said this was the finest Budget he had ever seen, and he was an old man. He said it would save him in direct taxation nearly R3,000 a year, and he rubbed his hands in glee and said that that R3,000 was going to be paid by his customers, the civil servants, the railway workers, the pensioners and the non-Whites.

When that hon. member spoke and criticized the Budget, I thought of a remark which my hon. colleague, the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration, made yesterday about a boy whose mother asked him why he was pulling the cat around by the tail. The little boy then said: “No, Mother, I am just holding on to it; it’s the cat that is pulling”. This hon. member is merely dragging the Budget across the floor with his criticism, but he did not really have any profound criticism to make. The Opposition had the opportunity of criticizing the Budget, an outstanding Budget in the history of this Parliament, one which is beneficial to South Africa and its people. Here too the Opposition could have shown what their policy was and could have indicated what constructive recommendations they could make. But no, they did not do this. With a singularity of purpose they are still engaged in criticizing South Africa, and I shall give an example. Recently the hon. the Minister of Mining announced that we had struck oil in South Africa; and what was the criticism which these people had levelled in 1967? At that time the hon. members for Constantia and Parktown criticized it strongly and said that the Government was wasting money in searching for oil in South Africa. One would have thought that they would have expressed gratitude for that money which was spent, but as yet I have not heard a single word from them in which they have thanked the Government for that search for oil. The hon. member for Parktown spoke in the debate, but he never once referred to that, and it was he who criticized this expenditure most strongly in 1967.

But where is the oil?

The Opposition criticize what they maintain to be wrong. Let us look at this amendment which they have drawn up. They say that this House should not accept the Budget proposals because, inter alia, they shift an unreasonable burden of taxation onto the working men and women of South Africa. In other words, for those who are not working it is fine; no fault can be found in their case. Then they go further and say that it typifies the Government’s growing indifference to the great body of citizens who deserve more consideration. But they have never yet shown where the Government has been indifferent. I want to repudiate this with all the strength at my command. This Government has never acted indifferently towards any citizen of this country, not even towards the United Party and its supporters. Sir, the United Party states that it repudiates the Budget because the Government has neglected to solve the urgent problems of the country, including the manpower shortage. I want to know from the Opposition how they would want to supplement our manpower? They are not speaking about manpower training; they are speaking about the manpower shortage. Sir, there are only two ways of solving the problem of the manpower shortage immediately and that is by bringing in thousands upon thousands of immigrants, good or bad, and secondly, by making use of non-Whites. We shall tell the constituents of the country that this is the policy of the United Party, i.e. to make use of non-Whites to crowd white people out of their jobs and to bring in immigrants in their excessive thousands, whether good or bad. But, the immigration policy of the National Party is to want to bring immigrants here on a selective basis—the good immigrants and only the good ones.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to quote what the hon. the Minister of Finance said in his Budget speech about the question of sales duty. He said: We know that there are going to be problems; that there is going to be friction; we do not know precisely what problems it is going to present, and then he added—

Why does the Opposition conceal this portion of the hon. the Minister’s speech when attacking the question of the sales duty? The hon. the Minister stated very clearly that he wanted this right to reduce the sales duty on articles where there appears to be friction, where it appears that the sales duty is going to be injurious to the public, and I want to make the plea here to-day that the hon. the Minister should take this authority upon himself and much more into the bargain. I also ask that he take upon himself the authority to increase the sales duty on any article by not more than 5 per cent without any further approval of this Parliament. Sir, this has happened in other fields; for example, it was done in the case of telephones. This is what I should like to plead for.

Then there is another aspect which I should like to deal with and that is the position of married women. We are grateful to the hon. the Minister for once more having made concessions to married women. We have in South Africa to-day what may almost be described as mania in regard to working women. Everyone wants the women of South Africa to do a greater amount of work; everyone wants married women to work. Here in our country women are even used as traffic inspectors, etc. The hon. the Minister said in this connection: “Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour”. I want to elaborate on this and state that four are even better than two and that a woman’s primary function in life is to look to the growth of the nation, and in this I want to support the hon. member for Algoa in his plea that more should be done to assist newly married couples to have larger families. Sir, we must bring in immigrants, but only to a limited extent; we must grow as a nation through our own flesh and blood. If we let our nation increase in this way we are supplementing our numbers with people who understand our problems, and therefore I want to support that request by the hon. member very strongly. This also brings me to the question of medical expenses. This Budget makes provision for a basic rebate of R150 in respect of medical expenses; this also covers pharmaceutical expenses, etc. This amount is being supplemented by R100 in any year in which a child is born. A healthy person never has medical expenses, although he may perhaps have pharmaceutical expenses. Those in bad health are the ones who have heavy medical expenses and who must also, inter alia, forfeit a portion of their incomes when they are ill. I want to plead that when a person’s medical and hospital expenses are more than R150 a year, the full amount of his medical expenses should be deductible from his taxable income, provided, of course, he submits the necessary proof. I consider this to be a reasonable suggestion. It will not entail great expenditure. We who are healthy must look to those who are ailing and who are not as well off.

Mr. Speaker, there is another very important matter to which we must give our attention to-day and that is the question of water. I think that everyone will agree that nothing can exist or prosper without water. The hon. the Minister of Water Affairs has a great problem. We know that at the moment the Vaal Dam holds only 48 per cent of its water capacity and we know what the state of affairs in the country is; after all the soft rains we have had the world around us is looking lovely. We may have the greatest crops under the sun and our dams remain empty if we do not have good rains. We know that 75 per cent of our industries are concentrated in Johannesburg, its suburbs, the cities of the Rand and Sasol. We also know that 75 per cent of our purchasing power is concentrated there. We consequently realize what an important part of South Africa that region is and we must now ensure that we are able to give the area more water. What is proposed for water affairs in this Budget? An amount of R87 million has been voted in the Budget, which is 14.5 per cent more than the amount for the previous year. I want to plead for the hon. the Minister of Finance, in collaboration with other hon. Ministers, to do something to deal with the water crisis threatening us in South Africa. We can only do this by pumping the water across from the Tugela into the Vaal Basin. At the beginning of the year it was announced that the Government had given its permission for this to be done. We know that an amount of R11 million has been provided in the Estimates for the Spioenkop Dam in the Tugela and there is sufficient water in the Tugela to meet this need in our country. [Interjections.] The question is, is there sufficient water, yes or no? The extent of the total catchment area of the Tugela is 11,260 square miles and the average annual downflow is 1,800,000 morgen-feet, which is about the same as that of the Vaal River. At 36 inches of irrigation water a year, the 69,000 morgen of available land can receive 207,000 morgen-feet of water annually, with 700,000 morgen-feet of water a year remaining for non-agricultural purposes. If a body such as the Rand Water Board were only to pump 133,350 morgen-feet of water out of the Vaal River, we can see that the Tugela Basin, with a surplus of 700,000 morgen-feet, would have sufficient water for South Africa. I want to plead for plans to be expedited in that respect. For example, the water of the Tugela is sufficient to supply 20 large cities and then there is still sufficient water left to provide for a large city such as greater London. During this year the hon. the Minister is engaged in promoting a water year, and therefore I consider it the appropriate time to tackle this scheme, thereby making our people more water-conscious. At the beginning of his speech yesterday, the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) said that when the hon. the Minister announced that a capital gains tax would not be levied, we all heaved a sigh of relief. Well, I did not sigh, but if I had sighed it would have been because such a tax was not being levied. We know that the hon. the Minister has taken a fantastic step with this changed tax system. Everything can surely not be done simultaneously. We know that this is a tremendous thing that is being done. As the hon. the Minister put it, sufficient tax will be collected with the purchase tax to make the concessions which are being granted possible. This afternoon I want to try and make out a case for the introduction of the capital gains tax, which must in fact be introduced. As far as the Franzsen Commission report is concerned, I want to express my sincere thanks to the Commission and I want to say that I think that it has done a very good piece of work. The report is unanimous in respect of the capital gains tax, except for one member, Mr. Mabin, who spoke against it. I can simply not envisage on what grounds he is able to say that we should not introduce such a tax. The following other countries of the world, for example, the U.S.A. England, France, Germany and Sweden have introduced the capital gains tax. The hon. member said in his minority report that there were eight organizations opposed and two in favour of it. This tells me nothing, because those eight organizations may be focusing their attention on capital gains. It still means nothing. A certain accountant attested, inter alia, to the following (translation)—

Such practical experience as I have leads me to believe that a tremendous amount of profit is being made, and it is simply not taxed because it is capital gain throughout. In his minority report Mr. Mabin states that there will be law-suits to determine whether the profit is normal profit which must carry a 40 per cent tax, or whether it is capital gain. Mr. Speaker, at the present moment there are so many court cases and law-suits in progress about capital gain that it just is not true. There is no reason why a man, when speculating in land, for example, should not be assessed by the Receiver of Revenue once he is classified as a speculator. But when a person makes a capital gain, be it by way of selling land or clothes, trousers or shirts, he is enriching himself at the expense of his fellow men. On that greater profit he must pay extra tax. I Simply do not find it morally right that one man should carry the burden. This Commissioner has said that capital gain contributes nothing to the gross national product. Why should the receiver thereof then still be exempted from paying income-tax? To me that is all the more reason why he should in fact pay tax on it. Then I want to make a serious plea to the hon. the Minister to introduce a greater measure of capital gains tax next year. This Commission made a very clear recommendation. It is sound and very good.

In conclusion I just want to say the following in the light of the half per cent levy on stock exchange transactions which the hon. the Minister has instituted this year. When an estate agent sells a farm, he imposes a 5 per cent commission. Similarly there are other commissions. It then becomes 5 per cent. Here only 1 per cent is being levied. I should like to plead that if we must reduce this sales duty, a 5 per cent commission on stock exchange transactions also be levied, as is customary. I do not want to depend upon the R341 million which those members want. They want it to be used this year. But where are they going to obtain money next year with which to replace this sales duty, if necessary.

As far as I am concerned, I want to say thank you for the Budget. We are grateful for the National Party. It is a party with faith and hope in the future. Every Nationalist and every South African also loves the National Party. The public outside no longer has faith in the United Party, nor hope, much less love.

Mr. Speaker, it has become very evident during this Budget debate that the bankruptcy of the hon. the Opposition is no longer limited only to representatives in the House of Assembly. They are also experiencing a bankruptcy in regard to subjects for discussion in this House. This becomes very clear if one looks at the amendment moved by them. I am referring to its second leg, in particular, which reads—

Before coming to another very important matter, I want to refer in a few words to this last leg concerning agriculture. I represent an agricultural constituency. Some of my constituents happen to be in the gallery to-day. I am not afraid to say this. We as representatives of agricultural constituencies would most certainly be guilty of a very serious degree of ingratitude-if we did not object to this, part of the amendment, in which it is asserted that no attention is being paid to and no planning is being undertaken in regard to agriculture. We do not want to suggest for one moment that our agriculture is flourishing. But does the Opposition not know that those conditions are caused by circumstances completely beyond the control of any government in the world? Is the Opposition not aware of the fact that a commission of inquiry has been appointed by the hon. the Minister of Agriculture to go into agricultural conditions and to see what can be done to improve these conditions? This is a highly qualified commission from whom we have already received various reports and to whose reports urgent attention is being paid. Is the hon. the Opposition aware of this? I think this is sufficient proof that the agricultural constituencies no longer trust the United Party to represent them in this House. That is why this Opposition has to make use of urban members to-day in discussing agricultural matters. Is the hon. the Opposition aware of the fact that one of our problems is devaluation in foreign countries? Are they aware of the fact that this is having a seriously detrimental effect on our exports? Do they know that the Government has intervened even there and has taken the necessary measures? Of course our farmers appreciate this; of course our farmers cannot be fooled and gulled into believing that the Government is responsible for this state of affairs.

There is another aspect I should like to mention. We experienced the biggest drought ever in the history of South Africa. Naturally the Government is blamed for this now. Naturally it is the Government that is responsible for this drought which ended a short while ago. No, I want to say that the farmers realize that if this Government had not intervened and helped our farmers in such a completely generous and fair manner as it did by way of loans and fodder subsidies, they certainly would not have been able to survive the drought. I have the greatest respect for our farmers who went through this terrible drought and survived it. But both the farmers and I have the greatest respect for a Government and a Department of Agriculture which rendered assistance to the farmers when they were in difficulties. They did not tell the farming population to fend for themselves, but the Government said that agriculture was an important backbone of the country and extended a helping hand to them. We also had flood damages, because we really had strange weather conditions during the past years. There were terrible droughts and when the droughts ended, they ended in floods. We had that flood in the Orange River area. Our farmers were in difficulties then. I want to repeat to-day that our Government came to their assistance at the time. I would be shamefully neglecting my duty if I did not refer to that and did not thank the Government for the very timely and very reasonable assistance which it offered. We know that complaints are sometimes made in regard to the way in which assistance is implemented, but there will always be complaints. There will always be United Party supporters trying to represent matters in a bad light. I want to say, however, that in those areas our farmers are very grateful for the assistance they have received. They are grateful for that assistance which was offered them so soon. We know we have other problems. We have the problem of uneconomic units. The United Party, I hope, is also aware of this. If they are not aware of this, they must learn of it now. These are problems which arose in history and with which the Government is grappling at present. I am grateful to be able to say that the Government, the hon. the Minister and his Department are now paying urgent attention to these matters; that they are doing everything that is humanly possible in order to combat these problems. This Government’s greatest achievement in the field of agriculture is perhaps the way in which it has co-ordinated its departments and created machinery in order to assist our farmers. We are grateful for these things.

In actual fact there is another aspect which is more important to me than the ridiculous statements made by a shrinking, or should I rather say vanishing, Opposition as to why they cannot approve this Budget. In the few minutes at my disposal I want to point out today that we in South Africa have to deal with certain wasting assets. I have in mind our gold mines in particular, which cannot remain very productive for many more years. The Department of Planning and other Departments have already furnished proof that they are aware of these aspects and would like to render assistance. In view of this, I should like to suggest that we should now develop that large area known as the North-West and that we should establish an infra-structure there so that that area may develop fully and realize its full potential. In this way it could be a substitute for our gold mines and other mines if those sources of income were to disappear.

I referred in a previous speech to the potential of that area and I said that I hoped to be able to elaborate on that aspect on a later occasion. I want to appeal to the Government to-day to proceed with the drilling programme which it wanted to begin in 1965. I want to state very clearly, however, that I am in full agreement with their reason for not proceeding with the drilling programme at the time. The drilling programme of the Department of Mines in the North-West was cancelled so that the capital which would have been used for that, could be used in the search for oil and natural gases. I think that was a very sensible policy and I now want to congratulate the Government on the first success it has achieved under that policy. Since we have now achieved success and it has been proved that natural gases and natural oils are indeed to be found in the southern hemisphere and in the vicinity of South Africa, I think the Government should now to a larger extent allow private undertakings to take the initiative and should withdraw a portion of those funds so that it may be reinvested in that scheme which was suspended in 1965. It was intended, according to this scheme of 1965, to send boring-machines to the North-West to prospect and to find out what lies hidden beneath the soil of the North-West. One often hears that the North-West is an area of samples since only samples are found there. Anyone who says this is making wilfull statements which he knows he cannot prove. I maintain that practically no boreholes have been sunk in the entire North-West in order to determine what lies beneath the soil. Such boreholes as have been sunk were sunk by the Okiep Copper Company and other companies and these experiments produced very good results. I think we are justified in saying that a drilling programme of this nature can only produce very good results for South Africa, and therefore I want to appeal to the Government to continue this drilling programme.

The second aspect which is of importance is to establish the necessary infra-structure for that area. I must mention in passing that we have had a very sympathetic approach in this regard from all the Departments concerned, but this is an area which can only be developed with great difficulty, as there is practically no infra-structure. By infra-structure I mean, inter alia, transport facilities; there is a constituency of 38,000 square miles with not one single mile of railway. We understand this; I have no quarrel with the hon. the Minister over this, because I know that these facilities can only be created if it is justified by the production. These facilities have to be created now, because we have the potential in that area. We can do it, but it will be very expensive to carry out; not a few million rands, but hundreds or perhaps thousands of millions of rands are required for the development of that area. The infra-structure must be established through planning. We think of transport and we think of power. We are aware of the fact that electricity will become much cheaper there when it is generated by the Orange River hydro-electric scheme. We are aware of the power circuit which is being planned for the future, but we adopt the attitude that all these schemes should be greatly expedited. We simply cannot wait another 15 or 20 years for this, for in the meantime the North-West is being deprived of its treasures to an ever-increasing extent. The rich and precious minerals are being removed, while the low-grade minerals are left behind. In this way an area which is of great importance to the economy of South Africa, is being robbed of its rich and precious minerals and will in due course reach a stage in which no development is possible.

Then there is the question of water. I want to express my gratitude over the fact that one of the first things the Minister of Water Affairs did when he became Deputy Minister, was to visit Namaqualand. He is therefore aware of our problems in this regard. However, I should like to remind the House that when dividing the water of the Orange River, we should not forget that it is here, in the North-West, that the focal point for the future development of South Africa’s economy lies. We must take due account of this in dividing our water supplies. This area should not be neglected as far as water is concerned.

As it is, we have serious water problems there. Here I have in mind the mines of the Okiep Copper Company at Nababeep, Karolusberg and Okiep. The Buffalo River, which is our source of water, is not a constantly flowing river. It only flows once a year. This river skipped a year recently, which placed us in the invidious position that the basin in the Buffalo River only had water for another three months. This is subterranean water. Had the position not been relieved within those three months, we would have seen the greatest fiasco in South Africa, because the three mines would have been without a drop of water, and the town of Springbok too. So you can see, Sir, that a very serious situation could have been created. Therefore I am asking that we should make use of these times of prosperity in order to make provision for the future. I am not pleading on behalf of a constituency which is producing nothing. On the contrary. We all know that the Namaqualand constituency contributes a great deal to the Treasury. It is unfortunately the case that only selfish minerals have been mined thus far—diamonds, for instance, which do not really stimulate the development of an area, but which do make a contribution to the Treasury. Therefore, in the present times of prosperity, we should seriously plan and seriously continue with the planning which the Government is at present undertaking. Furthermore, these matters should be expedited.

I want to appeal to the Government in this connection. We should think twice before deciding to remove the assets of the North-West from there to another place to be processed. In this connection I have in mind, for example, the iron ore of Sishen. We know, of course, that it is very easy to transport these assets to other parts. These are, however, assets of that area and as such they may be of help in establishing the required infra-structure in that area. If we were now to remove the raw materials of the North-West piecemeal, that area would never come into its own. It would never reach a normal standard of development. Therefore I am pleading that no further assets of the North-West be removed, or, at any rate, as few as possible. After all, I do not want to be too selfish. Therefore, as few assets as possible of the North-West should be removed from that area. Those assets should rather be processed in the North-West and by the North-West so that we may give that area the infra-structure it needs in order to develop further. Everything that has been undertaken there, has been successful. This has been proved repeatedly. For this reason I should, in conclusion, like to appeal to the Government to give the North-West even more attention than it has already done. I thank the Minister and his Department for what they have done for this area thusfar, and I ask them to continue those efforts.

Firstly I want to confirm my impression of what was said to this House by the hon. member for Sunnyside. I take it, if I understood him rightly, that he pleaded for a capital gains tax. Now, the Franszen Commission was divided on this matter.

By only one vote.

The Minister of Finance rejected it, and we would like to know whether or not this is another little division in the ranks of the Government. [Interjections.] These little cracks that are appearing cannot always be papered over. I want to tell the hon. member for Sunnyside that he is in fact going along a very dangerous path in a young and developing country. He has come here with a half-baked scheme which he obviously has not studied properly and he presents it to this Minister, who has been careful in the matter, and he wants him to adopt it. I say to the hon. member for Sunnyside that if he wants to drive away overseas capital, if he wants to discourage it from coming to this country, then he must proceed on the lines he has followed this afternoon, against his own Minister’s recommendation.

The members on the Government benches are actually scraping the bottom of the barrel in trying to find something to get the D.D.M., the “Dank Die Minister Medal”. Take, for example, the hon. member for Virginia. He praised the mining houses and he praised the mining industry. He brought out quite clearly how important it was for us in this country to encourage the mining industry to do its very best to keep going, but he had to thank the Minister, so what did he do? He thanked the Minister for not taxing it. That was his negative “thank you”; because they did not tax the mines which he said needed every help, he thanked the Minister.

Then I want to come to the hon. member for Stilfontein. He came along with a very good one as well. He thanked the Minister for something that the proto teams were going to receive, and he waxed lyrical. He brought thanks to the Minister on his own behalf and on behalf of his constituents of Stilfontein, but let us see what he thanks the Minister for. This is very interesting. I am going to read from a translation of the Minister’s speech—

Would it not have been better if the hon. member for Stilfontein had said to the Minister: Give those people a tax-free allowance for their work; it is dangerous work; they are saving lives and they spend hundreds of hours in training for this particular type of work? But the hon. member is satisfied that this amount which comes to them for bravery—and that is what it is—should be taxed. I say to the Minister he must remove that tax entirely and rather give them a bonus for the work they do. The Government does not care about the miners; they will take money from anyone.

It has been said here once and it has been said twice and I am going to say it a third time that this purchase tax which has been introduced by the Minister has not been properly prepared. The hon. the Minister did not consider it properly, because if he had considered it properly, he would not have included some of the items which appear in his schedule. The Minister knows as well as I do what a shortage of manpower there is in the Department of Inland Revenue; he knows what difficulties he has there. He knows how the personnel of this Department is changing almost from day to day. For every 50 recruits he loses 60 employees. He knows the record of his permanent employees; he knows how few people he has who have been in his Department for more than four years, and now he introduces this purchase tax. He will have to have an army of tax inspectors to find out who is doing what and whether the taxes are being levied at the right places. The hon. the Minister can shake his head but he knows as well as I do that he will never be able to implement this tax properly. He will have to depend on the trader to give a correct report of every transaction that he does. Sir, it has been said that this tax is unfair to some of the people who are going to be taxed, and I agree with that. I agree that some of these items are not luxury items or near luxury items, and that they should not be subject to the purchase tax. The hon. the Minister is giving the pensioner R1 per month extra, in other words, an increase of three cents a day. If the pensioner happens to smoke a pipe, one cent out of those three is going to be spent on a box of matches to keep his pipe going. That is how much he is giving the pensioner. If the pensioner wants to have a wash he is probably going to have to pay half a cent extra per day for the soap that he uses. If a young married woman takes her bundle of washing to a laundry, she will have to pay more. Her washing will cost her more whether she does it at home or whether she has it done outside. The tendency in shops will be to increase the prices of all articles. One shopkeeper said to me: “To be on the safe side, I think I had better add the tax on everything I sell; otherwise I may be caught out.” The hon. the Minister is now imposing a purchase tax on certain articles, but he forgets to tell the House that there has been a steady increase in the prices of dozens of other essential commodities that are used everyday. What is the position with regard to rent? The hon. the Minister knows that it is absolutely impossible to-day for a young married couple to-day to buy a house. The price of land has gone up and the price of building has gone up. Whereas a house could have been built a couple of years ago at R5 per square foot, the cost has now gone up to R8 or R9 per square foot. Even if the young married couple can afford to buy a house, they will come up against the very serious problem in furnishing the house now that the Minister has introduced the purchase tax on furniture. Let me take one item as an example. Take a fridge, for instance, which is no longer a luxury but an essential item. Let us say, for argument’s sake, that a fridge costs R100 retail. The 10 per cent tax will bring the price to R110; that is the price which the young man now has to pay for the fridge. The young man cannot afford to pay R110 cash so he puts down a deposit and pays off the balance through a hire-purchase scheme. What does he pay on? Does he pay on the R100 that the fridge cost or is the trader going to allow him the loan of the R10 tax? What is going to happen there? The young man will have to pay R110 for the fridge, he will have to pay finance charges, and he will have to pay interest on R110, not on R100. The fridge that originally cost R100 will end up costing this young fellow about R150 or R160 by the time he has paid it off. That applies to all the items in the young man’s home. On every article of furniture he is going to buy he will have to pay tax on and the trader will not and cannot be expected to carry the purchaser and lay out the tax money for him. He will make the purchaser pay interest on the tax. If the hon. the Minister wants to do young married couples a favour, he will say that the tax charged on an item sold under hire-purchase agreement must not carry interest at the expense of the purchaser. I plead with the hon. the Minister not to allow traders to charge interest on the purchase tax percentage. But will they do it?

Will traders do that? It is a serious matter for a young man. Take for instance a house full of furniture, I have estimated at the minimum it must cost R1,200 to furnish a small flat, and if 10 per cent is added right through it means he will have to pay another R120 on that. Is the hon. the Minister going to allow the trader to charge interest on that?

In these few words I have pointed out how much money is going to be taken out of the pocket of the wage-earner with every transaction that he does. Along with the increase in the general cost of living which will take place because of this tax, we find that other things have also gone up in price. Telephone charges, newspapers have gone up, water charges and rates and taxes are going up. [Interjections.] Of course they are. Then there is the matter of transport, and I want to stop here for a moment. Here the hon. the Minister has aggravated the position. Not only must the man who uses the bus pay more now for fares, but who buys a second-hand car which needs repairs continually? It is not the rich man, it is the poor man that does that. It is the man who has to have transport because he might have to go to work before the buses start running. He has got to have that transport. What has the hon. the Minister done? He is taxing his tyres and he is taxing all the accessories that may be necessary to keep that little motor-car going. This man is not using it for luxury. When he takes out his little car on a Saturday or a Sunday afternoon it might become a luxury for him, but when he uses it for his work this hon. the Minister is taxing him far above the increase in ordinary bus fares. I ask the hon. the Minister to look at the schedule of articles which he is taxing and I ask him to revise it. He has gone into this quite blindly. He has not got the foggiest idea how much is coming into his pockets from this taxation. He asks for R100 million and he expects to get that, but what is he going to do if he gets R300 million? I want to know whether he will promise to give it back to us in some form or other in the following year? Will he reduce taxation? Or Will he have his election funds boosted up so that in the year before the election he can come like a Father Christmas and say to the voters: “Look what a good fellow I am; look what a good Government you have got; I am going to reduce taxation all round; so vote for me!”

Is that the best you can do?

I am doing quite well, thank-you. The hon. the Minister has done it before. [Interjections.] While I am dealing with these purchase taxes, I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister to do something else as well. I want him to use his influence to see that the ordinary shopper is not cheated in his purchases. There are so many gimmicks, advertising pressure groups, and stunts to-day to make the purchaser buy, that I ask the Minister now to introduce some sort of legislation to protect the shopper. For instance if one goes to one of these supermarkets, one is sold a giant size box of porridge. One gets a big box but the contents do not fill the box. That is the point. There is a lot of packing inside, but one only gets a proportion of contents.

Like some of your speeches.

I think the time has come when a person must know how much he is getting for his money when he buys one of these packages. I do not think anybody will disagree with me there. Surely, if a person pays for a giant size, the quantity, e.g. a pound or a pound and two ounces, must be clearly stated on the packet.

Buy your porridge per pound.

Quite a good idea.

I have been reading some criticisms of the gimmicks that have been going on. I should just like to bring this to the notice of the Minister, especially in regard to consumer goods. I quote from what somebody wrote in a paper:

The hon. the Minister knows that in England they had to introduce the Trade Descriptions Act to protect the purchaser from this unscrupulous type of advertising. I think we might have to do something here as well.

I want to leave that for a moment. I want to deal briefly with some of the anomalies with regard to the manpower question. My hon. Leader has made a clear case to this House how badly this Government has dealt with the manpower shortage. We heard again the same type of conflicting opinions expressed as I have mentioned earlier. The Deputy Minister of Planning wants to force 3½ million Bantu, whom he describes as “appendages”, back to their homelands. He does not consider them to be human beings at all. His opinion has been expressed publicly, namely that whether the homelands are developed or not, they have to go there.

He speaks for the Government.

He is a Deputy Minister in the Cabinet. This is what the Deputy Minister says: 3½ million appendages, whether they like it or not, whether the homelands are developed or not, must go back, and quickly. What is going to happen to them there, is nobody’s concern.

Then we have the enlightened opinion of the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education. He says that if one wants to get rid of them, unlike the hon. Deputy Minister of Planning, the homelands have to be developed. One cannot send them out until that has been done. I am being kind to the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration. He says we have got to develop the homelands before we can send these people back. He says we must have an intensive campaign to train the Bantu.

And what do you say?

I say it is a jolly good idea. I say it is an excellent idea to train them, a first-class idea. But if we train them, we must not allow them to become unemployed. We in this country cannot afford to have any unemployed men, definitely not any unemployed trained men. On the contrary. We need them; we need their labour. But what do we have? We have two conflicting opinions within the Cabinet, on the fringe of the Cabinet rather. Here is another little crack that has to be papered over. I leave that to the hon. the Prime Minister to sort out. If he can allow these two conflicting opinions within his own circle, then he seems to be easily satisfied. However, it is necessary for him to make up his mind and say which one he supports. Is he going to develop or not develop?

He will leave that to his grandchildren to decide.

Let us assume that the Prime Minister takes the advice of the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and starts to develop at a faster rate and at a cost of millions and millions of rand. Let us assume he gets a group of trained Bantu ready to work. It is quite obvious that he cannot possibly employ these in the homelands if he does not have the factories in which to employ them. So, he has perforce to bring them back into the metropolitan areas. Otherwise he would have a group of unemployed, trained unemployed people. Mr. Speaker, when is this bluff going to stop? When is all this talk about the fear of integration and the stimulation of integration going to stop? What does it all mean? On the one hand they are training people for the metropolitan areas and, on the other hand, they tell us that if they work there they can only work there for 12 months. After that they must get out. What is going on in the minds of members of the Cabinet? Cannot they be consistent? Cannot they be honest with themselves? Cannot they say they will train as many people as they can because the population discrepancy in South Africa is such that as the population grows, fewer and fewer white people will be available to carry the skills for the entire population? Cannot they be honest and say that because of that they have to train more non-Whites and employ them, because otherwise we shall become a stagnant country? We cannot allow people on the Government benches continuing to bluff the people by telling them that this is the only way by which white South Africa can be saved, i.e. through apartheid. We all know that apartheid does not exist. They cannot do that and point a finger at us on this side of the House and keep on saying that we are in favour of total integration. We want to see people work and have sufficient work. There is no fear in this country of any white man losing his job while he wants to work. There is work for everybody. Therefore, all this talk of protecting the interests of the white man is so much hooey that even the hon. Minister of Labour says that as long as there is not sufficient manpower to carry on a trade or profession, he will have to employ non-Whites, because what he says in respect of the building trade must necessarily apply to all trades.

I do hope the hon. member for Rosettenville will not take it amiss of me if I do not react to his argument. The Minister of Finance once said that the speeches of this hon. member are rather difficult to follow, analyze and comment upon. But in passing just this in regard to his comment on the statement by the hon. member for Sunnyside that the implementation of certain measures of this Budget would curb foreign investment. In this regard I just want to say that as long as this stable Government is in power South Africa will remain an attractive and profitable field of investment for foreign capital. With regard to his remarks about all the commodities which will be affected by the levying of a sales tax, he spoke about soap, refrigerators, etc. We on this side are also sorry, and the Minister has already said this, that not all the commodities that we would have liked to have excluded, could in fact be excluded. But what we were entitled to expect from the hon. member for Rosettenville was that he give us an acceptable indication of what commodities should not have been included. If he had done that, he would at least have done this House a service and would have indicated that he could also think positively. There are certain commodities which we are thinking of ourselves—for example, the tax on rubber which can, at a later stage, be reconsidered.

In any case it is for me, as it is for others on this side, a pleasure to participate in this discussion. As long as the Opposition is so few in numbers and reveals such a lack of positive approach, it will be difficult for them to indicate weak spots in the Budget such as this one. Then I am not even talking about formulating alternative proposals. Their participation so far in the debate has, as far as we are concerned, been mentally and physically fatiguing—so inept was it. If we were to take the conditions in our country into consideration and were to draw a comparison with those in other countries, even the Opposition would have to admit that we have ample cause for gratitude. On the world horizon economic and diplomatic storm clouds are continually gathering. They are ever-present. Sometimes they simply move from one crisis to the other —just as the thunderstorms here in the interior of South Africa. However, they always remain typical thunder clouds, heavily laden with electrical tension. There is a rumbling and a roaring; bolts of lightning flash vertically and horizontally, which is an indication for the expert that somewhere they are striking home. Up to now South Africa has been fortunate in not being struck by one of those political, diplomatic or economic bolts of lightning. I am grateful for that, and to-day we take cognizance of that with gratitude. It is on the financial and economical fronts where uncertainty and tension prevail in the world at large. Strong, rich and powerful economic giants like the U.S.A., Great Britain and France are struggling to maintain and keep stable their gold reserves, balance of trade and monetary units. The shaky dollar, pound sterling and French franc are proof of the financial crises which are raging with devastating economic results in those countries. Things are no different on the diplomatic and political fronts. However, we do not have the time to dwell on these things. Greater and smaller powers are rubbing shoulders in such a way that often the sparks are flying and the blood spattering at the same time, to say nothing of the racial tensions and student debacles at the large universities in many states. There is labour unrest, strikes, genocide in North Africa which necessitate tremendous sacrifices in money and human life. How wonderful to be able to live in our own country, South Africa, where there is absolute peace and quiet, and where incomparable prosperity and development is taking place. The Creator has been good to South Africa, and we as a nation of believers want to admit this and pay the requisite tribute and honour to Him. We have just discovered oil here, the basic product necessary for any modern political economy. Everything must be lubricated. This can mean the breakthrough to further and greater economic wealth, stability and economic independence for our mother country. It is a privilege to stay in a country, to live and to work in a country which finds itself in such a fortunate situation. Despite all the Opposition’s criticism and negative attacks, they do not want to live elsewhere. Even the hon. member for Houghton is very happy where she is living in safety there in Houghton, apart from the fact the hon. member made an unfair attack yesterday on the amounts of money which have been set aside for defence, the police, prisons and special security services. That was typical of the mentality of the hon. member and her kindred spirits.

There is racial peace and labour quiet. Those are the guarantees for economic growth in any country. Tax concessions have been made to almost all the sectors of our political economy. Mention to me another country where things are going better, and where, in these times in which we are living, more concessions have been made by a Minister of Finance? [Interjections.] I challenge the next member of the Opposition to rise and mention to me that country where greater concessions have been made than those contained in this Budget speech. Next to the dispensation of the Creator, I attribute this fortunate state of affairs, in which our mother country finds itself, to the fact that it is being governed by the National Party; that there is a Government in power here, consisting of a Prime Minister with his Cabinet and a Minister of Finance who are entirely unique in the present world set-up as far as Governments are concerned. That may sound like a mouthful, but it is indisputably true. It is characteristic of the history of the Afrikaner in this country and also of the National Party that it has always gone from one great leader to the next. Sometimes we have even had too many great and powerful leaders available at the same time. The United Party cannot say the same. In other countries leaders of potential greatness are eliminated by coup d’états, other cunning conspiracies, or even by assassinations. In South Africa the strong men take one another’s hands and form a solid phalanx. As far as our Government is concerned they follow the strongest leader, namely the Prime Minister, along the road of growth, prosperity and development in South Africa. Outside this House great and intellectually developed patriots are serving this country from day to day: scientists, educationists, agriculturalists, economists, business men, geologists and others. They are all simultaneously engaged in developing and expanding the South African national structure in as many directions as possible to its maximum capacity. The leading personalities in South Africa have, thank God, the ability to be responsible, to act responsibly and to reflect soberly before commencing anything.

Order! It seems to me very much as if the hon. member is reading his speech.

No, Sir, I am just following my notes. I say that it is characteristic of the corps of leaders in this House and outside that they have that sense of responsibility to reflect soberly before they commence anything, and with such people a country goes far and must prosper. From the nature of the case budgets are always unpopular because there is usually some sector or other in the political economy which is affected in some way or other and which the shoe will pinch in some place or other. Every budget is met with a degree of fear and trepidation because nobody can predict in advance where the tax man is going to pounce. This Budget has, in the short space of a few hours of listening to the speech of the hon. Minister of Finance, converted the tension into calm acceptance. This places the seal on the capable and yet dynamic financial policy of the National Party Government. It can be regarded as a generous gift, an iced birthday cake, which the Minister presented to the Government on its 21st birthday office. For the layman and the ordinary citizen the acceptability of the Budget lies in the fact that the hon. the Minister has succeeded in getting more money available for all the essential services without thrusting his publican hand deeper into the pocket of John Citizen in person. It is important that the Minister has in fact with this changed structure, of a change-over from personal tax and direct tax to indirect tax and sales tax, succeed in creating a wider area of taxation, and more sources of taxation, and does not as a result have to thrust his hand deeper into your pocket as well in order to get the necessary money, but can collect it over a wider field. The introduction of this new tax structure, with sales tax as the principal basis of revenue, is a brave and realistic step by means of which the source of revenue is changed from the directly personal to the indirect. It is important, because it means that the individual can now to a great extent decide himself how much tax he is going to pay. He can do so by buying less. He can do so by buying only what is absolutely essential, and refraining completely from buying luxuries or buying less of these. But that is not all. This Budget unfolds and grows—yes, I am going to put it like this—just like an early spring flower which permeates the air with its pleasant scent, and it creates an inspiring economic atmosphere. It soothes the feelings of the less well-to-do layer of the population: the farmer in the platteland, the official in his office, the worker, the entrepreneur and many other people on a wide level in all sectors of our political economy, for by means of a changed structure of more indirect taxation and sales tax new sources of revenue are being created, as I have already said, and the range of taxation is being expanded. The result of this is there is no decrease, but an increase of revenue without increased pressure of taxation on the individual.

We welcome the concessions which have been made. I want to mention a few of them. Concessions to the value of R7 million have been made to social and public services pensioners. The benefits in this connection are distributed, inter alia, as follows. There are bonus increases of R1 per month for social pensioners, which brings their maximum pension up to R33 per month, as compared with the R10 per month of the United Party Government in 1947. There has also been a relaxation of the means test for the war veterans of 1914, as well as for the protesting burgers of 1914 and the war veterans of the Zulu uprising of 1906. It will mean a great deal to them and bring to them that pleasant scent, which I spoke about a moment ago, because they need it. A thought has been spared for the Public Service and Railway official pensioners. For married couples the pension has been increased from R94 to R100 per month and for unmarried persons from R47 to R50 per month. Altogether R128.9 million, or R4.45 million more than last year, has been put aside for social welfare and pensions, and yet the hon. member for Houghton complained about this yesterday and said we were spending more on defence than on social welfare and health. I am not saying that we cannot do more for this, but if the amount being appropriated in this connection is not an enormous amount, then I should like to know what greater amount should now be spent.

What characterizes this Budget is the exceptionally generous concessions to those sectors of the population that need it most. I do not have time to dwell on this any further. The public servants are receiving increases of R15 million whereas they are paying a little less in taxes. There is medical rebate Of R150 per year, whether you have made use of it or not. R50.918 million is being voted for higher education, that is R11.7 million more than the previous year. For defence it is R271.6 million, or R17 million more than last year. Of that R95 million is being earmarked for essential munitions purchases. I should very much like to spend more time on this. There is an additional R3.4 million for agriculture. But my time is up. I just want to congratulate the Minister of Finance once again on his Budget. I believe that in the application thereof, and with a correction here and there of the levy on a few commodities, even in regard to those about which the hon. member for Rosettenville complained, this Budget will still be known as an exceptional turning point in our budget policy. In this party good budgets by outstanding Ministers of Finance have already created a tradition.

One of my colleagues on this side of the House quite rightly referred to this Budget as a Renaissance budget. The Opposition’s reaction to this Renaissance budget, however, makes me think of the image of the old donkey that used to draw the bucket pump in the early days. On the part of the donkey there was an incessant and colourless walking in circles. It was doing its work, but it was not really concerned whether fresh water was pouring from the buckets or not, not even whether the buckets were supplying any water at all. You see, Sir, a Renaissance budget, and then we have this sort of reaction on the part of the Opposition. Sir, I can describe this as the bucket pump reaction of a donkey, a reaction coming from an Opposition which at this stage in our political dispensation is nearly 21 years old. I know of no other Opposition that reached this same age in South African politics.

I leave it at that, because I want to pay attention more particularly to one certain aspect of this Budget. One of the members on this side rightly referred to this Budget as a Renaissance budget. It was notable, or perhaps it was a great coincidence, that this outstanding Budget was preceded by a very dramatic statement, a statement made by the Minister of Planning about the first results achieved in the search for oil in South Africa. These first results were achieved in the sea, 40 miles offshore, and this dramatic announcement reminded our people in South Africa in an almost equally dramatic way that there is more in the sea than we usually think. For a few moments the people in our country looked past the normal activities in the sea, i.e. our fishing industry in all its various facets, and looked once more at inner space, at the sea, which comprises approximately 71 per cent of the surface area of the earth and which contains approximately 80 per cent of all life on earth. This truth, this stimulation of our people, posed a new and very pointed question to all of us, and that is: Should we in South Africa, with our coastline of 2,000 miles long, not be stimulated by this dramatic event to a completely new, imaginative and scientific exploration of the sea? Mr. Speaker, being a small country we cannot compete with the great powers in space to-day; we cannot play around in space, but I do not think it is beyond South Africa’s financial capacity at least to participate in the new adventure in the field of oceanography. Sir, to state my plea in a much more practical way, I want to ask whether the time has not come that we should seriously think of a full-fledged State Department in respect of the sea industry in all its various facets?

A new Minister?

That hon. member there is being quite frivolous. If there is justification to-day for a Department of Forestry, for a Department of Sport and Recreation, and for a Department of Tourism, then this question has become a really topical one in our national economy. I briefly want to motivate it in this way; I cannot do so in much detail: In the first place South Africa has a coastline of 2,000 miles, a coastline of 2,000 miles of warm and cold water, which is, from the oceanographic point of view, from the scientific point of view, a very important fact to our country. We are almost surrounded by the sea, which holds numerous secrets and riches which are still waiting for discovery, and which offers a particular challenge to technological and scientific initiative in this country. A further point: We are situated near the South Pole, a fact which from the point of view of a scientific approach is of the greatest importance to South Africa. Unfortunately I cannot go into more detail. I want to mention a third factor: We are to-day the greatest export country in the world but one of fishmeal and other sea products. The sea industry earns more foreign exchange for South Africa to-day than old traditional export products such as wine and the fruit industry, calculated in separate categories. I now come to a further point: With our greater mobility at sea—I am referring here to our two factory ships—we are dramatically opening up new vistas. The question also arises with us whether the time has not come for South Africa to move outside its territorial waters with greater stress and momentum. Another point: We are already looking for diamonds on the sea-bed. We are constantly developing new suction techniques that can be applied to the ocean-bed in this connection. South Africa’s first nuclear project for the desalination of sea water has reached an advanced stage of planning. Our scientists already know of large quantities of table salt, sulphur, magnesium, bromine and other minerals on our sea-bed which are only waiting to be exploited. Another point: At this stage already South Africa can show good results with conservation farming in the sea. In the latest annual report of Viskor mention is made of the first products of South Africa’s oyster nursery, a branch of sea farming we started in the lagoon at Knysna. The first results are encouraging. We have been working on this for a long time, but its products are only coming onto the market now. I want to mention here that particularly in countries such as Holland, France, Japan and America a very great deal is being achieved in respect of sea farming at this stage. The latest figures show, for example that in America at this stage oysters to the value of $15 million are being cultivated artificially. This new science which has now developed, the science of oceanography, actually presents, if I may put it in this way, three or four challenges—four arms, if I may put it in this way—in the first place, the physical and chemical aspects of sea water (this is virtually a science in itself); in the second place, geological and geophysical research in connection with the sea-bed and the earth below the sea. Mr. Speaker, one can become quite lyrical about what is already being achieved in this field in America; this is something to excite the imagination. In the third place, there are the biological and botanical studies of sea life, in which South Africa is already to a certain extent participating, and, finally, observations of the interaction between the atmosphere and the sea, which is also virtually a science in itself. These are in fact the four arms comprised by this new approach, this new science, as I should like to call it. In South Africa we have in fact started to explore all four of these arms, but the challenges that lie ahead are still strong and stimulating. Despite the fact that only approximately 6 per cent of the sea-bed has been explored as yet, it is a fact that there are indications that in the case of many countries of the world a new approach is being adopted, that the sea and its contents, and the significance of the sea for mankind will be viewed in a new light. Here, for example, I want to refer to the recent research conducted by the University of California in the Pacific, research which has shown fantastic results in respect of supplies of manganese, copper, cobalt and nickel. It is particularly these two stimuli, i.e. how science can make use of new foodstuffs derived from the sea in order to meet the needs of an exploding world population, and technological developments on the other hand, that force us to look anew at the mineral riches of the sea. In making this plea after this dramatic event of oil being found in the sea, I should like to make a humble suggestion. In the first place it is necessary for greater clarity to be obtained through a proper and thorough scientific investigation into three factors I want to mention. The first factor is how South Africa’s present oceanographic work can be co-ordinated. Something has already been done in this connection at various places, but the time has come for co-ordination to be brought about in respect of this new work we have begun in South Africa. Here I have in mind, for example, something similar to NASA, the controlling body of the American Aeronautical and Space Administration over space research. It should be an umbrella body which can coordinate all this work so that we can bring a new vision to bear upon the future. The second factor is how effective contact in the field of oceanography can be brought about with other friendly countries which have recently achieved splendid results in this field. The last factor is the purposeful creation of a programme for the future for which an amount of money will be voted from time to time and by means of which South Africa can accept this challenge with renewed vigour. We have the research workers, even if they are few. Mention has been made of a shortage of manpower, but we nevertheless have the research workers and the necessary manpower. Moreover, South Africa is not a poor country. I want to express the hope that this dramatic event which preceded this Renaissance Budget, i.e. the discovery of oil, will stimulate us to such an extent that South Africa will in future regard the sea and what it contains with new imagination and vigour.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Moorreesburg touched upon a matter about which I think there cannot be much difference of opinion in this House. The hon. member is looking for new resources for South Africa and methods for the better utilization of what is to be found in our seas. The hon. member was justifiably proud of certain gratifying developments which have recently been taking place in our immediate vicinity, i.e. where oysters are being cultivated artificially in the sea. I can tell the hon. member that there is a place a few miles beyond Port Elizabeth where a farmer has for the past six or seven years been very successful in cultivating oysters artificially. When the hon. member pleads for our marine resources to be utilized more extensively, I want to tell him that he will encounter no opposition from this side of the House. Whether the hon. member is correct in saying that a special department should be created for something of that nature is, of course, a matter in respect of which I think the answer should be left to the Minister.

Over the past few days the hon. member for Moorreesburg as well as other hon. members have described the Budget in winged words, so much so that the hon. member associated himself with what another hon. member had said, i.e. that this Budget was really a renaissance budget. Of course, as compared to the budgets we had in the past this Budget does mark a change.

A change for the better.

That is the very point which I also want to put to the hon. member for Florida. This Budget has introduced changes, but these changes are not necessarily improvements. This is the whole case the Opposition has been making out up to now. I also hope to prove this to the hon. member in this contribution which I am now going to make to this debate. To a large section of the South African population and to a large percentage of our taxpayers this budget failed to bring any benefits. Hon. members opposite have also quoted English newspapers to show what they think of the Budget. I have before me a few quotations of comments which were not made by United Party supporters. These quotations are not from socalled newspapers which support the United Party. These are quotations of comments made by prominent economists and financiers who are supposed to be favourably disposed towards this Government. I should like to quote what a few of them had to say. Mr. Van Zyl, Chairman of the Kaapstadse Afrikaanse Sakekamer, said the following: (translation)—

In the same way I can quote what Dr. C. H. Brink, Chairman of the Federale Group, had to say. The main heading of the report dealing with what he had to say, reads as follows: “Companies Tax: Glad it is not worse.” This is what he thought: “The purchase tax was definitely necessary, but he had to add that it was going to be difficult to predict what the reaction of the general public would be to it. This was a form of taxation which could have been avoided.” I do not wish to put words into the mouth of this hon. gentleman, because it is for him to say where it could have been changed or avoided. However, hon. members opposite should not think that there is satisfaction in respect of this Budget in all quarters. The only reasons why there could be satisfaction, is in fact about the proposals the United Party has been making in South Africa for the past ten years or more. It is being said that this Budget is a major incentive to the professional man, the business man and the industrialist above a certain income group. There are even hon. members who said that productivity in South Africa could now be stimulated to such an extent that one would find that many of these people would now put in fewer appearances on golf-courses on Saturdays and Wednesday afternoons. The best features of the content of this Budget were, as I have said, not even peculiar to the National Party. After all, the ironing out of the tax bulge, the concessions granted in the case where both husbands and wives are working, are matters which have over the years been advocated by hon. members on this side of the House through mouths of the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Wynberg and many others. These are the only good points in this whole Budget. In regard to these matters there has up to now been complete agreement between both political parties in South Africa. What happened, was that the Government was merely late in accepting these proposals.

This increased purchase tax which will hit all layers of the population, will have a very marked effect on the man in the street. Hon. members do not appreciate this. But apart from the effect this purchase tax will have on the industrialist and the business man, we must also look at the consequences it will have for the farmer of South Africa. Well, as far as the elimination of the tax bulge is concerned, this does of course make no difference to the farmer—absolutely no difference. It does not affect them at all.

What are you saying, there?

That clever hon. member for Wolmaransstad, who is supposed to be representing the farmers of South Africa here, asks: “What are you saying there?”

I am doing it better than you are—you who are hiding in the cities.

One would say that the majority of the tax-payers in South Africa are farmers, and, according to that hon. member, one would be able to infer that most of our farmers fall into the income group above R10,000.

You are putting into my mouth words I did not use.

Let me, for the information of the hon. member, quote what Mr. Chris Cilliers of the S.A.A.A.U. had to say—

What benefit does the farmer therefore derive from the elimination of the tax bulge? When we on this side pleaded for the elimination of the tax bulge over the years, the last group we had in mind, was the farmers—for the simple reason that we knew that they did not fall into that income group. What we are actually pleading for, is that the farmer should once again be placed in a position where he can pay income tax. Hence our amendment.

The percentage of farmers who pay income tax is the same as the corresponding percentage of the nation as a whole.

The Minister has made a simple interjection. I have already said that the farmer does not derive any benefit whatsoever from the elimination of the tax bulge. The Minister must tell us what figures he has at his disposal to prove that Chris Cilliers is wrong.

Because 8 per cent of the taxation is paid by 8 per cent of the population …

What hon. members opposite usually do is to mention the general expenditure under one Vote, as they also did to the Prime Minister recently when they told him to tell the nation in the Other Place that they spend R215 million on the agricultural industry every year. To arrive at that total, they add up all the expenditure under the various heads. They will do the same thing in this debate. For instance, they will say that they are now going to vote an additional R3.1 million in order to help the farmers of South Africa. They will say that there is R5 million on Loan Account, an additional provision for Agricultural Credit. This kind of calculation is the easiest calculation in the world. It is true, it does look impressive sometimes, especially when one talks to people who are not conversant with the situation. But the only thing which these figures do in fact prove, is that the problems of the agricultural industry in South Africa are becoming greater and greater and ever more urgent. This being proved, inter alia, by the assistance they are granting to the citrus industry, to the wool industry and in respect of credit facilities. As long as hon. members opposite are voting money for the various sectors of the agricultural industry on an ad hoc basis, the problems of the South African agricultural industry will remain as they have been under the National Party regime for the past 20 years. It is strange that when the United Party was in power, there were approximately 125,000 farmers in South Africa, but after 21 years of National Party rule there are merely 105,000 farmers. It is perhaps true that when the United Party was in power farmers in certain sectors did not receive such so-called good prices as they do to-day, but this is the difference: Under the United Party regime production costs were not as high as they are today. In other words, the farmers had a reasonable margin of profit. That is why our farmers complained about income tax 15 or 20 years ago, but to-day one finds at every congress of agricultural associations that farmers are complaining about income tax; it appears on every agenda. The assistance which is being granted to farmers, indicates that this Budget is by no means a revolutionary one. It is merely a continuation of the patchwork approach of the Government. The greatest problems of the agricultural industry are still being overlooked by the Government; hence our amendment.

What does the farmer of South Africa see in a budget? In the first place, he does not merely see it as a financial report for the past year. The farmer is also proud of the general prosperity of the country. He does not begrudge other sectors that prosperity. Whilst other sectors enjoy benefits as a result of our unprecedented prosperity, which has been caused by many factors, the farmer merely feels that it is a pity that the same cannot be said of him and his sector. To the farmer the budget is not a summary of the expenditure of various Government Departments, or of the ways and means which have to be found in order to finance such expenditure. He sees much more than that in the budget. To him the following is the actual test: To him the budget has to indicate whether the Government has any real understanding of his problems. He wants to see whether the Government is prepared to go down to the root of the evil and to penetrate as far as that evil. He wants to see whether the Government offers the solutions.

Three, four years ago the nation was asked to spend more, and most farmers did that. Funds for extension works were made available to our farmers on a large scale. Financial institutions and money-lenders actually enticed them with reasonable rates of interest to invite them to borrow money. These institutions made the money available on easy terms. The money was lent at reasonable rates of interest. I want to mention the example of a certain farmer who four years ago borrowed R100,000 at 5 per cent interest.

Why?

To buy an additional farm. He obtained that capital without any difficulty and he was able to pay the interest charged at the time without any difficulty.

Did he borrow it by way of a bank overdraft?

Of course not, we are not all as simple as that, Mr. Speaker. I said that the farmer had gone to a financial institution.

But a bank is also a financial institution.

Most farmers dp not avail themselves of bank overdrafts. Very few farmers avail themselves of bank overdrafts in order to buy a farm. If there are farmers who do so, then the majority of them are definitely Nationalists, because this shows lack of insight. [Interjections.] This person was encouraged to do this, and he did it.

Who encouraged him?

The hon. gentleman who is sitting next to the hon. the Minister, and his predecessor, too. They said, “Spend for Prosperity in South Africa”. The people followed their advice. They borrowed money at reasonable rates of interest and today, owing to Government policy, and because of the culprit who is sitting next to the hon. the Minister of Agriculture …

The hon. culprit.

Yes, the hon. culprit who is sitting over there. Owing to inflationary measures this man is no longer paying 5 per cent interest to-day but 8 per cent. What I am mentioning here, is one of the easier examples. I know of people who have to pay 9 and 10 per cent interest to-day on money they borrowed at that time. To jump from 5 per cent to 8 per cent is perhaps not such a tremendous increase, but what difference does this not make to that person’s burden of interest? If one works this out, it appears that this does not only amount to a 3 per cent increase in this burden of interest, but it amounts to an increase of approximately 60 per cent in his burden of interest. This is the situation in which most farmers find themselves to-day, farmers who four, five years ago were encouraged to spend for prosperity.

To-day I want to repeat a matter here which I have raised before. Most farmers would not have minded paying these higher rates of interest if there had been a fair chance of their being able to pay these interest charges. If the farmer had received a corresponding increase in the price of his product, and not a tremendous increase in his production costs, no farmer would have minded paying those interest charges, for the very purpose of making the struggle against inflation a successful one. Any other person can afford to pay these charges. The industrial sector and the business sector are in a position to pay them, just as it will be easy for them to absorb this purchase tax, because in actual fact they themselves will not be paying it; somebody else will have to pay. But the farmer cannot do this; he has to pay for them himself. I want to make an earnest plea to the hon. the Minister of Finance to-day, as I have also done before, to reduce the interest burden of the farmers. I presume that his two colleagues are also doing that, and if they are not doing so there is something drastically wrong with them. They know that one deputation of farmers after the other asks for relief to be granted in respect of their burden of interest. Even at the conference the hon. the Deputy Minister of Agriculture addressed in Graaff-Reinet (when his helicopter almost got stuck) more or less six weeks ago, one farmer after the other rose and said, “Mr. Deputy Minister, our difficulty is the burden of interest in South Africa”. I was not there in person, but I know it. This is the case, not so?

It is the case, yes.

The hon. the Minister knows that this is so. Now we want to ask him: What is the Government going to do about it? If they do not do anything about it, then I repeat that in next year’s Budget we shall have to appropriate more in an attempt to help the agricultural industry out of this difficulty. Last year already we made the proposal that there should be a subsidy in some form or other for reducing the farmers’ burden of interest. Hon. members opposite should not tell us now that something of that nature is impossible. In this Budget this is being done as regards the interest paid on houses by certain public servants. Under the house ownership scheme the State is going to help these people, for the State is going to subsidize their interest. Is it so impossible to do this for our farmers as well? Is it impossible for the hon. the Minister of Finance? Would it complicate the struggle against inflation to such an extent if he were to grant such assistance to that sector? The hon. the Minister of Finance must give us a reply in this Budget as far as this situation is concerned. If he does not want to give us a reply, we want to warn him that the problem of the agricultural industry in South Africa will become worse and worse and he will have more and more difficulties in solving this matter. What astonishes me, is that up to now there has been no response to these appeals. We are not the only people who are doing this; every single deputation to this Government is doing so. When those hon. members go out to hold meetings and meet a group of farmers, there are only three matters which are discussed by these people, i.e. the increasing burden of interest, production costs and the burden of debt of the farmers of South Africa.

You have mentioned three, but they complain about many more matters than that.

Yes, I do of course know what other matters they talk about. I shall tell the hon. the Deputy Minister what other matters they discuss. Particularly when they have the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Development in mind, they say, “Why can we not have him as Minister of Agriculture, for he does after all do something for his people?” That is what they are saying. This is not United Party propaganda. This is being said by his people. I know because I see and meet them daily. I want to make this plea to the hon. the Minister of Finance to-day. We must be given a decisive answer in regard to this matter. If we are not given a decisive answer in regard to this matter in this Budget, the responsibility must rest on his shoulders if more and more farmers of South Africa were to leave the rural areas. The responsibility will rest on his shoulders if more and more people were to find themselves in difficulties. At present credit is no longer given to farmers for production purposes only. Credit is in reality being given to them so as to enable them to make a living. Surely this is wrong. One does not want people to live on a credit basis. One does not mind credit when it comes to production. This is productive credit. This is essential. Everybody does it. But to-day the majority of the farmers in South Africa need credit so that they may make a living. That is why that hon. Deputy Minister of Bantu Development was obliged to announce at a certain meeting that the Government would once again assist in giving people credit, even for groceries, maintenance costs, to pay their labourers and to provide them with rations. The hon. member for East London is quite correct. It is not only a disgrace, it is also a tragedy that that kind of situation should exist in South Africa to-day, because the Government is not prepared to go down to the actual problem of the farmer. The actual problem of the farmer is the following: If it is necessary to adjust the produce price or salary of any other person in order to keep pace with new circumstances, precisely the same thing has to be done in the agricultural industry.

If you think you can exploit the drought to win over those people, you are very wrong; they will still not vote for the U.P. They are still voting for the National Party.

While we are making a plea in regard to the problems of the agricultural industry, that hon. Deputy Minister is concerned about whether we are going to gain a vote or two. We are more concerned about the situation in the rural areas and about keeping those people there. Whether they vote for us or not, makes absolutely no difference at all. We want to tell the hon. the Minister of Agriculture that up to this stage, for a period of 21 years already, he has failed to outline to us precisely what his views are on the development of the agricultural industry in South Africa. The situation which has developed under the régime of this Government is that there is a shortage of technical officers. We do not have a sufficient number of extension officers.

As a result of what?

As a result of this Government’s lack of policy over the past 21 years, the situation which has arisen is that soil erosion is becoming worse and worse and increasingly more difficult to combat. At this stage we want to know from this Government precisely what course they are going to adopt in this respect. They have always failed to take effective steps. They have been fencing with words. They have been finding fault and making excuses, but they have never told us in what direction they are moving and how the agricultural industry can in their view be placed on a stable and sound basis. Unless we receive those answers we cannot argue about the agricultural industry and cannot see any ray of light for the future under the present Government. This is why I strongly support the hon. member for Constantia in his amendment, and particular the part which relates to the agricultural industry.

Mr. Speaker, when the previous debate dealing with agriculture took place, this country was experiencing one of the most crippling droughts in its history. But before I say anything further, I would like to place on record my gratitude towards the Almighty, particularly on this occasion, for the wonderful rains which have fallen throughout the country. After these persistent drought conditions which have prevailed for years, we can on this occasion express our gratitude for the wonderful rains we have had in this country.

The hon. member has just referred to conditions in agriculture. There is one thing which strikes me about the Opposition, and that is that they cannot get over the fact that the farming population of South Africa has completely rejected the United Party. They have set up a record by sitting in the Opposition benches for 20 years, and over all these years, as far as I can remember, not one single motion has been introduced during which resultant debate the question of agriculture has not been appended. This is so because they themselves feel unhappy and would like to scramble back and recover the support of the farming population after the losses they have suffered. There is one thing the farming population of South Africa will never forget, and that is the history and the record of the United Party during the years they were in power. That record, Sir, stands out so starkly that we know in the first instance that all their pleas are merely irresponsible political propaganda by means of which they have tried to present a situation as being desperate and in this way catch a few votes. The farming population simply does not accept this. A few days ago we had the Provincial by-election at Graaff-Reinet. Sometime previously they kicked up a tremendous fuss about the wool farmers here. I do not think they even had a candidate for the election. The by-election at Graaff-Reinet was unopposed. If it were so that the farming population believed them this would surely have been the first indication that the United Party wanted to make a test of this occasion.

Let us return to the Budget. The hon. member has now elaborated on the situation in respect of the farmers and the taxes they have to pay. He spoke about income tax. I would like to refer the hon. member to the latest report of the South African Agricultural Union, from which he quoted, and ask him to read page 114. There he will be able to read more about the income tax to which the South African Agricultural Union referred. Normally they made a thorough study of the report of the South African Agricultural Union. In the latest report they found almost nothing. That is why they had not yet mentioned it in this discussion. That is why I find it interesting that the hon. member referred to the Agricultural Union, and spoke about income tax, and asked that we should point out to him where they had held discussions with their congresses. On the contrary, they are thanking the Government for the levelling of income tax which has been levied by this Government. They express their gratitude for this step, one which they have been advocating for many years, and which was introduced a year ago by the hon. the Minister of Finance. Let the hon. member tell us what taxes the farmers are paying in terms of this sales tax as far as the production of foodstuffs is concerned.

They are paying taxes in respect of fungicides and insecticides.

No, what taxes are the farmers paying in respect of production means.

They are paying on motor car tyres.

Yes, it is true they are paying on motor car tyres, but one cannot make an exception.

What about the labourers he has to pay? Can the farmer claim on that?

No, that he pays himself. Let us return to the question of the taxation system of the Bantu. Was it not the congresses of the South African Agricultural Union which asked that a new system be introduced?

I quoted the Afrikaans Chamber of Commerce, and not the Agricultural Union.

No, let us be honest with each other. Was it not the congresses of the South African Agricultural Union which asked for this system? The hon. the Opposition has once again seized upon these health measures and distorted them completely. Now they are distributing pamphlets everywhere which are absolutely distorted. This is the method the United Party utilizes. They tried to make the people in the platteland believe all kinds of things and distribute pamphlets there which are untrue, as in the case of the present pamphlets on the health measures which they are trying to distribute throughout the country. These pamphlets convey incorrect information. They are aware of everything which is being dealt with by the Agricultural Union and which it has done in this regard. However they are distributing pamphlets throughout the country in order to present the National Party in a poor light, without obtaining the necessary information.

Are you not ashamed, Streicher?

This is the way in which the United Party goes to work to try to disseminate propaganda so that they can win back the farming population. However, with these methods they achieve the very opposite. I want to thank the hon. the Minister of Finance for this new system of sales tax and for having specially excluded the farming population for production purposes. I will concede that in something of such vast scope there will be excesses here and there. However, it is a start in a direction which we all welcome. What is more, the United Party has, according to hon. members on that side, also been advocating a sales tax and an amended system for years. It is typical of the United Party that when they advocate something they put forward their case with great bravado. If the matter turns out to be in their favour and they cannot make propaganda from it, they take the credit for it. That is precisely what the hon. member for Newton Park just did. However, if anything goes wrong and they think they can make propaganda out of it, they are the first to point out the faults. That is typical of the United Party’s direction. That is what happens when a Party has no fixed policy and principles on which its policy is based. That is why the United Party has no future in South Africa, it has no fixed goal. That is the difference between the United Party and the National Party. Every blue Monday they have a new race policy, a new Bantu policy. We can produce one pamphlet after another of theirs to prove how their race policy has changed during the course of years. The United Party has no fixed policy; it trims its sails to the wind whenever it thinks it can make propaganda. Just take this rate of interest as an example. What hon. members said in regard to the debt position and the encouragement of farmers, is hopelessly incorrect. I want to use the wool brokers as an example. The hon. member, as a wool farmer, knows how much debt the farmers had with the brokers. The hon. member knows how many millions of rand in debts they had with the brokers. The hon. member said that farmers would not take loans from ordinary banking institutions. What was the debt which this Government took over the years from the brokers at a decreased rate of interest?

Half per cent.

You are aware that the previous year a million was appropriated for advertising and research in the wool industry in order to decrease the levy on the wool producers in this way. If you look at the Budget you will see that an amount is being appropriated there for certain agricultural institutions, at a decreased subsidized rate of interest. Why this great agitation in the House simply in order to say that this is only being done in certain sectors, whereas it is not being done in others? But it is not so easy to establish a general bond interest subsidy; I wonder whether the hon. member is aware …

Has this been done before?

I am aware that it has been done before, in 1933 but it is not such an easy task. I wonder whether you are aware that attention has in fact been given to this matter during the last two years, not on the insistence of the United Party, not because the United Party represents the farmers or the platteland, but because we as farmers took cognisance of the situation and also took cognizance of in what respect we can be of assistance to the agricultural population in the situation in which they find themselves. It is clear to us that the United Party sketches the same picture each time, the picture of rates of interest, production costs, produce prices and the depopulation of the platteland. This picture is repeated during every debate dealing with agriculture. Attention has been given to the rates of interest and to what possible steps can be taken in that respect. Hon. members are aware that steps have already been taken to help the farmer who went down by means of agricultural credit at 5 per cent. Hon. members are aware that the Land Bank received R30 million last year, and they are aware that this amount is being distributed at low rates of interest in order to assist the farmers who find themselves in this situation. The United Party, as I have already said, merely repeats the same picture.

A moment ago an hon. member mentioned that under the United Party Government there had been 125,000 farmers, whereas now there were only 105,000 farmers. Do they want more farmers to be forced into the platteland under present circumstances? Does the United Party want this wealth, this available 15 million morgen of agricultural land to be further subdivided? Do they want the available stock to be subdivided, even though the drought, as we will just have to accept, has over the years become a permanent one in South Africa. These riches available in the platteland, the natural resources, cannot be easily increased. We are aware of the existing droughts. Must we further subdivide these natural resources which are available to the farmers? Must we increase the number of farmers from 105,000 to 125,000, which was the original number? If the United Party wants to return to that 125,000, they must tell us, but that figure is not quite correct. They were not all farmers.

May I put a question?

My time is very limited. I want to conclude with this quotation from the speech made by the President of the S.A. Agricultural Union. He stated—

I am in a very difficult position now. The usual etiquette is that one follows up the previous speaker as far as one can. But the previous speaker is my colleague and is my neighbour as far as our constituencies are concerned, and all I can say by way of following him up is that I fully agree with everything he said. To try to say anything further about my personal approach to this Budget, would be a waste of time. I do not believe there is anyone on either side of the House who would still be able to say anything we have not yet heard. There has been enough comment both for and against; many have criticized the Budget severely, and many have praised it. We are now probably nearing the end of the debate, and what we have achieved by it is a question each of us should ask himself. As for me, I, like previous speakers on this side, want to express my appreciation for this Budget. It is my honest opinion, without ulterior motives, that it is a very well balanced Budget for all our population groups and interests. I have felt for years, when we discussed our financial problems in this country, that it has become necessary for our taxation system to be investigated. We know that nothing remains the same. One has to adjust oneself to changing circumstances from time to time, and I was one of the people who welcomed the appointment of a commission of inquiry. I think that for our people in general, regardless to what political party we belong, much good has sprung from the report of this commission, which served as an inspiration to the architect, the Minister of Finance. I think this is as much as I should say about it. We have nothing more to tell each other.

I should just like to refer to the hon. member for Newton Park, the man with the constituency with such a strange name. [Interjections.]

He is actually a hater of the farmers.

Yes, Oom Gerhard Bekker always told him this, and I think Oom Gerhard was always right. I again listened to the hon. member’s speech a while ago. He is always fiery enough and he never lacks for words, but, after all, politics is not of such a nature that one should be completely blind and deaf to the truth. One can always benefit from another man’s views if one’s thinking about those matters is sound. But in his case I realize only now what a prophet Oom Gerhard was when he always made him out to be a hater of the farmers. He told us how we should farm in this country. But I just want to tell the hon. member that many of us here who do not talk so much about farming, have already forgotten what he will not learn for years to come, and the same holds true for his politics. He is only a baby here, and if ever he comes back to this House, he will perhaps give us a different contribution to the contributions he made in these debates to which I have been listening for 17 years. I think the two of us came here together. I just want to say that I think we should devise some plan to give him some medical assistance, because he has developed a mania here which he can never forget. He will make the farmers solvent as if by magic; if just to pay them subsidies on their interest. The whole problem, as far as the farmers are concerned, is not drought; it is not foreign markets; it is not the circumstances over which we have no control, and over which the hon. member’s Party will not have any control either if they should come into power. These are not the things he takes into account. He thinks along the lines of the old song—

In Newton Park.

I just want to tell the hon. member I think he does a great deal of wrong with the contributions he makes in this House. Here I have a number of telegrams in my pocket about the price of maize, and I am ashamed to show them to the Minister. There is dissatisfaction. Who is so petty and who is such a political fool as to deny this? But this one will have under the best circumstances in the world. In the field of agriculture we and our children and their children will always have problems in South Africa. This is not the best agricultural country in the world. But we are ploughing and planting as far as into the Kalahari, and we are creating problems. As a result we come into conflict with nature, and then, as an individual or as a Government, one is absolutely powerless. It really cannot be said that this Government has failed to do its duty in the past years, when the farmers had such a hard time of it. This same Minister who is being so unnecessarily run down by hon. members on the opposite side, has done his best. He has done as much as any man could have done. I want to give the hon. member for Newton Park the assurance that he may well tell his farmers in Newton Park about all the things the Minister has done. The farmers are satisfied that if difficulties arise again, the Government will do its duty. The Budget has already provided for that. But what can the Government do for our wool farmers, the people who have suffered many losses and who have had a hard time as a result of the drought? We cannot make rain. Neither can you make rain, my friends. As far as farming in South Africa is concerned, this is the crux of the matter. If it rains in abundance, there is no difficulty. The farmers help themselves and buy additional farms and they farm progressively, but if there is a drought, no one can control it and this sort of thing happens. But we who have supported this Government for a lifetime, know how well disposed it is towards the farmers and we are perfectly satisfied that there is no reason to be concerned should assistance be required.

I just want to bring something to the notice of the hon. the Minister of Agriculture. I have received telegrams and letters from farmers’ associations and from many farmers. It concerns the so-called “gou-gif” or poison bush; it has quite a number of different names; it is called by different names by different people. We find this poison bush in the North-Western Transvaal and the Western Transvaal. It is found in my constituency, in Marico, in the former Ventersdorp constituency and in Coligny. This poison bush grows in about seven or eight constituencies in the dolomitic area. About 10 or 12 years ago I approached the then Minister of Agricultural Technical Services about the matter. The farmers passed resolutions about this matter; I brought a deputation to Cape Town, and then it was decided to establish a research station there. The research station is still there and tests are still being made, but so far without any results.

Recently, when a great many farmers approached me, I again asked the Secretary for Agricultural Technical Services, Dr. Vorster, to tell me what I should tell the farmers, what was being done and what the Department expected to do in the future. We have satisfied those people for the present, but personally I am convinced that much more can be done to combat the poison bush than has been done in the past. I do not want to cast any reflections on people. I had the kind support of the Secretary of Agricultural Technical Services in those years and I still have it this afternoon. He opened the research station there himself, and tests have been carried out there. Scientists are carrying out research there, but a very large part of our best cattle-grazing area in the North-Western Transvaal is being contaminated by this poison bush, and on behalf of the farmers in my constituency and in other constituencies that have an interest in the matter, I again want to ask the hon. the Minister to do everything within his power in this connection. If we can succeed in putting people on the moon to-day, we should have much less difficulty in eradicating the poison bush.

When he began his speech, the hon. member for Lichtenburg said that he did not think that at this stage of the debate it was possible to say anything new about the Budget. I think the hon. member has to some extent borne out his own contention by the speech he has just made, because he certainly has not contributed anything new to this Budget debate, except a parochial request to the hon. the Minister of Agriculture, a request which could probably be made more appropriately in the debate on the Minister’s Vote. Sir, I am going to come back to the hon. member for Lichtenburg and also the hon. member for Christiana at a slightly later stage because there are one or two matters which I want to raise first and which are not agricultural matters before I deal with the speeches of those two hon. gentlemen. I want to say to the hon. member for Lichtenburg that these two matters which I am going to raise are very much new matters as far as this Budget debate is concerned.

The first matter to which I want to refer is the practice of the hon. the Minister of Finance through his receivers of revenue of taxing the ordinary army pay, air force pay or navy pay of people who are called up to do national service, of adding this amount to their other taxable income and then taxing them on it. Sir, this is surely a most strange principle at a time when we in this country are engaged in a cold war and when we have to have a large number of our young people under training, not under continuous training but under intermittent training for a large number of years. In the case of the Citizen Force it is for some 10 or 12 years, and in the case of the commandos for some 15 or 16 years. This falls particularly hard on those young men who are self-employed and who during the period of their training have to be away from their businesses and whose businesses suffer in the meanwhile. The receiver then comes along and then adds this very modest amount of army pay to their taxable income. I say that that is wrong in principle. But quite apart from that the receiver of revenue is going even further, and I want to give the hon. the Minister an example here. I want to quote from a letter that I have received from a constituent of mine—

Sir, when it comes to the question of board I have no doubt that the food that is being given to these trainees in the army services is really very good indeed, but I have also heard the expression “army skilly”, and I think it is really a little bit tough to add a certain sum for board.

The same applies when it comes to the question of lodging. An army trainee in many instances probably considers himself lucky if the lodging consists of an army bungalow. There are no doubt occasions when they go out on manoeuvres, when the lodging consists, again if the trainee is rather lucky, of canvas tents. There are probably other occasions when the lodging might even consist of a sleeping bag or perhaps even a ground sheet if the trainee is out on manoeuvres. I really do think that this is somewhat of an imposition which the hon. the Minister should think about before his receivers of revenue add an amount of R182 over a nine-month period to a trainee’s taxable income and say to him: “That is for board and lodging and you have to pay income-tax on that plus the tax on your extra little bit of pay.” Naturally I am not referring to the Permanent Force, because this is their profession and their career, and they must naturally expect to be taxed on what they receive, but I think that a sum of R182 for board and lodging is something which borders on the ridiculous.

Mr. Speaker, there has been a great deal of praise of the Budget from the other side of the House. The hon. member for Lichtenburg said that it was very well balanced; the hon. member for Marico became poetic; he said that it was like an early Spring flower. The hon. member for Moorreesburg likened it to a renaissance Budget. Sir, I am afraid that I cannot describe a Budget which contains this ill-considered, ill-conceived, ill-timed fiscal fiasco which the Minister has graced with the name of a sales tax, in such glowing terms. Quite honestly, Sir, I would think that the sales tax portion of the Budget at least could be more aptly described as a bit of a dog’s breakfast and, may I add, a breakfast for a rich man’s dog as well. Sir, this sales tax has led, in the short time since the hon. the Minister’s Budget speech, to something which has almost approached a shambles in the business world, because it has caused confusion and consternation in the business world and not only in the business world itself. Yesterday the hon. member for Algoa spoke here for the best part of half an hour on how much this Government was doing for education in this country, on how wonderful our educational system was, how the Government was doing everything to forward education in this country.

That is true.

The hon. member for Sunnyside says that is true; that they do everything possible to forward education in this country. Late yesterday afternoon I got the following telegram from Rhodes University—

The hon. member for Sunnyside says that it is true that this Government does everything to forward education. I want to ask him if this is an example of the way in which this Government forwards the cause of education in this country?

They want clarification from you.

I am bringing this matter to the attention of the correct Minister for clarification, and the hon. the Minister will clarify it but I raise this as an example of the terrible confusion which has resulted from the premature introduction of this sales tax. Sir, I use the word “premature”, but before I proceed with that, let me say this. One wonders whether higher education of university standard and the things which are needed for that education come within the definition of luxury goods?

It is a luxury!

Yes, perhaps university education is regarded as a luxury by the hon. the Deputy Minister. Sir, I have said that the introduction of this tax was premature, as was pointed out by the hon. member for Constantia. Furthermore, I say that it was unnecessary because the hon. the Minister is hugging to his chest his surplus of R58 million plus the R35 million which he had over from last year plus his credit in his Loan Fund of R28 million. In addition to all that he has some R341 million in his Stabilization Fund, making a total, I understand, of something like R457.9 million. Sir, these figures have been mentioned before during the course of this debate, but hon. gentlemen on the other side who lavish such praise on this 3udget seem to have forgotten them or they do not seem to have heard of them. The hon. member for Marico said that this Budget was like a spring flower. Sir, what sort of spring flower is it if we are taxed, not on luxuries, with this so-called sales tax which is in effect a purchase tax, and which in many cases is a tax on production, raising production costs. What sort of spring flower is that for the people of this country?

The hon. member for Christiana wanted to know what taxes the farmer was going to have to pay under this sales tax which would adversely affect him? I want to mention to the hon. member just a few of the taxes that either the farmer or his employee will have to pay. Either he or his employees will have to pay the tax on a formidable list of articles. Just let us go through them. I say that either he or his employees will have to pay and I will come back later to this question of his employees. Either he or his employees will have to pay these taxes which are either going to push up the cost of living of the employee or are going to push up the production costs of the farmer, the primary producer, which will lead to a squeeze on his profit margin. Let me set out these items—

There is a long list of items on which a 10 per cent tax will have to be paid. Are hon. members on the other side going to tell me that these are not production requisites as far as the maintenance of their farm buildings is concerned? The next group of items I want to mention includes disinfectants, insecticides, and this includes articles like dips, fungicides and weed killers. These are articles which are in ever increasing use on our arable farming lands. The hon. member for Christiana I believe, represents a maize-growing area. Are weed killers not used in his constituency? Is this not going to push up the production costs of the product?

I said that there were excesses.

Now the hon. member says there are one or two. Rat poisons are another item mentioned under this group. Sales duty will be levied on these items when packed for sale by retail. In other words, the man who can only buy retail, the small operator, has to pay the tax, namely 10 per cent. But the man who can buy these items wholesale, namely the big user—and this lends point to what the hon. member for Constantia said on the very first day of this Budget debate, namely that this is a rich man’s budget—escapes this tax. I would like to give the hon. member for Christiana a few more examples. One of them was also mentioned by the hon. member for Marico when he said that rubber was one of the items he would not really have liked to have had taxed. This group of items include new and retreaded or reconditioned rubber tyres, tyre cases, interchangeable tyre treads, inner tubes and tyre flaps for wheels of all kinds …

Tractor tyres are excluded.

Yes, they are excluded but it does not exclude motor car tyres, light truck tyres or lorry tyres. I would like to know of the farmer in this country to-day who does not convey his products to market by means of some tyred vehicle or another.

How many does a person use in a year? Only one or two.

Look at the rate of tax on these items. Is there any business in this country in which a motor car is not a luxury but a production requirement for that business. There is certainly no farmer to-day whose motor car is not a production requirement.

Does he buy a new one every year?

Of course they do not buy a new one every year. The choice is given to the consumer by the hon. the Minister. I want to ask the hon. member what will happen if he should have a blow-out. Will he first think whether he really needs a new tyre or not? This is also the answer to his question. These items are necessities and production requirements and the tax the hon. the Minister is going to impose, plus all the markups the trader is going to put on, is going to push up the production costs all along the line.

Let us not stop at this but let us go a little bit further. Items like matches, tarpaulins, sails, tyre pumps, furniture and bedding are also included in this list of items. It appears that some of the members on the other side have not read this. Many of the things I have just mentioned now are bought by many of our non-European labourers. The hon. member for Newton Park was absolutely correct and justified in asking what was in this Budget for the farmer. The hon. member for Christiana tried to pour cold water on the speech of the hon. member for Newton Park. He came with the story about the drought again and that the farmers were very thankful for the levelling of income-tax last year, but who in this House have pleaded year after year for the levelling of that income-tax, if it was not hon. members on this side of the House.

Shame!

The hon. gentleman says “shame”, but this is so. For years hon. members on this side of the House have asked for the levelling of income-tax.

I now want to come to one particular aspect of the Budget where I would like to ask the hon. the Minister for certain clarifications. The hon. the Minister has provided in the Budget for an amount of R240,000 for assistance to pineapple producers. In his Budget speech he said as follows:

There are many questions that producers are asking and I would be grateful if the hon. the Minister could clear some of them up. I want to say that the producers are grateful for these concessions. When a person is in deep water and a line is thrown to him he is grateful. This was the position of the pineapple producers. I want to ask the hon. the Minister first of all, because I cannot find it in the Estimates, through which department this money is going to be paid.

Through the Minister of Agriculture.

If these moneys are going to be paid through the Minister of Agriculture I take it that it is not compensation for devaluation losses. Is this correct?

There was no exportation of canned pineapples by farmers. The factories were compensated for their losses.

The hon. the Minister says that the factories were compensated for devaluation losses. The factories received R6.86 per ton and many factories say that their losses were very much more than that. But what happened to the producer? What happened to him during the 17 months since devaluation? He was paid R2 per ton less for his pineapples by those same factories and this, in effect, was his devaluation loss.

There was a price agreement before the farmers suffered devaluation losses.

Some of the price agreements expired after devaluation, but as soon as the new price agreements were made the price came down by R2 per ton because of devaluation. The hon. the Minister of Agriculture cannot argue around this one, because this is what happened. The loss to the producer was R2 per ton. The hon. gentleman says this is not a devaluation loss. If he is going to say that and that this is assistance to ensure the future of the pineapple producers based on past production, then I am going to repeat the charge I made during the Part Appropriation Debate, namely that the hon. the Minister of Finance has not kept faith with the pineapple producers. I say this if it is not a devaluation compensation. [Interjections.]

The hon. Minister of Agriculture again says that it is not a devaluation compensation.

The factories were compensated for their devaluation losses.

The hon. the Minister now implies that only the factories suffered losses. The facts are that the producers received R2 per ton less for their product as a result of devaluation because the factories could not pay them more.

That was before devaluation.

No, I am sorry. The hon. the Minister cannot argue that it was before devaluation because it was not. The prices were reduced subsequent to that and they lost R2 per ton. The pineapple producers are going to be interested to hear that the hon. the Minister of Agriculture says this is not to compensate them for devaluation losses.

They know it; we told them.

Yes, the hon. the Deputy Minister told them in this House before. At that time I accused the Government of not keeping faith with the pineapple producers and not keeping the promises which the hon. the Minister of Finance made at the time of devaluation 17 months ago. It now appears that this Government still has no intention of keeping that promise of recompensing producers for devaluation losses.

I want to say this to the hon. the Minister. This is an industry which is worth keeping going, and I want to quote from a Press statement which apparently comes from a memorandum which has been presented to the Government. It is an industry which brings in R7,400,000 per year in foreign exchange. I quote from the report—

If we take the total as 15,000 and if we take the average figure of five to a family that means that about 75,000 people altogether, inclusive of dependants, are dependent on that industry. It is a higher figure than what I have given before in the House. I quote further—

I say to the hon. the Minister this is an industry which needs to be kept going in the interests of the country, and if it can be kept going a bit longer these people are trying to solve their own problems among themselves. The canners and the growers are getting together, and with a certain amount of extra-Government assistance—and I am speaking about over and above this R2—to give them more time for a year or so, they will be able to rationalize the industry. I hope that when these people come to the hon. the Minister in future with requests, that he will not only receive them sympathetically but that he will do something of value over and above this R2 in order to put the industry on a sound footing again.

In the couple of minutes left at my disposal I want to revert to what this Budget is going to do as regards farm labour. I have quoted enough out of this schedule which we were given to show that there is a large range of articles where the farm labourers are going to have to pay more for what are more or less every-day necessities of life. It means that we as farmers will have to increase the wages of those farm labourers in order to enable them to cope with the increasing cost of living. This will be necessary. This is all the more reason that we should have efficiency in our farm labour. I am glad the hon. the Deputy Minister is here, because I want to put the question to him that has been put to him so often from this side of the House, namely why will the Government not train Bantu farm labour for use on European farms?

In white areas?

Will the Government train them in the Bantu areas for use on European farms?

We have been training them all along.

I do not have the Hansard reference with me, but last year that hon. gentleman said, “That we will never do”. He said he would never do that. I am very grateful to hear that he has changed his mind. As an hon. member says here, he has done a complete somersault. I specifically put the question to the hon. gentleman last year, “Will you train them in their own areas for employment in the white areas?”, and he said “No”. I am very grateful to hear that to-day because the Government’s policy as regards border industries is one of taking the factories to the people and not the people to the factories. As far as agricultural production is concerned, it is physically impossible to do this. The factory is our farm, and we cannot take our farms to the borders of the Bantustan.

Unless we are condemned to cope forever with a migrant labour force on our farms the Government must do two things. One is to train those people so that they can become efficient farm labourers and the other is to ensure that they can stay there without them having to remove themselves to the Bantustans every year.

I say this Budget has forced up production costs for the farmer, and it is going to continue to do that. I want to repeat the point made by the hon. member for Newton Park, namely that the farmer is a producer who cannot pass on production costs to the consumer. In the case of many other industries it is a question of mark-ups along the line, but the farmer can only do this, particularly in the case of controlled products, after there has been an annual price review, after a year has elapsed and he can persuade the hon. the Minister not merely that his costs have risen but that he is justified to have a price increase and that he can get beyond that hon. the Minister of Agriculture and actually get that price.

To how many commodities does that apply?

It does not matter. It applies to some of the most important commodities, including the mealie price. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, I like to listen to the hon. member for Albany, especially when he is speaking about agricultural matters. At the beginning of his speech this afternoon he touched lightly on the tax problems experienced by ballotees undergoing training; then he said something about the problems of education, and after that he switched to agricultural matters.

In respect of this Budget the hon. member used the words “fiscal fiasco”. He said that it was a fiscal fiasco. I regard the hon. member as an authority in the field of agriculture, but I regard this as an outrageous statement for him to have made. A few years ago the hon. the Minister made a tax concession, i.e. the levelling down of farming revenue for tax purposes. We all know that the farming industry is subject to seasonal fluctuations, that in certain years there are losses and in others tremendous profits. The hon. the Minister then introduced the levelling system, which means the equalization of income over a period to grant relief from heavy taxation having to be paid in one specific year when profits are large. Now the hon. member has said, pinning a medal on his own chest, that he had pleaded for the concession. I may tell the hon. member that the Government is well aware of the farmers’ tax problems. This Budget affects the progressive farmer very favourably as far as his tax is concerned. What he obtains by way of the decrease of direct taxation will entail a greater saving for him than what he has to pay in purchase tax on certain articles which he needs, articles as specified in this list. There are certain articles, which the hon. member mentioned there, such as insecticides, dipping fluids, etc., which may have a certain effect on the cost structure of farming. But in his Budget speech the Minister made it very clear that he contemplated assuming certain powers in the course of the financial year concerned in order to introduce certain changes in respect of the purchase tax of the different articles.

But will he do so?

I believe that the Minister will do so, because I shall not be told that there is a single United Party member on that side of the House who can determine exactly what the result of this purchase tax will be on the various economic sectors, for example agriculture. It is not something which one can pre-determine. The fact is that this is a new system of taxation. For me the great advantage in purchase tax lies in the fact that the Minister thereby obtains certain manoeuvrable powers to enable him to transfer the tax to the various sectors in accordance with their abilities to contribute taxes. This is something we never had in our previous system of taxation. Here a tax law is being formulated for the space of one year. In the field of taxation one is, to use an English expression, placed in a straitjacket. The present proposed type of taxation allows for manoeuvrability and fluidity.

The hon. member for Newton Park once more described the so-called poor condition of the agricultural industry in South Africa, as he saw it. This is also the second leg of the Opposition’s amendment. Let us now look at agriculture in general. It is a large and complex industry for many obvious reasons. It is therefore probably very easy to take certain facets of agriculture, to quote certain people and thereby to make out a case claiming that agriculture in South Africa is in a very bad way. It can be done. But let us look at the whole picture of agriculture in South Africa. According to the report of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Marketing, there has, over the past seven years, been an increase of 5 per cent in the physical volume of agricultural products, notwithstanding the 1966 drought, which was one of the worst droughts in the history of South Africa. But now it is very interesting to see what the position was when the United Party was still in power. I have here a White Paper on agriculture in the year 1945-’46 issued by the Prime Minister’s Department. Herein the shortcomings of farming and their causes are mentioned. It reads as follows (translation)—

Mr. Speaker, I have said that notwithstanding drought conditions, we have had an average increase over seven years of 5 per cent in physical volume. That is to say, in contrast to the period of the United Party Government we have, even in these circumstances, had no production problems. On the contrary, we are to-day experiencing problems with agricultural product surpluses. Then hon. members say that agriculture is in a precarious position.

What car did you drive in 1945?

The living standards of farmers have also increased. I do not know whether the hon. member still wants us to drive around in donkey carts and in horse-drawn carts and wear patched trousers.

But let us go further. Let us look at the position of the price structure of agriculture under this Government’s rule. This is very important if one wants to appreciate the position of agriculture as a whole. Let us look at the White Paper which was tabled in connection with this Budget. On page 25 the graphs are very clearly depicted for the relationship between the agricultural producers’ prices, and the prices of farming requisites. The White Paper reads as follows—

That is a low punch.

Let us give agriculture its due. There was a period when we experienced cost pincer position in agriculture. But specifically as a result of this Government’s price policy, and its control boards, price stability was created in agriculture under the present hon. Minister of Agriculture, which brought about a gradual but progressive price increase in the entire price structure. We want to give the Minister every credit for that. Consequently there is a constant increase in prices, which is increasing progressively more rapidly than the cost of farming requisites.

But let us take another look at what the position was under the United Party regime. They always boast that they introduced the Marketing Act in South Africa. What did their policy state?—

It went on to say—

In other words, the Opposition used the control boards for the control of shortages that existed in agriculture at that time, at the consumer, instead of using them more positively to establish a better price structure and balance.

If we look at the financing sources of our agriculture, ample provision is made for the farmer in South Africa who wants to make use of them. We are not speaking about catastrophic periods, such as droughts, etc. Let us look at the Land Bank. The Land Bank is one of the best financing sources for the farmer to-day. There is hardly a field in which the Land Bank cannot supply the farmer with production means and capital to-day. He can even be supplied with production credit by means of the agricultural corporations; because the majority of the co-operative associations are held in very high repute by the Land Bank. Corporations which function efficiently can make sufficient funds available, by means of the Land Bank, to its members in the form of production credit, such as fertilizers and other farming requisites.

If we look at these interest rates, we shall find them to be even lower than those of the open market outside, for example the rates of commercial banks. According to the Steenkamp report about co-operative matters it is about 1 to 1½ per cent lower than that on the open market. There are thus sufficient financing sources from which efficient production can be effected. Where does our solution lie? If we must look at agriculture in the future, we do not have a production problem in South Africa. This is very clear from the reports which have been submitted. However, I want to emphasize that this industry in which a large diversity of people have an interest, is a large one. Has a position not developed in South Africa—I say this with all due respect and reverence—where certain people practicing agriculture have not kept abreast of scientific developments? Just as in other sectors, technological development has also taken place in the agricultural industry. This has created certain problems for people. They simply could not keep abreast. I want to state that I believe that our greatest problem in respect of certain persons practicing agriculture, if one can call it a problem, is an administrative one. At a later stage an administrative problem inevitably develops into an economic one. It is a very simple matter to single out certain farmers in certain branches of industry and to say that they are going to the dogs. One can do so and broadcast the fact, claiming the situation in agriculture to be critical.

This is precisely what you are doing by stating that there is an administrative shortage.

We can place agriculture on a sound footing. I also believe that a healthy climate exists for the progressive farmer to make a success of the agricultural industry. However, we shall have to face up to certain things. We will have to rationalize our extension services. We shall have to co-ordinate them. The Department of Agricultural Technical Services is doing sufficient basic research. There are a tremendous amount of facts and research results available. They merely need to be adapted and applied in practice. What is the position to-day in this rapidly growing country of ours? Just as in all other sectors professional people are being enticed away day in and day out by the profit trade, fertilizer companies and certain other companies. It is important for us to give our attention to that matter, because technological development is also important to agriculture and we also need those professional people there. I believe that with the necessary farsightedness this problem will also be solved. The farmer who has been well-trained and who is aware of technological developments acquaints himself with these and also has sufficient opportunities to do so, because sufficient farmers’ days are held by the Department of Agricultural Technical Services; all its publications are available to the farmers and they may read and study them. They can make inquiries. They are available to them and it can be done. I do not want to agree with the hon. member for Newton Park that agriculture in South Africa is in a critical condition. On the contrary. I think that even under these drought conditions our agriculture is still moving on a sound basis.

Mr. Speaker, I am in the fortunate position of being able to say that I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. member who has just resumed his seat. I think that as far as the agricultural aspect is concerned, he has performed his task well, and that he gave a particularly good reply to the hon. member for Albany. I would therefore consider it unreasonable of me to descend upon him as well. [Interjections.] He probably expected it and has consequently left the House. We regret that very much. Since he has been replied to very well, I shall simply come back to a few general matters. While listening to this debate, my summing up was that the whole discussion boiled down to a common-or-garden noconfidence debate. As far as the Opposition is concerned, there is now another theme. Instead of Bantu homelands they have now taken up finance. It is quite pleasant to have that variation in the House.

While listening to the hon. the Minister of Finance’s speech, I was struck by one aspect in particular. This was that the hon. the Minister said that, during the past fiscal year which he was reviewing, foreign capital of approximately R450 million had come into the country. Mr. Speaker, this is a colossal sum of money, and one asks oneself in the first place what that money is doing in South Africa. A portion of it probably came to seek good profits here, but by far the greater portion of that money has fled from those countries and come to seek refuge here against the dangers, the uncertainties, against devaluation and depreciation, which is taking place in those countries. That money has come in search of a country with a strong government at the helm. I am sure that if we were to go to the investors who despatched the money we would find in them an inward desire for a strong government as well. Otherwise they could never have sent their valuable possessions to South Africa. If one now looks at that one must surely think back a little because our political memories are surely not so short. When this Government came into power, did we not hear from the other side of the House that the banks in this country would one day close down? The only danger I can at present foresee in this connection is that the banks will have to close their safes for want of space for all the money streaming into the country. It actually embarrasses us. The liquidity of the country is too high, sharing prices are rocketing. Hon. members opposite said that bankruptcy was to be our fate under the National Party Government, but the man who to-day says that South Africa is headed for bankruptcy is most certainly misinformed.

I also listened to the plea which they made here about manpower. It is surely very evident that a manpower shortage is one of the problems connected with prosperity, because we have so many opportunities for work that there is insufficient manpower to provide for everyone’s needs. My thoughts turn back to the past again. When this Government took over the administration of the country, they told us that it would not be long before we heard the footfalls of the unemployed, However, at present just the opposite is true. What is one to do with a previous government, an Opposition, which makes such predictions and which is exposed to such public ridicule after a few years? One can take it further. They said that the ships would not touch at our harbours and that our products would lie rotting there. You know, Mr. Speaker, every morning as I drive along De Waal Drive and see the boats queueing to enter the harbour to make use of our facilities and to load up our products, I feel an inward satisfaction; a satisfaction which I can barely express here.

I also regret that the hon. member for Durban (Point) is not in the House at the moment. I have no hesitation in saying that the hon. member for Durban (Point) has indisputable political talent, but he had to resort to buffoonery in coming to grips with this Budget. He had to tell us that our babies would be deprived of baby powder after their baths. He had to tell us that our workers, he might as well have said some of our Members of Parliament, would not have the money to pay for the razor blades which they have to use every day. He railed against the purchase tax, spread his arms and asked who on this side of the House was defending it. But I think we are all doing so. I myself in particular, specifically because, with the purchase tax, the hon. the Minister has taken up an instrument with which to wield a particularly strong influence on the future economic development and progress of this country. Let us take those sectors in our country in which there is over-spending. The first and obvious one is the motor car sector. If we go to the motor car dealers we see there scores of motor cars which could easily have given another two or three years of service. There they stand, actually bearing witness to the affluence of the owners who came to trade them in on new models. Another sector is the furniture sector. If we go to the secondhand furniture shops we are amazed at the beautiful furniture standing there which has already been traded in and is now no longer fit for everyday use. The hon. the Minister can now clamp down on that and create the position whereby less money is spent in those sectors where overspending is taking place. There are a few such sectors that we are not altogether happy about and in respect of which we can, with great confidence, recommend a lower tax levy to the Minister. One of these is in respect of motor car tyres. I should very much like to see motor car tyres included in a lower tax group. We all make use of them and they are an absolute necessity. The Minister can also stimulate sectors which are not very active by removing taxes on those sectors altogether, or by encouraging them indirectly. It is also a fact, perhaps not in the same scheme of things, that the Minister is now encouraging university students in engineering in another way. I mention this because when I was thinking of what sector of our economy or public life was now inactive, I could not come upon any example. And then I thought whether the hon. the Minister could not perhaps help the United Party and make it a little more active. This would probably be to the advantage of us all and make things very much more interesting. There we now really have an apathetic sector.

[Inaudible.]

I am glad that Oom Jan can count to four, at any rate. We are living in a young country. We are living in a country where we want its peoples’ most important possession to be initiative. The old tax system which we had actually had the great disadvantage of depriving so many of our people of this initiative. There are also farmers in my constituency—I am now referring to farmers because at this stage we are actually speaking a little about agriculture—who have said to me: “Man, I can produce a lot of wheat, but I do not do so. I just keep a few sheep because if I begin to produce wheat the Government takes all my profits anyway. That element will now be eliminated altogether. One will now joyfully be able to return to the active labour field. What he now makes he may do whatever he wants with. The Receiver of Revenue is not going to grab him by the lapels and tell him he has to pay up. He may now freely spend wherever he wants to. The advantage to us will now be that our people will work very much harder in the future. Another advantage will be that they will work harder to obtain quicker promotion. When one deprives a person, with a spirit of enterprise, of his initiative, it is not only that person whom one is restricting. He is perhaps an employer. If he extends his business he can employ many other people. It would result in one also curtailing him as far as employment is concerned as well as those particular persons who could have earned a much better wage in his service. I want to conclude by saying that while it was always said in the past that the Budget was unimaginative—we heard this ad nauseam—no one can say so this time. One of the members opposite even said that the Minister is almost a genius. I shall leave it at that. I just want to say that even though we may have had unimaginative budgets in the past, this Budget is certainly brimful of imagination, and every man who wants to be worth his salt in this country, now has no limits to what he can achieve.

I want at the outset to associate myself with the remarks made by the hon. member for Christiana. He referred to the copious rains which the country has experienced in recent weeks and particularly this week. For my part this is the first occasion on which I have been able to participate in an agricultural debate while knowing that the farmers are not suffering from drought, and we are indeed grateful for this position. But that is the only respect in which I find myself in agreement with the hon. member. One feels concerned in a debate of this nature dealing particularly with agriculture, when it is a known fact that our agricultural industry is in a serious plight, that so many members on the Government side adopt the attitude that all is well. I have struck very few farmers in Walmer that are happy about this Budget and the same applies to the many farmers with whom I am acquainted in the Graaff-Reinet, Middelburg and Cradock districts, the main farming areas. Not so long ago a conference of farmers was held there in order to discuss their problems with the Government. The Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration was in attendance there and also the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, and the hon. members for Graaff-Reinet and Cradock were also there. I regret that they have not seen fit to attend this debate so that they could tell this House and the Minister of Finance what in fact the plight of the farmers is; because I am quite sure that the story these farmers told those hon. members is a very different one from the story hon. members are trying to tell us here in this House this afternoon.

The point raised by the hon. member for Bethal is that we are opposed to this system of indirect taxation, but I think the hon. member for Constantia made it quite clear that we on this side support the idea of introducing indirect taxation, but in the initial stages it should only be on luxury items. Our main complaint is that the field over which this taxation operates is far too wide, and I think he made it quite clear that if it were imposed on luxury items only in the initial stage and we used this year as an experiment in this field, we would be doing this job in a well-planned manner. Our quarrel with the Government in regard to the Budget is entirely based on the fact that the spread of the taxation is far too wide. I wish to support the hon. member for Newton Park when he says that this purchase tax is very definitely going to affect the costs of production of the agricultural sector. The hon. member for Mossel Bay said that this new system of taxation provided the Minister of Finance with a tool whereby he could activate certain sectors of the economy which were depressed and curtail others which were possibly causing inflation. But what has this Budget done to help the agricultural sector, which after all is the most depressed sector in the whole of our economy to-day? It has done absolutely nothing to help the farmers to get back on to a sound foundation. That is our quarrel with the Government today. We are grateful for the rain, which is giving the farmers a breathing space. But I believe it should also give the Government a breathing space and give them an opportunity to face up to the problems besetting the farmers, and give them time to look again at the whole situation and to introduce a long-term policy which has the objective of putting the agricultural sector back on its feet. But obviously any long-term policy which is well thought out will involve the Government in very considerable financial obligations, far in excess of what is provided in the present Budget. All this Budget does is merely to perpetuate the ad hoc and patchwork approach which has characterized the Government’s agricultural policy in recent years. The Government has made certain concessions and the farmers are grateful for what the Government has done to assist the farmer in various ways, and through various forms of subsidy. But our complaint is that this ad hoc patchwork is quite inadequate to remedy the ills besetting the agricultural sector. I want to support very strongly the hon. member for Newton Park in his contention that the only way in which we can solve permanently the problems of the farmers is to tackle this question of the interest rate which the farmer is to-day called upon to pay on his long-term investment. In other words, the interest he has to pay on his bond has reached the stage which the farmer cannot bear. The sooner the Government appreciates this fact, the sooner they will set themselves on a course which will solve the problems of our farmers. It seems to me that the Government fails to realize that the farmer to-day is over-capitalized and over-borrowed. Previous speakers have tried to show with statistics what the position was under the United Party régime. The hon. member for Bethal tried to show that to-day agricultural production per capita far exceeds what it was in those days, but all those statistics are meaningless. The fact is that never has agriculture been in as great difficulty as at present. There is no object in trying to establish what the reasons are behind all this. The fact is that the Government has a problem on its hands and what they have to do now is to come forward with realistic solutions to put agriculture back on its feet. The one thing they have to do is to tackle the problem of the interest rate the farmer has to pay. Everything else is ad hoc and patchwork. It is the rate of interest that is causing all the trouble. Members on this side of the House have come forward with the suggestion that there should be one channel financing for the farmers, and I believe that I am voicing the opinion of members on this side when I say that the Land Bank is a fine institution which is well run and is doing a splendid job for the farmers. But our belief is that the activities of the Land Bank should be greatly extended so that every farmer who wants assistance through the Land Bank is able to get it.

Whether he has security or not?

To-day it is only those farmers who find themselves in difficulties who are able to get financial assistance from the Land Bank. The reason why the Land Bank is not able to help them to the extent it may like to is the fact that it has a shortage of funds. I believe that what the Government should do is to make funds available to the Land Bank on a large scale so that they can play a far greater role in financing the needs of agriculture, both long-term and short-term. If the Government adopts this approach and the farmer can get assistance at a reasonable rate of interest, I am quite sure the need for all the other subsidies the farmers are getting will fall away. If the farmer can get his capital at a rate of interest which the industry can bear, all the many other forms of assistance by the Government will fall away. The industry will go ahead, and farmers themselves will feel less dependent on State aid. I am sure that an approach of this kind will set the industry back on a stable footing.

Will the hon. member elaborate and tell the House whether the capital the Land Bank would require should come from the open money market or from Parliament?

The capital which is available to the Land Bank comes from many sources, but I think the Government should support it financially far more than it does at present, in the same way that funds are made available to the National Housing Commission and in various other ways. I have no doubt that if the hon. member really puts his mind to it—I believe he is a very experienced financier—he could find ways and means of doing it.

What about the Bantu Development Corporation?

Yes, they can find money for the Bantu Development Corporation and I believe that the same procedure can be adopted in this case. I am not suggesting that this should all happen at once. I realize that the total indebtedness of the agricultural sector is a far greater figure than anyone can expect the Government to finance in a year or two, but it should be a long-term plan; it should be the direction in which they start moving and I feel sure that a move in this direction will solve the problem. You see, Sir, we are confronted with a very serious situation in South Africa. I have raised this point before.

While the farmers are in this difficult position in which they are—and there is no denying that this is the position—they are not able to devote their attention to the question of getting soil erosion, which is such a serious thing in this country, under control. They are simply not in a position to undertake these works which are absolutely necessary at this stage, and that is another reason why I believe that it is very urgently necessary for the Government to take steps to help the farmer to get into a position in which he is able to undertake those soil erosion works which are so important. Sir, you very often come across people with completely wrong conceptions about this question of soil erosion. Many city dwellers believe that the soil erosion that we have in South Africa to-day has been created by the present generation of farmers who are on the land. Sir, that is not so. Soil erosion started when farming first started in South Africa, and what the present generation of farmers is concerned with is the cumulated effect of soil erosion over three or four centuries. I believe that it is grossly unfair to expect the present generation of farmers to tackle these problems without adequate Government assistance. We therefore look forward to the amendment of the Soil Conservation Act to see in what way the Government is going to improve matters in so far as assistance to farmers is concerned. But I want to make one suggestion this afternoon whereby I believe this question of soil conservation can be greatly stimulated. I have said here before that the gap seems to be widening between the number of approved works and the number not completed, as indicated in the last agricultural report. I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister of Agriculture that he should devise a system whereby the Government provides the plant and machinery to undertake soil conservation works; that he should provide such equipment for every two or three magisterial districts; that he should place in charge of that necessary equipment a qualified engineer and qualified soil conservation technicians; that that plant should then systematically tackle all the more serious soil erosion problems within those three districts, and that this job of soil conservation should be tackled on a national basis in three or five or ten districts at a time. Sir, the problem today is that the farmer does not have the finance to do it and the work is not getting done. I believe that through this method the job will be done; that it will be effectively done and that it will eliminate much of the present delay.

What do you include in the idea of soil conservation?

Well, soil conservation is (a) to protect the pastures and (b) to assist in their protection by creating earth banks and weirs, etc., that can assist the natural growth to rehabilitate itself; so it is a two-pronged attack on soil erosion, involving both biological methods of control and also mechanical methods of control. I believe that the farmers themselves will deal with the biological methods, but I am suggesting to the hon. the Minister that he should introduce these methods in order to get the mechanical control methods going; they are the methods that the farmer cannot afford at the present time.

Sir, I want to conclude by re-emphasizing that the basic problem of the agricultural sector is this question of the interest rate. I believe that the farmers in the country are bitterly disappointed in this Budget in that there is no indication at this stage that the Government is in fact grappling with this problem. The farmers know, and I am sure the Government knows, that this is the only proper course to adopt. You see, Sir, we have had the Marais Commission’s interim report which dealt with soil conservation and veld rehabilitation, but we have not had the report which deals with financial measures. This commission has been investigating these problems for three years, and there is still no sign of the report. I think we are entitled to ask the Government when they expect this report to be Tabled and whether, when it is Tabled the Government is going to accept the recommendations which are made therein and whether we can expect a revolutionary approach to this question.

Are you prepared at this stage to say that you will accept their recommendations?

You always expect us to do so.

I will put my question to the hon. the Minister of Agriculture in a different way. In this particular Budget that we are discussing to-day there is no revolutionary change in respect of the financing of agriculture, although I feel sure that the Government realizes that the time has arrived when there should be a change. Is the Government in fact waiting for this report to be Tabled, and will the Minister of Agriculture assure me that when it is Tabled we can then possibly expect a new approach by the Government? I think the farmers are entitled to know this. The farmers are asking us why the Government is doing nothing about this. We might say that they are awaiting the report of the Marais Commission …

Are you prepared, before you have seen their recommendations, to say that you will accept them?

No, I am not prepared to say that. At any rate, we do hope that when this report is tabled we can optimistically look forward to a change in the Government’s attitude to this question of helping agriculture back onto its feet.

Mr. Speaker, before I follow up what the hon. member for Walmer said, allow me to say to the Minister that my voters are very grateful for the Budget. The message I have to give him is that it is nobler to give than to take.

Sir, at times it is rather worthwhile to listen to the hon. member for Walmer who has just sat down. I was particularly interested in what he recently said at Uitenhage—

And he went on to say—

After all, Mr. Speaker, to perform a heart transplant is nothing. But that is not what the hon. members opposite need. What they need is a brain transplant, but how can that be done? One can substitute something for something else; one can substitute a new heart for an old weak heart, but if there is no brain, that cannot be substituted. Sir, what I find so remarkable about this debate, is the following: There sits the hon. member for Walmer and there sits the hon. member for Newton Park. Like myself, these two hon. members represent urban constituencies. We are representatives of Port Elizabeth, and since I have been a member of this House those two members have not once taken up the cudgels for their voters. To-day I sat here and listened to the hon. member for Newton Park, and I thought that he, after his recent volcanic eruption in Port Elizabeth, would plead for his voters, but he was as mute as the grave. I listened to his speech with great care and if I had to give a summary of what he said about farming, I would do so by saying that his only contention was that the farmers were a povertystricken, sad, indigent lot of people who were dependent on the State. This is how he acted here. He simply overlooked the fact that there are also farmers who are credit-worthy, who are well provided with capital; that there are also farmers who do pay income tax. He overlooked the fact that there is a prosperous farming community as well; that there are farmers who are living in modern houses, who have luxury cars and who go overseas. But if one listens to the hon. member for Newton Park, one would swear that the farmers are a poverty-stricken, sad and indigent section of the population of South Africa.

That is an insult to them.

We admit that some of our farmers are going through difficult times, but this is so as a result of drought conditions. No Government can prevent droughts. What happens when that hon. member is in Port Elizabeth? He appears on political platforms there and, apart from the racial hatred he incites, he tells the people that this Government is a Government of the farmers; that it is spoonfeeding the farmers.

Who says that?

He then tells his voters in Port Elizabeth how this Government is spoiling and spoonfeeding the farmers, and how the farmers are getting everything for nothing. Why did he not deliver a plea here this afternoon for the prosperity of his voters? Neither he nor the hon. member for Walmer did so. When the hon. member for Walmer gets up he talks about Frisian cattle! Here the hon. member for Newton Park sits. I must honestly say that if the farmers had to depend on the hon. member for Newton Park, all of them would most definitely go bankrupt. Last year during the no-confidence debate the hon. member delivered his maiden speech on Railways. That was the first time he realized he also had railway workers in his constituency. And do you know what, Sir? That was the worst maiden speech ever made in this House, because how much knowledge does he have about the Railways? The only thing he knows about the Railways is that there is a small station called Merriman near Richmond. That is all he knows about the Railways. Why does the hon. member for Newton Park not confine himself to the current issues concerning Port Elizabeth? Surely that is why we have been sent here. What are these current issues in respect of which we should deliver pleas here?

A new station.

No, he was as mute as the grave. The hon. member did not deliver a single plea in respect of a current issue such as housing, and in spite of that being so he issued a challenge to me.

As a farmer he does very well for himself.

The hon. member issued a challenge to me because I had accompanied Mr. Niemand, the Secretary for Community Development, on an inspection tour he had arranged at the request of the Port Elizabeth City Council. I had requested sub-economic housing and economic housing for the lower income groups in my constituency. The Secretary notified me that he would visit my constituency, and at the same time the mayor invited me to dine with him and the Secretary, and Sir, do you know what happened? The hon. member made the following attack—

I called these meetings. The hon. member for Newton Park went on to say—

Just imagine, Mr. Speaker, I go to my constituency in the interests of my voters; I plead for housing for them; we go on an inspection tour to see where the houses should be built, and, upon my word, here a green member of the United Party comes along … [Laughter]. Here a green member of the United Party comes along and takes it amiss of me for not having invited him. Am I under any moral obligation to invite Opposition members when I undertake an inspection tour in the interests of my own constituency? Mr. Speaker, have you ever come across such audacity? Surely, my own voters would murder me if I were to arrive there in the company of a member of the United Party! However, this is not all. I know why the hon. member wanted to accompany me. He does not know what Port Elizabeth looks like. When the hon. member puts in one of his rare appearances in Port Elizabeth, he needs a guide to take him around. The hon. member thought that this inspection tour would have been a good opportunity to have had a guide who could have showed him the inside of Port Elizabeth. Because the hon. member could not have his way, as I did not invite him, he and the hon. member for Newton Park went further and issued a challenge to me.

But you have an enlightened Opposition …

Oh, please, we are not taking any notice of the hon. member for Yeoville now. He knows the people of South Africa do not take him into account.

What I wanted to say is that the hon. member issued a challenge to the hon. members for Algoa and Port Elizabeth (Central) as well, and said he wanted to appear with us on one political platform in the City Hall of Port Elizabeth in order to discuss the housing problems in Port Elizabeth. We then gave him the opportunity of doing so. However, during the debate he did not say one single word about housing, because he does not know anything about housing. The fact of the matter is that as yet the hon. members for Walmer and Newton Park have never taken up the cudgels for the lower income group of Port Elizabeth to plead for better housing for them. [Interjections.] Here the hon. member has had the opportunity of doing so, but instead of having done so he pleaded for the agricultural industry.

Let him have it, Oom Fanie!

They have no knowledge of the sums of money involved. They do not know that it is not the primary duty of the Government or of the Department of Community Development to build houses. In terms of the Act of 1966 it is the duty of the muncipalities to provide the lower income groups with houses. The Government merely acts in a secondary and supplementary capacity. Why does the Opposition never talk about housing and why does it never plead for houses? It is because the Port Elizabeth City Council is being governed by their political associates. If hon. members for those constituencies get up here to plead for housing, they clash with that liberalistic section that rules the Port Elizabeth City Council. I want to ask the hon. member to tell this House how much money was made available to Port Elizabeth by the Department of Community Development. It made R11 million, of which amount R4 million was used, available to the Municipality of Port Elizabeth. The total amount made available to Port Elizabeth was R17.6 million, of which amount R13.1 million was used. Therefore, if the hon. member wants to debate housing in the City Hall, here or anywhere else, he must come along with me and ask his liberalistic City Council, his political associates, why they do not use that money to build houses for the underprivileged people in Port Elizabeth. The Department of Community Development, however, acts in a supplementary capacity. In this case too it acted in a supplementary capacity and built houses for Whites and Indians in Port Elizabeth at a cost of R5½ million and R300,000, respectively. Now I also want to say that, although all former governing parties in South Africa have always been sympathetic towards the question of housing, phenomenal progress has been made in this field, especially during the past 15 years of National Party rule. Out of a total amount of R490,288,000 voted by South African Governments from 1920 to 31st May, 1963, for a total of 397 housing schemes, the National Party made no less than R313,000,000 available during the past 15 years. Now I want to tell the hon. member that he may well plead for housing in this House, because he has the opportunity to do so.

However, this is not all. I have not yet finished with the hon. members for Walmer and Newton Park—on the contrary, I am now coming back to them. Hon. members will recall what happened last year on 1st September when that terrible catastrophe hit Port Elizabeth.

Yes.

Within three hours 22 inches of rain fell. Because this Government knows that it is nobler to give than to take, it made R1 million available to those people. In that time of crisis we saw teamwork in Port Elizabeth; teamwork with the mayor at the head. The heads of the various Government Departments, the Police, the Fire Brigade, the Red Cross and the Department of Social Welfare all rendered assistance. Those people carried on teamwork operations and at their side were the National Party members of Parliament, the member for Algoa, the member for Port Elizabeth (Central) and the member for Port Elizabeth (North). [Interjections.] Where were the two hon. United Party members? What did they do? They launched an attack in the Press under the heading “Nat politicians accused of negligence after floods”. My dear friends, during the flood, while the fight was on we were, like a good general, with our men in that fight. Now they want to know where we were after the fight. [Laughter.] Is it not an outrageous scandal that one should want to make political capital out of the sufferings of our people there. Let me read the rest of that newspaper report:

The one hon. member was holidaying on his farm, the other hon. member was holidaying in Cape Town, while my colleagues and I had to do their work. This is how things go year in and year out in Port Elizabeth. The one member sits in Graaff-Reinet, the other in Richmond, and we three National Party colleagues have to do their work. They simply come to look for votes every five years. [Interjections.] Where is this leading to? The power of Nationalism is beginning to show itself. We have three seats in Port Elizabeth and we are going to storm the other two as well. Now I just want to ask hon. members of the Opposition, who maintain from day to day that the National Party is on the decline, to listen to what the Evening Post of 29th March wrote under the heading “U.P. Big Guns for P.E. Elections”—

At the Provincial Council election their candidate was returned unopposed. Last year they took the seat with an enormous majority. Now, however, it is a different matter. We have not even started our attack and already the Leader of the Opposition proceeds there to see whether the seat cannot be retained for them. The newspaper report goes on to say—

When the South African nation is occupied with serious matters supporters of the United Party are dancing. [Laughter.] The report goes on, and hon. members opposite will be well advised to pay attention, because this is very interesting—

However, the United Party does not have good attendances at their meetings. What is very unusual to me is that there is such a strange link between these things. When I think of The hon. member, Dr. Jacobs, and of the hon. Leader of the Opposition, Sir De Villiers Graaff, I involuntarily think back to something in the past. While the late Field-marshal Smuts was winning the war, the late Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr was undermining him here in South Africa. Wherever one went in Port Elizabeth he was enforcing equality. Whenever one met Coloured voters and asked them for what party they voted, they answered: The “Russian Party.” [Interjections.] The United Party was communistically orientated as long ago as 1948, communistically orientated to such an extent that they had champions of Communism in their ranks. Do hon. members want to deny this? While Adv. Strauss was overseas, the same thing happened. He was undermined by the present Leader of the Opposition! And now the Leader of the Opposition is being undermined by the hon. member who is behind him on the Opposition benches, the hon. member for Hillbrow! Here in South Africa we are going to find that history will repeat itself.

Where I have been talking of the flood, I just want to say that at the next election the Opposition will be drowning men in the flood of Nationalism which will engulf them.

Mr. Speaker, it is probably very interesting to listen to public opinion, but we never get to hear about much of it. One cannot but enjoy doing so.

I represent a constituency which is faced with many problems. My entire constituency has been declared a drought stricken area in the past three years, with the exception of a few quarters. I should like to express a few ideas here, specifically in regard to the practical implementation of assistance to our farmers, something which is not always brought to the attention of hon. members. However, before I come to that, I want to mention that in the past four sessions during which I have represented that constituency, I have heard how the arguments raised by hon. Opposition members have on every occasion been refuted by hon. members on this side of the House. They are refuted by proven facts and by comparison with the record of the hon. members opposite.

Mr. Speaker, I have remarked that the speeches of hon. members on the opposite side of the House have progressively been more devoid of content. We know why this is so. Why did we have such a short introductory speech to-day about agriculture by the hon. member for Newton Park? I thought that he would speak for another hour, but he did not utilize his full time. Why did he not do so? Because the entire country has had rains by this time and because the farmers’ financial position is going to change.

Ask your brother.

Mr. Speaker, I know what I am talking about because I do not represent an urban area, I represent farmers.

The droughts are being exploited in a way which makes one ashamed for the hon. Opposition. The other day I heard—it was something that was said in a way I should not have adopted—that the general opinion is that the Opposition is not praying for rain at present, but for a drought so that the farmers would be hard-pressed and the Opposition be afforded a means with which to attack the Government.

That is a scandalous remark!

However, I do not want to say so, but I think that they often regret the prosperity of the farmers because they cannot succeed in using propaganda in connection with the circumstances in which the farmers find themselves. I disapprove of it and am saying it so that people may know that it is scandalous to exploit drought conditions for political gain.

We know that in the present circumstances the farmers are experiencing difficulties, but I also notice that they are gradually recovering financially. To-day we have heard the hon. members of the Opposition blowing hot and cold. Yesterday when an hon. member mentioned a man with an income of R2,000 a year, this man was, according to them, a rich man. However, to-day when mention was made here of the income of a farmer which was judged at between R5,000 and R10,000 he was described as a poor man. I want to claim that the farmers are experiencing difficulties, but things are not as bad as the hon. Opposition would have people believe from one platform to another.

The farmers’ problems have three basic causes. The first is the drought and the second is that at least 65 per cent of our farmers have paid too much for their land. The third is that uneconomic units have brought our farming to such a pass that we can no longer make the profits that we made on larger economic units. If the hon. members of the Opposition come along with the propaganda that there were 125,000 farmers under their Government as against 105,000 under the present Government, is it not logical that the policy we are striving towards each day and which the Opposition would also like to implement. is being carried out? Must uneconomic units not be converted into economic ones? If this policy is being carried out. then surely the numbers of farmers must decrease. In the irrigation areas of my constituency, an area 90 miles in extent, we have recently increased the economic units of 65 per cent of those farmers. This means, does it not, that the number of farmers must decrease and it is surely heartening to know that the remaining farmers are farmers who are economically stronger than before. The Opposition merely let matters run their course and did not try to prevent uneconomic units from developing. I regret that the hon. member for Gardens is not here, because I want him to know what I am talking about. He will probably not be able to contradict me, but I should like him to hear what I am talking about because he is an extensive farmer in my constituency. Let us now look at the assistance which the Government gives to the farmers. My constituency was the district most severely subjected to drought conditions in the Northern Cape and I want to use those farms in the particular district within my constituency as examples here. There are 422 farms within that district, of which only 29 are farms of under 1,000 morgen. They are Karoo farms, and does the hon. member want to tell me that under present circumstances a Karoo farm of 1,000 morgen can afford a livelihood to a farmer with a family?

Under your policy a farmer will need more and more land!

No, Mr. Speaker, I can prove that the State has rendered assistance to those farmers. I shall demonstrate to that member and to the member for Gardens, who is well acquainted with my constituency, that financial assistance and mortgages were even obtained on land inhabited by what are regarded as small farmers. In the country districts to-day it is being propagated that the State is not prepared to help the small farmers; I may just say that it is not true and I want to prove this. Of these 422 farms in my constituency, 67 are less than 2,000 morgen in extent. In this district there are also farms which have recently been converted into more economic units by purchases. When farmers make purchases of land the number of farmers must necessarily decrease because those farmers are of necessity placed in a better financial position and on larger economic units. This is the Government’s policy and it is a policy which is being implemented daily. Of the number of farms in that district, there are also 66 of less than 3,000 morgen in extent. This situation developed during the time of the United Party Government, and they did nothing about it. However, to-day they blame the National Party for it. The solution has only been a recent one in as much as the Government has been doing everything in its power to rehabilitate these people economically. It is once more possible for these farmers to obtain larger economic units and a great deal of help has been afforded them, as much as possible in fact. We know that droughts cause misery, and when they occur they destroy everything. It is no use being rich or well-endowed, it does not matter whether you are clever or not, or how much you possess, if a drought is a lengthy one it destroys every farmer. The Government did everything in its power to help as far as it could. Let us look at what is done in practice. I now want that hon. member opposite to listen to what I am saying, because I know that he holds meetings in my area and then different stories are told to the people. They then tell of the farmers making hundreds and thousands of applications, but receive no assistance. I now want to furnish certain particulars and hon. members opposite can look them up and see whether I am speaking the truth or not. I should like to maintain my honesty as we all would. In the particular district which I mentioned, where the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens is farming two out of every three applications for the purchase of land were approved. 100 per cent of the applications for soil conservation assistance received grants. All farmers who applied for assistance in the purchase of livestock received it. In the same district two out of every three requests for the consolidation of debts were approved.

How many applications were there? There could only have been two or three.

The question is not how many requests there were. Assistance is given according to the needs of the people in that particular area. 362 applications for fodder loans were made and 362 of them were approved. We are all old farmers and we have also been through years of hardship. When have farmers ever submitted so many successful applications for assistance as has been the case under this Government and this hon. Minister? In this district alone over the past 2½ years an amount of R737,000.96 was spent to support the people there financially and to rehabilitate the farmers. It is not a constituency, it is not a large district, merely a district subject to the conditions I have described here.

What is the position of our farmers to-day? From one platform to another I hear that the farmers’ burden of debt is R1,200 million. I think that if hon. members opposite had taken a little trouble to go into the figures they would have seen that this was not so. The burden of debt is a mere R1,000 million; the balance is in respect of other debts. Twenty, and even 15 years ago, there were dilapidated farms in that vicinity, farms which were unplanned, unfenced and uncultivated. But to-day one can go down from the east right through Namaqualand, down into those parts, and every farm will be a model farm. Every irrigation scheme has its model smallholdings. A great deal of money was spent on achieving this. Farm work was done, houses were built, packing sheds erected, dams constructed, fences put up, camps established and drinking troughs erected. The farms were cultivated in such a way that they can be productive to-day. All this cost thousands upon thousands of rands. Of course, more than one farm was over-capitalized, but these costs were incurred over a number of years and will not have to be incurred each year. In the years to come those farmers will surely not have to incur those costs again. We now find ourselves in a period where we can rehabilitate, where we can pay our debts and decrease this burden. However, what troubles me is this. What have the people done who have to help us in this struggle? They have said to Barclays Bank, Standard Bank, the Land Bank, Agricultural Credit, to all the financial bodies, and to the private sector, “You must be careful what you lend and entrust to these farmers, since they are no longer creditworthy.” I say that hon. members opposite, as they sit there today, have in many respects not benefited the position of our farmers but rather prejudiced it. We are now having welcome rains and the position of our farmers is in the process of improving We know what the incomes of our farmers are from the marketing of their wool, meat and karakul pelts. That constituency where it has recently been so dry, had an income of R816,000 every two months. We know that it will take time, and we merely need time. Therefore I ask that the help given should take place on a long-term basis so that our farmers may in the course of time be ensured of stability.

I now want to conclude. I believe that this Government has done a great deal for the creation and development of our foreign markets. We are to-day marketing our products in countries which we previously considered merely as countries on the world map. We did not realize the marketing potential in those countries. The Government took positive action and assisted our farmers in marketing their products in other countries at prices which are to-day world market prices. If we can have insight into our own faults, if we can rehabilitate ourselves, we can be assured of a good livelihood in the future. I know that the high interest rate is giving cause for complaint. Hon. members on this side, as well as the hon. member for Colesberg, have already mentioned it. We welcomed the reference to it. But we on this side are not as irresponsible as the hon. Opposition. We are responsible for the general framework of South Africa. We must save our country and keep it sound. We cannot simply put up a glass door at the front; we must also construct a door at the back so that we are not without a door there. The future of our country must be ensured by this Government. I do not want to detract from the difficult circumstances in which many of our farmers find themselves to-day. However, knowing our farmers as I do, with their sound judgment and capabilities, and with the moneyed position in which we still find ourselves, we can enter the future with faith and courage, if God will merely grant us sufficient rains, as we are having at present.

Mr. Speaker, I shall begin by dealing with the hon. member for Prieska. I notice the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) is not here at the moment, and I shall therefore come to him later. I see the hon. member has just come in. I any case, the hon. member for Prieska spoke mainly about his own constituency and matters within his own constituency. He spoke about agriculture, about the conditions farmers are experiencing in that part of the world and about the subdivision of farms. I should like to say a few words about this matter. He made one statement which I really deplore, namely that this side of the House always exploits the drought. He said he heard people say that we on this side of the House will even pray for the drought to continue. This is a deplorable accusation. On several occasions this side of the House and even I have pleaded with the hon. the Minister of Finance and the hon. the Minister of Agriculture about the conditions of drought. How did we not plead! How many times did we not take deputations to see the hon. the Ministers, deputations of which we ourselves were members. We had interviews with the Ministers about matters concerning the drought, because we wanted to assist the farmers in seeing the drought through until the advent of rain, and it is raining at this very moment, something for which we are all very grateful. Why does that honourable member—I mean hon. member, but of course he is also an honourable person—say something so deplorable? Save for a few exceptions all hon. members opposite do is repeatedly attack hon. members on this side instead of speaking about the drought.

I want to deal with the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) now, but I notice that the hon. member has disappeared again. I am sorry he is not here. I have very little to say to him. [Interjections.] I sent a messenger to the hon. member a moment ago informing him that I was going to reply to what he had said. He was in the Chamber a moment ago, but he has left again. All the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) did was to reveal himself as a clown on the opposite side and make the House laugh. He attacked his colleagues on this side of the House, his colleagues who represent that city as well, the city with, what he calls, the imperialistic city council …

Liberalistic city council.

I mean liberalistic city council; all he did was to attack them all along. This is all his speech consisted of. To my mind this is equally deplorable.

I now want to deal further with a few statements made by the hon. member for Prieska. He spoke about the subdivision of land and he said that the size of farms in that part of the Karoo has dropped to below 1,000 morgen. We all want to agree that a farmer cannot make a decent living on 1,000 morgen of Karoo land unless he has a great deal of irrigation at his disposal. He went on to say that this state of affairs developed under the United Party regime. Surely this is not true. After all, it took years and generations for this state of affairs to develop. It was a question of land subdivided for heirs. Those people are slowly rehabilitating themselves now. The hon. member for Prieska would do well to tell us how many of those 420 farms in his constituency are more than 10,000 morgen in extent. He did not give us the figure, but there are many of them. There are many units which have become uneconomically large units. However, I do not want to argue on the basis of whether a unit is economic or uneconomic. I shall come back to this subject later, because I should first like to discuss with the hon. the Minister of Finance a few matters concerning the Budget itself.

The hon. member for Constantia said that as far as we on this side of the House are concerned, there is nothing wrong with having a purchase tax. A purchase tax is being applied in America, in England, as well as in many other countries. We would have given it our blessing if it had been imposed on luxury articles. We would have been satisfied had the hon. the Minister taxed furs, jewellery, tobacco, liquor and other non-essential goods. If he had a scale according to which the more expensive and luxurious articles were taxed more heavily, we would have appreciated it and we would have given him our support. But what did he do? He introduced a sales tax, a tax which is, in the first place, imposed at the point of origin, that is, either with the manufacturer or at the customs. I want to put a certain question to the hon. the Minister now, and when he replies to the debate—I believe he is going to do so on Tuesday—he can tell us how this system is going to operate. Let us take a manufacturer or a collector of articles or a person who manufactures articles consisting of various components, articles which are purchased and are subject to the respective taxation tariffs in terms of this new schedule. The article reaches the stage where it is manufactured ultimately. What portion of that finished product is subject to 10 per cent taxation, what portion is subject to 5 per cent and what portion is subject to 20 per cent taxation? And what will the proportion be? How is a manufacturer who uses various motor vehicles as well as other components which are subject to taxation, going to decide what portion of the finished product is subject to what taxation, or how is somebody else going to decide? Who is going to say what taxation he may impose for the wholesale trade?

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 23 and debate adjourned.