Mr. Speaker, as chairman of the Select Committee on the Orange River Development Project Bill, I move as an unopposed motion —

Agreed to.

When this debate was adjourned yesterday afternoon, I was explaining to the hon. the Minister of Finance that we on this side of the House did not object to a purchase tax, as we had indicated before. But I also told him that the tax he was introducing, was not a purchase tax. Sir, this Budget, as it was presented by the hon. the Minister and as printed, has two fatal shortcomings; it contains two fatal mistakes. The first is that the tax is not only being imposed on luxuries, but on virtually all necessities, including commodities which the poorest among us must buy, and I am sure that it was the hon. the Minister’s intention to tax these needy people. The second difficulty is that this tax, in its implementation, could lend itself to corruption and misunderstanding on an unprecedented scale. I stated yesterday that we on this side of the House would have had no objection if this tax had been levied on luxuries, as we presumed the Minister would do. This is what one would have expected in view of the fact that he is engaged in an experiment here. He could perhaps have collected enough in taxes by only levying a tax on those luxuries which were mentioned yesterday.

On what is that statement based?

The articles I mentioned yesterday were furs, jewellery, expensive motor cars, liquor and cigarettes. The Minister knows as well as I do that if he had only levied the tax on the latter two items, he would collect a colossal amount in taxes. After all, it was not the Minister’s intention to collect precisely R100 million; he wanted the principle of a new form of taxation to be accepted, a form which this side of the House is also prepared to accept. But then he went along and taxed furniture, refrigerators, stoves, polish, mattresses, soap, toiletries, bed linen, tyres, tubes, motor cars, station wagons, etc. Sir, these are everyday requirements for everybody. Some of these items are even being used by the indigent, and they will also have to pay tax on them. I am convinced that this was not the Minister’s intention. I think that this new system of taxation is an ill-considered system. Sir, I want to come to the second point.

Are you proposing that a higher tax should be imposed on motor cars, liquor and cigarettes?

They are luxuries, and the hon. the Minister announced that this sales duty would be a tax on luxuries and semi-luxuries. These are articles which the average person can do without. I referred to expensive motor cars, liquor, cigarettes, jewellery and furs. These are articles which need not be used by the average salaried person who earns R2,000 per year, by those who do not receive any salary or by pensioners.

Sir, yesterday I was speaking on the implementation of this sales duty. What happens when a manufacturer has to purchase parts, varnish, paint, turpentine or leather? All these things are being taxed in terms of the schedule. In certain cases the sales duty is 10 per cent and in other cases it is 20 per cent. The manufacturer has to absorb this tax in his production costs, which would then increase to that extent. How on earth can one calculate the production costs of a manufacturer who uses goods on which tax has, in the first instance, been paid at the source? He is the second man, for in his manufacturing process he uses goods on which he has already paid tax at the source, but he, in turn, is also the source of the article he manufactures. We now come to the article he has manufactured; he adds a certain amount to his production costs. It is impossible for anybody to ascertain whether the article he manufactures, includes 7 per cent of this article and 10 per cent of that article on which he has already paid tax at the source, and whether a certain percentage of the materials from which he manufactured that article is, therefore, not subject to tax. This article now goes from the manufacturer to the wholesaler, who in turn adds his margin of profit. From there it goes to the retailer, who in turn adds his margin of profit and then it eventually reaches the consumer. Suppose that an article costs R100 at the source. If the tax is 20 per cent, the price becomes R120 after the new tax has been added, i.e. when it leaves the manufacturer. From there the article goes to the wholesaler, who in turn adds 25 per cent; then it goes to the retailer, who in his turn adds 33 per cent. Has the hon. the Minister and his costing staff calculated what that article is eventually going to cost? By the time it reaches the consumer the increase is going to amount to considerably more than 10 per cent or 20 per cent. Sir, there is another consideration: There is no control over the margin of profit of the manufacturer, the wholesaler or the retailer. Each of them can push up the price at will. With a few exceptions, no control is being exercised over the percentage they may add. It may perhaps be said that healthy competition will preclude abuses, but this is not the system according to which a sales duty is being levied in most countries of the world. Sir, the hon. the Minister has travelled extensively of late. He visits America much more often than I do; he visits England and other countries. In respect of each article he purchases, he receives an invoice on which, so he will find, the price of the article is reflected and the tax is indicated by way of a percentage. If one is a tourist and one has the goods one has purchased forwarded to the airport or to the point of departure, one does not pay purchase tax. But this is not what one does in regard to the everyday purchases one makes there. One purchases one’s requirements at the shop, just as the average citizen does, and one pays the tax and receives an invoice for that purchase. If one does not receive an invoice, as is the case when a packet of cigarettes is bought, the shop assistant tells one that the price of the cigarettes is 25 cents and the tax is 1½ cents. He never states the price of that article as being 26½ cents. He always says that the price is so much and that the tax is so much: consequently it is always possible, under all circumstances, for the consumer to control the percentage of tax he pays. If the Minister were to levy in this case a tax based on a certain percentage of the purchase price of the various commodities at the point of consumption, it would have been something to which we could have lent our support, provided that he does not levy the tax on basic commodities which the poor and the indigent have to use daily. It will be extremely difficult to implement this tax. Even at this early stage people are having great difficulty in finding out how this tax is going to be implemented. The newspapers want to know how the tax is going to be implemented in respect of various commodities; there are manufacturers who are saying that they do not know how to implement this tax. They approach their M.P.s because they think that these people ought to know how the tax is going to be implemented. They ask one: “What do I do in connection with parts which I have to buy at various rates of tax and incorporate in my commodity?” I should be glad if the hon. the Minister would deal with this matter in his reply. I think the Minister will still come to the conviction that it would be worthwhile and preferable to exempt some of these items from this tax. Let us then see how the tax operates in respect of the rest of the items which remain subject to tax. In this way we may then devise a sound system.

Sir, I want to say a few words about the agricultural industry, and if anybody wants to upbraid me for being an urban representative speaking on agricultural matters, then he is welcome to do so. In this House there are many rural representatives who speak on urban matters and no offence is taken at their doing so. It is only when urban representatives speak on rural matters that they are reproached, despite the fact that they may be farmers. I am thinking of the hon. member for Walmer, for instance. When I think of the achievements the hon. member has attained and of the kind of person he is, it astonishes me that the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) has attacked him here. Incidentally, Sir, I heard here yesterday that the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) was having a huge house built for himself by Coloured labourers and contractors. I want to offer my apology in the event of my information being wrong, but that is what I heard.

May I ask a question?

This is the man who rises here and flings out reproaches in connection with housing and that sort of thing.

Sir, I shall now deal with the agricultural industry. All of us are jubilant over the very good rains we have had in most of the drought-stricken districts. We are jubilant over them because this country has not had such fine rains for a very long time. But it did not rain money. The mortgage and the interest burdens have not been lightened either, and the farmer is as subject to all these taxes which I mentioned here a moment ago, as is the city dweller. But as a rule the farmer is usually an employer as well; he has many employees, and the farmer’s labourers must all pay this tax. The result of this tax will be that the farmer’s wages account and his production costs will increase. Yesterday the hon. member for Albany mentioned here how many items such as paint, tyres, fencing, etc., had to be included in the farmer’s production costs. In addition to that, if he is a married man, he is subject to this sales duty on all the requirements for himself and his family. But most important of all is the fact that his production costs are going to rise further because he will have to pay higher wages to his labourers, who also have to pay the sales duty. In trying to analyse what the agricultural industry is receiving by way of this Budget, I do not want to attempt to determine, as the hon. member for Prieska did yesterday, the reasons why the agricultural industry is struggling. We know why the agriculturist is struggling. The hon. member mentioned two or three reasons. Of course, drought is one of the reasons. The hon. member did not mention the farmer’s interest burden and his high costs, but he said that these persons had paid too much for their land. Sir, perhaps they did. Now I want to put a direct question to the hon. member and I shall resume my seat if he wishes to reply to it. Is he of the opinion that R20 per morgen is too much for land in Prieska?

Yes, if it is not agricultural value.

But you paid it.

I heard that the hon. member had paid it very recently for land in Prieska, and I wondered how he dared to rise in this debate and criticize other people for having paid too high a price for agricultural land. If in the past they had paid too high a price for agricultural land, then this is definitely no longer the case to-day. Throughout the Karoo and the Eastern Cape we find that the price of agricultural land has, in many regions, dropped sharply.

Where have you bought land now?

The price paid for agricultural land in the past, is water under the bridge; nothing can be done about that; all we can do is to try to save these people or to help them to remain on the land. Whether we want to build up larger units and eliminate smaller units or whether we want to consolidate larger units, the fact remains that the person who has paid high prices for his large units, experiences the same problems. The agricultural industry does receive aid, and this side of the House has on many occasions expressed its gratitude for such aid. The agricultural industry receives aid by way of subsidies, rebates, loans, etc. In addition there are the Land Bank and the Agricultural Credit Board which are of assistance to farmers. These wonderful rains have now made it possible for the agricultural industry to be rehabilitated. Hon. members on this side of the House have always said that the rehabilitation of pasturage and the agricultural industry is linked with the fact that there has to be two or three good summers first. Pasturage cannot be rehabilitated unless it rains. Now we are in a position to do so, because we have had very good rains. The hon. the Minister of Agriculture is aware of the large number of deputations which came to see him, before the rains came, in connection with the rehabilitation of pasture lands and agricultural land. I do not want to level reproaches, but I only hope that the hon. the Minister will do his best now that this miracle has happened and that we have had such very good rains. We are now in a position to save and rehabilitate pasturage. I hope that the hon. the Minister will nevertheless do something at this late stage, even if he could not do so in this Budget, towards making provision for pasture lands being rested.

I have already made an announcement in this regard.

I know that an announcement has been made, but the system and the particulars of that system have not come into operation as yet. There has merely been an announcement so far, whereas there are many people who wanted to start right now.

In this Budget an additional amount of more than R3 million has been made available for the agricultural industry. I want to return to the point that was made yesterday by the hon. member for Albany. The pineapple industry forms a small part of the agricultural industry. I want to tell the hon. the Minister that, although only 18,000 tons of fresh pineapples were exported, which only represents 1 1/4 or 1½ million crates, those persons who have taken all the trouble to export the pineapples and to try to stabilize and feed the market and to make an industry out of it on the overseas market, receive a subsidy or devaluation compensation—call it what you please; I do not know what the hon. the Minister wants us to call the latter—of R2 per ton. At poor prices fresh fruit exported will net him R80 per ton, and I am asking whether this is fair towards them. When I say poor prices, I mean that farmers merely receive a profit of R1 on a crate of pineapples which they export. In other words, if he receives R3 per crate and the shipping charges and so forth have been deducted, he only receives R1 per crate. In that case he will get R80 per ton for his pineapples. Therefore, is it fair that, whereas the factories receive R6.70 or R6.80 per ton for their pineapples, the farmers only receive R2 per ton in the form of devaluation compensation or of a subsidy? I want to make the statement that R2 per ton on a commodity with a price of R80 per ton is an absurd percentage when one has regard to the fact that the devaluation was 14 per cent.

Mention was also made yesterday of what had been done for the wool industry. We are appreciative of the fact that the levy has been reduced. The hon. member for Christiana also referred to wool yesterday. I want to give him the friendly advice he gave to me a few years ago, i.e. that if I do not know enough about maize, I should not talk about it. I want to tell the hon. member that if he does not know enough about wool, he should not talk about it either. [Interjections.]

Yesterday the hon. member referred to the wonderful aid granted to brokers. Does the hon. member know what that aid amounted to? Of course, he knows that it is a loan granted by the Land Bank.

Yes. I know as much about wool as you do.

The hon. member ought to know that it is a loan by the Land Bank to the broker for which the farmer now pays 8 per cent interest where he used to pay 8½ per cent. This half per cent is a tremendous reduction. Even if it is not so tremendous, we are still grateful for it. I cannot put enough emphasis on the fact that we are now in a position to rehabilitate the agricultural industry. In a friendly way I want to put it to the hon. the Minister of Agriculture and the hon. the Minister of Finance that as a result of the abundant rains we have had throughout the country we are now in a position to rehabilitate the agricultural industry. The agricultural industry cannot rehabilitate itself with the aid it has been granted up to now. If we are prepared to spend colossal amounts and to increase them by millions of rands in one year in respect of defence, education, etc., then I maintain that the agricultural industry is, to the same extent, the backbone of the country and that it cannot under any circumstances be allowed to go under. The only time for rehabilitating the agricultural industry is after good rains. I want to make a special appeal to the hon. the Minister to rehabilitate the agricultural industry in these times while the opportunity offers itself. I am not only referring to pasturage and animal husbandry, but also to the agriculturists. We shall have to be prepared to spend money now in order to see whether something cannot be done to help farmers over a period of three or four years to get out of the plight in which they find themselves. For the reason I mentioned and as a result of the fatal mistake in the Budget, which I pointed out, it gives me pleasure to support the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Constantia.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for East London (City) intimated that he was in favour of the tax on cigarettes and wine being increased. I assume that this is also the point of view held by the United Party.

He did not say wine.

He said liquor after the hon. the Minister had asked him whether he also meant motor cars and liquor. Liquor and wine are more or less the same.

Why do you only say wine?

Fine. Then I say “liquor”. The point I want to make is that on cigarettes alone R70 million was collected in taxes last year. Am I now to tell the farmers that the United Party says that cigarettes and tobacco should be taxed still more and that this is the plea made by the United Party?

Are those not luxuries?

They are luxuries, but they are already subject to tax.

What about it?

The Minister said that this was a purchase tax which was voluntary. For instance, when I want to buy a refrigerator and I have to pay a purchase tax of 20 per cent on it, I can consider first whether I want to buy it or not.

What do you do with soap?

That is something which one uses in very small quantities. The hon. member for East London (City) spoke of land prices and he referred to the hon. member for Prieska who had paid R20 per morgen for land. He told the hon. member that that was too much. Land prices are relative. One person may pay R20 per morgen, and whether or not he buys for cash, also plays a part. To a person whose farm borders on a certain piece of land, such land may be worth much more than it would be to a person whose land does not border on it.

I did not say that it was too high.

Arising from what the hon. member said in regard to pineapples, I should also like to refer to this matter. The hon. member for Albany also referred to it yesterday, and he insinuated that the hon. the Minister of Finance was not looking after the pineapple farmer. When Britain devalued, the Minister of Finance said that those farmers who could make out a case for aid having to be granted to them, would receive sympathetic consideration. Subsequently R6.84 was paid in respect of every ton of pineapples. However, the hon. members for Albany and East London (City) were under the impression that that devaluation aid would be paid to the farmer by the canner. The canner, in turn, regarded this as aid for his factory. This is the first misunderstanding which arose. The second is that the pineapple price paid to the producer had already been determined before Britain had devalued. I admit that at that stage the canners applied stricter grading. However, was that the Government’s fault? It was said that the producers were losing R2 per ton as a result. After everything had been finalized, the Canners’ Council asked us whether we could not come to their rescue by paying R4 per ton. Subsequent to that we approached the Minister of Finance once again, but he said that funds were running out and that he could not give R4 but only R2 per ton. Was that unreasonable? Do hon. members not think that they ought to rise and say that they are grateful for it? The Government is sympathetic towards pineapple farmers. Pineapple farmers also have a role to play and their industry is a labour-intensive one. However, this industry cannot be granted a disproportionately larger subsidy than those granted to the others, surely. The hon. member for East London (City) referred to 18,000 tons of pineapples which had been canned. 18,000 tons of pineapples were not canned.

Exported fresh.

I wanted to say: More than 100,000 tons of pineapples were canned.

220,000 tons.

123,000 to be exact. There is quite a difference between that and 220,000 tons.

And I thought that you knew so much about pineapples.

Where does the R80 per ton to which the hon. member referred, come from?

It was in respect of pineapples which had been exported.

That was 18,000 tons. Broadly speaking the pineapple production was sold at R20 per ton. The hon. member wanted to know what R2 was in comparison with R80 per ton. However, that was in respect of a small part of the pineapple crop, since the major part of the pineapple crop had been sold at R20 per ton. I just wanted to put this matter right.

Now I should like to come back to what the hon. member for Newton Park said yesterday. His trouble is that from time to time he refers to what the South African Agricultural Union has to say, but then he only quotes those passages which he likes. Yesterday he made the mistake of saying that Mr. Chris Cilliers of the South African Agricultural Union had said that only 6 to 7 per cent of our farmers were earning more than R10,000. The hon. the Minister of Finance told all of us that only 8 per cent of our entire population paid income-tax. Is this not quite a different picture from the one the hon. member tried to sketch?

I said between 2 and 7 per cent. You do not listen attentively.

Fine. The hon. member also made a fuss about the ironing out of the tax bulge. He referred to congresses, and said that at congress after congress it was being said that the initiative in the agricultural industry was also being smothered. I do not know whether the hon. member is aware of what goes on at congresses. He said that at congresses held over the last four years there were no requests for income-tax concessions. He also referred to the meeting I held at Graaff-Reinet, but does the hon. member know what the second item on the agenda of that meeting was? It was income-tax. The hon. member should go through the items appearing on the agendas of congresses. Time after time the problem is income-tax. Last year the Minister of Finance granted income levelling to farmers as a result of representations made by agricultural unions. In spite of this the hon. member says that the farmer does not have income-tax problems because he does not make a profit. The hon. member also referred to the interest burden of farmers. I agree with the hon. member, because I speak my mind freely, that high rates of interest constitute one of the problems experienced by the agriculturist. Similarly income-tax is also the problem experienced by any other person who does not run his business on a cash basis. Why do many of our farmers have a problem in regard to interest burdens? Because they purchased land. I do not have the figures, but I venture to say that half of them have difficulties in regard to interest burdens because they purchased additional land.

The Minister of Finance increased the rate of interest.

I know that, but why did that farmer purchase land? Why did he pay a higher price, as you say? Because the agricultural industry is allegedly so uneconomic? I am sympathetic towards these people. I know that many of these people bought land when times were good and that climatic conditions subsequently deteriorated and rates of interest increased. Then they experienced difficulties. But now the hon. member says: “Don’t tell us about all these Votes you are taking together and then tell us that assistance to the amount of R215 million is being granted to farmers.” He does not want that mentioned. On a previous occasion I indicated in this House what is being done by the Government, by the Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure, in order to keep a man going at 5 per cent interest, and the millions of rands spent towards this end. But the hon. member says that we should not add all these things together. When the hon. member refers to former times when they were in power, when there were 125,000 farmers on our farms, does he want to insinuate that we should still have 125,000 farmers in the rural areas to-day? After all, that is all he wants.

Yes, there will be 10,000 under the Verwoerd scheme.

I have said before that, in view of the fact that we as a nation have our roots in the soil, I, too, should like to see our people remaining on the land, but should this be done in contravention of all the economic laws? They still want there to be 125,000 farmers. The hon. member and also the hon. member for East London (City) no longer farm as they did 20 years ago. At that time they added acre after acre and bought out their neighbours. They cannot deny that; they did that; consequently they are implicated in this phenomenon, i.e. that our farmers have decreased in number to 100,000. If the hon. member’s neighbour came to him to-day and said: “My old friend, I can get five times as much for this land to-day as I paid for it before the depression; don’t you want to buy it? I am not going to farm any more; my children have qualified themselves in other fields and I want to spend my remaining years in the town. Do you want to buy?” In such a case the hon. member should, if he wants to implement his policy, tell his neighbour: “No, my friend, my Party feels that there should be 125,000 farmers in our country; you must remain on your farm.” Is that the point of view held by that side? The hon. member cannot argue these things away.

The hon. member claimed that very little was being done by the Government. This was on the day after the maize price had been announced, and he said: “Don’t talk about that R215 million.” The hon. the Minister of Agriculture announced a maize price. Hon. members know that the price of yellow maize is R3.55, whereas the consumer pays R3.29 for it. That means that this price is going to cost the Government approximately R26 million in the form of a subsidy to the consumer. Who is the greatest consumer of yellow maize? It is the farmer himself. Nobody else in this country uses as much maize as the agriculturist does. He uses it for his livestock and for his Bantu workers. But hon. members opposite say that we should not always refer to the large amount which is being spent on subsidies. The hon. member says we must tell them what we plan to do in regard to these problems, what we plan to do in regard to the agricultural industry. But so far he has not told us what his Party’s point of view is in regard to these problems. I have asked this question before: What is the task of the Department of Agriculture, what is the task of this Government? Is it to ensure that an ever faster-growing population gets food, or is it to ensure that 125,000 people who want to farm are kept on the land and struggle along? Of course, the population has to be fed, and in this process sifting is taking place. Then I refer to what the hon. member for Bethal said. He spoke of managerial skill, managerial ability. No matter how sympathetic I may be towards farmers, I do not want to be a member of an industry which is being pampered and automatically kept on the land simply because we want to retain that number. We speak of managerial skill. The hon. member himself is a practical farmer, and I think he will agree that there are still many problems in our agricultural industry. A farmer came to me and said: “This is the cost of each of my items. My light truck costs me R2.4 per morgen.” Then I asked him: “But how is that possible?” His reply was: “It is almost time for me to buy a new light truck, but I have made calculations and as I see it my crop this year will not really justify my having a light truck and a car and a lorry.” That man will remain in the agricultural industry up to the very end, because he makes calculations. I do not wish to say that he applies agricultural economics but he does apply farming business methods, as the shoemaker and the chemist and the butcher, as everybody has to do if he wants to succeed.

The hon. member quotes the S.A.A.U. from time to time, when it suits him. Hon. members know how many times the hon. member has referred here to Chris Cilliers and to De la Harpe de Villiers. Let me now quote what Mr. De la Harpe de Villiers said according to a report in a newspaper dated 7th March, 1969. The report reads as follows (translation)—

This is what the S.A.A.U. says, but the hon. member does not want to quote this passage. He quotes those passages where it Said that farmers are struggling, and then he links them up with the Government. I maintain that once a drought sets in, nobody, not even King Solomon if he could be appointed Minister of Agriculture, would be able to offer an effective solution. The hon. member says that we have too few technicians, and this is true. He says that our country is washing away. But should all of this be linked up with the Government? Whose duty is it to see to it that our soil does not wash away? I have read out to you, Sir, what the S.A.A.U.’s point of view is.

Let us look at this confession of faith to which the hon. member for Bethal referred yesterday. This is the only piece of paper on which I could lay my hands and which tells me how the agricultural sector was governed in the United Party’s time. I agree wholeheartedly with many of the things mentioned in this White Paper on Agricultural Policy which was issued by the Department of the Prime Minister in 1946. But then I look at what we are being accused of by hon. members opposite, and what do I find? Let me quote from this White Paper (translation)—-

Average per capita income in farming increased simultaneously, possibly by over 25 per cent, since the relatively smaller proportion of the population that is on the land has been able to produce increasing quantities of food and raw materials for the expanding urban population.

Therefore the farmers were already decreasing in number in your time, my friend.

Order!

I beg your pardon, Mr. Speaker. Remember, it is a worldwide tendency that fewer people are producing food for more people. That is where the hon. member for East London (City) is quite correct, and I give him ten out of ten. Production costs are rising, and everybody is aware that the yield per morgen, the standard of farming, and full utilization of the potential of our soil, without applying over-cropping, constitute the reason why people in the agricultural industry are making even greater profits than R10,000 to-day, in spite of difficulties. This is also what the hon. member told us yesterday. Let me go further. This is what the United Party decided in 1946—

The hon. member will remember what he said in this House—I do not want to go on rubbing salt into the wounds. I quote further—

The United Party admitted this as far back as 1946, and yet they now want to know what we have done in that regard. I shall read further from this pamphlet—

Make the price of maize R4.50 or R5 per bag, then I shall plant maize in my own farming undertaking. Even if I only harvested eight bags per morgen, I would be perfectly satisfied, for then I would still be all right. I shall read further—

We referred to pineapples. If the pineapple farmers had given the pineapples to the canners free of charge this year, the canners would still have sold the pineapples at a loss, because the price of the tin, the sugar and the freight did not put us into a position to compete with a country such as Hawaii. Should we have implemented what that side asked for? Should we have told those pineapple farmers what that side said in their confession of faith in 1946 when they said that we should take world prices into consideration? If we had done that, the pineapple farmers would have suffered adversity.

The hon. member for Albany raised the matter of purchase tax once again, and he mentioned rat poison and other things of which one makes minimal use. I say, just give this new system a chance. After all, the hon. the Minister of Finance is an intelligent person; surely he will see to it that matters go right, and certain items can be removed from the list as soon as we have made up for the concessions which have been granted.

The hon. members for Port Elizabeth (North), Bethal and Prieska gave me to understand yesterday that the farmers of our country were not as bad as many people make them out to be. They say the fanners of our country will be proud if they can also say: “We have also had a share in the income-tax contribution of the whole population. We have received our subsidies but we are also privileged to be able to say, ‘Render unto Ceasar the things that are Ceasar’s’.” I say, Sir, that all the farmers of our country feel that way, if only we have good rains and prosperous times.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Deputy Minister referred to the request made by the hon. member for East London (City) as regards an increase in the duty on tobacco. I want to tell the hon. member that I do not mind his talking about tobacco, but he should not talk nonsense then.

I find it necessary to express a few thoughts on this matter. In the first place, I want to say that I am going to ask for an increase in taxation as well, but I am going to try and motivate my request. The hon. member asks for an increase in the duty on tobacco when he does not know how many farmers are directly and indirectly involved. Excise duty on tobacco increased tremendously during the past few years. Without excise duty having been increased the amount collected in excise duty on last year’s tobacco production increased by R8.9 million. Several thousand farmers derive their main income from tobacco. I want to tell the hon. the Minister of Finance that I am greatly appreciative of the fact that he did not announce an increase in excise duty again, particularly because a large percentage of the people in the lower income groups in this country use tobacco products. It would have meant that an extra burden would have been placed on them.

I just want to quote various figures to illustrate what the position in the tobacco industry is. It is estimated that excise duty on tobacco will amount to R85 million this year while excise duty on pipe tobacco and cigars will come to approximately R8 million, giving a total revenue of R93.5 million from tobacco. A total amount of approximately R180 to R190 million is spent by the consumers of tobacco every year; of this amount R93 million goes to the State. The farmers therefore only receive a gross income of approximately R30 million from the tobacco industry. I just want to emphasize this particular proportion and ask the hon. member first to go into the matter and get clarity for himself before coming forward with irresponsible requests.

Another matter I want to raise and in connection with which I want to express my gratitude, concerns the assistance rendered to the citrus industry. The citrus industry was a large earner of foreign exchange in the past and for that reason it is extremely important that, under the present difficult circumstances, it should be given the assistance for which provision is being made now. There is one other minor matter in connection with which I want to submit a plea to the Minister. He should impose a higher duty on those cool drinks which are offered for sale under the pretext of being fruit juices. I want to emphasize that many malpractices are taking place in the cool drink industry. We have, for example, health regulations in terms of which it is laid down that manufacturers should indicate whether a cool drink is synthetic or not. I have here the cap of a cool drink bottle on which the word “orange” appears in large yellow print. This creates the impression that the bottle contains an orange drink. But when one examines the cap more closely, one sees that the word “synthetic” appears on the corrugated side. This is how the cool drink industry misleads the public and sells its products. For this reason I plead that the duty on these products be increased. As soon as the manufacturer can prove that 5 per cent of the contents of the bottle consists of pure fruit juice, he may apply for the rebate. But that is not all. Beneath the word “orange” which appears in such bold print on the cap, there is the mark of the Bureau of Standards. This is even more misleading. Probably this has something to do with the quality of the cap. I feel it is of the utmost importance to the citrus industry that this matter be investigated.

If a member of the public buys a fruit drink to-day and the stamp of the Co-operative Citrus Exchange does not appear on the bottle, he does not know what he is buying. Many of these cool drinks merely contain synthetic additives. I have here various illustrations of things that are being done. Everything is aimed at creating the impression among the public that the cool drinks contain fruit juices. Well, many of them do not contain any fruit juice at all. Last year the citrus industry produced 43 million 30 lb. units, 7.5 million of which were used in fresh form while 10.1 million went to the factories. However, those factories have to export 80 per cent of their production because they do not have a local market. The Citrus Exchange did, in fact, launch a publicity campaign and succeed in increasing the consumption of fresh orange juice from 16,000 gallons per month to approximately 100,000 gallons as from September, 1968. But now we have this unfair competition on the part of the cool drink industry.

Mr. Speaker, there is a shortage of water in this country. How can we allow coloured or flavoured water to be sold to our school children at 8, 9 or 10 cents per bottle? That something like this can, in fact, happen is beyond me. This matter should be given serious attention. For example, I want to ask that a general prohibition should be placed on synthetic orange juice for breakfast purposes, because it is not orange juice at all. The delivery of synthetic orange juice by dairies should be totally prohibited, because the public are under the impression that they drink orange juice, while this is not the case. Moreover, I ask that all advertisements of cool drinks should indicate what percentage of juice of the fruit depicted in the advertisement such drinks contain. This is not being done at present. What happens now? Apple juice is cheaper than orange juice because, strangely enough, one gets more juice from an apple, per weight, than one gets from an orange. The manufacturers now take apple juice and use it as an additive in order to get a reduction in excise duty. The cool drink is then flavoured with orange flavour and advertised as orange juice. This evil practice should also be stopped. Each case should be treated on its merits and the public should know what it buys and drinks. The words “nagemaak”—“synthetic” should also appear in advertisements because this is where people are mislead. While large and attractive oranges, lemons and other kinds of fruit are advertised in the advertisements, the word “synthetic” merely appear on the corrugated side of the bottle cap. Excise duty on cool drinks and flavoured drinks should be increased from 8 cents to 16 cents per gallon. The rebate may be granted as soon as it is proved that 5 per cent of the contents of a bottle consists of pure fruit juice. In this way we can at least ensure that we protect our citrus industry.

At the same time we will be looking after the health of our people, particularly our children. An interdepartmental committee of inquiry is at present going into the question of the use of fruit juices in this country. I am glad about that. However, I hope the Minister will see to it that this committee will bring out a report as soon as possible so that there is no delay as far as this matter is concerned.

I now want to refer to the position prevailing in agriculture generally. I find it necessary to do so because a great deal is being said about this matter. I want to confine my remarks to agricultural financing in particular. In this connection I want to express my appreciation of the fact that increased amounts are made available to agriculture every year, as has again been done this year. However, I have to point out that only a small percentage of agricultural financing—I think it amounts to approximately 25 per cent—is being undertaken by the Land Bank and the Department of Agricultural Credit. This is a pity, because the remaining 75 per cent really constitutes a burden. This is how it was described before and I endorse it. It is no use closing our eyes to reality. A large percentage of our farmers do pay a high rate of interest, mainly as a result of circumstances beyond their control. Many complaints are being voiced in Organized Agriculture. The various Departments of Agriculture, the Department of Agricultural Credit, the Department of Agricultural Technical Services and the Department of Agricultural Economics are fulfilling a major task. As regards the Department of Agricultural Technical Services, I just want to mention that this Department discovered this dreaded borer eel-worm disease in the Lowveld a few months ago. I have had representations concerning this disease from farmers in my constituency. These farmers are worried, because this disease may have serious consequences. I therefore want to thank the Department for having acted so speedily in this matter. They succeeded in determining the presence of this eel-worm in three areas. But even more drastic action is required, because the farmers there are very worried. The eel-worm which was discovered in bananas and which was apparently smuggled into the country by irresponsible people, attacks virtually any plant and even threatens the large blue gum plantations in the Eastern Lowveld. It is therefore a matter which should be viewed in a serious light. To come back to these articles in Organized Agriculture. One of the articles is dated March, 1969, and it deals with the effects of the drought on our agriculture, but I want to emphasize another matter in this connection and I just want to quote from the February article—

As regards the position in South Africa, I want to say that, as a result of our development, we are facing problems for the farmer in this regard as well. The article reads—

I think we should try and maintain this debate on this level and endeavour to appreciate the real problems of the farmer soberly and objectively. I want to go further. The article goes on to read—

It is highly necessary that we should not tell everyone to go farming. It is better to have 50,000 or 60,000 farmers with a high standard of living and high productivity than to have 90,000 or 100,000 farmers. This process should be as painless as possible and I feel that the State is doing a great deal to make this process really painless; and, as has been said by the hon. member for Bethal as well, we are possibly doing too much to keep people on the land, people who are not equipped to be there. The article reads further—

I feel that we should tackle these matters on this basis and approach them in a sober manner.

I do not want to reply to the speech made by the hon. member for Nelspruit except to say that I think he had a case when he discussed the question of cool drinks. This is a matter which should most probably receive attention.

But I want to come back to our Deputy Minister of Agriculture and the speech he made a few minutes ago. We all have great respect for the new Deputy Minister. He is a successful and progressive farmer and anyone who is a successful farmer under the policy of the Nationalist Party to-day, has to be a very good person. That is why we respect him. We think that when he takes over from the big boss things will be much better, but we want to warn him. He should not allow himself to be bound too much to the agricultural policy of this Government. He should rather allow himself some elbow room. If he does that he will most probably become quite a good Minister of Agriculture. It is a very difficult task to defend the agricultural policy of the Government, and the Deputy Minister did quite well when speaking in defence of that policy, but when he got up, he said he was going to tell the farmers that we on this side were in favour of a duty on wine and tobacco. But this is not what my hon. friend here behind me really said. He said he was in favour of a duty on liquor and luxury articles, and this the hon. the Minister may safely go and tell the farmers. I know the hon. the Minister is a just person, but he should also tell the farmers that during this Budget debate, this side of the House tried our utmost to have the duty reduced not only on petrol, oil and tyres but also on the daily necessities on which we will have to pay a higher duty in future. He should not forget to tell them that as well.

From the discussions held during the last few days it became quite evident that this Budget will have one important effect on South Africa, namely that the cost of living will rise tremendously. Sir, both of us are Free Staters. We grew up and we grew old and we suffered hardships among the Nationalists, as it were; when speaking of the old Nationalists I have in mind men such as General Hertzog, Dr. Nico van der Merwe, Mr. Swart, Mr. Serfontein and you yourself, Sir, men who created the image that the Nationalist Party was a party which had the interests of the poor and the less privileged at heart. This the Party in fact did.

Were you a Nationalist then?

The Party let the poor man down, but who could have thought that the descendants of that party would introduce a Budget which would be so hard on those who brought them to this House? What surprised us even more, is that the hon. the Minister of Finance, who has done such a great deal to uplift the poorer sections of our population, should submit these tax proposals to this House. This goes beyond us.

This Budget is a very good one for the rich and the wealthy because they save such a great deal on income tax and they will not find it difficult to pay the higher prices of these other articles they must have, articles such as motor cars, fur coats and so forth. They will not find it difficult to pay those prices because they save quite enough, but how much does the poor man save? He did not pay tax in the past. He does not save at all and he is the one who will have to make up the leeway now.

I have been waiting for the past few days for one of the hon. members opposite to get up and say: Let us not proceed so hastily; we should not have this tax. But hon. members are silent now; all of them accept it. The hon. member for Marico is not here now, but he became quite lyrical about what the people achieved in life, but he said nothing about taxation. Neither did he tell us that his constituency, Marico, would be paying a great deal more tax than ever before. He said nothing about that and all the hon. members likewise kept quiet about it. They do not tell us that people who have never paid any tax before will have to do so in future. They keep quiet. I also want to refer to the speech the hon. member for Moorreesburg made yesterday. He is one of the leading members of that party.

Yes, he and Jaap.

He advanced quite a good plea as regards development of his own constituency, but he did not tell the Minister not to proceed so hastily as far as taxation on the poor people was concerned.

I should like to deal with the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) now. He was quite amusing yesterday. The hon. member spoke about brain operations and about voters who were being neglected in Newton Park and Walmer. He tried to show how hon. members representing those constituencies were neglecting their voters. I wonder whether he intends standing there at the next election? It will be quite interesting, but I just want to warn my colleagues here that he has his own methods of getting a nomination and that they should be careful. He spoke about a personal quarrel he had with his colleagues in Port Elizabeth, but he did not say a word as to whether the Minister would mind reducing the tax on the daily necessities which his voters needed. By whom were those poor people he spoke about neglected? He criticized these two hon. members for failing to render assistance as regards housing, but these two hon. members are fortunate. There is no housing shortage in their constituencies as there is in his. He should do his duty, but he should do duty here as well and he should plead that taxes for the needy people should be relaxed. [Interjections.]

This is a rich man’s budget and it is because this Government has been sitting too long beside the flesh-pots. The Cabinet, the members of Parliament and their friends became rich during these 21 years and you know, Sir, what happens when one gets rich suddenly. One is far too inclined to forget ones needy friends, and this is precisely what has happened here. They have quite forgotten the people who helped them to come to this House and therefore we have these taxes the needy people have to pay. Apparently the rich people have a great deal of influence to-day and they persuaded the Minister to relieve them of the heavy tax burden, but somebody has to pay it and who pays it? The poor man pays it. The fact, of course, is that we sympathize with the needy and the less privileged who will have to pay all these severe taxes. All of us have got up to plead with the Minister to revise his lists and to see whether relief cannot be granted in connection with articles which are essential and which cannot be described as luxury articles under any circumstances. But I hope that those who brought them here, will now realize that they have been bluffed long enough by a Government which professes to look after their interests. I think the verkramptes are right in that respect. They say the Nationalist Party not only abandoned their ideals of 1948, but they have also abandoned their people now. The lower income groups of the population in South Africa brought and kept this Government in power, but now the Government is turning its back on them, and we are waiting for them to protest, but they are sitting there without saying a word. [Interjections.] But as I said, if one suddenly gets rich, one is inclined to forget ones needy friends. I think this treatment is characteristic of them. The farmers who are now in the minority, are being neglected. We found first of all that the small farmers were being neglected, but now it applies to all the farmers. We had the hon. member for Namaqualand, who, unfortunately, is not here now. He told us of the fine planning which was taking place in the field of agriculture. Sir, when we listen to the complaints we hear at congresses, when we listen to the discussions taking place here and when we see how farmers’ debts increase year after year, I say that if there is any planning at all, there is something radically wrong with that planning.

I said the less privileged Whites of our country were the people who had to foot the bill. But they are not the only ones. There are also the Bantu and the Coloureds who will have to pay this tax. There are many of them who will not be able to afford this purchase tax. People living below the bread line will now have to pay more for most of the articles they buy. This reminds one of what the hon. member for Heilbron said the other day and the way in which he treats the Bantu. It seems to me the Government is not concerned about the interests of these people at all; they do not care what happens to them; they simply have to pay.

You say they will have to pay more for most of the articles. Where do you get that from?

They have to pay more for their soap.

There are many other things they need every day and on which they will have to pay sales duty.

You said “Most of the articles”, and that is not true.

They have to pay it on everything except food and clothes.

I just want to say a few words in connection with one matter about which we are all very glad. We noticed recently that the Minister of Foreign Affairs visited and had discussions with the Governments of other countries such as the Argentine and Brazil in the southern hemisphere and that we are on quite good terms with those countries. Of course, all of us agree with this wholeheartedly. We on this side just want to emphasize that we would like to see this idea of good neighbourliness, especially with other countries in the southern hemisphere, extended.

In case there is any trouble which, of course, we hope will not be the case, we have to realize that we in South Africa will have a major and important task which we shall find difficult to fulfil on our own. One always tries to find friends and people who are well disposed towards one, friends who will be prepared to come to your assistance should trouble arise. We are planning to enlarge our fleet considerably, and it can only be in our own interest and in that of the Western world if we could be on good terms with people in not only America and South Africa but also other countries in the southern hemisphere, countries such as Australia and New Zealand. We were happy to read about the successful visit of our fleet to Australia. It is a pity it did not visit New Zealand as well. We hope the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs will succeed in entering into friendly and helpful discussions with those people as well.

There is one other country which, to my mind, is particularly important and which the Government should really do its utmost to win over to our side, namely Malagasy. Malagasy occupies a very strategical position in the southern hemisphere. It is a big and prosperous country with an excellent naval base and it will definitely be in the interest of all of us if we could be on equally good terms with them as we are with, for example, Portugal and the South American countries.

It is actually very difficult to reply to the previous speaker, because he said nothing. All one can say of him is that, as the old expression goes, “He shifted his brain into neutral and let his tongue idle on”. He actually made no positive contribution to this debate. Neither did he come forward with any concrete suggestions. Time and again he referred to the difficulties of the poor man and to the fact that not one member on this side had stood up and proposed that the pressure of taxation be relieved. But, Sir, ever one on this side of the House stood up and thanked the Minister for this fine Budget which is being praised throughout the country. This Budget is not only a strong and effective one for the business man or the salaried man, but also a good Budget for the agriculturist, for the farmer. The farmers are highly delighted with this Budget.

Where did you see that?

I shall tell the hon. member now where I saw it. According to a report of 27th March, Mr. F. P. R. van Wyk, chairman of the taxation committee of the South African Agricultural Union, stated (translation)—

This comes from the S.A. Agricultural Union itself. In addition, Mr. K. P. Landman, secretary of the Agricultural Union, stated (translation)—

That is my reply to the question of hon. members of the Opposition as to where we have seen that the farmer is also satisfied with this Budget. But, Sir, what is the picture in respect of the agricultural industry as regards this Budget; how does this Budget affect the agricultural industry? Would we have had this tremendous progress in the field of industry in South Africa and this strong, sound financial position in which we find ourselves to-day, had our agriculture, as our basic industry, not assisted and provided for this progress in South Africa? That is why the Government delves deeply into its pockets every year to bring assistance and relief to the farmer and to grant benefits judiciously where they are needed most. Let us briefly review the Budget as far as the farmer is concerned. On the Revenue Account R115,323,000 has been provided for the Departments of Agriculture, and on the Loan Account R40 million. For the Departments of Water Affairs and Forestry R15,636,000 has been provided on the Revenue Account, and R74,250.000 on the Loan Account. What is the position in respect of Water Affairs and Forestry? Admittedly, Water Affairs is not only concerned with agriculture; these amounts are also for industry, for the urbanite and for the country as a whole, but a large portion of the amount is directly for the benefit of agriculture. But apart from this strong Budget and the amounts being provided for agriculture, special concessions have also been made, as has repeatedly been stated here. We think of the citrus industry, the pineapple industry and the wool industry, which have received special benefits. The hon. member for Newton Park said that it was not much use that these colossal amounts were spent on agriculture each year. He said that other benefits should be granted.

He is ungrateful.

One of my hon. friends on this side rightly savs that the hon. member for Newton Park is ungrateful. Sir. this is the only conclusion we can come to. Surely these amounts must be provided on the Estimates, and if one considers how these amounts are increasing each year, one cannot but think that this Government is sympathetically disposed towards the farmer and that the farmer’s interests are very dear to its heart. Sir, we also ask ourselves: What are the chief sources of financing for the agriculturist in this country? In the first place we think of the Land Bank. The mortgage loans granted by the Land Bank in 1968 increased by 46 per cent from R31 million in 1967 to R45 million, according to the latest report of the Land Bank. These are colossal amounts. Of this amount alone 53 per cent was for the purchase of land. This means an increase of R6 million; 26.3 per cent was for the redemption of mortgages i.e. an amount of R12 million: 16 2 per cent for the consolidation of debts, representing an amount of R7½ million. An amount of R2.608,000 was also granted by the Land Bank for the payment of commercial bank debts, as well as an amount of R1,310,000 for the purchase of livestock and equipment. Sir, while I frequently have dealings with the Land Bank in my constituency, I cannot do otherwise to-day but speak with the highest praise of the Land Bank and its officials. Whenever I went there they listened very sympathetically. I do not know whether I was one of the fortunate ones, but in the majority of cases I received assistance in the interest of the farmers on whose behalf the representations were made. The staff of the Land Bank really deserves a feather in its cap for the tremendous work it is doing.

Secondly, as far as agricultural financing is concerned, one thinks of the Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure. An amount of R39,700,000 is being provided on the Estimates this year for the Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure. This is R5,150,000 more than last year, and of this, R3 million alone is for assistance to farmers and R2,277,000 for the purchase of land. This department also deserves a feather in its cap. It is probably the department which has to suffer the most criticism to-day from all sides to the effect that it does not make sufficient money available to farmers. But this Department must also be congratulated on this tremendous work which it is doing under difficult circumstances. From time to time amounts have also been made available by the Land Bank to the co-operative societies for means of production and short-term loans to the farmers. Water Affairs, as I have already mentioned, received a colossal amount this year. One thinks of the more than R5 million specially voted this year for drilling services. But numerous other forms of assistance have also been given to the farmers by the State this year. One thinks of the subsidy of R15 million for the fertilizer industry, the subsidy for the maize industry and all the other subsidies and rebates which have been granted. But now we must do a little practical and levelheaded thinking about the agricultural industry and about agricultural land. We have bona fide farmers, but we also have other people who call themselves farmers and purchase land for the sake of investment or speculation. In the granting of assistance to farmers it is this first group, the bona fide farmers, who should actually receive this assistance and not the other group, and it is for the assistance of this group that the State is chiefly and exclusively making provision. To illustrate further how the interests of the farmer have been promoted by this Government in the past few years. I just want to point out that we must bear in mind that our country is subject to variable climatic factors. From time to time we have severe droughts, and hon. members of the Opposition now want to know what assistance the Government is granting to farmers in these times of drought.

I think it is necessary for us to place on record what the Government has done in the past 21 years to acquaint itself with the facts and to grant assistance to the farmers where necessary. In 1948 the Minister of Agriculture had an exhaustive inquiry instituted into the possibility of establishing a state-aided fodder bank. The reports were published in 1949 and assistance ensued. In 1960 surveys were also conducted by the Department of Agricultural Economics and Marketing into the drought conditions in the North Western Cape. The Department of Agricultural Technical Services and the Department of Agricultural Economics and Marketing also had investigations instituted into the establishment of fodder banks for the Namaqualand farmers. In 1963 Dr. Fabricius, of the Department of Agriculture Technical Services, made a study of the drought in the North Western Transvaal. The Verbeek Committee, a very important committee, instituted a very exhaustive investigation into droughts and everything connected with them. A comprehensive report was issued by the Committee and many of their recommendations were adopted by the Government. In December. 1965, the Department of Agricultural Technical Services had a rapid investigation made into the disastrous drought areas of the Northern and North Western Transvaal and a similarly rapid investigation and survey was made by the same department in February, 1966. when the Northern Cape portion of the Orange Free State was investigated. Apart from the investigations carried out by these committees various investigations were carried out by officials and extension officers and these investigations are still continuing unabated. All this led to the appointment of a commission of inquiry into agriculture on 7th May, 1966, under the chairmanship of Dr. M. D. Marais. They are still engaged in their investigation and their first report was issued as long ago as March, 1968. Not only are there agriculturists and economists serving on this commission of inquiry, but also practical full-time farmers who are assisting the Government by word and deed.

Since the House began with its proceedings this year, mention has been made on different occasions of the high interest rate which farmers have to pay. It is all very well to plead for a low interest rate, and actually it would have been better to plead for absolutely no interest rate whatsoever. However, the question remains whether this is practicable. We must ask ourselves whether this would not perhaps disturb the balance of our economy and monetary affairs in this country and disrupt the country’s sound financial policy. There are many other subsidies and rebates already in operation. We have heard of the R15 million subsidy for the fertilizer industry and of other subsidies as well. Does the Opposition now want these subsidies and rebates to be withdrawn or reduced? Since we now have these subsidies and, over and against that, also an interest rate which is, in fact, very low, we at present must bear in mind that this interest and these subsidies are allocated on a proportionate basis to everyone needing them. If the interest should perhaps be withdrawn altogether, other problems would be caused, for example, speculation, and people trying to speculate with the State’s money. This is something which we should definitely and at all costs avoid. Although we feel that the agricultural industry should be the first in line when State aid is given, this should always take place in a reasonable and just manner, and all should be treated equally. The Government has already done a great deal to assist the agricultural industry and more and more will be done in future. While the Opposition’s amendment reads that the Government has failed to grapple with South Africa’s urgent problems such as the plight of the agricultural industry, I must say that in this entire debate no single point has been proved by any speaker on the Opposition side to the effect that the agricultural industry in any part of the country is in the plight in which they have maintained it to be, and to the effect that the Government has neglected to do its duty in that regard.

Mr. Speaker, while I agree 100 per cent with everything said by the hon. member for Potgietersrus, who has just resumed his seat, there are nevertheless one or two points from the speech of the hon. member for North Rand which cannot be left unanswered and which I should like to take further.

The hon. member for North Rand returned to the question of this Budget being a rich man’s budget and he tried to indicate how the poor and the less well-to-do section of the population would be affected by this Budget. This is beautifully in line with the metamorphosis on the part of the Opposition and its Press since the week-end. It is all done with the express purpose of confusing the consumer. In the term consumer I include the workers, farmers and officials in Government and semi-Government service, in short, all who have to buy in order to eat and be clothed. I also include the Bantu and other population groups. In this connection it is necessary to point out that some of the newspapers also made use of this opportunity to incite the non-Whites in a scandalous way. I want, then, to ask the United Party whether it approves of these actions of its propaganda mouthpieces. I should like to quote from the leading article of the Sunday Times of 6th April, 1969, in which it is stated that:

These are the people referred to by the hon. member for North Rand. The report goes on to say—

In an article in the same newspaper Mr. Stanley Uys writes as follows:

It is also striking that the Financial Mail of 3rd April, 1969, sang the same tune. It stated the following:

Elsewhere it was stated that—

This is malicious criticism and purposely glosses over all the fine and attractive aspects in a Budget in which the hon. the Minister himself has made it clear that when it becomes apparent from time to time that there are shortcomings, he will put matters right. This assurance of the hon. the Minister, who has always declared himself a friend of the less well-to-do, in contrast to what the hon. member for North Rand said, is quite good enough for me. In the latest swing of United Party criticism it is once more clear to me that what is said by the United Party in this House is prescribed to them by their leftist mouthpieces, and hon. members opposite, such as the hon. member for North Rand as well, simply fall into step with this willingly and make a lot of noise in the hope that they will hit the mark. However, the question is whether the United Party is prepared to go back to the old system as it existed last year. I do not believe they are. Not a single speaker in this debate, and I was present during the whole of it, has yet said so. As usual the United Party’s reply is once more the well-known yes-and-no reply. Only yesterday the hon. the Leader of the Opposition himself said yes and no.

Since the emphasis in the collection of taxes for State revenue will in future fall on collection by means of this indirect taxation, one point is of overriding interest to-day. It concerns all buyers of consumer goods, as various hon. members on this side of the House have put it, whether the persons involved be farmers, factory workers, mine workers, Government officials, members of the House of Assembly or whatever, of any colour or race group. It is the protection of this consumer, especially the younger group who do not yet receive large salaries or incomes and whom we should like to see starting homes in the interests of this country, and the aged and the ordinary farmer and salaried worker, who must be seen to. The Budget speech had hardly been delivered when newspaper headlines again blazed forth: “Public grossly deceived by purchase tax” and “Minister of Economic Affairs threatens strong action”. This is a damning accusation against that section of commerce which receives direct and indirect State encouragement and protection in such ample measure and then abuses it. Recently two well-considered leading articles on these matters appeared in two or our publications. These indicated how the tide in our country was turning in favour of the consumer organization. Firstly I want to quote from the leading article in the March, 1969, issue of the S.A. Worker—these are the people referred to by the hon. member for North Rand. This periodical has 30,000 readers and is the mouthpiece of the South African Iron, Steel and Allied Industries Union and the Provincial Co-Workers Association. The leading article draws a parallel on the one hand between organized agriculture, where the farmer offers his product and bargains on a collective basis through his cooperative sector, and organized labour on the other hand, where the worker offers his product and labour on a collective basis and negotiates the best price therefor. While in organized agriculture the bargaining power is also exercised through its co-operative sector in respect of its collective purchase of means of production—these are now the “things” about which the hon. member for East London (City) spoke—with a view to reducing production costs organized labour negotiates for the sale of its labour and not for the purchase of provisions. Under the title “In Search of a Patron” this periodical had the following to say about the labourers of our country (translation)—

In addition it is stated—

This includes the cool drinks which the hon. member for Nelspruit also spoke about. The article goes on to say—

As is generally known, the motor trade is a very great culprit in this connection. I can mention numerous examples of the exploitation of the little man by the motor trade and I have not heard hon. members opposite objecting to this. At this stage it would therefore appear that if the trade unions were to begin thinking along these lines, if the Public Servants’ Association, which we know to be a particularly responsible organization, the Mineworkers’ Union, which has already done so much for the mineworkers, the Post Office Staff Associations, the Railway Staff Associations, the teachers’ union, municipal staff associations and similar organizations, in cooperation with the Co-operative Chamber of the Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut and the Cooperative Council of the South African Agricultural Union, were to have a round-table conference and deliberate upon this matter, they would be able to draw up a blueprint for the creation of a National Consumer Council. This council would be able fully to protect the consumers’ interests against exploitation, because this is necessary. I am speaking of all consumers now, White as well as non-White, because I know that the latter group are also frequently exploited by certain trade bodies in a sinful manner. There are numerous scandalous examples which could be mentioned here, and these are damaging to race relations. With a National Consumer Council functioning effectively in respect of negotiations with manufacturers and distributors—and this applies to the farming community as well—the dissemination of sales information, the scientific study of the refined art of buying and selling, and the making available of such information, and also negotiating with the Government in respect of consumer matters, it may be expected that the consumer who sets about things judiciously and keeps to the hon. the Minister’s recipe of “working and saving” instead of recklessly spending and speculating like blazes, will cause the benefit of this new form of sales tax to flow through to every sector. The honest and industrious businessman will also benefit from this greater purchasing stability. However, the initiative must in the first place come from the consumer himself, through the above-mentioned organized channels. I believe that the Government departments concerned, such as Economic Affairs, Industries, Agricultural Economics and Marketing, etc., would gladly supply them with advice. I believe that this Budget paves the way for the consumer who sincerely wishes to put his affairs in order. The initiative displayed by the trade unions in this respect can therefore only be commended most highly. It is positively orientated.

Last Saturday an excellent leading article on this matter appeared in Die Burger. The article rightly drew attention to the new curse suddenly coming to the fore, the curse of the so-called credit cards which are now being issued and the use of which is being deliberately encouraged by certain banks. This credit card system is a country-wide continuation of Pretoria’s generally known “little book system”. In spite of smaller benefits, this system, more than most other things, helps to plunge the public into debt and to keep them in debt permanently by stimulating people to live in advance of payment and to purchase items which they do not really need with money not yet in their pockets. This article rightly points out the techniques used in the onslaughts made upon the purchaser’s resistance. It tells us to what heights the art of selling has been developed and how the art of buying has remained at a primitive stage of development. The conclusion of this article deserves to be quoted in full and I conclude my speech by doing so (translation)—

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by congratulating the hon. the Minister of Finance on his Budget. This Budget reminds one of The Tale of Two Cities, because we are living in the best of times and we are living in the worst of times. This is the best of Budgets and also the worst of Budgets.

One cannot be good and bad at one and the same time.

I say this is a good Budget in so far as the hon. the Minister of Finance has followed the advice of this side of the House, and the hon. member for Colesberg ought to have known that. This is a good Budget as regards the elimination of the tax bulge, and I want to congratulate the hon. the Minister on having had the courage to eliminate it in this way. This is also a good Budget as regards the provision being made by the hon. the Minister for assistance to civil servants in the field of housing. This is also a good Budget in that the hon. the Minister is making income-tax concessions to working women. In addition this is a good Budget to the extent to which the hon. the Minister is introducing improvements in the field of social services. However, the hon. the Minister, I myself and all of us know that the main object of this sales duty is to curb inflation in South Africa. He himself said that. The second object is to obtain additional revenue. Surely ho knows that since this is a give and take Budget, he has already made up his mind to make more than he intends giving. This being so, why argue about it? [Interjections.] Of course he is going to take more.

Where?

The hon. member holds a doctorate in economics and he does not even know this? Where did he get his doctorate? For what did he get his doctorate? The hon. member knows as well as I do that the hon. the Minister is going to receive much more money than he is going to give away. If he does not know this, he should never again speak on economic affairs in a Budget debate. Does the hon. member want to deny that this is so? He knows as well as I do, or ought to know, that the revenue which the hon. the Minister is going to derive from this sales duty will not be R100 million, but more like R200 million, if not more. We shall talk again next year, and then we shall have further discussions with this new type of doctor of economics. Now I am not referring to the hon. the Minister, because he holds a real doctorate in economics. Then we shall see the credentials of that hon. member. Even if that hon. member was just an ordinary sensible man and did not hold a doctorate in economics, he would have known that if the hon. the Minister was going to take R200 million from the ordinary people in the country. White, Black and Brown, commerce itself would see to it that a further one-third of that amount would end up in its own pocket. He knows that. [Interjections.] I am not accusing anybody. I am accusing the system. Our ordinary capitalistic system employs these means. If, by the time a product reaches one, it carries a duty, one simply has to pass that duty on to the next man. That is the truth. Whatever hon. members opposite may say, this is the effect which this duty is going to have. The buyers of South Africa will have to get an additional R300 million, or an amount very close to that, from somewhere in order to pay this duty. The hon. the Minister will in fact succeed by means of this sales duty to curb inflation temporarily—and only temporarily—but it will most definitely not be a permanent solution. I now want to make the prediction—and it does not call for a clever man to make this prediction—that because of this duty the hon. the Minister will be obliged to grant salary increases to civil servants next year because of the rise in the cost of living which this duty will bring along. Some people may say that the hon. the Minister will do so on the eve of an election, but I do not say this. I do say, however, that he will have to grant increases because of a wrong Budget which he presented here. We shall then hear the answer from the other hon. members who say they hold doctorates in economics. We shall hear their views if the hon. the Minister grants salary increases which will have a snowballing effect.

How can you say the amount will exceed R200 million?

The hon. the Minister himself said that he had no indication of the amount the new duty would yield. He said so.

Then how do you know?

If that hon. member would only hold his peace for a short while. No wonder they sacked him as information officer of the Nationalist Party! He knows too little. Whatever may happen, this Government will be obliged to increase the salaries of officials within the next year. The Government can afford to do so, because it taxes other people to pay for the increases. Let me put the following question to the hon. the Minister. Is he of the opinion that the farmer, the ordinary employer, will be able to resist an increase in wages within the next year when the effect of this new duty will be felt by employees in the rural areas and throughout South Africa? Not only will the salaries of civil servants have to be increased, but the private sector will also have to come with increases.

You are a much better swimmer than economist.

The hon. member was involved with Parity, and he should remember that it does not have a record of which he can be proud.

Where are your Parity people?

I am absolutely convinced that this duty will give rise to demands for higher wages. This is happening in a country which is a happy one, a country which has had many achievements. The farmer of South Africa has done his share in respect of the South African nation. In the past 20 years our food exports increased four-fold.

Under the National Party Government.

The Nationalist did not work for that. But what has this Government done? Domestic consumption increased by only 80 per cent. In this respect the Government must render assistance. Domestic consumption increased by 80 per cent whereas production increased by 160 per cent. The farmers have done their share, but what has the Government done in order to increase consumption? I say the farmers have done their duty. South Africa has other blessings as well. We in South Africa are the fourth largest exporters of minerals in the whole world. Providence endowed us well in this respect. But we nevertheless find that countries such as Germany and Japan, which have no raw materials, are overtaking us. Japan has no raw materials, it has to import everything. As a result of hard work, knowledge and dedication, Germany and Japan have overtaken virtually the rest of the world.

The old Romans said that while they were still working hard, they were the most prosperous nation in the world, and people said their decline started when they passed laws to lay down their working hours. They were the most prosperous nation in the world, but their decline started when they became ease-loving and worked only two days per week.

I now want to ask the Government this. Has the time not arrived to combat inflation by encouraging people to produce more in South Africa? Should such an attempt not be made?

But the Budget does this.

I am not speaking of the Budget only. Our civil servants only work a five-day week. Figures have been quoted here to illustrate the increase in the number of civil servants. When countries such as Germany and Japan have to import everything and have reached their present heights by sheer hard work, there is a lesson to be learnt from that by us if we do not want to lose the race against the East. It is all very well for a country to be independent, but it should not only be politically independent. There should also be economic independence. Economic efficiency is perhaps more important than political independence. Have hon. members ever given any thought to the fact that these two countries, i.e. Germany and Japan, are not independent countries politically and that 20 years ago they were humbled to the ground? Then there are countries such as Ghana, Zambia and Nigeria, all independent states, ones which boast of their independence, whereas they are in fact as dependent as any country can be. We know that we shall have to contend more and more with competition from the East. One wonders whether the time has not arrived for us to give consideration to the question whether we should export raw materials or whether we should process those materials locally. I had hoped that the Minister would have made more concessions, in view of the large sums of money he is now going to receive as well as the money which is already available, with regard to the technological training of our people, with regard to research and with regard to educating our nation to work harder. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, obviously hon. members want me to make petty politics of this matter. I can do so if that is what they want. Hon. members opposite are very quick to compare 1948 to to-day. But let us compare 1948 to today and let us begin at the top rung of the ladder—with the present Prime Minister, who is a good Prime Minister and a man for whom I have a great deal of respect. But in 1948 we had an equally good, even better, Prime Minister, in the person of Jan Smuts. What was the position at that time? He was Prime Minister and at the same time Minister of Defence, and no hon. member can make the statement to-day that the present Minister of Defence can be compared to Jan Smuts. He occupied those two posts and received the salary of one man. But more than that, he was also Minister of Foreign Affairs. I have a great deal of respect for our present Minister of Foreign Affairs, of course, but even he himself would not want to be so presumptious as to compare himself to the status of Jan Smuts as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Here we have it then. One man did the work of three people … [Interjections.]

Order! Hon. members must please conduct themselves more fittingly, otherwise I shall have to take steps against them.

Now, let us take the Civil Service. According to a person who made a study of the matter, the Civil Service staff increased by 276 per cent from 1937 to 1966. During that period our white population increased by only 70 per cent. He estimates that if the same rate of increase is to continue, the staff of the Civil Service will increase by a good 72 per cent by the year 1980, which is not far off, whereas the white population will increase by 27 per cent only. Therefore, is the right thing to do not to give some attention to this matter? Is the Minister satisfied, for example, that we cannot save in this regard? Is he satisfied that we do not have a lot of unnecessary legislation on the Statute Book to-day, legislation for which there is no need? At the moment the implementation of this legislation requires additional staff every day. Has the time not arrived for us to appoint a commission to see whether this entire business cannot be streamlined? I think it has. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, unfortunately we have members here who used to be underpaid agents of the Nationalist Party up to a short time ago. By becoming members of this House they have taken up positions to which they are not at all suited. To them I simply want to say, “second hand clothes do not fit”.

There are a few other matters I should like to bring to the attention of the Minister, and not only to the attention of the Minister, but also to the attention of this House. There is, inter alia, the position of the farmer and of trade and industries in the Western Province. For what reason has the Western Province been selected as the place in which the new rules with regard to the employment of Bantu labour have to be applied? What have we in the Western Province done to the Government to receive punishment all the time? If they believe that that is the only way to keep the white civilization from going under, surely similar provisions should be applied to the rest of the country as well. But not one Nationalist Party member will make the suggestion that these restricting regulations should also be applied to his constituency.

But where are the Coloureds to go otherwise?

Mr. Speaker, I am sick of that foolish story. In the first place, we have never had a surplus of Coloureds here in the Western Province. For that reason this is foolish nonsense which is being advocated by a few people from the Transvaal, people who know nothing of what is happening here. Where are the superfluous Coloureds? And if there are any such superfluous Coloureds, what is wrong with this Government for it to pay pensions and other benefits to idle Coloureds? Why then does the Government not make these Coloureds work? Are there Coloureds in the Western Province to-day who are idle?

Yes.

Listen to what the Transvalers say! What does the hon. member for Tygervallei say? He is not saying a word. Why? Because he knows there are no Coloured layabouts here. Of course, I am not talking about the odd bad ones. The Police should in any case remove those. In reality there is a shortage of Coloured labourers in the Western Province, and we shall have to content ourselves with that position for many years to come.

The skollies are the only ones who are layabouts.

That may be. But then surely it is the duty of this Government to solve that matter? Why should housewives be taxed by means of a sales duty so as to allow skollies to lie about idle? If the hon. member is correct, he should join me in an attempt to get this Minister as far as to stop taxing the South African nation so that skollies may lie about idle. The real position is, however, that the hotel trade, for example, is complaining that it cannot obtain sufficient Coloured labour. And what about the farmer and the industrialist? We always used to get Bantu labourers from the Bantu areas for periods of two years. That was difficult enough. But now we are getting them for one year only. Well, for the first six months they are not worth anything. They are raw when they arrive; they cannot speak one’s language, they know nothing about what is going on. But as soon as they begin to learn something, it is time for them to go back. The only thing that is expected of the farmer under these circumstances is to subsidize the S.A. Railways. These Bantu may return to their areas, remain there for one week whereupon they may return. Usually, however, they do not go back to their reserves. They leave the train en route and say that they are going to visit relatives. In this way they visit one for 72 hours and another for 72 hours, until such time as they may return. What kind of business is this? There is not one single member representing a constituency in the Western Province who will disagree with me when I say that this measure is a handicap as regards the labour position in the Western Province. We do not want to run our farms on the labour of prison inmates, but we want people we can employ and can pay. Is there no other way of solving the labour shortage in the Western Province? Forget for the moment the story that the white spots in South Africa will start to get whiter by 1978. Let us forget about that; it is all over with that story. But if we want to remain sovereignly independent, and economically effective, we shall need more and more labourers in the Western Province. I also hope that the white man with his superior knowledge and initiative and his superior skill will be able to retain the leadership instead of becoming impoverished yet another time. No one knows better than I and the hon. the Minister do what the position of the white man was in 1932-’33. At that time we did not speak of a Colour problem. The hon. the Minister knows perfectly well how we spoke of the poor white problem at that time. Unless we can obtain sufficient unskilled labourers to supplement the ranks, we shall have to take care that we are not once again going to force white people to become poor Whites and to do that kind of work. I can see no reason, if there is any need for this, why this handicap should be placed on us in the Western Province. Let us be told what the reason is why we in the Western Province have to farm with migratory labourers and prison inmates. Why can these people not be allowed, as in the past, to come here under a two-year contract if they want to do so? Why can we not even give consideration to the policies implemented by Germany? The hon. the Minister is well acquainted with the circumstances in Germany in this regard. They brought entire villages from Italy to Germany under a five-year employment contract. Those people did not become Germans. They returned to their country in due course after having helped Germany over its difficulties. Germany was not afraid that those Italians would become Germans. May we not make use of the labourers we have at our disposal so that greater prosperity may come to the Western Province? I have said that we shall have to work harder, and I hope that this will come to pass. I also hope that the Government will make it possible for us to get more effective workers here. Those of us who still have an interest in these matters, talk about these things.

While the hon. member is advocating migratory labour, I should like to hear from him whether these people will be able to bring their families along with them?

I am pleased that the hon. member asked that question. At least it shows that he is interested in this matter. As a matter of fact, I said to the hon. the Minister that he should give consideration to the possibility of solving this matter in the way Germany solved its labour difficulties. Germany allowed the entire family of the migratory labourer to come along with him.

That is not true.

Of course they did that. The hon. the Minister too knows that this is so. Too much time has elapsed since that hon. member visited Germany, whereas the hon. the Minister was there a short time ago. The German Government transferred entire families, a whole village, to Germany under a five-year contract. I should like the possibility of having a similar undertaking in South Africa investigated in order to ascertain what can be achieved by those means.

But my time is running out. There are a few other matters I should like to discuss with the hon. the Minister. The hon. member for Pretoria (District) referred to the position we were experiencing in connection with motor cars and the prices charged by garages. This is a matter which the hon. the Minister really ought to have investigated. I think complaints are fairly common in this country that the costs of repairs to keep motor cars and tractors in running order are too high at the present time. This any farmer or anybody who owns such a vehicle will tell us. In the beginning I praised this hon. Minister for his courage. I did not always praise him for his wisdom, but in these other cases it probably was political considerations which made him act as he did. I nevertheless admire his courage. I wonder whether the time has not arrived for having an investigation into the number of different makes of motor cars and tractors which are available in South Africa. Should standardization not be taken one step further? I understand that we have more makes of motor cars in South Africa than they have in either America or England. It is clear what it is costing the country in spare parts alone in order to be able to have all these makes of motor cars in this country. Nowadays one really finds too often that good salesmen palm articles off on to people for which one cannot obtain spare parts two or three years later. That must mean tremendous expenditure to the country. I did not make a thorough study of this matter, but I think the hon. the Minister will be well advised to have some investigation into this matter.

Another matter I should like to raise concerns the stock exchange. Unfortunately I do not have the time at my disposal to elaborate on this. However, we all know what is happening on the stock exchange at present. We know how some people, usually the same group of people, are becoming extremely rich. They do not work, but simply use their knowledge to enrich themselves. I do not have complaints as regards most of those transactions, but I do have complaints as regards mutual life societies. I think the hon. the Minister may in fact be giving attention to this matter, but I shall be pleased if he wants to take us into his confidence to some extent and inform us of his plans. These mutual life societies can, if we do not take care, become money forming societies which is really going to take over South Africa. When one has regard to the sums of money which they have at their disposal year after year, and to the power which they have along with other large money forming concerns, I think the hon. the Minister may safely inform us in this regard. The hon. the Minister will be well advised to give attention to this aspect of the matter and then to let us have his opinion in this regard.

Are you speaking of Oppenheimer?

Yes, I am speaking, inter alia, of Anglo-American and I shall tell you why. Because of this Government’s credit restrictions, a whole number of smaller companies do not have sufficient credit for development at present, but those large companies, such as the Anglo-American Corporation and a whole number of other companies to which I have referred, have no problems in obtaining credit, because they themselves create it and in addition assist others. Mr. Speaker, I am merely mentioning this to you, because I unfortunately do not have much more time at my disposal. I want to content myself with these few ideas, I hope the Minister will understand and give us his opinion in this regard on a later occasion.

Mr. Speaker, I do not think the hon. member for Sea Point would expect me to follow him up. I frankly admit that I did not understand much of what he said, nor do I want to reply to what I did in fact grasp.

Are you also one of the loiterers (leeglêers)?

I do not want to reply to what the hon. member for Sea Point said, because after having listened so long to speakers on agriculture on that side of the House, I now have to admit that I am really disappointed at their performance. They wanted to pose here as champions of the farmers.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, is an hon. member entitled to call another hon. member a “loiterer”?

It is not an unparliamentary word.

But the hon. member for Durban (Point) said that the hon. member was a loiterer.

That is not a point of order.

Mr. Speaker, I did not say that he was a loiterer; I only asked whether he was also one of the loiterers.

The hon. member should also try to maintain parliamentary standards. The hon. member may proceed.

Mr. Speaker, I have so little time that I hope you will take this interruption into consideration.

We listened to hon. members on that side of the House and after having listened to members on this side of the House as well, I just want to say to them that I think their attempt failed. Precisely because agriculture found itself in very difficult circumstances over the past few years, they tried to bring the farmers of South Africa under the impression that we have a Government here which is interested in industrial development, in economic development, in the establishment of a powerful Defence Force, but which is not interested in the problems of the farmer. What is even worse, they want to tell the farmers of South Africa that we have a Government here which does not really regard agriculture as a factor in our national economy. For that very reason and on the basis of this White Paper, I want to take this opportunity to bring it to the attention of the hon. members on that side of the House and to the attention of the farmers of South Africa that this Government, through its Minister and on the basis of the White Paper which accompanies the Budget, thoroughly acquainted itself with the part played by agriculture in the economy of South Africa. On page 5 of the White Paper it is made clear that the real gross domestic product increased at a slower rate in 1968 than in 1967, i.e. by about 3.6 per cent as compared with the previous year’s rate of 8 per cent, and according to the White Paper this was due to a decrease in agricultural production in 1968 as against that of 1967 as a result of the drought. If there is a factor in our national economy which can cause the increase of the real gross domestic product to drop from 8 per cent to 3.6 per cent, then it is only a fool who will maintain that this Government, that the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Agriculture, or hon. members on this side of the House, do not regard it as an important factor. But the White Paper makes it very clear that these conditions developed especially as a result of drought conditions. We only want to make this point, namely that over the past 21 years, and in particular over the past nine years, we have had balanced budgets, as this Budget also is, and that is why we want to tell South Africa that this Government has done everything over the past nine years for the establishment of a powerful military machine in South Africa, not in order to disturb other countries, but to defend what is our own. This Government has succeeded in doing that. We thought that we had the most powerful defence force in Africa, but after the Six Days’ War we are convinced that we have the most powerful military forces in Africa. With all these stories of boycotts and sanctions which were going round it was this Government that saw to it by means of its budgets that we created an industrial machine which must also impress the fact upon the enemies of our people today that we are the industrial giant in Africa. One of our enemies has even called us the workshop of the whole of Africa, and that is due to the policy of this Government. I wonder whether we should consider it necessary to say something in regard to our economic growth at this stage. We know that as a result of the policy of this Government, South Africa is a country with one of the strongest economies in the world, a country which can pay for what it buys with the gold which it has in its possession. All this is true and notwithstanding the impression which the Opposition wants to leave with our people outside, we want to make it clear that hon. members on this side of the House are proud of our military power and of our industrial growth and proud of our economic strength, and to the farmer of South Africa we say that this Government knows that none of these things can be maintained if this Government does not have a sound and vigorous agricultural policy to keep the farmers of South Africa in a strong position in order to feed and clothe the people. This the farmer of South Africa must know.

I listened to hon. members opposite and I thought that they would really do something to defend the farmers if their good name were sullied. I sat waiting to this late hour to see where on the other side of the House we would find someone who would really take up the cudgels on behalf of the farmer. I said a while ago that we had imprecedented climatic conditions which created circumstances unprecedented in the modern history of agriculture. As a result of these special circumstances special measures had to be taken. We are aware of the fact that in this Budget and in the Budgets of the past few years enormous sums necessarily had to be spent in order to keep the farmers of South Africa going; in order to enable the farmers of South Africa to carry on producing. Sir, without wanting to couple this newspaper to this statement, I want to point out that we had to see a certain columnist making the statement that the farmers of South Africa were helping themselves to gift money. Those are he very words which appeared in that particular article on 3rd March. Because special measures had to be taken, because lump sums had to be spent on agriculture, the impression is now being created, also as a result of the action of certain members on the other side of the House, that this is gift money which the farmers of South Africa have received. Sir, I want to declare in this House to-day so that hon. members opposite can take note and so that the farmers of South African can take note, that we dissociate ourselves from the statement that our farmers have received gift money. The fact of the matter is that the farmers of South Africa borrowed that money and that it will be repaid, capital plus interest, to the source from which it was borrowed. To the Department of Agricultural Credit alone R7 million will, according to this Budget, be repaid this year. We completely dissociate ourselves from the statement that the farmers of South Africa are receiving gift money. It is money which they are obtaining from this Government on easier terms, but which they as self-respecting businessmen, will repay, together with interest, now and in the future. Sir, we hear the criticism from the opposite side that this Government does nothing for the farmer. We want to tell the Minister today that we highly appreciate these enormous amounts which have been spent in order to help the farmers; and while the agricultural industry is still experiencing hard times, we want to say to the hon. the Minister that it is not his fault. If we had reasonable climatic conditions over the past years then this aid would have been sufficient.

I want to conclude by saying that the farmer of South Africa has great appreciation for what the research workers of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services have done in connection with agricultural research in South Africa. In this connection I want to associate myself with the hon. member for Bethal. In expressing this appreciation, we trust that in the years ahead this work will be continued. Sir, knowledge is strength, but it is of no use that we in South Africa have at our disposal that store of knowledge through our research workers if we do not create the opportunity of conveying that knowledge by way of guidance to the farmers of South Africa. who have to make use of that knowledge. For that reason I agree with what was said by one of the great economists of South Africa. I do not want to associate myself with everything which he said—that is a matter which the Government will have to investigate—but I agree with him that we will not have the success in agriculture which we ought to have before, as this economist says, we spend at least 70 per cent of our agricultural budget on guidance and the rest on research.

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

Mr. Speaker, I think it is a privilege I have that the Whips on my side of the House have allowed me to come into this debate at this late stage, because it has given me an opportunity of listening particularly to the comments of hon. members on the opposite side of the House in support of the Budget introduced by the Minister of Finance. I think the most remarkable feature of the speeches that came from the other side has been the qualified and at best lukewarm support for the Minister’s proposals, especially his taxation proposals. Indeed, the lukewarm and qualified support at times threatened to erupt into open criticism. I was particularly interested in the suggestion of the hon. member for Sunnyside that the Minister should consider reducing the sales tax which he is proposing and to put in its stead a capital gains tax. To us on this side of the House that is interesting, because it is part of the undeclared war that is being fought by the people known as the “verkramptes” against the establishment in the Nationalist Party. It is obviously a direct appeal over the heads of the Government to the people who are being hit hard and unjustly treated as a result of the ill-considered proposals made by the hon. the Minister of Finance.

I also hoped that there would be a member on the other side of the House who would follow the excellent example of the Nationalist Party supporters in the City Council of Johannesburg, who joined the United Party there in appealing to the Government to do something about the financial plight of local authorities in South Africa.

The “Sappe” are in charge in Johannesburg.

But the Nationalist Party joined the “Sappe” in Johannesburg. This is a problem that faces every local authority in South Africa, concerning the congestion that is arising from the growth of the cities as a result of the prosperity in South Africa, and as a result of the lack of suitable sources from which these bodies can obtain their taxation. Two commissions, the Schumann and the Borckenhagen Commissions, have investigated this problem for years. We know that their reports are available to the Government. They are not available to Parliament, nor to the local authorities concerned, nor to the public. In this important speech, which is to set the pattern of the Government’s financial policy for another year, the hon. the Minister of Finance had nothing to say about any solution or any attempt at a solution of this vexed and important problem that affects every major municipality. We are being left in the dark. We do not know what these commissions have reported. We do not know whether the Government is concerned or what the answer will be. I do hope that in his reply the Minister of Finance will take the opportunity of taking the House into his confidence on this most vital matter.

I am surprised that the Minister did not deal with this for another reason: In his Budget speech and his taxation proposals, he did take serious cognizance of the criticisms and the suggestions of the United Party over the last few years. I am surprised that he did not deal with this particular matter, because he seems to have accepted most of the criticism that came from the United Party in every other respect. If I look at what is good in his Budget, every good measure or proposal we are considering emanated from speakers on this side of the House over the years. I think, for example, of the bulge in income tax which had to be removed. It was becoming preposterous. this remnant of the old days of super tax, when a man earning R4,000 was a wealthy man and had to be discriminated against as regards taxation. But that was when money still had value under the United Party. It was not possible to maintain that situation under a Nationalist Party Government. I can remember for the last four or five years how we pleaded for the removal of that bulge. I can remember the present Minister of the Interior, as Deputy Minister of Finance, trying to ridicule our pleas about the bulge last year. The hon. member for Paarl went so far as to deny that the bulge existed. It makes me wonder what he thinks the Minister has removed by his proposals this time.

I think, for example, of the well authenticated pleas of the hon. members for Wynberg and Parktown on the taxation of married women, to which I had the privilege to listen. Here is some indication of relief for married people. I can remember the pleas that my Leader has made throughout South Africa for more resources for the higher education of our people to ensure the leadership which we want to maintain. I find that one of the few good features in this Budget on the positive side is more money for higher education. I can remember the pleas he made for the Civil Service, especially for the higher echelons of the Civil Service, and not only for the lower and medium echelons. We are pleased to know that R15 million has been set aside to meet the just demands of the professional people in the Civil Service. But again the Minister in this particular instance has done only half of what the United Party is entitled in the name of South Africa to demand from him. Two years ago, especially when the Cabinet came forward with the ill-considered plan to limit the pay that local authorities were giving their senior officials, because they would not let them compete with the poor and ridiculous salaries paid to the heads of Civil Service departments, we pointed out to the Minister that it was not enough to recruit people to the Civil Service by raising commencing salaries considerably, but that the top ranks of the Civil Service, the Secretaries of the departments, the Commissioners and their deputies, should also receive considerable increases to bring them in line, at least, with the heads of the public utilities whom they control, who earn up to 60, 70 per cent more than they do. People do not only look at the starting salary, but they want to know how far they can get. If one wants a stable civil service, there must be an inducement for them to stay because there is a chance to satisfy their ambitions, comparable with the chances they enjoy in private enterprise. I hope that in his reply the Minister will indicate to us that the position of not only professional people, deserving as they are, will be reconsidered, but also of the senior members of the Civil Service staff. That will have to be done if we want a stable civil service in South Africa.

It is interesting that so forceful, so effective and I think so just and unanswerable was the criticism of the United Party on taxation over the past few years that the hon. the Minister had no option but to appoint a very fine commission under the chairmanship of Dr. Franzsen, to investigate these matters. That commission justified and supported most of our criticism and suggested chiefly that this bulge should be removed and also made suggestions as to what should be done to reimburse the State for the revenue it would lose as a result. It is interesting that the hon. the Minister had the wisdom to accept the proposals of this commission in principle. A few minor details have not been accepted, but are only delayed. But in implementing those suggestions the Minister had been guilty of the gravest unwisdom, I think, in the history of Parliamentary government in South Africa. It is quite clear, as somebody said to me a few minutes ago, that the hon. the Minister consulted experts and accepted their advice, which is good. But we should remember that under our parliamentary system of government, we have a very important aspect of government, which consists of experts, largely in the Civil Service. But their purely expert disembodied advice has to be tempered in its human consequences by the wisdom of the politicians who form the Government of the day. If one looks at this Budget, one finds that expert advice was taken and implemented, but the Minister and the Cabinet lacked the human insight to judge what the consequences of a literal application of those suggestions would be. I think that is the tragedy of this Budget. It is quite clear that, while we and the country, even the trade unions, are willing to accept in principle, the proposals of the Government for a new system of taxation in South Africa, the sales tax on the consumer, and especially the buyer, one cannot find any responsible person concerned with this aspect of our life who accepts the actual proposals of the Government. The trade unions, the chambers of commerce, leading businessmen, all have joined in supporting the attitude of the United Party in damning the implementation of the commission’s report as done by the Government.

I want to give hon. members a few examples. I think we should first of all look at the people who are getting the most relief because of the change in income tax. I want to express my appreciation to the Financial Mail, which in its issue of 3rd April, printed a table indicating what relief various income-tax groups will receive as a result of the change. It is interesting that married people with two children with an income of up to R1,500 in the Transvaal are receiving no relief whatsoever. But they will all have to pay the new buyers’ tax without exception. Then I find that people with an income of R2,000 a year—and there are thousands of them, as I will show in a minute—get relief of R15.84 a year. How many purchases do they have to make before that is not only absorbed, but multiplied many times in indirect taxation through buyers’ taxation? I find that even married people with two children in the Transvaal who earn R5,000 a year, will receive a relief of less than R80 a year. One motor car or one refrigerator, and it is gone for more than a year. Then all the other indirect taxes have to be added. Then I find this interesting fact. A married man with two children in the Transvaal, earning R5,000 a year, will get R79.62, less than R80 a year, relief. But the man earning R30,000 will receive R6,050 relief. This man will have six times the income of the man earning R5,000 a year, but he will get 75 times the relief.

The Trade Union Council of South Africa put economists to work on this matter. They have found, taking a very selective list of essentials in the Budget, articles we all have to use every day if we want to be decent, clean and South Africans in our true tradition, that the minimum a family must spend more under this tax, is something like R40 a year. But then, if one takes into account the creeping inflation which this Government accepts as part of its policy, the fact that they accept that money must depreciate in value every year in order to maintain the impetus of our economy, and if one accepts that that has happened at an average of 2.7 per cent over the last few years, one finds that no one earning R5,000 a year or less can hope to benefit under this Budget. Whatever benefit they get, for example the meagre R80 a year as a reduction in income tax, if they are married with two children, will be more than absorbed by the purchase tax and by the decline in the value of money. Does one want any greater justification for the immediate reaction that came from the hon. member for Constantia when this Budget was introduced, that it seems to be a rich man’s budget? The more the people have had a chance to study this Budget and the more they have had a chance to analyze it, the more they have become convinced that this is a budget to favour the few.

I took the trouble of looking at the report of the Commissioner for Inland Revenue for the year 1966-’67. There I find that while about a million people had to render income-tax returns in that year, many of them did not pay because they either did not earn enough or they worked at a loss. Probably some 800,000 people were subject to tax, but of those only 75,600 earned R5,200 or more. Out of the 18 million people of South Africa, out of the more than 3½ million white people of South Africa, 75,000 benefit under this Budget and the rest have to pay what they have never had to pay before, namely a tax on every purchase that they make. 92 per cent of the people get no benefits. They get additional burdens, they have to comply with additional demands as a result of this Budget. I say we are fully entitled to call it a “rich man’s budget”. At last the disguise, the mask has fallen from the face of the Nationalist Party and they stand revealed for what they are, the friend not of the capitalist but of the militant capitalist, the old-fashioned nineteenth-century capitalist in South Africa.

I want to emphasize this point. A man earning R2,000 per year with three children will get no tax reduction. His spending power will be reduced by R54 because of the increase in the cost of living.

What did he pay before?

I do not think he paid much. As a matter of fact, he paid nothing. But that is not the point. Wait a minute. The man earning R2,000 per annum with three children will get no tax reduction in that he paid no tax before. Does that satisfy the hon. the Minister? He will get no tax reduction in direct taxes inasmuch as he paid no direct tax. But his spending power will be decreased by R54 because of creeping inflation and, according to what I told the House a little while ago, he will have to pay at least R37 to R38 in purchase tax. That is the position. He paid nothing before but now he has to pay about R40 in purchase tax. Does the hon. the Minister of Water Affairs understand that?

A married man with three children earning R5,000 a year can on the face of it look forward to a good reduction of R102 a year, but when he looks at the tax placed on him as a consumer and the fact that the value of his money will fall by 2.7 per cent at least, he loses R70 on the deal, he is R70 a year worse off. So we find only those 75,000 European families who earn more than R5,000 a year will get any benefit from this Budget whatsoever, and very few non-Europeans should be included there. I have not had time to work out their figures.

I think in view of what has been proved from this side of the House, in view of the criticism that has been levelled from this side of the House and which has been voiced by the public outside …

The public have not complained.

Shall I read what Mr. Meyer of the Associated Chambers of Commerce had to say about this Budget? Shall I remind hon. members opposite of what Mr. Hurland, one of the greatest departmental store managers of Johannesburg said? He called this a “savage budget on the poor man”. [Interjections.] Shall I remind them of what the trade unions and the Handelsinstituut had to say? Every one of them has been critical of the way the sales tax is being imposed, and therefore I say the Government and Parliament and the country should be grateful to the hon. member for Constantia who gave us figures so that all of us could understand the position. He came with a counter-proposal in regard to which I want to say now I sincerely hope the Minister does not find it too late to consider. He pointed out that the hon. the Minister needed R98 million to compensate for what he will lose as a result of the change in the taxation system. He pointed out that the hon. the Minister had R53 million, being the balance of his surplus after he had taken R5 million to help people outside South Africa. He pointed out that there was a Stabilization Fund of R341 million from which R35 million could be taken on a temporary basis, because that is what the Stabilization Fund is for. It is there to stabilize the situation when the Government comes with revolutionary changes in the financial organization of the country, as this Government has done this Session. If I remember correctly, the hon. member suggested that R10 million transferred from the Revenue Account to the Loan Account be transferred back to the Revenue Account. The Minister now has a surplus of R28 million and it should be brought back. That will give him the R98 million. I think that is correct; that is how the hon. member for Constantia saw it. This will balance the Budget. Then the Government will have a year in which to experiment with a purchase or sales tax. It can impose a considerable sales tax, say 15 or 20 per cent, on luxuries, and a tax of not more than 2½ per cent on other commodities on a more selective basis than the nine-page one we got in the Minutes of Proceedings the day after the Budget speech.

I want to plead with the Minister to take the suggestion of the hon. member for Constantia for what it is worth. He can only have one objection to it, and that is it may be inflationary. I concede that and I think we all concede it may be inflationary, but will it be more inflationary in one year than a purchase tax, the outcome of which we cannot foresee because we do not know at what level it will hit the consumer at the retail outlet? Will it be more inflationary than the cost push effect such an ill-considered and unplanned sales tax as suggested by the Minister can have?

I read on the financial page of the Cape Times yesterday a small two-inch report of what happened in Holland recently. There on 1st of January the Government imposed an added values tax, which is very similar to this new tax of ours. The results were unpredictable, but the average cost of food has risen by almost 6 per cent and the Lower House had to be summoned from its Easter recess to look at the consequences of this tax. The Government has now frozen all prices.

In principle it is the same.

In principle it is the same. Let us look at the example of our neighbouring country, namely Rhodesia. There they set about imposing a purchase tax circumspectly. One could almost have thought that the United Party was in power in Rhodesia, the way they did this. A few years ago they imposed such a tax at the retail point of outlet, at the final point of consumption, as you have it in America, in England, and in all the countries in which I have seen it work. The rate of the tax was 3d in the £, 1.66 repeating per cent, and it worked. Recently they doubled it and it is now 8d in the £ at the retail outlet, at the point of final consumption; it is now 3.333⅓ per cent, but it works. Surely the Minister should consider the difference between these two cases and should be grateful to the hon. member for Constantia and to the Opposition for being willing to give the Government the benefit of its sound thinking through the years. [Interjections.] The history of South Africa of the last few years abounds with examples where the Government was forced by the logic of circumstances to accept the views of the United Party. It is true of immigration, it is true of the Orange River scheme, it is true of taxation, it is true of a hundred different things. I plead with the hon. the Minister of Finance to prove that he has the one quality which the country is entitled to demand of its Minister of Finance, and that is wisdom. He will prove he has it if he will consider and accept the wise and sensible, the helpful, proposals which came to him from the Opposition through the hon. member for Constantia.

Mr. Speaker, it gives me pleasure to be able to say that we hope that the pattern which the hon. the Minister of Finance laid down with this Budget will in future be able to serve as a model for his colleagues and for every hon. member in this House. From his speech it is evident that he sought wisdom, and there are indications that he called in the assistance of Him who is known to be the wisest Being of all. I think this can serve as a lesson to all of us. Far from making remarks which do not correspond to his pattern, I hope we shall elaborate his pattern in future so that we may say: “Furthermore, the preacher said the following things,” things which will be further proof of and which will lend further support to his statements.

The hon. member who sat down a moment ago began his speech by referring to the “financial plight” of the provincial councils.

I referred to local authorities. Did you not listen?

He merely referred to that, but he did not make out a case and therefore I can say nothing about the matter except that it is not true. In so far as I know the provincial councils and …

Who mentioned provincial councils?

The true picture as regards the provincial councils is nothing like the picture the hon. member tried to hold up to us. I think just the reverse applies. There were times when the programmes of the provincial councils anticipated even those of the Government. I want to leave that part of the hon. member’s speech at that.

As I have said, the hon. member referred to the Financial Mail and he tried to lend further support to his case by referring to the Financial Mail’s criticism on this Budget. It is a pity he did not read the following quotation in the March edition of the Financial Mail, because his speech might have been more useful and we could have listened to it with greater advantage. The hon. member said this Budget was the rich man’s budget, that the poor man did not benefit at all and that the poor man did not get any concessions worth mentioning. But the Financial Mail says, inter alia, the following—

What articles does the rich man buy so often? The rich man, of course, buys the luxury cars, extra watches, luxury articles, additional radios and the like. In other words, if the hon. member wants to get his information from the Financial Mail, he should also look at this quotation, and then he will see that the arguments he advanced here do not hold water. I cannot spend any more of my time on the hon. member, because I want to say a few words about the Budget as well.

As has been said by both sides of the House, this Budget was based on a completely new style. I want to express my appreciation of the fact that the hon. the Minister found other sources that can be taxed. Before elaborating on this point, I just want to say the following. I think we can argue as much as we want to, but under all circumstances and at all times one major fact remains as plain as a pikestaff. Income tax is still the most just and fair form of taxation there is in the world. In the case of income tax the person, the concern and the taxpayer can be taxed according to the amount they can afford. The indirect form of taxation is a method by which more funds can be obtained and to make people pay in such a way that they do not feel it so much, and to curb extravagance to some extent indirectly and in a different way. I still maintain, however, that if one applies all the tests, income tax is still the most fair and just form of taxation. I think both sides of the House will agree that the country and the Government still needs a great deal of money. In future considerable levies will have to be imposed.

In passing, I want to suggest something here which agrees to a large extent with a plea which was made in this debate by the hon. member for Sunnyside before. I want to suggest that there should be a form of capital taxation. I think this will be welcomed by the rich as well as the not so rich. I want to suggest ½ per cent capital gains tax which is earmarked, not earmarked to go into the. Consolidated Revenue Fund of the State, but earmarked as was done in the case of the duty on petrol in 1935. At that time money was earmarked for a specific purpose. I want to see that we have a capital gains tax in this country but not simply for the sake of imposing taxation, but that it should be earmarked for only one purpose, namely for the question of water conservation in South Africa. I hope the hon. the Minister of Water Affairs will give this matter his attention.

If there is one department which is at present drawing the attention of the whole of South Africa, it is the Department of Water Affairs. The problem that Department has to cope with can and will be solved only when that major problem is confronted in an organized way. Instead of asking the Consolidated Revenue Fund hesitantly for one amount or other for water conservation every year, we should rather use this opportunity. I think everyone in the country, rich as well as poor, will welcome a capital gains tax of ½ per cent which is earmarked and which is applicable to all of us. It should be allocated for the one and only purpose of enabling the hon. the Minister of Water Affairs to build those hundreds and thousands of private dams, because the country is not prepared to and cannot rely on major projects alone in future. After all, most of our water runs to waste. The smaller water schemes can also be stimulated if we have a fund from which proper subsidies and other forms of assistance can be made available to those who are prepared to conserve water in South Africa on a smaller scale. I want to recommend to the Government in all seriousness and with the greatest emphasis that we must use that money only for this purpose in future. I cannot see why this cannot be done. Nobody can tell me that our people will not welcome this form of taxation.

The real reason why I got up to speak, is to deal with the amendment moved by the hon. member for Constantia. I want to speak specifically about that part of his amendment in which reference is made to the shortage of manpower. I want to say here to-day with all the responsibility that rests on my shoulders that the question of the shortage of manpower is being exaggerated far too much. That is the first thing I want to say. This shortage does not exist, and before going into the matter further, I want to say that a sound way in which to combat this state of affairs and to give attention to it, is to revert to the statement made by the late Mr. Strydom here years ago; one cannot get away from the fact that this is the right and only way which will prevent this country from being plunged into chaos later. As I said last year during the discussion of the Physical Planning Act, there is a rush and the rush will become worse. Mr. Strydom said that industries in South Africa should only develop as fast as the population of South Africa could afford such development, and industrialists from all over the world could not come and make claims here. They must not expect the people of South Africa, only because the climate for industrial development here is the best in the world, to do whatever they are told to do, to give them water, to give them Black labour, to give them white labour as well as housing. Let us keep to that statement, because if we keep to that statement, the Minister of Planning and the Minister of Bantu Administration will be able to handle the position properly. If we should give in to everything the Opposition expects us to do, if we give in to all their fancies and to the demands in connection with the so-called shortage of manpower—I want to say again that that is not true—we must bear in mind that it is the thin end of the wedge they are trying to drive in. This is the attempt they make and this is the flank on which they want to attack us in order to get us to accept their demands for Black instead of white labour.

That is what your own Government is doing!

Mr. Speaker, do you know why there is not enough white labour to-day to meet the so-called demand? Because the big industrialists who are ruled by the whip of the Hoggenheimers do not want white labourers to come in from outside the country. They do not want this; they want technicians and professional people, but they do not want the artisans here because “Hoggie” says, “There is all the Black labour you require in this country”. Day after day he says we should allow the white man to be replaced by the Black man. “Hoggie” asks why we want white labourers in this country. What is the result? He has a stranglehold on the majority of our industries in the Republic; he is the man who is projecting and who says that we should not let skilled Whites from Europe come into the country. In passing, I want to say that I will bring in any number of skilled artisans that may be wanted from Europe and Britain. Just give me a certificate, just give me a contract, give me a guarantee that a certain number of artisans are needed and I will go and get whatever number is needed. That industrialist who is ruled by the whip of Hoggenheimer does not want this, he will not allow this. I have made this offer to them time and again, but they do not want the skilled artisans here. No, they want the professional man who is here to-day, in Cairo to-morrow, in Europe the next day, and in Australia the day after that; they want the man who is going from one place to another, but the artisan who came to South Africa in the past was the man who made South Africa his home. It was the man who identified himself with White South Africa, the man who became a good citizen, and that is the man who to-day is as good a South African as one could possibly want him to be. They do not want those people. This is recorded in their letter written by the Chamber of Mines years ago. The contents of the letter boil down to the following—

That is the reason. The Black man does not have a vote and if the white man comes here from overseas, he votes for the National Party. It is an economic stranglehold which is being applied by Hoggenheimer for the purpose of exercising political influence in the industrial field from time to time to fight this Government. If the United Party is really concerned about skilled labour, they must make their influence felt with the industrialists and tell them: Give us a guarantee that we will be able to bring in skilled labourers from our countries of origin. But they do not want to do that. The hon. member for Constantia referred to the shortage of labour once more. He says there are thousands of blacks we should allow to be trained as skilled workers, so that they can take the place of Whites. Then they advance the argument of “the rate for the job”, and when you ask them what you must do with the white worker, they say he should be promoted. No country in the world and no nation under the sun can be in a sound position if it leaves its labour force in the hands of a foreign nation. Let the Opposition appreciate this once and for all. Whether they like it or not, the policy of separate national development will be implemented more efficiently year after year and as a result of that they will have to put it out of their mind that the Black man will always take the place of the white man. The reason why there is such an outcry from their part about the labour shortage to-day is to see whether they cannot obtain some concession or other so that we can allow more Bantu to come in to take the place of the white man.

As Ben Schoeman is doing.

As we allow that pattern to develop further, it will become increasingly clear, also to the people overseas. The Englishmen, the Scots, the Irish, the Dutch and the Germans come into close contact with South Africa, and they are being frightened away by Hoggenheimer’s story that we are replacing Whites with Blacks. This frightens away the skilled workers overseas. He says he does not intend going to South Africa to work there on the basis of the rate for the job in competition with the black man, because he knows he will not be able to hold his own under those circumstances, because his standard of living is higher than that of the black man. How can one expect a skilled labourer from overseas to come to this country when there is all this talk of the “rate for the job” as regards your artisans? Surely, he cannot do this. Surely he knows he will simply have to leave South Africa again. I say that as a result of this talk about the rate for the job, the United Party is frightening away thousands and thousands of potentially good immigrants from South Africa. But let them stop that nonsense and let them accept once and for all, because the public of South Africa has accepted it, that in future the industrial pattern here will only be based on the Industrial Conciliation Act, namely that under Section 77 the white man will be protected in his areas, and in order to protect the non-white labourer, he is afforded training facilities that he may equip himself to work in his own areas. This is the pattern that should be accepted by the Opposition once and for all, but as long as they talk about the “rate for the job” story it serves as further encouragement to the industrialists in South Africa, who would perhaps have preferred white workers from Europe and for him to say, if I have to tell that man in Holland or Belgium or Germany or England to come and work here on the basis of the rate for the job in competition with the black man, they know it is useless to try and let that white man come to South Africa. I shall leave all this talk about the rate for the job at that. The United Party cannot tell me in which instances, from the time they started to talk about the rate for the job, they could protect one single white man against infiltration by the non-white worker. If we had not had Act No. 55 of 1962, under which the white miner was protected, there would not have been one single white man left on the mines. But as a result of the protection they have under that Act, the mining industry to-day is one of the industries in South Africa which does not take second place to any other industry as far as efficiency is concerned. And it is in the mining industry where the lines of job reservation are most clearly drawn. Certificates of efficiency are granted to Whites only, with the result that one has the highest degree of efficiency there. But what do we always hear from the United Party? They say that as a result of job reservation and other forms of protection we give white workers, we are obstructing the industry. But I say that we are obstructing the industries to such an extent that there is not one single industrialist in the whole world today who is not keen to invest money here.

All this is attributable to the protection we give the White workers, because this is the key to industrial peace, which is something unheard of in the rest of the world. That is why our country has been progressing steadily and more rapidly than most of the other countries in the world, because we have the highest degree of industrial peace. Not in any of the old countries with a homogeneous population does one find the amount of industrial peace we are enjoying here. This is also attributable to the fact that among the workers there are leaders of consequence, men of calibre who have the necessary qualities of leaders to guide the workers and who know their responsibility towards South Africa, and because we do not have the situation one finds in America where trade union leaders are bribed by company owners to strike in order to embarrass the Government. Therefore I say we should pay the greatest possible tribute to the trade unions in South Africa, the leaders of which are men who place South Africa first and who have no motive other than looking after the welfare and prosperity of those of whom they are the leaders and whom they represent in the first place and, in the second place, of South Africa as a whole. We are very fortunate in that we have workers’ leaders of that calibre, and I hope and trust that the confidence the Government placed in them and which they placed in the Government will be maintained for many future generations, because when that happens the industrial peace in South Africa is guaranteed, and we can hope that our growing economy will flourish for many future generations.

Allow me to say, first of all, that since this Budget debate has been in progress, I have listened to various speakers on this side of the House, and I may say that they, virtually without exception, have performed the duty which rests on their shoulders, i.e. to confine themselves to the various facets of the Budget. Fundamentally this Budget has so much impact that in my opinion it caught the United Party completely on the wrong foot, so much so that they, in the words of a certain writer they know well, Mr. Stanley Uys, as he predicted last year, simply fired a shot of buckshot to see whether one of the grains would not hit somewhere. I listened to the men who spoke on agriculture, and what they said amounted to a repetition in this Budget debate of the same bits of gossip they spread at the time of the last election in Newcastle. As far as I am concerned, however, I want this hon. House and the hon. the Minister and the officials who drafted the Budget to know that the majority of people in the area I come from are satisfied with the new taxation and that it is an inspiration to the people who used to feel depressed about the old form of taxation in the days when taxation still assumed a stereotyped form. This has now acted as an inspiration to them, because they see that now there is going to be a new dispensation. But what is alarming to me, was already an alarming factor to certain other people last year. I have here a photostatic copy of the problems with which the United Party was saddled last year after the Budget, and it reads as follows—

Let us now test the speeches of a senior frontbencher like the hon. member for Yeoville against this. He said a whole lot of things and said exactly the same things as the hon. woman member over there. [Interjections.] The article proceeds—and I should like to quote this, because I should like not only hon. members in this House, but also the public outside, to have the opportunity of testing these speeches, which have now become public knowledge, against this statement of the gentleman who wrote the article. He said—

The hon. member for North Rand made terrible statements here and said the National Party used to be a poor man’s party once upon a time; it looked after the poor man. In other words, by saying that he was actually admitting that they were a rich man’s party. And that was their downfall. To-day they still are a rich man’s party, and I do not want to assume the role of a prophet now, but I say that this same rich man’s party is going to bury them, because in the past 20 years their numbers have been decreasing very rapidly. I would be concerned about something like that.

Why are you so concerned about the Opposition?

I am concerned, because in my opinion a good Opposition has a function to fulfil, but I am also of the opinion that a stupid Opposition can do a great deal of harm to a country, because the only thing one gets from such an Opposition is that they spread gossip from place to place, as they did in Newcastle, with the result that our party has become so large that we have to stand in a queue to make speeches in this House. For that reason the hon. member opposite went from house to house and told the voters, “Won’t you vote for our party, because if your candidate were to be elected, he would have to stand in a queue in order to get a turn to speak”. But what he did not say was this: Even if one were to give a United Party member 20 turns to speak, one would get exactly these things I have just quoted here from the writings of Mr. Stanley Uys in the Sunday Times of 3rd June last year after the Budget.

Why do you not discuss the Budget?

I am quoting what he wrote at that time—

Sir, this is very important …

What do you think of the purchase tax?

I shall tell the hon. member in a moment. I have here in front of me a report of a speech by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition in which he did, inter alia, exactly what Stanley Uys mentioned, namely to advocate the philosophy of the hon. member for Houghton. The final passage I want to quote from this article before coming to the question of the sales duty is the following—

The hon. member for Yeoville asked me what I thought of the sales duty, and I now want to tell him what I told the Minister, and that is that my people are overcome with happiness about this Budget.

“Overcome” is the right word.

There are a few factors about which we are very happy and I should like to mention them here. Because of this Budget we are now at least aware of the fact that we have a fine Civil Service. I am saying this because of an attack made here by the hon. member for Sea Point, who is not present at the moment, on the Civil Service. The hon. member wanted a commission of inquiry to be appointed in order to ascertain in what way the Civil Service could be made more streamlined. His deputy leader, the hon. member for Yeoville, was not present at the time and subsequently he came here and praised a few civil servants. Sir, personally I am perfectly satisfied with the Civil Service we have and so are my people. We should bear the fact in mind that this Budget makes provision for expenditure amounting to R4,000 million and that the administration of the country has to be undertaken by a greatly reduced staff, as the United Party put it, because according to them we are losing all our staff. Under these circumstances we can only say “Bravo!” to the small but valiant band of men and women we have in our Civil Service. Those of us who often have to deal with the Civil Service and who used to be civil servants ourselves, know with what interest they are performing their work. As regards this Budget with its sales duty, they have come forward with a completely new idea. Now we at least know that supervision is going to be exercised over the businessmen who are making exhorbitant profits, supervision for which we have been pleading for so long and in which connection we have never received any support from the United Party. I have never heard one single United Party member deliver a plea in this House for the activities of businessmen who make exhorbitant profits to be curbed. Here I have in mind the businessmen who adopt the attitude, “This is my price for the article; take it or leave it”. Now these businessmen will know that if they are exploiting the public in some way or other, the article concerned can quite easily be included in the Minister’s list of articles which are subject to a 20 per cent sales duty, and this 20 per cent will most definitely not be recovered from the pocket of the consumer only. Hon. members of the Opposition should not think that this band of men who are assisting the hon. the Minister are so stupid as to introduce a duty simply because they want to introduce a new system or want to try out something new, as a town-dweller does who wants to ride a young horse and then puts his foot in the wrong stirrup as a start. We do not do things like that. Expert advice was taken.

Much of this duty can be absorbed from the profits which are being made at present and which are being invested in the so-called grey capital which the Government has been unable to get at up to now and which it will eventually get at whether people want to know this or not. Let this Budget then be a revelation to those who believe that the Government has struck a wrong note that the Government will eventually get at the people who use grey capital for financing their affairs and for keeping rates of interest low. But Rome was not built in a day, nor are fax systems. But, Sir, you can examine every one of our Budgets over the past 20 years, from the smallest to the largest, and you will find that they are indicative of progressive thinking, that fundamental changes were introduced from time to time, changes which were accepted in due course, and then the hon member for Yeoville maintains that the changes were introduced at the instance of the Opposition, for example, the elimination of the bulge in the income tax scale and the introduction of income levelling in respect of the agricultural industry. What does he think we on this side of the House do?

Nothing.

If we did do nothing, surely the electorate would reject us and return a United Party Government to power. Sir, we want to congratulate the hon the Minister on this new tax direction. Before concluding my speech, I just want to mention three further points, points to which I want to ask the hon. the Minister to give his attention. In the first place I want to refer to those farmers who were placed on a stock basis for income tax purposes. That worked out at plus-minus £20, i.e. R40, per large stock unit, per head of cattle. At the present time this is still the value. In the event of such a farmer’s death, his estate is assessed for taxation purposes at the difference between R40 and the estimated value of a head of cattle which, under present circumstances prevailing in our flourishing and growing economy has increased to R140, R160 or R180. I want to ask for these values to be re-adjusted so as to bring them more or less into line with the present market value of stock.

Then I come to the second point I want to raise, and here I do not want to plead for any change to be made to the tax system. The present position is that a tax is levied on motor cars, bicycles and other vehicles, and this money is distributed to the various authorities or, as the hon. member for Yeoville prefers to call them, local authorities. We simply call them provincial councils and other authorities which include the local authorities he has in mind. I hope the hon. member also had the Durban local authority in mind which still is under their control. I also hope he had the deeds of those people in mind when he referred to Johannesburg. Instead of letting the owners of motor vehicles etc., pay a wheel tax, as we call it, we want to plead for a tax to be levied on fuel, so that the man who makes most use of his vehicle may pay the most and the man who makes less use of his vehicle and the roads, may pay less. My basic reason for this proposal is that these assessments are left to the whims of provincial authorities and other local authorities. Therefore we find that this tax differs from province to province. We also find that difficulty is always being experienced with regard to the transfer of vehicles from one province to another and that people prefer to register their motor cars in that province which has the lowest tax. If a uniform tax were to be levied on fuel, it would be possible to do away with provincial taxes, and I think that sufficient funds would be found in this way for the maintenance of our roads.

Finally, I should like to come to the allowances paid to provincial authorities. We know that Bantu Education has its own account now; the Post Office has its own account; the Railways Administration has its own Budget; the Provincial Administrations also have their own Budgets, but they may do as they please without this Parliament’s having much say about money. In the same way as South-West Africa and the Railways, the Post Office and Bantu Education are expected to Table their Estimates in this House, I want to ask that the provinces should also Table their Estimates in this House so that we may discuss them. As hon. members know, we are not perfectly happy about the expenditure of one province, and it would be a good thing if we knew in advance in what way they were going to spend their money. I have here in front of me a Budget which made provision for R29 million for health services. Of this R29 million, R2 million was recovered from the State; another R2 million from Whites and the rest was a dead loss. We have to view this picture against the background of “the rate for the job” to which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition referred in his speech, because there is a correlation between the “rate for the job” and the ousting of Whites from fairly important posts to make place for non-Whites. We also find that these provinces do not always spend money in a way with which all of us would agree at all times.

Mr. Speaker, it has been a privilege to me to have been able to take part in a budget debate such as this in which new vistas have been opened and in connection with which we know that the Minister and the people who assist him will also be open to new approaches in the future.

Mr. Speaker, I have listened to a lot of speeches during this budget debate. Some have been very interesting while others have not interested me very much. Although I cannot compliment the hon. member who has just resumed his seat, there were a few points in his speech that were really very startling to me, and the Opposition. I am wondering whether hon. members on that side heard the statement coming from the hon. member for Vryheid just now when he suggested that as with the Railway and Post Office Budgets, the Provincial Council’s budgets should be discussed and passed in this Parliament as well.

Why not?

The hon. member says why not. I wonder on whose authority the hon. member is speaking here this afternoon. We will be fighting the Provincial Council elections next year and we will look forward to dealing with this point, particularly in the Newcastle and Vryheid areas. The hon. member said that his constituents were very very happy indeed with the Budget. This is another bold statement for the hon. member to have made. I do not know and I cannot fathom why his constituents should be so happy and contented about this Budget, when generally speaking, wherever one goes, the topic of the day is about the purchase tax in this Budget. Everybody is complaining and dissatisfied and confused about the purchase tax. But in Vryheid they are very happy. This I cannot understand. It is an exception to the rule. When one refers to the purchase tax—the “sales” tax as hon. members on the other side prefer to call it—I immediately think of estate duties or death duties. Here one finds that the estate of a businessman which he has built up and in respect of which he has been paying direct taxation on his earnings over the years, is again taxed after his death. It is taxed for the second time. I want to see how many people in Vryheid accept even the estate duty tax. When we take a simple example such as the retreading of motor car tyres or any rubber tyres, the reconditioning of all tyres, the position is that we pay tax on these tyres in the purchase of that particular article. But when it is worn out, because the man is battling and he wants to try and make ends meet and at the same time curb inflation, he decides to have the tyre reconditioned; He then pays a tax for the second time on the same article, this is just like estate duty taxation. Here is an example of another small item. If you buy the shank of a gold ring at a jewellers shop—the bare ring—and at another jeweller you buy a diamond …

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member must give me an opportunity to speak. I did not interfere with him whilst he was speaking. As I have said, if in these circumstances a diamond was bought at a jeweller you would have to pay 20 per cent on the gold shank and another 20 per cent on the diamond. When the jeweller fits the diamond to the gold shank to make a complete job of the ring, a further 20 per cent tax has to be paid.

No, you are wrong.

This is a point the hon. member will have to explain to this House. I am very pleased that the hon. member mentioned this point, because it brings me to the theme of my speech on the purchase tax, namely the unpreparedness of the people. Before I proceed to this point I would like to say that I have heard the Budget called all sorts of things during this debate. Some have called it the rich man’s budget. I should like to call it the rich man’s “joy” and the poor man’s “nightmare”. This is purely what it is, and what it means. I have often said to people, and it applies particularly to this budget debate “dit is nie ’n skande om arm te wees nie, maar dit is baie ongerieflik”. And this is true. We are to-day imposing taxation upon the poor people of South Africa to foot the bill for the benefit of the rich. This purchase tax is instant legislation on the public without debate. To-day we have in certain businesses nothing short of chaos. I represent a large area in the Eastern Cape and I can assure you that since the Budget was announced there has been chaos in the manufacturing industries, wholesale dealers and the retail dealers. In some instances there has been complete chaos, so much so that even the radio has had to come to the assistance of the department in trying to explain how this particular tax works. I wonder why the hon. the Minister did not first consider issuing a moratorium to all the manufacturing industries and all the other businesses, explaining to them precisely how this purchase tax had to work and how they had to go about it to make it work satisfactorily. But nothing at all was done. Only a few years ago we were faced with another problem, not nearly as complicated as this purchase tax, namely the decimal currency changeover. That was not nearly as complicated but at least the public and all the businesses had an opportunity of studying for five years the currency changeover, before it was brought into operation. The hon. member for Vryheid said in his speech that “die Opposisie is onkant gevang”.

Of course you were.

In a sense the Opposition has been caught unawares or offside. The Government has been caught offside too. The Government brought in this purchase tax quite prematurely without warning anybody. I do accept that I was caught unawares as regards this purchase tax. I am not ashamed to say so because nothing was explained to us beforehand. It was simply dropped on us like a bomb and we have had to accept it overnight. The Budget in itself fails to combat inflation, inflation is something which has been a major topic in this House for some years. This Budget does in fact do the opposite, it is creating inflation.

Not if you buy less.

The hon. member must get up and make a speech on the Budget. I should like to hear his views on it because he represents a large hard-working section of our population, namely the railway people. I should like to hear what he has to say about the people in the De Aar area where we have a large railway junction. We are looking forward to his speech. I will be visiting De Aar myself during the recess and I should like to check up on the hon. member’s remarks here this afternoon, that is if he has any remarks.

Last year we showed a surplus of R58 million and in 1967 some R30 million odd. Today we have in our Stabilization Fund, as has already been mentioned here, R343 million. This is really a nice large tidy sum of money. We heard the hon. the Minister mention that he was prepared to lose in revenue through relaxing direct taxation by R115 million. He suggested that he was going to make up the leeway by this purchase tax which is expected to bring in approximately R100 million. In other words, according to the hon. the Minister’s figures, he would fall short by about R15 million, which on a large Budget of R2,673 million, is a mere drop in the ocean. I do not know how the hon. the Minister calculates the purchase tax, this is something which has been discussed here and everybody seems to be guessing. But knowing the hon. the Minister as I do and how well he has done by overtaxing our people for the last two years, my guess is that he will emerge not with a loss of R15 million but that he will show a profit of near R200 million this time next year. R200 million is my estimate. We will come back to this House and see how far out I was and how far out the hon. the Minister was. It has already been mentioned that there may be a motive in ending this next year with a large surplus. It may be a political stunt. I know this Government and its supporters well enough, that when it is election time, they are going to find themselves on the right side of the financial fence. Possibly a reduction will come next year in this particular purchase tax, which for the next 12 months is going to hit everybody very hard indeed, and just before the Provincial Council elections, this purchase tax will be reduced.

When one considers the working couple one finds that although the Minister has rejected the Franzsen Commission’s advice that working couples be taxed separately, he is replacing current concessions for working couples with a flat deduction of R500 from the taxable income of a couple. According to the Minister, he will gradually reduce the combined taxation on the couple when they reach an income of R8,000. We on this side of the House have been suggesting for years now that taxation on the combined income of a working couple should be done away with. We do already find that when a working woman receives her salary, she falls under P.A.Y.E.; and she pays her tax. So does her husband. They have always paid, but now the hon. the Minister is only allowing her a ceiling of R500 income, before this R500 salary is added together with her husband’s. It is the same as the estate duty, the tyres and the rings tax. I should like to see that this is done away with completely. I am not satisfied. I am not satisfied at all. I was expecting something far better than the concessions the hon. the Minister has given to working couples. I think it is very unfair, and I can assure the hon. the Minister and this House that my constituency is very disappointed about the concession as regards this joint taxation on working married couples. No one will convince me that it is in any way fair. He is not giving the working wife much scope. She only has to earn R84 a month, which is not much to-day, when she exceeds the R500 mark per annum, her salary is added to that of her husband.

I now come to another item, which is the allowance on medical expenses of a minimum of R150, irrespective of the family. I feel there should be a sliding scale so that the family man can benefit. It seems wrong for a bachelor to have an allowance of R75 and a family man, who has six or eight children, or even more, to have a medical allowance of only R150. We know bachelors have expenses that married men do not have. I have been a bachelor myself. But I do not see why these two categories should receive virtually the same allowance.

Now I come to another item which I am concerned about. I know other members on that side are worried as well, although they are afraid to mention it. The growth funds to-day in terms of this Budget will be consuming all the cash in South Africa, which is of course to the detriment of the building societies. We must have houses and more houses, but the quotas from the building societies are decreasing monthly, owing to people investing hard cash in growth funds, simply because the growth funds are inviting the public to subscribe. I feel and suggest that the funds should be compelled to invest at least 20 per cent in the building societies to plough it back into houses for our people. Housing loans will naturally benefit. If this does not happen, the housing loans in South Africa will suffer very seriously.

Now I come to the last item, which is a matter that has been mentioned here quite often, namely the tax on soap and powder. This again affects the family, and is going to hit the family man, particularly the man with a large family. The Minister for Bantu Administration and Development mentioned only last year that we in South Africa must have larger families. Now the Minister of Finance is imposing a tax on all the items which help to keep the large family healthy and clean. Not only are we faced with this problem of keeping our families healthy and clean in view of the rise in taxes on these commodities which are very essential, but we find that even commodities such as disinfectants outside the house where we have to use them to control and kill germs and to keep away all diseases, have been increasingly taxed. Altogether I am very disappointed in the Budget and very dissatisfied about it. I look forward to reviewing it next year; I am sure we will see that the Opposition has been very accurate in its forecast.

Mr. Speaker, I got a fright the other day when I heard one of the Opposition members say that these principles laid down in the Budget were acceptable to them, for experience has already taught me that that side of the House can do nothing good. If they say they accept a principle I must from the outset feel apprehensive about something being wrong with that principle. But I am glad, and I am certain that they accept the principle on which this Budget is based. That is one matter of which I am at least certain. This rummaging about in regard to soap, powder, shaving blades and what have you, is merely superficial. It is a smoke-screen intended to conceal something, as I want to show to hon. members in a moment. There is a second matter of which I am also very certain, i.e. that in no period of United Party government could our growth rate have exceeded the postulated and pre-planned growth rate of 5½ per cent. The problems with which we and the Minister were faced were that our postulated growth rate of 5½ per cent had burst its seams. It was more than had been planned in advance. This was one of the problems the Minister had to deal with. At no time during the United Party régime was anything like this possible.

I want to mention a third matter of which I am certain. In no United Party period were so many economically active people drawn into this developing economic structure of ours than is at present the case. Just imagine, we are planning an increase in economically active people in accordance with our natural growth rate of 20,000. Do you know by what number that figure is being exceeded? By 17,000, and in spite of that 17,000 in 1967 there is still a manpower shortage. This is an amazing testimonial to the policy and economic arrangements in this country. Everything is developing so rapidly that it is virtually engulfing the established infrastructure on which these economic functions must develop. By no stretch of the imagination could something like this have been possible in any United Party period. This hedging on the part of the United Party by saying that this is a rich man's budget, where they are now giving themselves out to be the protectors of the less well-to-do sectors of the population, surely this is all a smokescreen, surely this is a false screen. It is not the truth. Not a single hon. member opposite has risen to his feet and put in a plea for that sector of the population whose existence is threatened by the people with a capitalistic mentality here in South Africa, or put in a plea for their ultimate security. Those people cannot dissociate themselves from one of their characteristic features, namely their capitalistic mentality. They know that the white miners of this country are once again being threatened by the deeds, the intrigues and the attempts of these capitalistic powers in South Africa to undermine the security of the workers. They are doing so with one end in view, namely to cut down on expenses. If there is one outstanding feature of the National Party it is the following: The National Party believes that peace and quiet must prevail in all sectors of the country. The Party has, succeeded brilliantly in achieving this. If there is a feature which differs fundamentally from this feature of the National party, then it is the presence of capitalistic groups in this country which ignore this basic component of our policy, i.e. the maintenance of stability based on peace and order and a stable economic growth. It is also a fact that as yet the world has produced no alternative to the basic principle on which the National Party regulates its labour relations in the Republic. It takes into account all socio-political, all socio-economic, and practical political factors. It is those which have a decisive effect on what is one of the indispensable supports on which a country’s sound economic growth must be established. Throughout our history this capitalistic mentality has been tampering with the sound labour relations of the Republic of South Africa, and they are doing so again; they are tampering with them again. Once again there is unrest among our mineworkers. The unrest among our workers is building up. This unrest is not based on suspicions I have; it is not based on fictitious allegations; this unrest is not limited to one category of workers in the mines; it has wider repercussions. I want to read extracts from letters to the House to indicate why I am making these accusations. I have here correspondence from the offices of the Anglo-American group. I have, inter alia, a letter from a ventilation officer addressed to the General Manager of a West Rand mine. The letter deals with the Introduction of Bantu Observers, Proposed System of Observations. It deals with the incorporation of Bantu labour into the ventilation section of the mine. A whole series of proposals is made in the letter in connection with such an incorporation of Bantu. This is replied to by the Consulting Engineer of the Anglo-American group. The letter originated in the head office of Anglo-American. The letter begins as follows—

The writer then comments on various proposals made by this ventilation officer. Then a reply from the ventilation officer, to the previous letter received from this consulting engineer. Here is the letter; it deals with the scheme of employing Bantu as ventilation officers. Then there is a letter, from the offices of Anglo-American Corporation of South Africa Limited. I want to read this memorandum as well now. I quote—

This is something appalling which is being revealed here! I am quoting further from this letter—

Listen carefully now, Mr. Speaker—

Those white observers who were replaced by Bantu are receiving higher salaries. Let me tell you how our people regard this matter. All of us who represent mine-workers’ constituencies know that this is how our people feel. I am not the only one who is pleading for this, nor am I the first to speak about this matter. I am speaking about it in the House to-day. Some of my colleagues here have had this matter in hand for quite some time. They discussed this matter a long time ago. I am consequently not claiming for myself the credit for having been the first to mention this to-day. We are all of us concerned about this matter. My people maintain that what is being done here amounts to silent bribery. Let me quote further—

General Mining?

I shall reply to you in a moment. I am reading further—

That hon. member must not be so quick to speak.

These are all photostatic copies of the letters which found their way into my hands. I have read out the contents fully and carefully to this House. The process which is taking place here, is an alarming one. I want to emphasize that there is a continual tampering here. Where there is peace and quiet and order, they are tampering with it. The peace and quiet and order is the result of the National Party’s labour relations policy. But these people are forever tampering with it; their object is to make as much capital out of it as possible and they are ignoring the true basis of stability in our country, i.e. peace and quiet and order. We are beginning to get sick and tired of it. The hon. the Minister appointed the mediation committee, and thanks to this step a wage agreement has now been approved. This agreement is now in operation. The mineworkers are completely satisfied with it. It does not operate 100 per cent in all respects, but the Government went out of its way to assist in that agreement being reached. Hardly has peace and quiet been restored among the ranks of the mineworkers when this eternal tampering begins again. All this process does is to upset the miners again. This process is not simply taking place among the ventilation people; it is also taking place among the samplers and the recorders in the mines. This process has been going on for a long time. It subjects the miners remuneration, particularly among the recorders and the samplers, to the samplers allocation. The sampler must now determine the stoping depths which have a bearing on the mineworkers’ contractual remuneration. The figure furnished directly determines the mineworkers remuneration. So important is this work that they require nothing less than a Junior Certificate as minimum qualification for it. Take the case of the ventilation officers. They measure the temperature; they must measure the air velocity, as well as the humidity. They are in control and must see to it that there is proper fresh air ventilation. He must also take dust samples. This directly affects the health of the mineworker. And now we know, surely. Surely we are no longer children or idealists. We stand with our feet planted firmly in the practical life. Now surely we know that what is going on here must ultimately lead to friction among the mineworkers. Surely we know that it will disturb the peace and quiet. Surely we know that it will slice through the entire spectrum of industrial peace and stability. This is the case and members of the Mineworkers’ Union, who have nothing to do with the ventilation officer and with samplers and mine recorders, are dissatisfied. There is bitter dissatisfaction among them because this procedure and this departure from policy results in a new sort of friction being created among the people who have to work together under it …

Deliberately, too.

I would say deliberately. Of course it is deliberate. After all, we know their policy. I say that I pride myself in being correct when I say that the mineworkers’ corps who belong to the mineworkers’ trade unions which can lay just claim to being correct in their demands and their statements when they say that the peace and quiet among the mineworkers will be disturbed. Consequently I am convinced that section 77 of the Industrial Reconciliation Act should be made applicable here. This is the only request I have at the moment and I am addressing this request on behalf of all my colleagues who represent constituencies where mineworkers form a major portion of the electorate, and I am addressing it to the Minister so that he may be so kind as to furnish us with a reply. Now I have done with this matter.

I want to raise another minor matter which results from the Budget. I see in the Budget that considerably more money is being made available to the Minister of Water Affairs. I am delighted by this and it brings me to the statement I want to make, namely, the principle in terms of the Act of 1967 that the distribution of water is vested in the State. Water will always be our problem here in South Africa. That is general knowledge. Experience has shown over the years that every commission we have appointed to inquire into drought conditions was in this position that when the report appeared the drought had ceased, and then nothing further was said about the report before another serious drought set in. This is an historic fact. Droughts have already hit the Republic of South Africa hard, and will in future do so in a more tangible shape. What I am going to say now is the result of my calculations after a very intensive and protracted study. Between 1929 and 1966 the losses of the Republic of South Africa in monetary terms in the shape of cattle, market delays owing to animals being in a poor condition, the cessation of farming activities, subsidies, low stock birth-rate percentages as a result of poor condition, can be put in the region of R2,000 million. Cattle grazing regions comprise most of the surface area of South Africa. There are, according to the Du Toit Commission of 1956 on drought conditions, thousands of farms in the cattle grazing regions which are uneconomic as a result of inadequate surface area and a too low carrying capacity. These uneconomic farms can all be converted into economic units if water can be brought to them—not only drinking water, but water in another form as well. The time is passed for good when we were able to escape droughts by driving cattle to other regions. We must take into consideration the fact that the population pressure on meat as a form of food and source of animal protein will gradually increase more rapidly. This is already a factor which we have to take into account; i.e. that the stock factor will have to be included in our economy as one of the currency earners in the place of an eventual—I do not know when this will happen—decreasing supply of raw products. Now I want to say this. The old policy that stored, channellized water and the lands associated with this should be allocated to people for the purpose of using it as a means of settling socio-economically disrupted individuals must definitely be rejected now as far as the utilization of our water is concerned. Our water and land is too expensive for such restricted socioeconomic objectives. I want to state that the laying out of more compact settlements, with the accompanying high infrastructure costs, the ever-decreasing land productivity, increasing production costs as a result of the land becoming waterlogged and water becoming brack, and the increasing need for fertilization of the soil, and also as a result of far reaching socio-economic and educational factors, is not the reply to the question of how we should utilize our water. More compact settlements as points of production have not yet supplied the answer to economic fodder production for which a demand arises as a result of droughts. Our customary methods of limiting stock losses as a result of droughts, which consist of moving cattle, of deepening boreholes, of transporting fodder, of imposing water restrictions on towns, are ineffectual and must be regarded as such. Up to 45 per cent of the dry lucern which is being transported from the growth point where the lucern is produced, a few hundred miles to where it is offloaded is lost. Now I want to say this. We have the Orange River project, a wonderful project, by means of which more or less 500,000 morgen will eventually be brought under irrigation. This is a colossal and permanent project which will have such a decisive effect on our entire economic and socio-economic structure in all its facets that we dare not make a mistake here. Now I just want to mention two examples to you. Instead of laying out more compact settlements and developing expensive infrastructures at those settlements, and then being saddled with the tremendous problems which may arise, as we see to-day at existing compact settlements—and I know them all because I have visited them—we must adopt a different approach. Suppose there is 500,000 morgen which can be irrigated, and we take 50 main towns in South Africa, in the cattle regions. We can draw the rainfall line. It is not my task to do so now. But take 50 towns in our cattle grazing regions. We can then supply each town with 10,000 morgen surrounding it which can be irrigated. We can create a growth point there. The transportation of the water to those points is no longer a problem. America has pipelines extending 250,000 miles, and Australia also has long pipelines. Water is the only raw product which can be transported inexpensively from its source in order to create growth points over a distance. If we can bring 10,000 morgen around 50 towns under irrigation we can, if one calculates that one morgen of irrigation land can only bring R100 per year into circulation, bring a turnover of R1 million per year into circulation in that town and its environs.

May I put a question?

No. You do not understand what I am saying now. There will be a subsequent opportunity. With such a distribution of water we would be doing justice to the principle of a profit-making society and environment, and we would be getting away from the old tendency of a growth point developing where a raw material is developed or mined, which subsequently becomes a metropolitan area where evils arise and where, as the evils develop, the burden on the State of combating these evils increases. This has devastating socio-economic and socio-educational consequences for our population. I want to conclude. I maintain that this will enable us to derive the maximum benefit from our natural animal feeding areas by bringing water as close as possible to the areas where fodder can be as closely available as possible. This will cause dying towns in the Karoo and in our cattle grazing regions to revive. There are existing infrastructures which we can develop. This will recreate cultural centres. The socioeconomic effects would be phenomenal, almost immeasureable. This would create growth points. This will enable us to break loose from the centralization tendency which is so inclined to develop into an economic structure which tends to become more complicated.

As an alternative I want to suggest, in my last minute, 500.000 morgen of land, 25.000 farms each of which can be provided with 20 morgen of irrigation land. That means 25.000 fodder banks with a decreasing fertilization costs programme because the animal is there to supply the fertilization. There are an endless number of rotation farming possibilities, all of which will be under strict control and instruction methods. This will bring about greater stability.

I want to conclude by saying that these few thoughts which I have expressed to-day in regard to the utilization and distribution of our water are in general terms only, but there is one thing I have established: Firstly: It is definitely implementable and, secondly, money cannot be an object here. I ask myself the question, what do we in South Africa lay down as being our maximum? Is our maximum to become as rich as possible or is our maximum to subject as many people as possible to as few evil-forming circumstances, i.e. a chance of survival? My choice is not to become rich, but to bring about a distribution.

The matter which the hon. member for Carletonville raised in regard to Bantu ventilation officers and samplers on the mines is of such a nature that it deserves our serious attention, and that is why I deem it necessary to reply immediately. The labour agreement which that hon member mentioned with reference to those circulars, is one of those labour agreements which at the outset appear to be very innocent and which can often be motivated and justified by the mining concerns in question as essential regulations, but it is that type of labour agreement which, although it initially appears to be innocent, ultimately has repercussions and causes dissatisfaction among coworkers in such an industry. This unrest to which the hon. member referred is not an exaggeration. Nor is it a feeling which arose recently. This is a matter which was brought to my attention last year already. Last year the hon. member for Bethal brought this matter to my attention because there are mines in his constituency which have gone over to Bantu ventilation officers and samplers. The hon. member for Bethal then presented a petition from nine of those ventilation officers and samplers to me in which they expressed their objections to this change-over. I asked my Department to send inspectors to those mines in the Eastern Transvaal and to investigate the complaints which had been submitted on the basis of this petition. The inspectors of my Department paid visits to the mines and returned with the report that this experiment, as it is being termed, was apparently not introduced there without consultation with the employees concerned and with their trade unions. But at the same time it appeared from that investigation that there were nevertheless workers in that specific group, the ventilation officers and samplers, who felt unhappy about this arrangement; that they in fact felt uneasy about how it was going to affect them as a group in future. I came across this unrest a month or two afterwards when I addressed a public meeting at the request of the hon. member for Bethal in his constituency at Evander. On that occasion, towards the end of last year, I was asked by persons present at the meeting what the Government could do in this connection to curb the growing unrest there. I quite rightly pointed out to them that the finding of our investigation had been that the employees concerned had in fact been consulted and had apparently agreed to it, and that their trade union, the Underground Officials’ Association, had apparently also been consulted in this connection and had apparently also agreed. But on that occasion, that evening at Evander, I nevertheless gave them the assurance that if it appeared likely to me that this arrangement was in fact going to prejudice the position of the white workers and that it was in fact going to disrupt the industrial peace, I would not hesitate to take steps in terms of the legislative powers which I have. This same dissatisfaction made its appearance at the beginning of this Session when a deputation from the labour group on my side, under the leadership of the hon. member for Brakpan, came to consult me in regard to this same difficulty, a difficulty which then was in fact difficult to determine, because on the one hand one has a group of employees, the ventilation officers and samplers who have apparently agreed to this and even their trade union has not objected to it. I then pointed out to them that it was difficult for me to go over the head of such a trade union, but I nevertheless stated that I would in fact keep a careful eye on the matter in future. Two weeks ago a deputation from the Mineworkers’ Union saw me when I was in Pretoria, a deputation from the Mineworkers’ Union, together with other workers in the industry who are affected by this, and on that occasion they brought a different aspect very clearly to the fore. Whereas the workers who had formerly approached me by way of the petition and also at the meeting at Evander had in fact pointed out how it could prejudice them as a group and that that work could ultimately be taken over completely by black labour—for as the Blacks enter the Whites leave, and in the end it will become an entirely black industry—the Mineworkers’ Union then raised another matter which carried great weight with me. They pointed out how the conduct of these Bantu ventilation officers and samplers was irritating the white mineworkers, the ordinary mineworkers; the rock breakers and the contract workers. As the hon. member for Carletonville quite rightly said, the rock which they have blasted must be measured by the black workers the next day, and there have been cases, about which the Mineworkers’ Union have informed me, where arguments have taken place between the white mineworker and the Bantu sampler in regard to the way in which he takes the sample. I have even been told that some of the Bantu samplers do not even know how to take a sample properly and then the white mineworker must show him how to measure the amount he (the white mineworker) has dynamited. They maintain that this is a matter which is now causing friction among the white mineworkers and these Bantu samplers. As a result of the representations of the Mineworkers’ Union, which were in support of previous allegations, I then felt that this was a matter which deserved serious attention, because this is a labour agreement which could affect the industrial peace in the mining industry. If the white mineworkers are going to become irritated about this matter, if it is going to cause friction and is going to lead to strikes, then it would, after all, be very irresponsible of us if we were knowingly to allow the present state of affairs to continue. I now want to inform the House about what I then did. I said to the deputation that I would not only go into this matter, I would take steps. Subsequently I wrote to the President of the Chamber of Mines and brought this matter to his attention and asked him, as he had done in the past, to co-operate in restoring the arrangement which had previously applied; to restore the previous dispensation so that we could eliminate the difficulty of industrial unrest, and I hope and trust that I will obtain this co-operation from the President and the Chamber of Mines. I do not hesitate to say here that since I have been occupying this post, first as Deputy Minister of Labour and Mines, and now for the past three years in my present capacity, I can testify to the best cooperation between the mine authorities and myself, and I hope and trust that the mine authorities will be of assistance in this connection as well. The hon. member for Carletonville was quite right in saying that we have authorization in terms of section 77 of the Industrial Conciliation Act (the work reservation provision) to order an investigation by the Industrial Tribunal into this matter, and if the recommendation of the Industrial Tribunal is such, to come forward with a work determination. But I hope it will not be necessary to act in that way. I discussed this matter with the Minister of Mines, who agreed with me that we must afford the mining chiefs the opportunity of regulating their affairs in this regard. We should like to afford them every opportunity of doing so. I hope that when my Vote comes up for discussion in a few weeks’ time, I will then perhaps be in a position to give hon. members the assurance that a satisfactory arrangement has in fact been made in this connection.

Mr. Speaker, I do not want on this occasion to react to the speech made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. However, I just want to make a single reference to it because it was simply a repetition of previous speeches made by him; it was a repetition of a speech which we heard earlier on in this Session, but I just want to refer to one of the statements made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, because it has a bearing on what I have just said in regard to this mining matter. During the course of his criticism of us and of the application of our work reservation policy, our labour policy, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said, inter alia, the following—

I hope the hon. the Leader of the Opposition will realize that this Government does in fact know how to deal with situations of this nature, as it has also done in the past. I do not want to elaborate on this any further except to make this one statement, on the basis of which I think any country and any Government’s labour policy can be tested—this is the decisive factor—and that is whether or not strikes occur in a country. That is the predominant factor on the basis of which this Government can be tested. To my mind the true test is whether strikes are occurring among the white workers, or even among the nonwhite workers. If one’s Whites were to feel threatened, as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and his side are so eager to make one believe, if they were to feel threatened in their field of activity, then one would after all not be able to have this industrial peace which is prevailing in the country. If the white workers in this country, with this phenomenal development which we are experiencing, felt that they had an unsympathetic government, then we would after all not be able to have had this industrial peace which we do have in South Africa. It is a fact that we are providing more work for non-Whites and causing them to be employed than was previously the case. It is true that there are to-day more brown and black people who are doing work which was previously done by Whites; this is a fact which I do not want to try to argue away. On the contrary, it is this Government which is seeing to it that opportunities for employment are being created for them, whether in their own areas or elsewhere. This is not a fact which we want to argue away. Sir, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said here: “So far skilled jobs have been limited to the Whites in South Africa”. But that is totally incorrect. What are the facts? The facts are that in 1967 —that is the latest year for which we have figures—we had 158,000 white artisans in this country, but opposed to that we had 22,000 non-white artisans in the Republic which after all is a clear indication that there are also opportunities for non-Whites to do skilled labour. And what about the opportunities which non-Whites are being afforded to do skilled and semi-skilled labour under this Government in its own State machine? What about the non-Whites I have employed in my Department of Coloured Affairs as teachers, as school principals, as inspectors and as educational planners? Is that not skilled work? That is why it is so nonsensical of the Opposition to make this allegation, but it is not only nonsensical, it is also a disservice to South Africa’s image abroad to try to give out here that we begrudge the non-Whites a place in the sun. No, we are so reactionary, so inhuman, that we do not want to afford them an opportunity of making a decent living. By making such allegations they are doing South Africa a disservice.

Sir, I want to conclude by saying that this Government’s achievements in the sphere of labour can be tested against the predominant fact that this large measure of industrial peace we are experiencing, an industrial peace which has been effected by on the one hand affording the non-Whites more and better opportunities of employment than they have ever had before, and at the same time on the other giving the Whites the assurance that their continued existence and their future safety is assured. Therein lies the key to the success of the labour policy of this side. That is why I want to say this to the United Party, since they are coming forward with a motion of no-confidence in this Government, that the industrial peace which is prevailing in South Africa is the most important item of proof that there is confidence in this Government, and as long as this Government remains in power, that token of confidence will remain.

Mr. Speaker, I had intended suggesting to the hon. member for Carletonville that the first part of his speech could better have been addressed to the hon. the Minister of Labour than to this side of the House. I felt that as a miners’ representative, he was used to handling dynamite and that perhaps he had become too familiar with it. He set off his own Minister to answer him There was one part of his speech, the latter half, which impressed me and on which I want to congratulate him. That is the eulogy which he gave to the late member for Albany, Mr. Tom Bowker, who year in and year out, as all on both sides of the House will testify, advocated the Orange River Scheme. He continually advocated this. He almost, can I say, ate, drank and slept with this scheme. If anybody should be given credit for having thought out this scheme, it should be given to that fine old gentleman, Mr. Tom Bowker.

I want to refer to another aspect, the financial aspect. I do not want to create the impression that I am attacking the Stock Exchange, nor do I advocate the direct State control of that Exchange. However, I do feel that the hon. the Minister of Finance, in his Budget, has not in any way tried to help the ordinary man in the street. He has made great play over the last few years of the control of inflation. In fact, the battle cry of the Finance Department in this country is “inflation”. But, is the hon. the Minister protecting the ordinary, humble man in the street? Is he helping him to save? For years we on this side of the House have pointed out that the hon. the Minister was not helping a man to save. In fact, it did not pay anybody to save except in enormous sums of money, because of the heavy tax upon savings. The unfortunate man in the street is exposed to great temptations. Because the hon. the Minister has failed to appreciate his plight and has failed to come to his rescue, this unfortunate man is unable to find a haven for his savings which will safeguard him against depreciation of money and the inflation widespread throughout the country. The hon. the Minister has not given thought, or if he has, he has not produced his thoughts to us, as to how this unfortunate man must ensure his savings apart from coming forward with a 6 per cent tax-free investment, and similar suggestions. He knows that the 6 per cent is going to be eroded by the 2 per cent, or more, monetary depreciation which is taking place. I am sure that nobody could possibly walk the streets of Johannesburg or Durban, and less so in Cape Town (perhaps because there is such a large number of new buildings), without noticing the enormous increase in financial institutions in this country. I use the word “enormous” in the full knowledge of what a serious word it is to use in this respect. On every street corner is a new bank or a new finance house. Banks of different kinds have sprung up. When I go for lunch in Durban, I find that, along my usual walk, four banks have sprung up in the last year.

You are not complaining about it, are you?

I am complaining about it, because these banks are staffed by large numbers of individuals who live, and many live exceptionally well, on the profits of these banks, but these banks produce nothing. These men are living by manipulating money; they do not produce anything. Productivity, as we are constantly told, produces something. “Get your workmen to produce more! ” we are told. But these people are unproductive workers and there are so many of them. I can well understand that money must be made to work because, after all, it must be used to make more money. The hon. the Minister cannot tell me that money is being used to a productive purpose by having large numbers of finance houses. It means more hands to which a little gold can stick as it moves along; it means more mouths to feed. I feel that there should be some control over the number of finance houses which are now appearing.

Finance houses or banks?

Both. The hon. the Minister is not doing his duty in this respect. Where do we see the misfortunes of the inflationary process? Mostly in the stockmarket. If you look at the figures of the enormous increase in the value of shares as a whole, it is a false appreciation. It is, in other words, an acute inflation; an acute inflation in making the values of articles more expensive and increasing the cost of living. It also brings about a depreciation in the possibility of saving. I think that we must go back a little in the history of the Stock Exchange. In brief, the Stock Exchange started as a street market at the corner of Simmonds Street and Commissioner Street in Johannesburg. There were other similar markets in Cape Town, Durban and Pietermaritzburg. This market gradually became more wealthy and it accumulated power. It came to be regarded as the chief financial market of South Africa. Who gave it the power which it has? The public gave it that power because they accepted its decisions, its judgments and its honesty. The public, by that I mean the Government, this Parliament, having given the power should be enabled and should, if it is considered necessary, exercise its right to withdraw that power. The Stock Exchange exists by the permission of the people of the country. I think we are right when we ask whether that power is being used for the benefit of the people of the country as a whole. Does everybody reasonably benefit by taking a share in this market? I make bold to say that although this Stock Exchange has rules, these rules do not meet the present situation.

I refer particularly to listings. Listed stock on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange is the backbone of South Africa’s economy. Everything centres towards that Exchange and that Exchange should so act that the citizens receive from it fair and just treatment. I would not for one moment suggest that the Stock Exchange does not act within the laws of the country; far be it for me to make any suggestion of that type. But I say that they have not fulfilled the public duty of ensuring that every citizen has the same right when it comes to dealings on that Exchange. It is very far from that. The right to a listing on the Stock Exchange is an immensely valuable right. But it is a right which springs from the people. The people have a right to look to the Stock Exchange to protect their rights, and above all to the Minister of Finance to see that those rights are carefully protected. When it comes to listings, I maintain that the Stock Exchange is failing in its duty. It is not giving to the citizens of the country a fair deal.

What do you suggest?

I hope the hon. member remains awake. He has had a good sleep this afternoon. I noticed that. I suggest that, firstly, we should consider how a listing comes about. How does the Stock Exchange give a listing? There are three ways. The first is by private placing; the second is by way of an open bid; and the third is by an offer of sale. Those are the three ways, namely: (1) Private placings; (2) tender; and (3) public offer. There are combinations of these. They are not all necessarily the same. As far as I have been able to make out (it is not always easy to get reliable information) the Stock Exchange grants a listing on condition that a certain number of the shares will be distributed to a certain set number of stockbrokers or more. A certain number of the shares must be available to the clients of those brokers. In other words, the public gains access and the Exchange will not grant a listing if less than 30 per cent of those shares is not made available to the brokers. In other words, 70 per cent of the shares which are going to get a listing are not necessarily placed direct to the public, because one can regard going through a broker as an opportunity to sell to the public. Private placing, on the other hand, means that the shares at a certain fixed price, which is made known, will be sold to a certain limited number of people. Now, as we know, kissing goes by favour. That is quite common with listings. The private placings which can comprise 70 per cent of the shares which finally get to the public, are sold at a fixed rate and donated sometimes to customers, sometimes to customers of the issuing bank and sometimes to employees. There are various kinds of favours. The private placing is used more and more to create, as it were, a little circle all of whom share the profits. When I apply for a listing I can give it to my hon. friend in front of me, and when he in turn has a listing which he wants to bring forth, he hands it over to, say, the hon. the Deputy Minister of Agriculture. All come into the privileged group. But the fact remains that 70 per cent of those shares do not reach the public at the quoted price. That is the point. That is the way it is done. The percentage quoted by me, namely 30 per cent, may be wrong; at any rate the majority of the shares do not reach the public at the quoted price.

Do you think that is wrong?

I most certainly think that it is wrong. The public have given the Stock Exchange the right to make a listing. They should see that the public get a fair deal when that listing is made. That is the point. I am pleading for the ordinary man in the street who wants to invest his money. By the time he can start buying shares which come on the market at, say, 100 cents, it is often the case that within a few hours of their having been quoted they are up to 180 cents, and that sort of thing. That is not giving the man in the street a fair deal. The Stock Exchange should see that the total number of shares are put before the public as early as possible and not first donated to a limited group of people who will sit holding the shares until they have gone up. This is familiarly known as “stagging”. I have met several people who told me that they were holding such shares for “stagging”. Anybody who looks through the Financial Mail or through the listed stocks and shares will see that shares which come on the market theoretically at 100 cents never reach the public until they have risen to 130 cents, 150 cents and perhaps even to 200 cents or 300 cents. Somebody has made a killing. Somebody has made a fortune. There are immense fortunes being made today. These fortunes are being made overnight and the Stock Exchange is a party to it. I do not believe that the Stock Exchange Committee do not know this. I feel that it is a gross injustice to the man in the street and it is something which the hon. the Minister should take note of and redress. That is the point. With these private placings immense fortunes are being made by sitting down and waiting for the Stock Market to rise in a few days, or even a month or a year. If those shares were to go up of their own accord, having been on the market for years, or if the other shares which had not been made available to the public were not allowed to be sold, there might be something to be said for it. But these shares come to the public market after having first passed through hands which sit and wait for the price to go up. There are these privileged persons; as I said, kissing goes by favour. Large sums accrue by passing favours from one to the other. This Minister should stop this defrauding of the ordinary man in the street. The Stock Exchange started as a market. It got its powers from the people, from the man in the street. He accepts the Stock Exchange as a market, but he does not get a fair deal. The share is inflated before the man in the street has any hope at all. I think the hon. the Minister must take some steps. I would advocate that there shall be no retention of shares, that there shall be no private placing. The Stock Exchange is a public market. Its strength comes from the public and it is the hon. the Minister’s duty to see that the public is protected.

I wish to turn to another matter, namely the spread of mergers and takeovers. In this particular time in this country and in this world not one single man possessing a share can feel that it is his own and that he is safe. Not one man can be certain that to-morrow he will not wake up to find that the shares to which he had been looking to supply him with a living for his old years, have become valueless for the purpose. The giant companies of this country are going to be in danger very soon. It does not always require a giant to take over another giant. Small companies are taking over giant companies. It has been prophesied that in 50 years there will only be about 750 companies in the whole word, so quickly is this merger tendency spreading. The national and international competition, which is so valuable to any capitalistic country, will disappear. I know the hon. the Minister thinks, “Well, we have the Regulation of Monopolistic Conditions Act”. But it is not going to control this spreading of mergers. It can do so up to a certain point. There are giants like the General Electric Company of Great Britain and the English Electric. When they joined, the total capital ran into millions. The excuse given for the Government agreeing to their merging, was that it was the only way they could face foreign competition. The movement of mergers goes towards nationalization, At the present moment the mergers are tending to form a national agglomeration of companies. It will lead to national control of certain business; however, not by the people, but by the directors of these companies. It will go further, and it is going further. Companies in other countries will merge with companies in this country. The control of companies will pass out of the hands of this country. What can the Government do then? I am not advocating that mergers should be stopped. I do not know enough about it, but I do know that it can leave the ordinary man in the street with no assets whatever. If he wakes up in the morning, they might be gone. No company is safe. The small firms are using the money of the firms they take over to buy those firms. Has the Minister taken any steps? Not as far as we know. We have heard that a Companies Bill is going to be introduced. It may contain something. Other countries are taking steps. The Securities and Exchange Committee of the New York Stock Exchange is at the present moment prosecuting the biggest broking firm in the world, because it sold with one hand to one lot of clients and bought with the other hand for another group of dents. It withheld from those to whom it sold, information which the Securities and Exchange Committee believed that it should have made known to the people it was advising to buy.

In the London Stock Exchange the Bank of England has stepped in forcibly and placed one of its deputy governors at the disposal of the Stock Exchange in order to produce a code for control of mergers. They hope that they will be able to control by persuasion and voluntary action. The Securities and Exchange Committee of the New York Stock Exchange makes no bones about it; it takes legal action, because it does not believe in voluntary action. Great banks like Morgan have become involved in this business. They stayed out for a time until they found that the upstarts, the people who could manipulate money, handle other people’s money, use it to buy what belongs to those people and to forcibly take over shares from the ordinary man in the street. All this is taking place, and I am asking the hon. the Minister what he is doing about it and what he is intending to do.

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon we had the interesting phenomenon here of a senior member of the United Party attacking our financial institutions. He started with the banks and complained about the establishment of new banks. He did not want new banks to be established. To me the establishment of a new bank is a sign of the development of our country.

He also complained about financial institutions getting too many powers. From that he proceeded to attack the stock exchange. He said their rules and regulations were not strict enough and that they allowed things which they ought not to allow. I do not want to argue about these matters. These things may possibly be true. I do want to say, however, that we have always had great confidence in our financial institutions. Similarly we have always had great confidence in our stock exchange. It is interesting that over the past number of years Afrikaans-speaking people have started to show a great deal of interest in the stock exchange and have started to share in the trade in stocks and shares, which is so flourishing at the present time.

In connection with share issues the hon. member for Durban (Central) made, for him, a very important point, i.e. that the market was being manipulated and that certain shares were being held back. I just want to tell him that in most cases when that is done, it is fair to hold such shares back. Old shareholders are given the opportunity to take up certain shares. Those people helped to make the company strong, and I think it is only right that such people who helped to build up the company should have the right and should be given the opportunity when there are new issues of shares, to take up of those shares. Moreover, it is not always so that the price of shares will go up on the stock exchange. It is also possible that the price of shares may decrease the day they are quoted on the stock exchange. This being so those people are in fact running a risk when they buy shares at the price of issue. For that reason I do not want to agree with the hon. member for Durban (Central). I think he made a very risky statement.

I should like to come back to the statement made by the hon. member for Walmer, i.e. that we could solve virtually all our farming problems if the Government would only grant a subsidy on interest.

He never said that.

Well, he intimated that that was the major problem of our farmers, i.e. that rates of interest were too high. [Interjections.] In any case, he said this was a very big problem of our farmers. Sir, interest is a big problem, of course, but over the past few years our Government has done a great deal in an attempt to alleviate the interest burden. My contention is that what the Government has done has helped. Perhaps it has not been possible for it to do enough. I am convinced, however, that even if the interest burden were to be alleviated altogether, many of our farmers would still find the going hard. To-day we heard various reasons here, such as the business acumen of farmers and the economic units, which have a bearing on the situation. For that reason I say that it is very superficial really to want to suggest that our farmers would flourish if the interest burden were to be alleviated. In spite of this heavy interest burden a large percentage of our farmers are still very keen to farm. They even see their way clear to buy additional farms. I want to suggest that farming still is a very attractive profession to-day and that there still are many people who would like to be farmers. They are even prepared to invest a great deal of capital in farming.

I should also like to express a few ideas in connection with the financing of our farmers. The Government has two ways in which it makes money available to our farmers, i.e. through the Land Bank and through the Department of Agricultural Credit. I regard the Land Bank as a wonderful institution which is rendering a major service to our farmers. I should like to see the functions of the Land Bank being extended. I should like to see all long-term financing of farmers being undertaken by the Lank Bank some time in the future.

That is what the hon. member for Walmer said.

Well, then he, too, was right. The Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure also has a very important function, and the function I envisage it performing in future is that of distress relief and distress aid to farmers, and in addition to its other functions, such as the buying up of land, exercising control over State-owned land, etc., I see its function chiefly in the granting of distress aid. In addition I should prefer long-term assistance to go through one channel, i.e. the Land Bank. Furthermore I am of the opinion that we are still doing too little as regards after-care to our farmers after we have assisted them I should say that if the Government has helped a farmer with cheap money, it may rightly and in all fairness impose certain obligations on that farmer. It may tell him to plan his farm and to adhere to that farming plan. The Government may cause regular visits to be paid to that farm in order to ascertain whether the plan is being executed. In that way the farmer can become an economic one. For this purpose we shall naturally need many more agri-economists. I think it has become very necessary for us to do more in this direction. We must provide farmers with after-care after we have assisted them.

To-day I want to deliver a plea on behalf of a certain group of farmers who have really been left in the lurch under our new dispensation. You will be surprised, Sir, if you knew how many small farmers there still are in our country. I am speaking of men who farm on small pieces of land and who are making a good living. In my constituency there are many of them. They are people who work hard and who make do without additional labourers. In the past these people practically were completely independent economically and they hardly ever approached the Government for assistance. Often in times of hardship they could make do without outside assistance. Seeing that we so often speak of economic units, I want to make a plea that we should not overlook our small farmers. I know they are a disappearing group in our agricultural industry, but in spite of that they are a very important group. They are still there and I want to ask that special attention should be given to these small farmers. When they ask for assistance, I trust they will be treated sympathetically. Many of them are farming on small farms, but they are hard-working and they are prepared to put everything into their farming undertakings.

Another point I should like to raise in connection with assistance to our farmers relates to the granting of short-term assistance. I was very pleased to learn while assistance was being given recently that a considerable share of such assistance was being canalized through our co-operative societies. I have said that financial assistance should in the main be given through the agency of the Land Bank, assistance which I would call normal assistance, and I should like to see short-term assistance being given as far as possible through the Land Bank and then through the co-operative societies. The co-operative societies are extremely suitable bodies to undertake this kind of financing. The directors know their people; they know where they can assist, and they are able to recover this money on behalf of the State in a very easy way as they may attach the crops of their members. Our cooperative societies are of inestimable value to our farmers, and I feel that as far as financing is concerned, the Government can make far more use of their services.

We have had a very interesting Budget. I want to say that the Budget owes a great deal to the report of the commission of inquiry. I just want to address a word of congratulation to the Franzsen Commission. Within a short time—I think one year—they produced an interim report which is going to be of tremendous value to our country. It was possible to take over and implement a whole number of the recommendations straightaway. I am particularly interested in their recommendations concerning the financial relations with the provinces. I know the hon. the Minister of Finance did not see his way clear to accept those recommendations at this stage. They recommended, inter alia, that the rights of provincial authorities to levy personal taxation and income taxation on individuals should be withdrawn and that provincial authorities should share in the revenue from taxation collected by the Central Government on the income of individuals, as was already the case with company taxation. This is a very important recommendation. I want to address an appeal to the hon. the Minister of Finance. When we receive the report of the Schumann Commission he must give serious consideration to introducing this change. I realize that that would mean a diminishing of the powers of the provincial councils, but it will bring us important advantages, and for that reason I am drawing attention to this matter to-day. Such a change would have various benefits.

It would bring us uniformity as regards taxation in the provinces. Every person would pay the same tax, irrespective of his place of residence. It would bring uniformity as regards fiscal policy and it would mean that more use could be made of fiscal policy in order to control inflation. It would also be easier to take fiscal measures. It would bring about a saving in administrative costs and labour. Where we have five income tables today, we would then have one only which would be applicable to the whole country. The announcing of our taxes would be expedited as there would be no need for us to wait on Budgets passed by the different provinces.

I want to suggest that this way of collecting taxes centrally and subsequently distributing them to the provinces would be very helpful in promoting economic stability in our country.

To-day I do not want to refer to the unfair incidence of other taxes. We have had this problem of the unfair incidence of taxes for a very long time. I have in mind divisional council tax, for instance, and I am looking forward to the day when everybody in the Republic will be taxed on a uniform basis.

I should also like to refer to the statement made by the hon. member for North Rand, i.e. that the National Party and the Government were forgetting about the poor man and did not use this Budget to do something for the poor man. Here I want to address a special word of gratitude to the hon. the Minister of Finance for what he did do in this connection. I want to start with the R1 given to pensioners. This R1 is of great importance to those people. It represents 3 per cent on the pension paid to them and it is more or less equal to the depreciation in the value of our money. Therefore this keeps the pensioner on even terms. If we compare this to what pensioners received 21 years ago, it is a considerable amount, R33 as against R10.

Something else I am very pleased about is the concession in connection with the means test, i.e. raising it from R20 to R40. This is very important to the pensioners. This enables them to carry on doing productive work. It has always bothered me that a pensioner had to sit at home without his doing any work or otherwise forfeit his pension. This R40 which he will now be able to earn, will mean that he will be able to make a better living and it will also be useful to the productivity of our country. Civil Service pensioners are also going to be in a better position after this Budget. This pension is increased to R100 for a married person and R50 for a single person. In my opinion we have not yet expressed sufficient gratitude for these concessions made to our indigent people who need this money so badly.

I think I would be ungrateful if I did not refer to the concessions made to citrus farmers, especially as I myself am a citrus farmer. Last year the Minister of Agriculture referred to the special problems with which certain industries had to battle and he proposed special measures. The citrus industry was selected for assistance by means of those special measures. I am particularly appreciative of the manner in which assistance is being rendered to the citrus industry. This assistance does not merely consist of subsidies, but is being given in order to help the industry solve its problems. I have in mind, in the first place, the processing industry which produces the fruit juices and segments. Our production of citrus is increasing and our per capita consumption in the Republic is of the highest in the world, but the fact remains that we cannot consume all our fruit locally nor can we export it profitably. For that reason an ever increasing percentage goes to the factories. From 1959 to 1968 exports increased by 56 per cent, fresh fruit consumption by 213 per cent and factory production by 318 per cent. This merely goes to show how important factories are to the citrus industry. That amount of R200,000 or 4½ cents given to the factories, is very essential for enabling them to compete on overseas markets. For that reason I am saying that these contributions which the Government is making is being made where contributions are really needed.

Let us examine the overseas prices and the devaluation losses suffered by the farmers. Farmers did not suffer those losses through any fault of their own but as a result of the devaluation of the British pound, and the Minister quite rightly decided to compensate those losses. The Cirtus Board stated the amount of their losses because of devaluation, and in my opinion they calculated those figures in a very fair way. If they wanted to be unfair they would perhaps have claimed the full amount of R1 1/4 million made available by the Minister, but they did not do so. They claimed only R336,000, i.e. 75 per cent of the real losses, and this the Government compensated.

Another problem with which citrus farmers are faced is the very high shipping charges. This is costing the citrus industry a great deal of money. The State enters into the agreement with the shipping lines. The citrus industry is consulted, but the final agreement is entered into in the interest not only of the citrus industry but also of all exporters and importers in the Republic. For that reason it is in the interest of the entire country. But now it happens that much cheaper ships are available during the citrus season and the Citrus Board calculated that if they were not concerned in the conference shipping lines, they would be able to effect large savings. They would be able to effect a saving of R1,356,000 if they could charter the cheapest ships available. That would mean plus-minus 7 cents per carton to each exporter. This is an important factor and I think that this may probably be the motivation behind the decision of the Cabinet and the Minister of Finance to give further assistance to the citrus industry. This amount of R1.6 million, for which we are very grateful, will, in my opinion, go a long way in giving assistance also as far as this matter is concerned. Before resuming my seat, I should like to point out that this matter of charges will continue to give us difficulty in future, and it will probably be necessary for the Cabinet to consider this matter another time. The best thing would be if the tariffs could be decreased, of course, because in that case it would not cost the State anything and the shipping lines would have to see how they could make do. Otherwise I think it will happen again in future that the State will have to render assistance as far as this matter is concerned.

I also represent a constituency with a very strong farming community, and therefore I should like to welcome, in this late stage of the debate, the comments of the hon. member for Humansdorp. I feel, however, that farming matters have been discussed thoroughly in this House and I do not want to waste the time of the House by discussing them further.

The Budget has received a great deal of praise here on various levels, but criticism has also been expressed, criticism of a trivial nature, to my mind. A few days ago I came across these winged words of the revered American President, Abraham Lincoln, and I should like to read them, because I think his words will form a very good basis on which we can test this Budget. He said—

I think these are very important principles in terms of which we can test this Budget. Allow me to say a few words about this aspect. In the first place, the principle of thrift has been encouraged by the Government as well as by the Minister of Finance for many years. We think of the compulsory savings which have been brought about through the years. We think of the savings which the pension benefits resulting from this Budget are going to bring about. We think of the fact that more money will come into circulation as a result of the greater availability of money since people will be paying less tax, and that is now at the stage before they have to make their purchases. We are giving a man the opportunity now to pay his debts and we are giving him the opportunity to save. This purchase tax, the way I see it, is going to teach people to save. They will think twice before buying an article which they can possibly do without. This will lead to greater saying, because they will have more money available. Those who are financially stronger are also getting their share in this Budget. The Opposition says this is a rich man’s budget. There are certain benefits for the rich. We admit that, of course, but has this Budget not rectified a position in that respect which has been causing vexation for many years? After exerting himself to the utmost, a man reaches that notch of taxation where he is discouraged completely. This Budget has rectified that position. But, as the hon. member for Humansdorp quite rightly said, this Budget holds particular benefits for the lower income groups. I am not going to repeat all those benefits. We think of the benefits which have been mentioned repeatedly in this debate. Then there is the position of the wage-payer, and if we test it against the principles formulated by Abraham Lincoln, this Budget has also provided encouragement to the wage-payer, and the wage-earner should also benefit from that. For if the wage-payer himself is in a better position, he is able to pay better wages.

Furthermore, this Budget has brought about another very important state of affairs. This is something that has been worrying me for many years. This Budget has stopped us from pursuing this road to socialism, on which we had set out, any further. I am not saying that we should not render essential services to our people. We must provide for their needs. We must look after the less well-to-do. We must provide sanitary services, pensions, social services and education. But we have to draw a line somewhere, otherwise we are pursuing the road to socialism, and we know what a form of socialism has done to Great Britain. The time has come again that every man who wants to make progress, has the fullest opportunity to do so, because he is rewarded for his efforts. Here in South Africa we never want to reach the stage they have reached in Great Britain under a national health and a secondary modern schools system, which are nothing but an excuse for the services they are supposed to render. We do not want a state of affairs in this country eventually in which the man in the street adopts the attitude: “How much can I get from my employer or from the State with the least effort on my part?” One finds that there are people who continually go about thinking, “What can I claim from whom?”. I have come across that attitude. This Budget has restored this balance and has at least retarded the growth of socialism, and the man who is prepared to work, will now get his reward.

We in Northern Natal are particularly grateful to the Government for what it has done for us through the years and in this Budget in particular, and I just want to mention a few of these things: There is the large number of Government loans granted to us; there is the assistance rendered to our farmers; we have in mind, in particular, the assistance given to municipalities by the Government. The question of assistance to municipalities was also raised in this debate. I want to say to you, Sir, that this Government helps those municipalities who want to help themselves, and I could mention practical examples of this. We want to thank the Government for the water supply in Northern Natal. We want to thank the Government sincerely for the progress it has made in regard to the removal of the black spots and the development of the Bantu areas. The Government created a model township near Newcastle, a model township where anybody may witness the results of separate development. We want to thank the Government for the teaching facilities it has provided in Northern Natal and for the recent expansion in the field of education in Northern Natal, which is aimed at bringing about industrial development. We think of the industrial school for Indians, the W. A. Marais Technical High School, and others which are being built at present. The municipalities of Northern Natal also did their share. They themselves made certain preparations for industrial development. We have already made provision for all the secondary services and industries that are required for great industrial development. We have already made provision for our own capital formation. No other municipality in this country has R1½ million in reserve for possible development. I wonder whether there are any such municipalities in this country. Sir, we have made provision in regard to town planning and the layout of industrial areas. We have already made provision for secondary industries, as I have said, but the full potential of that wonderful area of the Tugela basin has not yet been exploited fully. We are looking forward with great expectation to the day when this far-sighted Government will enable us in that area to make use of the full potential of the area. I want to point out to you briefly the enormous potential which we have there. We probably have more level ground in Northern Natal than there is in the rest of Natal. We also think of the particular situation of that area. We are half-way between the two major markets, Durban and Johannesburg. We are strategically situated between two large harbours, Durban and Richard’s Bay, which is being planned, so that transport may be canalized to both sides. We think of our enormous potential of raw materials in the vicinity and the labour potential, to which I have already referred, in these Bantu areas. We have there the tremendously large Chelmsford Dam and we have a reserve of 185 million gallons per day in the Buffalo River, as much as Johannesburg uses per day. We have the large Ingagane power station there, which could be the largest source of electricity in Natal. What more does one want for possible heavy industrial development? We think for example of our transport position there, where we are on the main railway line and on the national road. All the factors which contribute to the economical establishment of heavy industries are present there. Economic factors are the main consideration in the establishment of any industry, as well as in this case in particular the matter I should like to mention now: this matter fits in very well with this Government’s policy of decentralization, and there are many good ideological reasons why we could make this development area one of those with the largest potential in this country. In this area, where the Government has created the right climate, there is logical, economic, ideological and scientific justification for the establishment of heavy industries or for the establishment of a third Iscor.

You have a hope!

We earnestly appeal to the Ministers concerned and the Minister of Finance to take into account the factors I have mentioned when a decision is taken on this matter shortly. I think we are justified in saying that the industrialists and the economists agree with us that there is no more suitable place in the Republic of South Africa. I do not want to stir up enmity between my colleagues and myself in regard to this matter. But I think that if we approach this matter on a purely economic basis, we cannot come to any other conclusion. We know that this Government, in all the projects, it undertakes, in spite of what the hon. member said here, gives careful consideration to all the factors. Therefore we are happy that this matter is in the hands of this Government and in the hands of the hon. the Minister of Finance. Just as he submitted this Budget to us with the greatest care, study and planning, we are satisfied that he will give the same careful consideration to this matter.

The debate on this Budget from the side of the United Party has already fallen flat. Their big guns have already spoken. Nothing remains to be said from their side. Mr. Speaker, South Africa is heading for a grand future with the hon. the Minister of Finance in charge of our financial affairs, who can manage our affairs so efficiently and who has been able to present us with such a realistic Budget as this one.

The hon. member for Newcastle has made a plea for a third Iscor in his constituency. He has also made all sorts of allegations about the favourable reception given to this Budget, but I would like to quote him an extract from a letter which appeared in The Natal Mercury on Wednesday, the 2nd April—

The letter then goes on to condemn this Budget. We have just had the hon. members for Newcastle and Humansdorp praising this Budget, and saying that we are incorrect in suggesting that this is a rich man’s Budget. Indeed this is a rich man’s Budget. I think as the effects of the sales duty begin to sink in, the people are beginning to realize that the cost of many essentials will be increased. I am thinking particularly of the effect of the sales duty on the poorer section of the community, on the ordinary working man, on the young married couple or a young couple intending to marry and who have to set up a home and on the pensioner who has to live on a small inadequate pension. The hon. members for Humansdorp and Newcastle regard this increase of R1 in social pensions as a wonderful increase. But what does it really mean? It means an increase of three cents a day, whereas the cost of many items that they will have to buy will increase by 10 per cent or 20 per cent. This sales duty comes into effect immediately whereas the increase of R1 will only come into effect as from the 1st October. In other words, by the time pensioners receive this increase of R1 per month, the cost of living will have risen steadily over six months, so I cannot imagine that there is any joy in the hearts of pensioners when one considers what additional costs the imposition of this sales duty will entail.

Sir, let us look at some other factors. How is this sales duty going to affect homes for the aged and homes for committed children? I had a discussion only yesterday with a person who is a leading figure in the welfare world and who expressed grave concern over the increased cost of administering these homes. These homes which are administered by welfare organizations are now facing increased replacement costs and increased running costs. They use a large quantity of soap; they do a lot of their own laundry, they have to renew equipment, furniture and furnishings, curtains, carpeting and linen from time to time, and all these items are subject to the sales duty imposed by the hon. the Minister. One of these welfare organizations estimates that the sales duty will increase their costs by approximately 27 per cent per annum. We know that the Government endeavours to subsidize these homes and organizations, but this is done on a very limited basis. The subsidy represents approximately half of what it costs to keep these children in children’s homes or to accommodate aged persons in homes for the aged. The subsidy falls far short of the amount required to keep these people.

As we know, Sir, committed children are committed by a children’s court; they are then handed over to welfare organizations which are carrying out an essential welfare service, a service which the State itself would have to provide if the welfare organizations, did not exist. These welfare organizations, however, only receive a subsidy of about 50 per cent of what it costs to keep these children. The running costs of the welfare organizations are going to be greatly increased by this sales duty which they will have to pay on many items that they require for the day-to-day running of these organizations. But what about new organizations which are just being established? There are many welfare organizations which are endeavouring to meet the tremendous demand for accommodation in children’s homes and homes for the aged and other institutions. They are endeavouring to raise funds and some of these organizations are in the process of erecting homes for the aged. Here I would like to refer to one in the Durban area which will accommodate 464 aged persons. This building is due to be opened at the end of this year. It is estimated that the cost of equipping this home will be R100,000. This organization will be subsidized to the tune of R46,000. The subsidy from the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions is based on 75 per cent of the costs, subject to a maximum of R90 per inmate who qualifies for the subsidy. This means that they will have to find R54,000 but by the time they have to equip this home by the end of the year when it is completed they will have to find about another R10,000 to meet the sales duty imposed by the Minister of Finance. This means that this will delay and seriously hinder the establishment of many of these homes that are in the course of being built and are being established. The figure of R90 per inmate is the subsidy received from the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions, but the cost of equipping this particular home is R215 per inmate. So. of R215 per capita they will only receive R90 per capita. Over and above this they will be called upon to pay at least the extra 10 per cent of the cost of equipping this proposed home. If we look at the proposed list of sales dutiable goods, I believe that 10 per cent is a fair and average estimate. The list includes, as I have mentioned, furniture, curtains, carpeting and all other essentials that are required in equipping such a home. Refrigerators are also subject to tax. Electrical equipment, coffee urns, tea urns, are all included under the Minister’s proposals. Only one of them is below 10 per cent and that is bed linen, on which the tax is 5 per cent. The others are all 10 per cent or more. This will greatly increase the cost of these homes which are being built and that have not budgeted obviously to pay this sudden increase of the sales duty. They will have to pay the entire amount, because as I have mentioned the per capita cost already far exceeds the subsidizable amount of R90 per capita which is allowed in respect of White inmates of these homes. They will have to pay this money themselves.

As far as the Coloured community is concerned, there is also a Coloured organization which is building a home for Coloured aged in the Peninsula. They estimate their cost of furnishing at R18,000. Their subsidy from the Government is a maximum of R70 per capita. It is costing them approximately R118 per capita to furnish and equip this home. They, too, now will be called upon to find another R2,000 to pay in sales duty. That is all it means; an additional amount to pay purely as sales duty. This leads me to make a plea to the hon. the Minister of Finance, in considering the proposals for increasing the sales duty, that he should, in this particular case, at least make an exemption in the case of registered welfare organizations which are required to buy certain items that are subject to the sales duty. He should make this extra expense an amount which can be reimbursed at a later stage. It will be quite simple, in my estimation, to administer a provision that where a registered welfare organization is required to purchase these items which are subject to the sales duty, on submission of invoices and receipts they will receive a remission from the Department of Inland Revenue for the sales duty which they have had to pay in terms of these items. I believe that such an exemption could be granted and should be granted for the benefit of the welfare services in South Africa. The new Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions is unfortunately not here this afternoon. However, I was going to call upon him, as the responsible Minister who is most anxious, as he has stated when he assumed office as the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions, to alleviate the position as far as the poorer section of the community is concerned. I wanted to call upon him to assist wherever possible to establish reasonable accommodation for these people. He also laid the emphasis strongly on the need for welfare organizations and private initiative to fulfil these requirements in respect of the welfare services in this country. I submit that these organizations are endeavouring, under tremendous difficulties from time to time, to do just that and to improve the position of our welfare services. They face many stumbling blocks, particularly in regard to the raising of funds. We know that even in the case of the Municipality of Durban they are required to provide a 10 per cent collateral security, which makes it all the more difficult for them to raise the funds from the public, from the community, to provide these essential services.

I should also like to deal with the question of the social pensioners. The two hon. members who spoke before me, the hon. member for Humansdorp and the hon. member for Newcastle, seemed to think that this Budget presented a wonderful opportunity to say thank you to the hon. the Minister in regard to the concessions that he has made to this one particular group. I presume that people must be grateful for small mercies. However, I would like to join the many members on the other side of the House who, on other subjects, requested more to be done in certain respects. Certainly, as far as this side of the House is concerned, all our speakers have pointed to ways and means where more can be done to assist people who are in need. I believe that the older section of our community is a section that is in great need. I believe that this increase of only R1 per month is a pittance in comparison with the increased costs that they will incur, bearing in mind the fact that these are the people who will be called upon to pay this indirect taxation on many of the items on which the Minister proposes to impose the sales duty. Yet they will be compensated by a R1 per month increase. What about the non-White section? The hon. the Minister of Finance, in delivering his Budget speech, said that in terms of a ratio certain increases would be granted to the non-White pensioners. One can only presume that the same ratio will be maintained as was applied in the past. That would mean that the Coloureds and Indians would receive 50 cents per month, while the Bantu would receive 25 cents a month increase in their social pensions. I believe that the amount of increase that is being granted, particularly in regard to the ratio that has to be applied and has been applied for a number of years, means that these people receive an absolute pittance. One must remember, too, that many of these people will also have to pay the indirect taxation which is now imposed in terms of the sales duty on many of these items. But they will have far less to meet these increased costs. Indeed, as far as the Bantu social pensioner is concerned, he will merely have an extra 25 cents per month to meet the increased costs which he will be called upon to pay in terms of the sales duty.

I also want to deal with the question of the relaxation of the means test. Here we welcome the provision that an amount of R20 per month for a single person and R40 per month for a married person will be deducted from earnings before applying the means test. We indeed have pleaded from this side of the House on numerous occasions that something must be done with regard to the income limits in terms of the means test. This will, of course, assist those who would like to take some form of employment and who would perhaps like to take part-time employment. However, I believe that it would be more beneficial to apply it in a slightly different manner. We have endeavoured from this side of the House to put forward constructive suggestions. We believe that a more practical application, which would be of greater assistance to the people concerned, might be the better way of applying these matters. Dealing with the question of the means test being relaxed for income purposes, we must remember that the ceiling has remained constant for a long time at R42 per month per person whereby a person is disqualified if he has more than that amount in income from certain sources as far as the receiving of a social pension is concerned. In terms of the present concession that has been made, it does mean that these people will be able to take some form of employment, but they will still be disqualified, of course, where they exceed certain limits. Here I believe that the ceiling which has been established is one that will still be very low indeed. For instance, the present proposed relaxation would mean that if a married person who has assets below R3,600, earns more than R124 per month, he and his wife would be disqualified from receiving a pension, because an income of R124 per month minus the R40 makes it R84 which brings him above the actual new ceiling which is to be created, whereas if half of the earnings was disregarded for the purpose of the means test, rather than the present proposed concession, it would mean that that ceiling would be R168 per month before they exceeded the ceiling. There are many pensioners who have managed to obtain some form of employment at about R160 or R150 per month. I believe that these people could have been accommodated if this concession had been granted on a slightly different basis which would have raised that ceiling from R124 per month to R168 per month. Another group which will be affected by the terms of the proposals made by the hon. Minister of Finance will be the war veterans of the First World War. As the Minister is well aware, we have pleaded from this side of the House on numerous occasions for the complete abolition of the means test for First World War veterans. We still believe that it is justified to abolish the means test for those veterans of the First World War and if the Government wishes to include the 1914 protesting burghers and the 1906 Zulu Rebellion veterans, there is so much the more a case for them to be included in the abolition of the means test. It is all part of South African history and these people who have served in the First World War should receive that consideration. However, we are dealing here with a proposal which the hon. the Minister has made during his Budget speech. We welcome the concession which has been made, but I believe that this is even further complicating the means test, because we are now creating a fourth group which has to be dealt with on a separate basis. Surely, it would have been easier to relax the means test for the war veterans of over 70 years of age. Should there be war veterans of the First World War who have not yet attained the age of 70 years, it can be arranged quite easily by means of regulations that they shall be deemed to have reached the age of 70 and be dealt with on the basis of that means test. Now we are creating an entirely new group as far as the means test is concerned. We have a group for the old age pensioners under 70 years of age, a group for the old age pensioners of over 70 years of age, a group for the war veterans of over 70 years of age and now another means test for war veterans of the First World War, the 1914 protesting burghers and the 1906 Zulu Rebellion veterans. Surely, it would have been easier if a relaxation of the means test for the war veteran of over 70 years of age was granted instead of creating a separate one entirely.

As far as the civil pensions are concerned, the two Government speakers who have spoken before me both praised the concessions which have been made for the civil pensioners. We too believe that the civil pensioners deserved some recognition because we know there are large numbers of resignations of key personnel and we know that the Civil Service is having a great deal of difficulty in attracting people to the service. Consequently fringe benefits have to be improved to try and compete to a certain extent with the private sector and at least retain many of the personnel in the Civil Service. However, the position is that the concessions which have been granted here are more or less in line with those granted to the Railway pensioners, with one very big and significant difference. The difference is that an annual increase of two per cent per annum compounded has been granted to Railway pensioners whereas it has not been recommended in regard to the civil pensioners. I would like to know why it is deemed that the civil pensioner should be dealt with on a different basis. We know that the matter was fully investigated. The question which I had on the Order Paper in 1968 disclosed that an interdepartmental committee of enquiry had been appointed to investigate the present Government pensions. It was appointed in October, 1967, and it included representatives of the Treasury, the Public Service Commission, the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions, the South African Railways and the Government Actuary. One of the terms of reference was—

The Railways Administration and the hon. the Minister of Transport obviously accepted this fact that to compete particularly, or even to compare with various pension schemes which are available in the private sector, something on the basis of a regular increase should be granted to these pensioners. We know that in terms of these pension schemes of the private sector, with the new developments which have taken place in regard to equity linked pension schemes, the annuitants receive regular increases in their annuities so as to offset the ravages of inflation and the erosion of the purchasing power of their money. However, as far as the civil pensioner is concerned, it appears that under the old system of granting increases in a bonus every now and again, relief will be granted every few years or as the Government feels inclined, rather than having an organized set increase whereby the civil pensioners can look forward to receiving these increases. To many old people to-day, particularly in the private sector where there are still old pension schemes in existence to a certain extent, it means that the longer they live the poorer they become and the more difficult life becomes for them. It is the duty of the Government to look after its employees to the greatest extent. I believe this would be the opportune moment for the hon. the Minister of Finance to follow a similar course as the hon. the Minister of Transport, by granting regular increases to the civil pensioners.

Now, there are other points which I would like to raise concerning disappointments in regard to this Budget. One is, I believe, that far greater relaxation of the means test could have been brought about. There are still many anomalies in existence. Just to quote one, a person who has R8,000 invested at nine per cent receiving R60 per month can apply for a pension if he or she is over 70 years of age and receive the full maximum pension plus another R10 per month, amounting all in all to R42 per month. But a widow, for instance, receiving an annuity from her late husband’s employer of more than R42 per month, receives nothing whatsoever. She might have no assets whatsoever, but if she is receiving more than R42 per month, she receives nothing whatsoever. Surely, the time has arrived for a review of this anomaly which exists in the means test to-day.

Another disappointment is in regard to the question of family allowances. We have heard pleas from the Government over and over again that it is in the interests of South Africa to have an increase in the White population particularly. According to the figures for the average size of White families, it has decreased over the years. The 1960 census showed that the average size of a White family at that stage was 3.7 persons; of Coloureds 4.9; of Asiatics 5.3 while some 25.1 per cent of the White married couples had no children. The figures in regard to the birth rate of the White section of the country are alarming. Surely the time has arrived when the Minister of Finance should make available sums of money to try to assist families where there are financial difficulties if they are to have more children and if the families are to be bigger. The question of our family allowances was investigated by a commission of enquiry, the Piek Commission of Enquiry, some years ago which made a large number of recommendations. Some of those recommendations have been implemented on a small scale, but a large number of those recommendations have not been implemented. I submit that the hon. the Minister of Finance should make available sums of money to the Department of Social Welfare in particular to see where and how the present system of family allowances can be expanded and improved. The new Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions made a statement on the 21st February this year concerning family life and he made certain observations which, I believe, indicate the urgency of this problem. The hon. the Minister in his statement said that in regard to such an important matter as family life and in particular aspects such as a higher birth rate and the combating of divorce, there should be no overlapping of action of future developments. He then made a statement that a conference would be held on welfare matters. But in terms of this statement, he indicated that a family life commission, which is one of the commissions we created when this House passed the National Welfare Act a few years ago, should be engaged in this task of finding ways and means whereby the birth rate amongst the White community in South Africa could be increased and encouraged. It would appear that the Minister of Finance to a great extent by financial means can assist in this regard. To-day we have a system of family allowances, which is subject to a very stringent means test. It is a very small sum indeed. Under a million rand a year is spent on family allowances. This is not merely a service which should be granted to the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions to administer, but it should have a wider range of investigation to see if it is not possible that the Minister of Finance could also assist in this regard.

With regard to the question of other welfare services that exist, it appears that there are still very large gaps in the welfare services provided in South Africa. We welcome the fact that a conference is to be held in Pretoria in the latter part of June of this year. It is, therefore, hoped that next year the hon. the Minister of Finance will be in a position to make available greater funds to the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions, particularly to encourage our welfare organizations by financial aid to expand their field of operation to enable them to render what is an essential service to all sections of our community as far as our welfare services are concerned. The present system in South Africa is one which has been established over a large number of years and it is one which mainly subsidizes welfare organizations, which are providing the bulk of the field work that has to be done in the welfare field. However, these organizations are finding it increasingly difficult to continue with the essential services, due to increased costs. Here we have a budget and proposals before us which will adversely affect these organizations. If the hon. the Minister is not able to grant an exemption of the sales duty to these welfare organizations, I suggest that the only avenue open to him is to grant greater financial aid to these organizations by means of subsidies. There is no doubt about it; these organizations will have to come back to the Central Government for financial assistance.

I mentioned earlier in my speech the fact that only a maximum of R90 per capita was granted for the provision of homes for the aged White persons, whereas, in fact, it costs over R200 per capita to make that accommodation available to these people. The National Council for the Care of the Aged, as I know, made numerous representations to the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions to increase this unrealistic subsidy of R90 per capita. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Umbilo has once again done what we have been accustomed to for a long time. Without having any grounds for doing so, the United Party says something this year so that next year, or one day when something may perhaps be done in that direction, they may say, “But, surely, we suggested that last year.” Let me just illustrate this to hon. members.

[Inaudible.]

No, wait a minute, the hon. member is talking about wool; we are talking about people. The hon. member for Umbilo referred to the Commission for Family Life, which is carrying out certain terms of reference. He gave a brief summary of what their actual task was. Then, anticipating the issues he said that the Minister should kindly make additional funds available next year in order that the Department might give effect to the Commission’s findings. Surely, it is absurd to want to anticipate a matter in that manner. But next year, or whenever the Commission tables its report and the Department accepts it on well-founded facts—not on general, broad premises—the hon. member for Umbilo may rise and say, “But we asked for that a long time ago.” I refer hon. members to the Cape Argus of 21st March, 1969, so as to indicate how these people feel about their own affairs. I quote—

Sir, that is what the hon. member for Yeoville wrote in the Cape Argus on 21st March, 1969. Now I want to tell them that we have the same difficulty. Our children no longer know either what a wretched government we had before 1948. We also have the problem of making them realize that they have only had experience of a decent government. This kind of argument in which the hon. member for Umbilo was engaged all afternoon, is the kind of argument by means of which they now want to suggest to the young people of 26 years and younger, to whom he referred, that the Government acted differently at the time or would have wanted to do so. But surely, this is not the case at all. This Budget proves very clearly that we are not only dealing here with amounts which have been increased or decreased, concessions which have been made or taxes which have been increased. The significance of this Budget is, after all, that it reflects the country’s strong economy.

To come to the welfare matters to which the hon. member paid particular attention: I want to tell him that just as the country handles its economy in a consistent manner, and just as it has ensured a stable economy, it ensures that it is capable of providing what is necessary and making the concessions which are necessary at this stage, not only in the sphere of welfare hut also in all other spheres. In the same way I want to show him, as far as this particular aspect of the Budget is concerned, in what a consistent manner the Government has developed this programme as well.

Just take the question of old age pensions. In 1947 the pension was R10. At the moment it is R33. This represents an increase of 230 per cent. Surely, we cannot omit to take this into account. Hon. members will agree that the value of money has decreased, but let us look at the means test. Here we find a very interesting phenomenon. In view of the limited time at my disposal, I shall only refer to two groups, the old age pensioners and the war veterans. I furnish round figures. Of the 27,000 persons Who receive old age pensions and own fixed property, as many as 23,700 receive the maximum pension. This is the extent to which the means test has been relaxed. I am now referring to those who have fixed property. In the case of the war veterans the figure in respect of those who have fixed property is 4,900. Of that number as many as 4,100 receive maximum pension benefits, notwithstanding the fact that there has been such a tremendous improvement in these benefits between 1948 and 1969. Of the 100,700 persons who receive old age pensions, there are as many as 90,600, i.e. more than 90 per cent, who receive the maximum old age pension. Surely, this proves that there has been a tremendous concession in respect of the means test. As far as the war veterans are concerned, as many as 16,900 of the 18,800 receive maximum pension benefits at the moment. After this Budget this figure may even be more favourable.

But it is not only this increase in pensions as such or the relaxation of the means test which we can point out. I shall also point out several other concessions which the Government has from time to time made in the interests of the aged. I shall also mention to hon. members an amount of R2.7 million which the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions spent in respect of White pensioners for a wide range of other services. Capital provisions for accommodation for the aged, which is being provided, inter alia, by the Department of Community Development, has not even been included here. The opportunities which the strong economy of this country under this Government affords the aged—i.e. that of enabling them to work until they attain the maximum age, until they qualify for a pension, and even after that—constitute part of the reason why this Government is still going to persevere with the means test, because it creates opportunities for the aged to be employed for their maximum lifespan, so that they may amass considerably more savings than was the case in former times. There were times, when those people on the other side were in power, when there were few opportunities for employment for the aged, when the wages of the White aged were such that they could not save anything. That is why there is a large group of aged persons to-day who have no reserves and who are completely dependent on their pensions.

I want to go further. I want to mention the services to which the hon. member for Umbilo referred time and again, i.e. the services rendered by voluntary welfare organizations.

Do you support my plea to the Minister?

But, surely, I said at the beginning that the hon. member was pleading without any grounds in order that he might be able to say next year, “But I advocated that last year.” But the hon. member has no facts on the strength of which he may claim that at the moment voluntary organizations have to incur all sorts of liabilities. At the moment we have as many as 143 old age homes. After all, not all of those 143 homes are going to purchase, in this particular year only, new curtains, new furniture, etc., which would increase their expenditure. These homes are, after all, equipped properly. The Department has, after all, made provision.

But I want to associate myself with the warning the hon. member for Newcastle sounded against the welfare idea. The Opposition has said time after time that they do not want it either. But if they are going to insist that the State should contribute more and more to these services, this must, after all, inevitably result in these voluntary organizations being subsidized in full. But now the Government has a different policy. Instead of merely handing out and granting cash allowances, it is developing, in conjunction with the voluntary organizations, a comprehensive professional service, for instance, by subsidizing social workers, people who are also rendering a very great service in the interests of these aged persons.

In addition to these matters which I have mentioned, there are the attendant’s allowances which are being made available to our aged. Those people who are so weak that they cannot look after themselves, obtain the services of persons who take care of them. Several thousands of rands are being set aside in the Budget in order to make provision for that. By 1947 there were only 57 old age homes for Whites in this country, with a mere 4,800 inhabitants. At the moment there are 143 homes, which have room for 10,570 aged persons. Another 63 homes are under construction, and if they were to be filled within the next few years, they would provide accommodation for more than 15,000 aged persons. It is this more effective and more practical method of caring for the aged which is made possible by a strong economy. Give those persons nothing but a pension, and it will be found that a large number of them are not capable of controlling or handling it. That does not make it a constructive service. We place the emphasis on the constructive service which is being rendered.

Last year we passed legislation relating to the care of aged persons. This legislation provides, inter alia, for better control over aged persons who have been exploited in the past through high accommodation fees, inadequate care, and so forth. These are the things we emphasize. A strong economy and a stable Government can always uphold a means test, knowing that its aged are in any case still well cared for.

The hon. member for Umbilo objected to the various forms of means tests which exist, but what does he do by way of illustration? He comes here with individual cases. He tells us about a widow whose husband earned a certain amount and who invested the money at such and such a rate of interest. If he wants to reason in that way, he will be able, no matter how these tests are altered, to quote a whole batch of individual cases here every year, cases of which he and I may have many examples. These cases differ so radically from one another that within the framework of even the most idealistic means test provisions one would find that the one still differs from the other, because one person may have invested at 6 per cent, the next at 8 per cent and another may not have invested at all because he keeps his money in his own money box at home. No, it is because the United Party governed the way they did that they have to come forward with the complaint here that their people no longer know what an old United Party Government looks like.

Mr. Speaker, when the hon. the Minister had presented the Budget I leant back and thought: “Look, now we are going to hear something from this Opposition, our alternative government; they will really swing the hatchet and show us how such a Budget is to be criticized and what they can substitute for it.” Alas, the debate has nearly run its course, but we have heard nothing in this connection yet. The best I have heard was the speech made by the hon. member for Constantia, but he congratulated the hon. the Minister on the new direction he had taken with this Budget. In the other speeches made by hon. members opposite they scurried and floundered about without making any impression. They fought with closed eyes; they hit left and right, but did not strike anything. That is why we can also say: “Vanity of vanities,” saith the Preacher, “vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”

Apart from congratulating the hon. the Minister I want to extend another congratulation in the House. This is a congratulation on a birthday and it is extended to one of our industrial giants. It is extended to Iscor. When last year the National Party had been in power for a period of 20 years, this undertaking had been doing as good work as the National Party Government had been doing for the past 20 years, but for exactly twice as long. This undertaking set South Africa on the road to sound and vigorous industrial development. Around Iscor a host of factories and business undertakings developed which not only created good employment opportunities for our Whites, but also enabled South Africa to defy everything which our enemies in the outside world could throw at us in the form of boycotts and what have you.

What was the attitude of the Opposition in regard to that undertaking? What was their attitude when the National Party Government wanted to establish our own iron and steel undertaking in 1928? This legislation was before this House in 1927. It was passed here, and when it came to the Other Place, where the Opposition was in the majority at the time, it was rejected. South Africa had always had to import from foreign countries. Only in 1928, at a joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament, was this legislation passed.

To-day our iron and steel industry is a source of strength and a gem in the economy of our country and a monument to the farsighted policy of the National Party. I therefore deem it a privilege to have the mother company of Iscor in my constituency. On behalf of the thousands of Iscor workers I say: “Congratulations, keep up the good work and carry on along the road of steel that has been chosen.”

I also want to refer to another matter, and that is how this Budget will, in my opinion, affect the worker. It is a well-known truth that the National Party recognizes the worker as the backbone of the economy of our country and of our people. It is as great a truth that the National Party is the friend of the worker. If we look at the various budgets introduced this year, the Railway Budget, the Post Office Budget and the Budget of the hon. the Minister of Finance, we see what tremendous concessions have been made.

Large concessions have been granted to pensioners. Railway, civil, war veteran’s pensions have all been improved and the means test has been relaxed. Concessions have been granted to working wives in respect of the first R500. There is a maternity rebate. Medical expenses have been brought to a fixed amount. Subsidies are paid to officials in respect of their interest on housing loans. Other concessions have also been announced. If that is not sufficient proof then nothing will be able to convince anyone that the National Party is the true friend of the worker in South Africa.

I am particularly glad about the concessions in respect of housing loans to public servants, policemen, soldiers and provincial officials. However, I think attention may be paid to three matters arising out of this. The first relates to the private sector. These people are paying 8½ per cent interest on loans, and at some building societies even 9 per cent. They must have 25 per cent of the purchase price as well as transfer costs available. That means that a person wanting to buy a house for R10,000 will have to have almost R3,000 in cash available. The vast majority of our salary earners find it quite impossible to raise this amount.

A second matter relates to building premises in built-up areas, such as in Pretoria West. Houses are extremely scarce and the Department of Community Development may possibly consider granting loans not only for new houses but also for houses completed a few years ago.

A third matter I want to mention relates to housing schemes and loans for workers of Iscor which are controlled by a few subsidiaries of Iscor. I want to point out that Pretoria West is connected with Iscor to the extent of about 60 per cent directly or indirectly. These loans and schemes make money available for rent as well as purchase schemes at a rate of interest of 5 1/4 per cent. This is better than any other scheme, and Iscor has drawn and retained many people as a result of the fact that housing was cheaper and more readily available. A change has now set in. The loans of other institutions for the income group up to R3,000 per annum are now less than 4 per cent.

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