I move—

This Bill has reached this stage without amendment, and we on this side of the House remain opposed to it, particularly to the contents of clause 1 of the Bill. Sir, during the discussion of this Bill Government members have ranged far and wide in references to matters which are blatantly undesirable publications and which are of a patently pornographic nature. But, Sir, this Bill as it is now before us does not confine itself to publications of that nature only. The Bill will give the board far wider powers than it presently has and will have far wider effects on the publishing world. Sir, it should not be necessary for me to say that the Opposition is opposed to and will assist in keeping away from the public publications which are obscene or indecent or blasphemous. We are naturally opposed to them, but this Bill, if it becomes law, will affect a far wider field of publications. We believe that prosecution, in terms of the law, as it is at present, is the best deterrent to the publication of undesirable matter and will provide the means of preventing such publications which have given the hon. the Minister cause for concern. The Minister, after expressing the view that these powers should be given to the board, referred to the difficulties in instituting prosecutions which were referred to by Mr. Justice Maritz; they were quoted with approval by the Minister, but, Sir, those had reference to the legislation which existed prior to 1963; they had reference to the old Cape Act of 1892 and the Entertainment Censorship Acts which had been passed in 1931, 1934, 1939 and 1953. Those difficulties are not present in dealing with the principal Act which the hon. the Minister now wishes to amend. These difficulties disappeared when the principal Act of 1963 was placed on the Statute Book. Powers to bring offenders to trial should be used and I believe that the penalties which are provided for in the principal Act are sufficiently high to act as a deterrent without the necessity of taking these further powers to prohibit publications in advance.

Sir, this Bill, if it is passed in its present form, will substitute a board for the courts of this country in deciding whether there has been a contravention of the Act or not, because we will now have the situation where we will have parallel jurisdiction as far as the courts and the Censorship Board are concerned. We will have the situation that the Act prescribes a crime and makes provision for the power to prosecute but the board may have no regard to those provisions. On the other hand, the board itself can decide that a publication is undesirable and, having taken that decision, it can act as though it was a conviction in a court. Sir, that is an undesirable set of circumstances to have. As I have said, it is virtually parallel jurisdiction of the courts and the Censorship Board. I believe that what we have in this Bill as it is now before us is another instance of the creeping extension of bureaucracy in controlling the every-day lives of the people of South Africa. It will place in the hands of the board, whose members are appointed by the Minister, powers which are far reaching and which are unnecessary. I would say that our objections to the Bill as we now have it before us at this Third Reading, may be summarized as follows: Firstly, that authority is given to the Publications Control Board to prohibit as yet unprinted editions of a periodical; secondly, that that power can be exercised by the board in the future without a course of conduct having been established on the part of the publisher, and the Minister cannot argue that a course of conduct is evidenced by one publication of one undesirable article. Sir, the periodical is not to be looked at as a whole, but is to be judged upon one article that appears in that particular periodical. Thirdly, the board may be motivated, in coming to its decision, by a number of considerations which have no reference to indecency or obscenity or blasphemy; it can have reference to publications which in the opinion of the board, bring sections of the public into ridicule. Is a publisher of satire in regard to public persons now, because of this Bill, to have the sword of Damocles perpetually hanging over his head? Is satire, because it results in a certain amount of ridicule of public figures, to disappear now from the literary life of South Africa because the board may feel that the publication of that satirical article may result in certain members of the public being ridiculed? Sir, the board can also base its opinion on what it regards as harmful to good relations between sections of the community, without reference to indecency or pornography or blasphemy. Sir, one wonders whether the board in its wisdom may not decide that the publication of political differences between parties in South Africa is to be the preserve of the members of the N.P.U. who are not subject to this Bill, and whether an independent publication, which appears in periodical form may now have restrictions placed upon it if it were to publish political matters of such a nature. Because, Sir, the members of the N.P.U., the daily Press, are exempt from these provisions.

If one turns to section 6 of the principal Act, one finds there that in so far as the court is concerned, there are certain presumptions which arise if certain matters are dealt with in what the court regards as a harmful way; they are murder, divorce, infidelity and other matters which appear in novels and are accepted in novels from day to day.

It is accepted that at least murder occurs on several occasions in the thrillers which so many of us enjoy reading for relaxation, but there are guide-lines set down for the courts. But what is the position of the board? The Appeal Court has told us that when it views a matter which comes before it under this Act, the test that is applied is the effect upon the ordinary reader, who is neither a prude nor a libertine, in the words of the Appeal Judge. But there are no such guide-lines given to the Publications Control Board. It can sit in solemn conclave on its own and make a decision as to what it considers undesirable without the matter having gone to court to be tested. For the rest, the public and the publishers are at the mercy of the board. We must remember this. The Minister will say to me that when the board gives a ruling of this nature, the publisher affected can go to court on appeal, but what happens in the interim? Either the appeal must suspend the order of the Censor Board, and if it does the publisher goes on with his publication until that appeal is finally disposed of in the courts, irrespective of the ultimate outcome of the appeal, or the publication must be suspended pending the outcome of the appeal. As the Minister knows, appeals are not only time-consuming but they are expensive. It may well be that after many months a publisher is able to satisfy the Appeal Court that the order should not have been given initially by the Control Board, but by that time he is out of business or he has sustained colossal losses through the suspension of his publication. He will be off the market by that time. It is most unfortunate that the Minister does not see his way clear to accept the amendments we have suggested, because censorship in itself is an infringement of the rights of individuals, and as such it should only be applied when no other course is open to eradicate the evil. I emphasize what I said before and I repeat that we on this side of the House believe that the sanctions provided by prosecution and punishment for the criminal offence which is created in the principal Act are a sufficient deterrent and are more desirable than the extension of the powers of the board to regulate the conduct of society, as it will now be able to do in terms of the powers contained in this Bill.

There has been in the past a great force to control publications and to regulate society, and that was public opinion, but with this erosion of the matters left to the public conscience and with this growth of bureaucracy, public opinion is disappearing. The man in the street sits back now and says: The Publications Board has approved, or has not approved; he never applies his own mind to see what is good and what is bad in literature, and one gets a negative and impassive approach from the general reading public to the publications they are now permitted to read. The life of the individual is becoming so circumscribed that he now finds himself abiding by the dictates of boards of various kinds rather than by the dictates of his own conscience. This Bill extends that process. Although it is in keeping with Government policy and Government administrative procedure, it certainly does not carry our support and we will oppose the Third Reading.

The hon. member for Green Point has talked a good deal more now without really saying anything. I just want to make use of this opportunity to point out briefly that the main objection hon. members opposite are raising, and which was again stated by the hon. member for Green Point, is in fact hanging in the air. In principle they actually want no Censor Board, and the excuse is that the possibility of prosecution in the courts is a sufficient deterrent for anyone who publishes the kind of literature or the kind of publication which is destructive, harmful or undermining. But it has specifically been proved in our courts that in most oases it is impossible to prove that the law has been contravened when it comes to harmful, destructive and immoral publications of this kind. We had an example of this only last year. The hon. member for Green Point knows very well that it appeared in a court decision last year that it is always possible to find people to explain away the worst pornography or even blasphemous things and to say, for example, that they are satirical and actually contain nothing harmful. This was specifically demonstrated in public. I therefore want to tell the hon. members for Green point and Pietermaritzburg (District) that it really is a disappointment to me that we find this attitude on the part of the Opposition that they agree in broad principle that there are many things which are undesirable, but nevertheless oppose this legislation, even up to the Third Reading stage. I think we have enough common ground on this side and on that side, i.e. that we are dealing with a Christian people and a Christian community. We need not weigh Calvinism or liberalism against each other here and try to stress differences in that way. We have a common Christian basis, and I think we can at least accept that we acknowledge this in the broad sense and should like to maintain it, that we want to develop our national character instead of breaking it down, and that we want to exclude from our national life the harmful things which are published, not to serve the community or the people, but solely with the object of making profit, and which have the detrimental effect that our moral standards are being broken down. I say that is why I personally am disappointed at the whole attitude of the Opposition. In fact, Sir, you will admit that people such as the Murrays and the Robertsons, and many others in our national history made a particularly valuable contribution in helping to build up these standards, of which we are proud.

They still do so.

Yes, and we are grateful for that, and that is why I say we have a great deal of common ground, and for that very reason I am all the more disappointed at the attitude of the hon. member for Green Point. I want to ask the hon. the Minister not to pay serious attention to the considerations and objections that have been put forward here, but that we should try to preserve the essence of things, the essential things. We must try to preserve and reinforce the accented Christian standards: we want to develop these and we do not want to throw them to the wolves.

The Press in general, i.e. the members of the Press Union, are specifically excluded in this legislation, but nevertheless I just want to say that it is perhaps possible and desirable that it should be said here that the Press too will help to develop these standards we are referring to, and that they will not use their protected position to help to break down those things that are precious to our national character. I therefore want to express the hope that the hon. the Minister will use his influence as far as possible to urge the Press in South Africa to greater responsibility in supporting those bodies that are seriously working towards building up our national life and our national character, and to maintain our moral standards on the highest possible level.

The hon. member for Piketberg has touched upon a point with which I will deal a little more fully later, but in direct reply to him I want to refer him to section 5 (2) of the principal Act. It lays down the conditions under which a publication or object shall be deemed to be undesirable. Paragraph (a) says that if it or any part of it is indecent or obscene or is offensive or harmful to public morals, and paragraph (b) says if it is blasphemous or is offensive to the religious convictions or feelings of any section of the population, a contravention is committed. If this Act only contained those two provisions, I would agree wholeheartedly with the argument of the hon. member for Piketberg, but when we go on further and look at (c), (d), (e) and (f) and the petty—I am sure they are petty—conditions which are laid down, then we cannot agree with his argument and we cannot accept this amendment which the Minister now brings before the House.

The effect of this Bill which is now reaching its final stage in this House is that the hon. the Minister gives to the board the clairvoyant powers I have referred to during the Second Reading; that this board can now prognosticate as to the possible nature of future publications, and of course that the board can then act on those prognostications. But it is a question of interpretation, as was said by the hon. member for Green Point. The hon. the Minister, in his reply to the Second Reading debate, said that why there had been so few prosecutions was because of the difficulty of proof of the contravention of any of these provisions laid down in section 5. He is imposing the burden of proof in regard to those provisions laid down in section 5 not only in respect of a publication which is in print, but he is placing the burden on the board to prove that those provisions have been flouted and he is also placing the burden on them to say that they will be flouted in the future. I cannot understand this logic. As far as I am concerned, it is not logic. In section 5 the question of ridicule is raised, namely if certain people or a section of the community is ridiculed, and I put the question to the hon. the Minister the day before yesterday in the Committee Stage quite straight: Does this mean that he can use this section of the Act against publications such as Veg and the S.A. Observer, which repeatedly bring certain people of this country into ridicule and even bring a certain religious section into ridicule? Is it the Minister’s intention to get the board to use this provision to act against those publications? The Minister did not reply. I can only now assume that my reading of this is correct and that he can, and that the board possibly will act against these publications in the future.

I do not make myself the judge; the board is the judge.

All I am asking of the Minister is whether my interpretation of this amendment is correct. Could it be used against those publications? That is all I am asking. I am not asking him to judge and say that it will be.

It could be used against any magazine.

But do these magazines fall within the category envisaged by the Minister when he introduced the amendment, and I refer particularly to political magazines or periodicals which by their nature will offend certain sections of the public?

That is a shocking insinuation against the board.

No, not at all. I am merely asking for an interpretation of the intention of the Government when they introduced this legislation.

The board is an autonomous body.

Yes, it might be an autonomous body, but it will be bound by the law, and this House is now passing a law which will bind the board. Anyway, I look forward with relish to a reply from the Minister.

But there is another aspect I want to raise with the Minister. A commission in the United States of America a few years ago investigated certain right-wing organizations. These right-wing organizations posed as the soul of moral rectitude and as the guardians of the morals of the country. We have such right-wing organizations in this country. That investigation brought to light the fact that these right wing organizations obtained their funds from pornographic publications, sex and sin sheets, the more lurid photo-news magazines and from other publications of this nature. The commission found that the sex factor, particularly, was blatantly exploited by these right wing organizations in raising funds to do the exact opposite. As they put it, they stood for the protection of the morals of the country. But they exploited this sex factor through these magazines to raise sufficient funds. They also exploited this sex factor to reach the people to whom their right wing message was directed, and, subtly involved in this sex and sin that was presented in these publications, was their right wing propaganda. As I have said, there are such right wing organizations in South Africa. I wonder if it might not be in the interests of the country if the hon. the Minister or his board were to investigate the very point that I am raising now.

Order! The hon. member must come back to the Bill.

The hon. member for Piketberg said that he was disappointed at the attitude which we have taken up, particularly in regard to the guardianship of the morals of this country. During my Second Reading debate speech I quoted from George Bernard Shaw, where he likened the morals of a nation to a person’s teeth. He drew the analogy that the more decayed the teeth were, the more tender they were if they were touched, and that the more decadent the morals of a nation were, the more tender they were and the more prone to offence they would be in these matters. As I have said I was personally offended by the films I have mentioned, namely Prudence and the Pill, Interlude and others. I was also offended by the cover picture of the magazine which I sent to the hon. the Minister. I have been offended by certain of the comic strips, picture magazines and even by books which I have picked up in book stalls throughout the country and read. But I submit that my morals have not suffered as a result of this offence. I do not think that my morals have suffered. I want to go further and say that I have faith in the morals of South Africa and I do not believe that the morals of this country are affected by these films and publications.

Order! The hon. member is discussing this matter far too widely and he must come back to the Bill. The Bill has been approved of at the Second Reading and the Committee Stage and the hon. member must come back to the Third Reading.

I abide by your decision. I want to conclude by saying that I have faith in the parents of South Africa, that I have faith in the South African way of life, and that I have faith that our way of life, which is based on Christianity and the family, has bred a nation of South Africans whose moral fibre is strong enough to withstand the onslaughts of certain of these magazines which the hon. the Minister is trying to act against. I am sure that this measure which the hon. the Minister has introduced is unnecessary.

You are talking nonsense.

It is obvious from the comments of my hon. friend to my left that the Government does not think so, but notwithstanding that I regret that I have to oppose the Third Reading of this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say a few words. I want to appeal in all seriousness to the hon. the Minister not to continue with the Third Reading of this Bill. If, however, he finds it necessary to let the Bill pass through the Third Reading stage, I want to ask him whether he will not consider not proceeding with it in the Other Place. The reasons for my asking this are twofold. In the first place, we saw in the Second Reading Debate and in the Committee Stage that the hon. the Minister quite candidly expressed his own misgivings about the new powers now being granted to him. I do not have his Hansard speech before me, but we on this side appreciated the fact that he indicated quite candidly that the present situation was not satisfactory, and definitely not to him as Minister either.

In respect of films.

Yes, in respect of films. As I said, we appreciated the fact that the hon. the Minister was so candid as to say that he was not completely satisfied and that he was looking for new solutions himself. This is the one reason why I am asking that, in the first place, the Bill should not be passed here, or that it should not be proceeded with in the Other Place. The second reason is that I do not believe the hon. the Minister can really be satisfied with clause 1 as it now stands in the Bill, and with the effect that it will have. The hon. the Minister must Concede that the principle involved in it is a bad one. Unfortunately we have also had the situation now that the hon. the Minister was not prepared to make provision in the Bill for this bad principle at least to be applied in a reasonable way. We cannot repeat arguments that have already been advanced, but the hon. the Minister will concede that censorship is a matter of opinion and that there is great difference of opinion among people about what is good and what is not good. The Minister himself quoted the example of how he took a few members to a film show and that there was great difference of opinion among them. It stands to reason, therefore, that a reasonable difference of opinion about what is good and what is not good may just as well develop between the board and a publisher outside.

There is no doubt about that, but I would rather accept the opinion of the board.

Yes, certainly, but what chance is there for a publisher who sincerely does not want to offend, really to acquaint himself with the ideas of the board, other than through clashing with the board? The hon. the Minister is not prepared to give such a publisher a chance to make the necessary adjustment after clashing with the opinion of the board.

Do you want to give him the benefit of the doubt?

Most certainly. I say this, because we are dealing here with legislation which gives the board the power to ban a whole series of periodicals on a mere presumption, even before the board has read the second article. We can see what has happened in practice. With the publication of the series “The Book of Life” the board thought fit to approve of one or two editions of it, but it banned one or two editions. In other words, it did not ban the entire series. That proves that it does not necessarily follow that if the first edition is not approved of, the second edition will not be good either. This is demonstrated from time to time. The power being granted here is that if the board merely presumes that the second edition in the series will not be good either it may ban this edition as well. So, in effect, on a mere presumption the doors can be closed on a matter. As I have said, I think this is a bad principle, and it is a pity that there is no provision for such a bad principle at least to be applied with reasonableness.

The hon. member for Omaruru did mention that a publisher has the right to appeal. That is true, but in the meantime a good deal of time is usually lost, and time is money, and one feels that an equitable arrangement ought to be made in this connection. In conclusion I want to say that it is quite clear to me that the hon. the Minister is acquainting himself with the functions of the board and it is also very clear that the hon. the Minister is taking trouble to examine the functions of the board. The same also applies to the new chairman, Mr. Jannie Kruger. There is every indication that he is doing his best in connection with the functions of the board. But both the hon. the Minister and he are fairly new in their respective positions, and I think it would have been much fairer if the hon. the Minister, who is a relatively new Minister of the Interior, and the new chairman of the board had given themselves a little more time to get acquainted with these problems of the board. It is for this reason that I want to suggest that the hon. the Minister should not proceed with this Bill at this juncture, but should rather come along next year with legislation which has been more carefully considered, and that he should then refer the subject of it to a Select Committee so that we can all see whether we cannot find better methods as regards the aspects about which the hon. the Minister himself has misgivings. What difference can six months make? I want to give the hon. the Minister the assurance that if he does that, he will find that he will also get the full support of the Opposition, so that we can create the best possible censorship machinery.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, who has just resumed his seat, made quite an argument of my having openly said in my reply to the Second Reading Debate that I had certain misgivings as regards certain provisions appearing in this Bill. I said by way of interjection that those misgivings I expressed were expressed in connection with films, and not against clause 1, to which the hon. the Opposition has objections. I think that if my interpretation is correct, the Opposition acknowledges that clause 2, which deals with films, is probably an improvement on what we had before. They as well as I, however, have misgivings about it, and I still have misgivings as to whether this procedure is a good one. You will remember that I suggested that it would perhaps be best if the Publications Board obtained the final authority in regard to films as well. At present we have the position that there is a right of appeal, and we should like to improve this right. This is what I had misgivings about, and not about clause 1, which is the point at issue. About clause 1 I had no misgivings at all. I am convinced that what we are doing now, is an improvement. I say this with conviction, because we have until now had the system in terms of which imported series could be banned, and this system has worked well. There are no fundamental objections to it. The only objection the hon. member for Green Point and the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg can raise against it is that we can institute criminal proceedings in respect of local series. This is the only argument they have, but as I said, this system has worked well in respect of imported series. Both the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and the hon. member for Green Point tried to create the impression here that we were trying to put public opinion under restraint, and that the board now had the final say, so that public opinion no longer applied. I want to tell hon. members that this is not the case. Both the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and the hon. member for Piketberg referred to the newspapers and the members of the Press Union. You will remember that I said on an occasion at Colesberg last year that the Cabinet was considering whether it should also investigate the freedom of the newspapers that are members of the Press Union. I should like to show hon. members on the other side the stacks of letters I received in support of the idea I expressed at the time.

You will always find people like that in the world. You cannot help it.

Yes, but that is the way the people feel. Hon. members on the opposite side want their own personal opinions in respect of any matter to prevail, but public opinion is there and I am convinced that public opinion is on our side in this matter. If I look at the newspapers which, as I have said, are not controlled by this section, then I must say that they also transgress, not through their reporting as such, but their magazine sections, which actually fall in the same category to-day as a weekly, monthly, or periodical publication. These magazine sections are no longer news media. They contain articles, and those articles also contain transgressions. As a result one begins to wonder whether one should not differentiate between the newspaper itself and its magazine section. In fact, I am giving serious consideration to this matter at the moment. Last year I indicated that something might be done in respect of the matter raised by the hon. member for Piketberg. Proposals have been submitted to the Cabinet, but up to the present no decision has been taken. J say this because I think it is in the public interest that it should be said. At present no decision has been taken yet that steps are going to be taken. However, this does not mean that the matter has been shelved. The Press Union came to see me and expressed the opinion that the procedure they are following now, the procedure with the Press Board, was a good one and would enable them to keep their own house in order. I want to give them the opportunity of keeping their house in order. I should therefore like to announce now, also because I have been requested to do so, that it has been decided for the present to do nothing as regards the exclusion of members of the Press Union as far as this legislation is concerned. At the same time, however, I want to point out that in my opinion the magazine sections of their newspapers fall in the same category as the publications against which we propose to take action here.

Mr. Speaker, I think what we are doing here is right and fair. The Publications Board consists of 11 members at present, persons selected for the task they have to perform and persons who are exceptionally well equipped for the task they have to perform. In my opinion no one is better equipped than they to judge what should be done. After all, the board as a whole meets from time to time in order to determine standards according to which action is to be taken. With all respect to the hon. member for Green Point, who, as the hon. member for Piketberg said, has such a good name, I want to say that in my opinion it is ridiculous to suggest that we want to obtain the power here to ban a little political paper.

But you can. Why not?

Why then did you not accept our amendment to the effect that political publications be excluded?

The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) asked me a similar question at the Second Reading, but I considered it to be so ridiculous that I did not deem it necessary to reply to it. The question is not what the name of the paper concerned is. The question is whether the contents of a periodical are harmful to our nation. Now the hon. member wants to know from me whether we are going to take action against Veg. Apparently he likes this little periodical because it seems to be echoing his sentiments. After all, the hon. member said he was a “verkrampte”. He is against this photograph he sent me.

Are you in favour of it?

I am not interpreting my own opinion now. But apparently the hon. member is concerned about Veg. That is why he now does not want us to do anything about it. But, as I said, what matters is not the name of a publication, but whether its contents are harmful. I wish to give the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and the hon. member for Green Point the assurance that the Publications Board acts according to the sound judgment it has at its disposal. Moreover, the board’s actions are not such that they cannot be changed. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout himself referred to the “Book of Life”. But in that case the position was completely different. In that case the Publications Board apparently had the whole series at its disposal before it made a decision. In the case of publications appearing periodically the Publications Board usually does not have the entire series at its disposal. Here we are now giving the board the power, if it is of the opinion that an article in a subsequent edition of a publication may be harmful, to take action against it. Nevertheless the possibility of negotiations remains. In fact, the legislation specifically provides for it. The Publications Board may, if it deems fit to do so, withdraw any prohibition by way of notice in the Government Gazette. So this is not a matter which is going to be handled with an iron fist. On the contrary. The procedure is flexible and adaptable; it is subject to negotiations that may take place between the board and the publisher.

In the circumstances I am satisfied that the arguments advanced by the Opposition do not hold water and that the contents of this Bill can only be of benefit to us.

Motion put and the House divided:

AYES—81: Bodenstein, P.; Botha, H. J.; Botha L. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Carr, D. M.; Coetsee, H. J.; Coetzee, B.; Coetzee, J. A.; De Wet, J. M.; De Wet, M. W.; Du Plessis, A. H.; Du Toit, J. P.; Engelbrecht, J. J.; Erasmus, J. J. P.; Frank, S.; Froneman, G. F. van L.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Havemann, W. W. B.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Henning, J. M.; Herman, F.; Heystek, J.; Horn, J. W. L.; Jurgens, J. C.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, S. F.; Kruger, J. T.; Langley, T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, P. M. K.; Lewis, H. M.; Loots, J. J.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; Martins, H. E.; McLachlan, R.; Morrison, G. de V.; Muller, S. L.; Otto, J. C.; Pansegrouw, J. S.; Pienaar, B.; Potgieter, S. P.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Rall, M. J.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Raubenheimer, A. L.; Reinecke, C. J.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, H.; Smit, H. H.; Smith, J. D.; Stofberg, L. F.; Swiegers, J. G.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Uys, D. C. H.; Van Breda, A.; Van den Heever, D. J. G.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Merwe, W. L.; Van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; Van Vuuren, P. Z. J.; Viljoen, M.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Visse, J. H.; Volker, V. A.; Vosloo, A. H.; Wentzel, J. J.; Wentzel, J. J. G.

Tellers: P. H. Torlage, P. S. van der Merwe, H. J. van Wyk and W. L. D. M. Venter.

NOES—26: Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Bennett, C.; Emdin, S.; Higgerty, J. W.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Jacobs, G. F.; Kingwill, W. G.; Lindsay, J. E.; Malan, E. G.; Mitchell, D. E.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Radford, A.; Streicher, D. M.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Waterson, S. F.; Webber, W. T.; Wiley, J. W. E.; Winchester, L. E. D.; Wood, L. F.

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

Motion accordingly agreed to and Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Mr. Speaker, this is a most important administrative measure. We support it, as we have also done at the Second Reading. However, at this stage I should like to make one or two observations, because of its importance. The establishment of a Bureau for State Security has the unanimous support of this House. It is not necessary for me to emphasize the very heavy responsibilities that will devolve upon this Minister and the administrative head of this bureau. As the House knows, we shall not be informed of the identity of the persons appointed, of their terms of appointment, of their remuneration or of the expenditure incurred. All we are doing is to vote a globular sum. We appreciate that this of necessity must be so and that very little information will reach members of this House and the public about the activities of this bureau. The extent of its success will be gauged only by the extent to which our Defence Force is able to prepare itself for eventualities on the assessment of information passed to it by this bureau, the extent to which life in South Africa continues in an orderly manner and the extent to which activities of a criminal nature, threatening our public security, are contained and the law breakers brought to the courts. It is only from that that we shall know to what extent this bureau is succeeding, by a process of deduction. I would like to ask the hon. the Minister if he would as from the Opposition convey to General van den Bergh who will be the head of this bureau our good wishes for its successful establishment and successful launching, and to express our confidence that he and those whom he appoints to his staff will enter upon and discharge these onerous duties in a manner which they will be satisfied with and in a manner which is for the benefit of all of South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, the statements of fact made by the hon. member for Green Point are correct. I cannot find anything wrong with them. It is true that little information will be made available to this House about the activities of his bureau. I also appreciate the good wishes expressed by the hon. member in regard to this new undertaking which is now being launched, as well as the good wishes expressed by him towards the person who will take charge of these activities. I am convinced that it is also the wish and the hope of this House that the establishment of this department will bring with it only great benefit, security and success for us in South Africa. For the rest I have nothing on which to differ with the hon. member.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Mr. Speaker, we opposed the Second Reading of this Bill. However, in view of the fact that the hon. the Deputy Minister introduced an amendment in the Committee Stage which met our objections, we shall support the Third Reading of the Bill.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Speaker, on page 546 of the Order Paper there appears a motion which I should now like to move—

I merely want to give, briefly, the reasons for my motion. During the Second Reading debate the hon. the Minister held out the prospect that he would, in fact, appoint such a soil conservation advisory council. While it is his wish that such a body should, in fact, be created, I consider it only right that this legislation should contain reference to such a body. I think that that wish of his for the creation of such a body is also the wish of the South African Agricultural Union. On occasion they have also expressed the wish that successive Ministers of Agriculture would, in fact, also be bound to establish such a soil conservation advisory council. Since one is dealing with such an important aspect of agriculture as soil conservation, I find it only right that a co-ordinating body in respect of all activities concerning soil conservation should be established. In the past this co-ordinating work was done by the Soil Conservation Board. In this legislation toe Soil Conservation Board is being done away with; it is therefore essential that there should be a body which would take over its task and thereby fill that gap.

The next reason why I think that the House should accept this instruction is because toe hon. the Minister must, in any case, obtain advice in this respect. Unfortunately he cannot lay claim to all knowledge in respect of the problem of soil erosion and conservation in South Africa. The extent of the problem is undoubtedly too great and therefore the hon. the Minister will have to be advised. If this is his wish, why is it not entrenched in the legislation?

But I think that the most important reason why there should be a soil conservation advisory council is because it is not only toe Department of Agricultural Technical Services which is involved in this matter, but also the Department of Bantu Administration and Development and the Department of Coloured Affairs, because they control areas to-day where tremendous soil erosion is taking place. When such a co-ordinating body exists it can also include the various departments, and toe correct advice can also be given to the hon. the Minister in the oases of areas which fall under other departments. By means of this Council toe correct advice could also then be given to the various departments concerned. I hope that the reasons which I have given are sufficient for the House to decide on the acceptance of this motion.

Mr. Speaker, if there have ever been arguments which have convinced the House that the Minister’s idea is correct, it is precisely the arguments used by the hon. member for Newton Park. In his Second Reading speech the hon. the Minister already indicated that the crux of the matter was that he would, in fact, nominate an advisory council. One asks oneself whether that advisory council should be laid down by legislation and whether the Minister’s speech is sufficient to ensure that such a Council would, in fact, be appointed. The hon. member has just mentioned that there are various bodies and departments concerned in this matter. When such a council must be appointed within the framework of an Act, the Minister’s powers are limited within the Act, while our whole point of departure with this legislation is to make it more streamlined and to expedite matters. Now the hon. member wants it laid down by statute that the Minister should be compelled to follow certain courses, while there are various departments involved. The way should be left open for the Minister so that he has free powers to nominate the Advisory Council. If such a provision is laid down by legislation, the Minister must act according to that legislation. This is the only difference. What difference does it make whether one now lays down by legislation that the Minister should appoint an Advisory Council or whether one gives the Minister a free hand to gather whatever advice he regards as necessary? The whole idea is to streamline the machinery and to eliminate delays which took place in the past as a result of cumbersome machinery, and therefore we agree with the Bill which the hon. the Minister has submitted here. He will, in fact, be able to nominate advisory committees and an Advisory Council, but we agree that it is not necessary to lay this down by means of legislation. I think that the right thing to do is to give the Minister a free hand in this connection.

Sir, I wish to support what the hon. member for Newton Park has said. He has said that the proposed Soil Conservation Advisory Council will be the successor of the Soil Conservation Board. Sir, over the years the Soil Conservation Board, constituted in accordance with the provisions of the principal Act, has done outstanding work. I think this is common cause, and proof of that is the fact that during the Second Reading debate speakers on both sides of the House quoted very extensively from the annual report of the Soil Conservation Board. In fact, they quoted far more extensively from that report than they quoted from the report of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services. That is not surprising because the report of the Soil Conservation Board runs into something like 32 pages whereas the Department itself only devoted some 12½ pages to soil conservation in their report. I do not want to list all the fields with which the Soil Conservation Board has busied itself over the last year, but this is an indication of the very wide field that they have covered and of the very excellent work that they have done. It is absolutely essential therefore that something should take the place of that Board. Sir, the hon. member for Christiana has said that it is not necessary to lay this down by law. In the Second Reading debate, however, the hon. the Deputy Minister had no criticism of the Soil Conservation Board. He did not seem to suggest that his hands had been bound in the past by the fact that the constitution of the board had been laid down by law. When we look at the constitution of the present board, we see that the other Government Departments, for example, that would probably be represented on the Soil Conservation Advisory Council, are in fact represented on that board, and they would be the natural ones to be represented on the new Advisory Council, namely, the three agricultural departments, the Department of Forestry, the Department of Bantu Administration and the Department of Water Affairs. Sir, the question is whether this can better be done by regulation or whether it should be laid down by statute. I want to advance this argument that the present Minister may well be in favour of having such an advisory board constituted by regulation, but this is no guarantee to us that his successor might not like the advice of that board. He might not agree with their recommendations. For that reason we feel that it is essential that this should be laid down by statute.

I cannot discover why the hon. member for Christiana is opposed to the instruction which was moved by this side of the House. Here we are dealing firstly with a Deputy Minister who has his heart in agriculture, who has both his feet in agriculture, who knows what the problems are in this connection and who also knows that the South African Agricultural Union feels very strongly about this matter. The day before yesterday in the Second Reading debate I asked what this Bill contained that would give the farmers greater confidence in the Act and in the administration of the Act. If there is one thing which would give the farmer greater confidence in the legislation, it is the establishment of a statutory advisory council in connection with soil conservation. The day before yesterday I referred to other advisory councils which were established by regulation. What became of them? I can think of very few advisory councils in the field of agriculture which are still in existence to-day. There were advisory councils in connection with agricultural schools, in connection with agricultural education and in connection with research, and many of these advisory councils were dead and buried long before they were properly in operation. If the Deputy Minister or the Department can mention any sound reason why legal provision should not be made for the establishment of an advisory council we would gladly listen to it. Hon. members on that side made mention here of committees and councils which could advise the Minister. But he is under no obligation to appoint such committees and councils. It appears to me essential that an obligation should be laid upon the Minister to establish an advisory council. The day before yesterday I also referred to all the powers which the Minister has. The law makes provision for quite a number of matters in connection with which he may issue directions. It is even provided in the Act that if any contingency which is not defined in the Act, should arise the Minister himself may issue directions in that connection, and then he must surely have the advice of an advisory council in that connection. I can think of matters which fall beyond the affects of the legislation and the Minister will still always have the power to issue the necessary directions in that connection. It is a pleasure for me to support this instruction and I hope that we shall have the hon. the Deputy Minister’s co-operation in that connection.

I regret that I cannot agree with the United Party on this suggestion of theirs. After all, we have many councils in our country which are not appointed in terms of legislation. The hon. the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, for example, is not a statutory body. It is not our intention not to consult the Departments. If we appoint such an advisory council, we shall have the power to appoint whom we please and to ask any of the Government Departments to assist us. Reference was made, for example, to the Departments of Coloured Affairs and Bantu Administration. We can ask any of those Departments to help us, but we can really see no reason why it should be a statutory council. It would not facilitate our task in any way, and I think that the Opposition should not be dissatisfied if we do not accept this suggestion of theirs. After all, we are going to achieve the same object and we are going to appoint a council, constituted as we think fit.

But you can appoint as you like, without any legal obligation.

This is how many of the councils in the country are constituted. I think the hon. member may rest assured that there will be no difficulty in that connection.

Motion put and the House divided:

AYES—27: Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Bennett, C.; Emdin, S.; Higgerty, J. W.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Jacobs, G. F.; Kingwill, W. G.; Lindsay, J. E.; Malan, E. G.; Mitchell, D. E.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Streicher, D. M.; Taylor, C. D.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Waterson, S. F.; Webber, W. T.; Wiley, J. W. E.; Winchester, L. E. D.; Wood, L. F.

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

NOES—75: Bodenstein, P.; Botha, H. J.; Botha, L. J.; Botha, M. W.; Carr, D. M.; Coetzee, B.; Coetzee, J. A.; De Wet, J. M.; De Wet, M. W.; Du Plessis, A. H.; Du Toit, J. P.; Engelbrecht, J. J.; Erasmus, J. J. P.; Frank, S_; Froneman, G. F. van L.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Havemann, W. W. B.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Henning, J. M.; Herman, F.; Heystek, J.; Horn, J. W. L.; Jurgens, J. Q; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, S. F.; Kruger, J. T.; Langley, T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, P. M. K.; Lewis, H. M.; Loots, J. J.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; Martins, H. E.; McLachlan, R.; Morrison, G. de V.; Muller, S. L.; Otto, J. C.; Pansegrouw, J. S.; Pienaar, B.; Potgieter, S. P.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Rall, M. J.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Raubenheimer, A. L.; Reinecke, C. J.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, H.; Smit, H. H.; Smith, J. D.; Stofberg, L. F.; Swiegers. J. G.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Van Breda, A.; Van den Heever, D. J. G.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Merwe, W. L.; Van Rensburg, M. C. G. J; Van Vuuren, P. Z. J.; Viljoen, M.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Visse, J. H.; Wentzel, J. J.; Wentzel, J. J. G.

Tellers: P. H. Torlage, P. S. van der Merwe, H. J. van Wyk and W. L. D. M. Venter.

Motion accordingly negatived.

(Committee Stage)

Clause 2:

This clause is the one which deals with the point I raised yesterday. We are not opposing the clause, but I think it is of sufficient importance to ask the Deputy Minister to give us some elucidation in regard to it. We are in the position that, taking a wide view not only of agriculture but of the fertility of our soil, we have to recognize that soil and water conservation go together. Now nature does not worry about the Votes we have in Parliament. It makes it difficult for us to deal with them here, but nature is not concerned. But to try to bring some order into our Votes and for the purpose of discussion in debates, we have the Minister of Water Affairs with his Department and his problems and we have the Minister of Agriculture with his Department and his problems. The two are like oil and water; they do not mix, which is a great pity, because in practice they go together. When you are dealing with soil conservation, it is extremely difficult to know how to deal with it without dealing with water conservation. But in this clause they are brought together, as I said in my Second Reading speech. Here, clearly and concisely, the objects of the Bill are set out in clause 2. They are to make provision for the combating and prevention of soil erosion, the conservation, protection and improvement of the soil, the vegetation and the sources and resources of the water supplies of the Republic. It is in that regard that we would like some elucidation from the Minister. What are the provisions he sees and the powers which are conferred upon him as distinct from the powers vested in the Minister of Water Affairs to deal with the sources and resources of the water supplies of the Republic? Had those last two lines been the object of an Act coming under the control of the Minister of Water Affairs, it would just about have summed up the whole of his interests and we are very concerned, because of past history, that there shall be no overlapping, that there shall be no confusion. We want a clear line drawn as far as possible between the functions of the one Department and those of the other. We are concerned basically with soil and water conservation, and in regard to this clause we want to ask the Deputy Minister how far he sees his Department dealing with the sources and the resources of the water supplies of the Republic.

I can appreciate that the hon. member for South Coast is concerned about the problems in regard to water, but the two Departments, Water Affairs and Agricultural Technical Services, are co-operating very closely as far as these problems are concerned. We will have persons representing Water Affairs on the advisory committee on which we voted a moment ago, but I want to mention the catchment area of the Hendrik Verwoerd Dam as an example of what is meant by this clause. We intend to take drastic steps there, to withdraw stock and to spend a large amount of money to condition the soil in order to prevent the dam from being silted up. But the dams belong to Water Affairs and the two Departments will act in close collaboration in an attempt to solve these problems of which we are all aware. The idea behind this clause is to view the water and the soil as a whole, even though they fall under two different Departments.

Mr. Chairman …

I just want to point out to the hon. member that there is no description of functions in this clause. I think that should be discussed at the Third Reading. This clause does not really state that anybody should have any particular function, except for the functions described in the clauses following on this one.

With respect, this is the principle of the Bill; it is the reason for it. If I cannot discuss the reason for it, then where can I discuss it?

I think the Third Reading would be a better time to discuss it.

But I want to ask the Minister questions on it, and if I ask my questions in the Third Reading and the Minister does not answer, where am I then? Then I am up in the air and the Act is passed. I admit that this Deputy Minister answers questions, but there are Ministers who do not.

The clause is very much up in the air too, as far as I can see, but the hon. member may continue.

I sympathize with you, Sir. I did not draft this. As far as the Deputy Minister is concerned, may I say this. Co-operation between the two Departments in terms of a Committee is fine, but what we are now talking about is the law and I want to take the case of a farmer with difficulties, because we want to have as little confusion as possible in connection with soil and water conservation. A farmer may have difficulty. I am sorry the hon. member for Mooi River is not here. Here is a farmer who has had practical difficulties. He can go from department to department and there is a well-known principle which is apparently accepted to-day known as the “passing of the buck”. We do not want to have that principle embodied in this Bill. We want to know for certain, and in the case of the ordinary unfortunate farmer from the backveld like myself who has to read a legal document and has difficulty, who does he go to in connection with the sources of a water supply? He sees something to which he takes exception; he believes his water supply is being adversely affected. Does he come to the Minister of Agriculture and say: Here is my problem; this is going wrong; can I appeal to you to put it right? Or will he be told to go to the Minister of Water Affairs? That is the crisp problem. May I ask the Deputy Minister to whom does he go in regard to these matters, in regard to the sources of our water supplies, when he wants the matter to be put right?

The object of this Bill is to conserve our soil. We must not confuse the two things. We cannot conserve the soil if the water is damaging the soil. But if this specific farmer has any trouble about water supplies, I think it is very easy to make a division there; then he must go to the Department of Water Affairs. We can go into the matter, but I do not see how you can have an Act giving definite definitions as to what falls under the Department of Water Affairs and what falls under the Department of Agricultural Technical Services.

That is the trouble at present and that is what I want cleared up.

I do not think that is possible.

I wonder whether we cannot take this discussion a little further.

I am afraid I am not going to allow this discussion to be taken any further, because this clause merely states an ideal and nothing else.

With respect, I want to establish the scope of this Bill. This clause lays down the object, the whole purpose for which this Committee is sitting here this morning to discuss what is written on this piece of paper. It is the object of the Act.

As far as I can see, the object is to be carried out in the way stated in the ensuing clauses, but this clause merely states the ideal.

Then may I have a ruling from you? When we come to later clauses which will perhaps deal more fully and explicitly with each of the objects of the Bill, will we be allowed to refer back to this particular clause?

The hon. member need not mention the clause. If the other clauses state certain things, those things can be discussed.

I asked for a ruling and I hope that I will at least get a sympathetic hearing when I get there and I want to refer to this clause in particular.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 3:

I move the following amendments as printed—

What I want to say on clause 3 is not affected by the amendment moved by the hon. the Deputy Minister. Provision is made here for the Minister to give written notice to the owner or occupier of land to declare a direction to be applicable with reference to land mentioned in such notice relating to a whole list of matters in respect of which he can declare a direction to be applicable. This clause is of the very greatest importance to the Bill before us, because in respect of all these matters which follow in clause 3, right down to the end, hereafter provision is made for the Minister to enforce compliance with all these matters. The Minister can enforce compliance. These are matters which can be extremely costly. The Minister can enforce compliance to the extent of making the farmer pay. Provision is made under certain circumstances for a farmer to apply for relief, but in the meantime compliance is demanded and payment has to be made. As I say, some of these works can be very costly.

I will deal with the cost later on, but the crisp point here is this. One of our difficulties is to keep control of the works which are being undertaken all over the Republic in connection with soil conservation. If the Minister directs the farmer in respect of any of these matters, what is the method of notifying the neighbours? Because notice can be given in the Gazette, or by written notice to the owner or occupier. If written notice is given to the owner of a piece of land, how do the people in that area know that the Minister has ordered that man to do just that? Either there is going to be an inspectorate large enough to be able to cover an inspection of all those areas in respect of which the Minister gives a notice. He issues an instruction and the inspector will now have to go and see that the instruction is carried out. If there is to be an application for, let us call it, compensation or a refund or part refund of the money spent, it will be necessary, but there is a provision in this clause that when once works are constructed they must be maintained, and quite rightly.

In principle we can have no objection to that, because it is no good carrying out such works as are envisaged in this clause and then, those works having been done, within the next two or three years they are allowed to decay and all the time and effort and money are wasted. They must be maintained. Here it seems to me we come to the crux of one of our difficulties in dealing with the heart of the soil conservation problem in South Africa, namely that what is to be done shall be recognized; the instruction shall be issued that it is to be done, the work must be carried out, and it must be maintained. If we could do that all over the Republic, our soil conservation problems are over. That would solve the whole thing, and I think the Minister will agree with me. May I say that we are trying to help. We think the Minister has got here an impossible task on his shoulders, but we would like to help and where these practical matters are concerned we want to raise them and say to the Minister: This is the problem as we see it; can you tell us how you envisage it?

Because in this matter neighbours are very often the best people to talk in a friendly manner to a neighbour and say I understand that you received instructions to do such-and-such a work, and provision is made hereafter for work on other farms, to be carried out on a neighbour’s farm in such a manner that it creates no fresh danger and that it does not result in damage to that neighbour’s farm, or it may actually be beneficial to that neighbour’s farm. Provision is made here. The hon. the Minister can order a neighbour to do work on his neighbour’s farm, and so forth. But how is the hon. the Minister in fact going to see to it that the majority of the people there are made aware of the order so that when it is carried out, it will be recognized as being part of a plan for the soil conservation in that area? It may be a key farm. I know of many such cases and I want to come back to some of them later on. Unfortunately we have not reached the clause yet and I cannot come to them. We have had cases where a key farm is a question that had to be dealt with, because from that farm damage is resulting in a group of farms. It is this question of notification that I am concerned with. How is the hon. the Minister’s notice served and how is control maintained over works which are carried out in terms of clause 3 of this Bill?

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for South Coast should keep in mind that a direction can be served on a group of farms in a district or it can be published in the Government Gazette. Let us take the case of a farm where the water from the neighbour who has drainage channels causes erosion on a particular farm. This work is planned jointly and this is where the importance of the committees come in. The committees are still there to discuss the matter with the farmers; the problem is then solved jointly and the work is not done individually. As in the past, the work is done jointly, wherever it is practicable. Drainage channels draining away the water from the farm of one particular farmer are constructed across the farm of another. The scheme according to which a particular district is to be planned, is announced in the Government Gazette and serves as the notification to the farmer.

That is not in the Bill.

No, but this is how it will be done in practice. The committee will still be active. The hon. member for South Coast said that the matter had to be followed up and I agree with him in this regard. It is no use doing all this work and then allowing it to fall into disrepair. The committee will see to it that this work is maintained. This is also the object of this clause.

Mr. Chairman, am I correct then to understand from the hon. the Deputy Minister that the direction will only be issued by the Minister in respect of an area which has been planned and which includes a group of farmers? Will the direction only be issued when there is a group of farms which has been planned and after it has been approved of? I do not think that is what this clause means. The hon. the Minister can do this without a plan and he can also do it in respect of an individual land holding, what we call a farm. A farm has not been defined for the purposes of this Bill with the result that in the case of small holdings and people who go in for intensive cultivation with about 25 acres of land, if a man dies and the executors of his estate do not look after his land, as far as soil conservation is concerned, that that piece of land can then be a menace to the neighbours. We may have such cases. The hon. the Deputy Minister can step in and say to the trustee of that piece of land that he has to go on with the work and that he has to protect that piece of land, and so forth. That is the meaning of this clause.

That is why you are granting him the authority in this clause.

The power is here for the Minister to deal with an individual piece of land but the reply the hon. the Deputy Minister has given me seems to indicate that he anticipates this power of a direction only being applied where there is a group of farms in respect of which a soil conservation scheme has been worked out under which all those farms are brought in. In that scheme the group of farms falls under the direction of the Minister. This direction will be applicable to all the farms and will be published in the Government Gazette. I suggest that this clause does not mean that. The first portion of clause 3 (1) states as follows:

It may therefore be one or the other and is not merely a notice published in the Gazette. I have given the hon. the Deputy Minister an opportunity to look at his notes and get this matter clear, and I wonder whether he can now tell us what the position is.

Mr. Chairman, I do not know what the hon. member wants. The clause states “either by notice in the Gazette or by written notice to the owner or the occupier of land”.

How do you notify his neighbours?

In writing. We send them a letter and tell them what is going to happen.

But how do you tell the neighbours that notice has been given to an owner in the Gazette?

We send a notice to all the people concerned. Four or five people may be concerned and we send a notice to each and every one of them.

It is a pity that it is not stated in the clause.

Mr. Chairman, I want to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister something by way of explanation. I now speak with particular reference to the Karoo areas. In the past we had what is called a farm plan which was drawn up and served upon every farmer in that particular area. In this particular clause there is reference to a direction. I want to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister if a farm plan is now replaced by a direction and if this direction will apply to a soil conservation district or will it apply to each particular farm or to each particular owner in the area. Will the direction take the form of the farm plan, which I presume it now replaces?

Mr. Chairman, as in the past, a diagram of the farm will still be drawn up and the work will be done accordingly. The matter will still be planned as under the old system and I fail to see the hon. member’s problem. Surely this work cannot be carried out if the co-operation of the owner has not been obtained? A farmer will be told to apply conservation measures according to the directions. The position will be very much the same as in the past.

Mr. Chairman, I do not have a problem but I just want clarification because the mechanics of this matter is very important. One cannot declare a plan for a district as a whole. I want to know whether a specific plan will be served in respect of each specific owner in respect of his farm. If that is the position, I am quite happy about it.

Yes, that is correct.

Mr. Chairman, I also want to refer more to the Karoo than to other parts of the country. The hon. the Deputy Minister said that the direction could be given either to an individual farmer or to a group of farmers. I am thinking specifically of the Vlekpoort area, the Noupoort area and other areas where the mountain slopes are of such a nature that if planning is applied there, they would never again be released for grazing. Where is the Minister authorized to purchase or to expropriate or to deprive the owners of that land so that it can never be used for grazing purposes again? It is not a question of temporary withdrawal, but of permanent withdrawal. These areas will never again be used for grazing purposes and they will have to become overgrown, otherwise the erosion will never stop. Does this clause authorize the Minister to take steps of this nature, because that is essential?

Mr. Chairman, we have withdrawn land from grazing in the past. There is a scheme at present under which we subsidize farmers to withdraw portions of their farms from grazing.

Not permanently?

If necessary, a farmer can be paid out and the portion of land concerned can then be permanently withdrawn from grazing, by way of expropriation. That power exists and is being applied in practice.

Mr. Chairman, I want to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister a question on the same lines with reference to paragraph (e) of clause 3 (1). This paragraph mentions the “protection, temporary withdrawal from grazing and stabilizing of any soil surface”. The hon. member for East London (City) has talked about the permanent withdrawal of grazing and the hon. the Deputy Minister replied that the power to expropriate exists. I want to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister how far he has it in mind to go with this temporary withdrawal of grazing. Is this merely the normal withdrawal from grazing of a portion of a farm under the soil conservation plan applicable to that farm? In certain areas, for example, farmers are sometimes directed to withdraw a quarter of their farms from grazing for a complete growing season. Does this Bill go further than that? Does it, for example, cover the situation that we have in certain areas of the Eastern Cape at the moment where there has been a very bad drought and where the topography of the land is such that although the lower-lying areas, which are warmer, have been able to recover with the late rains, yet in the higher-lying areas, which are cold, there has not been sufficient time before the winter to allow growth to take place. In a situation such as this where not the whole district is affected, but areas within a district, it will be difficult to apply the veld reclamation scheme. Particular farms will have to be isolated. Another reason is that it may not be necessary to apply the veld reclamation scheme. One does not want to withdraw sour veld grazing for more than one season. The owners are in the position that they have very little grazing and if they dispose of their stock, they will have no income.

Is it necessary to state that in the Bill?

I am asking the hon. the Deputy Minister whether this temporary withdrawal of grazing will be covered by this clause and where it will be possible under this clause and subsequent clauses to give financial assistance to people in that position.

Mr. Chairman, as I understand clause 3, it means that the hon. the Minister has the power to serve a direction on a specific farm or on a specific area. In other words, every farmer and every land-owner can be compelled to do everything laid down in clause 3.

Hon. members are going into a great deal of detail now. They must not go too far.

Clause 3 contains a very important principle, and the point I want to raise with the hon. the Deputy Minister, is that assistance can only be obtained from the State after the provisions contained in paragraphs (a) to (n) have been complied with and if a farm has been planned. The point I want to raise with the Deputy Minister is that there are a large number of small farmers in the country, and there are people who are not in a financial position to do these things. I want to ask that before these directions are served on the individual farms, it should be taken into account whether these individual farms have actually been planned. If not, the farmer has to comply with all these provisions contained in clause 3. but he will not really be entitled to his subsidy. The hon. the Deputy Minister said it would still be done by means of a farm diagram and schedule. I agree with all these directions that may be served, but when it is demanded that all these directions have to be complied with, I think the Department should also agree that this will not be done until the farm has been planned.

Order! No mention is made in this clause of the amount that may be claimed.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to say that I know exactly how this works in practice. The hon. the Deputy Minister will now have the right to serve directions on every farmer throughout the country, and those persons will have to carry out these directions.

The question of claims is not under discussion.

I do not want to discuss claims now, but I want to put it to the hon. the Deputy Minister that, as far as the directions are concerned, he should take into proper account the fact that the land has actually been planned before he compels somebody to do so. That is the principle which is contained in clause 3.

Mr. Chairman, in regard to the withdrawal of portions of grazing land, I should like to inform the hon. member for Albany that we had the case of Namaqualand yesterday, where one part of the constituency had had rain and the other part had not. One farm had had rain and another had not. As a result the district was not declared a drought-stricken area. We are going into that problem to see whether we can find a solution, because the rain fails in belts. These committees will have to advise us when an exception has to be made. They may recommend that a particular farm should be withdrawn for a longer period. Stock may be withdrawn for as long as six years. Hon. members must remember that we want to save the soil. We shall not be stingy for a few rands and allow the stock on the grazing land again as soon as the first rains have fallen, if we can save the soil. We want to apply these measures in a practical way.

The hon. member for Newton Park expressed his concern, and it is true that a person will not be helped if he does not comply with all these directions. But we want to apply these measures in practice as they were applied in the past. For example, when a person puts up a fence, he can still get a subsidy for it, even though he has not carried out all these works. It will not necessarily happen, as the hon. member said, that a person must do everything in the correct way before qualifying for State aid. As in the past a person, even though he may have failed to do certain things, may still receive a subsidy when putting up a fence or building a dam, for instance, and if it is done according to the directions.

Even without the farm plan?

No, he must have the diagram of the farm.

Mr. Chairman, I only wish to tidy up the Bill a bit. I should like to refer to clause 3 (1) (m), which makes mention of “any other disturbance of the soil”. I should like to suggest the deletion of the word “other”. There is no other reference to disturbances of the soil. The previous points in this clause deal with fires, etc. I feel that this will tidy up this clause. I feel that the word “ander” in the Afrikaans text could also be deleted. However, I should like to leave this matter for the hon. the Deputy Minister to deal with.

That can be done.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Deputy Minister gave an indication earlier, if I understood him correctly, that something similar to a district conservation plan could be published in the Gazette. Did I understand him correctly?

Yes.

With respect, Sir, I submit that this clause does not cover that aspect, because this clause refers to the owner or occupier of a specific piece of land. It does not refer to the owner or owners or the occupier or occupiers. This refers to a specific piece of land. In other words, Sir, this refers to an individual farm plan. I think the hon. the Deputy Minister is at fault here. This is virtually the most important clause in the Bill, and I think that we must have clarity on this point.

Mr. Chairman, I fail to see what is unclear here. The clause begins as follows: “The Minister may, either by notice in the Gazette or by written notice to the owner or occupier of land referred to in such notice, …” What is not clear about this?

That does not refer to a group of people, but to an individual.

Yes, it refers to a specific farmer on a particular farm.

But not to a group.

It can refer to a group, if necessary.

Mr. Chairman, this is the whole point. This written notice is given to the owner concerned. It refers to his particular farm plan. The clause does not mention “owners” in the plural. This would be necessary if the hon. the Deputy Minister were to publish a district plan, covering all the farms in that particular soil conservation district in the Gazette.

That is the position with all Acts.

Amendments put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Clause 4:

Mr. Chairman, we are faced with a certain amount of difficulty in regard to clause 4. Clause 4 is inextricably bound up with clause 6, but we cannot deal with clause 6 because we have not reached it yet. Let us first of all establish clearly what the purport of clause 4 is. In terms of clause 4 the Minister issues a direction to the owner of land to construct and maintain certain things on land belonging to that owner or on land belonging to another person. The instruction is issued to a certain person to carry out certain works on his own farm, or on land belonging to a contiguous owner. In terms of subsection (2) this direction shall be served on the owner concerned, and if the work has to be done on land belonging to another person, a copy of the direction shall be served on the other person as well. I want to say at once that I am afraid we are getting bogged down here. I am very sorry, but, according to the explanations we are getting, this does not seem to be quite right. This clause now makes it abundantly clear that we are not referring to a scheme where there are a number of farms which have been planned in terms of a farm planning scheme. Individual farms are being dealt with here. This clause makes provision for the Minister to serve a direction on an owner, and to say to him: “Go on to your neighbour’s farm and do certain work on that farm.” This is done, irrespective of whether that person is doing any work on his own farm or not. This does not therefore refer to a scheme, a group of farms which has been planned. This clause refers specifically to work on a particular farm. Subsection (3) of this clause deals with the costs. It reads as follows:

In terms of this clause, if we do not take clause 6 into account, the Minister says: “You must go on to your neighbour’s farm, and do certain work, and then in terms of subsection (3) of this clause, you pay for it.” The Minister therefore directs a person to go on to his neighbour’s farm and do certain work, and thén that person has to pay for it himself. It is true that provision is made later on for a come-back, but we have not reached that point yet. At this stage this is the position. Mr. Chairman, what machinery is set up here to deal with this particular problem? Standing alone, as this provision does now, we are faced with certain difficulties. I do not know whether the Deputy Minister wishes to deal with this matter now or whether he wishes us to wait until we deal with later clauses which make provision for compensation.

I think we can deal with it now.

I am quite happy to do so. It seems to me that we are reaching a position here where we have an advisory committee which is facing the same difficulties we have to-day. We are aware of the difficulties of the present committees and of the Soil Conservation Board. They have to deal with their neighbours, and they have always been found diffident in recommending stern measures against a neighbour. Farming communities do not like to have a “twisappel” or … What is the word I am looking for …

A “bone of contention”.

Yes, they do not like a bone of contention thrown into their midst because they take a strong line …

You should speak Afrikaans.

As I said yesterday, I was brought up in an Afrikaans-speaking household. It is because of that that my English does not come easily to me. It is because of that and because of the fact that farmers like to be on friendly terms with their neighbours; they do not like to take strong action—prosecuting and things like that. Here we have a similar position. However, the Minister goes further because as far as I am aware we have never had the right to order a farmer to go on his neighbour’s farm to do work and on top of that to tell him that he has got to pay for it. What I should really like to have from the hon. the Deputy Minister is how an advisory committee will work under these circumstances. How are they going to remain friends with their neighbours, many of whom are their relations? The Deputy Minister knows of communities in which relatives are dotted all over the place. If a member of that community likes to take a strong line and be obdurate, what is he likely to find in the way of social ostracism and other types of trouble? Because he is the man who has to advise the Minister in terms of this Bill. He is the man the Minister can tell to go on to his neighbour’s farm to do work. I am sorry, but I cannot see how this is going to work in practice. [Interjections.] I couldn’t catch what the hon. member for Christiana tried to say but I do not know whether he would like to be in that position.

There are circumstances which make that absolutely essential.

I suggest members of Parliament should get the instruction to go on to the neighbours’ farms and try to work on those farms; let us then see how many get elected at the next general election.

That is the very reason why we have this clause here, for the water of the neighbour to be … I know the hon. member for South Coast has problems of this nature in his constituency. This thing of planning a farm separately is impossible sometimes. This has to be done on a basis which includes other farms. Yet a notice is served on each person individually. The committee then meets and along with the extension officer it decides that a drainage channel should be constructed over the land of one of the neighbours. This clause empowers us to do so and to recover the costs thereof from the owner concerned. He simply has to fall in with this. He will receive his subsidy and we shall accommodate him as far as we possibly can, but he cannot say that the water should not be brought any further than his fence. Under the circumstances I simply cannot understand what the problem of the hon. member is—if the hon. member can only tell me what his real problem is. Whether notice is served jointly on a district or only on individual farms, does not make any difference. We only want the power to say to a man that a drainage channel is to be constructed over his farm for the provision of water to his neighbours and that he has to fall in with that. That is the reason for this legislation.

The difficulty is you are going to deal with individuals again.

Mr. Chairman, things are not as simple as the hon. the Deputy Minister wants to pretend. Let me give him an example in order to illustrate the powers which the Minister is requesting in this legislation. Suppose one has a neighbour whose farm is situated higher up than one’s own, whose veld is situated on a steep mountain slope and that farmer is not in a position to undertake the work there. As a matter of fact, the only work which can be undertaken there is to construct 50 or 100 concrete or stone walls. Now the person is ordered by means of a direction to go on to that land and to construct those walls. But this involves much more. In the first place, he has to maintain those walls. He may be ordered by means of a direction to do so. Apart from the right of recovering the costs from this owner of the veld situated on the mountain slope who allows over-grazing on his land and who allows his land to wash away, the problem still remains. This is not a question of constructing a drainage channel over the land of the next person. There is a water course and there is nothing one can do about it, and while he has constructed weirs and works in that water course, soil erosion continues. This legislation now empowers the Minister to give the right to farmer A, over whose land the water is to come, to construct waterworks, erosion works, on the farm of farmer B. The Minister as a practical man will know that if such works have to be constructed on steep slopes the only thing one can do is to construct numerous small stone walls in an attempt to arrest erosion. And after these works have been done, the question of maintenance still remains. Somebody has to do that. Can any Act be so impractical as to lay down that the Minister has the right of recovery if he cannot do so? Should the Minister pay this as a subsidy, the maintenance cost as well, for all time to come? Surely, Mr. Chairman, one cannot have an Act like this.

Mr. Chairman, I consulted the Secretary and asked him whether I was stupid as I could not understand what the trouble was. He told me that he, too, could not understand what the trouble was. I cannot see what the difficulty of the hon. the Opposition is. We must have the powers and the committees. You agree with that. The committee consists of practical farmers who know what the problems are. They recommend the construction of a drainage channel. Now the hon. member for East London (City) says that we are going to recover the costs from the farmer on whose farm the drainage channel is constructed. We have to recover the costs. If the farmer is not in a position to bear the costs, the committee will, after all, inform him that the conservation work has to be done and that the farmer will not only receive a subsidy of 55 per cent but will in fact receive a larger subsidy. The only problem is that the State must be able to take certain steps. What we want to obtain by means of this legislation is the powers which will allow of those steps being taken. I cannot make out what the problem of the Opposition is in connection with this matter.

Mr. Chairman, with due respect to what the hon. the Deputy Minister has said, did I not make myself clear? The problem does not merely involve the serving of directions instructing the man over whose land the drainage channel is to run to do the work. The example I mentioned was that of a natural, dry river course running over a man’s land. Nothing can be done about that. That is the water course. But now take the example of a few thousand morgen of mountainous land which is so steep that a baboon needs a walking stick to make his way to the top. Suppose there is a whole number of water courses which run over that mountainous land. The only way of doing something in that regard is, in the first place, to withdraw the land from grazing and, in the second place, to block all the water courses running down that slope with as many walls as possible. A direction to construct such weirs is served on farmer B. He then has to construct the weirs and maintain them, because farmer A does not have the means to do so. Now we come to the sixty-four million dollar question. In the first place, must B, over whose farm a natural water course runs and for whom there consequently is no need to construct such weirs, construct weirs on the land of A? The reply is in the affirmative as a direction may be served on him. If the direction is not served on him but on contractors and the Department bears the costs of constructing those weirs, the works on the farm of A still have to be maintained. Then the direction is served on B that he has to maintain the works on the land of A for 20 years. It is then registered against his deed of transfer that those works have to be maintained on the land of A.

Mr. Chairman, I think that problem will only arise in very exceptional cases. Most of these works are of a permanent nature. They do not always require maintenance. If a concrete or stone wall has been constructed properly, such a wall is of a permanent nature. If we had to define all these problems in legislation, however, it would be very difficult.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 5:

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

What the provision in the Bill amounts to is that when the Minister has ordered someone to construct any works as a result of which the value of the land increases on the completion of those works and the two owners cannot come to an agreement, the Minister has to determine the amount. My amendment reads that the amount shall not be determined by the hon. the Minister but by an arbitration tribunal consisting of the local magistrate, a representative of the Soil Conservation Advisory Council as well as one person from the Department of the Minister. I cannot see why the hon. the Minister should take this power on himself to determine whether the value of the land has increased or decreased. In my opinion, often in the execution of a work of this nature, as the hon. member for South Coast also said, it is extremely inappropriate for the matter of determining the extent of the increase or decrease in value to be left in the hands of the Minister. I think he is letting himself and his Department in for a great deal of trouble. Why not leave the determination of the amount to a completely impartial arbitration tribunal? Surely such a tribunal will come to the best settlement. In terms of clause 4 the Minister will be able to decide whether or not a man should do the work on another man’s farm. After the work has been completed, the Minister shall decide whether there is any increase or decrease in value. When the two farmers are unable to come to an agreement as to that amount, the Minister is the person who decides on the amount of the payment. I think this is completely wrong. Why should the hon. the Minister be the right person to determine the amount in this respect? We feel that it would be much better if that were to be done by a tribunal of this nature so as to make the fairest proposal to a farmer and so as to allow a farmer to put in a reasonable claim in cases where farmers cannot come to an agreement. That would eliminate a great deal of difficulty and would not saddle the Minister and his Department with so many problems. Consequently I move the amendment, as printed.

I am unable to accept the amendment in its present form as it provides for the appointment to the proposed tribunal of a representative of a body not contemplated by the Bill as read a Second Time.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask whether such a council is to be established?

That was voted down when the House divided a while ago on the instruction.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. the Minister …

Order! I have ruled that out of order.

Mr. Chairman, I think my colleague, the hon. member for Newton Park has raised a very real difficulty here and I want to take it a step further. I want to refer to clause 5 (1) (a) which reads:

So far there is no provision which allows a man to go of his own volition on to his neighbour’s farm. Does this provide the statutory authority for him to do so? Is that what it purports do do? Is this purporting to give a man the legal right to go on to his neighbour’s farm, because it says clearly enough that “on application by the owner of land who has constructed any soil conservation works (whether of his own volition or after having been ordered to do so) and he increases the value of land belonging to another person etc.” such and such will be the position. In this particular clause, as the hon. member for Newton Park has pointed out, the question of compensation arises; the question of assessing the value of the wonk done also anises, and not merely the physical work, but the benefit to the farm of the work done. This is one of the clauses where the hon. the Minister can delegate his authority to somebody else and I can assure the hon. members on that side of the House that we on this side of the House do not want that. If this kind of dispute arises between a man and his neighbour, we want to know that we can go to the Minister. I want to be able to come to the Deputy Minister, when I have a case like this and tell him that it is unfair. I want to be able to put my case before him so as to get evenhanded justice for the man who feels that he has been badly treated and who has not received adequate compensation. I do not want to have to go to one of his officials. What does it behove me if I come to Parliament and under the Minister’s Vote complain about the way an official had treated somebody who is a farmer in my constituency, or as the case may be? The first thing I am told is that the official is not here to defend himself. We know under Parliamentary procedure the Minister is the man who is responsible. But in practice we find that you do not do it. I want this clause to be accepted together with clause 20 and the power retained in the hands of the Minister. Let the Minister be the man—whatever time this is going to take and however much he may have to curtail his golf or anything else—who deals with this question of compensation when it has to be worked out. This is a matter between neighbours; this is a matter which can create a bitter feud in an area, and we want to be able to go to the Minister and say: “It does not appear that this man has had a fair deal here,” and we want to be able to put the case before him and perhaps he will be able to get a grant from the Land Bank to help us out—a grant recommended by the Minister, of course. On the other hand, whatever the position may be, we want the Minister to be the arbiter here. He is taking the power; it is only the Minister who issues the directives and we want him to determine the amount of the compensation.

The committee is going to render assistance in drawing up a direction as regards a specific farm with its specific problems.

No, the Minister, not the committee.

But the committee is appointed by the Minister and has to advise the Minister. But now the problem arises to which the hon. member for South Coast referred. That man may still appeal to the Minister. “The Minister may on application by the owner …” It is not a case of the Minister delegating all his powers to somebody else as far as these tasks are concerned.

Yes, he does under section 23.

He may do so, but the man may still appeal to the Minister. He may at any time come back to the Minister.

Where does it say that?

The Minister is, after all, responsible for the entire administration of the Act.

In whatever way this may be done, whether it is on the advice of the local district committee or on the advice of the technical officer of the Minister, a direction is served on a person to construct certain works on his own land or on the land of another man. This creates problems, as I repeatedly said a short while ago. The hon. the Deputy Minister said a case like that might be an isolated one, but apart from the fact whether these will be isolated cases or whether there will be many such cases, it still remains a problem. Sir, as the hon. member for South Coast said, the last thing in the world a farmer should do is to look for trouble with his neighbour, because once he has had trouble with his neighbour it continues to exist like a festering sore which will not heal. First a direction is served on one to do the work and then the Minister has to recover the costs of the improvement of the land from the other man. That man, in the first place, did not have the means to do the work, and therefore the Minister will also be unable to recover the costs of the wonk from him. Where in this legislation does it say that the Minister will compensate one for the work one has done, irrespective of whether or not the other man has the means to pay for that work?

Mr. Chairman, may I ask whether I may move an amendment to my amendment?

The hon. member may move a new amendment. The other amendment was ruled out of order.

Sir, may I substitute “soil conservation committee concerned” for “Soil Conservation Advisory Council”? In that case the amendment will be in order, not so?:

Yes, the hon. member may do that.

I therefore move the following amendments—

If the Soil Conservation Advisory Council, which the hon. the Minister envisaged, will not be in existence, I think the person best able to take a decision in this regard along with the Department of the Minister and the local magistrate concerned, will be a member of the soil conservation committee. I think those three people will pre-eminently be in a much better position than the hon. the Minister to decide on the amount to be determined, and I hope the hon. the Minister will accept this amendment.

Sir, I hope the Minister will not accept this amendment.

Why not?

I am coming to that. What procedure will be followed in terms of the clause as it stands? The Minister will issue certain directions; he will follow the usual administrative procedure, and if difficulties should arise in the end, the matter will be referred to the Minister. This is exactly the same principle as that which we followed in the Water Act, i.e. that the Minister gives the final decision as regards the payment. The Minister is the person who is accountable to this Parliament for his deeds. If any injustice were to be done to anyone, the Minister would be in a vulnerable position because he is accountable to this Parliament. In other words, the Minister will exercise that power, not only in consultation, but very honestly and sincerely to the best of his ability in order to expedite soil conservation in South Africa. By placing that power in the hands of the Minister we are introducing the same principle here, and I think it is no more than right that the powers should be in his hands as he is ultimately accountable to Parliament for his deeds. Therefore I support the hon. the Deputy Minister fully and I hope he will stand by his original clause.

I am sorry, Sir, we have not dealt with this question of “his own volition”. I must admit that I cannot believe that this is statutory authority for a man to do something which, in the one case, is going to increase the value of his neighbour’s property and, in the other case, under subsection (2) (a), do something of his own volition which will reduce the value of his neighbour’s property. This is not statutory authority for him to do such a thing. We do not want to pass legislation which is just going to create law cases. Here we are going to give the man the right to do something of his own volition; that is to say, he is not ordered by the Minister to do so. The Minister does not come into it now; the Minister is shouldered completely out of the picture. You have a farmer now who does something of his own volition and then his neighbour claims that it has detrimentally affected him; he claims that his neighbour’s property has been increased in value because of what he has done. Is this legal authority for him of his own volition to do work which affects his neighbour’s property beneficially or detrimentally?

Sir, we said during the Second Reading debate that this Soil Conservation Act would be a topic of discussion for a very long time, and that it would have to be amended many times. In practice there will be snags, but as far as this specific point is concerned, if the man, along with his committee, carries out the directions applicable to the farm concerned, surely he has no difficulty as that committee has advised him how things should be done. But in order to construct conservation works it is sometimes necessary for one to have permission to go on to the land of a person, and one must give people authority to do so. I cannot see how this can cause trouble. Unfortunately we cannot accept the amendment of the hon. member for Newton Park. We said at the beginning that we wanted to make this matter streamlined; we did not want cumbersome machinery. As far as arbitration is concerned, any person who feels dissatisfied may go to the ordinary courts.

And the costs?

What would it cost to maintain an arbitration tribunal? I agree with the hon. member for Christiana that we cannot fall in with this amendment.

The hon. the Deputy Minister has again raised a point which he dealt with by way of interjection when the hon. member for South Coast was speaking, and that is the question of an appeal. If I understood him correctly, the Deputy Minister referred to the fact that every farmer who is dissatisfied would have the right to appeal to the Minister. Am I correct?

That is right.

Can the Deputy Minister tell us under what clause that is?

Anybody can go to the Minister whenever he likes.

Now I understand. The Minister is saying that his door is open to any farmer who is aggrieved, and not that he has a right of appeal to him as a statutory right in terms of the Bill. But this still does not answer the question. It still does not answer the problems raised in this debate. The hon.member for Christiana says the Minister is the person who should have the final say because he is subject to the sanction of Parliament. Sir, I do not think Parliament is going to be interested in any individual case of arbitration where the Minister has to make a decision as to what compensation should be paid to a person who has constructed soil conservation works on his neighbour’s farm. That is not the point at all. What we are trying to get is a fair assessment of the compensation due. We must accept now the provisions of clause 4, because they have been adopted by the Committee. So now we accept that the Minister can by direction tell a farmer to do certain work on his neighbour’s or anybody else’s farm. Then he talks about compensation and he reserves unto himself the right to decide the amount of that compensation. The purpose of the amendment of the hon. member for Newton Park is to say to the Minister: Why do you want to involve yourself with this? You say your door is open and anybody who wants to appeal to you can come to you at any time, but let us have a board, a body which will be constituted of people with local knowledge, with expert knowledge of the value not only of constructions that have been done but also of the land, and let them deal with the question of compensation.

They can still advise the Minister. [Interjection.]

I cannot understand this. Now the hon. member for Christiana says this will happen, but where does it say that this will happen? Clause 23 says the Minister can delegate any power to any senior official of any department, not that he can delegate it to a magistrate or a representative of the Soil Conservation Committee, or a representative of a farmers’ association. This is the whole intention behind this. I want to ask the Deputy Minister to reconsider his decision. I feel that this is a perfectly reasonable request put forward by the hon. member for Newton Park. It will facilitate the work, because it will take the load off the Minister and his already seriously depleted department. He knows they are overworked and have not the time to do these things. I want to appeal to him to reconsider his decision in regard to the amendment of the hon. member for Newton Park.

Now I want to come back to another point which I must admit had missed my attention until it was raised by the hon. member for South Coast. That is in line 10, where it says that the Minister may on application by the owner of the land who has constructed any soil conservation works, “whether of his own volition” … There is nothing in clause 4— and I submit that this clause must be read in conjunction with clause 4—empowering a person to go on to his neighbour’s land to construct soil conservation works, and therefore I would say that this is quite out of place in clause 5, which is consequent upon the provisions of clause 4. I am wondering whether the Minister and his officials have considered this point, and whether perhaps this should not be referred to the legal advisers. My knowledge of law is not all that good, but I think this is a valid point which the Minister should apply himself to, and that he should consult with the law advisers on it.

The reply the Deputy Minister gave a short while ago gave me more cause for concern than I had before, i.e. when he made the statement that when a settlement had to be made between neighbours and they could not come to any agreement the applicants could go to court. The Minister knows what the result of something like that may be and what problems and costs that involves, for example, had a water right been affected; was it running water or not? Endless arguments may arise in a court in this connection and that is why the hon. member for Newton Park asked for arbitration. The Deputy Minister referred to the costs of establishing an arbitration tribunal, but they are minimal in comparison with the costs to the individual to go to court. The Deputy Minister admits that the legislation will have to be amended many times. I wish he would assist us by amending it at this stage already, seeing that we are faced with these problems. Take another case: The lower end of my farm borders on a municipal area. The town council decides that if they were to construct a wall on my property five yards from the boundary that would assist them to arrest erosion or it would increase the flow of their water or something of that nature. They damage my property by driving about in lorries to collect stones and material. The Act gives them that right; the Act empowers them to do so. Now I want compensation because they had damaged my work. Their construction is neither of any significance to me as it is situated near my lower boundary nor would I have constructed it. At the moment we are faced with these problems, and this amendment represents a reasonable request for provision to be made for the establishment of an arbitration tribunal to which any owner may go for a decision. Who is to decide now? The Minister?

That town council has to obtain authority from the Minister to execute that work. If the hon. member is of the opinion that we do not want to accept this proposal of the hon. member for Newton Park concerning the matter of appeal, the only reason for that is that I shall ask the hon. member next year how many mishandled and dissatisfied cases had come to his attention. I say you will not find them. After all, our object is not to anger the farmers; we want to co-operate with them. Why chase up hares at this stage, i.e. that he should appeal and create all these different kinds of problems? If in practice it should appear at a later stage that it is necessary to establish such a tribunal we can do so.

Is the Deputy Minister able to mention one argument to me why he is in a better position than an arbitration tribunal to determine the value?

I am not in a better position, but there is a practical committee that understands the problems and it advises the Minister as far as that specific area is concerned. Now the arbitration tribunal is to sit in Pretoria, whereas there is a lot of trouble in the Western Province. These things have to be maintained and this involves additional expenditure.

But this is not that arbitration tribunal; this is a body which still has to be established.

And that again means a great deal of additional expenditure. If there will be so many cases, we may discuss this matter again next year. I said adjustments would have to be made from time to time. And hon. members should not think that I am being contrary by not wanting to accept these things, but do they know that we have been discussing this legislation since September and that we have weighed up all the practical problems. It is possible for one to find fault with the wording of this, but here we are dealing with something different, with a farmer who has to apply soil conservation, and this one cannot write into an Act. [Interjection.] There is no need for you to protect me against the farmers, because I shall always treat them very sympathetically. Therefore I think we should not Chase up hares now.

I have never heard any excuse for not establishing an appeal court which is as weak as that just given by the Deputy Minister. He says next year we can tell him if anybody suffered an injustice and then we can appoint some form of appeal board. [Interjections.] It is like the Minister of Justice saying that he will not appoint an appeal court unless you can prove that some injustice has been done and then he will appoint it. Surely, the Minister wants to lock the door after the horse has bolted. He should make provision now to see that no injustice is done, and not wait until an injustice has been done and then say he will appoint an appeal board. I ask the Minister to give this point some consideration during the lunch hour. He says he does not need protection because he will always be sympathetic to the farmer.

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

Afternoon Sitting

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Deputy Minister said before we adjourned that neither he nor the Secretary of his department understood the difficulties that we on this side of the House foresaw with this clause. I cannot understand the attitude of the hon. the Deputy Minister in regard to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Newton Park. After all, what is the object of this clause? The Minister may, in terms of clause 4 (1), issue a directive to owner A that he must construct certain works on the ground of owner B. Now, owner B may not feel that those works are of any benefit to him at all. But if in the opinion of the Minister they are of benefit to owner B, owner A must pay a certain amount of compensation to owner B. If the two owners are unable to agree on the amount to be paid, the Minister again must decide how much will be paid. Surely, this is setting up the Minister, who has made the initial directive and in whose opinion it is beneficial to owner B that that work should be done, more or less as judge in his own case, which is a bad legal principle. For that reason I think that the amendment of the hon. member for Newton Park should be acceptable to the Deputy Minister.

Apart from that, the Deputy Minister has said to us that if we have difficulties in future with the implementation of this clause, it will be time enough to introduce amending legislation to put the matter straight. The Deputy Minister did not seem to appreciate that our whole function in this Committee is to try and make the Bill as watertight as possible and to try and obviate difficulties which may arise in future. I also do not think that he has appreciated that the arbitration body, as proposed in the hon. member for Newton Park’s amendment, will not be a body which sits in Pretoria. It will be an entirely local body, composed, in the first instance, of the magistrate of the district concerned, who is a local person but nonetheless impartial, and at the same time a man with legal experience. Then there will be a member of the local soil conservation committee, who knows the local conditions and lastly, a member of the Minister’s own department, who might perhaps be the local soil conservation officer or might be sent down from the headquarters of the region for this purpose.

In view of that, we are trying to help the hon. the Deputy Minister. We are not trying to obstruct him in this matter: but there should be some impartial body which will decide on a matter like this. I have much pleasure in supporting the hon. member’s amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this clause is the one which we could not refer to earlier on. It is a clause which authorizes the hon. the Minister, subject to such conditions as he may determine, to pay subsidies or make grants in connection with the construction of soil conservation works or the performance of any act in compliance with a direction. The position therefore is that the payment is not only for soil conservation works, but it may be in respect of other associated activities. Here the following question arises. I take it that from year to year Parliament will be called upon to vote a globular sum; because clearly, we cannot in advance estimate how much money is going to be required to deal with the financial commitments under a clause of that character. Nobody can say, when the Estimates for the following year are being made, that R½ million, R1 million, R2 million, R3 million or R4 million will be required. Nobody knows. It is quite impossible to tell. If it is a very bad drought year, people may wake up and find that a lot of money is required. If there are big interests and big works involved, a lot of money will be required. On the other hand, the amount might be small. So, there can be no real estimate. The hon. the Deputy Minister during the Second Reading debate indicated to this House that he had made up his mind to see that people who are entitled to receive their subsidy, refund, payment, the money, the cash, shall receive it with the minimum of delay. The old laborious method of certification and so forth, shall be put to a short cut and the money shall be available quickly. Of course, that is highly desirable from the point of view of the farmer who is doing the work. It encourages him to think, if he implements soil conservation measures, that he is going to receive his money quickly. I should like to ask the hon. the Minister: Does he still stand by the statement he made the other day when he said: “If they pay before certification, what does it matter if they lose R½ million or R1 million for that matter? As long as the work goes forward and as long as they are in a position to pay quickly, everything is in order.” Therefore, this question of estimates does not really arise, apart from the fact that a fixed amount will have to be voted in Parliament That remark of the hon. the Deputy Minister the other day indicated that he was going to see that adequate money would be available for the purpose of paying the moneys which farmers will be entitled to receive, in terms of the various clauses of this Bill providing for repayment of compensation, subsidies, and so forth. Does the hon. the Deputy Minister stand by that statement, that he is going to take the short cuts, even if it means losing up to R1 million?

Mr. Chairman, in principle clause 6 is identical to what appears in the 1946 Act. It was drafted by the United Party in 1946. So the matter is settled.

As regards the R½ million referred to by the hon. member referred, I explained to him that we wanted to streamline the measure. Payment of a subsidy may be made to a person after he has submitted a sworn statement. The hon. member accepted that this was in order. I went on to say that it would be immaterial whether we paid an additional R½ million or R1 million to conserve our soil if we could succeed, through this Act, in preventing a dam such as the Hendrik Verwoerd Dam from silting up. The idea is not that we are going to waste money now. Estimates have always been drawn up in the past, and we know more or less what the cost of the works will be in the coming year. These estimates are in accordance with. that. However, if we exceed this amount because we have saved our country, I cannot see that there will be any trouble.

Mr. Chairman, I can appreciate the attitude of the hon. the Deputy Minister. Let me say to him, firstly, that this clause is not, in fact, word for word the same as the section in the old Act. I have it here before me, and I think that there is …

You are the first ox I have come across that chews while it is talking.

First finish eating!

I do not know what hon. members are worried about. If they should like a share, there is some in the drawer. They are welcome to come and help themselves.

Section 29 (c) of Act 45 of 1946, reads as follows:

Pay subsidies or make grants to the owner or occupier of any land …

But in the provision as it is presented to us to-day we find that it is payable to any person who happens to undertake soil conservation works whether or not he is the owner or occupier of the land. That is why we have accepted a new principle in clause 5 which we have just dealt with in this House. However, let us leave that as it may be and let us come back to clause 6.

In terms of clause 4 the Minister may direct farmers to carry out soil conservation works. In terms of this clause he now asks for the power to pay subsidies or to make grants subject to such conditions as he may determine under clause 20 (1) (d). The point made by the hon. member for South Coast is what conditions the hon. the Minister will be laying down. Will we have the same conditions as pertain to-day by regulation? Will we have the same unwieldy structure which has been, I could almost say, the pitfall of the Soil Conservation Act up to now. It has been the biggest stumbling block as regards the carrying out of the intention of this Act which was placed on the Statute Book many years ago. Or is it the intention of the hon. the Minister to relax those regulations, particularly the regulations with regard to the approval of work before it shall be undertaken? Secondly, will he relax the regulation with regard to the approval of the completed work before payment shall be made? This is what has caused the delays that we have had in the past; this is where many farmers became “moedeloos”. I cannot think of an English word which is as expressive as the word “moedeloos”. This is where farmers became “moedeloos” with soil conservation measures, because they have been unable, firstly, to carry out what they wanted to do and, secondly when it has been carried out, they have been unable to be reimbursed by the amount which the hon. the Minister and his Department are prepared to give them. This is the point that we are asking the hon. the Minister about. Is it his intention to streamline this procedure now in terms of these powers which he will receive or are we going to still be stuck with the ox wagon which we have had in the past?

Mr. Chairman, as the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) pointed out, the wording of this clause is not the same as it was in the original Act. The hon. member quoted a portion of the original Act. He stopped a little bit too soon in his quotation from the Act. I want to go a little bit further. Section 29 (c) reads as follows—

This is the whole nub of the matter. There will now no longer be a soil conservation scheme drawn up by a district committee, because this will no longer be one of the functions of the district committee. During the Second Reading debate the hon. the Deputy Minister told us that there will not be schemes drawn up by a district committee. The impression we got from the hon. the Deputy Minister at the Second Reading was that it will now be left to the farmers to draw up their own individual farm plan. The point we want to put to the hon. the Deputy Minister is, in the light of that change, what sort of conditions will he lay down in regard to the payment of certain subsidies or grants? If the farmer himself will be drawing up the plan of his individual farm, by whom will that plan be approved of first of all before the farmer can feel that he might be entitled to a subsidy or a grant on those works which he will be constructing? Having constructed these works, what will be the machinery by which the Department will satisfy itself that they can make the subsidy or the grant in question?

Mr. Chairman, let us get this matter straight. The farm plan which we used to have in the past, is going to fall away now. The hon. member for Albany is quite right in his view of the matter as he understood it at the Second Reading. Directions for a particular district are published in the Government Gazette, for example, directions prohibiting the ploughing of sloping land vertically, the burning of veld at a certain time of the year or directions prohibiting or allowing the burning of veld, etc. Hon. members know what I mean. These directions are served on the area concerned. Let us consider how this works in practice. We shall no longer have a specific farm plan tin future as we had in the past. That is correct. The hon. member says that this clause is no longer the same as it was in the Act of 1946. However, the entire principle of the matter remains exactly the same. If we look at clause 20 we shall see the various directions. The replies to the questions which are being put, are to be found in clause 20. The regulations in terms of which this payment will be made, are all set out in clause 20.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 7:

Mr. Chairman, I should like merely to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister a question in regard to the provisions of subsection (4) of clause 7 which reads as follows—

I take it under normal practice it is usual for the Minister’s Department to consult with the Registrar of Deeds in a matter of this kind. However, I should like to have an assurance that that is so, because this seems to me to be a very loose provision indeed. I do not know what the folk who handle our deeds will think about this. Heaven only knows, we are in trouble enough trying to get deeds through the registrar’s office at the present time. But if now a large number of fresh title deeds are to be sent in for endorsement in terms of this subsection and the Registrar of Deeds will have this extra responsibility thrust on his shoulders, the position will even be more serious. As I have said, I hope there has been consultation and the registrars have given their approval through their council.

The Deeds Office falls under the same Minister.

It does not fall under the same Minister?

It does.

Yes, “fall” is the operative word. That is what I am talking about; that is what I am asking the Deputy Minister as to whether there has been consultation. This is no laughing matter. The Registrars of Deeds have been particularly careful in the past to see that, what I would call, a workmanlike method is adopted, for dealing with the endorsement of title deeds and quite rightly so. This is a very loose manner of dealing with it. I would just like to put the question to the Deputy Minister as to whether in fact the Registrars of Deeds have been consulted and whether they have given their approval to the form in which this clause appears before us?

Mr. Chairman, the Minister is granted the power to construct soil conservation works where he may deem them necessary. The recovery of the costs is also left to the discretion of the Minister. In order to protect future buyers an endorsement is made on the title deeds of the land to the effect that a certain amount of money is still due to the State on that specific piece of land. We have already consulted the Deeds Office about this matter. They agree with us that it will be possible for this method to work this way. We consulted them as part of our Department.

And they have approved?

They approved.

Mr. Chairman, this is one of the clauses in which problems are cropping up which are so big that one can drive through them in an ox-wagon. The Deputy Minister is quite correct. The Minister may order works to be constructed or he may give directions to the effect that works should be constructed. He may decide whether the State will have to bear all the costs or a part thereof or whether the owner will have to bear all the costs. This is recorded on the title deeds because the Minister thinks that the farm as such has become more valuable. This is one liability which is already being recorded on the title deeds now. But it also goes further than that. It is also being stated here in the last paragraph of this clause that the Minister may recover the maintenance in respect of the works from the occupier or the owner of the land. Does this also have to be registered against the title deed? Obviously, by implication it has to be registered against the title deed that the occupier or owner of that piece of land or the future occupier of that piece of land will have to go on paying maintenance in respect of the works on that piece of land. As a practical farmer I want to know from the hon. the Minister what would happen if this were a major work and there were to be floods, what would happen in regard to the legal powers which are transferred to the next owner? Is it now being registered against the title deed that the occupier of that property will have to maintain those works for many years to come, irrespective of whether they are major works, medium or small works. Surely, one cannot pass such an Act? Surely, one should be able to tell the person who buys the land what his obligations are and what they will be for many years to come. This provision should not provide that he has to maintain these works even if they are hit by a storm or floods. The legislation does not provide that it is to be left to the discretion of the Minister to determine whether or not that farmer would have to maintain those works. The legislation provides that he has to maintain those works.

Surely, the hon. member knows what action was taken in the past when exceptional circumstances arose, such as floods. The person concerned buys the farm and a condition is attached to that purchase. One the debts have been paid off, that agreement lapses. This is quite clear to me and I cannot see what is wrong with it. Once he has paid off his debts, those conditions lapse. This will vary from case to case.

Surely, bearing the maintenance cost is not the same as a redemption payment; that is something which will stand against him for many years to come!

Yes, that is something else again.

Clause put and agreed to.

New clause (to follow clause 8):

Mr. Chairman, I move—

I raise this particular point, because I am quite convinced that this Bill which we are considering will be far more acceptable to the farming community if they know that in the Bill there is a clause which can protect their interests if in any respect they feel aggrieved by directives which may be imposed upon them by the Minister or somebody who has been delegated powers by the hon. the Minister; I think it is only right that in passing this legislation we should think in terms of the interests of the farmers. I say this because we have said earlier on that the Minister is taking far-reaching measures in this Bill. Because we on this side of the House realize and are keen to see that we have legislation which can expedite soil conservation work in the country, we think that he should have extensive powers. But at the same time, I think it is imperative that we should also have in this legislation a clause which can protect the farmer when he feels that the directives imposed upon him are unfair. As the legislation is now, one can appeal to no one against the measures which have been imposed upon him. For that reason I wish to move this new clause standing in my name.

Mr. Chairman, I think the hon. member is not unreasonable in moving the insertion of such a clause. I feel that we should have the opportunity to discuss this matter with the legal advisers and then we can move a new clause in the Other Place. We can have a discussion on that beforehand.

Mr. Chairman, we accept the hon. the Deputy Minister’s explanation and, therefore, I withdraw the insertion of this new clause.

With leave, proposed new clause withdrawn.

Clause 9:

Mr. Chairman, I move—

In the course of the Second Reading debate we also made this particular aspect very clear to the hon. the Minister, i.e. that we did not object to his appointing various committees. However, we also said that it would be wrong if, in addition, the farmers and the landowners who were personally involved in the implementation of this soil conservation legislation, did not have a proper say as to who their representatives on those soil conservation committees would be. Therefore we propose that the farmers and the land-owners should come together for the purpose of electing, say, a panel of ten or 12 suitable members. These names may be submitted to the Minister, and should the hon. the Minister only want six, he may select them from that panel. I think that this is more or less in accordance with the constitution of soil conservation committees so far, i.e. that the farmers have had a say in the matter. The reason why we want them to choose, is that we do not want members in whom the farmers have no confidence to be appointed to committees. We do not want that, because these soil conservation committees will form an important link in the discharge of the obligations in respect of soil conservation. They will have to provide guidance and they will have to give advice; consequently we feel that the best guidance and the best advice will come from those committees whose members have been proposed by the farmers themselves. In other words, they can best be served with guidance and advice if they had a say as to the persons by whom they would be represented on these committees. Since this amendment is so clear, I do not find it necessary to advance any further arguments in its favour.

Mr. Chairman, I am sorry, but it seems to me as though the Opposition is really experiencing some difficulty to-day, and I do not know for what reason this is so. We continually heard the arguments that tremendous delays and difficulties have been experienced in regard to the old Act. I agree with the hon. member that farmers Should serve on these committees, but the question that arises then is whether these members should be nominated by way of ballot. The new course, which the Minister explained very clearly to the Opposition, was adopted because over the years we learned from experience that many of these committees simply do not work. A new provision is now being introduced, i.e. that the Minister is to nominate those committees in consultation with the South African Agricultural Union. Does the hon. member now, for one moment, want to make me believe that the South African Agricultural Union will not nominate as members of these committees farmers or people who are extremely interested in this matter? The only difference is whether the members of the panel, as the hon. member called it, should be elected, or whether the members should be nominated in consultation with the South African Agricultural Union, which consists of farmers. The object is to have committees which will co-operate in fulfilling this task in a really convincing and enthusiastic manner. I think that the hon. the Minister cannot do any more to eliminate one of the bottlenecks which exists at present. By establishing a committee in consultation with the South African Agricultural Union, one of the difficult problems is being eliminated here. We are convinced that this committee will work.

It is quite clear that the hon. member for Christiana …

Is the only one who talks about agriculture on that side.

… does not appreciate the practical difficulties which there are going to be in the implementation of this subsection (2) in actual practice. Sir, when the hon. the Minister consults the S.A. Agricultural Union what will the machinery actually be? He will go to the S.A. Agricultural Union and the S.A. Agricultural Union will go to its affiliates; they will go to the subordinate unions. In the first instance, they will go to the provincial union because at the headquarters of the S.A. Agricultural Union they do not know the local conditions. Let us take the case of the Cape Province. They will go to the Cape Province Agricultural Union, and, similarly, the Cape Province Agricultural Union, with its headquarters here in Paarl, if the matter concerns, shall we say, a soil conservation district somewhere in the Eastern Cape, will go to the local or the regional agricultural union concerned, and this is where the first difficulty arises. There are many cases where one part of a soil conservation district or even a magisterial district falls under one agricultural union and another part falls under another agricultural union. I could cite instances in my own area where a portion of the magisterial district falls under the Eastern Agricultural Union and another portion falls under the Eastern Province Coastal Agricultural Union. I could cite other instances, in the Indwe area, for example, where a portion falls under the North Eastern Agricultural Union and another portion falls under the Eastern Agricultural Union. Sir, the hon. member for Christiana said that they wanted to streamline the administration of the Act. Is this streamlining it when you have to get two agricultural unions together who have to decide between themselves who is going to represent what? In practice, where that difficulty does not arise, where clearly there is only one agricultural union concerned, you will have numerous cases where the local or regional agricultural union itself is going to have difficulties, because there are cases where there are no farmers’ associations but there are soil conservation districts in the area concerned. Sir, this is essentially a case where people with local knowledge should be able to have a say. The amendment of the hon. member for Newton Park is designed to achieve that end, and if the hon. the Deputy Minister is not prepared to accept that amendment, I am telling him now that in practice he is going to run into a great deal of difficulty with the application of this subsection.

This clause has the full approval of the S.A. Agricultural Union, The hon. member for Albany need not be concerned, because we have made arrangements with them in terms of which we may go to the district agricultural union, which will then nominate persons for appointment to the district committee in question. Therefore it is unnecessary to do all those things which the hon. member mentioned a moment ago; this will be quicker.

And if there is no local farmers’ association?

The hon. member for Christiana is quite correct. The Agricultural Union will, after all, not give us the name of a person who is not a farmer. Sir, I think the United Party has no real cause for feeling concerned about this matter.

I am sorry, Sir, but we certainly cannot accept the explanation furnished by the hon. the Deputy Minister. The hon. member for Christiana has intimated that it is a difficult process to elect people. How were the members of his 816 soil conservation committees elected up to now? Only here and there one finds one that was not elected properly. The vast majority of them, as the hon. member will see in the report, elect their people. If the hon. the Minister could prove that the elected soil conservation committees acted wrongly in the past, one would still have been able to understand his attitude. But that argument was not advanced here yesterday, nor to-day. Hon. members on that side boast of the fact that we have 5,200 soil conservation committees. How did those people get there; how many of them were appointed and how many of them were elected? The majority of them were elected, and up to now they have done their work in an excellent manner. What argument can one advance in favour of changing the old procedure? The only argument which can be advanced, is that the machinery has to be streamlined, and the hon. member for Albany has just dealt with that. It will not be streamlined in this way. Sir, we are objecting in the strongest terms to the fact that people whose co-operation one wants in this respect, are being ignored. They are not going to have an alternative. Who is the South African Agricultural Union that will be consulted? Is it the local farmers’ association, is it the subregion, or is the Cape Agricultural Union, or is it the national organization? We say that people who are directly concerned, i.e. the people living in the area which is being proclaimed as a soil conservation district, should be consulted, and since this is the democratic way of doing things, we can assure the Deputy Minister that in that way, and in no other way, he will achieve the greatest measure of success with (this Bill. Sir, the disposition of the farmers is simply such that they will not be dictated to as to whom they should nominate; they themselves want a say.

They will have it.

They will not have it. As the clause reads at present, the Minister may decide what, in his opinion, the best method of consultation is.

Order! The hon. member must stop repeating. He is repeating the same argument, like a gramophone record, over and over.

Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that I shall have to repeat it another 25 times so that it may sink in on the other side.

Order! I shall ask the hon. member to resume his seat if he keeps on repeating.

No, I do not want to repeat. The explanation hon. members opposite gave for the attitude they are adopting here, is not acceptable to us.

That is also a repetition.

We say that in this way the Deputy Minister will not succeed and that this legislation will not be a success.

That is also a repetition.

On several occasions now members on the United Party side have made the statement that they have to repeat in order that the hon. the Deputy Minister may understand the position, but I just want to tell them this: “The Deputy Minister has just given us the assurance that a farmer will in fact be appointed. I want to tell the Opposition that we have confidence not in a member of the governing party as such, but in a farmer as Deputy Minister, and if the Opposition cannot bring themselves to the stage where they can also trust this Deputy Minister, the position of the farmer in South Africa will be a very weak one, and that is why I want to appeal to the Opposition to trust the Deputy Minister as we do.

Mr. Chairman, without repeating I just want to say that the Deputy Minister will have no success with this legislation unless he enjoys the co-operation of the farmers. Take the case of a proclaimed area which is determined by the Minister and which falls under various regional unions of the Agricultural Union. How can he have success in that area with this legislation if those people are not afforded the opportunity of nominating their own representatives? Who will the Minister consult?

That, too, has already been said.

Even if it has already been said, it has to be emphasized. Let me say this, Mr. Chairman; this has not been said here before: In view of the fact that this Deputy Minister is dealing with this measure, we thought that we were dealing here with a person who was sympathetic towards the farmers and who would understand the problems of the farmers, but now we find that he is placing an obstacle in the way. This is one of the most important aspects of this legislation as a whole. Surely, to make a success of the administration of this legislation, to make a success of soil conservation, one must have the co-operation of the farmers, and if one does not want to provide the means through which one may obtain their co-operation, how is this legislation going to work?

Amendment put and the Committee divided:

AYES—29: Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J, D. du P.; Bennett, C.; Emdin, S.; Graaff, De V.; Higgerty, J. W.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Jacobs, G. F.; Kingwill, W. G.; Lindsay, J. E.; Malan, E. G.; Mitchell, D. E.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Radford, A.; Streicher, D. M.; Taylor, C. D.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Waterson, S. F.; Webber, W. T.; Wiley, J. W. E.; Winchester, L. E. D.; Wood, L. F.

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

NOES—74: Bodenstein, P.; Botha, H. J.; Botha, L. J.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Carr, D. M.; Coetsee. H. J.; Coetzee, B.; Coetzee, J. A.; De Wet, J. M.; De Wet, M. W.; Du Plessis, A. H.; Du Toit, J. P.; Engelbrecht, J. J.; Erasmus, J. J. P.; Frank, S.; Froneman, G. F. van L.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Havemann, W. W. B.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Henning, J. M.; Herman, F.; Heystek, J.; Horn, J. W. L.; Jurgens, J. C.; Kotzé, S. F.; Kruger, J. T.; Langley, T.; Le Grange, L.; Lewis, H. M.; Loots, J. J.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; Martins, H. E.; McLachlan, R.; Meyer, P. H.; Morrison, G. de V.; Muller, S. L.; Otto, J. C.; Pansegrouw, J. S.; Pienaar, B.; Potgieter, S. P.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Rall, M. J.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Raubenheimer, A. L.; Reinecke, C. J.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, H.; Smit, H. H.; Stofberg, L. F.; Swiegers, J. G.; Torlage, P. H.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Van Breda, A.; Van der Merwe, C. V.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, W, L.; Van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; Van Vuuren, P. Z. J.; Viljoen, M.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Visse, J. H.; Volker, V. A.; Vosloo, A. H.; Wentzel, J. J.; Wentzel, J. J. G.

Tellers: P. S. van der Merwe and H. J. van Wyk.

Amendment accordingly negatived.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

Clause 12:

This clause deals with fire protection areas and here again we have overlapping. I do not propose to detain the House, but this is one of the most important aspects not only of soil conservation but in respect of the protection of crops and land. We had a Bill before the House about a year ago in which there was a particular section dealing with fire protection. Many provisions of that Forestry Act dealt specifically with this matter. Now provision is made here that if there is a conflict in a scheme between what is provided in this Bill and in the Forestry Act, then the Forestry Act prevails. That is good in so far as it goes, but the trouble here is that in subsection (2) it provides that the constitution, functions and procedure at any meeting of a fire protection committee shall be as prescribed, i.e. as prescribed by the Minister of Agriculture and not the Minister of Forestry. Now the other Act comes under the Minister of Forestry and here it is provided that the constitution and all its work shall be prescribed by this Minister. I would be grateful if the Deputy Minister would tell us how he sees his Department dealing with fire protection alongside the provisions of the other Act administered by another Minister who has precisely parallel powers. We do not want to fall between two stools. If the Deputy Minister has ever been in Natal in August or September and seen a fire get out of control on the slopes of the Drakensberg and burn for two or three weeks, with the damage it does, he would realize exactly why it is that we want to be so careful that there should be no confusion and no overlapping of powers between these two Departments. I must admit that I myself would be very much happier if all reference to fire-fighting, etc., were eliminated from this Bill altogether and let us leave it entirely to the other Act and to the other Minister, with this Minister making representations to the other Minister from time to time in regard to fire-fighting, the burning of veld, etc., so that that Minister would have a policy fitting in with soil conservation which is under the control of this Minister. The other Minister, for example, can proclaim a period when he will allow no fires whatsoever in what is called the period of high risk. The Minister can proclaim that period for two or three weeks if he wants to and he can from time to time extend it or proclaim new periods when he will allow no fires whatsoever, and he may impose severe penalties. We cannot be too clear in fixing the responsibility and making sure that the responsibility will rest in the appropriate quarter. I would ask the Deputy Minister to consider, whether here or later in the Other Place, whether it will not be desirable in consultation with the Minister of Forestry, to have all reference to the control of fire withdrawn from this Bill and left to the other Minister to deal with under the Forestry Act.

We are busy with discussions with the Department of Forestry to hand this over to them.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 13:

I have just a very small point here to tidy it up. In line 25 it says “provided that a fire protection plan …” shall not be inconsistent with the Forestry Act. All through we speak of a fire protection scheme, and here for some reason it is called a plan. May I suggest to the Deputy Minister that it be called a scheme again and not a plan. Let us have the same nomenclature throughout. If the Minister would look into that, he could perhaps make the change in the Other Place, if he so desired.

I will.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 17:

I move the following amendment standing in my name—

These amendments are obviously designed to protect the position of owners or occupiers of land from people who may think that they are entitled to enter upon that land without even showing the owner or the occupier of the land the courtesy of telling him that they are going there. I would not be unduly worried if it were only this particular Department with whom we are dealing, because the Department of Agricultural Technical Services is one which is used to dealing with farmers as they do not normally disregard the sort of courtesy a land owner can expect to receive in this respect. But this clause gives power to any officer of any Department of State, the S.A. Railways, a Provincial Administration, or a divisional council, etc., to enter upon land without notice. I know personally of instances where there were persons acting under the instructions of the Provincial Administration, for example, contractors to build roads, who have entered on property without any notice and not merely have they entered upon it and walked around with a big gang of labourers, but they have clambered all over the fences and have disturbed the landowner’s stock and his game. They have even gone as far as to dig test-holes in his veld which they did not even fill in afterwards. Similarly, there have been cases— I do not know whether they are numerous or not—where some of these firms prospecting for oil under licence from the Government have shown similar disregard of the normal rights of landowners. I do not think the Minister will say that he disagrees with me in principle on this point because in at least two places the clause makes provision for notice to be given. In line 20 it says “after notice”, and in line 32 the phrase used is “reasonable notice”. Our object is to make quite sure that it will be reasonable notice. After all, what is reasonable notice? It is a very vague term. One man may consider an hour’s notice reasonable, and another may consider a fortnight’s notice reasonable. We on this side feel that seven days’ notice would in fact be reasonable notice to expect from the Department concerned; except in one instance, namely in the case of subsection (3), where we feel that giving a week’s written notice would be unreasonable to demand of the Department concerned, where they are going on to a man’s land to see whether it is necessary to construct work or to inspect the construction of those works or to ascertain whether the soil conservation work is in fact being carried out. In cases like that, my amendment asks for prior notice and not a week’s written notice, because there it would be reasonable if the official concerned either telephones the owner or even goes on to his farm and tells him that he is going into the veld for this or that purpose.

There is one other matter I want to deal with. In various places we have also added the words “after consultation with”. I want to deal with that for a minute. In line 20 for example we want to omit the words “notice to” and say “after consultation”. May I say that the original Act provided that it should be done only after consultation. May I also add at this juncture that, in case the Deputy Minister says to me that a large portion of this was taken direct from the 1946 Act, and that was a United Party Act and that therefore we should not try to improve it, I want to use the words he used in this regard during the second reading when he said—

We feel that these are some of the “aanpassings” that are necessary. As regards the question of consultation, our amendments are designed to provide, where a directive is given that work should be done, and it is necessary to take materials such as sand, stone or gravel from that land, that notice shall not merely be given to the owner concerned but that this shall also be done after consultation with the owner concerned. After all, Sir, the position may well arise where the official, if he is only required to give notice, may say: I have given the required notice. I am now going to establish my camp and I am going to remove sand, stone, etc. I hope that the hon. the Deputy Minister is going to accept this amendment, particularly in the interests of good relations between the farmers who are going to be affected by this clause and between the officials of his department. There will be many instances where the person doing the work will need materials and it will help him to have the willing co-operation of the landowner concerned. He might even achieve a better result if he were first to consult with the landowner concerned. The landowner may say to him: You want to take sand from such and such a place, but it will be more convenient for me, and you will also get better sand, for instance, or concrete making, at another place. I think that if we have adequate notice, which my amendments are designed to provide, as well as the consultation with the landowner concerned, this will contribute to happy relations between the officials of the Deputy Minister’s department and the landowners themselves.

Mr. Chairman, the 1946 Act also provided for that, and it worked well. However, the hon. member now wants to give the extension officers additional work, and we are already faced with the problem of not having enough extension officers. Now he wants to give them additional work. After all, the farmer will be consulted in practice, because the farmer has to co-operate if we want to carry out certain works. But there may be people who refuse to co-operate, and for such cases we have to have an Act to be able to carry out these works. The hon. member must also bear in mind that clause 17 (1) provides that a farmer shall be compensated for the material which is taken from him in case other material is not available. This has worked excellently since 1946 simply because one knows how to deal with a farmer.

He is compensated without the right of appeal?

The Minister is so reasonable that there will be no need to lodge appeals.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to point out to the hon. the Deputy Minister that I said, when I moved my amendment, that the old Act was nearly the same. However, it did differ in this one very important aspect, and that is that it did provide for consultation. I want to read it to the hon. the Deputy Minister. Section 32 of the original Act, which deals with the right of entry, on or over land, reads inter alia as follows:

I should like to draw the hon. the Deputy Minister’s attention to the fact that the words “after consultation” are used. I hope that the hon. the Deputy Minister will change his attitude and accept this amendment.

Amendments put and negatived. [Official Opposition dissenting.]

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

Clause 19:

Mr. Chairman, I move the following amendment, as printed—

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Clause 23:

Mr. Chairman, I hope that the Deputy Minister is going to reconsider this clause. It is a very smart one, and he will pardon me if I read it, because I want to lay emphasis on certain words. The clause reads as follows:

The powers referred to in section 20 include the making of regulations relating to the calling of and the procedure and quorum at meetings of the conservation committees, etc. That is all. As for the rest, the whole of it, the “bosun tight and the midshipmite and the crew of the captain’s gig”, they all slide into the discard. The Minister can take the lot and say: “I call that man a senior officer”. Such a person can be in any department of State. I have never seen a provision like this in any law. The Minister, from his department, can go right outside to any other department, presumably in consultation with other Ministers, etc., but I am not talking about that, and he can take officials from other State departments, whom he can call “senior officers”. A senior officer is not defined. I do not know what a senior officer is. If it is determined in terms of years, I suppose I might look upon myself as a senior member of Parliament, but there are many other senior members of Parliament, and I do not know what to make of this. What is a “senior officer”?

I put the question.

Mr. Chairman …. [Interjections]. Sir, we are trying to help the Deputy Minister. I want to say here and now, in the light of day, that we regret extremely the fact that the Deputy Minister has had to pilot this Bill through Parliament. We are not doubting the capacity of the Deputy Minister. We believe that he is a very capable Deputy Minister, but he is a new man and he has only recently come into this portfolio. He has a difficult Bill here, dealing with one of the most vital matters in the country at the present time, namely the conservation of our soil.

Order! The hon. member must confine himself to this clause.

Mr. Chairman, I bow to your ruling. I merely want to say that we are being a little careful. We see that the Deputy Minister is engaged in conversation with his staff, to try to find the answer to some of our questions. We are patient, and we should like to give him a chance to so consider the matter, while we discuss other aspects of this clause. In this particular matter I want to say that I hope the Minister is going to tell us why his own department does not have capable senior officers able to do the work which may be delegated in terms of this Bill. Sir, we have pointed out that we want to go to the Minister. My colleagues have dealt with the question of committees. We have moved amendments and we have tried to get committees and bodies that can intervene in a quasi-judicial capacity to help the farmers. But what happens when we have to deal with a departmental official from another department? How then do we go to the Minister? Can I go to the Minister in connection with an official from the Department of Community Development, or the Department of Bantu Administration and Development, for instance? How do I deal with a senior official from the Department of Bantu Administration and Development? If I do not like his decision, I must go to the Minister of Agriculture. What position are we in then? Sir, we want to be able to know the authority we are dealing with. We want to know who has the authority. That is what farmers want to know. Who has the authority? How does he exercise that authority? How can we, in terms of a clause like this, deal in a practical manner with that authority, and how can we appeal against it? We were told just now that there was a right of appeal to the Minister. What Minister? Is there an appeal to the Minister of the Department of Agriculture if he appoints officers from other departments to take on this job? Sir, I have never seen a provision like this in any Act in my life.

I want to go further and come to the powers that are going to be conferred. The only power reserved to the Minister in this particular Bill is set out by clause 20. That clause deals with the question of the calling and the procedure and quorums of meetings of conservation committees which are advisory bodies in any case. They are purely advisory committees; they have no power. But the Minister can delegate all the financial provisions. How far will those financial provisions run? In the course of a year they can run to millions of rand. The Minister can divest himself from the responsibility entirely. He can delegate that responsibility to officials not even in his own department. I do hope that the Minister is not going to be misled by any argument that may come from any quarter that this is going to make for ease of administration. This provision is wrecked before it starts. We will have more to say about that when we come to the Third Reading debate. In this matter I do appeal to the Deputy Minister: Play fair. Give the farmers the opportunity of knowing that they are dealing with the Minister of Agriculture under this Bill. They must not be asked to go through a list of the Cabinet Ministers to find out with whose department they have to deal when they deal with a particular official, who has been clothed by the Minister with authority in regard to the financial provisions of this Bill.

Mr. Chairman, the legal advisers told us that the provision must read “senior officer” and “Department of State”.

Why?

We will never ask any other department to do our work. But we can go into this matter and give attention to it.

With regard to financial aid, I wish to refer hon. members to clause 20 (2), which reads “any regulation relating to State revenue and expenses, shall be made in consultation with the Minister of Finance”. We cannot spend any money without his permission. Hon. members know that. But I think we can go into this matter before the Bill goes to the Other Place and see what we can do about it.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 26:

Mr. Chairman, I want to deal with the question of the exclusions laid down in this Bill. We are in this unhappy position that we know the Deputy Minister agrees with us 100 per cent that this Bill should apply to the whole of South Africa.

Happy position!

Yes, my hon. Leader says we are in a happy position. I thought it was an unhappy position for the Deputy Minister. Here we see the difficulty of having an administration, a government, such as we have at the present time. The Deputy Minister agrees with us. He knows perfectly well that soil conservation must be soil conservation in the whole Republic of South Africa, or it is not soil conservation. One cannot “soil conserve” half of one’s farm; one cannot conserve the soil of half one’s country. The exceptions, where the Bantu areas are concerned, have the effect of exempting from the provisions of this Bill the very areas where it is most necessary that control should be exercised. We have gone through the other clauses. We have now reached this clause and coming near the end. We have made provision for what might happen when one’s neighbour does not carry out soil conservation works with the result that your farm is damaged. What happens when that neighbour’s farm is a big scheduled area under the Department of Bantu Administration and they do nothing about it? I am now talking about my own case and that of my neighbours down the coast. Soil conservation, because the Department of Bantu Administration has not conserved the area alongside me, is going to cost me R1,000, and I am getting no subsidy from the Government. I am paying for it out of my own pocket on the basis of “help yourself” about which the hon. member for Nelspruit was talking yesterday. Mr. Chairman, where do we go? How can we turn around, face our farmers and say that we are dealing with soil conservation in South Africa? We are grappling with the problem. We are taking a new look at it. This is now a down to earth, practical way of grappling with the problem, but we only have to grapple with it in certain areas. As to one-third, a quarter of the country, or whatever it is, we are not going to touch it at all. We are going to leave the Department of Bantu Administration and Development to carry on with it.

Order! I think the hon. member is going beyond the scope of this Bill. At the Second Reading the principle was accepted to exclude these areas under the Act. The hon. member consequently is out of order now.

Mr. Chairman, in that case I ask the right to make the one speech, so that I can state our case in regard to that particular clause. This was a clause that I dealt with in the Second Reading debate. I said that I wanted to come back to it in detail in the Committee Stage. Surely, Sir, the principle in this Bill is soil conservation. That is what it is. Are we to say that all the provisions of the Bill are principles that have been accepted at the Second Reading?

The hon. member cannot go beyond the scope of the Bill.

No, I should like to discuss it with you, Sir.

Unfortunately not at the Committee Stage. At the Second Reading stage, before the principle was accepted, the hon. member could have discussed it. But it was then accepted that these areas should not be included in the Bill. Therefore the hon. member cannot discuss it at the Committee Stage.

Mr. Chairman, I suggest that there is one principle in this Bill, and that is soil conservation.

Excluding certain areas, as accepted at the Second Reading stage.

Certain matters of financial assistance were also excluded. I am sure that you will not say that at the Second Reading stage we agreed to the provisions which excluded certain measures of financial assistance.

Yes, but the hon. member definitely cannot go beyond the scope of this Bill. The scope of this Bill excludes these areas. I regret that I cannot allow the hon. member to continue.

Mr. Chairman, in that case, I will repeat my views and express my objection when the Long Title is under discussion.

When we come to it, I will consider that.

On a point of order, Sir, when we were discussing clause 2 of this Bill, I wanted to raise this very point. Clause 2 of the Bill reads that the objects of this Bill are, inter alia, the “protection and improvement of the soil, the vegetation and the resources of the water supplies of the Republic”.

Order!

Mr. Chairman, can I put my point of order?

No, I have given my ruling. The hon. member must abide by my ruling. The Standing Order states that at the Committee Stage only the contents of each clause are to be discussed. I have to abide by the Standing Orders too.

I understand your point, Sir, but can I take a point of order?

I cannot allow it. My ruling is final.

Mr. Chairman, with due respect, would it not be competent for a member to move the deletion of the exclusion in this clause and discuss it?

Then I should still have to stand by what I said to the hon. member for South Coast, namely that it extends the scope of the Bill. That is the difficulty. The area is limited to what is stated in clause 26. It is only applicable to those areas, excluding (a), (b) and (c). That is not before the Committee now. I regret it, but I have to put the clause.

Mr. Chairman, I understand the clause to read that it shall apply to all land, except as stipulated under (a), (b) and (c).

Excluding (a), (b) and (c)

Yes, but surely, that is the detail of the clause. What must we discuss if we cannot discuss those paragraphs? So we cannot discuss the detail that is under discussion?

If I allow the hon. member to discuss it, he will be bringing it back into the clause. That I cannot allow.

But the detail of the clause is to exclude these areas. That is the detail. Surely, we are entitled to discuss the detail of the clause, otherwise there is no detail in the clause. Then there is nothing in the clause to discuss.

The minute I allow hon. members to discuss it, the scope of the Bill, as agreed to at the Second Reading Stage, is extended.

Sir, I am sorry to refer you to the Long Title again, but that has to do with the protection of the water sources in the Republic. The water sources in the Republic arise in areas which are excluded by the section. Surely, while we have been saying that it is wrong that this area should be excluded, where our water sources arise, we should be allowed to discuss it.

That is a Second Reading debate argument. But I will allow the hon. member for South Coast to make his point and then leave it at that.

Mr. Chairman, I think that this matter calls for a reply for the reasons which I have already given. I do not want to traverse that again or to take undue advantage of the leave you have granted me. But I think the matter calls for a reply. Situated as we are, this clause nullifies the whole effect of soil conservation and water conservation in the whole of the Republic. That will be the position as long as that clause remains. The hon. the Minister is the man who can deal with it. He is the only man who can deal with it. I want to repeat emphatically that the hon. the Minister agrees with us. He knows perfectly well that this is vital. If the hon. the Minister had a free choice he will say that it must go in. And what is the trouble? The hon. the Minister is under duress from other State departments. The primary function of this Bill is therefore failing because of the provision of this clause.

Clause put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with amendments.

During discussion on the motion for the Second Reading of this Bill, I referred the hon. the Deputy Minister to the risk of local authorities investing in their own funds. In other words, there was the risk of local authorities investing their pension funds in their own municipalities. Since I made that speech a report appeared in the Press which referred to fourteen councils in the Transvaal that are “in the red”. This article, inter alia, reads—

It then lists all the various village councils and town councils which were in the red. Without going into detail, one was in the red to the extent of R27,849 and another to the extent of R18,010. I submit that if the council had invested the whole of its pension funds with that council as a council loan, there will be a risk to the pension fund. As the hon. the Deputy Minister knows, no commercial or industrial firm is allowed to invest its pension funds with the company. It has to be invested outside. Here the same principle which is frowned on by the hon. the Deputy Minister when it comes to dealing with company funds is allowed under clause 1. The hon the Deputy Minister implied during the Second Reading Stage of this Bill that he was going into the matter and that he was referring it to headquarters to see whether there was any substance in the remarks that I had made. I do not suggest that there may be a local authority which has all its funds invested in the local authority concerned. But there is the possibility. This Press report to which I have referred, indicates the risk. I therefore suggest that the hon. the Deputy Minister should give this matter further attention because it is essential that pension funds should be absolutely secured. When we have a town council which manages its affairs so badly that its accounts are allowed to run into the red to the tune of R27,000 then such a town council could equally put its pension funds in jeopardy. I therefore suggest that the hon. the Deputy Minister gives further attention to this as it is in the interests of future pension holders and the trust funds concerned.

Mr. Chairman, as regards the point made by the hon. member for Pinetown, I may just mention one or two aspects which may serve as a partial reply to him. The first is that the Pension Funds Act has been in existence since 1956. All the pension funds are under the control and management of the Registrar of Financial Institutions. We have to accept that the Registrar of Financial Institutions will definitely exercise sound control over all the pension funds which fall under the control of his office. He will definitely guard against pension funds being invested in avenues which may place the funds in jeopardy. I think this is some guarantee, namely that the Registrar will constantly keep a watchful eye over all pension funds. These pension funds also include the pension funds of local authorities which fall under the Registrar and which are thoroughly investigated and controlled by him from time to time. I did not see the complete list of the town councils which the hon. member had mentioned and whose finances were in a rather unfavourable position. I therefore do not know whether all of them are smaller municipalities or whether some of the larger municipalities are included in the list as well. As regard the smaller municipalities, I want to point out that they do not have their own pension funds. I think not one of the small municipalities in our country has its own pension fund. The small municipalities join forces and they usually have a joint pension fund. That is the position in the Cape Province. I take it that this is the position in other parts of the country as well. They have what are called “joint pension funds”. Of course, these joint pension funds of the small local authorities do not invest their money in one of those participating local authorities alone. They naturally invest in a wider field. As regards the larger city councils, for example, Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria, their pension funds are invested in, inter alia, the works and undertakings of those city councils. They grant loans to those city councils, but they invest their pension funds in a much wider field than merely in that specific city council. However, I want to give the hon. member the assurance that I shall take up this particular point he mentioned, with the Registrar of Financial Institutions. I shall bring the matter to his attention and we shall furnish the hon. member with a personal reply in due course. I take cognizance of what the hon. member said, but as he probably feels himself, there is no need at all for this clause to be amended.

I hope the hon. the Deputy Minister in his discussions with the registrar will take cognizance of one point. In his reply to the hon. member for Pinetown, he said these funds were under the control of the Registrar of Pension Funds. That is correct, but where the law lays down that a pension fund can make certain investments, surely the Registrar of Pension Funds does not have the right to say to a pension fund that it cannot invest in a particular security. That right has already been granted by law. Hence, the hon. member for Pinetown quite correctly raised this point. If a municipality is by law entitled to invest all its funds in its own pension fund, all the registrar can do is to say to that municipality that it may be taking a risk but he cannot deny it that right because that right has already been laid down by law. Therefore I think the hon. the Deputy Minister should have a look at that situation as well.

Clause put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported without amendment.

This clause contains an important definition of a concept which is not in the existing Act. That is that 30th September will be the new year for the renewal of radio licences. Henceforth radio licences will expire on 30th September and will have to be renewed from 1st October. During the Second Reading we on this side expressed our general agreement with this principle. Unfortunately the Minister’s explanation in reply to the Second Reading did not receive sufficient coverage in the Press. Consequently questions have arisen in the minds of the general public about the operation of this new measure. I therefore trust that the Press will bring the discussions during this Committee Stage more fully to the notice of the public.

The question arises in my mind whether announcements made in this connection in the Press and over the radio will in fact be adequate to inform the public fully. Personally I see major problems. Later, during the discussion of the other clauses, I shall briefly revert to these problems. But I can see even now that people will not know where they will have to pay their radio licence fees. Henceforth there will also be local authorities which will collect these fees. They can go either to the Post Office or to the S.A.B.C., or even to other bodies. That is why I think that the Minister will find that it will still be necessary to send out notices informing listeners that their licences expire on 30th September. This is done in the case of income tax and in the case of car licences in Johannesburg, for example, and I think he will find that it will be necessary to do so in the case of radio licences as well, because I think he will find that announcements in this regard over the raido and in the Press will not be sufficient notice.

Another question is why a new year is being introduced in respect of listeners’ licences only, and not in respect of all the other licences mentioned in the Schedule as well. I am only asking for an explanation, and I am not expressing any criticism.

The third point is, and I am not raising this in a spirit of frivolity, that we have closed circuit television in this country at the moment. For that licences have to be taken out as well. Does a radio licence referred to in clause 1 cover a licence for closed-circuit television as well? Or does a person who wants to install a closed-circuit television system have to obtain one of the licences mentioned in the Schedule? Perhaps the Minister could say something in this regard.

As regards closed circuit television, the position is that in terms of the Post Office Act that is dealt with by way of permit. Therefore it does not fall under the licences we are discussing here. The other question asked by the hon. member, one he also asked during the Second Reading debate, is what the position is as far as other licences, except listeners’ licences, are concerned. There are very few of these other licences, and they expire on 31st December. If the expiry date of these licences also had to be advanced to 30th September, it would only mean that the work in connection with the collecting of licence fees would be increased. There is proper control over these licences. As far as I can see, there is a good reason why the expiry date of these licences should also be advanced to 30th September as well.

In addition the hon. member wanted to know whether announcements over the radio and in the Press would be sufficient to inform the public fully. Personally I think that announcements through these two channels will be the more effective way of informing the public. My experience as regards the sending out of notices informing listeners that their licences expire on such and such a date and consequently will have to be renewed is that the notice is received, put aside and finally completely forgotten. On the other hand I think it is possible to bring this to the attention of people more forcibly by means of the radio. Of course, there may be cases where a renewal notice may help listeners, but the hon. member will realize that it will be necessary to keep a register if we want to send out such notices. If we do so, we will weaken the administration for the collecting of licence fees, as the sending out of such notices involves a great deal of work. The hon. member will appreciate this. This may give rise to our having to use the services of our inspection staff yet again for sending out the renewal notices while their services can be used more productively in determining what listeners have paid their fees and what listeners are pirate listeners. As I have said, it may be a good thing to continue the system of renewal notices, but we are experiencing a shortage of staff. In fact, this is the only reason why we have been looking for a different method of collecting of licence fees, one which would be more effective at the same time.

Is it not the intention therefore to keep a central register of all radio holders?

No.

Control will therefore be exercised not by means of a central register but only through inspectors?

Yes.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 3:

I should like the hon. the Minister to explain this clause to us in somewhat more detail, particularly subsection (2) of the proposed new section 5. This is an entirely new subsection. In the present subsection (1) the word “image” appears, which one takes to mean also television. Consequently, I should like to know from the hon. the Minister whether subsection (2) places a restriction on where people may pick up television signals. For instance, is a restriction being placed on television sets receiving images from, say, satellites or from neighbouring countries? Does it place any restriction on the reception of television signals or radio signals, from neighbouring states or from satellites? I shall be pleased if the Minister could explain to us this subsection with this particular aspect in mind.

Now the hon. member has really baffled me to some extent because I do not think the clause concerned has any bearing on the matter he raised here. This clause lays down three things. In the first place it removes the listeners’ licence from the Schedule. In the second place it introduces the two basic kinds of listeners’ licences, what I call the “private licence” and the “business licence”, and in the third place it allows of exemption from the obligation of being in possession of a listener’s licence being granted by way of regulation to a member of a household. That is all that is contained in this clause, and I do not think it has any bearing on anything the hon. member asked me here. He is apparently labouring under a misunderstanding.

Sir, the difficulty of the hon. member for Port Natal is this ….

Order! I would like to point out that that is the existing law. It is not a new provision in this Bill.

I am sorry, Sir, I must disagree. Under subsection (2) ….

The hon. member spoke on subsection (1).

I want refer to the proposed new subsection (2) in clause 3.

The hon. member may continue.

The difficulty of the hon. member for Port Natal arises from the fact that the proposed new subsection (2) reads—

If you go to the principal Act, Sir, you find that “broadcasting service” is defined as “a radio communication service of transmissions intended for direct reception by the general public, including transmission by television or other means.” Sir, this is where his difficulty arises, and he pertinently asks the hon. the Minister whether this gives the hon. the Minister the power to prohibit any person from receiving a television broadcast which might reach us ultimately by satellite or from outside.

No. that is not the intention.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 5:

Sir, the Minister said that a new type of listener’s licence was to be issued to hotels and mines and transport services, etc. I would like to ask him what the position has been to date in the case of hotels and these other establishments. As I understand the position, the owner of the establishment has been required to pay the ordinary listener’s licence fee of R5.50 and so much per room. Am I correct in saying that that has been the position? How will this differ from the previous position? Secondly, I would like to refer the hon. the Minister to the passage in his speech where he said that different amounts of money would be applicable to these business licences. How will this work in practice? Take, for example, a large hotel. A large hotel, presumably, under the new system will have to pay the usual listener’s licence fee. Will a lump sum then be levied or will a charge be levied in accordance with the number of rooms, and will a similar system operate in the case of a smaller hotel? Is there any specified standard, or is it left to the discretion of the department concerned to levy on the establishment any fee that it deems fit?

This clause merely provides authority for the making of regulations, of course, and this will naturally depend on the regulations. At present the position is that the hotels take out ordinary listener’s licences, just as private households do. What this entails, of course, is that one has to take out different licences, because one also pays for loudspeakers. The regulations will probably provide that the greater the number of rooms in which one has radio loudspeakers, the higher the fee will be for the new business licence, because the fee is, after all, determined on the basis of the number of radios.

I would like to emphasize the point which I thought was behind this clause of the Bill. I thought this was one of the means of giving relief to hotels. As the Minister is aware, many hotels require substantial relief, and I was hoping that the Minister and his department would exercise their discretion in levying varying fees, as I understood the position, in favour of hotels to give them the relief that they seek.

That is the very intention.

There is only a small point in connection with clause 5. I refer to line 35 where the proviso to subsection (1) of section 7 of the principal Act is being deleted. The proviso reads that a licence may be issued to a person who has to be approved by the Postmaster-General. In other words, one could not obtain a licence unless one has obtained the approval of the Postmaster-General. But the following proviso was specifically included in the principal Act—

This proviso is now being deleted here. Provision is now being made here in clause 5 that the Postmaster-General has to issue a licence to anyone. I just want to be assured that with the removal of that one proviso the position is still, even with this change in the clause, that any person will be entitled to a listener’s licence. Specific provision is made in the principal Act that he will be entitled to such a licence. Now that proviso is being deleted, and a different sentence is being substituted for that proviso. I just want to have the assurance from the hon. the Minister that this will be the position.

This is the position.

Then I am satisfied.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 8:

This clause provides that licences will expire on 31st December, and in this connection we have already had a reply from the hon. the Minister. The other provision here is that persons who are issued with free licences must obtain a renewal of the right every year to be issued with a free licence. I can imagine that difficulties will arise if no central register of persons who are entitled to free licences is going to be kept. Take the case of the aged in, say Kimberley or Bloemfontein or Johannesburg who would like to renew the right to a free licence. They may go to the Post Office and there they are told that they should go to the local authority or to the S.A.B.C. I foresee this problem arising. I should like to know from the hon. the Minister whether he thinks I may be seeing ghosts, and whether some method cannot be devised to cope with that problem. We agree with this idea of free licences, and we hope that this will be extended on a large scale, but I do foresee the difficulty I mentioned a moment ago.

I may just explain that although a register of all listener’s licences issued is not kept by the Post Office, a register is in fact kept by the S.A.B.C. of free listener’s licences and concessionary radio listener’s licences. This will eliminate the difficulty mentioned by the hon. member altogether.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 9:

Here the problem arises which I mentioned in the Second Reading debate, i.e. that while it is no longer necessary to complete the forms in triplicate when a radio is bought or brought in for repairs, the problem still remains, even after the passing of this particular amendment, that any person who wants to have a radio repaired must satisfy the dealers that he is in possession of a licence, and he has to show the number of the licence or the licence itself to the radio dealer, or otherwise the dealer will get into trouble if he repairs the radio. A difficulty I foresee in this regard is the following: The head of a household has a radio in his home and he keeps his licence there, but his son is at a boarding school, and now the radio of that son breaks downs while the son may perhaps be a hundred or two hundred or five hundred miles away from home. That boy wants to have his radio repaired. He goes to a radio dealer and that dealer tells him: “Here is the Act as it was passed by Parliament; what is your licence number?”. Can any method be found to meet that situation which can in fact arise?

That difficulty, as the hon. member quite rightly said, may arise, but I am afraid that in those circumstances the boy will just have to obtain the licence from his parents before he can have his radio repaired.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 12:

In connection with this clause I should just like to know why the words “person in the service of the State” are being substituted here for the words “officer in public service”? I accept that this is partly as a result of the new dispensation which allows of officials of the Post Office being appointed as officers who may carry out of this inspection. I have no objections to that, but in a previous Bill we passed recently, we saw how wide such powers could be. One can appoint any person in the service of the State and then he may be appointed as an inspector to investigate whether someone is in possession of a radio licence. This is something that can happen under the clause as it stands, and I am a little unhappy about that.

The amendment concerned relates to the new dispensation in the Post Office only. The words “person in the service of the State” are being substituted here for the words “officer in the public service”. This amendment is necessary in order to obviate problems which may arise if in law officers of the Post Office were no longer to be regarded as officers in the Public Service. The other amendments in this clause are merely consequential adjustments. No new powers are being taken.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 13:

The purpose of this clause, in so far as the S.A.B.C. is given the power to issue licences, etc., seems quite clear but the remaining portion of the clause is not clear to me, and that is where the local authorities come into the picture with the power not only to issue licences, but also to collect licence fees. I think there must be some background to this portion of the clause, and I wonder if the hon. the Minister could perhaps elucidate for us how this is going to work in practice in the case of the local authorities?

The arrangement that a local authority or any other similar body established by or under any law should by agreement be able to issue listener’s licences on behalf of the Post Office to persons within its area and should be able to collect the fees therefor in instalments or otherwise, is intended to make use, when practicable and acceptable, for the convenience of the licence holders as well as the Post Office and in the interests of efficiency, of the existing machinery of local authorities and similar bodies for the collecting of money. For example, under this authority it will be possible to arrange with a local authority that it is prepared to do so, for the inhabitants of a Bantu township in its area who are licence holders, to pay along with their monthly rentals their radio licence fees in instalments to the officers of the local authority. The authority being granted in the new section 17 (b) does not allow of the matter of issuing licences and collecting fees being entrusted to private persons or firms. The body with which such an agreement is concluded, must be one established by or under a law. Moreover, arrangements of this nature are subject to the approval of the Minister and, as far as remuneration payable for the work done by the local authority or similar body is concerned, of the S.A.B.C. Such remuneration will in turn have to be deducted from the licence fees paid over by the Post Office to the S.A.B.C. I do not know whether this solves the hon. member’s problems.

Dealing with the same clause 17 (b), the Minister mentioned local authorities and the S.A.B.C., but will the local authority be able to nominate individuals to do the collection?

No. The local authority will have to do this, as a body established by law. They cannot appoint someone else.

The local authority as such will then be responsible and not individuals?

Correct.

Clause 13 also mentions that the right of issuing licences and of collecting fees may also go to any other body established by or under any law. I should like to know what the hon. the Minister envisages with this. I can understand that if one asks a local authority, such as the municipality of Cape Town, or Johannesburg, or Bloemfontein, to collect radio licence fees, they will be able to collect such fees on a monthly or quarterly basis, and place the monies on the account. But there are many other bodies established by law which may or may not fall under this. I have in mind the authority in an area such as Soweto, for example, or an authority in the Transkei. In other words, the Minister may also authorize other departments to collect licence fees, and then they, too, receive the special concession in connection therewith.

Yes.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 14:

Here I have only one question in connection with the determination of affinity. The clause provides that the Minister will have the right to say what the affinity of persons is to be to the head of a household. The head of the household will receive a licence and the other members of the household will then receive their radio licences free of charge. They need not be related either; it may only be an affinity or a connection, one might say, between a specific person and the head of the household himself. Is it the intention, when one has a servant, for example, who possesses a transistor radio, that that servant, may also receive the licence free of charge, of course, while that servant is in the service of the head of the household?

I would think Bantu are not in the same relationship there as Whites.

But I have to bring it to the attention of the Minister all the same that such a radio licence costs R5.50 per year, and this is a large amount for a servant. I do not think it would be unreasonable to ask that where such cases occur, at least one radio of that nature should fall under the licence of the head of the household.

I foresee difficulties as there sometimes is a large turn-over of servants.

Clause put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported without amendment.

When the debate was adjourned on Wednesday night, I was discussing the expropriation of land under the old Act and the unnecessary expense incurred with the expropriation of developed land on prospective sites for dams. This provision in clause 3 states that when it is in the public interest no development may take place in a defined area once this area has been declared a dam basin controlled area. If the owner of any land is likely to suffer any damage as the result of such an area being declared a dam basin controlled area, he shall be entitled to compensation by the State, and I emphasize the word “shall”. This is a very good clause indeed, and I believe, too, that it will cover all concerned, especially the public. Clause 12 is another important clause in the Bill. It brings about the application of the legislation to South West Africa. Now, South West Africa is very much the same as South Africa when it comes to rainfall. In fact, where we have a low average rainfall in South Africa, in South West Africa, the position is even worse, so much so that even to-day, before the introduction of this Bill, we find that no one, not even the owner of agricultural land, may erect even the smallest dam without the permission of the South West Africa Water Board. So we see that the people in South West Africa have, over the years appreciated these difficulties, and because of the very low average rainfall in South West Africa they have been getting their Water Act in line with South Africa’s, with a view, of course, to South Africa enforcing this Bill in South West as well.

When it comes to irrigation boards, the Minister mentioned in his Second Reading speech that the provisions give him the power to change the composition of irrigation boards where these boards fail to carry out their duties, and I think that this is a very good idea, and here the Minister will have our wholehearted support as well, particularly in areas which are suffering from severe drought. We know that lack of control or bad control of our waters can lead to a crisis in times of drought, leading us to pandemonium and even chaos. I think it is an excellent idea that where the Minister finds that a water board is not carrying out its duties, he should be able to dismiss at least half the members of the board and re-appoint other people who are capable of performing this important work more thoroughly.

Arising out of what has been said by previous speakers I should merely like to emphasize a few points in connection with this Bill, by way of elucidating important changes and objects resulting from this legislation. When a certain foreign visitor recently travelled fairly extensively through this country, he was asked what he considered to be South Africa’s most urgent problem, and his reply, consisting of one word, was “Water”. That person was impressed by the vastness of our country and its conspicuous lack of extensive water supplies, particularly in the light of the present tempo of development in the Republic. I think that we can emphasize the fact that we all realize that if we want to take into account this present development in the Republic, particularly in the field of industry, and the rate of growth of our population, it is one of the most important matters which we must make allowances for and to which urgent attention must be given. The hon. the Minister and his Department were specifically giving attention to this matter in order to consider how the water potential of South Africa could best be conserved and utilized in the future, and that is why this legislation is before us to-day. I want to state that this piece of legislation should actually lay a legislative foundation for the Government, and for the Department in particular, as the executive organ, in respect of far-sighted future planning of our water resources, so as to be able to utilize them to the best of our ability, as economically and thriftily as possible, and to let them last as long as possible. In the future tremendously heavy demands will definitely still be made on our water resources, and therefore it is so important for us to answer the questions about how much water there is available; what the demand will be in 10, 20 or 30 years’ time; and how and where that water can be stored and preserved. These are urgent questions and some of the most important clauses in this Bill specifically have them in view. We are convinced that if this is not done, if provision is not made, if there is not adequate planning, if certain areas are not preserved as potential dam basin areas, we run a great risk of not having those potential dam basins available in the future because they have been taken over for other purposes, and if they must then be obtained it would cost us a tremendous amount of money. Therefore I want to commend this legislation to this House as being specifically necessary for planning, with a view to our water supplies and their future utilization. In saying this we merely want to illustrate that these are not insubstantial ideas. A few years ago the national road to Namaqualand and South West Africa was opened in the Olifants River region, and for years there has been agitation for the Clanwilliam dam wall to be raised by at least twenty feet. But despite those ideas, which were already in existence, and in spite of the possibilities at hand, that national road was built, and at the moment the State is making funds available, and there is work in progress, to raise the level of that road at a few points in that dam’s catchment area so that it can reach that dam’s high water mark. This merely goes to illustrate that since our country is developing tremendously in respect of its road construction programme, its railways and its urban planning, and there is a great diversity of works on all levels, we must watch this type of thing, and we must try to prevent the construction of an expensive national road on a terrain which is going to be needed within a few years for water conservation. In the Boland, in the Breede River catchment area, there is another terrain which has been investigated as a dam terrain. It is necessary for a road and a rail deviation to be constructed there, at considerable cost. I am merely mentioning this so that hon. members may realize that here we are dealing with a very real issue in the light of the development of the Republic which we all welcome. We are grateful for this development, and we look forward to it being even greater in the future. We hope that there will be planning over a wide field and that the Department will not be handicapped in carrying out its planning of the utilization of our water resources, which constitute such an essential, such a key factor. On the contrary, they must have the necessary encouragement and the necessary legal powers to do so. The Select Committee was of the opinion that where reservation is applied it could possibly encroach upon farming activities over a long period. It was therefore decided to exclude these standard agricultural activities because they could possibly result in serious problems in certain areas. As a result compensation will eventually not have to be so high either.

There is another point which I should like to emphasize. I do not want to be unnecessarily long-winded, but I merely want to say something about the increasing of subsidies in respect of the utilization of water supplies by the farmers, individually or jointly. I merely want to point out that it is a very welcome increase for which provision is being made in this Bill. The subsidy of R1,000 is being increased to R3,000. Where farmers are tackling a particular project jointly, they will receive R3,000 per person. I think that this is a very great concession to our farming community. It is frequently necessary for people to stand together. In the light of today’s const structure a great deal of money must often be spent in order to undertake such a scheme. It was felt amongst our farmers that the subsidy of one-third should be increased to at least 50 per cent. Although this is not possible, we are grateful for this increase which should prove a very strong incentive, to the individual farmer in particular.

In addition, I want to emphasize that the existing Act makes provision for a subsidy for the utilization of water for land irrigation purposes. It has now been changed in this Act to utilization for agricultural purposes. In other words, we are here dealing with an extension of the framework of this clause. Previously specific provision was made for land irrigation only. Here we have changed the provision by now making it applicable to the provision of water for agricultural purposes. I want to welcome and to commend this change heartily because there are large parts of our country which are within a reasonable distance of available water resources, where farmers have been drilling for water for years with their own funds, but also with the help of the State. One can almost say that they have achieved disconcerting results. One farmer told me that a year ago he had spent R8,000 on providing water and that he did not have water for his livestock, nor proper drinking water, for that matter, on his farm. The purpose here is also to apply these subsidies on another level as well. Where a farmer has to lay down a pipeline, even for the purposes of watering his livestock, or for domestic use, he should be granted assistance. Over the years one sometimes finds that drilling operations in a particular area meet with no success. This costs the State a tremendous amount of money. It costs the farmers themselves a tremendous amount. Such areas are now also being included in this subsidy scheme of the Department. When I think of the Western Cape, I can point out that we have good water resources in the mountains and the catchment areas, but frequently one finds that 10 or 15 miles distant there are areas which receive a mere two or three inches of rain per year. It is absolutely essential to have this extension of the framework of the Water Act, especially in the Western Cape area where the underground water is brackish and unfit for animals. I want to welcome this most heartily. I want to tell the Minister and the Department that the farming community will be sincerely appreciative of this and that we are hereby making a long-term provision which will eventually also save the State a great deal of expense. Savings will be made in respect of costs for drilling subsidies, etc. Drilling operations have in the past, frequently been carried out at tremendous losses and with very little success. I am convinced that with this legislation we are taking a step forward, that we are streamlining our Water Act and that, under the guidance of the hon. the Minister and his Department, we shall make very good progress in respect of water conservation and utilization in the Republic.

Mr. Speaker, this Bill has come as an agreed measure from the Select Committee. The various clauses have been fully dealt with by speakers on both sides, namely the hon. the Minister, the hon. member for Potchefstroom and the hon. member who has just resumed his seat, and also on our side by the hon. member for South Coast and the hon. member for East London (North). Therefore, not wanting to hold up the House, I wish to confine my remarks merely to one clause of the Bill, namely clause 11. This clause was touched upon by the hon. member who has just resumed his seat, during the second portion of his speech. This clause relates to the increase in subsidies from R1,000 to R3,000 per owner, when various owners jointly undertake an irrigation scheme, or a pipeline, as the hon. member has mentioned. Naturally we are very happy about this. The hon. the Minister said that this was partly due to the fact that the value of money had depreciated and that this change would bring the position more into line with present-day circumstances. But, Sir, this is a most important clause because there are quite a number of our rivers which do not really have suitable sites for large dams to be built by the department itself. On such rivers, these dams built by owners with riparian rights, can perform a very useful function indeed. Even on those rivers where there are sites for the big Government dams of the future, this may not be something which the department itself may be able to tackle in the immediate future or even in the near future. After all, the department has its difficulties, and I do not think that the hon. the Minister will quarrel with me when I say that his department has perhaps suffered to some extent from indigestion over the last few years, because quite a few of the works which have been planned could not be carried out quite as rapidly as the department may have wished to do. This may in some instances, possibly be due to a shortage of staff, and also perhaps to financial circumstances where, due to financial policy to combat inflation, certain works were put into cold storage for a while. The Van der Kloof Dam is one such example. Similar circumstances may well arise in the future.

Sir, I have said that these works which can be undertaken by private individuals are of very great importance, but I wonder whether the day is not approaching when the basis of subsidies may have to be changed. This method ties the subsidy to the owner and not to the farm. When we had a fairly stable number of farmers in the country this was a perfectly reasonable basis, but we all know the process which is taking place throughout our country. Farmers are buying up their neighbour’s ground, and so the number of owners is diminishing. I should like to quote from official sources to illustrate this point. According to the economic development programme for 1966-71 released by the Department of Planning, the number of Whites employed in agriculture in 1965 was 109.6 thousand, whereas in 1971 it is anticipated that there will only be 96.2 thousand. In the Afrikaans equivalent of this publication, namely the Ekonomiese Ontwikkelingsprogram vir 1968-73, it is stated:

So you see, Mr. Speaker, the Government’s own economic planners expect this process to continue. If it does continue, it will, as at present, take place, not only in the extensive areas, but also along our river valleys, where these private schemes undertaken by various owners are liable to be erected, Naturally, the more farms that are bought out by one owner, the more difficult it is for the remaining owners to undertake such a scheme, because automatically the size of the total subsidy available is cut down, because it is limited to R3,000 per owner. I mention this because I think it may become an actual problem in the future. I hope that the hon. the Minister is aware of it and that he would, perhaps, give attention to it at some stage. At this stage I ask him to do no more than think about perhaps changing the basis of subsidy from one of a subsidy per owner to one of a subsidy per unit or per farm.

Mr. Speaker, we were in full agreement on this Bill according to the speeches made yesterday. As for the Select Committee, I have a feeling that, seen against the history of our water legislation of the past, we will in future always be able to be in agreement on such matters as have been before the House.

The hon. member for South Coast was concerned about the position of the farmers in regards to the subsidies which will be available in future. I am in agreement with the hon. member and I know that it is of great importance to our farming community that everybody should know what the Government will be able and be prepared to do in regard to this matter. We are prepared to spend money on the better distribution of water. I am sure that organized agriculture will take note of it. I am sure after to-day it will not be necessary to draw the attention of the farming community to this matter, because periodicals and newspapers will be “on the ball” with the news. I think, if there should be any necessity for giving more publicity, it will in due course be done. I wish to thank the hon. member for the way in which he has dealt with all the matters before the house. He has dealt with all the different clauses of this Bill. I wish to express my gratitude to the hon. member for the way in which he has dealt with them and for the way in which he has always been prepared to consider matters of this kind with the necessary objectiveness. I know the hon. member for South Coast has been a member of this House for many years. I also know that he has since the initial stages of the water legislation in 1956 taken a very important and interesting part in all the debates that have taken place in this House.

*Mr. Speaker, I also want to express my gratitude to hon. members on this side of the House who took part in this debate. I want to draw attention to one very interesting point in particular which was made by the hon. member for Potchefstroom, namely that when we are dealing with matters concerning water in South Africa, it is an important matter for the whole country. When we find it necessary in the interests of the country and of all concerned to intervene and bring about better control, the public should not regard such action as a punitive measure. When we impose some restriction or other people are apt to come to the conclusion that we do so simply to restrict them unnecessarily. If all of us adopt the right attitude that water is such an important thing in our lives, we shall realize that when control is exercised over water, it is not being exercised for the purpose of restricting somebody, but to ensure that water is available in the distant future to as many people as possible. I hope this will be the spirit in which this legislation is accepted.

I want to thank hon. members who have done their share to facilitate the course of the discussions of this Bill for their contributions; I also want to thank the hon. member for Piketberg, who said that it has become necessary that we in South Africa should make it easier for our people to protect and supplement water on their own farms, and that the contribution which is being made here, is one which will, indeed, have far-reaching effects for us.

Sir, I hope that we shall always adopt the right attitude in future when it comes to matters concerning water. As the hon. member for South Coast has said here, it might be necessary for us to come back to this matter on a subsequent occasion to ask for further control measures. If we were to do so, it would only be in the interests of the country.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Committee Stage taken without debate.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

When the White Paper, W.P. X—’62, on the Orange River Development Project was laid upon the Table during 1962, it was realized that legislation in regard to this project would subsequently be necessary. Mention was also made of this in the White Paper. Owing to the progress which has been made with the construction of the H. F. Verwoerd dam and the Orange-Fish tunnel, the time has now come to submit this legislation to the House and to place it on the Statute Book. The Bill now before the House is in fact the legislation which was envisaged at the time, and I shall now deal with the most important principles of this Bill.

Upon completion of the works concerned, when water from the Orange River will be delivered into the upper reaches of the Fish River, and also into the Sundays River, several problems will arise which are not covered by present legislation and which will have to be solved. Intermittent rivers will be changed into permanent streams. As a result of this problems could arise, and legislation could eliminate these problems. Some of the problems are for example:

1. 1. The use of water from one catchment area in another catchment area;
2. 2. The question of the right of the State to effect a change in the flow systems of rivers; and
3. 3. The use of surplus water in terms of the Water Act, etc.

Actually, there are four major principles which are contained in this Bill. The first is that the Government is granted the right to use public streams, private streams or natural channels with which to convey water from the Orange River for use for agricultural, urban and industrial purposes. Where the State wants to store or convey water the State normally, where necessary, obtains a servitude of storage, aqueduct or abutment, or all three together. Now the right will be acquired through legislation, to convey water from the Orange River in the rivers concerned and to distribute it among those who are entitled to it, as well as among those to whom the State wants to supply water.

It is also necessary to convert certain rights which riparian owners in the so-called “protected areas” have into other rights which they will obtain by virtue of this legislation. Protected areas are areas which date from before 1912. It will be necessary for me to elaborate a little on this aspect. In terms of the repealed sections 15 and 16 of the Irrigation and Conservation of Waters Act of 1912, owners could receive protection in respect of existing works upon application to the water court, and similarly those whom they had to notify could at the same time receive protection from the court in respect of works which they intended constructing. After consideration the court then issued an instruction in terms of which the owners concerned received protection for their works, but only in respect of surplus water. In reality therefore it amounted to a distribution of surplus water. As long ago as the thirties it was realized that this was an impossible task for any court or person to undertake. In respect of normal flow it is possible to undertake a distribution, but not in respect of surplus water, for obvious reasons.

At the same time however section 19 of Act No. 46 of 1934 provided that notwithstanding any protected works or any protection granted by the court, any owner of riparian works may construct works for the storage of surplus water to a maximum of 25,000,000 gallons, as well as diversion works capable of diverting 10 cusecs of water.

Similar provisions are contained in the Water Act of 1956, but it will be clear that rights in respect of surplus water which can only be utilized periodically do not have the same value as rights in respect of the use of an assured flow of water. For this reason it is essential to provide that those who are for example entitled in terms of section 16 of the Water Act to divert 10 cusecs of surplus water when the surplus water is there, will not have the same rights in respect of water from the Orange River which will be an assured supply of water.

These rights in respect of the so-called “protected areas” will therefore lapse, and in their place the said owners will be granted rights in respect of an assured supply of water from the Orange River, as determined in the Bill. I shall explain later how these rights will be determined in terms of the Bill.

Thirdly, there is the problem of possible damage which can be caused as a result of the use of the Fish and Sundays Rivers in order to supply the valleys in question with water from the Orange River. It will of course be clear that expensive water is in these cases being supplied to the valleys, and that the flow systems of the rivers will have to be changed, and that the possibility exists that there will be a degree of disruption as far as crossings, the possible care of river banks, etc. are concerned. In terms of common law the Government, where it may act in terms of statutory powers, is normally not responsible for damages, unless it can be proved that it was negligent. However, I just want to add here that there may in fact be cases where great damage is done, and in this event every case will be considered on its merits with a view to ex gratia compensation to the person or body concerned. This is an assurance which, I think, will satisfy everybody. Timeous steps are being taken to have aerial photographs and surveys made of the present position so that it will be easy to determine the damage if such damage should at a later stage be caused.

It cannot be expected of the State to pay compensation where it has taken steps to improve the present canal systems and to use them for the distribution of water from the Orange River to persons who were previously entitled only to water from one or other of the rivers concerned. Expensive water is being supplied, and if the present canal systems are used or have to be used for the distribution of the water among riparian owners, and such canal systems have to be improved, the State cannot, apart from all these costs, also pay compensation to the owners concerned for the use of the canals. I should like to mention this because I think that some people are really going too far in their claims against the State. There are similar provisions in the Mooi River District Adjustment Act, Act No. 37 of 1954.

I come now to the fourth, and in so far as it is of significance to the riparian owners concerned and their rights, the most important principle included in this legislation, viz. the determination of the rights of owners and consumers in the valleys as soon as water from the Orange River is made available to them or in the rivers concerned. In the first instance it was decided, in respect of those who formerly pumped out or diverted surplus water, seepage or flood water, for example those who were entitled to divert 10 cusecs in the protected areas, and who did not appear on a list of rateable areas of some or other of the larger or smaller boards, to determine their rights with due regard to the areas which were under irrigation in the year before the Act was applied to the area concerned.

With the determination of the said areas the availability and the assured supply of the water they previously had will be taken into consideration. So, for example, where a person could irrigate a hundred morgen with surplus water once in every ten years, such a person cannot expect to receive an assured supply of water from the Orange River for a hundred morgen each year. His former rights will be evaluated with due regard to the fact that he will now be receiving an assured supply of water. I think that that is no more than fair.

As regards those who were scheduled under Grasrug, Lake Arthur and subsequently the Commando Drift dams, and the same applies to the Sundays River—and in respect of those scheduled for water from the Mentz dam, the schedules of rateable areas will be regarded as the rights of the said persons in respect of water from the rivers. In other words, these are the existing rights on which tax was paid in the past, and which will therefore now be assured. The owners concerned have been scheduled all these years and have paid tax on their scheduled areas. Owing to soil conservation works in the catchment control area, silting up, and other factors, they have over the years not received an adequate quota. It can be said that they, with few or no exceptions, never received an adequate quota for the irrigation of their scheduled areas. Nevertheless they irrigated, to a greater or lesser degree, the area concerned with stored water, with seepage or with flood water, and these were their rights and they pay tax in respect of the scheduled areas. These scheduled areas are being recognized in the Bill as existing rights, and they will be scheduled for this provided, however, that if there is an error in any list of rateable areas, for example where a man was scheduled for more land than the total surface area of his property, such areas will of course have to be rectified.

The Minister of Water Affairs will, as in the case of all other areas, determine the quota in consultation with the Department of Agricultural Technical Services in respect of the said areas which will receive water. These quotas will not necessarily be the same from the upper reaches to the lower reaches of the river, but in certain demarcated areas the quotas will be uniform and will apply to all riparian owners. I cannot at this juncture say what these quotas will be. These quotas, will, as I have said, be determined in consultation with other departments, with due regard for the climatic conditions, the crops which are being produced, and other factors. However, the intention will be to do this as fairly and reasonably as possible, with due regard for all the factors which prevailed in the past.

There are a few other less important principles which are included in this Bill, such as the question of the repeal of the existing hybrid Acts which apply to the areas concerned; that the irrigation boards of the areas will in future act in terms of the Water Act and the special provisions of this Act; the question of appeal; the question of the protection of certain special agreements or transactions negotiated in terms of the laws which are being repealled. However, it is not necessary to go into these lesser important principles. These are principles of a more consequential nature. In my opinion the principles which have now been dealt with are the main principles. These were also regarded by the Select Committee as being the most important principles.

This Bill was regarded as being so important that, also as a result of representations, it was decided to refer it to a Select Committee for consideration. The Select Committee gave this Bill very thorough consideration. Those concerned were afforded an opportunity of giving evidence before the Committee, which was in fact done, as well as holding discussions with officials of the Department. As a result of this the Select Committee, after a number of meetings, unanimously agreed on this Bill, with certain amendments which were made, amendments which in no way affected the principles of the Bill but which did in fact state these principles more clearly. I want to express my gratitude to the Select Committee for their study and thorough consideration of the Bill.

This Bill in its present form is, after discussions with all the parties concerned, acceptable to those who will be affected by the Orange River Project and the Bill, and as far as can be ascertained, everyone is satisfied with it. It is hoped that the project and this Bill will be of great benefit to the valleys concerned and will lead to the future prosperity of the riparian owners.

There is just one thing I want to add, and that has a bearing on the rights of municipalities. Evidence was also given before the Select Committee in regard to the existing rights of certain municipalities and on the question of what their rights will be under the new dispensation. I want to give the assurance that not only are the existing rights of the municipalities concerned in respect of the use of water being protected, but if they produce evidence to the effect that they need more water in future, more water for use and beneficial utilization will be supplied to them. After all, the Department of Water Affairs is there to provide this water where it is required in the interests of South Africa. I am also pleased that we were able to state it so specifically. There was concern among many of the municipalities as to whether it would be possible to make sufficient water for their requirements available in time. That is why it is essential that it was stated beyond any doubt on this occasion that this will in fact be the case. It is an essential function of the Department and also its duty to supply water to such bodies. Water for domestic purposes is primary use and is always given preference.

Mr. Speaker, this Bill again, as the hon. the Minister has said, has been referred to a Select Committee which has been appointed before the Second Reading. It is again part of a pattern which I hope Parliament will be able to follow in regard to legislation of this kind, i.e. dealing with our water supplies in South Africa. This is probably the most important element in the whole of the country and I think this procedure augers well for the future. The Minister has been prepared to send a Bill, like this, as he did with the one we dealt with earlier on this afternoon, the Water Amendment Bill, to a Select Committee before the Second Reading. There we can get round the table in a manner which is not possible in the Second Reading debate, because of the ordinary normal rules of debate. The rules permit a full debate, I am not suggesting otherwise, but there are naturally certain limitations to debate in the House which is not the case when we deal with a matter in a Select Committee. In the Select Committee you can get the officials before you and you can go right into the inner meaning of the Bill. That has now been the case with several Bills of this kind. The matter we are dealing with under this Bill has nothing to do with the Minister’s Vote, and I want to make it quite clear, seeing that one or two members have asked me what we were going to do on the Minister’s Vote. We are not dealing with the Minister’s Vote; when the Minister’s Vote comes on, the administration of the Department will be under consideration. Under the Minister’s Vote, the hon. members will have the opportunity—and no doubt will take the opportunity—of expressing their opinions in regard to various matters associated with the administration of the Department. This is a Bill which was referred to a Select Committee and thoroughly discussed and debated by the Select Committee. Here again I should like to pay tribute to the patience of the chairman who was very kind to us and who stretched the rules on occasions so that we might get to the heart of some of the points which were being debated and which resulted in a great success.

[Inaudible.]

Well, Mr. Speaker, my hon. Leader put me in a difficulty here, because we are used to your approval of the position where we stray from the straight and narrow path; perhaps the Chairman was merely following your very good example when he allowed us a little latitude as you do from time to time. But may I say that is not contained in this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, the Chairman was very patient and it did pay dividends, but we also had the staff. Here again I want to pay tribute to the hon. the Minister’s Department. They did not only help us in the Select Committee, but they dealt with people who appeared before the Select Committee to give evidence. They saved us a tremendous amount of time by meeting the good folk and hearing their complaints. Where it was merely a matter of explaining the provisions of this Bill, which were not always understood, and it could not be otherwise when farmers from the backveld—of whom I am one—come along, because we do not understand legal terminology and the legal wording of the Bill, the Department saved us a great amount of time by explaining matters. It helped us a lot; we also took evidence from the witnesses concerned and they appeared to be satisfied. While it is not part of the Bill, some of the assurances that were given by officials and by the legal adviser were recorded and printed in the evidence according to the resolution of Parliament. Therefore, it stands there for what it is worth. It is precisely the same as a speech by the hon. the Minister. What the Minister has said this afternoon, is not in the Bill and there is no law to carry out what the Minister has said. He was telling us what is in the Bill as he understands it, and so similarly the assurances which were given by the officials in regard to a very intricate matter with many facets, were recorded, printed and form part of the record.

Now, what was the big trouble in this particular matter? Firstly, we had to find, if we could, the ambit of the whole of the project. We had to find out where the borders, and the first Bill which was referred to the Select Committee, was unsure because it had a provision allowing the State President, from time to time hereafter, to proclaim for the purpose of the project, and therefore the purpose of the Act to be passed by Parliament, certain areas where there were controlled areas. By proclamation they could be brought within the ambit of the Act. The Select Committee did not like that because we advertised for objections and for people who wanted to express their views. I am not quarelling with the decisions which you, Mr. Speaker, make, but I may say that this Bill was very nearly a hybrid Bill because of the number of private interests involved in it. It might well have made the stoutest hearts of the Department’s officials quail when they looked at what they had to grapple with when they were bringing a Bill before Parliament which they hoped to put into law within a year or two, never mind, within the course of one particular Session. I want to indicate the rights of people, not the people who were affected by the Orange River project as it was originally defined, which allowed for extensions from time to time by proclamations by the State President, but as it was finally narrowed down. If hon. members look at the title, they will find that it has changed from that of the original Bill. In dealing with these problems, here were the people who had rights: I refer only to the water from the tunnel, coming from the Hendrik Verwoerd Dam through the tunnel and I am ignoring all the other areas which were initially included in the project; I am dealing merely with that water delivered into the Theebus Spruit and then down through the Brak River. The rights were as follows: There were private persons who had constructed irrigation works prior to the construction of the Grassridge and Lake Arthur Dams. Their rights are recognized in the 1956 Act, i.e. the main Act. Their rights were recognized and therefore were in existence.

There were private persons who had water rights under the old Irrigation Act of 1912. Those rights were recognized by the Minister and are at present in existence.

Certain owners obtained permits from the board to use water on unscheduled land as provided for by Section 10 (6) (a) (i). Certain owners obtained permits from the board to use water for domestic and industrial purposes.

In addition to water which certain irrigation boards along the Tarka River received from Commandodrift and Lake Arthur, they received an extra supply due to the loss of flood waters which amounts to about 50 per cent of their entitlement to conserved water.

The Scanlen Irrigation Board had the benefit of a differential rating for conserved water, which right is derived from a 1926 notarial agreement. Certain owners situated above the dam were in a protected area and enjoyed certain legal rights and privileges. There were a number of private owners along the upper Great Fish River who had private works abstracting water for unscheduled land which lies outside the board’s district. Examples were given of such cases.

The board has given certain persons pumping rights. These persons are situated below the lowest diversion works and accordingly their pumping cannot affect the distribution of the board. There are also owners situated along the tributaries of the Great Fish River and the Tarka River whose works are outside the board’s districts, but who appropriate the water abstracted by their works on to scheduled land. All these people had to be considered. This is what the officials, and subsequently the Select Committee, had to face upto. The Department adopted the method of wiping out all these rights by means of a clause in the Bill which will extinguish all these rights and starting on a clear slate. They put in a provision which will reinstate all those rights in terms of permits or scheduled land as provided for in section 62 or 63 of the Water Act. We shall now wipe out and then reinstate so that no one will suffer. This then was the point, because if anybody felt aggrieved or did not understand the position, we felt they should appear before the Select Committee so that we would be given the opportunity of hearing what they had to say. That is where the officials helped us considerably. They were able to take a large number of these good folk and explain to them in simple language precisely what was contemplated, and to meet their fears and their difficulties.

Then there was another class of persons. We also had a map before us. Now, if nature is allowed to take its course, apart from the time when you may get a heavy downfall of rain, the dams are dry or virtually dry, and there is little normal flow water running down the Theebus Spruit, the Great Brak or Fish River. There are about 12 farmers whose farms are bisected by these rivers, particularly in the Theebus Spruit area, who have built weirs across the rivers. Something like 12 weirs have been built across the rivers for the purpose of access from the one side to the other, because the farmers’ farms are on both sides of the river. That was about to be changed. A permanent flow of water which will supply everybody below the tunnel was now to run down the river so that weirs which were constructed to deal with the possible flash flood now and again and could stand up to that, were possibly unable to stand up to a permanent flow of water to the magnitude which is necessary to supply all the people who have enjoyed water rights. I may say that as far as the people who were enjoying the rights which have just been enunciated, are concerned, I think that this is manna from heaven; it is an absolute God-send to them. We do not know what a permanent supply of water is. I do not think it can have the ordinary meaning, but whatever it may be, it simply means something very much more than the hit-and-miss method which they have had in the past years when the rain did not come and the irrigation dams dried up. It was of no use for a man to have scheduled land of 50, 100, 200 or 400 morgen when he did not have water. Because the land was scheduled there, it did not help him; what he needed was water. As the hon. the Minister said just now, these people are being protected to the extent that they will now get a fair allocation of water in common with all those others who have rights to water, because their existing rights are being extinguished and new rights are being substituted which will give them a constant, assured supply of water on to their land. It will naturally be determined what amount of water per morgen they shall get; that is quite understood. There is not a limitless flow for anybody who in future may demand some outrageous amount of water for his land. But a plan will be worked out; a standard will be fixed, and on that basis an allocation will then be made so that it is fair to one and all. They all get their water but now, as far as we are able to judge, they get a permanent supply, a reliable supply, and, Sir, what that means to irrigation farmers you will know very well indeed. This is a transition from continual drought-stricken conditions to a position where a farmer can plant his crops, secure in the knowledge that at the appropriate time he is going to get water for irrigation purposes.

Mr. Speaker, we had another difficulty here. With all these rights we realized that if we were not very careful on the Select Committee we could bring forward a Bill which was going to leave sufficient doubt and uncertainty in the Bill that it would lead to law cases. I want to say at once that this was a matter which occasioned us very deep concern. We gave this matter very deep thought indeed. We do not want law cases and we as a Select Committee did not want to bring back to the Minister a Bill which was so uncertain that it could give rise to big law cases, quite apart from the difficulty of the Department or of an irrigator, a user of water, who wants to know precisely where he stands. We did not want to have such uncertainty anywhere that it would give rise to big law suits, particularly as we had provided something here which was not in the original Bill, and that is the right of recourse to the Water Court in certain cases. I repeat that we do not want to bring legislation to Parliament which, when it is on the Statute Book, is so uncertain that it can give rise to big law suits. We would far sooner have the rights of everybody concerned stated clearly; and here again we have had to give the Minister, as we did in the last Bill, very wide-ranging rights, and we did it for the same reason as we did so in the last Bill. Somebody has to take the responsibility, Sir. In the water supplies for South Africa, we have to have somebody taking the responsibility and the Minister will have to take that responsibility on his shoulders; he will have to see that his Department functions effectively and efficiently, because it is a barrier, a buffer, between him and the public. Sir, we have given him powers and we are prepared to give him powers which will enable him to deal fairly with the users of water in whatever areas in which they may be.

Sir, that brings me back for a moment to the position of the first Bill as it came to us, because it covered a much wider area than the Bill which we now have before us. Here we have a limited area, but we were in this difficulty with the first Bill that if we were to deal with the water of the Orange River, where did it end? We tried to follow it to see where the Orange River project could go if and when the Van der Kloof Dam is built, if and when the Torquay dam is built, if and when other water works are carried out and when controlled areas are brought within the ambit of the scheme by proclamation by the President. But, Sir, how far could we go back? It was well enough to follow the Orange River water when it had passed the Hendrik Verwoerd Dam, but how far back did it go? It was Orange River water. Did it go back into the Oxbow scheme in Basutoland? That is Orange River water. How far were we to go back? We could not go into a foreign country. But, Mr. Speaker, as you probably know, steps are afoot to take water from the Tugela and to pump it into the Vaal or into the Orange River. One of our principles on this side of the House is that we shall develop our own water resources and that we shall have a water grid. I am very pleased to see now that very eminent authorities are starting to talk about the use of a water grid. Those are principles that we laid down four years ago. Sir, a water grid could take water from Natal and put it into the Orange. Is that Orange River water, Sir? Was the scheme to go that far? No, Sir, this was becoming entirely too fanciful altogether. This Bill which is before us now deals with an area which is specified and hereafter further Bills will have to be introduced into Parliament to deal with other developments which may take place. This Bill deals with water that goes through the tunnel from the Hendrik Verwoerd Dam into the Theebus Spruit, and water down the Orange for other purposes and into other areas, so far as I can see, because of the multitude of problems that have to be faced, will require further Bills hereafter when the money is available and the professional and technical staff is available. That will have to be dealt with piecemeal because, Sir, it is a great concept; it is a majestic concept and it is a concept which strikes at the very basis of the development of our country and we do not know where that goes. The Minister will from time to time have to use his powers if, for example, oil was discovered in a particular spot which lacked an adequate water supply, or if a huge industrial area were suddenly to spring up at a great growth point. Sir, this is happening in South Africa to-day; it is happening at Richard’s Bay and water has to be found because the local rivers are quite unable to cope with the situation. The Orange River is our big, main water supply and if development takes place anywhere in an area which is served by the Orange River, then water will have to be found and it may have to be found in vast quantities, so we are only at the beginning. We stand here to-day in this House legislating in regard to this particular project, which is not the Orange River project; it is a beginning, a portion of the Orange River project, and hereafter others will come after us and they will deal with the question of the handling, the conservation and the distribution of the Orange River water. But, Sir, at this moment we, the members of the Select Committee, say that we have done our best; we have come with a Bill which we believe will meet the necessities of the case, which is fair to the water users of the Orange, which is fair to the Department and the Minister and which is fair to industrial development, municipal development as well as the development of irrigators and other farmers who are users of water. All of them, Sir, have been properly catered for here, and I believe that they will find that provision has been made for a fair apportionment of the water which they may require, and if they can make a fair case to the Minister for more water, that extra water will be forthcoming from that very great supply that we have in the Hendrik Verwoerd Dam. We support the second reading.

We want to thank the Minister and also the hon. member for South Coast for their kind words on the work done by the Select Committee. I think we in this House must, with deep appreciation, take cognizance of the service we received from one or our officials, Mr. Potgieter, who at a youthful age met his end in such a tragic way immediately before one of the meetings of the Select Committee. Sir, we want to join the hon. the Minister and the hon. member for South Coast in expressing our sincere gratitude to the Department for the co-operation we had from them in this connection, which made it possible for us to produce this Bill, a Bill which is acceptable to all in the widest sense of the word. After the Second Reading speech by the hon. the Minister, and after the comprehensive survey by the hon. member for South Coast we want to be very brief, but we would just like, since the hon. member for South Coast also mentioned them, to emphasize three points in particular.

The first is that in the Bill as it was submitted to our scrutiny in the first instance, reference was made to an area which would be covered by the Orange River development project. Since this Orange River development scheme is a huge scheme, you can understand that as the Bill stood, it included an area which the Select Committee felt was far greater than the area with which we actually had to deal. This Orange River development project and the water from this project implicate water from the Caledon River and implicate the Lower Orange River, and it can also implicate the irrigation lands on the Orange Free State side and in the Cape Province, which are far removed from this area. Hence this amendment which we introduced. We are dealing here with an area which will receive water from the Orange River through the Orange Fish River tunnel, at present under construction, and that water will be delivered into the Theebus Spruit. There is no doubt whatsoever for which area this Bill makes provision, and if other Government water control areas should be declared, this decision will be taken by the State President, and then it will be necessary to introduce new legislation which will affect those areas.

In the second instance, and the hon. member for South Coast also referred to this, the question here was that with this vast development project, a new background was in fact being created in respect of the entire development of the Fish and Sundays River Valleys. In practice it now almost seems as if the people occupying those areas are in fact Orange River riparian owners as well. With this legislation we had to be careful to do nothing which could affect the rights of any person. In this connection we just want to say that we have succeeded in that, and we also have evidence to this effect, i.e. that all concerned are convinced that what is written into this legislation protects the rights of every individual and everybody to which this development scheme relates. We want to make this very clear, and we also want to state that it is with appreciation that we take cognizance of the fact that as far as we know all concerned are satisfied that these rights, to which the hon. member for South Coast also referred, are being protected in the Bill.

I want to conclude by referring to one difficult matter we came across in the execution of our duty. We want to refer to clauses 6 (3) and 7 (2) in the legislation as it stood. Those clauses provided that the State need pay no compensation in respect of steps taken by the Minister by virtue of the provisions of subsections (1) and (2). Here we felt that we had a position which would have made it a little difficult for people if they had found that real problems were being created for them in respect of the execution of their duties after this scheme had come into operation. We felt very strongly about this. We felt that these two clauses were a little drastic, and that what we were really doing here was perhaps to deprive people, under certain circumstances, of certain powers, particularly if one looked at the English text. While the Afrikaans text read “Die Minister hoef nie”, the English text read “The State shall not be liable”, and we were very worried about this. But we also want to make it clear that we were not only worried about the fact that we would have been making the position of the owners of scheduled land a burdensome one, but on the other hand also that if we went and tampered with this, a position would have arisen where people would come forward, in season and out of season, with trivial claims. We want to make this clear so that this hon. House will take cognizance of our concern in respect of this matter, but after mature consideration we eventually decided, as it now appears from this Bill, to delete these two clauses. This was consequently done because, after mature consideration, it became clear to us that we might as well do this because in respect of this matter no problems had cropped up in the past. But we also decided—and you will see it in the printed report; we want to say this here so that there can be no uncertainty in regard to this matter—that if we should ever find that the omission of these two clauses will result in people coming forward with trivial claims, and making the work of the Department difficult in this way (when viewed against the background of our manpower shortage and all this entails) then I do not think the Minister will hesitate in future to make an amendment in order to rectify this matter. I feel quite satisfied, and so does the Select Committee and the Department, that we have acted wisely in omitting these two clauses, but we want to state equally emphatically that if the Minister should ever deem it necessary, as a result of the misuse of this step which the Select Committee and the Department took, he should not hesitate to take further steps.

Because of the magnitude and importance of this legislation before the House, I must say I feel particularly privileged to have been able to serve on the Select Committee appointed to draw up this Bill. This scheme, the Orange-Fish-Sundays River Scheme, has always been a project which has been close to my heart personally, not only because I happen to know that area very well, but also because I happen to know many people who will be effected and benefit by this project. I am very pleased, too, that the Minister saw fit to refer such an important Bill to a Select Committee where, as you have heard, we were able to gather much needed and valuable evidence from local authorities and people directly concerned, and where we were able to discuss the matter in detail and bring legislation to this hon. House.

The application of the Bill effects the water to be diverted from the Hendrik Verwoerd Dam across the Orange River, through a subterranean waterway running from Venterstad to Theebus, and then down the Theebus Spruit into the large irrigation schemes. This Bill, of course, brings about the realization and the culmination of years and years of discussion and research and planning, and of course budgeting as well. I for one have always taken great interest in this project. Mr. Speaker, I believe we are making history here this afternoon, we are busy making history with one of the largest irrigation projects South Africa has ever known. It was mentioned earlier, by the hon. member for South Coast that water will now be brought to an area which has been suffering under prolonged drought. He mentioned, too, that because of this, large irrigation schemes and dams, such as Grassridge, Lake Arthur, Commandodrift, Vanrynevelds Pass Dam and Lake Mentz, have been empty, or partly empty, for many years due to droughts. While I do agree that it is partly due to droughts I think hon. members who know the area, will agree with me, too, that there is another reason why these dams have not been full for so long. It is because of the terrible erosion in this area, and large parts are still being eroded. But we have over the years been constructing large conservation works in that particular area. Those major soil conservation dams are conserving much of the water which used to flow down freely into irrigation dams below. Now I believe that this is a good thing. But where we have developed this area and conserved much of our soil by means of these works, we have not been able to “have our cake and eat it” at the same time. Hence, large irrigation schemes below these soil conservation dams have had to suffer.

I have always maintained that there is no substitute for water, and while I say this, I maintain too, that there is no estimating the value of water. While we are budgeting for a scheme like this, which may appear to be an expensive project, I do believe there is no estimating the value of this water. We simply have to have it, come what may, and almost regardless of what it may cost the State.

In order to divert this water, hon. members know that the Government is busy erecting the large Hendrik Verwoerd Dam below Venterstad. This dam was estimated to cost R30 million, but to-day we expect it to cost in the region of R70 million. When complete, it will form one of the largest inland lakes in the Southern Hemisphere. An area of more than 200 square miles will be covered by water. The water will be diverted from there to the Fish and Sundays Rivers’ valleys via the subterranean waterway of no less than 51½ miles long. It is estimated that this tunnel will cost R67 million, but I believe, knowing the area and the problems which are arising there, the tunnel is going to cost very much more than this, simply because where they are busy excavating the tunnel now, the formation is softer than was first expected. If it were hard, solid iron-stone granite, it would have been easier and cheaper to excavate. But because of the soft formation, a lot of rock and soil keeps falling in and this is holding up the work in the early stages of the tunnel. When the water flows from the tunnel into the Theebus Spruit, we will be able to increase the stream to about 37½ million gallons of water per hour, down the Theebus Spruit. The hon. member who resumed his seat just now, mentioned that the Theebus Spruit as such, was never intended by nature to cater for a permanent stream of water. This is where we have had problems arising from the evidence before the Select Committee. There are at least eleven landowners between the exit of the tunnel and Grassridge who feel they will have problems with the caving in or collapsing of the river banks. I am pleased to say that as far as this problem is concerned, I am not pessimistic at all. With the evidence we have gathered, and knowing the area. I believe we can overcome this problem, not by building a canal, which will cost many millions of rands, but by biological means, by planting reeds, (fluitjiesriet) in the existing weirs in the bed of the river. We will be able to overcome this danger and thus save our State many millions of rand in this cheap and simple way. In any case, knowing the area, a canal will never be suitable, because the soil is so porous and there is so much erosion taking place along the banks of the Theebus Spruit that it would be impossible, I believe, ever to consider building a canal to convey the water from the tunnel to Grassridge; it will have to take its natural course down the bed of this particular spruit, but this important work must be undertaken immediately.

As hon. members have heard, these eleven landowners have riparian rights, unlike those below the Grassridge Dam, who have servitudes Now we have overcome those problems as well, due to the able assistance and guidance of our officials. Of course, the project will even go further eventually, in that another tunnel will be excavated from the Theebus Spruit through the Wapads Mountains, into the Sundays River, taking the water into the Vanrynevelds Pass Dam, and further down the Sundays River into Lake Mentz. But even if it should take us years to complete the second phase of this scheme, water can still be taken into Lake Mentz, simply by means of a short canal from the lower regions of the Great Fish River into the Little Fish River, and another canal conveying it into Lake Mentz, as well. So, hon. members can see that we can kill two birds with one stone.

This is long-term planning, and the project has come at long last. Unfortunately, it was not undertaken years ago. Nevertheless, we are busy with the scheme now, and I do believe that, if we do not reap the fruits of it directly ourselves, future generations will be grateful to us, in that we undertook such an enormous project. We have been successful with an oil strike in the Port Elizabeth area, and some of this water will be needed for development in that area as well, where there will be a growth point. I must add, too, that I believe, with further development on this project, we could even divert water, if necessary, to the Border and the East London area for growth and development there.

I am very happy to be able to support this legislation, this Orange River-Sundays River irrigation scheme. I do believe it is going to be a wonderful project. It will be a boom to our country and particularly to agriculture and, of course, we will be able to produce power through hydro-electric schemes in the Hendrik Verwoerd Dam itself.

[Inaudible.]

I do not want to cross swords with the hon. the Deputy Minister at this stage. The atmosphere is not right for this, we have done so before— however, I have much pleasure in supporting those who have spoken on this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for East London (North) was quite right in stating that this was an historic occasion. But it is an historic occasion in more than one respect, because—I am subject to correction, but this is what I think— this is the first time that mention is made in legislation of the Orange River development project as such. This is a project which promises to affect and to change the entire socioeconomic set-up of a very large part of our country.

In the second instance this is an historic occasion for the inhabitants of the Fish River and Sundays River Valleys in particular, because this legislation now gives shape to the dreams and visions of many years. The hearts of those people are glad to-day as a result of what is being envisaged by this Bill.

The greatest part of this legislation applies to the Great Fish River Valley, which falls partly in my constituency and partly in the constituency of my hon. colleague, the Deputy Minister of Bantu Development. Irrigation in that valley was introduced many years before 1912. In that time many of the people constructed and administered their own water conservation works. But the struggle which has been waged in that valley has always been against the lack of an adequate supply of water and proper means of conservation. It is calculated that, during the past ten to fifteen years, the irrigation farmer has at best been able to irrigate only eight to ten inches per year per morgen and this happened only once during the past fifteen years. Hon. members will therefore agree that the storage of water for that area is of the utmost importance. Additionally we are dealing with an area which is regarded by experts to be some of the best irrigation land in the Republic of South Africa, the agricultural potential of which has never been fully utilized. This legislation is therefore ushering in a new era for those people. It supplies the stimulus for an area which is already viable, to develop to its full potential and strength. Of course, the State will also have to play its part here in determining the optimum water requirements per morgen of that land, but we have every confidence that the Minister will see to these aspects.

In addition we also want to thank the hon. the Minister of Agriculture, who has already undertaken to make attempts to place an official of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services at the disposal of the irrigation farmers, so that preparations can be made by way of experiment in order to determine which crops can successfully be cultivated in that valley when there is an adequate water supply.

On behalf of the irrigators of the Great Fish River Valley I also want to extend my sincere thanks to the Minister for having sent officials to this area before the introduction of this Bill in order to make themselves conversant with the provisions of this Bill.

If it is borne in mind that irrigation farming in this area has been applied since the previous century, it is understandable, as the hon. member for South Coast also remarked, that an enormous number of servitude rights have been established, some of which would have been purchased at very great expense. Others would have been acquired by court procedures. If it is also borne in mind that at present only the following categories of water are flowing in the Fish River, namely stored water from the Grasrug, the Lake Arthur and the Commando Drift dams, floodwaters and seepage from springs along the river course, then it is clear that the situation in this respect is as complex and complicated as one could possibly imagine. For these reasons it is understandable that with the new legislation, which is of a far-reaching nature, the irrigators of that area initially regarded it with minds filled with doubt, suspicion and a certain degree of concern. In a situation where people have for many years had to cope with an inadequate water supply, and the main source of water was from floodwaters as and when that became available, it is difficult to imagine yourself in a situation where it is being envisaged that you will now be provided with a permanent source which will meet all your needs. It is a strange phenomenon that throughout the entire length of the Fish River, from its origin in the Wapad mountain to where it flows into the sea, it has never been found possible to build one single irrigation works or storage dam of any size along its course. Even the Grasrug dam was constructed across the Brak River, which is a tributary of the Fish River and which is situated above the confluence of the Brak and the Fish Rivers.

Yet, thanks to the appointment of this Select Committee and the wholehearted and sympathetic co-operation which was received from the Department of Water Affairs, the irrigators began to become aware that they were entering a dispensation where they would have a constant, guaranteed supply of water available, in a volume which was two to three times as great as that to which they were accustomed during the past fifteen to twenty years, even under the most favourable circumstances. In this connection I should just like to mention the name of one official of the Department, namely Mr. Dowling, because I think that he was of inestimable value to us.

To support these statements I need only mention that the supply position of the three dams at present serving the area is as follows, and that after a period of reasonably good rains. Grasrug at the moment contains only 14 per cent of its normal capacity, that is 3,139 morgen feet of water. Commando Drift and Lake Arthur together contain at present 46 per cent of their maximum capacity, that is. 17,063 morgen feet of water. Altogether this is a total of approximately 20,000 morgen feet of stored water, which has to supply the needs of very nearly 18,000 morgen of irrigation land. From these figures it is therefore quite clear that floodwaters, as well as seepage, plays an extremely important role in the irrigation setup of the valley. It is obvious therefore that it will be a superhuman task to entrench all the present rights, servitudes, etc. in the legislation which is now before the House. Quite early on in its consultations the Select Committee came to the conclusion that this would be an impossible task. In addition it is also imperative that, apart from other valid considerations, the Minister must have full control over the water which is being taken by the Government from one watershed to another, as is in fact the case here. It is also obvious that in drafting the legislation no cognizance can be taken of the different kinds of water flowing into a river. All kinds of water, i.e. floodwaters, stored and seepage water, are now being regarded as one, and are dealt with as such in the Bill.

Clause 3 of the Bill under consideration ensures that when the water of the Orange River flows into the Fish River no person will be in a less favourable position owing to the deprivation and cancellation of existing rights. In fact, this clause promises and guarantees that the irrigators will not only retain existing rights, but that they will be much better off owing to the fact that water from the Orange River will be made available. The people of the valley accept it in this way. We also believe that that will be the situation.

All that has to happen now is that the water from the Orange River must be released into the Fish River. We of that area are looking forward with longing to the day in 1971 when that event will take place. After the passing of this legislation by this House and by the Other Place, we leave its implementation in the safe hands of the hon. the Minister and his Department in the firm belief that justice will be done to all. Without a doubt, a golden era has dawned for the Fish River Valley.

Mr. Speaker, again as in the case of the previous Bill we have debated, namely the Water Amendment Bill, this has come as an agreed measure from a Select Committee. Again I do not wish to detain the House unnecessarily. I will confine myself to one clause of this Bill.

As the hon. member for South Coast has pointed out, the area which can be affected by this Bill is severely circumscribed by clause 2, which cuts out of the Bill any other area outside the Orange River area, except that which will be served by the Orange-Fish Tunnel and discharged into the Theebus Spruit and which the State President subsequently declares in the Gazette to be an area for the purposes of this Act. However, I think we must realize that this is nonetheless a very large area. If we take the area specified, for example, in phase 1 of the White Paper, namely the Fish and Sundays River Valley, we have an area of some 16,000 morgen. Again under phase 2 we have an extra area of 41,000 morgen, giving us some 57,000 morgen. These were the two phases which the Government has accepted, namely phases 1 and 2. However, if we go on to phases 3 and 4, we find there an extra 26,000 and an extra 30,000 morgen respectively, bringing it to a total of 113,000 morgen. This is besides the supply of 14 million gallons per day for the towns along the Fish River Valley and to Port Elizabeth of 40 million gallons per day.

It was said at the time when the White Paper was issued and it has been said subsequently, that the whole Orange River project scheme was flexible. Of course, there have been changes already. The Hendrik Verwoerd Dam is being built to a higher level than was originally intended under the first phase. We have had the Welbedacht Dam added to the complex of dams along the Caledon and the Orange. Also, the diameter of the tunnel has been increased under the 20 per cent excess clause in the contract from 16¾ feet to 17¼ feet. Again, De Aar and Noupoort will now receive water under phase 1.

I have mentioned this flexibility because there are of course areas other than those specifically mentioned in the White Paper, which it is only natural should be served by the Orange River-Fish Tunnel and the water that is discharged into the Theebus Spruit. I have in mind, for example areas such as the Bushmans River. I do not know the area involved there; but there is also what I may call the Lower Fish which was excluded from the White Paper, i.e. that section of the Fish River from Junction Drift, the junction of the Little Fish with the Great Fish, i.e. the area between there and the sea. There we have an area of some 15,000 morgen which could be irrigated. I think it would be strange if the area in which one of the people who helped for many years to keep alive the whole idea of the Orange-Fish Scheme, the late Dr. Tom Bowker, where he lived and which he represented here in this House, were not to be included in the area that would receive water under this scheme. As the hon. the Minister is no doubt well aware, there have been promises, both written and verbal, that this area, to which I have just referred, will at some time come under the scheme. I do not want to pursue it unduly at this stage. But this is one of the other reasons that I am glad that we were able in the Select Committee to satisfy all interested parties that there would be no substraction from their rights and that they would at least receive equal, if not better, rights in the future under this Bill that we are putting through. Therefore, I have much pleasure in joining my colleagues in supporting this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the fact that once again there was unanimity in regard to this Bill. As a matter of fact, the hon. members tried hard to be as unanimous as possible, just as happened on the Select Committee. For that I am very grateful. I am also grateful for the ideas expressed here. I just wanted to remark that two points were raised, the one by the hon. member for South Coast and the other by the hon. member for Smithfield. The matters mentioned are the limited nature of the scheme and the limitation of the rights. The satisfaction which the Committee could therefore bring about, they brought about in respect of the rights and the area under discussion in this legislation, and not only were they able to satisfy themselves, they were also able to give satisfaction to all concerned in this matter.

Of course, it is also possible, with such legislation, to conjecture about the future, as the hon. member for Albany did. I just want to say to the hon. member that I believe that the Orange River project is a living project which will link two oceans. I do not think that this generation, will, in our time, complete the Orange River Project, because we may be able to complete the construction works on the two main rivers, but I do not think that it is at present within our power to complete the apportionment and conceive what will eventually be done with the waters of the scheme. As we learn from experience and the needs present themselves, the waters of the Orange River will, with further reflection and further study, also be adjusted to the greater requirements of South Africa. From time to time the hon. member, and other hon. members as well, will come forward with very fertile ideas. However, I think that these fertile ideas will from time to time also receive the necessary attention. I want to agree with the hon. member, because we cannot at present foresee what we are eventually going to achieve with the Orange River Project. However, if we apportion the water carefully enough and utilize the water at our disposal carefully enough, we will in future be able to supply South Africa with far more sustenance from this source than we have been able to provide up to the present. I thank the hon. members for their contribution.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Committee Stage taken without debate.

The General Manager of Iscor recently indicated that the third Iscor works must go into production by 1972, and that the next major expansion must take place in 1984, followed by another larger works by 1995. The Government is now in a position to announce its decision in regard to the further expansion plans of Iscor.

It is hardly necessary for me to emphasize what an important role Iscor plays in the economy of the country. From its humble beginnings, and amidst opposition in the early thirties, this undertaking developed into one of the country’s industrial show pieces. Iscor is the result of a far-sighted policy on the part of the then Government, and its establishment was of inestimable significance for the industrial development of our country and for the expansion of our economic structure.

Inexpensive high quality steel is an indispensible requirement for the development of a country’s factories, and this need has been pre-eminently satisfied by Iscor. In the interests of a better geographic distribution of our manufacturing industries the Government decided that Iscor should undertake no further substantial expansion at existing works in Pretoria and Vanderbijlpark. At these works, therefore, Iscor will have to confine itself to rounding off and modernization. However, it is expected that steel consumption in this country will double itself over the next 10 to 12 years, and as it is the policy of the Government that Iscor should retain its leading role as steel manufacturer the immediate construction elsewhere of a third works has become necessary.

In deciding on the best location there were various factors which had to be taken into account.

Firstly, as has already been said, inexpensive steel is of the utmost importance to the development of our country. Therefore the economic factors had to be taken into account very thoroughly.

At the same time it is clear that an iron and steel works of the extent envisaged will naturally form a powerful growth point which could bring major development to any area where it is established. It was therefore not possible to decide the matter on a purely economic basis only, it was also necessary to do justice to the wider social and developmental requirements within the framework of the Government’s policy. In particular, thorough consideration had to be given to the claims of the border areas in the country as well as of other lesser developed regions, particularly those where some of the essential minerals such as iron ore, manganese, coal, lime and dolomite are to be found.

Thirdly, there is the problem of transport and the availability of water, power and other basic services required for such an undertaking.

Fourthly, the requirements of the future had to be taken into account as well, not only as far as the expected pattern of steel consumption was concerned, but also as far as the possibility that we could enter the steel export market on a realistic scale was concerned. It is obvious therefore that the decision in regard to the location was preceded by a probing study. This study carried out by Iscor and the interested Government organizations stretched over a considerable period of time, and the fullest co-operation was received from local authorities who badly wanted the works to be established in their particular area. The object of course was to find the region or centre where the establishment would bring the greatest socio-economic benefits for the country as a whole.

Without mentioning the names of particular centres, I want to mention that as the study progressed it became clear that the Northern and North Western Cape, the Orange River Area, Northern and Central Natal, areas bordering on the Transkei and the Ciskei, and centres along the East and South coast of the Cape could lay the best claims. The advantages and disadvantages of each one of these regions were thoroughly investigated and weighed up against each other, and the advantages or disadvantages of each, in regard to costs as well as labour and transport problems, were analysed in detail. It was concluded that the consideration of the possible export of steel could not at present or in the near future be deemed to be of decisive importance since the works which was being planned was going to make most of its sales on the domestic market. At this stage the establishment at a coastal centre—particularly along the East or South Coast of the Cape—would also entail heavy expenses with the establishment of additional transport facilities together with the delivery of raw materials and the despatch of steel products. By about 1984 further works will probably have to be constructed, and the claims of the other areas mentioned above, will then be reconsidered.

The Northern Cape

To a somewhat lesser degree the consideration of additional transportation costs and labour problems also count against the Northern and North Western Cape. However, the Government has a great understanding and sympathy for the claims of this region, which is in addition richly endowed with some of the most essential raw materials. The Government is determined that this region will receive its fair share of the development which the new steel works will give rise to. This will take place by way of additional large scale production and the upgrading of raw materials in which a direct investment of R83 million will be involved, and which will offer employment—only as far as Iscor expansion in the vicinity of Sishen and Postmasburg are concerned—to an additional 1,100 Whites and 3,900 non-Whites. To this must of course be added the considerable secondary and tertiary employment which will in due course arise.

Newcastle

However, the iron and steel works itself will be established at Newcastle. Newcastle is not only favourably situated from a costs point of view but also offers various other advantages. It is a border area, and establishment here promotes the important objective of border area development. There is a sizeable established community which is of the utmost importance for the concentration of the large number of white employees which will be required. The necessary infrastructure is already well developed, which will make possible a major saving in capital investment. In addition there is already a nucleus in the shape of the cast iron plant which could possibly be incorporated with the Iscor works, that is, if Iscor’s offer for the take-over of Amcor is accepted. The cast iron plant at Newcastle is, to an important degree, dependent for its existence upon the export contract concluded with Japan, which terminates in five years’ time. As a result of, inter alia, technological developments in the manufacture of steel it cannot be accepted with certainty that this contract will be renewed. If the contract expires it could result in a serious setback for the entire established community of Newcastle, and the considerable capital investment in the works, with its existing infrastructure, could to a large degree remain unutilized. Both these problems can now be avoided. However, I want to make it quite clear that the Iscor project is by no means dependent upon the take-over of Amcor’s facilities. The project will go ahead whether or not the Amcor interests agree to the take-over by Iscor.

Iscor intends to make an immediate start on the construction of the new works so that the plant can go into production by 1972.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

We are dealing here with a problem, viz. mineral rights and servitudes which prevent the establishment of a township, to which I have been giving attention for a long time now. As you will probably recall, I broached this matter in public in October of last year on the occasion of the opening of the Congress of the Municipal Associations of the Transvaal at Warmbaths and made it clear that the Government could not allow the provision of housing to be thwarted in this respect. Since then the matter has been brought more specifically to my attention. What is, in fact, the problem here? I shall try to explain.

The owner of private land can sell the mineral rights he has on that land to another person and register the transaction by means of a cession of mineral rights. In addition, an owner of private land can abstract the mineral rights from the title deed in terms of which he owns the land for himself by means of a mineral rights certificate, and subsequently sell the land. In the … Mr. Speaker, do those hon. members sitting conversing there have a special parliament?

Order!

In the case of alienated State-owned land, the mineral rights are reserved to the State, although the owner of the land enjoys certain privileges. Now, when the mineral rights are divorced from the ownership of the land, i.e. when the mineral rights and the land belong to two different owners, a clash of interests arises because the owners of the land cannot utilize that land as they see fit. They must consider the owners of the mineral rights.

This clash of interests has already caused interested parties many headaches. Various legal proceedings have already been instituted in regard to this matter. Perhaps I could just mention briefly the well-known Transvaal Property of Bryanston case of 1938. In that case it was the opinion of the fudge that the holders of the mineral rights were entitled to an interdict which would prevent the owners of the land from establishing the township of Bryanston because such establishment would deprive the owner of the mineral rights of all effective exercise of their mineral rights, notwithstanding the fact that the owner of the land indicated that the probability was extremely small of minerals being found there in profitable quantities. In that particular case the owner of the mineral rights and the owner of the land agreed to a settlement which enabled the latter to proceed with the development of Bryanston. Conflicting interests arise because the holder of the mineral rights wants to retain that right without restriction, while the surface area owner wants to utilize the land for the establishment of townships. This tendency has recently been assuming greater proportions. The various ordinances on township planning and township settlement provide that if the mineral rights are separated from the proprietary rights of the land and application is made for the establishment of a township on such land, the applicant must convince the townships board that the holder, usufructuary or lessee, etc., of the mineral rights, has given his consent to the establishment of a township. Consequently it is not possible to proceed with the establishment of any township before this consent has been obtained from the mineral rights holder. It would now appear as if the attitude of some mineral rights holders has become stricter when application is made for consent to the establishment of a township.

I should like to mention a few other examples to indicate to hon. members how a prospective township developer reaches a position of stalemate as a result of mineral rights. A number of owners of separate pieces of farm land near Pretoria very much wanted to sell their properties to interested township developers. The ground was zoned by the municipality for single dwellings. However, the owners of the land could not obtain the necessary consent from the mineral rights holder for the establishment of a township, and consequently no progress could be made with the establishment of a township. They were unable to develop the land in accordance with the zoning, or sell it to prospective township developers because the holders of the mineral rights withheld their consent to the establishment of a township. However, the owners of the land will have to pay taxes in accordance with the new zoning. In another case the amount claimed by the mineral rights holder for his consent to the establishment of a township was approximately five times more than the amount paid for the land.

In this way surface area owners are complaining that they are in some cases unable to make any progress in their negotiations with mineral rights holders, and that in other cases mineral rights holders are demanding unreasonable amounts before they are prepared to agree to the establishment of townships. Such large amounts must inevitably make township development very expensive. Apparently the mineral rights holders, for the most part, do not know precisely what minerals are present on the property. The excessively high demands for the mineral rights are often not in respect of the intrinsic value of such rights, but only for a negotiable right. I have learned that there are quite a number of applications for the establishment of townships which could not be finalized as a result of the demands made by mineral rights holders.

But apart from the land owner or prospective township developer who can make no progress, the local authority is also being prejudiced, for when a mineral rights holder withholds his consent, it is not possible to proceed with the development of agricultural smallholdings or other large pieces of land which, in the new zoning plan of the municipality are intended for residential purposes.

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