The contribution of the hon. member for Worcester to this debate yesterday evening consisted of an attack on the hon. member for Newton Park because he had allegedly dragged the question of Land Bank loans into politics. But now I want to tell the hon. member who the first person was who dragged Land Bank loans into politics—it was the hon. the Minister of Agriculture in a speech he made in the Strand and also the hon. the Deputy Minister who spoke in this House about a specific person who allegedly was very deeply in debt.

Col. 2678:

Lines 7-8, 10 and 12: For “income”, read “Budget”.

What you are saying there is completely untrue.

Did Die Burger not publish an article in which it was reported that that specific person had encountered these two hon. members and wanted to give them a hiding at that time? I want to remind the hon. member of a speech which was made in Ceres last week by Mr. Smit, the Director of the Land Bank. In this speech he said that it was not the policy of the Land Bank to finance land barons; it is the policy of the Bank to grant loans for the purchase of land in cases where the applicant does not yet own land or does not have sufficient land for economic farming. I think we should be grateful to the hon. member for Newton Park for having effected this change in the policy of the Land Bank, because this was definitely not the policy before.

Order! The policy of the Land Bank cannot be discussed on this Vote. It was discussed on the Treasury Vote.

I beg your pardon in that case, Mr. Chairman. Yesterday evening I raised the question of the financial position of the stock farmer in South Africa and I said that droughts were not the main cause of the adversity they were experiencing. We also made certain proposals to relieve the effect of droughts. But drought is not the only factor which has landed the farmer in a critical financial position. Another factor which is as plain as a pikestaff, is that the price of the farmer’s product is too low when compared to the cost of producing that product. We can either increase the price or decrease production costs. But it is not always an easy task to increase prices, except in the case of meat, and here I want to agree with the hon. member for Prieska who said that the floor price of meat should be raised. However, when it comes to wool, it is a difficult matter. In fact, I can understand the hon. the Minister’s difficulties. What is required in the first place, is that the Wool Board should have a better marketing system. Surely, one cannot simply dump the best fibre in the world on the open market so that it may fetch just any price. But even if we had a good marketing system at the moment, the wool farmer would still be in trouble and at some stage or other the Government will have to decide what the lot of our 33,000 wool farmers will be; and not only their lot, but also that of those dependent of them—the Coloureds who work for them and the businesses in the towns. At some time, or other the Government will have to decide whether or not the lives of these people are negotiable. The chairman of the woolgrowers in the Cape Province said that this was a temporary phenomenon and that it would be overcome. Well, if wool is subsidized to the tune of three cents per pound at the moment, it will cost the country R9 million, i.e. .36 per cent of our national income; if it is subsidized by 5 per cent per pound, R15 million will be required, i.e. .60 per cent of our national income; and a subsidy of 10 cents per pound will require 1.20 per cent of our national income. But is 1.20 per cent of the Budget too much to save the wool farmer in South Africa?

I have said that if we cannot increase the price, we shall have to reduce production costs. Now how is this to be done? I have given thought to possible ways in which the farmer can reduce his production costs, but I cannot think of one. If the Minister knows of a way, he must please tell us. I do know, however, that the Minister is, in fact, able to reduce the production costs of the wool farmer. But before we take steps to improve the position, we must first determine what caused it. In my opinion, high interest rates are the biggest single factor responsible for that. In the censure debate, the Deputy Minister said that high interests rates were not our greatest problem, but one of the minor ones. He then proceeded to attack the hon. member for Newton Park and accused him of never attending congresses. I accept that the hon. the Minister does attend congresses, but he could not have listened very well to what was said at those congresses. He did not read the reports either, because on page 8 of the report of the Cape Agricultural Union we read (translation) —

Sir, you will remember that as far as increased interest rates are concerned the hon. the Minister of Finance was the one who set the ball rolling when he wanted to combat inflation. The farmers sent deputations to him on several occasions and pointed out that they were not responsible for the inflation and requested the Minister for a concession of 2 per cent, but that request was refused each time. I know that a small concession has now been made, one which means nothing, because it is only 1½ per cent and its only object is to prevent farmers from paying less than per cent. If the interest rate rises to 10 per cent, one still pays 8½ per cent, which is 4 per cent higher than what one paid in 1965. What farmer can afford to pay 8½ per cent, in other words, repurchase his farm every 12 years?

Sir, the second matter which increases the production costs of the farmer in South Africa, is the fact that the hon. the Minister of Agriculture allowed rail tariffs for agricultural goods to be increased. I just want to point out what the effect of this is. The tariff for wool was increased by 10.8 per cent with one swoop at a time when the price of wool had dropped from 152 cents to a miserable 28 cents. The tariff for maize was increased by 34 per cent; the tariff for licks by 25 per cent; and the tariff for salt by 12.2 per cent. The hon. the Deputy Minister recently said that the price of the farmer’s product had increased by 26 per cent, whereas the price of his requisites had increased by 11 per cent. I do not want to doubt his word in any way as he doubted mine last night, and to-day I have brought him the proof. But, Sir, it definitely has no bearing on the stock farmer of South Africa, because if rail tariffs have risen so much, how could the price of these requisites have risen by 11 per cent? Let us take the example of salt. A farmer receives only 50 cents for a bag of salt. He has to pay 35 cents for the bag; he has to pay 46 cents railage. At this stage that salt already costs R1.26, and if the dealer adds his profit, that salt costs R1.65, while the farmer receives a miserable 50 cents. [Time expired.]

The hon. member for King William’s Town launched an attack here and it is easy for us to refute what he said. However, we have to admit that production costs have, in fact, risen—we admitted this before, and that agricultural producers’ prices have not risen accordingly. In view of this, why is it necessary for us to argue about the matter? I can mention many figures to you in this connection. I wish I can make the hon. members realize that agriculture is something different to, for example, an industry. A man decides to erect a windmill factory. He establishes that the market needs 400 windmills and he determines at what price he can manufacture the windmills. The price of steel subsequently rises by 12 per cent. In that case he simply increases the price of the windmill by 12 per cent. If labour costs rise, he raises the price of the windmill accordingly, but he manufactures only the number of windmills which are required on the market. But consider sheep farming, for example. The consumers of the country need a certain number of carcasses, but we produce a third too many. In what way can we determine a price under these circumstances, as the Opposition proposes, which will afford the farmer an entrepreneur’s wage as well as a profit? The entrepreneur’s wage differs from commodity to commodity and from province to province, because different circumstances prevail. One simply cannot approach the question of prices of agricultural products on the same basis as commodity prices in industry. Last night the hon. member said here that provision was made in this Budget for only R1.5 million for wool as compared to R53 million which was approved in Australia last year. The hon. member did not rise here as an agriculturalist and said that this Budget, in respect of which all departments have had to cut down on expenditure, was providing R25 million more for the agricultural industry this year than the amount provided last year. No, there was no acknowledgement of or gratitude for the additional assistance being granted to the agricultural industry.

There is a surplus of R150 million.

The hon. member referred time and again to the Wool Board, the Wool Commission and conditions in Australia. Let the hon. member read his own newspaper, the Cape Argus of 20th August, in which the following article was published—

We have never had that situation in our country.

That refers to Australia.

I shall read the article to the hon. member—

This is the situation there, but in spite of that, the hon. member stood up and said our floor prices for sheep were too low. But ever since we have been a civilized country, we have never sold a sheep for 10 cents. Do not compare Australia with its subsidy of R53 million to South Africa with its subsidy of R1.5 million, and then remain silent about the millions which are given in South Africa in the form of fodder subsidies. Put the picture together and the South African wool farmer need not for one moment pull his hat over his eyes when he thinks of Australia. We should be honest about these matters, Sir. A farmer is not a person who tells lies.

I have only ten minutes at my disposal, but I should like to reply to the hon. member for Newton Park. I know he finds it difficult to make a speech about agriculture when he sees exactly what we are trying to do, but he must criticize, because it is his job to do so. Therefore he argues with his cheek in his tongue and says that the farmers are not sharing in the economic prosperity.

How do you manage that?

When we consider the economic prosperity of our industries under this legislation, we must admit that they have fared better than the agricultural industry has, but if we had received rain, the agricultural industry would have been better off than the industries in many respects. We must look at the situation as a whole. The hon. member said that according to the report, the prices of meat, butter and cheese had dropped. According to the report these were some of the products, the prices of which had not risen in proportion to the prices of other products. But to illustrate how interesting our country is; last year in December we had a surplus of 55,0 pounds of butter and now we are importing 1,500 tons of butter at a profit, and that butter is landed here at a price which is lower than the one at which our farmers produce butter. This is the kind of State aid we have offered because we know that we are living in a country of erratic conditions.

Then the hon. member presented his argument for a fodder bank. It is a popular cry to plead for a fodder bank in a time of emergency, but if, after the country has had general rains and conditions have returned to normal, one were to approach a farmer to tell him that he could obtain a loan from the State at 5 per cent if he erected a barn and bought lucerne at that time for the drought which would come in four years’ time, he would refuse that offer, because he would say that he had too many other things to acquire. He would say that he had no time for that then, because his veld was looking fine. One cannot take him by the throat and force him to erect a barn. While one is experiencing a crippling drought, it is easy to say that this Government is responsible for the fact that we do not have a fodder bank, but it costs money to erect them. If one erected fodder banks throughout the country at the expense of the State and we then experienced ten prosperous years, the interest on that capital investment alone would mean that a bale of lucerne would cost more than R3. These matters must be seen in perspective.

Then the hon. member referred to potash and nitrogen and said we had applied so many millions of rands worth of potash too much. Why? Who sells that potash? Where does it come from? If the farmer would pay heed to what the Department of Agricultural Technical Services tells him, he would not have done so. The hon. member cannot say that we have a shortage of nitrogen; he will say that we have a surplus of potash. One has to read that report in full. It is misleading to say that we are wasting money by applying potash wrongly. When one analyses the State’s contribution in respect of potash, nitrogen and phosphates, one sees the nature of its contribution is such to serve the very object of discouraging the use of potash as far as possible.

The hon. member for Mooi River said he would, unfortunately, be unable to be present here to-day, but he referred to study groups. The study groups to which he referred do not fall under the Department of Agriculture; they are organized by private initiative. The Department helps as far as it is possible for it to do so in the case of study groups, but most of the study groups are organized on individual farms by fertilizer and fuel companies.

The hon. member for Worcester put certain questions with regard to the future of Bulida apricots. The problem with regard to the Bulida apricot was that it became soft and did not last after it had been canned, in contrast to the Royal apricot. The manager of Langeberg Co-op., Ltd., Dr. Laas, informed me they had overcome this problem by peeling the Bulida and had obtained large contracts with a country such as Japan in which the Bulida apricot was popular. It is peeled and treated with a certain preparation, and I may advise the hon. member that if the farmers want to do so, they may plant Bulida after consultation with the canning co-operative societies and companies concerned.

The hon. member for King William’s Town referred to the visit we made to Prince Albert and to newspaper articles which reported the farmers as having said: “Help us! Farmers plead with tears in their eyes with the Minister of Agriculture”. He referred to this newspaper report, but he did not read any further. If he had attended those meetings, he would have had tears in his eyes when the representatives of the farmers started rising and telling Minister Uys that they were aware of what we were doing for them, that they were grateful and that we should only listen to their problems so as to enable us to offer more help. One farmer said our visit in itself was worth one inch of rain to him. In spite of that, the hon. member tried to create the impression here that the Government was leaving those farmers to fend for themselves in weather conditions over which no one had any control. I was shocked when I listened to the hon. member’s story last night.

The hon. member for Newton Park said the Government had reduced devaluation aid to fruit farmers and went on to say that the losses of farmers amounted to R5 million as a result of England’s devaluation. Hon. members can think for themselves that it is ridiculous to say that the farmers have lost R5 million as a result of England’s devaluation, seeing that England devalued its pound by 14.3 per cent. Divide the total production by 14.3, and hon. members will realize that these are figures which are entirely unfounded and that the object of furnishing these figures is to make political propaganda. I shall refer to the other arguments later, but I just want to mention something else in brief. On the basis of what I have heard from the opposite side, I believe that we on this side of the House are on the right road as far as the agricultural industry of South Africa is concerned.

Mr. Chairman, before I continue, I just want to say that it seems to me as though our feelings about the debate are different to-day to what they were yesterday. Moreover, we have different feelings about the agricultural industry. We have had reports of wonderful rains from large parts of the country, and I think we are all very grateful for the good rains that have fallen. The reports have come from areas in the Eastern Cape as well as from areas here in the Western Province and in between, and large areas of the Karoo have had three or four inches of rain. We are very grateful for that.

The hon. the Deputy Minister has now entered the debate and, firstly, attacked the hon. member for King William’s Town, but he did not react at all to the vital points the hon. member had raised in respect of the Department of Agriculture and the Minister. The hon. member for King William’s Town said that if the agricultural industry were to get into the red, not only because of the drought, but because of price bases and production costs, one would be able to apply one of two alternatives and no more. In the first place, one would have to ensure a better price basis or one would have to reduce production costs. I do not know of any business anywhere in the world for which this does not hold good. When a business is in the red, it must cut its overheads and increase its productivity; otherwise it cannot exist. He said very clearly that there were methods for reducing production costs. To start off with, he mentioned the higher interest rates. The hon. the Deputy Minister, however, simply launched a general attack on him.

It goes without saying that every agriculturist in this country is grateful for what the Government has done for the agricultural industry up to now.

Hear, hear!

This includes not only the additional amount of R20 million provided for in this Budget, but also all the desperate measures which the Government applied through the Department of Agriculture to help where it could. However, we should not overlook the fact that much of the blame for the losses which were suffered in the drought should be laid at the door of the Government. This is definitely so. The hon. the Deputy Minister spoke of fodder banks. Of course, one cannot establish fodder banks in a time of drought, but 15 years have gone by since the South African Agricultural Union and later the commission, which was appointed; to investigate the matter, pleaded with the Government to establish a national fodder bank. I myself was a member of the commission and the then Secretary for Agriculture was the chairman of the commission. A yearor two ago, it was said here in this House by way of interjection that I should be called “Jan Fodder Bank” because I talk such a great deal about fodder banks. We have always advocated this matter. The initial cost of a fodder bank as calculated by the commission at that time, was R10 million. Such a fodder bank would operate on a basis of rotation, i.e. farmers would be able to draw fodder for their livestock and replace it subsequently. They would pay a premium for keeping their supplies in the fodder bank. The idea throughout was that the fodder kept should be in the form of a balanced ration and not only roughage. What have we done about roughage during this drought? I drove through the Orange Free State and saw teams of Bantu women picking up maize leaves and stalks on the lands which they subsequently bale and sell at R16 per ton to the producer who finds himself in desperate straits, while the subsidized price is only R7. When one finds oneself in desperate straits, one simply has no choice and has to buy. When one wants to save one’s animals, one has to do so, irrespective of whether one has the necessary funds.

I now want to come back to another matter, and that is the marketing of meat and how we should have disposed of the animals. The fact that we have a lot of roughage during the good years, is as plain as a pikestaff. How many times have we on this side of the House not advocated the baling of the large stacks of wheat hay one finds everywhere in the wheat-growing areas. The farmers here could find no outlet for that. It was said that one was talking nonsense when one said that chaff should be mixed with mealie-meal and that three rations should then be made from that in the form of cubes or pills, of whatever, to serve as maintenance rations during droughts. A fattening ration can be given to animals which are intended for the meat market. Another ration can also be mixed for dairy animals. Such rations in the form of cubes can be preserved and are also fireproof. Such rations do not take up much space either. The problem of transport is also not nearly so large a problem as it is now that the Army has to be called in to help with the transport of roughage. If we had started with this matter in good time and had listened to the advice which came not only from this side of the House, but also from experts, the situation would have been quite different to-day. It is easy to say that co-operative societies and companies could have started this. The hon. the Deputy Minister knows as well as I do, however, that when farmers wanted to feed their livestock on balanced rations in order to keep the animals alive during the drought, individual farmers, who could not afford to do so, took the step of buying the necessary machines themselves. These machines cost between R4 000 and R10,000 each. My son bought one, and so did the hon. the Deputy Minister. There are many of these machines all over the country. These machines are used for pressing mealie-meal and the available lucerne, straw or peanut nay, or whatever, in order to mix a balanced ration. One cannot afford to waste roughage in a time like this. One cannot put roughage into troughs unless it is in such a concentrated form that the animals can derive the maximum benefit from it.

It does not matter what defence the Government puts up at this stage. It would be foolish of us to allege that the drought is the fault of this Government. No one alleges this, but the fact remains that if one wants to make provision for saving the country’s livestock, it is not the task of individual farmers to do so, because they can do this only to a certain extent. An individual farmer can do so only to the extent to which his water supplies, lucerne lands and irrigable land allow him to do. Intime of drought he lets his animals graze in these lucerne lands and they are completely ruined by trampling. Even these measures did not help. How many times have we on this side not pleaded that even as far as the Orange River scheme is concerned, we should adopt a new approach. It will cost more money, but if we can take the water from this scheme to the dry areas of the North West, it will be of great value. I do not want to make comparisons with other countries all the time, but let us see what has been done in Australia. There they lead water for a distance of 3,000 miles from the Snowy Mountains, by means of canals. Such water is available to farmers who normally do not have water in times of drought. The water is used not only for irrigation, but also to keep animals alive. We have made the calculation before that instead of making provision for an additional 20.000 morgen for irrigation in the planning of the Orange River scheme, we should rather give 20.000 farmers ten morgen each for irrigation. Then we shall have a fodder bank already.

But who said this would not happen?

If it materializes after another drought like this one, there will be no more farmers left. If the hon. member for Colesberg thinks that, the Government must surely indicate that it is envisaging something of the kind, in order to prepare for droughts which occur as regularly as the clock strikes. Sometimes droughts occur to a lesser extent and sometimes to a greater extent. This time it is catastrophic. We do not even know its extent. We feel sorry for the people who have not had rain during this period of cold storms. We feel sorry for those who have suffered heavy losses as a result of the cold; I understand it has been bitterly cold through-out the whole country. There were high winds, etc. But once a farmer has had rain two or three times, he becomes more optimistic in his outlook. There are many farmers who have had no rain yet. I understand that the Southern Free State has had nothing. We feel sorry for them. But if we are going to wait again until the country experiences a few good years when roughage is produced, surplus maize is exported and concentrated feed is available for use, and we allow the chance to slip by, it will be an unspeakable neglect of duty from the side of the Government. One must see the animals suffering. One sees the losses of and the despair among the stock-breeders. They do not have control over such circumstances. It has gone far beyond the reach of their capabilities. When they want to buy fodder, they cannot obtain it. I know of lucerne that was sold at R59 per ton and more. What must the farmer do? He is forced to buy, or he has to spread mealies on the ground and poison his own stock. We who have been concerned with it for a long time, know the story. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, so far throughout this debate the whole theme of the United Party, and particularly of the hon. members for East London (City), King William’s Town and Newton Park, has been that farming in South Africa, is in a precarious state. Throughout the years they, as we know them, have always revealed a negative attitude in connection with agriculture. When one listens to the Opposition speaking in this vein, it almost seems as if they are trying to bring the outside public under the impression that agriculture really is a welfare organization of this Government. I want to contend that the farmers in South Africa are independent enough to be able to cope with their problems with the necessary aid front the State and the necessary schemes of support introduced from time to time. I want to give one example in connection with the drought. Not so long ago a co-operative fodder depot was established. I do not know whether the hon. member for East London (City) has heard about it. It was established at the inrtiative of farmers themselves in order to ensure, on an organizational basis, the proper co-ordination of the distribution and collection of various kinds of fodder and the forwarding of that fodder to the drought-stricken areas. What did this Government do? It granted an amount of R2 million to that fodder depot. But there is another very important aspect regarding drought relief. We should now like to have the answer of the Opposition in this respect. Time and again they refer to the Marais Report. Yesterday the hon. member for Newton Park replied in the affirmative to a question of the hon. the Minister of Agriculture as to whether he had read this report and accepted it. He then referred to the fodder depots and banks recommended by this report. But I want to point out to the hon. member that the recommendation of this Commission is conditional as far as distress relief is concerned. I want to read it to the hon. member.

You have asked that question before.

In that case I repeat the question, if the hon. member has not yet replied to it. The recommendation is that this relief will be conditional. What it amounts to is that the State may give relief to a farmer in a drought-stricken area if such a farmer is applying conservation farming systems and if he is farming in keeping with climatic conditions and in keeping with the production possibilities of the farm. Only then shall we be able to give him relief. Now I want to know the following from the hon. member: Does he accept this recommendation of the report? If he does accept this recommendation, it means by implication—it is very important that we should know this before the provincial election—that many people will have to leave the soil.

Do you accept it?

Sir, they refer to this report time and again. We, as a responsible political institution in South Africa, want to know from the Opposition whether they accept this recommendation as it stands. We want this answer. It is clear already what the standpoint of the Government and of the M mister is. In spite of the recommendation of this report, relief was given to every farmer who had applied for such relief. The Minister did not make any distinction. He took into account the prevailing state of emergency. He did not lay down certain specifications and certain requirements, as recommended in the report. This is what we now want to know from the hon. member for Newton Park.

The other theme of the Opposition has been, as the hon. member for East London (City) also said, that the agricultural industry is finding itself in debt and that the price structure of the agricultural industry is in a hopeless position. I mentioned this last year, too. but if hon. members will only consult the White Paper tabled by the Government after the Budget, they will see that it very clearly gives the price-cost structure of the agricultural industry. I am now talking to the hon. member for Newton Park in particular, and I hope he will consult those figures every year. Since 1963 agricultural producers’ prices have risen more rapidly than the prices of farming requisites and implements. In other words, the price-cost structure of the agricultural industry has been improving a great deal since 1963. The hon. member will find this position set out on page 25 of the White Paper. He will notice, inter alia, that the index figure in respect of the price of short-term farming requisites is 106 as against 122.2 in respect of producers’ prices for agricultural products. In other words, the price-cost pincers we had prior to 1963, have been eased more and more. However, this situation has not developed of its own accord. It is the very result of a price policy that has been followed by this Government over the years. The various marketing organizations under the various schemes have been consolidating the position in terms of the Marketing Act throughout the years. Their determinations of prices have become more practical and appropriate. From the nature of the case it is impossible, in view of the hazardous position of the agricultural industry, to eliminate these cyclical movements at all times.

There is also a second reason which I want to mention. This Government always votes enormous amounts for food subsidies. For example, an amount of R31.5 million has been voted in the case of maize. This is in the interest of the producer, because this serves as the shock absorber between higher prices for the producer and higher prices to the consumer. The hon. member for Newton Park also complained that the consumption of agricultural products per capita was not rising as it should. The increase in the physical volume of agricultural products over the past 22 years was 122 per cent, whereas the annual population increase was only 2.7 per cent. I hope the hon. member will realize that we cannot increase the intake capacity of people so that they will eat more. What is happening, is that people are beginning to eat more selectively because of the higher standard of living. That is why we are finding that in respect of certain agricultural products, such as meat, for example, which is getting more expensive, there is a decrease in the per capita consumption.

The hon. member also referred to the contribution of the agricultural industry to the gross domestic product. It is a fact that there has been a decline in this contribution during the past few years. The fact of the matter is, however, that in all the industrial countries of the world one has had the position that the contribution of the agricultural industry to the gross domestic product has been rising more slowly than that of the manufacturing industry. The position is that this creates a distorted image of the economic position of the agricultural industry in South Africa, because we have had an increase in the gross value of agricultural products to a total of approximately R1,200 million over the past few years. I think years ago this figure was R400 million. The hon. member is always complaining about the decreasing number of farmers. Therefore, the smaller number of farmers in South Africa has produced more, and as a result the value of those farmers has grown. I think the economic position of the agricultural industry, seen in general, is basically sound. If we have the necessary rain and if the Government continues with its financing measures as in the past, I see no dangers for the agricultural industry in South Africa as far as its economic position is concerned.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Bethal repeated the story we have heard so many times from that side of the House, i.e. that basically there is nothing wrong with the agricultural industry and that it still is prosperous. I want to ask the hon. the Minister and the hon. the Deputy Minister whether they share in the view that the agricultural industry in this country still is sound.

Basically sound.

Yes, basically sound. Call it whatever you wish. No one is denying the statement that we are producing more, that we are producing scientifically and that mechanization and the improved methods which go hand in hand with that have had the effect that we are producing more on the same land. No one is denying that statement. It is alarming to think what surpluses there would be and what subsidies would be required if we were to have a very good year throughout the Republic in the field of agriculture. What subsidies would not be required for subsidizing those surpluses? This is an alarming phenomenon. It is a phenomenon which necessitates research into the question whether we cannot take steps for reducing the obligations of the farmer to such an extent that he, too, may come closer to world prices, and for arresting, if it cannot be eliminated altogether, the ever-rising cycle of subsidies which are accumulating.

At the moment our prices exceed world prices.

I know our prices exceed world prices; that is why we have to subsidize everything we have. I have just made the statement that if there were to be a good year in the Republic and if a surplus of 100 million bags of maize were to be produced, if a surplus of dairy products were to be produced and if a surplus were to be produced of all our agricultural products, the State would not be able to maintain the present rate of subsidizing, because this money comes from the taxpayers. I put this question, because I think the time has arrived for research to be done in this connection so as to ascertain what steps can be taken. This can only come about if we reduce the liabilities of the producer to such an extent, or help him to do so, that he is able to accept a lower price and is able to come closer to world prices. I am putting this idea forward, because I want to impress on the hon. the Deputy Minister. the Minister, agricultural researchers and all persons concerned in this matter, that the time has arrived for us to think in this direction.

The hon. member for Bethal started off by saying that this side of the House always displayed a negative attitude towards the agricultural industry. I reject that argument. Throughout the years this side of the House has always had a positive approach towards the agricultural industry, in that we have repeatedly tried to employ certain methods, and bring them to the attention of the Government, for improving the situation.

Yesterday and to-day in this House we, time and again, heard hon. members discussing methods for improving this situation. They brought these methods to the attention of the hon. the Minister and the Deputy Minister. So far to-day we have had no negative statements in this House, ones which have been condemned by the Government. I have already said that we should, of course, be grateful for the assistance that has been given. But that assistance has not saved the day, nor can it save the agricultural industry in the circumstances in which it finds itself to-day. I have already raised the matter of fodder banks. I would have liked to elaborate on that matter, but the time at my disposal does not allow me to do so. I should like to proceed to the marketing of one of our products.

You have the whole afternoon in which to speak.

That hon. member knows as well as I do that a member is only entitled to speak three times in this debate.

Order! The hon. member must proceed with his speech.

I want to refer to the marketing of one of our agricultural products which is a major source of concern, i.e. the marketing of meat. Year after year in this debate speeches are made on methods of marketing meat and on the fact that the Meat Board, although it is called a meat industry control board, virtually exercises no control over the marketing of meat. I am conversant with these problems and so is the hon. the Minister. The South African Agricultural Union and the Meat Board make a recommendation and the hon. the Minister has to go along with the stream. We can talk a great deal about what can be done to change the situation. When certain interests in organized agriculture and in the boards have a hold on the situation, one eventually finds oneself in the difficult position that the board has no control over marketing, although it is called a marketing control board and has been established in terms of the Marketing Act in order to exercise control over the meat industry.

What has happened during these times of drought? The hon. the Minister knows as well as I do that the farmers were struck with livestock they had fed at great expense and that they could not obtain permits for transporting this stock to the abattoirs. The farmers could not obtain permits because there had been no long-term planning. It had not been planned that a certain farmer could send his stock to the market at a certain time. The hon. the Minister knows as well as I do that this is being done in our neighbouring states. The prices are guaranteed and six months before the time a farmer has to arrange an appointment for the stock he wants to send to the markets. If a farmer has made such an arrangement, he must send his stock, because if he does not keep to the arrangement he will have to fall in at the back of the queue if he wants to make a fresh arrangement for marketing his stock. We do not have a similar scheme in South Africa. The Board has never developed such a scheme or given it any thought. If a farmer arranges an appointment long before the time, obtains his permit and knows he has to supply the stock at the arranged time or otherwise he will not readily get another turn, the market will be far more evenly supplied than is the case at present. One week such large numbers of livestock are sent to Johannesburg that all the meat cannot be handled, and the next week there is a shortage. The market is fluctuating all the time. There is no stability.

The hon. the Minister referred to Australia a little while ago. Even if the hon. the Minister mentions every single thing that is being done for the farmer in South Africa, he should at least have regard to the fact that in Australia, as far as animal husbandry is concerned, and sheep farming in particular, a great deal more is being done for the farmers than is being done here in South Africa. They have planning which is superior to that of South Africa as far as the marketing of their products and particularly the marketing of their livestock is concerned. I want to make the statement that we have nothing but chaos in the marketing of meat in South Africa. I should like to see this statement refuted. There is no method in our system of marketing meat. There is no advance planning which affords the producers the knowledge that they will get more or less the prices of the Board for their products and that it will be possible for them to market those products in two, three or four months’ time. The hon. the Minister is a practical farmer and will surely admit that this is the method according to which meat ought to be marketed. Otherwise there will be no method in marketing. I am aware of the problems which the hon. the Minister has. The hon. the Minister said some time ago in this House that there were not too many hon. members on this side of the House who attended congresses. I may just say in passing that neither are there many members sitting on that side of the House who attend these congresses. In fact, I know of only two. One of these two hon. members is not even in the Chamber, although the agricultural debate is in progress. I should like the hon. the Minister and the hon. the Deputy Minister to give attention to the following matter when they reply to this debate. They must tell us when the time will arrive when a board of control which is supposed to exercise control over the marketing of meat in terms of the Marketing Act, will be called upon to exercise that control. The farmers of our country are tired of the marketing system we have, or rather of the lack of a system, because there is no system for the marketing of meat. The Minister knows this just as well as I do. What one usually does, is to ask one’s agent or one’s co-operative society when it will be possible for one to market one’s sheep. Do you know that there are cases, Sir, where farmers have had to feed up to 1,500 head of stock for four months because they could not get them on the market? They may get a quota of 30, and then they may get a quota of 80, and so the weeks and months pass. What is the cost of the fodder for that stock? And one dare not relax one’s efforts, because they are ready for marketing. A system ought to be devised in terms of which a person will have the certain knowledge that when he gets a quota he will indeed be able to market stock at a certain time. He must have that guarantee. Per haps the Minister will ridicule the whole idea again by saying that everyone will want to send his stock to the markets at a certain time of the year. But every farmer has his normal surplus he has to dispose of. Let us concentrate on this, because droughts cannot be foreseen. But in our neighbouring states, when drought strikes, stock is simply moved to another part of the country in which there is no drought at the time. [Time expired.]

For 12 years I have now been listening to speeches on agriculture made by hon. members of the United Party in this House. Their actions are more or less like the south-easter—on one occasion it blows across the mountain and creates a cloud of mistion another occasion it blows at gale force and yet does not blow out anything. I have seen one hon. member after the other rising on the other side and attacking the Government by suggesting that the prices of produce marketed in terms of the machinery of the Marketing Act, i.e. produce over which the Minister has control as far as the question of prices is concerned, are not what they should be by rights, that the farmer is not getting a fair price. The hon. member for Newton Park and the hon. member for East London (City), for instance, stated here that it was their considered opinion that the prices of produce over which the Minister did not have any control, were such that the farmers were experiencing no problem in that regard. The hon. member for East London (City) is a former chairman of the Wool Board. At a stage when the Wool Goard had to buy in a great deal of wool, he approached me in regard to the matter, and then I said to him that if they were to continue to buy in wool as they were engaged in doing, where would they get the finances from? His reply to that was a sarcastic one: “The wool farmers of South Africa will look after themselves; we are glad that we do not fall under a marketing council which is under your control.” But only two months later he approached me again, and I had to accompany him to the Reserve Bank to obtain drafts for the purpose of buying wool.

But we managed.

I am coming to the hon. member; only, he should not be in such a hurry; there is no need for him to cry already. To-day we are meeting here under totally different circumstances. Not one single member rose here to-day in order to speak about problems, apart from drought problems, encountered in those industries where the Minister, in conjuction with boards, has control over the prices. Whereas previously these same hon. members maintained for years that they were grateful for the fact that the wool industry did not fall under the Minister’s marketing council, the Minister is being disparaged to-day for no longer taking control, for not intervening in the wool industry to a greater extent, for not subsidizing wool, for not subsidizing wool to the extent of 9c per pound as was proposed by the hon. member for King William’s Town. Now the Government is being disparaged for these things.

Is it not true that the Minister has control over the Wool Commission’s reserve price?

Surely, the hon. member knows what the Wool Commission’s reserve price means. If the reserve price has to be maintained, as was in fact tried one year, and if all the wool has to be bought in and there is no increase in price later on, then, surely, the hon. member knows what would happen. After all, that I need not explain this to him. I do after all have some knowledge of that side of the agricultural industry.

A second aspect of the attitude adopted by hon. members is that they are attacking me on the strength of quotations taken from what was resolved by the South African Agricultural Union. It has often happened here in this House that the Minister and the Government are criticized on the strength of criticism expressed by the South African Agricultural Union, because the Government did something which the S.A. Agricultural Union did not want. Now hon. members are saying here. “This is what the S.A. Agricultural Union wanted; what has the Government done about it?” On other occasions again, when the Government did not want to grant requests made by the boards of control, it was said that the Minister ought not to have any control over such boards. Their standpoint was that if the boards of control proposed something, the Minister had to accept it. However, at the moment they are doing the reverse by telling me that I am not doing my “job” because I allow the S.A. Agricultural Union and the boards of control to do things which should not be done. Now the Government is being blamed for those things, because it is the Government which allows them to act in that manner. What do hon. members opposite really want? Should we listen to our agricultural unions, should we listen to proposals made by the boards of control, or should we not? It is very easy to level criticism here. Let me mention an example in order to illustrate this point. The other day we had legislation here which gave effect to certain requests made by the S.A. Agricultural Union, and what did the Opposition do?—they, the whole lot of them, opposed it! And then they level the accusation that the Government is not giving effect to the proposals made by the S.A. Agricultural Union and the boards of control.

The hon. member said that the meat scheme was not functioning correctly, and that the Minister had to see to it that this position was remedied. But the S.A. Agricultural Union, the Meat Control Board and the farmers engaged in the meat trade are saying that the present scheme should be retained—floor-price and auction on the hook in controlled areas. Does the hon. member now want me to say, in spite of what the organized trade is asking for, that I intend to change the scheme, and does he want me to force it on them? And if I were to do that and something went wrong, what would his criticism be against the Government then?

Then he referred to fodder banks and tried to create the impression that the Government was not trying to make any provision whatever for the availability of fodder in times of emergency. We have the best fodder bank in the world. We have the Mealie Board which is being forced to store its mealies so that it may have from seven to ten million bags to carry over at the end of the year. But the hon. member says that there is nothing.

I did not say it was nothing.

The fact that the Mealie Board is forced to do this, is not the only thing which is being done; this Government pays 70 cents in storage charges in respect of each of those bags of mealies stored in that way for the purpose of being made available to farmers in times of drought. What is more, when such mealies are made available to the farmer, it is transported at one eighth of the transport costs, and in disaster areas the price is subsidized by 50 per cent. The hon. member said that no provision was being made for fodder. But let us see what the position is as far as roughage is concerned. The hon. member said that nothing was being done about storing roughage. Sir, whose task is it to store roughage in South Africa? Is it the Government’s task to see to it that roughage is stored at certain places, with the danger such storage involves; should the taxpayers store the fodder there; should they bear the insurance and the storage costs and should they, at the end of four or five or six years when that fodder is required, subsidize the price to the farmer by 50 per cent as well?

I did not plead for the storage of roughage.

The hon. member says that he did not plead for storage. How is one going to establish a national fodder depot without storing fodder? Surely, one has to store it. After all, one cannot leave it lying in the wind and rain or on the land.

No, as a balanced, processed thing.

Whether one stores it in a balanced or unbalanced way, that quantity has to be stored. One cannot manufacture a lot of balanced pellets and then shake them out on the ground; surely, they have to be stored. That farmer from whom the fodder is bought, has to be paid, and the money one spends bears interests. Storage facilities have to be created, and if, after three or four years, the hon. member were to come along for fodder which he had put in storage two years previously, what does he think would the price of that fodder be if we had to pass it on to the producer or the consumer? Sir, it is very pleasant and easy to get up and talk this way; anybody can do it, but one has to investigate the costs involved in this. The hon. member referred, in the second place, to what the Government had done to enable the fodder depot to collect fodder. This is being done when that situation arises, but, Sir, I now want to give the hon. member this assurance: If we have general rains in South Africa tomorrow, this fodder depot will be saddled with a lot of mealie cobs, which cost them thousands upon thousands of rands and which no farmer in South Africa will want to buy from them. Now I want to put this question to the hon. member; he is a practical farmer himself. If he has on his farm the rainfall which he should have, and the fodder depot were to approach him and say, “We still have 20,000 tons of mealie leaves and cobs which we collected specially for drought conditions; we are charging you R10 per ton to deliver it on your farm.” is the hon. member going to buy those mealie cobs from the depot? If he as a farmer is not prepared to buy it, how does he expect the taxpayer to store that fodder for four or five years at a tremendous cost which will increase its price tremendously? No, Sir, it is very easy to come forward here with a lot of general statements. For instance, it is very simple for the hon. member to make the statement that the liabilities of the producer should be reduced. Everybody would like to see the liabilities of the producer being reduced. But then he says that the Government is doing nothing. This Government, with all its measures, has in fact tried to consolidate as far as possible the liabilities of the producer for those who have landed in difficulties, and to fix its interest rates in such a way that it will in fact be in a position to reduce those liabilities in good seasons. But even if at present the Government wrote off all the liabilities of the farmers and the drought conditions prevailed, and the Government gave them all the subsidized fodder, as it is doing now, their liabilities would in a few years’ time have accumulated to the same extent again.

Yesterday the hon. member for Newton Park referred to the problems of the farmers, the financial problems and the economic problems, and how the farmers were becoming impoverished. He adopted the attitude that the farmers were becoming impoverished because allowance was not being made for the risk factor and because their prices were inadequate. But just after him his colleague the hon. member for Mooi River rose and said that he represented a constituency of rich farmers, because the climate there was such that they derived a good income. There we have the whole answer. Should I now determine the price for the farmers in the constituency of the hon. member for Mooi River, or should I determine the price for the part in which the hon. member for Newton Park is living. These are the questions one should ask oneself. It is easy to draw this comparison.

But now I want to put a second question. If the farmer as entrepreneur wants to take it upon himself to start an undertaking, can he, once his liabilities have accumulated, expect the taxpayer of South Africa to go on providing him with the means for carrying on such an undertaking? This is the basic question. What he can in fact expect, is that in circumstances which are such that he is faced with problems, i.e. drought and other problems, he should be assisted because he plays a very important role in providing the country with food, and that in such a case the taxpayer should also, in his own interests, be prepared to assist him so that he may overcome those problems. But he cannot expect the taxpayer to provide him with an undertaking, through which he is going to make a profit. No, it is very easy to say that the liabilities of the producer should be reduced, but the hon. member has not suggested any method as to how they should be reduced. He did not say that the State should now write off 50 per cent of all mortgaged debts and overdrafts. The method followed by the State —and that is why there is no criticism against the method, that is why one finds hon. members engaging in this kind of loose talk—is to give the farmer the opportunity to overcome special circumstances which will always arise in the agricultural industry, so as to enable him once again to proceed on an economic basis when times improve. These are the methods that are being used. I do not want to go into them; the hon. members know them just as well as I do.

The hon. member for Newton Park, as well as the hon. member for King William’s Town, referred to production costs. The hon. member had the audacity, no less, to say that the Minister of Finance was responsible for the high interest rates. The Minister of Finance took certain measures to combat inflation, but these have not pushed up the interest rates to this unprecedented level on which they are at present.

But he started it.

The demand for capital, the demand for money, has pushed up interest rates, and just as one has to pay higher interest rates in South Africa at present, interest rates are high all over the world to-day. Interest rates in other countries of the world are higher than is the case in South Africa. The strong American Government is borrowing money in Germany at 12 per cent and 12½ per cent, because they have a shortage of money. But to try to create the impression now that the whole situation of increased interest rates is to be laid at the door of the Government, is a totally absurd claim.

But he started it.

No, the hon. member did not say the Minister had started it. He said the Minister of Finance was responsible for it. These are the words the hon. member used. He should not try to evade this now. I just want to say in passing that the hon. member levelled the accusation here that I had started with the disclosure of the names of people who had obtained Land Bank loans, but I did not disclose the names of people who had obtained Land Bank loans.

Was it Fanie van der Merwe?

What happened—and Mr. Botha and other people were present there—was that Mr. Fanie van der Merwe rose at the meeting and put this question to me: When I approached you when I was in difficulties, what did you do for me? And in my reply I said: This is what I did for you. That is what I told him in reply to a question which he had asked me. However, I am merely saying this in passing. Please, the hon. member must make sure of his facts! If the hon. member should ask me now what I did for him, and I happened to have done something for him, I would also say what I did for him. The hon. member referred to production costs. What are production costs? Production costs are not only these few things to which the hon. member referred. Production costs are to a very large extent determined by what one has invested for farming purposes. Not so many years ago, when the Karoo was still at its very best, I attended an auction where I saw ordinary ewes with lambs being sold at R25 a piece. I also went there in order to buy, but I did not bid any higher than R10. However, I am not so sure that that hon. member stopped when I did.

I did not buy either.

No, the hon. member bought the farm.

What does that have to do with it?

No, it has nothing to do with it. The hon. member says he did not buy ewes, and I say he bought the farm, and what is wrong with that? Why, then, is the hon. member so nervous?

Order! The hon. the Minister must proceed.

But, the capital investment made in the farming industry, has a tremendous effect on the production costs, and this is one of the problems with which we have to contend in the wool industry to-day. We have to contend with this problem because we found ourselves in an economic cycle of tremendously high prices. These tremendously high prices did not only drive up the prices of wool and sheep, but drove up land prices in the same manner. In other words, an economic cycle was created here which, in to-day’s depreciating conditions in the wool industry, is totally disproportionate and is affecting the production costs to a tremendous extent. If the Government should now undertake to reduce the production costs, as the hon. member suggested, and if it reduced the production costs of those few items to which the hon. member referred …

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? Could the hon. the Minister tell me what percentage of the farmers have bought land over the past 10 years?

It is very difficult to say what percentage of the farmers bought farms, but many of them have also adapted their standard of living to the value of their land.

They were not the only people.

I am not saying this, nor am I levelling an accusation. The hon. member should not become so upset. I am referring to the economic cycle. In view of the depreciated condition it has of course turned out that those high investments hi land and those overdrafts based on those land values cannot be met by the income derived from wool. Now I want to put a question to the hon. members on the other side of the House. To what extent is the taxpayer or the Government, which has to spend the taxpayer’s money, expected to put those people in such a position that they will have fewer liabilities in all circumstances, as the hon. member for East London (City) suggested. The Government is doing a great deal in this regard. Agricultural credit is available, and Land Bank mortgages are being made available for the very purpose of lowering the interest rates for those people so that they may overcome those deficits. However, we cannot reduce their liabilities in the way hon. members are pleading for this to be done. If one does not reduce their liabilities, their production costs will still remain high, for that reason which I mentioned. That is why it is very easy for the hon. member to rise here and to talk about costs. Let us look at the costs to which he referred. Let us look at the costs of the wool farmer. He referred to the conveyance of I wool to the market by rail, in respect of which the railage was in fact increased, as in fact all the other rates were. On the other hand, the wool farmers have, in these times and circumstances in which we are living at present, once again been granted all the other concessions in order that their production costs i may be lowered. The hon. member is shaking his head, but, surely, this is the case.

Surely, that is distress relief.

They have already been under distress relief for the past five years. There are extensive wool districts which over the past 22 years have been listed as drought-stricken areas for 20 years, and which have had the advantage of subsidized transport.

I thought the hon. the Minister had said there was going to be fine years when such assistance would not be necessary.

I am saying that there are districts, and good districts which I do not want to mention by name, which over the past22 years have been on the drought list for 20 years, and which have over that full period had the advantage of subsidized fodder for their stock.

Are there more than five of them?

Yes, considerably more than five. There are districts, i.e. some of the districts to which I have just referred, where the current land prices are between R35 and R40, in spite of the fact that over the past 22 years they have been on that list for 20 years. That is why I say that people have to a large extent availed themselves of these benefits. The hon. member for East London (City) and the hon. member for Newton Park are aware of this, for the districts in which they are living, are amongst those which have been on the drought list for as long as that. They were not on the pasture-emergency list for this whole period, but they were on the drought list, and these districts enjoyed all the benefits involved in being on that list. There are other districts in which wool farming is practised and in which the farmers never enjoyed those benefits, but in which the position of the wool farmers is considerably better to-day than is the position in the listed areas, for the simple reason that the weather conditions are so much better there. After all, this goes without saying.

I also want to refer to another observation that was made by the hon. member for Newton Park. He said that more regard should be had to the risk factor in the agricultural industry, and that an insurance scheme for farmers should be introduced in order to insure their production costs. In this way their return would then be assured. After all, production costs insurance does not give the farmer a return. The hon. member referred to countries such as America. A short while ago I visited America, where I investigated the whole question of agricultural insurance to see how it functioned and whether it was not possible to apply it here as well. I asked all of them how their insurance in respect of mealies worked. Then I was asked what the rainfall was in the mealie-producing regions in South Africa. I replied that it was between 20 and 22 inches. Then they said that one could, after all, not produce mealies with a rainfall of only 20 inches. They also said that in America no production costs insurance was granted if the aggregate rainfall and irrigation did not amount to 35 inches. However, the hon. member wants us, with the tremendous differences we have in production circumstances, to enter into an insurance scheme. This would mean that in our good areas farmers would not take out such insurance, as it would not pay them to take out production costs insurance. In poor areas, however, it is quite possible that farmers will effect such insurance.

However, it will be a tremendously expensive scheme. Has the hon. member ever calculated what the annual premium would be in areas where crops may be poor for three or four years out of a total of six or eight years? It is very easy for the hon. member to say that insurance should be available. Just as it is in the case of financing, one will have to draw certain lines as far as insurance is concerned. Certain areas would then have to be totally excluded from this insurance. Therefore, nothing will have been done for farmers in border-line areas. I want to ask the hon. member another question. What would an insurance scheme do to the return of a meat or a wool farmer? What could an insurance scheme do to the production costs of a meat or a wool farmer? What costs would be insured in their cases? The hon. member must tell us these things. I am prepared to listen to his views on an insurance scheme, but then it should not merely be a lot of general statements, but statements which have substance. I can still see how an insurance scheme can be worked out when it comes to a cash crop such as mealies or wheat, but the hon. member was in the first place not concerned about those people.

Of course, I was.

I am not saying that the hon. member was not concerned about them, but I am saying that he was not concerned about them in the first place. The hon. member was in the first place concerned about wool farmers who are experiencing drought conditions to-day. How does the hon. member envisage an insurance scheme with a return for the wool and the meat farmer in South Africa being introduced? I should like to hear what the hon. member has to say about that, and I hope it will be something concrete.

Then I want to refer to the hon. member for Fauresmith. The hon. member spoke about the problems we were experiencing in regard to the marketing of meat. The hon. member for East London (City) also referred to this matter. We find ourselves in the position in South Africa that we have a meat scheme which has already been in operation for a considerable length of time, a scheme which probably has its good qualities, but which, on the other hand, also has a retarding effect in certain respects, as was also pointed out by the hon. member for East London (City). It has a retarding effect in the sense that it is not so easy to create facilities, in view of the fact that there are doubts about what the future of such facilities will be. Secondly, it has a retarding effect as it is not so easy to cause the new method of supplying meat to function under the present scheme. There are other problems as well; consequently a great deal has been said about this scheme from time to time.

In the past the Meat Board took certain steps in order to make the supply of meat to the markets more streamlined, to put it that way. All these factors have eventually caused a great deal of doubt to arise in respect of the scheme as it is at present, i.e. whether it is still possible to implement it this way and whether it is sufficiently flexible and fluid to comply with market requirements. Subsequently commissions and committees were appointed from time to time in an attempt to remove doubts of this nature. These doubts have taken root to such an extent, especially with the authorities which have to provide abattoirs in South Africa, that in spite of going to the greatest lengths it was no longer possible for one to persuade municipalities and other authorities to make abattoir facilities available. This is one of the problems with which we have had to deal in the marketing of meat.

The hon. member for East London (North) referred to it. The provision of cold storage facilities, to which he referred, is not a solution to our problem. We have sufficient cold storage facilities in South Africa for storing all the meat we have and much more as well. At the present moment there are cold storage facilities which are being financed by the board and which are standing empty for the very reason that they are being kept for the time when they can in fact be filled. Therefore, cold storage facilities are not the problem that has arisen here. The basic problem that has arisen, is in connection with the provision of slaughter facilities. It is for this reason that our markets were at times so inundated with stock that it was not possible to keep ahead in slaughtering them. It is not necessarily a question of not being able to store them once they have been slaughtered, but a question of not being able to keep ahead in slaughtering them.

For instance, we had a case in Cape Town where a general calculation was made that Cape Town could absorb 7,000 sheep per week. In view of the pressure on the markets and at the abattoirs they were in due course persuaded to make additional extensions, through which this number was pushed up to Even with the slaughtering of the those sheep were also, for the most part, absorbed by the market in Cape Town. But I merely mention this in passing in order to say what the circumstances were which resulted in the abattoir facilities not being available. To a large extent this was attributable to the fact that the municipalities were not sure of the future of this scheme, as the board itself tampered with the scheme from time to time and voices were raised against this scheme. In this way various commissions were appointed. Now I should like to make the following statement in the House to-day.

The operation of the meat scheme was, principally as a sequence to the recommendations made by the De Villiers Abattoir Commission of Inquiry, investigated by a departmental committee. In 1968 this committee brought out its report, as a result of which the Meat Board took certain resolutions which were aimed at introducing more flexibility into the marketing of slaughter-stock and the movement of meat; furthermore, that provision be made for the construction of abattoirs by private enterprises, irrespective of whether they be inside or outside the controlled areas. At the request of the Meat Board I appointed a committee of inquiry into the practical implementation of these resolutions in April of last year.

With a majority resolution this committee recommended that the existing meat scheme— compulsory auction on the hook at public abattoirs—should be continued unchanged; furthermore, that certain concessions made by the Meat Board in respect of the marketing of meat in the controlled areas, without such meat being offered at the meat auctions, should be withdrawn. In addition, the majority group did not lend its support to private abattoirs being permitted in controlled areas, except in the case of factory pigs.

The minority was of the opinion that development in the meat trade necessitated more freedom in the system of marketing. They were agreed that the floor-price system should be retained and implemented effectively, but along with public service abattoirs they also advocated the construction of private abattoirs, which had to be integrated with the pattern of development, as being essential for preventing progress in the trade from being impeded, especially in regard to the preparation of meat for distribution and the processing thereof.

The Meat Board endorsed the majority opinion and recommendations of the committee. After I, too, had once again, on several occasions, consulted with representatives of producers and commercial interests, I decided to accept the standpoint of the Meat Board in regard to the compulsory auction scheme and abattoir provision. However, this includes the approval of private abattoirs for the slaughtering of factory pigs in the controlled areas. Pigs for factory purposes fall under a category different from that of the other species of animals, the meat of which is principally disposed of and consumed in fresh form. In cases where pigs are slaughtered for processing purposes, these processes can be undertaken more effectively under one roof. In fact, this is the reason why it was decided to make an exception in respect of factory pigs.

For the purposes of the implementation and maintenance of the meat scheme in its present form, as has now been resolved, public service abattoirs in the controlled areas are essential. Traditionally these abattoirs were provided by the local authorities and, what is more, in the Abattoir Commission Act recognition was granted to the rights of local authorities to establish public slaughter facilities in their areas of jurisdiction. As is commonly known, there was for many years before the passing of the Abattoir Commission Act uncertainty on the part of local authorities about the future of the marketing scheme for slaughter stock and meat and also about whether abattoirs were remunerative. Possible amendments to the meat scheme and the possibility of private abattoirs being allowed as a result of the appointment of the committee of inquiry, caused further doubts and uncertainties to arise amongst many local authorities with which the Abattoir Commission had negotiated for the construction or smartening up of abattoirs. The result was that in some cases the negotiations came to a standstill.

The recent commencement of the Animal Slaughter, Meat and Animal Products Hygiene Act and the requirements laid down under that Act for the purpose of improving the hygienic conditions in abattoirs, added to the reluctance on the part of certain local authorities to continue with their abattoir enterprises. Now that a resolution has been taken in regard to the continued implementation of the meat scheme in its present form, I am requesting the Abattoir Commission to continue with its negotiations with municipalities for the purpose of constructing new abattoirs or improving their existing abattoirs as circumstances require. On behalf of the Government I am making an urgent and serious appeal to municipalities— especially to those who were hesitant or reluctant to continue with their abattoir enterprises—to provide in the national interest, in conjunction with the Abattoir Commission, the necessary public service abattoirs in their areas of jurisdiction. I express my appreciation to those local authorities which, in spite of the prevailing uncertainties, have continued with their plans for the establishment or smartening up of slaughter facilities.

It is an accepted policy that, subject to effective and economic management and operation, abattoirs provided by local authorities should at least be self-supporting, and that in cases where this is desired, an allowance will also be made for moderate distributable profits. The basis and level of the profit margin allowed will have to form the subject of negotiations between the Abattoir Commission and the local authorities concerned. The Government trusts that, now that the uncertainty about the meat scheme and abattoir provision has been removed, local authorities which, because of their particular circumstances found it necessary to ask for distributable compensation, will, mindful of their responsibilities towards their communities as well as for the sake of preventing unnecessary loading of the marketing costs of an essential food, be satisfied with the moderate profit margins allowed and will not look to the abattoir enterprise for large contributions for the purposes of other developments. In this regard I want to mention that in certain circles the feeling has arisen that abattoirs should rather be established by the Abattoir Commission on the basis of a special utility organization. However, the Government believes and is convinced that whereas public slaughter facilities must be made available, it is a function which in the public interest falls under local authorities as part of the infra-structure of their community.

I was keen to make this statement here this afternoon for the simple reason that, as I have said, some doubts have arisen after the confusion, backwards and forwards, about the possibility of the scheme being amended. I have made this statement in order that we may now have clarity. This matter has created problems in a large part of our country, in Pretoria for example, where people have for a long time been negotiating about the establishment of new abattoirs, which are absolutely essential, as well as in Durban and in some of our other major cities. I just want to express confidence that these municipalities will, as I said in the statement, now see their way clear to providing these public services, which we all believe are a function of a local authority.

Hon. members have now progressed with the debate up to this stage, and I have tried to refer to the lesser matters to which I can reply. I just want to add that as I listened to the hon. members and their criticism, it struck me that the statements made by the hon. members were such that in actual fact there was no criticism against the standpoint of the Government. The majority of the measures which they requested and which they suggested should be taken, are already being taken by the Department and the Government. Withdrawal schemes, stock reduction schemes and all the other measures to which hon. members referred, are already being implemented by the Department. To my mind there is no better proof of the good work being done by the Department of Agriculture than the inability of the members on the other side to level better criticism than they have done so far.

Mr. Chairman, I think the statement made by the hon. the Minister in regard to abattoirs merits closer attention. I should like to comment on the statement the hon. the Minister has just read out once I have received a copy of it.

I want to come back to the hon. the Minister’s denial that he and/or the Minister of Defence had ever referred from a public platform to people’s Land Bank loans. I want to refer the hon. the Minister to what I told him earlier this year when he and the hon. the Minister of Defence, both of whom are now behaving in such a sanctimonious manner as regards this matter, said the following from a public platform about Mr. Fanie van der Merwe (translation) —

But that was in reply to a question.

Mr. Chairman, whether an hon. member asked a question or not, this hon. Minister and his colleague referred from public platforms to people’s Land Bank loans.

You are talking nonsense. I never mentioned a Land Bank loan. Where do you get that from? It is an infamous untruth.

I shall bring the hon. the Minister the Burger of 12th January and I shall then refer him to the speech he made himself.

Mr. Chairman, this hon. member must accept my word. I never in the Strand …

This is an allegation about something which did not take place in this House, but which allegedly took place outside the House.

Then I say the hon. member is telling an infamous untruth and he ought to know it.

The hon. member for Newton Park may proceed.

Mr. Chairman, if the Burger is wrong as regards the quotation which I shall bring to the hon. the Minister.

It is as much a lie as those you told elsewhere outside this House.

Order! The hon. the Minister must withdraw the word “lie”.

I withdraw it. It was an untruth.

The hon. the Minister may say what he likes. They were the first two gentlemen to refer to people’s Land Bank loans on public platforms.

I am telling you again that it is an untruth.

I am telling the hon. the Minister now that in that case the Burger told an untruth.

Anyone who says that I did that, is lying.

I am prepared to accept the hon. the Minister’s word if he says that he did not refer to this manner. But if I furnish the hon. the Minister with the Burger in which this matter was reported, will he be prepared to write a letter denying that he ever used those words?

The person who says that I referred to Fanie van der Merwe’s Land Bank loan is lying.

But then the Burger is also lying.

Somebody is lying.

I shall show the hon. the Minister that particular edition of the Burger. He need not be afraid. If it was not the hon. the Minister of Defence, it was the hon. the Minister of Agriculture.

He has explained what happened.

Somebody must have done it. They must not refer to this side of the House as the pjople who started to spread stories about Land Bank loans in South Africa. In the second place, was it not the hon. the Minister of Planning who told us on this side of the House that that side of the House would also go to the Deeds Office to find out who had Land Bank loans? Was it not the hon. the Minister of Information who referred for the first time from a public platform on 9th March of this year at Queenstown to the Land Bank loans of the hon. member for East London (City)? [Interjections.] Was it not that same hon. gentleman who started referring to the so-called Land Bank loans the late Senator Conroy had when he was a Minister? Hon. members on this side of the House did not refer in public or in this House to one single Land Bank loan, except that of ex-Minister Haak, after those hon. gentlemen had first started to discuss in public the affairs of people outside this House.

Like my son-in-law’s.

Mr. Chairman, I am glad the hon. the Prime Minister is here. I challenge the hon. the Prime Minister to point out one statement in the remarks I made in regard to the loan of Kolver and Co. in which I expressed disapproval of that loan.

You said the loan had been taken by the hon. the Prime Minister’s son-in-law, and that is not true.

I did not say it had been taken by the hon. the Prime Minister’s son-in-law. I made a statement in regard to the Land Bank loan in question. I again challenge the hon. the Prime Minister to point out one statement …

It was a blatant lie that you told.

It is a strange thing for the hon. the Prime Minister to say that I told a blatant lie. But did the honourable judge who investigated the matter, say that I had told a lie?

Because you shifted everything on to George Oliver and he shifted it on to Hertzog Biermann. [Interjections.]

No, this is not the reply I want from the hon. the Prime Minister. The honourable judge who investigated this matter would surely have asked me such a question and would have stated in his report that I had blamed the hon. member for Kensington for everything if I had, in fact, done so.

Of course you said you had heard it from him.

I again say to the hon. the Prime Minister that I challenge him or any other member on that side of the House to point out to me any remark or sentence in that statement in which I expressed disapproval of that loan.

Mr. Chairman, may l ask the hon. member a question? Since when is a lie a statement?

Whether it was the hon. the Prime Minister’s son-in-law who had the loan or not, I did not refer to it. I referred to the loan as such. I find this strange, because I flattered the hon. the Prime Minister and his Government in that statement because they were prepared to grant such large loans to the farmers of South Africa. I then expressed the hope that more farmers in South Africa would receive assistance and also that the less well-to-do farmer would be assisted. But when we flatter the hon. the Prime Minister and the Government because of steps they have taken, we are summonsed to appear before a commission to furnish proof of what we have done. What a strange way of doing things!

You are running away from your own scandal now.

No, I shall tell that hon. the Minister what the difficulty is. Those hon. gentlemen could not take their medicine as regards the Haak loan.

You told too many lies during the election.

The hon. the Minister of Defence would not repeat those words outside this House.

Of course I would.

I challenge the hon. the Minister to declare outside this House that I told lies during the election.

You did so as far as Kolver was concerned.

Mr. Chairman, is the hon. the Minister entitled to say that the hon. member tells lies outside the House?

He did so as far as Kolver was concerned.

Order! The hon. the Minister was referring to something which had taken place outside this House. However, I appeal to hon. members to refrain from carrying on in this vein.

That hon. the Minister usually has the courage of a bantam-cock at public meetings and if he has that courage now, I challenge him to declare outside this House that I told a lie during this election.

I shall say that you told a lie outside this House as regards the Prime Minister’s son-in-law.

I did not even refer to the hon. the Prime Minister’s son-in-law. I made a statement in reply to a question that was put to me by the present hon. member for Kensington when he asked me to comment on this loan. If the hon. the Minister has the courage to declare outside this House that I told a lie, I challenge him to do so.

I shall do so too.

You watch out too!

The hon. member for Newton Park, as a shadow minister of the Opposition, has had every possible opportunity since yesterday of scoring a bit for the Opposition in this debate. But while he was making such a fuss here, he put me in mind of a few urchins who got hold of a minister’s book of sermons. They found the following marginal note in that book “Argument weak—yell like hell!” This is what the hon. member put me in mind of. Since yesterday he has been guilty of generalizations. While we have expected him to elaborate on these promises of a Canaan contained in this booklet of theirs, he was indulging in generalizations. The tactics of the United Party since yesterday have been to saddle up one horse after another and when they have finished with it to start again with the first one and every time they tell us the same story. The essence of what the hon. member for Newton Park told us was that the farmer was not sharing in the economic prosperity of the country, the old, old story. All that he achieved with this, was to admit that there was economic prosperity in South Africa after all.

Yesterday the hon. member for King William’s Town became very excited about two matters. The first was about the quality of the candidates of the United Party. We shall leave it at that. The other was about nonsense. After he had finished, one would have needed a magnifying glass to have been able to find one grain among the chaff. He became excited again to-day and once again his contribution amounted to nothing. I think the hon. member for East London (City) is an unhappy member. When he had to discuss wool in the past, he discussed politics. To-day again, he tried to discuss agricultural politics. And I am sure that after the Minister had dealt with him, he was pining for his shadow portfolio, i.e. Tourism. The hon. the Minister quite rightly said that we had an abundance of generalizations from them while there was a lack of real arguments. There is something in the actions of the Opposition here that worries me. I think we should get away from the tendency to present a gloomy picture of agricultural conditions in South Africa. This is nothing but a crime. There is something else that is part and parcel of this. When the Government decides to render assistance to the farmers, it is being bruited about in every possible way. From our side we sometimes find it necessary to expose the allegations made by the United Party and its minions. I do not think it is good for any industry that matters concerning it be dragged across the floor of this House or to political platforms. The farmer will eventually begin to feel that there is a kind of stigma attaching to him. In this way the farmer is being played off against other professions. We should get away from this tendency. The farmer in South Africa is by no means becoming a pauper—far from it. They are engaged in a most courageous and praiseworthy struggle, a struggle against the elements and against economic and marketing conditions which are beyond their control They are engaged in a courageous struggle for the sake of their livelihood and for the sake of the survival of our country. All of us must see this matter in its right perspective. We should assist the farmer in a positive way and not try to make political capital out of conditions prevailing in the agricultural sphere. It happens too often that politics are dragged into agriculture in this House; the same applies to the political platform.

There is one other minor matter I want to deal with briefly. This matter concerns the high prices of land. When a farmer wants to buy land to-day, he is faced with two different prices, i.e., the market price and the agricultural value of the land. If he cannot pay for the land himself and has to get assistance, he is faced with a major problem, because there is an enormous gap between the two. Supposing he applies to the Land Bank for assistance. All he gets, is 80 per cent of the agricultural value. Where must the farmer get the rest from? To my mind this is a real problem, and I would really appreciate it if the hon. the Deputy Minister would say something in regard to this matter.

Sir, there is one final thought I want to raise. I think the hon. member for Bloemfontein (District) also referred to this matter yesterday. I am convinced that there are too many bodies which, to put it mildly, are trying to make a living out of the farmer. I wanted to say “bodies which are preying on the farmers”. Sir, there are many things which are absolutely necessary to farming; I am thinking of fertilizers, artificial fertilizers, stock requirements, and so forth. I could stand here a long time and enumerate one after the other. What I am particularly concerned about is the following—and in this respect I have in mind agencies responsible for the distribution of these requirements. At one place in my constituency there are no fewer than three agencies selling stock requirements. We find that these people have their own offices, their own staff and their own field staff. I do not want to carp at these particular people, because this also applies to other bodies. But the prices of those requirements which are absolutely essential to the farmer are, in fact, much too high. This is a clear indication to us that something has to be done to combat that evil—on a co-operative basis, I think— as regards those people who are pushing up the costs to the farmer to such a tremendously high level.

The hon. member for De Aar remarked that this side of the House is always hawking with the a fairs of the farmers. Does the hon. member not pay any heed to what we keep on saying here all day long? Sir, we have explained to the hon. the Deputy Minister and the Minister, that the large amount of assistance that is being rendered to farmers by means of subsidies will ultimately assume such proportions that the State will no longer be in a position to maintain these subsidies when there are large surpluses in a good year. Sir, that hon. member comes from De Aar, which also suffered heavily as a result of the drought. I do not know whether De Aar has had good rains; I hope it has. The hon. member says that things are going well for the farmer; that the farmers are not paupers and that they are proud people. Thank Heavens, they are proud people. Sir, a meeting was held at Prince Albert at which the farmers told the hon. the Minister: “Do not give us any more subsidies; do not give us any more financial assistance; just see to it what we get a job somewhere, even if it is the job of a road-worker”.

Don’t become dramatic about that too now.

Despite all this, the hon. member, like other hon. members, also wants to submit that things are going well in agriculture, while we are advancing a plea for agriculture and trying to suggest remedies.

Sir, I want to leave the hon. member at that and come back to the hon. the Minister. I am sorry he is not here at the moment. I mentioned the fact a moment ago that subsidies for agriculture are assuming proportions which frighten one when one thinks of the possibility of large surpluses in a good year. I said it was time for research to be carried out to ascertain which methods could be applied in an attempt to alleviate the burdens of agriculture. The Minister thereupon accused me of coming to this House to discuss matters without being able to suggest anything whereby the burden of agriculture could be alleviated. He also said that it was not possible to alleviate the burden but he did not respond to my statement that agricultural subsidies were assuming such proportions that conditions were getting out of hand. Just look at the Budget; just look at the mealie subsidy last year. It amounted to millions of rand. Look at the wheat subsidy; where is it going to end if it goes on like this? Has the time not come for a method to be designed according to which our prices could be brought closer to world prices? Surely, we can do this only when the liabilities of the farmer are not of such a nature that he cannot afford to accept the world price; then he will simply have to go; this is all he can do.

I want to go further and I want to deal in greater detail with the system of fodder banks. The Minister should be ashamed of himself. Either he did not read the report of the commission on fodder banks, which is 15 years old, or he pretends to know nothing about it. He wanted to know from us in which way and where to store roughage and he said it was exposed to fire and damage. I have explained so clearly that there are various methods of mixing balanced rations, i.e. subsistance ration, a dairy ration and a fattening ration. If the dairy farmer has to look for roughage, he will naturally use the balanced ration. How can the hon. the Minister level an accusation such as this? The scheme has been worked out in the greatest detail. The then Secretary for Agriculture was the chairman of the commission. The commission submitted a report in which it was stated where the fodder had to be stored, the way in which it had to be stored, the storage fee that had to be paid, the potential that existed for roughage and for concentrated feed, how the fodder should be mixed and what the ratio of the various kinds of fodder should be. All this was worked out in the greatest detail.

And what about storage?

The storage is being done at stores where the fodder is compressed, and what is wrong with that? And this is done as close to the roughage centre as possible, because this is the major part that has to be conveyed and an indication was given of the places where this should be done. And when one has to store lucerne, which is such a bulky article, it is much easier when it is in a compressed form.

And what about the storage cost?

The storage cost does not exceed the amount they have to pay at present to store what they have.

Tell us where it has to be stored.

The hon. member should read the report. It would do him the world of good to read the report. This is the story as far as that matter is concerned. I want to say again that it is no use saying there is roughage and there is a mealie bank, because hon. members know as well as I do that on maize one cannot keep one’s stock going for very long. One cannot spread the maize on the ground either because it causes stock diseases, but we know that one can spread the pellets on the ground because there is not the same danger to the animals there is in the case of maize alone. The scheme has been worked out repeatedly. I have made that point. The hon. member, who has just resumed his seat, mentioned the fact that the farmers were being exploited to-day as regards fodder. The price they charge for it, is not nearly the subsidized price. It is so much more. I have told the story about maize leaves and mazie cobs. I said it was R16 per ton and it was being subsidized to the extent of R7: in other words, he has to pay R9 plus R3.50. He has to pay R12.50 for the maize leaves and it is essential for him to have it because he has to have roughage of some kind. After all, everyone of us who is concerned with the stock-breeding industry knows this.

And thereupon the Minister went even further after I had discussed the meat industry. After the Minister had reprimanded me for what I had said about the meat industry, which had a control board although it was no control board because it was not exercising control, the Minister quoted a long report on what was going on in the meat industry and the investigation that was being carried out because the industry as such, the producers, the consumers, the dealers and municipalities were concerned about the marketing system of meat. Another thing the Minister did which I found reprehensible was that he levelled the accusation at me in regard to the wool situation to the effect that I had allegedly said something to him which I actually said outside this House by way of a joke. I hope that I shall be afforded the opportunity later of coming back to the wool position, because there is a great deal I want to say about the marketing of wool.

I have mentioned the fodder banks and the Minister replied and said that fodder was. in fact, being stored to-day. We are aware of the problem that exists and we are aware of the exploitation there is, but I should like any hon. member on that side of the House to get up and tell me that the necessary control was being exercised over the available supplies that we managed to scrape together during this time of crisis to ensure that the producer was not being exploited. The producer who needed it, was being exploited. Many people who were in dire need and who simply had to obtain it. were being exploited in an indescribable fashion while others had to make do without it. When dealing with the stock industry in the Karoo and all its problems—and then I may also add that it is not only the Great Karoo which is experiencing these problems, but also the Soutpansberg, which the hon. the Minister knows well and even better than I, problems such as the exploitation of the soil and everything that goes on in the stock industry—we realize that there are many areas in which a withdrawal scheme will have to be introduced over and above the scheme that has now been introduced by the Department. The hon. the Minister is aware of this. There are many parts of the Karoo which have this withdrawal scheme and the farmers are not in a position to farm on the remaining two-thirds. Would it not be better to withdraw his entire farm and for him to find another way of making a living elsewhere? Would it not be better for him rather to leave his farm for three years? The method I want adopted should not be one which will enable him to meet all his obligations, including his obligations in respect of interest, by means of State aid: I believe the State is not in a position to do this. On the other hand, a method has to be found by which the land can be rehabilitated and by which the farmer, who is a good farmer—I am not even advancing a plea for those who jre not good farmers— can be rehabilitated. What is it we want to do with the land? Surely, a good farmer must be able to farm. That is the present situation.

If I still have time at my disposal, I want to deal with the wool industry. The hon. the Minister levelled the accusation at me and said that I had at one stage been the chairman of the Wool Board and of the Wool Commission and that I had said that the wool industry did not need any assistance from the Government. That is not so. I have never said that. Would the person who advanced a plea in 1946 for legislation to be introduced in terms of which a statutory board in respect of wool could be established, who was always present when legislation as regards wool was being discussed and who has told the hon. the Minister all along that the law should be amended in such and such a way, now be the one who says that we do not need the Government?

He was discussing marketing.

I am speaking of marketing and I shall deal with it in a moment. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I have been listening attentively to-day to the hon. members for East London (City), King William’s Town and Newton Park. All three of them are farmers. They are so good that the hon. member for East London (City) is farming in Middelburg, Cape, where they do not want him, no matter how good a farmer he is. The hon. member for King William’s Town is farming in the district or Philipstown, where they do not want him either, no matter how good he is. Then the hon. member for Newton Park is farming in Durbanville, where they do not want him either, so that he had to seek election in Newton Park. They are the three outstanding farmers we have here. They are farming there, their policy and all, but they are not wanted in one single constituency in which they are staying. Where does the mistake come in now? Who is making the mistake? Is it the voters who are making the mistake …

What about Natal?

I am not speaking to you; you are below my level. Is it the voters who are making these mistakes, or is it those hon. members who are of such a poor quality? Let us leave it at that. The hon. member for East London (City) has dealt in great detail here with a fodder bank. The hon. the Minister told him what was going to happen and I told him by way of interjection that the fodder bank was going to be established. During all those years in which the country did not experience its particular economic boom, it was impossible to commence with major waterworks. The hon. member was still a supporter of the National Party at that time, but we are only too glad to be rid of him. We do not want that kind of National Party supporter among us, because one cannot trust him. He did a great deal for the farmers when he was the chairman of the directorate of a certain firm and when he went overseas at their expense. He tried to do a great deal overseas for the wool farmers, but I can assure this House that he did nothing for them. He merely went on pleasure trips. I think it is high time that we make known these facts seeing that so many mean things have already been said in this House. Here are people who have no self-respect. To-day it is no longer a matter of attacking a policy, but of attacking persons.

And what are you doing?

I am following the example of those hon. members opposite.

Whom did I attack?

I was not speaking to the hon. member for East London (City). The hon. member for East London (City) said a lot of foolish things here about permits for farmers who had been fattening their sheep for four months. The hon. member ought to know what demand there was for permits to send livestock to the market during the time when the farmers were not in a position to feed their livestock any longer. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of permits were being asked for at that time. Give those people the permits and allow them to send their livestock to Johannesburg, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London or Durban. What would the farmers have received for their livestock there. It was simply impossible to grant permits to everybody. I myself wanted to reduce the number of sheep I had fattened. However, I used my common sense and I realized that I could not sell my sheep for R1 after I had spent R2 on them. Under those circumstances I would rather wait a little.

What about the refrigeration rooms the hon. the Minister was talking about?

The hon. member should allow me to finish my point I am making to the hon. member for East London (City). Because I am a practical farmer. I know what the problems are.

There are no problems. There are many refrigeration rooms. The hon. the Minister said so.

You have to slaughter it first, because you cannot put it in a refrigeration room while it is still alive.

At the beginning of this year, I said in a speech I was making that the municipality of Johannesburg had not provided the slaughter-facilities. This fact was mentioned by the hon. the Minister as well. Only a certain number of sheep can be slaughtered per day and no more. It is impossible for more sheep to be slaughtered until such time as the municipalities have done their duty to provide more slaughter-facilities. I have a booklet here which has been distributed all over the place, and which allegedly contains the agricultural policy of the United Party. I should like to quote to hon. members what is being said right at the end of this policy. They say: “The Government has done nothing worthwhile for the farmer.” I now want to ask my friends, who are farmers, opposite whether they agree with this. Do they agree that this Government has done nothing worthwhile for the farmer? I knew they would keep quiet. This Government has done everything in its power as far as it was humanly possible to help the farmer. However, one thing they were unable to make and that is rain.

You have not tried yet.

The hon. member should give me an opportunity to speak, because my time is very limited. Our major problem is that we have had a drought throughout the country. I want to come back again to the hon. member for East London (City). He is free to bring me 10,000 sheep and I shall give him a permit to take them to Johannesburg. The hon. member knows that there are no slaughter animals on the market to-day. There are no slaughter cattle either, and there is an absolute scarcity of meat in the country. Hon. members now say we should make provision for an over-production. They use as an example only that one occasion on which all the farmers wanted to send their livestock to the market. One has to travel hundreds of miles when one wants a good slaughter-sheep to-day. What are the prices in Johannesburg and Cape Town? The prices are exorbitant. It is easy for hon. members to say that the Government should do this, that and the other thing before a provincial election. They are simply doing this to make a little political capital. They want the Government to grant permits during the drought. I would rather not discuss what was said by the hon. member last night, because I do not think it is worth the trouble.

It is alleged that the Government has done nothing worthwhile for the farmers. Now I ask hon. members: What about the fodder loans amounting to millions of rands the Government has granted the farmers? Is that not something worthwhile? I want to make the prediction in this House to-day that the Government will grant the farmers extension when they have to pay their fodder loans and cannot do so.

We have asked for it.

Surely you know that is so.

As regards the fodder subsidies amounting to millions of rands, I now ask hon. members whether it was not something worthwhile for the farmers to obtain these subsidies for nothing? This is a pamphlet that was published before the election. I refer to page 13.

May I ask a question? I want to ask the hon. member for Colesberg whether subsidies for fodder, and so forth, have now been introduced under Nationalist Party Government for the first time? Surely this is not something new?

It is certainly the first time these subsidies are being granted on this scale. No matter how old they are and no matter whether they have been granted by the United Party, it is still a good thing. However, at this stage they are being granted on a much larger scale. Hon. members should remember that these are not small amounts; these are large amounts that are being granted to the farmers. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I am very sorry that the hon. member for Colesberg had to enter into this debate in this vein. If he hurls personal accusations across the floor of this House in this way, he must expect that somebody is going to hit back at him.

You may do so with love.

Oh, yes. I do not want to do so with love. I have no love for a person who hurls personal remarks at me in this way. The hon. member has levelled an accusation against me to the effect that I had travelled overseas over a period of 20 years at the expense of a firm of brokers, of which I was the chairman.

I did not say for 20 years; I said you had gone overseas.

The hon. member said that I was chairman for 20 years. I went overseas at their expense only once. That hon. member was a member of my directorate. They asked me to go overseas in connection with the grave marketing problems. This is what happened. Sir, an hon. member who wants to carry on in this vein and says that three hon. members representing urban constituencies have participated in this debate, should be careful not to throw stones when he himself lives in a glass house. We have over there an hon. Minister who represents the constituency of Beaufort West. I should like to know what he knows about farming. After all, those hon. members who speak about agriculture here, knows something about farming. That hon. member knows as much about organized agriculture as my boot. I want to leave him at that with the contempt he deserves.

I see the hon. the Minister is here now. I am sorry he was not here a moment ago. The hon. the Minister said there was a time when I was chairman of the Wool Board and that I had told him that the wool industry did not need the assistance of the Government. I reject that accusation as well. I might have told the Minister so by way of a joke. But I want to repeat what I have said a moment ago. What kind of man is this who, since 1946-’47, has been going to the previous Government to pass the necessary legislation in respect of the wool industry, the Wool Commission and the Wool Board, and who then says that the wool industry does not need the Government?

I was talking about financial assistance, not about legislation.

I remained quiet while the Minister was talking. If he would only listen a little! I am sure he does not listen when one is talking. I was talking about the fodder bank—I am sorry he was not here a moment ago—and he misinterpreted the whole matter. I was talking about the Meat Board and he misinterpreted the whole matter. He uses his own point of view, elaborates on it and builds an argument on words he wants to put into my mouth. Mr. Chairman, I want to come back to the wool industry. When it comes to the wool marketing scheme we have in this country, it is no good the Minister saying that this is recommended by the Board and that he does not have any powers in that regard. The Wool Commission Act of 1960 provides quite clearly that the aims of the Wool Commission are to stabilize the market according to methods approved by the Minister. That is the only aim it has. The Minister ought to know that all methods suggested by the Wool Commission, have to be submitted to him first by the Wool Commission. If the Minister is of the opinion that these methods are not the right ones, he can tell them so. I now want to inform the Minister of the present problems which are being experienced by the wool industry as regards marketing. They maintain the reserve price, and that reserve price has never been increased since the Wool Commission was established. In the past season, however, they experienced problems in maintaining that price. According to the scheme which has been designed now and which should be effective for a year, that is for the current season, the reserve price may be changed from time to time when the pressure on the market becomes too severe. To my mind this entails grave dangers for the wool industry. I want the Minister to give particular attention when I develop this argument. As regards the maintenance of the reserve price, the Wool Commission has to act in the same way the principal wool buyers, who are merchant buyers, do. They have to buy wool and keep it away from the market. That wool is stored until they are in a position to sell it. This is what the three major French firms are doing, which buy most of the wool in the country. All three of them are merchant buyers. They are not commission buyers. They buy wool and take it off the market. They store the wool and sell it at a later stage when it suits them so that they get the best price for it. The Wool Commission as such acts in a different capacity. It buys wool at a fixed reserve price which cannot drop. Because the Wool Commission had protected and stabilized the market, the producer knew what he would receive. According to the scheme worked out for this year, the Wool Commission is empowered to reduce the reserve price when pressure is brought to bear upon the market and to adjust the balance out of the levy fund for the farmer. This does not even afford the industry the opportunity to buy wool in large quantities and to make it available on the market at a later stage in order to enable them to play even or to make a profit on it. I do not know whether all those hon. members on the opposite side of the House know how much pressure there was on the market before this Minister became Minister. In the course of one season 100,000 bales were taken in while 46,000 bales were taken in during the ensuing season. This was done without changing the reserve price. There was a large scale war among the buyers. The market was closed by the Minister. He told me I could close the market. We did close the market and conducted negotiations with the buyers in this regard. They started buying again. The 146,000 bales which had been taken in were sold again at a profit later after the market had changed. The levy fund did not suffer as a result of that either. The Minister is right when he says that we only had seven or eight million rands at that time. We did not have R35 million. After the first 100,000 bales were bought in the Minister told them: It is true that we have guarantees for the money we have spent up to now, and that those guarantees will have to be accepted, but the Reserve Bank will have to assist us if we need more money. It was not only this Minister either. There were three Ministers involved in the matter. They gave their approval for the Wool Commission to continue its activities and they said that the funds would be made available. That was not necessary. We managed to get through with what we had and after that we did good business. What I want to say, therefore, is that there are real dangers in this scheme as it exists at present. It is just as easy for the buyers we have in South Africa to bring pressure to bear upon the market as has been done in the past. All they have to do is stay away from the market for 14 days and thereby forcing the Commission to buy in 30,000 bales so that it will be possible for the reserve price to be altered. They may then return to the market for a month or so and stay away again so that the Commission will be forced to buy the wool at a reduced reserve price. The price will then drop again. In the meantime our own funds will be used up because the subsidy will have to be increased to 28c. I want the Minister to consider this matter. The season has not started yet. He should consider whether it would not be better to lay down a reserve price whether it is 25c or 26c per pound and to say that this price has to be maintained for the remainder of the season. I am asking this so that if pressure is brought to bear upon the basis announced at the most recent congress of the National Wool Association, the Commission would have the power to reduce the reserve price. I am sure that we cannot devise a better method to introduce weaknesses in our market. If a reserve price is laid down, it must be maintained for the duration of the season no matter regardless of whether we have to take in 200,000 bales or not. because if we do take in this number of bales, it would be surplus wool on the market. I want to advance a strong plea to the hon. the Minister in this regard. I hope the hon. the Minister is not going to rebuke me for something I did not say. but that he will simply accept it when I say that there are dangers involved in the scheme as he has announced it and which will have to operate now. There would not be so many dangers in the scheme if the Commission were to say: We shall maintain a reduced price basis because pressure is being brought to bear on the market and we do not want to buy in too much wool if we could help it. The reserve price which we fixed at the beginning of September, when the markets open, is the reserve price which will be maintained for the remainder of the season.

Mr. Chairman, I am sure that by now the United Party regrets having requested 12½ hours for this debate. At this stage it is very clear that they have, to a large extent, exhausted the topic, and that they cannot come forward with anything new. The hon. member for East London (City) has already stood up three times, and each time he referred to wool. I am afraid that sooner or later he is going to choke on some of this wool that he has on his mind.

Yesterday afternoon the hon. member for Newton Park referred to the training of our farmers. He said, inter alia, that it was necessary that guidance to our farmers should be stepped up because their training is scanty. It struck me immediately when he used these words, because I feel that the training of our farmers to-day is steadily increasing, and that the quality of our farmers is steadily improving. The hon. member for Newton Park refers so frequently to the South Western districts. I just want to point out to him that a survey conducted there proves that 11 per cent of our farmers there have a higher standard of education that Std. 10. I want to say that there are a large number of them who have obtained diplomas at agricultural schools. There are also a number of them who have obtained their diplomas at the agricultural colleges, and a whole lot of them who are graduates. I want to state it here as a fact that never before in the history of South African agriculture has the farmer been so well-equipped in his field. Never before has the farmer’s level of training been as high as it is now. If there is one body that ought to be thanked for this, it is this National Party Government, because it has largely increased over the past 22 years.

Who founded the colleges?

I just want to remind the hon. member that the colleges closed in 1943. Then it was no longer necessary to train farmers. They had to become soldiers then.

Because I come from the Western Province. I would be neglecting my duty if I omitted to say that I am now attached to Elsenburg. We should like to express our thanks to the hon. the Minister and his Department for their decision to re-institute Elsenburg’s two-year course. I think it is an excellent decision that was taken, because the old two-year course was actually better adapted to requirements. There was continuity and the college could build up a tradition which could be transferred from the senior to the junior students. I am sure that with the re-institution of this two-year course, the fine tradition which Elsenburg has built up for itself in the past, will be continued, and that both students and lecturers at that college will once more contribute towards making it the asset it was, and which it could be for the Western Province and for South African agriculture in the future. I trust that the spirit that I encountered when old man Johnson was still there, setting the students an industrious example in his capacity as an official, will be brought back with the institution of this two-year course. I speak on behalf of the farmers, the parents of those boys, and I feel that I am also conveying the opinion of the firms employing those boys.

The hon. member for East London (City) spoke here about a fodder bank. One of my colleagues again spoke about chaff. Both of them were dealing with chaff and straw for livestock fodder. I am aware that a great deal of progress has been made with the concentration of fodder in the form of pellets. But I would just like to mention to these two hon. members that this wheat straw—that is what chaff actually is—has such a low nutritional value that I cannot understand why those two hon. members are getting carried away about it. Had they, for example, spoken about the hay from veld grass, I could have understood it. But we who deal with wheat and who farm with it, can give hon. members the honest assurance that the Department itself determined that if one cannot obtain wheat straw on one’s farm at a price of less than 15 cents for 100 lbs., it is not worth using it. We have had definite experience of that. I feel that the future does not lie in that direction. It would, for example, be much better to make a plea here for lucerne to be treated in this way, because it is at least a balanced product, and it is worth spending money on that. We hope that a fodder bank for lucerne will be developed below the Orange River dam. I am convinced that hon. members on that side of the House purposely seized upon this question at this difficult time, because there is, after all. political gratification in speaking about a fodder bank. I and the farmers in my district, the people who were in distress as a result of the drought, dreamt of those beautiful barns full of fodder. But it just does not work out. I am convinced that this question is being seized upon solely for a political reason, because there is once more a political struggle at hand. I regret that this is being done, because I believe that every time farming and agriculture are dragged into politics. a disservice is is being done to our farmers. In doing this we are doing our farmers a great disservice. The hon. member for Newton Park’s Land Bank story has done us a great deal of damage. I am convinced that when the damage is done and things have gone wrong, the hon. Opposition will come back and level accusations at us. They maintain that they do not make polities of agriculture. However, I want to conclude by just mentioning one example. Hon. members on that side of the House told us the other day how curious the youth are, and that they would like to know what is going on in the country. There was a discussion, in the home of a United Party family in my constituency, about politics and also about agriculture’s acutest problem, i.e. the drought. One of the members of this family is a shool-girl, and in the end her only defence was: “But, Mother, can Graaff make a single drop of water?” I believe that is the way the youth in the country districts think, and that that will be their judgment of the United Party when it comes to the test.

I am pleased that the farmers and youth in the area of the hon. member for Swellendam are making use of the education facilities that are available and that he finds that the general standard of education of the fanners in his area is improving. With that we on this side of the House have no quarrel. He accused us of trying to make politics with the idea of a fodder bank but we have been raising this for years, whether there was an election or not, because we consider it to be in the vital interests of the farmer of South Africa and we shall go on raising this same issue until we have a proper fodder bank system in South Africa. He also referred to the value of wheat chaff. I believe it is a very valuable commodity and I will tell him why. The Minister referred to a fodder bank built up with maize. But maize cannot be fed to small stock, or even to cattle, without being supplemented with something else. It is for that that wheat chaff has a very real use. Therefore I believe we cannot afford to waste one bale of wheat chaff in this country.

I should now like to refer to the speech of the hon. member for Bethal, who posed this side of the House with a question. I should now like to give him our point of view on that question. He wanted to know whether we agreed with the recommendation of the Marais Commission that only farmers who carry out conservation farming should qualify for help from the State. Generally speaking, that is a wise recommendation. However, we have to qualify it at this stage because the Government has been so slow in implementing the Soil Conservation Act that at this stage it is not yet possible to define what conservation farming is. I do not even know whether the Leader of the Opposition is a conservation farmer because instead of Friesland cattle he might have to farm with beef shorthorns. I do not know and nobody will know until such time as the Government has established the norms; for instance, what the correct grazing system is, what the carrying capacity is in the Karoo or in the Free State. Until such time as we shall be able to define what conservation farming is, we cannot give a blank cheque although we agree with the principle that ultimately help should only be accorded to those farmers who are farming in a way that preserves the soil for posterity.

Now I want to deal with the speech made last night by the hon. member for Namaqualand. He pleaded for a free economy. His speech, however, was characterized more by an emotional display than by the good sense of his arguments. In talking about a free economy, he said—

I doI do not know what he meant by “free economy”. He could have meant a free enterprise economy. In any event, such a statement falls strange from the lips of that hon. member because if he stands for a free economy he would have supported this side of the House when we discussed the subdivision of agricultural land. That measure gave the Government far-reaching powers to determine the destiny of the farmers of the country. But the hon. member wants a free economy. He was, moreover, in favour of a Bill to control egg production, also a far reaching measure controlling the activities of farmers. And the Soil Conservation Act itself is a measure which controls the farmers of South Africa. As a matter of fact, the hon. member for Bethal said that this Act gave the Government the power to take the farming community by the neck. Where then does a free economy come in? We believe that the agricultural industry belongs to the farmers, at the same time acknowledging that the State has a vital role to play, is, as a matter of fact, an essential partner in running the agricultural industry. It may be that the intervention of the State must be limited to a minimum. I believe that every farmer in South Africa would like to be free from the necessity of having to draw subsidies and other assistance from the State. But because farmers are up against the elements, the country’s economy as a whole has to be adjusted and the Government has a vital role to play. But having said this, I want to eo so far as to say that in the present situation the Minister has to be looked upon as the director of agriculture in South Africa. The success or failure of a policy of the Government and the failure of or success of agriculture have to be sought at the door of the hon. the Minister. We do not believe that at this stage it can be said that farming in South Africa is a success. We believe that there are many ways in which it can be improved.

This brings me to the speech of the hon. the Deputy Minister during the debate on the motion of censure at the beginning of this Session. However, there is just one further comment I should like to make on the speech of the hon. member for Namaqualand. He made what I regard as a rather unsavoury accusation in connection with our attitude in this debate. This is what he said—

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

Very well, Sir. Let me then substitute the word “unjustifiable”.

Do not read the whole of his speech.

I am quoting a very poor speech of an hon. member on his side of the House. As against that, speeches from this side of the House, in the House and during the election, have presented a factual analysis of the failures of this Government. It is because of the accuracy of our accuzations that members on the opposite side have been hurt, that the Nationalist Party has been hurt. The reason why they are so agitated, and why the hon. member became so emotional in his speech, is that it hurt most where it mattered—at the polling booths. The farmers of South Africa have accepted what we on this side of the House have told them. The hon. member is now trying to draw a red herring across the trail by endeavouring to place an erroneous interpretation on our speeches. I believe that we must at all times—this is important—cultivate a good understanding between the farmers and the urban population, between the producers and the consumers, and it is for this reason that I am rather worried by a statement made by the hon. the Deputy Minister in his speech on the debate on the censure motion. [Time expired].

It is probably a commonplace to say in this Committee that we initially had subsistence farming, and that in the course of time we went over to profit farming; or, if one wants to state it in more practical terms, that one initially took tanned skins and made shoes from them for oneself and one’s children and family, and that to-day one goes to the shop and buys those shoes; that one purchases them at very great expense, and that money has become the most important element in this profit farming. Since money has now become the most important element in farming, I frequently wonder whether in agriculture we give sufficient attention to the laws that govern the flow and control of agricultural capital and money. When I look at our technical planning on the farms, I really have reason to be proud in many cases. The technical knowledge being made available to our farmers they apply as far as possible. We have soil analysis, and with the best application of fertilizer compounds we grow better crops and raise better livestock. I would say that we have good farm planning, but then at the same time I want to put this question: Together with our good farm planning, do we also have good financial planning in agriculture? I could probably say here, without fear of contradiction, that there are many of our farmers who ignore this aspect of farming altogether, or who do not give sufficient attention to it.

Sir, the basis of good financial planning is, in the first place, good costing. This is important. In his Budget Speech the hon. the Minister of Finance frequently quoted from the Bible, and I also want to do so. We are told in the Bible: “Before you build a tower you must sit down and calculate the costs, because otherwise you will only get halfway and then the people are going to laugh at you.” I believe that with this disposition, before we tackle any project or really begin to farm, we should first of all make a good costing of the matter. If we did so we could eliminate many subsequent problems and much heartache. I should like to present the Wheat Board’s costing on the price of wheat as a good example for our farmers. I beleive that the Mealie Board has a similar costing scheme, and I wonder whether those schemes cannot be made available for the farmers and brought to their attention as good examples which they could also use for good costing.

The matter to which I should like to give a little more of my attention is the farmer’s debt ratio. I believe that it is a matter that is not receiving sufficient attention by far. If we were to give sufficient attention to that we would be able to obtain an altogether different image of our farmers and of farming in the country districts. It is particularly the beginners who do not have any experience of farming yet who frequently transgress here and begin farming without having planned for it financially. I think that the files of the Department of Agricultural Credit and the Department of Social Welfare are probably full of examples of good prospective farmers applying to begin farming with a debt ratio of 70 per cent and more not realizing the complications involved.

Let us just take a quick look at what the position is when a farmer begins with a debt ratio of 70 per cent and if he were to obtain a redemption period of 20 years for paying off that debt. Now 20 years is probably a reasonable period to lay down because everyone wants to get free of his debt at some time or another. If one then gets an income rate of eight per cent from farming one would have to pay 70 per cent of that income every year in interest and redemption. If one is luckier and there are good years without droughts and one obtains an income rate of 10 per cent one has to pay 60 per cent for that every year. But now I have taken favourable figures and I would rather take a figure of six per cent which is very much nearer the reality and very frequently a farmer is not even able to maintain an income rate of six per cent in agriculture. But if one has a six per cent income rate it means that one has to pay exactly 100 per cent of what one obtains on capital and interest. I believe that it would be a very good thing if it were properly brought to the attention of prospective farmers that with a six per cent income rate and a 70 per cent debt ratio one simply has to spend everything one makes on the farm on the redemption of capital and interest so that one then has nothing left. I believe that it would create an impossible situation because one must, after all, take the family and the education of the children into account.

I believe that these facts must be brought to the attention of prospective farmers very much more frequently, and where we could begin with that is firstly in our agricultural schools. I am convinced that the financial planning and guidance given to prospective young farmers at our agricultural schools are not in any way sufficient to prepare them in respect of this important aspect of farming. The second body that could be of unquestionable help to us here is our co-operation, because that is the body that is concerned daily with the farmers finances, and which knows exactly what their financial positions are. I want to suggest that instead of retaining a salesman to go around selling implements and such things to the fanners, our co-operations should obtain an agricultural economist. With his help the financial positions of various farmers who are in difficulties could be analyzed expertly, so that these facts could more properly be brought to their attention, and so that the farmer who is in difficulties could obtain expert advice about how he should handle his affairs in the future. We believe that our Department of Agricultural Technical Services definitely has a large amount of information in this connection, and that they could make this available to our co-operations and our farming associations so that it could filter through to our farmers and so that financial planning may receive the necessary attention in our systems of farming.

In concluding with this I just want to associate myself with the hon. member for East London (City), who expressed his gratitude for the rain that has fallen over large areas, and I want to express my gratitude in particular because my constituency was in a precarious position. While we had beautiful grazing farms a few years ago, the situation has now developed to where a farmer may drive past his boundary fence without knowing where it is. You can therefore understand the position, and only rain can salvage it; and for the rain that has already fallen we are deeply grateful.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Mossel Bay has talked about the rain in his district and I am glad that that is the position. I must say, it seems that the whole of the Karoo has had rain and we are all very grateful for that. The hon. member made a constructive contribution and we have no quarrel with what he had to say. He has given many young farmers valuable advice and, if I sum it up correctly, it is that they should look before they leap. He summed up the financial implications and he also rather confirmed a point of view which we on this side of the House have been expressing. We have said it is time that an ecological survey of the whole of South Africa is made, so that the potential of the different areas can be well defined. In this way young farmers will not be misled to try to grow wheat when they should be growing maize or they will not be keeping merino sheep when they should be keeping angora goats. We believe that such an ecological survey which, for many reasons, should be receiving the earnest consideration of the Government.

I was referring to the hon. member for Namakwaland who said that we in our election speeches have attempted to cause a rift between the farming folk, the producers, and the urban dwellers. We have not made ourselves guilty of that very serious reflection. In fact, we believe that the best understanding possible should exist between the urban dweller or the city people and our farming community. I believe it is the duty of every single person to try and improve that situation.

I am a little bit worried by a statement which the hon. the Deputy Minister has made, and I want to cross swords with him about this matter. However, I will not do it out of disrespect, because I have a great deal of respect for the hon. the Deputy Minister. In his speech during the motion of censure, he said the following—

Now, one would gather that it is possible for every farmer and in fact very easy for him to get that amount of assistance from the State. However, that is not the case; for a farmer to qualify for that amount of assistance he has to earn it the hard way. In the first place, in order to ger this R3,600, he himself has to spend R3,600 and it could only happen if he was farming under conditions of “noodweiding" for a full 12 months. That would be a frightful situation as far as the economic side of his farm is concerned. Further, it is only the bigger farmers which can get the R4,950. Not every farmer can get it. A statement such as the one which the hon. the Deputy Minister has made, could easily lead the townsmen to believe that this is something which the Government is handing to the farmer on a plate. This could very easily create a wrong impression. That last thing that we as farmers want to create is the impression that we are a spoon-fed society. I believe the farming community are too proud to ever want that situation to be created.

I have referred before to the stock reduction schemes and I briefly want to say something about it in the few minutes at my disposal, this afternoon. I believe this is as far as it concerns the pastoral industry of South Africa, the most realistic policy which was ever undertaken by the State. Properly exercised I believe it can be turned into a great joint venture by the farmers of South Africa, the State and by every citizen, whether urban or rural in this country. I feel that if it is properly understood by every citizen, every person, whether he is a city dweller or not, would be happy to participate in a scheme of this nature which will probably affect pastoral farming in South Africa more beneficially than any other system can. It is an operation to save the country side of South Africa and I believe that properly carried out it can save the State a great deal. I would like to impress this on the hon. the Deputy Minister. If the State invests sufficient money now and really gets cracking with this scheme, it will save itself millions of rands in the future. I believe that this is truly a case of a stitch in time will save nine. We have had wonderful rains throughout the country. What I am worried about is that everybody is going to forget about saving his veld. If ever there was a time that we must get the stock off the veld to give it a chance to rehabilitate, now is the hour. I believe the Government must go on with this scheme and that they must encourage every farmer to participate as far as he possibly can. I believe that they must make it possible for any farmer, who sees the necessity, to spare his entire farm by removing every head of stock on such a farm, to do so.

Must it be compulsory or not?

No, I do not say it must be compulsory but I do believe by giving the proper “voorligting”, farmers can be made to realize the benefit of this. They should be encouraged to move all their stock. The only objection can be that it will involve the Government into too much expenditure. I do, however, think there is a safety valve, because the Government is only paying the farmer R2.50 per sheep. No farmer is going to release all his sheep, because then it will be too uneconomic for him. The better farmers are making much more than R2.50 per sheep or R8 per head for large stock. I do not believe it will invove the State in any unnecessary spending of money.

During the censure debate the hon. the Deputy Minister, as hon. members on that side often do, referred to the amount of money this Government is spending and the number of officials employed in the various Departments. He said that there were 6,000 officials employed in the Department of Agricultural Technical Services and that something like R400 is spent on every farm. It is all very well to quote what is being spent but what is important is what is in fact being done with this money. We very often think that this money is not being spent wisely. In this respect I want to mention one example. In spite of all the money that is being spent, and in spite of all the officials, under the very nose of the Department, termite ants are eating up the country’s veld at an alarming rate, the Government is doing nothing about it. I have been in touch with officials in the Department and I have come to the conclusion that what the Government has done up to now is almost negligible. I wish to assure the hon. the Deputy Minister that termite ants are a bigger threat to this country than locusts ever were. If the Government does not act now and act quickly, our pasture and veld are going to be destroyed. Any rehabilitation scheme that we like to introduce would be saving the veld only for the termites. What alarms me, when hon. members opposite say what they are doing and how many officials there are, is that a situation like this can be allowed to arise where a private company has taken the greatest initiative in finding effective methods of controlling the termite problem in South Africa. A private company has devised practical means for controlling this problem. Quite obviously the harvester termite is something that cannot be controlled in isolated parts. It has to be dealt with on a national scale. It is no good one farmer eradicating them and the neighbour not doing anything about it. Here we again have a case where the State should intervene, because any control method will be very expensive. I therefore believe that the State, as it subsidized locust campaigns, will have to be prepared to intervene at this stage and make it economically feasible for farmers to tackle this question of controlling termites on a national basis. The control I refer to is the throwing of bait in pellet form. This bait is available in South Africa. It is manufactured in America, but I believe that if we tackle the problem properly we will be able to make our own bait here. I have seen it used and it is 100 per cent effective. I have also used it on my own farm. This bait, however, costs R45 per 100 lbs. The hon. the Deputy Minister can well see that if a single farmer has to embark on any large-scale campaign, the cost will be enormous.

Mr. Chairman, I should just like to reply to the hon. member for Walmer on a few points. I shall begin with the last one, i.e. harvester termites. The hon. member said that it was a pity that a private company was taking the initiative. The hon. member must remember that the private company’s aim, apart grom giving service, is also to make money. The work that has already been done by the Department, and there are harvester termites in my constituency, far exceeds what any private undertaking has yet done. But the solution to the problem does not lie in spraying. The hon. member for Bloemfontein (District) spoke last night of harakiri, the new component that is mixed with lucerne and then sown and which works out at R1.50 per morgen. It is a temporary solution, but the problem to which the hon. member referred developed specifically because we allowed the veld to be trampled. The termite’s natural enemies no longer have a refuge. The spiders, the insects, the scaly ant-eaters and the ant-bears, which eat the termites, are no longer there. To combat the plague by means of a chemical method is a temporary solution. In my constituency I myself saw experiments where total withdrawal began on a small piece of a farm. The rains came, and the natural grass covering with it, and the termite’s natural enemies returned. We are still busy with experiments on the matter. Dieldrin was recommended to eradicate the termites. But it has now been determined that an excess of dieldrin results in the animals becoming sterile. The Department cannot go and tell the farmer to use dieldrin freely, because in three or four years the farmer comes back and says that the fecundity or the number of calves conceived has decreased by 40 or 50 per cent.

But now the hon. member also says that we must not create the impression that the farmer is being spoon-fed. He is also saying that I gave the impression, in other words, that I mislead them by saying in the no-confidence debate that the farmer could obtain R4,950 and R3.600 in subsidies. Perhaps I did not express myself properly by failing to qualify which farmers could receive this assistance. As a result of a speech the Leader of the Opposition made at a congress, and his single sentence in the no-confidence debate, i.e., “It is only patchwork”, I just wanted to indicate that we are already granting that assistance when it becomes necessary. The hon. member stated that we are spoon-feeding. Then he says that we should do more in respect of soil conservation. But I nevertheless want to tell the hon. member that although I have great esteem for his opinion on agriculture, it would be a nice thing for a member of the Opposition to get up one day and say that there are numerous farmers in Graaff-Reinet, his vicinity, that are undertaking and executing soil conservation works without ever knocking at the State’s door. Since he is saying that we should not spoon-feed the farmer, it would nevertheless be nice for us to refer now and again to that farmer—and there are many of them in our country—-who have never asked for a single cent from the State and who still pay taxes as well. Let us also bring that kind of farmer to the fore a little. Then I agree with him. But if we request State assistance for every problem, it means that it is actually no longer my task as a farmer to exterminate the harvester termites on my farm, and that I must go to the State for that purpose. I am not criticizing, but I am becoming uneasy. If there is a louse in the wheat to-night, a phone call is made to the Department to-morrow and the officials are told that there are lice in the wheat. It is quite correct that situations do develop in which a farmer’s financial position is such that he must ask for help, but as leaders of the farmers we must also tell them at times: “You must not simply ask for everything …”

What do you suggest?

The hon. member said that we should not spoon-feed the farmers. We are not making politics now. The hon. member also spoke of total withdrawal. That is something we are giving attention to now. We are awaiting recommendations from those committees, but let me tell the hon. member that a total withdrawal scheme does already exist. It is already in operation in the catchment areas of the Upper Orange, where there is no more grazing. In such cases we cannot do otherwise. The hon. member also mentioned a figure of R2.50 per sheep. To withdraw a farm altogether, so that the farmer need not even take any initiative, incur any costs or hire any labour, and then to still give him R2.50 per sheep, is out of proportion. In terms of the present total withdrawal scheme a farmer qualifies for R1.50 per sheep, but then there is nothing on the farm or in those specific camps. This is, therefore, already in operation. As far as the amount is concerned, we shall examine this again. However, I should like to tell the hon. member for Walmer that he must not create the impression that, as a result of what I said in the censure debate, I wanted to mislead the people in any way. I wanted to correct the idea that had arisen about the Government merely doing patchwork, that it was merely doing a small bit here and there and that it did not see the problem as a whole.

I should like to congratulate the hon. member for Mossel Bay on his standpoint, about farmers also keeping books. He said that farming should be like a business undertaking. He is quite correct in saying that agriculture initially consisted of subsistence farming. A farmer took a skin and made his own shoes. That was the case years ago. To-day he has to buy the shoes. To-day the standard of living of the agriculturist is altogether different. Today we find that a farmer can obtain a motor car, a lorry, a light truck and everything he wants to buy, but has he ever calculated it all? There are farmers here in the Cape Province who say: “My light truck costs me R1.13 a morgen. I cannot buy a motor-car as well”. If a farmer were to proceed from such a standpoint he would be the last man to ask for State assistance. It is not that I am belittling this. When a man is struck by a disaster he is entitled to ask for State assistance with an open heart.

The hon. member for Prieska spoke of land prices. He asked whether the Land Bank and Agricultural Credit could not increase valuations on land prices, because only 80 per cent of the land value is granted. That is one of our bottlenecks. A farmer, may, for example, purchase a farm in the maize cultivation area at R200 a morgen. These are the prices in the Western Transvaal today. He then calculates that he can obtain that R200 a morgen at 5 per cent or 6 per cent from the Land Bank. He forgets that 6 per cent is only the interest. One and a half per cent over 32 years is the redemption. If he adds his insurance, the interest which he must pay on that R200 per morgen is a little over 8i per cent. What does this mean? It means that his total liability will amount to R17 per morgen; but then he only ploughs half the farm. The rest is grazing, which he cannot purchase for R50 a morgen. This means, therefore, that on the morgen of land he ploughed he must pay off of R34, and from a mealie crop he obtains 18 bags per morgen. If we allow loans to be obtained more easily land prices would be forced up, and what would be the result? The young man, whom we would like to involve in agriculture, would not have a snowball’s hope of ever purchasing land, because the land prices would increase still further. It is altogether different if a farmer inherited land, or if he bought it when it still cost R50 a morgen. That is our problem. Such a farmer can now purchase land at R200 a morgen, but when all his land is grouped together we find that the average price is possibly R125 a morgen. A person who now wants to enter agriculture from scratch must pay R200 a morgen. If we then allow such a person to obtain a loan it would mean that he is burdened to the extent of 80 or 90 per cent. To-day one can make a success with maize soil costing R200 a morgen, but then one must have the capital. One must not owe the entire amount. If that is the case one will find ones feet. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, hon. members have expressed their gratefulness to the Almighty for the rain which has fallen very generally over the Republic during this Vote. I should like to join them in expressing my gratefulness. I should like to remind the Minister that the farmers are not immediately going to be relieved by this rain. For weeks to come they are going to go through a much harder time and for months, and possibly years to come, they will still have to rehabilitate the soil that has been so denuded by the drought. It is very important that as much assistance as possible be given them in this period. I should like to join the hon. member for Walmer in his opinion that this is the time for the stock reduction scheme to be applied as far as possible. I want to assure the Minister that if he applies not a total reduction scheme but a partial reduction scheme to the Peddie district, he will not have to compel anybody to follow it. They will do it voluntarily, because those farmers have suffered severely in the drought.

I was interested to hear the Minister speaking about more effective farming and more effective farmers. This something that is very close to my heart. Hon. members will remember that in my maiden speech in this House earlier this year I appealed to the Minister to reconsider his own decision and that of his department to extend the facilities of Onderstepoort rather than establish a second veterinary faculty at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. I wish to renew this appeal to-day. I received no final answer in that debate and I have reason to believe that the door has not been closed entirely. Certain new arguments in favour of Rhodes University have come to light and I am certain that many more would be found if we were allowed to study Dr. Monnig’s report, which I gather is of a confidential nature and prepared for the Minister. I appeal to him to make this report available to Rhodes University and myself for study, because I can assure him that if the report proves conclusively that the Onderstepoort scheme must take precedence, he will relieve himself of a great deal of trouble by way of appeals and protests. If, on the other hand, it does not, we will assist him to reverse his decision and establish a new faculty at Rhodes University.

I do not want to repeat the arguments I advanced earlier this year, but I do want to emphasize and underline the one factor that I believe is the most important to a faculty of veterinary science, namely the availability of clinical material. It is of the utmost importance that a wide variety of clinical material should be available to a veterinary faculty. It is of the utmost importance that that faculty should be in an area where a wide variety of stock diseases are found. This is one point that was made in all the appeals that have been made to the department for the establishment of this faculty at Rhodes University and this point has never been refuted, namely that in the environs of Grahamstown there is more clinical material and a wider variety of stock diseases than anywhere else in the Republic. It is not only for reasons of clinical material that we need this veterinary faculty, but simply because there is this wide variety of stock diseases which continually has to be attended to. The Minister will remember that during the past week his attention was drawn to a new disease among dorper lambs, which according to reports is affecting from 20 to 60 per cent of the crop. This disease is known as unthriftiness and is baffling veterinarians. Lambs have been sent up to Onderstepoort for examination and I am confident that the cause will be found and that measures that will counteract this disease will be found. How much sooner will that cure not be found if, in conjunction with the diagnostic centre in Grahamstown, a faculty of veterinary science were there as well? Mr. Chairman. I repeat that I do not wish to reiterate old arguments. However, I should like to ask the Hon. the Minister to be very clear this afternoon in his reply. He must tell me whether the door is still open and whether he is prepared to receive deputations in this connection from the Eastern Cape. Does he have an open mind on the subject, or is his decision final? If the latter is the case, then it is my belief that the hon. the Minister will state the case fully and clearly and give us good and valid reasons why he made that decision and refute our reasoning. He must convince all those who are interested that his decision is correct. If he manages to prove this and that he is correct, we will not trouble him any more. However, we will ask him for something else. If it is proved that a veterinary faculty is not necessary at Rhodes University, we still have an excellent case for an additional agricultural faculty. This is the one area of the Republic that is not properly served by an agricultural faculty either at the University or in the form of an agricultural college. The Eastern Cape Grassveld area is totally out of it. It may be argued that Grootfontein serves the purpose, but Grootfontein is in the Karoo area. It does not serve the Eastern Cape grassveld at all. Elsenburg is more disposed towards the Western Cape. The nearest we come to a faculty or an agricultural college is Cedara which is in Natal. The conditions in Natal are totally different from those in the Eastern Cape. I appeal to the hon. the Minister to seriously consider this fact that the Grassveld area does not even has an agricultural high school which serves the people in the Eastern Cape. It has no agricultural college or agricultural faculty to serve them. Now we are told that we cannot have a faculty of veterinary science. I appeal for that and for a faculty of agricultural science in this area too. I am quite sure that the hon. the Minister will realize the need for this for stabilizing the farming industry in the Eastern Cape.

It is all very well to talk about economic farming methods. But when farmers and veterinarians are trained for methods in other areas and they have to come and settle and do their jobs and their farming in a completely strange area with completely strange environments, they cannot be expected to be efficient during their early years. It is very often in the early years of farming that the whole economy of a farm collapses around a young man’s shoulders. These people should be trained for the conditions in their own areas. I remember the late Dr. Van Heerden who recently died so tragically at Grootfontein. When he left Onderstepoort he came to practise as a veterinarian in the town of Alexandria. He happened to be a great friend of mine. He lasted two years only. He said that he had more training in stock diseases during his two years stay in Alexandria than he ever learned in Onderstepoort, because he encountered completely new and different diseases. Even the heart water found on the East Coast was totally different to that found in the Transvaal. He had to scrap the remedies which he had been trained to use. He had to get new remedies and find different methods. He struggled very hard. As a matter of fact, he left after two years because so many people said that he was not properly trained. He was in fact a highly trained man who knew his job. This is just one example. Therefore I appeal to the hon. the Minister to consider this plea with sympathy and if the hon. the Minister cannot comply with our suggestion he must please explain to us why he cannot.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Albany made a request to the hon. the Minister, in a responsible and serious way, about a matter concerning his constituency. The hon. member must therefore excuse me if I do not follow him up in his arguments.

For hours we have listened in this debate to the various arguments of the hon. Opposition. However, what has struck one, after all the speeches that have been made, is that there has not yet been a single critical analysis of the agricultural Budget as a whole from hon. members on that side of the House. This is regrettable, Sir, because as far as I am concerned this is one of the finest agricultural Budgets before this Committee in several years. I think that it could withstand the most critical inspection with very great success, and hence much to my regret I have not heard hon. members opposite speaking about that. Sir, the R178,411,000 that is being appropriated, is the third largest expense item in this Budget before the Committee. This indicates to me the Government’s interest in establishing sound agriculture for the sake of agriculture itself. Drought-aid subsidies alone, in this Budget which has had to endure so much abuse and scorn from the hon. member for East London (City), exceed the total appropriation of the Department of Information, and amount in fact, to R6½ million. Sir, this is not small-change. The agricultural Budget indicates to us. in addition, the interest which the Government is showing in the consumer of agricultural products by keeping the price of these products within their financial reach. More than R5 million is being requested for the stabilization of the price of butter; and more than R27 million for the stabilization of the price of bread.

Sir, this is a staple foodstuff for all our consumer groups, Black and White, and this is no trifling amount that is being requested, but this figure, this fact, the Opposition does not broadcast; they do not tell this to the consumer of agricultural products. But, Sir, of the very greatest importance to me is the longterm work, reflected in this Budget, which is being done to bring about stability in the agricultural sector. I should like to mention a few aspects, and I am glad that yesterday afternoon the hon. member for Newton Park also expressed appreciation here and there for a few of those aspects. Sir, this applies to the organization of farms, in our natural cattle and sheep-grazing areas, as self-supplying fodder banks, which are of the very greatest importance in those areas, alongside the efforts of organized agriculture to create fooder depots, of course. Sir, research projects on the development of drought-resistant vegetation for grazing, as the hon. member rightly mentioned, is of the greatest importance, and the increasing interest of our livestock farmers in that is, in my opinion, one of the most encouraging by-products of this unfortunate drought that we have been through. If the hon. member were to go through this very good annual report of the Department he would be astounded to see how much research has, in fact, been carried out with very good results. But there is also a further aspect.

The efforts for the improvement of our livestock are of very great importance to us, because fewer livestock of a better quality not only provide greater profits for the farmer, but they give the grazing a change to rehabilitate itself. As far as the improvement of the livestock is concerned, I cannot emphasize strongly enough the future role of artificial insemination in our livestock industry. The ample subsidizing of the A.I. co-operatives underlines the State’s role. Sir, one is thankful for the rapid rise of artificial insemination in our country, but unfortunately we still have a very great backlog to make up there, and that is why one appreciates the efforts of the Department to stimulate the livestock industry along these lines.

Sir, only about 3 per cent of our stud cows are still being treated by artificial inse mination at this stage, by comparison with between 30 per cent and 95 per cent elsewhere in the Western world. We know that there are still many technical problems for the farmers in that respect, but we can only urge most strongly that more and more of our livestock farmers, particularly the cattle farmers, make use of artificial insemination in order to improve the quality of the cattle. Sir, a visit to the Transvaal A.I. Co-operative at Irene, in my constituency, is something that has already stimulated numerous farmers to make use of these excellent services that are being offered there. Some of the best quality bulls of the meat and milk breeds are being used there, with very good percentages of calves being conceived as a result, as the latest annual report does, in fact, indicate. In this way, Sir, one could move from sector to sector in the agricultural industry, and every wheree positiveness is the rule, positiveness in spite of this paralyzing drought. The technical knowledge is there for those who want to make use of it.

But now I want to come to the drought, about which the hon. member for Newton Park also spoke. I want to tell the hon. member that very few people who have not yet been involved in the internal organization of drought disaster relief work, realize what a task and a sacrifice are involved in keeping the farmer on his farm—a noble task—but also in preventing valuable and irreplaceable stud material from being forced to the abattoirs. As far as my knowledge goes, this is only the second time in our country’s history that the Defence Force has had to lend a hand on a large scale. The first time was in about 1959, if I remember correctly, when Minister Frans Erasmus made the Army available to transport water and fodder in drought-stricken Namaqualand.

Sir, I should consequently like to wish our Army, our organized agriculture, the Government Departments concerned—the agricultural Departments and the Railways—every success with this big operation that is now beginning after the first drops have fallen. But we must remember that even if it rains now, it does not rain grass, and the struggle for many of our farmers in very large areas is still going to continue for months and months. The help of the entire population will have to be included in this effort, even though it be by way of the establishment of a drought relief fund, as advocated here by the hon. member for Heidelberg the other night. This is indeed something permanent. I should very much like to put to the hon. the Minister that he follow the hon. member for Heidelberg’s suggestion. Sir, we simply have to face the fact that droughts are with us permanently; droughts will still remain the biggest risk factor in agriculture in this country. We shall have to build on many fronts in order to be able to resist it, but, Sir, there are a few basic things in this struggle against drought. Our grazing lands in the extensive drought disaster areas will have to be restored. [Time expired.]

The hon. member for Pretoria (District) has drawn attention to some of the more commendable aspects of this Budget as it relates to agriculture and, among other things, has drawn attention to the longterm work that is being catered for in the Budget itself.

Perhaps your knowledge of agriculture is better then your knowledge of finance.

As he said, my colleague the hon. member for Newton Park has already drawn attention to this. I think this is ore example of how the Government and members on this side of the House can actually reach accord. Sir, before he spoke, several members, the last one being the hon. member for Albany, expressed general pleasure at the good rains that had fallen in so many parts of our country, especially in those areas which had been drought stricken. Unfortunately, as so often happens, the good has not come unaccompanied by the bad. The latest reports from East London, for instance, indicate that after the 12 inches of rain that fell initially, during to-day five inches of rain fell in something like 40 minutes, causing fairly widespread flooding. I am sure that everybody in this House will want to express his sympathy with those who have suffered losses through the flooding that has taken place.

The hon. member for Walmer raised one point earlier to-day, when he said that this side of the House had pressed consistently for a thorough ecological survey of the entire country. I want to extend this by saying that I feel that this is something which should be pressed very strongly and in fact extended also to South-West Africa. It is in relation to South-West Africa that I want to make a few remarks to the hon. the Minister this afternoon. I want to refer particularly to the farmers in the agricultural settlement below the Hardap Dam near Mariental in South-West Africa. Those hon. members who know that part of the country will agree with me that the Hardap Dam itself is a most spectacular dam and is bound to play a very dynamic role in the development of the entire Territory and particularly the centre of South-West Africa. The irrigation settlements which were started there several years ago are ideally situated and in most ways provide us with a model for this type of settlement. But there is a feeling among some of the farmers there—and I am sure that those members who have been in the area recently are aware of this—that they have not been taken entirely into the confidence of the hon. the Minister’s Department in one respect.

This is the question of the ever-increasing salinity of the areas under irrigation there. As one can well imagine, these farmers came to the area with high hopes and I think initially these high hopes were well realized. I am quite certain that in the long term they will continue to be realized. They still believe that the Hardap area will provide them with a good living, but some doubts have crept in about their immediate future. I think the Minister will be aware by now that after an almost spectacular start some farmers in the area are now reporting that their crops have shown up to a 30 per cent decline in the last few years. This decline has been attributed to a drastic rise in the level of salinity in the soil. It is clear that it is very early to jimp to drastic conclusions and I think it would probably be unjustifiable for anyone to be unduly alarmed, but I think the Minister will agree that there are certainly some danger signs. I should like to suggest to the Minister that he take active steps to set the fears of these farmers at rest.

Among other things, of course, they are afraid that the cost of production in these irrigation areas will rise very steeply and in fact rise to a level far higher than they ever anticipated, and they do feel that their future is not as certain as some people would have them believe. I should like to suggest to the hon. the Minister that something should be settled before there is any further large-scale settlement in the basin immediately below the dam. The Minister will of course be aware that new settlements are being laid out now and this is being done on a fairly substantial scale. First I think what is called for is an examination of the long-term prospects of the area. Before Hardap was built I believe there was a fairly detailed ecological survey. I think the hon. the Deputy Minister of Finance will remember this. I believe, too, that the report of this survey was never published in full, and that the findings were not entirely unanimous. I think it would be useful if the hon. the Minister could perhaps persuade the Administration of South-West Africa to produce the original report and let us see it in full, by which I mean both the majority and minority aspects of it.

Secondly, I think the Government experimental farm in the area should be enabled to provide an optimum service to the settlers, giving particular attention to the problem of salinity. I notice according to the Estimates that the budgeting for the experimental farm at Mariental has dropped from R31,300 last year to R21,000 this year, and there is no explanation of the reduction. It might just be that the money is not needed, but I do hope that it does not reflect any intention on the part of the Government to cut any of the experimental work done there.

Furthermore, I should like to suggest to the Minister that several things be considered before this scheme is expanded any further. I think perhaps particular attention might be given to the size of the irrigation plots there. It is quite conceivable, in the light of the experience of some of the farmers who have been there for quite some time now, that the hon. the Minister might have to think in terms of bigger irrigation farms. I do want to emphasize all along that I am not being alarmist here. I think it is a problem that still has to manifest itself fully, but I do feel that the farmers of the area will be greatly reassured if the hon. the Minister can indicate to them that these matters are receiving attention.

I should like to tell the hon. member for Kensington that he is much better when he is writing gossip than when he is addressing this House. I also want to tell the hon. member for Benoni, who is sitting next to him, that he made a very fine contribution in this debate, whether it is practical or not. Now I want to come to the hon. member for Newton Park. In his speech yesterday he quoted something that reads as follows: “A truly progressive civilization is one that cultivates the character as well as the environment of man”. That is very nice, but now I also want to tell you something that someone else said: “Man’s most important work is to cultivate the soil”. Do you agree with that?

Yes.

Very well. What do you say in Die Landbou-Weekblad of 25th August? (translation) —

A businessman-farmer.

No, that is not how you expressed it there. I have the whole story here. I now want to tell you that you are doing agriculture in South Africa an injustice by making such statements; but what is more, you are doing an injustice to the young farmer in South Africa. You are doing this injustice to them because you are frightening them away from agriculture.

What is wrong with you? Is there not perhaps something wrong with you?

You are frightening them away. I want to put a further question to the hon. member for Newton Park, and that is whether he has the interests of the farmer, and particularly the young farmer of South Africa, at heart? May I have a reply?

The hon. member must proceed.

This is no time for banying questions.

The hon. member spoke of surpluses, but then he also spoke of the depopulation of the platteland. How are we to reconcile the two?

The hon. member also asked for a fodder bank and the hon. member for East London (City) continued with that. They said that the fodder bank should be provided with compressed fodder pellets, but the hon. members did not say under what circumstances this could be fed. The hon. members said that it should be subsidized on the farms so that sheds could be erected.

That is also what the report stated.

The hon. member also spoke of the fires that could develop. What is the damage going to be when the pile burns down, and what is the damage going to be when the shed burns down? Which would be greater? I want to say that the United Party is at present playing the National Party off, because there is a provincial election in the offing.

You always have the same story.

What story? The hon. member cannot reply. The hon. member said that R6 million is being wasted on fertilizers. Does the hon. member remember saying that R6 million a year is wasted in South Africa on fertilizers?

I was quoting Dr. Van Gaarden.

The hon. member was quoting Dr. Van Gaarden. Does the hon. member realise that that potasium of which he spoke is not immediately available? There is a reserve in the ground, but it is not available immediately. That is also the case with phosphate. What is the hon. member going to say about that? Hon. members only take what suits them from a report and then are silent about the rest. Now I also want to tell the hon. member that we on this side of the House are trying to feed, not only the soil, but also the human beings, to the best of our ability. Are you also going to try to do that? That is what we are asking the United Party. You said that Dr. Van Gaarden said that South Africa had a potential for 400 to 1,000 years. The potential is perhaps in the soil, but what quantity of that potential is available every year? The hon. members only take that which suits them, and then they go ahead with it. I should like to make a request to the hon. the Minister this evening. I know that the farmer does not want charity. I nevertheless want to ask that consideration be given to a concession in connection with the wheat-louse, a plague which is being felt very severly in the Free State. The farmers do not want charity, but ask only that the Government should consider granting them assistance. The Free State farmer is also trying to help feed the country. As one hon. member said, we are trying to feed the country. It would be of great assistance to South African agriculture, and would also be of great value in respect of the food problem. We are very grateful for the good rains that have fallen during the past few days. We should also like to ask the hon. the Minister to help us. if possible, as far as the marketing of our livestock is concerned. I know that there are many problems that have to be bridged, and that will be bridged. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, at this stage I think it is my duty to thank the hon. member for Kensington for the sympathy he has expressed for the terrible plight in which the people of East London find themselves this evening. My colleague the hon. member for East London (City) and myself feel very worried about the floods in the East London complex. Unfortunately all communications by air, road and telephone have been severed. The latest news we have received by way of radio is that they have already had 20 inches of rain. At a later stage we will come back to this House and to the Government for assistance and I am sure the Government will be sympathetic towards our pleas.

The hon. member for Swellendam, who spoke earlier on this afternoon, discussed the feed value of certain foods for drought-stricken stock. He said that he could not understand why so many agriculturists or farmers in drought-stricken areas were wasting their time and money on trying to procure wheat straw. He maintained there was very little feeding value in this straw. To a measure I agree with the hon. member. In one of the latest reports we have from extension officers, they mention “die voedingseenhede van voersoorte”. They then list the different feeds as follows:

As far as the drought-stricken farm is concerned, it does not matter what the percentage of food value in straw may be. Under the present conditions, with the feeding that has to be done, whether it be in a straight run, in cubes or maize feeding, it has to be supplemented with what we call “roughage”. It is this “roughage”, regardless of what the food value may be, which has to be mixed with the other ingredients to keep the sheep alive. They cannot thrive on maize, cubes or straight run alone; it has to be mixed with roughage. It is no waste of money to procure even the lowest food value in straw, such as wheat straw. I do not know whether the hon. member for Swellendam appreciates that; possibly he does not know that in emergency grazing areas it is not the food value of the straw that matters; it is the fact that a “roughage” is mixed with the other ingredients that matters.

I want to come back to another point which I believe is a very important one. So many other members on that side have accused my collagues, particularly the hon. member for Newton Park, of misleading the young farm of to-day. He supports the statement which I have just made. I have listened to this debate and most debates since the Session started. I brought it to the hon. the Deputy Minister’s notice yesterday that in a statement he made in his speech during the censure debate, he painted a beautiful picture of agricultural conditions to-day, even in drought-stricken areas.

I replied to that just now to the hon. member for Walmer.

The hon. the Deputy Minister did not reply to me. I want to go further than this. Apart from the emergency subsidy to drought-stricken areas which the farmer will receive per unit, namely the one-third which is reduced, the hon. member mentioned that one can to-day feed 1,500 ewes and get 20 cents per sheep per annum for that. It is seldom that the farmer feeds 1,500 sheep in a drought-stricken area for the whole 12 months, but the hon. the Minister has given the maximum amount of the subsidy which could be paid out, which in fact never happens. But in order for a farmer to get a subsidy on 1,500 sheep for feeding them, which the hon. Deputy Minister says is R3,600, he has to spend another R3,600. He has to find this money under drought conditions.

You said the same thing yesterday.

Yes, and the hon. the Deputy Minister said the farmer could borrow the money at 5 per cent from the Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure. I am assisting farmers every day. The farmer can borrow money from the Land Bank if his security is good enough. In addition he still has to pay high interest rates on his bonds. Sir, I believe that the statements which hon. members are making on that side are the statements which are misleading the young farmer to-day. They must paint such a beautiful picture of agriculture and maintain that this is actually happening. It is not taking place at all.

The Minister warned them not half an hour ago.

I want to come back to the feeding scheme. When a farmer claims for the other R3,600 which the Minister spoke about some farmers discover now, and I want the hon. the Deputy Minister to listen, that the claim is sent back from Pretoria. They are told “You can only claim when the feeding has been consumed; only then can the farmer send in his claim”. What has been happening in the case of a number of farmers is that when the feed has been entirely consumed, they have sent in their claims for the subsidies. Very often, after 60 days, the forms are returned to the farmers and they are told: You have no right to claim any more, because the time limit of 60 days has now expired. I have letters here in this regard. I can show them to the hon. the Deputy Minister. These letters tell of farmers who have been losing money because of this. We see a beautiful building being built outside of Parliament. It is a beautiful building and it has cost a great deal of money: we have also seen beautiful agricultural buildings in Pretoria, which house the Department of Agriculture, but I wonder how many miles of red tape will be produced in this new building and in Pretoria. There is too much red tape to-day.

Go and see your local magistrate.

The local magistrate refers us to Pretoria. It is no use. I have already done all this. The Minister cannot teach me anything about subsidies on feed for drought-stricken stock. This is a problem we are encountering from day to day. Let us face it. It is no use the Deputy Minister running away and saying that we must go and see our local magistrate. The magistrate assists the farmer with the filling in of forms, but a magistrate can only go so far and no further. Farmers are having great difficulties in obtaining their subsidies.

I now come to another point dealing with subsidies. The Deputy Minister cannot deny that we have been told that we shall receive 50 per cent, namely 20 cents for each 40 cents of feed we buy. In other words, farmers can buy 40 cents worth of feed for their sheep per month. It is only in the case of lucerne that a farmer can receive a full 50 per cent subsidy i.e. 20 cents. What is happening is that most farmers are buying R400’s worth of feed per month, but few receive R200 subsidy on it. I am doing so and I have never yet received R200 back as subsidy. None of my farmer neighbours have received that subsidy either. The best subsidy I have ever received since the drought started was R186 out of R400. This is nowhere near 50 per cent, and this was in respect of cubes. To-day it is very difficult to obtain baled lucerne. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I move—

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to you for giving me leave to make a statement to the House. Most hon. members probably know by now that a tremendous amount of rain has, during the course of the day, fallen in the East London area, specifically over the city of East London. Reports are of course still of a conflicting nature and we do not have a clear picture of precisely what has happened there. It is, however, very clear from the reports which have been received so far that the city is being afflicted by a terrible disaster. I have already, earlier this afternoon, sent the Mayor of East London a telegram expressing sympathy. I am sorry that circumstances prevented me from informing the hon. the Leader of the Opposition about this, but I did in fact inform other members of the Opposition about it. As I have said, I have already sent a telegram ex-pressing sympathy, but I should like, on behalf of the Government, to make this announcement in order to reassure the people there that the necessary assistance will, on the same principle as assistance was rendered by the Government in the case of Port Elizabeth, also be rendered to East London and the people who have been afflicted by the flood disaster. I think I am speaking on behalf of us all, regardless of on what side of the House we find ourselves, when I say that we are thinking of these people in the circumstances in which they find themselves. While we are especially grateful to the Lord for the relief which has been brought in many places, we also think with very great sympathy of people who can now be detrimentally affected by this disaster. I thank you for having afforded me the opportunity to make this statement.

Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House are grateful to the hon. the Prime Minister for his statement. I know that I am speaking for everybody on this side of the House when I say that they would like to be associated with the words of sympathy that have come from the hon. the Prime Minister for the inhabitants of the area concerned.

Mr. Chairman, I do not want to go into what the hon. member for East London (North) said in connection with straw and so forth. The Deputy Minister will give him a reply before long. I want to confine myself to general statements made in this debate by the United Party in connection with price determinations of agricultural products, and criticism directed against the Government about the price determinations of agricultural products. To do so, we must return to the Marketing Act for a moment. Many vague statements were made on the other side of the House. Only one hon. member specifically asked that the floor price of meat should be raised. Apart from that, hon. member simply asked that farmers should get higher prices for their agricultural products. As I analyse the Marketing Act, I shall criticize them further. The Marketing Act is a measure which provides for the implementation of marketing schemes for individual agricultural products. These schemes are administered by control boards on which there are representatives of all interest groups in the industry. The primary producer has the majority vote on these boards in all cases. There are 19 of these control boards. In addition, special legislation makes provision for a few products such as wool, wine and sugar. Of the total agricultural income, amounting to R1,300 million a year, 90 per cent is subject to this control. Of this, 68.85 per cent falls under the Marketing Act. Wide powers may be granted to these marketing boards. In practice there is also great fluctuation in the control from one product to the next. It is possible to make a broad classification of these schemes. Firstly, there are the single-channel fixed-price schemes. Maize, industrial milk and winter grains fall under this. Here we have extensive control being exercised from the producer through to the consumer. Prices are determined not only for the product, but also for the processed article. It is only here that the Government has any say as far as price determination is concerned. The hon. the Minister of Agriculture said in respect of these schemes that they are the only ones where the Government may, after considering recommendations, determine that other prices than those of the Boards shall apply. The other schemes which follow on this, are based mainly on free supply and demand. Thus we have the single-channel pool system for oilseeds, citrus fruit, deciduous fruit, tobacco, lucerne seed, bananas, dried fruit, chicory rooibos tea fresh milk and cream. In these cases the producers do not receive a fixed price but a provisional price at the time of delivery and a final payment after the board has sold the entire crop. Here, surely, the Government cannot intervene as far as the price is concerned, because it is a pool system, but the United Party is asking for an increase of prices in this connection.

I now come to the next scheme, i.e. the surplus removal scheme. This applies to meat, potatoes, eggs, kaffir corn, dried beans and soya beans. These boards announce the floor prices at which they are prepared to buy in the products. In this case free marketing operates most of the time. It is once again a question of demand and supply. How must the Government determine these prices? Only the floor prices can be determined. Similarly we find other supervisory schemes, such as those for the canning of apricots and peaches, and a measure of price protection, since the board also fixes the minimum prices.

What we heard here was only generalities once again and no constructive criticism regarding the question of price increases for the farmers. What does the United Party want? The one moment they tell us not to spoonfeed the farmers. The next moment they want us to give still greater subsidies. The total subsidies and contributions granted by the Department of Agriculture already increased by R19.5 million last year in comparison with the previous year. This is enormous assistance which the Government is giving to our farmers, and not only to the farmers, but also to the whole of South Africa, in order to provide cheap food to South Africa. It is also for the consumers.

In the few minutes left to me, I just want to deal with the question of the meat industry. I am grateful to the hon. the Minister for having made the announcement about the Commission of Inquiry into Meat and Abattoir Matters. As the hon. the Minister himself said, the Meat Industry has been in a dilemma and in doubt for a long time, and therefore I am glad that this announcement was made here to-day. We want ot express the hope and we trust that local authorities will co-operate so that we can eliminate this bottleneck in our meat marketing industry, because it is an enormous bottleneck to-day and is causing enormous difficulties. I want to repeat this appeal. We hope we shall get good co-operation in order to provide these abattoir facilities as soon as possible, and that they will be modern abattoir facilities.

Then I also want to make an appeal to the hon. the Minister. I want to ask him that the Department should continue with the temporary arrangements which they have made in order to assist in the slaughtering of stock in these times of crisis, in that they are using the Bloemfontein abattoirs to their full capacity, and slaughtering of stock is also being done in Vryburg, Okahandja, Welkom, Odendaalsrus and other places. They must continue these temporary measures for as long as there is a bottleneck as far as our abattoirs are concerned.

That is the intention.

I want to thank the hon. the Minister for dealing with this so quickly.

Then those hon. members talk of “red tape”. I have already said “yes” to the hon. member.

As we have decided to continue with this old scheme, I want to make an appeal to the effect that we should always bear in mind that the meat industry is a very delicate one. It is an industry in which the consumer, the trade and the producer are partners. If one part of that industry suffers a loss, then the whole industry suffers as a result. It is an industry which should be subject to a scheme which is flexible. The scheme must also take into account present trends in respect of the marketing of meat. We have in mind, for example, that there should be adequate storage facilities for the producers to accommodate their supplies in times of surpluses. We must bear in mind that the marketing of stock should in all circumstances be facilitated for the producer. We must bear in mind that commerce should in all circumstances do its utmost to try to supply the meat to the consumer as cheaply as possible.

When business was suspended, I was thanking the hon. the Minister of Agriculture for having at last brought to an end the doubt that existed in the meat industry. I pleaded for a flexible approach to our meat industry under this new scheme and that the scheme should make provision for the future challenges to be faced in this extremely delicate industry. Sir, it is delicate, in the first place, because large quantities of our meat supply come from drought-stricken areas. Secondly, our livestock are dwindling in number. Thirdly, the per capita consumption of meat in South Africa is changing and decreasing, particularly as far as red meat is concerned. In the annual report of the Secretary for Agricultural Economics and Marketing, for example, we find that the consumption of beef per capita decreased from 66.3 pounds to 56.4 pounds from 1964 to 1969. The consumption of chicken and pork increased. Fourthly, we must not lose sight of the fact that there will be a limited supply of meat in the future. The cattle areas and the stock areas are already being used to the full. We therefore must not lose sight of the fact that in future we will have to give attention to more efficient farming methods and more efficient meat production. Fifthly, we must also consider the fact that the consumption of meat in South Africa will increase as the population increases, and also as a result of the increase in the consumption of meat on the part of our non-white population groups. Sir, this industry, as I have said, is a delicate one in which there must be close co-operation, in which all the partners must co-operate, i.e. the producer, the trade and the consumer. We sometimes find that particularly the consumer and the producer maintain that the distributors as such do not have a function in the industry. We also find the various sections being played off against one another. I want to give you an account of analyses of beef carcasses made weekly by the meat trade in order to determine what the gross profit on the meat is. It is terrible when we hear that fillet of beef is sold at 65 cents a pound, while the farmer received only 23 cents a pound for his prime beef. I have before me a block test made on half a carcas of prime beef of 164 lbs. The purchase price was R37.72. An analysis was made of every cut: Fillet, 65 cents; silverside, 43 cents; topside, 45 cents; and then we also find bones at 4 cents a pound (21 lbs. of bones), and the total selling price was R50.76. In other words, a gross profit of R13.04 on the half a carcas. This works out at a gross profit percentage of 25, and no butcher in the country can operate on a lower gross profit percentage, You therefore see, Sir, that we have to approach the matter from all angles in the meat industry.

As far as the bottlenecks are concerned, we know that the producer would like to market his stock when they are ready for the market, and I am pleading for adequate storage space for this purpose. Since these new abattoirs are not yet in operation, I also pleaded, before business was suspended, for the temporary measures taken by the Meat Board to remain in operation until this scheme which is envisaged by the Minister is in full operation. Moreover, as far as the consumer is concerned, we realize that the consumers in South Africa can probably obtain meat more cheaply if they want to take more trouble to buy their meat themselves at the butchery. We cannot get away from the fact that the modern tendency is that meat is sold in chain stores where there are no delivery costs. Delivery costs play an important part in the meat industry. Moreover, we cannot ignore the fact that the tastes of our housewives or rather their eating habits are changing in South Africa. More and more women are going out to work and do not have the time to prepare food when they come home in the evening. Therefore they are making increasing use of pre-cooked frozen foods. They buy these pre-cooked frozen foods either from chain stores or from their grocers. All these factors will have to be taken into account in the future meat scheme. I therefore plead for flexibility to be retained in this scheme in order to make provision for meeting the future challenge to the meat industry.

We also think of other aspects, for example that our hotels are more and more preferring ready-cut meat, that they do not want to prepare this meat themselves in their kitchens. Provision must be made on the part of the manufacture for dealers to sell these cuts to the public and also for dealers supplying the housewife, in particular, with meat in cooked form. There are people in South Africa who do want to undertake this. We hope that in the future this marketing scheme will receive more and more attention from the Meat Board and the parties concerned, to such an extent that it will in fact be made possible for South Africa to meet these challenges in the meat industry.

The hon. member for Vryburg has dwelt on the difficulties which farmers experience in regard to the prices of agricultural products and of meat. I am not conversant with the complexities of the problems which beset the farmer but I want to assure the hon. member that as a townsman I am deeply aware of some of the problems with which farmers have to contend, and they have my sympathy. Sir, I make no excuse for participating in this debate, because I wish to deal with a subject which is not only of interest to the farming community but is a matter of growing concern to the townsmen also, because townsmen are aware of the hazards of modern pesticides. This is the subject to which I wish to refer. Sir, the question of insecticides and pesticides was raised in this House in 1963 by members on both sides of the House. At the time, the responsibility seemed to be divided. The hon. the Minister of Health said, when the matter was discussed under his Vote, “Unfortunately it is a matter in regard to which we have not yet taken enough precautions.” Then, Sir, the question of insecticides and pesticides was raised under the Vote of the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services, as he was known in those days, and then the Minister, in reply to queries raised in regard to the use of insecticides, indicated that as far as his department was concerned, it was responsible for registering the insecticides, and that it was responsible for seeing that the regulations were carried out in terms of Act No. 36 of 1947. The Minister added that research was a matter for the Department of Health. In 1964 a committee was appointed to inquire into the safeguarding of man against poisons. The first report of this committee appointed in 1964, was signed in September, 1967, and the second report was signed in November, 1968. Sir, I have studied the last annual report of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services, which goes as far as the 30th June, 1969, but in this report I find no reference to any of the recommendations which stemmed from the Committee to investigate the question of insecticides. I appreciate that it might be a little early for this particular department to have examined the report, but what does interest me in the annual report of this department, is the minimal reference to insecticides and to the problems which they present both to the farming community and to the townspeople who consume the products of the farmers. In fact, the only reference I could find in the whole report is in regard to the experiments on the residual properties of dieldrin which were conducted at Pongola, Edenville and Dendron. There is reference, too, in the report to the fact that the registration of various remedies under this Act is effected by this department and also that the department is responsible for the publication annually of a guide to the use of pesticides. But my question is, what use would a guide be to people who in many cases are not able to read? How can it help them in their use of insecticides?

Now I want to come back to the report of this Committee, because it is now published and it is known that there were 50 recommendations, and more than a third of these recommendations concerned the Department of Agriculture. My question to the hon. the De-puty Minister is: What progress has been made in the implementation of the 15 to 17 recommendations which this Committee, consisting of knowledgeable and erudite authorities on the subject, has made? Six years have elapsed. The public is concerned and it is becoming more concerned because it is aware of the interest and the anxiety in other parts of the civilized world. So I ask the Minister, how and in what manner, have the recommendations been implemented; because from the report it is quite clear that many agricultural insecticides and pesticides are dangerous poisons. Death by misuse is not uncommon. We do not have accurate figures to establish the number of deaths caused by insecticidal poison, but it is a subject which cannot be ignored. It is a matter of serious consequence.

Another disturbing aspect is that these pesticides, dangerous poisons, can be and are sold by people who are unaware of their danger and they are also handled by people who are illiterate and who are not always able to read the directions or to follow the precautions necessary in the use of dangerous poisons.

I want to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister, what action has his department or other Government departments taken in regard to research on the residual effects of some of these long acting pesticides? I refer particularly to the persistent organo-chlorine pesticides and others of a similar nature. We know that they retain their activity in some cases or years. I know that in other parts of the world concern has been expressed and investigation has been carried out. In 1964 the British Ministry of Agriculture recommended that efforts should be made to replace D.D.T. They gave a period of grace of three years and said that at the end of that time the use of D.D.T. should be reconsidered, although at that time they were not prepared to place restrictions on its use. Then in America I see, according to the latest report, that a moratorium has been placed on the use of D.D.T. in Arizona for a period of one year, and to the best of my knowledge there are another two states in America where its use is strictly limited by regulation. We hear, too, of a new D.D.T., one which is less stable and decomposes into something more harmless. Has this department made inquiries or has it conducted research in regard to this new D.D.T. which could solve some of our problems and also eliminate some of the hazards which remain? Then I want to ask the Minister whether he is satisfied that research South Africa is adequate and if he is satisfied, does he feel that his department has an adequate staff not only to conduct research or to consider the research of other departments, but to undertake the additional duties which the recommendations affecting his own department, will involve, as recommended by the Committee; because the recommendations suggest that there should be additional duties and closer inspection, and I believe that greater responsibility is placed on the Minister and his department if the recommendations made by the responsible committee are accepted.

But to return to the question of staff, it is my surmise that it is unlikely that the Minister’s department will have sufficient staff to deal with the problems on hand, let alone the problems which will flow from this Committee’s report. When one considers the staff position of this department as at 4th February, 1970, one finds that 12 per cent of the professional authorized positions are not filled, and that 13 per cent of the authorized technical posts are not filled, and of an authorized establishment as at 31st December, 1969, of 6,620 total establishment, 11 per cent of these posts are not filled and 16 per cent are filled by temporary incumbents. I believe that the farmers of South Africa deserve better than this from this Government. [Time expired.]

The subject raised by the hon. member for Berea is a very important one, of course, but he will pardon me for not following up his argument. I have been listening attentively since the beginning of this agricultural debate last night, and up to now I have heard nothing new, nothing which has not repeatedly been said in this House before. The aplomb which the hon. member for Newton Park displayed here last night led me to believe that something great was going to happen. The hon. member said, inter alia—

But I did just that.

I do not know what positive suggestions were made. The one with regard to the fodder bank was discussed here repeatedly in the past. It is discussed in this House year after year. The other one, as regards insurance, has been discussed here time and again by the hon. members for Christiana and Harrismith and other hon. members on this side. As far as fertilizers are concerned, the Government cannot help if farmers overspend on fertilizers. Surely it is the farmer’s concern to have his soil analyzed in order to ascertain what his soil requires. How can the Government be held responsible? But the position is that the hon. member and other hon. members on that side of the House are trying to create the impression that this side of the House has no sympathy for the farmer of South Africa. [Interjection.] The hon. member may dispute this, but the impression which is being created amongst the public, is that we have no sympathy for the farmer. The hon. member stated here: “… that there ought to be a prosperous platteland in South Africa is not, in my opinion, a point that can be disputed in this House.” We agree. But who is in actual fact the friend of the farmer? Are we the fried of the farmer or is that side of the House the friend of the farmer? Last week when very important legislation was before this House, i.e. the Subdivision of Agricultural Land Bill, which seeks to rehabilitate the rural areas and the agricultural industry, how did that hon. member and his henchmen cast their votes? They cast their votes on that side of the House and we on this side. What does that mean? It means that this side of the House is the friend of South Africa. In that respect we are not political opportunists.

Neither do we gossip all day long.

Yes. Then the hon. member raised another point here. He said that the farmer was not sharing in the economic prosperity of the country, and, furthermore, that the agricultural industry was not growing in proportion to the rest of the economy of South Africa. Last night that hon. member incorrectly dealt with agricultural economics as an entity. One has to divide the agricultural economics of this country into two parts. One part relates to crop farming and the other to stock farming. When one does this one sees that crop farming has increased in volume beyond all expectations over the past year. Who could have predicted in the forties and fifties, when we produced 40 million bags of maize, that we were going to produce more than 100 million bags of maize in the sixties? If it had not been for this prevailing drought, we would again have produced more than 100 million bags of maize this year. Who could have thought during the forties when we produced 3, 4 and 5 million bags of wheat per year, that we would produce 12 million bags now? Our crop farming is growing proportionately. The hon. member, however, is confusing the economic situation in this respect, i.e. he thinks of all farmers as wool farmers. It is true that the wool industry is struggling to-day as a result of the competition of artificial fibres. The part in which the hon. member for Newton Park farms, is pre-eminently a wool district, but this is not the case in all parts of South Africa.

This evening I want to plead here for a new voluntary dispensation. We have our sheep-grazing areas and we have our cattle-grazing areas. Where we have cattle-grazing areas today, we are inclined to stock them with more sheep and as a result our good grass-lands are being trampled. In the Cape Province, in particular, in the Karoo, we have sheep-grazing areas where one cannot farm with cattle or anything else. Sheep farming is the life of those people. But we also have the grass-lands. The bitter bush grows right to the top of the Drakensberg mountains to-day. If we do not reduce the total number of sheep in South Africa, I foresee problems in the future of South Africa as far as soil conservation is concerned. The sheep are doing a great deal of harm, whether we want to admit it or not. I am enthusiastic about sheep myself, and I farm with sheep, but sheep do a great deal of harm to the soil of South Africa. We must start thinking of separation, i.e. separation on a voluntary basis. This will be on a par with withdrawal on a voluntary basis. This must be done for the sake of the better utilization of lands, i.e. to use them for cattle-grazing, and to use the Karoo for sheep farming purposes only. In that case I am sure our sheep herds can decrease by at least 30 per cent or perhaps more. This will make a tremendous contribution and will save the State many millions of rand as soil erosion will have to be combated on a much smaller scale. I know what I am talking about and these are serious matters which we must consider. I have in mind, for example, the Southern Free State to which reference was made in this House to-day. In my childhood red grass grew as high as these benches in the Southern Free State, only bitter-bushes are growing there to-day. Those are predominantly cattle-grazing regions, as in the North-Eastern Cape. But sheep are responsible for the state in which it is to-day. We must give serious attention to this matter, because as I have said, it is going to create problems for us.

We have another problems, i.e. the drought. This drought has been gnawing at our farming community for years. It affects our people not only economically but also psychologically, and it creates frustration. We are grateful for the widespread rains which have fallen and the fact that the drought has been broken in large areas of South Africa. We sympathize this evening with those people who are suffering to-night as a result of the floods. This aspect which I have mentioned here this evening in respect of sheep, is the beginning and the end of soil erosion in South Africa, whether we want to admit this or not. It is a strong contributory factor to soil erosion.

The hon. member for Newton Park also spoke about land prices and that the State was not sympathetic as far as loans for the agricultural industry were concerned. He also said farmers had to pay high rates of interest.

I said nothing about land prices in this debate.

No, but the hon. member spoke along those lines. The fact of the matter is that farmers who negotiate private loans have to pay high rates of interest, but those who negotiate loans at the Land Bank and at the Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure do not pay high rates of interest. When did these farmers incur those private debts? Was it not …

Was it not when you said, “Spend for prosperity”?

Yes, I remember the day when Dr. Verwoerd said that. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I want to refer to an argument which took place here this afternoon between the hon. member for Newton Park on the one hand and the hon. the Minister of Defence and the hon. the Minister of Agriculture on the other. The hon. member for Newton Park made the assertion here that the hon. the Minister of Defence and the hon. the Minister of Agriculture had discussed certain persons’ Land Bank affairs in public at a meeting held in the Strand. The hon. the Minister of Defence thereupon denied that he had referred to anyone’s Land Bank loans at that particular meeting. The reaction of the hon. member for Newton Park to that was that he would bring the Minister the Burger of 12th January, and that he would then point out to him the speech he had made. Will the hon. member still do so? I have the report in front of me and will save the hon. member the trouble of bringing it to the hon. the Minister. The hon. member also went further. After the hon. the Minister of Defence had denied once again that he had used those words and that he had revealed people’s Land Bank affairs at a public meeting, the hon. member for Newton Park said that he was prepared to accept the hon. the Minister’s word if he said that he had not referred to these matters. He then asked the hon. the Minister whether, if he were to bring the Burger in which it was reported, he would be prepared to write a letter in which he denied that he had ever used those words. Then the hon. the Minister said that: “The person who says that I referred to Fanie van der Merwe’s Land Bank loan is lying”. The reaction of the hon. member for Newton Park was the following: “But then the Burger is also lying”. Either the hon. member for Newton Parks’ memory is not what it used to be or his attitude to the truth is a little hostile. I now want to read to the House from the report which appeared in the Burger of 12th January, to which the hon. member referred. I want to do so for the sake of completeness, because the Burger has been done a disservice here, and for the sake of the record the matter ought to be put right. I quote (translation) —

There is not one single word about a Land Bank loan that was allegedly granted to Mr. Van der Merwe.

You have just read it.

This is the impression that was created here this afternoon, i.e. that the hon. the Minister of Defence had discussed the Land Bank loan of Mr. Fanie van der Merwe at a public meeting. When the hon. member was cornered and had to accept the hon. the Minister’s denial, he blamed Die Burger and suggested that Die Burger had stated that Minister Botha had said so. Not one word of it is true. This hon. member not only owes the hon. the Minister an apology; he also owes this House and Die Burger an apology. If he is honourable, he will write a letter to Die Burger tomorrow to apologize. Let us now go a little further with this report.

Just read the piece where the Minister said he was going to state the true position.

I have already read it. The hon. member can read it in my Hansard. My time is limited. No mention is made here of a Land Bank loan which the hon. the Minister of Defence had referred to.

What did Minister Uys speak about?

The hon. the Minister of Agriculture admitted that he said this in reply to a question put by Mr. Van der Merwe—it says so very clearly in this report. I quote (translation) —

This is precisely what the hon. the Minister of Agriculture said this afternoon, i.e. that he had replied pursuant to a question put to him by that gentlemen. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member may proceed.

Agriculture in South Africa is being weighed down by two very big problems. The first one is periodic droughts, and the second is the Official Opposition. Sir, I categorically declare that this hon. Opposition is talking agriculture in this country to death …

You know that is not true.

… by their negative attitude, by their gossip stories and so forth. It has already become a refrain of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition at every agricultural congress which he is asked to open, to make the assertion that the farmers have no share in the general prosperity of the country. He has been saying it for many years.

It is the truth.

He is not saying it only now; he has been saying it for years.

Mr. Chairman, is the hon. member allowed to say to this hon. member that he knows it is not true?

Which hon. member said that?

The hon. member for Walmer said it.

Did the hon. member for Walmer say that?

Mr. Chairman, I said that what my hon. Leader said was the truth.

You said he knew it was not true; now you come and tell lies here.

Order! The hon. the Minister must withdraw that.

What must I withdraw, Sir? That I said he was lying?

Yes.

Very well. I withdraw it. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member for Newton Park must withdraw his words to the hon. the Minister.

Sir, I withdraw that he cannot lie as much as the hon. the Minister can.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw them unreservedly.

I withdraw them unreservedly, Sir.

The hon. member may proceed.

Sir, I make the statement that the Opposition, for the four or five years which I have been in this House, has never once made proposals positively aimed at benefiting agriculture. The measure of impatience existing in the farming industry can to a large extent be ascribed to the negative attitude of the Opposition. This afternoon again the hon. member for East London (North) adopted a completely negative attitude in respect of fodder subsidies. He made the assertion that when a farmer gets a subsidy of 20 cents on his fodder, he still has to borrow 20 cents himself. Sir, what about the large number of farmers who provide those 20 cents themselves? Is it not correct to say that, if those 20 cents were not provided as a subsidy to the farmer, he himself would have to pay another 20 cents? This means that if he has to buy 40 cents’ worth of fodder, he now gets a subsidy of 20 cents on it. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Cradock will pardon me if I do not follow up his argument now. I may return to him later, but there is an important matter which I want to raise. Before doing so, I want to reply to the hon. member for Aliwal. He said that we pleaded for the same things year after year. He said that we pleaded for a fodder bank year after year.

You only came to this House the other day.

Yes, but during that time I have pleaded more for the farmers than that hon. member has done during all his years in the House. The hon. member for Aliwal said that they were the friends of the farmers. If he were the friend of the farmers, he would join us in pleading for a fodder bank. I want to give him the assurance that we shall continue pleading for fodder banks year after year until we get them.

I now come to the stock reduction scheme. I want to associate myself with the hon. member for Walmer, who indicated what a fine scheme this stock reduction scheme is. I just want to say that when this scheme was announced, I also said that it was a very good scheme, because anyone who has ever farmed, knows that if one wants to rehabilitate the veld one must load it as little as possible. I repeat that this is a good scheme, but how is this very fine scheme being applied? The basis of this scheme is that one-third of a farmer’s stock must be withdrawn. For the first 600 sheep the farmer will then receive R3 a sheep, for the second 600, R2.50, and for the third group, R2. The scheme had hardly been announced, however, when the hon. the Minister announced that he would determine new carrying capacities.

I now want to speak about the unrepresented constituencies in this House, i.e. those of Colesberg and De Aar. Let us take the case of De Aar by way of example. All these years the figure in respect of De Aar was 2½morgen per sheep. Then it was reduced to 3 morgen per sheep. In Philipstown it was one sheep on two morgen. Then it was reduced to one sheep on 2½ morgen. In Petrusville it was one on two.This was reduced to2½. In Hanover it was one on two. It has now been reduced to 2½. In Richmond it was one on It has been reduced to three. The farmers therefore first had to reduce by 25 per cent, for which they get nothing. Then they have to reduce by a further one-third. You therefore did not reduce by one-third. You re duced by 50 per cent, while you are only paid for 33 per cent. Then the figures do not look so good any more. Then it is no longer R3 per sheep. Then it is R1.50 for the first 600 sheep; R1.25 for the second lot of sheep; and R1.30 for the third lot of sheep. And what is the result? When I left Philipstown eight farmers had made use of the scheme. I do not know whether more of them made use of it subsequently. In De Aar there was no one. But, Mr. Chairman, here is the catch to the whole thing. I quote from a report of the Department—

In other words, it is not the carrying capacity of the district. Oh no, it is only for the purpose of this scheme. It is only to prevent the farmers from making use of the scheme. If it was the hon. the Minister’s intention that you should reduce by 50 per cent and be paid for 30 per cent only, why does he not say so? Why does he not say that the intention is to pay only R1.50? Why do they proclaim to the world that they are going to pay out the farmers on the basis of one third? Then the rest of Che population are stirred up against the farmers because of the large subsidies which they are supposedly getting, and in actual fact never get. Now I shall help the hon. the Minister a little. This scheme was badly drawn up. No distinction was drawn between a Dorper sheep and a Merino sheep. Any farmer knows how much a Dorper eats…

Are you a farmer?

I am a farmer. I wonder what that hon. friend is. He is probably a Nationalist organizer. I want to tell the hon. the Minister that anyone who knows something about farming, knows that you can keep seven Merinos for every five Dorpers. Anyone knows that if a farmer can keep 2,000 Dorper sheep under this scheme, it must be borne in mind that those Dorpers are forever lambing and that he is therefore virtually keeping 4,000 sheep. But if you farm with Merinos and your limit is 2,000, you can only keep 1,000. I mean 1,000 Merino ewes. After all, you must make provision for the lambs which grow up. You market the Dorper lamb when it is old enough to be weaned. You make no provision for it. The hon. the Minister is now going to force the Karoo to farm with Dorper sheep. I want to give the hon. Che Minister the warning that if they are going to farm with Dorpers there, he is going to destroy that Karoo so that nothing will remain of it. The meat market will be over-supplied and we shall see the greatest catastrophe which this country has ever experienced.

Now I want to come back to the hon. the Minister. I shall at the same time deal with the hon. member for Cradock, because he said more or less the same as the Minister did, although he said it much worse. We made certain recommendations which the hon. the Minister could have considered. We did not say that that necessarily had to be the position. We said that because of the difficult circumstances in which the wool farmer finds himself, the Minister might consider paying a subsidy. And what was his attitude? He only asked whether we thought it was the Government’s duty to give assistance when an industry was doing badly. I want to state unequivocally that we on this side of the House believe that we should give assistance if an industry is doing badly temporarily, particularly a farming industry. But the hon. the Minister treated us with contempt. [Interjections.] Yes, it is something evil to give a farmer a subsidy. The hon. the Minister sits in the Cabinet and he has agreed that our diamond and gold mines be taxed 5 per cent less than our other industries. He agreed to our film industry being subsidized. I think it will be subsidized by almost 55 per cent, but I am not sure of the figure. He agreed to our suburban transport being subsidized. What about the preference our industries are enjoying? Is this not a form of subsidy? But if we speak of the farmers, then it is something evil! Then we are treated with contempt. We pleaded here for fodder banks. We brought to the hon. the Minister’s attention the difficulties we have with the high railway tariffs which result in our not being able to buy this fodder during good times. What was the hon. the Minister’s attitude? He simply said that we were getting concessions. But the point is that if one wants to build up a fodder bank, you must build it up during good times. The Minister treated us with contempt and disdain. We shall leave it to the electorate of South Africa to deal with him.

I shall now make further recommendations, and they will probably fall on deaf ears again, because what sympathy can the farmer of South Africa expect from this Government? [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, at a farmers’ association meeting no one ever pays any attention to this kind of speech. Why should we and the Government then pay any attention to it? He says in advance that his requests are, of course, falling on deaf ears. The hon. member adopts an attacking attitude. Even if I should create the impression that I am not sympathetic towards the farmers, which is not true, why must he say in advance that it will be of no avail to ask this, because it will fall on deaf ears? An hon. member who carries on in this way loses my sympathy completely. I cannot understand why the hon. member cannot make a request in a civil way here. I have on occasion admitted frankly to a member of the Opposition that the question raised by him should receive attention; that it was a practical proposal and that we could examine it. But if an hon. member makes his representations in this way it is a different matter.

I take the question of reducing the carrying capacity. It was insinuated here that we deliberately reduced the carrying capacity with the intention of not assisting the farmer so that he would not go in for the scheme, while the hon. member himself found in his post box the agricultural newsletter in which it is stated that 1,200 farmers have already enrolled for the scheme. 400,000 sheep have already been withdrawn and it has already cost us R1 million.

1.200 out of how many farmers?

Out of the areas that have been proclaimed. That is: why I cannot understand that hon. member. Does the hon. member want us to withdraw one third of the sheep of South Africa within a month? Where must we take the sheep? I do not know whether one should pay much attention to this type of reasoning.

The hon. member for Albany asked certain pertinent questions and wanted replies to them. He said he wanted to know definitely to-day whether Grahamstown would get an Onderstepoort or not. I want to tell the hon. member that we appointed the Monnig Commission, which instituted a searching inquiry in the light of representations submitted by several of the agricultural regions. The report says that it will cost us four times less to double Onderstepoort and to train, not 45, but 90 veterinary surgeons annually. Various other regions submitted similar requests and the Cabinet then decided that Onderstepoort would be doubled and that a second Onderstepoort would not be established at Grahamstown or any other place.

The hon. member also asked whether it was not possible to establish an agricultural faculty there. We already have four agricultural faculties, and in view of the staff problem with which we are faced, it is not our intention to do so at the moment. As regards the Eastern Cape, to which the hon. member referred, I just want to point out to him that in his region he has four experimental farms, i.e. Bathurst, Dohne, East London and Addo. The total salaries which we pay in those regions amount to R719,000. In this Budget provision is made for R1,104,000 for the expenditure, including salaries, on these four experimental farms in the Eastern Cape region. Then the hon. member also discussed the disease which has now broken out among the Dorpers. I sent the hon. member the finding of our Department at Onderstepoort. Various factors are mentioned which can cause the disease, and attention is definitely being given to the matter.

The hon. member for East London (North) put certain questions to me, but he is not here at present. However, I am replying, so that he can read the reply in my Hansard. The hon. member was rather dissatisfied with the way in which subsidies are being paid. Our experience has been that several of the magistrates’ offices perhaps did not read the most recent circular correctly, and caused delays. But we must also remember that we are handling the taxpayers’ money. The hon. member said that he had submitted a claim for R400 and that he only received R168. But there is a certain formula according to which claims are paid out. The claimant must send in the consignment note as well as the receipt of the sender to whom he paid the amount. I want to ask the hon. member to give the details of those cases which he has, to me personally. I shall attend to them myself. We can also see to it that the magistrates’ offices in his constituency are properly informed so that there will be the minimum of delay.

The hon. member for East London (North) made the insinuation here that the farmers have to deal with a great deal of red tape, as he put it. Last month we paid out an amount of R800,000 in fodder subsidies. In the month of July we paid out R1,152,000 in fodder loans alone. Sir, these things must be controlled. The hon. member spoke of red tape; I do not like exercising this control; people want to have things finalized within one day. However, we have a responsibility towards the Treasury; the taxpayers’ money is expended on subsidies and there must be control to ensure that there is no dishonest dealing.

Sir, the hon. member for Vryburg has knowledge of the meat industry and I am glad that he mentioned here that people pay 65 cents a pound for fillet of beef, ordinary steak, and then there are people who say that the poor farmer gets only 20 cents and 23 cents a pound for his meat. Sir, let us bear one thing in mind; the retail butchery, as the hon. member said, operates on a gross profit of 25 per cent. Two weeks ago I saw a sign in Church Street in Pretoria advertising half a sheep at 23 cents a pound. Sir, what happens? The hon. member’s wife goes to the butchery and she asks for fillet steak, a piece of tender meat, but we must bear in mind that the animal has ribs, loins and bones. Who must eat these? If the housewife selects only the tender cuts, she must expect to pay more.

The hon. member for Bearea was rather concerned about stock diseases and remedies. I am sorry that the hon. member for Bearea was not here during the Second Reading speech on the Fertilizers, Farm Feeds and Remedies Amendment Bill. The main purpose of that measure, which was introduced here two weeks ago, was to combat, in co-operation with the Department of Health, the problems which he mentioned here to-day. From time to time we have lengthy discussions with these departments. The hon. member is rightly concerned. I am thinking specifically of the spraying of citrus trees with Parathion. This is freely available and Bantu use it without wearing gas masks and without taking the necessary precautionary measures. The whole purpose of this committee is to fulfil an interdepartmental function between Health and Agriculture. Then the hon. member asked how a person who cannot read, can acquaint himself with the fact that it is a poison. This is the very reason why we had a bigger skull and cross-bones printed on the label so that it would be clear to all that it is a poison. The hon. the Minister will make an announcement soon in regard to certain remedies. The hon. member referred, inter alia, to D.D.T. The hon. the Minister will make an official announcement in this connection.

Then I come to the hon. member for Cradock. First of all I just want to say to the hon. member for Newton Park that it has never paid to drag any person’s private affairs into politics. This was done during the election campaign with a view to political gain. [Interjection.] I say that I am including myself. It has never paid anybody to be negative and to blurt out another person’s private affairs; therefore I do not want to talk about it any further, because then you say the kind of thing which the hon. member said this evening and then you are cornered, as the hon. member for Cradock cornered him, because you said something which the hon. the Minister used the right word to describe, a word which he then had to withdraw.

Throughout this entire debate the Government has been attacked by hon. members on the opposite side. We have been accused of not having done enough for agriculture, and that we do not have the interests of the farmer at heart.

All that is untrue.

Sir, I followed the argument of the hon. member for King William’s Town. Unfortunately I do not know much about sheep and whethers. I have therefore thought fit not to react to what he said, because it will definitely not be a good thing if two members were in one evening in this House to discuss a subject which they knew nothing about. Sir, we have had an election and hon. members on that side said that they were going to do certain things for agriculture in this country. They made certain promises. We are now being accused of not having done certain things, but I want to put this question to hon. members on the opposite side: They made certain promises, and they must tell us how they are going to carry out those promises. The United Party states in their election manifesto—

Sir, this is the most far-reaching and the most irresponsible statement which has ever been made to the farmers of this country by a political party, because that policy is totally incapable of being carried out in practice. The Opposition wants to create the impression among the farmers that certain things can be done for them, particularly in times when they are finding things difficult, but those things cannot be carried out. [Interjection.] Sir, that hon. member should keep quiet; he will have an opportunity in a moment to make a fool of himself here; it is now my turn. Sir, the United Party states that they guarantee the farmer a reasonable profit after deduction of production costs. During the election, after I had got hold of this rubbish, I discussed this matter with an economist and he told me that agriculturists throughout the world would build a monument to any person who could work out such a formula, for, nowhere in the world is there a system which could give all farmers such an unconditional guarantee as this which the United Party wants to give the farmers of South Africa. Sir, just take the simple example of a farmer farming with soya beans. We know that the production costs are R45 per morgen. Suppose that farmer, for for some reason or other, perhaps owing to an unknown disease, has a crop failure, and that his yield is only three bags per morgen. They will then have to pay that farmer a minimum of R15 per bag simply in order to cover his costs. Where does the fair profit come in then? Are they going to pay that farmer R20 per bag for soya beans, and is R5 per bag in their opinion a reasonable profit, in other words R50 per morgen? Sir, surely one cannot be so irresponsible as to give such unqualified assurances in a matter where economic laws apply. In my constituency I have regions where the farmers with very little trouble harvest 30 bags of mealies per morgen, but there are other regions in that constituency where the farmers do not harvest even 10 bags of mealies, because these are dry areas. How can a party then say to the farmer, as the United Party has done, that the farmer will be assured a reasonable profit after deduction of production costs?

They were just talking nonsense.

Are you opposed to this?

How are you going to put it into practice? That hon. member understands so little about this matter that he has fallen further into the trap. They must indicate to us how one can carry out these proposals. To give the farmers in this country the assurance of a reasonable profit, after deduction of production costs, is, I want to repeat, an absolutely irresponsible statement. If there should be an unknown disease or a countrywide drought, how can you then guarantee the farmers a profit if their production per morgen diminishes to one or two bags per morgen? Then you will in fact have to pay those farmers, with R50 per morgen production costs, at least R25 per bag in order to cover their costs. Surely it is absolutely irresponsible to promise such things.

We come now to the question of surpluses. I cannot imagine how anyone could be so absolutely irresponsible and could mislead the farmers to such an extent as to say: Produce, we will guarantee you a profit. What is that side of the House going to do if this country were to harvest 150 million bags of mealies and we had to export it, and supposing further there were a total collapse of the price on the world market? Where are they going to get the money from to ensure that every farmer makes a reasonable profit? The other day in a different debate the hon. members asked us what an economic unit was, and they said we were unable to define an economic unit. But what is a fair profit? Can they tell us what a reasonable profit is? How are they going to determine what this is for the farmer with a small farm who has 10 morgen under mealies? How are they going to assure him a reasonable profit? Is it a reasonable profit per bag or a reasonable profit for that farming unit? Surely it is absolutely irresponsible to make a statement like that.

But suppose a farmer has mixed farming and he farms with milk and with peanuts, etc. How is one going to decide what a reasonable profit is? What is one going to do with the surplus milk which may be produced? Who is going to pay for that, and where is one going to get the money? Just tell us from whom one is going to get that money when there is complete over-production of a product, and who is going to foot the bill? You must please tell us. because yours is a political party which has stated an alternative agricultural policy, but none of you has as yet succeeded in telling us how you are going to do so. But you are accusing us, a Government which has a record of 22 years … [Interjections.] Wait a minute. During the election campaign this Government did not make one promise to the farmer. We simply said to them: Judge us on our deeds. And how many farmers are sitting on that side of the House, with all those promises they are making? There is the hon. member for King William’s Town, and the hon. member for Durban (Berea) also discusses agriculture. The voters have seen through these plans of the Opposition and that is why there are so few farmers sitting on their side, and they are going to become even fewer. They cannot get away with this kind of thing. Sir, they say that they guarantee the farmer a reasonable profit. Nowhere in the world is there a country which can give such an unqualified guarantee to a farmer in regard to any product. What are they going to do in the case of vegetables? [Interjection.] You should simply go and read your little book.

Where is your little book?

You should simply go and read your booklet, then you will see what promises your party had made. Take agricultural products. The people who say that they will determine prices in such a way that there will be a reasonable profit, are unaware of the elementary principles of agricultural economy and of economy in general. Take oil-seed. There you have the oil-seed cakes which are used for feeding poultry, etc., but on the other hand one also has fish meal. As the price of fish meal fluctuates, so it influences the demand for oil-seed cakes, because those products are to a certain extent interchangeable. We are dealing with this question of over-production on the world market. Recently we had over-production of oil on the world market and we found it difficult to sell oil anywhere else in the world. Now it is simply beyond my comprehension how such a promise, such a carrot, can be dangled in front of the nose of farmers. Take tomatoes. If I can get a guaranteed profit per crate of tomatoes, then I must become a millionaire. No Government and no politician is so irresponsible as to create this incorrect impression among the farmers. [Time expired.]

The hon. member for Lydenburg put his case quite seriously and enthusiastically, and I think we can all appreciate the manner in which he did so, but unfortunately the arguments with which he defended his case were not sufficient to justify it. The hon. member stated that in the last election their slogan was: Judge us by our deeds; and then the people voted for them; the farmers voted for them. But the hon. member will recall that after the election they had a post-mortem and that their own newspapers told them that this slogan of theirs, “Judge us by our deeds” was just a little too negative. [Interjections.] The hon. member states that it is irresponsible of the Opposition to guarantee a farmer that he will receive a reasonable profit on his production costs. Now I want to ask the hon. member this: Is it his promise, or is it his opinion, that we can deal with agriculture in South Africa in such a way that the farmer will not even receive his production costs? [Interjections.] Oh please, I am not such a hopeless Minister as you are, who does something one day and has to change it the next.

You are not even a Minister.

If I had to be such a poor Minister as that hon. member I hope I never become one. I hear the hon. the Minister also farmed once; he probably had 9 chickens in his backyard. I do not know why he is chipping in. I think it would be better at this stage to speak to a back-bencher of the National Party than to a front-bencher. Let me say the following to the hon. member for Lydenburg. [Interjections.]

Tell us how it can be done.

We shall tell the hon. member how it can be done. He posed this question: Suppose there were suddenly a mealie harvest of 150 million bags, how could the United Party then guarantee the farmer his production costs plus a reasonable profit? Now I am asking that hon. member this. [Interjections.] At this stage, how is the mealie price and the wheat price being determined to-day? It is being determined on the basis of production costs plus. The hon. member is objecting to the principle of production costs plus a reasonable profit, and I want to show that hon. member products where this is today being applied by the Government. But it is the grievance of the farmer of South Africa that the Government does not take production costs and the risk factor properly into account. We shall tell the hon. member that it is the attitude of the United Party that the buying power of the consumer of the agricultural products in South Africa must be improved. If we were to-day able, through our mealie harvests, to make more mealies available to our stock-farmers, for example the sheep-farmers, we would not be saddled with surpluses. If that hon. member had any knowledge of the matter, and he ought to have because he was previously an official of the Department of Agriculture, then he would know that most of our stock in South Africa goes through a stage in the winter months which one could compare with a drought. Why is it impossible then, for example, to use large parts of our mealie crop for that purpose so that we could have proper wintering of our stock? It is essential however that if we were to stimulate the mealie crop in South Africa— and the hon. member knows that experts have told us that in the year 2000 we will need to produce 100 million bags of mealies for our own domestic consumption—then it would be the policy of the United Party to ensure that we get rid of the surpluses in the most economic manner, without penalizing the producer in South Africa.

How are you going to do this?

We shall not do so as the Government did during the recent mealie season. Then the hon. the Minister.

There he is now.

Yes, here is the bigwig himself now. Then he decided that the mealie price in South Africa should be reduced. What did Mr. Chris Cilliers, the director of the South African Agricultural Union, have to say when that happened? He said at the time: “It is a blow to the maize farmers of South Africa”. It will not be the attitude of the United Party to keep on forcing down the price of the farmer’s product. Our attitude will be to stimulate the consumption, and if necessary, we will …

Who decided to bring down the price?

I said the fact that the mealie price had been forced down, “was a blow”.

Did the hon. member say that it was the Minister who decided this?

The hon. the Minister is saying that it was not he who decided that, but I want to know whether he approved it?

Of course, I had to.

Oh, the hon. the Minister approved it, but it was not his decision. The hon. the Minister has been startled again, for I am now going to read to him a statement which he made when the mealie prices were brought down. He therefore knew what was coming. But that will not be the attitude of the United Party. The problem with the Government is always that when there is a surplus, they only know one solution, and that is, “Force the price down”, and the farmer must make do with less. Let bis income be reduced, even though he has had how many bad crops during the past few years. It makes no difference to the Government. The farmer must not be given the chance to make up what he lost during those poor years.

You have not yet told us …

That hon. member for Lydenburg must tell the farmers in his constituency that it is his policy to say to the farmer of South Africa that he should, under these circumstances, be satisfied with less. If the hon. member objects to the United Party’s attitude, production costs plus a reasonable profit, then he must be in favour of the farmer of South Africa being satisfied with less. Let me tell the hon. member for Lydenburg that he is not the only one who will say this. He is simply saying what his hon. Minister said. A few years ago the hon. the Minister stated before the South African Agricultural Union congress in Sea Point that high prices were not a good thing for the farmer of South Africa.

But you are lying now.

Order! The hon. the Minister must withdraw that.

I withdraw that, Mr. Chairman, but the hon. member knows that he is telling an untruth.

The hon. the Minister must withdraw that.

What the hon. member is saying is untrue.

Very well, the hon. the Minister is now saying that it is untrue. On that occasion he said that high prices were not a good thing for the farmers. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Kensington made a speech here to-night which I found strange in the first place because it was made by the hon. member for Kensington and in the second place because he spoke about Hardap. I do not know where he got his information from. I want to say at the very outset that that speech of his did the Hardap scheme and South-West Africa a disservice. Where the hon. member gets his information from I do not know. There is a little newspaper in South-West Africa to which certain people at Hardap go with their gossip. I think the hon. member read that newspaper, since he is an ex-newspaper man and since he did not do South-West Africa a favour in the past either through that newspaper to which he was attached. In the same way he did not do South-West Africa a favour to-night either. The Hardap scheme is the first irrigation scheme which the South-West African Administration, and not the Government of the Republic of South Africa, tackled under the regime of the National Party during the fifties. Before a decision was reached to proceed with that scheme, proper surveys were made and planning done. I should like the hon. member to listen carefully now, since he asked for information about this. Proper surveys and tests of the land were made by a team of agricultural experts, which carried out more than 600 tests on that land. According to their tests, they recommended that that land was suitable for agricultural purposes. They divided the land up into three types, i.e. the A type, which was equal to that of the Orange River irrigation land; the B type land, which has certain shortcomings which could be remedied; and the C type land, which is the poorest type of land. The entire scheme is not in full operation yet, but approximately 30 plots are being occupied which, with the exception of a few, have been very successful. So great was the success that a few people who obtained permission to sell the plots, did so at the tremendously high price of R1,500 per hectare. Within the foreseeable future, six plots will again be available. Even at this early stage there are many applications from purchasers for those six plots.

The hon. member for Kensington, however, tried to create the impression this evening, that there was a fear among the occupants that that scheme was doomed to failure. That scheme, which has almost been completed, has to date cost the South-West African Administration approximately R12 million. Apart from an irrigation scheme a very large vacation resort is also being envisaged, which will be very popular. When the dam was completed it was the third largest dam in South Africa. There were quite a number of plots in regard to which many problems were experienced because they were not entirely suitable. The problem was not so much with the land itself, but with the draining thereof. It was possible to supply one of the greatest deficiencies with gypsum, but the South-West African Administration is supplying the gypsum free of charge and as much as they need to these people. Now these people are also obtaining the gypsum from the Department of Agriculture. Owing to the nature of the land it is, however, difficult to drain the land. In this way three plots have already been taken back by the Administration and the occupants have been allocated plots of better quality land. If I am not mistaken, they are considering taking back a further five plots and giving these people other land. The other people are, however, making an outstanding success of that land. Mr. Chairman, I have already told you what the present position is in respect of that land. Recently there was a man who had problems with his health and who obtained permission to sell. He obtained approximately R40,000 for a plot which was not yet in full production. I could perhaps just go on to indicate how the Administration offers the plots. It levels the land, lays on water, builds the house, provides electricity and it is then advertised properly and allocated in terms of the agricultural settlement system. Then there is a board which, just as here in the Republic, I take it, allocates that land to the most suitable applicants. But to present the picture the hon. member presented here this evening, is quite wrong. There is no fear. This scheme lies in the heart of my constituency. There is a committee comprised of senior officials, i.e. the Director of the Lands Division, the Director of Water Affairs, and a member of the local executive committee, as well as other senior officials. From time to time they hold meetings. They are holding another meeting on the 4th of next month, which I shall also attend. I attend it in an unofficial capacity. Those people’s problems are then discussed. In the past they have received every assistance from the Administration, as they are now doing from the Department of Agriculture.

Mr. Chairman, may I put a question? Could the hon. member inform me that there is no proof whatsoever that the salt percentage in that area has increased?

I have already told the hon. member that there are certain plots which have drainage problems because the land does not drain itself. There are a few plots which have become saline as a result of a lack of drainage. Those people received other plots. It is the pot-clay content of the land which prevents that water from draining away. This has caused certain salt deposits to appear. But this does not apply to the entire scheme. It is limited to a few plots. The information of my hon. friend is therefore quite incorrect. It is not the scheme which should be condemned. A senior official of the experimental farm Neudamne the agricultural expert there, drew up a report and made recommendations which will now appear before the committee. The report is not yet official, but recommends certain auxiliary measures. The hon. friend can tell us where he got his information from. That scheme is an ornament to the entire South-West Africa. It is of vital importance to us. Its construction was not solely for agricultural purposes. The purpose of the scheme was in the first instance, water conservation and water provision. There are a further two schemes of the same kind which have almost been completed. I should just like the hon. member to be more careful and to check his facts better before he says anything with ulterior motives, here to detract from a scheme such as that, which cost a great deal of money and energy and is a beautiful piece of work.

Mr. Chairman, I have been listening attentively to this debate, and in particular to hon. members on the other side of the House. The more I listened, the more grateful I began to feel that the farmers of South Africa have been spared from falling into the hands of the Opposition, into the hands of people who do not always know whether they are coming or going, into the hands of people among whom, said with all due respect, there is little understanding of Land Bank matters and the actual problems with which agriculture is faced. I looked forward to this debate with great expectations. I had good reason to do so because I expected the Opposition to avail themselves of this opportunity to raise in this House those charges which they were slinging around so lavishly before the election and to suggest solutions to them, inter alia, to the charges that this Government was forcing farmers off the farms, that the Government was the cause of the problem of the depopulation of the rural areas, and that they had no sympathy whatsoever for the farmers. I expected them to come forward with alternative and constructive suggestions, and that they would suggest solutions. Instead of that we have for two days been forced to listen to them plodding along on the surface, to them trying to distract attention to administrative matters, and to them time and again dragging in unrelated matters and kicking up a fuss about these. What has been noticeable is the cautious way in which they have discussed matters and how carefully they are treading so as not to walk into a trap in which they could perhaps be caught on the eve of an election.

What was interesting, was that the only member on that side of the House who got out of hand occasionally was the hon. member for King William’s Town, who put me very much in mind of the old saying which ends with the words “… where angels fear to tread”. But the Opposition is by no means as innocent as they look sitting there. I want to predict that as soon as they get outside again, they will be their old selves again. A leopard cannot change his spots. The eyes of this side of the House are not closed. It is very clear to us that their whole mode of conduct is part of their strategy of saying as little as possible and being as unspecific as possible so that they can be shown up as little as possible before the election. But when they find themselves outside, however, there is little the Opposition finds better and more beneficial than a problem orientated agricultural industry. That is why they discuss problems with such relish and with such facility. That is also why they exaggerate as many problems as possible, because for them it is a means to an end, i.e. the object and endeavour of coming into power in this country. Sir that endeavour of theirs leaves me cold. I do not begrudge them their castles in the air, but what I do in fact object to, is that they are concentrating to such an extent on that objective that they are loosing their perspective and their sense of value to such an extent that they are really not able to fulfil their function as Opposition properly and to make constructive contributions.

Without pretending that there are no problems in agriculture. I want to submit—and I feel myself quite at liberty to do so—that apart from drought conditions which are unique to South Africa there is nothing inherently wrong with agriculture. I want to repeat this for the sake of the hon. member for East London (City). There is nothing inherently wrong with our agriculture. I do not have time now to quote figures, but I just want to refer to the outstanding success and the spectacular progress which the farmers of this country have made during the past few years both on the production and the marketing side. That agriculture is subject to growing pains is of course understandable and also quite natural, because we are after all living in a rapidly changing world which requires constant adjustments, and not least of all to agriculture as well. Now I want to say something which I want to lay for the most part at the door of the United Party. It is that we should at all times guard against being unrealistic in our thinking and in our desires in respect of the problems of agriculture. If there has ever been a time for us in this country to face up squarely to the actual and underlying problems of agriculture, if there has ever been a time for us to be honest towards our farmers in our approach to it and to refrain from exploiting their interests for political purposes, then it is now. An unrealistic approach to the problem of agriculture can only lead to frustrations, a feeling of being thwarted, which in its turn can only have negative consequences to such an extent that an unwillingness to utilize opportunities subsequently develops among our farmers. Now we must remember that the most important contributory factor which is necessary to strengthen and to improve the socio-economic development of the rural areas is in fact change. Some people abhor this. Others welcome it. But there is nothing so certain as change. Unfortunately there are always people—and I think the United Party is the last to be exonerated in this respect—who do not want to know and do not want to believe that acceptance and application of changes can mean the difference between survival and extinction. If there is one thing which ought to enjoy priority, it is the timeous and orderly adjustment of agriculture to changing conditions. I also want to submit that the covert psychological resistance to adjustment which naturally exists among such a great percentage of our people in the rural areas is the greatest single stumbling block in the way of adequate development of those areas. It is one of the greatest problems that have to be overcome. Once again I want to charge the United Party with having to a large extent contributed to nurturing this opposition in that they are in season and out drumming it into our people in the rural areas, that they are being forced from farms without reason, and that they are not sharing in the prosperity of the country. I admit that there is opposition to change and adjustment among our people. To eliminate that opposition it will be necessary to substitute a problem orientated approach to agriculture with one which is aimed at the utilization of opportunities. That is why human development at this stage, and not so much development of natural resources, ought to be receiving priority in any programme for the development of the rural areas. But because adjustment to changing circumstances must of course be accompanied by little disruption, and must be as painless, as possible, it will of course be necessary to have many of these changes take place according to a plan. It will be necessary to make purposeful instruction accompanied by financial assistance available wherever it is necessary. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I am not certain, but I think this was the second contribution in this House by the hon. member for Winburg. The hon. member began by levelling the accusation at this side of the House that it was merely plodding about on the surface. He stated that the Opposition could only criticize, and that everything was negative. The hon. member represents quite an attractive part of the Free State. But if the farmer voters of Winburg were to read the hon. member’s Hansard and were to see what he has said on behalf of agriculture and what recommendations he has made on behalf of the farmers of the Free State, I wonder what they would think of his wonderful contribution. He spoke about one member on this side of the House who might perhaps have said something constructive. The hon. member thereupon quoted the last part of a well-known saying, i. e. “where angels fear to tread”. I want to say to that hon. member that he as a backbencher puts me very much in mind of “fools rush in”. The hon. member stated that there was nothing inherently wrong with agriculture. He did not use the words of another hon. member on that side of the House who said that there was nothing “basically” wrong with agriculture. That hon. member said that there was nothing “inherently” wrong with it. Inherently or basically there is this wrong with agriculture, i.e. the farmers owe much more that they owed three years ago. Their burden of debt is almost R1,000 million. Their income is much lower and their dividends on investment is less than two per cent, and in many individual cases, nothing. That is all that is inherently wrong with agriculture. Further to that there is nothing inherently wrong with it. It is a healthy industry which is flourishing— according to that side of the House. I still want to see where the individual farmers on that side are (with the exception of one who spoke here about abattoirs), who suggested means by which this position could be improved. Then, too, I still want to see who the agriculturists on the opposite side are who made recommendations to the Minister in regard to what can be done to improve the agricultural industry. No, they will rise to their feet, thank the Minister and say that there is nothing inherently wrong with the agricultural industry. It is healthy, and is merely suffering as a result of this drought. Further to that there is nothing wrong with it. Now that it has rained everything in the garden is rosy. I do not want to spend any more time on the hon. member for Winburg. He will still learn in this House.

I should like to come to the announcement made by the Prime Minister before supper in regard to the disaster which is afflicting East London. Just before I proceed to discuss the agricultural aspect of this …

Order!

Mr. Chairman, I want to discuss the agricultural industry in that area and the disaster which has struck it. I just want to say that according to the latest reports which I received at about nine o’clock, more than 22 inches of rain were measured there. Over the past eight hours, eight inches of rain have been measured and it is still raining, although to a much lesser extent. I am not going to discuss the damage and the loss of life now. I do however want to bring it to the attention of the hon. the Minister that the pineapple industry is situated in the immediate vicinity of East London, from there up to Kings Beach, and a little way on. I understand that that area has had over 16 inches of rain. The custom is, and this was what was done in particular this year, that in the winter months when the harvest has not been a large one, those people plant as many pineapples as they can. I know of individual farmers who have this winter planted as many as 200 morgen. I know of land which has been completely exposed owing to the fact that they had had no rain and the soil had not therefore been compacted. At this stage it has all been planted. Anyone who knows anything about the pineapple industry will know that the plants are planted on embankments with furrows in between. I have been informed that the damage which has been done on those lands through the soil simply washing away until there is nothing left, cannot even be described. Arising out of the sympathy and willingness to help displayed by the Prime Minister here to-night towards the city of East London and the problems it is experiencing, also towards those in respect of agriculture there and those who are engaged in that industry …

Order! I do not want that hon. member to discuss the statement by the Prime Minister. That is not under discussion now.

Mr. Chairman, I do not want to discuss it now. I am speaking to the hon. the Minister of Agriculture now. I am making a special appeal to the Minister and the Deputy Minister of Agriculture to the effect that the greatest assistance must be given and sympathy shown in particular towards the pineapple industry. I am not even mentioning the stock breeders and all the damage they have suffered. I am speaking of an industry which ploughed hundreds and thousands or morgen during the winter months, and whose soil has been completely destroyed. I want to make a special appeal to the Minister and I am certain, Mr. Chairman, that you will not rule me out of order because I am after all speaking in an agricultural debate and I am speaking about people who fall under the Minister of Agriculture. I want to make a special appeal to the Minister and the Deputy Minister to the effect that immediate investigation should be instituted in regard to the damage which has been done in these areas, and that it should be ascertained what can be done in this connection. At this stage I am not able to make any recommendations. This is a terrible disaster which has struck the industry. Ridge upon ridge where pineappels flourish best on these slopes had been ploughed up for the cultivation of pineapples. The rains have now washed that soil away to the rivers, where bridges have also been washed away. I do not know what the extent of the damage is, because a person cannot get there; the airport is closed. But I feel under the circumstances that the Minister of Agriculture must, as soon as it is practicable, send somebody there to determine the extent of the damage which has been caused, and to see what can be done.

Sir, the hon. member for East London (City) made a wild statement here to which I want to react in brief before I deal with a small matter which I think is in the interests of the livestock and meat industries. This was not the first time that that hon. member had made wild statements here. During the Budget debate the hon. the Minister of Finance taught the hon. member a lesson in economy, and it is a pity that that hon. member was not in the House at the time. He made the statement here to-night that the debt of farmers had been increasing continuously, and had been increasing fantastically. He made this statement without furnishing any figures or making any comparisons. Sir, I now want to make a brief comparison. It is not fair to point out only the increase in the liabilities of the farmers without also pointing out the increase in the capital assets of the farmers of South Africa. That statement made by the hon. member cannot be confirmed by him, because the volume of production increased far more than the liabilities did, and the capital assets of the agricultural industry increased to approximately R6,500,000,000. The hon. member should compare that figure to the figure of a few years ago and then tell the farmers that they have been going downhill. It is a statement which the farmers will throw back in his teeth. But, Sir, I do not want to waste my time on the hon. member for East London (City). We know that he is always making blunders.

If time allows me to do so, I want to level a few accusations at the United Party towards the end of my speech, but I first want to mention a small matter which I think is more important. I beg to bring this to the attention of the Minister, but before I do so, I want to express my appreciation of the fact that the Minister of Agriculture made an important statement here to-night in regard to the meat industry. We appreciate that statement, because for several months there has been a feeling of uncertainty about the future of that industry. We thank the Minister for having given us that information at this early stage, even before a report has been tabled.

I want to refer to a matter mentioned in the report of the Controller and Auditor-General for the year ended 30th June, 1969. In that report reference is made to the meat insurance fund which protects producers against losses in respect of condemned carcasses for a variety of reasons. That insurance fund amounted to R270,999 for that particular year. Therefore, the fund showed a deficit of approximately R189 on the compensation paid out in the course of the year. Although I admit that that fund of R270,999 affords the producer good protection, I want to refer to two other funds mentioned in the same report. In paragraph 8 reference is made to the levies paid by meat producers to the Meat Control Board, which amount to R2,808,000. The specific fund of the Meat Board has a credit balance of R17 million. But further on in that report mention is also made of the levy now being imposed by the Abattoir Commission. This Abattoir Commission showed a credit balance of R147,871 for the year under review. Sir, you will notice that the one fund showed a small deficit but that the other two funds showed profits for that year, with the result that the total assets of the Meat Control Board now amount to R17 million. I want to ask the Minister whether he cannot, at the next determination of levies, omit this one levy of .07 per pound by means of which the insurance fund is being built up. I am suggesting this for one reason only and that is that the Control Board to-day has a fund of R17 million at its disposal, and also because the revenue of the Control Board for that particular year covered by the report exceeded its expenditure. I do think that this is a small concession which may be made to the livestock and meat industries at this stage, especially in view of the fact that the stock farmers of South Africa in the drought-stricken areas in the Southern Free State and in large parts of the Cape Province have experienced very difficult times. I beg to request the hon. the Minister to consider this suggestion. I believe that even if the Meat Control Board were to be disallowed to continue that levy the meat industry would still have adequate support from the total amount at the disposal of the fund. I just want to repeat, before leaving this point, that I am in favour of having a reasonable amount available at all times for eventualities, but in view of the fact that this fund has been built up over a period of years its position is different to that of the fund of the Mealie Control Board, for example, where the entire surplus could virtually disappear within one year.

Then I want to go further and ask that in respect of the distribution of this essential foodstuff, meat, more abattoirs should be made available. This is not the task of the hon. the Minister, but I nevertheless want to ask him to use his influence so that the distances between the production centres and the abattoirs may be decreased, because the transport of livestock over long distances give rise to big losses to the producers. In my modest opinion a co-operative society or similar establishment could cope with this small matter. There are meat co-operative societies which could make more abattoirs available to the industry throughout the country. I want to express the modest opinion that it would greatly benefit the industry if this could be done. My suggestion joins up with the statement made by the hon. the Minister in connection with the establishment of abattoirs, with the one difference, however, that abattoirs have so far always been established by local authorities.

Before I come back to the United Party, I want to point out how sometimes a commendable undertaking on the side of the National Party Government, the Minister and the Deputy Minister, may also create a problem in a certain field. Sir, in my part of the country we have fortunately been so blessed that we did not experience a drought; the grazing is sufficient and we have fodder banks, but for the edification of hon. members on the opposite side, I want to say at once that these fodder banks have not been established in the uneconomic way in which they want to establish fodder banks. The bottlenecks created by the livestock withdrawal scheme had the following result: Although a farmer receives a certain amount for the withdrawal of his livestock— a concession for which we are very grateful— he can only take some of his livestock to areas where there is sufficient grazing. I now say that the bottleneck experienced in this regard is being created because the farmer, supported by a certain amount per annum which the Department makes available to him, is pushing up prices for leasing land in those places which have better grazing. I do think one should consider something drastic in such cases and provide that those amounts, for example, R3,000 or R3,500 per annum, may not be utilized for leasing land and for increasing prices in those areas, which eventually make farming uneconomic for that group of farmers because the farmers whose leases expire can hardly pay 100 per cent more per morgen, because this is what actually happens when one enables the farmers to withdraw from those drought-stricken areas. I repeat, Sir, that you should not misunderstand me. If there ever has been a commendable scheme which has benefited and will benefit the agricultural industry tremendously, it is this withdrawal scheme, but it involves only the one problem I have mentioned here, and that is that overgrazing may sometimes occur in regions where grazing still is available. [Time expired.]

After I have now been listening to the speeches on agriculture of the hon. members on the opposite side of the House since last night, I have come to the conclusion that the story I once heard is quite true, i.e. the story of the little boy who paid a visit to Parliament and who reported to his father what he had seen here when he was back home. He told his father that at the commencement of proceedings, the person who sat in front came in an nodded to everybody, and when he looked at the people to his right he nodded at them quite contentedly. He then looked at the people to his left, and started praying for the nation. The stories concerning agriculture which have been dished up since last night by hon. members on that side definitely lead me to the conclusion that, if only one-tenth of these stories were true, the farmers would indeed need something in the nature of what was said by that little boy.

We have been hearing the most outrageous and irresponsible statements from the Opposition. They said that the farmers were earning next to nothing for their work; that the country was being washed away and that every farmer was practically bankrupt. The most outrageous statement I have heard here was the statement made by the hon. member for East London (North), who said: “I know of very few farmers who can to-day sell agricultural land and make a profit over and above what they owe on that land”. Sir, he knows of a few farmers. If all the farmers in South Africa were to sell their land to-day, only a few would be left with something. In other words, the vast majority, with the exception of a few, are insolvent. This is how he put the matter.

But let us examine what the real position in the agricultural industry is to-day. The capital investment in the agricultural industry comes to R6,665 million, and what are the total debts of the agricultural industry? On 31st March, 1970, its debts were estimated at R1,340 million. In other words, the agricultural industry is carrying a debt burden of 20 per cent. Now, after this decade in which we have been experiencing these unparalleled droughts, surely those people cannot come here and say that the debt ratio in the agricultural industry is unfavourable. But let us proceed and see what the earnings of the farmers were. In 1969 the total contribution of agriculture to the gross domestic product was R927 million. Total farming expenditure on intermediary goods amounted to R358 million. This gives us a net farming income of R625 million on a capital investment of R6,600 million. This is 10 per cent, i.e. the net earning made by the farmer on his capital investment. But let us now calculate this per farmer to see what the average farmer in South Africa has earned. When we divide this mount of R6.600 million in capital investment among the 90,000 farmers, we find that the average capital investment per farmer is R74,000. When we divide the amount of R625 million in net income among the 90,000 farmers, too, we find that it works out at R7,233; in other words, the average income per farmer in South Africa is R7,233, which again amounts to nearly 10 per cent of his capital investment. In view of the fact that we had these droughts and that some areas were absolutely devastated, surely these people cannot come and tell us now that these earnings by farmers in these times are unrealistic.

I now want to go further and say that this net farming income of R625 million is twice as much as the gross income of the agricultural industry in 1948, when the National Party took over from the United Party. This is the net income. But let us go further and see what happened to production, to produce prices, and the income of the farmer over the years. If we take it on an index basis the physical volume in 1948 was 102 and the physical volume of agricultural produce was 227 in 1967-’68. In other words, in that period the farmers increased their production by times. Producers’ prices increased from 94.6 to 197.3. The gross income of farming increased from 95 in 1948-’49 to 327 in 1966-’67, and the prices of farming requisites increased from 99.1 in 1948 to only 169.8. In other words, all aspects of the agricultural industry, gross volume, producers’ prices and the gross income, showed higher increases than the costs of agricultural requisites. But now, in spite of the drought, those hon. members are saying that under the National Party things have not been going well with the agricultural industry and that they are going to do something else, but they have not told us as yet what that will be, because they cannot do anything better.

I have also gone into the question of what happened to farmers who had loans with the Land Bank, how many were sold out prior to 1948, and how many subsequent to that. It is interesting to note that from the establishment of the Land Bank up to 1948—the Land Bank was established roundabout 1912—the farms of 1,662 farmers, who had loans with the Land Bank, were sold. This gives one an average of 46 per annum. From 1948 to 1960, 560 such sales, or 28 per annum, took place; in other words, approximately half the pre-1948 figure.

The Nats are the ones who made us bankrupt in 1933.

But this is not the only criterion one can use. We must also compare South Africa to other modern developed Western countries in order to see how our agricultural industry compares to those of other countries. Let us now compare food production in a number of Western countries. These are figures I found in the year-book of U.N., and as a basis they used the years from 1952 to 1956. They indicate to us on an index basis the increase in food production in these countries. I just want to mention a few. In South Africa the index in 1952 was 79, and this figure increased to 154 in 1966. In France, during the same period, food production increased from 89 to 135. In other words. South Africa increased from 79 to 154, and France, which is one of the most developed countries in Europe, increased only from 89 to 135. In Austria this figure increased from 90 to 135; in Denmark from 95 to 121; in Holland from 98 to 138; in West Germany from 95 to 127; in Japan, a country which hon. members like to mention so much, from 97 to 137; in Australia from 96 to 153; and in Argentina from 98 to 119. In Canada this figure decreased from 116 to 110, and in the U.S.A. from 102 to 98. The United Party dished up all kinds of stories here about how badly things were allegedly going in the agricultural industry. But I now want to tell hon. members that I take my hat off to the farmer of South Africa for having done better in the circumstances which prevailed during the past few years than any one of these countries I have mentioned. What the United Party has been saying here since last night is the biggest accusation they could have made against the farmer. That accusation is unfounded. I have never heard anything like it. But they also say that this Government is doing nothing for the farmer, and is unsympathetic. We need only examine this Budget to see what the Government is doing. We need only look at the Revenue Account. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I shall not react to the accusation …

You cannot!

It is a very easy matter to do so, but it is impossible to make a mental note of all those figures. That hon. member will have to read his Hansard very carefully and make quite sure that those figures are correct, because that Hansard will be taken to the rural areas and be shown to the farmers before the coming election.

But I have other matters to discuss this evening. In the first place, I want to associate myself with the representations which the hon. member for East London (City) made to the Minister in connection with the pineapple industry, and the agricultural industry in general in the East London area. Those areas of the East London district fall mainly in my constituency, and I am very worried about what could have happened there. I have heard about cloudbursts in other parts. I should like to ask that, no matter what investigation is made, it be extended also to all areas where these floods have occurred. I understand that in the past 24 hours there have been terrible cloudbursts even at various places up to the Alexandria district.

But the most important matter which I want to raise this evening, is an interesting one. I am pleased to see that the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, too, is present here this evening. When strangers listen to the debates in this House, they say the only topics of discussion are the Bantu and the agricultural industry. I want to mix these two topics to some extent this evening. If the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development were absent, I would have asked the hon. the Deputy Minister to make representations to him. This matter concerns the marketing of agricultural products in the Bantu urban areas. We must review the present position. We read in newspapers and hear in debates and speeches everywhere of the malnutrition of the Bantu in these residential areas.

Order!

I am coming to the point, Sir.

The hon. member may not discuss Bantu Affairs in this debate.

At the same time we read and hear about the overproduction of dairy products, vegetables and fruit, which must be thrown away and which rot. Mr. Chairman, there is a large market for these products in those Bantu urban areas. Let me mention an example. Several years ago, United Dairies Corporation in Port Elizabeth had depots in all the Bantu residential areas in Port Elizabeth. Those depots were under white control. They had a large market for surplus milk, skimmed milk and clabbered milk. These are staple foods for the Bantu. In due course changes of policy developed. What the policy amounted to was that a white person could not trade in a Bantu area. The Corporation then had to appoint Bantu agents in their depots in the non-white areas. They either had to make use of Bantu agents, or move their depots outside the Bantu areas. Because of the fact that those Bantu agents did not have enough training and did not know enough about business or the dairy industry, those depots had to be closed within a year. The farmers therefore lost that market for their surplus products and the cheap milk and other dairy products which the Bantu could obtain at those depots in the past were not so easily obtainable any longer. All I am asking, is whether the hon. the Deputy Minister cannot make arrangements, perhaps with the Department of Bantu Administration, to change this state of affairs. Allow our agricultural co-operative societies to trade in those areas until there is a sufficient number of trained Bantu in this industry. The same applies to vegetables, fruit and other agricultural products which cannot be kept long. This market is growing all the time. I would say it is the largest potential domestic market we have. There are thousands of Bantu living in townships such as Soweto, Mdantsane and New Brighton and, as we know, they will be living there for several years to come. Those people must have food. They must eat. At the moment they have to go to the white areas to buy their food because there is not sufficient trade in their own areas. I am now appealling to the Government to help the farmer to dispose of his surplus products in the Bantu areas.

There is another matter which affects the farmer and the Bantu. This is the question of the training of Bantu labourers on farms. So much is said in this House and at agricultural congresses about how technical farming has become in South Africa and in the world to-day. It is said that the farmer must be an expert on different levels. He must be a mechanic, an accountant, a veterinarian, etc. This is true, but it does not help him if his labour is untrained. The urban dweller in South Africa is still under the impression to-day that the farmer is fortunate because he has a large source of cheap labour. But that labour is not trained. The farmer is trained in a school and at a university which was established by the State. The Bantu is also trained in a school, but why can an agricultural school not be established to teach these people to drive tractors, vans and combines and to teach them, for example, the difference between the various types of poisons? All these matters are very important to farming in South Africa. I have very strong convictions about this. At the present moment the farmer himself must train that labour. I am very grateful that there are various oil companies which occasionally offer a course for tractor and van drivers. This helps a great deal. Those trained Bantu are very useful and worth more money. I would say that the present position is that the farmer is hiring the vast majority of labour at a minimum wage, because that labour is not trained. It would be better if he could hire the minimum for the maximum. If they are properly trained, farming in South Africa can be very effective. The whole question boils down to the training of labour, irrespective of the fact whether it is Bantu labour or Coloured labour. I understand that there are many complaints in the Western Cape about the fact that the Coloureds who remain after the Bantu have left, are not trained and cannot work. Can we not establish agricultural schools for them, too, so that they may learn how to work on farms? The white farmer must learn. Why can we not teach our non-Whites, too, to work on farms? At places such as Fort Cox attempts are being made to train them to work in their own areas, but our area also needs them. Can the Department not hold consultations and establish such schools? I am not saying that non-white agricultural colleges should be established, but technical schools, places where they can learn the difference between a gear box and a differential and how to repair an engine. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, while I was listening to the hon. member for Albany, it struck me that he, so typically of the Opposition, was rapidly running out of material for this debate; therefore he had to digress to Bantu affairs in order to approach the subject. This shows the Opposition’s lack of arguments against this solid agricultural policy of the Government. In addition, it struck me that the hon. member for Albany touched upon a very contentious matter, namely the training of Bantu. I wonder what the hon. member for South Coast is going to say about that. The hon. member should really think about this, because he is likely to land himself in trouble with one of the veterans in that party.

In taking part in this debate on this occasion this evening, I should very much like to convey the gratitude of my electorate to the hon. the Minister as well as to the hon. the Deputy Minister of Agriculture and their Department, in spite of what the Opposition alleges, for what they are doing for the farming population of the Republic in these very difficult times. The Department may often have gained the impression that they have an insurmountable problem to contend with, but I should like to assure them that the farming population are very grateful to them in these times. In this connection, I am thinking of their efforts in regard to soil conservation and the stock withdrawal scheme, in which 1,200 farmers are already taking part. We are thinking of what they have done to grant assistance in these times of drought throughout the Republic. I am thinking especially of the assistance which they provided to the farmers in my constituency. I am thinking of the subsidies on water rates and fodder. I may just mention, Sir, that the fodder subsidy has meant so much to our farmers in these times that the applications for fodder subsidies have increased from 2,000 to 7,000 a month. This gives us an insight into the tremendous scope of the work of the Department of Agriculture. I am a very humane person; I am very fond of people, and therefore you will understand, Sir, that I am very sorry for the United Party, because when I think back to the past election and the hobby-horse which they rode continually in the rural areas, namely that of the drought, I wonder what the hon. Opposition’s next hobby-horse will be in the coming election. The way our friends in the Opposition rode this hobby-horse in the past election, leaves one astounded. I recall what the hon. member for Walmer said at Jansenville on 11th March this year, when he spoke at a meeting there. He said: “The platteland became a desert on account of the mismanagement of the Government.” An English newspaper, The Evening Herald, reported it thus. I am very fond of my old friend, the member for Walmer, but I cannot forgive him for having said that. This brings us to the truth, which I must repeat, namely that I wonder what horse our friends the Opposition are going to mount in the next election, because the drought has been broken. I wonder whether they are as happy as the other members of this House and I that we have had good rains. If those hon. members recall everything they said in the past election, I wonder if they can honestly say that they are glad it has rained. While speaking on this occasion tonight, I want to plead with the hon. the Minister and the Department of Agriculture for an important work which has remained to be done in my constituency. I am thinking of the total withdrawal of stock from farms in the Karoo area of the Republic, farms which are smaller than 1,000 morgen. I do not support the view that we must force the small farmers to leave the rural areas. I believe that other circumstances may well contribute to that, but we do want to ask the Minister’s support for a total withdrawal of the small farmer’s stock. In addition, I want to ask for a reconsideration of certain areas in my constituency. I am thinking of a particular part, namely Alicedale, which is at present included in the grass-land region, although two thirds of the district is in fact Karoo veld. This should most definitely be included in this stock withdrawal scheme. I also want to ask the hon. the Minister to consider sending an experienced officer, who is intimately acquainted with the needs of the farmer and more particularly the citrus farmer in Kirkwood, to explain to the inhabitants there the short-term assistance which the Department is offering. There is great confusion about the interpretation of the assistance which is being offered to us there. In conclusion, I want to ask the hon. the Minister to consider announcing the long-term policy which we believe is going to be introduced there, to those farmers and especially the farmers in Kirkwood.

Mr. Chairman, we have been witnessing a very interesting phenomenon here to-day. We have seen the United Party posing here as the great protector of the farmers and we have been presented as the people who do not want to do anything for the farmers. Nothing is further removed from the truth. Had this been true, we would have expected them to prove it. What arguments did they advance? They accused us of various errors, but did not suggest anything positive. I can think of one positive suggestion which came from the hon. member for King William’s Town, i.e. a subsidy on wool. If we were to pay a subsidy on wool now, how would he justify that it be paid in respect of wool only? What about all the other products?

Do you want to subsidize fruit only?

Yes, where necessary, a subsidy may be paid. But to accept as a general policy that wool should be subsidized for all times, is a stupid policy. Wool must hold its own. The Government may, however, give protection and support in cases of emergency. But surely economic balance must be obtained at some time or other. If we were to start paying a subsidy on wool to-day, we would be binding ourselves to that forever. It might have been practical to do so if wool were the only product we could produce in this country.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. member a question? Is it true that the Wool Commission itself has decided to subsidize wool?

The Wool Commission can subsidize it with money they obtain from the wool farmer himself. But I have no further objections to the Government helping even the Wool Commission in this regard if it should find it necessary to do so. But if the subsidization of wool were to be introduced as a principle of policy, I want to make the statement that in that case one would have to subsidize all other agricultural products as well. On what basis is one going to do this? Apart from this suggestion we received nothing but ingratitude from those hon. members. They said that the farmer of South Africa was not being helped in regard to the high interest rates. This was said by the hon. member for King William’s Town. But when I think of what is, in fact, being done, namely the 6 per cent loans from the Land Bank and the 5 per cent loans from the Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure, in addition to the 1½ per cent subsidy which the Government has granted now, I cannot see that the argument holds any water at all. I believe that this Government is doing its duty in all respects with regard to the agricultural industry.

In the few minutes which I still have at my disposal, I should like to raise a small matter in respect of which I do agree with one of the members of the Opposition. The hon. member for Benoni spoke about National Parks. He made a very good speech on this subject. We all agree with him. I agree with him particularly in connection with the elephants at Knysna. In the first place, I want to agree with him that the public owes the Eastern Province branch of the South African Society for the Protection and Preservation of Nature a great debt of gratitude. On their own initiative and at great expense, these people appointed a person to make a survey of the elephants. This person, one Mr. Carter, did very good job of work. We should like to praise him because he made a valuable survey. But this is not really such an easy problem. We have to deal with various authorities in this connection. The Cape Province is responsible for the preservation of nature. The Parks Board makes parks available. But the land which Mr. Carter recommended, belongs to the Department of Forestry. Therefore we have to deal with three different authorities which will have to come to an agreement about who will protect the elephants if they should be protected. In my opinion, the matter has not yet been resolved. It is a very difficult decision which we shall have to take. The Knysna Forest is probably one of the most beautiful natural forests in South Africa. Recently I visited the Kruger National Park, and I saw to what extent the elephants break trees. I think there are too many elephants in the Kruger National Park. If we were to have too many elephants in that beautiful forest at Knysna, they would soon ruin that forest entirely. [Time expired.]