When this debate was adjourned the basic principle of this particular Bill was under discussion. As you know, Sir, this Bill seeks to make Provincial and Divisional Councils responsible in future for the cost of the removal of telegraph and telephone lines should such removal be necessated by work undertaken by such Provincial or Divisional Council. I pointed out that we on this side of the House regarded it as an unwarranted infringement on the rights of provincial councils. I also asked the hon. the Minister to tell us to what extent there had actually been consultation with the four provincial councils and with the Divisional Councils of the Cape, either individually or as a body. As you know, Sir, there are no less than 94 of these Divisional Councils in the Cape Province. The majority of them actually live from hand to mouth. They have no great incomes and they have great and important commitments to fulfil. A recent example was the heart-felt and anguished cry which came from Namaqualand in the North-western Cape. There had been complaints about the condition of the roads. The complaints were so widespread that a large advertisement was actually placed in the newspapers, but in that advertisement the Divisional Council of Namaqualand was exonerated because it was indicated in that advertisement that it simply did not have sufficient funds to carry out the necessary repairs to the roads. A Bill such as this would place additional burdens on those divisional councils. I should like to point out to the Minister that many divisional councils, particularly the smaller ones, are deeply concerned as to what is to happen to them under this Bill.

I again ask the hon. the Minister whether the Provincial Councils were consulted in the Transvaal, in the Cape, in Natal and in the Free State. Were the Divisional Councils in the Cape consulted? If they were not consulted, why were they not consulted? Is this another example of one of those Jovian thunderbolts from Olympus or Meintjieskop, trying to destroy everything, particularly where the bolt is aimed at an innocent body such as the Provincial Council or the Divisional Council?

Mr. Speaker, in August this year there will be a congress of divisional councils at Port Elizabeth. It is quite certain that this Bill and its effects will be discussed at that congress. Would it not be advisable for the hon. the Minister to keep this Bill back until its full implications have been explained to this congress of divisional councils and until they have had an opportunity of discussing its effects? I wonder whether I could mention an instance of what can happen under this Bill? A divisional council may want to straighten a particular road. It may be prepared to spend a considerable amount of money on re-laying it, on culverts or on the construction of bridges. The Post Office has laid its telephone and telegraph lines along the old road. When this new road is constructed the old road becomes derelict and many of the rights and servitudes inherent in it lapse; fences are built across it and the old road no longer provides access to the telephone and telegraph lines. Will it in future be the duty of the Divisional Council, with its limited budget, to pay for removing those telephone and telegraph lines from the old derelict road to the new straightened road? If so, I would like to point out that it is indeed a very unjust provision that the Divisional Council should be made to pay for it. According to this Bill there is no recourse to the courts of law. If the Minister decides that the Divisional Council must pay there is no recourse whatsoever. Yet the Post Office will in fact have free access to its lines. It will be able to use all the road facilities without paying the usual taxes. Actually it will be getting more than a quid pro quo in that case because it will not be paying anything for the re-laying of those lines. I wonder whether it is fair, Sir, to force an impoverished divisional council to pay for the re-laying and re-routing of telephone and telegraph lines in the instance which I have just mentioned?

One wonders, Sir. why there has been this sudden attempt to change a law which has in fact given very little trouble in the past? It could not have caused the Post and Telegraph Department great losses in the past, and I say this for good reasons. On 13 April I put a question to the hon. the Minister and asked him what the estimated cost to his Department was during each year since 1958 in each of the four provinces in regard to the alteration or removal of works referred to in Section 83 (1) of Act 44 of 1958 owing to work undertaken by a Provincial Administration. Instead of giving me an estimated cost—which was all I had asked for—the hon. the Minister replied and said that “the relevant information was unfortunately not readily available and the amount of work involved in obtaining it would be so extensive that it would not unfortunately be justified”. Now, Sir, that was a significant reply. Why does the Minister come with a Bill to remedy an alleged evil when in reply to a question of mine he stated that he did not even know the extent of the evil; that he did not have the figures? How can he come to this House with such a Bill without knowing the figures and the facts on which that Bill is based?

Mr. Speaker, what is behind this Bill? Is it the hon. the Minister himself or is it the Cabinet who has made the decision in this matter? If it is a Cabinet decision, then it is indeed a sorry state of affairs that provincial councils and divisional councils who cannot defend themselves here should be singled out as the victims of this new Cabinet policy. We realize only too well, Sir, that the claims of one Government Department against another and that of a Provincial Administration against a Government Department or vice versa, are vexatious matters. They sometimes challenge the wisdom of a Solomon, even the astuteness of an Albert Hertzog. But where the issue is between a Department and a Department.between a Minister and a Minister, it is really a battle between equals, and each Minister can defend himself here in Parliament itself. The present case, however, is one of a battle between a Department and the provincial and divisional councils, where the latter are unable to defend themselves in this House and where they are forced to take punishment without a whimper. I can hardly imagine, say, the Minister of Water Affairs saying to his colleague, the Minister of Railways: “Oh, you know about that new dam I am going to build along the Orange River will flood about 30 miles of railways? Will you be so kind as to remove that railway line of yours and pay all the costs?” One can hardly imagine the Minister of Railways acquiescing to such a demand from the Department of Lands. These are matters which have to be decided on a higher plane, matters which should even be decided by arbitration, I believe. The fact of the matter is that a very important principle is involved in this Bill—as to who is to bear the costs when the rights of one Department conflict with the rights of another Department; who shall be responsible for those costs and how should the costs be divided? My contention is, Sir, that this matter cannot be tackled piece-meal by a piece of legislation of this nature, in a limited Bill such as this. It should be part, if necessary, of an over-all plan. I believe that principle of who shall pay the costs in the case of a conflict between Departments, should be embodied, if necessary, in special legislation. It should deal with all cases in which a dispute arises between a Department and a Department and a Department and a provincial council. To try to put over a quick one, as is being done in this Bill, is to my mind most unworthy and unwise. I believe that the principle should be fully discussed by all the interested parties—the provinces, the divisional councils and particularly by the Treasury—before a measure such as this is placed before the House, a measure covering all instances—if such a measure proves necessary, which I very much doubt.

The main principle which this Bill infringes, however, is the accepted one in matters of this nature, namely that provincial councils should have the same status as a Government Department. The one should not have fewer rights than the other. This is an accepted principle and I wish to prove it. Section 83 was introduced many years ago. It was laid down in Section 15 of the Finance Act No. 46 of 1944. As we all know the Finance Act was an omnibus Bill and this particular Section 83 of the Post Office Act which the hon. the Minister now seeks to amend, was one of a very large number of diverse clauses in the 1944 Bill. What happened when that Bill, embodying this Section 83 originally, was introduced into this House in 1944? Let us look at the record: In 1944 the then Minister issued a White Paper explaining why it was necessary to introduce, among others, this particular Section 83 which the Minister now seeks to amend. In that White Paper the following was clearly stated as a principle by the then Government—

That was the vital clause. The White Paper added—

From these words in the 1944 White Paper it is crystal clear that when it comes to a dispute over the removal of telephone lines provincial administrations should be treated and given the same facilities and rights as other Government Departments. In other words, if the Post Office Department is prepared to give certain facilities to Lands and to Agriculture and to Railways and so forth, the same facilities should also be given to provincial councils. That was the principle as laid down in the White Paper in 1944. When the Bill was introduced into this House in 1944 the present Government was in Opposition. It is interesting to note that when this principle was introduced and laid down in the White Paper not a single voice of protest was raised against it in the ranks of the Nationalist Party. It was fully agreed that this provision should be included in the Bill. During the Committee Stage of the Finance Bill not a single voice of protest was raised against this particular provision. It was supported by every single member of the then Opposition, the present Government. It was supported amongst others by the present Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, by the present Minister of Foreign Affairs, by the present Minister of Education, Arts and Science, by the present Minister of Lands, by the previous Minister of Defence, by the present Minister of Defence, by Dr. D. F. Malan, by Mr. J. G. Strijdom, by Dr. A. J. Stals. Above all this particular principle, that in matters of this kind provincial administrations should be treated on an equal footing as other Government Departments, was also supported and voted for by the Minister of Finance who was then a member of the Opposition. Why has there been this change? Why has there been this somersault on the part of hon. members opposite? Is this another example of the utter lack of consistency and lack of positive policy which has been so much in evidence on the other side of the House? Is it the beginning of a planned encroachment on the hard-won rights of the four provinces? Is it an attempt, albeit a minor one, to weaken and then to destroy the powers of the provinces? Are the provinces in this way going to be shorn of their rights while those new potential provinces and super-provinces, the Bantustans, will be gaining more and more rights? Will the provinces continually have less and the Bantustans more? The hon. the Minister pointed out that in many cases the provincial councils already had to foot a large part of the bill, as they had to subsidize the local authority to a certain extent who, under the present Post Office Act, in any case had to pay the cost to the Post Office Department for these removals. But do two wrongs make a right, Sir? Would it not be better to give local authorities greater privileges in this respect as well?

We believe that a good principle was established in 1944 and that we should honour it. It was, after all, established with the experience and the wisdom of all the members who were in the House at the time. Let us show to the world that in this new Republic of ours we are prepared to honour the rights of the provinces on which our country is founded. I think that in a case of this nature we should build rather than destroy. Let us try to keep established rights in honour rather than to seek to undermine them slowly. I should add that I do not criticize the Post Office in this instance for fighting for its own cause. That is a natural thing for a department to do. Indeed, I believe that the free services which the Post Office offers to other departments are to be commended. As a matter of fact, I believe that other departments should on occasions show greater gratitude to the Post Office for these free services which are rendered to them. I do, therefore, sympathize with the Post Office in this respect. I believe that the principle that the Post Office should be run not only as a public utility institution but also as a profit-seeking institution—not necessarily large profits—is a good one. It must obviously be frustrating to the Post Office having to put on the debit side expenses incurred under Section 83 of the existing Act. That I can understand. My remedy is, however, not to take away the rights of the provinces but I suggest that when the Post Office draws up its annual balance sheet, its annual profit and loss account, account should be taken of the other expenses incurred on account of other departments and the provinces so that we can have a true picture of the profits and losses of the Post Office itself, carried on as a business.

In conclusion I do want to ask the hon. the Minister not to blemish the good reputation of the Post Office, not to blemish its past generosity and the undoubted services it has rendered the provinces and other departments. Indeed I feel that the Post Office can afford to be reasonable in this and I therefore plead with the Minister to be generous and to protect the rights, the entrenched rights, of provincial councils and divisional councils and to consider seriously not proceeding with this Bill.

On a previous occasion when this debate commenced, we listened to the vague attacks made by the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan). At that time already he came along with the vague allegation that this measure as such was allegedly an attempt to encroach upon the rights and powers of the provincial councils; he saw some mysterious danger or other in the background, and he suggested that the Minister proposed to undermine the powers of the provincial councils and deprive them of their rights. I want to say at once that this side of the House rejects that attack or suggestion by the hon. member with the contempt that it deserves. It is not our duty or our task or our object to try in some sinister way, or with an innocent little Bill such as this, to make inroads into the powers of the provincial councils or divisional councils or any other body. This Government has always been strong enough, big enough and courageous enough, when it wants to do things of that kind, to do so openly.

Mr. Speaker, I want to put the correct position immediately. It has been argued here that the matter raised by hon. members opposite is an extremely important one and that a very great injustice is allegedly being done here to the provincial councils and the divisional councils. What is actually being done here? Any hon. member who has no knowledge of this Bill or anybody sitting in the gallery and listening to what is going on here, would think that we are discussing a very contentious matter here. But what are the actual facts? The fact of the matter is that since the introduction of the Postal Act in 1910, the practice has been that where telephone or telegraph lines have already been erected along a certain route and somebody asks that those lines be shifted to suit his convenience—whether it be a private person or a municipality, a divisional council or a provincial council or anybody else—and those lines are then shifted by the Post Office at the request of any body or person, the body or person making the request and in whose interest the lines are shifted, has to pay the expenses connected with it.

In 1944, as the hon. member has mentioned here, the provincial Councils and divisional councils were exempted and the privilege was granted to them that in the future they would not be held responsible for the payment of these costs. For the moment I am not interested in what the arguments and the reasons were at that stage. The fact of the matter is that in 1944 the Act was amended and that these two bodies were excluded, but the private taxpayer—and I had such a case in my constituency some time ago—had to pay the costs in such a case. I had a case where there was a line along a certain road to this person’s house; the road was then diverted, and to-day that line actually goes through this man’s lands. He then asked that the line should be shifted to the road and pointed out that it would then be easier to maintain it, etc. But it was then argued by the Department of Posts that in terms of the Act, if he asked for the line to be shifted, he would have to pay the costs.and they pointed out that if they asked for the line to be shifted, they would pay the costs.

I fully subscribe to that principle. Under the city councils we frequently have the situation that the Post Office lays its cables under a pavement, from one point to another. Four or five years later the municipality may decide to lay a sewage pipe or a waterpipe or something of that kind under the same pavement. What is the result? It suits the city council to use the pavement for this specific purpose and it asks that the Post Office’s cables lying there and the telephone connections be shifted to the other side of the road. The practice has always been—and I say it is 100 per cent correct—that the city council requiring the removal is called upon to pay the costs connected with it. I want to know on what ground we should depart from this sound principle and make an exception in the case of the provincial councils and the divisional councils. Why should they be excluded; why, when they divert a road, should the Post Office be responsible for the shifting of the telephone lines? I cannot understand why an exception should be made in their case. On the contrary, I think it is perfectly in order to treat the Provincial Administrations and the divisional councils in precisely the same way as private persons, because the principle is right that the person who asks for the line to be shifted should pay for it. If the Post Office itself shifts the lines because it is to its advantage, then the Post Office itself pays for it, but when any other body asks for it. that body should be called upon to pay. I am convinced that under the present law other Government Departments, when they ask for telephone lines to be shifted, will also have to make provision in their estimates to meet the costs in the future. That is the only way in which one can give an account of one’s financial position. That is the only way in which the Post Office can estimate its expenditure. If a road has to be diverted and the telegraph poles of the Post Office have to be shifted, surely it is logical that the department concerned should make provision in its estimates for the costs connected with it. Is it fair that the post office should be called upon to pay because that department wants to divert a road? The whole argument seems stupid to me, and the hon. member’s inference that this is a covert attempt on our part to encroach upon the autonomy of the Provincial Administrations is a far-reaching inference which only he could draw.

I want to take this matter a little further. I repeat that I think it is a sound principle in a democratic state—and this ought to be the position—that what is expected of a private citizen with regard to this matter can also be expected of a Provincial Administration or a divisional council or a city council or even another Government Department, and that the private citizen should not be asked to pay for certain services while exemption is given to these departments. On the contrary, they can much better afford to pay than the individual, and I feel therefore that this principle is right.

A second reason why this Bill is essential is that it facilitates the administration of the Department of Posts. All the others have had to pay, except these two bodies, and in the past the Department of Posts always has had to go and determine which particular body is involved, whether it is the Provincial Administration or the Divisional Council, because if it is one of those bodies then we have to pay, and if it is not, then the body concerned has to pay. This unnecessarily complicates the position. The hon. member’s speech gave me the impression that he was given the following instructions in the United Party caucus: “You are always poking your nose into the ash-heaps of the nation, particularly in respect of the S.A.B.C.; see whether you can ferret out something here which can be used for political propaganda.” That is why he approached this innocent Bill in that way and that is why he sees all sorts of terrible things behind it. I think the hon. member would have done better if he had analysed this matter in a positive way and had viewed it on its merits and then come to his conclusions. This is a perfectly innocent Bill which is simply designed to facilitate the administration of the Department of Posts and to bring all the authorities concerned into line with one another so that what applies to the one will also apply to the other. I just want to say that if the hon. member is the Opposition’s shadow Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, then I feel sorry for them and the S.A.B.C. and the Department of Posts.

The hon. member for Randfontein (Dr. Mulder) has cast just as little light on this Bill as the hon. the Minister. The Minister introduced this Bill a few days ago and I do not think his second reading speech occupied more than five or seven minutes. Surely the hon. the Minister knew that the arguments advanced by the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) were pertinent arguments which would be raised in this debate with regard to a matter of this kind. But what did the Minister tell us? What points did he mention as justification for these amendments? He told us that if the Department of Water Affairs, for example, constructed a big dam and there was a road in the way of the dam. the Department of Irrigation would not be responsible for the diversion of that road; and. therefore, the Department of Posts cannot be held responsible for the shifting of telephone lines. But that is not a parallel case at all. because, after all. the road mentioned by the hon. the Minister must be diverted by the Divisional Council or the Provincial Administration concerned; it is their duty to do so. But the Minister and his Department of Posts and Telegraphs derive revenue from that service, just as the Provincial Administration indirectly derives revenue from the road and is therefore obliged to divert it. But the Minister says that if a road is diverted he is not responsible for the shifting of his telephone lines. The hon. member for Randfontein now comes along and tells us what the position is in the case of a private person.But Section 83 (1) makes it perfectly clear what obligation rests upon a private person if he wishes to have telephone lines diverted; naturally he is responsible for it and naturally the local authority is responsible, but why was an exception made originally in Section 83 (4) in the case of divisional councils and Provincial Administrations? Because these bodies cannot be compared with local authorities. After all, the divisional councils and the Provincial Administrations have thousands of miles of roads to maintain, but that is not so in the case of a local authority. If a local authority such as a municipality wishes to divert a pavement, with the result that the telephone lines also have to be shifted, then one can understand that the responsibility lies with that body. But the hon. member does not understand that divisional councils in the Cape have thousands of miles of road that they have a maintain. One could still understand this legislation if we had reached the stage where we could say that we have completed our programme of road-construction, but one need only read the report of the Department of Transport to see that there is still a network of roads to be constructed, apart from those which have to be constructed by Provincial Administrations …

We are not going to construct roads now.

Very well, but in that case the hon. member must vote against this Bill because then this Bill is unnecessary. Why incur this expenditure then? The divisional councils and the Provincial Councils are not revenue-earning bodies in the normal sense like the Department of Posts. A year or two ago the Department of Posts had a surplus of a few million rand. That position does not arise in the case of the Provincial Councils and the divisional councils. As the hon. member for Orange Grove has said, they live from hand to mouth. If this Bill is passed it will mean that the younger divisional councils, which still go in for extensive road-construction, will have to bear extra burdens if this Bill is made applicable to them. What will that mean? It will mean that in those areas where there is still a vast programme of road construction to be undertaken, additional taxation will have to be levied in order to obtain the revenue to be able to meet this sort of expenditure. I think that the hon. the Minister is being unfair in coming along with this Bill when he knows that the divisional councils have not even had an opportunity yet of expressing their views on this matter. I am quite sure that if they had known the implications of this Bill, not one of them would have been satisfied with it. [Interjections.] Let the hon. member for Somerset East (Mr. Vosloo) go and tell his divisional council that they will be responsible for it if telephone lines have to be shifted.

We know how often it happens that telephone lines have to be shifted to follow the road.

These interjections only cause unnecessary arguments. If the hon. member for Somerset East (Mr. Vosloo) wants an opportunity to speak I shall give it to him.

Why does the Department of Posts put its telephone wires so close to the roads? Because they want to be as close as possible in order to maintain them. Actually the obligation rests on the Department of Posts, therefore, to bear the expense if they want lines next to the roads, because they are the people who benefit from it and not these other bodies. This is an argument which ought to carry a great deal of weight with hon. members on the other side and which ought to convince them that they should not allow this Bill to go through as it now reads.

The second point is the deletion of the proviso in Section 108, in terms of which Provincial Councils and divisional councils cannot be held responsible for it where any person or animal in their service damages a telephone line. One can still concede that where such a council or any person in its service deliberately harms the property of the Department of Posts, they should be held responsible for it. But this second section is most unfair and unjust towards the divisional councils and the Provincial Administrations.

Having heard the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) (Mr. Streicher) I am convinced that this Bill is right and that he has never read it. Perhaps he did read the Bill, but he has not referred to the principal Act. It is perfectly clear that the omission of (4) brings the position into line with that under Section 83 (1), (2) and (3). Sub-section (4) exempted the Provincial Councils and the divisional councils from responsibility for the costs connected with the shifting of certain telephone lines. But the Minister is now bringing the position into line with that under (1), (2) and (3). The hon. member says that the Minister explained this measure in five minutes. One would think from what he says that the more one says the better, but I listened to the hon. member and I found that while he spoke a great deal he said nothing. He simply echoed what had been said by the previous speaker on his side, and the latter has his knife in for the Minister of Posts because the Minister is also responsible for the S.A.B.C., and anything with which this Minister comes forward is opposed. No, I am absolutely certain that if hon. members take the trouble to read Section 83, and particularly 83 (4), they will see that it is laid down that no obligation rests on Provincial Councils and divisional councils to pay any compensation when they ask the Department of Posts to shift telephone wires and lines. The hon. the Minister is now putting these bodies in the same position as all the others, as the hon. member for Randfontein has correctly indicated. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) says that the divisional councils and Provincial Councils are living from hand to mouth and that they will now have to impose additional taxation. But I want to put this to him: If the position is to remain unchanged and if they can shift telephone lines arbitrarily at the expense of the Department of Posts, would the Department of Posts not have to raise its fees also?

Will the hon. member tell me in what way a divisional council benefits if telephone lines are diverted?

That only shows again that the hon. member has not read the Act. One does not shift telephone lines arbitrarily. It is only when a road is constructed by the divisional council and the telephone line is in the way and the divisional council asks the Post Office to remove the line, that the divisional council has to pay. Before the hon. member interrupted me I was saying that the hon. member says that the Provincial Councils and the divisional councils are living from hand to mouth and that the result will be that they will have to impose extra taxation, but I do not think that will be necessary. It will now be possible for them to plan without allowing themselves to be influenced by the telegraph poles of the Department of Posts which are in their way. The opposite was the position under Section 83 (4). If divisional councils do plan arbitrarily, then the Department of Posts will have to raise their levies and fees in order to meet those costs. I support this amendment—the deletion of Section 83 (4)—and I am pleased that this provision is now being applied to everybody who has any dealings with the Department of Posts.

Finally I want to say this: Why does the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) not plead that the full costs of the service must be met by persons who are not connected with the Post Office? For example, the home telephones of hon. members of the Opposition, who flee from one constituency to another, are shifted from constituency to constituency and it only costs them R2. Why do they not ask the Minister to amend the Act in such a way that the Post Office will be called upon to pay that fee? After all, it is the Government’s fault that they lose their seats. No. I support this Bill and I am pleased that the Minister has introduced these amendments.

Now that the hon. members for Randfontein (Dr. Mulder) and Prinshof (Mr. Visse) have spoken, the whole position must be as clear as a pikestaff, and I am surprised to hear from the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) (Mr. Streicher) that he can still see no light. I can only say that there are other reasons for that. Those who are blind never see the light. When the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) and the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) were speaking, I wondered on whose behalf they were really pleading. Were they speaking in favour of the divisional councils and the provincial councils, or in favour of the Central Government? I think they were speaking in favour of the one, but their arguments were in favour of the other. After all, hon. members must remember this simple fact: This measure is part of an inter-departmental arrangement. The previous arrangement was that every department bore the damage that was done to it. If the provincial council or the divisional council constructed a road and the telephone route had to be shifted as the result of it, then the department bore the costs. If the Department of Lands constructed a dam, as the result of which the road of the provincial administration had to be diverted, then the provincial administration bore the costs, and if, in addition to that, the provincial council had to build a new bridge, it had to bear the costs itself. The new arrangement is precisely the opposite; that is to say, the person or the body or the department which is responsible for the costs bears the costs. How does that work in practice? It works in this way that the Central Government, or the Post Office, which forms part of it, pays for the diversion of telephone wires and cables resulting from the diversion of roads. But the provinces and the divisional councils bear the enormous cost of diverting the roads and re-siting the bridges. The whole plea of hon. members opposite was that the position should remain as it is to-day, a plea which is in favour of the Government. It would pay the Government well to leave the present arrangement undisturbed, because then it would not have to meet the cost of bridges and roads, but only the cost of shifting the telephone wires, and the provincial councils and the divisional councils would bear these enormous costs. These two hon. members made me come to the conclusion, therefore, that they did not know what they were talking about, and that they were simply opposing this measure because it emanates from the National Party Government. Surely there can be no doubt that this is an arrangement which the Government is entering into in the interests of the provinces, out of the goodness of its heart, but now we find that it is hon. members opposite who are supposedly talking in the interests of the provinces who are pleading that the provinces and the divisional councils should be prejudiced! Have you ever seen such a thing? I cannot help coming to the conclusion that there are many people who must be saying to themselves: “Heaven save us from our friends.”

The hon. member for Orange Grove has made various charges against me. He says that he asked for certain figures and that I said that it would take so long to work out these figures that it would not be worth while. But now he says that I should have given him estimates. If he had asked for estimates, he would have been given estimates. But an estimate must be based on a whole series of figures, and it is not worth while extracting those figures. Both the hon. member and the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) have said that we want to introduce a new principle. We are not introducing a new principle. We are simply applying this country-wide principle to every department. Let me reply to the question of the hon. member for Orange Grove. Let us assume, for example, that a large section of the railway line becomes submerged as the result of the construction of a dam; does he think that the Railways should bear those costs because the dam is constructed by the Central Government? Of course not. The Department of Lands or the Government would naturally have to compensate the Railways, and that is precisely what the hon. member asked for. That is the new arrangement that we want to introduce. The hon. member now opposes this measure and yet he is in favour of this arrangement. It is very difficult to understand that kind of logic.

I have listened to the explanation given by the Minister. Say, for example, the divisional council builds a new road for ten or 15 miles, does the Minister contend that the divisional council must be responsible for shifting the telephone wires to the new road?

Why should the telephone wires be shifted? There is no reason for it. There is no reason why the telephone line should be alongside the road. It is convenient, but it is not essential. Whoever suggested that if you change a road you must change the telephone wires to be alongside the road? As the hon. members for Randfontein and Prinshof said, it is not at all necessary. They are connected facts, but not essential facts. You can go along the roads and you will often see the telephone poles far inland, far away from the road. Those poles were never shifted because there was no reason for it. We are not trying to beautify the country; we are only trying to do what is essential.

*I do think that the explanation given by me ought to be clear to any sensible person. In actual fact this Bill is in the interests of the divisonal councils and of the provincial administrations.

Motion put and the House divided:

AYES—77: Badenhorst. F. H.; Bekker, G. F. H.; Bekker, M. J. H.; Bootha, L. J. C.; Botha, H. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Cloete, J. H.; Coetzee, B.; Coetzee, P. J.; Cruywagen, W. A.; De Wet, C.; Diederichs. N.; Dönges, T. E.; du Plessis, H. R. H.; Fouché, J. J. (Sr.); Frank, S.; Froneman, G. F. van L.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Hiemstra, E. C. A.; Jonker, A. H.; Kotze, G. P.; Kotzé, S. F.; Loots, J. J.; Luttig, H. G.; Malan, A. I.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, J. A.; Marais, P. S.; Martins, H. E.; Meyer, T.; Mostert, D. J. J.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Otto, J. C.; Pelser, P. C.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rail, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Sauer. P. O.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Serfontein, J. J.; Smit, H. H.; Stander, A. H.; Steyn, F. S.; Steyn, J. H.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Uys, D. C. H.; van den Berg, G. P.; van den Heever, D. J. G.; van der Ahee, H. H.; van der Merwe, P. S.; van der Spuy, J. P.; van der Walt, B. J.; van Eeden, F. J.; van Niekerk, G. L. H.; van Niekerk, M. C.; van Nierop, P. J.; van Staden, J. W.; van Wyk, G. H.; van Wyk, H. J.; van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Venter, W. L. D. M.; Viljoen, M.; Visse, J. H.; von Moltke, J. von S.; Vosloo, A. H.; Waring, F. W.

Tellers: W. H. Faurie and J. J. Fouché.

NOES—42: Barnett, C.; Basson, J. A. L.; Bowker, T. B.; Bronkhorst, H. J.; Cadman, R. M.; Connan, J. M.; Cronje, F. J. C.; de Kock, H. C.; Dodds, P. R.; Durrant, R. B.; Eaton, N. G.; Emdin, S.; Field, A. N.; Gay, L. C.; Gorshel, A.; Graaff, de V.; Hickman, T.; Higgerty, J. W.; Lewis, H.; Malan, E. G.; Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Odell, H. G. O.; Oldfield, G. N.; Plewman, R. P.; Raw, W. V.; Ross, D. G.; Russell, J. H.; Steenkamp, L. S.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Swart, H. G.; Taurog, L. B.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Warren, C. M.; Waterson, S. F.; Weiss, U. M.

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

Motion accordingly agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

I move—

At the outset may I draw the attention of hon. members to the fact that the principal Act in this case dates from 1923. It has, of course, been amended from time to time but, as certain material amendments had to be effected to the principal Act, advantage is being taken of the opportunity to do some cleaning up. The main purpose of this cleaning up is to ready the principal Act for consolidation and re-enactment during this Session. It is intended that advantage should be taken of the consolidation procedure provided by paragraph 185 of the Standing Orders of this House. The other text of the principal Act is Netherlands and, on consolidation, it will be changed to Afrikaans.

Hon. members have had the benefit of an explanatory memorandum on this Bill, and I hope, therefore. that it will be possible for me to be briefer than I would otherwise have been. I do not propose to deal with those proposed amendments which merely remove words in the principal Act which have become meaningless or which cure obvious errors or which recast existing provisions in a more accurate and understandable form. All these proposed amendments form part of the cleaning-up process to which I referred a little while ago.

The proposed amendments contained in Clause 3 appear to be of such a nature that the need for the provision concerned becomes immediately apparent. In regard to paragraph (d) I may add that, reluctant as my Department may be to take this step, it may become essential to impose admission charges at the terminal building at Jan Smuts Airport at certain times in order to keep the members of the public within manageable proportions. We want the public to visit our airports; we want the public to become more and more air-minded but inside the concourse of the terminal building the air passenger has first claim. The amendment proposed in this particular instance is intended to make the arrangement relating to the imposition of charges as flexible as possible.

In referring to paragraph (h) of Clause 3 it is expedient also to refer to Clause 5 and to deal now with the question of air/sea search and rescue. Several years ago I established a Permanent Committee on Search and Rescue under my Department with one of my Department’s officials as chairman. The other Departments represented on this Permanent Committee are South African Railways and Airways, Posts and Telegraphs, South African Police and Defence. This Committee has completed a task of some magnitude in establishing an inter-departmental search and rescue organization and in framing procedures to put that organization into operation. It has, for example, also framed a manual of instructions covering all phases of search and rescue operations, which has been distributed to all Departments concerned. This Committee is a continuing body and one of its functions is to keep the organization and procedures mentioned under review. These amendments to which I have referred are being put forward in consequence of recommendations made to me by the Permanent Committee. The underlying idea is that, if the amendments are adopted, it will be possible also to use civil aircraft on search and rescue operations. To-day, if civil aircraft are used it can only be done if the owners concerned have volunteered the use of those aircraft. It will also become possible under certain circumstances to recover the cost or part of the cost of search and rescue operations from the person whose negligent or other unlawful act or omission caused those operations to be undertaken. Search and rescue operations can be very expensive and it is only equitable that the person responsible, in consequence of his negligent or other unlawful act or omission, should bear the cost or part of the cost involved.

The existing section which is being repealed is no longer required as adequate provision exists in the Defence Act. 1957, to do whatever needs to be done.

There is very little which I can add in regard to Clause 4. Hon. members will observe that paragraphs (c) and (d) have the effect of amplifying the items on which the Civil Aviation Advisory Council tender advice to me.

Concerning the proposed sub-section (5) of Section 6 of the principal Act, as set out in paragraph (b) of Clause 6, the intention is that a local authority will not be in a position to refuse a licence to somebody to carry on a trade or occupation on a State aerodrome where the State considers it necessary, in the public interest, that such trade or occupation should be carried on on that aerodrome.

I may say in regard to Clause 10. which will repeal the provisions of the principal Act relating to the postal, wireless, customs and immigration matters, that adequate similar provisions exist or will exist in the legislation of the Departments concerned before this amending Act is put into operation.

Again, the foregoing is part of the cleaning-up process.

The occasion also seems expedient to insert into the principal Act a provision on the lines of that set out in Clause 13. The provision has been found necessary in other countries and I sincerely hope it will never have to be applied here.

Cuba.

No, in the United States. The provision contained in Clause 16 is a recasting of the present provision which has been included at the request of the Treasury.

In regard to paragraph (a) of Clause 17. hon. members will be aware that sometimes certain happenings occur which are termed “incidents”. Such incidents, while in themselves not accidents, may very easily have resulted in accidents and sometimes very serious accidents. It is absolutely essential for the sake of safety in the air that incidents as well as accidents should be thoroughly investigated, and the intention of this amendment is to give me the power to include “incidents” under “accidents” for purposes of investigation.

The new Section 20bis, as contained in Clause 18, will cut out administrative work in that it will no longer be necessary for my Department to ensure that any person who is not on official duty and who is carried in a departmental aircraft, has first completed an indemnity purporting to safeguard the State against certain claims. The proposed Section 20ter merely states specifically what is already accepted in practice.

There has been the customary consultation with other Departments and bodies and the provisions of this Bill are generally supported.I think I may with justification also claim that its provisions are not contentious and most desirable.

We on this side of the House will not oppose the second reading of this measure which the hon. the Minister has described as a cleaning-up Bill. If anything our complaint is not in regard to what this Bill does but what it does not clean up. Of course, I cannot deal with that, and therefore I will deal specifically with those amendments which are introduced by this Bill. I do want to say that after all the investigation by the various bodies and the advice tendered to the Minister in regard to amendments to the Aviation Act, one is entitled to say that the mountain has laboured and given birth to a mouse, because all the major issues on which the Minister was approached for amendments—or most of them —have been left untouched, and this Bill deals mainly with detail and technical issues. Nevertheless, it will be welcome news that the hon. the Minister intends to introduce consolidating legislation. In order to study this Act as it now reads, one has to plough through five or six amending Acts and it becomes almost impossible to follow. The only pity is that in preparing for consolidation, the Minister is obviously giving public notice now that in introducing these amendments, that is as far as he intends to go, because it is unlikely, if he is to introduce a consolidating measure this Session, that he intends to make further amendments outside the scope of the Bill before the House. I hope the hon. the Minister will tell the House and the country whether he feels that these amendments proposed by him are sufficient and satisfactory to cover the requirements of civil aviation in South Africa to-day.

Dealing with the details of the Bill, there are various points on which we wish to put questions to the hon. the Minister; they are not matters of principle, but we may be obliged to take these points further during the Committee Stage. May I just touch on one or two of them. In Section 3 the principal Act lays down control by regulation of all flights of a plane; it deals with the whole aspect of control. Paragraph (b) of Section 3 of the principal Act gives the Minister the right to make regulations regarding the safety and security of persons and property and to prohibit flying at such heights or in such manner as is deemed to be dangerous to life and property, etc. Now the Minister is inserting specified items here such as flight-paths during holding, approach and landing, etc. Does the wording of the original Act not cover all aspects of flight control? Because if, as these words imply they do, the original Act did not in fact give power to make regulations over all aspects of flight, then the Minister in this amendment is not covering all aspects. He is covering flight-paths during holding, approach and landing, and he is covering the right to prohibit a plane from landing or from taking off or from following specified climb-out flight-paths. But under the original Act surely the hon. the Minister had the power to make regulations covering any aspect of flight. Again I say that it it is necessary to specify these three sections under which the power is given to make regulations, are there not other aspects which also require the power to regulate?

Dealing with the question of the control of airports, in the same section the hon. the Minister has spoken of the possibility of charging entrance fees to certain terminal buildings. I think we will all agree that there are times when the position becomes chaotic, particularly at the Jan Smuts and very occasionally at D. F. Malan, and it may be necessary to have some control. But I would ask the hon. the Minister also to consider the convenience of passengers and those who bring them to airports when applying these regulations. I refer, for instance, to the power which is being taken to install parking meters. That is all very well in regard to the casual visitor who comes out of interest to see a plane landing or taking off, or to have a cup of tea, but there are many occasions when one flies overnight when there are no parking spaces open in the garages and one leaves one’s car parked outside. I trust that the hon. the Minister will give us the assurance that bona fide travellers or passengers will have areas set aside for them where parking meters will not be installed and where it will be possible to leave one’s car at the aerodrome when one embarks on a short trip. I hope he will also assure us that where control of parking is necessary, provision will be made for cars bringing passengers to the airport and necessarily having to wait there until they are certain that the plane has taken off. There are often occasions where one has to wait anything up to five or six hours for an aircraft to take off, and where a person has brought a passenger to the aerodrome, it seems unfair that he should have to run out every half an hour to put a sixpence in the meter. I hope therefore that the hon. the Minister will assure the House that a minimum of inconvenience and, if possible, no inconvenience will be caused to passengers and people bringing those passengers to the airport.

I want to skip Section 4 for the moment because I shall come back later to the question of the Civil Aviation Advisory Committee. In regard to Section 5 the hon. the Minister quite correctly spoke of the steps taken for air/sea rescue. I think this side of the House and everyone will welcome arrangements for rescue operations when they become necessary. I would, however, like to ask the hon. the Minister whether the use of the word “person” in dealing with people from whom compensation can be claimed means that it applies to the person who actually commits the offence which leads to the need for a search, or whether the word “person” also includes the employer of that person as one who is liable to pay for the cost of any rescue. For instance, if the pilot of a plane belonging to a company committed an act of negligence or otherwise became liable in terms of this section, would the company for which he works be responsible for all or any of the costs of rescue operation if the Minister decided to claim costs from the company, or is it only the person concerned who commits the act of negligence or the unlawful act who will be liable as an individual?

The following provisions of the Bill—Clauses 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11—are all straightforward. The next one which raises a query which I hope the hon. the Minister will be able to clarify to the satisfaction of this House is Clause 12. Clause 12 amends Section 15 by substituting in sub-section (1) certain words for the words preceding the proviso, but in changing the words it makes two vital changes to the meaning. The first is that any policeman may now impound any aircraft on suspicion that an offence has been committed. The original Section 15 (1) laid down that only an officer of the police or an officer of the Union Defence Force was entitled to impound a plane. The Minister did not mention in the introductory remarks that he was quietly changing the meaning of that section by substituting “any policeman” for “an officer of the South Africa Police”. It means that any policeman. White or non-White, when he has a reasonable suspicion that an offence has been committed by the pilot, may impound that aircraft or a whole fleet of aircraft. This law empowers him to do that without any reference to any senior officer or without any warrant whatsoever. It states that any member of the South African Police or any officer of the South African Defence Force may, pending the trial of the charged, detain the aircraft in question.

Only when an offence has been committed.

No. That is typical of the hon. the Minister. It is not only when an offence has been committed. The Minister is trying to mislead the House. He may do so when he has a suspicion that an offence has been committed. but that does not mean the same thing as the commission of an offence. The Minister says that it is only when an offence has been committed; I say that he has that power when he has a reasonable suspicion that an offence has been or is about to be committed.

What is wrong with that?

In other words, when any policeman, White or non-White, has any reasonable suspicion that an offence has been or is about to be committed, all the aircraft of a particular company could be detained and kept at that airport.

What is wrong with it?

What is wrong with it. is that the Minister is deliberately removing from this provision a right which was provided for in the old Section 15 (1), namely—

Provided that where recognizances are entered into or security deposited to the satisfaction of the authority having power to demand and receive same, that authority may, if satisfied that the ends of justice will not thereby be prejudiced, order the release of the aircraft from further detention.

There was specific provision for the release of an aircraft against payment of security or other arrangements being made, provided the ends of justice were not going to be defeated. That provision is now being removed from the Act. An officer may now detain the aircraft in question until the trial of the charged, which may take six months or a year or two years, because the matter may be taken on appeal as far as the Appellate Division ultimately, and that aircraft can be impounded for an unlimited time until the case is finalized in the courts. I would like the hon. the Minister to tell the House firstly why it is necessary, where this power was previously granted to an officer, to grant it now to any member of the police, whereas in the case of the Defence Force it is still provided that it must be an officer. In regard to the police it can be any constable, White or non-White. Furthermore, why is he removing the provision for aircraft bail? Under this clause any person who has a grudge against or who wishes to do a disservice to a particular company which is a competitor, can go to any policeman on the airport and say, “I suspect that one of the pilots of one of the aircraft belonging to that company is going to smuggle somebody out of South Africa or is going to smuggle diamonds or is going to do something illegal.”

What about the passport?

Probably without a passport.

No, that is far fetched.

No, it is not far-fetched. This clause provides that any person can lay a charge or can report a suspected crime to a policeman, and that policeman, if he is satisfied that there is reasonable ground for suspicion, can then impound the aircraft. I feel that there should be more protection against abuse of this particular provision. It is not far-fetched at all, because the power is being given here, and if the power is not intended to be used, then why take this power? It is tied up with the next section to a certain extent, Section 15, the Fidel Castro section. I notice that the hon. the Minister, since he has gone in for Cuban aircraft, must be expecting a bit of high-jacking too, but we have no objection to this clause, even though it is taken from the pattern of certain South American Republics. There is no harm and no objection to having this provision, which I hope it will never be necessary to apply in South Africa.

The other provisions up to Clause 18 are straightforward and we on this side of the House have no objection to them. In Clause 18 there is a question of legal interpretation which I hope the hon. the Minister will be able to clarify. In terms of this clause the Department of Transport is indemnified against any claims for any injury or death to persons travelling on those planes either operated or chartered by the State through the Department of Transport. We would like to be sure that this provision deals only with State claims, flying in the duty of the State, and that there is no danger here of the public or any feepaying person on any aircraft finding himself deprived of the right to claim compensation because of an accident. Assume that there is a Department of Transport aircraft at an airport, on the ground, and that a South African Airways plane lands and that a passenger walking from the one to the other is injured in the course of tripping over the base of the ladder leading up to the plane. In terms of this clause it could be held that he was either entering or alighting from that plane if he became involved in any accident at the ladder. In that case, would that passenger of a civil airline, injured or killed through an accident caused by a plane of the Department of Transport or chartered by them, have the right to claim compensation? I leave that matter there and ask the hon. the Minister to clarify that before we deal with it in detail during the Committee Stage. It will also be dealt with by those with more legal knowledge than myself.

Now I wish to come back to Clause 4, which deals with the Civil Aviation Advisory Committee. It is here where I believe the Bill fails to carry out the real purpose which was behind the request for an amendment to the principal Act. It does improve the position and therefore we support it. It does improve it by making the appointment of an advisory committee mandatory, by laying down their period of office and by clarifying the issues on which that body has to sit. There has been a long background of indecision in the history of the Civil Aviation Advisory Committee. The initial Act provided for a “Board” which would have specific powers; then it became an “aviation council”, again with specific, defined, laid-down powers; in 1948, the body itself was abolished, the powers of the council were transferred to the National Transport Commission, and an advisory committee was left instead of a body with specific objects and powers. Now the purpose of this committee which the hon. the Minister is establishing, which he now must establish in terms of the amendment, is to advise the hon. the Minister, and I want to make an appeal to the hon. the Minister to treat it in the light in which that body is in fact intended to function. The hon. the Minister, as far as I know—and I hope he will correct me immediately if I am wrong—has not attended one single meeting since his appointment as Minister, not one single meeting of the Civil Aviation Advisory Committee. His predecessor attended meetings, but the hon. the Minister has delegated his authority to the SSecretary, and the Minister himself has not attended any meetings of this body which is to advise him on civil aviation affairs. As late as 7 June, last year, that was the position in terms of the minutes of a certain meeting which I have here, in which there is an appeal to the Minister. Dealing with the Bill now before the House, one of the speakers said—

He suggested that the Minister should be persuaded to attend C.A.A.C. meetings, as previously had been the case, even if only once a year, in order that members of the C.A.A.C. might establish contact with him.

So it goes on, pleading for contact with the Minister. Now if the hon. the Minister is going to appoint a body and then pushes it to one side, this amendment is not going to serve the interests of civil aviation to any extent at all. If he wants this body to meet, I would appeal to the hon. the Minister to make use of it, because the present view of that body is that it is just a waste of time. I have another document here, also dealing with the views of the people most closely concerned with civil aviation in South Africa in which they were reviewing the Report of the C.A.A.C. and the view was—

I could go on quoting to you the views of member after member. They all feel that body is nothing more than a worthless rubber stamp, achieving nothing in the field of proper advice and consultation. The reason why I say that is that this very Bill before the House, the subject of the Bill and the general question of amendment to the Civil Aviation Act, was before the Advisory Committee. It was dealt with at great length by the Commercial Aviation Association for Southern Africa; there were committees which worked for years on amendments to it. The president in his annual address to the association last year (the Commercial Aviation Association) said the following—

It goes on to deal with the recommendations made in regard to the amendment of this Act, and it says—

It is with considerable disappointment that I must report that none of our recommendations was accepted by the Minister.

Now here is a body appointed by the Minister to advise him on aviation. They put forward recommendations in regard to the amendment of the Act, and none of their recommendations are accepted, with one exception. I am now talking of the major recommendations dealing with principle, I am not talking of the minor details of a technical and administrative nature. The recommendations put forward were, for instance: The creation of a National Transport Commission (Air), a body which would deal with air matters. The one recommendation which was accepted was that the C.A.A.C. should be mandatory and not permissive. That the hon. the Minister has accepted, although it was reported at various meetings that the Minister had also rejected that recommendation. The next is the creation of an Air Safety Board, which the Minister has rejected, and the creation of an Examinators’ and Licensing Board, which the hon. the Minister has rejected. The view of those concerned is that they are wasting their time by trying to advise the hon. the Minister when the only reaction to the advice is that it is pushed to one side and that they are told “We are not interested in your advice, we are doing what we want to do”. So I say, when we are creating a mandatory body here, let us make that body work, and the only way it can be made to work is if the hon. the Minister takes it seriously and realizes that those concerned with the body are people whose whole lives are tied up in civil aviation. Day in and day out they are concerned with the actual affairs of civil aviation. And when they advise the hon. the Minister, they know what they are talking about. But the hon. the Minister has rejected their advice, because he has received other advice, I assume, from his department, and he has accepted the views of his department in preference to the views of people who are closely and intimately connected with flying. To give an indication again with reference to this specific Bill before the House, the view was expressed that everyone realized that no change to what was being proposed would be accepted. It was put to the Committee that it was merely a waste of time discussing it, because the Minister had already stated and the chairman of the C.A.A.C. had already stated that the Minister had made up his mind and he was not going to accept their recommendations. I have three or four references here to cases where Civil Aviation through the Advisory Council was made to understand quite clearly that their recommendations had been rejected and that they are wasting their time.

All this mounts up to the fact, Mr. Speaker, a fact which I stated last week when we dealt with the Vote itself, that civil aviation has become the stepchild of the hon. the Minister’s Department. It is being tagged onto road transportation as though it was a little tail, a bit of a nuisance sometimes because it gives a bit of extra work, but it has got to be done. That seems to be the attitude. Not an attitude of regarding it as the transport of the future, as the means of transport which will one day become, I believe, the most vital means of transport in South Africa, but just something that has got to be administered, a bit of a nuisance that takes up a few pages at the tail-end of a report. There is an advisory committee, which is convenient, but its advice, when it comes to real issues in respect of administering civil aviation, or planning the future, is disregarded even when we come to the amendment of the Aviation Act. So I say that this Bill whilst in itself acceptable, does not do the job which the hon. the Minister could so easily have done before consolidating the original Act. He could have brought before the House some real constructive amendments which should have played a big part in laying a sound foundation for civil aviation in the future. Seeing that the Minister has refused that, all we can do is to plead with him to take the advice which he is receiving— advice sincerely given—to take it in that spirit. I hope that the hon. the Minister, when this legislation is consolidated, will not close his mind to future amendments which will bring into the administration of aviation those bodies and that extra guidance which those concerned with it feel are so necessary for the proper conduct of aviation administration.

We on this side of the House will deal more in detail with some of the clauses in Committee, but we support the second reading of the Bill.

It was interesting to see the hon. member for Durban (Point) to-day in the role of an assentient, because on a former occasion he referred here to “railway mentality in aviation”, and then we began to regard him as somewhat of a political puffing Billy, of the kind which has a lot of steam and makes much noise but has very little tractive power.

He ought to realize that I am still of opinion that the railway mentality permeates aviation.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to refer to a few of the clauses in this Bill, but I first want to deal with a matter raised by the hon. member for Durban (Point), namely Clause 12, the seizure of an aircraft by a police official, formerly by an officer and now by a policeman or an officer of the Defence Force. Sir, circumstances frequently arise which make it necessary for an aircraft to be seized in the shortest possible time in order to prevent the commission of a crime, or an anticipated crime from becoming worse. I am thinking particularly of civil aviation, and I am not thinking of the commercial aspect of it now, but particularly of the private flyer. Circumstances exist and situations are created from time to time which make it essential for a police official to act immediately.I am thinking particularly of the rural airfields throughout the country, where no police officers are stationed and where offences are committed from time to time which make it necessary that the aircraft concerned should be seized with the least possible delay. A police officer simply is not available, or can only be found after the lapse of hours. I could mention a whole series of incidents, only I do not want to take up the time of the House by doing so, where it is necessary that the aircraft concerned should be seized immediately. I therefore consider Clause 12 to be imperative.

Clause 3 of the Bill refers to the specific definition of certain flight positions of an aircraft, and there I agree with the hon. member for Durban (Point) that it should be extended and made more comprehensive. On a former occasion, on the debate on the hon. the Minister’s Vote. I referred to the necessity for having better control in the control zones and on our flight routes, and I feel that this clause ought to cover the points I raised. I am thinking of the case where aircraft without radio enter certain guidance areas and cross over certain guidance and control areas. Better control should be applied, by means of this clause, over that type of aircraft in such areas. In view of the fact that we have an ever-increasing stream of international traffic arriving at Jan Smuts, and as that is the position also at Cape Town, and as our airfields are kept reasonably busy, it becomes essential to exercise better control over uncontrolled flying in the vicinity and in the guidance areas of those airports. I think it has become necessary for the hon. the Minister to devote attention to that fact and to investigate the position.

Clause 4 deals with the Advisory Committee, and here I feel that hitherto we have had a body which to a large extent has been useless. I believe that we are dealing with a body here which would justify its existence much more if it made more practical suggestions. But the problem of the hon. member for Durban (Point) is that he cannot distinguish between the practicable suggestions made by this advisory body and those which are impracticable. Because if this body were to continue, as the hon. member suggested, the Minister will eventually have to appoint a committee to scrutinize the recommendations of this committee in order to see which of them are practicable. It is essential that they should make practicable suggestions in order to encourage aviation in South Africa. I believe we have reached the stage where aviation should be given a stimulus in South Africa, and here we have a body which is eminently suitable to give the necessary impetus to a practicable aviation policy. They ought to make suggestions to realize that objective.

They say that their suggestions are not implemented.

I am afraid that many of the suggestions made by this body cannot be implemented. In the past many of their suggestions proved to be impracticable. I agree that some of them were practicable, and the hon. the Minister implemented some of those, but many of their suggestions were totally impracticable. The reason perhaps is that the composition of this body in the past was voluntary, whereas now it is compulsory, and we hope that this amendment will result in attracting the type of person to the Committee who can make his knowledge available so that more practicable suggestions can be implemented. Particularly sub-section (b) of Clause 4, which refers to research, is of importance and I feel that in this regard this Committee has a very great task, because our research in regard to aviation in South Africa has not yet reached the desired level. I feel that the Department could fruitfully do further research and that this Committee, in cooperation with the Department, should from time to time make further suggestions in regard to research so that there can be further development in regard to quite a few aspects of aviation which have hitherto been neglected in this country.

I briefly want to refer to Clause 5 which repeals Section 5 of the principal Act. The Defence Act in any case provides for it, viz. that civil aircraft in times of emergency or of war can be commandeered for defence purposes. This section in the Act has really become superfluous because the Defence Act provides for it, but I feel that it is a very important part of this matter, and I just want to refer to it, if it is not out of order to do so. On another occasion I said that we should link up our civil aviation more effectively so as to be able to use it in an emergency or for military purposes. We should at this stage already create the framework by means of which civil aviation can be linked up with defence with the least possible disruption in case of necessity. On a former occasion I pointed out the advantages of this. We have a pool of more than 900 potential pilots in South Africa; we have more than 700 registered aircraft, of which a large proportion consists of private aircraft. This is a large defence potential which we can use in an emergency or in times of crisis if now already we create the framework for it, so that the machinery need only be put into operation if it becomes necessary to do so.

Finally, I just want to refer to Clause 15 and particularly to (c) (ii), in terms of which the pilots and aircraft of the S.A. Air Force are specifically exempted from the penal provisions if they commit contraventions. Here I think it is a case where the Department has no powers over the Department of Defence and where they have their own disciplinary measures in the S.A. Air Force if a contravention is committed on a civilian airfield, or in the A.C.F. squadrons. I would, however, like to bring to the Minister’s notice that where we have a growing volume of military traffic near our important air routes, near many of our important air centres, definite dangers arise. Where we have military aircraft flying at an ever-increasing speed, hon. members will realize the practical problems if they can fly to and fro at will. Young pilots might fly off their course and end up in guidance areas where there is a dense stream of international or civilian aircraft. I feel that all the implications of this matter should be studied thoroughly, and that the necessary guidance should be given to the Defence Department in regard to certain aspects of this matter. I go further. We have certain aircraft which are used for civilian as well as military flying at the moment. I am thinking, e.g., of Port Elizabeth where certain squadrons of the A.C.F. are being trained. In Johannesburg we have the Baragwanath Airfield which is comprehensively used by civilian aircraft and where there are also military aircraft in the vicinity. Here we have a difficult situation where the military aircraft constitute a definite danger to the civilian pilot. Perhaps I am serious about the matter because I was personally concerned in an incident at Baragwanath where I had my family with me in the aircraft and was on the point of landing, and where I was in a very vulnerable position approximately 150 feet above the ground, when a military Harvard tried to pass between me and the ground. When one has experienced and survived such an incident one has strong feelings in regard to this sort of thing. It takes place on an appreciable scale, and I feel that there should be the closest co-operation between the Department of Transport and the Air Force in regard to the future of this military flying near guidance areas and civilian airfields.

I want to conclude by saying that this Bill remedies quite a few defects, and I particularly welcome the Minister’s announcement that this is really the precursor of consolidating legislation, because I do not believe that there is really room any longer in our legislation for Nederlands laws. I experienced the same difficulty as the hon. member for Durban (Point), but I had to turn to the English version of the Bill in order to ascertain what it was all about, because my Nederlands is perhaps still weaker than my English

I want to refer to two clauses, in the hope that by doint so at this stage, it may possibly help to get some clarity where there is perhaps not complete certainty yet.

First of all I want to refer to Clause 5. which the hon. member for Durban (Point) touched upon, and I would like to develop what he said. He dealt with the small question, but important question, of the person that might be held liable. Now let me say at once that at present as the common law stands. I think I am correct in saying that a “wrong-doer” would not in fact be liable for the charges now sought to be recovered from him. However, we on this side do not feel that it is an unreasonable extension of the law to bring such costs within the damages recoverable from such a person, and indeed we imagine that the hon. the Minister and his department have been in close touch with interested people in that regard. But when you come to the question of recovery and you are proceeding to discover from the clause from whom these costs can be recovered, then I think there is some uncertainty. The department and the hon. the Minister cannot be goint to this trouble unless they mean that one should be able to recover the amount of these charges, and if they are in fact only goint to be able to recover from the actual “wrong-doer” himself, as distinguished from perhaps his company, his master, or otherwise, I think they are going to make a very small recovery indeed. The average man who is perhaps piloting a plane would probably himself not be able to pay the sort of charges which could become payable in a matter of this kind.

This of course is purely a question of legal opinion as to the meaning, but I suggest that a very probably construction is that only “wrong-doers” themselves would be liable. I think the language is clear that it is only the person himself. The words are “caused by the negligent or other unlawful act or omission of any person, the Minister may recover from such person …” That is the first point. Secondly, any other interpretation would involve to an appreciable extent a second extension of the common law in respect of liability for damage. And the third is that, as it were additional extension, whereas a master is not liable for the negligent acts of his servant which are interpreted as frolics of the servant’s own, if the clause has a different meaning from that which I am attributing to it, he would in fact so become liable. I think that the matter can very easily be cleared up by suitable amendments, and I would suggest that the liability, if it is intended to bring in the master or the company, as the case may be, should be limited to those acts for which a master or a company would be liable under the common law, namely those which are properly done in the course of employment of the servant and not those which are termed “frolics of the servant’s own”.

There is a second small point touched upon by the hon. member for Durban (Point), namely Clause 18. I think it must be clear that in fact the State does not through its Department of Transport operate any aircraft for payment of fares. In other words, this clause clearly cannot be intended to cover the passenger-carrying operations, for example of the South African Airways. At the same time one wonders then what has arisen to make it necessary to introduce a special clause. I know the hon. the Minister gave the explanation that it would facilitate the administration, that it would eliminate the need for indemnity completion from time to time. Surely the number of people who are carried by the Department of Transport affected by this provision is very, very small indeed and one wonders, Sir, whether the game is worth the candle. However, I presume the Minister will be able to satisfy me on that point.

In conlusion I wish to say that I do not imagine that the Minister will be tempted by the fact that in a situation of this kind the State enjoys such particular protection, to place any of these passenger-carrying planes under the State and to operate them through his Department.

I wish to put a very small matter very briefly to the hon. the Minister. That is in connection with Clause 3. The Minister seeks certain powers in Clause 3 to make regulations. The three matters which he refers to in particular are in the first instance the approach and the landing of an aeroplane along a particular flight path. Both the second and the third are not really applicable to the matter I wish to raise there. My question is whether this particular clause is sufficiently effective to give the Minister complete control over the flight paths and the air routes which have to be followed by civil aircraft in South Africa. I ask that question particularly in view of the position of our borders to-day. I should like to learn from the Minister whether this section empowers him to instruct a foreign aircraft to enter the Republic along a certain flight path and along that flight path alone; and also at a certain height and at that height alone. I ask that question because we know that our borders are wide open to-day, not only for pedestrians and vehicles, but also wide open to civil air traffic. Civil aircraft can enter the country anywhere across the border. Take the borders of the Protectorate of Bechuanaland, for instance. A civil aircraft can enter or leave the Republic anywhere across that border. I wish to know whether in future the Minister can make provision under this clause that any aircraft which enters South Africa from overseas or which leaves South Africa, may only travel along a particular flight path or a particular route. I wish to remind you, Sir, of the number of fugitives who leave our country from time to time in aircraft. It is assumed that they leave the country by aeroplane and there is evidence to the effect that they do indeed leave by aeroplane. If the Minister cannot make provision under this clause to put an end to that sort of thing, that state of affairs will simply continue to exist in future. I wish to ask the Minister whether, in view of the fact that he is amending the principal Act and that he will consolidate the legislation at a later stage, special provision cannot be made in this Bill that any civil aircraft can be instructed to enter or leave the country along a definite route and along a definite flight path and at a particular height. That is absolutely essential for the safety of our country. I am not so very sure that it must specifically come under this clause, but I do not know under what other law civil aviation can be controlled. This is a very urgent and important matter and that is why I have raised this matter with the Minister.

I also wish to say a few words in connection with another clause. It is not clear to me whether Clause 18 refers only to State aircraft which are chartered for State purposes and whether it does not perhaps also refer to the ordinary air services of the State because our air services are run by the State to-day. It is not clear to me whether this section only refers to aircraft which are chartered for specific State purposes and whether the section, as formulated at the moment, does not also refer to our ordinary air service.

I sense an impatient eagerness in this House to get this measure on the Statute Book and we on this side will not delay the matter more than necessary. Nevertheless this occasion might be used to pay tribute to the flying pioneers of our early airways and also to the intrepid pilots and maintenance staff and everyone connected with flying in this country in those distant difficult days. I will not take you back far, Sir. I myself have flown since about 1925. Those were the days when one had to sign an indemnity form when one went up in an aeroplane. Since then I have flown not only all over South Africa but all over the world. I can honestly say that in all my very varied experience—I do not know how many thousands of hours I have flown—I have never found better pilots and I have never found a better service than we have in South Africa. I think we can all be very proud of our airmen and air services. My experience goes back to the days when Major “Mac” Miller, Davenport, Bellin, Casparenthus and others used to fly us quite safely in all conditions and under almost dangerous circumstances. Flying laws and flying regulations made for those conditions, though they served us very well, Sir, must be brought up-to-date …

Order! As much as I would like the hon. member to take us into the past, I must ask him to return to the Bill.

Might I suggest, Sir, that I am already “on” the Bill. 1923 was the date when the original Act was introduced, the Act which we are now, at last, amending. At that time those people, to whom I referred, were flying under the regulations framed in terms of the Act of 1923. I started with my experiences in 1925 and I was referring to the dangers airmen of those days faced and the difficulties which confronted Union Airways operating under the primitive conditions of those yesterdays. The regulations which governed flying conditions in 1923 give rise to considerable difficulties when the Minister tries to operate a modern and efficient service to-day. I am glad that he is now bringing all the old Acts up to date, streamlining them and making them fit more modern demands and suit modern procedures. Sir, I was in order in referring to those past years and the flying conditions which then prevailed.

This Bill seeks to amend the outmoded original Act of 1923. The time is long overdue that it was done. It takes in its stride also the amendmending Acts of 1946 and 1955. In so far as we find modernization of laws and regulations; in so far as we see the removal of superfluous words, the deletion of unused powers, the abrogation of outmoded procedures. We, on this side of the House, welcome it. Members have pointed to clauses which need closer examination and I will leave it to the Committee Stage to scrutinize those in as great detail as appears to be necessary. We are moving with the times in dealing with this legislation to-day. I hope that the Minister will not long delay the consolidating process with which he has indicated he intends to proceed. I trust he will even do it this Session if at all possible.

Examining the clauses of this Bill, the first one that strikes me as needing a considerable amount of cautious handling is Clause 3. The Minister takes greater power than he has had hitherto to control and charge for admission to the premises and the property, the buildings and the land of the various airports and aerodromes. From what the Minister has said in his speech, it seems to me that he proposes to exercise the greater power he takes in order to control overcrowding, to the discomfort of air passengers, at one airport only, the Jan Smuts Airport. He mentioned that airport specifically. I ask him to do nothing that might discourage the feeling on the part of public that an airport is a place that they can visit freely and continuously. I think we should seek to encourage families to visit our aerodromes with their children. It will help to make the youngsters air-minded. I know the position gets slightly out of hand on some week-ends at the Jan Smuts Airport; I have experienced inconvenience myself: but I beg of the Minister not to make it too difficult for people to visit and enjoy the facilities of our aiports over week-ends. Let the children see the aeroplanes arriving from all over the world and leaving for exciting destinations. Give the children that thrill, that sense of adventure that makes them air-minded. I am sure the first ambition to fly, the first resolve to become a pilot is often aroused in a child when he visits an airport. I know in other countries which I have visited, the authorities not only encourage the younger generation to visit the airports; they have a regular system of showing them over the aeroplanes, especially the new modern, jet-propelled airliners. All that, I am sure, assists in creating air-mindedness in the youngsters of today—the pilots of to-morrow. Of course the Minister must control, and control more closely than before, parking and other amenities. The details of such management will be dealt with in the Committee Stage more reasonably than now.

There remains very little to say now that members on this side of the House have dealt with all the possible legal snags which may be inherent in this Bill. The Minister will no doubt, in his reply, disabuse our minds of any wrong impressions we may have had concerning Clauses 5 and 18.

I note that he proposes to make the Civil Aviation Advisory Committee not only peremptory instead of permissive, but to give it enlarged functions. That will be a very good thing indeed. I am sure it is not being used to its full capacity. The hon. member for Bethal (Middelburg) (Mr. J. W. Rall) implied that past committee members had been men of merely tolerable calibre. He said in effect “Now that the Civil Aviation Advisory Committee is to be reconstituted we will get better recommendations; they will be more reasonable and more practical”. If there has been any fault, I do not think it lay with the Advisory Committee. The fault lies with the Minister himself. He has used the Committee as he might have used it. These excellent men have not been used to their full capacity. The Reports of the Committee make that plain. I have found them very difficult to come by. The last report I searched out—and I do not know whether there have been any published since—was the 14th and 15th annual report issued in one document. The old Act provides that they “shall” (not “may”) publish a report every year. The only report I could find was for the years 1958-60. With their new and enlarged functions the Minister can make better use of the Committee. For the benefit of the hon. member for Bethal (Middelburg), I should like to give him the names of some of the people who have functioned on this Civil Aviation Advisory Council.

I did not mention any names.

I know, but the hon. member referred to the Committee and of course the Committee is made up of individuals. They are people of varied experiences and no small ability. We have Mr. W. C. J. Besaans of the African Federated Chamber of Industries; Mr. L. E. Lang of the Commercial Aviation Association of South Africa, Mr. Val Davis of the Aero Club of South Africa. He is a man of considerable experience. There is also Mr. L. Zimmerman, whom I know very well, of the Asssociated Chambers of Commerce: Mr. H. K. Truter of the Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut; Dr. J. N. Haldeman of the Aircraft Owners’ and Pilot Association and Mr. B. S. de Kok of the United Municipal Executive of South Africa. I do not want to put words into the hon. member’s mouth, but it did sound to me as if he implied that the Committee had not been men of the calibre he would expect. He clearly said that in future more could be expected of the new Committee. If I do him an injustice I withdraw the suggestion, because the last thing I would like is to do to any member …

Withdraw!

That is the third time the hon. member has shouted at me. I think the whole House would be obliged to that hon. gentleman if he personally withdrew, from this House. Shakespeare said something which can be applied to him.

“How ill white hair befits the fool and jester.”

I hope the hon. member will keep quiet in future.

To get back to my speech, I hope the Minister will quickly proceed with consolidation. We welcome this Bill with the provisos which have already been made from this side. I submit that the Minister should reexamine Clause 9 to see if the dangers pointed out by the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) are not valid enough to call for an amendment in Committee Stage. I think the Minister should also give us an explanation of the legal position caused by both Clauses 5 and 18. This Bill will go through quickly and anything we can do to give it the slight improvement it needs will be done in the Committee Stage.

The hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) alleged that civil aviation was the stepchild of the Department of Transport. I do not know what the hon. member wishes to do with civil aviation if he does not want it to fall under Transport. If it should not be an independent department, I do not know where the hon. member will find another Department under which civil aviation will fall more appropriately than under the Department of Transport.

What I meant was that it should receive more attention.

I wish to point out to the hon. member that civil aviation benefits by the fact to-day that it falls under the Department of Transport, benefits which it cannot receive under any other department. I also wish to point out to the hon. member that civil aviation …

Order! The hon. member must confine himself to the amendments proposed in this Bill.

Yes, Mr. Speaker. In that case I wish to say that I believe civil aviation should in future remain under the Department of Transport because we wish to have the transport services of the country coordinated. For this reason civil aviation ought to remain under Transport. I may also point out to the hon. member for Point that before 1948 aviation was a separate department. That was found to be impracticable and in 1948 it was placed under Transport.

I am not very enthusiastic about two aspects or amendments in this Bill. The first is the prospect of parking meters at our aerodromes. The position to-day is that you are limited and controlled wherever you go. I take it, however, and it is the position, that in terms of existing legislation the Minister has the power to install parking meters at aerodromes and this amendment merely places that fact beyond any doubt, so that no objection can be raised at a later stage against the installation of parking meters. I wish to ask, however, that this power should be exercised with the greatest possible circumspection. You accept it, Sir, that in certain circumstances certain officials even and members of the public, try to use the parking areas at aerodromes as motor garages.

Mr. Speaker, another point which does not fill me with great enthusiasm and on which a great deal has been said is in respect of the charging of fees at aerodromes. I wish to associate myself with those hon. members who have pleaded that this provision should also be implemented with the greatest possible circumspection because we wish the public to get used to aeroplanes and aviation as an ordinary means of transport. It is true that many people are still very averse to air travel. They regard the prospect of travelling by aeroplane as something terrible. If they in due course become used to the aeroplane itself air travel will become a pleasant means of transport to them as well. I also wish to point out that our aerodromes have a great power of attraction in this sense that they are something worth seeing. That is why people visit them on public holidays and on Sundays. For that reason I wish to ask that where fees are to be charged, it should be done with the greatest possible circumspection. I also accept the fact that it is essential on such occasions when Elvis Presley or Pat Boone land here, the crowds which welcome them should be controlled.

The other point about which I feel very enthusiastic, Mr. Speaker, is the power which is being given to the Minister to conduct inquiries into the accidents which take place in respect of aviation. You often hear of narrow escapes. You hear certain things in connection with air travel which make your hair stand on end. I am pleased, therefore, that the Minister will in future have the power to conduct inquiries into such incidents. He could not do so in the past; he could only conduct inquiries into certified accidents which had taken place. Mr. Speaker, that is all I have to say in connection with this Bill, except this, that we look forward to the day in the near future when this legislation will be consolidated.

I will not delay the House long. I will direct my remarks to the principle which is now contained in the proposed Section 20bis of Clause 19. The speaker who has just sat down told us that he had no enthusiasm for two of the clauses in the Bill. I have no enthusiasm for this clause as it is worded. As it is worded at the present moment it introduces a very important change in the law of delict in so far as the carrier of goods or persons is concerned. I would ask the hon. the Minister, therefore, before we come to the details, if he will be more explicit about two things. The first is whether he will explain to the House how the need arose for having a clause of this nature and the second is whether he will explain who specifically it is designed to affect. As the clause reads at present it offers, in my opinion, two difficulties. It talks about “damage or loss … to any person whilst conveyed in any aircraft owned … by the State”. Then it says “… through its Department of Transport”. How is the ordinary individual to know that an aircraft is owned by the State through one or other department? Will the Minister be quite specific as to how the individual is to distinguish what is owned, operated or chartered by the State through a specific Department?

The other point on which I would like the hon. the Minister to be quite specific is why it is found necessary to use the word “not” in its present position. If you are going to protect somebody from loss or damage “while conveyed” and then exempt him if he “not” so conveyed, does not make sense. Surely you offer the protection if he is so conveyed or if he will be so conveyed. It seems to me that the “not” in that context makes the position completely inexplicable. That is why I say that as it is framed at the moment I have no enthusiasm for the clause. The White Paper says it is self-explanatory. I hope the Minister will be able to deal specifically with the two points I have put to him. because to me it is far from self-explanatory in regard to both these aspects.

As usual the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) used very extravagant language, to use a kind word. He wanted to know whether these amendments were sufficient and satisfactory to cover civil aviation to-day; he was concerned about so-called omissions. My reply to the first question is that these amendments are considered to be quite sufficient and there is no intention of introducing additional amendments at this stage.

Does the C.A.A.C. consider them sufficient?

Many recommendations are made to the Minister and the Department and many of them are not acceptable for various reasons. I told the hon. member when my Vote was under discussion, that he must not accept as the Gospel truth everything he reads in these publications and that he must not necessarily accept that any recommendation made by any body concerned with civil aviation is a recommendation that should of necessity be accepted and that it is in the interests of civil aviation. That is not the position. Good recommendations are accepted. As a matter of fact, Sir, it was at my request that the different organizations submitted recommendations, but the majority of their recommendations had to do with air navigation regulations, and not so much with the amendment of the Act. Those recommendations will still be considered by the Civil Aviation Advisory Committee and by the Department. I went through all the memoranda that were submitted to me. I repeat that the majority of the recommendations had to do with the regulations and not with the Act. The only two recommendations that the hon. member mentioned and which he did not argue were the establishment of an Air Safety Council and the establishment of a National Air Transport Commission. But the hon. member did not say a single word in support of those recommendations. He merely mentioned them. He merely said that they had been made but he did not advance one reason why those recommendations should be accepted.

You have had them all.

But the hon. member apparently does not know why they should be or should not be accepted. He merely said that those recommendations were made and now parrot-like he is quoting the recommendations made by those associations.

You have had them all.

Of course, I have had them all and I have rejected them. What I say is that the hon. member advanced no arguments in their favour. The hon. member did not submit a single reason why I should have accepted those recommendations.

Can the hon. the Minister give us the reasons why he rejected them?

Yes, of course I can. I will deal with them. I dealt with the recommendation concerning an Air Safety Council when my Vote was under discussion. I gave the reasons why I did not accept that recommendation on that occasion. I thought it would be superfluous to establish an air council such as that. At the present time the Department does all the work that this recommendation purports should be done by the Air Safety Council. The creation of a statutory body, namely an Air Safety Council, to review the findings of an accident inquiry board appointed by me appears to me to be an unnecessary duplication. Air safety is a function of the Department of Transport. Air safety is the Department’s primary function in the field of aviation. The Department is fully aware of the vital importance of this function and is continually endeavouring to improve every aspect of air safety in the Republic. It is only in a very small number of cases that I decide to appoint an accident inquiry board. I receive a list of all the accidents periodically, accident to small private planes in the overwhelming number of cases. But the cause of those accidents is so self-evident that it is absolutely unnecessary to appoint a board of inquiry. I decide to appoint an accident inquiry board in only a small number of cases where the reasons of the accident are not apparent after the departmental investigation. I have established as an experiment, a departmental committee under the chairmanship of the under-Secretary (Administration) and having as its other members the Administrative and Control Officer (Administration), the Commissioner of Civil Aviation and the Assistant Commissioner of Civil Aviation (Technical) with power to co-opt other officials in the Department in particular cases to review the findings of departmental investigations. After investigation has been made this particular Committee has to review those investigations and recommend safety measures and consider follow-up action to be taken after the departmental investigations or reports of accident inquiry boards are known. This committee meets once a month. In other words what these people envisage with the establishment of an Air Safety Council is already being done departmentally. It is being done by departmental experts who concentrate on these matters and who know what they are doing. Therefore I say the appointment of an Air Safety Council is quite superfluous, to review the findings of the inquiry committees when they are appointed, because in the majority of accidents the reasons are so self-evident that an inquiry board is not appointed. That is the one recommendation.

The other recommendation was the appointment of a National Air Transport Commission. There is no purpose in that. One of the main functions I have now given to the Aviation Advisory Committee in terms of this Bill. The National Transport Commission, in terms of the 1948 Act, is responsible for the control of civil aviation by way of licences. The Department of Transport is responsible for entering into bilateral agreements with other countries. Now what functions are there for a special National Air Transport Commission? There is no reason for it and that is why I rejected those recommendations.

What about the Examination Board?

That has nothing to do with this Council. Examinations are being conducted by the Department to-day. That is a departmental function. The recommendation is not that this board must conduct the examinations. Those recommendations were mainly concerned with the regulations and not with the Act.

In regard to Clause 3, the original Act does cover, by implication, all the aspects concerned, but it would have been necessary to make regulations. Now, as the result of this amendment in Clause 3, and in regard to this particular aspect, the person designated may issue orders without resort in regard to these matters. In other words, the person designated may issue orders to pilots and commanders of aircraft in regard to these particular matters. These orders are called Nothams. That is the purpose of this amendment. But the original Act already by implication covers all these aspects and regulations could be made for them. The hon. member and several other hon. members wanted me to consider the convenience of passengers at airports. I can assure hon. members that I welcome the attendance of the public at our airports and I fully agree with them that by allowing the public to visit the airports it makes the public air-minded. This is merely intended to control the numbers of people visiting the airports by charging a small admission fee. After all, the passengers must receive priority, and I think hon. members have experienced it themselves that on Sunday afternoons at Jan Smuts and D. F. Malan Airports, when they want to have a cup of tea, there is simply no room for them because the whole of the tearoom is full of members of the public. Passengers have a prior right to receive service in the tearoom or the restaurant, but they are simply pushed out. This is merely intended to control the numbers of the public visiting the airports. I can also tell the hon. member that it is not the intention to install parking meters on the whole parking area at the airport. There will still be areas which will not be metered. In other words, the bona fide passengers who leave their cars there will not necessarily be required to park their cars at the meters, where they have to pay the fees.

In regard to Clause 5, to which several hon. members referred, I can say that the intention is that the person actually responsible for the negligence must be liable. In other words, if the aircraft owner is responsible then he is liable, but if the pilot is responsible for negligence and costs are incurred in the search or rescue operations, the pilot can be held responsible for those costs. But it will very seldom happen that costs will be recovered from the pilot. Obviously, if it is a very large amount, the pilot will not be in a position to pay it, and the proviso is also that the Minister can determine the amount of costs to be paid in consultation with the Minister of Finance. But this will be applicable mainly to the smaller aircraft, where the pilots are sometimes guilty of negligence. There is, e.g., one case where the pilot left the airport without any authority in a small plane with his wife as a passenger. He was warned not to leave and he was warned of the climatic conditions, but in spite of that he left and his negligence resulted in a crash which caused the death of both himself and his wife. In a case like that, of course, we would not be able to recover the cost from the pilot.

Would you claim from the estate?

No, only from the person, if he was alive, and if there was cost involved in search operations. But that is the intention and that is why it is worded in that way, because you cannot very well hold the company liable for the negligence of the pilot.

With regard to Clause 12, the hon. member for Durban (Point) objected to the new provision which substitutes “commissioned officer” by “policeman”. This has been done deliberately, and I do not see anything wrong with it. If an offence is committed, or is about to be committed—in other words, the wording is exactly the same as in the principal Act, except that under the Act it had to be a commissioned officer, and now we are substituting “policeman”. Now if a policeman can arrest the hon. member, although he is a Member of Parliament, if he commits an offence, why cannot the policeman detain an aircraft? If the hon. member commits an offence outside, even a Native policeman can arrest him, so why cannot a policeman detain an aircraft if an offence is committed or about to be committed, or he suspects that the offence is about to be committed? A commissioned officer is not always available, especially on the smaller airports. There may be only an ordinary policeman available. Frankly, I see nothing wrong with it, and the proviso in the Act remains. All the words preceding the proviso are being eliminated.

In regard to Clause 18, I can only say that this is really making statutory provision for a practice that has been in force. It happens at present that officers are employed not on official duties, and in an emergency outside persons are carried in a departmental aircraft —only departmental aircraft. The carriage is approved, but the fact remains that the person carried is not on official duty. It has always been considered that the State should not be liable to a claim for damages instituted by such a person, his estate or his dependants, and consequently to-day any person not on official duty who is carried in a departmental aircraft is required to sign a form indemnifying the State against such claims. That has always been the practice. It is no new thing. Even when the hon. member was Auditor-General, this was in force.

I do not know anything about it.

Then the hon. member does not know what is happening in the service, because the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson) said that when he was Minister it was already the practice that any individual or any officer not on duty who is carried in an aircraft owned by the State must sign an indemnity form. [Interjection.] If there is anything wrong with the wording, the wording can always be put right, but that is the intention of this clause. It is merely to substitute a statutory provision for the present practice.

The hon. member for Durban (Point) also said that I never attend a meeting of the C.A.A.C. That is so. I have never attended a meeting of the National Transport Commission or of the Tourist Corporation, or of the Perishable Export Products Board. I do not see why I should attend those meetings. In fact, if I had to attend all those meetings I would not have time to do my ordinary administrative work. But I receive a report from the C.A.A.C. which is tabled every year. The only report which was not tabled was the 1961 report, but all the others have been tabled.

With nothing in them.

That is not my fault. That is the fault of the C.A.A.C. and the hon. member should lodge his complaint with them.

*The hon. member for Bethal (Middelburg) (Mr. J. W. Rail) asked whether Section 3 (a) also covered the various flight zones. My reply is yes, they are covered and that regulations can be promulgated in terms of Section 3 (1) (b) and (f) of the principal Act. The necessary provision has been made for that. As far as the question of linking civil aviation with defence is concerned, that, of course, is something which cannot be dealt with under this Bill. The hon. member will notice that Section 15 (c) (ii) may be applied to the Department of Defence. All I have to do is to consult my colleague, the Minister of Defence, before it is applied to defence and to all their aircraft.

The hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Frone-man) wanted to know whether Section 3 exercised sufficient control over foreign aircraft and whether foreign aircraft could be ordered to fly at a particular height and in a particular flight path. The reply is yes. Section 3 (1) (f) (g) makes provision for that and under the Chicago Convention too the Government can prohibit any foreign aircraft from flying over the Republic of South Africa. We can also determine in which flight path they should fly and at what height.

Aircraft in the Republic as well?

Yes. also aircraft which are registered here. I think I have dealt with all the points raised.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

I move—

Mr. Speaker, this Bill amends the Radio Act of 1952 in four respects. Section 1 of the principal Act, read together with Section 5, provides that nobody may use a radio transmitter except with the permission of the Postmaster-General. The intention of this, of course, is to give the Postmaster-General the power to prohibit transmissions which cause disturbances, something which is absolutely essential in a modern city. But as the result of certain developments, it has become necessary to amend the Act. The radio is being used extensively to-day for minor domestic purposes. or simply for fun or for entertainment. For example, one gets small toy trains or motor-cars which are controlled by radio, which is set in motion by a small little set. The radio waves emanating from that set are of very limited range, so limited that they can cause no disturbance at all to other institutions. There is a system called the pageboy system, for example. Hon. members will recall that is the system which was once considered for this House. It is a system whereby the building is surrounded by a wire; there is a small radio and every member walks about with a small receiving set in his pocket, and when a message is sent out over the particular wave to which his set is tuned, it sets in motion the receiving set in his pocket to inform him that there is a message for him. These sets cause no disturbance. They can only be heard within the building itself. There is another set called the “nursemaid” set. where a small transmitter is placed next to the baby. The mother has a small receiving set and when the baby cries she can hear it.

Does the father also hear it?

No. it is made in such a way that the father cannot hear it. There is a set which opens your garage doors for you, Sir; a small radio wave is set in motion when your motor-car enters the gate. So you find that the radio is used in many instances today where the waves transmitted are so weak that they do not cause any disturbances. These instruments and the uses to which they are put. however, are increasing to such an extent that it is practically impossible for the Postmaster-General to issue a licence for every individual set or person who acquires something like that. That is why the object of this clause is to empower the Minister to give notice in the Government Gazette that he intends exempting some of these instruments or toys from the necessity of being licensed but in that case the Minister retains the right to withdraw that exemption at any time.

Clause 2 amends Section 8 of the principle Act. The wave lengths or frequencies on which broadcasting is done to-day are internationally governed and divided amongst the various nations for various uses. Radio waves are used for a multitude of things. They are used on aircraft and ships, for defence purposes, by the police, for commercial reports, for commercial telephone and telegraph services between countries, for broadcasting purposes, for television and they are used by amateurs and numerous interests. From the nature of things the number of frequencies available is very limited with the result that it is impossible to leave it to every person to use one or other frequency or wave length as he pleases. That is why the Postmaster-General has been empowered to exercise strict control as to who can use such wave lengths. The following happens to-day: It happens in South Africa, for instance, that mining companies with their head offices in. say. Johannesburg, start a mine far away from there and that there is no telephone line between that mine and Johannesburg. In such a case the Postmaster-General allows the company to use a radio transmitter so as to remain in contact with the mine. As the mine develops and the area becomes more thickly populated, telephone lines are erected as far as that mine and a telephone system becomes available to the head office to communicate with its mine. But it still happens that head office experiences great difficulty and that it takes an exceedingly long time before it can get in touch with the mine and it may be necessary for it to do so often during the day. In that event the Post Office allows the company to continue to use its radio transmitter. But where an exception is made in the case of such company at the expense of other persons, it is only fair that company should pay the Post Office the same amount as it would have paid had it availed itself of the telephone service. The following procedure has become customary between the Post Office and such companies and the Treasury: a pilot survey is made of the use which such a company makes of its radio trasmitter and is then told: You would have made so many telephone calls and it is only fair that you pay the amount which you would have paid anually for your telephone service. for your radio service. That system has been in operation for a long time to the great convenience and satisfaction of mining companies. the Post Office and the Treasury. But the legal advisers told us recently that on studying the Radio Act they found that strictly speaking that was not legal in terms of the Radio Act as presently worded.

Clause 3 amends Section 17 of the principal Act. the section which prohibits anybody from using a radio transmitter on a South African ship or aircraft, unless that person is a Commonwealth citizen or a Union citizen and who has been specially authorized by the Postmaster-General to do so. As a result of South Africa’s withdrawal from the Commonwealth, it has become necessary to amend this section. We are effecting this amendment to bring the position into line with the new state of affairs.

Clause 4 is the last one and that only changes the wording as. a result of the fact that South Africa has become a Republic. “Governor-General” is changed to “State President” and “Union” becomes “Republic”.

That is a short summary of the full meaning of this Bill and I trust hon. members will approve of it.

Mr. Speaker, this Bill is actually, like Gaul, divided into three parts. I do not think that we on this side of the House have any great enthusiasm for any particular part of it. However, we will seek to improve certain parts of it at a later stage when it comes before us again. Meanwhile it is necessary to examine the three main parts of the Bill. I should like to put a question to the Minister before dealing with these three parts and to ask him whether he has done what he should have done, namely whether he has consulted the Radio Advisory Board on these particular amendments. I trust that he has done so and I should like to have an assurance from him to that effect.

The first part of this Bill seeks to give the Minister the power to exclude any radio receiving or transmitting station from the definition of “radio apparatus”. Presumably it also excludes them from being subject to a licence fee. The Minister did mention things like “page boy” sets and “nursemaid” sets and things of that nature. We believe that it is an improvement to seek to exclude those sets from the provisions of the Act and to make them tax-free and licence-free. We admit that this is a would of transistors to-day, in the manufacture of which our new-found cousins from Yokohama and Tokyo hold such a lead, although it may be that some of the articles they manufacture cannot always be classified as radio apparatus. One important organization informed me a few days ago that they are very happy because under this clause an instrument known as the telerometer will no longer require a licence. I share their joy. but I have not been able to find in any dictionary what a telerometer is. I trust, however, that the Minister will keep telerometers free from licences in future.

Nowadays the rule that every person is his own broadcasting station seems to be the rule rather than the exception. The hon. the Minister mentioned the page boy system, but I trust this will not be an encouragement to introduce that system here, because I think it would be rather inconvenient for hon. members to know that they can be found at any time wherever they are in this building. It has become a fact nowadays that some or other transistorized instrument is actually part of the daily wear of members of the Special Branch and of the Diplomatic Corps, so there is justification for introducing this first section. I believe there was a true incident in which an American journalist—I think it was Stewart Allsop—had an interview with Mr. Khrushchev at UN and during the the interview there was suddenly a very embarrassing whirring sound between them, and Mr. Khrushchev looked at Mr. Allsop and said: “Is it your recorder that has gone out of order, or mine?” That only shows that these things are worn nowadays and that one has to consider them. I am certain it will be a great relief to parents at Christmas time to know that they do not have to pay additional licence fees if they buy radio-controlled motor-cars or little aeroplanes or motor-boats, or robots. Speaking of robots, it will not even be necessary for the hon. the Prime Minister to take out a special licence for some of the hon. members opposite.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that.

I withdraw it. Then there is a point in regard to which I trust the Minister will give us some clarity. He is able to exclude these radio transmitting sets from the provisions of the Act, and also certain receving sets, i.e. certain ordinary wireless receiving sets. I want to ask him whether he has not further intentions with this Bill which he has not yet disclosed to the House. I think of this possibility, Sir. We know that close on 123 V.H.F. stations will be erected in the country. I trust they will not all be called Hertzog Towers. They will be erected to introduce the V.H.F. system throughout the country, and each one of these radio towers will have a limited range of 30 to 50 miles, and only certain radio sets will be able to tune in to those stations. It might be, therefore, that there will be a large sale of certain V.H.F. sets which can only tune in to these V.H.F. stations serviced by these radio masts. That might lead to some abuse, in this way: It could be that the hon. the Minister may feel that special provision will have to be made for Bantu listeners who are prepared to buy these sets with limited range and he might then say: I am prepared to allow you to buy those sets licence-free. It would, I believe, not be a very satisfactory state of affairs. In that case the Minister would be able to control exactly what the Bantu would be allowed to hear by saying: If you listen to these limited transmitting stations you need not pay a licence.

Order! That is irrelevant.

It has this to do with the Bill, that radio receiving sets can also be excluded from licences under Clause 1, if the Minister should so decide. Under this section I am afraid the hon. the Minister may, for instance, decide that certain sets with limited receptivity bought by Bantu can be excluded licences because of their limited range and the limited amount of information that can be given to the Bantu people. However, I do not wish to pursue that matter. I have only raised it because I should like to have an assurance from the Minister that was not one of the additional purposes behind this section.

The second part of this Bill is somewhat more contentious and might cause hardship and expense to mining and construction companies throughout the country. We know of mines in the Eastern Transvaal, of timber industrialists in Zululand, of big construction companies, who have their own receiving and transmitting sets. This service is used by these companies as part of their everyday business instead of the ordinary telephone or a telex or telegraph service. As I see it, if these firms are far removed from post offices they need not pay an additional licence. In that case they need only pay what is called the Fixed Station Licence. However, if they are near the post office they will have to pay additional fees, which will approximate more or less to the fees which they would ordinarily have paid for telephone, telegram and telex services at the nearest post office.

The clause itself says that if in the opinion of the Postmaster-General these normal post office facilities are available, these additional ordinary charges will have to be paid. Sir, I do not like it at all and I shall tell you why. First of all I do not like the phrase “in the opinion of the Postmaster-General”. The Postmaster-General, in other words the Minister, will have to decide under Clause 2 whether a certain construction company or a certain mine has ordinary post office facilities available or not. I am sure that the Postmaster-General and the Minister are both honourable men, but one cannot be a judge in ones own cause, and the Postmaster-General might very well decide unfairly as regards the person or the mine owning the transmitting set. I believe that in such a case it would be wrong to allow the Postmaster-General to take the final decision as to whether a new burden should be placed on this mining or timber company.

Neither do I like the words “where normal telecommunication facilities are available”. What are “normal telecommunication facilities”? The Minister might very well decide to extend a single telephone line from a party line to this mine in the veld, and the hon. the Minister might then say, “this mine now has normal postal facilities and it may no longer use its own telecommunication system”. I believe that such a single extension would by no means be “normal telecommunication facilities” for that mine or that timber company. This is an extreme case, but one can fairly ask whether even a one-man or a one-girl post office or telegraph office would constitute a normal telecommunication service for a reasonably big mine operating far from its head office.

I also wonder whether in introducing this section one is not placing a premium on inefficiency or rather discouraging business efficiency. After all, this system of suing radio transmitting and radio receiving stations is an efficient business system. It works well, it works quickly and it is being increasingly used by big firms in the rest of the world, and this section will restrict the powers of those firms that want to make use of the most modern communication system. The burden that may be placed on these firms may be very heavy. Let us suppose that a mine in the Barberton district wants to communicate with its head office 20 times a day—in other words, make the equivalent of 20 telephone calls at 50c each. That means that it is actually making the equivalent of phone calls costing R6 a day, R2,000 a year. Under the present system this mine can use its radio transmission and its radio receiving set, whereas under the Minister’s proposed system that mine would have to pay R6 a day for phone calls which it would otherwise have to make. I am not saying that the hon. the Minister would actually go as far as that. I trust that he will be slightly more lenient, but the point is that under this Bill he can do this; he can place this great additional burden on these companies.

I do not think there is any danger of the present system actually being misused. It has been mentioned that higher licence fees should be paid because these firms might misuse this system. Sir, it is very easy to monitor these broadcasts and it is very easy to check whether there is any misuse. I believe that in this respect, too, we should try to keep up with modern developments. A radio communication system between big firms, even between big firms in different large cities, is a sign of the 20th century; it is something that one should encourage and develop rather than attempt to restrict it, as is being done in this Bill.

Sir, I have some other reservations with regard to this clause. As we all know, radio communication services are used by certain private bodies in our big cities. Here I have in mind the medical profession. We often find that a medical practitioner with up-to-date ideas has a transmitting set in his surgery and a receiving set in his motor-car. He can then be called up very easily from his surgery via this transmitting set whenever there is an emergency. Under this clause, as I read it, it will be possible for the hon. the Minister to impose an additional licence fee on this medical practitioner, a fee which would be equivalent to practically all the phone calls that he would ordinarily have received if he did not have this transmitting and receiving set. I believe that is unfair and I trust that an exception will be made in the case of medical practitioners. This additional fee might in fact amount to an additional R200 a year that the medical practitioner may be called upon to pay.

Then I have in mind a further instance where these transmitting and receiving sets are being used to-day. They are being used by forward-looking taxi firms, where you have radio taxis which are connected with their head office by means of a radio communication service. The taxis have their own little receiving sets and while they are roaming about the big cities they often get instructions from their head office to go to such and such a point to pick up a passenger. This saves a great deal of time; it leads to business efficiency and it is a sign of scientific advance in this important service in our urban areas. An additional tax of this nature would indeed prove a heavy burden on firms conducting radio taxi services, and I trust that the hon. the Minister will reconsider this matter.

As I have said, this is a method which should be encouraged rather than discouraged. In the United States of America we very often find that important executives have their own telecommunication system between their motor-cars and their head offices. The President of the United States has it, the Mayor of New York has it. I suggest that the hon. the Prime Minister might even have a radio communication system installed in all these black Cadillacs; it might make it much easier for him to call a Cabinet meeting over the week-end. [Interjection.] On the other hand I agree that it might also lead to some trouble.

What about a television set for the Minister?

I am not sure of the exact figure—a question was put in this regard in the House the other day but I have not yet seen the reply—but I believe that there are close on a thousand such fixed radio licences for people having their own transmitting stations. That only goes to show that this is a very important and growing service in this country.

There is one other important set of bodies which will be affected by this clause, as I read it. These bodies are the municipalities of several of our larger cities. Several of our more advanced municipalities have been using this radio inter-communication service in their municipal services for many years. A progressive city such as Durban, for instance uses a radio communication system, I believe, in its fire department and also in the treasurer’s department and in the electricity and engineering departments. Hitherto the Municipality of Durban has only been called upon to pay the old-established licence fee of R10 a year for a service of this nature. Under this Bill it is quite possible that the hon. the Minister may now say: “After all, you have our telegraph and telephone services; why don’t you use those? Because you are not using it, I am going to impose an additional tax on you because you are actually holding back a certain amount of revenue from the post office itself.” I should like to hear from the hon. the Minister whether this additional burden is going to be placed on local authorities which are making use of the radio communication system that I have outlined here.

I come now to the third part of this Bill which the hon. the Minister mentioned, namely Clause 3, in which the original Section 17 is being amended. This clause removes Commonwealth citizenship as a qualification for operating a radio transmitting station within the Republic or on a vessel or aircraft registered within the Republic itself. We unfortunately have to accept that this amendment is necessary. It is one of the many lamentable results flowing from our leaving the Commonwealth. It could also, I take it, be tied in with our membership of the Commonwealth Telecommunication Board. I should like to know from the Minister whether this particular section has not also been altered as the result of our changed relations with the Commonwealth Telecommunication Board. In the past, of course, under our agreement with the Commonwealth Telecommunication Board, the Commonwealth citizen of any Commonwealth country could operate a radio transmitting station within the Republic or within the Union of South Africa, as it then was. Under the present Act South African citizens have the right to operate such a station. That inherent right is actually being removed; something is being taken away from the grand idea of South African citizenship itself. Whereas in the past South African citizenship carried with it the inherent right to operate a transmitting raido station, the Act is now being so amended that one must have a permit from the hon. the Minister or the Postmaster-General before one can operate such a station. The citizen’s freedom is actually being lessened and not being increased under that particular provision.

I have referred earlier on to the effect which Section 2 might have on municipalities and local authorities. I am equally perturbed about the effect that Section 3 might have on such local authorities. In future the Minister will have to give a permit to every person operating a radio transmitting station; in other words, to every person who is allowed to operate, say, the radio transmitting station of the Johannesburg or the Durban municipal fire department. As we know, a fire department is a very important department. It runs on three shifts per day. Several people may be needed to operate that radio transmitting station during the day; you cannot confine it to one person only; you may have to licence several persons. Those persons may go on leave and that would mean that additional licences would have to be taken out for extra persons. This provision might cause great hardship to these municipalities, and indeed it might cause a great deal of trouble in an emergency when the important radio communication system of a municipality’s fire department or engineering department cannot be used because of the fact that the persons concerned are not in possession of a licence from the Minister at that particular time. I believe that is a matter which the hon. the Minister should investigate. I would go so far as to suggest that employees of a local authority acting in the course of their duties should be excluded from the conditions of this particular section.

Mr. Speaker, we know that there are such things as inter-departmental feuds; we know that there has been trouble in the past between the Post Office Department and several other Departments in regard to their right or lack of right to use radio transmitting stations. There was trouble, for instance, between the Post Office Department and the Railways some time ago in regard to the use of radio telephones between ships entering Table Bay Harbour and the tugs used by the S.A.R. & H. Administration. Indeed, it came to such a pass that the Post Office told the Railways: “You are not allowed to use those radio transmitting stations any longer between your tugs and ships ”, with the result that they had to make use of other systems to get large ships such as the Pretoria Castle and the Windsor Castle docked. I trust that difficulty has been settled. I believe that the Railways were told that they had to introduce a certain V.H.F. telecommunication system. But even so, this particular section might be a Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of other Departments of State, through which the hon. the Minister will have the power to tell other Departments of State that they may not use this or that radio communication system unless they comply with certain requirements laid down by him. The same applies to radio communications between postal stations and ships along our coast.

Although this Bill is like the curate’s egg, good in parts, we have strong reservations with regard to certain provisions, and when we come to the Committee Stage it will be necessary for us to move the necessary amendments in an attempt to improve this Bill.

The hon. member who has just resumed his seat really tried his best on this occasion to approach this matter objectively as far as possible and to regard it purely on its merits. I would like to congratulate him on the progress he has made since his former speech earlier this afternoon. I would just like to add that naturally he was unable completely to get away from his inborn tendencies, because here and there he threw out a poisoned dart or gave a thrust where it was really not called for at all. If anyone wanted a clear example of the truth of the old saying that when a person has something to hide he suspects others of the same thing, then he would have found it in a few places in this speech of the hon. member this afternoon.

The hon. the Minister stated the matter so clearly that I thought it would not be necessary to have any discussion. The hon. member advanced an exceedingly weak argument when he suggested that the hon. the Minister, under Section 1 of the Radio Act of 1952, under the definition of “radio apparatus ”, might go so far as to exempt under this Bill licences for radio sets owned by the Bantu for listening in to this special V.H.F. service. Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, a Minister going as far as that in South Africa? Let me read the definition of “radio apparatus”—

And then comes the amendment—

And then it continues—

In other word, the amendment contained in Clause 1 of the Bill is merely to establish the opposite of what has hitherto existed in the definition of “radio apparatus”; that is to say, whereas it presently says that the Minister has the right to declare certain things to be radio apparatus by means of a notice in the Government Gazette, the Minister is now also empowered, by means of a notice in the Government Gazette, to declare certain apparatus as not being radio apparatus. I want to ask the hon. member if he really thinks that a Minister in South Africa would go so far, according to this definition, as to declare a radio set as not being radio apparatus? Because that is what he suggests in his whole argument, that the Minister might say that radio sets used by the Bantu are not radio apparatus. I think that is evidence that the hon. member really has ulterior motives, and is seeking something here which is utterly impracticable.

Order! The hon. member must not ascribe ulterior motives to another hon. member. The hon. member must withdraw that.

Then I withdraw that and say that the hon. member’s approach is such that he seeks ulterior motives where none exist.

In the second place, the hon. member objected to the wording of the amendment to Section 8 of the principal Act. The words he does not like are “in the opinion of the Postmaster-General If the opinion of the Postmaster-General is not to be accepted here, then I want to ask in all respect whose opinion is to be accepted? Does the hon. member want to alter the Act in such a way that telecommunication services which are suitable in the opinion of the mining or other company concerned, must be available before the provisions of this Act can be applied? What redress would anyone have as far as those companies are concerned? Who would be able to hold them responsible if they have to decide whether the available services are equivalent to the ordinary telecommunication facilities? Would one just have to take their word for it, or should one rather take the word of a responsible official such as the Postmaster-General who, through the Minister, is responsible to the public? I am convinced that here again we have a case where motives are being sought which do not exist at all. The question is whether telecommunication facilities are available or not. Now, what are the ordinary telecommunication facilities? Where ordinary telecommunication facilities are available, they are the usual telecommunication services. When a telephone service is installed to that particular mine, then there are telecommunication facilities available. Or should the companies have the right to say:“We demand five or six or eight or ten lines before we will regard it as normal telecommunication”? As soon as that far-distant mine is linked up with the telecommunication system, then it is surely a telecomunnication service. Surely they cannot make demands as to how good the service should be or as to how many lines should be available. The moment they are connected up, surely a service is available. The hon. member intimated that by including this provision we were obstructing efficiency; that we were not progressing but regressing. I would like to ask: To what extent is it limited? It is only when these people elect that the radio service presently existing must continue, if they prefer it to the telephone service, that they pay an extra amount for that service they get, an amount equivalent to what they would have paid for a telephone service which they would otherwise have had. It is only then that they are affected. There is absolutely no question of our forcing them to use the telecommunication services. They have a choice between the two, and when they choose to have both, as is the case at present, namely if they choose to retain the radio service and not to make use of the telecommunication service, then they can be forced to pay an amount equal to the amount which they would have paid for the telephone service—and I think that is quite right. Why should companies— and one must think in terms of competitive firms manufacturing the same material, or which are linked up in the same way—why should they have the privilege of being in constant contact with their head office at a comparatively cheap rate, while their competitor has to pay expensive telephone costs?

The radio service is more efficient and cheaper.

The radio service is certainly more efficient, but they must also be prepared to pay more for the better service; surely that is only logical? The whole argument of the hon. member is that we are now thwarting modern development. On the contrary, it is not a question of thwarting modern development. It is a question of acknowledging modern development and the necessity in a land like South Africa of our having control over these things that develop and take place. The main reason why restrictions must be imposed and why these things must be controlled is because after all the wave lengths in each area are limited. In other words, if you allow anyone, unconditionally and indiscriminately to tune in to sets all over the place, then you will eventually have so much confusion and chaos that when essential services need a connection there will no longer be any wave lengths available in a specific area. That is why the Minister and the Postmaster-General must have control over the development which takes place. Therefore this is not retrogression; it is a step forward so as to enable us to exercise control over these matters with an eye to the future.

I want to leave this point because I consider it imperative for us to have these services. The hon. the Minister stated the position very clearly in his introductory speech. If these people choose to continue using this service, then they must be prepared to pay for it.

The third argument that the hon. member raised was that members of the Commonwealth and South African citizens, under Section 17 of the principal Act, as now amended, will now also require a permit for amateur transmitters. If there is one thing that I personally welcome, it is this provision. In South Africa, in the times in which we live to-day, it is surely imperative that anyone possessing a radio transmitter should only be allowed to have that set with the knowledge of the Minister and the Postmaster-General? Misuse is too often made of certain transmitters in South Africa for us to allow this state of affairs to continue any longer without control. The hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) raised the argument that it imposes a restriction on the freedom of the South African citizen; that his freedom is being limited; that he can no longer at will possess a radio transmitter. Mr. Speaker, any man who does not intend contravening the law, or who has no intention of misusing his radio transmitter, will not be afraid to ask for a permit. Nor will a permit be refused. It is only the man who has ulterior motives as far as that amateur radio set is concerned who will regard it as a restriction of his rights, because he will see in that a threat for what he proposes to do with that set. Therefore I say it is essential and it is right that permits should be issued and that the Postmaster-General should have control in this regard as well.

Those are the points which the hon. member raised here. The primary objection here is to exercise control and to eliminate abuses, and in this regard let me say at once that the hon. the Minister has the wholehearted support of this side of the House, and that once again we are dealing with an Act which takes into account the progress being made in radio services and which makes the necessary provision, and that the hon. member for Orange Grove and members of the Opposition obviously seek motives behind this Act which do not exist at all.

I, too, can congratulate the hon. the Minister on having given us a very clear exposition of what is envisaged in the amendments as contained in the Radio Amendment Bill. As far as the hon. member for Randfontein (Dr. Mulder) is concerned, I must unfortunately say that at one stage in his speech he was off his wave length and that was when he said that the people who, in terms of this Bill, will in future have to pay for this radio-communication service will be paying for a service which is rendered to them. I differ from the hon. member and that is why I, too, wish to concentrate on Clause 2. I contend that this is not a service which the Government is rendering to those people. The moment a firm or an individual or a farmer or an industrialist or whoever it may be, purchases such an apparatus, the transmitter set and/or the receiving set and has paid for his licence, he has already made his contribution and this is not a service which the Government should render through the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. The Government is not involved in any further expenditure as far as that is concerned. The hon. member for Randfontein is quite correct when he says that when telecommunication services are provided, the individual must pay for those telecommunication services, but we are dealing with something totally different here. I want to give an example and the hon. member for Orange Grove has also referred to it. He referred to doctors and I personally have experience of how this system works in Port Elizabeth for example. A very good friend of mine is a medical doctor and I personally have travelled with him on his visits when he received no fewer than three or four calls over the radio service to go to this or that address. In other words, it expedites matters and it makes it possible for someone who renders an important service to arrive at his destination very quickly. As this relevant clause reads at the moment, I cannot understand how the Postmaster-General can determine what amount that person, for example, should contribute when a tele-communication service is already in operation. The one person may receive three calls and the other person may receive 20, as has also been pointed out by the hon. member for Orange Grove. And there is no appeal against the decision of the Postmaster-General; his decision is final. If the Postmaster-General says that should be the amount, as pointed out by the hon. member for Orange Grove, there is no form of appeal whereby it can be proved that the amount is perhaps beyond all limits of reasonableness. The person who is called upon to pay the amount has no defence. He must simply accept it. It seems to me that we are using this as another way of earning additional revenue; not only the person who is guilty or who can afford to pay, but also those people who render essential services now have to pay more. They, too, can in future be punished for their ability and for the services which they are rendering.

May I ask the hon. member a question? Is the hon. member aware of the fact that no telephone service will be available between the surgery and the motor-car of the doctor concerned, and that because of that, in terms of this Bill, it will not be necessary for him to pay?

I do not agree with the hon. member. I have no legal training, but according to this Bill, and as the relevant clause reads at the moment, he will have to pay. It says “… the licensee would have paid for normal telecommunication services if the licensee had made use of such services”. The telephone service is also available to the doctor on his rounds.

Is there a telephone in his car?

There is a radio-telephone in his car. It is very probable that the patient he has just visited has a telephone and it may be argued that the receptionist at his office, or anybody else could have telephoned him and told him where to go next. He may have been with an out-patient 20 or 30 miles outside town and in many cases it is quite impossible to get in touch with him by telephone and that is why he avails himself of the service. But because an ordinary telecommunication service does exist, he may be punished for that service. The same applies in the case of taxis. Furthermore many of the private owners of aircraft avail themselves of such a service. Who will determine that such a person has such an instrument in his aircraft and that he uses it? Who will determine that he could have used the normal telecommunication service? Futhermore, there may be a normal telecommunication service between the place where he took off and the place where he landed. I come to one conclusion only and that is that this is simply looking for a means of taxing the people further so as to provide additional revenue to the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. I think it is very unreasonable that even the people who perform essential services should also be included under this Bill.

But that is not true.

Why this proposal then? If we are satisfied with the existing position surely this amending Bill is not necessary? I think this is the thin end of the wedge and before we know where we are other people will also be compelled to pay more than merely for their licences. The Government first want to see how this will work. I do not think this Bill will serve the purpose which the Minister has in mind, because, as the hon. member for Orange Grove has also indicated, this Bill can only lead to it that the municipalities, the fire stations, the police and defence will be involved in heavy expenditure as well as our medical services and taxi services. They will have to pay additional licensing fees and they in turn will have to recover that from the public and before we know where we are we will find that the doctors, taxi drivers, etc., will have to increase their fees in order to keep pace with the increased amounts which they have to pay to the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. For that reason I think the relevant clause is very unfair towards the ordinary South African who cannot do without these services.

Once again I could only gain the impression that hon. members opposite are looking for problems where in fact there are none. To begin with the last argument of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) (Mr. Streicher), the hon. member for Randfontein has already pointed out to him how wrong he was. If he looks at the amending clause he will see that it says that the amount the mines will pay will be based on the average amount which the licence-holder would have paid for ordinary telecommunication services. There can be no doubt at all as to the meaning of “ordinary telecommunication services”. Let us now first take the case of the medical man. What is the ordinary channel of communication between a patient and his doctor? It is that the patient telephones his doctor at his consulting rooms. That is the ordinary method. In the case of the mine, that is also the ordinary system of communication; there is a telephone line between head office and the mine, but instead of using the telephone it now uses the radio. In other words, there it is clearly a substitution of the ordinary system of communication. But in the case of the doctor it is surely obvious that the ordinary communication between him and his patient and vice versa is the telephone connection with his office. When he is in his motor-car he simply cannot use the ordinary system of communication. In other words, he cannot fall under the Act. The same applies to the fire brigade, the police and taxis.

They do not fall under this Bill?

They do not fall under it. Hon. members can rest assured that the cases they referred to will not be affected at all by this Bill.

But now hon. members have admitted a few things. They asked: Why do we not leave the system as it is? But what is the present system? Precisely as I stated it, namely that in the case of mines an annual fee is calculated based on the actual use made of the radio if there is already a telephone service. But the trouble is that at the moment this is not legal. It has been done for years, but it has now been discovered that it is not legal, and this Bill is only intended to legalize it. It only legalizes a practice which has existed for years. If, therefore, hon. members accept that it is a good system, they are also compelled to concede that where it now appears that this sound system is not legal, it should be legalized.

The hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) said—I am just repeating the point already made by the hon. member for Randfontein—that the danger now exists that the Postmaster-General or the Minister may announce in future that an apparatus used by a Bantu is not a radio apparatus. Section 8 of the Act provides very clearly that every radio is subject to a certain licence fee. Surely it would be legally impossible for the Minister to say. as the hon. member for Randfontein has clearly indicated, that the apparatus used by the Bantu is not an apparatus. Surely it is impossible for the Pastmaster-General or for the Minister to say in future, “Your apparatus is not an apparatus”. The Act clearly provides in Section 8 what the licence fee should be and one cannot by means of an explanatory section come and say that an apparatus is not an apparatus. In other words, there is no logical justification for the argument of the hon. member. The hon. member further said that it was left to the discretion of the Postmaster-General to determine any amount, which might constitute an excessive burden on a mine. But the hon. member again forgot that the Act clearly states that the assessment of the Postmaster-General must be based on facts. He cannot simply take it out of the air; it must be based on a fact. It says, “which amount should be based on the average amount which the licence-holder would have paid for ordinary telecommunication services”. That is the fact. The Postmaster-General therefore cannot just make a wild estimate. If he just wants to take an amount out of the air. the mine can go to court and say that the Postmaster-General did not apply his mind to the assessment. In that case the mine has a clear right. There is nothing arbitrary. Where small differences arise, they can easily be eliminated, but he must make an assessment which is based on facts. Therefore I think that this argument of the hon. member does not hold water either.

Mr. Speaker, we should not forget that the number of frequencies which can be used is very limited. It simply is not possible to award a frequency to every mining company, or to every individual, or to every doctor, or to every taxi. Now the question immediately arises. If this is not possible, when it can be used only in selected cases, is it fair that one taxi company should have the right to use a radio transmitter whilst all the other taxi companies have to use the telephone, for which the have to pay more than the man who uses the radio transmitter? In other words, is one not discriminating unfairly when one says that one man as a taxi driver will be allowed to use a radio transmitter, but the other may not use it? Only a limited number can be allowed, and surely one cannot select favourites and say that they can use it and save a large sum of money, whilst all the other competitors may not do so. It should be applied fairly where one taxi driver has to compete with another. They should all be treated equally.

And one doctor with another.

Yes, one doctor with another. Now it is not improbable that the position will become impossible, that it may become impossible to grant it to all the doctors. Then the State will have to consider instituting such a system itself, so that the State will be able to use just one or a few wavelengths. The difficulty arises if one allows every doctor and every company to use it and everyone has a different wavelength. Then the State will have to introduce a system whereby it can render the same services by making use of only a few wavelengths. That will probably be the solution of the problem in future.

Do you not have the ranged internationally. The wavelengths which it comes to the amateurs?

All the wavelengths have been arranged internationally. The wavelengths which the amateurs may use are just certain wavelengths, quite different wavelengths (there are several of them), and the various small wavelength selections which may be used on various wavelengths are determined internationally. One cannot use them for sending out messages to taxis. The whole sector is strictly controlled internationally. Therefore where we are dealing only with a very limited number of wavelengths we must be careful to prevent the wrong use being made of them, and we must also be very careful not to allow unfair competition between competing firms.

The hon. the Minister has made it quite clear that municipalities will not fall under this Bill in so far as charges are concerned, but I would like to know from him whether employees of the local authorities are going to fall under this Bill in so far as operating these stations are concerned?

I trust the hon. member will allow me to read out the amending Section 17. It says—

It means in reality that every person using a radio transmitter must be licensed. That is the existing principle. This is only to apply also to aircraft and to ships beyond the boundaries of the Republic.

Is the local authority going to be the person to be licensed and can they in turn appoint employees to operate the set or station on their behalf?

That is so. The licensee can employ somebody to do the work.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time.