During the debate on the Vote Water Affairs pleas have been advanced repeatedly for the provision of water to the urban complexes and to other major complexes. I want to deviate to-day from the normal course in that I want to advance a plea for cheaper water on behalf of our smaller towns. In view of the present policy, I feel that our smaller town complexes are faced with a problem in that they are subsidized by the Department of Water Affairs in respect of the building of dams. These are expensive dams, the cost of which runs into hundreds of thousands of rands in many cases. The result is that the public living in those small towns cannot afford to pay the rates in the end. This matter concerns the question of the depopulation of our rural areas.

The inhabitants of these small towns move away to the urban complexes as a result of inadequate facilities in the towns and the high rates. In cases where there are perennial rivers, I want to plead with the hon. the Minister that such perennial rivers be harnessed and that dams should be built there to provide water to many of our smaller towns in the vicinity of such perennial rivers. Sir, this will eliminate many anomalies; this will serve to reduce the rates in those small towns with the result that our people will stay, not move away from those small towns. We cannot afford it that our people move away from the smaller towns to the urban complexes, because this merely creates further problems for us in the urban complexes and it also causes an increased water consumption when these people move away to the urban complexes. That is the first minor point I want to make.

In the second place, I should like to refer to our policy as regards boring for water. In the North-Eastern Cape where boring operations have repeatedly been undertaken, I would say that the successful attempts there represent 20 per cent or less in the mountain areas, but there is nevertheless a considerable run-off. Could we not build one or two storage dams there? They need not be too large because, as I have already said, we have the natural run-off there, while the water distribution can then be undertaken by means of a pipeline. In this way the State and agriculture will be able to save millions of rands while it will also provide water to the town complexes in that area. I should like the hon. the Minister to give his attention to this matter, because I do not believe that we will get very far with our present methods and with the expensive equipment which are used for the purpose of obtaining water. This is uneconomic and I believe that we shall achieve much more as regards the distribution of water in those areas by building a number of storage dams.

I now want to deal with the third point and that is run-off. On page 39 of the report of this Commission of Inquiry into Water Affairs we see that the run-off in region 700, in the Western Cape, is 4.1 per cent; in region 800, also in the Western Cape, it is 4 per cent and in the catchment area of the Orange River, in region 340 the run-off is 4.4 per cent. But then we take the Eastern Cape where the run-off is 15 per cent, which is the biggest run-off in South Africa. I now want to say here that the late Dr. Malan said that the Union of South Africa consists of four provinces, the Cape Province, the Transvaal, the Orange Free State and also Natal. I merely want to mention in passing that, in the light of the heart-stirring pleas made by hon. members here yesterday on behalf of the Western Cape and of the Vaal Triangle, we have another area, the North-Eastern Cape area and we will do well to utilize the water potential which exists in that area, because that area has inhabitants of its own and that water can be used on behalf of those inhabitants. The various perennial rivers with their clear streams and fine trout can be harnessed pot only for the benefit of our tourist potential, but also for the benefit of agriculture in those areas.

The water of the Tugela River is at present pumped across the Drakensberg to the Nuwejaarspruit complex and as sure as I am standing here, the time will come when the water potential of the North-Eastern Cape will be utilized to pump water across the Drakensberg to the Orange River complex and to the Hendrik Verwoerd Dam, because the water consumption is going to increase. It will not drop. For that reason I want to urge the hon. the Minister to assist us in that respect and to build us a number of dams in that area because there are hardly any dams in that complex, except in the Tsomo River in the Transkei and the new dam that has been announced. There are no dams in that complex further to the north-east.

Mr. Chairman, when one listens to the hon. member for Aliwal North’s speech it makes one realize what a vast programme we still have ahead of us in order to try and solve some of the problems in regard to water. I believe that the current drought is not the root of our problem but it is only aggravating the problem. Whether we have droughts or not, the problem is there. Due to South Africa’s low rainfall, naturally we do not have enough water. Furthermore, we are not conserving enough water either. A certain Mr. J. L. Mallory, a circle engineer of the Department of Water Affairs, who is stationed in the Eastern Transvaal, has predicted that by the turn of the century we in South Africa will need ten times more dams than we have to-day. This is the prediction of a man who has made a thorough study of our problems. At present, according to the gentleman, South Africa is using approximately 3,800,000 morgen feet of water per year. It sounds like a lot of water, but he goes further to say that by the turn of the century, by the year 2000, we will use 11 million morgen feet of water per annum. This sounds fantastic, but nevertheless I believe his figures to be correct. Our present storage capacities throughout the length and breadth of South Africa can cope with 7,500,000 morgen feet of water. This is the present storage capacity of all our dams. An hon. member on the other side of the House yesterday mentioned the fact that we have approximately 180 dams in South Africa. I know it is difficult to define what a dam is according to capacity, but my figures show that we have many more dams than that number. I believe we have no less than 343 sizeable dams which have been built by the State and by private enterprise. This too is a figure which has been given to us by Mr. J. L. Mallory, the circle engineer of the Department of Water Affairs. In order to show how short we are of water, I want to tell hon. members that if we harness all our water in South Africa, from all our rivers throughout the year, and we could let the water flow into the Kariba Dam, it would take 2½ years to fill that dam. I mention this just to show hon. members how short we are of water. This is why I believe, and I think the hon. Minister also believes, it is so important that we should follow these recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry into Water Matters. This is not only an important document but a valuable document to all of us in South Africa.

Having mentioned how much water we have at our disposal, and what we expect to have to provide for by the turn of the century, what disturbs me very much is the indiscriminate pumping of our subterranean waters. I believe this is a very serious matter. It was mentioned, and quite rightly so, by the hon. member for Colesberg yesterday, and by an hon. member on this side of the House, the hon. member for Benoni. They both mentioned our subterranean water. I believe we have reached the stage now where we seriously have to consider ways and means of trying to control the pumping of our subterranean waters. I know it is easy to stand up and say that we must control it. As a practical man I know it is not an easy matter. It is not easy to control, and it is very difficult to find ways and means of combating this problem. In this regard I would like to give an example. I know many farms where this has happened, but I want to mention one in particular, the farm I have in mind used to be a beautiful Karoo farm. I knew it as a young man. It had a beautiful plantation of poplar trees under which we used to spend our public holidays picnicking. Above this poplar bush were morgens and morgens of lucern. The owner of this land used to produce four cuttings of lucern per year. He only produced four cuttings because the climate is cold in that area. However, he was not satisfied with that. The lucerne was growing under what we term “dry land” conditions, but the roots were down close to the water. The water table was only about 10 feet from the surface. The farmer was not satisfied and wanted to double his production capacity on that land. He started sinking boreholes and pumping with turbines and centrifugal pumps. When one speaks of turbines and centrifugal pumps one is skating on very thin ice in regard to the draining of South Africa’s subterranean waters. And so he pumped and managed to double his capacity of production, but only for five or six years. To-day I can take any hon. member back to that farm and show him what has happened. The subterranean waters have disappeared and the farmer has had to sink his boreholes deeper and deeper to try and reach the water table. To-day there is barely no water, there is no lucerne and the poplar bush has died as well.

I believe that we should not allow this to happen again if we can possibly prevent it. Surely we have learnt by bitter experience what a dangerous business this is of draining our underground water.

Moreover, I believe we can provide for many underground waters. In a natural beautiful valley on one of my properties there was very little water. The one borehole I had operating there dried up. I drilled deeper and still did not find any water. I then decided to build weirs across this valley. I have reclaimed that valley and to-day it is what we call “vleiveld” again. The water table is now 30 feet from the surface again due to the fact that I built weirs across this valley. By doing this I raised the water table. I now want to appeal to the hon. the Minister that he should act where he and his Department know of people who are obviously anxious to make two blades of grass grow where one grew before, and who are using centrifugal and turbine pumps to pump underground water, to inspect those projects. Unless these irrigators can satisfy the Department that they have provided for ways and means of raising the water table of their subterranean waters, they should not be allowed to pump any further. Surely they must provide for water by building dams, as the hon. member for Aliwal has said. They can also build weirs, which I believe are very effective indeed in dealing with this problem. It is something we must tackle and it is no good saying to an irrigator: “We are going to control your drilling for irrigation waters and we are not going to allow you to pump more than 10,000 gallons per hour per day”. It will be no use, because the farmer could double his pumping capacity during the night, if he so wishes, for example. We can, however, stress in all our agricultural journals and pamphlets wherever possible the great dangers of pumping South Africa’s underground waters.

Most of our South African subterranean waters seem to flow from local dykes or reefs. I know there are others like the “Groot Oog” at Kuruman and I believe that that water comes from a very great distance, possibly even flowing from the Zambesi. No one knows; we still know too little about our subterranean waters but I do not believe that that is local water. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I want to congratulate the hon. member who has just sat down. I think he has made a fine contribution as regards our water situation. I want to express my heartiest congratulations to the hon. the Minister for his effort to bring about water conservation and water saving over the years since he became Minister. Judging from what he said during the last few hours as to the importance he attaches to water conservation in South Africa, it is evident that he does not only pretend that he wants to carry out this task, but that he is really sincere about this.

I think this has met with great success in the past. When one considers the gloomy picture that is painted of the water position in South Africa every day, one cannot help being somewhat concerned. We want to admit that there are major dangers for the future, but we are also convinced that the Government is really doing its share in the interests of South Africa as regards the provision of water in the future. Every day, as has been done in this debate, emphasis is laid on water conservation. But I think that we should also take into account how important it is for us to save water. In the past drastic measures have been taken and attempts made to conserve water, but I think that we should emphasize the saving of water as well. It is frightening to see how much water is wasted. Recently I had the privilege of flying from my part of the world to Johannesburg by private aircraft. We flew at a height from which we could observe everything that was going on on the ground. The hon. member for Colesberg referred to it yesterday. It is remarkable how much water is being wasted in places where dams were overflowing and where windmills were situated in the veld away from the farmhouses. At least two-thirds of the windmills do not have any brakes or any other method to limit the amount of water running to waste. There are 600,000 windmills in the Republic of South Africa alone. This does not include South-West Africa. When one considers that five to ten gallons of water per windmill is being wasted every month, one can form an idea of the amount of our subterranean water that is running to waste. This is frightening. One gets a shock when one visits Coloured residential areas in municipal areas and sees the private taps from which people get their water. The Coloureds, or even the Whites, simply turn the tap on and place a bucket underneath. When he looks at the bucket again, a stream of water is flowing a 100 yards down the road. Then the person concerned comes back, turns off the tap, throws out some of the surplus water from the bucket and carries it away on his head, or with his hands. I think measures will have to be taken, also as. far as our Whites are concerned, to cease installing turning taps for internal use, but only push taps. I think we shall find that once this is done, the public, even in the urban areas, will use much less water.

I think the attention given recently to the saving of water and to water conservation has aroused an awareness among our people. I am thinking of one of the farmers in my area who has taken this matter to heart. He made a point of trying to see how much water he could save. He devised an automatic brake. It is registered to-day as the Jonathan patent, which is so efficient that I think every farmer who uses it will save many thousands of gallons of water for the Republic of South Africa; this patent can also be used for other purposes.

Recently I was standing on the Johannesburg station. One of the bedding attendants was cleaning a broom-polisher under a tap from which water was spouting under great pressure. I estimated that at least ten gallons of water ran to waste while he was cleaning the broom-polisher. This is not the way we should use water in South Africa under these circumstances. I think we can educate our people to be more aware of the saving of water. We can fill all the dams in South Africa and we can spend millions of rands doing so, but if we do not educate our people to use water judiciously, the contribution of the State will have to increase continually in the future as our population increases. If we could persuade the individual to use water more judiciously, we shall make a tremendous contribution towards the saving of water for the benefit of the Republic of South Africa.

There is one other matter I should like to bring to the attention of the hon. the Minister. The North Orange River district, at the Buchuberg, is faced with a particular problem. Thousands upon thousands of vines and thousands of fruit trees were planted there. In view of the expansion taking place there as a result of the canal and the sluice pipes which are being erected there, the stage has now been reached where the farmers might suffer severe losses. I know that this matter has been brought to the attention of the Minister and that he takes an interest in it, but as he knows, the company there cannot provide the farmers with water. I am afraid that if these farmers cannot be provided with water, they are going to suffer damage running into many thousands of rands. I want to ask the Minister whether the erection of this canal cannot be expedited. If this work cannot be expedited, the farmers are going to suffer severe losses.

Despite the fact that the United Party has spread rumours during the last election in order to disparage the Orange River project, I want to thank the Minister for what has been done there. I think that the United Party themselves regret the fact that they have done this. We even had people who held meetings at Upington and Gordonia and made disparaging statements about the Orange River project. What they said was not in the interests of that project. Their actions were not in the interests of the project. To me it goes to show that they regretted what they had done, because they got such a fright that they did not even put up a candidate in that constituency. The farmers in that area told me themselves that the United Party did not act with honest intentions as regards that project, which is of vital importance to South Africa and to which the Government is giving its full attention. The Minister of Water Affairs visited the project himself on various occasions to see to it that progress was being made, not only in the interests of the whole country, but also in the interests of that particular area. Those hon. members cannot deny the fact that they have made propaganda to pretend that the Government particularly wanted to make things difficult for those farmers because they want to give that area to the Coloureds. I want to tell them that water is already being stored in the H. F. Verwoerd Dam. There are a few months left to them in which they can make propaganda, and then the opportunity will have been lost to them because then the project will be utilized in the interests of South Africa and in the interests of the settlements in that area.

Mr. Chairman, before coming back to the question of pollution, there is another matter I wish to deal with. When the hon. the Minister replies, I wonder whether he could give us some information in regard to the water in the J. G. Strydom Dam. It is still very often, even in official documents referred to as the Josini Dam, or the Pongola Dam. I think the dam is now holding a very large quantity of water. The first point I want to make in this regard is that on the flood plain of the Pongola River, below the dam, there are many large pans. They are fairly shallow and these pans are the fishing grounds of the Tonga people. These people are very short of protein. The Natal Parks Board is helping them in regard to the shocking and propagation of fish. The then Deputy Minister of Land Tenure, who is now the Deputy Minister of Transport, actually visited the whole area a few years ago. He saw the pans and he saw the Tongas fishing there. He realized the importance of the protein which those people obtain in that way. I think I am not exaggerating when I say that their catches probably run into a 100 tons or more of fish. Flash floods from the dam can flood those pans and provide that protein. I should therefore like to raise the question of the disposal of the water from the Josini Dam. This matter rather comes to the fore at the moment. In the July issue of Bantu, the official Bantu journal, there appears a photo of the dam with the following comments below—

In the report of the Commission of Inquiry into Water Affairs, on page 11, it is stated—

It says the indications are that there is possibly a shortage of potential irrigation farmers. Then it says—

Now, if the comments in the July issue of Bantu is correct, that those plots at the Makatini Flats are for the Bantu to irrigate, then I do not understand the reference in the reports which to me, obviously, has in mind irrigators as being white farmers. It is in that context that this reference is made. It is merely a matter of trying to get clarification about the disposal of that water. When Mr. Fouché was still Minister of Water Affairs, he said on a few occasions in this House that water from the Josini Dam would go into St. Lucia to act as a dilutant. I know that there are good reasons why such a policy cannot be followed. That I accept; I am not raising any complaint about it—that I want to have quite clearly understood. But on the short term it may possibly be that if that water is just to stay there in the Josini Dam and serves no particularly useful purpose, as an emergency measure—even if part of the costs has to be borne by the province or by the Natal Park Board—to save the lake, to save St. Lucia, something might still be done to utilize some of that water, get it into the Umkuzi channel and from there into the lake. I do not know whether from an engineering point of view that will be feasible and I do not know what exactly is involved in it. But I nevertheless put the question of the use of this water to the Minister so that he can give us some elucidation as to the future use of the water of the J. G. Strydom Dam.

I want to return now for a moment to the question of pollution. I have already in this debate pleaded for scientists and other professional people to assist our staff. The Minister said yesterday that although there was still a time lag he foresaw that in the not too distant future we will be able to catch up with the requirements of personnel. I think I am correct in putting it in this short way briefly. But I want to say that there are other agencies too. I have here the American News Digest of the 20th August, and of the 17th September, this year. The following comments appear in the issue of the 20th August—

This, Sir, deals with what is called “a global environmental monitoring system” which is needed. This article deals with the pollution of our water supplies and from there into the rivers, the lakes and then into the sea. On page 6 it says—

In other words, on a global basis all of us can benefit from pooling ecological information and technical skills. In the issue of the 17th September they go even further by saying—

In addition to the programme with Japan, Washington is still engaged on bi-lateral efforts with Canada, the Federal Republic of Germany, France and the Soviet Union. A team of Government officials exemplifies the determination of the United States in seeking to learn when last month it visited Sweden and Finland to study the problem of mercury contamination. Now, it may be that the Minister’s staff are already dealing with these agencies. Where we have international agencies like these, with the know-how and the knowledge, it may be that through the efforts of our people we can get their co-operation, get the knowledge they have and exchange information with them. That sum of knowledge should be made available to South Africa if the necessary channels of communication can be properly organized. I submit this to the hon. Minister’s attention.

I should like to associate myself with the tanks expressed and tributes paid by the hon. the Minister and other members on both sides of this House to the members of the Commission of Inquiry into Water Matters in our country. As far as their report is concerned, I think one can say that it is a grand, comprehensive and very valuable report in which are set out the broad guidelines and courses which we should follow in the future in order to organize our most important natural resource, i.e. water, in the best way so as to make the most productive use of it. Therefore I am glad that the Minister was able to announce that the Government had decided to accept the broad principles of the report fully. This is a wise decision and, I believe, a unanimous one as well. It places an enormous responsibility on the Minister and his Department. I know what a difficult Department this is. It has a difficult matter to control. Water is life and dealing with it presents exasperating problems. To many people water is the source of their livelihood. Consequently everyone endeavours to have the control over water, that is to say the distribution and other aspects of it, exercised in such a way that it can be to the benefit of all and to the disadvantage of none. In anticipation I want to wish the Minister and his Department strength, wisdom and knowledge in the implementation of the principles contained in this report.

I think we had a very interesting debate yesterday. Apart from one or two or three discordant notes which were struck, it was probably one of the most fruitful and most constructive discussions we have had in this House for a very long time. I just want-to emphasize that water does not belong to the State. The water which is available to our country belongs to the whole nation, to all of us, whether in the rural areas or in the urban areas. We cannot leave it to the State to do everything and to do it alone. If the State does not have the goodwill and the cooperation of the people, we shall not achieve the success which we can achieve with the utilization and the harnessing of our water.

Sir, it is interesting to note that 94.9 per cent of all the water on earth is sea water, which, because of its salt content is not fit for human consumption. Only 5 per cent occurs in glaciers and in the form of subterranean water. Only 0.01 per cent is found in rivers and lakes and only 0.001 per cent in the atmosphere in the form of water vapour. Man has over the years been trying everything in his power to desalinate sea water in order to supplement our water supplies and, strangely enough, it is being done gratuitously by the sun, which is 93 million miles from the earth. The sun is an enormous source of power. Scholars and scientists have estimated that the energy produced by the sun and transmitted to the earth is equal to 23 billion horsepower per year. One-third of this energy or power generated by the sun is spent on distilling fresh water from the sea for man. The water vapour is taken up into the air and spread over the earth by winds. As the water vapour distilled from the sea by the sun rises, it cools off and consequently condenses, thus forming moist, condensed air. Some of that moisture falls to earth in the form of rain or snow or hail. The water reaching the earth in this way is man’s primary source of fresh water. No wonder that the prophet Amos—and you must bear in mind, Sir, that he was a farmer by profession, but he must also have been an able scientist—called out “Seek him that calleth for waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth; the Lord is his name!”.

If we consider water and its origin in this way, I think others and I myself were wrong in that we perhaps pitied the Minister and his Department when they announced that the year 1970 would be our Water Year, that we were going to regard and celebrate it as such. I say this because South Africa was in the grip of an unprecedented, country-wide drought at the time, and it seemed more as if 1970 was going to be not a Water Year, but a waterless year. Sir, looking back, I regard it as a dispensation of Providence that our country should have suffered such a drought at the very time we were celebrating a Water Year, because what was our intention in celebrating a Water Year? It was to make our people conscious of the value of water; that we should regard water as a valuable commodity and not pollute or waste it, as an hon. member on the opposite side put it, but that we should use it carefully as one would look after and use something which is truly valuable. How could one find better circumstances than a drought in which to do this? Because it is not in times of prosperity and sunshine that you consider your position carefully; it is in times of adversity and suffering that one does so. I believe that these droughts which have accompanied our Water Year, and which we are still suffering—and may the Lord make them of short duration—have contributed and will contribute to a better understanding and a revaluation in general by all our people of water as a natural resource which is there to keep us alive and from which we must obtain our riches in the future.

There are of course various considerations when you deal with water and when you decide where you are going to conserve water. Let me say that since the National Party Government came into power 22 years ago they have not delayed in giving serious attention to the water requirements of our country and the conservation and storage of water. Within the first ten years up to 1958 the National Party Government not only voted, but in fact spent more than twice as much on the conservation of water in South Africa as had been spent by all previous Governments from 1910 to 1948. [Time expired.]

I want to thank the hon. member for Oudtshoorn, who has just resumed his seat, for his good wishes to the Department and to myself in connection with the water task resting on our shoulders. Coming from him, hon. members can understand that I am particularly appreciative of his remarks, I also want to agree with him that we must regard it as a dispensation of Providence that the Water Year is being celebrated under the present circumstances. We had hoped that the year would start off well as far as the water supplies of South Africa are concerned, but it has been very dry. Perhaps it is just as well that it has taken place in such circumstances and that things have been said which have fallen on receptive ears, which may perhaps not have been the case otherwise. We therefore hope that the influence of the messages conveyed in this Year will also have very far-reaching results in the country and in the minds of our people in the future.

Before the adjournment of the House last night, the hon. member for Marico made a speech in which he made a plea for the conservation and subsequent distribution of the water falling on the roofs of the houses and on the tarred roads in our urban areas, and he was concerned that that water was being lost. I want to tell the hon. member that this is not so; waiter which falls in the inland areas of South Africa runs down towards the sea and ten to one it flows into a dam somewhere along the way. Here it is exactly the same. The water which is precipitated on the Reef is not lost completely. It goes into one of the dams, where it is stored, and if it falls in the central area, it becomes available above the Barrage in any case. The water running down from Pretoria goes to Bon Accord, and what holds good for these two cities holds good for many towns in our country. Admittedly the water falling in Cape Town flows down to the sea, but we shall do something about this as well at some stage or other.

†The hon. member for East London (North) has made the suggestion that the rubble from the Orange-Fish Tunnel be distributed and used to fill up the excavations and the erosion in the area. I may tell the hon. member that the rubble from the excavation of the Orange-Fish Tunnel would amount to about 2 million cubic metres, and that is quite a lot of rubble to be moved. According to a calculation which was made last night, to convey this rubble across a distance of some 40 kilometres to the eroded areas might cost some R7 to R8 million. This cost would be difficult to justify. Furthermore, 75 per cent of the rock from the tunnel consist of mud stone, silt stones and shale, which weather rapidly. Therefore, there would not be any justification for getting rid of the rubble in the way which the hon. member has foreseen, nor can it be undertaken as a long-term project.

*The hon. member for Stilfontein made some remarks here in connection with what has happened in his constituency. He expressed thanks for the service rendered there by the Department. The Department has noted his remarks with appreciation.

The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) made a speech here yesterday evening in which he laid emphasis on the re-use of water. Then the hon. member asked that we should do something about the water falling in towns such as Port Elizabeth in order to conserve it where it falls. Surely the hon. member knows how difficult it would be to build new dams within Port Elizabeth now. The hon. member was concerned about the water which falls in our coastal areas and which has a short distance to run to the sea.

Urban areas.

Yes, but surely the hon. member knows that one cannot easily store water on an incline. One needs a dam basin for doing so.

You can pump it back.

Surely that would be quite unpractical. The hon. member moreover remarked that we should build smaller water schemes in the Karoo and that we should perhaps pay larger subsidies. I want to tell the hon. member that this is precisely our difficulty. The Karoo itself is an area on which we cannot spend money without running a very great risk. We are in fact discouraging smaller water schemes to which a risk is attached in the Karoo areas. Therefore we do not want to take this idea any further at all. In the Karoo we prefer to devote attention to the useful exploitation of subterranean water; not the excessive exploitation, but the judicious exploitation of this water, particularly for primary purposes. We are not in favour of overstraining resources, neither are we in favour of over-spending capital in an area where the guaranteed supply may be very low. If we were to encourage people to spend thousands of rands in order to establish small schemes, while the risk factor was as high as 80 and 90 per cent, we would not be helping the person, but rather be plunging him into difficulties. This is our problem and therefore we have to be very careful in what we do in this connection. What is more, the Department does not like to encourage more than 25 morgen feet per unit to be stored. In many cases this would be unwise, because it would mean that a number of small dams would cut off the supply of a number of our larger dams. I refer for example to the Kalkfontein Dam. If you were to have dams every 100 yards or every few miles in the small streams in the catchment area of the Kalkfontein Dam, as is in fact beginning to happen, you will eventually have so much water stored at the top that the Kalkfontein Dam itself would later not have the usual downflow. Thereby all the development which is taking place there would be lost. No matter what one does, it must always be done within the framework of good planning.

The hon. member for Heilbron referred to an article which had appeared in a Sunday newspaper and which contained some kind of agitation concerning people who had become all excited about a farm that had formerly belonged to the late Gen. De Wet and on which the Department was developing an irrigation scheme. These people were allegedly complaining because the planning by the Department of Water Affairs would result in their being chased off. If I tell hon. member the story, they will see that an agitation is involved. What happened there was that the wall of the dam in the hon. member’s constituency was being raised for the purpose of increasing the capacity of the dam. In addition, it was the intention to provide larger, economic units. In cases where people have too little land, they are being removed to places where they will have enough land. The purpose of this is to help people, and not to chase them off. I content myself with what the hon. member himself said, i.e. that there is nothing in this agitation. I am glad that the people in his constituency rejected this kind of agitation.

The hon. member for Etosha made a speech yesterday evening, but before he had finished, his time expired. I had hoped that the hon. member would continue his speech.

I should have liked to do so.

I shall therefore not reply to the hon. member’s speech now. If I do not do so this Session, I shall definitely do so in a subsequent session.

†The hon. member for South Coast yesterday asked me whether we are doing forecasts in connection with the industrial consumption of water. I would like to refer the hon. member to the report of the commission, where a forecast in regard to industrial consumption is made. It is the intention to continue making forecasts not only in regard to industrial consumption, but also in regard to all other consumptions. If we do not do that, we will be unable to plan for the future. The hon. member for Mooi River inquired about the Umgem River region water supply scheme. The question was a rather technical one and I want to reply to it as follows: The portion of the main pipeline from the Pietermaritzburg purification works to Cato Ridge which passes through Pietermaritzburg is subjected to very high pressures. When the proposal was investigated, evidence was obtained that the proposed type of pipeline and joint would be capable of giving satisfactory service. Unfortunately, trouble was experienced with the joints under the high pressure and leakages occurred. Steps are being taken to instal special valves to reduce water pressures and it is expected that the difficulty will then be overcome, although the carrying capacity of the pipeline will be reduced. The investigations are not quite completed and hence the final conclusions cannot be given yet.

*The hon. member for Aliwal pleaded for cheaper water for smaller towns. He also referred to perennial rivers in his area and to others in the Eastern Cape which allegedly carried 15 per cent of the water. These rivers carrying 15 per cent are rivers in the Transkei which drain the water mainly into that area However, I think the hon. member was referring to rivers which in fact drain the water back to white areas. I can tell the hon. member that the only basis on which it can be decided whether a water scheme can be carried out is the basis of its own priority, its own necessity and the cost involved. I want to give the hon. member the assurance that just as a need exists there, it exists throughout the whole of South Africa. Enormous economic growth is taking place in South Africa at the moment, and the present drought has made the position even more difficult. The hon member for Oudtshoorn will know what I am talking about, because he himself has been Minister of Water Affairs. He knows what an effect such a drought can have on such a part of the country. As a result of these very factors it is practically impossible, with the enormous need for water which exists, even to try giving an indication of when one will get round to any specific place. However, the thoughts which the hon. member expressed here have been noted with appreciation, and I want to give him the assurance that unless there is no justification for any scheme, such a scheme will remain on the programme of Department in order to be carried out when the time, the circumstances and the money permit.

The hon. member for East London (North) referred to someone who had allegedly said that we would be needing ten times as many dams by the end of the century as we needed to-day. Our present capacity is 7½ million morgen feet of water, approximately 30 per cent of that portion of the conservable water which is not conserved and in respect of which we are at the present moment not developing schemes, but for which storage must still be created. All the additional water to be conserved would probably require a storage capacity of 28 million morgen feet. Now the hon member can work it out for himself, and he will find that before we have finished the present storage capacity will almost have to quadruple. If this is the volume, one can get an idea of what the additional costs will be particularly if one takes into consideration that the unit cost will also rise in the meantime. What is more, apart from the increase in unit cost—say, for example, per morgen foot conserved—there is the additional problem of the structures which become more expensive because they will be situated in increasingly difficult places. In other words, we are in any case in the position that we have to make provision for very high costs in the future.

The hon. member referred to the injudicious pumping out of water. The hon. member Colesberg also spoke about this yesterday. I agree with the hon. members. This is a problem. The injudicious use of water whether it be surface or subterranean water, remains an evil in South Africa. May I put it this way, that there are probably many large subterranean reserves left in the country. The important thing is to know where the reserves are and what the supplement rate is, and therefore to be able to calculate what the abstraction rate should be. This is important. Research in order to know more than we know to-day and we already know a good deal—is an enormous task. This is why a committee of scientists, as hon. members know were appointed by me some time ago for the very purpose of determining which direction this study should take, not only what we have to study, but also what can be undertaken by universities and other bodies The main object is to determine the line of thought so that we may know which direction to follow. We know that the knowledge required tor this will have to be extended considerably before we can act with a greater measure of certainty. But this does not mean that we should not try to exercise control in the meantime. We are doing so. This is why the Act also makes provision for subterranean water control areas and why such areas have already been declared. It is just that the implementation is difficult. However, I am hoping that we shall be able to make progress with the implementation as well in due course. I think the question of the implementation is what hon. members have in mind.

It is true that the excessive abstraction to which the hon. member referred here yesterday, is an absolute evil. But I think our people can at least also take a little more personal trouble in order to see whether a dam has not been overflowing for weeks and then to apply the brake of the windmill. I do not want to make any reproaches now, but I want to tell hon. members to look around when they travel by train through the Karoo in the middle of the day when the wind is blowing. They only have to look out of the train window for two or hours and count the dams they pass and which have been overflowing for days, because no one cares, and which have formed wide green strips yards away where the grass is growing luxuriously. This is probably a wastage of three four or five times of the real amount of water required. I think our people can also do a great deal in that regard However I think the time is approaching when we will have to act in order to go into the matter further than we have been prepared to do up to now. Hon. members must not ask me now precisely what is going to be done. All I want to tell them is that as we go along, we will have to be stricter in many respects. This is probably one of the fields in which we will have to find a formula, if we do not have one yet, to induce people to be more careful in their consumption.

The hon. member for Prieska referred to the notions of the Department in his area. I am glad that there is satisfaction now. I am also glad to learn that the hon. member knows of someone who has designed such a wonderfully good patent in respect of this very matter I have been discussing. I want to tell the hon. member that it is, of course, easy for anyone to see to it that no water is wasted at a borehole. All he has to do is to feed back the overflow into the hole, so that when the water overflows it will flow back into the hole. This is a practical method which can be used. The hon. member referred to a patent which sounds like a very good one to me. I would be glad if the hon. member would bring that invention to the Department so that we can examine it. Perhaps that person has something there. Many patents of this kind have led to the use of appliances which we regard as common to-day. I would be glad if the hon. member would allow the department to take a look at it. It sounds interesting enough in any case.

†The hon. member for South Coast asked me to give an indication of the water usage at the Josini Dam. About 30 per cent or slightly more of the water in the dam will be released to flood the pans. Of course, we have to ensure the survival of the natural life in those pans. Some of the water will therefore in any case be released. There will be an assured supply of water for the pans. If the water is dammed at the Josini dam and then released as needed, there will be a much more assured supply of water than there was in the past. Furthermore, about 45,000 morgen will be irrigated on the flats. Half of this land will be for European irrigation and the other halt will be available to the Bantu people who have settled in the area.

As regards the possible release of water through the Mkuze Channel, I agree with the hon. member that it will not be easy. There are certain difficulties which have to be faced in this regard. There is for instance, the technical problem of transferring the water from the Josini Dam, where it is at present, across the watershed. Before we complete the canal which will be necessary for this scheme, seepage-water and tail-water cannot be released in the swamp area. It is a technical problem and there is nothing we can do about it until the work is completed.

That is on the east side of the mountain, in other words the sea side of the mountains?

Yes.

We are not talking about the west side?

No. As regards the west side, the hon. member will know that it is not the intention to allow any pumping or any release of water from one watershed to another. Does the hon. member know about that?

Yes, you have said so.

Sir, I think with this we have come to the end of this discussion. I want to thank hon. members on both sides of the House who took part in this debate, very sincerely for having done so. I think it has been a fruitful discussion. I think that, particularly in view of the publication of the Report of the Water Commission, there will be quite a lot for us to think about until next year.

Votes put and agreed to.

Revenue Vote No. 42—“Forestry”, R2,790,000, Loan Vote F.—“Forestry”, R13,900,000, and S.W.A. Vote No. 23—“Forestry”, R60,000:

Mr. Chairman, owing to certain practical considerations, we on this side of the House have had to restrict ourselves very considerably in regard to the discussions of this particular Vote. We have devoted a great deal of time to the Water Affairs Vote, and we think that that time was well justified. I think that the debate has proved that. We now come to, a Vote in regard to which we on this side of the House I have had to restrict ourselves. I shall be followed on this side by the hon. member for Mooi River, who will be dealing with certain aspects of this matter, but I want to come immediately to the question of what has now come to be known as the competition between the State and the private grower, particularly where pulpwood is concerned. The position is that from time to time there has been a surplus of pulpwood on the market consisting chiefly of conifer and pinewood. I do not mean a surplus of all pulpwood together, because the one species tends to upset the market for the other species. There is a relationship in price between the volume of the one species offered for sale and the volume of the other species offered for sale. It was the case in the past, and it has been the case from time to time, that the largest single grower of timber in South Africa is the State. To-day the private grower in the aggregate has a bigger acreage under timber, I understand, than the State has. But, as an individual grower, as one grower under one control, the State is still the biggest single grower.

I want to make an appeal to the hon. the Minister if necessary to re-think the whole of the position of the State in respect of forestry in South Africa. Because of the shortage of time, I cannot go over and traverse the work which the Department of Forestry has done in all the years since it started with its pilot plant and its pilot work in introducing seed from overseas, trying out strains, showing methods of thinning, training foresters and all the work that was done in the days when the private interests were small and the State was leading the way. The time has now come that in many respects that is past. Although I am not going to dwell on it, may I say that in one respect it is not, namely in the field of scientific research. Here again in research the professional man or scientist has a part to play which private forestry and the private farmer cannot undertake. The ordinary farmer, who is using his farm for the purpose of producing pulpwood on an eight, nine, or ten, or if it is patula, on a 13 or 14-year rotation, has made this his livelihood. He has gone in for forestry and followed the example set by the State. He hopes that he has learnt the lessons and, subject to all the vicissitudes such as fire and others that the farmer has to contend with, he makes his living out of the growing of that pulpwood.

I am leaving my hon. friend to deal presently with the woodlot farmer. I do not propose to deal with that myself, since the hon. member for Mooi River will deal with it. He will also deal with the statistics, which are absolutely vital. So I now keep myself clearly to the subject of the man who makes his living out of growing pulpwood. He grows his timber clear fells and sells his crop. He tries to do it on the basis of a proper rotation, so that he has an annual return coming in year after year—a sustained yield, as the foresters say— from his property. That man now finds the State competing with him. The number of processes of pulpwood in South Africa are very limited indeed and the State is big enough that, when it thins out its trees that are fit for pulpwood, particularly in the case of conifers, that is not its final crop, but it is an incidental to its final crop. The final crop itself is sawlogs, produced from much older trees or much bigger timber. What I want to appeal to the Minister to re-think, is the part which he and his department play in connection with the marketing and the control of the market of pulpwood, as far as the industry itself is concerned here in South Africa. I want to ask the hon. the Minister to look upon himself as merely the biggest grower of pulpwood and to co-operate in regard to price, markets and so forth in exactly the same way as we expect other growers to co-operate in the organization which has been established under the South African Timber Growers’ Association, or SATGA for short I want the Minister too to recognize SATGA There was a time in the past when the Minister said he was prepared to do that. He wanted everybody to join in; he wanted all the growers to come in and he wanted the end users to come in. SATGA was then to be the mouthpiece of the organization. I want to say to the Minister that his official recognition of SATGA as the mouthpiece for the timber industry in South Africa will in fact make of it the official mouthpiece. The reason why it is breaking down at the present time is because there are big people who feel it to be in their own personal interest to stand out. Now, if the Minister and his department are going to adopt the attitude of not wanting to recognize these breakaways but to recognize SATGA organized agriculture, the grower of pulpwood and, incidentally, of saw-logs although that is not my main object this afternoon—then we will get that central organization. Otherwise we shall have to look for something else by the way of legislation, and that kind of thing, and this is going to create a fresh bunch of troubles for all of us The ordinary coming together of people with like interests can suffice to bring us all together under the banner of SATGA. I want the Minister to say that the time has come when he as head of the department will bring in the State timber industry as a grower, albeit the biggest grower, so that it can sit around the table with other growers, and does not negotiate private agreements. What is happening is that the purchasers use the timber from State forests as a balancing factor. They fix their price and their quantities and if private suppliers look as though they are coming a bit onto the market, that there is a bit of a surplus, they turn round to the private grower and say “We do not want your timber”. Why? Because they can fill up with the surplus from the State forests and use that as a balancing factor. And the private growers find he is left with his timber. It is his livelihood. Consequently, what does he do? He drops his price so as to be able to sell. The market is very limited; S there are only a couple of factories three I think—to take it. They play their own game for a reduction in the price by using the State forests’ supply as the balancing factor. We could press for the State to tell us what the price is they get for their product and under what conditions it is sold. It is sold under tender, under conditions where, I understand the State does not want to give of that information. This is very, very difficult for the private grower. We are all in the same business together—we are all timber growers. The Minister can play a leading part establishment of the timber growing industry in South Africa on a very sound basis for the future, by coming into the picture as one of the suppliers and sit round the table with us to discuss the question: “What price are we going to ask for pulpwood? What is me demand from these factories?”. Statistics will show that in future and we can then get together and say this or that is a fair price which we as producers want for our timber The State playing its part as the major grower of that particular commodity. [Time expired]

The hon. member for South Coast has dealt with problems which arose within the timber industry itself. Although I do not want to follow him in dealing with that, I just want to point out that in spite of those problems the industry m South Africa has progressed, especially over the past decades, from a situation of virtual chaos and an unwillingness on the part of the conduction industry to give recognition to the South African timber industry, to the present stage where we are faced with minor problems only. For that reason it is no more than right for us to express gratitude for the special role the Department of Forestry has been playing in bringing about this situation. The quality and value of South African timber are accepted things to-day—thanks to the sustained endeavours of the Department. Thanks to the Forests Act which was passed a few years ago, we have now progressed to the Point were the Department can give us a clear picture of the scope and the future of the industry in South Africa. As far as this is concerned the industry still was on a very loose footing only a few years ago. To-day we are better able to plan ahead and to anticipate the demands for construction timber in particular, and to plan accordingly. To-day we are able to say where we are going to experience shortages of timber in future. In the knowledge that land tor afforestation is not becoming more. we should take a very serious look at what can still be done in this connection. The private sector, the private farmer, should enter more into the picture. I know the hon. member for South Coast will agree with this: indeed, in part it agrees with his argument. Included in the land which is still available for afforestation, is the land of private farmers, farmers who are not necessarily predominantly timber growers. Some of this land is unsuitable for agricultural purposes but is not unsuitable for purposes of afforestation. At the moment, however, this land is not being utilized. In view of our future requirements, a special task awaits the Department in this field, i.e. to motivate the private farmer by pointing out to him the advantages of using such land for afforestation, and not to do so in a haphazard way but in a systematic way and on the basis of the guidance which the Department can give. There is yet another restricting factor, and that is that the private farmer, before making a long-term investment, as forestry indeed is, thinks twice about the money he has to put into that investment and about the maintenance costs involved. Provision has been made for various methods of financing in the field of ordinary agriculture, but as far as afforestation is concerned, this is lagging behind. I feel there should be financial encouragement for the private farmer who has land which is suitable for afforestation.

I want to come to another aspect of the matter, one which is most closely associated with the task of the Department and with the role of forestry in South Africa. It concerns the question of training and coupled to that the question of extension, which is going to increase in importance. It, I almost feel like saying, shocked me when I discovered that the number of students who enrol for training in the science of forestry, timber technology and related subjects, had shown a rapid decline during the past two years. As against 20 first-year students who followed the degree course in forestry in 1966 and an increase to 22 in 1967, and a decrease to 20 in 1968, this figure decreased to 12 in 1969 and this year to a mere nine. This position obtained while infinitely greater tasks and responsibilities await not only the Department but forestry as a whole. It is estimated that 60 per cent of the trained students in forestry who followed the degree course are employed to-day by private industry and that approximately 40 per cent only go to the State. When one has regard to the fact what additional tasks the Department of Forestry has taken on itself this year in terms of the legislation we passed very recently. and what responsibilities it has taken on itself in respect of mountain catchment areas and nature conservation, etc., these figures must sound a warning somewhere.

It seems that our young men are not conscious enough of the importance of this Department and of this industry, and that many people. including parents, where they can help their children to choose a field of study, consider forestry as an industry in which a few people are engaged in felling trees. They do not realize that this industry concerns something which goes much further than a single processing industry. They do not realize that in fact concerns the question of beautifying our country: that it also concerns the conservation on of areas which are not at all afforested and that it concerns the conservation of nature and all related matters. When one investigates the reasons for the declining numbers, it appears that whereas other Government Departments and private employers who require the services of trained engineers, architects and quantity surveyors and other trained people, are able to find recruits or are at least doing better than the Department of Forestry, this Department is finding it difficult to get trained people. There must be another reason for this than mere ignorance of what a forestry career comprises. I think we must concede that there is a difference as far as conditions of service are concerned. The prospects of the man who qualifies himself in forestry are not as good as the prospects of the man who qualifies as an engineer for the other Department of the hon. the Minister, i.e. the Department of Water Affairs. This is the difference to which attention will have to be given by the Public Service Commission in order to maintain the balance, because if this trend is to continue and if a dramatic improvement does not come about in this regard, this fine and extremely important industry, as well as the Department itself, can be seriously affected in future. [Time expired.]

I feel that the hon. member for Stellenbosch may almost be forgiven for becoming most emotional, as he did, about the work of the Department of Forestry, because I feel that we have here a modest department which is doing a very great job of work for South Africa. As the hon. member has said, it is protecting not only the afforested areas but vast areas in South Africa which are not afforested but which nevertheless come under the control of the Department from the point of view of conservation and water management. Sir, I am becoming increasingly concerned as time goes on over the fact that this is a Department which, although it is supported by the taxpayer’s money is in active competition with the taxpayers in business. The hon. member for South Coast has made an appeal to the Minister to attempt to find some means whereby one can work the business activities of the Department of Forestry in with the private sector. The hon. member for Stellenbosch said that in the old days there was chaos in the timber industry, but my concern is that those days are coming again. I feel that there will again be chaos in the timber industry in South Africa unless it is possible to find some kind of rationalization between the various conflicting interests which are appearing to-day in the timber industry, one of which is the Department of Forestry. The other, as the hon. member for South Coast has said, is S.A.T.G.A., which represents the private growers, the small timber growers, because may I point out that S.A.T.G.A. also represents the S.A. Wattle Growers’ Union and also the timber cooperative movement, which is an increasingly important element in the marketing of timber in South Africa. More than a year ago when the hon. the Minister indicated that he was prepared to recognize S.A.T.G.A. as the mouthpiece of organized timber growers, S.A.T.G.A. spoke for the large growers who were themselves processors, as well as for the small private growers who were farmers, but since that time the development referred to by the hon. member for South Coast has come about where the large processor-growers have separated themselves from S.A.T.G.A. They attempted to reach some kind of solution to their problems within S.A.T.G.A., but not being able to do so they have now formed a group of their own, the S.A. Timber Producers’ Association. The complication arises when it comes to the fixing of prices for timber. Again I support what the hon. member for South Coast said, that we believe the private grower is the person who has the first right to consideration because the profit he makes on his timber growing is his only source of income. The larger growers who are processors derive their profit from the end product; they market their timber to themselves and they make a profit on the processed product which they sell out of their factories. They can cost their production backwards. But the private grower is entirely, or to a very great extent, limited for his Profit and his income to the amount of timber he can market. The matter has been complicated even further by an announcement the hon. the Minister made during the debate on water affairs when he told us here, in reply to my question, that the Mondi Mill is not going to go ahead, because this means now that there is an additional source of intake of timber which is now not going to be available to the timber grower. I appreciate that the hon. the Minister may have information which he does not want to divulge at this stage, but this mill was to have been situated in my constituency. Farms have been bought, and a friend of mine has the contract to build houses there to house the staff for the mill. I must say this is a most surprising announcement by the hon. the Minister. Whether he can say anything more about it I do not know, but I would be grateful if be could perhaps do so. But certainly I would like to ask the hon. the Minister to give some indication here to-day of what he now expects of the growers. What kind of organization is the Minister prepared to recognize? Because I think it is vitally important that the growers should be organized and I believe that the organization which should have recognition is that of the private small growers. I believe the Minister has got to do something and say something here to-day which will re-establish confidence in timber growing, because the separation between the S.A. Timber Growers’ Association and S.A.T.P.A. I believe, has been a very great blow to the private grower, because here you can see a powerful, organized and rich body of people separating themselves from the private growers and establishing a special interest of their own. I think this is something in regard to which the hon. the Minister has got to take some kind of steps. He has now got to convince the private sector in South Africa that it is possible to go in for timber growing and making a profit out of it. This brings me to have a look at the function which the Department and the Minister himself are going to have. The question of statistics was raised by the hon. member for South Coast and, of course, this is absolutely basic to the whole future of timber growing in South Africa. As I know everybody, the Minister, his Department and we on this side of the House, realize that until we have a set of statistics which will give some kind of reasonable forecast of the timber need in this country, we shall be talking in the dark and we shall not know what was going on. Certainly we were very pleased when the year before last the Forest Amendment Act provided that the Department should take the power to collect and to collate statistics. We will be interested to know from the hon. the Minister how this process is going ahead, because the Department can play the part of a co-ordinating factor in the timber industry, by means of the collation of statistics. They can play a co-ordinating part by matching supply to demand. I want to ask the hon. Minister whether steps are being taken to make a projection of the demand which will eventuate in the future, the supply which is available today and what is going to have to be done to meet the need in future.

I would also like to know what the Department itself is doing to encourage the private sector to come back into the timber industry from which I know a great number of farmers have moved out, specifically by reason of the collapse of the wattle industry in the past few years. The question is whether the Minister is prepared to give guide lines to the private sector as to the amount of planting which should take place, or whether unrestricted planting can be encouraged in South Africa. Can we simply say go ahead and plant every available acre which is suitable for forestry? Is that the Department’s policy and can the hon. the Minister safely advise us that that should be done? The Department to-day sits in the driving seat and there is no question about it. The hon. member for South Coast has put this matter quite squarely before the hon. the Minister. When it comes to negotiations as to the price of timber, the private sector through S.A.T.G.A. have attempted to fix a price which they believe is reasonable and which will meet the need of the members with a reasonable profit on their investment. On every single occasion the fact that the Department of Forestry had immense quantities of timber available, particularly of pulpwood, was hanging over their heads. This is a complicating factor, because it is not meshed into the negotiations. I appreciate the hon. the Minister’s problem and that of his Department. but surely in the interests of the timber growing public, the private farmer who is growing timber for a living, a way has to be found whereby the production of the farmer can be brought into the picture when it comes to negotiation of prices between the private growers and the large processor companies. I hope the hon. the Minister is going to have something to say about that when he gets an opportunity to reply. I say again the picture is simply complicated until the South African Timber Producers’ Association, the Department and S.A.T.G.A. can be brought together and can ensure the private grower of a reasonable return on his investment.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Mooi River broached a very important matter here, i.e. that of co-ordination between the Department and the private growers. I do not intend dealing with that matter, because I feel this is something to which the Minister can rightly reply this afternoon. However, the Department plays a major role in the timber industry. Also as far as price determination is concerned, and is therefore necessary that we should have very close coordination in future.

This afternoon I want to deal with the major role the Department of Forestry has, and is in fact fulfilling, in nature conservation. I have in mind such things, for example, as our fauna and the conservation and utilization of our flora, as well as making these things accessible to the public. In the first place I should like to refer in brief to the Mountain Catchment Areas Act which we passed here recently. This Act is going to play an important role in nature conservation in this country. The task which is now being entrusted to the Department, especially the determination of mountain catchment areas, is a major one. They have to determine which areas are mountain catchment areas and which require urgent attention. I want to express the hone that the Department will set about this task expeditiously, but on the other hand, that it will act with great care so that we may enlist the private owners as our allies in this very important task. Furthermore I want to express the hope that the department will act in such a way that it will get private bodies to co-operate in the very important task of zoning.

I also want to refer in brief to the very important work which has in recent times been done by the Department of Forestry in connection with our indigenous forests. A very strong staff position has been developed at the indigenous forest office in the Knysna-George area, which is doing a grand job of work in this field. Forestry stations were established at Saasveld, Diepwalle and in the Tsitsikamma. They have started the job of clearing away foreign Vegetation, so much so that it has been possible to utilize 350,000 cubic feet of timber. They have also commenced the compilation of tables to ascertain how much timber there is in the forest, and they have also compiled a handbook for the management of indigenous forests. I regard this as a very big step in the right direction. In addition they have started the collection of seeds of our indigenous trees and established a nursery. I believe we shall be able to renew our indigenous forests in this way. In addition, they established an herbarium of all varieties of plants in the forests, and this too was a major task. They have made a survey of all the indigenous animals and birds in those forests. It is interesting to note that there are 60 different varieties of birds in the Knysna forest. As a matter of interest, I want to give the names of a few of these birds. There is the red-breasted starling, the red-necked Francolin, the Cape parrot, the Knysna Loerie, the red-chested cuckoo, the barn owl, the Narina Trogon, the spotted yellow canary, the grey cuckoo shrike, the white-throated robin, the Knysna scrub warbler, and the paradise fly-catcher. I am reading out these names simply to point out the interesting and grand job of work they did.

An even more interesting aspect of these activities is the utilization of indigenous timber. I believe our indigenous timber will still have to play an important role in future. I have in mind our Government offices in particular. It is no longer necessary to-day to manufacture a solid stinkwood table and to boast with that. A layer of one-eighth or one-sixteenth of an inch can be pealed off and glued to cheaper wood. Then one can still boast with our indigenous timber.

The basic idea as far as I am concerned is that a forest should remain a forest. We must not destroy our forests. It hurts one when one drives in that area and sees private owners clearing an area of indigenous forest in order to grow something on that land. The time has arrived for us to see to these matters. I notice in the report of the Department that it is suggested that legislation should be introduced for proclaiming “reserved indigenous forests”. I want to support this idea very strongly. Then we shall be able to tell people: “That area is reserved and you have to preserve it, come what may”.

But there is also the recreational aspect of our indigenous forests. The staff took steps to provide picnic spots and camping spots and to make scenic paths through the forests. In order to promote mountain-climbing, firebreaks are being used and footpaths are being made. Mountain huts are also being erected. These things are not being done in competition with the other bodies which have to provide recreation, but it is only the Department of Forestry that can do these things in the right way. Therefore I welcome this. The developments in this field are all very well, but slowly but surely another great need is also emerging. I want to call it the conservation of wild life areas in our country. We see that in the U.S.A. areas are set aside to be left completely undisturbed, areas in which no man may ever set his foot. Our children should also be able to see how this part of the world once looked before people came here.

Hundreds of thousands of people visit such places just to go and see what they look like. I wonder whether the time has not arrived for us to set aside such areas completely, and to provide by legislation that no-one may interfere in any way with those areas. I mean by that that even national roads, Escom or any other body will not have the right to enter or mar such areas. I believe that if we do this we shall leave something for posterity. I should like to suggest to-day that legislation should be introduced to make provision for such wild life areas and to provide that only Parliament will have the right to control such areas.

I just want to refer in brief to a very important committee which already exists, the abbreviated name of which is NACOR. I think this committee is receiving too little attention altogether. This is a co-ordinating nature conservation committee constituted from the Departments of Water Affairs, of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure, of Forestry, of Agricultural Technical Services, of Bantu Administration and Development and of Commerce, as well as the divisions of Sea Fisheries and Nature Conservation of the various provinces, the Natal Parks Preservation Board and the National Parks Board. They serve under the chairmanship of Dr. Mönnig, the chairman of the Prime Minister’s Scientific Advisory Council. We can therefore see that this is a very important body. Their object is to promote nature conservation in general in South Africa, to endeavour by means of co-ordination to prevent overlapping in research projects relating to nature conservation, to offer assistance by means of co-operation to member institutions and to accept the autonomy of every member institution. I should like to emphasize this organization to-day, because I feel that this question of wild life areas is a task which can be entrusted to them. I should like to see them act in future in respect of our nature areas as the National Monuments Commission is acting to preserve places of historical interest. I therefore want to express the idea here this afternoon that we should be making far more use of this committee and that we should give them powers also as far as nature conservation is concerned. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, one does sometimes come across this phenomenon of the transference of thought. I must say in regard to the hon. member who has just sat down that he has really almost made the speech which I had ready in my mind when I stood up for the second time. I want to say how much I associate myself with what the hon. member has said. It expresses my own sentiments almost entirely. But I would like to say to him that, while he emphasizes the importance of wilderness areas and the principle thereof, if he cares to come along and have a word with me, I will arrange for him to go on a wilderness tour. We have already had them for eight years up in the Zululand game reserves.

Will you invite me?

Yes, certainly. Sir, I cannot imagine anything which would benefit the hon. member for Carletonville more.

And what about me?

Mr. Chairman, I am sure that the hon. member for Etosha would love to see a real river with water in it. If he comes on the wilderness tour we shall show him one. For eight years now we have been running these Wilderness Trails Tours in some of the northern Zululand game reserves. One tour goes around the Umfolozi Reserve. It covers an area where no roads are permitted for vehicular traffic at all. The whole of that area, some 40,000 or 50,000 acres in extent, is set aside for people who travel purely on foot. No party is more than six in number, because they have to be guarded. It is not a glorified zoo. It is a game reserve and the animals there are wild. These are lions, buffalo, rhino, both black and white, and so forth. The members of the party have to be on their guard. The man who goes with them, who is a white man, gives them the names of birds, flowers, trees and the short life history of the animals they meet. They spend three or four nights out in caves, or in the open, as the case may be.

Where is this?

These wilderness tours are in Umfolozi. These tours have been so successful that another organization, a private group, have started similar tours. Those people are not out to make a profit at all. It is a non-profitmaking organization. They are running what is called a leadership wilderness school. Ours is a wilderness tour and theirs is a leadership wilderness school. Their tours are mostly for young people of 18 to 20 years, from the towns. These tours have caught on to such an extent that I recently negotiated with the Government, through the appropriate channels, for visas for young folk from America. Young Americans are now coming out here. We have already had the first group. They have gone back with tremendous ethusiasm. We now have another group coming out from Britain. I am sure that they will return with the same enthusiasm. Sir, may I say that these people are now good friends of South Africa. They have come to look at what we have to offer in terms of wilderness.

I want to follow the appeal made by that hon. member earlier, that the Department of Forestry should go in for the multiple use of land, not only as regards our cultivated plantations, but also as far as our indigenous forests are concerned. That land should be make available as a playground not only for the people of South Africa, but also for people who come from overseas. As far as possible tourists and visitors should walk, although there are certain points where roads approach these areas. In our own wilderness areas elderly gentlemen, over 70 years of age, take part in day tours, according to their health and strength, and we find that they come back again. Younger people go on longer tours, from two to four days. The one tour is in the St. Lucia area. It starts from Chaka’s Creek, then goes across the lake into the dune forest on the other side, from there to Lake Vidal and then along the coast, finally to cross the lake again. Sir, these facilities are already there. The Minister and his officials have already been there. My appeal is that consideration should be given to this concept of a playground for the people of the Republic. Sir, we are building so many towns and we have already dealt with the question of the subdivision of agricultural land. Buildings are going up on good agricultural land. We are cutting up the land and using it for roads and railways. In these forests, always subject to adequate precautions against fire, we have one of the most wonderful playgrounds in the world.

It needs a certain amount of development and it should be done piecemeal. One cannot fly up the Drakensberg from the constituency of the hon. member right up to the Northern Transvaal border and think that one will be able to deal with all that in just one hit. That is quite impossible. In the case of the Natal Parks Board, we already have areas like the upper reaches of the Umkomaas. These are areas which the public know nothing about, although we are developing it very fast at the present moment. We hope to be able to allow the public to the Vergelegen Nature Reserve within the next year. We are building cottages for this purpose. We are also building a road for them to get there. In the middle of summer on the southern aspects of the high berg snow is still lying. People do not believe it. They think all the snow up in the Drakensberg melts in the summer. But on the southern aspects of the high berg at Vergelegen one can still see the masses of snow lying there. In the centre of the Elandsberg walks have been specifically devised so that people can go up to the natural forests in the kloofs, up the streams, up to the snow fields, to have a look at the animals and so forth. Many hundreds of people make use of this. However, no vehicles are allowed. Elderly people who cannot walk are taken to an outlook point by car or by jeep. There they can spend the day and enjoy the view and so forth. Then they are brought back to the camp. The possibilities are limitless. This development along the Drakensberg is something which I hope the hon. the Minister will apply his mind to. I, as a forester, know that we do not like to have too many picnickers and people coming into our plantations. I am one of those who do open my plantations for picknickers. They pinch all my little palm trees before they go anyway. However, that is something one has to provide for when one is dealing with public money and public occasions. You have to have your guards and you have to have proper control over these areas.

We have one of the finest playgrounds in the world. We want the concept to be accepted by the Minister because in the main it comes under him. The Bill we had before this House the other day dealing with the mountain catchment areas dovetails perfectly into this concept of South Africa’s playground, the mountains. We have the other playground down on the beaches, where the fish swim along in the sea, look at the beach and then say to each other: “Do you see all those sardines on the beach?”. That is what the fish say to each other because of the large numbers of people that are on the beach. We have to give them somewhere else to go. They are more than willing to go to those mountain areas. In the areas that we have already developed they, as I say, are going in their hundreds. However, this is only touching the fringe of it. The big man with the bit property and the big control is the Minister of Forestry. In front of the people’s eyes will be the lessons of conservation. They will see the springs coming out of the mountain because the vegetation has been conserved. They will see the pure water. They will see the natural forest. They will see what conservation means. They will see what it means to keep fire away from our veld and our forests. This will all be practical experience in front of their eyes. We should carry on with what has already been devised, and that is that you have a lecturer, a man who has been sufficiently trained and taught, to lecture the people there on what they have seen during the day and teach them the lessons that are to be learnt on conservation. Such a lecturer would point out to them that this is their South Africa and that they must look after it. If they had to buy it, it would be so valuable that they would care for it most carefully. But because they are getting it free, it seems to me that very often people think that it is of no particular importance. These lessons of the value of our South Africa to our own people, could be driven home night after night and day after day if once we developed that area adequately to allow not the dozens or the hundreds, but the thousands of people who will willingly go there when once the facilities are provided for them to be able to reach those places.

Mr. Chairman, I want to come back to the timber industry, and in this respect I want to refer to what the hon. member for South Coast said. He said: “The State is the largest timber grower”. I accept that the State is the largest planter of trees. But we should not blame the State for this, for the simple reason and fact, that as already mentioned by the hon. member for Stellenbosch, it is expected that we shall have a tremendous shortage of timber in this country within two or three decades. The present estimate is that theareas which have already been planted will be able to supply only half our needs by the end of the century. When we bear this in mind and must devise ways and means of planting trees more rapidly and of incorporating it in our normal farming activities, we must praise the State’s far-sightedness in this connection and its appreciation of the fact that it has to ensure that we are self-supporting in this respect and that we should therefore plant on a larger scale. At the moment the State has planted approximately 630,000 acres. Furthermore, the hon. member for South Coast spoke about the “competition between the State and the private grower”. He was followed by the hon. member for Mooi River, who said that “the State is in active competition with the taxpayer”. But surely this is not the truth of the matter. The State is the authority which provided stability and security to this industry at a time when real chaos prevailed. The State is pre-eminently the body which must ensure that we obtain a stable price level for our timber products in the future. I am convinced that the private grower has great confidence in the leadership provided by the State and in the direction which it indicates, and not only this—he also regards the State as his best partner in this undertaking. The State is in a better position than the private grower to indicate a direction and to ensure stable price levels and in this way to safeguard the grower against opportunistic price fluctuations. Since we are of the opinion that the private grower should plant more, we should perhaps think in the direction of a central insurance scheme. The Minister is probably aware of the great damage which was recently done in the Duiwelskloof area and that private grower there suffered damage amounting to R½ million or more. The existing insurance schemes offered by co-operative societies and other bodies, are uneconomical for the private grower. Furthermore, the cover is of such a nature that it is not a paying proposition and is inadequate, particularly for the private grower, because he does not go in for it on such a tremendous scale. I want to plead with the Department to consider introducing a central scheme, one which will be within the reach of the small grower as well.

In regard to the wattle-bark industry, I want to express my thanks to the Minister for the loan of R1½ million which was voted for the promotion of this industry. We are aware of the chaotic situation which prevailed in the wattle-bark industry in the 1960’s. We had approximately 900,000 acres under wattle-bark at that time. This completely exceeded the demand, especially because the market had collapsed after the Korean War. Since then, a tremendous area has been withdrawn from production in order to adjust the supply to the demand. I understand that at the moment the area under cultivation comprises 473,000 acres and that a further 39,000 acres are still due to be withdrawn. If this is done, it will still leave us with slightly more than 400,000 acres under wattle-bark. I have been informed that there is a demand for 350,000 acres, in other words, we are trying to achieve an approximate balance between demand and supply. It is still the position that the quotas issued represent about 64 per cent of the basic quotas. In other words, there is still a shrinking tendency. In this connection, I want to put the question—I shall be pleased if the hon. the Minister would provide some more information in this respect if it is at all possible— whether the need and the prospects existing at present, will be of a more or less constant nature from now on and whether stability has been achieved; secondly, in the light of that, what the Department’s view is in connection with further planting and in connection with further ire-establishment, seen in the light of the fact that there still are growers who are withdrawing their wattle-bark plantations because of this shrinking tendency which is noticeable. Another question which I should like to put, is this: I am aware that a marked rise in the price of wattle-bark has become noticeable. In this regard, I should like to know from the hon. the Minister how he sees the position here in view of competition from other countries and especially from Brazil, and whether we can expect that this rise in price will possibly continue.

Sir, I just want to mention one last thought, and this is in connection with the negotiability of the basic quotas. Growers who have become discouraged as a result of the recession have got rid of their basic quotas. They sold their quotas because they thought that the tree was off the market. These quotas were bought up by larger growers and manufacturers, with the result that, in my opinion, a slight monopolistic tendency is now beginning to arise. In this connection, I want to suggest that instead of granting permission for the basic quota to be negotiated, consideration should be given, in the interests of the growers themselves, to granting them permission to sell only the annual quota.

I would like to associate myself with what the hon. member for Ermelo has said about the wattle industry. I must say that it is nice to have a hon. member for Ermelo who understands something about forestry.

Sir, I would like to address myself to the hon. the Minister as far as the future of the wattle industry is concerned. I believe that the hon. the Minister owes it to the wattle-growing public to make some kind of statement as to the future of wattle, because to-day, with a quota of 64 per cent of the basic quota, the wattle industry—and I speak for Natal—is probably as depressed as it has ever been. The hon. the Minister’s Department had to make a loan to the Wattle Growers Union in order to persuade wattle growers to reestablish their wattle plantations just to bring them up to 100 per cent of their basic quota. Sir, it has happened in place after place that thousands; of acres of wattle have been ripped out in order to plant other crops, such as sugar, at tremendous capital cost. I am very worried that this may be a process which is going to continue, that the wattle farmers may be driven to take out more and more of their standing plantations until we reach a danger point from which the wattle industry may well not be able to recover. I stress again that it was the private farmer who built up the wattle industry in the first place, and that it is the privae grower whose position is in danger. The hon. member for Ermelo referred to the Department and said he thought the private grower had accepted the Department as a partner almost in the process of growing, but I want to tell the hon. member and the Minister that the private sector regards the Department of Forestry as a competitor. That is why I said what I did about the hon. the Minister coming to some agreement with the private sector when it comes to the question of fixing prices. It is not true to say that there is complete agreement between the Department and the private sector. That is the point I was trying to make.

It should be.

Yes, I agree. That is how it ought to be and I hope we might be able to reach that position. I wish to make a plea to the hon. the Minister to assist the private farmer—I have raised this question before in this House—to maintain his position in the timber growing industry by means of loans which can be made to the farmers at a reasonable rate of interest; and let me say straight out that I do not regard 7 per cent as being a reasonable rate of interest, not at the current cost of timber growing and in view of the very long-term crop which is planted. [Interjection.] I do not know much about the Land Bank rate, but I would be satisfied with about 3½ per cent. But if the Minister is going to make loans available, through what organization will those loans be made available to the farmers? It is a very real problem to the timber growing industry whether the loans should be made available through S.A.T.G.A. or by recommendation from S.A.T.G.A. to the Department, or through the timber co-operatives which handle the crops and which are therefore in a position to recover interest and repayment on the loans I wonder whether the hon. the Minister has considered this problem of making money available to the private sector. I want to reiterate that the price of land to-day is so high—and I am grateful that it is in this respect—that the large timber growing companies are no longer prepared to buy ground for afforestation. It is not economic for them to buy ground at to-day’s prices for afforestation. If we are going to meet the future needs of timber in this country, it is the private sector which will have to be encouraged by the Minister and his Department to come back into the timber industry and to plant the areas—what has been referred to as the wood lot farmer. On every single farm there are areas of ground which are available for afforestation in that they are not suitable for agriculture and might not be the best grazing, but often enough they are expensive portions of ground to develop because they are either well away from the homestead or they are on difficult and rocky ground. It is not simply a question of planting trees; it is the exploitation which is important and if farmers are to be encouraged, the whole process of planting, the planting itself and the exploitation and the road making and all those things must be taken into consideration; and any loan made by the Minister must be on sufficient scale to encourage a person to do this on a worthwhile scale on his own farm. I believe that the Department could establish a minimum area which is going to make it worth while, and the Department then has to move out into the farming community to recapture the interest of the farming community in timber growing. Because I am convinced in my own mind that the farming community to-day are beginning to turn their backs on timber growing because they are not persuaded to-day that it can be done profitably. I believe the national interest demands that we should have adequate production of timber here in our own country. There is the question of the role played by the export of timber. What part is export to play in the timber industry in South Africa? The hon. the Minister has heard of the negotiations which are going on between the wattle growers and the Japanese in relation to a chipmill in Natal which will lead to the investment of R10 million, in a mill which will now have a guaranteed export market to Japan at a price for wattle timber which is substantially above the local price. It is obvious that any move of this nature will have a profound effect on the whole cost structure of timber growing in South Africa. Now the question is whether the hon. the Minister can deny to the wattle growers this opportunity of expanding their market. Can he be satisfied that there is enough timber in South Africa which will allow the export market to go ahead and at the same time to meet the local demand? At the same time, can he then arrange or fix a price in South Africa which is going to satisfy not only the exporters, but also the people who are selling on the local market? Could he arrange that the public sector and the private sector could have a fair share in this market or could he arrange that the private sector should have their export market exclusively to themselves and that the public sector should be satisfied with the less remunerative market, namely the local market in South Africa? I believe it is important that we should know how this Department sees the export of timber. The hon. member for Ermelo, who has just sat down, stated that with our present planting we cannot possibly fulfil the need for timber in this country. The fact is that the prices of timber in this country are being held down below the world level. By going out to the world and by reaching out to a mill of this nature, the price level in this country is going to be forced up. I think it will be very hard indeed if the timber growers in South Africa were to be denied the opportunity by any kind of administrative action which might be taken by the hon. the Minister and his Department, to be able to raise the price of this product. I wonder whether a survey has been made by the Department of the ground which is available for afforestation. The hon. the Minister has been doing surveys of the area which we mentioned last night, the catchment control areas, and one wonders whether these areas will show up additional areas of ground which are suitable for afforestation. I believe a survey of this nature is basic to the proper planning of afforestation in South Africa. I believe it has to be done on a planned basis. I think a survey has to be undertaken of the high rainfall areas in order to determine where afforestation is practicable, by whom the ground is owned and under what conditions those people are prepared to afforest those areas. Then I also want to mention the provision of low interest funds which could enable them to get on with the job of planting. It is a question of extension work. Sometimes I feel we have a department which knows a tremendous amount about afforestation and the exploitation and the working of forests and this type of thing but it seems that there is a gap between the private grower and the Department. I think they should be meshed together; that to my mind in vitally important for the future of the forest industry here in South Africa. Then there is a point mentioned by the hon. member for South Coast which I should like to follow up. It is in regard to the question of recreation in the mountain areas. It has come to my attention that there is a considerable demand in this country for people who want to go skiing. It may sound an odd thing that we in South Africa should be providing recreational areas where people could go skiing. But I know the hon. the Minister was standing on the top of the Matroosberg the other day. There we have a magnificent place for skiing. There must be dozens of places in South Africa which are under the control of the hon. the Minister and his Department where such a venture could be undertaken. I assure the hon. the Minister that there is a very big demand for that; there are thousands of people in South Africa who fly overseas every year to avail themselves of the snow overseas. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I have been following the argument of the hon. member for Mooi River, and the position unfortunately is that his argument concerns a matter on which I agree with him. Initially I felt somewhat concerned about the fact that we agree on a matter, but I believe that that hon. member, too, has moments of clarity of thought during which he says sensible things. In that case I shall agree with him on certain matters.

You are beginning to see the light.

If the hon. member continues in that way, he will eventually see the true light and find himself on this side of the House, that is, if he can find a seat and provided we allow him on this side. The hon. member for Mooi River advanced the argument that the Department should not compete with private forestry undertakings, and I agree wholeheartedly with him. On the other hand we cannot argue that the Department of Forestry, particularly our State sawmills, does not have a very important function to fulfil in our country. In this regard in particular, the Department is rendering a very special service to the farming community of South Africa. It is a fact that the production costs of boxes for the packing of agricultural products have increased by approximately 33 per cent since 1965. We also notice that during the same period the price charged by State sawmills for box shooks increased by approximately 11 per cent only. What this really amounts to is that this very important production item for farmers is in fact being subsidized by the State, if one may put it like that. What is more, when there is a shortage of trays and particularly tomato trays, we again turn to the State sawmills and ask them to supply our farmers with trays. We do this since we cannot bring pressure to bear on private sawmills to saw box shooks for us. I think cognisance ought to be taken of the fact that in 1969-’70, from October last year to March this year, an additional number of 1.85 million boxes were sawn for farmers. I think the fact that the Department did this, deserves the sincere thanks and gratitude of our entire farming community. In fact, they are grateful for that. We should also like to thank the Minister in particular, because he really is he man who gave the instruction that there should not be a shortage of boxes in our country.

The point about which the hon. member for Mooi River and I agree is the question of aid to the private bona fide timber producer. In this regard I particularly have in mind also farmers who are in the process of diversifying their farming operations and including forestry as another ramification of their farming operations. I feel that financial aid should be granted to them. One cannot produce specific figures in this regard, but one can say in general that the increase in the consumption of timber is 9 per cent, whereas the increase in production is only 5 per cent in our country. In other words, consumption is completely outstripping production. Furthermore it is also true that we still have to import 2.5 million cubic feet of timber at this stage. Therefore we shall have to make provision in future for further and increased afforestation in our country. The second fact is that our local timber is approximately 10 per cent cheaper in general than equivalent imported timber. In other words, from an economic point of view it is a perfectly sound principle for us to produce more timber as we can in any event produce it at a cheaper price than that of the imported product.

Then it is also a fact that there is land to-day which is not suitable for agricultural purposes and which is not being utilized for anything at all. In addition there is other marginal agricultural land which may fruitfully be afforested. The question here is one of the necessary development capital for establishing those plantations. As a matter of interest I want to mention that only 20 per cent of our timber is being produced by 80 per cent of our growers. In other words, four-fifths of our growers produce only one-fifth of our timber and the other four-fifths of our timber is being produced by only one-fifth of the growers. Therefore there is quite a number of small timber producers in our country. The question now is why they require special aid. The facts of the matter are that the existing structure of financing, especially of our agricultural industry, does not lend itself to rendering effective aid to these people and to stimulating them to increase afforestation. The reason for this is that their entire development programme does not rest on a one-year basis but normally on a 15-year basis. Furthermore, the high rates of interest are completely unrealistic, because they have to draw their money for this purpose from the private capital market. Now we have the position that there are many bona fide timber producers who do have the land available but who do not have the development capital. Mr. Chairman, I have consulted a table in this regard in which, in my opinion, a very realistic calculation has been made. What it shows, for example, is that in the case of pine pulp the gross standing value of a plantation is R500 per morgen after a period of 15 years. But if one takes into account the establishment costs, the capital costs, the activities during the different years and the annual running expenditure, and one has to borrow that development capital at the current market rate of interest of 10 per cent, it means that expenses on that plantation will amount to R515,70 after 15 years, which means that one is in fact heading for a loss of R15.50 if one his to pay 10 per cent interest on the development capital. If those funds are available at 4 per cent interest, the expenses will amount to R276 after fifteen years, which leaves a net revenue of R223 over a period of 15 years. if we now take the value of the land of that farmer at R60 per morgen and if development capital could have been borrowed at 4 per cent. the compound rate of interest which that farmer would earn on the capital investment in land would be 10.9 per cent, whereas if he had to borrow the development capital at 10 per cent, it would amount to a loss of 0.6 per cent interest. If forestry and any private undertaking has to be encouraged to afforest, we should have regard to the fact that this is a long term investment. It is also a type of farming which makes many demands on man as such during the dry times of the year. At those times he has to stay at home all the time and be on the look-out for fires. It is a business which demands a great deal of trouble and hardship on the part of that entrepreneur. In view of the fact that we are heading for a shortage of timber and that our internal timber prices compare favourably with prices of imported timber, I believe that we should give aid to the bona fide timber producer and the bona fide farmer who wants to diversify his farming operations so as to include timber growing as one of the ramifications of his undertaking. As we have seen from this calculation, a farmer cannot really set out on such an undertaking if his funds are not sufficient. I do not like to venture into the field of figures, but if he cannot obtain development capital at a rate of interest between 4 and 5 per cent, this will not be possible. Otherwise the return on his capital investment, i.e. land which has been taken at a low figure for the purpose of this calculation, i.e. at R60 per morgen, will not be economic for him.

Mr. Chairman, it is interesting that we are able to hold a discussion to-day in this House on forestry, and such a variety of problems, bearing in mind that the forestry industry is really unique in South Africa, and probably in the world, in this sense that it is an industry which has been established over the past 40 to 50 years. It was established in South Africa because there was at the time a need for the timber production which this country could not produce. To-day we have almost reached a stage where we can supply our own needs in an industry which was built up by human hands: for trees which are being exploited today. first had to be planted. This is not true of other parts of the world. What we have available here to-day in terms of production supplied, is timber which is being produced on 2.55 million acres. This is an enormous industry, not only in total extent, but also in complexity. What happened here to-day was that representations from various members on both sides of the House were made in respect of some problem or other which has in the meantime grown into a very great problem. If I were now to return to and try to deal with the problems as the hon. members presented them, it would take time and might also be difficult to view in their correct perspective. That is why I would preferably try to present the House with a reply to what was said here, and the problems mentioned here, by way of a summarized survey.

South Africa has, in the forestry industry, been faced for quite a number of years now with the kind of problem with which it has to deal to-day. What are these problems? Let me try to enumerate them as they were mentioned in the House to-day. The first is a problem of the people who are concerned with the production, i.e. the large number of timber growers, planters and producers, both small and large. It is interesting to know that during the past ten years there has been a decrease in the number of people producing timber. There was a decrease of 1,200 producers. Six hundred of the 1,200 were in Zululand and Natal alone, apparently as a result of the decline in the wattle-bark industry. But there are still a very large number of people in this industry. I want to say that forestry is very closely allied to the agricultural industry. In point of fact, we can say that it forms part of the agricultural industry, although it is not regarded or organized as such. Nor does forestry receive the financial and other recognition which the agricultural industry has, but these are also people who are farming and making their livelihood from what they take from the soil. It differs from the agricultural industry in this sense, however, that it is probably the most unorganized industry in the country. I want to postulate to-day that the forestry industry is experiencing major problems precisely because it is so unorganized and because the people involved in it have over the years—I do not want to go into the reasons now—not yet learnt to co-operate with each other and to sit together in an organization representing various interest groups and work out their own salvation. That is one of the problems. I want to say that the problem of marketing, the second problem, is in fact a problem of the fear, on the one hand, of the small producers for the major producers, who supply a major percentage of the timber. There is still a third factor, i.e. that the State itself is also a producer here. That complicates matters, because there is the fear on the one hand that the State will play a role which is not protective towards the small grower. If this is what the small grower thinks, then I cannot blame him for doing so. If I were a small grower I would probably have had the same fear and would have wanted to know why the State is doing it in this way and whether the State is not perhaps. competing illegitimately. I want to add to that, however, that I do not think the State is competing illegitimately. I think the role which the State has been playing up to now has been a legitimate role. But let us leave it at that for the moment. I broached the matter only with a view to my argument.

On the one hand therefore there is the fear of the small producer that in the strong competition in the marketing of his timber, because he is small or unorganized, he may not perhaps be able to bargain for the price to which he is entitled the other hand, there is the legitimate fear. as a result of the increase in the size of the major companies which both produce and process timber, that these people could play a role which would have the wrong and a damaging effect on the position of the small grower. I must say that I would reproach myself if I, as Minister of Forestry, were deliberately to allow this to happen. I want to give the assurance that this House may take me to task for not having done my duty on the day those fears are realized.

We are saddled now with the problem that both the small and the large timber producers are unorganized. They had an organization with the name of the South African Timber Growers Association, or S.A.T.G.A., to which reference was made, in which members were not able to reach agreement very easily either. I addressed the wood growers myself. Maybe I should quote to the hon. member for Mooi River a passage from my speech which I delivered when I opened their congress in Pietermaritzburg the other day. I said the following—

Furthermore I said—

I adopted this attitude because my personal feeling is that a good deal of the difficulty exists because the small grower himself cannot get his own people organized into one organization. On a previous occasion I warned them and urged them to make use of the co-operative movement to organize the small growers. I do not know whether this is the reason, but there seems quite simply to be a lack of confidence or. co-operation. Whether this is as a result of the fact that the co-operative movement is an unknown quantity to the people concerned in forestry, I do not know. I cannot understand why they do not act in concert to a greater extent. Now it is of no use my saying here that this is the position and that there is nothing I can do about it. I realize very well that something must be done. On the one hand the forestry industry, the grower, must be protected. The grower is entitled to protection. On the other hand there are problems in regard to marketing. Thirdly, there are problems in regard to the organization machine of the organization to which the growers belong. It may perhaps in future be overseas marketing, and it may also perhaps be domestic marketing. But apart from that there are technical problems in the industry of which the grower must also take cognisance. I have on occasion warned that the obvious way would probably be to do what the people are asking should be done. But they do not want to accept the methods. My method could simply be to exercise control by means of a control board, and then to control marketing in this manner. But there is strong opposition in this connection. Draft legislation was drawn up. I circulated the draft legislation among these people and told them that this was the way in which control would be exercised and that they should consider it. But they were all rebellious. But it was, however, a warning that if the industry could not keep its own house in order, the legislation which would introduce order, would read as follows. In the meantime I addressed the growers in Pietermaritzburg and told them that if legislation were not to be introduced in terms of which marketing could be controlled, the alternative would be a body on which the various sectors within the industry could meet so that they could discuss their problems there and then furnish the Minister with balanced advice. After all, we cannot leave the situation as it is. In other words, this forum must then be the mouthpiece of the industry, after it has tried to set its own affairs straight, and must then not only advise the Minister, but must also serve as medium through which the Minister can negotiate with the industry itself in regard to his own problems. That is why I announced that I would establish a Forestry Advisory Council. The establishment of this Forestry Advisory Council was discussed and an indication was also given to the industry itself in this connection. I want to inform hon. members that I have just established this Council, and have also appointed its members. I have also been informed that the members appointed have accepted their appointment I shall attend the first sitting of the Forestry Advisory Council and open it myself. I shall then hold discussions with the members so that there can be no misunderstanding in regard to what they ought to do and what their functions will be. I hope that the establishment of this advisory council will cause quite a number of the fears expressed here to-day on both sides of the House to fall away. It is of no use hon. members on the opposite side, and also on my own side, putting questions to me on certain problems which apply within the industry if we cannot reply properly to those questions, because these problems will not be solved until such time as we have a central forum where we can discuss these problems with each other. Arising out of this there are quite a number of matters which I want to mention in passing, in reply to questions which were put to me by the hon. member for South Coast, and also by the hon. member for Mooi River. Sir, I shall return to the Advisory Council, but allow me first to make a few remarks in regard to the industry. Over and above the important step which has now been taken, i.e. the establishment of a council, as a result of which people engaged in the industry can now for the first time meet to discuss their problems, there is a second important fact which we must also see in its correct perspective, and that is the provision in the Forestry Act that proper statistics in regard to the industry must be kept by the industry itself before anything else can be done. Hon. members will be aware that the Department sent out questionnaires, questionnaires which were very comprehensive and which covered the entire industry very well. These questionnaires must be completed by everyone and the particulars will then be processed by the Department with a view to obtaining a picture of precisely what the industry looks like from within, and what the growth tendencies of the various sectors are. I can inform hon. members that the first results of this have already been processed; it is already being printed and hon. members will, it is hoped, have the benefit of this within a week or so when it comes back from the printers; it is almost finished. If this Vote had come up for discussion a week later, the information would have been at the disposal of all members. But, Sir, I know what some of the results are and I should like to mention a few of them. When I talk about growth tendencies, then I want to say to hon. members that as far as the utilization of timber in South Africa is concerned, the position is as follows: In 1950 80 million cubic feet of timber, that is, not sawn timber, but timber as it comes from the plantation, was used in this country. Sir, that utilization has increased to 285 million cubic feet. It is expected that the utilization in 1972 will be 361 million. In other words, there has been a tremendous increase; the curve is going up so rapidly that it indicates one thing only and that is that we are going to encounter shortages which are just around the comer. But let us go further and see what we have at the moment under plantation. At the moment we have a total of 2.55 million acres under plantation in the country. As far as this matter is concerned, there has during the past number of years been very little growth. There has been an increase of only 125,000 acres. In the years which lie ahead up to 1972 it is planned that there will be an additional quantity of 248,000 acres. The growth rate of the increase in plantation surface area has been 5 per cent during the past ten years, but the growth rate in utilization has been 6 per cent; it is 11½ per cent this year, and in the next year or two it will be a little less than 11½ per cent, but it will still be in the order of 7, 8 or 9 per cent. What does that indicate? It indicates that the surface area which has been planted is in fact increasing, but is not, on the other hand, increasing to the same extent as the demand. Having told you this, I come again to the point mentioned by the hon. member for Mooi River. The hon. member put the question a moment ago. He said he was also aware that uncontrolled expansion could not be allowed, but what is the tendency? Where is it heading? The hon. member said that they were themselves aware that a limit would have to be set somewhere and they were themselves apprehensive and wanted to know where South Africa’s future supply of timber was going to come from. On the one hand it is true that we must prevent certain areas from becoming afforested. Hon. members themselves passed the act here which provides that there must be catchment areas which will be protected for the sake of the water resources, but on the other hand there must also be timber. We believe that there are certain parts of the country where preference should be given to the production of timber. I want to say that although there is an apparent conflict of interests between the protection of water resources on the one hand and the demand for timber on the other, and also the third factor of a demand for land, because agriculture is as jealous of retaining the land as agricultural land and not for afforestation, I want to tell you that we can only strike a balance if we give proper consideration to future projections, and also demarcate and allocate those areas of South Africa which should be allocated for timber. There must be such areas, and there are such areas. In other words, our task in future must in addition not only be to determine where South Africa’s water should come from, but also to determine where South Africa should get its timber from in future, the timber which it needs so badly for the maintenance of its industries.

But when we talk about the available timber, I want to give another indication as well, and that is the production of woodpulp. The production of woodpulp is the greatest timber production at the moment because these are large volumes which are being taken in by the factories. As far as woodpulp production is concerned, I can inform you that the production of conifer woodpulp was approximately 1.32 million tons per year. Of this quantity the private sector—this will interest the two hon. members from Natal—produced 81 per cent and the State 19 per cent. I want to say that as far as the production of hard timber was concerned, the woodpulp production was 1.86 million tons, and the quantity produced by the State, is something in the order of 34,600 tons. What does this indicate? What does the 34,600 tons indicate? In addition to that I may just mention the following figure. When I speak of a 19 per cent production of conifer woodpulp, I must say that as far as the surface area which is planted with conifer timber is concerned, the State owns 57 per cent. However, the State only produces 19 per cent of the woodpulp. Thus, the role played by the State is not such a predominant role. That is what the statistics now show us. Therefore we cannot level the accusation that the State is playing an improper role in this process. The position is in fact that when it comes to timber production, the State has always stood back so that the private sector was able to supply what it could. This has been our policy and remains our policy, precisely because we do not want the reproach levelled at us that the State itself climbs in first so that it can skim off the cream. When I say these things it is my intention to arrive at the point made by the hon. member, and that is the role which the State in general must play in this industry.

Before I come to that, I must, however, mention another figure, which will interest hon. members. This is in connection with the general production of timber. The statistics which will shortly be made available to hon. members indicate that the private sector, as far as timber production is concerned, was unable to market only 3.5 ptr cent of its available yield from the plantations. I am pleased to be able to supply this figure, and that is why I am mentioning what we should now do. If we have on the one hand the fear of the small grower in the private sector that the large grower is going to eliminate him, and if the question should crop up as to what the State is still doing in this industry, and we look at the statistics, I find in them an indication of one thing only and that is that there should be a forum where all the interested parties can meet and discuss matters, and where they can, on the basis of these figures, come forward with advice. That is why I want to say to the hon. member for South Coast and to the hon. member for Mooi River that, as I see the situation ahead, the creation of the Forestry Advisory Council is the first step which will, for the next few years, present an opportunity of indicating where we are going. When the Council then comes forward with its advice, that is time enough to decide on a second step. That will be whether it will then be necessary to introduce controlling legislation for the marketing of timber. I think that once we have established this basis there need to be no fear that an industry will be left suspended in the air and that internally it will be at cross purposes, and that it will be unable to pick up the threads itself and set it own house in order. Having said this, I still want to give some good advice, which is that I think that the small growers should organize themselves as well as they are able. I think they must do this, and I think hon. members can use their influence to this end because this affects in particular those people who are living in their part of the world. They must encourage them to become members of that organization. If they are members of their organization and they have this forum then it will be possible for us to discuss matters with each other to much better effect in future than we were able to discuss matters with each other in the past.

Would the Department be bound by the advice it gets from the Advisory Council?

When I mention this Advisory Council, I just want to say that it will consist of 12 members. Nine of the 12 members will be people chosen on their own merits from the private sector. They will represent all sectors of the private sector in the timber industry. In addition, there will be three members from the Department.

And consumers?

Yes, they too. I have tried to constitute this Council in as balanced a way as possible. Of course, I am not obliged to follow the recommendations of an advisory council, but I would be very stupid if I established a council and then ignored it.

†I do not intend to do that. I believe that if we can establish the position where this Board will get the co-operation of all the various sectors and the Department, it will be the first step in the direction as indicated by the hon. members for South Coast and for Mooi River. I think we should give it an opportunity to see how it works for at least two to three years.

*So much therefore as far as the set-up of the industry itself is concerned and the problems arising out of the debate in regard to the co-operation of the various sectors in the industry. I do not think we must go any further than that now. We must first give this Council a chance. Between now and then we will have nine months’ time and hon. members will then be able to advise me in this House on the possibilities of the continued existence of this system. I should like to hear what hon. members have to say about this.

As regards the future of the industry, I want to return to the question put inter alia by the hon. member for Ermelo and also indicated by the hon. member for Stellenbosch. They asked what the future of the timber industry in general as well as the wattle industry in South Africa is. As far as the wattle industry is concerned, what the hon. member for Ermelo said was quite correct, i.e. that as far as surface area is concerned this industry has in fact deteriorated. At present there are only approximately 473 morgen under wattle, and there are indications that even more land will be withdrawn from this industry. Originally there were approximately 900 morgen under wattle. I do not, however, think that the industry will become smaller than this, and I think that we have now passed the turning point. There are a few reasons why I think so. The people who have remained on in the industry, are the better producers. Secondly, I think that the difficulties which arose in regard to marketing in recent times, are also something of the past. What were these difficulties? In the world market where our wattle-bark extract is sold, problems arose when Brazil placed large quantities of wattle-bark extract on the market. They disrupted the whole market and cause many people to withdraw from the industry. There are other reasons as well why they withdrew, but this was one of the most important. Our information is, however, that the wattle industry will recover in future. Brazil did not market its supplies gradually, but threw all its supplies into the market in one go, and has now exhausted its supplies so that for at least the next ten years they can be left out of the reckoning. This will make a very big difference. The recovery which was mentioned took place precisely as a result of the decreasing supplies which are available and the consequent improvement of the market. Hon. members will therefore realize why I was so eager to assist the farmers in this industry by making available to them a loan of R1½ million. This will afford them an opportunity, when they have to market their accumulated supplies again, of not being forced to do so: they will be able to do so gradually and it will thus be possible to avoid problems. I think that if we have coped with this difficult situation, the position will change completely. Then we will have a situation in South Africa where the demand will be of such a nature that we would do well not to diminish our supplies further at present but to retain those plantations. I am not saying that the industry should be expanded to any extent, but the existing plantations must at least be retained, because South Africa can play a major role in the wattle-bark market by stabilizing what it now has available, and remaining in the market in future. I therefore want to request the industry not to take fright now and diminish its supplies further. They must retain what they have, because I think there is a great future for farmers who still have their plantations. With the general statements which I have now made, instead of replying to individual questions I think I have in fact replied to better effect. I think this survey is an elucidation of the entire course of events which gave rise to the questions which hon. members put.

Then there are a few other matters to which I should like to return. One of the matters is the one mentioned by the hon. member for Humansdorp. and also by the hon. member for South Coast. I know that the hon. member for South Coast is very interested in this subject of conservation areas. The hon. member for Humansdorp expressed the idea that we should have, maintain and protect for the future wilderness areas. What he had in mind are those areas which should exist only in their natural state, which will not be encroached upon or traversed by power lines. roads, etc. I agree with the hon. member. I want to tell him that we even have further legislation in mind in this connection. But because I do not. want to anticipate it. and because I do not know whether the House is ever going to accept it, I do not want to say what we want to do. I can at this stage express only my own opinion. I think that the line of thought of that hon. member, as supplemented by the hon. member for South Coast, was entirely correct. We must in South Africa have certain areas which we can preserve for posterity as the Creator created them. We do have such areas. We ought to protect them. I think we owe it to the country. That is why I agree with the hon. gentlemen who discussed that matter.

But I want to go further and come to the hon. members who spoke about our forest areas available for multiple use. I think that is what the hon. member for South Coast called it.

For multiple use, yes.

I fully agree with the hon. member. It is the intention of the Department of Water Affairs to administer the various forestry areas with the view to making it available for multiple use.

*Then a very important matter was touched upon, one which is dear to my heart.

I wonder if the hon. the Minister could correct something. He said it is to be administered by the Department of Water Affairs. Should it not be the Department of Forestry?

I am sorry. That is correct. The matter to which I want to refer, is one which was raised by the hon. member for Stellenbosch. It deals with research. It deals with the availability of people to undertake important research. We are living in an age in which research has become of fundamental importance, in virtually all spheres. But in South Africa research has become, relatively speaking, even more important. For the Department of Forestry, research is of the same fundamental importance as it can be for any other Department which has a key value in this country. Hon. members know that our research is not only being done by the C.S I.R., but also by our Department, as well as by the University of Stellenbosch which is also doing research through its faculty of Forestry. These are our three important interested parties to-day; the University which is doing research and training people, our own Department which deals with the administration of the industry, and the C.S.I.R. which has a specific commission in this connection. I think that as the need arises we must meet it. I have the greatest respect for the work which is being done by these bodies, particularly by the only faculty of forestry we have in this country, i.e. the one at Stellenbosch. I have on occasion also informed them that, if there should he any hitches in their own programme, we will be only too willing to help them wherever we can. We have done this in the past, and we shall also do so again in future.

But apart from the research which is being done by these bodies, there is wealth of knowledge available in the outside world. I want to inform hon. members that as far as forest management is concerned there is not much the outside world can teach us. I think we can teach them far more than they can teach us because, Sir, you must remember that this is a country where we first planted and then harvested the product. In other parts of the world they are still engaged for the most part in exploiting and removing what nature herself made available. In other words, as far as this technique of the management of a forestry industry is concerned, South Africa is actually a leader in its field. But it is also cooperating well with other countries. But it is in the sphere of forestry products that research has become of fundamental importance. If hon. members were to think back over the past five to ten years, they would know how many new directions have originated in the industry. It is only recently that South Africa began to become a paper manufacturer. We have also become a manufacturer of nylon and its by-products made of wood. We are even doing research into the construction of houses. There is a great deal of research in this connection and everything which goes with it. We are doing research in regard to the improvement of timber and there are quite a number of allied problems attached to this. Research is playing an increasingly greater role here: (a) as regards the increased production per unit of land which we have planted; (b) as regards the increased reclamation per unit of timber which we take in; and (c) with a view to a longer life for the timber product which we eventually manufacture. I also find it a cause for concern that the University of Stellenbosch has, during the two or three years, found that there has been a smaller influx of people to that faculty wanting to be trained as scientists. I want to say on this occasion I hope what I want to say is heeded—that if ever there was a fine career for a young man, then it is a career in the Department of Forestry or in the forestry industry in general. It is close to nature and it provides satisfaction for the soul for those who want to lead such a life. It is among the best creative work in South Africa. That is why I think it is a fine industry to which more attention should be given. I hope that greater emphasis will in future be placed on this career so that this career will be known as one of the more attractive careers which are available in South Africa. It is a fact to-day that we have wonderfully beautiful plants and trees in this country, and yet are making so little of them. This phenomenon is in fact a reproach to us all. I asked my Department why it should not give every school in South Africa a present consisting of all the various kinds of trees so that our own indigenous trees can be planted in our school gardens annd school grounds throughout South Africa? That offer I make to every school in the Republic of South Africa.

Hear, hear!

I think that when this is done, a greater love for and an increased knowledge of these things will develop. The Department will subsequently follow this up in a way which still has to be decided on. I am simply mentioning this in passing.

We are grateful to-day that the industry has grown as it has in fact grown. We have every confidence in its future development. But then it is also important that we do something else as well. This is, namely, to get those who are not in the industry into it and those who were there and who left, to return. I return to the suggestion by the hon. member for Mooi River. That hon. member made a suggestion in regard to the small forester, whom he called the “wood lot planter” I can say that we have already thought in this direction and that considerable progress has been made in this sphere. I think there are a large number of our agricultural units in South Africa where there is land, boundary land or pieces which can be set aside for this purpose. There each farmer will be able to build up a reserve for himself on his farm. This will increase the value of the farm and serve as a source of future as income. Trees must be planted where they ought to be planted. This cannot be done throughout the entire country. This can only be in areas which have been indicated for such purposes. Negotiations in regard to how this should happen have not yet been finalized. We are at present engaged in this. Perhaps when we return next year we can report further on this matter to the House. As far as I am concerned, I think that we can in fact make the necessary financing available. I also think that I should furnish this House with advice on how this should take place and in what areas it ought to be done. You could imagine what the position would be if we had a few thousand farmers in South Africa each planting a quantity of trees on his farm, sufficient to make it worth while, not only for them, but also for South Africa. This will ensure a large quantity of additional timber for the future. I could just indicate to you the guiding lines and inform the House what we think and feel about this matter. I cannot go further than that, but would very much like to do so as soon as we have made more progress with our negotiations in this connection. We are thinking about this, and are already doing something about it. I can inform the hon. member that I hope that as soon as we proceed to do this, we will also have the cooperation of a large number of the farmers.

Now I want to say something to my colleagues on this side of the House, particularly to those members who have something to do with agriculture and who represent our agricultural districts. If we can tackle the question of tree plantations on our farms which although small are nevertheless worthwhile for the farmer—these can be planted with state assistance and can be left to grow for posterity —we will reach a point where we will give this sector of agriculture greater stability than we have at present. There will come a time when it will be absolutely essential for a farmer to have a 100 or 200 morgen of forest, which can be filled and which will be worth R50,000 or R100,000. I think this will come. We will of course have to do this in a well-organized way, so that it does not get out of hand and so that every individual does not think that he can simply go ahead and plant trees, because it is not really as easy as that.

Mr. Chairman, I think that with this I have come to the end of my reply to the speeches made by hon. members. If there is anything to which I have not reacted during the course of my speech, hon. members are welcome to point this out to me, and I shall furnish a written reply in that connection.

Votes put and agreed to.

Revenue Vote No. 43.—“Information”, R5,725,000:

Mr. Chairman, I rise to open this debate with a few remarks and to make a policy statement which I think is essential at this stage. The Department of Information is the show window of South Africa, here in this country as well as abroad. Any business undertaking, no matter which, keeps its show window neat, clean, attractive and in order, even if its storerooms were to be in a state of chaos. Therefore I want to address an appeal to all members at the outset to conduct this debate at a high level so that … [Interjections.] Yes, I have been expecting this laughter from that side of this House. I am asking for this debate to be conducted on a high level so that the difficult task our officials are performing overseas will not be made even more difficult for them by circumstances arising from occurrences here.

As I have said, I want to begin by making a policy statement on a particular subject, which in my opinion has become essential. It deals with the question of making information available more easily and a closer liaison between the Government and the news media of our country, both locally and abroad. It may be interesting to this House to know that 55 foreign news agencies and correspondents have been accredited here in South Africa. As many of those correspondents do not have full command of Afrikaans, I shall make this statement in English.

†Mr. Chairman, it is the declared aim of the Department of Information to maintain and further good relations between the Government and the Press. My Department and I are thoroughly aware of the necessity of access for the Press to Government Departments.

We further believe that any statement of national or international importance should be made available simultaneously to all news media, ensuring maximum publicity and equal treatment. It is a policy which is not only strictly carried out by my Department, but which it constantly propagates to other authorities.

I have for a considerable time been troubled by the fact that Governments of South Africa were and still are too reserved in regard to liaison with the Press. This has always been customary in South Africa. Statements are for example sometimes released resulting in possible misunderstanding which could have been avoided had it been accompanied by the necessary briefing. Not only the local but also the foreign Press is affected by this. I contemplate measures which will enable correspondents to obtain authoritative information more rapidly and, if needed, with explanation from the source of origin. This could be the case if Ministers and Government Departments were more accessible and if liaison between the Government and the Press could without creating embarrassment, be given fresh approach. This, however, simultaneously places a great responsibility upon the Press not to abuse the facilities which I endeavour to create. I trust that the Press will give its full co-operation and that this will lead to sound reporting to the benefit of South Africa, both locally and abroad.

The approach of my Deparment in this connection is that the Press has an important and essential task to fulfil in a democratic country. To perform its task properly, namely, to convey information to the public, without sacrificing its own independent point of view, the Press should have reasonable facilities.

As soon as convenient I would like to meet representatives of news media in person to learn about their thoughts on the subject and to exchange views.

I am pleased to announce to-day that I have approached the Cabinet in this connection and that general agreement with my view has been reached.

The Cabinet has approved of the creation of two senior posts; Press Liaison Officer and Assistant Press Liaison Officer. These two officers will be available on a full-time basis to assist the Prime Minister and other Ministers in dealing with the Press and with Press announcements.

The Press Liaison Officer will have ready access to members of the Cabinet through their private secretaries as well as to heads of Departments. On behalf of the Press he will obtain comment and replies from Ministers on complicated matters.

More attention will in future be given to Press conferences. The Department envisages arranging approximately two Press conferences annually for the Prime Minister at his convenience. The Prime Minister has kindly agreed to this. In addition, should circumstances justify it, briefing sessions could be arranged about important events to provide the Press with background information. These conferences will, under certain circumstances, be arranged on a confidential basis before the release of announcements. In this way Ministers or their representatives could provide supplementary information and reply to questions.

This will especially be the case with statements dealing with complicated matters which could easily be misunderstood. It could serve to brief the local and the accredited foreign Press suitably beforehand on a confidential basis and to provide the necessary background information.

Attendance of the Prime Minister’s Press conferences will, in the nature of the matter, be by invitation only. Normally this will, depending on the nature of the conference, be limited to. for instance. political correspondents and other senior editorial staff members of the local Press as well as the accredited members of the foreign Press corps.

Experience has taught that pressmen qualifying for such invitation are responsible and experienced people who strictly adhere to the Press code and who can be entrusted with confidential background information. I do not expect it to happen, but should any journalist abuse this confidence, such a person will just not be invited again.

We envisage within reasonable limits more access for the Press to Ministers and Government Departmen's. In future more attention will also be given to the accredited members of the foreign Press.

This new procedure for bringing about closer liaison between the Press and the Government cannot in the nature of things be implemented immediately in all its ramifications. Thus, for instance, the officials who will be responsible for the closer liaison still have to be nominated. I am, however. convinced that the Press will welcome this approach which is new for our country and that it will cooperate in a responsible way so that the procedure can be carried out successfully.

Sir. I should like to ask for the privilege of the half-hour. I listened with interest to the statement of policy read out here to us by the hon. the Minister this evening. A section of it is, of course, something which should apply in any democratic country, i.e. that good relations with the Press should be maintained and extended. He declared, furthermore, that all statements should be issued at the same time and not first to certain privileged newspapers, such as Hoofstad, to which he issued an important statement on one occasion. With that I agree. But I am not so sure that there is much in the proposal in connection with two Prime Minister’s press conferences a year to which only certain people will be invited. It seems that if they do not write to the liking of the hon. the Minister, they will be regarded as irresponsible and will not be invited again. In a democratic country all Ministers should be directly available to the Press. There should not be a Press liaison officer and an assistant liaison officer, people for hand-outs and people for briefing all the time. Sir, is their policy so obscure that it must be explained by means of special briefings and special officials?

We on this side believe that when the deeds and the policy of a Minister run counter to the interests of the country, it is time to call a halt to them. We believe that that time and that moment have arrived for this Minister and the policy which he is following in the country. We have been astounded by statements which the hon. the Minister has made in recent months. We have been so shocked by his actions that the Opposition and its Leader have come to the unanimous conclusion, firstly, that the Department is not answering the purpose for which the original Information Bureau and the State Information Office were introduced; secondly, that the Minister and the Department do not justify the millions of rands of the income tax pavers’ money which is being spent for that purpose; thirdly, that by overlapping and interfering in the work of other Departments, the Department is still becoming a small empire of “verkramptes” in order to inspect other Departments; and fourthly, and this is the most important aspect that under the leadership of the present Minister the Department is threatening to become a mere political branch of the Government, and worse still, of its “verkrampte” section. Consequently the Opposition is of the opinion that the Department in its present form should disappear, that the elimination of certain of its functions has become essential and that the take-over of other of its functions by existing Departments is justified. Seeing that the Minister has unashamedly played a dark and decisive role in the wrong direction taken by this Department, I move—

This means that his salary would be halved. Sir, the Department has two functions and I find fault with the action taken in both cases, abroad as well as internally. I am afraid that its actions abroad have been naïve, sometimes over-sensitive, undiplomatic and, relatively speaking, unfortunately without any effect. Internally, to our regret, it has become a branch, and a political branch, of a perilous, confused, “verkrampte” ideological line of policy of the right wing of the Nationalist Party. Firstly, something about the latter. This fear which we have had in connection with the policy of the Department took shape a few months ago when the hon. the Minister made a speech to the Elsburg branch of the Rapportryers. I have here his full speech as issued by his own Department, and in that he used the following words (translation)—

This is a clear admission that whereas there was no politics in the past, politics may in fact enter into the picture in future according to the hon. the Minister’s definition of the policy of the country. And then he in fact added this—

We are fair people and we wanted to see how this matter, which seems very dangerous to us, could develop. We wanted to see exactly what could happen. We gave him a fair chance to see how that development progressed. We were worried about it. Then suddenly, only a few months ago, on 1st July, 1970, the bomb was dropped. It came in the form of a statement which the hon. the Minister specially made to the newspaper Hoofstad. The statement was in connection with the new policy which the Department of Information was going to follow. It is that policy which to a large extent gave rise to the fact that I have come here this afternoon and demanded that his salary should be reduced. I have here a photostatic copy of that report. Let me read to the hon. members from that statement of policy. I quote (translation)—

Hear, hear!

Hon. members must listen. He said here that he was going to use this Department of Information, which is paid for by the taxpayers of South Africa, to disseminate the Government’s political policy. He repeated it and I quote—

To-day he is trying to evade an attack on him by saying that we should not attack South Africa’s window towards the world outside. It is, however, a window towards the inside which he wants to make of his “verkrampte” political party. Let us continue referring to his words. Just listen to the methods which will be used and the way in which we are going to be brainwashed. He said, and I quote—

By means of the taxpayers’ money, theatres, pamphlets and talks over the radio are going to be used on a tremendous scale. What particularly amazes me is that this task is now to become the main task of the Department of Information. They are forgetting about any possible main task of being a window towards the outside. Their main task is now to propagate political apartheid.

There are so many other matters which the Department could have propagated. They could perhaps have explained the taxation policy of the Government and the sales tax. They could have explained, for example, what is being done in the Department of Defence with a view to the training of our young people. They could have explained to pensioners what they must do in order to obtain pensions. These are good tasks for a Department of Information. Here they come along and make it their main task to defend their brand of apartheid and to pump it into the mind of South Africa.

Hear, hear!

I used the words “pump it into the mind of South Africa” and they said “hear, hear”. Has there ever been more conclusive proof that this Government is guilty of brainwashing? He gave his reasons why the main task of the Department would be to propagate the colour policy. He gave two reasons. The first was apparently to defend petty apartheid, and the second was to explain their big apartheid. He said the following, and I again quote from Hoofstad—

Hear, hear!

Now that I have again heard the “hear, hear” from Government members, I want to add the following. I am sorry, I have left out two words and therefore I shall repeat it. I read it again—

Is it not a ridiculous situation that his own followers cannot understand that policy, while day after day it is being hammered in and forced in by a multitude of slavish Nationalist newspapers? What right has he to use the taxpayers’ money in order to try to compensate for that weakness on their part? How can they ever hope to convince the rest of the world if they cannot even convince their own people, on the Minister’s own admission? But this article becomes even worse. Here we have a statement from the Cabinet, because the hon. the Minister was speaking on behalf of the Cabinet. He said—

Come on, where are the “hear, hears”?

Hear, hear!

I hear less than half of the hon. members on the other side. He went on to say—

For the second time we hear that this will be the main task of the Department. What is this “absolute, total segregation”?

Just read the next line, nothing more.

It reads—

The Department also intends devoting a great deal of attention to the outside world. The hon. the Minister therefore admitted that this was the second task. This is much worse. Here we have a double admission. I thank the Minister. Let the hon. the Minister now tell us exactly what the Department of Information is going to propagate in the years ahead in connection with “absolute, total segregation”. Let him give us a definition of that, so that we may know what is going on. Does this really mean that there will be an independent Bantustan for every Bantu in South Africa and that no Bantu will be a citizen any longer, in contrast to the policy of many hon. members on that side? Does “absolute, total segregation” mean that the time will arrive when there will be no more Bantu in South Africa and when there will be no more Bantu working in our industries? After all, this is what “absolute, total segregation” means, and the hon. the Minister announced it as Cabinet policy. The hon. the Minister opposite me agrees, and so does the hon. the Minister of Justice.

He said it was the ideal.

It is important to know what is going on. We must know whether this policy, which I am sure is not the policy of the majority of the hon. members on that side, is now going to be dished up and forced on us. I want to ask the Minister whether this policy of absolute territorial segregation is his ideal for the Coloured population as well? The hon. the Minister nods his head. Also for the Indian population? Yes? Are we going to hear this? Is the Department of Information now going to be used for that purpose? How is the Minister going to make that type of propaganda with his Department against the background of, for example, the fact that the Commission of Inquiry into Water Matters admitted that in the year 2000 there will be 4½ million more Bantu in the Witwatersrand complex than there are to-day? Where is this absolute territorial separation going to come from? What is the Department of Information going to do? They are going to present a policy which will be a living lie and a denial of the facts in South Africa and we will have to pay for that type of policy and that type of propaganda. Yes, Sir, I think it is one of the most shameful abuses of a Department which I have ever come across in my life. Let us have no illusions about what has happened here. Under the leadership of this hon. the Minister, the Department of Information is going to hammer through and force through in pushing that ideal of absolute, total segregation down the throats of the people, with the “hear, hears” and the “hurrahs” from every member on the other side. If there is one among them who does not say “hear, hear” or “hurrah”, let him rise and say so. Our children are going to be indoctrinated at school. Thousands upon thousands of pamphlets are going to be sent round in future.

You are going to have nightmares to-night; you must stop.

Theatres, reading rooms, pamphlets and placards are all going to be used to try to propagate this philosophy, which I call “the philosophy of national suicide”, to South Africa. They are not going to do it without any preparation. They will do it by powerful means, these dangerous people! Firstly, they have the money of the citizens of South Africa. For internal propaganda alone the Minister requests R2 million for this year, 25 per cent more than last year.

And for abroad?

Because of the high costs, they pay approximately the same, if not more, for foreign information services. But look what they are doing. They have the manpower, while there is a general shortage of manpower in South Africa. Out of a total of approximately 440 officials in his Department, 392 are stationed in South Africa. The vast majority of them are going to be used for this new propaganda as the main task of the Department of Information. Thus there are 392 propagandists and their colleagues, of whom 135 are non-Whites, in order to perpetrate brainwashing among the non-white population in South Africa as well. In contrast to that, they have only 53 officers in the rest of the world. Eighty-seven per cent of the staff of the Department are here in South Africa and their main task is going to be to force this absolute territorial apartheid, or whatever it may be, onto the country. There are 18 persons who are being paid more than R6,000 a year for that task. They are going to be the storm-troops of the brigade of brainwashers who are going to descend on us under this Minister.

But they have even more than money and manpower. They have built up a huge propaganda organ in recent years. Let us examine it. They have built up the monthly magazines Alpha for the Coloured people, Fiat Lux for the Indians and Bantu for the Bantu into a circulation of 115,000 a year here in South Africa alone, which is larger than that of many of the weekly magazines of the national printing companies. They have established seven monthly magazines in Bantu languages, the so-called Progress Series—why “progress” I do not know—with a circulation of 200,000, which are being distributed to-day already in order to prepare the way for this main task of the Department of Information. They have newspapers for the Bantu with a circulation of 80,000. They have films and pamphlets. They have a waterfall, yes, a mud-rush of one-sided propaganda which is going to pour onto us in the coming years if this is to become the main task of the Department of Information. I am asking hon. members on the other side, dare We allow something like this? What tremendous damage is it not going to do to the country if we are to be saturated all day by one-sided propaganda which wants to try to create an arrogance and a self-glorification among the people of South Africa and which states that “You are right, you are sacrosanctly right in all respects” That brainwashing can lead to actions Which can cause the downfall of South Africa. Let us have no illusions. The hon. the Minister is going to use this Department in order to propagate the policy of the Nationalist Party.

Who said so?

Must I read to him again what he said? He said there were people who had forgotten that the ideal must be absolute, total segregation. Is that the policy of the Nationalist Party, yes or no? Is that his ideal, yes or no? And then he said—

Yes.

Now the Minister shouts “Yes”. In a moment, again, he will say that I read it, but that it was not true. I wish he would decide what he wants to say. I repeat: In the first place, let us have no illusions about the fact that he is going to use the Department in order to propagate the National Party’s policy. In the second place, and worse still, he is going to make this the main task of the Department of Information. And in the third place, even worse, he is going to force one part of that policy, namely the ideology of absolute, total segregation, down our throats. In the fourth place, and the worst of all, he is going to train what one may call brainwashers, and use our money to spread propaganda and print pamphlets in order to propagate his policy in South Africa and to try to enslave our children mentally. Is it any wonder, then, if we on this side of the House say that, with such a Minister at the head of this Department, this Department is on a course of doom? Therefore we demand that this Minister with all his ideas and ideologies should leave that Department.

The second section of that Department’s work, about which I shall not be able to say much, is its task in the outside world. What it is doing in this connection, is perhaps less dangerous, but I am afraid that the results are not what we should have liked to see. The results are still remaining in abeyance. The hon. the Minister himself said to the Rapportryers: “It has almost become time that we will at least be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel”. But after all these years of Nationalist Party Government, they are still not seeing it.

This Department’s predecessor was established as an Information Bureau by General Hertzog in 1937. In 1939 it was transferred to the Department of the Interior. After that, in 1955, it was transferred to the Department of Foreign Affairs, In 1961 it became independent and it has since been under Ministers Waring, De Klerk and now Mulder. This Department has been taking over an increasing number of tasks which were done in a very satisfactory way in the past by the Department of Foreign Affairs. It has created a new diplomacy in South Africa which in many instances had been in conflict with the sound and sensible diplomacy of our Department of Foreign Affairs. The position is not necessarily that there were basic differences in policy. But if one wants to put one’s case abroad, one must not try to force it down people’s throats in the way the hon. the Minister wants to force his policy down the throats of the people of South Africa. Again millions of rands are going to be used for that purpose.

Yes, these information officers, these chief controllers which they have abroad, receive large salaries. If we could see the results, we would not have minded about these large salaries. In Holland for example, the Ambassador receives an annual salary and foreign allowance of R23,400. This is what South Africa’s Ambassador in Holland receives. The Chief Information Officer of South Africa receives R21,100 a year. They are by far the most highly paid officials in South Africa. Are these posts really justified? If he were able to obtain the good people who would be worth that money, we would not mind. [Interjections.]

The hon. the Minister will ask what the solution is. In the first place, as far as foreign countries are concerned, the foreign part should again be incorporated with the Department of Foreign Affairs. Provide its members with basic training in the principles of diplomacy. Use can in fact be made of some members of the present Department for matters such as technical television programmes. Have a radio man. Have a journalist who knows something about printing and writing properly, etc. But leave the work of convincing people to the trained diplomats, and not to persons who were trained as journalists in the Press galleries of the Provincial Councils of the Free State, Natal or the Cape Province.

In regard to the country internally, we say that, as in the past, every Department should rather issue its own Press statements in order to state facts and explain procedures. Even the Department of Bantu Administration can issue its own Press statements. But when it comes to propaganda, let that propaganda be made by the paid political head, the Minister of the Department himself, and by their newspapers as much as they want to. But it must not be done by a Department and paid officials. If necessary, let there even be a central bureau under the Prime Minister or under the Department of the Interior who can channel Press statements. Provide assistance with technical material here as well for the compilation of propaganda for overseas consumption.

No large tremendously expensive Department such as the Department of Information is required for all this. The Minister could still have saved the Department. Instead of that, he has plunged the Department into the abyss. Instead of facts, he is giving propaganda; instead of technical assistance, he is giving ideologies delved up from the pit of lunacy; instead of a supplementing bureau, he is creating a little empire which is ruled by a triumvirate consisting of Dr. Piet Meyer, Connie Mulder and Andries Treurnicht. Something like this is a violation of the freedom in our country. It harms our country and the sooner it ends, the better it will be. For these reasons I move this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Orange Grove carried on here in his customary manner, in spite of the appeal made by the hon. the Minister that this important discussion be conducted on a high level.

He availed himself of expressions such as “pumping their kind of apartheid into the brain of South Africa”, “hammer through and force through; forcing absolute segregation down the throats of the people”, “storm troops of a brigade of brainwashers” and “seeped in one-side propaganda”. In listening to these expressions the one of the first thoughts to enter my mind was that a person who spoke this way, was judging others by his own standards. Another thought that entered my mind, was that in listening to the extravagant language and the attempt at inciting people in this House who are supposed to be sensible people, one almost feels like singing that English song. “How … can we believe you?” Really, I do not think the manner in which that hon. member carried on here this afternoon, is worthy of this House and South Africa. But what did the hon. member actually prove? He conjured up a spectre for himself. This reminds me of another impression I gained in the course of his speech, i.e. that he is a political heir to another figure whom he personally followed when he walked over from the National Party to the United Party. That figure was known as the man who had the biggest mouth of all the people who had ever been Members of this Parliament. He is a modern version of that man. The technique employed by that man was the same, i.e. to conjure up spectres of what would happen. I recall that in 1949 the person to whom I am referring, said in a speech that when the Voortrekker Monument would be inaugurated, there would be hundreds of armed commando members who would want to shoot the English. This is the kind of specious argument which was dished up by that person. This afternoon the hon. member for Orange Grove carried on in the same vein. That is why I say that he did not prove anything. He did not prove one single case he mentioned. If the hon. member has in fact got hold of something and if there is something in his accusation that the hon. the Minister and his Department are up to mischief, he must be able to adduce here indisputable proof to that effect. But he cannot do it. I do not think that it does his party any credit that they allowed him to make the speech which he did make here this afternoon.

They have nothing better.

Sir, has the hon. member opposite who is looking at me so intently, made a study of what the hon. the Minister said?

We heard what he said.

What does the Minister’s statement comprise of? It means that it is going to be the task of his Department to explain to the population of South Africa all the implications of the policy which has been approved by the people, and not that political propaganda will be made. On the contrary; the hon. member for Orange Grove wrecked his own argument, for he said that the hon. the Minister had intimated that there were many people who still did not understand our policy. If after 22 years there are many people who still do not understand our policy—there will always be opposition—will the remedy of a departmental information service, with the kind of label which the hon. member has now attached to it, help to make those people change their political views? The hon. member wrecked his own case through the statement he made here. Sir, it does after all not require any intelligence from any person above Std. 2 level to appreciate that, if the people have repeatedly approved a certain policy at the polls, that policy has to be implemented; and when it has to be implemented, questions are being raised in regard to the practical implications of that policy, questions which have no bearing whatsoever on political persuasion to adopt that standpoint; they merely have a bearing on the practical implications thereof, on how they will affect you and me and others. This is what the hon. the Minister intends to do through his Department, and what is wrong with that? May I remind the hon. member for North Rand that during the time when his party was in power, the predecessor of this Department, the Government Information Service, propagated to the hilt the war effort, which was a highly contentious political issue. I do not want to quarrel with that; it was their right to do it after that policy had been approved at the polls. It was the policy of the Government of the day, but I want to add at once that if there is criticism to be expressed, the hon. member is free to do so. The hon. member for Orange Grove is one of those who did this in his day, perhaps in the same language which he used here to-day. He pointed out that they had gone too far in making use of it. *

In abusing it.

I have no objection to the information service having been used to build up a psychosis of support for the war effort, which that side supported at the time, but at that stage the hon. member did object to its being used in the way it was in fact done, i.e. as a political instrument for the United Party; the hon. member, who had such a great deal to say here this afternoon, wailed over that for weeks and for months. The hon. member should allow his own memory to go back and then tell us what case he tried to build up here this afternoon. What substance is there in the charge which the hon. member made here this afternoon? He merely conjured up spectres and did not prove a single statement of his. If, after a year has passed, the hon. member can come to the hon. the Minister and say, “Your Department trespassed here and there and there, and it did political work,” then I shall not begrudge him that opportunity, but I resent most strongly what he did here this afternoon. I object, in particular, to the language he used here against those most loyal servants of South Africa, the officers of the Department of Information.

Disgraceful!

He says they are incompetent.

Sir, these are people who have to do their work under the most difficult circumstances both abroad and locally, and this is the gratitude they have received here this afternoon. It was said here that their salaries were too high; their salaries, which are allegedly too high, were ridiculed, and it was suggested here that they were the political instruments of the National Party. I want to repudiate this with contempt and say that to-day the hon. member rendered a disservice to the loyal and dedicated officials of this Department. This is a Department which cannot do its work, especially in the world outside, without people who are exceptionally dedicated and adopt an idealistic attitude towards their country.

Is Dirk Reselman one of them?

We are not discussing Mr. Dirk Reselman here. Sir, I can understand that the hon. member wants to cry bitterly over Mr. Dirk Reselman, because I believe that the reason why the hon. member walked over to that party, was that at the time he could not become head of the Information Service of the Government.

Sir, I want to express my regret at the fact that this debate was initiated in this manner by the Opposition to-day, for this is a debate which will find an echo in the outside world, where our information officers always have to contend with the feeling of people that this is a Government Department; it is repugnant to organizations to which one wishes to put one’s case. This afternoon the hon. member attached a label to the work of this Department, a label which …

Is disgraceful.

Yes, I do not know how I am to describe it. Sir, listen to the language he used here this afternoon. The hon. member described the hon. the Minister as a political agent and things of that nature. He proposed that his salary be reduced, and referred to “a little empire of verkramptes”. He did not succeed in getting any effect by using such language, but if he did succeed this afternoon in getting any effect as regards the outside world by making the work of our Department of Information and its loyal officials more difficult, I hope that he and his party will sleep very, very badly as a result. [Time expired.]

The hon. the Minister appealed to the Opposition this afternoon to keep this debate on a high level, but what happened? A senior member and a frontbencher of the Opposition party came along and made this shocking speech here, the most shocking speech I have yet heard in this House. I have asked myself who has done most harm to South Africa during this past year. My unambiguous reply to that is that the premise adopted by the hon. member for Orange Grove in making this speech of his, was to see what he could do to besmirch South Africa abroad. He does this because he knows that in the election that lies ahead, they will be rejected by the voters. The electorate in South Africa have summed them un and know where they stand with the United Party. Sir. to my mind the hon. member’s conduct in this debate was more disgraceful than are the actions of the terrorists against South Africa. Why is the hon. member so afraid that this Department will disclose true and accurate and correct information to the public?

On a point of order, Sir, is the hon. member entitled to make that comparison between the speech of the hon. member for Orange Grove and the actions of terrorists against South Africa?

Of course he is entitled to do it.

Order! The hon. member may proceed.

Why is the hon. member for Orange Grove so afraid that the public of South Africa should hear the true facts? If the hon. member is so convinced that this Government’s policy is wrong, why then is he afraid? We are going to tell the public what the policy is of the State, what the policy is of the country. Time and again the voters of South Africa have returned this party to Parliament to implement that policy, and if it is supposed to be such a disaster for South Africa, surely it is to the advantage of the Opposition party that the public should know this. Sir, two years ago the hon. member, who made such a fuss here this afternoon, was very anxious for the electorate of South Africa to hear the real facts. Sir, two years ago this Department brought out an excellent report in which they said—

This appeared in the annual report two years ago—

This is what the Department said in its report two years ago, but. of course, the hon. member did not read it. I associate myself with what the hon. member for Stellenbosch said about the language that was used here, especially in view of the fact that the Department’s officials are amongst the very best at our disposal. He wants to disparage them and present them as people who know nothing and cannot carry out their task.

But they say that they stand for total segregation.

Is the hon. member in favour of total integration then? The hon. member is concerned about our standing for segregation. In other words, he wants integration. But I am not going to allow myself to be upset by this hon. member. You know, Sir, there is an old saying which goes, “He who sleeps with dogs gets up with fleas.” I think I want to be more positive in this debate, and I think we on this side of the House want to say to the hon. the Minister and the Department, with its large number of competent officials, “Thank you for what you have done: thank you for this very difficult task which you have been carrying out so competently and so extremely conscientiously up to now.” We also have the annual report which was published recently and which states clearly and very accurately what the Department has done up to now. I think it is no easy task for any government and for any Minister, when it has this task to carry out, to do it so well and with so few officials and with so little money. The hon. member said that millions of rands had been wasted. The amount which is being spend this year, is just over R5 million, and I want to suggest to the Government that next year it should give consideration to not merely doubling this amount, but to trebling it. There may perhaps be R5 million which is being spent this year, but let us realize that wherever we can spend more in order to convince the world of the views and the outlook and the way of life of South Africa, we shall find that the world will listen to us and accept us as we are, as the hon. the Prime Minister has also said on several occasions. What has the Department done up to now as far as countries abroad are concerned? Some of my other colleagues will speak about the local aspect. We find that South Africa has difficulty in reaching the outside world. You know, Sir, that over the years this Opposition has been disparaging South Africa as much as they could by means of their yellow Press, and now it is the difficult task of this Government to tell the outside world what the correct and true facts are. It has not been so easy to reach in countries abroad the politicians, the educated class, the businessmen, the militarists and the people who are continually writing editorials and columns in their papers, i.e. it has been difficult because they were brainwashed in the past, and now it is this Department which is trying to approach them in a very tactful manner and to pass on to them the correct information. It is unfortunately the position to-day that we only have adequate offices for the Department of Information in a small number of countries, and, irrespective of what that hon. member may say, if the hon. the Prime Minister ever took a wise step, it was to establish an independent Department and to put this Minister in charge of it. We find that in the southern hemisphere, in Argentina in South America, there is only one information office. In Australia and New Zealand there is one office each. In Europe the six countries of the Euromart are being covered fully by the existing offices, and in the rest of Europe there are only five countries—Austria. Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom—in which there are information offices. Then we find that in the Scandinavian countries there are no information offices, and as far as the Great North America is concerned, there are three offices in the U.S.A. and one in Canada. I should like to ask the hon. the Minister this question. We know that he is working on a very intensive and well-considered expansion programme, but we should like him to tell the House, and if it has not yet reached that stage, to indicate to us, when it will be possible to have an office in the Scandinavian countries. Businessmen and the public there are yearning for such a service from South Africa. Then there is America. We know how tremendously vast a country the U.S.A. is, and I think that those three offices are absolutely inadequate and that even one office in Canada is not enough. For that reason we ask that more offices be opened in America and Canada, staffed by people who are as competent as those we already have in the other offices.

I want to hurry and make the plea that the hon. the Minister should, when it is convenient and opportune for him, but as soon as possible, pay a visit abroad in order to visit all the offices in Europe and America to see whether all the offices are operating as desired, and to see at the same time where more offices can be opened, for which I have already pleaded. This will in fact be the right moment for the hon. the Minister to make contact on a very high level, be it through the spoken word, on the radio and television, at meetings or in personal conversations with the people over there. We know that in overseas countries television is, for instance, one of the means which will be used to reach those people. In that regard a great deal is already bring done by the Department. If we think of the publications and the exhibitions, the radio, the television, the Press and films and the personal contact which is being made overseas, we just want to say this, in conclusion, to the hon. the Minister and his Department: South Africa thanks you; we praise you for the good service you are rendering to South Africa.

Now that Dr. Hertzog has finally disappeared from the parliamentary scene, the hon. member for Sunnyside is working hard to re-establish himself and to rehabilitate himself among his former colleagues.

We fought Hertzog.

That, I think, is the reason for the extravagant language he used against my colleague here. There is very little to be said in reply to his speech. All he managed to do was to exchange a few pleasantries across the floor and for the rest to thank the Minister. As for the hon. member for Stellenbosch, I can only suggest that he has a closer look at what the hon. the Minister told the Hoofstad. I do not think he would protest so loudly if he were to read it properly. The hon. the Minister will understand it if journalists, especially those who have had anything to do with this Nationalist Government, allow themselves a cynical smile at what he told us this afternoon. It was a lofty announcement, on the lines that all newspapers, Opposition newspapers as well as Nationalist newspapers, would in future be treated equally by the Government. He knows, of course, that he has a massive task ahead of him if he wants to convince these people that some journalists, the Nationalist journalists, are not in the eyes of that Minister and his Government rather more equal than others. [Interjection.] About the history of all this, I can tell you quite a lot, Sir, because I have had quite a lot to do with this Government. It goes back a very long time. The first recollection I have of preferential treatment being meted out to Nationalist newspapers by this Government was at the time of the resignation of Dr. Malan as Prime Minister, where they went to great lengths, I recall, to keep this as an exclusive story for their Nationalist newspapers. I remember it very clearly, and in fact they succeeded. They kept the story within a very little “kring”, as I might call it. Die Burger had it here; the Transvaler had it in the Transvaal and one other newspaper I know had it. It was a left wing newspaper in London, namely, the Daily Herald, they made great “bondgenote”. Let me give another example. A few years ago, when I was still in the Press Gallery, a highly important statement was due to come from one of the hon. Ministers who is still in this House, a statement which would vitally affect people throughout the country. A member of that Minister’s Department came to the Press Gallery with the statement and he was asked about it. He said that his instructions were to hand that official Government statement only to Nationalist newspapers. Fortunately for the Opposition newspapers and unfortunately for this man …

Who is this “man”?

He was an official of a Department.

Who is he?

I have been protecting him so far but I will tell hon. members from which Department the statement came. It was the Department of the hon. Minister of Transport. The statement had to do with the consortium of third party companies which was being formed to take over the monopoly of third party insurance in this country. Hon. members themselves can carry on from there. They can ask the hon. the Minister of Transport or his Private Secretary. They know all about it. Unfortunately for those who wanted this important statement to be handed to the Nationalist newspapers only, Opposition newspapers also got hold of it. This has been the pattern through all the years. This was the position right up to last year. Hon. members will remember the reconciliation which took place last year; the now famous “versoening” between the “verkramptes”, Dr. Hertzog and Mr. Jaap Marais, and Mr. Vorster, the Prime Minister, and his Government. This famous “versoening” which unfortunately for hon. members on that side, did not come off, was supposed to have been reserved for the Nationalist press. Unfortunately for them again, we were a little bit ahead of them and my newspaper at the time managed to get a full report in our very first edition despite all attempts to try to keep it from us. An inquisition was started at the time and as far as I know it is still going on because they have still not ascer aired where and how I got hold of it. I believe that what is in the hon. the Minister’s mind is that his press has been beaten so many times that he now feels that if you cannot beat them you might as well join them. It will be very interesting to see how he fares and just how equal our newspapers are.

The hon. member for Orange Grove has drawn our attention to the thoroughly undesirable approach adopted by the hon. the Minister in regard to the functions of the Department of Information. As he has illustrated, the hon. the Minister has gone on record as having said that the main task of his Department would be to inform the public-—I think he should have used the word “indoctrinate”; that would have been better—to bring about a better appreciation of the ideological policies of this Nationalist Party Government. The hon. the Minister talked about absolute total segregation as being an ideal and he said that his Government would explain this ideal to the people of the Republic by means of all the machinery at the Department’s disposal. I think it is a disgraceful state of affairs that the hon. the Minister has the temerity to ask us to vote public funds when he tells us that he intends using his Department for what is nothing other than petty political ends.

You are going to cost the United Party many votes.

Mr. Chairman. on a point of order, is the hon. member for Rustenburg entitled to make interjections from another hon. member’s seat?

Order! Interjections are being made from both sides.

I have very little time left, and I wish the hon. gentleman would keep quiet. It might be appropriate to look into the structure of the Department which the hon. the Minister proposes to use in such a disgraceful way.

Basically there are two main divisions, the external division and the internal division. On the evidence the hon. the Minister has produced, we know that he considers the external division to be the lesser of the two.

When did he say that?

Read Hoofstad. [Interjection.] If his Department’s main task is, as he sees it, to disseminate Nationalist Party propaganda domestically within the Republic and South-West Africa, perhaps the Committee should examine the staff he proposes to use. In the head office of this Department and in the 25 regional offices there is a total of 403 staff members, 162 of them on the professional grade and the balance on other grades. We all know that that hon. gentleman’s party felt that it needed a new image and that is why it appointed a public relations officer in the shape of Mr. Riezelman. I wonder what the public will think when it learns that that hon. gentleman proposes to use 403 members of his Department to support this public relations officer. Apart from everything else, I think it is a highly dangerous thing for the hon. the Minister to do. It is dangerous for all of us in South Africa who value the good name of our country. It is all very well for him to talk blithely of using the Department of Information for propaganda purposes domestically, but I want to put to him what a propaganda genius, an evil genius but a genius nevertheless, said about using political propaganda. He said it in 1935, but it is still as true to-day as it was then. He said: “The State which is governed by an authoritarian régime will not allow itself to be diverted from its path if it is convinced that it is the right one …” [Time expired.]

The hon. member for Kensington has just waxed lyrical here in regard to a few matters. The first was where he fell in with the hon. member for Orange Grove as regards the arrangements made by the hon. the Minister in connection with the future task of the Department of Information. Boih of these members did not do their homework before taking part in this debate. They merely read that report in Hoofstad, but they did no basic research on what these arrangements involve. If those two hon. members had looked at Government Notice No. 1142 of 1st December, 1961, they would have read the following: “The performance of all the functions hitherto carried out by the Information Service of the Department of Bantu Administration and Development, including the furnishing of information to the Bantu of the Republic of South Africa and the territory of South-West Africa, and the supply of information concerning them and their development to the citizens of South Africa and of other countries; the provision of an effective information service for the Coloured and Indian communities in South Africa and the distribution, internally as well as externally, of data concerning them and their development; the co-operation of all State publicity services …” All of these are tasks which have to be carried out by this Department. This is nothing new; it is ancient history; it is now going to be implemented by this hon. Minister in all its consequences. Where does this distasteful point of attack, which was used both by the hon. member for Orange Grove and the hon. member for Kensington, come from? The hon. member for Kensington told us how he had sat here in the Press Gallery. He ought to be grateful for the arrangement which was announced by this hon. Minister to-day, i.e. to give the entire Press community of the country access to these sources of information, to which all of them would very much like to have access. I am very pleased that the hon. the Minister said that those reporters would go there by invitation. The hon. member for Kensington, with his journalistic record, will most certainly not qualify for that invitation.

I want to extend to the hon. the Minister, as an ex-press man and as an ex-liaison officer in the service of the State, my very cordial thanks for this very practical arrangement which he has made in order to provide our Press community with those means which have to a very large extent been lacking up to now. That hon. member, who says that he was a journalist, ought to feel ashamed about the attitude he has been adopting against it here. I do not think that he will get a single vote from the Press Gallery.

As regards the performance of the hon. Opposition this afternoon, the absence of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout struck me. Having made the introductory speeches in this debate for a very long time, he was in his bench for only a short while to-day. To my mind this is significant, because I think that he, the hon. member for Orange Grove and the new hon. member for Kensington form the trio who have had a prominent share in the insinuations which have done so much harm to our country abroad. I have sufficient evidence to substantiate this statement. On page 268 of our Estimates it is being stated that this year the Department is budgeting for R1,114,000 in respect of visitors from abroad, which is a substantial increase of R172,000 on the Estimates for the previous year. With a view to the good results which we are obtaining for our country by these means, I should like to plea to-day for this amount to be increased further in the future. The dividends we receive through this capital investment, is a compound interest which is constantly accumulating in favour of our fatherland. I should like to show the House why this is the case. One of the first questions which are usually asked by these foreign journalists who come to our country as our guests is, “I have read so much about your petty apartheid. I would like to see some of it and take a few pictures of it”. This is where I missed the hon. member for Bezuidenhout this afternoon. We all know who is the creator of this “petty apartheid” and all the sordidness which goes with it and has been exported to the outside world. The expenditure we have to incur in order to restore our image abroad, is something which I lay squarely at the door of the hon. Opposition. They are a party which stand for permissiveness and smear tactics, in which the hon. member for Orange Grove has now over the lead from the hon. member for Bezuidenhout.

I want to refer the House to the good work which is being done by foreign journalists in our country on the invitation of the Department. In the middle of the year 1968 Mr. Lubor Zink of the Toronto Telegram of Canada visited our country by invitation. He represented a newspaper with a circulation of 300,000 He said: “Bias distorts our image of South Africa.” There are many journalists all over the world who have made friends with our country in this manner. Mr. Zink, who merely enjoyed our friendship, has constantly been putting in a good word for our Republic since 1968. In all modesty I think that he, who is not even a citizen of the Republic, is a very great and fine example to the hon. members on that side of the House who take such pleasure in disparaging our country abroad through their insinuations.

Mr. Zink’s visit was followed by visits by his colleagues from West Germany, Britain, the Scandinavian countries and Europe. We got double value for our money. As far as this important subdivision of our information service is concerned, I should very much like to plead with the hon. the Minister to spend, in the future as well, a larger amount on bringing even more journalists of standing to our Republic, for such journalists cannot be influenced by the insinuations and suggestions and the unfounded statements made by that side of the House merely for the purpose of short-lived political gain.

I want to mention the names of a few more journalists who visited our country. There was Professor Ralph Ireland, who visited South Africa in 1968 and, on his return, granted a number of interviews to his Press. In April of this year a very valuable article appeared from his pen, i.e. “Bantu Primary and Secondary Education in the Republic of South Africa”. It was a factual and very positive article, such as nobody on that side of the House has ever been able to distribute abroad in our favour. In 1969 John Fulton Lewis paid us a visit. Since May, 1969, some of his reports have been appearing in several newspapers and magazines. Furthermore, a report appeared in the Washington Report, and there was also a report on South-West Africa in the China Post of Taipeh. He also presented the article in the Congressional Record of America. In addition, he is the compare of a radio programme which is being broadcast by 1,184 radio stations, and in June, 1969, he informed his listeners fully on the terrorist danger in Southern Africa. This is the standard of work which is being done by these guests of South Africa and which was so reprehensible disparaged this afternoon by the hon. member for Orange Grove, who is now sitting there with a sanctimonious smile.

Dr. Harold Voris was a member of a medical group tour which visited South Africa in September, 1968, on the invitation of our Department. In March he wrote an article on medical services in South Africa, which was published in the Mercy Hospital Newsletter of Chicago. He followed this up with similar magazine articles.

Then there was Anthony Harrigan, who visited South Africa in 1962. He may be known to the hon. member for Kensington. Mr. Harrigan is still putting the case of the Republic in the United States of America. I hope that this will be an example to the hon. member for Kensington. [Time expired.]

As the hour is late and I have only a few minutes left, I will not deal with the main theme which I had proposed to raise this evening, namely that of the foreign services of the Information Department. I would therefore like briefly to draw attention to one or two points that have been raised in speeches. Firstly, as regards the hon. the Minister’s statement that he is making new and better arrangements to receive the foreign Press in South Africa, one can only express satisfaction that this is being done, but one cannot fail to comment that it is at least 22 years overdue. It is common practice in every civilized country in the world that the foreign Press are given every facility and every opportunity to interview Departments, to meet important people and to gain the best information from the best possible sources. It is only commonsense that one should make such facilities available fo foreign Pressmen, because this is after all the best way of reaching the masses in other countries. That we should come to this House in the year 1970 and announce, as though it were a new invention, that we have decided to open the doors to the foreign Press, to give them equal treatment and to give them access to Ministers and their Departments, is really very surprising. Surely, there must have been at least some attempt in the past to make the foreign Press feel welcome here. Is this an entire innovation? Is this the first time that the foreign Press will feel that they have direct access and will be able to acquire background information?

There is a second point. We have heard the statement that the information services in this country will be devoted to explaining to the people what separate development is about. We were told that this is necessary because, although the people have been supporting separate development for 22 years, they still do not understand what it is about.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 23.

House Resumed:

Progress reported.