Mr. Speaker, I want to announce that the report of the committee which enquired into the salaries of Members of Parliament was laid upon the Table today and that printed copies of the report will be distributed to hon. members.

QUESTIONS (see “QUESTIONS AND REPLIES”).

Mr. Speaker, as regards the business of the House for next week, I want to inform hon. members that the Bills appearing on the Order Papers will be dealt with. On Friday afternoon the House will adjourn for the Easter recess. I expect it will be roundabout 5 o’clock.

When we were discussing this clause last night the hon. the Deputy Minister was asked what was meant by the words “in the performance of his duties”. I fear that the hon. the Deputy Minister rather confused matters by talking of privilege and defamatory reports. But I do not think such information has any reference to the question of privilege referred to by the Minister. What we thought the legal position would be was that a member of a local authority on the board would be entitled in the course of his duties to report back to his local authority information he acquired in his capacity as a member of the board. The only privilege there could be is that he would be able to claim, in case of a prosecution. that he was acting in the performance of his duties when he so reported to the local authority. But, Sir, the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District asked the hon. the Deputy Minister yesterday if the words “in the performance of his duties” referred to the member’s duties to his local authority or to his duties to the board, and we have not had any information from the Deputy Master on that issue. Subsection (2) reads—

Sir, do those words “in the performance of his duties” mean his duties to the board or b’s duties to the urban local authority? If the hon. Deputy Minister accepts the amendment of the member for Pinelands then such member would automatically have the consent of the board to report and there can be no doubt then as to what these words mean. I ask the Deputy Minister therefore, if he is not in a better position this morning to explain what it means than he was last night, to accept the amendment of the member for Pinelands so that there can be no more confusion on this issue.

I do not want there to be any uncertainty about this matter, and it is really not necessary for any uncertainty to exist about it. In the first place I want to say that the duties referred to in clause 8, are the duties performed by such a board member in his capacity as a member of the administration board. This is what the words refer to in the first place. But I now want to put this question to hon. members: Do they for one single moment think, especially in view of the fact that this clause 8 is an absolutely standard clause, and especially since there is a common interest between the duties performed by such a board member in his capacity as a member of the administration board and the duties performed by him in his capacity as a member of a local authority, that a board would refuse such a member permission to disclose such information? After all, such an administration board consists of clear-thinking people.

Why not accept the amendment then?

For other reasons. Yesterday I indicated why we could not accept the amendment of the hon. member for Pinelands, and I do not want to cover that ground again. I said that accepting the amendment would place me in the position that I would have to act in a discriminatory way towards members sitting jointly on that board, i.e. people from the commercial world. people from the industrial world and people from local authorities. On moral grounds I am absolutely convinced that in the normal course of events such a member of a local authority will not be refused permission by such a board to report back to his board oh matters in retard to which them is a common interest. In the second place, purely on moral grounds. I cannot see how there can be any refusal where there are common interests. I therefore cannot understand how hon. members opposite cannot see that they are now asking us to discriminate between members sitting on the same board. I do not anticipate any problems at all in regard to this matter.

Sir, before sitting down, I just want to make very clear precisely what is involved in clause 8. I repeat that in other Acts there are various examples of exactly the same wording as contained in clause 8. Yesterday I mentioned those Acts here one after the other. In the first place, this clause is aimed at prohibiting, under a penalty, the disclosure by a member of a board or of the staff of a board during a meeting or in the performance of his duties as such a board member or staff member, of information in regard to the private business or personal affairs or matters of persons, businesses or business undertakings; and secondly, to prohibit, under a penalty, the disclosure by such a board member or staff member of information gained in that way relating to the business or activities of such a board. As far as board members are concerned, one thinks in this respect especially of cases involving information received by the board, proposed plans in respect of buildings or land, steps taken to implement any provisions of the legislation before this House at the moment—in this regard I refer particularly to clauses 16 and 18—or particularly of the assets, liabilities and funds of the administration boards concerned. These matters in fact embrace what I meant yesterday when I spoke about privilege in this regard. The so-called privilege is the privilege against disclosure which in my opinion attaches to the above-mentioned matters by virtue of the relevant penal provisions I have now mentioned here. I therefore did not have in mind privilege in the legal sense such as the privilege to which the hon. member for Zululand referred. I had in mind privilege in the sense I have just explained. I hope hon. members are satisfied with that.

Sir, in the light of what the hon. the Deputy Minister has just said, I really fail to see why he does not accept the amendment of the hon. member for Pinelands. Sir, what did the hon. member for Pinelands ask? All he has asked is that the Deputy Minister should insert a phrase into this paragraph which will clarify the very point which the hon. the Deputy Minister has made. The hon. member for Transkei and the hon. member for Pinelands have expressed the doubt which exists in the minds of people as to what exactly is meant by the phrase in this paragraph “in the performance of his duties”, and to which body this reference to “duties” refers; whether it refers to the board of which this particular person is a member or whether it refers to the body by which he was appointed, i.e. the local authority, whether it is the duties in both cases or the duties only in the one case. Sir, the amendment of the hon. member for Pinelands deals with one specific category of member of the board.

Order! That argument was raised time and again yesterday.

Which argument, Sir?

The argument advanced by the hon. member.

Sir, I am starting on a second argument. I do not know to which argument you are referring.

I am referring to the argument which has just been advanced by the hon. member.

The point that I want to make to the hon. the Deputy Minister is this. With reference to what he said about discrimination, there are three different types of members of these boards. They are all appointed by the hon. the Deputy Minister, but under different circumstances. Certain of them are Government employees; the others are those whom he shall choose after consultation with agriculture, with commerce and with industry, but they need not necessarily be representative of those spheres and they are not in fact representative of any organization; they are the choice of the Minister after consultation with those particular bodies. The third category, Sir, is that of a direct representative of a city council, a town council or any other local authority. Because that person is firstly nominated by that board he has a responsibility to that board. The whole purpose of the amendment of the hon. member for Pinelands is to clarify the situation with regard to this third group of members. We feel that they should not be bound to secrecy when it comes to conferring with the bodies who nominated them in the first place and whom they especially represent. The person chosen because of his knowledge of local affairs in commerce or in industry does not represent commerce or industry; he does not represent a specific body. I feel that this is a perfectly reasonable amendment which will clarify any doubt that exists. The hon. the Deputy Minister knows as well as I do that everyone of these members of a board will be asked to sign an oath of secrecy, and when he signs that oath of secrecy he is bound; that is where the hon. the Deputy Minister is quite right; a sanction will be imposed if he breaks this oath of secrecy. I grant that this is necessary, but I do believe that these people who represent particular local authorities should be allowed, with the permission of the board—this is the whole point—to report back to their local authority. The amendment says, “which consent shall not be withheld”. He must ask permission, but the consent should not be withheld in the case of those people who must report to their boards.

Order! I want to point out to hon. members that the report on emoluments is not under discussion in this House now.

Since yesterday afternoon already I have been trying to indicate in detail why the amendment of the hon. member for Pinelands is not acceptable to us. Honestly, yesterday evening I again examined this clause very closely and I again discussed it with the law advisers. You must now accept it from me that it is not acceptable to us, for the reasons I have mentioned. I would merely be wasting the time of this House if I were to repeat all those reasons. I therefore ask hon. members opposite to accept my goodwill, of which I think I have furnished more than enough proof. I want to say that we shall issue the necessary directives as far as it is in our power. As I put it here yesterday, in the normal course of events I cannot foresee that a board will refuse such a board member permission to report back to his local authority. In the light of the assurance I have given, I really cannot understand why the hon. members have problems in this regard.

I just want to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister one question, and that is why does he limit his selection of a person who is knowledgeable about local authority affairs as well as Bantu affairs, to a particular local authority.

Order! That is not under discussion now.

It concerns this very issue at stake. He regards the representative whom he appoints from that authority as a person who does not represent an authority.

Order! That is clause 5.

Amendment put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—40: Bands, G. L; Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Baxter, D. D.; Cillie, H. van Z.; Deacon, W. H. D.; De Villiers, I. F. A.; Emdin, S.; Fisher, E. L.; Fourie, A.; Hickman, T.; Hopewell, A.; Hughes, T. G.; Jacobs, G. F.; Kingwill, W. G.; Malan, E. G.; Marais, D. J.; Miller, H.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Oliver, G. D. G.; Pyper, P. A.; Raw, W. V.; Smith, W. J. B.; Stephens, J. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Sutton, W. M.; Suzman, H.; Taylor, C. D.; Timoney, H. M.; Van den Heever, S. A.; Van Eck, H. J.; Van Hoogstraten, H. A.; Von Keyserlingk, C. C.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Webber, W. T.; Winchester, L. E. D.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: R. M. Cadman and J. O. N. Thompson.

NOES—88: Aucamp, P. L. S.; Botha, G. F.; Botha, L. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, R. F.; Botha, S. P.; Botma, M. C.; Brandt, J. W.; Campher, J. H.; Coetsee, H. J.; Coetzee, B.; Coetzee, S. F.; Cruywagen, W. A.; De Jager, P. R.; De Wet, M. W.; Du Plessis, A. H.; Du Plessis, G. C.; Du Plessis, P. T. C.; Du Toit, J. P.; Engelbrecht, J. J.; Erasmus, A. S. D.; Gerdener, T. J. A.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Hartzenberg, F.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Henning, J. M.; Heunis, J. C.; Hoon, J. H.; Horn, J. W. L.; Jurgens, J. C.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, S. F.; Kotzé, W. D.; Kruger, J. T.; Langley, T.; Le Roux, F. J.; Le Roux, J. P. C.; Loots. J. J.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, J. J.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, P. S.; Maree. G. de K.; Martins, H. E.; McLachlan, R.; Meyer, P. H.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Nel. J. A. F.; Otto. J. C.; Palm, P. D.; Pansegrouw, J. S.; Pienaar, L. A.; Pieterse, R. J. J.; Potgieter, J. E.; Potgieter, S. P.; Prinsloo, M. P.; Rail, J. W.; Rail, M. L; Reinecke, C. J.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Rossouw, W. J. C; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Smit, H. H.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Van Breda, A.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, P. S.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Merwe, W. L.; Van der Spuy, S. J. H.; Van der Walt, H. J. D.; Van Staden, J. W.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Wyk, A. C.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Viljoen, M.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Vorster, B. J.; Vorster, L. P. J.; Waring, F. W.

Tellers: G. P. C. Bezuidenhout, P. C. Roux, G. P. van den Berg and H. J. van Wyk.

Amendment accordingly negatived.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

Clause 10:

I have an amendment standing in my name, which I wish to withdraw. I now wish to move the following amendment—

With regard to this particular amendment, I understand that the hon. the Deputy Minister will be quite prepared to accept the wording which I have asked to be inserted after the word “employment”. With regard to the omission of paragraph (b) of subsection (10), I would like to say a few words. The purpose of subsection (10) (a) is to provide that, when a person has been offered employment by the board and he elects in writing not to accept such employment, he will be dealt with by the local authority concerned in terms of the provisions governing his conditions of service, such as remuneration, pension rights, etc. This means, in effect, that he will be placed in some alternative employment in the service of the local authority under conditions which he knows and which he accepted when he entered the employment of that local authority. There is nothing new, except that he has refused to work for another employer. He has been employed by the council under certain conditions and he prefers to remain in their employ. Then, however, the clause goes on to make a proviso:

The effect of this proviso that he should be deemed to have resigned, is that he will lose his pensionable rights, particularly if he is in the very early period of his employment. If he were a man who was possibly in the last five years or so of his employment, the pension provisions might possibly enable him to receive a lesser pension. There are certain rights given to employees in the last period of their employment to resign a little earlier. In the normal course of events, however, the effect of his having been deemed to have resigned, would be similar to that of a man who at any odd time hands in his resignation, so that he would merely receive back the moneys he has paid into his provident fund and he would have no pension rights at all. It is in order to overcome that effect to some extent, that I have moved the words that I have suggested should be inserted. If the Minister is of the opinion that his election not to accept employment is unreasonable or if, when offered appropriate alternative employment without reduction in his remuneration, he refuses and the Minister comes to the conclusion that his refusal to accept such alternative employment is unreasonable, he will be deemed to have resigned. My amendment alleviates that to a great extent, in the sense that, instead of his being penalized for refusing to accept employment with the board, there is the opportunity for him to accept alternative employment in the service of the local authority without reduction of his remuneration.

So far, so good. He is given that opportunity, but there may be occasions when that alternative employment, for reasons peculiar to a particular situation, does not satisfy the employee. The employment may not be congenial to him. It may interrupt the course of a career on which he had embarked in the service of the council. He may be in a particular department where he has shown certain talents, for which he has educated himself over a period of time. He may have taken courses which would have enabled him to improve his lot and to make progress in that particular department. There may be many reasons. Conditions of health may even have played a part. In other words, there may be reasons of which we are not aware at the moment. Despite all that, if the Minister makes a decision deeming a person to have resigned from the council, that decision is final, although it may cause the person concerned to be subject to penalties. That is in terms of clause 10 (10) (b) which I have proposed should be omitted. The fact that the Minister’s decision is final means that the person concerned is deprived of any rights he may normally have had. If the council were to come to such a decision, offering one of its employees alternative employment which that employee refused for various reasons, the position would be different. The council could, for instance, call for his resignation, but he could then still complain to his municipal trade union or employee association. That association would take up his case, advise him, and make representations on his behalf. He would have the opportunity of negotiating with the council through his union, or the union would take the necessary action, for which the Industrial Conciliation Act provides. In other words, the decision would not be as final as the Minister’s decision, for which provision is made in this clause. The employee would have certain rights that flow from the very fact that he is employed by the local authority. On the other hand, the Minister’s decision is not subject to any appeal whatsoever. It is final. We feel that an employee should have the opportunity of appealing, to a court of law if necessary, against such a decision. I think it is a common law right that everyone should be able to approach a completely impartial body such as a court of law, in order to seek the justice to which he feels he is entitled. This is an important aspect, because there are many thousands of people throughout the country who are employed in this service. It is a very vital and important service to the community. These employee unions are very strong throughout the country. They are there especially for the protection of the rights of the employee of a council. I fee] that the Minister should not deprive these individuals of the rights they have. The Minister can make a decision to that effect, but it should not be final. I grant the hon. the Deputy Minister his point of view, which he has put to the House, that some employees may just be difficult. They may be able to use this as an opportunity of shirking employment on the pretext that they are not satisfied even with the alternative employment offered, and they may then find it possible to get away with a pension and certain other emoluments. We know what has happened in the past. In the service of the State itself young men have been bowler-hatted, for which they have received considerable compensation because they had to be compensated for the loss of their pension rights and other privileges they received as a result of their employment. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, this clause provides for the taking over of staff at present employed by local authorities. We have been given a general assurance that none of these people will be any the worse off when taking up employment with the Bantu Affairs administration boards. However, I want a specific assurance from the hon. the Deputy Minister in regard to two aspects. The secretary to the Municipal Employees’ Association asked me to try and obtain these assurances from him. The first aspect deals with the minimum academic qualifications of persons employed in certain posts. The minimum qualification laid down by the department for a person holding the post of licence-holder is matriculation. For many years now certain persons have been employed by local authorities in these posts and the danger exists that the minimum qualifications laid down by the department of Bantu Administration will come into force when this take-over comes into effect. In this regard there are, of course, two courses of action that may be followed. The one is to give these people a certain period of time in which to obtain the minimum qualifications and the second is to say to them: “We accept the people holding these posts at present, because they have been doing this work for so many years and we are not going to insist upon their complying with all the requirements of the minimum qualifications”. I want to recommend most strongly the second alternative. I want to add, however, that the minimum academic qualifications may of course be made applicable to persons appointed in these posts for the first time.

The second assurance I should like the hon. the Minister to give me, is in regard to bilingualism. From the nature of his duties a Bantu administration official should have a thorough and sound knowledge of one of the Bantu languages, but it is a well-known fact that there are persons in the employ of local authorities who are not sufficiently bilingual as regards the official languages. In this regard the request is for an assurance to be obtained from the hon. the Deputy Minister, particularly in view of the fact that we had the takeover of certain activities by the post office in Durban some time ago and that provision was made in the Act at that time to the effect that certain standards of bilingualism would not be compulsory for the officials concerned. I mention this particularly since a person may say that he is unable to accept a certain post and, in doing that, he will be deemed to have resigned, as was stated by the hon. member for Jeppes. In doing this he forfeits certain privileges. I shall be grateful if the Deputy Minister will give us these assurances.

Mr. Chairman, in the first place I want to deal with the questions the hon. member for Durban Central has put to me. I am in the fortunate position to be able to give him assurances in respect of both matters raised by him. The first assurance is in respect of those people who are in the employ of local authorities but who do not have certain academic qualifications which are normally required. Clause 10 (1) (a) lays down the manner in which officials will be transferred to the administration boards. There can be no misunderstanding about that. Clause 10 (5) lays down quite clearly that the local authority should allow all officials to be transferred to an administration board. However, I am able to give the hon. member an assurance because clause 10 (6) lays down quite clearly that a board should offer employment to such official in a post which shall not be less favourable than the post he held while he was employed by a local authority. This also has legal force. The reply therefore in regard to qualifications is that if such a person is at present a licence-holder, a licence for which a matriculation certificate is required which he does not have, but if he has nevertheless been doing the work for all these years, such person can rest assured that he will receive the same treatment he had been receiving from the local authority up to that stage. Consequently, there is no need for any of these officials to feel worried in this regard. Exactly the same applies as far as bilingualism is concerned. Clause 10 (6) lays down that a board must offer an official a post. In regard to a person who is in the employ of a local authority at present, for example, in Natal, and who is not bilingual but has nevertheless served in that capacity for a number of years, it is being stipulated here that the services of such a person have to be taken over by a board. There is no question of bilingualism as far as clause 10 (6) is concerned. Therefore officials need not be worried on this score either. I hope I have set the hon. member’s mind at ease now.

The first leg of the amendment of the hon. member for Jeppes is acceptable to me. As a matter of fact, I had an amendment to the same effect on the Order Paper myself. I am not going to move my amendment because I want to allow the hon. member to move his. Why should I be difficult and move my amendment as well? However, I have problems as far as the second leg of the amendment of the hon. member is concerned. It concerns the question as to whether the Minister’s decision should be final. Clause 10 (10) formed the subject of protracted discussions between myself, my department, IANA and the U.M.E. If hon. members were to look at the manuscript of the Bill published on 15th December, they would see that clause 10 (10) as it appears in the manuscript is quite different from the one in this Bill. Even after this Bill had been published for general information, the U.M.E. made further representations because hon. members should bear in mind that the provisions as published a second time were also subjected to lengthy discussions. However, the U.M.E. made further representations to me that I should amend the Bill even further, because the Bill, in the form it was published at that time, placed the onus on the local authority and they were afraid they could have a spate of resignations and be held responsible for the refund of pensions, and so forth. I invited them to come and discuss the matter with me again. During the negotiations conducted prior to the publication of the Bill in its present form, we, the IANA and the U.M.E. agreed on the present wording of the provision. The question of whether the Minister should have a say as to whether a person is reasonable or unreasonable, was thoroughly thrashed out in consultation with the Department of Social Welfare. The wording which appears in the Bill at present is the only solution we could find on a joint basis in order to cope with all the foreseeable problems. I agree wholeheartedly with many of the points made by the hon. member for Jeppes. We are trying to be as reasonable as we possibly can towards every official under all circumstances. There is therefore no need for hon. members to see anything sinister in the fact that provision is being made to make it possible for matters such as these to be referred to the Minister. Let me furnish hon. members with the following facts. It is not correct to say that the decision of the Minister in a case such as this will be final. According to the clause as it stands at present, the Minister has to decide on one thing only, i.e. the question of whether an official has acted unreasonably by rejecting a post that is not less favourable, and which is dealt with in that part of the amendment which I am prepared to accent. All the Minister has to do when an official does not want to accept the post with the administration board or the post offered to him by the local authority, is to decide whether he was being unreasonable in any way. Apart from that, the Minister has no say in the matter. There is no need whatsoever for the Minister to lay down that such an official should resign. What the Minister does, is to decide, after consultation with the local authority and the administration board, whether such an official has acted unreasonably. I want to point out that in practice cases of this nature will mainly be limited to our younger officials. When the local authority and the administration board approach the Minister and say that an official has acted unreasonably by rejecting all the posts offered to him the Minister may, in consultation with the latter, decide whether the official was, in fact, being unreasonable. The ordinary procedure will be followed only after the Minister decides that the official has, in fact, been unreasonable—and here is where the misunderstanding comes in. In other words, it can be deemed that such an official has resigned and only then will his case be dealt with by the local authority according to his conditions of service. For what reason are we stipulating here that the Minister should act as arbiter? I shall tell hon. members why. It is because local authorities have felt that the danger exists here that the number of the younger officials, officials who have been in the service for only a short time—I do not believe this will happen in practice in the case of the older officials who have been in the service for many years—want to take advantage of the opportunity created by the circumstances which have arisen and then want to resign without good reason. The result of this will be that the local authority or the administration board, or both of them, will be responsible for higher pension benefits and all that goes with it while no one, except the official himself, will derive any benefit from it. Because what is more reasonable than that the board should offer him a post, and the local authority offers him a post if he is not satisfied with the former, and he does not accept it? Local authorities felt that it would be difficult for them to act as an arbiter in a case such as this. For the very same reason it would be difficult for the administration board too. For that reason they felt that there should be an outside body which would be in a position to ascertain, in conjunction with them, whether or not an official was being reasonable. But even then the decision of the Minister would not be final, because it may be referred to the higher court for revision. Such higher court will then revise the matter, i.e. if there was a complaint, and decide whether the Minister was unreasonable. I have investigated this matter very carefully, and hon. members may therefore accept my explanation. The decision of the Minister is therefore not final. An appeal may then be lodged with the higher court by means of revision and if the Minister, in exercising his functions, decided that the official was unreasonable, such higher court may say that the Minister was not quite unreasonable in his decision that such an official acted unreasonably. For these reasons I feel that hon. members on that side of the House will appreciate this vexing situation and will understand why I cannot accept this amendment. From the nature of the case in in view of the fact that one is dealing with officials who have had many years of service with a local authority and who have almost reached the age of retirement, I can now tell hon. members that we will appreciate and understand that there may be good reason for these officials to feel that they would rather retire from the service. But in the case of younger officials who have been in the service for only a short while the situation may arise where people want to take advantage of their position. If those hon. members could suggest something better than what was suggested by the U.M.E. or IANA, i.e. that the Minister should only act as the arbiter to decide whether or not someone was being unreasonable, I am prepared to consider their suggestions very sympathetically. But jointly we were unable to find a better solution, and I can tell hon. members that the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions thought this to be an excellent solution to serve as a safety valve to make sure that this situation is not exploited.

Sir, following on the courteous attitude of the hon. the Deputy Minister, I want to say that I accept that he is absolutely sincere in his desire to deal with this matter in as sympathetic and reasonable a manner as possible. I also accept that the amendment, of course, does make the position very much better because it must satisfy the employee to a very much greater extent than he would be under the clause as printed. I want to say this, however. There is a principle attached to this matter. There must be very few cases where a man will go to court in a matter like this because it would involve him in great expense. If one accepts what the hon. the Deputy Minister says, namely that the employee has some right of review, it is going to be very difficult for the employee to establish mala fides on the part of the Deputy Minister because that is what he would have to establish. What we are concerned with is the Deputy Minister’s reasonableness here. He might be misguided; that might well happen. We are dealing with human factors here. It is an ingrained legal principle in our law that a man must have the right to go to an impartial court of law. The hon. the Deputy Minister could be perfectly bona fide and perfectly sincere but misguided in the matter because, after all, it is a matter of human judgment. The occasions on which a man would take the Minister to court must be very rare indeed. Sir, you know the adage that justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done; that is a very important principle in our law. The employee already has an inherent right which has been established over the years and which is well ingrained in our whole labour policy in this country. That is that he can go to his union, who negotiated his original terms and conditions under which he entered the employ of a local authority. I do not want to deprive him of that opportunity. But if the Minister is the arbiter, he would have only one alternative and that is to test the reasonableness of the Minister’s decision in a court of law. That would occur very rarely. I agree with the hon. the Deputy Minister that it would occur very rarely because under this amendment he would do everything in his power to ensure that the employee was given every opportunity of putting forward his case. But there will be a few exceptions and it is those exceptions that virtually make and sustain the rule of law in a country. Therefore I appeal to the hon. the Deputy Minister to be somewhat more amenable with regard to this particular clause. This question of a final decision carries an implication which I think should not be brought into an atmosphere in which we are trying to be considerate and to have regard to all the circumstance surrounding this question of employment and re-employment. I think the hon. the Deputy Minister will agree with me that the occasions on which a man would take the Minister to court will be very rare, but to meet those rare cases he should accept the viewpoint put to him. This is not a question of saving anybody’s face; it is not a question of being difficult; it is a question of not depriving anyone of even a remote right. The acceptance of the proposed amendment would show a very fine spirit with regard to the whole of the machinery to be employed here; it would confirm the desire for co-operation expressed by the hon. the Deputy Minister, and I would really appeal to him not to be difficult in this matter.

The hon. member for Jeppes moved, as an amendment, that paragraph (b) of subsection (10) be deleted. I appreciate the argument of the hon. member in regard to the whole matter, but I do not think that we come any nearer to what the hon. member for Jeppes actually wants by simply deleting paragraph (b) of subsection (10). As the hon. the Deputy Minister has explained, we are dealing here with two bodies, i.e. local authorities and the administration board. What has to be ascertained now, is whether an official has acted deliberately or not; this is what is mainly at issue here, It is a fact that, in terms of the common law, a person is always in a position to test the decision of the Minister in a court of law. However, I think that we are not in this case, as the clause stands here, going to create the situation that finality has to be obtained on the matter in a court of law in the event of a dispute arising between an official and the administration board or the local authority. This would be the only alternative if this provision is not inserted to the effect that the Minister has a say in the matter. What we achieve by inserting this provision is the following. We provide a safety valve for an impartial person on a high level to give finality on what should or should not, be regarded as deliberate action, instead of such a person having to go to court to reach finality on the matter. By retaining this provision in the clause we are, therefore, making it easier to bring about mutual goodwill. All the Minister is able to ascertain in terms of this clause, is whether a person has acted deliberately; that is all. Apart from that he cannot decide anything else. All the Minister is able to do, is to express an opinion. He can merely express an opinion to the effect that the person concerned did or did not act deliberately. The matter will be gone into thoroughly before the Minister gives his decision and it will save the official or whoever else becomes involved in the matter a great deal of legal expenses if the Minister has stated what his opinion is. If an opinion such as this did not exist the official would have had to take recourse to a court of law before the Minister had even considered the matter.

It says that the Minister can decide, but then the person concerned will have the right to go to a court of law.

Order! The hon. member must complete his argument.

Sir, that is precisely my argument. I say the Minister does not have the final say; an appeal can still be lodged with the court. The Minister decides whether the official has acted deliberately or not and if the Minister says, “no” or “yes” any person, in terms of the common law, still has the right to take that decision to a higher court for revision. My argument is that we are going to limit litigation if we give the Minister the powers of discretion to decide whether a person has or has not acted deliberately. We can compare this with the system one finds in Germany as far as the courts are concerned. This really amounts to a discussion before the case comes up for decision in a court of law where the matter is thrashed out and at the point of litigation, only the dispute remains and all other irrelevant matters are left out. I really cannot see what the objection of the hon. member for Jeppes is. On the contrary, I want to submit that it is better if we keep it as it stands here, because this will eliminate the possibility of protracted or unnecessary court cases involving either the administration board or the local authority, and that the Minister is doing something here which will prevent a great deal of money, time and energy from being wasted.

I do not follow the arguments of the hon. member who has just spoken. In terms of subsection (10) (a) the Minister is obliged to perform a function which requires the exercise of his mind, with the result that he comes to an opinion. Paragraph (b) says that the decision of the Minister is final. As I understand the law—and I think it is clear— when you place an obligation on a Minister to form an opinion on a certain situation and then you say that that opinion is final, you can attack such a decision in any one of two ways. You can either say that he did not apply his mind to the problem and so consequently could not properly have formed an opinion which he alleges he formed, or you can say that mala fides were present when he applied his mind to that particular problem; that is to say, he was motivated by ulterior or improper motives. As far as I am aware, those are the only two ways in which one could go to a court of law as the clause stands at the present time. It is accepted by anyone who has any experience of practice in that regard that it is extremely difficult to prove either of those two contentions, because you have to go so far, in the first instance, as to say that the Minister’s decision was so unreasonable, on the mere fact of its being taken, that he could not properly have applied his mind to the subject. You have to go to that length before you have any chance whatever of success in a court of law, and it is a very slim chance because of the difficulty of proof.

The second point is in regard to mala fides. In the nature of things, where a decision is taken behind closed doors, as would be done in the normal course by a Minister taking a decision of this kind, it is once again virtually impossible to prove mala fides unless the case is so outrageous that it could be assumed on the facts of the case that mala fides were present. I believe that that is a factual statement of the position and for those reasons I do not follow the argument of the hon. member who has just spoken.

First amendment put and agreed to.

Question put: That paragraph (b) of subsection (10) stand part of the Clause.

Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—79: Aucamp, P. L. S.; Botha, G. F.; Botha L. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, R. F.; Botha, S. P.; Botma, M. C.; Brandt, J. W.; Campher, J. H.; Coetsee, H. J.; Coetzee, B.; Coetzee, S. F.; Cruywagen, W. A.; De Jager, P. R.; De Wet, M. W. Du Plessis, A. H.; Du Plessis, G. C.; Du Toit, J. P.; Engelbrecht, J. J.; Gerdener, T. J. A.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Hartzenberg, F.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Henning, J. M.; Heunis, J. C.; Hoon, J. H.; Horn, J. W. L.; Jurgens, J. C.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, S. F.; Kotzé, W. D.; Langley, T.; Le Roux, F. J.; Le Roux, J. P. C.; Loots, J. J.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; McLachlan, R.; Meyer, P. H.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, J. A. F.; Otto, J. C.; Palm, P. D.; Pansegrouw, J. S.; Pienaar, L. A.; Pieterse, R. J. J.; Potgieter, S. P.; Rail, J. W.; Rail, M. J.; Reinecke. C. J.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Smit, H. H.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Van Breda, A.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, P. S.; Vander Merwe, S. W.; Van der Merwe, W. L.; Van der Spuy, S. J. H.; Van der Walt, H. J. D.; Van Staden, J. W.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Wyk, A. C.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Viljoen, M.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Vorster, L. P. J.; Waring, F. W.

Tellers: G. P. C. Bezuidenhout, P. C. Roux, G. P. van den Berg and H. J. van Wyk.

Noes—41: Bands, G. J.; Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Baxter, D. D.; Cillie, H. van Z.; Deacon, W. H. D.; De Villiers, I. F. A.; Fisher, E. L.; Fourie, A.; Graaff, De V.; Hickman, T.; Hopewell, A.; Hughes, T. G.; Jacobs, G. F.; Kingwill, W. G.; Malan, E. G.; Marais, D. J.; Miller, H.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Oliver, G. D. G.; Pyper, P. A.; Raw, W. V.; Smith, W. J. B.; Stephens, J. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Sutton, W. M.; Suzman, H.; Taylor, C. D.; Timoney, H. M.; Van den Heever, S. A.; Van Eck, H. J.; Van Hoogstraten, H. A.; Von Keyserlingk, C. C.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Winchester, L. E. D.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: R. M. Cadman and J. O. N. Thompson.

Question affirmed and remaining amendment negatived.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to. Clause 11:

Mr. Chairman, I move the following amendment—

Mr. Chairman, we have no objection to the hon. the Deputy Minister’s amendment, but the cardinal element of this legislation is the deprivation of local authorities of their jurisdiction over Bantu townships falling within their areas. This clause contains the provisions to bring about the object of the Bill. Paragraphs (a), (b), (c) and (d) of subsection (1) deal with the acquisition, disposition and exploitation of land. We cannot have objections to those, if the board is to operate at all. Subsection (1) (e) is the crux of the legislation. It hands over control and all the powers and functions, duties and obligations previously enjoyed by the local authorities to the board, subject, of course, to such conditions as the Minister may lay down. Under paragraph (e) (ii) he can nullify ordinances of provincial councils as the hon. the Minister deems fit. In order to make the boards work, he probably would have to modify certain of the ordinances. There is no doubt about that. However, there is no limit here as to what he can do. We considered how we could amend this clause, but I am afraid that it becomes too complicated. We are also faced with the problem that, as our objections is to the taking away of authority from the local authorities, any amendment we might move to that effect would, of course, be contrary to the principle of the Bill. We are also handicapped in that way, so that we cannot achieve any object by amending this clause. The hon. the Deputy Minister says that they are not taking any new powers for the Minister, but that they are merely taking over all the powers exercised by the local authorities. I submit, however, that, because of the powers being given to the Minister to make regulations and to direct what should be done, the hon. the Minister is getting more powers. I cannot now discuss the powers which he takes in clause 22, but if one reads clause 22 with this clause 11, it cannot be denied that the hon. the Minister is going to have much more power than the local authorities ever had or that he has had in the past with regard to the control of the local authorities. As I have said, there is nothing we can do to amend this clause. It is the crux of the Bill, and we are opposed to it.

Mr. Chairman, I too am completely opposed to this clause. It is really the crux of the Bill. It is the clause which allows the board to take over the rights, powers, functions, duties and obligations of urban local authorities as regards administering the townships for Africans living within those areas. Now, Sir, we hear a lot of talk about tradition in this House. Everybody is always telling us that it is tradition in South Africa to do or not to do this, that or the other. I want to put it to the hon. the Deputy Minister that it has always been tradition in South Africa for the urban local authorities to administer the areas within which Africans live. The Urban Areas Act, which was originally passed in 1922, provided that matters such as housing and the administration of townships in which Africans live inside municipal areas, should be the special responsibility of the municipal authority. That was nearly 50 years. That is tradition. But of course when it suits the hon. the Deputy Minister and his Government, tradition can be brushed aside without a second thought. That is precisely what this Bill is doing. It is taking over a traditional function performed by the urban authorities. Whatever the hon. the Deputy Minister says about wanting to work in co-operation with these local authorities, I am quite sure that within the next three or four years we will find that, willing or unwilling, municipal authorities will have had to hand over the control of the Bantu townships lying within their areas of jurisdiction. I am against this because I do not believe in centralization of control. I think where local governmental functions are concerned, it is far better to leave matters in the hands of local authorities. They understand the needs, desires and aspirations of the people far better than any centralized board can do.

The very fact that the members of the board are not to be considered as representatives of the local authorities, in fact strengthens my reaction to this Bill, namely that the board which is going to administer this is going to be one of these remote authorities not concerned with the needs of the specific communities over whom they are now going to exercise vast powers. I have no doubt that in exercising these powers they will not be as sympathetic as they should be. They will not have the time. They will not be tolerant of the individual needs of the communities which they are going to have to look after. We have already had comparisons between the administration of governmentally controlled townships in the Johannesburg area, which is the only area of which I have any real experience, and those areas which are administered by the local authority. There is no question whatever that the Africans prefer living under the jurisdiction of the local authority. They are by no means satisfied with what they have there, because there are many laws to which they object, but these laws are to some extent at least more leniently administered than are the laws in the same area controlled by the central authority. The very fact that the hon. the Minister and members on that side of the House seem to take offence at the thought that the Bantu Revenue Account is not self-balancing, leads me to believe that the future conditions are going to be even more stringent in the Bantu townships. The Johannesburg Municipality is subsidizing the Bantu Revenue Account to the extent of about R1.2 million per year. I have always thought that figure to be absurdly low, in fact, especially if cognizance is taken of the enormous black population, larger than the White population of Johannesburg, on whom industry and commerce are dependent for the very lifeblood of the economic side of Johannesburg. We all know that wages are pretty low and that services have to be subsidized. As I have said, this seems to me a low figure indeed.

But I wonder when the central Government takes over the administration of the townships, whether any subsidy at all is going to be allowed by the board in respect of housing so as to overcome the Government’s stubborn adherence to R30 per month as the economic housing level, and whether other amenities and facilities will be subsidized, which in any case are by no means fully provided for at present. For all these reasons I strongly oppose this clause which I believe to be the very crux of this Bill.

Amendments put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—80: Aucamp, P. L. S.; Botha, G. F.; Botha, L. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, R. F.; Botha, S. P.; Botma, M. C.; Brandt, J. W.; Campher, J. H.; Coetsee, H. J.; Coetzee, B.; Coetzee, S. F.; Cruywagen, W. A.; De Jager, P. R.; De Wet, M. W.; Du Plessis, A. H.; Du Plessis, G. C.; Du Toit, J. P.; Engelbrecht, J. J.; Gerdener, T. J. A.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Hartzenberg, F.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Henning, J. M.; Heunis, J. C.; Hoon, J. H.; Horn, J. W. L.; Jurgens, J. C.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, S. F.; Kotzé, W. D.; Langley, T.; Le Roux, F. J.; Le Roux, J. P. C.; Loots, J. J.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; McLachlan, R.; Meyer, P. H.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, J. A. F.; Otto, J. C.; Palm, P. D.; Pansegrouw, J. S.; Pienaar, L. A.; Pieterse, R. J. J.; Potgieter, S. P.; Rail, J. W.; Rail, M. J.; Reinecke, C. J.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Smit, H. H.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Van Breda, A.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Merwe, W. L.; Van der Spuy, S. J. H.; Van der Walt, H. J. D.; Van Staden, J. W.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Wyk, A. C.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Viljoen, M.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Visse, J. H.; Vorster, L. P. J.; Waring, F. W.

Tellers: G. P. C. Bezuidenhout, P. C. Roux, G. P. van den Berg and H. J. van Wyk.

Noes—43: Bands, G. J.; Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Baxter, D. D.; Bronkhorst, H. J.; Cillie, H. van Z.; Deacon, W. H. D.; De Villiers, I. F. A.; Emdin, S.; Fisher, E. L.; Fourie, A.; Graaff, De V.; Hickman, T.; Hope-well. A.; Hughes, T. G.; Jacobs, G. F.; Kingwill, W. G.; Malan, E. G.; Marais, D. J.; Miller, H.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Oliver, G. D. G.; Pyper, P. A.; Raw, W. V.; Smith, W. J. B.; Stephens, J. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Sutton, W. M.; Suzman, H.; Taylor, C. D.; Timoney, H. M.; Van den Heever, S. A.; Van Eck, H. J.; Van Hoogstraten, H. A.; Von Keyserlingk, C. C.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Winchester, L. E. D.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: R. M. Cadman and J. O. N. Thompson.

Clause, as amended, accordingly agreed to.

Clause 12:

Mr. T. G. HUGHES. When a board has been established, it will take over all the assets, including land or rights acquired by the local authorities in respect of matters to be taken over by the board. It shall be deemed to have acquired all the assets of the local authorities subject to such conditions, including conditions relating to the payment of compensation (if any) as may be determined by the Minister, and to any conditions which may be mutually agreed upon between the urban local authority, local authority or local government body concerned and that board. Subsection (4) provides for arbitration by the Controller and Auditor-General in case of dispute between the board and the local authorities concerned and the Minister. If one takes the provisions of subsection (4) into regard, it seems that it is intended that compensation will be paid to the local authorities. We know that in many instances—Cape Town is a good example—local authorities have spent their own revenue on capital expenses in providing accommodation in the Bantu townships. Lines 61 and 62 of clause 12 (1) reads as follows:

Mr. Chairman, the only reason for the insertion of the words “if any” in the English version and “as daar is” in the Afrikaans version is that all cases are not identical. Situations may arise where a local authority may, for example, argue that compensation is not necessary in certain circumstances. If an administration area is, for example, created in the Free State where those people would very much like to have it, it is quite possible that a local authority may say that, although compensation is involved in the take-over, they feel that in the light of the fact that they are in any case going to co-operate on the larger board, compensation is not necessary in that case. This is the only reason for the insertion in clause 12 of the two words concerned, i.e. “if any”. There is no other reason. We accept that there will be compensation in the normal course of events. The necessary compensation will then be paid out. In clause 12 it is made very clear that the necessary compensation will be paid where it has to be paid. But because situations are not identical, we nevertheless foresee the slight possibility of a case arising where a local authority itself may argue that compensation is not necessary in the case concerned. We felt that these words should be inserted just to cover such a case.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 13:

Mr. Chairman, I move as an amendment—

I must say that the hon. the Deputy Minister’s amendment does help to a certain extent to remove my fears in this regard. I wonder whether the hon. the Deputy Minister could not give us an unequivocal undertaking that moneys from the levies—he mentioned it during the Second Reading debate but I should like to hear it again—shall not be used for homelands development. This is worrying businessmen, particularly, who were given the assurance years ago by Dr. Verwoerd that the proceeds of this levy would be used specifically for the provision of health services, transport and other facilities for Africans living in the urban areas. Now they have the fear that some of this money will be directed towards homeland development and that the assurance given to them by Dr. Verwoerd will be breached. It is in these circumstances that I should like to have an assurance from the hon. the Deputy Minister in this regard.

Another thing that worries me is what is going to happen to the funds at present standing to the credit of emergency funds of local authorities. In the case of the Johannesburg City Council this, I believe, amounts to about R30 000. These funds were built up by donations from the public in consequence of certain disasters that have occurred—railway accidents and so on. Up till now the non-European affairs department of the Johannesburg municipality has had a completely free hand in the utilization of this money, thereby obviating time-consuming inquiries, inquiries which can sometimes go into weeks or months, while the victims and their dependants are going through severe financial difficulties. The non-European affairs department has been able to ladle out these moneys immediately to offset the effect of such disasters. What is going to happen now if the board takes over all these moneys? What is going to happen to any immediate relief that may be required?

These are the things that are worrying people who have had to administer these funds in the past. Knowing how enthusiastic the hon. the Deputy Minister and the Minister have been in the past to get money from local authorities to send to the homelands for development there, I myself share these fears and, therefore, should like to have some reassurance from the hon. the Deputy Minister. I move as an amendment—

If the amendment of the hon. the Deputy Minister intends to achieve what my amendment intends to achieve, I shall not move mine. Is that the position? Is the hon. the Deputy Minister’s amendment more limited in scope than the amendment moved by the hon. member for Houghton? It has happened in recent times that certain municipalities in the Transvaal made contributions to the department for the establishment of Bantu villages and that type of thing. As I understand the position, however, such moneys could not in terms of the existing law have come from the Bantu Services Levy Fund. Will that still be the case after the hon. the Deputy Minister’s amendment has been adopted? If he can assure me of that I shall not move my amendment.

I should have thought the hon. member for Mooi River would withdraw his amendment after my having explained the matter. This is a very important matter, and it is very clear to me that there is misunderstanding among hon. members opposite as far as the spending of levy funds is concerned. For example, the hon. member for Houghton asked for the assurance “that these moneys are not going to be used for homeland development”. I want to make myself very clear about this matter. I am fully aware of the assurances given by Dr. Verwoerd in connection with these levy funds assurances we have honoured up to now. The very object of my amendment is to place it beyond all doubt that as far as this Bill is concerned, those assurances will still be honoured. This must be clearly understood. However, it seems to me as if hon. members do not properly understand the circumstances surrounding the spending of levy funds. They must draw a clear distinction between the spending of profits derived from the sale of Bantu beer on the one hand and the spending of levy funds on the other hand. Many hon. members apparently do not understand this. This clause deals with donations. I notice there is definite confusion among hon. members about the question of donations from the revenue derived from the sale of Bantu beer, and donations from the revenue derived from levies. I want to say immediately that the department has received many offers from local authorities from profits made on Bantu beer. Such donations we can use, and we do so too. But we have also had offers of donations from levy funds. We have consistently refused to use such donations. Hon. members must understand the difference between these two funds very well. Donations from profits on Bantu beer are spent on a variety of things in the Bantu homelands. We have received donations from, inter alia, Alexandra, Alberton, Benoni, Boksburg, Edenvale and Empangeni— about 22 in total—amounting to R2 157 000. These are contributions from the profits on Bantu beer. Moreover, there are still quite a number of local authorities which have promised donations. For example, we accepted a donation of R100 000 from the Johannesburg City Council last week. We received the cheque and I looked at it closely to see whether it was true, and it was. However, this amount comes from the profits on Bantu beer. Then donations totalling a large amount, have also been promised by Germiston, Howick, Vryheid, and various others, from the profits on Bantu beer. On the other hand, as far as levy funds are concerned, Dr. Verwoerd gave the assurance—and it is also contained in the Act—that those funds would be applied solely in the interests of the employers making the contributions, on the one hand, and their Bantu employees on the other hand. The hon. member for Houghton now asks me to give the assurance that these funds will not be used for development in homelands. We must understand each other very clearly now. As I said, an assurance was given by Dr. Verwoerd and the Act provides accordingly. My amendment now provides that levy funds shall only be used in accordance with the relevant Act. In other words, my amendment goes considerably further in placing a restriction on me than the amendment of which the hon. member for Mooi River has given notice. This amendment of the hon. member also made it clear that hon. members opposite do not understand this matter fully. There are various places in the homelands in the Republic where levy funds are used, not for building houses, for example, but for providing basic services. As I have said, there are places in the homelands where levy funds are used for this purpose. For example, Pretoria has Ga Rankuwa on its doorstep. In addition, Mamelodi and Atteridgeville have been frozen. It is in the interests of employers and in the interests of the Bantu employees in their service that the levy funds derived from the employers in Pretoria should be utilized in the interests of the Bantu in their service. That is why levy funds of Pretoria amounting to R3 444 919 are being used in Ga Rankuwa and Mabopane. I am giving hon. members the full picture, because I do not want any misunderstanding. As far as Durban is concerned, there is an amount of R14 989 491 in respect of Umlazi in the homeland which is adjacent to Durban. There, too, the contributions of the employers are being used in the interests of their own employees in the form of services in Umlazi. I just do not want any misunderstanding. In other words, in places adjacent to the Bantu homelands it has been customary throughout the years, also in the time of Dr. Verwoerd, for levy funds to be used for that purpose. Thus an amount of more than R11 million from levy funds has been spent on this in East London, R934 000 in Pietersburg and R494 000 in Rustenburg. I therefore cannot give the assurance that levy funds will not be used for homeland development, because they have been used for this for years, but what I can, in fact, give is the assurance that they will be used as they have been up to now. That is why I said in the Second Reading debate that the status quo would be maintained in all circumstances, and I now move the amendment in order to give statutory authority to this; in other words, to give statutory force to the assurance which I am prepared to give orally to the hon. member for Mooi River and all the members on the opposite side, and to the hon. member for Houghton as well. I therefore move my amendment to the effect that donations specifically made to the levy funds, shall be used only in terms of the Services Levy Act. Sir, hon. members can accept this assurance of mine. I can say a great deal more about this, but I leave it at that. I take it that hon. members understand the position in regard to this matter better now.

Sir. the hon. the Deputy Minister says that they have kept to the spirit of the assurance given by Dr. Verwoerd. I read out this assurance to him in the Second Reading debate and he said that he accepted it. I just want to remind him what the assurance was-—

I also said that last time we debated we understood that there was an amount of about R26 million which had been accumulated by the different municipalities over the years. I think Johannesburg had R5 million and Cape Town R3 million, or something like that. Sir, if all this money has been accumulated and has not been used, I suppose it is because of the fact that the services have been supplied, otherwise this money would not have accumulated. Is the Minister in terms of the assurance given by Dr. Verwoerd going to suspend payment in certain areas? Has he given consideration to the question as to where payment is going to be suspended?

From what he said it seems to me that it is quite definite in which way the law is interpreted at the moment and that he is going to abide by that—viz. this money can only be used in reserves which adjoin municipalities. He has given the examples of Pretoria, Durban, East London and Mdantsane. That means then that the Johannesburg levy cannot be used anywhere except in Johannesburg because there is no homeland abutting on Johannesburg. The Deputy Minister nods his head.

No I will reply to that.

I also want him to reply to something else. The Deputy Minister has mentioned that Johannesburg has given a cheque for R100 000. [Interjections.] No, I know that it is not from the levy fund. Will the Deputy Minister tell us whether any conditions were attached to this donation that the Johannesburg municipality made to his department?

Sir, I should like to reply to the questions put by the hon. member for Transkei. They deal with important matters about which one wants no misunderstanding and therefore I should like to reply to them.

Business interrupted to report progress.

House Resumed:

Progress reported.

The House proceeded to the consideration of private members’ business.

I move the motion standing in my name, as follows—

In the first place this motion requests the appreciation of this House for the great progress which has been made over the past years in the care of White aged in our country. Then there is a second part of the motion which requests an investigation of the services and the aid schemes that exist for the care of the aged, with the idea that an investigation should also be made into the needs of the aged in general.

Sir, as a result of the limited time I cannot make a detailed examination of the actual progress in this field in the past number of years. I just want to compare a few figures from the year 1948 with those of the year 1970, but in doing so I have no intention of comparing the United Party of the time with the present-day National Party. For the purpose of this debate we can forget about that. I merely propose to compare two periods, thereby emphasizing the progress that has been made. And when I quote these figures I chiefly want to confine myself to old age pensioners, because we do not have the time to refer to all the various sections and facets. Sir, in 1948 the maximum pension for an aged person was RIO; today it is R35. I do not claim that R10 was too little in 1948. Neither do I say that today’s R35 is enough. All I want to emphasize is the fact of a 250 per cent increase over this period. In the same spirit I want to refer to the means test. In the year 1948 a person could receive the maximum pension if he had assets of R800. Over the years this R800 increased by 750 per cent to R6 800. This more favourable application of the means test also brought about a tremendous increase in the number of persons receiving old age pensions today. In 1948 there were 66 000; at present there are about 108 000, of which very nearly 100 000 receive the full or maximum old age pension. In 1948 we spent R6.8 million on old age pensions and allowances; at present it is more than R38 million. In 1948 we had only 23 homes for the aged. Taking into account old age homes that are being built at present, the figure will soon stand at 250. In 1948 we paid R40 000 in subsidies to these old age homes. Now the figure is much more than R2 million, and this does not include the grant made by the Department of Community Development in this connection.

I emphasize again that here I have only mentioned a few of the many figures to stress that progress that has been made from one particular year to another. At the end of his Vote last year the hon. the Minister made a sweeping examination of all the services furnished for our aged. At the end of that speech, from the nature of the case, we could not clap hands, but today, by way of this motion, we should like to give the House the opportunity to express its appreciation for what is being done and for what has been done in recent years. At the same time we offer the United Party the opportunity of joining us in our expression of thanks.

Sir, you may now ask why, if things are so bright, there is a request for an investigation into this whole question. The hon. the Minister has very frequently in the past years made the statement that it is the Government’s point of departure that we can never do enough for our aged in this country. It is also in this spirit of not being able to do enough that I advocate an investigation. But I want to say at the very beginning that in using the word “investigation” I do not in the first place or only have in mind a public commission of enquiry. I use the word more in the sense of study and research, because this is what is particularly necessary in this field.

I now want to try to mention a few chief reasons why I think that study and research are necessary in this field. In the first place I feel that it has political significance in the sense that the position of the aged in the community is very readily abused politically during elections. I do not accuse a particular party of this. We know the history. The conditions of the aged are frequently exploited for political argument. It is my standpoint that any political swindle in this field can only be countered with facts, and facts in their turn we can only obtain by research. With those facts we can then stress why we do certain things, but equally why, on the other hand, certain things cannot or ought not to be done.

In the second place I think that study is necessary because a particular trend is to be detected in the population growth in the higher age groups. In 1911 2.4 per cent of our White population was more than 65 years old. In 1960 the figure stood at 6.8 per cent. In 1970 we expect this figure to be considerably greater. In 1911 0.6 of our population were older than 75 years. I am speaking of the White population. In 1960 2.4 per cent were older than 75 years, and we can certainly expect that the 1970 figures will evidence a considerable increase. What these figures mean to us is that we have a percentage increase of people in that age group that are increasingly dependent upon the community and the State. The older people get—and there is no getting away from that—the more dependent they become.

But this percentage growth is also more significant, as far as I am concerned, if we note that two-thirds of our old age pensioners are single at present. In other words, we are dealing with a group of people who have for the best part of their lives been together in a family community, but who are now to a certain extent alone. In the last 10 to 15 years of their lives our provision for them must be different to what it was during the earlier 60 or 70 years, and this makes this percentage growth in the top layer of such importance to us.

Also of importance is the fact that 15 000 of our Whites in this highest age group are already cared for in old age homes. I again want to stress that these people, who have been accustomed to different conditions throughout their lives, are now isolated in a particular care centre or other particular circumstances where care is provided.

I also find these figures significant if we note that more than 50 per cent of the women above 60 and the men above 65 years of age are already in receipt of old age pensions. I must emphasize this, because here we already have a large percentage of dependence, but I want to say at once that this dependence must not be interpreted as indigence. A moment ago I pointed out how the means test has been relaxed. Today in this higher category we consequently have people who are in a certain sense dependent, people who to a reasonable extent have an income from which they can live well. They are financially stronger than they were a number of years ago. Our task is therefore no longer solely one of caring for the poor; we know of several present-day aged who tell us they would pay this or that, or make large donations, if only they had some place where they know they would be able to live in the last years of their lives. This phenomenon makes our responsibility that much greater.

Another chief reason why I advocate a study in depth is the shift of emphasis we have observed in the last few years, a shift of emphasis in respect of the methods and the techniques in the care of the aged. I am referring to the National Conference on the care of the Aged that has just concluded in Pretoria. Several facets of the care of the aged were emphasized, and one gains the impression that these various interested groups want to specialize to a certain extent. One emphasizes the health aspect; another intellectual aspect; another the merely physical and another again the merely economic. Because these fields can be delimited so sharply, I claim that the time has come for us to study this matter more deeply. I should just like to refer, inter alia, to what the hon. the Minister said on Monday night when he opened that specific congress which was arranged by the Department. He said (translation)—

We could conduct a very interesting debate here about what these stereotyped and uncontrolled ideas are, but time will not permit us to do so. In this connection I just want to point out, inter alia, how in the past there has been, and perhaps is even today, a stigma attached to institution care. We think of our old age homes as institutions where the people are isolated. As I shall point out later we should like to get away from that idea. We still perhaps think of care for the aged as being applied to those people who are hidden away in little back rooms, frequently even in rich homes. A shift of emphasis has come about in connection with the care of elderly people, but I do not think that we have sufficient scientific facts to endorse and describe this.

I want to mention a fourth chief reason why I think that study is necessary. The Department’s policy of more community or home care has strongly been guided by the hon. the Minister of late. In that connection I should like to quote what the hon. the Minister himself said in his policy statement in connection with the care of the aged. He said (translation)—

The Minister came to the conclusion—

This is a standpoint that I fully endorse. I can find no argument against it. But I nevertheless ask that we should make a deeper study of this matter when we come to the application of this idea. As far as I am concerned it boils down to this, that if in the past we have made a mistake by withdrawing the aged too rapidly from the community or by allowing them to be admitted too quickly and in too large numbers to homes for the aged, it now only means that we shall have to reverse this process.

Before doing this I claim that we shall have to think the matter over very seriously. Although the Department and the hon. the Minister perhaps have a very clear picture of it, I myself, as well as other bodies outside, nevertheless feel a measure of concern about how the process will work in practice. I think that I may say here that it is not going to be the Department’s policy simply to reverse everything forthwith and say that we have now reached saturation point and are therefore not going to erect any more old age homes. I believe very definitely that this is not the Department’s policy. But, while I agree with the idea that much more can be done in the community as far as home care is concerned, I want to ask that in respect of a few matters we should go into this very deeply.

I think we shall have to begin with the aged who are already in homes, and who ought not to be there according to our opinion. We shall have to make a deep, scientific study to assure ourselves that those people are indeed not very happy there. If these studies were to reveal that the people who are there are, in fact, happy and satisfied, indeed happier and more satisfied than they were under previous circumstances, then we shall have to ask ourselves if we are, in fact, on the right track in continuing to emphasize care in the community. I know at once that we are going to have differences in degree. The more dependent, sickly and broken down the aged are, the more will they perhaps prefer the institution care. We shall have to ascertain for ourselves whether we can substitute anything else that would be better than what we are giving at present.

On the other hand we shall have to carry out a study in order to ask ourselves why this community was so quick to let its people go to the institution or old-age home. We must not be misled into thinking that it was as a result of our welfare activities, that it was our care of the aged that served as a stimulus or attraction in quickly taking our people out of the community and placing them in an institution. There had to be other reasons, many of which we could perhaps mention if time allowed. I also think that perhaps my statements would not have been well founded and therefore I should prefer us to make a study of this and ask ourselves whether the experience of the past has not perhaps taught our community that there are good grounds for preferably letting our people go to old-age homes at a particular time and under particular circumstances. I think, for example, that the passage of the Aged Persons Act was to a large extent the result of the poor conditions under which our old people were cared for, not only in groups in old-age homes, but also as individuals. These are conditions we took note of over the years. I think these matters need a thorough study.

In the third place I think that we shall have to investigate the position of the aged who are still cared for at home, those who still live in the community, whether on their own, with children, family or friends. We shall have to make a thorough study and ask them whether they are, in fact, happy there. By that I do not mean that they must simply be asked superficial questions. We shall have to ask them whether we would, in fact, be doing them a favour if we made attempts to house them in old-age homes, and whether they would not prefer to stay where they are. I am sure that several hon. members, like myself, know of old people who tell us: “I will make generous donations if I can only be cared for somewhere in my old age”. In my own sphere of knowledge I can think of several old people who would tell me, in the words of one specific person: “I am very happy. My children are very good to me. My grandchildren love me, but I am terribly lonely, because they have their own lives to live. They are living past me.”

In this sense I then want to ask whether the time has not come for us to ascertain whether we have not made a mistake somewhere in the past with the type of old-age home that we built. Will the answer not perhaps be that we should make another kind of home for the care of the aged available that would form a small community on its own and avoid the stigma that now perhaps attaches to the care of the aged, to the so-called “institution”? Even if we do succeed in keeping people in the community for a longer period, we shall still have to ask ourselves whether we shall not also have to take the existing conditions of care in our old-age homes into consideration.

There is another very important aspect I want to mention. If we decide to place greater emphasis on community care, must we not think in terms of the creation of new services and organizations. We have the family care services in our country that are organized on a very efficient level and that make provision for three different aspects in particular: These are services that call together voluntary workers; that make professional services available and that preserve one very great principle, i.e. that those needing care, and also the aged, must be cared for within their national, language, cultural and religious framework. I am afraid that if we now establish overlapping bodies, and if we inaugurate new ones, we shall adversely affect this one important facet in our family care work. If we undertake a study in this connection we shall have to determine in particular whether the services which I have now termed organized services do, in fact, meet the requirements we set them. Would we, for example, be able to use the subsidies, which we are going to withdraw from the old-age homes, for these family care services?

Sir, my time is nearly up. I would have liked to say a few words about a dangerous trend that I notice in the United Party’s policy. They over-emphasize a contributory pension system, they speak of assistance in respect of the loan levy, they recommend that reduced taxes be applicable to the aged who are still employed, etc. I should like to sum it all up in this one idea: No matter how much hard cash we give our old people, we have not yet solved the problem of their ageing. We would all like hard cash, but even if we gave it to them by any schemes whatever and did not supply them with those services that help them in the great and complex process of ageing, we would have done very little for them.

In conclusion I want to say that today I am not advocating a commission of enquiry. What I am advocating is that the Department should use the services that it has inaugurated and its own research division. The Welfare Planning Commission and the National Welfare Board were established to look far into the future, and that machinery must be used to examine all these facets. I have perhaps only mentioned half of the facets I should have mentioned in order to motivate this motion of mine. They must be investigated to ensure that whatever direction we take we shall be doing only the very best for our aged. Many millions of rand are spent on the care of the aged by the State and by voluntary services, and no business undertaking would allow itself to spend millions of rand without good planning.

Mr. Speaker, we have listened with interest to the hon. member for Westdene. He is a person who has practical knowledge of welfare services in South Africa. He is a member of the Welfare Board and obviously we on this side of the House respect the views that he put forward in support of his motion. However, there are certain aspects of his motion which I think he has failed to justify. First of all there is the question of the great progress that has been made in our welfare services for the aged. As the motion now stands, it is completely contradictory to the hon. member’s request for a greater investigation, because if we measure the degree of progress, we must surely find that many of the people today, and indeed the vast majority of the aged, are struggling because of the spiralling cost of living. They are struggling with the existing services provided. Every welfare organization is endeavouring to raise more funds to assist these people. It is a situation which is going to be aggravated further by the spiralling cost of living. Therefore, Sir, I wish to move the following amendment—

This amendment is moved in order to highlight the position and to give further emphasis to the hon. member’s plea for an exhaustive investigation into the social and economic needs of this section of the community. It is not moved in order to oppose the hon. member’s motion in its main object, namely to bring about the investigation of which he has spoken. We on this side of the House support the principle of a greater investigation into the economic and social needs of this group of our community. However, in supporting the plea for that investigation, we shall attempt to show how the situation has steadily deteriorated. There is no doubt that progress has been made in certain spheres. We on this side accept the fact that in the period during which the hon. the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions has occupied his present portfolio, he has proved himself to be a conscientious Minister. We realize that he endeavours to achieve what he can for the people for whom he is responsible, who are in many instances needy people. However, it is obvious, when one looks at the situation today, that many of these people are experiencing a tremendous struggle to exist. A good deal of the legislation that has been passed and the services that are at present being provided has come about as the result of investigations and surveys that have been undertaken. In the local and regional areas we find, for instance, that groups of public-spirited people get together following an investigation. In the Durban area, for instance, the University of Natal conducted a survey of the living conditions of the aged. Due to the revelations of that survey, the survey was followed by the formation of an association which is shortly to open a very large home for the aged, providing accommodation for over 400 people, to try to meet the need that has become evident as a result of that survey. We know that the hon. the Minister’s department had a working group on legislation for the aged, which resulted in the Aged Pensions Act of 1967. There are various other investigations which have taken place and which have resulted in action being taken. A subdivision for the care of the aged exists in the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions. According to the report for the years 1966-’70 that was recently tabled, extensive study and investigation have been carried out in regard to their particular task, the care of the aged.

It is for this reason that we believe the exhaustive investigation that is called for is necessary, particularly in view of the fact that these people are finding it exceedingly difficult to exist in South Africa at the present time. I believe that this discussion is all the more opportune at this stage in view of the fact that the hon. the Minister of Finance is to present his Budget in this House on Wednesday next week. I believe that this is an opportune moment to make an urgent appeal to the hon. the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions to use all the influence at his command with his colleague, the hon. the Minister of Finance, to come to the financial rescue of the half million pensioners of all races, although the hon. the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions is responsible only for the pensions and welfare services for the White section of the community. I should like him to appeal to the hon. the Minister of Finance to take into consideration the position of all social pensioners and, in addition, the civil pensioners who, of course, form part of the aged in South Africa.

There are thousands of civil pensioners who are waiting with bated breath for some assistance. I do not want to anticipate anything in the Budget. I know that the hon. the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions can also not do this at this stage. However, my appeal to him is to use all the influence he can with the hon. the Minister of Finance to come to the rescue of these people who are fighting a desperate battle. Many of them are in danger of being completely submerged by the rising sea of inflation that is gathering around them and gaining momentum all the time.

There are other groups amongst the aged in South Africa. The motion that is before us merely mentions the care of the aged and does not specify any particular group. Of course, we know there are many others in that group who are not civil pensioners, but who are living on fixed incomes or inadequate pensions paid by past employers in the private sector.

If we look at the situation of inflation, it becomes obvious that this group is perhaps the most adversely affected of all sections of the community. Just look at the increase in the cost of accommodation that has come about in recent times, the increase in rates where a person is hanging on to an old property, and the increase in the maintenance costs in trying to maintain that property. Look at the increase in the cost of food, such as bread, milk and other commodities which vitally affect them. These are all matters which affect two of the very great necessities of life, namely accommodation and food. I do not think we need any great investigation into this aspect, because merely by our own experience, as representatives of the people in this House, we have almost on a daily basis brought to our notice hardships experienced particularly by this group due to the increase in the cost of living.

Indeed, if one looks at the situation, one sees that over 80 per cent of those drawing social pensions, for instance, are drawing maximum pensions at the present time. Many of those who have small savings find that they have to make continual inroads into those meagre savings to try to supplement their inadequate pension of R35 per month. This means that many of them look anxiously to the future. Many of them are most anxious at the present situation whereby those savings are rapidly being exhausted. With the increases in rent, many of these people find that almost their entire pension is needed to pay their rent. They then have to appeal to welfare organizations for assistance to enable them to live. If one reads the latest report of the Council for the Welfare of the Aged and the annual reports of welfare organizations, organizations which undertake welfare work amongst the aged, one is amazed to see the growing demand there is for these services, services such as the provision of clothing and food. In many cases the need may be so urgent that there is no time to wait for an investigation to be carried out first. We of course support the principle that there should be an investigation into people’s social and economic needs but as I said, in many cases the need is immediate. It is people like these who look anxiously to us in Parliament to relieve their present plight. The hon. the Minister of Social Welfare should in his approach to the Minister of Finance emphasize this need for immediate relief. As I see the situation, five steps ought to be taken to assist these people, steps that could virtually be put into effect immediately.

The first step is to increase these people’s social pensions substantially. We have heard from the hon. member for Westdene and from the Minister himself in speeches ir this House and outside that it is the desire and the policy of the governing party I keep these people within their respective communities wherever possible. But it is virtually impossible for many of these people to remain there on their dwindling financial resources. Therefore, an increase in their pensions will assist them to remain within their respective communities for a longer period.

The second step is a relaxation of the means test. We know that income limits have been amended from time to time. We on this side are continually raising the principle of having a means test. There is a fundamental difference between us on this side and the governing party on the question of a contributory pension scheme. We have discussed this many times in the past and, consequently, it is not my intention to deal with it now under this motion. In any event, I doubt whether it would be competent for me to do so. However, we shall continue to propagate such a scheme whenever the opportunity arises.

The next step that the Government can take flows from the diminishing purchasing power of money. The diminishing purchasing power of money has as a result that certain people should receive some assistance through the medium of a social pension from the State on the grounds that the provision they have made for their old age is no longer adequate due to spiralling costs. This too adds to the desirability of a relaxation of the means test in so far as income ceilings and asset ceilings are concerned. It is all very well for hon. members opposite to go back to 1948 for a comparison. But we know what has happened with the value of money in the intervening period. If in these circumstances we were still to apply the means test of 1948 very few people would qualify for a social pension unless of course they are completely indigent. I submit that the object of giving social pensions is not to give it only to the indigent, but also to assist those who made some provision for their old age only to find that that is no longer adequate to meet their needs under present circumstances.

The question of housing is the third aspect to which the Government could give attention. The hon. member for Westdene also spoke about homes for the aged and about housing. This is, of course, a vitally important matter, affecting as it does a large group of people who at present are living in very old buildings. I have seen surveys which were undertaken by welfare officers in connection with housing requirements. Before homes for the aged can I built, one has to submit concrete evidence and facts to convince the department that there is a need for this type of home. Some of these people are living under appalling conditions and when the building in which they live is demolished they are faced with a crisis. The provision of housing for the aged should therefore be included in any housing scheme undertaken either by the Department of Community Development or by local authorities. It should be the aim that at least 10 per cent of the available housing units are made available to pensioners with limited means, not necessarily only social pensioners, but also civil pensioners, Railway pensioners or private pensioners under a certain income limit. That would assist in keeping these people within their respective communities so that they need not be placed in a large institution, a circumstance which in many cases is not in the interest of the welfare of the pensioner concerned for whom it will be far better to remain within the community.

Fourthly, welfare organizations ought to be assisted. These organizations assist many of these people to exist under the present conditions. Here I have in mind the domiciliary services that many of these organizations provide to those people who are unable to gain admission to a home for the aged or whose health is such that they are room-bound, unable to look after themselves. Most of these people desire to retain their independence and hence to remain within the community as long as possible. It is to such people that these welfare organizations are rendering services, such as meals on wheels. Indeed, one organization I am connected with has during the past year served over 14 000 meals to persons who are room-bound. These organizations do not receive subsidies for this type of service and as a result there is an increasing demand on their resources. The question of the subsidization of service centres, which provide meals, services and homes for the aged, is an important one. At the present moment they receive very little by way of financial assistance from the Government in the very important task they are doing in trying to keep these people within the community. Consequently, step No. 4 would be to give greater assistance to these service centres.

Step No 5 also relates to housing. What I have in mind is a special allocation of funds particularly for homes for the frail and infirm. The costs of building such homes are considerable. At the end of last year the department sent out a circular informing those concerned that an increase had come about in the subsidies to be paid to these organizations. Capital expenditure on furniture and fittings has today reached great proportions. Thus, a scheme involving the expenditure of R100 000 on these items, is immediately increased by R10 000 by additional sales tax and additional expenditure on equipment owing to increased prices. A previous Minister of Social Welfare, Mr. Serfontein, was fortunate enough to have allocated on the Estimates a globular amount of R750 000 as assistance to welfare organizations to allow them to proceed with the establishment of homes for the aged, particularly for the frail and infirm aged. In this connection I entirely subscribe to the sentiments expressed by the hon. member for Westdene and also by the hon. the Minister in the past. The homes we have today should be used to an increasing extent by the frail and infirm aged. However, the initial costs of building such a home is today enormous. I understand that an increase in the subsidy per bed, from R90 per bed to R200 per bed, will come into effect from the beginning of April. However, I believe it is necessary that we have a special allocation of funds in order to give immediate relief to these people.

It is a great pity, Sir, that this motion is confined entirely to the White group.

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

Afternoon Sitting

Sir, just before business was suspended I was dealing with the question of the immediate steps that we on this side of the House believe should be taken to alleviate the plight of many of the White aged in South Africa. The second aspect of the motion before the House deals with the necessity or advisability of an exhaustive investigation into the social and economic needs of the aged to see whether the existing schemes are meeting the requirements and the needs of this section. There are of course many aspects of this matter which require greater investigation. There are people who believe that there are certain aspects of this matter which are not necessarily tied to the economic needs of these people. I think it is quite evident that a great deal of further investigation is required into certain aspects of social pensions, and other members of this side of the House intend dealing with certain aspects which I have mentioned earlier.

One of these aspects requiring further investigation is the means test. In terms of the regulations governing the means test there are persons receiving reduced social pensions due to the fact that they are receiving a pension from the private sector or from some other source. These pensions are taken into account in applying the means test. In some instances people have been awarded additional pensions by private pension funds, and in a number of instances this has resulted in a reduction of their social pensions. The whole object of the pensioner’s former employer in increasing the pension, whether it be a widow’s pension or a former employee’s pension, which is to meet the rising costs, is defeated because as a result of the application of the means test the over-all aggregate received by the widow or the pensioner is invariably less. One case which clearly illustrates this is a case which I discussed with a pensioner this week. In this case a widow was receiving R40.62 per month from a superannuation fund and an old-age pension of R9 basic plus a supplementary allowance of R10 due to a delayed application for a pension. In other words, she was receiving a social pension of R19 per month. The superannuation fund then increased her pension to R48.08. Because her pension exceeded the means test ceiling of R48 per month by eight cents the over-all position was that she lost an amount of R11.54 including her social pension. The over-all position then is that she lost her old-age pension of R19 per month and had to reduce her standard of living by R11.54 to R48.08. I think this clearly illustrates the necessity for a thorough investigation into all these aspects. The hon. the Minister has indicated in the past that the means test is continually under review and that surveys and investigations are carried out continuously. However, it is clear that a great deal still remains to be done in this regard. As far as this aspect of the motion is concerned therefore we support the plea that there should be an exhaustive investigation.

There are, however, other aspects of this motion which call for comment. As I indicated before business was suspended, we believe that there are five immediate steps which should be taken to alleviate the plight of these people. At the same time, this investigation should also be extended to include the non-White group, which finds itself in a very difficult position indeed. They are possibly in more dire straits than the White group. I believe it is a great pity that the mover, in framing this motion, did not take cognizance of the plight of this section of the community. I should like to say that we on this side of the House have on numerous occasions put forward private members’ motions asking for possible improvements in the conditions of these people to be investigated. We have also pleaded for such investigations during numerous other debates. Unfortunately a number of these private motions which came before the House were not accepted by the Government. In view of the fact that this motion has been moved by a Government member, it may mean that the hon. the Minister will be more sympathetic to this particular plea.

What does one find when one considers the whole aspect of long-term planning in this regard and whether sufficient is being done for these people? The hon. the Minister is on record as saying that we can never do enough for these people. We believe that more extensive planning must be undertaken. We believe that it is a tragedy that in South Africa at the present time the pioneers of this country of all races are in many instances living in dire poverty. They appeal to this Government and to this House for an alleviation of the plight they are now facing.

Mr. Speaker, the time granted to a person during the discussion of these motions is very short. Therefore the hon. member for Umbilo must please excuse me if I do not reply fully, or even try to reply fully, to what he had to say here today. I want to tell the hon. member, however, that it is very popular politics to emphasize the aspect of finance. This is specifically what he did today, but let me say that it was a one-sided emphasis. The amendment which the hon. member moved boils down to the fact that the aged in our country are, according to him, in strained circumstances. There may be such cases, but to pretend that this is the general position is merely to look at one side of the picture. Finance is important, and time and again the Government has indicated its willingness to bring about extensive improvements within the framework of the available means, whether in respect of pensions, subsidies or allowances. We can also expect that, as in the past, considerable improvements will again take place. This could possibly be heralded in the following Budget. Money is important, Sir, but it is not everything. If we read clearly what is requested in this motion we realize that the available money could perhaps be applied to better advantage if we know precisely how and where. And here I want to leave the hon. member at that.

Since 1950, when the first conference about the welfare of the aged was held in Bloemfontein, we have acquired a great deal of knowledge about the aged and their care. Theoretically we can almost say that we have completed our education as far as this matter is concerned. Much of our knowledge we have applied in practice over years. However, the fact remains that certain aspects of the care of the aged need continual investigation and research. The Minister himself referred to that at the opening of the congress which he addressed in Pretoria at the beginning of this week. He said that it is necessary because we should like to do the best we can for these pioneers of South Africa, but we could probably add that research is necessary and even unavoidable because the times and the conditions of living continually change. I said that our theoretical knowledge about the question of the care of the aged covers a very wide field, and if one examines the motion one could easily ask what fields still remain in which research can be done. With this question in view one must also try to delimit a few spheres; one must try to define a few spheres more closely so that one can also make a positive suggestion by those means. There are three matters I should like to bring to the attention of the House, matters in respect of which we could perhaps, by a positive investigation, make a very good contribution to the implementation of. what is being asked for by the member who moved this motion.

The first concerns the direct participation of the general public in welfare work in general and care of the aged in particular. I want to call this the social conscience of the public. Another point is the attitude and disposition of the aged themselves. Then there is a third matter that I shall mention presently. In these two spheres, those of the social conscience of the general public and the attitude of the aged themselves, I have obtained confirmation for my trend of thought in the report that was handed to us only this year. With reference to the welfare services to the aged in the community, these words are used, inter alia—

With respect to that let me also quote this from the hon. the Minister’s speech earlier this week. The Minister points out that besides the Netherlands we have one of the highest percentages of aged in old-age homes, but then he adds this (translation)—

We may now ask what the real contribution of the general public is to welfare services in general. The general public contributes financially. This takes place through church organizations, contributions to collection lists and that coin we throw into the boxes on the street corners. The general public’s contribution is worthy of praise when we look at the large amount of money collected for Christmas and Holiday funds. But thereby a large portion of the public’s task has been done and many of them have salved their consciences. Then there is another section of the public comprising members of welfare organizations, people who, in addition to their financial contribution, also grant physical assistance. In essence they form the voluntary welfare organization itself, and the voluntary welfare organization occupies a key position in the structure of our national welfare services. The Minister has mentioned on occasion that they are the traditional and faithful allies of the State in the sphere of welfare work. But this faithful ally is frequently bowed by financial burdens. But this is not insurmountable. Only last year, when dealing with his Vote, the hon. the Minister said that if these voluntary welfare organizations were finding it difficult to fulfil their task the State must increase the subsidies that are granted to them, so that they may continue with their work. If they were not able to continue with their work the entire burden of that task would fall back onto the State. Then we are at a point where we would not like to be, because then we are already a Welfare State. Finance is therefore not the only problem. People who are prepared to do voluntary work are just as important, and particularly as far as the care of the aged is concerned. The voluntary welfare organizations yearn for the help of more voluntary hands, for more people who can supply visiting services, club services, mealtime services and transport services. They are looking for people who can join the aged in their activities and sympathize with them. If there are people joining in the activities of the aged and sympathizing with them, the aged will also join in the activities of their community and feel themselves in sympathy with that community. It is, after all, specifically our endeavour to keep the aged as an integrated part of the community. If the public only contributes financially, its actions are actually moving towards ostracizing the aged and having them cared for at some place or other by trained personnel, instead of retaining the aged as an integral part of the community. The more hands we have that can also give physical assistance, the greater will be the interest created in also giving more financial assistance in a larger sphere, according to my way of thinking. Without elaborating further on this matter, I believe that an investigation must be carried out into how we can again make the South African public aware of the need for full physical participation in the care of the aged by community services. How can we again slightly intensify the social conscience of the general public and keep that conscience activated?

Along with that we must also give attention to the concept the aged have about their place and position in society and to adapting them to the changed circumstances of their lives. The tendency towards seclusion, the forfeiting of independence at a time when it is not necessary at all, the feeling of being a commodity that is becoming increasingly useless and a preponderantly negative disposition are mental attitudes that must be counteracted. This can only be done by a process of education, instruction and positive guidance. After that we must carry out investigations. The aged have the exceptional assets of wisdom and experience of life, aspects we should praise. The starting point is perhaps to give them confidence again so that these people will feel a desire for closer links with the community. The determination of the best method to bring about this changed attitude to life is, I believe, a field for research.

I also want to give the hon. the Minister another matter for his consideration. Would the publication of a magazine not be one of the methods of talking to the public and the aged about a changed attitude to life? There are many Government departments that have documents about many subjects. But apart from perhaps the more academic and more technical publications, the Department of Social Welfare does not have a publication through which we can communicate directly with the public in layman’s language. It does not only have to deal with the care of the aged; it can also embrace all the other spheres in which this Department carries out its services. Let us use those aged, who have maintained a balanced link in the process of ageing, to provide their fellow aged with suggestions about how one bridges the difficult years when adjustments to life must be made. Let authorities write about the positive transition to the changed conditions of living. There are many ideas and suggestions, but we must bring them to the attention of the public and the aged. This is an important matter, and it effects all of us sitting here in the House. It also effects the population at large. None of us will escape old age, even though we have escaped many of life’s difficulties. If we give service to those who need it very much, i.e. the aged in society, we can expect to stimulate others to look after us one day when we in turn are wandering in life’s shadow.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Germiston accused us of viewing assistance for our elderly people on a one-sided basis and said that it is popular to advocate financial assistance for old people. But I think that the hon. member for Umbilo made it very clear that financial assistance is the most important, and at present the most essential, kind of assistance that we can give to elderly people in South Africa, and that these other matters, which possibly have to be investigated by a commission, can be dealt with at a later stage.

I give the fullest support to the amendment of the hon. member for Umbilo, but I must take the opportunity to congratulate the hon. member for Westdene most warmly and to thank him. I want to congratulate him because he is beginning to realize himself that all is not well with the economic and social care of our aged. I want to thank him for having the courage of his convictions and not to merely come along and thank the hon. the Minister, and for coming to light with a new approach in the form of this motion.

If there has ever been the necessity for an exhaustive investigation, then it has specifically been for an investigation into the economic and social care of our elderly people. That is why we are thankful that this motion comes from that side of the House. We on the Opposition side do not believe that the existing economic and social care is sufficient. We do not believe that there is sufficient provision for the needs of our elderly people in South Africa. We have been saying this for years, in fact during every discussion of the Vote of the hon. the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions.

We now find it strange that this motion is forthcoming from the hon. member for Westdene, because during the discussion last year of the Vote of the hon. the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions hon. members on that side of the House could not thank and praise the hon. the Minister enough for what is being done for elderly people in South Africa. I cannot but refer back to the words of the hon. member for Westdene in last year’s debate. I want to quote what he said at the time. In column 4930 of Hansard he said the following—

The hon. member for Westdene went further and in column 4931 he said the following—

Mr. Speaker, it seems to me as if the hon. member for Westdene is now beginning to listen to us. It did not surprise me when, this afternoon, the hon. member for Germiston advocated a compassionate society in South Africa. Last year, at the beginning of the Session, my hon. Leader advocated a compassionate society in South Africa.

A few nights ago, in his opening address to the National Conference on the Care of the Aged in Pretoria, the hon. the Minister said the following, according to a Press report—

We on this side of the House accept the fact that where possible our old people should retain their independence in respect of the community. In fact, last year I personally made this statement when I spoke under the hon. the Minister’s Vote. I said—

Is the Government now making it possible for our elderly people to maintain their independence in our community? I accept the fact that the hon. the Minister does not want to accept a national contributory pension scheme as a possibility. However, with the hon. member for West-dene’s motion it is now possible for the hon. the Minister, if he accepts it, and even if he were to reject the amendment of the hon. member for Umbilo, to make an exhaustive investigation a reality. This investigation could also probe the possibility of the establishment of a contributory pension scheme. Then I believe that it would be an investigation along the right lines. We know that the hon. the Minister made it very clear that he was adopting an attitude of principle against a State lottery, but throughout the years the Government has also, inter alia, adopted an attitude of principle against the establishment of television. Now at least a commission of enquiry had been appointed to investigate matters in connection with television. Possibly the hon. the Minister must waive his personal standpoint against a State lottery to a certain extent and think of the possibility that this exhaustive investigation, as proposed by the hon. member for West-dene, could also probe this matter in the sense that it could be a help to a contributory pension scheme. Today our elderly people, particularly the social pensioners, cannot subsist independently with respect to the community. The national contributory pension scheme that we are advocating is a fundamental and an important part of any possibility along these lines. We have already argued about the advantages and disadvantages, and an exhaustive investigation is perhaps the right answer along these lines.

Then there is the question of the loan levy that is also applicable to our elderly people. It happens to be my privilege to represent one of the oldest constituencies in Johannesburg. There are elderly people who have been living there for 40 and 50 years. In other words, I represent many elderly people. I most probably represent many more elderly people pro rata than many other hon. members present in this House. I watch them struggling. They approach me from day to day. I visit them regularly, they write to me and complain about their lot. I now want to say at once that apart from their personal budgets that do not always tally at the end of the month, there is one matter that hurts our elderly people very much, i.e. the loan levy. I raised this matter under the Vote of the hon. the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions last year and I advocated that the Minister should make a plea to the hon. the Minister of Finance.

Order! The hon. member may plead for that on the Vote of the Minister of Finance, not under this motion.

Mr. Speaker, this motion deals with an exhaustive investigation into the economic and social needs of the aged. I think that there are many things the Minister could perhaps already deal with at this stage without the institution of an investigation. That is why I want to advocate to him that financial steps could perhaps already be taken without the need to wait for an exhaustive investigation. You will remember that there was a division in this hon. House about this matter. Under his Vote we asked the hon. the Minister of Finance for the abolition of the loan levy, including that for our pensioners.

Order! The hon. member must return to the motion.

Sir, under the hon. the Minister’s Vote we put this matter to him. If you would just permit me I should like to quote what the Minister said in this connection—

Order! The hon. member must abide by my ruling and not discuss that matter, or else he must resume his seat.

Sir, with all due respect, may I not discuss the financial problems of our aged if I now want to do so?

This falls under the Vote of the Minister of Finance. The hon. member must abide by my ruling now.

Mr. Speaker, I shall then abandon that idea.

I now want to come to the hon. member for Westdene, who accused us here of giving preference to finance instead of other social problems. He accused us of only being concerned about a contributory pension scheme, the abolition of the loan levy and the lowering of the ceiling for payments. He said that cash in the pockets of the aged was not the only thing that helped them.

The economic needs of our aged form a part of their problems. Insufficient pensions, which are certainly affected by the means test, the loan levy, the purchase tax and other taxes are matters that deserve attention. The question of insufficient pensions must be investigated and loan levies must be abolished, in my opinion. If the hon. the Minister cannot negotiate successfully with the Minister of Finance I want to ask him also to take note in this exhaustive investigation of that problem concerning the aged in order to determine whether it is not possible to grant these people exemption from the loan levy. I support the amendment of the hon. member for Umbilo and request the hon. the Minister to accept it. I am sorry that I could not speak about finance; therefore I should just like to ask the Minister to investigate the matters.

Mr. Speaker, it is to be regretted that in the impetuosity of youth a man simply wants to make politics of every matter. I thought we were going to discuss this question here in a peaceful atmosphere. He took a turn at television, the loan levy, lotteries and a national contributory pension scheme, merely in order to make politics out of these items. May I just say this to my hon. friend: I do not want to devote much time to him, because he spoke a lot of nonsense.

Firstly he spoke of a national contributory pension scheme. May I just tell him that in England people are already rejecting it, because they say it is only leading to a Welfare State. As far as our aged are concerned, no one on this side of the House has ever said that enough is being done for them. We are agreed on that. It will probably never be possible to do enough for them in any country of the world. But there are surely many other factors that we must take into consideration.

The care of the aged is a question that is daily assuming greater proportions as a result of numerical increases and the changed circumstances in the changing world in which we live. I therefore consider it necessary for the State and our welfare organizations, from sheer necessity, to accept greater responsibility for the care of the aged. At the same time, however, I want to say that one can gratefully testify to the work of some of our welfare organizations that contribute more than their share, and to the work of the State that has done so much for the caring and housing of our aged. Here I particularly have old age homes in mind, the cluster housing that is available to our elderly people and the institutions for the enfeebled aged. Today I should like to express a few thoughts about the institutions that already exist and will be established for our aged.

Since many of our aged find refuge in these institutions at present, I believe that it should be our aim, not to let them feel that they are a burden to the State or to society, but to let them feel that they can still prove to be an asset to society, so that they can retain their independence and selfrespect for as long as possible. They must in no way think that they are living on charity or that they are no longer carrying out any function or serving any purpose. And therefore it must not only be our task to provide for the most urgent needs, i.e. food and housing, but also for their social and other needs. Even if they do form a group in those old age homes or in those cluster housing schemes, even if they are people of the same age group and even if they all have common interests, these are still people who can be lonely. I do not think that old age homes create any problems since welfare organizations do so much to make life as pleasant as possible for the aged. Here I should like to mention an organization such as the Suid-Afrikaanse Vroue-federasie that does a tremendous amount to make the living conditions of the aged as pleasant as possible.

However, I should like to confine myself more specifically to cluster housing for the aged, because I believe this to be the ideal solution to the problem of housing the aged. A cluster housing scheme involves a place where our aged can live independently and where, in every unit, provision is made for a kitchen where the aged can prepare their own meals and even serve tea to their families and friends. I have already spoken about this before, but I want to do so again today. At Boksburg there is a cluster housing scheme consisting of 220 dwelling units in the form of a block of flats. My personal experience is that the people there form a truly happy community. They live quite independently. It is true, however, that the majority of those aged live alone and this perhaps makes life more difficult and lonely for them. In the light of this problem I wonder whether, in the erection of such dwelling units, there cannot perhaps be greater co-operation with other departments. Dwelling units are provided by the Department of Community Development, and I wonder whether the Department of Social Welfare, in co-operation with the Department of Community Development, cannot perhaps in the planning of such a building ask for provision to be made for a communal hall, for a reading room which could perhaps serve as a library and for a consulting room or if need be a clinic for a visiting doctor. I may just mention that a need does exist for such a communal hall. In Boksburg we found that those 250 aged wanted a piano. They held two concerts there and they themselves were responsible for the programme. Even one old man of more than 80 years of age took part and it was a dazzling success Sir, I can tell you that that piano is Probably one of their most precious possessions.

I also want to ask whether it is not possible to arrange, in co-operation with Social Welfare, for a social worker to pay a routine visit there in order to help many of those elderly people solve their problems. Perhaps arrangements could be made, in co-operation with the Department of Health, for a district surgeon to pay a regular visit, or perhaps for visits from a nurse to ease the district surgeon’s task. Many of those elderly people find it difficult to go to a hospital or even to a doctor’s consulting rooms when they have health problems. If there could be such regular visits it could prove to be quite a help. Mr. Speaker, my time is running short. I just want to say this: It would be a great help if perhaps, in co-operation with the Provincial Administration and even the local authorities, a library service could be established there in order to provide for their love of reading.

I want to express my thanks to the member who moved the motion, to the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions and to the State for what they have done for the care of our aged. I should again like to make an appeal to the local authorities and the welfare organizations to make old age, that waits for us all, a pleasanter and more tolerable time.

I should like to elaborate on what the hon. member for Boksburg said but I do not want to confine myself to the pensions and allowances which pensioners as such receive. I want to confine myself more specifically to housing conditions and the facilities which are being made available for the aged. I want to state that if there is one aspect of this whole matter which requires probing research or thorough investigation, then it is the question of the housing of the aged, the method of housing and the care being given to them. I want to agree with what the hon. the Minister recently said in his opening speech to the conference that we had perhaps reached the stage where we had as many homes per capita for the aged as the average per capita figure in the rest of the world. But the fact remains that in some respects our homes for the aged are completely different to those in the rest of the world where they have made much further progress in this field than we have here.

Sir, an aspect which I have dealt with in this House already, and which I want to emphasize again is the system according to which, when community development has passed the planning and an institute for the aged has been established, only a certain quota is allowed for single dwellings or semi-detached dwellings for category A individuals who can still look after themselves, as compared with category B who can still look after themselves and category C who can no longer look after themselves. I advocated before that couples in category A, i.e. couples who can still look after themselves, who can still do their own cooking and are still able to entertain friends, should be allocated a greater percentage of the flats within the same complex. My standpoint is that if persons go there and one of them subsequently dies, the surviving spouse should be able to remain on in the same complex and in the same circle of friends. It happens that these persons are transferred to category B and when they subsequently become helpless, they are transferred again to category C. It is very important that these aged persons remain within the same circle of friends and within the same complex. Today one finds that more than 20 per cent occupancy in these maisonettes or semi-detached cottages for couples to live in. A maximum of 20 per cent occupancy in the complex is allocated to them. I think it is necessary for plans to be drawn un in such a way that a greater percentage of those people are catered for. It is extremely important that these people live together and remain within the same circle of friends, although they go from the one category to the other.

I also want to agree with the Minister that it is essential to allow those aged persons, who still find it possible to participate in the life of the community, and for whom a niche in society can still be found, to remain in society as such. I am talking in particular now about those in the group 65 and over who are not yet very advanced in years. Such persons must not necessarily be selected to become inhabitants of homes for the aged. However, we must never forget that we have a great percentage of aged persons—I am speaking in particular now of those old-timers of 75 and above —who have no kith or kin, who are a burden to society, and who do not know what to do with themselves. Many of them are still healthy and therefore find that it is very difficult to get into the institutions. To prove what I have now said, I should like to quote from a memorandum which I recently received from an institution, an institution with which I have had a great deal to do. This institution was completed seven months ago. I want to say at once that I do not want to express any criticism as far as the Department of Community Development is concerned. Nor do I have anything to say in regard to the new concessions which have been made in respect of construction costs. In category A the concession was increased from R2 500 to R3 400. In category B it was increased by almost R2 000. I do not want to criticize that. The point I want to emphasize deals with relationships, the care of these people. Perhaps it would be a good thing if I were now to quote from the memorandum I received. It reads, inter alia, as follows—-

Seven months ago only 60 people were admitted, and this was with the close co-operation of, and after screening, by social welfare. Because the home was built for the frail aged, with the active aged to be housed separately in double cottages, the average age worked out to just over 80 years of age, with the breakdown as follows: one of 97, two of over 90, seven residents of 85 to 89, 15 of 80 to 84, 22 of 75 to 79, 12 of 70 to 74 and only one of 65.

The average age of the group is more than 80 years. The memorandum continues—

That is the proportion I am referring to

I am now reading from a memorandum from a person who has been dealing with these institutions for years now, and these are the recommendations she wants to make in this regard. She says—

Here this person agrees wholeheartedly with what the hon. the Minister said—

I have used this example to show what happens with some of the most modern institutions we have today, one which was opened seven months ago. I had a great deal to do with its planning and I went to Pretoria more than once in regard to the matter. I regard it as a very modern institution, but within a question of seven months it changed to such an extent in atmosphere and set-up that although it was intended for people who were able to help themselves—they were frail but they could still help themselves—-it certainly became one which required specialized services, nursing services for which no provision had been made in that home. Then one finds in the next home which I have mentioned previously, where the three categories are consolidated, i.e. the couples who can still help themselves, the individuals who can still help themselves and those who are incapable of helping themselves. It is here that I state that we need incessant research to see whether we cannot get these institutions to offer a refuge for certain categories of persons who can after changing from one category to the other remain within the same complex so that they can remain with their own friends they made earlier, who can remain there now that they are helpless.

Then we are saddled with the other problem I read out to you a moment ago here. This is a modern institution and the clients are selected in conjunction with the Department of Social Welfare, but within a short time the whole situation has changed so that those persons have now become dependent upon services which are not being supplied in that institution, and which now have to be introduced. It is for that reason that we want to make a plea from this side of the House to the effect that research should be done in this connection, for I do not think we have developed nearly far enough in this field. Apart from the many services we are supplying, apart from some of the wonderful services we are supplying, and apart from whether the pensions or the subsidies are adequate—I am not talking about these at all—I think we must undertake research. I am talking about the welfare of the aged as such who are far advanced in life and have no other place to go. They cannot go into a hospital, and are dependent upon their own resources or their friends. We must see to it that these institutions are equipped so that they supply the services needed to make it possible for them to care for these people to the best of their ability.

I just want to mention one example here which came to my attention last Tuesday while I was in East London on other matters. This concerns an 88-year-old woman who is completely helpless. Her condition is such that she can scarcely lift her food to her mouth with her one hand; she must be turned in her bed because she cannot do so herself. She is without friends except for one person who is unfortunately leaving for England on the 1st of next month on another emergency case. She has been boarding with another woman and there a Bantu servant has been looking after her for the last three years. This servant slept in the kitchen so that, when she rang the bell, the Bantu servant could hear it. An inspector came and said that the Bantu servant was not allowed to stay inside the house. He said that the Bantu should stay in quarters outside the house. The woman with whom this old lady was boarding, said that she was sorry, but that under those circumstances she could no longer accommodate the old lady. I drove around for hours there trying to find her a place to stay, subject to my obtaining from the hon. the Minister or the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration a permit to allow the Bantu servant to sleep in the house. There is no other way in which she can be cared for. She is helpless and destitute. The maximum she can pay by way of her pension is R40 per month. Nobody will be prepared to take her in for that, but a Bantu servant will be prepared to care for her out of that. This is an example of the kind of legislation we have on our Statute Book which requires that I should come to Cape Town to talk to the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration to make it possible for a Bantu servant to remain close enough to that person, who is completely helpless, so as to be able to go on helping her at the age of 88 years. This is one of the cases which ought to be admitted to a home. There is such a long waiting list, particularly in the vicinity of East London City, that it is almost impossible to have a person admitted. It makes no difference what kind of priorities a person sets; it is of no use unless somebody’s arm is twisted to admit such a person. I want to conclude by stating this fact that no matter what we have to say about the financial needs of these people and the concessions which are being made by the Department of the hon. the Minister, they are inadequate. What I should like to know in that connection, and this is to me of primary importance, is how these people are being cared for once they are inside these institutions. Is it the kind of care we want there? Must we not undertake research in order to improve it, to make it more pleasant and more effective as far as housing and so on is concerned? I want to content myself with seconding the amendment of the hon. member for Umbilo.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be able to take part in this debate on a subject which has been raised by the hon. member who proposed the motion which has been commented on by the hon. member who proposed the amendment and which has been covered by other members in this debate. I consider this subject to be one of the major social problems, if not the main social problem, which affects the White population of South Africa. I refer to the plight of many old people, and this plight is being magnified these days on account of the rapidly rising cost of living. Obviously, Mr. Speaker, the main needs of older people are, firstly, income so that they can eke out an existence—I will not say enjoy a living— and have some independence in their old age so that they will not have to rely on their families or on friends or on charity; secondly, housing so that they have a home and a roof over their heads for the remainder of their lives; and, thirdly, care, not only physical care in the time when they become too old and infirm to care for themselves, but also mental, psychological and community care. I think all of these subjects have already been dealt with by other speakers in this debate.

I should like to add my voice to those who have mentioned a problem which, in my experience, is the source of a great deal of exasperation, the cause of a great deal of hardship, the cause of old people losing interest in being of value to the community and making a contribution to society and has many other undesirable side-effects. I refer to the means test. While, obviously, the ensuring of a minimum income for old people is the prime requirement, I have found that what has caused more unhappiness, more frustration and more bewilderment, has been the means test, and, I think with some justification. As at present applied, the means test causes a lot of difficulties in different directions. I should like to deal with some of these difficulties in the time that is available to me.

The first one that I would like to mention, is the fact that as long as the pensioner is dependent to any extent for his income on the old age pension, in other words, as long as he is receiving any part of the old age pension as his income, his income is subject to an absolute and rigid ceiling. This occurs because the means plus pension is a fixed amount, one amount for married people and one amount for single people. The most which a married couple under these circumstances can receive by way of so-called free income until one of them is 70 years of age, free income being that income which is not affected by the means test, is R72 per month. This is dependent upon the amount being derived in income from employment. The free income can be as low as R32 for a married couple or R16 for a single person. As soon as income is received which exceeds the free income, each rand of income in excess of the free income, results in an equivalent rand being taken off the old age pension until the stage is reached where the pensioner no longer qualifies for the old age pension at all. In practice this acts as a very real disincentive against old people trying to augment their income by offering their services in the labour market or trying to augment their income in any other manner. It applies especially to the age group 60 to 69, because after 69 and from 70 onwards earned income is not subject to the means test. It is at the ages of 60 to 69 when retired people are still of most value in what they can contribute productively. In addition to being a disincentive to endeavours to increase income, the means test and the fact that there is this rigid ceiling to it, does cause very real hardship. I would like to mention one case that I recently came across in my own constituency. It concerns a married couple with the husband aged 69 and the wife aged 70. Until November last year the husband was receiving a pension of R43 per month, and the wife R45 per month. Because of the wife’s physical condition and the fact that she was virtually bed-ridden, she also received an attendance allowance of R10 per month. This provided this married couple with a total income of R98 per month. Due to the difficulty of making ends meet on this amount, the husband, very inadvisedly as it turned out, thinking that his own pension only would be affected thereby, took a job as a clerk which provided him with an income of R150 per month. The result was that not only did he disqualify himself for the old-age pension, but he also disqualified his wife. His wife also lost the attendance allowance. Because of the fact that he had to go out and work full-time he had to get in outside help to look after his wife. All in all, they were no better off because her husband had taken this full-time job. That is not an isolated case. I have come across other cases where similar circumstances prevail.

I would like to suggest, in the investigation which is proposed in this motion, that consideration should be given to raising the means plus pension ceiling, so that the hardship which is caused by cases such as I have mentioned could be relieved. I would also like to suggest that there is a case for a sliding ceiling. By a sliding ceiling I mean that as the free income is exceeded —say by R1—then a lesser amount should be deducted from the old-age pension. This would mean that at all stages there would be an incentive for old-age pensioners to increase their incomes by work or by savings. I realize that there are problems in the way of the introduction of such a scheme, but I think that there are great merits to it as well. I would like to suggest to the hon. the Minister that it is a worth-while scheme which can be considered during such an investigation. I support the amendment moved by the hon. member for Umbilo.

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by thanking the hon. member for Westdene for the motion he moved here because it has again focused the attention not only of everyone in this House but also of our public outside on the position of our elderly people and the aged. This has also given us a chance, I think, to take a look at precisely what we are doing for these people. At the same time this has also focused attention on certain improvements which can be effected. I want to repeat what I have said before—one can never really do enough for this group of people. We must keep on undertaking further research to see whether we cannot improve on certain existing schemes or effect certain changes to the benefit of our elderly people. For that reason I welcome this whole idea and the discussion which took place here.

First I want to make a general statement, before I reply to individual members. The Opposition of course is now trying to create the impression that they have been pleading for certain matters for such a long time, etc. This is of course a popular theme. In actual fact, all of us make pleas for our elderly people. Every member on both sides of the House makes a plea for them from time to time. I am continually doing so. The Minister of Finance has a very generous heart for them in all respects. There is not a person in this House who is not well-disposed towards these elderly people or who deliberately wants to do them out of something simply because we have some political attitude or other. Everyone would like to help. Unfortunately the limiting factor is finances. In other words, one must cut one’s coat to suit one’s cloth. Unfortunately again, the source of these finances is the taxpayer’s pocket. The amount which can be thus obtained is a limited amount. One cannot over-tax the man in the street. There is also a limit to what you can tax him to obtain funds for this very good cause. That is why I maintain that there F no difference of opinion on any side of the House in regard to the need, the desire or the wish to help these people. What is in fact at issue is the limiting factor which is unfortunately all present in our lives, i.e. what funds are available and where these funds can be found. I just want to mention this general idea by way of introduction.

The hon. member for Westdene introduced this matter very neatly and forcefully. I know him to be a person who is sure of his case. Consequently he stated it very forcefully. In the time at my disposal I unfortunately cannot reply to all the different points raised by the hon. member. He will understand that. However, I will in fact furnish replies to certain of the specific matters he raised here. The general idea here is further study and research. This is in fact the theme of the motion and that portion which the Opposition consequently support.

To begin with, I just want to say something about research in general. I shall mention in a moment details of what we have done in regard to research; but research in this field is in fact being done, consistently, from year to year, from day to day, by certain specialized persons, who have specific instructions and whose task it is to keep working on this. I know the hon. member is not asking again for a specific commission of inquiry, because that would again mean a whole bulky report and a whole inquiry. His request is that we ask the existing machinery and the bodies to undertake specific research in regard to these matters. I just want to say this about research. I have here in my hand only a few of the brochures and publications of the Department in regard to research during the past few years since 1964. Not all research results have been published; but I have here, for example, an edition, No. 7 of 1964, of “Clubs for the Aged”—a neat, specific piece of work on this specific theme. The next one which is available, i® “Research and Information—Legislation in regard to the protection of the aged: a study of relevant literature, 1964”. This is also available in Afrikaans. Then we have here “The Care of the Aged Policy of the Department”, a version of the speech I made in which I announced the policy in 1968, which is also available in this form. In addition there are a few very useful publications, for example, “The Training of Homes for the Aged Staff”. This supplies comprehensive and specified expert information to everyone who wants to know precisely how the training of staff ought to take place, where the accent should fall, etc. There is also an interesting publication on care of the aged in foreign countries, in which we compare our conditions and everything that is happening here, very usefully with the situation, abroad. We can see where we fall short, and where we have already done better than is being done abroad. This is a very valuable piece of work, in regard to which I have received compliments and praise from all quarters, i.e. “Handbook on the care of the Aged in Homes”, which the private sector and the voluntary welfare organizations can put to very good use because it is based on expert knowledge. These publications report on actual research in specific fields. I therefore want to say to the hon. member that I want to endorse the idea that there should be continual research on specific themes and problems. I want to concede to him at once that we should undertake that research from day to day. But I immediately want to add that I think that we should not allow the emphasis to be placed so strongly on research that the actual implementation, action and positive steps suffer and lag behind as a result. If I must choose between the two, I think we have done a good stint of research—it is time we proceeded to positive action in the implementation of the results of our research and what we have ascertained to be in the interests of our aged persons. As far as the ideas which were broached here are concerned, the precise situation of family care services, the type of home we must build and what should become of the aged in homes for the aged who, according to the new policy should not be there, I just want to tell the hon. member specifically that it is not the idea at present to remove any person who has already been admitted to an existing home from that home unless that person of course requests it himself or is unhappy there. But it is not the idea to remove those people from those places. The idea is simply to make sure in future that people who do not belong in homes for the aged are not placed there. There is therefore no danger in this specific field. The hon. member also requested that we should harness our own section for the purpose of research, and I support this wholeheartedly. I also endorse the hon. member’s idea that we should make far more use of the welfare planning commission and the section which was specifically established for the care of the aged, to undertake planning on a general scale and to work out a future for us in this connection. In conclusion I want to thank the hon. member for the way in which he stated his case, and I also want to pay tribute to him for the knowledge he revealed in regard to this matter.

The hon. member for Umbilo then moved his amendment, and I do not take it amiss of the hon. member for doing so. It is probably asking too much to expect that the Opposition will thank the Minister, nor do I expect them to do so. The hon. member expressed his concern in regard to the condition of the pensioners. I just want to inform the hon. member that we are all concerned about the condition of the pensioners in this sense that we would like to see them better cared for and would like to improve their situation. I personally and all of us on this side are really doing our best to improve their conditions. There is no doubt about that. The hon. member also spoke of assistance to civil pensioners, and I want to tell him at once that I am afraid that I cannot at this juncture give him any information in regard to the matter because I would then have to anticipate the Budget. The hon. member can well understand that I cannot do this. If this debate had been conducted four or five days after the Budget, I could perhaps have said a great deal more in this connection. However, the hon. member may as well listen first to what the hon. the Minister of Finance does in this connection, and I am saying this without compromising him or myself in this connection. The hon. member mentioned five matters here to which he thinks we should give specific attention. I am keeping one eye on the time, but I do nevertheless want to dwell on these matters for a few moments.

†The hon. member for Umbilo asked for a substantial increase in social pensions. This is something one and all of us plead for from time to time, but the deciding factor in this regard is the available funds. As far as this matter is concerned, the hon. member will also have to wait for the Budget speech of the hon. the Minister of Finance on Wednesday. The hon. member then mentioned the loss in the purchasing power of money and asked for the relaxation of the means test and the lifting of the ceiling concerning assets and income. The last request was also made by the hon. member for Constantia. The first point I would like to make in this regard is that 90.4 per cent of all our pensioners receive the maximum pension at the moment. This means that the means test really affects only 9.6 per cent of all pensioners, which is a very small percentage. Although there may be hard luck cases in individual instances the facts are that more than 90 per cent of all social pensioners receive the maximum pension and that the means test does not affect them at all.

Can you give us the figure of the number of pensioners who do qualify for the minimum pension?

I will say a few words about them in a minute or two.

The hon. member then spoke about housing and said that 10 per cent of the housing in any housing scheme should be for pensioners. In theory this is a good idea, but I think 10 per cent is a little high because the percentage of pensioners in our community is only about 7 per cent, according to the figures we have at our disposal. In this regard there is an administrative problem as well. If these old-timers are spread all over the country to take up 10 per cent of each housing scheme, problems will be created in regard to services for them and the administration concerning them. The idea is something we can accept in that it can be investigated. Money may perhaps be made available up to a certain percentage for a housing scheme or an old-age home. We can look into this matter. The assistance to welfare services, community services by means of subsidies and the establishment of service centres is a matter which is under consideration at the moment. I personally feel very strongly about community services and service centres. This is at the moment being negotiated with the Department of Finance and the other departments which are affected.

In the last instance the hon. member referred me to the special subsidy for which one of my predecessors, Mr. Serfontein, got R750 000 in a certain year for this purpose. This money has been fully spent in the meantime and we have created a standing Vote for the purpose. Last year, in one year only, R350 000 was spent for this purpose and we are trying to provide at least R200 000 each year as an auxiliary fund to help these people. It is also a question of trying to do as much as we can with the funds available to us.

*Sir, I shall talk to the hon. member again in general presently when I return to my theme. Hon. members will forgive me for not having the time to give attention to each speech. Neat speeches were made on our side, and neat speeches were also made on the other side; that much I want to concede at once. But I want to say this to the hon. member for Turffontein: I do not take it amiss of him; he is still young and inexperienced, but perhaps I can give the hon. member this piece of good advice: Personally I like a good political debate and I like a good political fight, but I do not think that the future and the interests of our elderly people should ever become the theme of a political dispute in the House because these are our people, all of them, and I do not want us ever to try to make political capital out of the position of our elderly people. With experience and with the passage of time the hon. member will acquire a measure of wisdom in this connection and learn that this is not the way to further the interests of the elderly people.

The hon. member for Boksburg referred to the question of housing. I shall return to that specifically in a moment. The ideal situation is to have the community hall, the consulting rooms, the library and all the services all together in one place; that is the ideal. We should like to centralize them and this we shall in future try to do. The possibility is being investigated at the moment, but the financial aspect is always the difficulty. Sir, I am not going to say much more about the speeches of individual members. I should like to praise the fine speech made here by the hon. member for Germiston, and I just want to say to the hon. member for East London City that he mentioned an individual case here. I am convinced that if he had come to me personally, I would in fact have been able to, if necessary, devise a plan in that individual case with a view to the sudden need of the moment. Unfortunately we have long waiting lists, as the hon. member said, but we now have a permanent arrangement to the effect that in every new home which is being built we try to encourage the people to set aside a certain percentage for the frail aged so that the ideal can be realized that if a person is admitted there and he becomes physically or mentally so frail that he is in need of care, he need not be uprooted and removed, but can merely be moved to another section of the same institution, where he can then continue to receive treatment. This is the ideal situation; this is what we are trying to achieve and are promoting as far as we possibly can. Sir, with that I have dealt with the hon. members’ speeches.

I want to devote the last half of the time at my disposal to giving a general survey. I think this is necessary. I should like to do so under three heads. Firstly, the attention which the Government has in recent years already given to the care of the aged; secondly, what aspects are at present receiving attention; and thirdly, a survey of future prospects in respect of essential requirements and the directions in which we are thinking. I do not want to go very far back. I want to begin with 1959. At the request of the Department of Social Welfare, the then National Bureau for Educational and Social Research, which at present is the Scientific Research Council, instituted a comprehensive investigation into the social and economic living conditions of the aged. This report appeared in 1962. This covered aspects such as the family life of the aged, housing, the economic and health conditions of the aged, the educational level oí the aged, the social contacts, the recreational activities and similar matters.

In 1964 the then Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions appointed a work group consisting of departmental officials plus members of private welfare organizations to go into the desirability of a special law to protect the aged. Out of this arose the Aged Persons Protection Bill in 1967, which provided, inter alia, as hon. members know, for statutory measures to protect the aged against exploitation and neglect, for the compulsory registration of homes for the aged and consequential regulations in terms of which minimum standards are laid down for homes of the aged and in terms of which we unfortunately closed down certain homes of the aged in the past and as a result of which we have now established new places to which to transfer the aged persons. In the meantime quite a number of short-term investigations have been made by the Department and by the research section in regard to the nature and scope of clubs for the aged, in regard to home auxiliary services, in regard to meals-on-wheels for the aged, in regard to the task of social workers in the employ of the Welfare of the Aged Association. The Department itself instituted an investigation on a country wide and intensive basis into the following:

The inhabitants of State-aided homes for the aged, their living conditions before the survey, factors which persuaded them to go to the home for the aged, and their adjustment in the home for the aged. In regard to these facts a dissertation was completed under the title “The Role and Significance of Homes of the Aged and the Care of the Aged in South Africa”. We are at present considering publishing it. Other departmental investigations were concentrated on existing services available for the aged; I am not going to elaborate on them. The year 1967 was an exceptionally important year seen from this standpoint because a senior professional officer from my Department made an extended overseas study tour on the instructions of my predecessor. This study included all welfare practices and programmes in Western countries. As a result of that a complete report followed which gave rise to my stating in October 1968 the policy in regard to the care of the aged as it is known at present and in regard to which I shall have a few more things to say in a moment.

Also as far as research is concerned, we instituted a detailed investigation in 1969 throughout the entire Witwatersrand area into the need for institutional care for the frail aged—who they are, where they are, how many are in hospitals, how many are hidden from sight, and how many find themselves in indigent circumstances. This was a detailed investigation for the Witwatersrand from which an exceptional new service in this connection developed to make provision for these people. I see that time is marching on. I could have gone on to say a good deal about the reports of private individuals, such as the report of Prof. Anderson, the report of Dr. Ripp, the sociologist, and of Dr. Kriek in regard to certain homes for the aged in Pretoria, etc.

I do not want to spend much time on that; I would prefer to say a few more things. There is another case I want to make special mention of. I think it is necessary that I mention it here and place it on record. The South African National Council for the Care of the Aged has done a tremendous amount, within its capacity, not only to make investigations but also to co-ordinate the efforts of private organizations and in this way to cooperate towards getting more co-ordinated action on a countrywide basis. My thanks to them for their co-operation. The annual report which they submit, shows very clearly what a great variety of services is being undertaken.

Sir, there is another very interesting experience which our Department often has in this connection. In practice, if a community applies for the establishment of a home for the aged, then a survey of the needs first has to be made. This survey is usually made by the local persons themselves and then the information comes to us. Subsequently my Department’s officials are requested to look into the survey and to evaluate it in order to establish whether the need really exists and what precisely the position is. We have during the past two years worked through 2 500 lists of this nature, and on each list we of course had at least 60 or 70 names; this is the number of personal individual old-age pension cases and care of the aged cases which are gone through individually and in detail by my Department. That is why I want to assert that I think that in general the specific section in my Department working with this matter really has first-hand knowledge at its disposal. I think it has a finger firmly on the pulse in this connection and knows precisely what the need is and where the specific needs are situated. I concede at once that the investigations must continue, but I want to assure hon. members that as far as we are able to do so, we are keeping pace with the complications arising and adjustments required from time to time. When a problem presents itself, it is immediately investigated because we have a permanent section which deals only with these specific matters.

What have we done recently, and what is the present position? I do not want to boast to any extent; I just want to mention a few matters. Between the years 1965 and 1970—and because I do not want to make political gain from this, I am deliberately not going to compare it with any previous period—R8 million was paid out in subsidies for the establishment of homes for the aged in South Africa. That is F 8 million in five years, more than R1 million a year. We are at present engaged in converting an old hospital into a home for the aged. It will cost us R1 million. It is going to make provision for at least 200 frail aged persons. That is what we are doing at present. This is being done in the complexes on the East Rand, where it is necessary.

I want to mention another practical aspect. I want to emphasize that it is time now that we, even more than we have been doing these last few years, draw positive attention to the practical aspects of this matter. Last Monday night I opened the conference on care of the aged in Pretoria. At that conference which ended yesterday the emphasis fell specifically on positive action and the practical approach as such. I received a report from that conference. It is still in telex form, as it arrived here, for the purposes of this debate. It reads as follows (translation)—

Now I just want to inform this House who was present at this conference. Firstly, there were representatives from my Department and regional offices throughout the entire country. In the second place there were delegates from all voluntary welfare organizations and churches throughout the country, dealing with care of the aged and homes for the aged, in whatever form. Thirdly there were the hospital authorities of the various provinces. We brought medical services into this. The Department of Health, and everything connected with it, was also present. In the fourth place the universities were present, because we are dealing with research and the training of social workers. They were all brought into this matter here, in addition to quite a number of other interested persons. These delegates were drawn from both language groups and from all avenues and facets of care of the aged. The following resolutions were adopted there (translation)—

(1) This conference noted with great interest the care of the aged policy of the Government as announced by the Minister on 22nd March, 1971, and the conference supports this policy.

(2) The Department of Social Welfare and Pensions is requested to do everything in its power to expedite the implementation of this policy in all its consequences by means of the following (a) systematically making the necessary funds available; (b) establishing the necessary administrative machinery for the effective and rapid handling of the envisaged schemes; (c) obtaining the co-operation of other State Departments and bodies involved in the implementation of the policy, and coordinating their forces in such a way that simplified procedures and measures will be established which will facilitate and expedite the implementation of the objectives.

(4) An appeal is being made to voluntary welfare organizations to make efforts to ensure the implementation of the announced policy and also to obtain the support and co-operation of the public in this connection, inter alia, by obtaining the necessary funds from private and public sources.

I do not want to deal with this conference any further. I just want to say that I want to confirm now, as I undertook at that conference, to give my personal attention to these recommendations, and will immediately proceed myself to see in what way these recommendations can be implemented as quickly as is practicable.

Now I want to go further. I said that this conference was deliberately convened for this specific purpose. Now, in conclusion, I want to try to summarize the whole matter. In 1968 at Bethal I made a policy statement. In that statement the three categories were very clearly indicated. Firstly, there are those people who are still living in places they themselves have chosen to live in. We must try to keep them in those places where they are living as long as is practicable. An elderly person does not like being transplanted. He does not like being uprooted. He wants to remain in his own home as long as he possibly can. That is why we want to care for them there with community services so that they can remain there as long as possible. That is why I am making a very strong appeal to the effect that we should expand our community services and that we should give positive attention to the expansion of community services in terms of which certain essentials will be made available as far as the community is concerned. I am thinking of simple things. I am thinking that in many cases those elderly people need transport, which a well-disposed friend can make available for them very easily. This is the least we can contribute, i.e. by taking the old gentleman or lady to church, to hospital, to doctor, to the post office to draw his or her pension. That is little enough which our young people can do for a generation which laid the foundations of this country. These are community services which make it possible for them to stay where they are. Otherwise they try to get into a home for the aged to be near the post office or near the church. I am thinking of other services in regard to which I do not even want to go into detail now, in respect of hot meals once a day, for example, or paying a normal visit to these people. I am thinking of para-medical services such as physiotherapy services, etc., and services to make things easier for the old people. There are numerous things like this we can do, such as paying a friendly visit, and so on. I shall now give specific attention to this and I want to make an appeal to the public outside to remember, while we are strong, young, healthy and fit, that all of us have to grow older and that we may, by now doing our share, perhaps be casting our bread upon the waters which will return after many days.

In respect of housing, we have the second group, the persons who are no longer able to live there, as a result of the death of one partner so that the other cannot remain alone in the house, or as a result of the fact that the place has become too big, and the garden and house are being neglected, or whatever the case may be. There we need special housing, and that is the matter the hon. member for Boksburg raised so neatly, and what the hon. member for East London City referred to. We must establish housing so that these people can enjoy the necessary protection under the supervision and under the protection of the resident house mother and father, but at the same time still remain independent, with a kitchen of their own in which they can make their own tea and receive their own guests and children. These people do not want to be dependent at this stage already; they are still strong enough, but they are simply unable to live where they have been living because that has become dangerous. But in this new situation everything is in order and they will prefer to remain independent there. This is essential. In the third place, there is the question of the frail persons, if persons have through physical or mental deterioration become so infirm that they permanently require semi-medical services. Then only is institutional care necessary, which in my opinion can be added to this housing scheme so that they can, without moving far, simply be transferred to the next section and receive the necessary attention there.

I am making haste, because I see that time is marching on to 4 o’clock, to mention the next few points to you as quickly as I can. In conclusion, in the few minutes left to me, I want to say that we realize very clearly that there is this problem of the care of the aged. I would not for one moment hang my head in shame at what we are doing for our elderly persons. We are doing a great deal for them, as much as can possibly be done at this juncture. The methods of what we are doing have been scientifically investigated and are well-founded, to the best of our ability. The financial assistance we are giving them, is at this moment the most the Exchequer can afford. This is the position as it is at present. If we had to give more, we would have to impose heavier taxes on the taxpayer in order to be able to do so, and this is not unlimited; you cannot impose unlimited taxation. For that reason I, as the responsible Minister, feel that we must do what we are able to do to the best of our ability. But I think this debate would be incomplete if I did not in conclusion make an appeal to our people who are still young and healthy to take an interest in our elderly people, to pay them a visit now and again. I am making an appeal in particular to our womenfolk, because a woman usually has a softer heart than a man has in this connection. I want in particular to make an appeal to our womenfolk to pay visits to these fine old people who are in the homes, or who are still living in their own little places, and to take along a bunch of flowers or sometimes a cake or a hot meal. This makes living pleasant for them and makes that person’s day or week worthwhile. They are satisfied with so very little. Even the small things in life are appreciated so very greatly by these people who, when in the prime of their lives, laid the foundations and built up this country. You and I who are today sitting here and who regard ourselves as young and vital, in the prime of our lives, must each prepare ourselves for the old age which is coming, prepare ourselves not only financially but also prepare ourselves physically and mentally for what is coming. How many old people are there at present who find it extremely difficult to adapt to the new position because they were so busy and active and thought of more important things so that they do not have a hobby or something to while away their time now in their old age. They do not know what to do with themselves. They feel frustrated and this has a psychological effect and it makes them tremendously concerned about and fearful for the future. They look forward to it with fear and wonder what they are going to do when they are no longer in a position of power or in an executive position. It is necessary that one should in one’s youth and in one’s middle age begin to acquire certain things gradually to which one can transfer when one’s active life as a labour unit is over. When one is old, it is difficult to begin with something like that; the first thing to do is to begin now already and develop it gradually so that eventually you can go over to it when the time to do so arrives. I am calling upon everybody to do this.

Debate having continued for 2½ hours, motion and amendment lapsed in terms of Standing Order No. 32.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Yesterday I spoke to a crew member of one of the yachts which took part in the Cape to Rio race. I was surprised when he told me that even on the wide open ocean large areas of oil were found. When he told me that near our big harbours there was a shocking state of effluents, of flotsam and of jetsam dirtying the areas near these harbours, it indicated to me how important it is, once more, that we should study and take steps to maintain the ecological balance, which we have always had under nature’s good hands in the past. The fact that we are now being threatened by one of the greatest dangers with regard to pollution in the world’s history, the danger from radio-activity and from nuclear explosion, might even unite mankind. President Nixon said recently in his State of the Union message—

That is the great challenge of the 1970s. The new word we have for this science of survival is “ecology”. Our biosphere, our forests, our grasslands, our urban complexes, our oceans and our coastal estuaries are all the main eco-systems of the earth. To keep them in balance is necessary for human survival. But modern man, with his industrial development, as we have seen, has upset that balance and this has caused life itself on our planet to be endangered. Nature enjoins us to maintain a balance between four main factors. The first of these is the minerals of the earth, the inorganic material. The second is the plants that produce food from these inorganic materials. The third are the users of the inorganic materials. We, mankind, are the greatest users and misusers of these benefits which we get. Fourthly, there is the bacteriological action which transmits these minerals and the human waste, the de composed and dead bodies, into soil again. It takes 500 years for a single inch of good top soil to develop. That single inch of good top soil can be destroyed within less than a decade by wrong farming methods.

Let us, firstly, admit that man is the crucial factor in keeping the ecological balance. During the ages, particularly during the twentieth century, man has, through his unrestricted and uncontrolled breeding, increased the population of homo sapiens to such an extent that the earth can no longer support and feed him. 8 000 years ago the population of the world was 5 million. Today it is 3 500 million. By the year 2 000, it will be 7 000 million. The earth will hardly be able to support mankind by then. Today India is faced with an impossible choice. DDT has been discovered to be a poison in foodstuffs. Sweden banned DDT. Sweden asked the Indian Government whether they were going to do anything about it. The Indian Government replied that, if they were to banish DDT, they would have starvation by the million in India. They, already, are a country faced with a terrible choice between poisoning on the one hand and starvation on the other.

Pollution is an ugly word for an ugly subject. There are six main types of pollution, on each of which I should like to say a few words this afternoon, namely pollution of the air; pollution of the land; of the fresh waters in our rivers; of our oceans; noise; and in the last instance, radio-activity. The problem of noise is extremely important. The first one, namely air pollution, I regard as one of the most dangerous, and I am sure hon. members will agree with me. Our bio-sphere is being polluted by effluent from millions of motorcars in the form of carbon monoxide, lead poisoning, nitrous oxides from the chimneys, sulphur dioxide, and so forth. In sufficiently concentrated quantities, these can all kill man and have killed people. These elements go into the air in this world of ours in millions of tons per day. It is predicted that in the state of California, by 1975, we will find mass deaths starting. As a matter of fact, today in Los Angeles physical culture classes are being curtailed and being closed down, because the department of education simply cannot allow the children in the public schools of Los Angeles to breathe so much of that air. It will be harmful to their health. In Tokio the traffic officers are kept on duty for only two hours at a time in that smog-filled city. About 31 per cent of our earth’s atmosphere today is covered by low clouds. If we increased that 31 per cent to 36 per cent through pollution, the temperature of the earth can fall by four degrees centigrade. That can be the beginning, as the experts say—it is not I that say it—of a new ice age.

To come closer home, in Johannesburg the polluted air that we breathe on a windless day is so thick that it is the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes. That is what a person inhales through pollution in the air in a city such as Johannesburg. There is a pall of smoke hanging over our cities from the 2 400 locomotives of the Railways and from the factories which are all spewing smoke into the air. In Germiston pilots have declared the air above the Germiston marshalling yards to be a flying hazard because of the smoke. We Capetonians know all about the story of Smoky Sue, the famous tug we have in the harbour. This is a task which, incidentally, needs and, I think, will have the sympathetic attention of the hon. the Minister of Transport. I believe that the Department of Health has a division on industrial hygiene. They have been in touch with the hon. the Minister of Transport in connection with the smoke pollution by railway locomotives. I trust that something will be done in this regard.

Our next problem is the pollution of the land on which we ourselves live. Man is polluting his surroundings by his waste, to a great extent on account of modern technology. Think of the billions of plastic containers made of almost indestructible material that are being thrown away every day. every week, every month. In the United States of America the junk heaps of used cars increase by 7 million rejected old cars per year. 20 million tons of paper, 100 million tyres, 28 000 million bottles and 48 000 million cans are discarded in the United States per year. The United States industrial plants spew out 165 million tons of solid waste per year and 172 million tons of smoke and fume. The figures seemed unbelievable when I saw them, but I read them in reliable journals.

We in South Africa have the same problem. We are in a highly industrialized society. The average South African discards close on 15 pounds of waste per day. Think of our mail boxes every day. After all of us on both sides have conscientiously gone through all our papers, the letters, the periodicals and the blue books, we discard some five to ten pounds of waste paper per person per day. That indicates what is happening in a civilized society. In Johannesburg alone 200 million cans for beer and cool drinks are produced annually. These are discarded. In his lifetime the average South African uses 15 000 gallons of petrol and 26 million gallons of water.

The damage done by the man is not confined to urban areas alone. Many agricultural pesticides, of which DDT is one, are polluting our food, killing birds, small mammals and harmless insects, thereby disturbing the balance in our farm lands. Our natural resources, our water sheds are being grievously damaged by injudicious cultivation of those areas. Our precious wild life areas, such as the Etosha Pan and St. Lucia Bay, are being threatened. Dozens of animal species have died out over the past few hundred years in South Africa. They have mostly died out as a result of the actions of man himself. To mention an instance which is much closer home, it is sad for me to think that those irreplaceable and beautiful botanical treasures of Bokbaai near Darling in the Western Province, which have been cared for by the sacrifice and the love of that wonderful Duckitt family, is being threatened by the expansion which is being planned in the vicinity of Mamre, the Coloured group area. Du Toit’s Kloof has been desecrated by banalities, and we wonder whether the remaining beauties of Langebaan, which I think the hon. the Minister has visited, will be maintained very long. Dare we refuse to save the Baviaanskloof area in the Eastern Cape? Would it not be wonderful if we could have the whole magnificent area from Cape Hangklip across the Drakenstein range right up to the Cederberg range declared a natural resources area for South Africa? Would it not be wonderful if the whole of this area were to be brought under the Department of Forestry as a large part of it at the moment is?

It is not true to say that South Africa has too many national parks. In the United States alone there are at least 600 national parks and big areas which have been declared national monuments. I am thinking of Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Petrified Forest, the Grand Canyon, Mount McKinley, the Glacier basin, the Craters of the Moon and, as we have recently seen in a film, the beautiful little area at Zabriskie Point. I believe that injudicious town planning is despoiling many of our coastal areas and also our peri-urban areas today. Something is being done about that and I am not denying it, but I am mentioning this as part of the problem in not only South Africa, but also throughout the rest of the world.

The third great sphere of pollution is our fresh water supply, our dams, our rivers, our lakes and our fresh water estuaries. In Europe the Rhine has become an open sewer. Dangerous chemicals are found in drinking water. The great lakes of America have become dead areas where all life is dying. So are the lakes of Switzerland dying out. Measures have been taken, measures such as the recent Water Amendment Bill in this House. This is an excellent measure, which was supported by both sides of the House. This is to prevent the pollution of our rivers by means of animal waste and by means of agricultural development on the borders of our rivers. It shows that something can be done and that something has been done. Our own Vaal River is becoming more and more polluted every year. Effluent from the gold mine dumps and the slime dams during thunder storms flow into the streams and into the Vaal. I am glad to know that there is a certain unit of the Chamber of Mines which is doing good work in this regard. However, it would take many years before all the flow of the effluent of these slime dams can be finally prevented. Detergents in our washing materials flow into the rivers and this causes dirty masses of foam which kill life in our rivers. Pollution is playing a major part in spreading bilharzia to the rivers of our country which were free of this disease in the past.

The next form of pollution I would like to mention in passing is that of noise. It is not usually recognized as such, but it obviously is. These howling decibels of the modern traffic are actually a health hazard. It has created a greater degree of deafness amongst the urban population than amongst the rural population. This is measurable and it has been established that this is the case. We who are living in the cities are more deaf than those living in the country areas as a result of noise pollution today. Supersonic noises present a danger. I have even read in an article in an authoritative magazine called Environment published in America, that even microwaves can be dangerous. I give it as a present to my hon. friends on the other side that even television too, unless properly safeguarded, can be a health hazard through radiation. So, when television is introduced, please see that safe tubes are supplied.

The next type of pollution is the one that affects our oceans and our beaches. The near-disaster of the Wafra is still fresh in our memory. Was enough done to prevent the incident? I am not blaming anyone now—I only hope that we shall take the necessary steps to avoid a disaster occurring when such a danger threatens us again. I trust we have all learnt our lesson. Effluents from sewerage into our oceans has polluted vast areas. I have seen it around Marseilles, Nice and the Bay of Naples, where areas are declared unfit for bathing. 70 per cent of the oxygen of the world is produced, I am told, by plankton in the ocean. If you cover that plankton with a thin film of oil you are going to destroy the whole plankton balance, and even the oxygen balance of the world for mankind itself, apart from the dangers to marine life. Unwise exploitation has almost killed our fishing industry. I do not know much about the problem, but I have been told that the unwise use and permission for using these anchovy nets with the smaller mesh has caused devastation among our marine life. Thousands of small, two-inch galjoen have been pulled up by these nets and have simply been dumped afterwards.

The last form of modern pollution that I would like to mention, is that dreaded one of radio-activity. Tens of thousands of tons of radio-active material have been dumped by the United States in the oceans off the coast of America in containers. But this material can remain radio-active for centuries. There is no guarantee that those containers will not leak. Further tens of thousands of tons have been dumped deep underground in the Western Earthquake Belt of the United States. There is no guarantee that an earthquake cannot upset the whole area and cause the distribution of these radio-active materials. I would like to have the assurance that we are looking in South Africa to the disposal of our nuclear waste from our limited nuclear establishments which we have at the moment to ensure that that waste, which can be active for hundreds of years, will never be dangerous to mankind. I wonder whether sufficient control is being exercised over the use of fluorescent material in our advertising and in clocks and watches.

Now, having stated the problem, the next question is, what do we do now? On behalf of my party I can announce this afternoon —and I am happy to do so—that, having discussed the matter thoroughly, we have now adopted it as part of our official policy that we would like to have a Ministry of Environment in South Africa. We seriously call upon and encourage the Government to anticipate us by doing so. Should they do so, we shall give them our support. Why have we decided this? Í do not wish to indicate that nothing has been done up to now. Indeed, many bodies inside and outside the Government, have been active in this respect. My purpose and our purpose in asking for a Ministry of Environment is to have concerted action and a concerted plan. Outside the Government we have active bodies such as the Society for the Protection of Environment, under its able president, Mr. Bill de Klerk, assisted by Professor Bigalke and Dr. Giliomee. I think of the Vaal River catchment areas and the Veld Trust, associated with Mr. T. C. Robertson. I think of the Vegetation Unit of the Chamber of Mines and of many industries, of which Sasol forms an outstanding example of preventing pollution and reusing by-products. I am thinking of our country’s newspapers, which are campaigning for a better environment. I think of a series of articles, the Care campaign in The Star. Our universities are doing good work. I am thinking of Prof. Midgley of the University of the Witwatersrand and Prof. Potgieter of the University of Potchefstroom, who is the Professor of Regional Planning. He is doing excellent work in this regard. Just to show how non-political I am today, I want to mention the work done by the Boy Scouts, the Voortrekkers and the Rapportryers, who recently held an excellent symposium at Stellenbosch about the environment. It was very commendable work. I also do not want to accuse the Government of having been idle in this regard. The C.S.I.R. is doing good work through its National Institute for Water Research under Dr. Stander. There are also other bodies studying pollution. I believe the Windhoek project was worked out by this section of the C.S.I.R. The hon. the Prime Minister has his Planning Advisory Council, which has made investigations into the wider implications of this problem. There is also the Natural Resources Development Council, the Water Commission and the Department of Water Affairs. All these bodies have done good work in regard to our environment. I think the problem is that the work is not being done in a coordinated way. I am only asking for this co-ordination in order to give greater acceleration to what is being done and what should be done. The Department of Cultural Affairs made a very good film, “Hou ons Land skoon”, which was seen by over I million people. I am even praising the S.A.B.C. this afternoon for having had a series of lectures on this problem. I am pointing out these matters to show how wide-felt the realization of the importance of this problem is. The goodwill exists and the national conscience is stirring. There is no lack of action over a wide field. Even on parliamentary level there has been wide agreement between both sides of the House over matters such as the Atmospheric Pollution Prevention Act of 1965, the Water Amendment Bill this year and the Water Research Bill, all directly or indirectly dealing with the problem of pollution. I believe that all this can only be co-ordinated under one central ministry with executive and not only advisory powers. The present Ministry of Planning is aware of this problem and is investigating and advising the Government on this. But the hon. the Minister will be the first to admit that his department is more of an advisory body in this regard and does not have the executive powers and the legal authority to do something about it. A separate ministry is the solution and it is up to us in Parliament to enact a law to give it the executive power that it will need. This is no criticism of the hon. the Minister. As a matter of fact, if a Minister of Environment were to be appointed and the Prime Minister were to choose him, we would be very happy with the choice.

Let us for a moment try to assess just how wide this problem is. It affects nearly every Government department. I have mentioned the Department of Planning and of Water Affairs. It also concerns the Department of Community Development in regard to town planning and also the Department of Health with its investigations into the question of industrial pollution and poison. The Department of Mines is concerned with underground air pollution, sink-holes and water in mines, which are indirect forms of pollution. This matter also concerns the Department of Bantu Administration which has a great task in keeping many of our catchment areas free of pollution so that our rivers will not be polluted. The Department of Agriculture has to look after the use of agricultural pesticides, fertilizers and is also concerned with the beaches of our country. All these departments have a role to fulfil today and they are doing so to the best of their ability, but is it done to the extent that the urgency of the problem demands? This is what I would like to know. In this category we can also include the Department of Transport, which apart from locomotives, is concerned with noise at airports and is also in charge of the national road building programme in South Africa. As we all know, a national road can upset the environment to a great extent. The hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs plays a key role, as we saw in the Wafra affair, and even the hon. the Minister of National Education can do something in this regard through the South African Film Board, as has been done by means of closed circuit television. He can assist the Department of Information in awakening the public conscience still further. The hon. the Minister of the Interior can, via the provincial councils, contribute as well. I am sure the hon. the Minister of Finance realized the importance of the problem and I am sure that he can also assist in this regard. Merely by mentioning these departments one realizes the vastness of this problem and the need for a central authority. Firstly, a proper scientific and technical knowledge is needed. Secondly, the right system of economic analysis in laying down priorities is also needed. Thirdly, the right legal administrative framework should also exist. In this regard the Government can give the lead and we believe that the answer is a Ministry of Environment.

I am coming near the end of what I want to say. I believe that in the meantime further active steps can be taken in regard to this problem. Greater penalties for pollution under existing laws can be imposed by our courts and still stricter control can be exercised in the use of pesticides, fertilizers and antibiotics for animals. Tax concessions can be considered for industries which combat pollution and which re-use waste and recycle water. Crop rotation and the greater use of organic fertilizers can be encouraged. Local authorities can tighten their by-laws and new ways of composting sewage and new ways of re-using glass, paper and tin ought to be found and developed. The field is endless. The goodwill is there. The manpower, the funds and the legal enactments can and must be found or our country will suffer. Therefore I appeal to the Government—and we shall support them—to take the necessary steps to establish this new authority for our environment under a Minister of Environment before it becomes too late.

Mr. Speaker, we appreciate the opportunity which this House is being afforded this afternoon for discussing a motion of this nature. We also appreciate the way in which the hon. member for Orange Grove dealt with this motion. There is no one in the Republic of South Africa, and, as a matter of fact, hardly anyone in the whole wide world, who has failed to notice or who is unaware of the problem in respect of this matter under discussion here this afternoon; we have no doubt about that. I think there is not a great deal about which we shall differ with the hon. member for Orange Grove. It was interesting for us to listen to the outline he gave us of this matter, seen against the background of the six levels on which pollution can take place in a world such as that in which we are living. But he will pardon us for making this one remark, i.e. that the wording of his motion creates the impression in our minds that it may be somewhat negative. For that reason we want to move an amendment at this stage, as follows—

In other words, we realize full well that problems do exist in this connection, but we cannot fail to place on record our appreciation of the steps being taken by the Government and related bodies in combating this problem.

Sir, unlike the hon. member for Orange Grove who conducted a detailed discussion with us on this matter, I should like to leave you this afternoon with a few ideas of a more general nature in respect of this matter. Today we realize, of course, that the strange phenomenon of man revolting against his own technological skill and ingenuity, is revealing itself. However, paradoxical this may sound, it is a fact of which we must take cognizance here this afternoon. The piles of reports, and the writings and publications to which the hon. member for Orange Grove referred are constantly growing higher. They make interesting reading, and we also found it interesting to listen to the hon. member here this afternoon. But these reports show us— or this seems to be the case—that there is a backlog as regards our knowledge of combating this problem of pollution. Although a great deal of attention has been given to this problem it seems to us at times as though there also is a backlog in applying the knowledge we already have at our disposal. My concern is not so much with the dangers of pollution. To me the greatest threat is to be found in our possibly being too late to combat those dangers. For that reason I want to make a plea to the hon. the Minister of Planning, in contrast to the plea of the hon. member for Orange Grove for the establishment of a separate ministry, to consider in collaboration with the C.S.I.R., the Human Sciences Research Council and the universities, the establishment of an expert task force for conducting an investigation in depth into this whole matter. What is needed is, in my modest opinion, not so much a description of the situation as a programme of action, one which will have to be adapted constantly to circumstances as they may develop.

What I should like to emphasize is that with a view to preventing pollution research in the field of the human sciences is as important as research in the field of biophysics. We cannot do the one without the other. If the necessary liaison existed between the bodies to which I have referred, so as to enable us to cause the research into this matter to go smoothly, and so as to enable us to add to the knowledge we have in this regard, we shall be able, with the Department of Planning as co-ordinating body, to achieve success in this connection. We shall adopt the attitude throughout, of course, that pollution and the protection of our natural resources are indissolubly connected to each other. We see the problem against this background.

The fact that we have to make haste in taking interim measures is as clear as a pikestaff. At the moment we are pleading for a research task force, as I have called it, but it is clear that we are compelled to take interim measures. For that reason we also want to express our gratitude for what has been done by the Government and those bodies to which the hon. member for Orange Grove referred. However, we have no doubt that we shall have to progress much further along this road. If need be, existing legislation will have to be amended at an early date and on more than one occasion so as to adapt it to the problems as they present themselves. It is true that as yet there still is no crisis in respect of this matter here in the Republic. Consequently we still have an opportunity, thank God, of taking timeous steps now to enable us to avert a crisis in the time we still have at our disposal. We must not discuss pollution because it is a popular topic for discussion today. We should rather proceed in a planned fashion to finding solutions. This is something about which I feel very strongly and which I should like to underline when I say we shall have to proceed to drawing up a comprehensive programme of action. We must refrain from playing politics with this matter and we are pleased that the hon. member for Orange Grove also resisted this temptation this afternoon. I say we must not play politics with this matter, but should rather exert ourselves in the interests of an investment for the future of having our people live in a pollution free country. For that, for that investment of having our people live in a pollution free country, we need the assistance of all our people. We must endeavour not only to look after the heritage we are going to leave behind, but even to improve that heritage, if possible.

In the course of the seventies we shall have to make an evaluation of the future. However, difficult it may be, in the course of the seventies we shall have to make an evaluation of the years lying ahead so that on the basis of the knowledge we shall gain along the lines I have indicated, we shall be able to manage and protect our environment in such a way that the heritage we shall ultimately leave behind will be one of quality. This, I think, is a task we shall have to tackle with might and main. Therefore we want to emphasize that all bodies will have to co-operate in achieving this end. In addition to this we realize that institutional arrangements will have to be made, but we shall have to know soon what the nature of these arrangements must be, and this information we can only obtain when we have the necessary knowledge at our disposal. When we do have the necessary knowledge at our disposal we shall in all probability be able to bring this about. Consequently the basis of my plea is to order and improve the quality of our life as a community to such an extent that it will have as a natural by-product the prevention of pollution as well as the preservation of our resources. I am truly convinced of our ability to succeed in achieving this without its being necessary for us to create a separate ministry for this purpose. If we can succeed in involving and obtaining the co-operation in this matter of the bodies to which I have referred, bodies such as the C.S.I.R., the Human Sciences Research Council and our various universities, I do not have any doubt in my own mind that we shall succeed, on the basis of our evaluation of the future and the knowledge we shall then have at our disposal, in producing something fine and good in this direction and leaving our generations to come a heritage of quality.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Smithfield has made a reasoned and valuable contribution to the discussion on this motion. It is perhaps a pity that he should have moved an amendment in the form in which it has been submitted, in that the amendment fails to recognize the essential and desperate urgency of the situation which faces South Africa, and other countries in the world today, as far as pollution is concerned.

I, today, am particularly concerned with the pollution and the control of our marine environment. In this connection I would like to quote a brief comment which was made by Gaylord Nelson, a United States senator, when introducing a Bill in the Senate. He said:

We in South Africa are in the position where we can still have a lesser Bill, before the actual threat of pollution has become a reality. The cost of eliminating pollution might, otherwise, be so much more serious. Another noted scientist in America, Prof. Epel, has come to two significant conclusions. The first is that the oceans are beginning to die from chemical pollution; the second—even more disturbing—is that nothing is being done about it. Very few people know about it and no one is watching the world. In our coastal zones, which stretch from the icy Atlantic waters of South-West Africa, to the Indian Ocean around our shores, we have a coastal continental shelf which harbours virtually all the rich sea life around us. Beyond that continental shelf the oceans are virtually deserts. It is in this limited area that we harbour the sea life which provides for the food sources of the generations which will come after us. We are fishing out these areas and we are polluting them. Reference has been made to the chemical pollution, and the pollution by radio-isotopes, which are draining from our land to our rivers and into our oceans. The seas today are a fragile environment which is capable of destruction and once destroyed, cannot easily be rehabilitated. I would like to remind hon. members that our oceans today may be regarded as the toilets of the world. They are easily polluted and there is no plug to drain that toilet. In the case of our rivers, water can be refreshed by rainfall, but when our seas are polluted, civilization itself fails.

The threat of DDT is so serious today that our marine life, with its food chains, is witnessing the poisoning of the micro-marine life through to the fish and on to the birds. It has been found that the seals in the Antarctic, and the Arctic Eskimoes themselves, are suffering from poisoning by DDT. I would like to make one short comment which is indicative of the seriousness of the situation as far as human life is concerned. Researchers in America have pointed out that right now in the human milk of our young mothers there is from three to ten times more pesticide residue than the Government will allow in cows’ milk meant for human consumption. This is the nature and the seriousness of the problem that confronts us.

Visibly we are all conscious of contamination of the sea through oil. We have had the experience of the Wafra. A few months previously we could have had the experience of the Kazimah, which went ashore on the rocks off Robben Island. Fortunately, it was empty.

We then have the occurrence of pollution by chemicals. The chemicals that drain into the sea remain there and are building up their substance and are becoming more and more powerful, so that they are today a global problem. The radio-active isotopes that we can expect when we have our nuclear thermal power station, again, will drain from the atmosphere into the ocean and create a further threat. It is said that man is the only creature who persistently and consciously dumps his garbage into his drinking water.

There is one particular problem that I should like to raise today. It is in connection with the aftermath of the Wafra disaster. It is the strange case of a Mrs. Hutchinson and her concern with the saving of the coastal birds which became oil-contaminated after that disaster. Mrs. Hutchinson, through her own endeavours, obtained from the owners of the Wafra, some 10 000 dollars in order to assist in the restoration of the health and the saving of these birds. She has been puzzled by an inability to know just what agency to approach in order to translate this magnificent financial gesture of the owners of the Wafra into a physical asset that would help the birds. Because of the fact that there is no particular agency concerned with this matter at the moment, she has had no success to date. Her concern is that there should be an authority capable of understanding the nature of the problem. Medically and scientifically it is not merely a matter of washing the birds in a solvent and returning them to their habitat. It has been said in America that of all the birds that have become contaminated through oil, very few ever live more than a month or two after their return to nature because we do not yet understand fully the scientific recipe and remedy for restoring these birds to their natural state. Her thought was that there could possibly be created a nature reserve in a salt water area where these birds could be watched and fed and cared for until they ultimately do recover. Mrs. Hutchinson feels that this salt water sanctuary would be of inestimable benefit in the future. She thinks, too, that we could possibly turn the Wafra episode to our benefit by regarding that particular disaster area as a scientific area for experiments that could now be closely watched. We know the marine life that was there before the stranding of the Wafra. We know the damage that was created by the contamination purely by oil and the solvents used to get rid of the oil. We should now, using our university expertise, be able to ascertain the extent of the damage, and over a period of two or three years be able to investigate the extent of resuscitation of marine life in that area. Mrs. Hutchinson’s problem is: Who can act for her? It will be recalled that some time ago the Cape Provincial Administration relinquished its authority over the estuaries and semi-enclosed bays. As a result, its nature conservation team no longer has authority over the land just below the high-water mark. The Division of Sea Fisheries under the Department of Industries, however, regards the birds that are contaminated as not being its responsibility. There is in existence a small organization of well-meaning and hardworking persons working under the umbrella of the S.P.C.A. who have been tackling the problem of birds contaminated by oil in our immediate waters around the Cape Peninsula, but there is no overall organization that can tackle this problem a problem which is becoming more and more extensive as the spillage from tankers passing our shores from the Natal coast on their way to South-West Africa is becoming constant and continuous. It does not take a major disaster to illustrate that. There is oil spillage along most of our beaches, in most of our bays and in most of our estuaries. We feel, as has been stated, that the problem is an overriding one. It is not one department which is concerned with this, but every department. It is the life of our country that is at stake and it is no good our being able to shoot rockets to the moon if we are standing knee-deep in our own garbage. One only has to walk along our coastline today to see that the beaches of which we used to be proud, and which used to be a tourist asset, are so contaminated today and so disrupted that it is almost no pleasure to continue using those beaches as a major tourist asset. It is therefore my privilege and pleasure to support the motion.

Mr. Speaker, I shall not follow up the hon. member for Gardens in the appeal he has made here except to say that I have every sympathy with and appreciation of the plea which is being made here. In the same spirit as that in which the hon. member for Smithfield acted, who was the first one to reply to the speech the hon. member for Orange Grove made in introducing this motion, I, too, want to say that I am grateful that a subject such as this has been raised for discussion in this House in this very year. We are aware of the fact that a similar motion was discussed in the Other Place 14 days ago or more. We are also aware of that special spirit which radiated from the speeches of all hon. Senators who participated in that debate. This afternoon I do not want to try to repeat in any way what was said in the Senate on this subject or what was published on this subject in recent times.

To me it is particularly fitting that in this year in the very last private motion of this session, this subject should be raised for discussion. It so happens that the tenth anniversary of the Republic will be celebrated in my constituency this year. The idea occurred to me whether this tenth anniversary might not be seized as an opportunity of instilling in our people in general an awareness not only of the dangers of pollution in respect of air pollution, water pollution, etc., but also of the dangers of what we may term general environmental pollution. I wondered whether our State President and other responsible persons and bodies might not make an appeal to our people on that occasion to continue preserving the beauty of our fine Republic, by refraining from acting as we have been acting in this country up to now. The hon. Senator Loock said it had struck him that when we in South Africa, who are lovers of sport, left Ellis Park, Loftus Versfeld or Newlands, we left behind such masses of litter. That litter has to be cleared away and we ourselves do not do that job but Bantu workers or Coloured workers do so. That actually makes one feel ashamed as a White person of the example one has set to others, to the non-White races as well. I also wonder whether this may not be an opportunity of taking a fresh look at the way in which our youth is being educated to preserve our environment and to refrain from polluting our environment.

This afternoon I should like to express a few ideas and make a few suggestions as to what may be done to educate our people more effectively in this regard and to make our people more aware of this problem so that we as proud South Africans may return from visits to other countries in Europe and think that our country is as clean and beautiful as those countries. In the first instance I wonder whether the time is not ripe for arranging a competition for our youth in this regard as well, just as major competitions are arranged so often for promoting the development of our youth in many other spheres. I have in mind especially the mathematics olympiad which has to prepare our children for this technological age. I wonder whether there is not a need, too, for bringing about a higher degree of competition amongst our schools as well as amongst our children as individuals. I do not think there is anything which grips the imagination of a child more than a competition. If there were to be a special reward, in whatever form, for the neatest boy or girl, not only in primary schools but also in high schools and if there were to be an award from the administrator of each province for the cleanest schoolgrounds in that particular province, I think these awards might be instrumental in gripping the imaginations of our young people, of those who have to follow us.

But I think we can go still further. In this decade which is now starting, we may perhaps create a spirit of competition also amongst the various towns and cities of South Africa. In this regard I should like to make an appeal to those people with philanthropic characteristics who have proved that they are prepared to donate large amounts and to give encouragement to others, in which respect they have rendered major services to our people, to let their philanthropic thoughts include possibly this subject of the prevention of the pollution of our environment as well. Competitions can be arranged for keeping clean not only our White towns but also our Coloured towns and villages. In addition, a competition may possibly be held amongst our Bantu towns and cities of the future. This is a problem which the individual cannot tackle on his own. It is a problem which every member of the community has to come to realize. No matter how well I might look after my own garden and home, it would be to no avail if my neighbours close to me did not display the same degree of cleanliness. For that reason I think we should create a community spirit amongst our people living together in towns and cities so that we may say with pride not only that we have inherited beautiful natural scenery but also that we have succeeded in preserving that natural beauty unspoiled.

However, one will not succeed in achieving the desired end only by means of such fine incentives. For that reason I think we shall also have to accept the modern trend which exists, i.e. that when punishment is meted out, that punishment should be seen as a means of educating people. We shall probably have to take another look at the various existing ordinances as well and at laws which may be passed for preventing the pollution of the environment. We should have to consider whether these laws and ordinances ought not to contain a provision in terms of which they may be used as correctives. We have already experienced that our magistrates sentence people who have been convicted of drunken driving to assist in the treatment of the injured in hospitals over week-ends. I wonder whether it would not be a fruitful idea if we as legislators in this country were to make an appeal to our magistrates and others who have to pass sentences to order people who have been convicted of damaging and polluting the environment to assist at sanitary works or other places and to assist those bodies whose task it is to keep our towns and cities clean.

Perhaps we should see this problem of combating pollution in an even broader light. I think we shall have to give all possible assistance to permanent bodies who have come into existence spontaneously so that those people who sacrifice their time and energy voluntarily may receive support in every respect. It is fitting that the Society for the Protection of the Environment came into existence in the very town in which thousands of our young people, both Afrikaans-speaking and English-speaking, are studying, i.e. Stellenbosch. I think it is fitting that authors, lecturers, as well as people who are in the service of the State and even a person who is charged with the study of sea pollution in South Africa, should serve on the committee of that Society. I think it is our task as the Government to give our support in every possible way to this Society, in which these people are working on a voluntary basis and whose work we hope will be very fruitful in the future. In their newsletter, No. I of 1971, which has just been released, it is pointed out—and I shall try to quote what they said, although in an abbreviated form—that another form of pollution than those we know exists. The letter states. The onslaught of man on his environment does not consist only of the soiling of roads and beaches and the pollution of air, water and land, or the massive exploitation of the natural resources of the earth, but also, in its most subtle form, of rendering banal the landscape through the ugly constructions we erect. This newsletter goes on to point out that even our public corporations, such as Escom, which is doing a fine job of work in supplying the country with power, may possibly be injudicious in building large steel constructions, spoiling our environment to such an extent that that does violence to the aesthetic sense of people. For that reason we should perhaps take a wider view of this problem of pollution, one which goes beyond the pollution of our biotic factors and environment only and includes the problem of the pollution of the aesthetic sense of people. In this regard it will probably be the task of every local authority as well as that of the State, through its departments and its corporations, to ensure that the natural beauty, not only of the Boland, but also of all other beautiful areas of our country will not be spoiled by the injudicious siting of constructions which do not lend themselves to enhancing that beauty.

There is just one further aspect to which I should like to draw the attention. Recently an article was published in the German Tribune Quarterly Review of 18th February, 1971. The article was written by Dr. E. K. Scheuch and the title of the article is “environmental protection and protection from the environment”. The writer is a lecturer at the university of Cologne as well as the director of the Institute for Comparative Social Studies at that university. He points out that at the time when each country had to make a choice of the living standard it was going to have, its choice often was only to have a larger share of the world’s trade. In addition he points out that these countries in the objectives they set themselves were often prepared to pay their own people too little so as to enable them to compete more effectively with the products of other countries. He goes on to say that in the world of today a new method of measuring the standard of living has come about, i.e. that what we call a standard of living does not consist of the things we can consume, not only of the material things we have earned through our labours, but that our standard of living is supplemented to a large extent by the environment and by the condition of the environment in which we are living. He also says that where we often attribute pollution to the fact that there may be too much of a profit motive on the part of our industries, that is not primarily the reason for pollution. Our industries through the wealth which they have created, have possibly placed mankind in a better position to pay for the measures of preventing pollution which would in any event have occurred. I think it is of particular interest to us in South Africa and to the Bantu states which we are assisting in their development to come to realize this truth, i.e. that industrial development does not necessarily mean that pollution of the environment will occur, but that the sooner such industrial development can be brought about so much the sooner those countries will be able to pay for combating a problem which would have arisen in any event because of over-population and the concentration of people in cities. I think we as South Africans will have to keep this aspect duly in mind, i.e. not purely and simply to blame material progress for the pollution which has occurred in our country as well, but rather to be grateful for this degree of industrial development we have already had, as that will enable us to find the massive amounts which will have to be spent in future on keeping our environment clean.

I want to congratulate the hon. member for Vasco on the level-headed and positive way in which he has addressed us on this serious problem. The pollution of the world has become an international problem which has necessitated the co-operation of all states. It is the duty of each government to take the necessary steps in its own country for combating this problem, which is threatening the future of mankind. International conferences are being arranged, and I should like to charge the hon. the Minister of Planning with ensuring that South Africans will be represented at those conferences to exchange ideas during the discussions and to assist in drawing up plans for combating this problem in South Africa. The problem causes the growth of ecological imbalance and the increasing pollution of the continent, i.e. the world or part of the earth; of the air, and of our waters, i.e. the sea and resources of fresh water. Because we regard it as being of such cardinal importance for these problems to be viewed in the proper perspective and to be approached in the correct way, I want to support the motion of my colleague, the hon. member for Orange Grove, and request the Government to effect the establishment of a ministry which will make this problem its exclusive task. With all due respect to the hon. the Minister of Planning and his efficient and hardworking staff, it is my contention that his department with its present set-up and in the midst of all the other tasks of planning resting on their shoulders, cannot possibly undertake the further task of combating pollution as well. We must follow the guidance we have been given in this regard by the United States, the United Kingdom and other Western countries, by establishing a department which will concern itself exclusively with this matter.

Relatively speaking our problem, as compared to those of other highly developed and densely populated countries, is definitely less serious at the moment and this possibly gives us the opportunity of getting to the root of the evil sooner and of solving the problem more readily. At the same time it will cost us much less to solve this problem before it assumes gigantic proportions, and it will possibly do less damage, but in that case it is essential for us to set to work immediately.

†Mr. Speaker, pollution is as old as civilization but it is now causing more anxiety in all industrial nations due to the population explosion and the rapid spread of technology. Advances in agricultural production and public health have lessened the two great constraints on population— disease and hunger. Demographers believe that it took about 1 700 years from the beginning of the Christian era for the population of the world to double. One hundred and fifty years later, in other words, by about 1850, it had doubled once again. They now believe that in 35 years’ time the present population of the world will have been doubled. The problems of pollution are clearly correlated to the problems of increasing populations and accelerating technological changes.

Human activities have contributed significantly to air pollution, mainly by the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil products. To mention a few instances, the smoke emitted by industry, railways and private homes; and pollutants emitted by road vehicles. To these we must add man’s increasing building and agricultural activities which have raised the dust content of the atmosphere. There are also forest fires, and here again man must bear the responsibility to a large extent today Then there are high-flying jet planes emitting streams of vapour. These activities have released quantities of dust, fine ash and water vapour into the air. We all know that the air is certainly more hazy and dusty around, and in urban and industrial areas and, as my colleague has pointed out, already constitutes a flying hazard to pilots. Smoke emitted from chimneys of houses and not too modern industries hangs at a low level and coal smoke is known to aggravate respiratory diseases. The effects of smog on the human body have not been fully evaluated but may have a bearing on the incidence of. for instance, lung cancer.

Carbon dioxide enters the atmosphere as a waste product of animal and plant respiration through the decomposition of living tissue, but man’s contribution by burning fossil fuels has, as I pointed out previously, added significantly to this problem. It is interesting to note that in 1890 the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere was around 290 parts per million; in 1969 it had risen to 320 parts per million. That is to say, since 1890 the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere had increased by about 10 per cent, and half of this rise took place since 1945. If the present rate of increase is maintained the carbon content of the atmosphere could be about 365 p.p.m. by the turn of the century. Scientists have estimated that this may result in the warming of the atmosphere by 0.1 or 0.2 degrees centigrade, which is not rated significant or dangerous.

As far as the long term is concerned, however, the United States Council of Environmental Quality has pointed out that if all the fossil fuels in reserve on earth are burnt, the average temperature may be affected, by an increase of from two to three degrees centigrade. Of course, if this were to happen, considerable areas of the Polar ice-cap would begin to thaw, with a consequent rise in the sea-level, which may be catastrophic for large parts of the civilized world. On the other hand, dust particles and water vapour cause a reduction in the temperature of the world, which contradicts the expectations of the scientists, to which I referred previously. The fact of the matter is, however, that pollution of the air is a health hazard, and every body agrees that something must be done about it. We know that in America the Government has instituted stringent measures to combat the emission of smoke or fumes from exhausts. Everybody will agree that the smoke from diesel vehicles is most offensive. The South African Government has not thought it necessary, up to this stage, to institute these stringent requirements regarding the emission of fumes from exhausts, but I think that the time has come when we should give these matters our very serious thought. Perhaps we, too, should institute measures which will make it obligatory for the motor industry to conform to certain laid-down standards. At the same time the pollution of the air by our industries must be limited and, if possible, eliminated before the problem escapes solution.

Mr. Speaker, at the outset I want to say that I appreciate the ideas expressed by the hon. member for Vasco with regard to the special role which the Republic Festival can play in this particular connection. Without going into the full proposals made by him, it may be interesting if I confirm that certain youth organizations, inter alia, the Voortrekkers and the Scouts will be used during the Festival to perform one particular function. That is to see that those grounds will be cleaned and seen to after each item. Apart from the fact that the grounds will be kept neat and attractive, I believe a very important lesson to our youth is contained in that active participation in cleaning those grounds.

I feel inclined to say to the hon. member for Orange Grove, “I am pleased to meet you. We have not met before”. I have never heard the hon. member discussing any subject so realistically and topically. It is evidently true that one improves with time. I, and in this view I associate myself with all hon. members, am of the opinion that it is very important for a discussion of this issue to take place in a particularly realistic atmosphere. In my opinion it emphasizes a general awareness and a growing consciousness of the dangers which arise from the injudicious use of our resources and its consequent by-product, i.e. the pollution such use causes in various fields. I think the most important thing which has flowed from the discussion up to this stage is that this problem does not reveal itself in limited fields only, but that it is as wide as the prismatic fullness of South African life itself. And for that reason it is obvious to me that in combating this problem it is not sufficient merely to state the problem, that it is not sufficient to deal with or to combat the adverse effects but that it is necessary, I think, to look at these problems analytically in order to establish their cause, in order to establish the cause of the misuse of resources, and in order to establish the cause of the various forms of pollution which do exist and to which hon. members referred. I am pleased, and I mean this seriously, that the hon. member for Orange Grove made a positive contribution to the debate in motivating his motion and that he did not adopt an attitude of criticizing any failure or any alleged failure to cope with problems.

But I should like to associate myself with the idea of the hon. member on this side who moved the amendment, as this amendment, as far as I am concerned, actually penetrates to the essence of the issue, i.e. the judicious use of our resources in their abundance. It also penetrates to the steps which have to be taken in order to combat, or at least to reduce, the adverse effect of pollution. For that reason I believe that we cannot discuss the issue with which both the motion and the amendment deal, in a vacuum. I think it is essential for us to see this issue against the background of the causes which have given rise to it. As we are moving from a technological age into a super-technological age. it is becoming increasingly clear that what is having the most adverse effect on the natural resources of our country and on those of any other country is in point of fact man and the process of providing for his needs. It is true that industrial development and the concentration of large masses in urban areas must obviously be contributory factors to this problem. What we should bear in mind, however, when we want to deal with or combat pollution as such, is that we are actually coping with the adverse effects thereof, whereas I personally believe that our first step must be to prevent pollution, because prevention remains the most effective method under all circumstances as it anticipates the problem by preventing it.

For that reason I feel that there is only one effective method of actually dealing with the question of maintaining the balance between man and his environment. I am aware of the fact that all of us on the various levels of government, at central level, at provincial level and at local level, and, as the hon. member or Vasco rightly remarked, at the personal level as well, are engaged in some way and in some field in dealing with part of the problem. But I do not believe that this problem in its wide scope can be confined to localities. Nor do I believe that it can be confined to provinces. I believe this problem to be of national scope. I think here we are in agreement with hon. members who participated in this debate. I believe that it is essential that administrations, local authorities and private organizations and bodies should have an essential role to play in implementing the results of what I believe ought to be environmental research.

The actual plea I want to deliver this afternoon is that we should get to the root cause of the problem, and I believe that environmental research has become an urgent necessity in our country and that such research can only be undertaken at a national level. We must not forget nor have any illusions about the fact that the problems we have to combat are the result of progress. It is necessary in this country, as indeed in any other country, to have industrial development. In this connection we shall also have to have regard to the fact that the existing pattern of industrial development carries in itself an element which in turn contributes to this particular problem. It is that our industrial development up to this stage has to a great extent gone hand in hand with the urbanization of our population, as has happened in other countries as well. In our own country that has resulted in the crowding together of large masses of people in a limited number of cities. This has happened without regard having been had to the adverse effects of this type of development.

For that reason I believe that in our total planning idea there should be an element of controlled development. But much more than this, I believe that this principle, i.e. the principle of decentralized development, should be maintained to a much larger extent and at an accelerated rate, so that we may reduce the concentration of people and of vehicles, all contributory factors to the creation of these problems. I believe that growing prosperity, if it is uncontrolled, will not always necessarily be a source of spiritual happiness to us, apart from the material benefits it brings along. I think the answer is to be found in striking a balance between the benefits of both. Therefore I believe the idea of decentralized development of industries ought to enjoy specific emphasis.

Our urban development plays an equally important role and for that reason planning in respect of the physical development in our cities also becomes terribly important. For that reason the protection of nature in this country and of the soil of this country becomes of the greatest importance. For that reason it is with gratitude that one takes cognizance of the growing awareness, particularly in our rural communities, in our farming communities, of the value of your soil. For that reason I believe that the decade in which we are living is known, as far as this facet is concerned, as the decade in which the soil conservation idea has been taken to a zenith. Consequently it is true that the Department of Agricultural Technical Services is playing an extremely important role in this connection, but the Department would not have been able to do so unless a general awareness existed of the value of saving our soil. I believe that a comprehensive study of environmental factors is not only necessary but may also lead us to a new evaluation of the value and use of soil and of the importance of water and the use of water. This may result in a new approach on our part in respect of urban planning, in respect of industrial development and particularly in respect of laying out and siting industries. In this particular connection I agree with Dr. Kuschke who delivered a serious plea in favour of the idea of creating new cities, in favour of the idea of rebuilding old cities or rebuilding old cities in part. I think the principle of the optimum size of a city is becoming more and more important.

In conclusion I should therefore like to leave in our midst the particular idea that the answer is not to be found in the establishment of a ministry for dealing with this matter. I believe that our research should not, in the first instance, be focussed on combating evils but that our environmental research should, in the very first instance, be focussed on effective planning whereby these problems can be eliminated. For that reason I believe that the hon. the Minister of Planning may fruitfully investigate the idea of a national council which can undertake the research studies in respect of environmental factors and which can advise him and the other bodies and the local authorities with regard to implementing such research.

Mr. Speaker, at the outset I should like to congratulate the hon. member for Orange Grove and, indeed, all the speakers who have taken part in this debate this afternoon on the excellent contributions they have made on a most interesting subject. The hon. member for Orange Grove, in particular, should be congratulated for the very wise way in which he presented his case to this House this afternoon.

One wonders why we, the inhabitants of our world, allow nature to be desecrated and spoilt by man himself. Man does this in his attempt to make life more comfortable for himself. And in doing so, he not only despoils the riches of nature, but is turning nature into a slum. He himself will have to live in that slum.

Land is allowed to be overstocked. It is allowed to be overgrazed. It is laid bare and trodden into dust. If it is not blown away by the winds, it is washed into the sea by our rivers when the rains come. Mountain sides are torn away for roads and railways. Vegetation is uprooted, trees are destroyed; shrubs are not replanted. We have seen fertile fields and lands used for housing projects. This is all necessary to our living. But we are not doing anything, as far as I know, to replace that which we are taking away. The good earth supports all growth, whether it be man or plant or tree or animal. These things all develop and multiply and feed on the good earth and make use of the good earth. But the earth itself does not have the privilege of multiplying itself. The demand on it is increasing more and more. The world does not get bigger: if anything, it shrivels, while it has to support a growing population, which is already virtually bursting through its seams. The land is our greatest asset, but unfortunately we keep on abusing it, and the scientists who are helping man to live in an easier and a more comfortable way, are contributing indirectly towards the destruction of the land. It is not only the scarring of man’s environment with which we have to concern ourselves; we have to concern ourselves also with the scarring of man himself. If we do not take heed of that now, it may soon be too late to do anything about it. The use of coal, oil, detergents, pesticides, drugs, radiation and thousands of other things that are being brought into our lives, leave their side-effects behind. It is the accumulation of these side-effects, each one different from the other, which will cause that same scientist who discovered what we might have thought was a boon to life, to have to find a way to get rid of the side-effects of the substance he has brought into being. This becomes a vicious circle and if we do not break the circle now, we soon might be too late. We can only do it by a comprehensive survey of what is happening. That survey should be done by a team of people and it should be headed by one man in the Government. That man must be a Minister, as has been suggested by the hon. member for Orange Grove. He should be the Minister of Environment.

To continue with the use of radio-active substances could lead to the destruction of cell structure, to creating mutations, to inhibiting growth, and in the future may even be the cause of a new type of man, a new race of men. That is one thing that may happen. We may find in the effects of radio-active substances the method to stop the population explosion which is taking place at the moment. We have seen the effects of radio-active substances. It could be from a slight burn on the wrist caused by a gold watch which has been made from a radium-containing holder, to the wiping out of a whole community, as we have seen during the last war when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed by these elements. It is from the things that happened then that we have to learn how to prepare ourselves for the future. The demand for nuclear energy is going to increase. The electricity which we are using today, whether it comes from coal or water, will in the future be generated by nuclear power. This nuclear power is going to have to provide a hundred times as much electricity in 30 years as is being used at the moment. Then we will be faced with the question of what to do with the effluents. What are we going to do with it? Are we going to allow these effluents to run into the sea or are we going to run them into holes in the ground which nature has provided? Are we going to bury it in containers under 60 metres of soil or are we going to let it just run away into the sea? Are we going to allow the plankton and the fish and everything that lives in the sea to be destroyed? Who is going to guide not only the use and the distribution of the substances that cause the side effects, but also the question of what we are going to do with those side-effects themselves? Nature is helping to the best of her ability. She tries to grow shrubs and grass over the scars that we made, by wind dispersal of seed.

Consider what has happened with DDT. A new substance was brought into being and was going to be the salvation of the agricultural world. Pests were going to be destroyed. Millions of insects died through DDT, but the last laugh was with the insects. We, man, found it was doing just as much harm to the human being as it did to the insects. We had to call the fight off. We had to go and look for other substances. We will soon find that those substances are upsetting the insect life that we depend on. Fortunately, I think, man has never been able to destroy completely any species of insect life. They always continue. That may be a good thing, because it may help us to keep living. But if we want to see what happens as a result of our attempts to produce more and more, we just have to look at some of our chicken farms. For example, where there is a farm of 100 000 battery chickens on the go, they produce as much manure and waste as a village of 15 000 people. It is hard to believe that a farm with 100 000 chickens, which chicken farmers, I think, consider a small farm, is producing as’ much manure as a village of 15 000 people. What is going to happen? How are we going to distribute this? Who is going to take charge? That is why I say that the time has come for us to take note of what the hon. member for Orange Grove has said here today.

We must at our very first opportunity, institute a ministry that can take care of the matter. It is no good doing this in half measure. We have to have a team of people who are experts and will keep learning what to do. We cannot have a disjointed organization. We must have control through it. As much as we want to eat and live, we have to find ways and means of getting rid of our disposals. The whole trend today is to make objects which do not last. Instead of a good bottle, we have a plastic container. Instead of having a good piece of porcelain, we have a piece of ceramic. The porcelain lasts— the ceramic crumbles and breaks and we have to get rid of it. It may be easy to do. Perhaps it was easy to get rid of the bottles in the old days. Today, if one sees an old soda water bottle with a marble in it, it is a piece of furniture. It is an antique, you put it on your mantlepiece. Are we going to be able to do that with a plastic container that holds a liter or half a liter of beer? I do not know what is going to happen in the future, but I know that if we do not do something soon to control all this, we are going to land in a mess which we are making for ourselves.

Mr. Speaker, in the old mining areas and in the industrial areas of the East Rand we have, in particular, the problem of chemical pollution. On the East Rand one finds numerous small and larger lakes which have been polluted to such an extent by cyanide and other chemical substances that today they are absolutely sterile and without any forms of life. There are no fish in the water, and there are no birds in the rushes; there is no life there; and there is virtually no use for those dams. One even finds that the water in those dams is so poisonous that they cannot even be used for boating. In particular we also have the problem of hydrochloric acid, which is manufactured by industries and which pollutes the streams and dams in that vicinity. The entire Witwatersrand has problems with hydrochloric pollution. All companies manufacturing galvanized sheet, steel and even wire, use hydrochloric acid. After the use of brine for these purposes, it eventually becomes spent and weakened and has to be dumped. It is estimated that annually more than 10 000 tons of this brine is being used on the Witwatersrand as a whole. This waste brine then has to be replaced by new hydrochloric acid in order to continue the process, and this waste hydrochloric acid is polluting our pans and smaller lakes. It is even being dumped in our sewerage systems and causes serious pollution in our streams. There is an industry which can re-use, regenerate and reclaim this spent hydrochloric brine. Woodall Duck-ham South Africa (Pty.) Ltd. has been conducting negotiations with all users of hydrochloric acid on the Witwatersrand for the reclamation of this chemical substance, on condition that they can persuade these industries to co-operate. They want this industry to be in production as soon as January, 1972. They are able to reclaim for re-use approximately 98 per cent of the hydrochloric acid, which would mean a tremendous saving and would also assist in meeting this problem of pollution. However, the problem is that this process is a quite expensive one and that it will cost approximately R350 000 to establish the industry itself. Consequently it is essential to obtain the co-operation and the collaboration of all the users of hydrochloric acid on the Witwatersrand. It has already been found that a great number of the major enterprises and companies which are under pressure from the Department of Water Affairs, are willing to co-operate, but there are numerous smaller companies and enterprises which do not see their way clear to co-operating or are unwilling to do so. I should like to request that the Department of Water Affairs bring more pressure to bear on these smaller companies and industries in order to persuade them to take part and share in this scheme and by doing so to make it really economic and worthwhile. I also want to request the Department of Water Affairs to bring pressure to bear on some of the major service companies, such as Iscor and Sasol, which are responsible for a great deal of pollution and are apparently escaping to a large extent the pressure brought to bear by the Department of Water Affairs. We on this side of the House feel that the Department of Water Affairs should provide companies with advice and assistance on the way in which they may overcome the problem of sewerage pollution. We are aware that at present the Department of Water Affairs is probably the best informed body in regard to combating chemical pollution in effluent. They have sent officials abroad, and we know that they are doing their best to combat this problem, but we have also been told that these officials have apparently been forbidden to help industries and to give active advice on how they are to meet this problem. I realize that their time is probably being taken up by the vastness of this problem, so much so that they do not have the time to perform that task as well. But a great number of these industries find that they cannot incur those costs; that they do not have the knowledge to overcome this problem. We know that the manufacturing industry cannot consult private consultants anywhere, for at present there are no private consultants for surmounting this problem. The Water Research Commission ought to have a sewage and effluent section for research into the possibilities of treating and improving these polluted waters. There should also be tax relief, as has already been asked for by hon. members on this side, for research and installations for waste water control. The major service companies possibly have such facilities, which they or the board may make available to the private smaller companies.

Sir, one of the most involved and extensive sectors of environmental pollution has to my mind been caused in the biological sphere through man himself. This is taking place all over the country today. We see how, through the act of man, weeds were imported into the country many years ago. Here we are thinking of khaki bush, blackjacks, thorn-apple, the Mexican poppy, not even to mention the proclaimed weeds such as cocklebur, the spiny cocklebur and jointed cactus. The Department of Agriculture is powerless to combat this problem, and we have seen how these weeds have been spreading along the banks of the Vaal and the Orange, and it seems as though this problem is gradually becoming more and more extensive. Here in the Peninsula and in the Western Province there are various shrubs as hakea, rooikrans and black-bark, which are crowding out and ousting our natural indigenous vegetation, and we also see that apparently the authorities cannot control this problem in any way.

In large parts of the Karoo and in the Eastern Province the green-thorned prickly pear caused a tremendous pest in the past. We tried to combat it through biological measures such as importing cactoblastis cactorium and cochineal, and today we find that that biological agent has in turn become a pest here in South Africa. It attacks our thornless green-leafed prickly pear, which is being planted for economic reasons to serve as fodder for the stock industry in times of drought.

In Australia biological problems have also assumed tremendous proportions. Over there the rabbit pest has assumed such tremendous proportions that they have tried to allow the dingo dogs or wolves to increase in order that this pest may be controlled. Instead of the one destroying the other, they have found today that they are saddled with two problems, the rabbits and the dingo dogs. Man has disturbed the delicate balance of nature, and today we see signs of the human rape of our environment above us and around us.

Chemical agents for agricultural purposes can also cause tremendous problems. These agents are in daily use in large quantities, often without the necessary control. They are of great economic value, but are disturbing the delicate balance of nature. There are weed and plant killers, insecticides, rodent and predator killers, which can contaminate the entire environment. There are more than a thousand formulae and compounds. In the United States more than 100 000 million pounds are being used every year. In Peru these repeated sprayings of insecticides on cotton lands have resulted in the original pest being stamped out but also in six other pests being added to aggravate the position. In Malaya the same thing happened in the cocoa trees, where they sprayed the insect pests with insecticides, with the result that numerous other pests made their appearance there since the natural enemies of those insects had to a large extent been reduced in number and stamped out through the use of these insecticides. Here one is thinking in particular of insects such as wasps, which were destroyed by these insecticides. These insecticides, if used unsystematically, land in the rivers and kill our fish, as has already happened here in South Africa at numerous places. In the vicinity of Douglas, thousands of fish died in the Vaal River at one stage owing to the presence of insecticides in the water. Sir, it has already been mentioned here that certain insecticides such as DDT have the nasty habit of accumulating in the fat and in the tissues of man and of mammals. In the

U.S.A. the insect-eating birds started dying in large numbers owing to the high concentrations of DDT in the insects. Birds of prey in several parts of the world have started laying shell-less eggs and are threatened with certain death owing to the use of insecticides. Owing to the fact that DDT and other agents collect in the food chains, we find that a tremendous accumulation is taking place and that the problem will eventually reach tremendous proportions. Here in South Africa the average human being has eight parts of DDT per million in his body tissue. In the U.S.A. this has already risen to 12 parts of DDT per million in the fat and tissue of human beings. Initially they considered DDT to be relatively harmless, but new research has proved that DDT may in fact accumulate in the liver, cause abscesses as well as malfunctioning, which may eventually cause death. Russia has already banned DDT, and so have the Argentine, Hungary and also Sweden. I think that South Africa should seriously and strongly consider banning this dangerous insecticide here as well.

Mr. Speaker, I should very much like to thank hon. members on both sides of the House for the discussion that has taken place today. I want to assure them that to my mind they made sound and constructive contributions, and I want to thank them for and congratulate them on these contributions. Each of them—some more so than the others—put forward valuable suggestions, and I shall definitely avail myself of them in the report I have to draw up for the Cabinet on the whole question of pollution in South Africa. In a moment I shall refer to that again. Furthermore, I am pleased that this discussion did take place, for I think that it will also assist in making our public outside more conscious of their environment and in making all of us more conscious of what our obligations are towards our environment. I think that this was the case, the more so because the discussions this afternoon were so unanimous. I think one can say that, on this very important matter, Parliament spoke to the country today with one voice. The general discussion was, therefore, quite unanimous.

There is one matter on which there seems to be some difference of opinion between us. This is the matter which the United Party put forward without qualification, by saying that they are now announcing officially that they are in favour of a new and a separate Ministry for the Environment. I shall deal with the merits of that suggestion later on. I want to say at once that to a certain extent it strikes me as being strange that the United Party raised this matter this afternoon. Why did they not make it known last year, when they made their booklet on policy available to the country? Why did they not say to South Africa at that stage, “In respect of this very important development which is taking place in the world, and which is, almost like wildfire, making the people conscious of their environment, we are advocating a department for the environment”? I also find it strange that this announcement was not made by the Leader of the United Party himself. Earlier this year he had the opportunity here in the House of Assembly to inform the country on this matter. I assume that in a fortnight’s time he will once again take part in a debate, and he would then have been able to state the United Party’s standpoint on this very important matter. It seems strange that this announcement was left to an ordinary member of the United Party.

He is a frontbencher and he is going to be a Minister very soon.

À propos of that remark it seems even stranger to me, for they have now used a “future” Minister of Posts and Telegraphs to make an announcement on a future department for the environment. The only reason which the United Party advanced for this announcement, was that there had to be a greater measure of co-ordination. I now call the House to witness that in the entire discussion this afternoon there was not one member on the other side who said what kind of co-ordination there had to be. None of them said that there was a common element in oil pollution at sea, pollution of the Vaal River, the spraying of insecticides to control locusts, the gases emitted by motor cars in our cities and the noise they make. None of them said that there was a common element in all these forms of pollution, and that we had to have co-ordination for that reason. They merely said that there had to be co-ordination. However, they did not put the question of whether there might be more effective forms of co-ordination. They simply said that there has to be a new, separate ministry, over and above the Ministry of Planning. My reaction is that I am not in favour of that. Of course, it is not for me to give the decision. It does not rest with me. It rests with my Leader the hon. the Prime Minister, and this matter will in due course receive his attention, but my personal, first reaction is that I am not in favour of it.

This matter has many aspects which we shall have to thrash out thoroughly before we can say whether we are going to establish a new ministry. I think the hon. member for False Bay has quite rightly pointed out that one uses water in South Africa, and who other than the Department of Water Affairs is to say how water should be conserved or distributed and how much everybody should get, etc.? And how is one going to entrust other people with the incorrect use of water and this department, in turn, with the correct use of water? After all, this is simply inconceivable, and what is the pollution of water other than the incorrect use of water? A factory is now to go to another department with a water quota to ask how much water it may use. It is to say that the Department of Water Affairs granted it the right to use so many millions of gallons of water per day, but the other department is now to lay down the conditions subject to which it may use that quota of water. Another department is now to say how it is to return its purified or used water to a stream of water which, in turn, is controlled by the Department of Water Affairs for the whole of South Africa. Is the Department of Agriculture to go to this new Ministry and say: We have a locust plague here; may these toxic substances be used? These are the thoughts that enter one’s mind.

My Department of Planning deals with the utilization of the soil of South Africa. This is physical planning, but whereas we are the umbrella department and whereas we are concentrating the utilization of the soil of South Africa by all the various bodies and trying to bring about regularity and order in this sphere, we are not a super department which does the work of other departments. We bring everything together. In a certain sense we are the consolidating, co-ordinating body. My personal opinion is that the utilization of the environment, as well as the incorrect utilization of the environment, can fall under one Ministry, but to my mind that ministry is the Ministry of Planning. Whether the Prime Minister is in due course going to call it the Ministry of Environment instead of the Ministry of Planning, is his right. But my first reaction is that one need not establish a separate, new department in South Africa for doing this work, for my basic premise is that one cannot separate the incorrect utilization from the correct utilization. One has to consolidate those matters under the same Minister and the same Department, and they have to watch over and regulate both of them, but another department could act as the umbrella body co-ordinating such matters, especially in regard to the research with which I shall deal in a moment.

In regard to the various aspects of pollution in South Africa, I am very much convinced that these problems are being attended to very satisfactorily at the moment. The hon. member for Orange Grove also said that he was not lodging any complaints against this matter; he said that these problems were being attended to satisfactorily. I was pleased to hear that, and this was confirmed by all the other hon. members; none of them criticized it. The Department of Industries with its whole oil pollution action at sea, is doing good work today. Whether it is now to remove those officials and place them in another department and whether the work will then be better, I do not know. It is obvious that one department should coordinate all oil pollution actions at sea. One cannot have one which does it in the Cape and another which does it in Durban. Furthermore, the Department of Industries has been charged with dealing with the effluent from factories into the sea, and through its Sea Fisheries Division it is doing research in this sphere. The Department of Industries also has the right to control our natural resources along our shores, such as crayfish, pelagic fish, white fish, etc. I think that it is doing this work very well.

The Department of Water Affairs simply cannot do the work connected with pollution, the incorrect utilization of our rivers and streams of water, more effectively than it is at present being done by this department. Admittedly, the research in this regard is being carried out by various bodies. In this matter the research in regard to the pollution of the sea is being carried out by the Sea Fisheries Division in the Department of Industries. Research is also being carried out on a provincial level, and at the University of Cape Town and possibly at the University of Natal as well. As we all know, such research is also being carried out in Port Elizabeth. We could bring about more co-ordination in this research and, perhaps, even consolidate it under one roof. The Department of Water Affairs has research projects which are being undertaken by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and the National Institute for Water Research, in addition to which water research is also being carried out at one or two other places. The other day the Minister piloted through in this House an Act in terms of which he established a commission for water research. The funds which he will obtain by these means, will be used by him to initiate specific research projects in South Africa. I also think that the provinces and the local authorities are doing good work.

The hon. member for Rosettenville referred to the refuse and waste material of the city councils. They have good methods for incinerating and destroying refuse. This could possibly be co-ordinated to an even greater extent, and research in this regard could be intensified. That I may grant. But a department cannot be established to take away from the provinces and the local authorities certain work which they are doing at present. That cannot be done. That is what is implied in the whole discussion we have heard from the other side today. The province, with all its facets, has certain instructions. On a certain occasion I paid a visit to the zoo here in Cape Town. A broken bottle, a mealiecob without any pips, a beer can and papers were lying about there. That is a matter which we should take up with the local city council, but the city council has in fact provided numerous refuse bins. Nor can the local city council afford to appoint a person to sit there day in and day out in order to see to it that people do not throw litter about. I do not want to exaggerate, and I must say that it was not very filthy, but these things and some papers were lying about. We must educate our public to assist the local authorities. To take this task away from the local authorities, will not solve our problem. We must educate the public to assist the local authorities in doing this in South Africa. If necessary, we should institute legal proceedings against members of the public, but we shall obtain their co-operation. We should start by making the children at school conscious of this problem. I am convinced that good work is already being done, but we should look into the matter and try to make the children more conscious of having to keep their surroundings clean. That is where we have to start.

Would countrywide legislation not be more effective?

I do not know whether it would be better for us to introduce country-wide legislation or to call in every province and to ask each of the Administrators whether his province has a law against it. The Administrator will say whether or not his province has such a law. If his province does not have such a law, then we as the umbrella department will tell him to make such a law. He will do it. If he says that his province has such a law, we will say that it is our wish that they should apply the law simultaneously. But they already said that they are willing to apply the law. I repeat that we could apply both methods, but we do not need a new department for doing so. As I have said, this is my first reaction.

Now, what has the Cabinet done? They have appointed a Cabinet committee to inquire into the whole question of pollution and, more or less, to carry out a survey of the whole terrain, of everything that is covered by it. Furthermore, they have to determine what forms of pollution are already being dealt with properly at present and what forms of pollution are as yet not being covered. Then they are to decide where such forms of pollution ought to be dealt with. Any recommendations which we wish to make on more effective co-ordination in respect of the real anti-pollution action and in respect of research, will be investigated by them. We are in the process of drawing up this report, a task that was entrusted to me by the Cabinet committee. When it has been prepared, it will be submitted to the hon. the Prime Minister, after which he will probably decide whether action should be taken. Everything I say here today, should therefore be regarded as my own views, be it in connection with a new department, a department with another name, wider terms of reference or only a co-ordination action for the future. Then, in regard to another matter which we discussed today, I want to say that to my mind we are discussing a very important matter today, namely what we are doing with the earth on which we are living and what we are doing with the natural resources at our disposal. Man and his environment, as was said by the hon. members, has become an important topic for discussion in our present-day lives. It is not only an important topic for discussion, but also a very topical one. But now there is something which is a source of fear to one, something which affects our entire continued existence on earth, i.e. that the greater the increase in the population of the world, the more urgently we become aware of the importance of making the best use of the gifts bestowed on us by the Creator, of retaining, preserving and replacing the gifts bestowed on us in so far as it is at all possible to do so. The more we increase in number, so much the more urgent it becomes for us to utilize and employ correctly the earth on which we live, work and move about. It is becoming clear to us that we must conserve, improve and beautify the soil and the environment, and that we must guard against the incorrect utilization of everything. It is becoming clear that we have to keep pure the air we inhale and the water we drink and spray over the plants which we are going to eat later on. In our time utilization, conservation and pollution have indeed given rise to a new international and national awakening to the problem, for in virtually every country this concept is taking root at present. Not only the earth, but also the great universe must remain a viable place for man to live in. This should also and in particular happen to South Africa, since it is our fatherland and the vehicle of our generations of the future. Out of its rich resources above and under-ground and in the sea, out of its veld and its trees, its rivers and its streams of water and the skies above, we must create a beautiful, happy and healthy place for all of us. The blue of our skies, the clearness of our seas, our vast and lonely flats and our eternal mountains should constantly remain to us and to our descendants the source of a fine, healthy and happy life on earth. Previous generations failed to notice the problem, if I may call it a problem. At that time it was not quite as real a problem as it is today, and especially the problem of pollution did not trouble them. The intensity of that problem was low; the world was open, wide and free; there was a great deal of space, with fresh air and clean water in plentiful supply. Their activities were relatively innocent, and nature had its own ways of restoring and purifying itself. The pace of living in those times was such that nature could still do so. Our generation, on the other hand, may not ignore this new situation, for it stares us in the face everywhere. In part this is the result of the tremendous increase in the world population, for, as has rightly been said here, after Christ it took 1 800 years before the first 1 000 million people inhabited the earth. It only took 80 years for the world population to increase by another 1 000 million people, and the next increase of 1 000 million people took place in only 40 years’ time. It has rightly been said that the 3 500 million people inhabiting the world at present, will be doubled in number within the next 30 to 35 years. Hand in hand with this urbanization is taking place in the world at roughly twice the rate of the increase in population. In order to provide for the spiritual and especially the material needs of this rapidly growing mass of people, people whose individual and collective needs are constantly changing in quality and increasing in number, man harnessed his scientific knowledge, his technological progress and his technical skill in order to start producing and to meet all needs. There were no limits to his resourcefulness and spirit of enterprise. Where a need did not exist, they created it. They successfully convinced man that he had to satisfy the need that had been created. Industrialization became the watch-word, the means for creating new riches and the basis for unprecedented economic activity. Chimneys started smoking and polluting the air everywhere; the factories extracted clean water from the rivers and replaced less clean water. The cities became bigger and bigger and did not know what to do with their refuse. Where possible, it was discharged in the sea. Of course, all these matters have already been attended to with a great measure of success; I merely mention them to indicate that this is the beginning of an entirely new dispensation on earth, in our country as well. Gigantic building projects were undertaken, roads were constructed, materials were required, and for that reason stone quarries were developed, the landscape was changed and disturbed. What course is the road to follow? Where is the stone quarry with its noise, dust and unsightliness to be situated? These are the questions that were asked. Motor vehicles and diesel engines started roaring down our streets. Tens of thousands of ships started sailing the seas and dumping their refuse in the sea. Everybody who wanted to get rid of anything, left it behind in the sea. Gigantic tankers conveyed the new fuel. Food had to be produced in large quantities.

Birds, and the other natural enemies of insects, were no longer able to combat pests and plagues rapidly enough. In many cases they were also killed in this process. Modern insecticides and sprays were diffused in the air in large quantities. When the bodies of Eskimoes and the fat of penguins in Antarctica were analysed, they were found to contain these toxic substances; they were found in the plankton in the middle of the ocean. The week before last we read about a large quantity of fish that was withdrawn from the market in Great Britain—fish that was taken from the sea—because it contained toxic substances which are dangerous when consumed by human beings.

We had to start utilizing our natural resources, the things that were in the created, natural environment, which were the legacy of the ages—everything had to be employed in order to meet the growing needs of the growing world population. What nature built up over thousands of years, we exploited and exhausted in a matter of decades. We went further by not only using what was in nature, but also creating new compounds which had never been known to nature. We disturbed the balance of nature. On the farms we killed the ant-eaters and we were almost ruined by the ants. We killed the jackals which used to hunt for and eat the small of lynxes, and today the lynxes are ruining our stock farmers. We shot the lammergeyer, which catches the rock rabbits, because we imagined that it also caught lambs—today we do not know what to do with all the rock rabbits. They are overflowing from the hills into the flats. By means of this poison we have almost exterminated the wagtails, which used to run around on our lawns, and today one sees far fewer wagtails than one did ten or twenty years ago. Nature has its own intricate processes through which it constantly seeks to restore the disturbed balance, the consequence of the actions of man, but these are slow processes. We consume and destroy at a faster rate than the rate at which nature can replace and restore things. What a mountain fire destroys in 24 hours’ time, takes nature years to restore. A stone quarry on the slopes of a mountain will take hundreds or thousands of years to become again as it was; for that reason we must locate it correctly and, if possible, plan it in such a way that we may at a later stage use it again for another purpose and convert it or, as a last resort, cover it up by planting trees. The soil in the mine dumps of Johannesburg we shall never again be able to return to the subterranean places from which it was removed; those mine dumps will remain above the surface for ever, but we can cover them up with vegetation or try to make something attractive or useful out of them. Some natural resources can never be replaced again. The iron ore and manganese which we extract, the coal, gold, diamonds and copper and the numerous other minerals have been removed for ever. There are no processes in progress in the earth for replacing them. For that reason they should be exploited and utilized in the most effective manner. We must watch over them as jealously as possible, for they do not only belong to us, but also to South Africa and to the future generations. Of course, there are certain factors which play a role in their exploitation, and technological development constantly enable us to extract more of them from the earth. A higher price owing to an increased demand results in the marginal profit line being brought down to lower ore grades, which are then exploited. Better and cheaper transports also have an effect on what can be exploited. In the same way there are other factors as well.

To a certain extent the soil of South Africa also constitutes one of our irreplaceable natural resources; what has been washed out to sea, will never be recovered. As an hon. member said, it takes 500 years to form one inch of topsoil. What has been built up and covered by cities and roads, remains lost for ever, and what is left should be utilized well and correctly by means of soil conservation and correct farming practices, such as stock withdrawal, etc. By means of physical planning, which is the work of my department, we should see to it that land is classified and distributed correctly and to the greatest advantage for the various activities of man. By means of nature conservation, parks and the protection of our mountains, catchment areas, rivers and streams we must conserve everything we have. The beauty of our country should be a precious possession to us. I could go on in this way, but I notice that time is marching on.

I just want to say it is a good thing that we are becoming conscious of our environment and the need to conserve and protect it against pollution. I want to make an appeal today that in this whole process we should retain our perspective. We must make our people conscious of their environment, but our consciousness and our object must be positive. One could point out negative things and things that are wrong, but what is done cannot be undone. The value of one’s contribution lies in the constructive contribution one makes towards making a better and cleaner place of one’s environment in all its facets; for the world must go on. Although progress and development have brought about many problems—not only for us, but also for other countries—we cannot condemn progress and development for that reason. The only thing is to make the best of it. The world must and it will go on. But as long as the divine spark kindles in man, he will strain and strive forward, the one this way and the other that way, but the masses of the earth must be fed, clothed and housed. Their ever-growing needs of working, living and playing must be met, and I suppose it is also correct that as long as we retain our balance, as long as we plan correctly, there is still salvation. It may perhaps be said that mankind will still grow itself to death, but I think that it will after all be better to be worn away than to rust away. For that reason I want to sound the warning that in this whole anti-pollution action we should strike a balance in our actions. Let us make our population conscious of the problem and let us activate them, one and all, both in the private and in the public sector, so that each of them may in his own field, no matter how small it is, render a positive contribution. What should not happen, is that this should provide all and sundry with a platform for levelling, after the event, criticism in an indiscriminate manner. There is no better place to start with than in our schools, and one is grateful for what has already been done. So much has already been done, but today I want to make another appeal to our people and beg all of us to try to make our contribution and to give a practical demonstration of our consciousness of our environment, even if it is only by keeping clean the place where we live or where we spend our holidays or where we spend a week-end. I want to ask our petrol companies, which spend so much money on many advertisements, which we regard as being unnecessary, to furnish their customers at their service stations with plastic containers which may be kept in their cars in order that our people may use those containers for disposing of their peels, papers and other litter.

I want to thank hon. members once again for this whole discussion, and also the hon. member for his amendment.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 32 and motion and amendment lapsed.