Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.

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

The effect of these proposed amendments is to make the fine on a conviction of an offence under the Act not R50 but R200—i.e. ini the discretion of the Court a maximum of R200—and for a second offence not R100 but R400. As we indicated yesterday during the Second Reading debate, it seems to us what was R50 in 1935 is the equivalent today of R200.

More!

Or even more. At any rate, in all the circumstances it seems to us that this will be a more realistic figure than the one which now appears.

Mr. Chairman, I am prepared to accept the amendment. I thought the hon. member would also move amendments to clauses 1 and 2.

Mr. Chairman, I am sorry, but I did not hear the hon. the Minister. What did the hon. the Minister say?

Mr. Chairman, I said that I was prepared to accept the amendment and I also said that I was rather surprised to hear that the hon. member did not move amendments to clauses 1 and 2.

Amendments put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Clause 9:

Mr. Chairman, I should like an explanation regarding this clause. I notice that in regard to the Republic the practice of veterinarians is governed by the Veterinary Act of 1933. In regard to South-West Africa no mention is made of any specific ordinance. Is the position in regard to South-West Africa that there is no legislation governing the practice of veterinarians and if that is so, is it not desirable that legislation should be introduced?

The hon. member’s question is something of a surprise. I do not believe, however, that there is a similar ordinance in the Territory, because clause 9, which amends section 1 of the Animals Protection Act of 1962, reads—

It clearly appears from this that there is no such ordinance. Whether it is indeed desirable to pass such an ordinance in the Territory will be for the Division of Veterinary Services to determine and not for the Minister of Justice.

Mr. Chairman, in view of the hon. Minister’s reply to the question raised by my hon. colleague the hon. member for Musgrave, is the hon. the Minister satisfied that in the case of South-West Africa, where there is no apparent standard laid down, the qualifications are in no way inferior to those accepted by the South African Veterinarian Board?

I could not say whether that is the case, but veterinary surgeons are practising in South-West Africa. What their exact qualifications are, or what the qualifications required are, I am not able to say.

Clause put and agreed to.

Mr. Chairman, I wonder whether this clause could perhaps stand over until we have considered the amendments which I am going to propose in clause 4. I therefore move—

That this clause stand over.

Agreed to.

Clause 4:

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment which stands in my name on page 33 of the Order Paper, as follows—

The effect of this amendment is to ensure that there is no doubt whatever that the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act of 1890 has applied in the Republic since we became a Republic. The clause, as it stands, says—

My amendment seeks to add: “but shall be deemed to have been in force in the Republic up to the date of the commencement of this Act”. As I indicated yesterday, there is considerable doubt and it is strongly argued, I believe correctly, that when we became a Republic on 31st May, 1961, this Act ceased to have effect in the Republic because it is expressly stated to have effect in British possessions. Whatever wide connotation or interpretation one might give to that expression “British possession”, most certainly one could not say that since 31st of May, 1961, the Republic of South Africa could be described as such at all. In order to remove any doubt that their might be, and because it cannot in any way do any harm, I move the amendment which stands in my name which I am sure the hon. the Minister would be prepared to accept.

Mr. Chairman, I have very carefully considered this amendment proposed by the hon. member. As the hon. member rightly says, it can do no harm, but one does not write unnecessary things into legislation either. I feel that this would be the case if this amendment were accepted. I just want to mention to the hon. member that we have discussed this matter with the law advisers, and that they have no doubt about it whatsoever.

In the second place, the hon. member knows, of course, that section 107 of the Constitution Act provides that, subject to the provisions of that Act, all laws which were in force in any part of the Union of South Africa immediately prior to the commencement of that Act, that is the Constitution Act, shall continue in force until repealed or amended by the competent authority. Natal was also part of the Union, as was the Cape Province.

To take the matter further, in 1963 this Parliament confirmed, by implication, the fact that this British Act was still in force here. Section 54 of the Merchant Shipping Amendment Act of 1963 contains an amendment in which Admiralty jurisdiction is mentioned. In 1968 we passed the Prize Jurisdiction Act. That Act repeals the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act, the same Act we are dealing with now, in so far as it related to matters concerning prizes. In this way Parliament accepted once again, in 1968, that the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act applied in the Republic. Since we have all this evidence, I really feel that although the proposed amendment can do no harm, it is unnecessary and, after all, one does not write unnecessary provisions into one’s legislation. Consequently I am unfortunately unable to accept it.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that in 1968 the Prize Jurisdiction Act repealed those parts of the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act, the very one that is being repealed here, that affected prize jurisdiction. However, that was on the assumption that in fact the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act of 1890 applied in the Republic. It could not possibly be said that we were a British possession after the 31st May. I want to say that it is not a case of legal advisers that I am talking about; I have talked to people who practise in these courts and who have experience of these courts; this is their view. Prima facie, the hon. the Minister has not answered that particular argument. It is a very simple argument. If the British Act says that it will apply only in British possessions, then by a stretch of the imagination one could perhaps have said that in view of the way in which that expression is used, it might have applied to the Union of South Africa up to the 31st May. However, by no stretch of the imagination can it be said that the Republic of South Africa after the 31st May, could be described as a British possession. Therefore that Act does not apply and has not applied in the Republic of South Africa since we became a Republic.

It seems to me that it is necessary that this amendment should be accepted. I think that the hon. the Minister would at least go so far as to admit that it is arguable as to whether or not it has applied since 1961. If it is arguable, it would be wise to accept this amendment which would ensure that there can be no difficulty in respect of any judgment which has been given which, in the nature of things, is a different sort of judgment from the judgment given by a Supreme Court acting under the jurisdiction conferred on it by our Supreme Court Act. If the hon. the Minister feels that this question is at least arguable, concerning this one point, I do urge him to accept the amendment I have moved.

If the hon. member accepts that the legislation which brought Courts of Admiralty to South Africa was still in force before we became a Republic, he must tell us how he interprets section 107 of the South Africa Act. I do not think there can be any doubt that, in the first place, Admiralty law and, in the second place, Court of Admiralty procedure, were applied in our courts of appeal even before we became a Republic. I should like to mention one case to him. There is, for example, the case of S.A.R. & H. V. Lyle Shipping Company Limited, 1958 (3) page 416. Admiralty law was obviously applied in this judgment. I can go further back to other judgments, for example, in S.A. Law Reports (1950) (1), page 880: Ex parte Government of the United States of America in re S.S. Union Carrier. In this case there was the same situation, namely recognition and acceptance of Admiralty law as such, and application of the Court of Admiralty procedure. So the question which has to be answered in order to satisfy the hon. member for Durban North is whether the situation which existed before the commencement of the South Africa Act was perpetuated after we became a Republic. Subsequently we must look at the wording of section 107 of the Constitution Act. It reads as follows—

Remember that the Constitution Act came into operation three years after the decision of 1958—

That is what we are now working on. Consequently I should like to support the hon. the Minister in his statement that unnecessary wording would be written in to this clause if that hon. member’s amendment were accepted.

I do not want to take up the time of the House with regard to this matter. The hon. the Minister has indicated that he does not want to accept this amendment, while the hon. member who has just sat down has pointed out that section 107 of the Constitution Act says that those laws which were in force at the time we became a Republic, would continue to be in force. Of course, the lawgiver in that instance would have been this Parliament. In fact, it was this Parliament which did this. However, it only has effect because the lawgiver in Great Britain in fact made it applicable. So that, once we became a Republic, the effect of that Act ceased in actual fact. We could adopt it. If we wanted it, the laws which were there, would continue, but when expressly applied … I may say that this is a matter about which one can disagree and, in fact, about which lawyers are disagreeing at present. It is for that reason that it seemed wise to us to amend it. However, I am not going to press it. It is on the hon. the Minister’s head if anything goes wrong. At least we tried to put the record straight.

In those circumstances, with the leave of the Committee, I withdraw my amendment.

Amendment, with leave, withdrawn.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

Clause 1 (standing over):

Mr. Chairman, in the light of the attitude of the hon. Minister I shall not move the amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper.

Do you withdraw it?

No, but I am not going to move it. The Minister may still move it in the Other Place if he wants to.

Clause put and agreed to.

Mr. Chairman, clause 1 will obviously carry with it the duty to establish a Debts Registry at Windhoek. I think the hon. the Minister was going to give us some information in his Second Reading speech as to the progress that has been made in regard to a centralized Debt Registry for the whole of the Republic and South-West Africa. I wonder whether he can indicate whether the establishment of this separate Debt Registry will merely be a temporary measure until the centralized computerized registry is established.

Mr. Chairman, I intended speaking about this yesterday, but I did not have the chance to do so. The hon. member will realize, however, that the task we are engaged in is a major and very responsible one. Consequently we cannot allow just any young man to do the work, and fairly senior officials must do it. However, considerable progress has been made. All ante-nuptial contracts have been included in the computer system and much progress has been made in respect of interdicts and caveats. Progress is slow, however, because great care has to be exercised and the work has to be checked repeatedly.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 7:

The Committee will note that in this clause there is some residual power being left with the Minister of Agriculture in regard to certificates of consolidated titles in certain circumstances. Here again, the hon. the Minister will know that it will result in a duplication between his department and the Department of Agriculture. I wonder whether the time is not ripe to have here, instead of the Minister of Agriculture, the Minister of Justice, who otherwise deals with the Deeds Registry. Could the Minister tell us whether there has been any move or attempt to bring the control of registries under one Ministry instead of under two as it is at the present time.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member referred to this aspect yesterday as well. At the moment, of course, the position is that the Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure is the body which deals with all State-owned land. Furthermore, there is the question of consolidation. Up to now there have been no negotiations between the two departments or between the two Ministries. We can give this matter some thought; up to this stage, however, there has been no talk of it.

Clause put and agreed to.

Mr. Chairman, I move as an amendment—

I hope that the hon. the Minister has had the opportunity to have a look at this amendment. To some extent the purpose of this amendment was mentioned in this House during the Second Reading debate by both the hon. member for Durban North and myself. We indicated that where an insolvent estate is straightforward and there have been no contraventions of the Insolvency Act or any other contraventions, we saw no difficulty; we agree with the hon. the Minister that there should be a limit to the insolvency and we think a 10-year period is adequate. But in this modern day we do foresee circumstances where one would have to do with a complicated estate and also an estate where there may have been serious contraventions; where an automatic rehabilitation at the end of the 10-year period would not be justified. Sir, we do not know the details of the Sidarel collapse at this stage and therefore one does not want to go into any details, but I would point out to the hon. the Minister that the judicial manager of these companies has pointed out that the transactions are so involved that it may well take as much as three, or maybe even four, years to unravel this whole thing. If one had to do with a situation of that sort, it could well be that a 10-year period is not long enough.

During the debate yesterday, Sir, we suggested to the hon. the Minister that the exception should provide that where there are contraventions the insolvent should apply to court for this rehabilitation. On reconsideration of the matter, we think that the amendment I have moved would be a better way of dealing with it. There are obviously many contraventions of the Insolvency Act that are merely technical and would not warrant the insolvent having to make specific application to court for this rehabilitation in circumstances where the legislature is going to provide for an automatic rehabilitation after a certain period. We think, therefore, that the amendment ought to meet the difficulties which the hon. the Minister pointed out in dealing with our request yesterday. This would provide for an automatic rehabilitation, as is envisaged in the amendment, but will give the power either to the trustee or to the Master to make application to court if in the opinion of one or other of them there are circumstances which would warrant the extension of the insolvency beyond the 10-year period or would warrant a conditional rehabilitation. We have provided that if one or other of these people—the trustee or the Master—feels this way, he must make application to court, on notice to the insolvent, before expiry of the 10-year period. Mr. Chairman, I do hope that the hon. the Minister will accept this amendment because whilst we agree that in the 75 per cent of cases to which the hon. the Minister referred—and it may even be 85 per cent of the cases—an automatic rehabilitation after a 10-year period is perfectly satisfactory, there are, however, the small minority of cases, the few people, who seem to take advantage of their creditors and who involve themselves in what are very often very serious malpractices. We do think that there should be some provision whereby either the trustee or the Master should be able to say: “In this particular case we do not think that the insolvent should be rehabilitated automatically at the end of a 10-year period or, if he is rehabilitated, certain conditions should be imposed.” I therefore move this amendment, Sir, and I urge the hon. the Minister to accept it.

Mr. Chairman, during the Second Reading debate yesterday I indicated that I was not entirely happy about certain points. I said I would consider the position and invited the Opposition to make proposals in this regard. The hon. member was good enough to send me his proposed amendment this morning. We have examined it, and I want to congratulate him, because he has in fact given us an idea, but his proposal is not quite in order yet. His amendment is limited in the sense that reference is made only to the trustee or the Master. As I indicated yesterday, it often happens that the trustee cannot be traced and then he cannot act in this regard. This is one difficulty.

There is another difficulty which may arise if the hon. member’s amendment is accepted as it stands. Hon. members should remember that when this Bill is published and proclaimed, there may be a considerable number of insolvents whose 10-year period would already have expired and who would then slip through. There may be the biggest rogues among them, and it would not be possible to do anything. These are the two major deficiencies inherent in the hon. member’s amendment. However, I concede that his idea is highly acceptable, and therefore I want to put it to him in this way: I shall accept the amendment and it may appear in his name, but then it must be phrased slightly differently. I propose that the new section should read as follows:

This is substituted for the hon. member’s proviso—

The trustee is an “interested person”, as is the Master, and the hon. member himself may be an “interested person”. If the other two disappear one day, the hon. member will still be there. I think this would cover the position. The addition to the section, as it reads in the Bill at present, would then be as follows:

In other words, we are giving persons the opportunity until 31st December to go to the court in the case of those persons who would then practically have qualified, and to say: “Look, for this or that reason I feel that that fellow should not be rehabilitated.” If the hon. member will accept this change, I am prepared to accept his amendment. The amendment can then still stand in his name.

I thank the hon. the Minister for giving serious consideration to my amendment and I am happy to adopt his alternative suggestion. As I understand the hon. the Minister, his amendment will be substituted for mine. With leave, I therefore wish to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment, with leave, withdrawn.

I now move the following amendment—

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to. House Resumed:

Bill reported with an amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Mr. Speaker, it has been brought to light that certain provisions in the Prisons Act reveal shortcomings and inconsistencies, and it has therefore become necessary to amend those provisions suitably.

For instance, a great deal of obscurity has arisen in regard to the expression “special warder”, as used throughout the Act. What is actually meant by this expression, is a person who has been appointed in a temporary capacity, but owing to the existing terminology this is often considered to be an appointment for a special or extraordinary task, which, however, is not the case. The proposed amendment in clause 1 therefore seeks to remove this obscurity.

Furthermore, it has become a more and more frequent occurrence for the department to re-employ in a temporary capacity commissioned officers who have retired on pension. The reason for this is chiefly to be found in the fact that such ex-officers usually have a mature experience and knowledge of the functions of the department, the result being that their reappointment holds considerable advantages for the department. As the position is at present, however, such ex-officers are, in terms of section 9 (2) of the Act, charged with the same powers and functions, have to perform the same duties and are subject to the same discipline and authority as are warders appointed on a permanent basis. The result is, therefore, that after their reappointment they cannot be used as commissioned officers in any capacity. Accordingly it is the conviction that valuable knowledge and experience are wasted in this manner. The proposed amendment in clause 2 therefore seeks to make it possible for such an ex-officer who has been reappointed temporarily after retiring on pension, to be granted the same powers he had before retiring on pension. I may just add that they are reappointed at the same salary as that of an ordinary temporary warder, not at the salary of a commissioned officer.

It has also been brought to light that section 9 of the Act contains an inconsistency. Subsection (1) authorizes the appointment of special warders—i.e. for the safe custody or transport of prisoners or for any other purpose—and therefore also covers those cases where a hirer or an employee of a hirer of convict labour is appointed as a guard for the purpose of keeping watch over those prisoners. Under subsection (2) all special warders are vested with the same powers and duties and are subject to the same discipline and authority as a warder appointed on a permanent basis. Now we come to the inconsistency, i.e. the fact that subsection (9)bis provides that the salaries of all special warders shall be determined in accordance with the provisions of the Public Service Act. Therefore, in a case where a private person hires convict labour, he is appointed under subsection (1), enters into a written contract, takes the oath of allegiance and subsection (2) defines his powers and duties, but subsection (9)bis does not apply to him as he is not remunerated by the State. The proposed amendment in clause S therefore seeks to remove this inconsistency.

In terms of section 53 of the Act a commissioned officer has the jurisdiction to try any member or any special warder in the event of infringements of discipline having; been committed. However, if such a member or special warder has committed an offence and his services are terminated before the case has been settled, such a court consisting of commissioned officers does not have the jurisdiction to try such ex-members or ex-special warders. Since this is prejudicial to the administration of justice and to authority, the proposed amendment in clause 4 seeks to remove this deficiency.

Finally, section 88 (1) of the Act provides that, with the exception of customs and excise duties, approved canteens of the department and the articles on sale in them shall be exempt from licence moneys, taxes, duties or fees. However, it does not indicate specifically that such articles shall also be subject to sales duties, and consequently the Department of Customs and Excise has requested that the necessary adjustment be effected in the Act. The proposed amendment in clause 5 therefore seeks to put it beyond all doubt that such articles shall not be exempt from the payment of sales duty.

Mr. Speaker, I think that by furnishing this brief explanation I have covered this measure.

Mr. Speaker, we are grateful to the hon. the Minister for furnishing such a clear explanation. There is nothing more to be said. We support the measure at this stage. There will be a few questions at the Committee Stage, but to my mind those are matters that can be discussed at the Committee Stage.

Mr. Speaker, when the debate was adjourned yesterday evening, I had made inter alia the following remarks and had suggested that the hon. the Opposition was being very unfair to the hon. the Deputy Minister in the debate they were conducting; that the contributions which would be collected in terms of this Bill need not give rise to any problem in the sense that the Opposition would be afraid of what would become of the money. The revenue and expenditure would in fact be duly audited. Another standpoint I mentioned was that the National Party had, on the basis of its Christian guardianship, always seen to it that justice was done to the Bantu in White areas and consequently that all legislation of the National Party for dealing with the contact situation between the Bantu and the Whites, should not be seen in isolation but as part of a whole.

I should just like to make a few concluding observations. This morning I had the opportunity of very thoroughly reading the speech made by the hon. member for Transkei yesterday. I had listened to him very carefully, but now I have also had the opportunity of reading his speech. I also read the speeches made by his colleagues. I want to make the comment that their speeches remind me of an observation once made by Bennet Cerf to the effect that “politicians are like ships, noisiest when lost in a fog”. That was the feeling I got when I listened to the speeches made by the hon. members on the opposite side. I really could not find one single reason or argument why they were opposed to this legislation in principle. The few observations I want to make in this regard are that their comments on the contributions that will be collected here are proof of the fact that if they should ever come into power one day, they would be the very people who would have jobs for pals, that they would use the moneys they would collect to benefit certain employers. It is therefore very clear that in their arguments, the hon. members on the opposite side are only a mouthpiece of those big Progressive Party business personalities in the large urban complexes. This legislation places a very great responsibility on the officials who have to deal with the aspects of the employer and the Bantu every day. I therefore find it such a pity that the hon. member for Florida, and others, have by their arguments made the atmosphere in which these officials have to work, more difficult, and that they have made such comments while the officials are having great difficulty in dealing with the relationship between the employer and the Bantu. I have the hon. member for Jeppes in mind. He made the following statement—

And then, as if the National Party cannot do anything, he went on to say that they would very much like to collect funds and that those funds would have to be used for clinics, crèches, sportsfields, technical training, schools, cultural aid for young people etc. When the hon. the Deputy Minister tries to introduce effective measure, they oppose it on the one hand, and on the other hand they say they are going to do all these things. They say all these things with the implication that in this legislation the National Party does not want to cooperate with the local authorities while the opposite is true. The opposite is that there were certain local authorities that wanted to exploit the urban Bantu or the Bantu within the White areas as a result of their approach to the Bantu, and that they now want to lay this at the door of the National Party. Then the hon. member for Transkei made an observation on so-called vocational training. The hon. member asked the hon. the Deputy Minister why he spoke of vocational training in this speech. He then asked the hon. the Deputy Minister whether there had been another change of policy in respect of these matters. Those hon. members know very well that the National Party adopts the standpoint that the Bantu are to be trained within their national context and that that training can best be dealt with in the homelands. This is true for many reasons. There are, for example, the reasons of language usage. If the Vendas, the Tswanas and the Shangaans have been lumped together for vocational training, surely it is very difficult to have to work with a number of young Tswanas. One goes to the homeland concerned, to the homeland where the Tswanas are to be trained, the homeland where there is a particular cultural atmosphere, with a language of its own, and then one starts with one’s training. The hon. members of the Opposition want the National Party to walk into a trap here, and they want us, in coming forward with the better administration of affairs, to yield to principles we laid down a long time ago. This vocational training of young Bantu persons is indeed to the advantage of the big firms that provide employment. Therefore it is in their own interest that the training should take place in this way.

I want to conclude by saying that the observations made by hon. members of the Opposition are proof to me that they are an interim party with an interim policy which cannot be of any benefit to either the Bantu or the Whites.

Mr. Speaker, having listened to the honied tones of the hon. the Deputy Minister and his supporters in introducing this legislation and proclaiming a millenium for both the employer of Bantu labour and the Bantu employee, one can very easily be misled into believing that this is a new “verligte” approach whereas in fact it is just another brick in the legislative castle that is being built around the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development.

First of all, I should like to deal with the hon. member for Rissik. I am quite sure that he misquoted Bennet Cerf when he said that the quotation read: “Politicians are like ships, noiseless when lost in the fog.” May I say that we heard his foghorn blowing pretty hard while he was lost both last night and this afternoon.

No, Bennet Cerf spoke of the United Party politicians.

I always understood that since the advent of the new separate development deal and the idea of multi-nationalism, the principle of “Christelike voogdyskap”, which the hon. member for Rissik yesterday told us was the corner stone of Nationalist Party policy, was now rejected, that “voogdyskap” was a paternalistic idea. If we speak about guardianship, they tell us we are paternalistic. I believe that he is totally lost in his political thinking and his political philosophy. He is blowing his foghorn very hard. However, the person whom I want to deal with particularly in this debate, is the hon. member for Langlaagte, who is absent this afternoon.

He is reading the Sunday Times.

But perhaps the hon. the Deputy Minister will answer for him. Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. the Deputy Minister through you whether I heard correctly yesterday when I heard the hon. member for Langlaagte say that all organized industry and all organized commerce were behind this legislation? Did I hear correctly, or did I not hear correctly? The hon. the Deputy Minister was here and he can tell me whether the hon. member for Langlaagte said it or whether he did not say it. One can refer to his Hansard; he did say it. Seeing the hon. member for Langlaagte is not here, perhaps I can ask the hon. the Deputy Minister whether he regards the Midlands Chamber of Industry as a representative of organized industry?

I would regard the Federated Chamber of Industries as representative.

Yes, but would the hon. the Deputy Minister regard the Midlands Chamber of Industries as a large section of the Federated Chamber of Industries?

I know that, but they are not representative of all industries.

No, but they are representative of a large section. Does the hon. the Deputy Minister also recognize that the Federated Chamber of Industries is representative?

Of course, I do.

Yesterday afternoon I received a few telegrams in quick succession. The hon. the Deputy Minister may have received a telegram himself. I will leave the other legislation that was mentioned in this telegram out, but in reference to this legislation the first telegram I received reads as follows:

It was signed by the direction of the Midland Chamber of Industries. Five minutes later I received another telegram …

You must have received many telegrams.

Yes. The second telegram reads—

I have the memorandum here. Perhaps it has been submitted to the hon. the Deputy Minister. I shall just read the final paragraph—

Let me continue. I have a further memorandum from the Midlands Chamber of Industries, namely the submission they presented to the Federated Chamber of Industries. There is quite a lot going on in organized industry today. Yet the hon. member for Langlaagte yesterday had the temerity to tell us that this activity was not going on. I wish he were here now to answer for himself.

I believe that this is another inflationary measure. When one regards this legislation, one has to take things to absurdities. One has to have regard to the maximum that may be imposed. As I have shown from the information supplied in the memorandum of the Midlands Chamber of Industries, and as we on this side of the House all feel, one must accept the fact that the Bantu Administration Boards will now practically cover the whole country. This levy or contribution—we call it a tax—is going to be imposed by these Boards on various people, employers and employees, at various rates. Let me take the ceiling, i.e. the maximum that they may be taxed, and do a little sum: Making use of the statistics of the economically active Bantu in this country in 1960 and taking into account that the maximum is R2,50 for the employer and R1 for the employee, which either he or the employer is going to have to pay, this measure can take between R180 million and R190 million out of the taxpayers’ pockets in this country. These are the powers we are giving. I believe it to be absolutely correct that one can take these sums out of general revenue. Let me do another small sum for the hon. the Minister. Pertaining to a small area of this country, I can give him the figures, which I think he has seen before on another occasion, of the estimated total disposable income in a part of my constituency, the district of Albany. The estimated disposable income—in other words, the buying power—of the Bantu in that district was R3 800 000 in 1970. That is the buying power of all these Bantu. They all pay sales duty. If we calculate the sales duty at a low percentage of that buying power, say 5 per cent, it works out at R160 000 in the district of Albany alone. Why cannot that amount in sales duty be channelled back to the Department of Bantu Administration so that it can be spent on those people? Why must a further tax be levied if we are already levying a tax? Why does the hon. the Deputy Minister not ask the hon. the Minister of Finance for a dash of that money for his Department, instead of imposing a further levy on the people of South Africa? It is a levy which, as I say, can be far higher than what the hon. the Minister intends taking at the moment.

All employers are paying three different fees at the moment and all this Bill wants to do is to combine those three into one.

I am asking the hon. the Deputy Minister to scrap the lot. Under the Bantu Administration Board system the farmers will be included. Farmers will also be included in this levy. Let us look at the definition of a Bantu employee in clause 1: A “Bantu employee” means “a Bantu employed by or working for an employer and who receives or is entitled to receive any remuneration, and any other Bantu who in any manner assists in the carrying on of conducting of the business of an employer, but shall not include a Bantu referred to in section 2 (1) (b) …” As we know, section 2 (1) (b) excludes very few Bantu working in the agricultural sector. Those are the ones who are painters, plasterers, and so on. But what is going to happen to the highly labour-intensive sectors of agriculture? I am now thinking of the sugar industry which uses a large amount of labour seasonally and the pineapple industry which is also seasonally labour-intensive, as well as the chicory industry. Everyone knows the position of agriculture and that of Bantu labour on farms today. The farmers are battling to keep them alive because of the prolonged droughts and other conditions. What is the ratio going to be there? Are only permanent employees going to be taken into consideration, or will the loose labour employed in large numbers in seasonal periods be included? I would like the hon. the Deputy Minister please to answer this question when he replies to this debate.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Albany discussed details, the reason for his absorption in details, is that he has a weak case. It is not necessary to go into details now, because one can discuss them profitably in the Committee Stage. In this Second Reading debate the point at issue is, in the first place, the principle contained in this measure. This measure is a very simple and a very ordinary one. It is not complicated, it is easy to understand, and after the Second Reading speech of the hon. the Deputy Minister and those of other hon. members on this side of the House, very little remains for me to say. Apart from what the hon. member for Albany said, this is a measure which is accepted by all bodies. It has been accepted by trade, industry, local authorities and everyone concerned in this matter, through their representative bodies. It is accepted because it is a purely consolidating measure. It is one which does not contain any new principles whatsoever. This measure is aimed solely at facilitating the administration of certain contributions and at bringing about, by means of differentiation, a larger degree of fairness towards those from whom it is collected. What is more, it sets out to improve Bantu services quantitatively and qualitatively, in other words, to look after the well-being of the Bantu labourer at all times and to assist him so as to be able to maintain a better and higher standard of living. That is why it goes without saying that it is in the interests of the employer. This is the very principle embodied in the original Act, a principle which is not being abandoned in this measure, but which is being given permanence and perpetuated in this measure. Surely no-one on earth can have any objection to such a principle, least of all those Who are directly affected, i.e. the employers. Small wonder that those people accept it. The only people who object to it, are the hon. members on the opposite side. They can throw up as many smokescreens as they like, but one thing is very clear, i.e. that they oppose the measure purely and simply because it promotes the policy of separate development. Because they have no sound arguments to advance against this measure, they take recourse to the old well-known methods and look for something sinister in this measure as a whole. Henceforth the Minister would allegedly have the power to force people to lend a hand with homeland development. Sir, this is untrue. To my mind the hon. member for Langlaagte made that very clear. But even if this were to be true, I would still say, “So what?” Hon. members made much of the fact that contributions collected in one place might not be used somewhere else. That argument has no substance whatsoever, because this does not concern the provision of services to a certain group of Bantu in certain areas; it concerns the upliftment of the Bantu in general. Let us just get the fact clear that the reason for the introduction of this measure is that the Government has its finger on the pulse of Bantu development. Those people who simply want to keep Bantu labourers in the White metropolitan areas and use them here without keeping abreast of their developing needs, are not having any regard to reality. By neglecting the homelands and drawing labourers to the White areas for the sake of more development in the metropolitan areas, they may possibly increase their profits phenomenally, but one thing is as certain and that is that social and political consequences will catch up with them soon. National interests require us to use all productive powers as efficiently as possible in this country. But, Sir, it requires still more. It requires that no social and political tensions whatsoever shall be created, but that peaceful co-existence of White and Black in this country will be promoted.

That is why, Sir, this Government is engaged in a national programme for the upliftment of the various Bantu peoples. We are reconciling White social and political self-preservation on the one hand with Black nationalism on the other hand. Let me tell hon. members on the opposite side this: We do not have ages in which to accomplish this. No one may have any illusions about one matter—and I want to conclude with this—and that is that this side of the House is determined to create a strong infrastructure in the homelands and to bring an economic life which will make it more and more profitable, pleasant and attractive for the Bantu to live and work there. We shall continue with this, despite the actions and the objections of the United Party, because we know and believe in our hearts that this is what must be done.

I do not intend to reply to the broad and general observations on Nationalist Party policy which the hon. member for Winburg has just been making, except to say that, of course, there are other people who also have the welfare and the future well-being of South Africa and its race relations at heart and that they offer very different solutions to the problems from those offered by the hon. member and his party. But I want to say, as far as this Bill is concerned, that I was very sorry indeed that I was not here to hear the hon. the Deputy Minister make what I am sure was one of his characteristically enthusiastic speeches about a Bill introduced by him, but I do want to assure him that I have taken the trouble to get a copy of the speech and that I have read his peerless words with great attention, so that when I reply today my reply will not be based simply on Press cuttings on his speech yesterday. I have also tried to read up one or two speeches made on the Opposition side and I have managed at least to read the speech of the hon. member for Transkei and of the hon. member for South Coast. I have also studied the Press report which was put out by the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Bantu Administration and I think I have probably learned more about the Bill from that statement than I have from any of the speeches that I have read. I want to say at once that I think possibly the original reaction to the Bill might have been a little exaggerated, but perhaps the hon. the Minister’s own statements, coupled with the ambiguity of the Bill, is responsible for that. But there are several bad features which, in my view at any rate, justify very considerable criticism of this measure. I want to say at once that there is no doubt that the powers which are being given to the hon. the Minister and the vague way in which he can set aside areas, or parts of areas, in which the additional levy shall apply and the different contributions that can be levied by the hon. the Minister on different classes of employers of African labour, all give rise, without any doubt whatsoever, to considerable uncertainty in the minds of the people who, after all, whether the Government likes it or not, supply at least 95 per cent of the revenue which goes into the coffers of the State, and that is the major employers of African labour in this country. The uncertainty that is engendered in not knowing exactly what sort of expenses they are going to have to meet when they employ African labour is, I think, going to be a factor in the future determination of the question as to whether or not to expand existing industries in metropolitan areas. Although the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Bantu Administration specifically asks that this Bill should be considered quite apart from the Physical Planning Act, to the extent that the Physical Planning Act also engenders uncertainty in the minds of entrepreneurs, I think that there is a parallel between these two measures, and I think it is something which is certainly open to a considerable amount of criticism. One does not know when the maximum of R2,50 will be reached. I admit that there are administrative advantages to be gained from consolidating the three different types of contributions or levies, or whatever you want to call them, but one does not know at which stage it will be decided to increase the contributions to the maximum of R2,50. I might say that one does not know, although the hon. the Deputy Minister will have to come back to Parliament for this at least, how long the maximum is going to be retained at R2,50, although he did say in his speech that hopefully that would be the figure for five to 10 years. But all these factors engender considerable uncertainty in the mind of a man sitting down to work out whether or not it is worth his while to expand his present enterprise. I do not think that the Government ever takes factors of this kind into consideration. It is so blinded, so blinkered, by its intention to sort out the racial policy on its particular ideological lines that it very often completely ignores economic and practical difficulties which are engendered by its own policy. I do not think the Deputy Minister can escape the accusation which was made in the Financial Mail, to which he said too much attention had been paid, that this Bill does not introduce so much as extend the system of selective employment tax. Admittedly there always has been some form of selective employment tax in South Africa. The fact that employers of Coloureds and Asians and of certain types of African labour like mine labour or farm labour are exempted from many of the taxes which urban employers in industry and commerce have to pay, is in itself indicative of some form of selective tax. Now, within industry itself, with in commerce itself and within the areas themselves in which these people operate, there is going to be further selective taxation. I think this is bad in principle. I think it is also true to say that because of this the suspicion that this measure may be used as a further incentive, or a further forcible measure, to try to persuade industry to set up in border industry areas rather than in industrial, metropolitan areas, is a justifiable suspicion. There is no doubt that all these costs are considered when an entrepreneur decides where he is going to site his factory. In this regard, too, one might say that this measure runs parallel with the Physical Planning Act, in that it tries to dissuade employers of African labour from setting up their industries in the existing industrial areas.

It has nothing to do with the Physical Planning Act.

No, I am not saying that. The hon. the Deputy Minister must listen to what I am saying.

But even the idea that this Bill is going to be utilized for the sort of purposes you and other members have mentioned is totally wrong.

All right, I am even prepared to accept that, but …

But why did you make that statement then?

I shall tell the hon. the Deputy Minister why. He should not be so sensitive. It is an inevitable conclusion that people reach, because it is all within the framework of the Government’s policy of trying to reduce the number of industrial black employees in the existing industrial areas. It all hangs together. I do not, however, say that this is a part of the Physical Planning Act. I say that it runs parallel with that Act. There are other things that run parallel to it as well. For instance, there is the ratio of labour, which was set out in the Riekert Report, as part of the Physical Planning Act’s intentions. All these things are much the same. I am going to come to a third point in a moment which is more important still, and which really has determined my decision to vote against this measure at Second Reading, and that is the Government’s housing policy in regard to the urban areas. That is another aspect of the same broad direction of policy, which is to try to discourage black people from settling in the urban areas, and to try to reverse the flow of black people from the rural areas, be they from White farms or from the homelands, into the industrial areas. All this is part and parcel of the same policy because now additional moneys are going to be channelled away from the existing urban areas and into other areas, presumably like the homelands. There are two aspects to this; the first is where the money is to go to another local authority. I presume that that is mainly in respect of the Western Province. I think the Deputy Secretary made that point; he said that certain authorities in the Western Cape particularly were experiencing difficulty in financing certain projects because of the withdrawal of Africans from the area. I leave that to one side. But there is the other aspect, namely the aspect connected with Clause 9. In this connection the Deputy Minister has put all doubts to one side. Money which was originally intended to be used in the areas where the money was raised for the benefit of the people living in those areas, and for the provision of services for those areas, can now, without any legal doubt whatever, be used in the homelands.

Only if there is a surplus …

Yes, I am coming to that.

… and only if it is done voluntarily by the local authority …

Yes, absolutely correct. I am not arguing with the Deputy Minister about that.

What is wrong with that then?

What is wrong is that that money should still be used in the areas where it was raised, for the benefit of those people. I agree with the hon. the Deputy Minister that in terms of this Bill the only money that can be used is surplus money in the Bantu Revenue Account and it can only be used if it is voluntarily handed over to him.

By the local authority.

Yes, by the local authority; that is quite correct. I have two comments to make on those points.

It is in respect of males whose families are in their homeland.

Well, there is nothing like that in the Bill, although it may be at the back of the Minister’s mind. I nearly said “tiny mind”, but I shall not. There is no mention of males whose families are in the homelands. May I have the Minister’s attention for a moment? He can have a fight with the hon. member for Transkei later in the Committee Stage. I want to say a few things in respect of the two limitations to his power. Let us deal with the voluntary one first. I wonder what sort of inducements are put to the local authorities to persuade them to hand over this money voluntarily. None at all?

Their common sense, that is all.

Nobody whispers in their ears that they may get certain concessions from the Government if they hand over certain amounts? No, that is just a dark suspicion in my normally suspicious mind. [Interjections.] All right, I accept that, but there is another fact I want to mention, and that is that there should not be such a thing as a surplus on the Bantu Revenue Account. There really should not be such a thing in existence, in any single local authority area throughout the country. I do not know what the overall amount is, but I seem to remember the figure of R26 million for one year being bandied around, as being the surplus for all the local authorities.

That is on the Levy Account.

On the Levy Account, yes. Why should there be this surplus? Can the hon. the Deputy Minister show me one single local authority area where there has been sufficient provision of housing, transport, recreational facilities, electricity, water-borne sewerage and all those things which go to make up a decently conducted urban township? There is not one, from Soweto, which is the largest, to the smallest local authority in one of the platteland towns. All of them are desperately in need of all these facilities. They could build schools, they could build houses and they could lay out parks and football fields and stadiums, all these amenities which we are now supposed to be providing for the Africans, and which the hon. the Minister says they need. Why is there any surplus whatsoever? I could never understand it.

There was a time when there was a R5 million surplus in Johannesburg. I could not understand why. They could have spent that straight away. There was no difficulty in deciding on projects on which to spend this money. There is a desperate need for all sorts of improvements, but now we find that local authorities, under the sort of hypnotic influence of the hon. the Deputy Minister, are starting to shove money away and put it under the mattress or somewhere, they are trying to accumulate enormous surpluses which they can hand over to him with a grateful smile. I think the whole thing is nonsense from beginning to end. This money should be used, according to the spirit and the intention of the original Bill which was passed in 1952, the Bantu Services Levy Bill. The original spirit and intention, and indeed the actual wording of that Bill, was that the money should be spent for the benefit of the people in the area where they lived and worked.

Why does the United Party City Council of Johannesburg have a surplus of over R5 million … ? [Interjections.]

I keep asking why. [Interjections.] Well, I do not want to say it is only the fault of the hon. the Deputy Minister. They do not have to go to him for permission to spend every single penny. [Interjections.] They can improve the roads and put in electricity, for example, and they do not have to go cap in hand to the Minister for these things. There are lots of things they could spend it on. I do not want to exonerate the Johannesburg Municipality, but I do think that there is a decided psychological influence behind all this, and that is the Nationalist Government’s overall policy and its influence on the urban local authorities, who are caretakers, who are given licences, who are always worried about the watchdogs who are sniffing behind them to see what they are doing in the local areas.

In this case I do not think you have done your homework very well.

I have done my homework very well. I have been working for several hours today, and that is quite enough for me, on any Bill produced by that Deputy Minister.

Order! The hon. member must come back to the Bill now, and to the contents of the Bill.

I was arguing on the use of the Revenue Account.

The hon. member was very far away from that.

It is very relevant to clause 9.

Order! The hon. member may proceed.

I shall come back to the Bill, although I do not really think I ever left it. I want to tell the hon. the Deputy Minister too that I cannot see how this measure cannot be inflationary. It must be inflationary. It is going to add to the cost of production of industrialists and of commercial firms throughout the country and I cannot see why this will not be passed on to the unhappy consumer who at the present stage is still reeling under the impact of the recent devaluation, the increase in the cost of foodstuffs, in the cost of clothing, in the cost of practically everything that people eat or wear or use. These additional amounts, whatever they are going to be, are going to be passed on. It may not be very much—I do not know if the hon. the Deputy Minister intends going up to the full amount of R2,50, I think in certain areas he may very well do that—but it is inflationary. However much it is, it is inflationary.

I want to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister two questions on two matters which he can possibly clarify in his reply. The Deputy Secretary for Bantu Administration reckoned, when mentioning these self-employed casual people, that there are only about a thousand of them—a thousand independent contractors or casual labourers who would be called upon to make these contributions as casual workers. I find the definition in this regard somewhat confusing and I want the hon. the Deputy Minister to make it absolutely clear whether the self-employed people are the only people who are going to be subject to this levy, or whether casual labourers, as all of us understand them—charwomen, washerwomen, the itinerant gardeners—are also going to come in under umbrella of this levy.

I shall reply to that.

The hon. the Deputy Minister will reply to that—good.

Another thing I should like him to tell me is whether I am right in thinking that after this Bill and its little sister, the Bantu Transport Services Amendment Bill, which we are going to consider shortly, have been passed, all employers of female Africans will fall into line with employers of male Africans. In other words, if you look at the definition, this Bill does not do away, as the hon. the Deputy Minister tells us, with the existing Bantu Services Levy Act, but supplants it as far as I can see. The other one is going to run concurrently until he starts introducing the levies in the different categories, but when he has done that, this Bill will supplant the existing Services Levy Act. That Act only laid the obligation on the employers of male Africans; this one seems to encompass all employees. Am I right?

Yes, the hon. member is right.

I am right. Well, that is a fine thing to learn at this juncture.

But it is not quite as simple as that. I shall come back to that when I reply.

The hon. the Deputy Minister did not mention it at all when he introduced the Second Reading debate and that is a very important point, because you are greatly increasing the number of employees who are going to be affected. This is something bad because …

We asked the hon. the Deputy Minister that.

I shall come back to that.

All employees now, male or female …

I shall come back to that; I cannot reply across the floor.

Very well. I should like to know that, because I am very much against that as well, of course.

Finally I want to say that I am opposing this Bill, as I mentioned right at the outset when I was answering the hon. member for Winburg, because it is part and parcel of the whole general pattern of trying to reorientate African labour out of the existing metropolitan areas, and while this might be quite all right as long as it provides services for those immediately adjacent homelands, where Africans live really in urban townships, whether the hon. the Deputy Minister likes to call them that or not, like Umlazi or even, one might almost say, the townships adjoining Pretoria, such as Ga Rankuwa …

You are becoming just as inconsistent as your blood brothers in the United Party.

No, they are not my blood brothers. [Interjections.] I have always said that the whole concept of border industries is fine as long as the homelands happen, by accident of history, to abut on existing industrial areas which have all the necessary infrastructure and all the locational advantages for industry. Sometimes, of course, these commuting distances become quite crazy, for instance, when you think of Soweto residents commuting to the nearest so-called homeland which is about 200 or 300 miles away.

But there is one very near to it; only 40 miles.

What, from Johannesburg?

Yes.

But unfortunately that is not where most of these people come from. Even though it is so, who is going to commute 40 to 50 miles daily to get to and from work? Yet these are the plans for which the hon. the Minister is really forming this levy. He wants to be able to place beyond any legal doubt his right to use surplus funds—which I say should not exist anyway—in order to provide the necessary services for the families of persons he is trying to shuttle out of the existing industrial metropolitan areas into homelands, some of which may be adjoining the existing areas but others which may be many, many miles away. The whole housing policy of the Government has swung round over the last 20 years since the Transport Levy Services Act was passed in 1952. Since then the whole policy of the Government, as far as housing, transport and the provision of services for urban Africans are concerned, has changed radically. For those reasons I shall vote against this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Houghton has already expressed her regret that she was unable to be here yesterday when the debate on this Bill began. If she had been able to listen to everything that was said from this side of the House she would have realized that we are opposing the Second Reading of this Bill for very deep and cogent reasons.

Why do you not attack her?

There is just one thing I would like to say here, and that is that she did perhaps try to fight a little bit of the Johannesburg municipal election in her speech. I do not think that it will get her very far and I am quite sure that we can have a full debate and perhaps a good fight on the question of the surpluses standing to the credit of the Johannesburg municipality on some other occasion. However, in the meantime I want to get back to the Bill itself.

Arising from her speech where she mentioned the surpluses, I wonder whether the hon. the Deputy Minister could just clear up something in passing. During the debate yesterday afternoon the hon. member for Rissik made an interjection when the question of surpluses was being discussed. This interjection indicated that all present surpluses could not be used in terms of this Bill. I wonder if the hon. the Deputy Minister could tell us whether present surpluses could not be used in terms of this Bill.

The surpluses in the Levy Account will be used in terms of the Levy Act as long as that specific Act is still on the Statute Book. I shall refer to it in my reply.

Thank you very much. There is just one other thing I would like to mention. I was surprised to hear the hon. member for Winburg say that he had heard of no objections to this Bill. Was he not listening when my colleague, the hon. member for Albany, was talking? Did he not hear the contents of the telegrams which he read out or did he perhaps not understand them? It seems extraordinary to me that a few moments—perhaps not even five minutes—after an hon. member on this side of the House had read some clearly stated objections to this Bill, an hon. member on that side of the House can say that so far there have been no objections. While we are talking about objections to this Bill, I want to join issue with the hon. the Deputy Minister again. He himself said that organized industry and by implication everybody concerned with the employment of Bantu workers, was in favour of this Bill. He has already learnt a small lesson from my colleague, the hon. member for Albany. But surely he must have seen the memorandum from the Natal Employers’ Association. It was addressed to his department. This memorandum said among other things—

I wonder whether I could have the attention of the hon. the Deputy Minister? I will repeat it for him—

This is a clear objection to this Bill as it stands.

While we are on the subject of taxation, I want to say that I was also surprised that the hon. the Deputy Minister, and the hon. member for Langlaagte, who I am sad to see is not in the Chamber this afternoon, grew very hot under the collar about whether this really amounts to taxation. The hon. member for Langlaagte, in fact, tried to make fun of speakers on this side of the House for suggesting that this is in fact taxation. Just in passing I want to tell both of them that the question whether this sort of levy is or is not taxation, is not a new one. It was raised in fact when the original Bantu Services Levy Bill came before this House as long ago as 1952 when Dr. Abraham Jonker, who should be well known to hon. members on that side of the House, actually protested that the original Bantu services levy was a form of direct taxation. The late Dr. Verwoerd did not challenge this at all. All he would say was: “Do not let us quarrel about it”. He was not denying it. I am indeed surprised to see that hon. members on that side of the House should get so hot under the collar. This vehemence, particularly of the hon. member for Langlaagte, is to me very interesting. We all know that he is intimately involved in the creation of these new Bantu Administration Boards. It is quite clear that this Bill is aimed at the funding of these boards. Both he and the hon. the Deputy Minister yesterday, and the hon. the Deputy Minister today, made much of the fact that this is nothing more or nothing less than a consolidating measure; it consolidates the three levies to which we have referred, into a single levy. The hon. member for Langlaagte, who seemed to be the spearhead of the reply from the Government side, also claimed that this in fact was not a tax at all.

Let us look at this completely objectively. Let us try to determine what exactly is being done and what this new levy actually is. I have given some thought to how one can best describe it. The clearest way in which I can describe it is that it is an impost on people who wish to employ a certain category of labour. What is more, it can be made variable in that it can be imposed more heavily on some classes of employers or employers who operate in some areas, or both.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 30 (2) and debate adjourned.

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

Mr. Speaker, I move—

In looking at the motion I am moving in this House today, one finds that in regard to one aspect of the matter there can be no difference of opinion, namely that gold is one of the most important commodities of the whole world. Over the past few months we have once again witnessed this. As South Africa is one of the major producers of gold, it is obviously of great importance to our country. The people who are helping to produce this product, are as important. It is my pleasant duty to confirm that, as I shall show in a moment, the National Government has always been a friend to those persons and will always remain one in the future as well.

Since the National Government came into power in the year 1948, we have never had a general strike in the mining industry. In looking at what is going on in the world around us, we can under these circumstances do nothing but express our thanks. We attribute this success to the policy of the National Party towards its workers. The Government has always kept a watchful eye on the workers and the employers in this extensive and mighty industry. There have been differences, but I can tell hon. members that since 1948 those differences have always been resolved in a pleasant manner. As I have said, the fact that there has never been a general strike during this period, can be attributed to that policy. I cannot say this for the years that preceded 1948.

Mr. Speaker, I want to refer briefly to what has been done in respect of one aspect, something which is of great importance to both the mineworkers and the employers, the mining group that is responsible for the production of gold. I am referring to the health of the mineworker. I am glad to be able to say this afternoon that I hope and trust that in the near future we shall hear that the Pneumoconiosis Act of 1962 will be reviewed by the Government. Let me just tell hon. members what has happened in regard to this matter since 1948. Hon. members will recall that we reviewed the old Pneumoconiosis Act of 1956 and that the Pneumoconiosis Act of 1962 emerged from that. Over and above this Act, the National Government granted certain benefits to the mineworkers back in 1950 and again in 1952, 1965, 1968, 1970 and 1971. In other words, the National Party has always been informed about the complaints of the men in the mining industry.

Let us pause and consider the improvements that have been effected. From 1948 up to now increases amounting to approximately 220 per cent have already been granted in terms of this Act. Hon. members on the other side of the House say that since 1948 the value of the rand has dropped to such an extent that it is worth only 40 cents at present. To this I want to add that in 1948 a widow received a pension of R13 per month, whereas today a widow receives a pension of R60 per month. At that time a pneumoconiosis sufferer and his family received a pension of R38,57 as against a pension of R137 per month paid out today. Over and above that several anomalies have arisen, as has also been the case in other walks of life. One of these was that different pensions were paid to different groups of widows. I want to thank the hon. the Minister and the Government for the fact that these anomalies have now been removed, and that widows now receive a uniform pension of R60 per month. This is a tremendous achievement, one for which we just want to express our thanks.

Furthermore, I wish to express my thanks for the free medical services made available by the State to persons suffering from pneumoconiosis. I have experience of the mining industry, and consequently I know the circumstances under which these people are working. When one has worked underground, and done so under very difficult circumstances, for twenty years of one’s life, one knows the views of these people, their history and their activities. The Government has also seen to Republic Day being proclaimed a full-fledged holiday for the mineworker. The mineworker seizes at every day and every sunbeam he can possibly enjoy. This fact is so easily overlooked by the genera] public, those people who are privileged to enjoy the sun and the blue skies above every day. They forget that there are people who work underground and who do not enjoy that privilege. Consequently the mineworkers want to thank the Government for this concession. I also want to express my sincere thanks for the fine building that has been erected for the General Council for Pneumoconiosis Compensation. Those who knew the old buildings, will agree that the new one is a great improvement. It is good to know that mineworkers are examined scientifically in this building. When a person goes there, one need not have any hesitation in asking his family to wait in those spendid restrooms. Furthermore, the research institute is doing everything in its power to combat this dreaded disease, and we are grateful for the results that have already been achieved. A great deal of money is being spent on this matter, but the results are excellent. We may look forward to the future without any hesitation because we know that no stone is being left unturned in the fight against this dreaded disease.

These are the things the Government has done, but I cannot allow this opportunity to pass without thanking the employers, the mine-owners, in the mining industry as well. I want to thank them in particular for the very modern residential facilities which have been created there and which enable mineworkers and their families to lead happy lives. Although a very nominal amount is deducted from the salaries of mineworkers every month, some of the most inexpensive accommodation in the whole world is to my mind being made available to mineworkers and those involved in mining. Therefore I want to express my thanks to the mine-owners as well. But that is not all. In considering the first-rate sports facilities created there for these people, and the fine townships with all the amenities erected by the various mines, we can do no other than express our thanks for the fact that on the part of the employers everything is being done to make those people happy. In a few minutes’ time I shall tell you, Sir, why they are doing it and why they are helping those people to be happy.

Now I come to the second point of my motion. In this respect, too, I can do no other than express my thanks to the various persons employed in the mines for the loyalty they have shown the Government since 1948. Therefore they will always vote for the National Party—it cannot be otherwise, After all, one does not bite the hand that feeds one, and one always protects the hand that is good to one. I am in a position to say this, because I have experience of this matter, because I know how matters stood in former years. Through our various trade unions we have access to the Government and the State today. It is possible for us to negotiate amicably with our employer, and we know, as has once again become apparent in recent times, that many results have been achieved. But then we may throw out our chests, and by that I mean that the mineworkers are the only group of people whose numbers have shown a marked decrease whilst production has been increased. On the part of the chambers of commerce and various other bodies the plea is being made that we should produce more in South Africa, that we should work harder. I can now say that the mineworkers have responded to that call and are still doing so every day. In looking up the statistics, one sees that the mining industry is producing much more gold than it did in the days when I was working in the mines. But to that I want to add, Sir, that I am glad that the mineworkers are actually the only group of people who are at present still working 48 hours per week. It is not easy to work under those circumstances for 48 hours. We should not entertain the misconception this afternoon that the mineworker goes down six, seven or eight thousand feet underground and then sits down, leaving the work to be done by a non-White person. This is what many people have grown to believe, but I can give you the assurance, Sir, that this is not the case. Many people believe this story because they have no knowledge of the real facts. To my knowledge this is the only profession in which the workers have to work under such circumstances. Do the hon. members sitting here realize that the mineworker has to spend eight hours per day underground, where the temperature is far higher than 100 degrees Fahrenheit, That in modern mines the height varies between 30 and 48 inches, that many days the mineworker has to crawl along on his knees, that in many places he cannot crawl on his knees but has to slide along on his stomach, and that he has to work under very difficult circumstances? When that person leaves the mine, I can tell you, Sir, that he has earned his bread in the sweat of his brow. To those people we extend our sincere thanks. It is an achievement that under such circumstances they can still accomplish such feats. Sir, I now want to make an appeal to the employers, for these people have also asked for a five-day week, but to that I want to add at once— and I hope that the negotiations will be successful—that they are not asking for shorter hours per week. In addition to that I can confirm—and it is with full responsibility that I say it in this House today—that I believe that in a five-day week the mineworkers will produce more than they are producing in a six-day week at present. Sir, this is not a job where one can simply walk in and by pressing a button start up all the machinery; every morning of ones’ life one has to start by spending approximately 1½ hours on rendering the works safe before one can begin one’s daily work. I believe that it would also be to the advantage of the employer if the mineworker could work a five-day week. Over and above that, I feel that the mineworker deserves that extra day of sunshine. I repeat that the circumstances under which the mineworkers are working, often pass us by. We accept the fact that there are people producing gold underground, but very few of us ever stop along the road in order to remind ourselves that thousands of feet below the fine road on which we are travelling, there are soldiers who are fighting for the economy of South Africa under very difficult circumstances.

Mr. Speaker, one smells electionitis. There seems to be an air of expectancy of defeat about the Nationalist Party. It is not strange that this sort of motion should come before us just a week or two before an election takes place on the Reef. I cannot blame my hon. friend from Stilfontein at all for introducing this motion; he must make every effort he possibly can to bolster the falling hopes of his party.

I was very pleased to see, Sir, that he divided his motion into two parts, because it makes my task much easier. There is nobody in the House or in the country who will differ from him as regards the second part of his motion. However, in regard to the first part, I think there are very few people that will agree with him, very few people indeed. Who is going to agree with him that we “take cognizance of the action that has been taken and is being taken by the Government to improve the position of the mineworker”, and do so with appreciation? I do not think anybody would do so.

Let us have a look at what has been going on during the past few years. The hon. member says that there have been no strikes since 1948. Why is that? That is because of the democratic process that was brought into being before 1948, by the United Party. They were the ones who advocated collective bargaining.

Advocated.

They practised it as well.

Are you doing a bit of electioneering?

I hope I am, and I hope it is effective. I hope that after what I say reaches the ears of the voters of Brakpan or even Oudtshoorn, the people there will vote for us. Sir, let us not run away from this—we want to do very well in those elections.

I remember that not so very long ago a prominent member of the Nationalist Party, who sat in that seat over there, did not want collective bargaining. He did not want the wage rate to be fixed by negotiation between the employer and the employee. He advocated nationalizing the mines. That did not come from this side of the House; it came from that side of the House.

When was that?

I think it was in 1959.

Mr. Speaker, when has this Government been asked to intervene, from 1948 to the present day, in any dispute between the mines and the mineworkers?

Many times.

I know of one occasion not very long ago, when the previous Minister, Mr. Haak, was still here. He sat in the benches over there and was a very worried man because he was almost on the side of the work-giver that time, when their experiment was being conducted on the mines. The present Minister will remember that very well. We, on this side of the House, warned them to go slowly in that matter.

What have we got to thank the Government for? How much have they taken out of the gold mines, and how little have they given back? I have some very interesting figures here. Last year—not since 1948 to the present date, but last year about …

Are those the figures I gave you?

No. Last year in taxes the Government received R228,7 million from the mines. That is what they got in direct taxation from the mines. Besides that colossal figure, there is the tax on the mineworker, on what he earns. There is the tax on the shareholder and there is an indirect tax collected by this Government on almost every purchase that he makes today. For that the hon. member for Stilfontein expects us to thank the Government, and for that the hon. member expects support from the mineworkers. The hon. member for Stilfontein told us what pension the mineworker gets while he is a very, very ill man; what compensation he gets when he has pneumoconiosis. He receives in the form of a pension, R137. Now that may seem a lot of money to the hon. member for Stilfontein.

I did not say it was a lot.

No, but you made play that it was a very important contribution. I want to read to the hon. member a small extract from the report of the Government Mining Engineer. When he talks about pneumoconiosis he says this …

What year is that?

1969, For this Government this is very up to date. He says this—

Then he goes on and says what difficulties they had, and he says that they are very sorry that they cannot increase the pensions at this stage, but that the trade unions unremittingly continue in their endeavour to obtain more favourable benefits for those persons. He does not say that that party, the party which is ruling the Republic, asked for that; he says it was the trade unions who were doing that. Then he says that the department is happy to report that certain conditions could nevertheless be made to mineworkers, and at the end of the paragraph we read this, and I want the hon. member to take this into consideration when dealing with the amounts of money that the pneumoconiosis sufferer gets—

If there has ever been an indictment of this Government for not providing sufficient compensation for people suffering from chest diseases due to working on the mines, it is this sentence.

What did you do all those years?

It says this should be of special benefit to those pneumoconiosis sufferers in needy circumstances. It means that they are not getting enough to live on. I challenge the hon. the Minister when he replies to put any other interpretation on this. I want to hear him tell this House if these people are wasting their money.

There are other matters that I think we could not thank the Government for, and one of them is the fact that they have done very little, if anything, to help to lower the accident rate on the mines. This is a problem that has been facing the mines for years, and the unsatis factory part of this whole problem is that the accident rate if it is not rising—the best I can say is that it is static. The House knows that in the first 39 days of this year there were 32 deaths on the mines, and even if we take away the number of people who died during the recent fire at West Driefontein there is still a death every 48 hours. Do these people not deserve more consideration than our simply coming to this House and saying that we appreciate the work which they do? We appreciate their loyalty. The loyalty which we appreciate stretches from one end of the country to the other—what the miner is doing has world-wide appreciation. But I say that it is not helping the mother of a family, where the husband has pneumoconiosis, to buy another tin of jam. That is what we want; we want to see some material benefit coming to the mineworker.

The hon. member is making an accusation against the mine-owners and the management of the mines.

Oh, never mind that hon. member. Another thing which perturbs me is the amount of money that is accumulating in the coffers of the Pneumoconiosis Fund. The Secretary for Mines was good enough to give me a breakdown of the amount of money that was paid out last year to sufferers. It comes to R10,5 million. In a globular sum it is a lot of money. However, how much money is lying in the pneumoconiosis coffers?— Over R70 million! That sum is being fed every year by more than is being used up. If you take into consideration that the number of miners is dropping, according to the statement just made by the hon. member for Stilfontein, surely the time has come that the people who are responsible for determining pneumoconiosis pensions should take into consideration the question of increasing pneumoconiosis pensions.

We will do that; it will be done.

What happened to all the interest that is being accrued? The Pneumoconiosis Pension Fund is investing its money in Government bonds, in Iscor, in Escom and in some of the municipalities. Through interest rates and charges the Fund is growing all the time; on money that is being borrowed by the Government and by Government-sponsored organizations such as the ones I have just mentioned. This money helps to keep the wheels of the country turning. Surely the time has come to give something back to the miner. When are they going to get it and what is going to happen when one mine after another starts closing down? I say that irrespective of any deterioration in the miner’s lung condition, the time has come now for increasing the level of compensation and, besides anything else, it should rise at a pace which is at least equivalent to the rise in the cost of living. Let us please take some of the vast sum that lies in the Fund and give it back to the miners who are alive today, and who are paying today.

We shall do that.

When?

When will you do it? [Interjections.]

We on this side of the House, time and again, without any lobbying, have pleaded for improvements for the mineworker. In 1958, when I first came to the House, I was condemned by the then Minister, Dr. van Rhyn, for having the impertinence to question the then Pneumoconiosis Act. He came back later on and thanked me. What did he say? He said—

That was said in 1958. We do our best for the mineworkers and we have been doing it in the past. We have not had to be lobbied to do it, we do it. Hon. members here who are interested in the miners today, know quite well that it has not been the practice of the Mineworkers’ Union to come round and plead with the indidual members for improvements. They expect us to do it, and to keep an eye on what is happening. We are doing it.

You have never talked to me during the five years that I have been Minister.

Have I never talked to you?

No.

What is the use? I Find that the best way to make an impression on this Government is to do it here in this House and make requests across the floor. This is the place where we debate it and this is where we can get the Government’s answers.

This side of the House have asked for years for an improvement in and an investigation into the question of asbestosis. My hon. friend who was in this House up to the last session, Dr. Radford, made a special study of this condition and he brought it to the fore in this House. We had people who spoke about deafness, about gastric conditions and about skin conditions. All these matters have been brought to the fore by this side of the House. I myself have asked for the retirement of mineworkers who have worked in mines for a certain period of years and I did get some support from hon. members on that side of the House. It fits in with what the hon. member for Stilfontein said today. We said that after 20 to 25 years a mineworker should have the option of coming out of the mine if he so wishes; that he should get sufficient compensation for the work he has done during those years. If the Government can take so many millions out of taxation from the mines and the mining companies, the time has come that they must give more to the workers who have enabled this Government to take so much out of the Industry.

Let the Government be loyal to the worker.

When we talk about loyalty I can say that we have recognized the loyalty of the mineworkers over and over again. It was the mineworker who showed his loyalty to this country when war broke out in 1939. It was a mine battalion which voluntarily went overseas. They helped in their hundreds. Hon. members on that side of the House despised them because they wore red tabs on their shoulders. [Interjections.] I remember that; that was loyalty, and that was their way of recognizing loyalty. The United Party-orientated City Council of Johannesburg has recognized the loyalty of these people. They built a monument for them …

Outside the Civic Centre.

… and it is outside the Civic Centre. It stands there and we have not forgotten the loyalty of our mineworkers. Every single man on this side of the House will stand by the mineworkers and he will do his best for the mineworker as he has done in the past. The mineworker can depend on us to help him. Mr. Speaker, I wish to move the following amendment—

Mr. Speaker, I do not believe that it was the aim of the member moving this motion to play politics here. The lot of the mineworker in the Republic of South Africa is of such great importance to this side of the House that we do not want to make politics of it.

The hon. member for Rosettenville’s speech was, as he himself dubbed it, a political speech. He tried to canvass votes for the by-election to be held in Brakpan. He created expectations in the people. It is very easy to make promises, but had the hon. member read the motion and aimed his criticism at it, I should have liked to give him credit for his arguments. But how he can actually want to associate an orange tab with what the Government did not do for the mineworkers, I cannot understand. We do not want to make politics out of the mineworker’s lot. In my speech I shall try to keep well away from politics and attempt to state positively what the Government has, in fact, done for the mineworker.

We know that mining is hard work. The mineworker himself says: “It is a man’s job.” It is hard and dangerous work. Therefore, throughout the years attention has been given, particularly by this Government, to measures for ensuring the mineworker’s right of existence. At all times attention has been paid to the mineworkers’ lot. If we now see the mineworker engaged in his mining activities and consider what he does there, we notice two aspects in particular. In the first place he is constantly exposed to danger. There below ground he constantly walks with death, as it were. The possibility of an accident is always present. In the second place there is always the possibility that at some time or other he could contract pneumoconiosis. In earlier years this was the mineworker’s fate. If a man entered a mine he contracts pneumoconiosis some time or other. But thanks to the preventive measures instituted through the years, pneumoconiosis is no longer so prevalent today. In recent years measures have been adopted, in the first place, to ensure the mineworkers’ safety and, in the second place, to improve conditions underground to such an extent that the mineworker’s health is not detrimentally affected. Attempts were made to find ways and means for restricting accidents in mines to a minimum. The hon. member for Rosettenville spoke about mining accidents, but he gave a completely distorted picture of them. Steps were also taken to prevent mineworkers contracting pneumoconiosis. The two big questions we are dealing with are therefore those of mining accidents and the contraction of pneumoconiosis.

I now specifically want to confine myself to the steps taken to ensure the mineworker’s safety. Since 1947 particular attention has been given to matters concerning the safety of mineworkers. There is the Mines and Works Act which is amended from time to time and which compels mine-owners to adopt certain safety measures. It remains the responsibility of the mine-owner to ensure that the mineworker works under safe conditions. The responsibility of the Government and State is to ensure that those safety measures are implemented. Therefore in 1964 it was registered in the Mine and Works Act that a mine safety committee be appointed. The mine safety committee must assist the Government Mining Engineer and advise him about matters concerning the safety and health of the persons working on the mines. This was done in 1964. There is also a panel of mining experts appointed to advise the mine safety committee and the Government Mining Engineer about any matter within the compass of the Mines and Works Act and also in respect of the regulations connected with it. As a further step the Coal and Mining Research Controlling Council was established. This body is concerned with research in connection with the mining of coal and the relevant safety aspects involved. This was a direct result of the investigation that followed the Coalbrook disaster.

Special attention was also given by the Government Mining Engineer’s division to dust problems. Dust prevention control at mines was intensified. In general improvements were made at mines and workings where previously unsatisfactory conditions prevailed. The dust prevention regulations were also made applicable to mines that were not controlled and to stone quarries, thereby to combat the danger of pneumoconiosis. Apparently the hon. member for Rosettenville knows nothing of these steps that were taken. In passing he could at least have expressed appreciation for them because they are very definitely in the interests of the mineworkers.

Special attention was also given to combating dust conditions in asbestos mines. The hon. member for Rosettenville has already referred to asbestosis. Special steps were taken to combat the dust conditions in asbestos mines and asbestos mills. The dangers of exposure to asbestos have specifically received the Government’s attention. After all, we are all aware that the inhalation of asbestos dust is much more dangerous than the inhalation of mineral dust. Therefore the Government is harnassing everything to combat it. Thus mines have, for example, been persuaded to purchase and use efficient dust-extraction installations. The efficiency of these safety measures I have just mentioned, I shall indicate to the hon. House. I shall prove that the number of mining accidents over the years has not remained static as the hon. member for Rosettenville claimed. We must bear in mind that today mining is done at much greater depth than previously, and that the possibility of accidents is therefore much greater. In connection with the accident rate in the mines, I have figures, covering recent years, that indicate the prevention of accidents: in 1964 there were 1,23 per 1 000 cases amongst all mineworkers.

1,26.

It is 1,23. In 1965 the figure was 1,33; in 1966, 1,22; in 1967, 1,30; and in 1968, 1,09. This is truly a phenomenal achievement. The accident rate is definitely decreasing. The combating of dust in mines is a very important aspect in ensuring the welfare of the mineworker. This is done by periodically determining the presence of dust in the mine, by taking dust readings and then combating the presence of dust by improving the ventilation. A further method applied is the addition of water to certain works. Thus today approved rock drills are used that drill with water to combat the dust. These measures have to a large extent contributed to the decrease in dust. This is all the result of regulations amended a few years ago so that stricter control could be exercised over the quantity of air supplied and the use of water. Statistics are difficult to obtain, but I want to state that notwithstanding the increase in mechanisation, the fact that mining is being done to greater depth and the increase in the tempo of mining activities, there has since 1947 been a definite downward trend in dust concentrations to which workers have been exposed above and below ground. Therefore we cannot but thank the Government for the steps it has taken in improving the lot of the mineworker.

Mr. Speaker, there is no question that the motion which was introduced this afternoon has a definite political purpose, despite what the hon. member who has just sat down, has said. It was very pleasing to note, however, that the House was treated to an outstanding exposition of the mineworker and of what is taking place in the gold-mining industry by the hon. member for Rosettenville who, over the years, has not only had personal knowledge about this industry, but who has also made an important contribution towards assisting the Minister of Mines in trying to solve some of the important problems that face the industry. The country is very grateful to many aspects of our economic life. People have contributed enormous sums of money and the Chamber of Mines, i.e. the association of the various mining companies as well as the gold producers’ committee have played a vital and important role in the development of the gold-mining industry in this country. They, together with the South Africans and others who have given their skills, have helped to maintain the enormous production which has placed us in the forefront among the gold-producing countries of the world. In that sense they not only played an important part in the development of this industry, but also in the development of South Africa, they have shown loyalty and devotion and have given service to our country, but not to the Nationalist Government and also not to the Nationalist Party, the assertion that anybody is serving this country because of the party is one which I throw back at the Nationalist Party as a lot of utter nonsense. This country has advanced through the sweat, the toil, the blood and sacrifice of South Africans for the good and the future of South Africa. Any person who has the impertinence to convey the thanks and gratitude of the mineworker to the door of the Nationalist Party, like the hon. member for Stilfontein, just does not know what he is talking about. The Industrial Conciliation Act and other attendant labour legislation which I modestly claim were introduced by the United Party and its predecessors and which the Government claims are amongst the outstanding legislation of the world have played a vital and important role in advancing the good of the worker and the employer. It is they who negotiate for improvement in their wages and their conditions of employment; it is the employer who, through his profits, contributes to the tremendous amount of research that takes place in this country in order to ease the lot of the worker and to improve the conditions under which he works. Who was it who in 1946 appointed the Uranium Research Committee through whose efforts we were able to play an important part in salvaging some of the capital which had been invested in mines that closed down recently and opened an entire new vista of income for South Africa through the sale of uranium and which today has placed us in the position where we can take a leading part in the production of uranium? It is a body which will make an important contribution in regard to this mineral in world affairs. All Governments play their part in the development of a country. One does not need to thank the Nationalist Party for anything that they have done. I maintain that the lot of the mineworker has still not been resolved, as has been rightly pointed out. There are considerable numbers of them in the constituency of Jeppes, which includes, the miners of the early days. They are still suffering because so little has been given back. This Government has a record that if they give anything in the form of a pension or gratuity they give it sparingly and begrudgingly, because there is an extraordinary principle involved in their application of social welfare and assistance, and that is to be as niggardly as they can, so that if a man deeds that extra little pittance, he must jolly well work for it. They take no cognizance of what happens, despite the maudlin expressions that flowed from the mouth of the hon. member for Stilfontein.

They spread it as thinly as they can.

Yes, they spread it as thinly as they can. They even begrudge margarine these days. Butter can be spread more thinly, I suppose. They are very niggardly in that respect and many an old miner has complained to me about the fact that so little is being done and has been done.

You do not know what you are talking about.

Yes, I know what I am talking about. I have experience of these people. I myself have had discussions with them. They complain to me about what the Government is doing, and about the fact that the Government takes no cognizance of their difficulties.

†No, Sir, there is no question that, where anything has to be done in the interests of those who serve our country, there is the proper machinery. All that is required, is some kindness of thought, some initiative on the part of Ministers to take sufficient interest in their welfare to improve their conditions. We have pleaded for a long time now for a complete review of the Pneumoconiosis Act. Now we hear from the hon. member for Stilfontein that he hopes in the near future it may be reviewed. One would have thought that the Minister already had a Bill before us—he has had so much advice from this side of the House. It is not funny boasting of things of this nature.

Where were you last year?

I was here. I heard what the hon. the Minister said, but he still has brought nothing before us. Now, I would like to make the point that we must acknowledge with thanks the work that the mineworker has done for this country, as we would acknowledge with thanks the work that in many other spheres of economic activity have been contributed to the welfare of South Africa. I say that we as South Africans should be proud of what they have done, but that they certainly should not, and do not, look for the thanks of the Nationalist Party.

The hon. member for Rosettenville referred to mineworkers who during the war took part in the war effort. I now just want to tell the hon. member that in the war years the mineworkers were forced and victimized by the mine bosses—and if they did not join up they were discharged from and relieved of their work.

The hon. members for Rosettenville and Jeppe both referred to an election that is in the air? They refer to Brakpan. I want to tell the hon. members that they can forget about Brakpan. Brakpan still remembers the days when they asked for bread and got bullets. It does not surprise me in the least that when this extremely important motion was moved last Friday by the hon. member for Stilfontein, hon. members opposite laughed out loud about it. If we consider that the motion reads—

it does not surprise me that hon. members on that side laughed when the motion was moved. This National Government has now been ruling South Africa for 24 years. I therefore say that it does not surprise me that in these 24 years in which the National Party has ruled South Africa, apart from a few exceptions, not one hon. member on that side of the House has represented a mineworkers’ constituency. Therefore I can understand that when we on this side of the House, who are constantly in contact with those people from day to day, inevitably because we represent that constituency, speak about the problems of the mineworkers in South Africa, hon. members on that side of the House regard it as a big joke. This afternoon they come along here as piously as you please, with Brakpan in mind, and want to imply that they are the so-called champions of the mineworkers in South Africa. I just want to say this to them by way of introduction: the mineworkers of South Africa know the United Party and they know what they have in this National Government.

Do not be so sure.

This Government realizes that mining, the mining of our mineral wealth in South Africa, is most certainly one of the large foundation stones on which South Africa’s economy rests. Sir, I would shamefully be neglecting my duty if I were not to associate myself with the hon. member for Turffontein and, in our discussion of this important motion, also give the utmost praise and tribute to the large group of men for what they have done over many years under very difficult circumstances for the expansion of South Africa’s economy.

Sir, on a previous occasion in this House I referred to those mineworkers as the economic soldiers of South Africa, and I cannot but tell you again today, as the hon. member for Turffontein has already strikingly done, that these people are, from day to day, carrying out a tremendous task for South Africa under conditions endangering their lives. Sir, a few months ago I went to visit a friend of mine in Cottesloe, the mine hospital. Just by the way, this friend is in the flower of his youth, a young man, a good golf player, who had an accident in a Welkom mine. There was a rockfall and a number of Bantu were killed in the process. He broke his back and he will be an invalid for the rest of his life. I walked through that hospital and came to realize the great and responsible work done by mineworkers in South Africa under very difficult circumstances. When you see that heartache you realize that every day the mineworker goes underground he is subject to many dangers; and because that is so, this National Government realizes its responsibility and has, in the 24 years it has ruled South Africa, furnished unequivocal proof that at all times it lends a sympathetic ear to the problems of the mineworkers in South Africa. The mineworkers note with appreciation that in season and out of season the hon. the Minister of Mines’ doors are open to trade union leaders and mineworkers to discuss their problems with him. The mineworkers of South Africa note with appreciation that the mining group on the National side here in Parliament are wrestling with their problems from time to time. And such was also the case last Thursday when we got together and exchanged ideas because we are in earnest about the mineworkers of South Africa. Since 1948 the Government has continually reviewed the position of the mineworker and his dependants with respect to industrial diseases and the payment of compensation for such diseases, and in addition to the over-all revision and consolidation of the pneumoconiosis legislation in 1956 and 1962, which brought about considerable benefits for the mineworkers at that stage, benefits were also improved in the years 1950, 1952, 1965, 1968, 1970 and 1971. Sir, it is interesting to note—I think the hon. member for Turffontein mentioned this figure, but because it is such an illuminating one I should like to repeat it—that since 1948 the benefits in respect of our pneumoconiosis sufferers have increased by more than 220 per cent. In the case of a widow the pension has since 1948 been increased from R13 per month to R60 per month. The maximum pension for a mineworker with a wife and one child was increased from R38 per month to R137 per month. With the introduction of the Pneumoconiosis Compensation Act in 1962, the then Minister of Mines gave the assurance that this Act would be reviewed from time to time, as was the case in past years, but because it is felt that we cannot continue patchworking this legislation, it was decided that the Pneumoconiosis legislation should be revised.

Sir, hon. members opposite mentioned in passing that they lodged a plea for the revision of this Act. I want to point out that hon. members on this side of the House—and in this connection I refer you to last year’s Hansard—in the persons of the hon. member for Stilfontein and others, lodged urgent pleas with the hon. the Minister for the revision of this Act, and today hon. members on that side have the temerity to say that this Bill is being introduced as a result of their pleas. The Pneumoconiosis Act will, it is hoped, be amended in the course of this year, for which we are grateful to the hon. the Minister. Sir, so I could continue and mention to you many milestones erected by this National Government to improve the position of the mineworkers in South Africa. I can associate myself with the hon. member for Stilfontein and tell you that the mineworkers of South Africa are grateful that this year Republic Day is also an annual holiday for them. The mineworkers of South Africa, like any member in this House and any citizen outside it, have also made a gigantic contribution towards giving South Africa that great occasion, the advent of Republic. So I could continue and mention to you, Sir, that the mineworkers are grateful for that graceful building, the Mineworkers’ Bureau, which stands in Johannesburg and was erected at a cost of more than R1 million. In that building is contained some of the most modern apparatus one can find in the world today, clear proof that this side of the House is sincere and means well with respect to the South African mineworker. I do not have the slightest doubt that in the years ahead this Government will at all times conscientiously and with the utmost responsibility look to the interests of the mineworker, because the Government is serious and has good intentions in respect of the lot of the mineworker. I must say this to hon. members on the other side of the House, and I know what I am speaking about: The mineworkers of South Africa know—they knew it in years past and they know it today— that their future, the future of their children, their lot and their welfare lie only within the National Party framework.

Sir, I listened with interest to arguments advanced here in defence of this statement of the hon. member for Stilfontein. His motion reads that the House with appreciation takes cognizance of, firstly, the steps taken by the Government—according to the arguments of hon. members on that side, this is the very first thing they want to sing the praises of—secondly, the responsible contribution of the mineworker and, thirdly, perhaps the contribution of others who also made a small contribution to the success of the mining industry. Sir, let us look at the actual position in the mining industry. What is the actual position of the mineworker? What would it be if mining and the labour situation were not sound; what would the mineworker’s position have been: how would he have fared if the industry itself and the labour situation within that industry were not on a sound footing? Let us take a brief look at what the position is. Sir, in 1960 there were about 50 000 Whites in the mining industry in South Africa and about 400 000 non-Whites. By the year 1970 the position had weakened considerably as far as the Whites are concerned, and the figure had decreased to 38 745, i.e. from about 50 000 to 38 000. This is a tremendous decrease. The number of non-Whites remained constant at about 38 000, but while foreign Natives made up about 60 per cent of the total in 1946, in 1970 they constituted 75 per cent of the total; i.e. the Black labour of the mines is chiefly being imported from outside and the percentage of imported foreign labour is constantly increasing. The decrease in the number of Whites each year totals about 7 per cent to 10 per cent. A very delicate and difficult position is being created here. Let us look at what the President of the Chamber of Mines said last year. He reviewed the year 1969-’70; and the President at the time was Dr. Von Maltitz, who is no enemy of the present Government. This is what he said. It is a free translation, but I think an accurate one—

Here we have the situation. On this occasion I do not want to go into the labour policy of the Government, but here in the mining industry we have a reflection of the situation created by the Government and its labour policy, and the artificial shortage that is being created in our entire labour situation in South Africa. It is against that background that the position of the mineworker must be regarded. We heard from hon. members on that side, such as the hon. member for Stilfontein, that all the improvements brought about in the position of the mineworker are attributable to the help or intervention of the Government. He mentioned aspects such as salary improvements. Mr. Speaker, salary improvements are negotiated and arranged by discussions that take place between the mineworkers and the mine bosses, the employers. The salary increases are not paid by the Government. The improvements, the changes in conditions, are not introduced by the Government and neither do they pay for them. It is as a result of the attitude of the mine bosses to the employees, and the good relations existing between them, that these improvements continually take place. It is altogether ridiculous to thank the Government for that.

Let us go further. Let us look at the hospitals. I agree that beautiful hospitals do exist in the South African mining areas. Mention was made of the Rand Mutual Hospital. That is a beautiful and excellent hospital, but the Government did not pay a penny for it.

Do the mine bosses not have money for that?

But the motion thanks the Government; it does not thank the mine bosses. No word of thanks is extended to the employers, to the entrepreneurs, the people who created the work and control it. Everything they have done for the improvement of the conditions and the lot of the mineworker is mentioned, it is true, but the praise is extended to the Government. That is no honest basis on which to argue. Let us look at the research that is done. A tremendous amount is being done through research for the improvement of conditions in the mining industry. Who pays for that? The mines do.

Not the Government.

Mention was made of the fine sports facilities and the Government thanked for that! The hon. member for Stilfontein made mention of the lovely townships. I know them well. I have frequently been there and I agree wholeheartedly with him that they are lovely. But let the praise accrue to those it belongs to. Where was the Government instrumental in the building of lovely townships, in supplying the sports facilities or the other facilities that exist there? What the Government did in fact do—and let us now frankly admit this—was to promulgate laws and regulations. For that we do perhaps say thank you. The Government has a tremendous output of laws and regulations. Their productivity in that respect is tremendous. When their productivity in that sphere is praised we would be the first to agree. This is still increasing and we foresee no limits. It still goes on.

The hon. member for Virginia spoke of the safety of the mineworkers. Let us go into that. I know that constant research is being done to improve the safety situation in the mines. I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. member, except that he again wants to thank the Government for it. The Government does have an act which it maintains and modernizes, and it has regulations. The Government also has an excellent Government Mining Engineer to watch over matters, but that is simply by way of regulations. Who pays for this? Who takes these steps? Who are the people doing the research and adopting it, and the people who implement the actual improvements? There is no word of thanks for that. We only thank the Government because it has the production capacity regulations. We also say thank you for that, but let us speak about more real issues. The Government Mining Engineer, who is responsible for these improvements or their supervision, would be the first to acknowledge and confirm that the conditions now existing are attributable to very good co-operation, the tremendous sum of money spent and the tremendous dedication of the mining industry to the improvement of conditions. He cannot sit quite alone in his office and bring about these conditions. He is a superviser, but the work is actually done by the mining industry itself. I do not want to say anything against the supervisers, they also have their duties, but these only contribute in small part to the conditions that now exist. These steps are taken by the mining industry, the mine bosses, the contractors, who also have an interest in the matter. It is also important to them that the mineworkers be happy and healthy.

Mention was made of dust prevention agencies. [Interjections.] Sir, if one really knows the mining industry, if one has spent a part of one’s life there, one feels very grateful to various groups of people. Not only to the underground mineworker as such; there are also the officials working above ground. There are the surveyors, who play a very important role, and there are the engineers, all people who make their contributions to the general welfare of the mining industry. This motion which was moved today is a very limited one. It pays no tribute to the people who have contributed so tremendously to the present welfare of our mining industry.

You are talking nonsense.

What did speakers on that side of the House say? The member who introduced the motion paid tribute, firstly, to the Government, which played the smallest role of all in the whole matter; and everyone who knows the mining industry must acknowledge this. The major tribute was paid to them, and secondly to the mineworker. He is the fine fellow who works so hard underground, and the improvements in his working conditions were brought about by his own employers, according to regulations which the Government, of course, established, but the major part was nevertheless played by the employers, who also paid for it. Many other important contributions were also made, as I have said. The mining industry does not only consist of the mineworker who works underground, or the mine boss sitting in Johannesburg.

Who said so?

What I am saying is that that member made no mention of the large number of persons who all make important contributions to the mining industry. The hon. member makes no mention of that. He only mentions, firstly, the Government who, according to him, are the people making the largest contributions; secondly, the mineworker, because an election is being held in a few weeks’ time, but he keeps absolutely silent about the people who also make a tremendous contribution to the mining industry. He takes no notice of them; he does not want to hear anything about that. I therefore regard the motion as one-sided, one which does no justice to the mining industry which means so much to the South African economy.

Mr. Speaker, I have already listened to quite a few speeches of the hon. member for Von Brandis, but this is the first time I have heard a speech from him in which we have the old story: Which came first: the chicken or the egg? He discoursed at length about conditions that have improved in the mining industry. Then he says it is a very good thing that conditions have improved because certain legislation and regulations were passed by the Government. What does the hon. member now really want to say?

I say the motion is wrongly worded.

This motion has, after all, a clearly defined sphere. The motion was moved to thank the Government for the part it played. We have never said that the mine bosses had no share in the welfare of the mineworker.

The motion is wrongly worded.

We have never said that the mineworkers themselves did not have a share in their welfare. The hon. member for Von Brandis asked how the mineworkers would fare if the labour situation was not on a sound footing. The labour situation is on a sound footing as a result of the National Party Government’s policy. The hon. member quoted figures about the reduced number of Whites and the constant number of Bantu. We accept this. I now ask him whether the United Party, which opposes job reservation, is prepared to say they would eliminate job reservation in the mining industry? This is the hon. member’s accepted policy.

The hon. member would not say it; he is too afraid.

The hon. member for Rosettenville made a lamentable accusation here. I regret that he is not here now, …

But there he sits.

… but I want to tell him that when a serious accident takes place it is always lamentable that this is connected to some or other situation prevailing in the country. The hon. member for Rosettenville connected it to the safety factor and blamed the Government for not having taken sufficient steps to safeguard the mineworkers, and then in passing he mentioned the fire in West Driefontein. I am very sorry that the hon. member makes use of such an opportunity to attack the Government and indirectly accuse it of neglecting its duty of adopting safety measures in the mines.

The hon. member for Rosettenville moved an amendment, and in his speech he spoke of the good old times before 1948 when they laid the foundations for democracy for the good times that would come. That hon. member and the hon. member for Hillbrow, who is not here at present …

No, Jeppes.

… spoke of the golden age, and now we are speaking about gold and what can be done with it. I want to ask the hon. member why he does not move an amendment for the return of the mining industry to that golden age before 1948?

One cannot go back in this world.

Before 1948 there was not even a thought given to pneumoconiosis. It is only since 1952 that silicosis has spread to cover more than just the gold mines. Since then the legislation has constantly extended so that even stone quarries, where work is done under dusty conditions, are regarded as dangerous places. That legislation has been changed seven times since 1947. The most important change came in 1962 when the basis of pneumoconiosis classification was applied not only on the condition of the lungs, but also on the heart-lung function. I remember that in 1951 I began working amongst the mineworkers. I still remember seeing the old “pthisis sufferers”, as we called them, sitting on their stoeps on a cold winter’s day. They sat there with blankets around them, wearing a jersey and with their spittoons in their hands. As the sun moved they moved with it. I now want to ask the hon. member for Rosettenville if that was the golden age; were those the good old times you spoke about? Since 1962 the classification of the Pneumoconiosis Council has been based not only on the condition of the lungs, but also on heart function tests. The Miners’ Medical Bureau has, since 1962, been completely transformed so that it has a completely new approach. I now want to give hon. members a brief insight into the activities of this bureau. This bureau is a statutory body of this Government and must report to this Government. In the first place every miner working in any mine is examined thoroughly. According to the Miners’ Medical Bureau report there were 8 814 such examinations in the year 1970-’71, 85 per cent of which were done by the central bureau in Johannesburg. We must remember that these numbers include an initial full medical examination. In addition each mineworker in the industry, wherever he finds himself, must go once a year for a re-examination. Over the period covered by the last report I have, the period from 1969 to 1970, periodic examinations were carried out on 54 687 cases. Each time an X-ray is taken, and in that specific year more than 61 000 X-ray examinations were made. Apart from those periodic examinations, people who suffer from tuberculosis are also examined, and those who have recovered can again be certificated by means of that examination. The cases that do show a questionable sign of heart-lung damage are then referred to the certification committee. We still remember well what a stigma attached to the “pthisis bureau”. Since this Government reorganized the entire organization it became a bureau under the control of the State. In that one specific year 3 110 such cases were referred to them. This bureau has a panel of doctors, specialists and other aids I should like to mention. I have in mind, for example, the “Springkell” sanatorium where any suspect case of tuberculosis infection can be admitted and then thoroughly examined over a period of a few days. They use the South African Research Institute for all their blood tests and all their examinations to ensure that there is no misunderstanding in connection with their certification. Because the Act deals with the basis of the heart-lung function before one is declared unfit, more than 2 670 cases per year are examined by the lung function unit which is one of the most up to date in the world. This Miners’ Medical Bureau also has a special research unit. I am glad the hon. member for Von Brandis referred to it. Dust research continues to be done there under the supervision of this bureau. Research is also done on the effects of depth. They do research about how a mineworker feels when he is working 10 000 or 12 000 feet underground, what his reactions are and what conditions have an effect on him. Pathological research is also done on specimens they receive of deceased mineworkers. Research is also being done in the new field of uranium mining. Before uranium was actually mined a start had been made with research into the possible harmful effects of radioactive minerals. This is not all this medical bureau does. It also takes part in international conferences. I remember well that the hon. member for Rosettenville and I were present at the conference held in Johannesburg in 1969. At that conference it was very clear that South Africa was a small step ahead of any other country in the field of research and in its approach to mineworkers’ diseases. In addition this Pneumoconiosis Bureau also does educational work through discussions and seminars at the Universities of Pretoria and the Witwatersrand about diseases occurring in the mining industry. The bureau also advises the Railways and the Compensation Commissioner.

There are many problems for the mineworker. It is a good thing that we also air his problems here. The mineworker does not always understand what it is all about. Many of the mineworkers are frightened off by the stigma that attaches to the phthisis bureau. They think that the phthisis bureau or the Pneumoconiosis Bureau is controlled by the Chamber of Mines alone. That is not the case. The mineworker does not always understand what degrees and percentage mean. He does not understand that although I am perhaps 20 per cent unfit while another person is 50 per cent unfit, I can still feel more ill than the other person. He cannot understand that every ordinary person could also contract other diseases. Because he works in that dangerous atmosphere underground he always thinks in terms of compensation. He is possibly a sufferer from high blood pressure and heart trouble and consequently might feel it difficult to breathe. Because he could then possibly obtain compensation he goes to the Pneumoconiosis Bureau and wants to ascribe everything to the conditions under which he works. This is where the many problems crop up; this is where the Pneumoconiosis Bureau’s unpopularity originates. This is also where the Government is sometimes blamed, just as hon. members on that side of the House always want to blame the Government for everything.

Mr. Speaker, I want to conclude with this thought. There has been much talk here about mineral dust. Our mineworkers talk about mineral dust; we do not speak about gold. But there is one subject about which we ought to speak much more, and that is the cause for gratitude for the Government’s actions on behalf of the mineworkers.

Mr. Speaker, there was one sentence in the speech of the hon. member for Brentwood which, in my opinion, really was not very flattering towards the mineworkers of South Africa. What he said was that they always thought in terms of compensation.

I did not say “always”.

If the hon. member consults his Hansard, he will find that word. I made a special note of it. I do not consider this to be flattering towards the mineworker. He is not a selfish person who thinks only of his own interests and compensation. He is a good citizen of South Africa. He is a good man who, like any hon. member on this side of this House, thinks of his family and of what can be done for them in the future. He has his problems in respect of the education of his children and in respect of the rising cost of living. He is interested in many other matters besides the question of compensation.

I want him to think of his compensation.

I first want to come to the hon. member for Stilfontein, who introduced this motion. What the hon. member said was from start to finish a song of praise about what the Government had allegedly done. In my opinion, that song of praise is entirely without any real foundation. The hon. member for Stilfontein said here that the mineworker was loyal towards the Government, but today the mineworker is asking why the Government is not loyal towards the mineworker; why, in the face of the increasing number of problems they have, they are not being looked after nowadays? The hon. member for Stilfontein employed the age-old method of making a promise and holding out the prospect of something wonderful which the Government might be able to carry into effect. He pointed out quite rightly that he knew of no other occupation today besides mining where 48 hours are still worked. It is not under my Government, but under his, that this situation exists today. He made the promise, or the prediction, or let me say, advanced the idea, that the mines would perhaps get a five-day week. Where is the hon. the Minister of Labour? The hon. the Minister of Mines is here. Let us hear from him whether he is thinking of a five-day week for the mineworker, although, according to the member for Stilfontein, the mineworker must still work a full 48 hours …

That has nothing to do with the Minister.

The entire labour pattern in this country—the industrial conciliation, the conciliation boards and the wage acts—is the concern of the Government and of the Minister of Labour. In this case the Minister of Mines has a part in it as well.

Thinking back, we recall the promises made to the mineworkers over the years by the Government on that side, promises which have not been kept. They came into power, inter alia, by promising the mineworkers a 40 hour week.

That is not true.

Does the hon. member not remember the promise made to the mineworkers of a 40 hour week? Now, after 25 or 26 years, they say, “No, stick to the 48 hours, but we are thinking of, or giving consideration to, or the hon. member for Stilfontein on his own is thinking of, making it a five-day week.”

Not one word of that is true.

I repeat that it is not a question of the loyalty of the mineworkers towards the Government— and I do not accept that this is the case. It is a question of the loyalty of the Government towards the mineworker. They make promises, but of what avail are these promises? What has happened to the promise that the mineworkers would receive a share in the profits made possible by their own labours? If I am not mistaken, it was the present Minister of Transport who made this rash promise before 1948, and who could not make good this promise when he became Minister of Labour.

Where were you in 1948?

In June, 1948, I was in the United Party. Another promise too was made which came to naught and that was that key industries, of which the mining industry is the major one, would come under the control of the State. What prospects of heaven were not held up to the mineworkers 25 to 28 years ago! What has become of these promises? The hon. member for Stilfontein and other hon. members on that side of this House wax lyrical about the so-called peace between them and the mineworkers and about the fact that they allegedly get on so well. However, let the hon. the Minister of Mines tell us of the difficulties and problems he experienced when he came forward with a new dispensation in the Bantu areas, at which time a dispute arose. Most probably there was a dispute between the hon. the Minister and the hon. member for Stilfontein, too, or did the hon. member approve of everything which the hon. the Minister of Mines did? Why is the hon. member so quiet now? I remember well how, in the early 1950s, Mr. Daan Ellis, who was the then Secretary of the Mineworkers’ Union, argued with Dr. Malan, the Prime Minister, and said to him at one stage: “Look, Dr. Malan, I put you into office, but I am going to ensure that you will be removed from office.” This is how well they loved each other 20 years ago. I have here a cutting from Dagbreek en Sondagnuus, the National Party’s own newspaper which illustrates the wild doings between the Government and the mineworkers in 1965 because of the Government’s inability to settle a dispute. A leading article in Dagbreek described those disputes as follows (translation)—

Is this an example of peace between the Government and the mineworkers? I am asking the hon. member for Stilfontein, the hon. member for Welkom as well as the hon. member for Virginia. I read further (translation)—

Of course errors of judgment were made, and they were made on a large scale, especially on the part of that side of this House.

There was talk of the necessity of revising and amending the Pneumoconiosis Act. This is an Act which was passed in 1962, and since then nothing but patchwork has been done to it. The hon. member for Welkom himself said that since then the Government had done only patchwork to this Act.

The patches were clean.

Yes, it was purely a patchwork mess. The Nationalist Party admits that in the past few years it has done only patchwork. Now there is at least talk of legislation being introduced this year. However, I want no speculation about that; I demand from the hon. the Minister to announce today that he is going to introduce legislation this year with regard to the Pneumoconiosis Act in order to bring that Act up to date in the interests of the mineworkers. Last year he speculated about that. We heard about a commission which had been appointed. [Interjections.] That is why I am saying he speculated. But this year we demand that he come forward with legislation, so that we may rightly say that we forced him to do so. Sir, do you know for how many years requests have been made for this Act to be revised and for how many years there have been complaints about faults and shortcoming in the Act? I have here an extract from a speech made in 1966, six years ago. The hon. member—I shall mention his name later—said (translation)—

Now I want to ask the hon. member for Stilfontein: Does he know who the hon. member is who spoke here about the dissatisfaction among the mineworkers? The hon. member for Brakpan; He endorsed the fact and knew that they would have been so dissatisfied that he would not have been able to be a candidate in an election in Brakpan again. In the interests of safety, therefore, he was moved out to a commissionership somewhere in the remote parts of South Africa. As far back as six years ago he asked whether it was not time for a proper conference to be held with all the Members of Parliament who were interested in this legislation. He spoke of “unnecessary irritants” and “great dissatisfaction” about the single amount which the mineworker who wanted to draw a tuberculosis pension, received in those days.

He requested that attention be paid to mineworkers’ pensions and said: “We find that there is dissatisfaction in regard to children’s allowances.” It is not this side of the House, but in fact that side which has been saying this for the past five or six years, led by the hon. member for Brakpan, who, in the interests of safety is not going to be a candidate in Brakpan again next time.

We must consider that what is being done by this Government against the mineworker and his family, goes much further than merely those few Acts which have been passed. Think of the rising cost of living under which he sometimes has to suffer much more than most of our fellow-citizens here in South Africa. Those rising prices and the rise in the index figure, as well as the higher taxation, etc., affects him, much more than most South Africans because he is not in the highest income group. The Government does not see to the productivity and the higher production costs, apart from wages—I am not speaking of that—of the mines. The Minister of Transport will quite happily increase the rail tariffs at any time, which is going to be another blow to the mines and the standard of living of the mineworkers. Large-scale unemployment in the mining industry may arise. The hon. the Minister laughs. Does he know what happened at Rustenburg? Surely he knows the Rustenburg case; he knows how the work of hundreds and hundreds of mineworkers was threatened. Were it not for the action of the mines themselves, the distress there would have been so much the greater. But I am not the one who says that the Government should do something about this. I have here The Mineworker, the publication of the mineworker. The heading reads: “Government and mines must devise a plan about Rustenburg. Why not hoard platinum?” Their own publication says the Government should devise a plan in respect of what is happening there. In spite of this, hon. members want to sing the praises of the Government for what it is allegedly doing for the mineworker.

Sir, we all know that the gold mines are a disappearing asset. Even with an increase in the price of gold, the gold mines cannot go on existing here in South Africa for all times. What planning has there been on the part of this Government in respect of mines which have closed down or which are going to close down on the Witwatersrand or in the Orange Free State in the future? What planning has there been for the future of those areas when there will be no more work for the mineworker of the nature for which he was trained? What sort of Acts do we have from the Government? We have measures for the compulsory moving of industries from Benoni and Brakpan, and in future the mineworkers will probably have to go to the borders of a Bantustan in order to fine a livelihood.

You are a real old politician.

Furthermore, in regard to the Bantustans, it is the policy of this side of this House that there should be a new dispensation in the homelands or rather, in the Bantu areas.

Are you talking about the interim period now?

It is our policy that there should be a new dispensation and, without wanting to criticize the hon. the Minister here, I want to say the following: Under the policy of the United Party, a mineworker working on a mine in a Bantustan or Bantu area, would be safe, but under the policy of that Government, if such a Bantustan becomes completely independent and the mineworker becomes dependent on a strange government and no longer on the South African Government, he will no longer be as safe in that area as he would have been had that area formed part of one great state, one great South Africa, in terms of United Party policy.

His interim policy.

No, this is not an interim policy. Everything in the world is, of course, interim. The hon. the Minister’s 1962 Act was an interim Act, because he is going to amend it. It depends on the interpretation of the word. His life and my life are interim, but if the hon. the Minister means by that that the United Party changes its policy from day to day, he is talking absolute nonsense.

What does Japie say?

Sir, there are several other respects in which the Government could have done much more for the mineworker and his safety. In this regard I am not thinking of minor matters where the mineworker is being needled. Neither am I thinking of prosecutions which are instituted against the ordinary man in the possession of a lottery ticket, in respect of which one finds that most of these prosecutions are instituted among the mineworkers in Welkom and Western Areas. Why is the mineworker sought out as the scapegoat when prosecutions are instituted because of the possession of lottery tickets? I do not want to speak about those matters; they are minor matters, but I have in mind one thing which affected the safety of the mineworker to a very large extent and that is that fantastic whirlwind, uncertain policy followed over a period of 15 to 20 years in regard to sinkholes, a policy of such a nature that the hon. member for Carletonville once felt called upon to say that he admired those people and that he himself would not have gone to live there, a policy through which R26 million …

That is not so.

If he did not say that, I think there was a time when he would have been fairly unwilling to settle permanently in those areas where sinkholes had appeared. Even those sinkholes were caused by a lack of policy on that side, they could not decide exactly what should be done. We heard of thousands of holes which had been bored in an attempt to prevent sink-holes from developing. Sir, I do not want to elaborate too much on that, but we should remember that more than 40 mineworkers lost their lives in those sink-holes, that 300 houses were destroyed, that 200 were stripped and that the total cost amounted to R26 million.

Sir, I do not want to delay this House much longer. I should very much like to know from the hon. the Minister whether he is going to heed our request in regard to legislation which we should like to see on the Statute Book and whether eventually, after years of unfulfilled promises, a new dispensation for the mineworkers is going to come. Let me conclude by saying that as regards admiration for the mineworker and for the extremely essential task he performs, nobody on this side of this House, in the United Party, for one moment takes a back seat to any member on that side.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Orange Grove has just, with much gesticulation, demanded of me here that I should indicate today whether the pneumoconiosis legislation will be amended during the course of this session. I just want to ask the hon. member where he was last year. After all, I announced here—it was not speculation—in this House that it would be done, and that work on the amendments was actively in progress and that negotiations were at this stage being conducted with the mineworkers.

Will the legislation be introduced this year?

If the mining people are able to reach an agreement with us we shall introduce it this year, and I expect this to happen. But you know, Sir, we all move with the times, organizations and individuals, and mining also moves with the times. The mining industry has moved with the times, away from the days when they used mules and Shetland ponies in the mines. We have moved with the mineworkers of South Africa, and believe it or not, in 1972, Orange Grove still does this to us. I think I must leave the hon. member at that.

Sir, this has been a fine day, a good day and a fine afternoon for the mineworkers of South Africa and their dependants, particularly for that 5 per cent who were so unfortunate as to contract pneumoconiosis. But it is also a significant day. This day is really a remarkable one for its message conveyed by the Order Paper before us. This is the first private members motion and it came from our side. Why? Because that side fails to realize the importance of the mineworkers.

Nonsense!

But the Order Paper is also significant, for what is the second motion set down there, also from this side of the House? It relates to the education of our young people, and was introduced by the hon. member for Algoa. They failed to discuss that matter. And the third? That is a motion by the hon. member for Swellendam on farming and the farmers of South Africa, for that side failed to discuss that matter. This is a significant Order Paper, if one considers the private members motions which came from this side of the House. We now have to do what an opposition ought to do if it is worth its salt.

But I should also like to say that the hon. member for Stilfontein not only deserves our gratitude, but also our congratulations for the sympathetic way in which he introduced the motion. He can speak with authority for not only does he know those people, he is one of them. And did you notice, Sir, how this side of the House and not that side of the House spoke perfectly naturally and normally of “our people”, for the mineworkers are and will always remain our people. I want to congratulate the hon. member and I want to thank the other hon. members, such as the hon. member for Virginia, the hon. member for Welkom and the hon. member for Brentwood for their contributions. Now, this is not my opinion only. There are people sitting in the gallery; after all the Press is up there too. Surely these were contributions from people who had made a study of these matters and who live with these people and who above all have an understanding of a knowledge of and sympathy with these people and have a will to help where one wants to alleviate the lot of other people. I want to say thank you very much to them.

†Mr. Speaker, I come now to the hon. member for Rosettenville. He started off by calling this debate a debate in which we have electionitis, but it followed on laughing at the introduction of this motion last week. The United Party made it a laughing matter, but now it is calling this debate “electionitis”. I may tell the hon. member that the electionitis is not on this side; it is on the other side of the House. I must also tell the hon. member not to be worried; it is only an interim affliction.

The hon. member also raised the very important question of the accident rate and gave wrong figures to the House. The hon. member said that the accident rate had risen in the past few years. That is not true.

*The following is the truth: Despite the fact that the number of workers in our mines increased by 48 000 in one year, from 1969 to 1970, the position is that the death rate for 1969 was 1,18 per thousand and the accident rate was 45,48 per thousand. I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, but this is the figure for 1970. In 1969 it was higher. Then the corresponding figures as far as deaths are concerned were 1,28 and as far as accidents are concerned, 45,62 per thousand.

†But I must also point out to the hon. member that he knows that every single accident on a mine is properly investigated and not in my time, and as far as I can remember not before my time, has a finger ever been pointed to the Government for neglecting its duty; not in one single instance that I can remember, at least not in the five years that I have been in this position.

*However, it was not left at that. The hon. member for Von Brandis rose to his feet, and what did he do? Now there is only one way in which we can control the health, welfare and accident situation on mines, and that is by means of laws and regulations. What did he do? He made scornful remarks about how many laws and regulations there are, and the other hon. members treated it as a laughing matter. I want to tell him that we will make even more laws and even more regulations if that is in the best interests of the mineworkers. [Interjections.] All I want to say about the accident rate and accidents, and particularly the accidents which occurred at the beginning of the year, is that I want to extend my sympathy again to those people who lost loved ones, whether they are White or non-White, and whether they live in this country or beyond our borders. I want to give the assurance that we will go to the greatest lengths in investigating that unfortunate accident to ascertain whether there was any negligence.

I said I welcome this motion of the hon. member for Stilfontein, for just as it is to him and other hon. members on this side of the House, as was shown today, the well-being of the mineworkers is of the utmost importance to the Government and to me. The mining industry, on which almost the entire South African economy was initially built, has become a colossus, as we all know. There is still a tremendous amount which has to be done. However, it is remarkable that in a country which has during the past few decades shown such a phenomenal industrial growth, experts who look ahead still realize, and say so too, that the mining industry will play an even more important role in our country’s economy and the welfare of our people in future. The reason for that is simply that the good Lord has blessed our country with mineral deposits almost unequalled in the world—certainly not in Africa. Let me say that the Government is not only in earnest about the purposeful development of the mining industry in South Africa, but regards it as a matter of top priority. Because we must look after the mine-worker, and want to do so in order to achieve this object in the national interests, the Government has always regarded it as its premise that the happiness, the welfare and the prosperity of our mineworkers must come first. I am grateful to be able to say that I myself, as the responsible Minister, find peace of mind in the Government’s actions with regard to the mineworkers since 1948. As far as pneumoconiosis legislation is concerned—it is a pity the hon. member for Orange Grove is not present here at the moment—it has been indicated here that the pneumoconiosis legislation has already been revised twice since 1948. It has been consolidated and improved not only to increase the benefits, but also to improve the basis of compensation. This has also been done to make the measures safeguarding the health of mineworkers more efficient. Hon. members will recall that in 1962 my predecessor, i.e. the present hon. Minister of Finance, gave the assurance that if experience and research necessitated further adjustments, the Government would make such adjustments. Hon. members will also recall that an international conference on pneumoconiosis was held in 1970, with funds made available by the Government. We brought world experts in this field to South Africa at State expense, and this was done on behalf of the mineworkers. Hon. members will also remember …

We were not the only contributors to that conference.

I do not say that. I said that we brought them here at our expense, and of course our own peoples’ contributions are as good or even better, than those of the overseas experts because South Africa has had a wealth of experience in the field of mining. In addition I also want to place on record the fact that, apart from my periodical and regular negotiations with the Mineworkers’

Union, discussions with and representations made to me by members of the National Party caucus on behalf of their mineworkers have also contributed to our being in a position to revise and to improve this legislation properly. The stage has now been reached where the legislation must again be revised and adjustments made. As I have already announced, during the previous session, work on the new legislation is in progress. The new legislation is aimed at expanding the scope of the pneumoconiosis legislation and also at taking care of other health problems peculiar to the mining industry. I may just remind hon. members that the Medical Research Council was established a few years ago for the benefit of the mineworkers and research in regard to the occupational diseases of the mining industry. This Council falls under the Department of Health. Then the National Institute for Occupational Diseases, previously the Pneumoconiosis Research Unit, was established— all for the benefit not only of the mineworkers but also of all workers in South Africa. The hon. member was quite right in indicating that we have come a long way; first it was chest ailments and then it became pneumoconiosis. I can inform hon. members that this new legislation we are envisaging will not be known as pneumoconiosis legislation, but will be called an Occupational Diseases Bill.

That is what we asked for. [Interjections.]

With this legislation …

We asked for that long ago.

I want the hon. member to listen. If he asked for it, I give it to him for nothing.

We are satisfied.

I shall tell the hon. members what the position is: You do the talking, and we do the job. This legislation is already far advanced and extensive discussions have been held with a representative committee of the mine trade unions and with officials of the Chamber of Mines. I may just add that the original idea was that the mine trade unions would submit a Bill to us which met their requirements. However, they requested that the Department, owing to the experience it has had, should draft such a Bill itself. As first phase, this has been done solely by the Department. Further discussions, in which I shall take the initiative myself, will shortly be held. After that the legislation will be prepared for submission. I may also add that the Cabinet agreed last year that this Bill should be referred to a Select Committee. It seems to me that there has been so much unanimity in these negotiations and that it was unanimity of such a nature that it will probably not be necessary to refer the Bill to a Select Committee; the House will be able to deal with it directly. In respect of this envisaged legislation, the Parliamentary mining group of the National Party serves a very important function. These hon. members of the House of Assembly are people who are in close contact with the mineworkers and their families. During the discussions which the group or individual members have with me from time to time, bottlenecks are brought to my attention. It is my sincere desire to say that these hon. colleagues are of great help. They are of great value to our mineworkers and they deserve the appreciation and sincere gratitude of the mineworkers.

Pneumoconiosis compensation is an occupational liability for the mines. Levies in this regard form a very important factor in production costs. With the considerable increase in production costs, and no increase until recently in the price of gold, and the fact that many mines had to rely solely on the exploitation of low-grade ores, the stage was reached in the early fifties where the mining industry, and particularly the gold-mining industry, could not bear the burden incurred in increasing pneumoconiosis pensions. The Government then had to take one of two decisions, which were either to peg the pneumoconiosis pensions of existing beneficiaries for all time regardless of the increase in the cost of living, or to bear the burden of an increase in existing pensions itself. Hon. members of that side of the House are so eager to know why this motion of thanks has been introduced. The first possibility would have been extremely unfair to the beneficiaries concerned. In the interests of these people the Government decided unhesitatingly, as long ago as 1956, to accept that burden and to db so every time it became possible and desirable to alleviate the lot of pneumoconiosis sufferers and the dependants of deceased beneficiaries. In this way the Government has since 1956 already shouldered a burden of plus-minus R40 million to alleviate and to improve the lot of pneumoconiosis beneficiaries. When the means to that end can be found and when it becomes possible to give further alleviation, the Government will unhesitatingly take upon itself further burdens for this purpose.

As far as these matters are concerned, the mineworkers already know very well that the Government does not make idle promises. In general benefits have, as was said here, been increased by about 220 per cent since 1948. The hon. the Prime Minister said the other day that the rand is now worth 50 cents. Its value has dropped by 50 per cent, but the benefits of these people were increased by 220 per cent. The examples are given here. In the case of a widow the pension has, since 1948, been increased from R13 to R60. Ask any mineworker whether he wants to live in the United Party era or in the National Party era. The maximum pension for a mineworker with a wife and one child was R37,75 when those hon. members were in power. It is now R137. A widow with one dependant child at present receives approximately 57 per cent more in pension than she received five years ago. Hon. members must listen carefully now. A widow with one dependant child now receives 57 per cent more in pension than she received live years ago, when I happened to take over here. In the corresponding period the consumer price index, according to the official figures of the Department of Statistics, increased by only 21,7 per cent. Hon. members who therefore say that we are not keeping pace with the increase in the cost of living, are simply not telling the truth.

No, that is not the point.

Let me mention another point. In these five years improvements were made no less than three times. Let me state candidly that one can never do too much for these people. After all, ones heart goes out to them. But one must cut one’s coat according to one’s cloth. As the hon. the Prime Minister rightly stated in respect of other pensioners, one can never of course do enough for them. But, believe you me, the National Party has done a great deal for them.

But this is not a social pension. You do not seem to understand that.

I understand it very well, they are much higher than ordinary civil pensions. The hon. member knows that. Nevertheless I am grateful that circumstances made it possible for us to do so much for our mineworkers in the sphere of benefits and pensions.

The Government’s support and concessions to the mineworkers are not restricted to those I have already mentioned, but not one hon. member referred to this. I can take up much of the time of the hon. House on the Government’s assistance in other spheres, but I just want to mention a few examples. Hon. members on this side of the House mentioned a few. After it was disclosed to what extent pneumoconiosis pensioners are compelled to spend their pensions on medical fees and essential medicines I consented in my capacity as Minister of Health to district surgeons providing medical services and essential medicines free of charge to needy pneumoconiosis pensioners. The necessary arrangements have been finalized and the scheme ought to be in full swing soon. Mineworkers who undergo periodical examinations for the issuing of certificates of fitness and the pneumoconiosis sufferers attending a chest clinic for treatment, receive free transportation by train or the approved mile allowance. I may mention that the mile allowance has been increased from 2½ cents per mile to 5 cents per mile.

Because the cessation of mining activities for a single day means a loss to the country of several million rands, our mineworkers corps falls under that group of people who arc not entitled to all the public holidays enjoyed by the rest of the population. In this respect as well the Government tried last year, as was mentioned, to alleviate the position for the mineworker a little by introducing a statutory amendment which will in future allow mine workers to enjoy every Republic Day as a day of rest, if they so prefer.

Mr. Speaker, it was mentioned here, and it is true, that there is a shortage of White mineworkers today, but it is also true that our workers on the mines are able to earn proper wages. It must be realised that, if it were not for the Government’s attitude in regard to the mining industry, the picture presented today would have been an entirely different one. I want hon. members to listen to me. In this regard I want to mention that in the case of 20 marginal gold-mines, subsidies from the State make it possible for them to exploit low-grade ore. Through this assistance the early or immediate closing down of these mines was prevented, and our gold yield increased. During the three year period ending 31st March, 1971, R37 500 000 was spent on subsidies of this kind. For the financial year which is now coming to a close, and for the next financial year, this expenditure will amount to an additional plus-minus R30 million. This is a total of R61 500 000. If these mines had to close down, approximately 10 000 Whites—our own flesh and blood— and 125 000 non-Whites would have to seek work elsewhere. I may just mention in passing that during this period the gold production of these mines in one year amounted to R115 million. The Government’s assistance to these mines was given in the firm belief that there would eventually be an increase in the gold price. That was our point of departure. Recent developments in regard to the gold price have shown that the decision to assist the mines to remain in operation, was a very wise decision on the part of the Government.

Was the figure you mentioned that for the official price of gold or for gold sold on the free market?

No, this was still the official price before the free market price was increased. That was a long time ago. Not only were the large number of workers at these mines able to keep their work where they had established themselves, but our country will now benefit from the higher price which will be paid for gold which is being recovered at the mines in question. It will now be possible to mine at a profit ore which until recently was unprofitable. This will extend the life of these mines and may perhaps create more avenues of employment for our people. The improved gold price inevitably includes benefits for our workers on the mines, but I do not want to make any comment on that, and least of all about the five-day week. The hon. member did not know what he was talking about. The Mineworkers’ Union are very jealous of their right to negotiate in regard to their remuneration and also in regard to the five-day working week. These discussions are in progress and I am certainly not going to interfere in any way. That is not the task of the Government or of the Minister of Mines.

And the hon. member for Stilfontein?

The hon. member gave his opinion, and why not? However, he did not, like the hon. member for Orange Grove, say that I should do so. The mineworker is able to negotiate those matters for himself. I have confidence in him, even if the hon. member does not.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? When the hon. the Minister talks about the expansion of avenues of employment, does he know that there is at present a White labour shortage of 1 500 on the mines?

But I have already mentioned that. That hon. member also said that one does not know whether unemployment is just around the corner, the point is, however, that these people are working in the mines at present and that that mine can continue to operate. In regard to the gold question, I should like, for the record, to thank the hon. the Minister of Finance; for the untiring and competent way in which he has over a long period worked for a higher gold price. His single-handed attempts definitely made an impression and roused world-wide respect for his person and also for our country. I think we are very fortunate in having had two things in South Africa during this time. On the one hand we are fortunate in having had such a person, who compelled the respect of the entire monetary world, to spear-point our efforts, and on the other hand we are fortunate that we have mineworkers who, in spite of diminishing numbers, have maintained production to such an extent that the mines did not go to rack and ruin. The Government has also made considerable financial assistance available for pumping out water. This was done to keep the mines going, this is what the Government is doing to existing avenues of employment for the mineworkers. For the present financial year the amount is approximately R1,6 million, and the Government is at present giving assistance to six major gold-mines which have to cope with a great volume of subterranean water flowing in from adjoining mines. Without this assistance the mines in question would have been compelled to close down prematurely, and the workers would have had to find another means of subsistence. After the recent copious rains the position at two of the mines, i.e. Sallies and Vlakfontein on the East Rand, deteriorated to such an extent that operations at these two mines came to a halt and they were faced with the possibility of having to close-down completely. But the mine-owners, in consultation with my Department of Mines, are making every effort to save these mines, if such a step appears to be justified from an economic point of view. But if the closing down of these mines at this stage appears to be inevitable, for in the normal course of events their ore reserves would have been depleted at the end of the year or later, the Government will, as it has already done to good effect in other cases, make every effort to find other means of subsistence for the workers in question. If it is deemed to be in the interests of our country and our mineworkers the mines are kept going, not only by means of subsidies, but in other ways as well. In this way, for example, a loan of R3,3 million, which will extend over a period of a few years, has been made to an East Rand gold-mine—unfortunately I cannot, for very good reasons, mention its name —in order to enable the undertaking to do certain re-opening work by means of which the life of the mine ought to be extended considerably. The more than 1 000 Whites and several thousand non-White employees at that specific mine, and for the surrounding townships, it means a great deal that steps have been taken to prevent the early closing of this mine. Where all the paying ore reserves in a mine has been depleted or where there is an inadequate demand for the product of the mine, it is unfortunately unavoidable that operations at such a mine have to be terminated or restricted. I can continue in this vein, but I think I have said enough to indicate that the Government is doing its duty and much more than its duty in regard to the mineworkers. I want to associate myself with the hon. member for Stilfontein and express my appreciation for the responsible and proper conduct of the mineworkers in South Africa over the years. There is no better team to pull together than the mineworkers and the National Party.

Mr. Speaker, at this late hour of the debate I should just like to make a few remarks by way of summary. I must tell you that there were high-water and low-water marks in this debate. The hon. member for Orange Grove reached a low-water mark when he referred to the sinkholes. He referred to the suffering and the accidents caused as a result of the sinkholes and ascribed the situation to the Government supposedly having done nothing in this regard. I must draw the attention of the hon. House to the fact that these towns on the West Rand which are being afflicted by sinkholes were all established in the time of U.P. régime; they were established to benefit certain organisations financially, without any consideration for the safety of the people who would subsequently come to live there. I think it is high time this side of the House took the hon. member for Orange Grove to task and told him to stop making remarks about the so-called inability of the National Party Government to deal with this matter, the Government is left holding the baby, because the United Party established the towns there and caused people to incur certain financial obligations and make investments in these towns. Now the National Party Government has to take the necessary steps to try to safeguard the investments made there—by poor people. I can only say here that the Department of Mines is doing and will do everything in its power to cope with this problem.

There is another matter in regard to which there appears to be a major difference of opinion on that side of the House, i.e. the safety in our mines. The hon. member for Rosettenville levelled accusations at the Government in regard to the unsafeness of some mines and all the accidents caused as a result of that. The hon. member for Von Brandis remarked that it was the mine-owners who took the necessary steps, and that it is they who should be praised for the work which is being done to ensure the safety of the mines. On the one hand there is the standpoint that the safety of the mines is the responsibility of the Government, and on the other hand, hon. members say in the same breath that it is the responsibility of the mine-owners. This puts me in mind of the difference of opinion in that Party in regard to their non-White policy. It seems as if they have an interim policy in regard to mining matters, like the interim policy they have in regard to non-White affairs.

I should like to refer to the high-water mark of the National Party régime. I am thinking specifically now of exports in our metal and mineral industries. There were low-water marks as well in the history of our exports. I am referring here to the mineral exports because the production of minerals creates avenues of employment for our mineworkers. It gives them more freedom of movement. If they are not satisfied with an employer, they can work for someone else; it gives them a great deal of leeway. I must refer here to the development in the base metal industry which has taken place since the National Party came into power in 1948. I want to compare the high-water mark here with the low-water marks which most certainly occurred in the period when the United Party was in power, i.e. between 1933 and 1948.

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