Mr. Chairman, I want to deal with the definition of “weather modification”, which is dealt with in this clause, because of the difficulty in which we find ourselves when we relate this particular Bill to the Bill which was introduced by the Minister of Water Affairs, also dealing with weather modification.

Our difficulty stems from two features. The one will be dealt with by the hon. member for Mooi River, and the other one I should like to deal with now. The definitions of “weather modification” in the two Bills, viz. the Bill introduced by the Minister of Water Affairs earlier, and this Bill, are different. This definition before us mentions in detail the kind of modification which is dealt with in this Bill. The definition reads as follows—

The Water Act, 1956, was amended earlier this session, and I take it that the exception mentioned in this definition excludes the definition in the Water Amendment Act which was passed this year. That there can be a clash in these definitions is what we fear. We fear that, notwithstanding the fact that this definition deals with certain aspects of weather modification, these specific provisions can clash with the definition in the other Act which we have already passed. We feel that when the time comes for a prosecution, the prosecutor is going to be put in a position where he will have to determine whether he is going to prosecute in terms of the Act of the Department of Water Affairs, which has already been passed, or whether he is going to prosecute in terms of this Bill, when it is on the Statute Book. In other words, Sir, we fear that a person or a concern which wants to go in for weather modification can in fact make an application to the wrong Minister under the wrong Statute. Whilst provision is made in the Act which has been passed, and in this Bill, for the two Ministers to work together, in practice it may be very difficult indeed for a person or a concern wanting to go in for weather modification to know precisely which department to apply to. An infringement may then result, for example if the person concerned engages in such a practice without a permit, and if this should happen, the prosecutor has to take action in terms of the punitive provisions of one of these measures. He can act in terms of the measure introduced by the Minister of Water Affairs, or he can act in terms of this Bill. It seems to me that the definitions in these two measures, which are there to guide such a prosecution, are such that they in fact overlap, notwithstanding the fact that it says in this definition that the definition in the Water Act is excluded here. This is what worries us, and this brings me to the suggestion made by my hon. friend the other day, in my absence, namely that we should one day scrap these measures and start again with one completely new Bill, dealing with weather modification. All these matters can then be brought together under one measure. We feel that this definition can conflict with the definition in the Water Act which has already been passed this session, and from that can flow a whole sequence of errors. We do not want errors; we want certainty. We want a person who is going in for weather modification to know exactly to which Minister and which department he must apply for a licence or a permit. Once the matter has been dealt with, he will then know which Act he is dealing with. If there is an infringement, he will know that the prosecutor will be in no doubt as to the basis upon which the prosecution will be conducted. He must not be in a position where he can go to court and say: “I have been charged under the wrong Act. I plead not guilty because I have been wrongly charged under the wrong authority and the wrong Act.” This is what is worrying us, Mr. Chairman, in regard to this definition. As I have said, it is not the same as the definition in the other Act which has already been passed.

Sir, in the absence of the hon. member for South Coast the other day I paid tribute to the work done by him and other members of the Select Committee in connection with the Water Act. I also said that I wanted to thank him and the hon. member for Piketberg and the other members of the Select Committee for the assistance they gave me in bringing this Bill before the House, because the hon. the Minister of Water Affairs and the hon. the Minister of Transport held conflicting ideas.

That is true.

The hon. member for South Coast knows that the Weather Bureau falls under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Transport and not under the Minister of Water Affairs, and he knows that the Water Act deals with the results of weather modification upon the flow of water, subterranean water, etc. That being so, we had to draw up a measure which would be administered by the Minister of Transport, under whom the Weather Bureau falls, but in conjunction with the Minister of Water Affairs, with the necessary agreement between the two of them as far as the appointment of the advisory committee is concerned. Sir, the definitions do overlap, but they can clearly be distinguished by the exclusion, namely any modification of precipitation, in the Water Act—the same exclusion holds good for the Water Act in so far as this Bill is concerned. Should, in prosecution cases, there be any doubt, the person charged can be charged in the alternative, or he can be charged under either or both Acts, and I think the solution would be that if a person does oppose the Minister, or is summonsed, it should be done in the alternative to both Acts until we have this Act properly administered and see whether a change should be necessary. As the hon. member for South Coast knows, we think it is urgently necessary that we should at least have an Act whereby we could have control from now on. In future, in the light of experience, we may come along with a further amendment.

Sir, could I just ask for a clarification of the procedure? People wanting to undertake weather modification are going to have to approach either the hon. the Deputy Minister of Transport or the Minister of Water Affairs. They are free to approach either. An application will have to be made, and this will be made to the joint committee which will be established by the two departments by delegation to two officials.

That is so.

That will be referred now to an advisory committee which will be appointed by the two Ministers together, but it will be one committee; that will be the advisory committee.

Yes.

Sir, later on, under another clause, I want to point out to the hon. the Deputy Minister that there is a difference between the penalty under the Water Act and the penalty under this Bill, in clause 12. The point that worries me about a prosecution is this. You know, Sir, how clever lawyers can be. What is going to happen when they come to distinguish between “a modification of the natural occurrence of atmospheric precipitation” and “the artificial promoting, accelerating, increasing, aggravating, impeding, suppressing, retarding or altering of the natural occurrence of rain”? In the Select Committee we agreed that it was urgently necessary to get this thing on to the Statute Book so that people should not have trouble as a result of unqualified, inexperienced people undertaking this sort of work. But we do feel that in these two measures there is the danger of our falling between two stools. I asked the hon. the Deputy Minister at the Second Reading whether he would not consider referring this back again to the law advisers to find out whether it would not be advisable to have merely the one body which is going to exercise control so that there can be no danger of any difference of interpretation. I think it is a real danger.

I am once again very glad that the hon. member said that they as a Select Committee all realized the necessity of having an Act so that one may exercise control. This whole House realizes that. Secondly, I am happy to know that the House also realizes that the Weather Bureau, which exercises control over modification, research, etc., falls under the department of the Minister of Transport, and that it is inconceivable that one can place the Department of Transport under the jurisdiction of another Minister as far as a certain branch of its work is concerned. That is why it is essential that the Minister of Transport with the Department of Transport should make the necessary arrangements in regard to weather modification, especially with regard to what is done in the air, not what is done on the ground. What is done on the ground, whether it be water works, contours for draining water, boring or whatever, falls under the Minister of Water Affairs. Before the Committee Stage is taken in the Other Place, I am prepared to discuss this matter with the law advisers once again to find out whether they are of the opinion that an amendment should be effected in this regard. But hon. members must realize that we should not, in this stage, amend the Act in such a way that we shall not be able to exercise the necessary control. I am glad the hon. member agrees with me. We do have the problem that we are dealing with two departments here and that an application may be lodged either with the one or with the other Minister. There is also the possibility that control may be exercised either under one Act or under the other Act. The hon. member rightly said that lawyers are sometimes difficult people; they are always looking for loopholes; that is correct. Nevertheless, we are at the initial stage of a new development here, a development which may already have adversely affected certain parties and over which we will now have to exercise control. I want to give hon. members on that side the undertaking that if we come up against the problems to which they referred here, I shall come back to this House with the necessary amendments.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 12:

Sir, I have some difficulty with this particular clause, and that is that there is a difference between the penalties provided for in this measure and the penalties imposed under the Bill which we passed in the Select Committee on the Water Amendment Bill. The provisions of the two measures are the same in the case of a first contravention, but in the case of a second contravention, where a person has been convicted of a first offence against the provisions of the Act …

That is subclause (2).

No, Sir, it is at the top of page 7, where provision is made for a fine of not less than R500 or imprisonment for a period of not less than three months. In the Water Amendment Bill which we passed the provision related to section 172 of the Water Act, where any person who is convicted of an offence shall be liable to a certain fine and, in the case of a second or subsequent conviction, to a fine of not less than R500 or to imprisonment for a period of not less than six months. There is therefore a distinction here between this Bill and the Bill submitted by the Select Committee in connection with the Water Act in that the Select Committee recommended a period of imprisonment of six months whereas the Bill now before us makes provision for a period of imprisonment of three months. I think the penalty of imprisonment in respect of a second or subsequent conviction should be the same in both cases, i.e. six months.

I am inclined to agree with the hon. member and, consequently, I undertake to look into this matter and, if necessary, put it right in the Other Place.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 13:

Mr. Chairman, this clause makes provision for this legislation to apply also in the territory of South-West Africa, “including the Eastern Caprivi Zipfel”. I take it, as a matter of interest, that the term “Eastern Caprivi Zipfel” is defined. I do not know. Is it defined? Do we know what we mean when we talk about the territory of South-West Africa, “including the Eastern Caprivi Zipfel”?

The term is defined; it is defined in other legislation

But has it been defined for the purposes of this legislation? I do not know. I raise this as a matter of interest. Ought we not to include in this clause a reference to the legislation in which the term is defined? I am not raising this point in order to be difficult, but only to bring it to the Minister’s attention.

As far as my knowledge goes, the term is defined.

Clause put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported without amendment.

Third Reading

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Time.

The hon. the Deputy Minister has referred to the fact, a fact which has been confirmed by the hon. member for Mooi River, that he was desirous of getting this Bill on the Statute Book. In this we are willing to assist him. The fact that the legislation which was piloted through this House earlier on by the hon. the Minister of Water Affairs impinges upon interests of the Department of Transport, is well known to the hon. the Deputy Minister. Everybody has so far assisted in an endeavour to iron these difficulties out. In fact, I have already paid tribute to the officials concerned in both departments who assisted the hon. the Deputy Minister and the Select Committee not only to get out of our difficulties but also to pave the way for the smooth passage of the Bill piloted through by the hon. the Minister of Water Affairs and now also this Bill.

We have no intention of delaying the passage of this Bill through the House, witness of which is the willingness of the Chief Whip on our side to allow the hon. the Deputy Minister also to take the Third Reading now. In that way we want to speed up the passage of this Bill, which to our minds is necessary.

The point the hon. member for Mooi River has raised in regard to clause 12, i.e. the question of penalties, and the point I have raised in regard to the term “Eastern Caprivi Zipfel”, have been raised not because we are trying to create difficulties, but merely because we are trying to foresee the possibility of difficulties arising, difficulties which could appropriately be tackled if not here, then in the Other Place. We do not necessarily expect the hon. the Deputy Minister to deal with these points here on the spot but we have given him the opportunity to examine the position with his officials and to put things right in the Other Place. I am only concerned about having a workable measure, a workmanlike measure, so that we shall not have any cause for regrets afterwards on account of the fact that the difficulties which we foresee can eventually result in a person who is guilty of some contravention of the provisions of this Bill, or of the Bill already piloted through this House by the Minister of Water Affairs, escaping the penalty of his wrongdoing.

We believe that the other measure is watertight and we want this Bill to be watertight too. Ultimately it rests with the Deputy Minister and with the Government to decide whether they believe that the cause of weather modification will best be served by having two separate legislative enactments remaining constantly side by side on the Statute Book, or whether the cause of weather modification cannot be best served by repealing both enactments and coming forward with an all-embracing measure at some later stage—next year or the year after, or whenever the case may be. We believe that weather modification— here we agree entirely with the Deputy Minister—is now in its infancy. This is the time to deal with it and to take the necessary measures to prevent abuse of scientific processes which, put into the hand of inexperienced men, can result in grave damage being done to people and to our country. The time for control to be exercised is now, before the thing gets out of hand. That we accept, and that we agree on entirely. Whether it may be possible hereafter, when the two departments concerned have had the opportunity of studying the two enactments quite objectively and in cold blood, to see whether in fact the cause of weather modification will not be better served by having one enactment, is a matter which we must leave in the hands of the hon. the Deputy Minister. It is not within the power of the Opposition to say what should or what should not be done in that regard. We do believe, however, that the inconsistencies between the two enactments point to the danger of having two separate enactments of this kind. The whole question of weather modification is of such importance and stretches far beyond the limits of this Bill and far beyond the limits of the Act. With every year that passes, with new scientific developments taking place, with new natural laws being examined a bit further, the further we go, the more do we believe that an all-embracing measure can probably go, even today, a good deal further than what is embodied in the measure already passed and the one that is before us this afternoon.

This we will have to leave in the hands of the hon. the Deputy Minister and the Government. There is going to be no hurry once this is placed on the Statute Book. There will be the initial control and from that point we go forward. I can assure the hon. the Deputy Minister that if they come with an all-embracing measure in which matters are tightened up and provision is made to meet the scientific achievements which our scientists are making month by month in regard to so many aspects, not only of weather modification, but of natural forces that can have a bearing on weather modification, he can rely upon the help of this side of the House to see that such a measure in the interests of South Africa is placed on the Statute Book with a minimum of delay and hindrance. But, Sir, may I also say to the hon. the Deputy Minister I hope that when that time comes he will agree once more to send the Bill to a Select Committee before its Second Reading because, surely, the lesson we have learnt this time will show to the hon. the Deputy Minister that that was a very wise step to take and that it should be repeated in future where a delicate subject of this kind is concerned.

As regards this legislation relating to weather modification or change, I think it is necessary for us to pay some attention to the legal consequences of such action in cases where permits are granted for modifying or changing the weather either to increase or to reduce the rainfall or to modify the pattern of rainfall. I think that, as a matter of interest, I should just point out that in the United States, where this matter is still in a purely experimental stage, quite a number of interesting court cases are in progress. There is one court case which has probably been going on for a decade now. A number of farmers who wanted to market cherries did not require rain at that given moment, for if it rained, the cherry fruit would burst open and this would harm the quality. Not far from that place there were a number of farmers whose wheat was on the point of ripening. These farmers wanted rain at that stage. The cherry farmers then employed a certain company to reduce the rainfall as they did not want any rain to fall on the cherry trees. However, the wheat farmers on the other side of the ridges got another company to make rain for them, because if they could get some rain at that stage, the bushel weight of the wheat would be far greater.

How does one reduce rainfall?

It is only the knowledgeable people who can speak about these matters. Then each of the two companies carried out their instructions and the company that won was the one that made rain, in other words, the one that had been commissioned by the wheat farmers. According to my information, that court case has been going on for ten years now. Then there are other cases that have been pending since 1966, cases that have therefore not yet been finalized. I think we should take note of the important fact that this legislation is not the alpha and the omega of what we may expect in the future. This legislation is a highly experimental attempt by means of which we are trying to achieve some control. I want to make a prediction today. We in South Africa are also going to have many court cases arising out of rainmaking. There is no doubt about that.

The second thing I want to say in regard to this matter is something of a more general nature. Having accepted this legislation in principle, we must also accept that we are dealing with an experimental matter here. I cannot emphasize the word “experimental” enough. In the whole world there is not one single country which has even started to penetrate the surface as far as weather modifications are concerned. If one changes or interferes with one component in the water cycle, it must necessarily affect some other component which has an equally great effect on the water cycle. When I speak about a water cycle, I mean the cycle from the point at which water evaporates from the ocean under certain temperature and pressure conditions. Through advection this water is then borne from the oceans to the continents, to the land mass. Under certain pressure and temperature conditions the water vapour develops a natural tendency to rise. This water vapour subsequently condenses and splashes down from the clouds on to the earth in the form of precipitation. During this process of precipitation, there is a loss of water as a result of evaporation. For the sake of interest, I may just mention that on the basis of certain experiments conducted in Mexico the following findings were made. The evaporation of water from a thunder cloud, since the water leaves the cloud until it reaches the ground, was, under certain temperature conditions, found to be four times as great as the amount of water reaching the ground. The water only starts falling to the ground when its weight is so great that it is attracted by gravity and pours down. Any attempt made by us to bring about a change in the water cycle from the time the water vapour leaves the ocean until it reaches the ground in the form of rain and again ends up in the ocean as run-off water—for the information of the hon. member for Orange Grove, that is the water cycle—any such attempt we make by means of the milking of clouds, the seeding of clouds or any other scientific method to create an artificial change in this water cycle, should be accompanied by great caution, yes, extreme caution, because we do not know yet what effect interfering with one component in this cycle will have on the other components. We do not know yet; science does not know yet.

I want to conclude by saying that we should therefore be extremely careful. May this Bill lead to this first step guiding us to greater wisdom in the future as we are guided in the future by experiments undertaken and methods applied by man.

Mr. Speaker, I have a note here that I should like to bring to the attention of the hon. members for Mooi River and South Coast. My department says that the penal provisions in this Bill are exactly the same as those in the Water Act. That is what the department says, but I shall also take a look at the matter at a later stage.

The penal provisions are the same?

Yes, the penal provisions are exactly the same.

As far as this matter is concerned, I do not want to venture into the field of science. I think that was done very effectively by the hon. member for Bethlehem the other day. However, I want to give the hon. member for Carletonville the assurance that we are engaged in research. As no research was undertaken by any bodies in the past, as I said in my Second Reading speech, we had no properly controlled statistical data and hence we had to introduce legislation so that control might be obtained. It is true that one should be very careful, because if one in any way upsets the balance in nature, and not only in the water cycle, problems may possibly arise. The hon. member for South Coast knows that, for example, we upset the balance in the rivers by killing the crocodiles and now we have to breed crocodiles so that the balance may be restored. When man upsets the balance, a chain reaction takes place at some future time, a reaction which may cause problems. Therefore we should be careful.

†Mr. Speaker, I also want to thank the hon. members, especially the hon. members for South Coast and Mooi River, and all the members of the Select Committee, for the assistance rendered by them. It is so that we are only in the infancy of research and we do hope that the scientific achievements derived from this Bill in the future will be to the benefit of South Africa as a whole. I want to assure the hon. member for South Coast that in administering this Bill when it becomes an Act, I shall take cognizance of the suggestions which he made, of the suggestions made by the Select Committee as a whole and also of the doubts that he has expressed in connection with the administration of this Bill. We shall be very careful. I also want to assure him that if we may find it necessary to come back to this House, we shall be able to have an open discussion as this is not a political matter. It is to the benefit of South Africa as a whole.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Chairman, at this stage we have already accepted the principle of building this particular railway line. The replies given by the hon. the Minister were not very satisfactory and after a close inspection and an examination over the weekend, of the course this railway is going to take, I realize that much more time should be given to the consideration of the construction of this particular line. I am now speaking about the line from the Table Bay harbour extension to a junction on the Kensington-Chempet line. Reference is made to this line in the First Schedule of the Bill. What will the effect of this railway line be? It is not just the building of a link from the new Cape Town harbour to the main line and eventually to Bellville. It is a double, electrified line and is going to be used for the conveyance of large quantities of goods from the harbour. As a matter of fact, I think the planning, allowing for only two tracks, is ridiculous. We all know that a third or fourth line might be necessary in the future, and I think that now is the time to plan for it. The extension of Table Bay harbour is very extensive and the tonnage expected to be handled by this harbour will exceed the tonnage handled by the present harbour at the moment. Through this extension the harbour is going to be enlarged considerably.

I would like to get back to the point and discuss the effects of this line. In his usual casual way the Minister brushed away the question of putting this line through a covered cutting to avoid the break-up of the urban area. In this regard I would like to refer to other examples in this country. I think the Minister will know the line between Pretoria and Silverton. Where at tremendous cost the process had to be reversed. That line used to run on the surface, which resulted in a large number of level crossings. This line divided up the urban section of Pretoria to a large degree. At tremendous cost to the Government that line was sunk, and this has made a terrific difference. As a matter of fact, today the one-time division of that part of Pretoria has almost totally disappeared. The same thing could happen here. I am not particularly worried about the water. The hon. the Minister might not know this, but there are quite a number of railway lines overseas which actually run under rivers. Water is therefore not a great difficulty today. I am fairly certain that the railway line leaving the harbour could probably be rerouted to greater effect by putting it into a covered cutting similar to the crossing planned at the airfield at Ysterplaat and then joining it up with the main line. If the engineer’s report is correct, and I have no doubt it is, one realizes that the extra cost cannot be so high. In giving the topography of this area, the following is stated:

I do not think there is any great hurry about building this line. The report says it is going to take four years to complete. The necessity may arise at a later stage to extend it. I wonder whether the Minister should not hold up the project and have another look at it. He could devise a line where we could have a couple of extra tracks, a line which could be sunk. I am fairly certain the outlook of his department towards this line is: “Well, we just link it through, even if we have to take down a few houses. But we stick it under the airfield, because we do not want the aeroplanes to run into the trains.” I think that is the way it was looked at by the Minister. But we want something different in Cape Town. We want to see this line disappear underground if they want to build it there. It could be done quite easily. The day of the underground railway in this country is coming rapidly. It has been done in other parts of the country. I can remember the position of the old famous Jeppes crossing when I was a schoolboy, and how they had to sink the line there. Public opinion forced them to do it, at terrific cost. I would like to make an appeal to the hon. the Deputy Minister. He is spending R9 million on this particular line. It is going to take four years to build. I suggest to him to have another look at it. I think he has plenty of time to do so. I feel, first of all, that two tracks are insufficient. I am fairly certain that they will find, in time to come, that they will at least need four tracks out of the Cape Town docks area when the present dock is extended. I think this is the time the Deputy Minister should start planning for that. He should acquire the ground and build the line accordingly. That is my appeal to the hon. the Deputy Minister at this stage.

Mr. Chairman, I want to tell the hon. member for Salt River in the first place that it is not necessary for him to try to lecture me on underground railway lines. It so happens that my eldest brother built the first underground line in Johannesburg, the one which leaves the Eloff extension. In other words, I am quite familiar with the problems and also with the advantages of underground railway lines. I pointed out to hon. members in the Second Reading debate that a very thorough investigation had been conducted by the planning engineer, that four alternative routes had been planned, and that a calculation of expenses had been drawn up for all four of these various alternative routes. I also pointed out in the Second Reading debate that where the line passes the runway of the air force base, it is almost flush with the ground. But I also pointed out to hon. members that this is a railway line to serve the harbour. Besides, the harbour lies on the level, above sea level. I gave hon. members the assurance that these various aspects had been examined, also in the light of the interview which we granted the hon. member for Maitland and his delegation. I want to tell hon. members that it is not true that the Minister simply said that 40 houses would have to be taken down, and “so what”. That is not the case. I want to give this Committee the assurance that this Minister is very concerned about housing in South Africa. I know this from other actions of his in regard to the provision of funds for housing, etc. Where we can save houses, this will be done. Our engineers have investigated the matter thoroughly. They are among the best engineers in South Africa and they are equal to any in the world. They told us, in regard to the cost structure, “This is the line”. Since it has also been examined by the Railway Board the Minister has no option but to accept this line.

Mr. Chairman, it does one’s heart good to hear that the hon. the Deputy Minister has proper experience of underground trains. He has also told us that the matter has been very thoroughly investigated. I accept this, and I should not like to say that the Railway Administration and its engineers have not investigated the matter. But I think that a fact which the hon. the Deputy Minister should not lose sight of is that the investigation always takes place on the basis of the cost.

Of course.

The Deputy Minister will remember that he was told by the deputation which came to see him that he should be careful not to think of the cost alone when we are dealing with a matter which affects such an important neighbourhood so radically. The hon. the Deputy Minister told us that the line was already going to be covered to a certain extent and that the line was going to be underground. But where is it going to be underground? The line will be underground where it passes the airport. But where the line goes through the residential area, and where it really causes alarm, it is going to run through an open cutting, as it were. The matter put to the hon. the Deputy Minister by the hon. member for Salt River is very reasonable. Let us take a good look at the matter now. That railway line from the new harbour extension runs along the coast for almost a mile. Then there is an elbow turn where the line turns in the direction of the air-field; the hon. the Deputy Minister knows this. There is no reason whatsoever why the line, after having left the harbour area, cannot sink slowly where it runs along the coast for almost a mile, so that when it reaches the residential area it will be almost underground. As soon as the line is then underground, it should be covered. A road could be built over it, for example. Why should the train be above the ground when it goes through the residential areas? It may cost more; it may cost R1 million more, but the Deputy Minister will have to be the first to recognize that even if it should cost R1 million more to remove that alarm of the people in that residential area, it would be worth-while. It would at least show the residents of that area that the Minister tried. At the moment the cost of this railway line amounts to R9 million. Would it really make such a difference if it should cost R11 million or R12 million? We must remember that it is a line which will not be there for today and tomorrow only.

This is an Opposition that is always saying that we spend too much.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Deputy Minister must not tempt me. I have a very good reply to him, but I suppose it is not appropriate here in the Committee Stage. Let me return to my point. I believe that the hon. the Deputy Minister should do his very best and should perhaps reconsider the matter in an attempt to get this railway line underground as far as possible. If this can be done, it should then be covered so that the new roads extension which is being planned by the Provincial Administration and the Cape Town City Council could pass over the covered railway line. This would prevent that line from always being a source of irritation in that neighbourhood.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 3:

Mr. Chairman, this clause provides the following, inter alia—

In respect of the construction and equipment of the said lines of railway the State President shall have the powers conferred by the Railway Expropriation Act, 1955 …

I consulted this Act and it appears that the Railways will be obliged in terms of the Expropriation Act to pay these people a price for their properties, for their houses, which shall not exceed the market value, in ordinary language. This is the price which a willing seller is prepared to accept from a willing buyer. I want to put in a plea to the hon. the Deputy Minister in this regard. The construction of this railway line has been accepted in principle. I want to plead that when this expropriation takes place, the hon. the Deputy Minister should stretch that Act just as far as he possible can. We are dealing here with people who in many cases are not of the wealthiest. These are people who attach more importance to a house and to whom a house means more than just accommodation. To these people it is a place to live and I should like to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister to stretch to the utmost the elasticity of the Act, if such a thing exists.

The clause goes on to say that the width of the land taken for each line shall not exceed 35 metres. Where we are dealing here with a double railway line, does this mean that it is regarded as two railway lines for the purposes of the Bill? If this is in fact the case, it means that together the two lines would occupy a width of almost 70 metres, and surely that cannot be. I take it that it will be 35 metres for the double line?

Yes, 35 metres.

Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to tell the hon. member for Maitland that it is the policy that the Government under no circumstances enriches itself at the expense of the individual. In other words, the Government is obliged to pay the individual his full value. But the hon. member for Maitland and the Committee will also agree with me that we are the treasurers of the money of the taxpayers of South Africa, and as treasurers it is also our responsible task to see to it that the funds of the Railways and the funds of the taxpayers are spent in an absolutely economic way. It must be spent in the best economic way. [Interjections.] No, it is not pennywise, pound foolish. I repeat: The Government will not enrich itself at the expense of the individual, but the Government cannot allow the Opposition or the Auditor-General to charge the Government tomorrow or the day after with having favoured certain people with public funds. Therefore the matter must be dealt with on an economic level. We shall take into consideration what the hon. member said. We know that people are being displaced and we shall take it into consideration.

Mr. Chairman, it is not our suggestion that Government money should be wasted. The position is that we are not building this line for today or for tomorrow; we are building it for the future. I take it that in the planning there was some sort of forecast of what the line would carry and what its costs would be. Costs will increase in future, and we can surely not build another line like this. Surely all this was included in the estimated costs. It must have been included.

Yes, it was.

It does not appear on the Estimates. The Estimates only contain the cost of the building of the line. When we appeal to the hon. the Deputy Minister to think not only of today and tomorrow, but to look to the future, we are not trying to waste the Government’s money, but to save it, because if this line has to be improved—and public opinion will force him to provide something better—then it will cost very much more than at the present time. That is all we are asking. We are trying to save the Government money by looking to the future. We know this area, and all we are asking the hon. the Deputy Minister is to look a bit further ahead than he is at the moment.

Clause put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported without amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I move as an amendment—

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Clause 7:

Mr. Chairman, I move as an amendment—

1. (b) any moneys payable to an owner of such land in terms of any such law shall be paid to the Minister for appropriation as he may think fit for the promotion of the welfare of the inhabitants of Namaland and the general development of Namaland.

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with amendments.

Sir, it is now very clear to me why the official Opposition is opposing and disputing the activities of the Department of Planning. It is clear to me that we are dealing with an official Opposition which is completely opposed to the implementation of the Physical Planning Act. In other words, they are opposed to the decentralisation of industries. We are dealing with an Opposition that is opposed to group area development; we are dealing with an Opposition that last week broke a solemn agreement with their political antics in connection with the 1936 legislation. I could never understand in the past how the official Opposition could oppose an Act like the Physical Planning Act and the Natural Resources Development Act, but now it is clear to me, and the official Opposition owes it to this House and to the public to say where they stand as far as the future geographic, demographic and economic development of the Republic is concerned. It is a foregone conclusion, as far as I am concerned, that this official Opposition is working towards economic integration; that they are obsessed by that concept and by the policy of this side, i.e. the right to self-determination for the various peoples with the preservation of their own identities.

On Friday the main speaker on the Opposition side, the hon. member for Hillbrow. attacked this Government because the growth rate last year was not up to expectations. Everyone acknowledged frankly that our real growth rate last year was not the growth we would have liked to have and have had in the past. The hon. member now suddenly holds it against the hon. the Minister and his department because our growth rate last year was not as high as indicated by the projection of the economic development programme. In recent years we have had a greater real growth for South Africa than the economic development programme had planned. That was the only year the hon. member can mention in which our real growth was below 5,5 per cent, and there are good reasons for this, reasons beyond our control. The hon. member is fully aware that on an international level we were up against an economic set-up that has caused trouble, not only in South Africa, but also in America, England and all the big Western countries. He is fully aware that we were up against an overheated economy. He is fully aware that we were up against the problem of the creation of capital in the Republic. The hon. member blamed us for the ostensible overspending by the State. That was one of our big problems, but with the big growth that took place in South Africa there had to be large capital expenditure, but in this year’s Budget capital expenditure is being drastically restricted because we believe that the services that have already been established will be able to provide for the needs of the development that is now taking place. Sir, what is the true position? The true position is that decentralization is a foregone conclusion as far as this side of the House is concerned. This side of the House believes that economically the Republic of South Africa must grow as rapidly as possible. We believe in a vital economy that can furnish the State with sufficient revenue with a view to its gigantic development plans in the years ahead.

Today I want to concentrate on one section within the framework of the policy of the National Party, i.e. the development of the relative growth points.

And what about the growth points in the homelands …

I want to tell the hon member for Hillbrow that this is a growth point of a decentralized area bordering on the homeland. I want to refer to the conduct of the hon. member for Hillbrow last Thursday and to that of the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens and the hon. member for Port Natal. I say unequivocally today that the hon. member for Port Natal is plainly opposed to group areas. With reference to this hon. member’s speech last Friday, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition must say whether his party still believes in group areas. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central expressed an idea that I never thought would be allowed by the official Opposition. He said the hon. the Minister should allow more Bantu into the Port Elizabeth area so that in bargaining with the Coloureds, with respect to salaries and wages, they would have the whip-hand to keep the Coloureds’ salaries and wages in check. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central knows nothing whatsoever about labour legislation. Bargaining takes place on a productivity basis. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central, however, lodges a plea for the Department of Planning to allow more Bantu, thereby to keep the Coloureds’ wage demands in check. This hon. Opposition can use the same machinery when they come into power, i.e. they can use Bantu labour against the White worker in South Africa. I am convinced that their whole basic approach is one of economic integration and the exploitation of the workers of South Africa.

As you are now doing in the border areas.

As far as the group areas are concerned, I am coming along today with tangible proof, and for the first time in many years I am proudly using my own constituency as an example. Rustenburg is one of the growth points, and in that connection I want to pay tribute to the hon. the Minister, his secretary and the department. If one were to look at the physical planning of this border industry area and take note of the purposefulness and farsightedness with which the democratic set-up of this industrial area has been planned, the physical planning and co-ordination between this department, the Department of Transport, the South African Railways and the Department of Bantu Administration, one would find it to be a model example. This industrial area borders on a Bantu township. There are no transport problems. It is linked to the broad framework of group areas and is connected to the town by way of an access road. Sections of railway are already being built. What is nice is that in the Budget an amount of no less than R1,7 million is being loaned this year to the local authority at an interest rate that is so reasonable that it can serve as an encouragement to any local authority to tackle similar projects with daring. What is the position? The local authority has been activated by this relevant department to the extent that certain services are being underaken by the local authority itself to bring about a saving. The hon. Opposition has no contact with the platteland of the Republic of South Africa any longer, the “deep platteland” as their secretary calls it. They were deeply perturbed about the restrictions affecting the platinum mine, when the workers had to leave for the cities. They were happy in the platteland atmosphere because careful and precise care is taken there of educational facilities and all kinds of social facilities that are essential to a happy community. The concept of backward areas no longer exists today. They are completely out of tune with the rural frame of mind. I courteously want to ask the hon. the Minister a question. This development is going to be a gigantic success; there is no question about that. It is going to be a great development; that industrial area is going to be one of the biggest industrial areas and is largely going to contribute to the economic viability of our country. The economic development in the Rustenburg growth point will be a powerful support for our industrial development. Since at this stage, throughout the Republic, we are dealing with environmental pollution due to mistakes or due to rapid development in the past, since we are faced with air pollution, environmental pollution and all the accompanying problems in the metropolitan areas, I courteously want to ask the hon. the Minister for the closest co-operation with the relevant industrialists who will be transferring to Rustenburg and erecting their buildings there, for this evil to be prevented. I want to ask for timely planning to combat air pollution and environmental pollution. I want to ask that work be done along these lines because Rustenburg’s natural scenery cannot be surpassed. I want a happy community there that can fully accept the challenge of the future and make a success of it. I want to conclude by making a serious though urgent appeal to the official Opposition to stop sowing suspicion against the decentralization of industries. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Rustenburg has spoken about the application of the Physical Planning Act. He knows why we oppose that Act. We did not oppose the principle of the Act, but we opposed certain of its provisions and particularly we opposed the manner in which we knew the Government would apply it. I want to say that our opposition has been completely justified by the manner in which this Government has in fact applied that Act. I want to ask ffie hon. member for Rustenburg and his Minister why the Government does not want to create, growth points within the Bantu areas. What are they afraid of? Why do they not want to listen to the advice which has so often been given to them by this side of the House? Let us develop those growth points inside the Bantu areas and let us forget and get away from the ideological idea of developing only in border areas.

I am sure that hon. members have heard enough about this from other members on this side of the House during the debate on Friday. Therefore I want to come back to the point where the hon. the Minister left off on Friday afternoon. He was dealing with the question of the proclamation of Stockville Valley, which falls within my constituency. I want to say that I welcome the statement which was made by the Minister on Friday. I want to congratulate him at least on having been honest, which is something we cannot always say about replies that come from that side of the House.

What are you insinuating?

When I say this I do not mean it in a bad sense. Hon. members must give me a chance to explain what I mean. What I mean is that the hon. the Minister at least got up and conceded that there was a possibility that a mistake had been made. He made certain other concessions, and this is what I had in mind when I said that he was honest in the administration of his department.

It is a question of manners.

No, it is not a question of manners, and I say that with all respect to the hon. the Minister of Sport and Recreation. He even went so far as to say that perhaps in the past their planning has been on an ad hoc basis. He went on to say, “We are now moving in the direction where we hope to lay down guide lines for the future”. This is why we congratulate him on that, but I want to ask him particularly to reconsider the question regarding Stockville. He has indicated that he did not know, and that he was not aware of, the true facts when this proclamation was made. He has indicated that he still does not know all the facts as far as Stockville is concerned. This is so particularly when we look at the replies to the questions which were asked of the hon. the Minister by the hon. member for Pinetown on 23rd May. He cannot even tell us how many people there are and what they are producing approximately. When the Minister replied he said that there were approximately 200 families, but I want to say that there are 400 families and not 200. The Minister shrugs his shoulders. This is the point. When the hon. member for Pinetown asked him further where he is going to resettle these people, he said that it was not his baby, but who plans these areas for people? Surely, when the hon. the Minister’s board considers the zoning of an area, it considers what it is going to do with the people who are resident there at the time. As was pointed out by my hon. friend from Pinetown, by interjection while the Minister was speaking, there are no Coloureds in Stockville today. The Minister has been ill-advised, or the department has, when he said that Stockville is the logical extension of the Mariannhill area. I want to say that it is a dead-end and the hon. the Minister in his own explanation expained that this was a dead-end and that this runs up against this vast kranz which is on the edge of a White area. The logical extension of the Mariannhill area is up the valley and not into the Stockville valley, which is a deadend. It is therefore entirely unnecessary for him to move these people, and he still cannot tell us where he is going to move them. Is he making provision for alternative farmland for every one of those people? When I tackled the hon. the Minister and the members of his board about this before, he always replied blindly that alternative farmland was made available for farmers who were displaced. But today I want to ask him especially: Where will alternative farmland be made available for these people? We asked him if he knew how much produce was produced there. He does not know. What sort of planning is this that he does not even know what is being produced in an area when he removes the people from it? That valley produces 80 per cent of the fresh flowers which are sold in Durban’s Indian Market; it produces 20 per cent of the vegetables and 20 per cent of the fruit which are sold in the Indian Market in Durban. We have a completely viable community there. However, he says that he was not aware of all the facts when he signed the proclamation.

I want to appeal to him today: Will he please make himself aware of all the facts? He did intimate that he might even pay a visit to Stockville. I appeal to him to reconsider the position when he returns to Pretoria. I ask him in all seriousness and in all kindness to personally pay a visit to Stockville valley, and to undertake to meet the hon. member for Pinetown and myself who share that particular area and reconsider the whole question of Stockville. I do not believe that he will be setting a precedent by doing it, particularly if he deproclaims it, because, as I have mentioned before, this is something which happens quite regularly, notwithstanding the statement he has made that this only happens under exceptional circumstances. I believe that exceptional circumstances do exist as far as Stockville is concerned, the most important of which being the fact that he has been misled by his board.

Above all, I want to urge the hon. the Minister that he should make this visit soon, early. This must be done soon to remove the uncertainty which exists over those Indian people who are resident there today. These are Indian people who, on their own initiative, collected R10 000 which was subsidized by the Government through the Department of Indian Affairs, and established their own school. They did this with the R10 000 which they collected. This is a community which has put its roots down and which has settled, but they are now merely being torn up and moved nobody knows where.

I must draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to a statement made by his colleague, the hon. the Minister of Community Development, which appeared in a newspaper on Saturday under the headlines: “Stockville reprieve for Indians”. The hon. the Minister of Community Development said that he would shelve the resettlement scheme for the time being. This is not enough for these people and I think that the comment of Mr. Rajab, with whom I do not always agree I admit, is valid in this case. I quote—

These are the questions which I believe the hon. the Minister must answer now. He owes it to the people of Stockville.

I mentioned the question of deproclamation of group areas. Once again I should like to draw the attention of both these hon. Ministers who are here—I am very glad that they are here—to a Press statement that they issued on 3rd February, 1971. I quote—

What was the statement that I had made? The statement which I had made was that these communities were going to be moved and that no Indians or Coloureds living even in proclaimed group areas were certain that they would be left there.

In all the group areas they will be moved?

I made the statement because I was aware of all the areas which had been deproclaimed and reproclaimed. When I pointed out to the hon. the Minister of Planning last year that 51 had already been deproclaimed, he queried my figures, but I based my figures on answers to questions which he and his department had supplied in this House. I have subsequently put other questions and I find now that not only 51, but 63 proclaimed group areas and portions of group areas have subsequently been deproclaimed, 12 in the last two years. I sincerely hope that there were exceptional circumstances which prevailed at the time justifying the deproclamation of those areas. What do we find in the report of the department? We find that on 30th June, 1971, there were still 17 more group areas being investigated, as to whether or not they should be deproclaimed. I wonder if the hon. the Minister can tell us what exceptional circumstances exist to justify the investigation of a further 17 after 63 have already been deproclaimed, and if he will also tell us for which groups those 17 areas have been proclaimed. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District, who has just resumed his seat, said that the Minister had now reached a “dead-end”. I want to tell him that no one is closer to a “dead-end” than the United Party. Even their Sunday Times states that they have reached a “dead-end” because as far as their policy is concerned they disagree within their own ranks about what they want and what they do not want. In this debate Opposition speakers mentioned that they are opposed to the Physical Planning Act, a measure controlling the over-concentration of industries and the over-concentration of the various population groups. They also intimated their opposition to the Group Areas Act, an Act that regulates the residential areas for the various population groups. In addition they intimated that they are opposed to the Industrial Conciliation Act, an Act protecting the White workers and the non-White workers. This attests to shortsightedness because of the materialism these people advocate and their integrationist desires. We know this is a short-term policy. Inter alia, they also say that these Acts have not succeeded in their objects. I just want to assure hon. members opposite that this is nothing but wishful thinking.

The question now is what the Opposition is offering and how they are going to solve these questions in a multi-national country like South Africa. In other countries of the world decentralization is the correct thing. In countries with a homogeneous population decentralization is in order. However, when it comes to South Africa, where we have a heterogeneous population, this is not the case; according to the Opposition it is wrong.

One of the most important production factors is probably the labour used in the production process. The United Party says the Bantu must be able to sell his labour on the best market. I now want to know from them, if that is so, how they are going to handle influx control. In South Africa attention must increasingly be focused on the influx of the Black man to the White cities. This influx can only be counteracted by factories being shifted to and established at site positions between the places of residences of the White entrepreneurs and those of the Black labourers. This meeting ground of common interests must be kept, as far as possible, outside the centre of the Black cities. The reasons for that are obvious. We can mention reasons, such as the distribution of production factors, which are essential, and transport facilities through metropolitan areas to facilitate the transport of Bantu labourers, eliminate points of friction, restrict the presence of Bantu in White cities and to prevent overconcentration of the population. We have in mind traffic problems as well as transport problems. We are thinking of the provision of facilities for Whites in White cities in order to eliminate the problems.

In the valley area to the west of the Apies River we are saddled today with a serious problem in regard to industrial establishment in Pretoria. Section No. 317JR of the farm Sandfontein, which covers 352 ha, was already zoned for industrial purposes in the forties by the Hercules Town Council and was proclaimed in 1960, before the commencement of the Physical Planning Act. The circumstances and position of Sandfontein with respect to Pretoria has changed completely since the Hercules Town Council zoned that area for industrial establishment. This area is situated only five miles from the centre of Pretoria and is equal in area to Rosslyn, if not larger. In 1965 the authorities decided to extend the industrial site at Rosslyn. Let me furnish a few figures from Die Transvaler of 19th May, 1972, to illustrate how Sandfontein will look if we allow industrial establishment there (translation)—

Sir, I am mentioning these figures to draw a comparison between the development at Rosslyn and the possible development at Sandfontein. If it were not for this policy I wonder where the 11 500 Bantu with their families would have lived. This would have meant 75 500 more Black people in Pretoria, if we take it that there are five members to each family. Now I want to advocate very seriously to the hon. the Minister that if it is at all possible, serious attention should be given to the Sandfontein industrial area with a view to finding another way out. But if this appears to be impossible one will have to impose very strict control. I want to advocate that care be taken that no industry that does not strictly fall within the White/ Bantu labour relationship, be established there—if it is impossible to find another way out with respect to that land. Industries dependent on intensive Bantu labour can definitely not be allowed there.

Then there are many other reasons why industries cannot be established west of the Apies River, inter alia, air pollution. Since the area lies between two series of ridges, the smog is forced downwards. What is more, that land would be very suitable for housing purposes for our lower and middle income groups. My plea is therefore that the Minister should please consider this matter very seriously.

Mr. Chairman, I hope the hon. member for Hercules will excuse me if I do not follow his line of argument; he dealt with local problems. I should like to direct my remarks to the hon. the Minister in his capacity as Minister of Statistics, because I believe that there is very considerable room for improvement in the statistical services which his department renders to South Africa. In saying that, I should like to say that I believe that the shortcomings in our statistical services are probably due mainly to a shortage of staff in the Department of Statistics. I am in no way critical of the efforts of the existing staff, because I believe that they apply themselves to their tasks in a most diligent and skilful manner.

I should like to suggest to the hon. the Minister that it is the delay in the publication of statistics rather than the variety or the content of the statistics themselves that is the main shortcoming as far as our statistical services are concerned, but I do regard this shortcoming as being a very serious one indeed. Statistics are necessarily an historical record of events that have already taken place, but the more historical they become and the more out of date they are, the less value do they have for the people who use them, whereas conversely, the more up to date and the more contemporary our statistics are, the more their value is enhanced for planning, for organizing and for decision-making. I regard up-to-date statistics as being absolutely vital when it comes to making rational decisions on economic and financial matters.

As an indication of what I mean by saying that our statistics are not as up-to-date as I would like to see them, I should like to refer to one of the main publications of the Department of Statistics, namely its Bulletin, which is published once a quarter, and look at a few statistics of the more important indicators published in that bulletin. Published more or less at the same time, also quarterly, is the South African Reserve Bank Quarterly Bulletin which contains many of the same series of statistics, so that one is able to compare the relative “up-to-dateness” of the statistics of the Department of Statistics with those produced by another of our main sources, namely the Reserve Bank. Let us take the figure of employment in private manufacturing industry. The latest figure available to us in the March Quarterly Bulletin of Statistics is for September, 1971, whereas the Reserve Bank was able to publish a figure, within a week or two of the publication of this figure, which was two months more recent, namely the figures for November, 1971. In regard to imports and exports, the latest figure available in the Bulletin of Statistics is for July, 1971. The Reserve Bank publishes the figures for January, 1972. In other words, the figures in the latter publication refer to a period six months later. These are figures which are, after all, available in the Government Gazette some six weeks after the end of the month to which they refer. Then I come to the value of retail trade. This is a very important indicator of consumer spending. The latest figure available is for August, 1971, whereas the Reserve Bank can give us the figures for October, 1971. In the case of the figures regarding motor trade sales the latest figure available is again for August, 1971; the Reserve Bank publishes the figure for January, 1972, and I may say that this is a figure which is available within a few days after the end of each month, when they are published by the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers. In the case of the index of Stock Exchange shares, the share prices, the latest figure available, believe it or not, is for July, 1971. Yet this is a figure which is published daily by most newspapers, and hourly by some. Finally we have the figure relating to the consumer price index. The latest figure available to us in this Bulletin is for November, 1971, whereas the Reserve Bank has been able to publish a figure two months more recent. Generally speaking, that is the picture in the case of all the statistics. I must repeat that speed is of the essence in statistics, if they are to be valuable. I should like to suggest to the hon. the Minister that he considers bringing the statistics up to date by, for a time, publishing only the latest statistics, and allowing the intervening period to go blank until he has the resources and the staff, or whatever is necessary, to bring the information relating to those intervening months up to date.

I should also like to ask the hon. the Minister whether he is encouraging the statistical council, which is provided for in the Statistics Act, to play its full part. I believe that the statistical council can be a very useful body, providing a useful link between the private sector and Government departments and his Department of Statistics, and advising the Department of Statistics of the requirements not only of the private sector but also of the Government authorities. To be useful, it must function continuously. What did we find last year? We found that the statistical council was not even in being for most of 1971. Its members retired automatically at the end of November, 1970, and no new members were appointed until the latter half of 1971, so that, in effect, the council was not functioning at all for most of last year. I hope, Sir, that the hon. the Minister is not relegating the statistical council to an unimportant role, because I do believe that in the improvement of our statistical services, that council can play a very useful part, and as I have indicated, I believe that there is ample room for such improvement in those services.

Mr. Chairman, in a few words I want to deal with the Opposition on the basis of the Physical Planning Act. As a result of the pleas lodged during the past week by Mr. Harry Oppenheimer and Mr. Harry Schwartz for better facilities for the urban Bantu, yesterday’s Sunday Times clinched the matter by reporting:

Sir, that is no new standpoint. We are familiar with that standpoint, but I should like to know how the Opposition contemplates planning for one integrated labour force of 20 million people. They have not yet told us that, and it is time they did so. On few occasions do the Opposition’s sins catch up with them as easily and do they become as enmeshed in their own snares as in the case of planning. Whether one talks to them about the separation of areas or about the establishment of industries, about manpower, labour arrangements or about economic planning, one is talking over their heads, for the simple reason that they ignore one basic fact of life, i.e. that there are no two peoples that are alike. This deprives them of the ability to distinguish; it deprives them of their understanding of, not to mention appreciation for, that which is one’s own. Take the Physical Planning Act, an Act which in South Africa’s circumstances is the proper instrument, not only for orderly planning, but also to allow for justice and fairness to all national groups. There is no other Act about which so many ugly remarks have been made as about this Physical Planning Act. It has been presented as an Act allegedly placing dictatorial powers in the hands of the Minister; as an Act allegedly based on Draconian principles and ruinous ideological foundations. It has even been said of this Act that in its use we are adopting a “suicide course”. I am sure that if I were to ask them today whether they are in favour of the decentralization of industries, border industries and aspects of that kind, they would reply in the words of the Cape Argus that wrote—

In other words, they are ostensibly in favour of the decentralization of industries, of border industries, but, in heaven’s name, this simply must not promote separate development. When they are opposed to separate development it goes without saying that they are also opposed to the decentralization of industries, whatever they may say. I want to state that the reason why they overlook so may things is because they have a consuming hunger for money and comfort. In fact, Sir, that is the driving force behind their struggle to keep the Bantu in South Africa; that is the driving force behind their philosophy of one integrated nation of 20 million people, a philosophy for which there is no justification whatsoever.

Sir, I think it is fitting, for the sake of the record, to go back a little and catch up a few threads by quoting from the report of the Social and Economic Planning Council, a body instituted by that side of the House, people of their own choice, with instructions to investigate the evils of the overconcentration of industries and the accompanying over-concentration of populations. I am referring to the ninth report of that council that deals, in particular, with “The Native Reserves and their place in the economy of the Union of South Africa”. Paragraph 256, which is regarded as so important that it is printed in large black type, reads as follows—

And please note, Sir, “the responsibility must rest with the State”, not with the private sector—

Where can one find a more express plea and unconditional recommendation for the decentralization of industries? The population pressure on the metropolitan areas must be relieved and this must in fact be done by means of decentralization. The report then continues and even mentions the names of places where industries must be established, and after the report has pointed out that it would be a mistake if steps are not taken immediately and without delay, it states further—

And then we have this significant sentence—

Sir, there sits the Opposition, caught in their own snares, and now condemning this Physical Planning Act with pious faces, an Act which is merely precisely and thoroughly implementing the recommendations of their own people.

Sir, one asks oneself: Why did they not implement all the recommendations of that council? Because it was not in South Africa’s interests? No, Sir, they did not do so because it does not accord with their own egotistical philosophy. For the sake of appearances, and as consolation, they did in fact institute land control—that is all, but of course that was not enough to handle this problem, and that is why this Government came along, took the bull by the horns, and also instituted control over the establishment of new industries and the development of existing ones. Now the Opposition comes along and incites the industries by telling the industrialists they will be forced to shift and that they will then be deprived of their freedom. That is the biggest nonsense in the world. We all know this Act has nothing to do with that, that it only relates to the establishment of new industries and the development of existing ones. I want to emphasize—and I do so with the utmost appreciation for the gigantic part that industries have played in the development of our economy—that South Africa deos not serve the industries, the industries serve South Africa. It is their task to help create wealth by producing goods; to provide job opportunities for a growing population; to develop commerce. But that is not all. It is also their task to serve the fatherland. In fact, the supreme right is that of the people whom everyone serves, the right to lay claim to order, security and prosperity; and for this, Sir, the people look to the Government. Therefore it is clear, in the Government’s view, that they can grant the industries all the freedoms except one, and that is to excuse themselves or dissociate themselves from this task and to develop along lines that are not in the interests of the fatherland. Economic considerations are, of course, of the utmost importance in the establishment of industries, but of equal importance is that social considerations should be taken into account, particularly in a country like South Africa with its large diversity of national groups. The decentralization of industries does hold financial implications for the entrepreneur, but we must not lose sight of the fact that the continued concentration of industries not only has far-reaching financial consequences for the general public and Government bodies, in the sense that it requires tremendous expenditure on housing and public services, but that at the same time it also has far-reaching social consequences. In addition to the good reasons for decentralization there also exists, as far as South Africa is concerned, an additional and particularly compelling reason for doing this, i.e. to ensure our survival. Sir, if we take into account that South Africa is confronted by the most vicious forces in the world, that it is confronted by the demand of meeting the individual needs of the greatest number of different population groups one could possibly have in the world … [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I want to speak about another aspect of planning, and that is the combating of pollution and the protection of the lovely environment in which we live. The hon. the Minister of Planning has stated very clearly in the past that he and his department regard themselves as being responsible for the co-ordination of all steps to protect our environment and combat pollution. The protection of the environment is a great and widely branching field, with pollution increasing at a continually accelerated pace in conjunction with the population explosion. Every day we see and read about appalling examples of pollution. Our golden beaches are polluted with sticky oil, thousands upon thousands of seabirds, particularly our special Cape Pengiuns, are dying of suffocation, while large numbers of fish are dying in our rivers. The latter aspect is a symptom of rivers which are poisoned and which then, devoid of life, eventually die themselves. Examples of such dying rivers are the Jukskei, Umgeni, Umkomaas, Tugela and several others. In the CSIR’s 1971 report, mention is made of the excellent work of our scientists, inter alia, the work being done by the air pollution group under their head, Mr. D. C. Halliday, and by the National Institute for Water Research, under their director, Dr. G. J. Stander. They are hard at work to lay down adapted modern standards. We should like to congratulate them on the excellent work they have already done.

In the latest reports about the activities of the Department of Planning, two or three examples are mentioned, in a few brief sentences, of activities and co-ordination. In the first place there is the liaison with the Committee for Oceanic Matters, the Subsidiary Committee on Pollution and the Subsidiary Committee for the Occurrence and Combating of Noise. That is all there is in that whole report about the combating of pollution. We should like to know more about the co-ordination, action and liaison by the Department of Planning in this connection. In replies to questions the hon. the Prime Minister entrusted the responsibility for certain types of pollution to various departments. Thus the combating of noise has, for example, been allocated to the Department of Labour and the Department of Transport that deals with trains and jet aircraft. But what about military aircraft, motorbikes, the traffic on our roads and the stamping out of noise that is constantly taking place in our industries? A national code must be laid down for implementation by various bodies in the field, which will include every sector, from motorists to industrialists.

The responsibility for smoke and pollution the Prime Minister entrusted to the Department of Transport and Health. I should like to know who is responsible for factory smoke and gases. The Department of Water Affairs is responsible for sewerage and effluent. But who is responsible for industrial effluent? Impure water even comes into the country from mountain catchment areas from neighbouring states. This water is already badly polluted by organic nitrogen compounds, probably because of the densely populated rural areas with their large numbers of animals. The combating of pollution of this kind can become an international matter.

Oil pollution at sea is specifically the responsibility of the Department of Economic Affairs. This is more administrative in nature, and in actual fact the department has few executive powers. In my opinion this could more profitably belong to the Department of Transport, which has ships at its disposal to sail out and combat pollution at sea. The responsibility for the rubbish and the mess that defaces our country’s natural scenery, for example mineral bottles, beer cans and plastic bottles, has not been allocated to any Government department. It is probably regarded as being the responsibility of the provincial and municipal departments. The consumer is already being held responsible for pollution to a certain extent, and fines are being imposed.

I also believe that the manufacturer and the distributor—in other words, those people who make the profits out of these indestructible metal and plastic containers —ought to be held responsible for the return of the containers or their repurchase. They must encourage and finance the collection of the containers. With the help of legislation it can be stipulated that they should ask for a deposit which they then repay upon return of the containers. We should also like to see someone being given the responsibility for the derelict motor cars that have been lying next to our national roads for years, and even beyond the fences on private property. The original owners of such cars, their insurance companies, or even their estates should be held responsible for their removal. There are many other examples of pollution and environmental disruption for which departmental responsibility has not clearly been allocated.

In the first place we, and the country as a whole, feel that ordered combating and co-ordination to cover this entire field is absolutely essential. Secondly, there must be definitely delegated responsibility that is well co-ordinated. Thirdly, one would like to see the establishment of an inspectorate to reprimand the offenders of the established standards. Fourthly—and this is the most important of all—in order to manage all this, there will have to be a comprehensive national plan focussed in legislation. Many overseas countries specifically have such legislation, consolidated legislation for the combating of pollution and the protection of the environment. Inter alia, the Act ought to require every Government department to make a close study, and table a report, in connection with every project that is tackled. They must make a close study, and table the report, in connection with the effect the project would have on the ecology of the environment. Such a compulsory ecological report is particularly necessary for such large projects and schemes as are now being tackled. I am just thinking of the Richards Bay scheme.

We know that the CSIR is already engaged in one facet of such a study involving the effect that fluorine could possibly have on the Richards Bay harbour. We are thinking, for example, that a unique lagoon will be affected by the whole Sishen-Saldanha Bay scheme. At Saldanha there are ideal facilities for pleasure resorts, for boat trips, for nature conservation, etc. One wonders what effect such a harbour with its ships and its oil pollution will have on such a lagoon. I expect the natural fish and shells, which are present there, will die and disappear. Consequently the birds will also die. Beside the beaches of the lagoon, at Langebaan. there is a nature conservation area, which will also be affected by such a large scheme. We should like to see planning take place in such a way that oil from these ships is kent away from the lagoon, if this is at all possible.

Mr. Chairman, I find it possible to agree with most of the hon. member’s arguments for combating pollution. I shall therefore not react to them.

I should like to call attention to the development potential of the Western Transvaal, which is my part of the country. It is a beautiful part of the country, and a part of the country which is also represented by the hon. member for Lichtenburg, the hon. member for Wolmaransstad and the hon. member for Christiana. The English-speaking people refer to “the Western Transvaal proper”. I want to do this since I sometimes get the feeling that this part of our country is not always appreciated or assessed correctly. It is not always put in the correct perspective, within the framework of our greater planning programme. I am grateful for the fact that the draftsmen of the White Paper on the Riekert Report have wrested the North Western Transvaal from the Kalahari stigma which unjustly attached to it for many years. Amongst the specially selected growth points they mentioned important towns earmarked for priorities in regard to border industry establishment and development. They mentioned Brits, Rustenburg and also Zeerust. In the Northern Cape, Mafeking was mentioned. Of these towns only Zeerust is situated in the Western Transvaal proper. This has to a certain extent placed this area in the limelight, and I am grateful that this is the case and has been mentioned in that report.

What I want to emphasize, however, is that I think too much attention and emphasis are still and have remained focussed for too long a time more on the “North” than on the “Western” part of the concept “North Western”. On page 10 of the annual report of the Department of Planning it is stated that a great deal of consideration has to be given to the matter and that a growth points committee has been constituted from a large number of departments, a committee which has to give consideration to those particular places which are to be selected for being included in a priority list. This committee is to give consideration to and decide on the selection of the priorities in respect of which the preparatory work for industrial establishment is to be undertaken with State aid and State loans to local authorities, etc. I am grateful for the fact that Zeerust appears in this priority list. I trust that its potential will soon be investigated thoroughly and that development will also take place there so as to afford this part of the Western Transvaal the necessary opportunity for developing and bringing about new life and growth in that area.

I want to make the point that both the growth points committee and the decentralization board should in their deliberations —a great deal of emphasis is placed in this report on “deliberations”, on what has to be done and the direction in which development has to take place—give more urgent attention to places situated farther away from our major industrial complexes and metropolitan areas. This applies to industrial establishment in particular. I have mentioned Zeerust, but this principle does not only apply to Zeerust. In a broad sense it applies to all planning and establishment of border industry areas and decentralization. Regard should be had to the ominous population concentration in and near to the metropolitan complexes.

The hinterland of the Tswanas should be seen in perspective with development on the borders of their homeland. The Tswana homeland has its hinterland in the Western Transvaal and the Northern Cape. The Tswana people are naturally moving closer and closer to the development taking place in the peri-urban areas, for in that way they are coming closer to their employment. However, this is giving rise to large concentrations of non-Whites in a semi-circle west of Pretoria and the Wit-watersrand complex, but especially northwest of Pretoria.

Rosslyn, Brits and Rustenburg are effective places, and one does not begrudge them the development there, especially at Rustenburg, which is situated a little farther away from Pretoria. However, if we look at and analyse the matter more closely, it becomes apparent—as has been proved statistically all over the world, namely that more than half of the population of the world live in cities with populations of more than one million people—that there has also been, according to the 1970 census, a tremendous increase in South Africa’s White urban population. As it is 86.8 per cent of our White population are living in cities and towns. Four cities alone—I could have mentioned numbers, but I do not have the time—comprise 46,7 per cent of our White population.

Now, it is interesting to note that the towns which are growing and developing at the fastest rate are in fact those ones which are situated close to or within a reasonably narrow radius of our metropolitan areas. The White population of 56 of the 70 towns in the Free State have decreased by 80 per cent. Therefore the populations of distant towns are decreasing. For that reason our planners will have to plan, act, and deliberate in a positive manner in order to meet all the complex problems associated with increasing population density, also in these new developments which are taking place close to our metropolitan areas. The more development there is in our cities and in our larger peri-urban towns, the greater the flow of Whites to them will be.

The increasing influx of Whites also attracts the Bantu. The Bantu are also drawn in, sucked in and brought closer, for the Bantu have a tendency towards going there. If they cannot be absorbed in the major cities, they will concentrate themselves as close to them as possible, around the cities. This is a natural tendency among the Bantu. For that reason it is imperative that exhaustive and far-sighted consideration be given to this ring of development which is springing up so close to our cosmopolitan areas. No matter how interesting, acceptable and effective our urban areas may be. we must focus our eyes as far as possible away from those peri-urban and metropolitan areas. It is extremely important that the decentralization of industries and the establishment of border industry growth points be located as near as possible to the heartlands of our ethnic Bantu areas.

One merely has to take a look at the map of our country and the location of our Bantu homelands to determine where the areas are where an infrastructure already exists to a certain extent and where it may be stimulated and developed in order that we may have a suction to force them away from the urban areas. Of course, in speaking about the Western Transvaal, I am also thinking of Zeerust —it is the capital city of my constituency —as one of the favourable places. It may be insignificant and small, but it is situated strategically in relation to Botswana and has high potential. In the Riekert Report I miss the indication of more growth points that may be established in the Western Transvaal. It would seem as though we are concentrating on the Eastern Transvaal. the Northern Transvaal and on the more central parts of the Transvaal.

Ever since the earliest days, when the development of Rosslyn was merely being discussed, I have been making pleas and urging that if the State has to spend money in this regard, growth points should be established far away and as near as possible to the Bantu homelands. In regard to Rosslyn I was frequently involved in arguments with our planners. Now, I know that the Opposition and industrialists have many objections to border industries being established farther away and that this does not suit their purposes, but it is essential. Just as is the case in European countries and elsewhere, we shall come up against large and mighty concentrations with the attendant influx of Bantu if we do not follow this advice. The Opposition has repeatedly told us that Bantu should be attracted to existing industrial areas on a family basis in order to meet the labour needs. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I know that the hon. member will not expect me to follow him in his line of thought. I wish him the best of luck in the development of that part of the country he is pleading for. I immediately want to come to another matter which was touched on by the hon. member for Benoni. I want to deal with it from this angle: The hon. the Minister will remember the private member’s motion I had the privilege of moving earlier this session. Questions were recently put to the hon. the Prime Minister to try to find out where the central authority was, not so much in regard to planning, but in regard to the combating of pollution in its various forms. Pollution today, with our industrial development, is taking a number of new forms and it is becoming all the more lethal in the effect it is having on our environment. Our environment is being attacked now from new angles, almost with every month that passes as a result of our industrial development.

I now come to the reply I received from the hon. the Prime Minister. Here we come to the point that I tried to make at the beginning of the session with my private member’s motion. We find that no fewer than nine Cabinet Ministers are involved in dealing with some aspect of pollution as it may affect their particular portfolio. This does not show a keen appreciation of the problems facing South Africa in die degradation of our environment. I now know what I did not know at that time, namely that the hon. the Minister has been commissioned to act as the co-ordinating agent, the co-ordinating Minister, for all these other Ministers. This throws the door wide open to no less than nine departments of State in respect of which the Minister in charge of that portfolio is brought within the ambit of the activities of the hon. the Minister of Planning, who has to co-ordinate all those activities. So I would like to commence by asking the Minister at once: What actually has been done to co-ordinate the activities of those different Ministers in respect of the prevention and combating of pollution, each in his own environment, each within the four corners of his own portfolio? I want to point out that prevention in this matter is infinitely better than combating the trouble after it has occurred; so that this hon. Minister, the Minister of Planning, who is charged with the responsibility of co-ordinating all those efforts with a view to the prevention of pollution—as the hon. the Prime Minister told me—has this problem on his shoulders. So I put the question to him specifically: Will he tell his Committee just what has been done to co-ordinate the activities; will he give us the names of his colleagues in the Cabinet who have been brought into the co-ordinated clan? I think notice has been given of a bill which has been read a First Time today—I have not seen it yet—dealing with, for example, pollution at sea. That is an extremely important matter indeed. It is one of the most important. But, Sir, it is only one aspect. I believe tonight the evening papers are already carrying a story of ten thousand crayfish that have been killed in the open sea water at St. Helena Bay as a result—they allege—of industrial effluent into the open sea. This again points to the very feature which we have been trying to raise from this side of the House for so long, namely the fallacy of the idea that the ocean is a bottomless pit into which we can throw all the rubbish from our so-called “civilization”, all the effluence of our factories, and so forth, with impunity, because the ocean is so large that it will simply absorb all our refuse and digest it and in a short time there will be no sign of it. Nobody will know that it was there; it will just have disappeared and the ocean will go rolling on, pure and clean and waiting for visitors, tourists and other people to come and swim in and for the fish to swim in and multiply. In fact, Sir, it is nothing of the kind. The whole world over are we being warned. As I said some time ago in this House, a very famous scientist from Holland, Prof. Roll, who is in charge of their inshore sea fisheries, gave us a short talk on the damage that Holland was suffering in its inshore waters because they did not timeously take heed of the fact that the ocean is limited in its capacity to take mankind’s rubbish and effluence and to dispose of it satisfactorily without any detriment to the habitat. Whatever has happened to ten thousand crayfish—if that indeed is the figure—and from whatever cause the effluent may have come—if indeed it is effluent which killed them—this is only the beginning; but it is taking place in the ocean and it can proceed unless it is stopped. Here again I make the point that what we should be doing is to take steps to prevent it. It is so much more expensive to try to cure the trouble after the event. Vested interest is involved, big money and private people with great influence are involved and all sorts of troubles occur. We have the case of Iscor which, I believe—I quoted the figures the other day—is over the next ten years going to spend R10 million a year, a total of R100 million, to deal with effluent and effluvium which is polluting the atmosphere as a result of the fumes from their chimneys. They are prepared to spend R10 million per year for ten years to try to deal with it and this is of tremendous importance.

I come to this particular point of the need for co-ordination. I know now it is no good my saying to the hon. the Minister that I hope he will use his influence with the Prime Minister to have a Minister appointed for the protection of the environment, as so many other countries have had to do, because they have seen the need to deal with the matter in its early stages. We have just dealt this afternoon with another bill dealing with the question of the modification of the weather. Sir, do you know that the weather can be affected by atmospheric pollution coming from effluent which comes from aircraft and from industrial works such as the chimneys of various factories and so forth? They can so pollute the atmosphere that it changes the weather. This is one of the things we have in evidence before us. This is one of the aspects to which the hon. the Minister, through his two colleagues, could be applying his mind, to see what they can do to deal with a matter of this kind.

While on the subject, I want for a moment or two to deal with this matter of research; because I see that the hon. the Minister, also arising out of the reply I received from the hon. the Prime Minister, is the Minister in charge of all pure research in so far as the CSIR is concerned. I want to say that the information concerning that research should be made available, even to laymen. I am a layman, Sir, I am an ordinary farmer from the Bushveld. I do not understand these things. I talk only about what I can read. I read it and then I bring it out here in Parliament, and I hope I say it with sufficient emphasis for people to think I know what I am talking about. But then there are a lot of other Members of Parliament like that. The Minister is one of them. When the time comes, I hope he will tell us. If he does not have his own direct knowledge, let him tell us what he has been told by the Prime Minister or by his colleagues in respect of these other matters. But in regard to pure research, how woefully behind the times are we; because in every avenue of pure research that is examined and where pure research is allowed to go forward and adequate funds are made available, we have a shortage. We have so many of our own good scientists. I take my hat off to the South African scientist who is of average or above average proficiency and capacity, who stays in his own country. How many of our young South Africans who are brilliant young men have been lured away from our country because of big salaries, large emoluments and special fringe benefits that they are offered in other countries? I do not want to name the other countries. You, Sir, will be well aware of them. One after the other they leave our country and they go. How much more honour is there due to the young men who stay here for lesser emoluments and with less opportunity for research, men who are more restricted in their field of endeavour here in their own home country? But they stay here and they help us.

I want to deal particularly this afternoon for just a moment or two of the short time that is left to me, with the unfortunate position that has arisen where the geochemistry department here at the university has had to send back moon rocks to America because we do not have the money to provide for one more researcher to help the head of that department, who is world-renowned today. Countries the world over are trying to get this material and the United States will not give it to them because they do not have the men with the brains. We have the men with the brains, and we are falling short in providing the money and the opportunity for our men to exercise their gifts in regard to this question. We are faced now with having to send moon rocks back to America without being able to do research on it. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for South Coast as well as the hon. member for Benoni will forgive me if I do not follow them in their argument. They spoke about the question of pollution, but if I were now to plead for measures against pollution I would have to plead for the obliteration of the Opposition, and I would not like to do that; we grant them a languishing continued existence. It is worthy of note that under this Vote members of the Opposition have exclusively occupied themselves with the accusation that the Department of Planning is motivated by an ideology. But I want to accuse the Opposition of occupying themselves with a politically motivated argument in this regard. If I have been listening correctly, this party’s concern is with the development of our urban complexes. For that reason I want to occupy myself, rather than being politically motivated, with an ideological question, namely the depopulation of the rural areas, for the rural areas have always been loyal to South Africa. Therefore I should like to plead for the development of the rural areas, with the potential offered by them to our population.

I should like to extend to the hon. the Minister, and also to the Secretariat of this department, my sincere thanks for the way in which they have been attending to the planning in the Republic. I may bear testimony to the fact that this department has also been displaying its vitality in the planning of the Cape Midlands, as well as that of the Eastern Cape. One notices that this department is engaged in objective planning which in fact affects every section of the population in the Republic. Therefore I have no hesitation in pleading with the hon. the Minister and the department for more attention to be given by us to the development of the rural areas, and more specifically to the Midlands, as well as to the Eastern Cape region. A special report which came into our hands, was the survey in respect of the Midlands and the Karoo areas, as drawn up by an auxiliary committee of the Planning Advisory Council. According to Part III of the report, on page 36, it is very conspicuous that during the 19th century the population in the Midlands increased at a slow rate; but during the 20th century the White population in those parts of the Republic showed a downward trend. There was a gradual downward trend in the numbers of the White population. This report, which I have just mentioned, attributes this to a lack of economic growth points in that area. In taking stock of the lack of economic growth points in that area, we may attribute this phenomenon in turn to a lack of water in that area. But with the coming of the Orange River project that need for water has been eliminated to a large extent.

That is an old United Party policy.

Yes, an old United Party policy which became rotten. It is an old United Party policy which took shape under National Party regime because the United Party has always been lacking in vitality. However the National Party as the governing party has always kept pace with the vitality of the Republic. In pleading for a development of the potential in the Midlands as well as the Eastern Cape region, I am thinking of the object this report has in view, namely the establishment of 9 000 additional farms under the Orange-Fish River project. In bearing in mind what it cost to develop those two valleys, the Fish and Sundays River valleys, I am thinking of an amount of R200 million, according to that report, and more specifically to R50 million in the case of the Sundays River, where the citrus industry is located.

In thinking of those possibilities, I want to plead with the hon. the Minister this afternoon for planning in regard to settling the aged. The settlement of the aged in our urban complexes creates major problems, not only in regard to housing for those people, but also in regard to the atmosphere in which the aged have to pass the rest of their days. When I think of the excellent climatic and other factors in the Midlands and the Eastern Cape regions and of what it means to our aged to pass the rest of their days in the tranquility and clean air of those areas, I want to plead for planning in regard to the settlement of the aged in our rural areas.

But I am not only pleading for the aged from our urban complexes; I am also pleading for the youth of our nation. It has been proved over and again that the rural areas can in fact offer the youth of our nation that healthy, educational atmosphere. Therefore I plead for the establishment of better educational centres in our rural areas for the education of the sons and the daughters of the nation of the Republic.

I am also thinking of the economic development, of the establishment of growth points in that area, more specifically the area under the Orange River project. I am thinking of a growth point in the Fish River Valley, where we already have the symptoms of a new vitality which is taking root there. I am also thinking of the Sundays River Valley, where, to a certain extent, there is already a growth point, which is waiting for further development. I am also retain the initiative here as far as the afforestation of that area, for according to reports at our disposal the Republic is facing a shortage of industrial timber. Those extensive areas both on the Zuurberg and along the coast-line in that area, lend themselves to beautiful afforestation which may really meet a major need in the Republic. It is a pity that the various needs in that area falls under several departments. It is for that very reason that the Department of Planning is of such vital importance: the department sees to the overall planning, and it is essential that the department should also retain the initiative here as far as the planning of that area is concerned. This includes the Departments of Transport, Water Affairs. Forestry, Tourism and Social Welfare and Pensions; all of these are departments which can contribute a small share, but I believe that the Department of Planning can do real justice to that largely unexploited part of the Republic.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Somerset East will probably forgive me if I do not follow him in his argument. There is another matter I still want to raise with the Minister this afternoon. I should first like to tell the hon. member for Middelburg—I am sorry that he is not present at the moment—that I found his speech interesting, especially certain observations which he made and to which hon. members quite loudly said: “Hear, hear!” That was then he referred to everything that had to be sacrificed by the industries to the State in order to fit in with the Physical Planning Act. He said the industries were in the service of the State, and that was why hon. members said: “Hear, hear!” I find this strange, for these are not the sentiments of a democrat; these are the sentiments which one can find in the works of Karl Marx, Engels, Trotski and those people. These are their sentiments.

Nonsense.

But has the hon. member read those works? These are the sentiments that are to be found in them. The democratic view is that planning should only be undertaken on an economic basis, and not on an ideological basis. It is tantamount to heading for fascism and an authoritarian state if it is said that everybody is in the service of the State, that everything done by the State is correct, and that everything done by the people must be in the service of the State. [Interjections.] Sir, hon. members are welcome to differ, but I am telling them that these are the views of the authoritarian states in the world. The democrat is the person who says that planning is only done for economic reasons.

Sir, one of the problems of this department is that there is no overall planning on a full scale for South Africa as such. There is no fundamental planning. The planning that is done is on an ad hoc basis, as in fact the hon. the Minister said here the other day. We find that planning bodies throughout the country are proliferating at the moment, both in the private sector and in the public sector. We find that there are planning bodies in every department. There are planning bodies wherever one looks, and there is no proper overall co-ordination among the various planning bodies, which exist in every possible sphere one can think of. It is essential that there should be co-ordination, for the only hope for the meaningful continued existence of the democracy in this country is total social and economic planning, but then planning should be indicative and incentive and not dictatorial, as we so often find with this department.

Sir, there is a specific matter which I should like to raise with the hon. the Minister this afternoon, and this is a matter which specifically relates to my constituency. It is a matter which I took up with the hon. the Minister previously through correspondence, but this matter is assuming such grave proportions at present that I feel obliged to bring it to his notice here in this House today, especially in view of the further developments that have taken place there. In the first instance, I should like to outline to the hon. the Minister the conditions prevailing there today. It is an area which is commonly known as Honeydew. Actually it comprises various smallholdings under various names, but jointly they are known as Honeydew. It is an area which falls under the peri-urban areas board, i.e. not within any municipal area. The area has been divided into various smallholdings which have been zoned for agricultural purposes only, but this area is surrounded by certain portions of the farm Wilgespruit and the farm Panorama, on which a certain company has had enormous sand-pits for many years. Sir, this is a tremendous problem to the people living on the smallholdings, because they are almost completely surrounded by sand-pits and have almost become an island. In the first instance, these sand-pits are of course extremely unsightly; in the second instance, there is a tremendous amount of pollution. These sand-pits are huge holes of fantastic dimensions. As I have already said, they are unsightly and are the cause of a tremendous amount of dust in this rural area. In addition, there is a tremendous amount of noise all the time, for this installation operates 24 hours a day. There is a continuous drone, day and night, throughout that rural area. What aggravates the position, is the fact that there are compounds in and an influx of non-Whites into that area, who are not being controlled properly. Compounds are being built everywhere, and these present a tremendous problem to the people living there, so much so that some of them have already threatened—I hope this will not happen—to shoot the people there. This is how the people in this area feel about the matter at the moment. I would be glad to hear from the hon. the Minister whether his department has any control over the position there and whether his department has granted permission to these people to exploit those sand-pits. If this is not the case, I should like to plead with the hon the Minister to have the position investigated so as to see whether his department can take any measures in this regard, for there are not only sand-pits in this area; extensions are being made to these sandpits. There is an area, which used to be open veld, where they are also engaged in excavations at the moment, and that will aggravate the whole problem one hundred per cent. Sir, one can understand the people in this area being terribly dissatisfied. Sand has now been excavated from the old site for the past 15 years already, and these extensions to the sand-pits are aggravating the problem tremendously. It is a case of adding insult to injury. I want to ask the hon. the Minister to liaise with the municipalities in this regard. On the southern side this area borders on the municipal area of Roodepoort, and on the eastern and northern sides it borders on the municipal area of Randburg. These municipal border areas are residential areas. In other words, there is no industrial area in the vicinity. The sand-pits are situated in the middle of a residential area, which will always remain a residential area. I do not think there is any possibility of this area becoming an industrial area. I may also mention that at the same place where this company has its sand works, prefabricated concrete walls or panels are being made. Actually, there is a factory for the manufacture of these panels on that site. Of course, this is another thorn in the flesh of the people living there, since their smallholdings were zoned as an agricultural area and they themselves may therefore not establish any industry there. Sir, I have tried to give you an idea of the problems these people have, and I want to plead with the hon. the Minister to have this matter investigated so as to see whether there is something he can do in this regard. If they had to obtain permission from his department, then it goes without saying that he has control, and then I shall be pleased if the hon. the Minister would investigate the matter once again, and I want to plead with him not to grant permission for any additional extensions to these sand-pits. Even if the Minister cannot do anything in regard to the sand-pits, I want to appeal to him to give attention to the other aspects I mentioned here, namely the noise and the dust pollution taking place there on a tremendous scale. [Time expired.]

The hon. member who has just resumed his seat made the statement that there was no co-ordination in the planning of South Africa.

He is talking nonsense.

Proper planning.

Now, call it “proper planning” then.

It is still nonsense.

Sir, when a party such as the United Party speaks of proper planning, one does not really want to listen to it, because if they had been able to plan they would not have been sitting in the Opposition benches for 24 years.

They cannot even devise a plan in regard to Japie.

Sir, I notice the hon. member is wearing a green tie with a little key on it. They say it is a key to unlock the future with. Sir, I want to say to you that the future of that party is so obscure that they will not even find the keyhole. But, Sir, I do not want to waste my time on what that hon. member has said. I want to associate myself with the plea the hon. member for Moorreesburg made here yesterday. The hon. member asked the Minister to lend greater force to the effectiveness of regional development associations. Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Minister also said in the course of the debate that he welcomed local opinion with a view to future planning in South Africa. Last year, on 26th and 27th October, we held a large joint regional congress at which 12 regional development associations were represented by almost 500 delegates. These 12 regional development associations met to consider what creative work could be undertaken in an area almost two thirds the size of South Africa. The people who attended this congress were imbued with the will to contribute, through their ideas, zeal and work, towards the creative work that has to be done for the future. Under the slogan “Our world awakes” this great and unique congress pleaded with one voice: Provide, in the future planning of South Africa, a dynamic new line of development, a line of development extending from a west coast harbour at Saldanha Bay, through Namaqualand, the North-Western Cape, lower Orange, Sishen, Kuruman, Reivilo, Vryburg, through the Western Transvaal into the heart of the industrial complex of South Africa, the Rand. All that has to be done to establish this line of development is, after the completion of the Sishen/Saldanha railway line, to link up Sishen via Kuruman and Reivilo with Pudimoe by means of a railway line 180 km long. There you have, Mr. Chairman, a new alternative train route from the Rand to a west coast harbour and Cape Town, a new train route which may become the lifeline of a dynamic new line of development winding through the regional areas endowed with enormous wealth and the potential to contribute vastly to the development of South Africa. When one considers the anticipated population explosion it is obvious that a north-south railway line cannot rely indefinitely on a single track service alone. Instead of the ultimate doubling of the Johannesburg / Karoo / Cape railway line of 5 129 km, this railway line can fulfil this function over a total Saldanha / Johannesburg distance of 1 458 km. The advantages of such an alternative main line running through South Africa’s secondary mineral areas is invaluable. Experts suggest that the present population of 21,4 million will double itself by the year 1996. In other words, during the following 24 years it will be the task of the National Party Government to make provision in its planning for almost one million people per year; to create space where they can live, work and play. Since there is at present a great tendency towards urbanization and since we accept that this tendency will increase all along, since facilities and space for motor vehicle and other traffic in our urban complexes constitute a troublesome problem for our urban authorities at present, since pollution is becoming a major problem in our urban complexes, since the question of space in urban complexes has already become a problem, and since the same applies to space for housing, playing grounds and educational facilities we plead today, Mr. Chairman, with the Government and particularly the Department of Planning to provide, in its national plan of development, for the establishment of a dynamic line of development. We have to plan even at this early stage for the establishment of the necessary infrastructures so that provision can be made for the millions of people for whom accommodation will have to be provided.

In these regional areas we have an abundance of space, raw materials, water and other facilities. In these regional areas we have the people who are prepared to make their contribution to open up this fine part of our country to accommodate here the millions of people for whom provision has to be made. We have no “Madam Roses” on our side, but we envisage a major port at Saldanha Bay in the future. We envisage the development of the exploitation of the mineral wealth of Namaqualand, the North-Western Cape and the lower Orange. We envisage enormous developments in the Sishen/Hotazel/ Postmasburg area where South Africa’s major iron-ore and manganese production are going to be. We envisage the fourth Iscor at Sishen, particularly when we bear in mind that the transport cost of iron-ore in 1971 from Sishen to Vanderbijlpark accounted for 72 per cent of the total production cost per ton of iron-ore. We also envisage immense developments at Kuruman as a border industrial area since it is situated at the southern tip of the Tswana homeland. Kuruman has enormously rich blue asbestos and limestone deposits and could play an important role in the development of asbestos cement products. It could play a tremendously important role in the large scale building operations which are going to take place in South Africa in future. We also envisage the benefits this will entail for our neighbouring states, Botswana and Rhodesia, which may be drawn into this line of development. They could be linked up with such a west coast port. South-West Africa could also be drawn into this line. The present 5 000 truckloads of slaughter-stock which come from South-West Africa every year could be brought nearer to the Rand markets by 250 km. This will result in a saving in the transport cost and in this way the animals will arrive at the markets at least two days earlier. We also envisage that the labour of the Coloured population could be used at the south end of this line of development. The Tswana people could offer their labour in the northern areas and could at least spend the week-ends in their homeland.

I should like to refer to what was said by the hon. member for Marico. He said that the effect of the Riekert report was that the Western Transvaal was rid of the Kalahari stigma. For this he is grateful, but I want to tell the hon. member for Marico today that when he considers the plan we have in front of us, we can say to the Western Transvaal, “Stick to the Kalahari and we shall make you famous”. I say this because if this rail link from Sishen to Pudimoe is built, there would be three alternative routes from that point to the Rand complex. One of the routes will be from Pudimoe via Vryburg, Mafeking and Zeerust. The hon. member for Marico has already furnished us with a detailed description of developments at those places and we should like to support him on that score. The other rail link will run via Schweizer-Reneke, Sannieshof and Lich-tenburg to the Rand. And the third rail link will be via Fourteen Streams, Klerksdorp and those parts of the world. This is an alternative route created from the Rand, and it could be exploited to the benefit of the whole of South Africa. Large developments could take place along this line and this would be in the interest of the whole of South Africa.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Kuruman will forgive me if I do not follow up on his speech. We all like to dream dreams on our constituencies; I myself do it at times and I do not wish to disturb his.

I want to deal with a matter which may appear on face value as a parochial one, but which I regard as one of national importance. I regard it as of national importance because it involvas a major tidal river in the Eastern Province and one of our greatest tourist attractions in South Africa. Many members of this House will have visited the Bushman’s River mouth and Kenton-on-Sea. They would have seen the complex of twin rivers that we have there. The hon. Minister will remember that I had a question on the Order Paper on 25th April in connection with the implementation of the recommendations regarding the Bushman’s River. That was with particular reference to paragraph 2.7.2.6. of the report of the subsidiary committee of the advisory council of the hon. Prime Minister on the investigation of river mouths, lagoons and vleis. That paragraph reads as follows—

The hon. Minister then replied to me that the execution of the recommendations as contained in the report is the responsibility of other bodies. In pursuing the recommendations, he said, “the Department of Planning is however giving the necessary attention to the matter by means of discussion with the Provincial Administration and the Department of Water Affairs”. I am raising this matter once again because it is exceptionally serious. I have in my hand a report which I have only received today and I shall make it available to the hon. the Minister. The report was drawn up by Mr. Farquharson of the Albany Museum in Grahamstown. He has taken careful measurements of the Bushman’s River and he has found that the flow through the bottle-neck bridge is something like 2 300 cu. ft. per second at peak tidal flows. The river in fact was dammed at its deepest point and pylons were put through the dam wall and when the bridge was completed, they could not remove the dam wall completely. This is now being squeezed down and further measurements were taken. I should like to quote from the report—

This disturbs the ecology of a river completely, and there are millions of tons of silt being deposited above the bridge every year. The river is being throttled and something drastic has to be done to increase the flow through that bridge. I ask the hon. the Minister especially whether he has already had discussions with the Provincial Administration and if he has not, if he will take this up as a matter of urgency and instruct the Provincial Administration who built that bridge on a wrong design to clear those channels as soon as possible. This is an amenity which serves people from every single province and from South-West Africa. Hundreds of families flock there annually to use this river. As these sand banks throttle the river, so outboard boating is becoming more dangerous. The channels become narrower and as more boats are coming there, we are heading for a terrifically dangerous situation on that river. Our fishing, of course, has fallen off completely. The fishing in that river used to be marvellous, but because this tidal flow has been disturbed, we are getting new types of weed growing there, which are increasing the silt and we have to do something aoout it urgently.

Mr. Chairman, as far as the pollution of our rivers and water resources are concerned, I am in full agreement with the hon. member who has just resumed his seat, and it is my intention to add a few supplementary comments on that matter. The first question I should like to put to the hon. the Minister, is whether the time has not arrived for very serious consideration to be given, in respect of our metropolitan areas, to dealing with our sewerage waste on a cooperative basis and, in fact, also on the basis of a long-term policy. It is a commonplace today that most of our rivers must receive a great deal of our human waste and sewage over and above other phosphates which they must also receive from industries. The result is that the nutrient matter in the water is frequently such that the balance is disturbed, which then affects the vegetation to the detriment of man and animal.

As far as the various smaller municipalities in the metropolitan areas are concerned, they often do not have the capital and financial means to build sewage farms in accordance with the requirements of modern times. The question that has occurred to me is whether the time has not arrived for this matter to be undertaken on the basis of a very broad scientific plan, especially with a view to a long-term policy.

Today the statement is commonly made by biologists that the disturbance of the balance of nature as a result of pollution holds danger for mankind. Man is an animal, just like any other animal, and fitted into this cycle of balance until his numbers increased so drastically that he was forced to disturb this balance as well. A study of the population increase shows that the world population of 5 million approximately 8 000 years ago, has increased to 3 700 million today. Over the past 40 years it has almost doubled itself, and by the year 2000, i.e. in less than 30 years’ time from now, it is expected that there will be 7 000 million. If this increase continues in an uncontrolled manner, it will once again double itself in the next 35 years after that. The result, especially in the concentrated areas, the metropolitan areas, has proved in recent times that problems are developing for mankind as such, especially as far as oxygen is concerned; in other words, that air pollution is developing. The American moon expeditions proved to us how important oxygen is to mankind. In this regard I want to read you a very friendly lecture on the toxic substances emitted by motor-cars. A fine example is being set by a number of Parliamentarians. Every morning 40 of them come to Cape Town in their own bus and in the evening they go home in the same bus, instead of travelling to and from the city in 40 separate motor-cars. Millions of tons of toxic substances in the form of carbon monoxide and lead, emitted by millions of motorcars, nitrogen oxide from chimneys and sulphur dioxide from factories are being pumped into the atmosphere today. In certain concentrations they are deadly, and it is already being predicted that in the year 1975 a major increase will occur in the death rate in California, to mention one example. If this position is not straightened out, it will become unbearable. As it is the position is so desperate that at times gymnastics at schools in Los Angeles have had to be called off as a result of the lack of pure air. For instance, in Tokyo, too, the position is such that police officials cannot remain on duty for longer than one or two hours at a time; then they first have to go into a special cabin on the pavement to breathe oxygen so that they may continue their work. This is already the position in some world cities. As far as we ourselves are concerned, it may be said that Johannesburg and Cape Town are far removed from these capital cities of the world. However, it is already being calculated today that on a windless day in a city like Johannesburg the toxic substances emitted by the exhaust pipes of motor cars and the chimneys of factories are equivalent to the smoke of 15 cigarettes per individual per day; if we take into account the considerable anticipated increase for the next 35 years, it seems to me as though we are not too far away from such a crisis as regards the health of our people, notwithstanding the fact that our people are thinly scattered over extensive landscapes in the Republic of South Africa. During the years 1949 to 1953 London was severely stricken with smog in the worst degree. During December, 1952, London’s normal death rate of 300 more than trebled itself, and more than 4 000 deaths occurred as a result of smog. So I could go on pointing out instances of pollution in agriculture, as a result of the application of D.D.T., D.T.E., etc. I could point out their effects on birds, on certain mammals and on certain species of harmless insects which are being exterminated by them and which results in the balance in nature being disturbed. In addition, there is still the pollution of our fresh water by various detergents, etc. One also thinks of the pollution of our sea-water as a result of the discharge of sewer-pipes. In this regard we already have the phenomenon that fish are developing mouth sores, getting thinner and eventually dying within several radii of the discharge point of sewage installations. I think the time has arrived for us to give very serious attention to this problem. I have no doubt that the hon. the Minister has every sympathy with phenomena such as these. We just want to express the hope that as the financial position of our country improves, the Minister will do everything in his power so that a team service may be made available by our scientists and we may in good time, before it is too late, enter upon this extremely important field of the pollution of our air, water and agriculture in the interests of our future and the health of the inhabitants of South Africa.

I want to conclude by making the appeal once again that as far as our sewage installations in our metropolitan areas are concerned, it is high time that the undertaking of such projects be considered on a co-operative basis, so that there may be compliance with all the scientific requirements for purifying water to such an extent that it may subsequently be utilized again for human consumption, and that everything should not be pumped into our rivers, with the consequent pollution of our water, also in the dams of South Africa.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member who has just sat down mentioned London and the problems they have there with smog and that kind of thing. It is one of the biggest problems one has in relation to this question of pollution, that where you start to clear up one pollution problem you may well find that you are creating another problem. In the last couple of years steps have been taken to clear up the river Thames, which flows past the mother of Parliaments, so that people can actually fish in this river. They find that because of this clearing up of the water and making it cleaner the sunlight can now penetrate deeper into the water. This in itself is creating a further problem because it is encouraging the growth of algae blooms, which again is becoming a threat to the fish life in the river. These things are so interlinked that it may well happen that while taking one step in the right direction, you are at the same time creating another problem. It is a matter on which we are all agreed that pollution and the effects it can have, have to receive the constant attention of the hon. the Minister and all the other departments under his guidance and in the planning and co-ordination of his department.

I wish to raise with the hon. the Minister the question of the Coloured area which has been declared in my constituency at Bishopstowe. In his speech on Friday afternoon, the hon. the Minister mentioned the fact that up until now there has been a great deal of ad hoc planning. I think that if ever there was a case where this ad hoc planning has come to light, it is in the planning of Coloured areas in Pietermaritzburg. We have the Coloured area of Woodlands there, which was planned a long while ago, before the department started to centralize the Coloured community round certain points in Pietermaritzburg. As a result of this process of centralization, it has now become necessary to declare a further extension of the Coloured area. Representations were made from the Coloured community, from the authorities in Pietermaritzburg, from my voters on both sides about the direction this expansion should take place. The department has made a decision. The decision it has come to is that a new Coloured area should be created separate from the existing area at Woodlands. This hon. Minister is also Minister of Coloured Affairs, and I think it is incumbent upon him to take very serious notice of the problems that are going to be created within the Coloured community in Pietermaritzburg, because you are now directing the whole development of that community in a new direction, in a new area. The whole tendency for development is going to be towards the new area, for the younger element in the population, while the new expenditure and development of amenities will also be directed to that area. The well-developed area of Woodlands is going to find itself lagging and dragging behind. The hon. the Minister may say that this is a matter for another department, namely the Department of Community Development, but he cannot get away from it that the planning of that area has come under his department.

There arises a further problem, a problem which relates to the area of White ground which is now being zoned for Coloured occupation. I want to ask the hon. the Minister if he will just tell me how the change-over is going to take place. He zoned the area K2 and K3 for Coloured occupation. It is adjacent to an area which is already in the possession of the municipality of Pietermaritzburg. The municipality tells me it is likely to take eight years before they come up to the boundary of the area which is at present under private White ownership. I think it is encumbent on the hon. the Minister to sort out in some way or other the purchase of that land in White hands; because he will thereby avoid two problems. The first problem is that private people, who may be Coloured people, may act for large financial interests and acquire this land in order to undertake all kinds of development. This is then going to complicate the problem of the City Council of Pietermaritzburg. Already my people are being told that they can sell now immediately to Coloured people. I think this is something the hon. the Minister should be aware of. Unless there is going to be an overall plan, unless it is frozen, so that planning has to take place from one end to the other, he may well find himself with a lot of hotch-potch planning going on there because of the fact that that ground is being made available for private purchase by private interests.

The second point I want to make is this: If it is going to take a number of years for that ground to come into use, the only way in which justice can be done to the present owners, is to value the ground now, today. When it is required and taken over, they should be paid today’s valuation, plus a percentage of whatever the value of our money will have been decreased, so that when they have to move out of their areas, they can re-establish themselves with a realistic amount for the ground which they have lost. There is one woman who now, for the third time, has to move out of her home, because the area which she occupies has been zoned for another race group. I think it is out of common justice and nothing else that this action should be taken, to value the property as it is now, and when it is required and taken over, there be a bonus or whatever you would like to call it, paid out on the value of the ground.

Then I would like to come very briefly, in the time that is still available to me, to the question of the planning of the Tugela Basin, which I raised earlier this session in a private member’s motion. The hon. members for Moorreesburg and Kuruman, and other members too on the other side, have come again with the same story, namely the question of regional planning. I must say that we are absolutely hundred per cent for it; but is it not possible that the regional planning can be taken just that one step further, as in Great Britain, where they are developing areas, new cities by forming a committee or board with executive power and access to funds, which enables them to take the steps, to make the money available for investment and look for industrialists. In this way something can be done in the Tugela Basin. I am referring to the question of the reticulation of purified water. Everyone of those areas today has a problem with the purification of water, but it is possible above the Spioenkop Dam to site one central purification works which would supply by gravity all the towns in the Tugela Basin. If there were an authority which had the money to spend whatever required for a purification works, you would be saving immense duplication. You would be saving all those other local authorities the problems and troubles they have today in the planning they have to do on a piecemeal scale, which could be done so much better in one shot at one central point. I really believe that in planning the regional areas in this country, we have to get to the point where you can give to local communities under the Department of Planning, the means to spend money for the development of those areas on a positive basis, to get the thing going. When we talk about planning, all of us here, the planning seems to go just so far, and then there is a hiatus. Nothing is actually done to take the next step of bringing in the industrialists, of going out to advertise and sell the area and bringing in the work-creating factors you want in every single area where you are going to develop. That hon. Minister’s department does the planning. I accept that they have to do the overall siting of the development; but there is a factor which is lacking. I think in Great Britian they have that factor; they have the answer; they have the local board with the authority to spend money, subject to the Minister’s permission and under very careful and cautious control. But they still have power to take action. I think this is what we need here very badly, indeed, where we have so many areas which are looking for development and which, in fact, are planned for development, but where we just do not seem to be able to get them going and off the ground.

Sir, the hon. member for Mooi River has asked me about Bishopstowe. The position is that at Pietermaritzburg the Woodlands Coloured township has been fully built up, so naturally we have to look for an extension. May I say that I do not know offhand when the Woodlands area was proclaimed a Coloured area, but at that time it was deemed sufficient. This shows once again that planning never really ends and that planning must be done on a longterm basis as far as possible. I realize and I concede that you can never plan for all time to come, but by bringing together all the people and all the agencies concerned, you can at least plan for what we can call the foreseeable future. Perhaps that has been one of the deficiencies of our planning set-up in the past, and I will deal with that point before I sit down. The fact of the matter is that Woodlands was fully built up, and the extension to Woodlands was duly considered. I think the hon. member knows that. For very good reasons we decided not to proclaim the extension of Woodlands as a Coloured group area. If we had only needed land for high-class Coloured housing, then we could have done so, because to bring the various services to that area would be very expensive. That is a fact that is conceded all round. But, Sir, we do not only need housing for Coloured people who are well-to-do. We also need sub-economic housing for more or less 45 per cent of the Coloured people, even at Pietermaritzburg.

Will the hon. the Minister indicate where he is going to make land available for this high-class Coloured housing that he is talking about, where they can purchase their own land, and whether he has any idea how large that area will be?

I will deal with that later on. Naturally, because it was not possible to provide housing for all Coloured persons in what I call the Woodlands extension, we had to look elsewhere, and the only alternative was the Bishopstowe area. We investigated the matter; the group areas hearing was advertised and held, and many people argued the case there. The hon. the Prime Minister received quite a number of letters from that area. He forwarded those letters to me and we discussed them. We now have land available in that area that we can use for the well-to-do Coloured people, as well as for people who require municipal housing under the various housing schemes. My reply to the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District is that that area, which I have not visited myself, can be planned in such a way that we can provide high-class Coloured housing where it extends towards the European area. I personally have requested my colleague, the hon. the Minister of Community Development, to plan the K2 area, which will be developed first, in that way, and then we can have the other Coloured housing at the rear part of that area. I may say in passing that Mr. Howard Odell also wrote a letter to me in which he suggested exactly what I have told the Committee here.

The hon. member for Mooi River asked me what the position was of the people who are at present running the smallholdings at Bishopstowe. They can, of course, sell to a Coloured person, who now becomes a qualified person under the Group Areas Act.

Is that not a bad move?

No, I do not think it is a bad thing, because in due course the State will have to purchase those smallholdings, whether they belong to Europeans or to Coloureds, and the value of those smallholdings will be exactly the same, to whomever they belong.

May I ask a question? Will the municipality take steps to acquire all that ground? It has a block of ground already. Will it acquire the adjacent ground and bring it all together for purposes of planning?

My officials will make a note of that. We can look into it. It is a question of finance. I would be in favour of acquiring the whole area at once. But it does not in any way hinder our planning; our planning will go on in any case, because everybody in that area now knows what the future of the area is going to be. May I also say to the hon. member for Mooi River that as soon as you proclaim a group area, all the properties in that proclaimed group area are valued as at the date of proclamation. Nobody will be penalized therefore by the fact that a particular area is proclaimed a group area. You can never get less than the valuation as at the date of proclamation. If higher prices are realized—and that is so in ten cases out of ten—then for a certain period, in terms of the amendment that we passed last year —I am not sure whether it is three or five years—the owner can retain any book profit over and above the valuation, but thereafter a percentage of the profit must be contributed to the Department of Community Development or to its Board. I am not quite sure how it really works. In any case, I have taken note of the sentiments of hon. members with regard to the Pietermaritzburg area, and since I am also Minister of Coloured Affairs, I will give this matter my close attention.

*The hon. member for Randburg spoke with deep seriousness and conviction about pollution. I am going to deal with pollution in a moment, and I hope the hon. member will regard the comments I shall make at the time, as a reply to his speech.

†The hon. member for Albany has spoken about the Bushman’s River Mouth. Sir, here we have a very good example to show how easily the ecology can be disturbed. When the tide pushes into the river, you find that the river, the sandbanks and everything else behave in a certain way. But a bridge was needed, and a bridge was built there. If anybody had thought at the time that the bridge would have the effect which the hon. member for Albany has mentioned here, then perhaps the bridge would not have been built. The hon. member for South Coast wants an overriding department to look into all these things. Personally, I doubt very much whether you can foresee things like that happening. Before building the Richards Bay harbour, we constructed a model to see how it behaved over a period of time. More than that we cannot do. If we decide to build the Saldanha Bay harbour, we will first of all also construct a model of the harbour at one of our universities to see how that model behaves over a period of time. More than that I do not think we can do.

May I point out that the bridge was constructed in a most peculiar way. The river was, in fact, dammed with stone and rubble. The pylons were then put through the dam wall. When they completed the bridge, they tried to take the dam wall away, but they could not remove it all. This is our big complaint.

In any case, as the hon. member has told the House, there has been a report on that area and there is a paragraph or two in the report dealing with this very matter. My department is taking it up with the province. I am sorry that I cannot tell the hon. member more today than the information I have already given him in reply to his question. If any further information becomes available, I shall again communicate with the hon. member.

*Then the hon. member for Kuruman spoke about the enjoyable conference we held at Sishen last year. He also spoke about the development of his part of the world with reference to the proposed Sishen-Saldanha railway line. I can only say that if this undertaking were to be carried out, it would make a contribution to the more balanced development of our country. For that reason we shall probably all watch the course of events in this regard with great interest. Perhaps I may tell the hon. member for Hillbrow straightaway— he asked me the other day to what extent my department had been involved in the planning of the Saldanha-Sishen project— that the fact of the matter is that we served on the various committees, such as the officials’ committee and the Cabinet committee, but that we were not in charge of the matter in actual fact. We did not undertake the planning in the sense that we made an economic evaluation of the project. This is a matter which, in my opinion, falls more particularly under my colleague, the Minister of Economic Affairs, under whom Iscor falls. His department must do this especially in co-operation with the Railways and Iscor. However, as soon as such a project is decided upon, the Department of Planning steps in and brings all the planning bodies together so as to have the entire undertaking take place in an orderly way from a planning point of view, and so as to reconcile the various interests with one another.

The hon. member for Florida spoke about the quarries around Honeydew. I shall go into the matter. These quarries have been there for a long time, of course. In any event, they were there before the Physical Planning Act was passed.

Extensions are taking place there at the present time.

I shall go into the matter. I do not know from whom they obtained the authorization. If it is in fact taking place under an existing authorization, it is perfectly in order, of course. If, however, it should take place under a new authorization and it should come to my department, we shall investigate the matter. Furthermore, I want to say that in terms of the Physical Planning Act manufacturing activities in regard to that undertaking must, in any event, come to me if they want to employ Bantu there. I shall investigate that as well. The hon. member for Florida said very definitely that we should get away from our ideology.

And from “our ideals” he said.

Yes, but an ideology is in fact an ideal which is translated into a theory.

So that it becomes an obsession.

That hon. member says it becomes an obsession now. We can come to that in a moment again. I should very much like to hear about his obsessions. I still want to deal with decentralization later on. Then he and the Opposition on that side would probably not mind telling us whether they have an obsession in this regard, and what exactly that obsession is. The best example which the hon. member for Florida, who spoke fairly cuttingly about ideology or ideals, could quote of an ideological piece of legislation in my department, was the Physical Planning Act, according to his reasoning. In the same breath he appealed to me to use the Physical Planning Act in order to rectify what was bothering him in his constituency.

That is not all the Physical Planning Act does.

In any event, I shall examine the matter.

The hon. member for Somerset East spoke about the depopulation of the rural areas in the Eastern Cape and in the Midlands. He did so with deep understanding. I can tell the hon. member that I have much sympathy with him. I also come from the rural areas; I also come from a small place. The position is that there are several aspects to this matter. The depopulation of the rural areas, or let us rather say the urbanization of the people of the world, also of our country, is a phenomenon of our times for which there are many reasons and causes which I do not want to go into now. However, it is a fact of modern times and the modern economy with which we have to live; and not only the economy, but also other aspects are involved. To mention only one, in the years in which I was active in organized agriculture, development association, etc., I cannot remember one area in South Africa in which the people did not exert themselves to get tarred roads. Nowhere was there such a place. Everyone asked: “Tarred roads, please! ” One of the biggest factors which contributed towards prejudicing the rural areas in the economic sense, was the tarred road and the motor car.

In our times we also have the phenomenon of smaller families. In the area in which my farm is situated, namely Prieska, I can mention one farm after the other to you where the previous generation of people —this is my father’s generation—had six, seven or nine children a farm.

Twelve.

I do not know of one farm in that area with less than six; nor do I know of any farm more than nine. Today there are two farms where there is only one child and a few where there are two children. This phenomenon occurs throughout the country. The largest number I know of, are four children. In other words, this is one of the reasons why the population of the rural areas has decreased. What is the result of this? The numbers attending school decrease. There are fewer teachers teaching in the towns. As a result of all the tarred roads, etc., the people sent their children to the big schools; this is the position. Consequently the bank handles fewer accounts and also employs fewer clerks. Therefore this is a process which never ends. We also find that the people buy only the essential things in the towns. They buy the better type of article further away in the bigger towns. We also find that the farmers have made this same mistake with their own cooperative societies, and that one merely has to write a letter to the co-operative societies in Port Elizabeth or wherever and they forward one a windmill, a galvanized iron dam and the fencing material for making camps. One no longer goes to the local shopkeeper. The State cannot stimulate development and industrial activity in every town. It is quite impossible. I feel that to a certain extent the remedy is in the hands of the State and I do not want to evade that responsibility. We are in fact giving attention to this matter and are trying to establish at least growth points or rather development points in the rural areas, depending on circumstances. Later I want to deal with that as well. To a certain extent the remedy is in the hands of the residents of those various towns. Let us beautify our towns. Let us keep the taxes as low as possible. Let us give them good sporting facilities. If a man accepts employment in the magistrate’s office in such a town and there is a nice tennis court or tennis courts and a grass field on which he can play rugby, etc., then he goes back and tells the people: “I enjoyed living in Jamestown,” or in Cathcart, or wherever. I want to say only one thing before I proceed. If our people —and I have already referred to this—in the rural areas today spend all the money produced there, namely salaries, wages, wool, sheep for slaughter, mohair, or whatever, in those towns, hon. members would be surprised how the economy of those towns would revive.

†The hon. member for South Coast has again spoken on the subject of pollution of the environment. I shall speak on that later as I have something to say in that regard. What I have to say will answer some of the questions which he has raised. Then I shall also deal with the matter of co-ordination which he has spoken about. The hon. member has said that they on that side of the House, the Opposition, have been stressing this and that for so long. That may be correct, but we on this side of the House have also for a long time been fully aware of every challenge that modern times hold out to us. Nobody has the idea, as the hon. member has said that the ocean is a bottomless pit. Things have already come to a sad stage where the ocean has been used as a dumping place by many. In this sense it is not only a national but also an international problem. However I shall come back to that later on. There is only one thing I wish to comment on now. When he spoke about research, the hon. member said: “How woefully behind the times are we.” I suggest to the hon. member that that statement is completely untrue and unfounded. I, as Minister of Planning, have the CSIR under me and it is my experience that our scientists are of the best in the world.

With respect, Mr. Chairman, you must allow me to correct the hon. the Minister. I have never said that we are woefully behind the times. I asked that more money should be made available for the geochemistry research at the universities seeing that the CSIR and all similar bodies came under his control. I pointed out how our young scientists were staying here in South Africa and also said how grateful we were that this was the case when so many were leaving to go overseas. However, I never said that we were behind the times in our research.

I accept the hon. member’s explanation. However, he can look it up in his Hansard. I made a note of it when he said: “How woefully behind the times are we”. Perhaps he said it in some other context.

I shall submit my Hansard to the hon. Minister tomorrow.

Yes, thank you.

I was pleading for more money for research, especially geochemical research.

Yes, that is so. In regard to the moon rock, I do not know what the situation is. It was quite disturbing for me to read in the newspapers that the sample of moon rock was returned to the United States. I think it is a matter which we can go into. I shall certainly speak to the president of the CSIR, when next I see him, about this matter. I know that Parliament votes money for the CSIR and the CSIR on its turn makes various amounts of money available for our universities for research in various directions. I am not so sure whether they stipulate to which areas of research these funds must go. However, I think they do because they are the coordinating body in this regard. I can also say that my experience is that our scientists, and also the scientists of the CSIR, are very much sought after throughout the world; they are very highly regarded.

*The hon. member for Marico spoke about the Western Transvaal, that beautiful part of the world. South Africa is an extensive country and its need is great. The State does not have unlimited amounts to spend, and I think that we in this House should never lose sight of the interest of our economy as a whole. I shall speak about the question of decentralization in a moment. The hon. member knows that his town is on the list of decentralization points …

Yes, and I am grateful.

The hon. member says he is grateful for it. In fact, the hon. member pleaded—so it seemed to me—for a real development. In this regard he said we should go far away. That is true, but if one has to go far away, there are many places to which one could go. The further away one goes, the more expensive it becomes. The result is that it would not be so easy. However, I listened attentively to what the hon. member said and in a moment I shall say more about decentralization.

The hon. member for Benoni spoke about pollution. I took note of what he said. I shall come back to this subject in a moment.

In my opinion the hon. member for Winburg made a wellreasoned and responsible speech in which he advanced strong and sound arguments for the policy of decentralization.

†I now come to the hon. member for Constantia. He said that there was room for considerable improvement in our statistical services. The hon. member has only made one point, and he was at pains to say that he was only making that one point, namely there were some delays with regard to the information which we collect and make available to the country. In my view this is a most important department. You cannot go forward in any modern State or economy unless you have up-to-date statistical information which tells you all the time where you are going and enables you to adjust your policies and your course according to what is required.

The hon. member has quoted from the quarterly buletin of statistics and has compared that bulletin with the quarterly bulletin of the Reserve Bank which is published a bit later, but, according to the hon. member, more or less at the same time. I want to say to the hon. member that apart from the quarterly bulletin we also publish a bulletin of short-term economic indicators. The hon. member mentioned a few subjects on which he feels we are lagging behind, e.g. exports and imports, consumer spending, sales of motor vehicles, the consumers’ price index and persons employed in industry. The position is, however, that these matters are dealt with in our monthly bulletin of short-term economic indicators. If the hon. member compares the figures in the monthly bulletin with those in the Reserve Bank’s bulletin, he will notice that the Reserve Bank obtains its figures from us. Therefore we cannot be lagging behind, certainly not as far as our monthly bulletin is concerned.

I can only say, as far as the Statistical Council is concerned, that the little experience I have of it convinces me that this is a most fruitful body in the set-up of statistics and we value its contribution highly. It is so, as the hon. member pointed out, and I remember it too, that in 1971 the re-appointment of this council was held in abeyance for a few months. There were certain reasons for that, but apart from that, the council is now functioning normally and I can only say that we cannot do without it. It is an overall body which is of the great assistance to me as Minister and to the Secretary of the department.

*While dealing with the Department of Statistics, I should like to ask that you, Sir, must just allow me to say something here today in regard to Mr. Botha, who has been Secretary of the Department of Statistics since 1969. He became Secretary of Statistics in 1969 after the Bureau of Statistics had attained the higher status of Department of Statistics. Mr. Botha will retire from the Service at the end of the year. I should like to thank Mr. Botha for the services he rendered to the State during the time he was a civil servant and particularly during the time he was Secretary of Statistics. I should like to say here today that Mr. Botha has been of great value to me, as Minister, because of the willingness and the kindness he showed me. In every respect he has assisted me as well as he was able, and that was very well. I also know that Mr. Botha went out of his way to furnish members of this House, including members of the Opposition, with the best information whenever they required it. As Mr. Botha will retire at the end of the year we should like to convey to him our gratitude and wish him a pleasant retirement. I do not yet know who is going to succeed him; it will be announced, in the Press in due course.

Is he going to settle on the South Coast of Natal?

Before the hon. the Minister leaves this question of statistics, could he give the Committee any indication when more particulars will be made available of the 1970 census? Up to now we have had only certain general demographic particulars. In view of all the economic statistics, we shall be glad if he will give us an indication when the particulars will be available.

I take it that the hon. member for Hillbrow is acquainted with the various publications which have already been published. A considerable amount of preliminary information has already been published. The first result was published on 26th September, 1970. After that we published a census booklet which showed the various population groups in every district in the country. That was published in February, 1971. Between 5th April, 1971 and 14th June, 31 statistical news reports were issued of the population according to ethnic units in residential areas in urban as well as rural areas in respect of major districts. In August a further 31 news reports were issued also containing information about White, Coloured and Asiatic families. These concerned their houses and other dwellings, respectively. We also issued quite a number of reports on a random test basis in respect of ages and educational qualifications. We also issued five reports on professions, trades, income, marital status and church denominations. This information will be published during this year. As far as the other information is concerned, 400 million replies were received from the census. This information has been codified and has already been fully recorded on magnetic tape. This information will be made public as it becomes available. I cannot tell the hon. member anything more at this stage. However, I am satisfied that comparable work in respect of the previous census took three years to complete, and this work has been completed within the first 18 months. There can be no doubt about this. We shall release any further deductions made from the census as soon as possible.

The hon. member for Hercules apologized for not being able to be present here. I just want to tell him that the Stand-fontein industrial area has its problems. The fact of the matter is, however, that this area has been zoned as an industrial area years ago. People have bought industrial land there. However, it is also a fact that this Moot area is particularly suitable for residential extension and the problem of pollution will have to be considered very carefully there. However, we are preparing an overall plan for the whole of the Pretoria City Council area and we are in the process of drafting legislation, and it is possible that the hon. member will learn something from this. It is also possible that if industrial land is made available elsewhere, the industrialist who will have to move from the Sandfontein area may be told that he can obtain land elsewhere and asked whether he will be prepared to accept such land. However, I shall give careful consideration to the hon. member’s request. He pleaded that the White/Bantu labour ratio should be very strictly maintained there and I am in a position to give him such an undertaking. If we approve any industries there, we will watch the pollution aspect very carefully because this area is situated on the western side of Pretoria and consequently an industry which will cause air pollution, and so forth, simply cannot be allowed there.

†The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District asked me why the Government does not create growth points within the homelands, but I want to tell him that the Government has created growth points in the Bantu areas. Babalegi is one. Then there is Butterworth, Sitebe and others. There are already four growth points in the Bantu areas. In the same breath the hon. member asked me why we created only growth points in the border areas. The fact that the hon. member asked me why only growth points there, implies that he is in favour of growth points in the border areas.

No, nonsense.

He asked me why there were only growth points in the border areas and not in the Bantu areas, and I naturally deduced from that that the hon. member was in favour of growth points in the border areas.

No.

I just wanted to find out. I have it on record that the hon. member is not in favour of growth points in the border areas.

He said “not only”.

The hon. member cannot have it both ways. If he is in favour of development in border areas he can say so and I will be only too glad to accept it. But he has said that he is not in favour …

Not for ideological reasons.

If he is not in favour he agrees with the hon. member for Hillbrow. But then again they disagree with the hon. members for East London City, East London North and Albany. If the hon. member agrees that there must be growth points in the border areas, he agrees with the hon. members for East London City, East London North, and Albany and disagrees with the hon. member for Hillbrow and other hon. members. You cannot have your cake and eat it.

They can be anywhere where they will be economically viable.

I am coming to that point.

When I come to it, I will discuss this matter of decentralization on an economic basis with the hon. member. The hon. member has also spoken about Stockville. On Friday evening I talked about this and I have no more to add to what I said then.

Could I ask a question? If it is possible during the recess, in all seriousness, will the hon. the Minister please make an opportunity to visit that area with the hon. member for Pinetown and myself?

It is possible.

The hon. member also spoke about 12 group areas or portions of group areas that were deproclaimed. Well, the hon. member is free to criticize anyone of these; I maintain that all these were justified.

*The hon. member for Rustenburg discussed the fine development which is in progress at Rustenburg and how it fits in with the whole set-up of Government policy. I thank him for his words of thanks and praise to my department. We appreciate it very much. With a view to what I shall also say about pollution, it is part of our task to ensure that the damage to and pollution of the environment does not take a course which it should not take there either.

I should very much like to say a few words on the subject of the environment. This is of course a problem with which the world has to contend today, one which is being experienced everywhere. There are various reasons for this. The basic reason for this problem today is the unparalleled population increase in the world. It was said here that the world population consists of 3 700 million people. It is increasing, so I have been informed—at a rate of two million people per week. By the end of the century, therefore, the population will have doubled. Then we will have 7 500 million people in the world. If one then takes that theoretical projection—I shall have to call it a “theoretical projection”—to be a doubling, say, every 25 years, one is soon confronted by an alarming situation. These people have to be fed. Where must the food come from? Suppose one is able to work out a system according to which the food which is available is brought to the people, which is not the case today, then all the food in the world will, within the foreseeable future, be insufficient for all the people in the world. One will have to chop down forests where there are still forests standing today, one shall have to use open spaces to produce food, one shall have to use insecticides and sprays to protect the crops to produce food for all these people, and one will possibly have to set a limit to what the environment can carry, beyond which the environmental equilibrium will be disturbed completely.

A second basic cause of this problem is the fantastic technological development which has taken place in the world. All kinds of methods have been devised to tap and exploit all the resources of the earth. Methods have been devised to manufacture anything which may mankind wants in his factories, which are increasing hand over fist. Allied to this—something we have already discussed—is the large-scale urbanization which is taking place in the world. Then one finds that over-concentration causes pollution. It causes a lot of transport problems, and this major problem confronting the world today also manifests itself in a lot of there phenomena. We must look to our environment, to the quality of our environment, the habitat in which we are living, and it is now or never. There are of course certain aspects which are of an international nature, but I do not want to discuss these now. The same applies, to a certain extent, to atmospheric pollution. In June this year a major international conference on the environment is to be held in Stockholm. South Africa will also be represented there, and we hope to acquire a great deal of important information. Sir, we in South Africa are also, to a greater or lesser extent, experiencing these problems. Our land is becoming scarcer and the claims on land are increasing all the time. Take for example the urban complexes. Where must the people live; where must the people work; where must we situate our factories; what must be left as open spaces; where must people practise their sport; where must we produce our foodstuffs? The claims on the soil of South Africa are increasing by the day. We also have to deal with the problem of pollution. We are fully aware of it. We, too, already have pollution of our ocean, pollution of our atmosphere, and pollution of our rivers. Our scenic attractions and our beautiful plantlife are being threatened in many ways, and even getting rid of waste is already a problem today. But if all of us can give attention to this problem, if we can all cooperate—the authorities, every organization in this country and every private individual—then South Africa is still in the fortunate position that we are still able to save a great deal; we still have enough left to save. The Government is thoroughly aware of the need to conserve the environment and combat pollution. In addition we welcome the actions of many organizations which already exist in South Africa and which are paying special attention to making our population environment-conscious.

Sir, when we discussed the motion of the hon. member for South Coast here this year, I said that the Government was devoting attention to its machinery in this connection, and I am now able to inform the hon. member and the Committee that the Government has already established a Cabinet Committee on Environmental Conservation. This Cabinet Committee, which will be a permanent Cabinet Committee, will function under the chairmanship of the Minister of Planning, and on it will serve the Minister of Transport, the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services, the Minister of Health, the Minister of Economic Affairs and the Minister of Water Affairs. As chairman of that committee, I shall do the work, and I shall, on behalf of the Committee, report and be accountable to the Cabinet and to Parliament. The work of this Cabinet Committee will be to maintain over-all supervision and to give attention to both the positive and the negative aspects of the environment, i.e. conservation and pollution. In addition its work will be to ensure co-ordination; to identify spheres of action and research and give attention to this, and to cope with problems experienced by any organization. Besides this Cabinet Committee on Environmental Conservation, a South African Committee on Environmental Conservation has been established. The chairman of this Committee will be the Secretary for Planning. and representatives of the Departments of Transport, Agricultural Technical Services, Labour, Bantu Administration, Mining. Health, Community Development, Industries. Forestry and Water Affairs will serve on it, together with representatives of all four provinces, and a representative of South-West Africa, and of the CSIR. This committee will work under and be directly responsible to the Cabinet Committee on Environmental Conservation. In practice, therefore, the Committee will be responsible to me as Minister of Planning. I should also like this Committee to submit regularly, as a matter of routine, their work to the Planning Advisory Council for discussion and comment. My department will supply the working staff for this Committee. This Committee is able to naminate subcommittees to investigate specific aspects of the conservation of or damage to the environment. Local town councils may be co-opted, and universities may be co-opted. Sir, I shall expect this committee to be very active and productive. The eyes and the hopes of many are fixed on it. We in South Africa, as I have said, are still in a fortunate position, but there is a great deal to be done, a great deal to conserve, to prevent and to restore. I shall expect the Committee to submit reports and make recommendations to me, regularly which I will then in turn submit to the Cabinet, and in regard to which I shall, on suitable occasions, report to Parliament. Sir, in this connection I just want to inform the Committee what they are doing in England. It was with great pleasure that I read this pamphlet. The Human Environment: The British View, published by the Department of Environment. In a foreword, Mr. Heath stated—

Then they go on to state—

But what I actually wanted to quote is the following—

With its own Minister?

Yes, with its own Minister, under a single Secretary of State; it now includes the Departments of Transport, Housing and Local Government, Public Building and Works. The various other Ministeries are then mentioned, and the forms of pollution that they are dealing with: Agriculture. Fisheries and Food— Control of Pesticides; Industry and Shipping—Oil Pollution at Sea; Labour, with regard to employment in factories; Education and Science—Research Councils and so on. Then it says—

*Then mention is made here of regional structure plans. These are all things on which we are also working. Then I just want to quote the following from page 41, where they give their summary—

Apart from the fact that they call this department the Department of Evironment, and that this department also includes Transport and Community Development, they have precisely the same approach there as we in South Africa have. I hope I shall be able to convince the Committee in this respect.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. the Minister a question? Firstly, would he consider issuing a White Paper setting out the constitution and functions of the Cabinet Committee which he has mentioned and of the Committee of Officials that he has referred to, with its powers and functions? That White Paper would be for general information. Secondly, will the responsible head in Parliament to deal with the parliamentary responsibility for that Cabinet Committee be the Minister of Planning, to whom we go as the responsible parliamentary head?

The general reply to the second question is “yes” and the reply to the first question is that I am considering issuing not exactly a White Paper, but something similar.

A memorandum?

I am considering it and we are working on one.

Please, I hope you will.

*Mr. The Minister Chairman, I have said before, and I say again today, that except in name, the Department of Planning is already the Department of the Environment in any case, seen from the positive angle of the conservation of the environment and its quality. The conservation of the environment lies in the first place in good and sound planning. These people say the same thing. It lies in the first place in correct planning, i.e. how we should utilize the land, the soil and natural resources, where the people should live, work and find recreation, where the industries of different kinds should be located, taking into consideration atmospheric pollution, where the roads and feeder routes should run, where airports should be situated, and where open spaces should be left. All this links up with proper urban and countrywide planning.

In this regard I should like to say something further, for I think that this is of tremendous importance. I should like to say something about urban planning. Urban planning is being done by us today under our system of guide plan committees. The work of these guide plan committees is of a co-ordinating nature. We bring together all the people who work and plan in the city areas, and have functions to perform there, i.e. the local authority, the province and the various departments with their planning divisions and their consultants. We bring them together on this guide planning committee for that urban area. Then they sit down around a table, and between them make adjustments to one another’s plans. Each one knows what the other is working on. We are trying to compile a master-plan, as I have already said, for up to and including the year 2000. They set about it in this way: They take a map and on it they fill in the existing developments; then they take another map and on it they fill in the planning which each of them foresees for the future. Then they reconcile these to one another until they eventually agree on a line of development as far as they can envisage, up to and including the year 2000. We then try to steer the existing development gradually in that direction, and adjust it accordingly. These guide plans which are prepared, as I have said, by these people, are subsequently released for general information. I should just like to say now that what we are doing here is not merely an idealistic endeavour, up in the clouds. We take into account present reality. We begin and build on the basis of the present reality to the overall ideal which we may have. We are not envisaging a static planning situation either. Planning is not a static matter. Planning is never final. It has to be adjusted and changed continually in the light of circumstances. As long as everyone gets together and everyone makes the adjustments together we can in this way go ahead in a very orderly way. I should also like to say that this overall guide planning is not detailed planning. It is merely a guide plan. The detailed planning I leave to the provinces and the local authorities.

This is now the machinery which is being created. These guide plans, when they have been provisionally drawn up, come to me. After that I send them to the Administrator, and I ask the Administrator what he thinks of them. We then publish it for general information and only then do I give my final approval. Such guide plans committees are already at work in most of our metropolitan areas. In the second place, we come to the detailed planning under the guide plans. This is done by the provinces and the local authorities, as I have already said. I should like to see them—not to approve or to disapprove of them—but to see whether they are in line with the overall guide plan. When we come to regional planning, I want to say that this is a task of my department in conjunction with the province. In some cases we tell the province to draw up that regional plan for us. I should like to approve it eventually. It is implemented by the province and the local authority. So I can proceed to national planning, but I want to conclude by saying that I think what we are working on here is something very good. If we are able to achieve success with this urban planning through our guide plan committees and the regional planning, I think we could have fewer snarl-ups in future than we have had in the past. We will then be getting away from ad hoc planning; then we will be bringing together everyone engaged in planning and we will be devising a joint pattern for the future.

Then, before I resume my seat, I should just like to say something in brief about the economic development programme and the decentralization programme. I have already said that the economic development programme is a task of my department. We must prepare it, but we are not laying down economic policy. We do not correct the course of the economy by means of financial, fiscal and monetary measures. That is the task of my colleague, the hon. the Minister of Finance. We take the different sectors, as they present themselves, and we bring everything together and indicate how the different sections of the economy should make their contributions if we want to achieve a specific growth rate. We have established that South Africa can and ought to achieve a growth rate of 5| per cent. If we achieve one which is less than that, we will have trouble, and if we achieve one which is more than that, we will also have trouble. Occasionally the hon. member for Hillbrow has asked why we cannot have a growth rate of 8 per cent and even more. We could probably achieve a growth rate of 8 per cent and more in this country, but then we would have to bring in 120 000 and more immigrants per annum. Otherwise we would not be able to do so.

That is according to your opinion.

No, we will not be able to do so, or else we will have to bring in the non-Whites on a very large scale, on an uncontrolled scale—how I do not know—to do all the work which has to be done. On the other hand we can grow at a rate of 5| per cent per annum on our present basis, without disturbing relations. In that process we are also able to eliminate unemployment among the other population groups. Therefore we have gone so far, and this is the work of my Department of Economic Planning and of myself, to say from time to time how we should operate in order to maintain that growth rate. I just want to say that we on this side of the House are thoroughly aware of the fact, the hon. member for Rustenburg also mentioned this, that South Africa should have a strong economy. We have been saying this for years and are working towards that end. There are so many things I could enumerate which are dependent on a strong economy, things which make it absolutely essential that our economy should be a strong one. We have also said that we want a policy of balanced development for our country. We realize that if all economic development and activities were to take place only in certain areas of our country we would in future be faced with social problems. We would have certain political problems, and we would also have economic problems. That is why it is the policy of this side of the House to see whether South Africa cannot develop in as balanced a way as possible throughout the whole of the Republic. Now, that is not so easy to achieve, but we can at least try to accomplish this. One of the ways in which we can do so is by means of our decentralization programme. The Government made a start with this in 1960. From time to time certain areas, which are border areas, were then designated where it was possible to do this. The Government tried to get development under way there. Subsequently it was also decided that this development could be moved to other areas, areas which were at a remove from the border areas. These areas were called decentralized areas. So the pattern of border and decentralized areas developed in time. I want to state today that the Government will adhere to this undertaking which it has given to these areas, i.e. the border and decentralized areas. In due course these areas came to be known in common parlance as growth points, and now we have had the Riekert White Paper. In this White Paper it was specially recommended that a Growth Point Committee be established to determine specifically in which areas the Government should make a co-ordinated, special attempt to promote and stimulate development. I repeat that the Government will carry out every undertaking, in so far as such an undertaking was given, in regard to the present areas which have developed since 1962 and are on the list. But as far as the new growth points are concerned, they will in future be specially selected areas or points where we will, with a co-ordinated, concentrated effort, try to set a particular kind of development in motion. Such growth points are for example the Rustenburg area, the Brits area, Ladysmith and Newcastle in Natal, and the East London/Berlin area, as well as those four areas in the Bantu homelands which I mentioned to the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District when I replied to his speech. I shall within the next few weeks issue a statement in which I shall deal with this matter in greater detail.

I come now to the Physical Planning Act. We have in this process tried to utilize the Act to promote this industrial decentralization. I said from the very first day, and before me the hon. the Minister of Finance said this as well—the Government has said this throughout—that we will not allow the present development in the metropolitan areas to be prejudiced, for they are the areas which contribute the most to the growth rate of our country. They are also the areas which will in future make the greatest contribution, and that is why I said this. I think the hon. member for Hillbrow was at the Wanderers’ Club the evening I repeated this statement before the industrialists of South Africa. That is why we have in fact adjusted the administration of the Physical Planning Act and we shall, as far as it is necessary, adjust it. But I should like to say here this evening that we will not do the one thing and omit to do the other. We do not know where the Opposition stands, but we have our machinery. We have a Cabinet Committee, secondly we have a Decentralization Council, and thirdly we have a Growth Point Committee. But in his speech on Friday the hon. member for Hillbrow said: “You must scrap the lot.”

No, I did not say that.

Those were his specific words: “You must scrap the lot.”

No.

Well, then I was really listening very inattentively.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to ask the hon. the Minister why he has a Decentralization Council and a Growth Point Committee, although for all practical purposes their composition is precisely the same.

No, their composition is not the same.

The Department of Labour serves on the one, and not on the other. That is just about the only difference.

The two bodies, in each case, have specific, separate functions. They have their distinct functions which they fulfil. The one operates, for very good reasons, under the chairmanship of the Secretary for Planning, and the other, again for very good reasons, under the chairmanship of the Secretary for Industries. The one works with the industrialist and the other with the development of areas. This is the reason; this is the reply; and I cannot understand why hon. members on that side laughed about this just now. I now want to refer to one specific area, namely the Eastern Cape. I am referring to the area from Queenstown via Stutterheim, King William’s Town, Berlin down to East London. I still say that we should make that part of our country strong. We must develop that part, which is situated between two Bantu homelands, and make it very strong. We have stated how we are going to do this, and we are continually being criticized by the Opposition in this regard. We have said it, the country knows it, and we are already in the process of doing so. We are doing what we can in East London, and we are already at work in Berlin. When we have finished there we will give further attention to King William’s Town and Queenstown. But I should very much like to know whether or not the Opposition wants to develop that area.

Yes.

Well then, the Opposition wants to develop it, but the Opposition states that one can only have decentralization if it is economic. Now I want to put this question to any hon. member on the opposite side: What industrialist from Johannesburg will go and establish himself there? Let me hear what they say. What industrialist will move away from his market, where he can load up his goods outside his door and deliver them directly at the door of his client, where a person erecting a block of flats can telephone him and ask him whether he can deliver a hundred doors on Monday morning? That is economic. Those hon. members say that decentralization can only take place if it is economic decentralization. There is no such thing. There is no such thing anywhere in the world. How will Queenstown be able to establish the infrastructure there in an economic way at an interest rate of 8½ per cent? How will Queenstown be able to do it? Where did East London’s water come from? What is happening at Berlin? Ask that hon. member. How can this take place on an economic basis? But those people believe only in economic decentralization.

Where does Paarl get its water from?

Now the hon. member is in Paarl. All he does is run away all the time. Hon. members opposite talk about economic decentralization on an economic basis. Very well then, how did Paarl get its water?

With State assistance.

With State assistance on an economic basis.

The Verwoerd Dam?

Sir, East London, Berlin and those towns will have to sit waiting until the cows come home before they have development on that basis.

But what did Dr. Rautenbach, your own Secretary, say?

Where?

He said that if it did not produce economic dividends, it would never flourish.

Do you agree with that ?

Sir, now the Opposition wants to hide behind my Secretary. One would have expected them to have quoted that statement of his here. How can I agree with anything which has not even been quoted here?

He said it.

Who said he said it? The hon. member is just like a parrot now.

But do you deny that he said it?

I deny that he said it in the sense you are now mentioning it. I deny it absolutely. He could not have said it. The industrialist is being given certain financial incentives. He can choose a tax holiday of five years; or he can opt for low interest loans; he can write-off certain amounts in respect of his buildings and machinery; he can have a 15 per cent rebate on railway and a 25 per cent rebate on harbour fees. Are all these things economic? Of course decentralization cannot take place economically. It will always have to be subsidized—you have to help them out. It is the policy of this side of the House, and I say again that the hon. members for East London and King William’s Town must speak to their people about this.

What about?

About this doubletalk, about this sitting on two stools.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? Does the State intend establishing the fourth Iscor in that area?

I cannot reply to that question today. It is a question which will have to be decided on when the time for it arrives. However, let me say this to the hon. member: If the State should decide to do so it will not be a decision based on purely economic grounds. The State will in that case have to compensate Iscor for certain establishment losses. Is that clear? In other words, it is only this side of the House that is able to establish Iscor there for with its policy that side of the House will never be able to establish it there.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? Would the hon. the Minister agree that an Iscor would be more economic in East London than in Saldanha where there is no water and labour, etc.?

I think that I have with this replied to the question of our standpoint in regard to the economic development programme and in regard to the Physical Planning Act. The Opposition will simply have to take it or leave it. We have discussed these things many times, but we and they will differ over the Physical Planning Act. We shall apply it as circumstances teach us from time to time, but to us the Act will remain an instrument with which we can counteract overconcentration and with which we should like to accomplish a more balanced development in South Africa. With these few words I want to thank the Committee for the discussion on the Planning Vote.

Votes put and agreed to.

Revenue Vote No. 43.—“Coloured Relations and Rehoboth Affairs”, R94 389 000, Loan Vote G.—“Coloured Relations and Rehoboth Affairs”, R1 554 000, and S.W.A. Vote No. 25.—“Coloured Relations and Rehoboth Affairs”, R5 710 000:

Mr. Chairman, it may be as well in starting our discussion on the Coloured Affairs Vote this year to make it quite clear that the Coloured people are bitterly disillusioned at the present time and that one finds this everywhere throughout South Africa. One of the reasons is that they do not know where they stand and we make a very grave mistake in thinking that the political differences between them outweigh those upon which they have a lot of common ground. Their grievances today form the basis of what cohesion exists between them. Broadly speaking, of course, the Federal Party, which tends to be more conservative —it is described as more conservative than the Labour Party—relies for most of its support upon the lower income groups, the working class folk, who normally are divorced from the whole business of politics. That does not mean that the Federal Party does not have many highly intelligent and perceptive leaders amongst them. But if I am not mistaken the Coloured intelligentsia representing a highly articulate and qualified section of the Coloured community largely support the Labour Party, and they tend to be more radical in their approach. However, let us not make any mistake; there is a very broad consensus between both parties. It was Mr. Tom Swartz himself. Chairman of the Coloured Representative Council and of the Executive Committee and head of the Federal Party, who said in a Press statement on April 19 this year, and I quote, “that his party rejects all the negative discriminatory aspects of the Government’s policy and will oppose them firmly”. The tragedy is that the Government continues to place its main emphasis, in dealing with Coloured people, upon what it chooses to call the elimination of friction.

This, of course, is a major fiction; it is a myth, because by not entrusting the Coloured people, in spite of all the promises to them over the years, with even as much power as is currently being exercised by the Bantu people and the Indians, particularly in the field of local government, all the Government had done is to raise the degree of friction between the Coloured people and ourselves to wellnigh breaking point today. [Interjections.] Hon. members might be polite enough to let me make my speech. It is a major tragedy of South African politics that such an overwhelming vote of no confidence in our Coloured people and their leaders should have been made manifest at the very moment in our history when circumstances demand otherwise. Let the Government stand indicted, Sir, for there is no longer unlimited time—of that I am convinced- in which to grasp the hand of friendship and to get these people working with us for the country’s sake as well as for the sake of everybody in the country. Patronage and condescension, the old patriarchal approach, will no longer do. The younger generation of Coloured people are openly hostile today—not so much towards the Whites as such, but to the whole establishment. They do not know us for a start. There are no longer normal channels of communication open to-day. I want to warn the Government and particularly this hon. Minister —That if there should ever be a confrontation in this country between Black and White, in other words, a polarization of attitudes which is becoming increasingly apparent, not one single Coloured person in South Africa would stand with us. We live in a fool’s paradise if we think otherwise.

Just what is this Government doing about giving the Coloured people the two main things they most need? One is a degree of meaningful power and the other is drawing them into the administrative process in order to help us run the country.

*Mr. Chairman, I should like to say something in regard to citizenship as far as our Coloured people are concerned. Full citizenship basically means the exercise of civil, political and social rights on a basis of equality by citizens of the country. It is an indisputable fact that the Coloured population does not enjoy full citizenship at all, in spite of the fact that they are citizens of the Republic of South Africa.

†I cannot understand why it is that this Government always equates citizenship with integration. That approach, it seems to me, is calculated to confuse the whole issue. I believe it is done on purpose, if you want to know the truth, Sir,

*Already there is a strong feeling of frustration and hate about the matter on the part of the intelligentsia among them. The hon. the Minister knows this. It is often suggested that parallel development allows self-determination. particularly within the framework of the Government’s concept of multiracialism. But if the Government rejects a Coloured homeland, it is logical to accept, as our party accepts, that the Coloured population must share in the decisions taken by the Government, and that the Coloured Persons Representative Council should develop into an autonomous body with powers to take decisions concerning the Coloured community itself. Therefore it is essential that many more Coloured people be engaged on all levels and in statutory bodies which deal with matters concerning the well-being of their own people in particular. Only in this way political participation will achieve its aim as far as the Coloured people are concerned. The point I should like to make is that the Coloured community feels today that it has reached a position of stalemate, and that dangerous signs of frustration are discernible among its people. Those of us who are in close touch with members of the Coloured community are becoming more apprehensive about this every single day.

The late Dr. Verwoerd made a clear promise to the Coloured population when he addressed the Union Council of Coloured Affairs in December, 1961. He said—and I quote (translation)—

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 23.

House Resumed:

Progress reported.