I should like to move three amendments. The first is in regard to Clause 2 (1) (a). Hon. members will see that it is an offence for someone to overload or overwork an animal. Now hon. members will note that it is just in respect of the word “beat” where it is preceded by the word “cruelly”. After due consideration I have decided, and I think hon. members will agree with me, that the word “cruelly” should qualify all those words, i.e. that the animal should not simply be overloaded or overworked, but that it should be done cruelly, so that all those various actions should be qualified by the word “cruelly”. In the English text the word “cruelly” will precede those words. If we amend it in that way, I think that not only will it put the matter more clearly, but it will give general satisfaction to hon. members and obviate misconception.

I have given further consideration to the suggestion of the hon. member for Wakkerstroom (Mr. Martins). I think the hon. member is correct and that we should do something in that connection.

Then I intimated that I would move an amendment in respect of the case where the defence is advanced, when a man is accused of being the owner of the animal, that he is no longer the owner, because he abandoned the animal to its fate and abandoned his property rights in respect of that animal. He has not really done so, but advances it as a reason why the court should not convict him. Here I propose inserting a new paragraph to follow on paragraph (n). I think all three of these amendments will be accepted by hon. members on both sides of the House because it states the position more clearly and because it will definitely make this clause more acceptable. I move—

I wish to move the amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper—

That amendment deals with the question of the sale of traps and other devices referred to in the previous clauses, (j) and (k), and it would be a new sub-paragraph to follow (k). I do not think I need say very much about it. It is the case that the use of these traps and other devices is prohibited and that so far no embargo has been placed upon the sale of these devices. If accepted, this amendment would mean that the sale of such things would be prohibited, except in such cases where the shopkeeper gets a licence from the magistrate to do so.

I am prepared to accept that amendment.

I want to draw the attention of the Minister to Clause 2 (a), the overloading of an animal. We find, more particularly on the Rand, that the carts in which vegetables are taken from the market, are overloaded. I have seen instances where it has been impossible for the horse to pull that cart up a hill. In addition there are six Natives on the cart. On one occasion I took the law into my own hands—it happened a long time ago and the police will no longer take action against me—but I felt that it was my duty to do so. They were hitting the horse but it could not pull the cart. I got out of my car and pretended to be an official and made them off-load half the load. I want to ask the Minister to instruct the police to give more attention to the question of overloading. I find that they do not pay attention to this. They do attend to cases where an animal is ill-treated, where the horse gets chafed through, but not to cases where the cart is overloaded. It is of the utmost importance that such an animal should be protected.

There is something else which I want to bring to the notice of the hon. the Minister and that is the evil of ill-treatment of animals at the abattoirs. I think the local authorities are responsible for that. You find that all the pens are full, a train arrives on Saturday morning and the animals have to wait until Monday before they are off-loaded. I think that should receive the serious attention of the Minister. The local authorities are the culprits who are responsible for that. Then you have the case of calves. I went there one Sunday afternoon to see to some animals of mine which I had there in a pen and I found that calves which would only be slaughtered on Monday had been standing there since that morning. They were standing there without food or water. It is essential that we look into this matter.

We should also pay attention to dogs in locations. I think now that the Native will be free to buy as much beer as he wants, he may perhaps get rid of his dog, because that dog was used to warn him when the police came. The position may improve. I merely wished to bring these few matters to the notice of the Minister.

I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister not to accept the amendment moved by the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell). I want to ask him to reconsider it. The position is that the traps to which the hon. member for South Coast objects and which cause suffering to animals are not always the traps sold in the shops. Those traps are bought by the farmers in order to exterminate vermin. But now the hon. member suggests that they should first obtain a permit from the magistrate. Many of the little country shops stock those traps, and the farmer goes to buy one at a time when he needs it, and then the shopkeeper must go to the magistrate, who may be 50 miles away. That will not help us at all. The people who want to maltreat animals can still set their traps, and one cannot prevent them from doing so. The hon. member for South Coast will know that the cruellest way of maltreating an animal is by means of these traps they set, with bait around a spike which hooks into the animal’s mouth. But that is not what is sold by the shops. No, this will lay a burden on the farmer, if we say that he must first obtain a permit from the magistrate in order to buy a trap. It will not reduce maltreatment of animals. [Interjection.] The Minister points out that it is not the farmer who must obtain the permit, but the shopkeeper, but what is the advantage of the shopkeeper having to obtain the permit? Then one still misses the whole result the hon. member for South Coast seeks to achieve. If thereby one could reduce the suffering of animals I would be in favour, but I cannot see the value of this amendment.

I wish to say something in respect of the amendment proposed by the Minister in Clause 2 (a). As I understand the amendment the word “cruelly” qualifies everything which precedes the word “animal”. I just want to point out to the Minister that if this amendment is passed a difference will be made between ill-treating an animal in the ordinary sense of the word and ill-treating it cruelly, and it will only be an offence if you ill-treat him cruelly. It will not be an offence if you ill-treat him ordinarily. For that reason I want to ask the hon. the Minister to take the word “ill-treats” out of its present position and to insert “or ill-treats” right at the end after the words “or maims”. I think the hon. Minister follows what I mean. It will then read: “… cruelly beats, kicks, goads, neglects, infuriates, terrifies, tortures or maims or ill-treats any animal”. In that case the word “cruelly” does not qualify the word “ill-treats” and “ill-treats” in the ordinary sense will constitute an offence, whereas in terms of the amendment of the hon. the Minister “ill-treats” only becomes an offence when it is “cruel”.

I think the hon. member for Somerset East (Mr. Vosloo) has misread this amendment. It is the seller who must have the permit, or the dealer.

What is the use of that?

The use of it is that even if it is not completely effective in stopping the use of these devices, it will stop the display and the offering for sale of these traps which are to-day hung up there in the shops for any customer to buy. All that will stop until a man has a permit from the magistrate permitting him to sell such devices. It is not the buyer who has to get the licence, but the man who offers them for sale, and in my opinion it will be a big step forward in preventing the supply of these devices to people who are misusing them for trapping and poaching.

I just want to draw the Minister’s attention to Clause 2 (f), “shall use on or attach to any animal any equipment … which will cause such animal to be injured”. I wonder whether the Minister will not further define the word “equipment”, e.g. by inserting the words “harness”, or “yoke”, because that is the ordinary equipment used when an animal is inspanned to serve man. Sir, you would be surprised if you knew what suffering is caused to animals by ineffective equipment like a harness which is old and broken and is sometimes joined together with wire. I can mention numbers of such examples. On one occasion I was travelling through a Bantu area after a drought, after the first rains had fallen and ploughing had started, and I stopped along the road seven times because it was clear to me that draught animals were being maltreated, and in six out of the seven times it was as the result of bad harness which was just bound together without the necessary shoulder pieces and buckles. When I remonstrated with the drivers and drew attention to their bad harness, they remedied it a little, and those animals could easily pull the plough. In ordinary language we do not talk about “equipment”; it is clearer to use the well-known terms, “harness”, “yoke”, etc. The ordinary man who loves his animals will always have the best harness and yokes, but amongst the under-privileged people we find that if the harness breaks they just knot it together, with the result that the animals are tortured. Therefore I suggest that the hon. the Minister should consider a clearer definition of the word “equipment”.

I want to associate myself with the remarks made by the hon. member for Somerset East (Mr. Vosloo) and say that if the amendment of the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) will serve any purpose in protecting animals against poachers there may perhaps be something in it, but we must clearly understand that it is not those springtraps which people buy which are responsible for most of the ill-treatment of animals. I have seen Natives with my own eyes knocking 6-inch nails into a board so that when the hippopotami come out they will tread on those nails and when they cannot walk any further they are killed. That is ill-treating animals. I have also had the following experience. One of my cattle had a sore foot and when I examined it I found that he had a wire trap, intended for game, round his foot. That wire trap does much more damage than a springtrap because you do not notice it immediately. It is very easy for anybody to notice a springtrap and it is also more noticeable than other traps when poachers use it. They are purchased with the very object of catching vermin. The amendment of the hon. member for South Coast will place the shopkeepers who are 50 miles from the nearest magistrate in a very awkward position and for that reason I do not think it will serve any purpose.

I want to thank the hon. the Minister for having introduced an amendment in respect of stray dogs. I think it will have a very good effect.

I just want to reply to the arguments advanced by the hon. member for Langlaagte (Mr. P. J. Coetzee). I fully agree with him, of course, that animals should not be overloaded, and I am convinced that the case mentioned by him did not come to the notice of the police otherwise they would have taken steps in this connection. In any event, the debate in this House will serve this purpose that everybody’s attention will once again be drawn pertinently to the fact that animals may not be overloaded.

With regard to the question of animals and calves which are sent to the abattoirs, the hon. member will remember that I said that this matter falls under the hon. the Minister of Agricultural Economics and Marketing, who will in due course submit legislation to the House in that connection. It is not my duty and my function to bring legislation before the House in respect of abattoirs in this measure.

With regard to the question of dogs in locations, I am assured by societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals that they regularly encourage people to take their animals to their clinics and that in point of fact they regularly send inspectors into those places to see whether they can be of any assistance and to trace animals which are subjected to ill-treatment.

With regard to the argument of the hon. member for Klerksdorp (Mr. Pelser) that we should insert the word “cruelly” before certain words only—for example, not before the word “maims”‡

Not before the word “ill-treats” because the ill-treatment of an animal already implies cruelty.

Unfortunately I cannot agree with that. In point of fact it also appeared before the word “ill-treat” in the old Act, and it was inserted because of the fact that there was a difference of opinion as to whether if a farmer beats his oxen—and my hon. friend realizes how sensitive the farmers have already proved to be in connection with this matter in the course of this debate—he can be prosecuted if the word “cruelly” does not precede the word “ill-treat”. If the word “cruelly” is not inserted the hon. member for Lichtenburg (Mr. M. C. van Niekerk) might be liable to prosecution perhaps, but if the word “cruelly” is used, then it will not be possible to prosecute a person because he hurries on his oxen in the ordinary course of his activities to move a little faster.

With regard to the amendment of the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) I just want to say this: It does not happen every day that I agree with the hon. member, but I am afraid that in this case I must agree with him: It will be a pity of shopkeepers are prejudicially affected, but I do not think that that will happen in practice because all these people are in close touch with their magistrates’ offices and it is not impossible for them to obtain a permit once a year, or whatever the period may be, in terms of the regulations. But I fully agree with hon. members that there are certain areas where permits should not be issued for the sale of traps, and that is in those areas which are situated in the immediate vicinity of our game reserves. There are small little shops there where traps are bought by people who do not have livestock that they want to protect and who are not plagued by vermin that they have to destroy, but who buy traps with the specific object of poaching and maiming game, which is the sort of thing that we find around the game reserves. I think hon. members will agree with me that traps should not be sold in the immediate vicinity of game reserves, particularly in the Bantu areas, because it is not necessary for people to be in possession of traps there, because we know that they do not want to exterminate vermin with it but that in point of fact they want to entice game into traps. For that reason and that reason alone I agree with the hon. member.

With regard to the hon. member for Marico (Mr. Grobler) the hon. member wants us to insert “harness or yoke” here, and once we have inserted those words, there will be other equipment which will not have been mentioned specifically, and it so happens that the word “equipment” covers all the things which the hon. member has in mind and which I may have in mind, and I feel therefore that we should leave it at the word “equipment” which would include a harness, a yoke, a girth, and a saddle and bridle, etc.

I am sorry that I cannot agree with the hon. the Minister, and I want to ask him again to consider that amendment carefully. If he looks at the Bill again he will see that Clause 2 (1) (j) provides—

Paragraph (k) provides that a trap shall be inspected at least once each day. In other words, according to (j) it is only the person who wants to exterminate vermin who may set a trap. The use of a trap is restricted therefore, and it seems to me to be unnecessary to impose a restriction on the sale of traps, even if it is the shopkeeper who has to go and get the permit, because I cannot see what we are doing here other than to create a new offence for a person who perhaps unknowingly sells traps without having a permit from a magistrate. I say again that in that way we are not going to protect animals. There are many cases where farmers need traps to exterminate vermin. We do not have well-trained dogs in all parts of the country. You suddenly discover that you are being threatened by vermin; you then go along to the nearest farm-shop and buy all the traps that the shop has available and set them up to trap the vermin. But that shopkeeper may not have a permit to sell the traps; he will have to go and get a permit first. What do we gain by doing this? We already have paragraphs (j) and (k) to control the sale of traps, and to me it really seems to be unpractical to go and insert a new paragraph (1) which provides that you have to obtain a permit. I think that my fellow-farmers will agree with me here.

I must associate myself with what the hon. member for Somerset East (Mr. Vosloo) has just said. I honestly cannot see the purpose of this amendment moved by the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell). And let me assure him that if there is one thing which I share with him and with the whole of the House, it is the desire that animals should be protected. The farmers and others who are allowed to use these traps are animal lovers and protectors of animals, and none of us would like to see any harm done to an animal. I want to warn the hon. the Minister not to fall into the trap which is being set here for him in this amendment. I agree with the hon. the Minister’s argument—it is one which seems to me to have some substance-—that we would not like traps to be set near the borders of our game reserves. If I read the amendment correctly, the trader will now be able to apply for a licence to sell traps, and once he has such a licence, he is subject to no restriction as far as the sale of traps is concerned. The position will now be that when a person wants a trap he will go to Witrivier, where the magistrate has been advised that we would prefer no traps to be sold there; but what will happen now? That person will simply go from there to Nelspruit where he will be able to buy traps. The result is that we are going to have a black market in traps just outside the borders of the game reserves. This provision may make it a little more difficult for people to obtain traps, but at the moment there are people who are in possession of traps without licences, other than in the case of fire-arms perhaps. Since we are passing a measure here for the protection of animals, I want to ask that we should not impose so many restrictions that we only earn the displeasure of people who are able to use traps judiciously. A person who wishes to use a trap injudiciously need not necessarily go and buy it in a shop; he can make use of much more cruel methods than to use traps that one can buy in a shop. I do not think that this restriction is going to serve its purpose. I cannot see how the amendment can really serve its purpose. I feel that we should be content with the present provisions which prescribe how a trap is to be set and that it must be visited at least once a day to see whether there is an animal trapped in it.

It does seem to me that hon. members are rather missing the point of the amendment. I agree with the hon. the Minister that the amendment as it stands does at least give some measure of control through the restrictions it imposes in areas where it is not desirable that animals should be trapped. I do not think anybody could be optimistic enough to believe that we are going to do away altogether with the suffering of animals as the result of trapping, but one can at least try to minimize and control it by the granting of a permit to sell traps, as provided for in the amendment. The authorities at least have the power to limit the sale of these devices to a responsible type of trader, and he, as a responsible person in the area, is himself to some extent a brake on the misuse of these devices. I agree with the last speaker that if a man intends to lay traps he can go right outside his own area to buy what he wants and probably bring it back into his area, but there are not many people who are going to do that. After all, when you pass legislation you try to deal with the average person; you cannot provide for special cases always. There are bound to be loopholes, but I believe that the clause with the amendment, which the hon. the Minister says he will accept, is a better safeguard and a better precaution than the clause without it. I cannot really see the dangers which hon. members opposite foresee about putting the farmers to a tremendous amount of inconvenience. They have not got to get the permit. This amendment means confining the sale of these devices, to where a permit is given, and at least to a person who the magistrate of the district is satisfied is a responsible type of trader. It provides an additional measure of safeguard and control.

May I just draw the attention of hon. members to the fact that it is precisely those people who are close to a game reserve who need traps more than anybody else because they are threatened more by predatory animals. In the nature of things there will be more predatory animals near such a reserve than on a lonely farm far away from a game reserve. In other words, what it amounts to is that those persons are to be subjected to the risk of being ruined by predatory animals. Let us take the case of the person who wants to obtain a trap; he goes to the shopkeeper to buy it; the shopkeeper has to go to the magistrate in order to get a permit. Neither the shopkeeper nor the magistrate knows the person in question—a Native, for example. On what grounds can the permit be refused? It simply has to be given. In other words, this amendment does have a nuisance value but for the rest it cannot achieve anything. That is how I see the position, and I am a little surprised that the hon. member, whom I regard as a practical person and a practical farmer, comes forward with this amendment with which nothing can really be achieved. The individual who is close to the reserve must be protected in the same way as the man who is far away from the reserve. He should have the same right to protect himself as the farmer who is far away from the reserve. In other words, he should also have the right to have a trap or some other device with which he can exterminate or trap predatory animals, and in point of fact he needs it more. In other words, we are serving no purpose with this amendment, and I think the hon. member should withdraw it.

I just want to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to the position in connection with this Bill. When the Select Committee sat in 1957, we found that people were continually coming along with proposals to water down the provisions of the measure and to make them less effective. This Bill has been introduced to make it difficult for people to behave cruelly towards animals. We have again found here this afternoon that members have come along with proposals time and again to water down the provisions of the Bill. I want to tell the Minister that no law has ever been introduced that one cannot circumvent in some way or other if one wishes to do so. I notice that the hon. the Minister of Transport is here; he knows that as soon as a measure is introduced to prevent road accidents, there are always people who say that we cannot compel the motorist to travel so slowly, etc. Here we have precisely the same position again. We also find that hon. members are trying to water down the provisions of the Bill.

What about the amendment of the hon. member for South Coast?

In my opinion the amendment of the hon. member for South Coast makes it more difficult for people to commit an offence. I feel therefore that the hon. the Minister would be acting wisely in accepting that amendment.

I should like to move—

That covers the point raised yesterday by the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Cadman). Actually I am told by the law advisers that it is not necessary to have it in this case, that it is implicit in the clause but that it will be better if those words are inserted in the clause.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 15,

I wonder if the hon. the Minister will indicate to the Committee what is meant in this clause by an offence of a political character. Clearly it is an offence of a political character in respect of which a person could be tried in a foreign country. I wonder if the hon. the Minister will indicate to us exactly what sort of offence is involved in this expression.

The words contained in this Bill are “an offence of a political character”. It is impossible for anybody to define that term or to give an example of it. That term has appeared throughout the years in all our Extradition Acts and in the extradition treaties, and the interpretation of it differs from country to country. What one country regards as a political offence is not regarded by another country as a political offence, and it is simply impossible to define it. It is for the country which is being asked to extradite a person to decide whether it is going to extradite that person and whether it is going to regard the offence for which the extradition is asked for as one of a political nature. What I would regard as a non-political offence, the hon. member over there might perhaps regard as an offence of a political character. This is a subjective matter; the term has never been defined and its meaning varies from country to country according to the circumstances, and that is why I simply cannot give a definition or an example of it because, as I have said, what one person regards as an offence of a political character is not regarded as a political offence by another person.

I appreciate the difficulty in which the hon. the Minister finds himself. I understand that this has been in the extradition legislation since 1870. My difficulty is that the hon. the Minister in reply to a question by an hon. member as to how many people had been convicted of political offences, said that he could not answer the question because there were not any political offences. So I presume that no one is going to be extradited for a political offence because surely the South African test is going to be applied as to whether an offence is of a political character. It seems that we have an expression here which the hon. the Minister indicates means nothing to him in South Africa. How is he then going to judge it in respect of an offence which is an offence in a foreign country in order to decide whether he should allow extradition of that person?

I am surprised that the hon. member for Durban (North) (Mr. M. L. Mitchell) is now taking up the fight on behalf of the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) because she is the person who asked me this question. The question of the hon. member for Houghton was in quite a different connection. She asked me not how many people had been convicted of offences of a political character; she asked me how many people had been charged with political crimes, and there is no such thing as a political crime. There are offences which have a political character, and that is something entirely different from a political offence.

Mr. M. L. MITCHELL: What is the difference?

If the hon. member still does not understand what the difference is between a political offence and an offence which has a political character, then I can give the hon. member an example. When the hon. member’s party was in power, there were political offences; now that we are in power there are only offences of a political character.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 22,

I move as an amendment—

I happen to be one of that group in this House that has constantly brought to the notice of whatever government was in office the necessity for something to be done to save our stock from the ravages of drought and the external and internal parasites. Yesterday afternoon the hon. member for East London (City) (Dr. Moolman) made a plea to the hon. the Minister for some research into the establishment of some remedy, a preparation that could be used in cube form to save stock under serious drought conditions. Now it was astonishing to see the reaction on the other side of the House when that plea was made. It was associated with the establishment of a fodder bank. Now I think every hon. member realizes that some form of fodder bank in this country is essential. But to hurl back at this side of the House that we must wait for the Orange River scheme under which we will have our fodder banks, surely, is not a proper approach in view of the fact that at least 12,000,000 small stock and 1,000,000 large stock are being lost every year. We are losing that stock. Is it necessary? We have enormous surpluses of maize which could form the basis for the manufacture of such cubes and the manufacture of such cubes would be the best form of fodder bank that the individual farmer could keep on his farm from time to time. I want to put it to the hon. the Minister that the time has come, in view of the losses, that he should investigate this matter and try and do something towards providing that the hon. member for East London (City) asked for. I think the hon. the Minister will accept that of the numbers that were mentioned last evening by the hon. member for Cape Town (Gardens) (Mr. Connan), half of that number die of drought. Now, Sir, if you value them at only R4 per head, then over the period of time it will take to develop the Orange River scheme, we will have lost R340,000,000 in the form of small stock. Sir, are we justified in allowing that to continue without some investigation? Should some preparation not be put on the market to solve that problem? The hon. member for Namaqualand (Mr. G. de K. Maree) said that fodder banks should be provided by us on our own farms. There is a lot in that. But may I ask the hon. member whether we have been provided with all the irrigation necessary and the suitable land necessary and the conditions necessary for the growing of a fodder bank on all the farms in South Africa? So it becomes necessary for us to produce some preparation and establish some fodder bank, be it on the farm itself or not. Surely the Government is not going to stand by and see our stock ravaged in the way it is, even by drought, or external parasites! I want to come to the other half of this stock that we lose; possibly two-thirds of that stock is lost by the ravages of external parasites. They represent at least another R200,000,000 over a period of ten years. In view of the confession by the hon. the Minister in this report that there is a serious increase in external parasites and that even the Free State is becoming overrun with the paralysing tick, surely the hon. Minister must come to the conclusion now that it is necessary to bring about some compulsory cleansing. When I say that, I do not mean compulsory dipping, but a compulsory cleaning is easily enforcible. The circumstances have been related to the hon. Minister from time to time. Why, even the hon. Minister of Justice in the Bill he piloted through the House to-day indicated that it is a punishable offence for stock to become infested with ticks. Now surely in view of that, this state of affairs cannot continue. It may be true that some of the ticks have become immune, that is to say to arsenite of soda. We have preparations in the market to-day that foot the bill, Mr. Chairman. Why cannot they be applied? It is not necessary for every farmer to have a dip. He can keep sprays to keep his stock clean. That will save the rest of the country from becoming infested. It would not be necessary for the Transvalers to come down here and to tell us that they have got to keep all these ticks on their farms for the purpose of developing an immunity. I think we are justified in putting these two items to the hon. the Minister. An investigation is essential to see what steps can be taken to save our stock in future from the ravages of drought and to introduce at the earliest possible date some compulsory cleansing that is going to assist those farmers who do try and clean their stocks.

I want to come to an item that has been raised by the hon. member for Soutpansberg (Mr. S. P. Botha). He indicated to the House that there is a shortage of manpower. I remember years back, when this Government came into office, we heard the same excuse that there was a shortage of manpower. So we are faced with the same position to-day that some of your extension officers find it quite impossible to carry on the services they would like to render in areas that are keenly anxious to make use of their services.

The position is not the same to-day.

Very good, may I suggest to the hon. the Minister that if the position is not the same as the hon. member for Somerset East (Mr. Vosloo) asserts, that we should get some assistance in the District of Stutterheim where we have one extension officer, a highly qualified man, confined to his office, unable to do any practical work or field work outside. And that is not the only area that is so served. I think we are justified in saying to the hon. the Minister that the sooner he is able to get these people, the better. If I remember correctly there was an undertaking given that these men would be trained as soon as possible, and what is more they would be committed to carry out the duties in the service of the Government for a period of five years.

I think the hon. the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services will agree with me that we are now in a period of surpluses, and the farmer must ask himself what type of product he should produce and what he should farm with. As I see the matter, there are still great possibilities as regards wheat, wool and meat. In July 1959 the Department of Agricultural Economics and Marketing published a report in which it pointed out that, while our consumption of beef today is 1.474 million carcasses per annum, by 1970 we shall require nearly 2,000,000 carcasses, and while our production of wheat to-day is 8,000,000 to 9,000,000 bags, the consumption of wheat by 1970 will be approximately 17,000,000 or 18,000,000 bags. This will mean that the farmers of our country will have to produce from 500,000 to 750,000 bags of wheat more from year to year to meet the needs of the country. I believe that in the North-Eastern Free State there are very great possibilities for a tremendous increase in the production of wheat. The climatic conditions are favourable, the soil is ideal. We have a sandy loam soil; but the main problem is the cultivation of the correct type of wheat. In the North-Eastern Free State we also have an agricultural research station near Bethlehem which serves the whole of the North-Eastern Free State as well as the Caledon area. Mr. Chairman, the Wheat Board in 1953-4 donated an amount of £30,000 for a research building at that research station and requested especially that this building should be used for wheat research. During recent years very valuable work has been done there, but the difficulty is that there is inadequate staff at the research station. We only have one official who is concentrating on research in respect of new wheat varieties, rust-free wheat varieties. He has also achieved encouraging success with their cultivation and has produced a summer wheat variety called Bethane, which hitherto has shown itself to be really rust free, and which increases the possibilities for wheat production tremendously. But, as the hon. the Minister himself knows, wheat is a very strange crop, and while it may not be susceptible to certain types of rust in the first few years, it may just take a few years, and then it is attacked once again, and then we are back where we started from. The farmers of the North-Eastern Free State have instructed me to make a really earnest appeal to the Minister to-day that there must be far greater expansion at Bethlehem as regards wheat research. Furthermore, I want to point out that the North-Eastern Free State offers very good opportunities for sheep and cattle farming, and particularly the breeding of slaughter cattle. If many of our lands which to-day are being cultivated, which to-day are producing mealies, of which there is a tremendous surplus which, in many cases, is being exported at a heavy loss, and on which the farmers in actual fact do not make the necessary profits, could be converted to the production of other products, a great deal can be achieved. I want the hon. the Minister to help us in those areas. The wheat farmers of the winter rainfall region were saved at the time by the introduction of lucerne and lupins. This enabled them to introduce the wool sheep into their farming system and by so doing considerably to strengthen their financial position. The hon. the Minister will now tell me that we in those regions have the well-known Eragrostis grass. That is true; it does very well in those areas; it gives extremely high yields, provides good grazing and is reasonably resistant to drought. It is also very suited for use as silage. But one has to apply a very high proportion of nitrogen, and the difficulty is that if the farmer does not give the grass sufficient nitrogen, the grass becomes yellow and no animal wants to eat it. The hon. members will now tell me that the solution is “nitrogen”, but the difficulty is that the farmers find themselves in the position that at the moment very great suspicion exists as regards the Eragrostis curvula grass. That suspicion has been spread by the officials of the Department itself. Certain officials in the Department condemn this grass, particularly the economists in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Marketing. They have told the farmers that it is not remunerative to plant that grass. A great deal more research must be undertaken, and I want to urge this afternoon that the Minister should have an investigation instituted in respect of this grass about which our farmers are uncertain to-day, so that we can have clarity once and for all. I personally believe that this grass is the secret which will eventually enable us to make our impoverished lands rich in humus and fertile, and to support the necessary sheep and cattle on that grazing so that, by introducing the stock factor, we shall be able to achieve greater stability for the farmer in the North-Eastern Free State as well.

I should like to ask the hon. the Minister how far he has got in going into the question of the report of the Departmental and Technical Committee that he appointed to investigate the whole question of artificial insemination in South Africa. We have already during debates in this House this Session, had stress laid on the great importance of artificial insemination for the livestock industry in South Africa, and particularly to the dairy industry. Now the hon. the Minister two or three years ago appointed this committee to go into the question of financial aid necessary to see that firstly the A.I. centres, especially the co-op. A.I. centres, should be put on a sound financial footing. At that time there had been applications from the Natal A.I. Co-op. which has had no help from the Government whatsoever; it had been entirely self-supporting; the capital it was short of, it had raised from the commercial banks, and they had never asked a penny from the state—or rather they had asked for it but the terms were so severe that they could get the capital cheaper commercially. But they were finding themselves in difficulties because of the application of certain requirements by the A.I. Board as far as veterinary supervision was concerned. I had a lot to do with seeing the Minister and discussing the question of a fulltime veterinary officer to be made available. Where we asked the State to make the services of a veterinary officer available to the Natal A.I. Co-op., instead of that, after investigation, the Minister came forward and helped that co-op. tremendously and put it on a sound financial footing by making a grant of so many thousand pounds a year, for three years. That not only gave that co-op. an opportunity to place itself on a sound financial footing, but it could give the officer concerned a guaranteed position for three years. The money was utilized entirely for that purpose. But the payment of that subsidy expired last year and the subsidies now to the A.I. co-ops are, I understand, in all instances on an annual basis. Mr. Chairman, in my opinion that is not a satisfying basis, because it makes it very difficult to plan ahead as far as your finances are concerned. The hon. the Minister had this report from his committee and I understand he has been going into the committee’s report. I would like to ask the hon. the Minister if he could not give a definite reply to all A.I. co-ops telling them what assistance they can expect over the next three or four years? If they know that, they can plan ahead and those services can be put on a sound footing with satisfaction to the officials concerned.

Now I want to deal with two other points, the main one being that to my mind there is not full collaboration between the two separate Ministers of Agriculture and their Departments. We have tremendous difficulties in getting rid of surpluses because of over-production, and as hon. members know advice was given to produce more by certain people in the hon. Minister’s Department, to produce more of products that are already heavily over-produced, leading to heavy losses on account of low prices.

The dairy industry at the moment has already reached the stage that prices are at cost of production, if not below cost of production, and they have been reduced this year. The sugar-growers in the country are on quota and their quotas have been reduced the last couple of years; the wattle-producers have had their quotas very drastically cut during the last two years, so much so that I think many of the small wattle-growers will go under unless they get some help and relief. But, Mr. Chairman, these two sections of producers quoted themselves in relation to their production and marketing and what advice did they get from the hon. the Minister’s Department? The wattle-growers had been advised to go in for dairying. We already have so much over-production and so many marketing difficulties that it has become a very serious problem for all concerned, and we are exporting at a heavy loss. The whole question has become a headache to everybody, and yet we have one Department advising two big sections of the agricultural community to produce an article already over-produced. But the anomaly is that you don’t say to the dairy farmers: Look, take some of your best land where you are free of frost and produce sugar and we will see to it that you will get something of the sugar market! They can’t get into that market. The same applies to wattle. You cannot get into the wattle market, you cannot get a quota, and those of us who are in the wattle industry are not re-establishing—I have not re-established a plantation I have cut for the last few years. But certain wattle-growing areas are turning to what is the mainstay of the Natal Midland farmers who are not going in for other types of timber-growing, that is dairy products, on the advice of the Department. If the sugar farmers start producing still more industrial milk, how much more difficult is our position going to be! Surely there ought to be collaboration between these two Ministers and their Departments to see that such advice is not given to people where over-production is already giving us so much trouble and creating so many difficulties. So I would ask the hon. the Minister to see to it that his Department takes that into consideration before advising producers to switch to a product where there is already very serious over-production and where we cannot get rid of our surpluses satisfactorily.

Mr. Chairman, you will understand the problem facing the Minister of Agriculture in replying to a debate which has been as far ranging as this one and which has touched upon practically all the problems of the agricultural industry. I shall nevertheless try to reply as fully as possible, indirectly or directly to the various aspects mentioned here, the criticisms expressed and the representations made. I just want to tell hon. members that I welcome these discussions and I am glad to hear the views of various hon. members as well as the criticism which they may have of the administration of the Department. When I refer to criticism, one sometimes merely has destructive criticism and on other occasions again constructive criticism. When I refer to constructive criticism, I want to thank the hon. member for Drakensberg (Mrs. S. M. van Niekerk) particularly for the congratulations she has conveyed especially to the Secretary of the Department who was responsible for drawing up the annual report to which she has referred. I think that if more of our hon. members on both sides of the House who are interested in agriculture would make a study, as I know she does, of these reports, then hon. members would perhaps be far better acquainted with the activities of the Department; there would perhaps be less complaints and we might have more positive proposals as regards possible improvements. As regards the thanks and the praise which she has just in passing directed to me in respect of the progress which has been made, I want to thank her in all humility. It can be expected of every person in a responsible position that he should do his best, and while he holds that position, to do everything he possibly can in the interests of the development of our country and the responsibilities he bears. Well, one cannot do more than one’s best.

Just as the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) (Capt. Henwood) and other hon. members, she has emphasized the necessity of having greater co-ordination between the two Departments of Agriculture, that is to say between the Department of Agricultural Technical Services and the Department of Agricultural Economics and Marketing. I want to assure hon. members that this is being done through the central committee of the Cabinet which the hon. the Prime Minister has established to effect this co-ordination, not only in respect of this Department, but also in respect of at least three other Departments, which are so closely linked that one cannot do justice to the agricultural industry without also bringing in the others and thereby extending the scope of the co-ordination. This central committee consists of the Ministers of the Departments concerned, that is to say the Ministers of the two Departments of Agriculture, of Water Affairs. Lands and of Forestry, with their departmental heads. I think this was a step in the right direction. This is a committee of the Cabinet which does not sit once a month or once every two months. The departmental heads falling under the Ministers I have mentioned from a departmental central committee meet more often, but as far as the Cabinet Ministers themselves are concerned, they meet every 14 days and sometimes every week to consider the recommendations and reports of the departmental heads in respect of the matters entrusted to them. As I have said, these matters are considered at least once every 14 days, and sometimes every week. Here we therefore have co-ordination. In addition there is also inter-departmental co-operation. My Department deals mainly with extension and research, agricultural planning, soil conservation, and the giving of advice by the extension service to the farmers, not only in respect of improved agricultural practices and methods, but my Department must also give guidance and advice regarding what can be done here and what can be done there. That is why it is obvious that there is and should be the closest co-operation between the two Departments, that is to say the Department of Agricultural Economics and Marketing and the Department of Agricultural Technical Services, and that we are and remain fully informed as regards the demands of the market, the problems caused by surpluses, etc. We give our full attention to these matters. I want to admit frankly that I think that in the field of economic guidance, we have fallen back a little for various reasons over the years. But I want to assure the House that more economic guidance is being and will be given in future by both Departments, also as we recruit additional manpower in this field. Economists and particularly agricultural economists are scarce. The hon. member for Drakensberg says that she has not heard of us giving economic guidance when we hold a farmers’ day.

I was referring to short courses.

We have perhaps not yet reached the stage of short courses. But in the place of the short courses during which we only bring together a very limited number of farmers, because we can accommodate them and by so doing teach and inculcate in them what it means really to take into account the economic aspect of farming, we are trying as far as possible to emphasize strongly the economic aspect at all times during the farmers’ days which we organize. We feel that in this way we are reaching far more people with the limited manpower that is available, the resources which are made available by the Department of my colleague. We feel that we are achieving more in this way than by holding short courses which are limited to regions and to a certain number of persons.

Pests and plagues.

Yes, pests, plagues and diseases which can break out or which can overcome one. This aspect determines one’s success or otherwise to a tremendous extent.

I now want to assure members on both sides of the House that in the Department of Agriculture we quite rightly have a group of select officers. I think there are few Ministers with portfolios under their care and supervision who can boast and who can speak of officers without exception, or perhaps with the rarest of exceptions, because one finds them everywhere, who are so devoted to their task and who concentrate to such an extent on doing their work in order to earn their salaries and to render service, such as my officials in the Department of Agricultural Technical Services—from the top to the bottom. These people do not only work for one government or one Minister. They work for the country. It is, in fact, the continuity which we have in our public service which, in my opinion, makes these people of so much more value to our country and its future and to agriculture in general than would otherwise be the position.

A great deal has been said about wool research and sheep research, etc. I just want to say one or two words in this regard. In the first place I want to say that it is extremely difficult to determine the funds which the State and my Department are spending on, and how much attention is being given specifically to, wool and sheep research. Because there are a large number of research projects which are being carried out and departmental activities which are not related directly to sheep, but which, nevertheless, are indirectly to the great advantage of our sheep farmers. As regards sheep and wool research, no less than 75 research projects were undertaken last year in that regard. I shall mention a few indirect research activities and services which the State is providing through my Department, and which relate to sheep farming. Take our veterinary research. This also includes sheep diseases. It includes the preparation of vaccines, and I only mention one or two: blue-tongue, entrotoxaemia (bloednier), Wesselsbron disease, and many others. But the Division of Veterinary Services undertook 18 projects last year which related to sheep diseases exclusively. We have the mobile laboratories for example. Investigations and research have been undertaken locally in respect of a large number of problems facing the people of the North-Western Cape particularly. I am thinking, for example, of “dikkop”, of a new one which has now made its appearance, namely cattle jaundice (geelsiekkte), and of that poisonous plant which they call the “vermeerbos”. Research has been undertaken to see what we can do in this regard and how we can combat these diseases. All soil conservation measures, farm planning schemes, soil conservation subsidies, etc., also benefit sheep farming, and sheep farming particularly. The eradication of weeds, for example jointed cactus, affects the wool industry and the mohair industry. There is the eradication of locusts and caterpillars. This is a matter about which the sheep farmers are very concerned, and they advocate research in this regard. But we nevertheless find that members rise here and make the far-fetched general submission that we are doing nothing for the sheep farmer. But they do not think for example of the research being undertaken in connection with caterpillar plague; they do not think of the combating of locusts, something which we have temporarily brought under control. They do not think of the termites and the paralysis tick, and they forget that research in respect of all these matters is also in the interests of sheep farming.

Then there are a few direct research projects which we are undertaking. There is research into the question of the feeding of sheep which is being undertaken at various research stations. A special departmental committee has already been appointed to investigate the feeding of sheep in times of drought and to plan properly directed research work in this regard. But when we have carried out this plan and investigated this matter, and we know what ingredients are required for a fodder which should be supplied to the sheep farmer in one or other form, then I think it is almost asking too much of the Department to say that we should make that pill or tablet or the concentrated fodder available to the farmer. This is something which the trade should take further. The farmers can do it on a co-operative basis; they can do it together with the industrialist, or whoever wishes to do so. A great deal of information is available to-day. I know that the production of concentrated tablets, pills or blocks has already been started. There are many useful ways in which they can be compressed. But hitherto the price has been the determining factor for it determines the demand and the price of these articles has apparently not been economic enough to create a large demand amongst the farmers. The second is: Where shall we find a factory or an undertaking to manufacture this type of fodder because it must necessarily go through an additional process apart from the manufacture and composition—where shall we find a business undertaking to undertake this production if it does not know that it will have a regular market? How many farmers will be prepared to use and to buy these products every year in times of plenty. No, the farmer waits until there is a drought. The position is that about a year ago lucerne and hay was not available in the country. Allow me now to tell hon. members who are perhaps not lucerne farmers that the lucerne farmers and their cooperative societies are desperate because the lucerne was piling up in vast quantities because they cannot get a properly remunerative price under present conditions. Can we expect farmers to produce these products on behalf of other farmers and to keep them until a drought arises? The consumer of lucerne hay cannot expect that of the producer. After all the producer must also live. That is what makes the position so difficult. I am only mentioning this in passing. The opinion of my Department and I myself is that, as far as a fodder bank is concerned, the farmer’s best fodder bank is the one which he establishes for himself on his own farm. We know we cannot expect all these things of our stock farmers, because our sheep farmers have suffered extremely heavy financial losses and have lost many sheep. But, after all, better years will come. Statistics show that, as far as the Land Bank, the Farmers’ Assistance Board and the State Advances Recoveries Office are concerned, there are few types of farmers in our country who meet their obligations more faithfully than the stock farmer and in particular the sheep farmer, in respect of the assistance advanced to him by the State. One thing I should like them to do is that the sheep farmer, just as he is prepared to take out an insurance policy and to pay a premium, should also be prepared in the years of plenty to buy ahead, during the times when there are adequate supplies, so that he can be self-sufficient for at least a few months—I do not know how long he can survive the drought--when a severe drought strikes him. I believe that the best farming methods and the best way to combat drought is that one should not get ready to sell one’s stock, but that one should so plan one’s farm, that one’s grazing system should be such that one can introduce the spare camp system, that one does not overstock one’s farm, and that one grazes one’s farm on such a basis that one always has a certain measure of reserve. Because hon. members know after all that in South Africa—and it also depends where one is farming—the evil day of drought will come. If it does not come this year, then it will come the next year or the year thereafter. But it is once and for all the position that one does not look far enough ahead; one does not make sufficient provision for the future.

I should like to mention a further direct research project which has been undertaken. There is certain physiological research, particularly as regards the fertility of sheep and goats. This is being undertaken at various experimental stations. I think this is a very important project because this infertility factor can be an extremely important matter. In my opinion there are three things in small stock farming which determine whether such farming is really economic and what the profits will be. The one is the annual lambing percentage—not how many lambs are born, but how many lambs are brought to the age of, say, three, four or five months—how many lambs one produces from a hundred ewes. That is very important. The second is what the weight of the sheep is when they reach shearing age; in other words, how rapidly are they growing? How many of them have the dual capacity to produce good meat and good wool? The third requirement is how much wool one shears from the same sheep during 12 months, if for example it is a merino. I know that when selective breeding has been applied and when, for example, feeding and farm planning have been taken into proper account, farmers in the South-Western districts who have not increased the number of their sheep but who have kept exactly the same number of sheep on the same land, have increased their lambing production by at least 12 per cent, that is to say from 90 per cent to over 100 per cent, and have increased their wool production from an average of 13½ lbs. eight years ago to an average of 16½ lbs. per sheep. It has even increased to 17 lbs. of wool per sheep of 12 months and older. There was also an increase in weight. The farmer no longer had lambs which weighed 50 or 60 lbs. at a certain age. They showed a tremendous increase in weight. That is what happens when people start farming scientifically. I do not want to expand on this subject. I am also thinking for example of research in respect of suitable dips. This is also to the benefit of the sheep and wool industry. I may just say that the main centre for sheep and wool research is situated at Grootfontein, while research is also being undertaken at Stellenbosch, Döhne, Nooitgedacht (Ermelo), Potchefstroom, Pretoria and Glen in respect of wool-bearing sheep. We have now established a research station at Upington with the main purpose of giving specific attention to the karakul sheep. The karakul sheep at Grootfontein are being transferred to that station and we shall place an official of the Department who knows most about these matters in charge.

As regards the agricultural faculty at Stellenbosch, I just want to point out to hon. members—and I do not mean that hon. members are ignorant because I did not realize it myself until I had been in Parliament for years—that the agricultural faculties at the various universities are on such a basis that the professors and lecturers at such faculties, although they fall under the jurisdiction and control of the university council, fall under the Department of Agriculture as a faculty. At Stellenbosch there is Prof. Laubscher who is giving special attention to the breeding problems of merino sheep. He has undertaken a study trip to Australia with the assistance of the Wool Board, and he made a very thorough study there of these problems and particularly of breeding problems. He is working out a project and breeding plans which I think will be of great value and importance to our country. I am enlarging a little on the wool and sheep industry because this is one of our basic agricultural activities. I believe, as was said when the Orange River scheme was announced, that once this scheme has been developed, it will contribute not only to an increase in our wool production, but possibly to its doubling. At Stellenbosch important research work is being undertaken in respect of the feeding of sheep as well. We have already sent one of our leading officials, a research worker in genetics, Dr. Hofmeyr, to Australia during this year to undertake a thorough study of sheep and wool research. He will also visit the U.S.A. I want to say that the Department works in the closest co-operation with the wool farmers and their organizations, such as the National Woolgrowers’ Association and the Ram Breeders’ Association. I have said before that I cannot agree that the Woolgrowers’ Association is rendering the merino breeders a service by not also registering their stud sheep and subjecting them to progeny tests because as the position is now, I do not think as an association they are serving the merino industry as they could do.

As a result of one of the recommendations made by Prof. Laubscher after returning from Australia, I have decided to appoint a departmental committee to draw up a properly directed research programme in respect of merino sheep breeding. They are now carrying out a national survey which will involve provisionally at least 5 per cent of the merino sheep farmers in order to have as wide as possible a basis. Furthermore, investigation will be instituted into the various selection methods used for the improvement of the merino sheep, as well as the interaction between environment and the genetic type. I think I have said sufficient in that regard.

Seeing that diseases have been referred to. I should like to say something about foot and mouth disease, with particular reference to the outbreak in South West Africa. Coupled with this I want to make an announcement. During 1961 foot and mouth disease broke out in South West Africa. The virus responsible was of the South African type 1, and I am informed that the virus which causes foot and mouth disease is the smallest disease-spreading virus known to the entire scientific world. Because circumstances were very favourable for the spreading of this disease, particularly through the movement of wild game, large parts of the country were in the grip of this disease within a short period. The Republic gave all possible assistance to South West to bring the disease under control. After the outbreak, I immediately asked my Department, and the head of the Division of Veterinary Services, Dr. Lambrechts, to get in touch with the Chief Veterinarian in South West. After returning and reporting to me, and after I had reported to the Cabinet two days later, I went to South West together with the Director of Veterinary Field Services. Discussions were held with the veterinarians there and we felt immediately, in the interests of the Republic as well as South West—because this represented a tremendous threat to us—that we should immediately go out of our way to give them as much assistance as possible. Nine veterinarians and 54 stock inspectors were sent from the Republic to help with the campaign. This is why the veterinarians of certain parts which were not threatened could be taken away and sent there, and it is not because we were asleep and doing nothing, as was said by the hon. member for whom I have a good deal of respect when he is discussing things about which he knows, that is to say, the hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford). I just want to say that the Republic has already incurred expenditure to an amount of R39,000 in respect of salaries and allowances of officials for the periods during which they have been employed in South West. Special arrangements have been made for the air transport of vaccine by the South African Air Force. It is not South West which made these arrangements, but my Department made these arrangements on behalf of South West. A virologist and a pathologist have been sent from Onderstepoort to demonstrate the safety of the vaccine. Arrangements have been made with the South West Administration to send as many of the cattle as possible from the areas which have not yet been infected to the abattoirs in the Republic. Every possible precaution and step have been taken to ensure that the disease does not enter the Republic. To help the farmers of South West further, we have not only arranged that cattle can be slaughtered at the quarantine abattoirs in the Republic, but controlled marketing of other agricultural products has also been allowed. The Director of Veterinary Services and the Deputy Director of Veterinary Services (Onderstepoort) have been sent by the Government to London to hold discussions with the Foot and Mouth Research Institute at Pirbright. As a result of these discussions the Director of Pirbright has also kindly undertaken to produce a special vaccine to counter the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in South West, of which 1,500,000 doses have already been supplied. It is an irrefutable fact that the use of this vaccine has had a limiting influence on the spread of the disease. I am proud to be able to say that my Department, and I am referring particularly to the officials of the Division of Veterinary Services, both at Onderstepoort and in the Field Service, have left no stone unturned in order to assist our neighbours in their difficult times. We have also received generous praise from Pirbright for the capable way in which we have co-operated with them in the field tests.

It is a very great privilege and pleasure to be able to announce that because we have had repeated outbreaks of foot and mouth disease in this country since 1933, either in regions or in certain places, sometimes of a less serious nature and on other occasions again of a serious nature, the Government has now decided that the time has come that we should establish our own foot and mouth research institute in the Republic. Three types of virus are known in Europe, but they are not the same types that we in South Africa know. We have three other types in South Africa, but it has also been established that there are variants of these types, in other words, that between the three types there are in addition deviant types which belong to the same family. This gives rise to the following problem, namely that an animal which has become resistant to one type can still be infected by the other type, or by a variant of the other type, and in this way the period of incubation can last for months. The institute will be established at a place outside Pretoria and will fall under the direct control of Onderstepoort, but it will be so situated that we shall be able to exercise proper control to ensure that it will not be near animals and so that the greatest care can be taken to ensure that there is no possibility of the disease being spread, so that the disease will not be spread from that point. The planning of the institute will be based on the model provided by the best similar institutes elsewhere in the world, and in co-operation with the field veterinarians sound teamwork will be built up. However, it will take quite some years before the institute will be in full operation. We are already training research workers in this field. One of our senior research workers at Onderstepoort has been sent overseas to make a special study of foot and mouth disease research. Further information in respect of foot and mouth disease and what other measures we can take is the following, namely, that we are going to keep to the recommendation of the Diesel Committee which was appointed to go into the whole matter of how we can best safeguard ourselves against the disease being spread across the borders of the Republic. The Diesel Committee made certain recommendations which in themselves entail the erection of additional fences and game proof fences in certain instances. I shall deal in greater detail with this in the Other Place when my policy motion is being discussed there.

Hon. members have said that so many animals die annually. I admit that there are heavy losses, but there is practically no disease for which Onderstepoort is not already producing a vaccine which is made available to the public. But so many people want one to bring them to the water and then one still has to drink the water for them to assuage their thirst. I as a farmer am very sorry to have to say this of other farmers, but our farmers usually wait until the animals are dying and then they seek a remedy, instead of using a preventative vaccine so that the animals do not contract the disease. Such vaccines are available to them.

Hon. member, and particularly the hon. member for Durban (Central), referred disparagingly last night to Onderstepoort, and I cannot allow that to pass unchallenged. I want to ask the hon. member when he was last at Onderstepoort? Has he ever been there? One is never too old to learn. It will even benefit the hon. member to visit Onderstepoort, and to see what progress and development are taking place there, particularly over the last 12 years. Onderstepoort is one of the research institutes which is world renowned. Every year scientists come from America, England and Australia, and even from countries in the Middle East, to study what we are doing at Onderstepoort for a month or longer. Research is being undertaken there which is unique in the world. Certain of our scientists are invited to go to America to show the Americans how things should be done. One of the most serious outbreaks of horse-sickness has been combated in Pakistan during the past year. It was pointless our classifying the virus and sending them the vaccine. They did not even know how to prepare their own vaccine. We were asked, and we agreed, to send one of our scientists to show those people what to do, and this enabled them to overcome one of the worst outbreaks of horse-sickness. We are continually being asked for this type of scientific assistance, even by countries which are no longer well disposed towards us, but we do not let ourselves be put off by that. In the scientific field we even give assistance to unfriendly countries and undeveloped countries, provided they approach us through the correct channels, that is to say at governmental level. Seeing that the hon. member has referred to close co-operation between the Medical Research Institute or the Department of Health and Onderstepoort, I want to tell him that I do not think that that leaves anything to be desired, because our previous Director, Dr. Alexander, is serving on various medical research committees where he is playing a very important role and forms the link between Onderstepoort and the medical services. So when the hon. member urges that Onderstepoort should fall under the control of the Department of Health, I want to tell him that here we have the position that Onderstepoort is far better able to do this work than perhaps any other State organization or body. Just as the health services of the country still have many problems to solve in respect of the human being, so we also still have many problems to solve in respect of the health of the animal. I therefore think that it is better at this stage that the shoemaker should keep to his last, but that everyone should try to supplement one another through the closest possible co-operation.

I think that I have more or less answered most of the matters raised. If there are others, I want to apologize to hon. members if I have not replied to their questions specifically. I ask them to bring such matters to my notice and if I cannot answer during the course of the debate, it will give me great pleasure, as in the past, to provide them with written replies through my Department.

I should like to raise a matter which I hope the hon. the Minister will not regard as a reflection upon him or his Department, but it is something of the greatest importance, not only to the producers, but also to the consumers. The Minister’s greatest task is to see that the food production in one country is of such a quality and quantity that it satisfies the consumers. One of the most important means to that end is fertilizer, and it is in connection with the use of fertilizer and the quality of fertilizer in this country that I wish to address the Minister.

I intend to show the hon. the Minister that the fertilizer mixtures recommended and used at the present time are of a quality that, although it was good in the past, does not compare favourably at all with the most modern in the world to-day. As we know, the three ingredients of fertilizer are nitrogen, potash and phosphate. In many instances our present mixtures are good, but difficulty is experienced in the following cases. Firstly, we have to import potash mainly, and secondly, the present sources of nitrogen are very ineffective. One of those sources is urea. We know that research has been conducted by the Minister’s Department in connection with that, and that the urea that is available in the country, is not very effectual. The second is that we have ammonium sulphate as a source of nitrogen. It is an indisputable fact that 80 per cent of our land is sour, and that ammonium sulphate further sours that land. Therefore it is not a suitable source of nitrogen either.

Are you now making the speech I made last year?

I know the hon. member raised these matters and I hope I shall get his support. Now there has been a tremendous development during the last ten years in regard to fertilizers. There is a new fertilizer called the complex fertilizer, which is much more effective than anything we manufacture here. In France and Germany this complex fertilizer is being used almost exclusively at the present time. The advantages of this are as follows : It is not necessary to mix sand with it, which is unavoidable in the case of many of the present mixtures. [Interjections.] A much better mixture may, e.g., be supplied to the farmers than the 5:13:5 or the 3:15:3. With this complex you can have a 20:10:10, or even better mixtures, and it is not necessary to import potash. [Interjections.] The cost is less and it is much more effective, as the tests of the hon. the Minister’s Department have already shown. The most important thing is that Sasol by about 1964 will be able to supply all the basic ingredients for this mixture, which is so much more effective.

However, I now come to the important point, and that is this, and here I should like to have the support of the hon. the Minister so that he may act in the interests of the farmers. We know that R56,000,000 has been invested in the fertilizer industry in South Africa and what those companies are doing is to manufacture these outmoded mixtures and to refuse to adopt the new methods. The reason is that their factories are geared to the old type of fertilizer, and the people who are prejudiced thereby are the farmers and the consumers. They are creating a monopoly—no not a monopoly, but an oligopoly. Here I have the report, “The Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Fertilizer Industry” which I commend to every hon. member opposite who is a farmer. It is this oligopoly in the fertilizer industry that makes it impossible to manufacture a better quality fertilizer in South Africa.

Order! The hon. member now is going too far away from the point.

All right, I think it is something I can deal with under the Commerce and Industries Vote. In connection with research on fertilizer, I should like to ask the Minister, in the interests of the farmer of South Africa, to make a more thorough investigation in connection with the fertilizer that is being manufactured in South Africa at the present time, and particularly in connection with the extremely effective methods that are being used overseas, and I ask the Minister particularly to make a good study of this report on the fertilizer industry to see what is going on in this country to-day, and that he should put his foot down in the interests of the farmer of South Africa, and see to it that this state of affairs should not go on any longer, and that the best quality fertilizer should be made available to the farmers. I urge him, on behalf of the farmer and the consumer to take up the cudgels against this oligopoly even though he should come into conflict in the Cabinet with the Minister of Economic Affairs.

I should like to put only one question to the hon. member who has just resumed his seat. We know that fertilizer is subject to inspection by the Department, and now it is not clear to us whether the 3:13:5 to which the hon. member referred—which is the sand, the 3, the 13 or 5? [Laughter.]

I should like at the outset to congratulate the hon. the Minister on what has been achieved at Onderstepoort. Further from that, to take the same line as that taken by the hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford) I should like to say that the farmers of South Africa could not farm to-day if we did not have Onderstepoort. I am mindful of the scare there was in this country some years ago among the horse breeders in connection with the dreaded horse-disease. I am thinking of the enormous losses that were suffered as a result of the lumpy-skin disease. How many farmers were not ruined! I am thinking of the dreaded anthrax. All those are things that have ruined the farmers, but which have been overcome by Onderstepoort, and the hon. member is doing himself a tremendous injustice by criticizing Onderstepoort. But what pleases me most about Onderstepoort is that it has not withdrawn itself from the enormous services it has rendered to Central Africa, Pakistan, America and other countries. I think this House this afternoon has every reason to be proud of it. We have proved thereby that in the technical sphere we certainly have reached maturity. Just think for a moment how those countries retaliated against South Africa when they did not agree with our political policy. They applied sanctions against us; they applied one boycott after another against us, and South Africa replied by being good to them. I think that if any country, any nation, any Minister, any institution, any Government, has proved its maturity, then this Minister and this Government surely have proved their maturity by their acts of commission and omission, and with what Onderstepoort has achieved.

Before I come to some other matters, I should like to dwell for a moment on what has been raised from that side of the House, and on which members on this side also have spoken, namely a fodder bank in South Africa, and I should like to put it in this way: Have hon. members thought already that the greatest guarantee for agriculture in South Africa, the greatest guarantee for a fodder bank in Southern Africa and in that regard for Africa as a whole, is the Joseph’s policy of the Government, whereby it annually retains 7,000,000 bags of maize in South Africa that cannot be exported, whatever the circumstances may be. It is being retained as a cover in South Africa against drought, against unforeseen difficulties that may arise. That, I think, is the greatest guarantee this country has ever had in connection with a fodder bank. I should like to conclude this point with this one thought: There is only one fodder bank that could be successfully established in South Africa, and that is a fodder bank by every farmer on his own farm. The idea of having fodder banks in central places, or at special towns or at every town, for instance here in the Cape, is absolutely impracticable; it is simply impossible and incapable of achievement, but it is possible though for every farmer to build a fodder bank on his own farm with the support of the Government, and I should like to make a plea for it here. I should like to urge that every farmer should receive assistance from the State to establish a fodder bank on his farm. In the ’thirties this House granted farmers a subsidy for restoring their dwellings, and it is so much more necessary for the Government to give the farmers a subsidy to enable them to establish fodder banks in the form of buildings, sheds, etc., which could then be filled during years of plenty. As the hon. the Minister has said, we know that droughts will again follow upon those good years, as surely as night follows day. I should like to leave that thought with the hon. the Minister.

I should like now to come to what the hon. member for Albany (Mr. Bowker) so bitingly hurled at me last night. In reply to an innocent interjection, he charged this side with not taking an interest in anything, and that we who come from the Transvaal know nothing. Mr. Chairman, I did some research in order to find out what the true position is. Normally we know the hon. member as being very courteous and very nice. He is one of the senior members of the House, and I have now discovered what the true position really is—or rather I think so. The hon. member was somewhat upset Saturday afternoon after he had been to the football match here, and found that Transvaal was a little too much for the Cape, with the result that the hon. member had not yet recovered his composure last night. I should like to quote a few statistics to the hon. member in relation to matters about which we are not supposed to know anything. He said inter alia that we do not know what a potato is. I now have here the figures up to 1957-8, according to the agricultural census of that year. In the Cape 3,026,000 pockets in 37½ lb. pockets, were produced.

Seed potatoes.

Yes, seed potatoes we get from Scotland; we get it from Riet River and from Northern Transvaal and from the Cold Bokkeveld …

And from South West.

But the potato production in the Transvaal, during the year when the production in the Cape was about 3 million pockets, was 8 million. The hon. member also referred to cattle in the Cape—all cattle. It will surprise the hon. member if I were to give him the official figures of 1,893,168 Bantu cattle (for surely we no longer refer to kaffir cattle).

Order! The hon. the Minister is not responsible for a comparison between the Transvaal and the Cape. Which aspect does the hon. member wish to emphasize?

I now come to the concluding remarks. As against that figure, we have about exactly the same figure in the Transvaal. So we can go on with every commodity. The hon. member also mentioned maize, and I should like to give those figures too. During the same year we produced 3 million bags in the Cape as against 20 million in the Transvaal. What has the hon. member now gained by making those remarks to this side? I should like to ask the hon. member and Cape members in general to get rid of this narrow provincialism. They should see South Africa as a country, as a whole; they must not have eyes only for their own province.

The hon. the Minister has just told us in his speech that a research institute for foot and mouth disease is to be established outside Pretoria which will be under the control of Onderstepoort. I think that we on this side of the House are indebted to the Minister for that announcement, for I think the majority of the cattle farmers in South Africa and in South West Africa are very disturbed about the enormous proportions this disease has assumed in recent times. If it can result in us being able to control this dreaded disease among the cattle of South Africa in future. I think it will be of very great importance to us. Yesterday we had a peculiar spectacle during this debate.

The hon. member for Soutpansberg (Mr. S. P. Botha) rose and told us what a tremendous shortage there is in the Department of Agriculture in regard to research workers, and he told us that these people really could only render services to the Department for about three years.

I did not say that.

And not long afterwards, the hon. the Minister rose, and he read out a typed statement in connection with the steps that are now being taken to improve the position. It seems to me that the hon. member for Soutpansberg merely gave the hon. the Minister his cue to rise and tell us that, for they knew that there would possibly be some criticism from this side of the House, in the light of the Departmental report, in relation to the shortage of personnel. The hon. the Minister told us that he had now created three directorates; that he was going to increase salaries and that many more of these posts would now be filled.

Are you sorry about that?

If it is true that these directorates are to be appointed, and that we shall get more research and better facilities thereby, we are grateful to the Minister. But that is not what the farmers of South Africa want to know. The farmers know that a tremendous amount of research is being conducted. What the farmers of South Africa want to know is this: To what extent does the research that is being done reach the farmers themselves?

You are now insulting the farmers.

To what extent is the Minister now placing extension officers at the disposal of the farmers? When will we have enough extension officers to convey that technical knowledge to the farmers themselves?

Are you a stranger in Jerusalem then?

The hon. the Minister is like a person who has appointed an enormous number of generals, but how many men has he got? How many of these new posts the Minister proposes to create are concerned with extension or information officers, with the opening of new offices, so that they will be there to assist the farmers of South Africa with the right kind of help? At page 62 of the Departmental Report there is a map on which every regional office and every information office in South Africa is marked. Let us look and see what the position is in the Cape. There are great districts such as. e.g., Murraysburg, Aberdeen, Prince Albert, Willowmore, Sutherland, Ceres, Bredasdorp, Mossel Bay, Knysna, Uniondale, Steytlerville, Pearston, Hanover, Richmond, Brits town and Hopetown where there are no extension officers. And then the hon. member for Soutpansberg tells me that I am a stranger in Jerusalem. The stranger in Jerusalem is not sitting on this side, but on that side opposite. That is what we have asked for during the past 10 to 12 years, that better conditions should be created so that these young men may be attracted to the service of the Department of Agriculture so that we may receive proper information.

Are you suggesting that those places do not get services?

The hon. member should go and ask the farmers themselves.

He has not heard of Grootfontein as yet.

I say there are districts in South Africa where it is eight to nine years since an extension officer was on the farm last.

You have referred to Steytlerville and Pearston. Come to those places and see what is going on there.

I ask the hon. member: Have you an extension officer there?

There is an information office at Jansenville which serves them all, and they are being served in a fine way.

I just wish to tell the hon. member that we had an extension officer in the small town where I reside, but that office has been closed. A large district such as Murraysburg has no extension officer; a district such as Richmond, which also is much more important than Steytlerville in regard to wool production, has no extension officer, and that is one of the largest and best sheep districts in the country. Those districts have no extension officers and technical officers, and then the hon. member suggests that they know what they are doing. If the hon. Minister comes along and tells us that in 1958 he had 120 extension officers, then he should tell us that he had 130 the following year.

Read page 3 of the report.

Let us see what the position is like in regard to agricultural training. There the position is exactly the same. I refer to page 57. Let us look at first year and second year diploma course students at agricultural colleges. In the year 1959 there were 223 students that passed out; in the year 1960 there were 213—ten fewer. Let us look at the B.Sc. courses at our universities that have faculties of agriculture, under-graduate and postgraduate students. In 1960 there were 860 and in 1959 there were 859, an increase of 1, and then we are being told that we are making such enormous progress in South Africa. Take the under-graduate and post-graduate students in agricultural engineering. In 1960 there were 43; in 1959 there were 56, a decrease of 13. And then we are told that enormous progress is being made. Let us refer to under-graduate and post-graduate students in home economics and dietetics. There the position is exactly the same.

May I ask the hon. member a question? If the facilities are there for the students, and the students do not make use of those facilities, can I or my Department go along and take the student by the scruff of his neck and force him into the university?

It is very easy to reply to that question. The reply is as follows: If the hon. the Minister is so concerned about the shortage of extension officers and technical personnel, what is the solution? He can solve the problem by the creation of bursaries and by encouraging people to make use of them.

There merely goes to show what you know.

Let us refer to the graduates for 1959 and 1960. In 1960 there were a total of 209 in agriculture, veterinary science, agricultural engineering, home economics and dietetics, and in 1959 there were 230, a decrease of 21. And then we are told of the enormous progress that is being made in the field of expert agricultural training. Mr. Chairmain, that is what the people want. All the farmers are not trained people. They wish to have extension officers and experts to come and visit them from time to time, and to give them the right information. I know the great value of those men, but where are they? Extension offices are being closed instead of more offices being opened. If the Minister comes along year after year and is able to tell us: “Look, this is the progress we have made during the past year,” then we are prepared to listen to him. But let us look at the position in relation to Government veterinary surgeons. There the position is exactly the same; the report also refers to that. There is a map in the Report also that indicates to us what the position is. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) just now raised a matter here, but I am afraid he was not fully conversant with the subject he was talking about, and you will forgive me if I refer to that matter once again. I am perturbed about the dropping fertility of the soil, and the improvement of that fertility by the application of fertilizers. My concern arises from the fear that the wrong fertilizers are being used to step up the fertility of the soil. As the hon. member has said, 80 per cent of our agricultural land in South Africa is sour, and the application of the wrong fertilizer may aggravate that condition, with the most disastrous consequences as regards our agricultural lands. In this report from which the hon. member quoted just now, you will see, Mr. Chairman, that more than 541,000 tons of phosphates are used annually and nearly 436,000 tons of mixtures are being used. So approximately a million tons of fertilizer of this type are being used. But the greater proportion of the phosphates applied consists of superphosphates, and superphosphates have this acidizing effect: Superphosphates are derived from raw phosphates treated with sulphuric acid, and when it is spread over the land, then the phosphate either adheres to the soil or it is absorbed by the plants as nutriment, but thereby sulphuric acid in the ground is released, which has an acidizing effect on that soil. The mixtures on the other hand, consist of the three plant nutrients referred to by the hon. member, namely nitrogen, phosphate and potash. All the nitrogen in those mixtures consists of ammonium sulphate. As soon as ammonium sulphate gets into the soil, the ammonium is absorbed, and the sulphate in the form of acids is again absorbed into the soil and also has a strong acidizing effect. Together with the superphosphate, which is the other ingredient of that mixture, you can imagine what an acidizing effect it has on our soils. It was so bad at one stage that some years ago we had the phenomenon of the yellowing of our maize in the maize triangle. As a result of that mountains and mountains of lime are being applied to the soil in the maize triangle. If you travel through the maize triangle during the ploughing season, you will see heaps and heaps of lime on all the fields, which are being applied to counteract this acidizing phenomenon whereby our soil is being damaged. But when applying lime, you must remember that there is an adage that lime is the best over-cropper, for lime makes a very wealthy father but a very poor son; the son does not have the soil on which to continue farming thereafter.

As the hon. member has stated, a new development has taken place overseas, as a result of research. A new kind of fertilizer is being manufactured which is called the “complex fertilizer” by them. The mixtures we are using at the present time is a mixture that is derived from a physical admixture, such as mixing sand and sugar, but the new fertilizer is a chemical mixture, a chemical compound of the nutrient matter. These chemical mixtures have captured the whole market overseas, in Holland to such an extent that virtually 100 per cent of that fertilizer is being applied today. In France and in Germany the figure is about 75 per cent, and in America, I am told, the application of this kind of fertilizer is proceeding apace. Mr. Chairman, two years ago I took a sample of rock phosphate at Phalaborwa. I sent the Phalaborwa rock phosphate to France, and the Potasse Engrais Chemiques made me, from this Phalaborwa sample, a sample of the chemical mixture. The mixture they made for me had a chemical compound of nitrogen, phosphate and potash in the ratio of 11:13:12, and I gave that to the Research Station of the Western Province to be tested. Now I should like to quote you the result of these tests. The test sample was manufactured in France by the Potasse Engrais Chemiques (P.E.C.). The sample was compared with a number of the most important single fertilizers and mixtures on the market in respect of degree of acidity, and the results were as follows: They took a mixture in a ratio of 5:13:5, and they found that the pH (5 per cent solution) was 3.5. The optimum soil reaction must be pH 5.5 to 7.5. This local mixture of 5:13:5 has a pH of 3.5. Everything under 5.5 indicates acidization. For every 100 lbs. of that mixture you apply, you have to add 28 lbs. of lime just to neutralize it. The figure for ammonium sulphate is 5.0 pH, and for every 100 lbs. of ammonium sulphate that is applied to neutralize the acidity, you have to apply 110 lbs. of lime. So I can also take superphosphate. Superphosphate indeed is not quite so bad, for its pH is only 3.0 and 3 lbs. lime will neutralize it. But this P.E.C. complex I had tested, show a pH of 7.7; in other word, only slightly alkaline. Now here is the finding of the fruit research station. They say, further—

On these data of that sample, I should like to urge the Minister also to promote and encourage in South Africa the application of this new fertilizer that has captured the market overseas. Last year I applied to the Department of Commerce and Industries to import 5,000 tons, in order to find a market for it in South Africa. To my intense surprise, I received a letter in reply from the Secretary for Commerce and Industries as follows—

That surely is not the truth, for these complex fertilizers are made by three processes as far as I know. One is the German process of the Ruhr Stickstoffwerke; the other is the P.E.C. process of France and the third one is the Dutch process that is connected with the Dutch Fertilizer Company. These three processes are all under patent and there is not a single factory in South Africa that can do it or which will ever be able to do it for they do not have even the patent right to do so. But not only that, but not one of them can manufacture that kind of fertilizer in their present plants. So I simply cannot understand how the Secretary for Commerce and Industries can write to me that the Department of Agricultural Services had been consulted and that it is his information that the product is quite a simple one that could be manufactured by any local fertilizer factory. The second point is still more interesting. The Secretary for Commerce and Industries wrote further that it is his information—

I have just quoted the results of the test that was made by the Western Province Research Station with the single sample I sent them from Phalaborwa. I think that shows that what the Secretary for Commerce and Industries told me surely cannot be the truth. But the point is this: I do not believe that it comes from the Department of Agricultural Technical Services, for the Department has now gone so far as to ask for 5 tons for experimental purposes, of this kind of fertilizer, and they have applied for a permit to import that fertilizer. I hope and trust that they will import not only 5 tons, but also that they will co-operate to secure import permits so that we can import this fertilizer and thereby render a great service to the farmer in South Africa. [Time limit.]

The hon. the Minister used an old trick; he threw up a smokescreen and accused me of attacking Onderstepoort. Sir, I was not attacking Onderstepoort. Nobody has a greater admiration for the scientific achievements of Onderstepoort than I have, and I would go so far as to say that they are probably the best virological laboratory in the whole of Africa. I was pleading for greater co-operation and greater association between the Veterinary Department and the Health Department. I pointed out that there were many very serious diseases which passed from man to animal and from animal to man, and that science was moving so fast that this matter could not merely be left to political ministers to decide. What I really said of the Minister was this: I said that he has a Department—and he is responsible for it—which could not deal with two epidemics at the same time; that he was so tied up with foot and mouth disease at one end of the country that he was unable and his Department was unable to deal with a very grave outbreak of rabies in the Northern part of Zululand. That is what I said. I yield to no one in my admiration or the actual scientific achievements of the veterinary officers of the country. But I want to say too that there are too few of them, and for that the hon. the Minister is responsible. I understand that the best that the veterinary department can absorb, or rather the best that it can get is about 20 students per year, and we are importing very few from other parts of the world. I think that to have one veterinary school in this country is quite wrong. You must have many more. I want to go further and say that to have one competent, fully equipped laboratory for veterinary services in this country is a crime. There are only, so far as I know, two laboratories. Now another is to be established. But the Allerton Laboratory is the only other one that I know of—I am open to correction—and the only laboratory that can handle dogs suffering from rabies and can give us an answer is at Onderstepoort.

Onderstepoort has given the answer.

Onderstepoort has given us the answer, but we had to move from Northern Zululand and only yesterday there was a report of three more children having been bitten, and the probability is that something very serious will happen to those children. I repeat that I said, that there is room or much closer association between the departments of health and veterinary services. When I tell you that a great country like Australia has all its quarantine arrangements under the Department of Health, it shows how important they regard co-ordination. Not only plants, but animals and humans all come under the same arrangement and they have managed better than any other country in the world, thanks to their long coastline and the absence of a land border, to keep disease out of their country, like no other country has succeeded in doing. Whether we with our land border can do the same, I do not know. But I want to say this, and I say it very seriously that unless there is much closer co-operation between not only the heads of the department of Veterinary Services and the Department of Health, but extremely close co-operation between the laboratories of the two departments, this country is heading for some serious illnesses, both human and animal.

The Department of Agricultural Technical Services has made exceptional contribution in the interests of the farmers of South Africa, as well as in respect of facilities that have been established for the training of enterprising farmers. The farming community refer in terms of gowing praise and gratitude to the scientific assistance that has been given. The veterinary service has through its researches and discoveries assisted the stock-farmers very much to achieve progress, particularly as regards sheep diseases. It has been said here, and I wish to say it again, that the farmers of South Africa are gratefully aware of all that has been done thus far. Scientific research has also made possible artificial insemination, which very definitely opens a door to farmers to achieve great possibilities. For instance, with only one ram you can now breed 600 to 800 lambs, which means a tremendous lot to the stock-breeder, and which is attributable to science alone. The application of science has brought about greater efficiency and thereby production has been stepped up. We are thinking for instance of the hybrid seed mealies. Together with effective fertilization the hybrid seed mealies have pushed the production of maize up into the skies and that is largely due to research and extension services, for which we are very grateful.

However, we should also like to say that this has not only caused surpluses as regards the maize grower, but it has also created surpluses of meat, butter and other produce. And now we should like to appeal to the hon. the Minister to assist in the planning of production arrangements. In that respect much can be done, from the scientific point of view, in order e.g. to bring about the reduced use of bags e.g. by the building of grain elevators, which will make it possible for the farmer to deliver his grain with a limited number of bags. So also there are other consumer’s distribution arrangements that will help considerably. But I should like to say something about a very important aspect, and that is fibre research. The experience of the past has taught us that it is extremely necessary that South Africa should be self-providing. The application of the boycotts against South Africa particularly taught us that. That is why fibre research is extremely important, and I should like to mention three aspects in respect of fibre research. The first is in regard to the production of the ordinary bag. We use more or less 75,000,000 muid bags per annum, the cost of which amounts to about R25,000,000. Now huge sums of money are being spent in connection with research in respect of the cultivation of fibre plants in order to make ourselves self-supporting. I should however like to utter a warning. The manufacture of bags from synthetic fibres might be cheaper, and it might happen that after we have incurred great expenditure, other bags may be supplied, as for instance plastic bags. I have been told that a plastic bag may be produced at 15 cents (a 100 lb. bag) and such a bag will probably be durable. For that reason I should like to appeal to the hon. the Minister first to investigate the matter very thoroughly before we concentrate upon only one method of bag manufacture, namely from fibre. The same applies to wool sacks. We know that in the past the wool manufacturers often complained about the fibres of the wool sack that comes into the wool. Many experiments were made, and people even went so far as to paint the inside of the wool sack with salt, and other experiments were conducted with a view to keeping the fibre of the bag out of the wool. As we are now engaged on experiments and as we have to concentrate upon the manufacture of bags, I think it is necessary that we should also devote attention to the possibility of manufacturing wool sacks of cotton or possibly plastic lining, which will certainly improve our wool prices very considerably. Manufacturers will be disposed to pay higher prices if the wool could be guaranteed to be free of bag fibres. I am mentioning this matter because I think it is of the very greatest importance, and I am convinced that as we are setting aside large sums of money for it, good results may possibly be achieved if we were to give the necessary attention to the whole matter.

Then there is another matter I should like to mention, and that is the termite pest. It is a tremendous threat to a very large part of our country, and in this connection I should like to urge that there should be more research in connection with this pest. We realize that some farmers have built up their farms by the application over a period of years of scientific methods of farming and efficient soil control, and then all that work is destroyed in one year by the termite pest. One feels powerless. The methods of combating them presently in existence are inadequate. At places where no animals come, the bait method of combating them is effective, is recommended, but poisons are used and if the animals get to it, you may suffer great loss. In instances where there are no enclosed places or fields, the only thing the Department can offer us to-day still, is Natriumflusilicate with which the bait has to be sprinkled. I must say that my experience has been that it is an absolute failure. Up to the present no effective method of combating termites has been devised. In this connection therefore I should like to make an earnest plea to the Minister, for it is something against which the farming community is quite powerless.

I should like to conclude with a final small matter I should like to commend to the hon. the Minister. First of all I wish to congratulate the hon. the Minister on the improvement of the conditions of employment for agricultural technical officers. We farmers are very grateful. However, I do feel there are certain areas where additional facilities should be created. For instance, I am thinking of the Agricultural College at Glen in the Free State of which we are very proud. In the past the college has produced very good results, and it is still doing so and we can speak of it in terms of great praise, but we feel that it would be very desirable to establish a half-year course in agricultural engineering there. It will be of great value to the farming community as such, and I should like to appeal to the Minister to assist us in that regard. It will not involve great additional expense, but it will be of exceptional value to the central midlands.

I do not wish to follow the hon. member for Bloemfontein (District) (Mr. Schlebusch) in what he has said. I do not think we can find fault with his speech. However, I should like to say only this, I feel that this matter of fibre research with a view to making our country self-supporting as regards bags, is more important than most people realize. I have experience of that from the days when I was a member of the Maize Board, and I think the hon. the Minister of Information will also remember how difficult it is to market a crop if you have to struggle to deliver bags to the farmers. And the circumstances that arose at the time, could very well recur, and that is why I should like to join the hon. member for Bloemfontein (District) in asking the Minister to give attention to that. I know nothing about fibres, for I come from a part of the country where we know nothing about fibres, and certainly cannot grow fibres, but I should like to appeal to all those who are engaged in connection with fibres, to try to render us self-supporting as regards bags.

I do not always agree with the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) but I think he rendered the country a service to-day by raising the matter of the acidizing of our agricultural soil as a result of the application of fertilizer. When you travel around the maize triangle, even at the present time, you will see how many maize plants turn yellow at the stage when they are about 15 inches high, and see how acid the soil is becoming, which was not the case in the past, and you will then realize what a serious matter it is. It is caused by the application of fertilizer. We can say what we wish, but the application of fertilizer does not make soil fertile. It is a fundamental fact. It gives you a good crop for one year but the continual application of fertilizer is dangerous. I am not an expert in this respect, but the hon. member for Heilbron has given us the percentage of acidizing that is caused by the release of sulphuric acid in the soil. The fundamental factor we have to remember is that the application of fertilizer, of phosphates, and of the compounds too, does not by itself render the soil fertile. That is why I am the enemy of the application of this extra fertilizer that is being applied by many farmers in the maize triangle. It gives them a greater production, but I think if it is continued it is going to cause the eventual destruction of our soil, and I do not think sufficient attention is given to that aspect. I am asking myself whether the Department itself is giving sufficient attention to it. We are exerting ourselves only to achieve increased production, and we are spending millions of rands per annum in our country on soil conservation, agricultural planning on the one hand, and to teach the farmers how to apply rotation cropping, but on the other hand we are permitting the injudicious application of fertilizer to our lands, and in my view in the long run this will have just the opposite effect to what we are trying to achieve with soil conservation. These are two things that are mutually destructive, and it will undo all the good work of the Department and the farmers in respect of soil conservation and erosion works. I think that as regards the application of fertilizer to our soil, particularly there in the agricultural areas, sufficient research has not yet been conducted to know how much fertilizer nutriment our soil can take, and whether the increase of production by the application of fertilizer makes up for the disadvantages of the application of fertilizer on a large scale. I think that is an aspect that requires the very serious attention of the Minister and the Department and the research workers of the Department.

Much has been said here about fodder banks during this debate, and that each farmer should have his own fodder bank. On the other hand there has been a plea that the state should establish a fodder bank. I do not know what the answer is, but while we are looking for an answer, you cannot get away from the fact that wherever there is a period of drought in our country, whether it is in the North-West or in the Free State or in the Transvaal, as soon as the drought is slightly prolonged, you have the phenomenon that thousands of head of stock die. That is the problem, and whether the reply lies in a state fodder bank, the initial establishment of a fodder bank by the state, or whether the reply is that every farmer should have his own fodder bank, the problem is there and it deserves the earnest attention of the Minister and his Department. One of the most important aspects of farming to-day, and which is not always realized by the other strata of our people, is the element of risk in farming. When a man invests his capital in an industry or in a business or in a shop, and he manages his business well, he can expect to make a reasonable profit. The professional man is certain of his salary every month; but in South Africa with its changing circumstances, with its droughts, with its stock diseases, its hail, I do not think there is any occupation to which more risk is attached than farming. It is almost as if you take out a lottery ticket, and then only hope that at the end of the year you will draw the lot. Apart from other aspects, the function of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services ought to be to assist the farmer in South Africa as much as possible to eliminate this element of risk.

Tell us how for a moment.

The Department helps to a large extent. We have heard of Onderstepoort which is one of the institutions in South Africa that has earned world fame. Through its efforts the losses as a result of stock diseases have been reduced considerably. [Time limit.]

I should also like to bring to the attention of the hon. the Minister some of the problems of our farmers. One of the problems we have to-day in the mountainous parts, is the baboon pest. We have had the baboon since the world came into being, but there in the mountainous areas the baboon is now becoming a very serious pest to us. They catch our sheep and destroy our fields and our fruit orchards, and I can give you the assurance, Mr. Chairman, that the baboon is the shrewdest vermin you have to cope with. We combat the jackal and we combat the lynx and the wild cat etc. but the baboon is one of the most difficult things to combat. He is clever, sometimes much cleverer than some of the United Party members. But now I have thought that when the baboons are sitting astride the fences—and we farmers are very proud of our jackalproof-fences—whether the Minister cannot cause research to be conducted into whether we cannot kill the baboons on the fences by means of an electric shock. I do not think it is impossible. If we could charge a fence with electricity and so give the baboons a thorough shock, we could possibly exterminate the baboons in this manner. I shall be pleased if the hon. the Minister will have that tried out. The other matter in regard to which the Department has done much research in the past, is in connection with the rock rabbit pest. A rock rabbit also is a difficult thing to control for it does not eat bait, and you cannot kill it by poisoning. The rock rabbit is becoming a very serious pest to us, particularly over there in the mountainous areas where there are numerous krantzes. It destroys our best sweet grasses and our fields, and I shall be pleased if the Minister’s Department will continue its researches as regards the extermination of the rock rabbit pest, particularly in the Karoo areas.

The lynx will exterminate him.

Yes, when the lynx comes, then the first thing you find is that when the lynx enters the kloof, the rock rabbits disappear, but we do not want the lynx there either, for he kills 30 or 40 sheep in one night. There is a third matter I also wish to raise. I could mention a number, but I do not wish to be a nuisance to the Minister, for I know he has enough problems. But die third is the destruction of the rhinoceros bush and resin bush up there in the mountains. I do not know whether the Department of Technical Services has done any research in this connection yet, but at the present moment their advice to us is: Rotation grazing, conserve your veld. Yes, that is good, but our experience has been that it will take very many years before you will be able to restore your veld. The only practical manner we have discovered is to cut down the bushes, but it is an expensive transaction to cut down the rhinoceros bush and the resin bush. We are engaged on that ourselves, and it varies from R10 to R20 per morgen to cut down that bush. Now we farmers have also started thinking whether we should not also come to the State and enlist their aid. The state is willing to assist in exterminating the prickly pear and the jointed cactus, so that the farmers can clean their lands, but let the Department make a plan to help us to combat that inedible bush that is invading and destroying our lands, I hope that these few small matters will enjoy the Minister’s attention.

Yesterday when I was discussing agricultural technical services, I praised the Department of Agricultural Technical Services and the Minister for the work that has been done, and I even quoted figures and said that the half of the Estimates, or nearly half of the estimates, and I referred to the sum of R5,000,000 to R6,000,000 that is being spent on research and research projects, and that part of the administration that is connected with research I wish to go further and agree with the Minister that he and his Department have some of the best officers that you could find in any department of agricultural technical services in the world. I say in the world, without the slightest hesitation. I want to go further still, and say that as far as the Division of Veterinary research at Onderstepoort is concerned, it is known and famous and dear not only to the citizens of the Republic but it is beloved throughout the world. We are dependent on Onderstepoort to such a large extent. The hon. the Minister must not think that I am trying to belittle Onderstepoort and its value when I say that this country will always have to have the best research institute in the world. We have here an animal population and a wild animal population that is roaming around all day and which you cannot control, from the largest game that carry ticks around, to meercats and rock rabbits that are also always carrying those things around. That being so, we just have to have the best research division in the world for our own continued existence. We expect it and we are grateful that we have it. But what I urged yesterday, was more research. I am pleased to see that the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. F. H. Bekker) has just returned. He made a vicious attack on me yesterday and I still do not know why. Throughout my speech I pleaded for more research, and I should like to tell the hon. member that this side of the House has the greatest sympathy with him. We know that age is beginning to wither him. If the hon. member were as brilliant in his speeches as he is in not preserving the quiet of the House, he would have sat much higher up in that row.

And you will remain just where you are.

I was referring to those interjections. Now I should like to say something to the hon. the Minister. Yesterday he called me the “little wolf” (wolfie). I should just like to tell the hon. the Minister that I am proud of the reason why he can call me the small wolf. Although I am the small wolf, I do not try to bluff him, and neither do I tell him all kinds of wild tales. The hon. the Minister has referred to the research institute for which I pleaded, and he then came along and told us that a number of small research advisory boards at every facet of agriculture, would be more effective than a research council, and with that he tried to throw a very big handful of dust into our eyes. The hon. the Minister should not try to make us believe those kind of things. The whole agricultural world desires a research council, and it is not only this side of the House. Not only the people who are engaged in agriculture here, but also those overseas, have wanted it for years.

How old are you?

Older than you. Let us see what is being done in other parts of the world. Yesterday I said that if the industries could have a scientific research council at its disposal, the farming industry should also have such a council. I am not suggesting that it should be divorced from the Department of Agricultural Technical Services. Leave the thing there, but do give us a scientific research council where research may be co-ordinated, for it cannot be co-ordinated with a number of small advisory boards. There are more facets in industry than in agriculture. I say it with the greatest sincerity in the world. They also have many small boards, but when they have a C.S.I.R. that can co-ordinate it, then we plead with the greatest justification in the world that we desire the same research council.

I should like to correct one or two matters in respect of which the Minister obviously misunderstood me yesterday. I urged that the Wool Research Institute should remain where it is, namely in Grahamstown, because I said that that institute had the closest contact with the biological research division of Grootfontein, which in turn could feed it as regards the division of biological research. Furthermore it is situated at the textile industry and at the harbour that exports the wool—it is virtually within the industry. Then I went further and referred to fibre research. Could we now be clear on this issue of fibre research? An hon. member opposite also referred to this. It is not possible to manufacture woolsacks, grain bags and vegetable bags by simply growing the fibres if you do not have a research institute which knows how to comb the fibres, how to unravel the raw fibre, how to press it, and how to get the best out of it, in order to blend the stronger and harder fibres with the finer and softer fibres. Mr. Chairman, do not come and tell me that the pineapple fibres cannot be used. It has been said here that the pineapple fibres are too poor, too good, or something of that nature. Jute costs more or less £90 per ton to import. If it costs £90 per ton to import jute, and we could defibre pineapples at £90 per ton, and the Minister’s own Department tells us that £90 per ton fibre will save the pineapple farmers, then we should pay attention to that. Here we have a strong fibre. But what have we tried with grain bags? We have tried with paper, with flax, with cotton—with how many kinds of fibres have we already tried? But have we ever had a fibre research institution which has mixed the fibres, devised patterns and continued with it?

It falls under the Department of Commerce and Industries.

Yesterday I made a plea that as regards the Wool Research Institute, the Department of the hon. the Minister should make a contribution, together with the Department of Commerce and Industries, so that the Minister could also spread his wings over this kind of research that is being conducted by the C.S.I.R. which I regard to a large extent as agricultural research. That is why I am making that plea here [Interjections.] Call it overlapping, call it dovetailing or whatever you like.

We can co-ordinate but not overlap.

It can be co-ordinated and I refer the hon. the Minister to the words I used here yesterday. I said: Let us have the Fibre Research Institute, let us have the Wool Research Institute with Grootfontein at the one end and the institute at the other end, and let us have co-ordinated research. I do not know how you can take a fibre research institute far away from the textile research centre. I do not know how you can go and establish it in another part of the world. For the pineapple fibres could even be blended with wool to manufacture carpets, and to manufacture many things we need. It is a valuable fibre. Just as well as we could take rayon or cotton, we could also mix anyone of the products with wool in order to obtain cheaper fibre, and stronger fibre too, because the tensile strength of the pineapple fibre is seven times as great as that of the wool fibre.

I hope I still have time to make one further point. While I am talking about research, I should like to put this one further point to the hon. the Minister. There is one agricultural product that is not superfluous in our country, and there is great scope for the growing of it, namely cotton. I am not here as champion for cotton, but I should like to suggest that much more research should be done in connection with the growing of cotton. Last year we imported cotton into the country to the value of R9.5 million. That is one agricultural product of which there is no surplus as yet. It is one agricultural product in respect of which there still is a chance, if we cannot grow any more pineapples or bananas because there is a surplus. I should like to urge that we should do research in connection with cotton, in order to get rid of the insect pests that are impeding the industry, and then we shall not be required to spend valuta on the importation of cotton.

Then I should like to revert, not to the fodder bank, but to research in regard to the feed ration to keep alive an animal that is on the point of death because of drought. That is what I pleaded for yesterday, and not for the establishment of a fodder bank that will cost millions of pounds. I said that if the state in the first instance—not this Department—could make a financial contribution in order to get the thing going, then you could say: Industry, it now is yours; buy the fodder and replace it again. The organization of it could fall under a co-operative society. It can fall under whomsoever it wishes. We have so many times tried to establish it with a flood of co-operatives. But we have to have research in order to squeeze the stuff into cubes. Science has shown that the loss on fodder that has been squeezed into cubes as animal feed, is less than one per cent. You can throw them on the ground, then they still pick up the cubes and there is no loss. But when you feed maize or lucerne, there is a loss. Then the Minister referred to lucerne that we should keep on our own farms. Does the hon. the Minister know what the insurance premium is on lucerne that you have to keep on your farm? [Time limit.]

The immediate problem in agriculture, and of many aspects of agriculture, is the surpluses. It is generally suggested to-day that that problem can be overcome by agricultural planning. In order to overcome that problem, and in order to give a stimulus to the idea of agricultural planning, I should like to say a few things in that connection.

Of course it is a new direction in our agriculture, and it is a direction in respect of which much research remains to be done, before instruction can be given. But it is fortunate that the Department,—and I should like to congratulate the hon. the Minister with his Department on the early commencement of research in connection with agricultural planning—timeously devoted its attention to this matter. Research has already been conducted in connection with it, but because it is a new development in the agricultural industry, and because it is a development that calls for exceptional knowledge of agricultural economics by the farmer himself, and which calls for a study of price relationships, and which requires effective use of labour and capital, and which requires the best management, it is necessary, in order to meet this problem, to give much more attention to agricultural planning. I agree that it is the only real solution—long term solution—for the immediate problems i.a. of these surplus products we have in various spheres of agriculture. I should like to suggest to the hon. the Minister that we should give our farmers guidance in respect of agricultural planning, and that we should not with that object in view merely conduct short courses at agricultural colleges, and organize farmers’ days only. Both of those are very good methods of reaching a small group of farmers. But I should like to suggest that short courses be conducted for which the extension officers could be used. I am aware that the training of the extension officers is of a more technical nature. From the very nature of things it must be so. I am also aware that the extension officers attend short courses in agricultural economics and in other directions related to agricultural planning. That is why I suggest that we should conduct short courses in the centres in the various areas where extension officers are stationed. Short courses could virtually be held in every district, and those short courses coud in due course be followed by more advanced courses. There are advantages attached to short courses in every district. The first is that a very large number of farmers could derive benefit from it. It is accessible to them. They need not travel to an agricultural college; they need not go a long distance, and in the evenings they can sleep at home. It is only the few people who are giving the lectures that go from place to place, and the extension officers are there. I should like to urge that the extension officers be used for these short courses in the various districts. It could be held in the towns, and in addition I should like to urge that the agricultural organizations, particularly the farmers’ associations, should be harnessed to assist with this process and this system. It will not only give new life to our farmers’ associations; it will not only give them a new interest, but it will also give them a new status among the farmers themselves. It will impress upon them very strongly the other aspect which they are possibly neglecting a little, namely the educational idea, and it will help them to co-operate in this direction particularly in order to render a service to our farmers. I hope, Mr. Chairman, that the hon. the Minister will give serious attention to this idea.

Mr. Chairman, I listened with great interest to what my friend, the hon. member for Florida (Mr. H. G. Swart) had to say about using artificial fertilizer. I would have agreed with him had we still followed the old system which was practised in the Western districts—wheat, oats, fallow; wheat oats, fallow. But any modern farmer knows to-day that you cannot keep your soil in good heart unless you lay down ley pastures such as lucerne or grasses. And unless you fertilize that land heavily with artificial fertilizer you will not get any growth to replace the humus or the nitrogen into the soil which pastures do. Quite apart from going in for rotational cropping it is essential that you keep your soil in good condition by not only resting it but by growing grasses or legumes so as to replace the humus. Unless you fertilize the soil heavily—and the only way to do that is to use artificial fertilizer—you will get no growth at all. We all know that lucerne puts nitrogen into the soil but it does not improve the structure of the soil. Therefore you have to grow grasses. And those grasses will not grow in our soil which lack phosphate unless you fertilize it heavily with artificial fertilizer. I should like to see research conducted in order to ascertain what the right ratio should be of fertilizer to your ley crop. For instance, when I put down lucerne or any of these other grasses, I put down a small amount of phalaris tuberosa because though I know that is not a crop which the animals will eat or can live on because it lacks cobalt and therefore is not palatable, and even if it were palatable the animals do not thrive on it. But I put it down so that at the end of the ley period, before the lucerne or grasses are ploughed in, it has spread and covers most of the pasture land. It throws its own seed and when you plough that in with lucerne humus is once more replaced in the soil and practically restores it to virgin soil condition.

I think it is essential that the Department should concentrate on the research side of this matter and ascertain what fertilizer is necessary to develop the pasture to restore the fertility of the soil.

The hon. member for Graaff-Reinet (Mr. van der Ahee) raised a very important point about the rhenosterbos. It is almost impossible to-day to grow pastures because of the rhenosterbos. There is no way of destroying it unless it is taken out by hand, as the hon. member has said. I have some pastures which have been gone over for six years in succession and yet the bush comes up again. Because the rhenosterbos seed has a hard shell, it will not come up unless the soil is hard and trampled down and then when the sun bakes it the seed will germinate otherwise it will not. The result is that you cannot plough it out because it will not germinate as long as the soil is under regular cultivation. But the moment the soil lies fallow and you have a decent pasture on it, it starts to grow and you have to plough the entire field under again. The rhenosterbos is also a curse because it does not improve the structure of the soil. It has a long tap root, rather like lucerne. It only impoverishes the soil and replaces nothing into it. You cannot grow pastures except at great expense while you have rhenosterbos on the land. If we could find some spray or some means to destroy the rhenosterbos it would be a benefit to the whole country, particularly the South Western Districts. We have tried everything. As the hon. member for Graaff-Reinet has said it costs thousands of rands to clear a large area and in spite of that it continues to come up for years.

We have heard to-day that Technical Services must render assistance in so many ways. We also know that Technical Services loses so many of its officials. Consequently the Department cannot always comply with the request it receives. We must now ask why so many of the officials leave the service, particularly the service of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services. I want to suggest that the Minister should go into the matter. We know that the question of salaries is an important reason for their leaving the service. We know that commerce attracts many of these officials away from the Department, because they offer them much higher salaries. I am sure there are cases where the Department can request them not to offer higher salaries. Take, for example, the case of fertilizer. The fertilizer factories are some of the bodies which take into their employment some of the officials of Technical Services. We know that the fertilizer factories pay much higher salaries than the Department does. In the long run it is, however, the farmer who pays those high salaries which these fertilizer factories offer to the officials of the Department, because the fertilizer factories are allowed a percentage of profit on their capital after deduction of expenses. The result is that they do not mind how many officials they employ. We know that sometimes four or five officials are used in such a factory where one would perhaps be sufficient. I should like to see the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services negotiating with the Minister of Economic Affairs to see to it that the price of fertilizer is not increased so easily. So the farmer must then pay a higher price for his fertilizer because there are so many technical officials employed by the fertilizer factories. Those officials could have remained in the service of the State to render the necessary services to the farmers. I feel that in many respects we can prevent the Department of Agricultural Technical Services from always getting the shortest end of the stick, and ensure that they will eventually have enough officials to render all the services necessary.

I did not say that.

The hon. member has often spoken about the risks in connection with crop farming. He says that the farmer perhaps has a good crop one year and then has a crop failure for the next three years, and that that constitutes the element of risk. Our farmers understand that very well, Sir. But the hon. member for Florida, who served on the Mealie Board for many years, surely knows that they work on an average taken over five years. Consequently that element of risk is to some extent eliminated, because it is not calculated on the one year when the farmer has a good crop, but it is taken over a period of five years, with the result that the average is not so bad. I personally will be very glad if Technical Services can now get so far as to eliminate those elements over which we have no control. If it does that, it will have made great progress.

Mr. Chairman, I think I have two minutes at my disposal. I want to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to the fact that the Coloured people who have played their part in every phase of the economy of this country, will now, as a consequence of the Government's policy, have their own area set aside. There are many of them who are farmers and who will require technical assistance. And I do believe that there are very many Coloured people well able, learned Coloured people who are to-day walking the streets without any employment, to be taken into this Department and to undergo technical training. They will then be able to assist the number of Coloured farmers who to-day are in want of that advice. I am not prepared to say, Sir, that they do not get any advice, but many of them have come to me and have asked me to plead with the Government that their own people should be taught in certain phases of technical farming. I want to appeal to the Government to open the door to the Coloured people to enter this Department. That can be very important for the future. They should learn to be able to play their part not only as hewers of wood and drawers of water but also as farmers. There are many Coloured farmers in the country. There are many in Namaqualand as my hon. friend the member for Karoo (Mr. G. S. P. le Roux) will testify. But not only there, there are many Coloured farmers in areas nearer to us. I do not believe that that should be the preserve of only the Europeans to enter that Department. Coloured men should be taken in. They should be taught every phase of technical service to farmers. They will thus be able to be of great assistance to their own people. That will also fill a long-felt want amongst all the people of South Africa. They can even be of assistance to the White farmers in their difficulties. I have actually been approached by White farmers to ask the Government to teach some of these Coloured people technically how to assist the farmers on their farms.

I should like to say a few words with regard to the Veterinary Division. The Republic of South Africa, as far as agriculture is concerned, is in the first place a stock-breeding country. We have an annual income of nearly R3 86,000,000 out of livestock products. It is understandable therefore that we have developed an institution such as Onderstepoort under this Department, an institution which has done brilliant work not only within the borders of the Republic but which has also achieved international fame. We owe it particularly to Onderstepoort’s work that areas within the Republic, which formerly were practically worthless for stock-breeding, have been opened up to such an extent for stock-breeding that our production is becoming greater and greater. But the pressure on Onderstepoort’s services is increasing enormously. The expansion of stock-breeding has brought with it a greater demand for veterinary services. It also appears that there is a demand from the outside world and that in the past five years 5,000,000 doses of vaccine have been sent to various countries, and the demand for trained veterinarians is also increasing. When one looks into the future and thinks of the development of the Orange River scheme and the development of agriculture in the Bantu areas and the improvement in the quality of stock, and if one thinks of the Western Cape where the sheep population per morgen is the greatest to-day in the Republic …

Never.

Oh yes. The hon. member differs from me, but that is true. When one thinks of the advent of artificial insemination and the better care of animals resulting from it, one realizes that the modern farmer is becoming more and more conscious of the necessity for veterinary services. Unfortunately the position to-day is that there is a shortage of veterinarians, particularly in private practice. It is estimated that by the year 1965 there will be a shortage of between 150 and 300 veterinarians. Although the Onderstepoort institution, as far as the training of veterinarians is concerned, will be admitting 45 students per annum as from this year—here I just want to correct the hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford) who talked about 20 students—the fact of the matter is that there is a limit to the number of students that such a faculty can admit, because personal attention has to be given to the students. If we want to maintain a high standard we cannot increase the number ad infinitum. Another limiting factor as far as a veterinary faculty is concerned is the available clinical material, and it is a well-known fact that with the expansion which is taking place to-day, there may not be sufficient clinical material available in the vicinity of Onderstepoort. In this connection hon. members may be interested in a quotation from the report of the International Meeting on Veterinary Education in the year 1960. Which was arranged by the Food and Agricultural Organization of UNO. They say—

At a similar meeting which took place in Bombay in 1955, the following recommendations were made—

Then there is a memorandum from the S.A. Veterinary Medical Association to the Committee of Inquiry into Artificial Insemination, and there, amongst other things, we read the following—

It is clear that the time is approaching when consideration will have to be given to the question of establishing a second veterinary faculty in South Africa, and when that stage is reached, I should like to bring to the notice of the hon. the Minister the possibilities offered by the University of Stellenbosch and the facilities already at its disposal. In the few districts surrounding Stellenbosch we have the greatest concentration of farm animals including poultry that is to-be found anywhere in this country. There will be no lack of clinical material therefore for the training of students. In the second place the university has one of the oldest agricultural faculties in this country, which will mean that it will not be necessary to go to such great expense to establish a veterinary faculty, because subjects such as dietetics, biochemistry, microbiology and virology can be taught there by the staff of the existing agricultural faculty, and this subject can also be taught by the Department of Physiology. In the third place the diagnostic regional laboratory of the veterinary service is being developed to-day at Stellenbosch, and the staff of that laboratory could fit in very well with such a future faculty. There are also large numbers of students from the southern areas who would like to follow this course but who are reluctant to go to the north to take the course there. Because of the increase in stock-breeding and the improvement in the livestock, there is also a big demand in the Boland to-day amongst farmers for more veterinary services, and there is a demand that such a faculty should be established here. In the collection campaign for the University of Stellenbosch inquiries are frequently made with regard to this possibility, and there are many farmers who are prepared to put their hands into their pockets and to assist the State with the establishment of such a faculty. Sir, I just wanted to bring the possibilities of the University of Stellenbosch with regard to the establishment of such a faculty to the notice of the hon. the Minister.

I feel that I must congratulate the Minister on obtaining the services of a very capable expert in the sphere of animal feeds and the preparation of animal feeds, namely the services of Professor Groenewoud, who entered the service of this Department recently. I want to express my appreciation because I believe that it is a step in the right direction to have somebody in this Department who can undertake research into the composition of animal feeds. As far as this report of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services is concerned, I find that a policy is being adopted here which will meet with great approval in my particular area, the North-Eastern Free State. It is generally known that that area is covered with natural pastures in the shape of grasses which have a very high nutritive value provided they are correctly utilized. Before I pursue this argument, I just want to quote a few passages from this report in connection with cooperative pasture experiments—

This reference to sporadic application brings me to my next point—

It goes on to say—

I have said that the North-Eastern Free State is covered with natural grasses which have a very high carrying capacity during the summer months, as the result of a reasonably normal rainfall, but because of excessive rains we find that those grasses are no longer as productive as they used to be, and that is why I welcome this research in connection with these pasture experiments. I also welcome the fact that these experiments are being conducted in co-operation with the farmer. It has been found in the past already that experiments made at the research stations have not always produced the best results when they are applied by the farmer himself. But I hope that this research will also bring about an improvement in grazing methods and in the treatment of our natural pastures. Then on the next page dealing with established pastures and leys, I see that for the cold regions of the Free State it is apparently very necessary not only to utilize your summer pastures systematically, to protect them and to utilize them fully, but to give attention also to the planting of perennial crops which can withstand frost, so that the carrying capacity can be increased during the winter months. I therefore welcome the fact that reference is also made to that in this report. The report says—

I welcome the idea that further investigations will be undertaken and I hope that those investigations will be carried out with success.

The hon. member who spoke before me referred to these regions in connection with their high carrying capacity, but I believe that I can say without fear of contradiction that the carrying capacity of the grassfields of the Free State in summer is higher than in these regions, because the high carrying capacity of these regions can only be maintained by supplementing the grazing; it cannot be maintained on the natural pastures. When one looks at the economic position of the farmers in the North-Eastern Free State, I believe that the Minister will agree with me when I say that when we get the results of this new policy which is now being adopted by his Department, we shall be able to retard the tempo of deterioration to a large extent. I hope that the Minister will give particular attention to that area in connection with the question of research and co-operative pasture experiments. Because of a system of grazing which had harmful effects, the beautiful pastures of the North-Eastern Free State are being threatened more and more by soil erosion. We know that the Department has a shortage of engineers and technical officials, but we have now learned that more such officials are to be appointed so that this work can be done better and more expeditiously, and we are very grateful for that. There have been cases where reclamation projects have been investigated and where it has been absolutely essential to tackle them expeditiously, but because of these shortages, because of the situation outlined by the Minister, it has still not been possible to tackle these projects and to complete them as expeditiously as we should like to see. The fact of the matter is that the longer one waits, the costs connected with the combating of erosion increase. That is why I should like to urge upon the Minister, in connection with the reclamation projects which have already been investigated in the North-Eastern Free State, which to a large extent is also the water storage area for the Vaal River, and, to a lesser extent, also for the Orange River, that more attention should be given to water conservation so that we can combat this erosion. It is true that we have the research station at Bethlehem, but may I suggest that that station cannot cope with all the tasks entrusted to it, and that it will be to the great advantage of the farmers in that area, the livestock industry in that area, to establish a sub-station under the control of the Bethlehem research station in the area which is known as the Mist Belt of the North-Eastern Free State, an area which is particularly suitable for sheep, wool and meat. We ask for this because according to the information at our disposal we believe that there is a future in sheep-farming and cattle-farming for our farmers, and we want to express the hope that the Department will find it possible to give this assistance to the farmers and thus loosen the halter which is around their necks to-day and which is threatening to throttle them. I hope that the Minister will lend a sympathetic ear to this request.

In my previous speech I pointed out to the hon. Minister that in spite of the fact that there are so many agricultural colleges in this country and agricultural faculties at our universities, the figures this year show that there is a considerable reduction in many cases in the number of students, I should like to point out to the Minister that it is from the ranks of these people that he has to get his extension officers and technicians, but how many of them is the Minister getting? Many of those people take up farming themselves or are absorbed by the various fertilizer and agricultural machinery companies or other agricultural organizations. In other words, they are not available to the Department. But when we come to Government veterinarians we find that there too the position is not really much better, because in spite of the increase which the Minister has announced in connection with the previous year, it is stated in the Departmental report at page 69—

I should like to refer the hon. the Minister in this connection to this map on pages 71-72 where the various State veterinary offices of the country are shown. It is not an encouraging picture. It clearly shows that there are large areas of this country which are entirely without the services of these people who should be at the disposal of the farmers. When it comes to private veterinarians, we find that there the position is no better either. I want to quote to the Minister what a Nationalist M.P.C., Mr. Frans Jooste, said a few weeks ago when he opened an exhibition. According to the Burger he said—

Sir, not only we on this side but all farmers are deeply conscious of this tremendous shortage of veterinarians, and there are only one or two ways in which we can attract these people. The Minister is trying to do this by means of the increased salary scales which he announced last year and by means of the improvements which are now to be brought about, but how can we induce these people to come to the remote areas where there are thousands of head of small livestock? I have mentioned this problem before. The farmer is expected to-day to be a mechanic, a veterinarian, and an economist, and there are so many of these diseases that before the farmer has an opportunity to get to the nearest veterinarian or to get a veterinarian to come to his farm, he finds that he has lost thousands of pounds as the result of stock losses. We in South Africa are losing thousands of pounds and we can see no evidence of an improvement. The Minister should tell us, “We have so many (to-day, and we have State veterinarians in the following districts, and these are my plans for the future”. But all we are told is that they are trying to improve the position. But what is the aim? What are the plans for the future? We cannot come here year after year and conduct the same debate. The Minister should be able to tell us from time to time what improvement has been brought about. Until such time as he can make those plans known to us he must expect us to raise the same matters here every year. [Interjection.] The hon. member for Barberton knows what the problem is. We on this side of the House are not allowed to plead for an improvement and for extended services, but when the hon. member for Soutpansberg does so it is perfectly in order.

Then there is another matter that I want to touch upon. The Department publishes a booklet called Agricultural News, which appears once a week. I should like to ask the Minister what the value of that publication is? I read it regularly when it reaches me, but it is prepared in an uninteresting way. If it is intended only for people who are interested in the Department and in what is going on in the Department, then I can understand it; if it is distributed amongst prominent agricultural leaders and the chairmen of the agricultural unions, then I can also understand it, but I do feel that we are wasting our time and the money of the State if we think that we are furnishing agricultural information by means of that publication. I can understand it if it is a departmental news letter, but if we really want to furnish information to the farmers, we should make this publication much more interesting. I would also point out to the Minister that that publication appears mainly in Afrikaans. I admit at once that the vast majority of the farmers are Afrikaans-speaking, but there are large numbers of farmers also who are English-speaking, and if we want to maintain the correct principle of bilingualism greater attention should be given to the English-speaking farmers if we want to distribute this publication amongst them. I feel therefore that this publication, Agricultural News, should receive the attention of the Minister and his Department; he should tell us what the object of it is, and if the object is to furnish information to the broad masses of the farming population, then it should be made much more attractive.

I deprecate the attack made by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) (Mr. Streicher) on Agricultural News. If he does not find it interesting he need not read it, but I am speaking on behalf of many people in our country who do find it interesting and I think we can congratulate the Department on the publication of this paper which does keep us informed.

The loquacity revealed by hon. members whilst this Vote was under discussion is incontrovertible proof of the fact that all hon. members in this House regard agriculture as a basic industry in South Africa. I want to reply briefly to a few of the doubts and the criticisms expressed by some hon. members. I want to begin with the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) (Mr. Streicher). He said that when reading the annual report for 1960-1, he could not see any increase in staff there. I do not know whether the hon. member was here last night when I replied. If it is true that our personnel is gradually decreasing, why is it that R300,000 has been set aside for extending the staff this year? It must shrink or it must expand, or else it must stand still. My staff consists mainly of scientists, research workers, technologists, extension officers and administrative staff. As I announced last night, R300,000 has been voted for increasing the staff of my Department this year.

Salaries have been increased.

It also includes increased salaries. I admit that. But if R300,000 has been set aside for expansion, it must at least indicate that there was a need for expansion. The hon. member now refers me to the report, but that report refers to the year 1960-1. Now I want to tell him this. We are living in the “sputnik” age, the atomic age. Everything is done very fast. If the hon. member had kept pace with the developments and the fast progress made in this country, he would certainly not have sat on that side of the House but on this side. The fact is, however, that politically and agriculturally he is behind the times. He said a moment ago that there was such a big shortage. I said last night that all the posts for veterinarians in the Veterinary Division (Field Services)—I think there are 68 of them—have been filled. This is the first time since the last World War that this could be announced. I also said that there were only two veterinary posts vacant on the establishment at Onderstepoort. Surely that shows that there has been an increase. If, for example, we have to make further provision for the training of veterinarians at Onderstepoort, surely it indicates that we are keeping pace with the demand and that we are aware of the existing need. I shall come back to that later. The hon. member also said that there were so very few agricultural extension officers and that they could not possibly travel right throughout the country. I should very much like to see their numbers doubled. But the training of an extension officer for his work is not achieved merely by the pressing of a button. It takes him at least seven to eight years to equip himself for his task. In the meantime the demands made of an agricultural extension officer are becoming increasingly higher. Therefore we have these postgraduate courses, which really have to train our extension officers in the method of imparting information. I want to give the hon. member the assurance that whilst we admit that in the past many of our extension officers, scientists and research workers were kept busy on less important work, possibly performing administrative duties, we are now busy changing the whole pattern. We are now training matriculated boys for at least three of four years as agricultural technologists in order to assist our extension officers and research workers. These youths are trained to do the routine work, thereby releasing the extension officers for the more important work.

Another important point raised by the hon. member, with which I agree, is that we should not keep the results of research and of experiments we make in the Department to ourselves. That is no use. We must spread that knowledge amongst the farmers in the most effective way. The only possible way is certainly not the dissemination of information by means of visits paid by the extension officer to the farms. There are various ways of doing it. That is why we organize farmers’ day and visits to our experimental farms. But it is not only the Department which has a responsibility in this respect. The farmer who wants to acquire knowledge also bears a responsibility in this regard. I want to admit that I think the farmers in South Africa are particularly susceptible to guidance and to new ideas. We have experimental farms in the immediate vicinity of farmers. If hon. members have the opportunity of visiting those farms, as I have the privilege of doing as Minister—and I am at pains to do so—they will find this serious defect, that the State, from its side, tries to do everything for the farmer, but the farmer should still be taught to realize the importance of making use of that knowledge which is available to him in his own area by visiting those experimental farms in his immediate vicinity. There he will perhaps learn more in one day than he can learn in six months at the university or at the agricultural college. The farmers must learn to attend these farmers’ day and to visit these experimental farms. But in this materialistic time in which we live we have no time available for increasing our knowledge; we need all our time for making money. We want to make money as easily and as fast as possible. Fortunately that applies to a lesser extent to our younger farmers who have more of a scientific background, but the older farmer thinks it is a waste of time. He thinks the extension officer is somebody who has never done any farming himself but who now wants to come and tell the farmer what to do on the basis of knowledge obtained from a book. In other words, these people must be educated. Together with the guidance given, educational work also has to be done. In order to impart this knowledge to a person whom one knows is handicapped as the result of his habits and way of life, it must be made as attractive as possible for him. Hence this further training. What do we do? Every day at 1.35 p.m. there is a radio talk. We think that is a most unsuitable time, because then the lazy farmer sleeps and the energetic one is out on the land. But I know what good wives farmers in general have. They sit and listen to the radio and at night they tell their husbands what they have heard, and in that way they assist them. We have these daily agricultural talks. We also have this monthly publication, Farming in South Africa. We have the Agricultural News Letter to which the hon. member referred. This Agricultural News Letter is issued weekly and it gives a resumé of the reports of events during the week, whether by way of speeches made by a Minister or by officials of the Department. It is actually a resumé which is handed over to the Press. The Press publishes there reports in both English and Afrikaans, but the people who are interested in it can again read it and cogitate on it. Then we have the Hulpboek vir Boere, which gives us splendid reading matter. Over and above this we also have our quarterly scientific issue, which is really intended to keep the scientists in this country and overseas au fait with the scientific progress made in S.A. I want to state without fear of contradiction that never before in the history of S.A. since the time of Union in 1910 has greater progress been made in the sphere of scientific research than during the past three years since the Agricultural Department has been divided into two.

I now want to come to an important subject which was referred to by many hon. members, namely that we should train more veterinarians. Here I am replying to all hon. members who referred to it, and also the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Mr. Smit). I want to say this: Onderstepoort is really the training centre for veterinarians. There we have a faculty which trains veterinarians and which is very closely linked up with our Research Institute there. All the clinical material, all the laboratoria, required and all the other training facilities are available there. It is an expensive business to establish a new faculty. Simply expanding the accommodation at Onderstepoort, so that the 15 students which could be trained there every year could be increased first to 30 and then to 45, cost the State no less than R1,000,000. There we have at our disposal all the necessary lecturers and professors. The hon. member for Stellenbosch expressed himself very cautiously. He said that one could not continue expanding one centre for ever. There I agree with him. The idea which prevailed in S.A. that one could not properly train veterinarians in one single faculty unless their number was fewer than 30 or 40 or 45 is contradicted, I think, by the experience of other European countries in regard to this matter. It has been proved right throughout the world that the clinical side of the matter is really the limiting factor in the training of veterinarians. There are universities of repute in the world which train from 80 to 100 veterinarians in a year, and they are not given an inferior training, and they cannot be regarded as inferior to those trained at the smaller centres. Now I may mention that I had an interview with the Chairman of the S.A. Veterinary Medical Association. In his last address to the Congress, he strongly urged that the next veterinary faculty should be established at the university in Durban. He, however, had to admit that for an appreciable period in future there would be no need to train more than, say, 45 veterinarians a year, and we already have the facilities at Onderstepoort for training that number. Now that pressure is being applied for the establishment of another faculty, I want to avoid a war between the universities by telling them that we can, at much lower cost and with much less disruption of our veterinary services, make a further extension at Onderstepoort to provide for the training facilities of even greater numbers than the 45 we are training at present. But these 45 per annum will be sufficient to comply with the requirements of the country for several years to come.

May I ask the hon. the Minister how that figure was calculated? How does the Minister know that 45 a year will be sufficient for a number of years to come?

I used the very figure used by the hon. member who put that question. He said that by 1970 there will be a shortage of at least 120 or 130. That was calculated over three years, and then I quickly calculated that 45 students a year would be sufficient, according to the figure mentioned by the hon. member himself. If the hon. member cannot remember what he said, that is not my fault. I listened to him attentively, Of course we know what the requirements are. Just as the medical faculties are able to judge how many medical men they require to comply with the needs of the country, in the same way we can estimate what our requirements for the future will be. I say that we have sufficient training facilities at Onderstepoort for the training of veterinarians for at least an appreciable number of years.

Does not the Minister realize that it is not only the number of veterinary surgeons that he produces, but it is the presence of a scientific school in an area which raises the whole treatment and care of the animals in that area.

I wish to reply to that question in the language in which it has been put to me. I agree that the presence of a faculty of this kind in an area will naturally have a very big influence on the area itself. But I want to ask the hon. member a question in turn: Can he suggest a more proper and more suitable area for the training of veterinary surgeons than Pretoria?

*I will tell you why I say that, Sir. There is no concentration of wild animals in the Cape Province or in Natal or in the Free State which can be compared with the concentration of wild animals which they have in the Transvaal. The Transvaal is still open country there is a big concentration of animals there. Consequently the people in those open areas, where the world is big, have to deal with diseases and pests which we in other parts of the country do not even know about. I am not saying that that is the only place in the whole of South Africa where a veterinary faculty should ever be established. I am only saying that the time is not ripe for the establishment of a new faculty of veterinary science at the moment. But I do believe that that day will arrive in the future. In that case I think it will be unwise to establish a second faculty in the Transvaal. You will then have to decide which is the most central and the best situated place to establish it.

I now wish to deal with the services to farmers. We do not have sufficient veterinary surgeons for example to have them stationed all over the country so that they can be within easy reach of the farmers. We do believe, however, that we can provide those services to the farmers in another more practical and cheaper way. And that is by establishing diagnostic centres in the various stock-raising areas of our country. We have already made a start with that. We want to establish diagnostic centres in those parts of the country where there are large concentrations of animals, with a fully qualified veterinary surgeon in charge and the necessary assistants. We are doing that so that when a disease breaks out in that area it can be diagnosed locally. If it is a well-known disease the veterinary surgeon will know what antidotes to use. Steps can be taken immediately to combat the disease and it will not be necessary for the farmers in that area to send samples to Onderstepoort, samples which are in a half or a three-quarter state of decomposition when they arrive there. If an unknown disease breaks out and the veterinary surgeon cannot diagnose it such cases can be sent to the main research institute at Pretoria for further investigation and research. I believe that offers a solution and that it is a bold step in the right direction, with a view to the times in which we are living. I may add that this is not merely an ideal which I have set myself. We have already made a start in that direction. Such a diagnostic centre has already been established at Stellenbosch. The hon. member for Stellenbosch has already referred to it. I do not think, however, that it should be located in Stellenbosch either, but near to the town. We are now making arrangements to have that centre removed to the vicinity of the wine experimental farm, Nietvoorbij. I think that is a better site. It is further out of town because any sample on which you work gives off an odour. We do not want to have it in a town therefore. I have already moved the regional head office from Cape Town to Stellenbosch because I feel it should be near that diagnostic centre. We have such a diagnostic centre at Allerton in Natal and at Grootfontein in the Karoo. We are establishing diagnostic centres at Mossel Bay, Bloemfontein, Kroonstad, Johannesburg, Louis Trichardt and Potgietersrust. The other regions will follow. I am thinking of an area such as Upington and possibly Vryburg. It is only that we cannot do everything in one day. I just want to tell hon. members that the establishment of a new faculty for veterinary science has the immediate effect that it draws 25 or 30 of our best men away from our veterinary services. They are usually our best men because you have to use the most able men to provide the training at such a faculty. Its immediate effect, therefore, is a shortage within the service and I do not think this is the right time for us to do such a thing. Mr. Chairman, I have purposely dealt with this aspect at some length because I think it is of the utmost importance and that it is necessary that we have clarity in this connection.

I wish to say this to the hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford). The hon. member referred last night and again this afternoon to the inability of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services to deal with two diseases at the same time. He says we cannot handle foot-and-mouth disease and rabies at the same time. I wish to allege the opposite. They prepare a very effective vaccine at Onderstepoort to combat rabies, vaccine which we have in supply. Rabies is something, of course, which appears sporadically in South Africa and we do not keep a big supply of the vaccine; we know how to prepare it. We only had an average of something like 4,000 doses per week at our disposal when this abnormal incidence occurred in Natal. Within a few weeks we had increased our vaccine production to 30,000 doses per week. Because it was a serious outbreak we realized that we were dealing with something which could spread and which was extremely dangerous. We imported all the available vaccine against rabies from overseas. There was nothing available in Europe but we imported 60,000 doses from America. We imported those and we introduced control measures and within a limited period of time we had the disease completely under control, so much so that not a single district is under quarantine to-day.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? If the hon. the Minister had so much vaccine available, how is it that for three months his officials had to work without the protection of a human vaccine?

The hon. the Minister must not allow himself to be diverted by questions.

I will not allow myself to be diverted, Mr. Chairman. I just want to say this: As I have said within a few weeks we had increased our vaccine production and it may have happened during those few weeks. We pushed up production to 30,000 doses per week. But do you know how many dogs were inoculated against rabies in Natal, Sir? Over 20,000 and that is not all, because every Native has a dog; most of the rich people have dogs, dogs which they keep in the house, some outside the house, under the bed and sometimes on top of the bed. As hon. members will realize it is not an easy matter to get at all those dogs. When you ask a Native to show you his dog he immediately thinks you want to tax him. Do you know what they do here in the Cape Province, Sir, where there is a difference in the tax on a greyhound and a bull dog? He owns a greyhound and then he cuts off its ears and its tail and he says: “Master, it was a greyhound, but I have now cut its ears and its tail and now it is a bull dog”. Every owner should see to it that his dog is inoculated. That is his responsibility. That is all I want to say in this connection. I would rather pay tribute to the division of veterinary services and thank them for the manner in which they have brought this disease under control, while they were confronted with the greatest problem ever at the same time, internally as well as externally, i.e. in South West Africa where they were confronted with the problem which forms an integral part of the Republic, of a severe outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.

I just want to tell the hon. member for Bloemfontein (District) (Mr. Schlebusch) that planning in connection with production, that is grain elevators, etc., really falls under my colleague. The hon. member warned against the growing of fibre. I want to assure him that in this respect the Department does not at all adopt an irresponsible attitude when it comes to encouraging farmers to grow fibre. We know that our requirements are limited. Within the limits of the demand there are reasonable prospects for the production of fibre. We tell the farmers that, and we try to keep the production within those limits because just as in the case of other primary agricultural products, when you over-produce you have to do it so effectively that you can compete against world prices on the world market. Unless you are able to do that there is no other profitable way of disposing of your agricultural surpluses.

I just want to say a few words in connection with our white-ant problem. The hon. member says we are being white-anted or that the farmers are being white-anted; they are not the only people who are being white-anted. We have experience of that also in politics. But as far as it concerns the white-ant problem in agriculture I wish to assure him that we have discovered effective means of combating white-ants in certain areas. But the white-ant is a peculiar insect; it adapts itself to circumstances, etc. The method which is effective in the Cape Province is not necessarily effective in the Free State, because after all, Sir, the Free State is not an ordinary province; it is a province to which you have to pay special attention. It has an importance of its own and it has its own particular role to play in the implementation and development of the Republic.

The hon. members for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) and Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) have referred to fertilizer. I want to say this to them: My Department has regular discussions with the South African Agricultural Union and the Society of Fertilizer Manufacturers at least once a year. After such a discussion we determine what mixture we consider will be suitable and what should be used. Thereafter my Department carries out fertilizing tests on our experimental farms so that we can give guidance to the farmers as to the quantity we think they ought to use. The fertilizer industry is a very important one in our country when we think of the large areas which have become impoverished as a result of the unscientific farming methods which were applied in the past. We have a fertilizer industry in our country and it is basically sound that the Government should ensure that the fertilizer industry is protected with a view to our being able to be independent if abnormal times should await us in the future. But apart from that, my Department has never as yet recommended the same quantity for application as the extension officers and/or travellers of the various fertilizer companies have recommended. They are people who have been attracted from the Department of Agriculture. To-day they are employed by one or other fertilizer company and, of course, every one of them is at loggerheads with the Department. They are strategically placed; I have already told the fertilizer companies that I deprecated the fact that there was so little co-ordination. I think much has already been achieved to improve the relationship between the fertilizer companies and the Department of Agricultural Technical Services and I believe the co-operation is already much better than it has been in the past, but there is still much room for improvement. When we come to the question of sulphate of zinc to which hon. members have referred, that really means a shortage of trace elements. In that case you have to be very careful what amount you add. The fertilizer companies inform me that if they have to add the trace elements they require an exceptionally sensitive apparatus, because it may be an addition of .05 per cent or .5 per cent. A very small percentage is added. My department is conducting experiments. We know it has a very beneficial effect on plants but the fact remains that once you have added trace elements to the soil in too large a quantity it means that you will not rid your soil of it for years and years or for generations to come. Furthermore nobody can tell us to-day what effect an injudicious application of trace elements has, and it must still be determined by means of research and experiments what application constitutes an injudicious application. No one can as yet say what effect it has on the animal which eats the plant. Will it not give rise to other physical complications in the system of the animal? For that reason we are particularly careful in giving guidance at this stage and to make recommendations.

In conclusion I just wish to say that, because the field is so wide and because agriculture is so important, I have tried to the best of my ability, and ability which I admit may be limited, to reply to the basic fears or criticisms which have been raised, and to provide the information hon. members have sought.

What about the complex fertilizer from abroad?

The import or control of that, or the price, or whatever it may be is something which rests exclusively with the Department of Commerce and Industry and not with my Department. But while the hon. member has mentioned that, I want to say something in that connection and that the hon. member knows that the guidance which my Department gives to farmers as far as fertilizer is concerned, is not so readily accepted by them. Do you know why not, Sir? Because we do not advertise in the agricultural journals. We give our advice and guidance in another way, but the fertilizer companies advertise in the agricultural journals, and any commercial journal which is mainly dependent for its income on advertisements, places the advertisements as it receives them, and every one of them has an effect upon the readers. Advertising plays such an important role to-day that I will not be surprised to learn that even the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) has been so impressed by the value of that advertised fertilizer or mixture to which he and the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) have referred, that they honestly believe that all the others are valueless and detrimental and that that is the only one which will have a beneficial effect. I am not prepared, at least not at this stage, to accept the statement that that is the best one and that that is the only one we should use.

But that is not being advertised.

Vote put and agreed to.

Vote No. 28.—“Agricultural Technical Services (Regional Services and Education)”, R6,570,000, put and agreed to.

On Vote No. 29,—“Water Affairs”, R7,407,000,

May I ask for the courtesy of the half-hour.

I want at once in the time at my disposal to deal with the matter of the Hluhluwe Dam, which is a matter well within the knowledge of the hon. the Minister, and I want to say at once that in so far as this particular service is concerned, the state of affairs that has been disclosed as a result of local inquiries made in the Other Place particularly and on the site, is most lamentable in so far as the Minister and his department are concerned. A White Paper was presented to us in respect of that dam on 3 May, last year. I think it is perfectly clear, and I think the Minister will not attempt to deny it that the information laid before the House in that White Paper was completely erroneous, so much so that in respect of two points that were used for the purpose of the survey it was found that the data on which the White Paper was based were in fact a mile out. This matter then became a matter of representation to the Minister by the Provincial Administration of Natal and also by the Natal Parks Board, and various meetings were held with a view to getting the whole matter readjusted. And may I say now right at the outset, Sir, that so far as this particular matter is concerned I want to ask the Minister now, even at the risk of wasted costs, to hold up the work that is being done there in the way of boring, excavation, and so forth and have a complete survey carried out not only of the scheme itself but in regard to the whole of the ecology of the St. Lucia Lake system which includes the Hluhluwe Game Reserve. I am going to make the strongest possible objection to-night to the action contemplated by the Minister and his Department and the effect it is going to have on the Hluhluwe Game Reserve.

Mr. Chairman, when this scheme first came forward, it was to cost R80,000 for a group of farmers, 15 of them. I will come to that presently. By the time the plan was finished and we had the White Paper, the scheme for those 15 farmers had become R1,200,000. For 15 farmers! It seems to me that this is a very expensive way of providing irrigation water for a small group of farmers here and there. And there are other aspects I want to come to. There is the question of claim quotas to farmers who applied for the claim quotas and got them from the hon. the Minister’s colleague after the dam had been approved on the White Paper put before us on erroneous information. You had two groups of farmers there, two brothers in one group and two other farmers in another group who got additional quotas from the hon. the Minister’s colleague, in one case over 1,000 tons of sugar extra.

Order! Will the hon. member refer me to where the scheme appears under this Vote? It seems to me that it appears under the “Loan Vote”, and if that is the case, I cannot allow the hon. member to elaborate on it under this Vote.

Mr. Chairman, I want to deal with the Minister’s policy in regard to this matter because I am asking now for a survey of the whole of the ecological area of St. Lucia and the adjacent rivers.

Special provision is made under the Loan Vote, and I am sorry I cannot allow the hon. member to discuss that now.

May I not even ask for an ecological survey? I can’t ask for that under the “Loan Vote”.

I am sorry I cannot allow the hon. member to discuss that because there is special provision made under the Loan Vote and when that comes up the hon. member can raise it there.

Sir, can we not deal with the Orange River scheme under this Vote?

The hon. member can refer to the Orange River scheme as far as the broad principles are concerned, but he cannot discuss the details.

Can I not under this Vote criticize the Minister’s policy in regard to this scheme on the Hluhluwe River?

Not when special provision is made under another Vote.

You are a year late.

This is a scheme for which money has been provided previously. The Orange River scheme is a new scheme for which money is being provided now. But as far as the Hluhluwe project is concerned, the money has been voted previously.

On a point of order, may I ask whether it is in order to criticize the Minister’s policy in regard to these schemes?

No, only the Minister’s administration of the particular scheme in its operation.

The administration of a particular scheme?

The administration, yes, not the scheme as such and not the policy in regard to the scheme. I am sorry, but the hon. member for South Coast can raise this matter on the Loan Vote.

If that is your ruling, I must of course abide by it. I come to the question then purely from the administrative side and I want to ask the hon. the Minister why in terms of this scheme, and its administration as it is going on, when he was approached by the Provincial Administration and when he was approached by the Natal Parks Board, and when it was quite clear that he had been misinformed in regard to the consultations that have taken place, why he was not prepared to meet the province and the Natal Parks Board, in view of the fact that the information that had been put before him was completely erroneous. That is a question of administration. It was false information. It was a matter that was brought to his attention and he was asked to deal with it. We did not even get the courtesy of a reply by letter from the hon. the Minister. I was on two delegations …

We agreed that I would give you my reply verbally. You did not ask for it in writing.

I would deal with the picture in my own way.

I can also fight.

That is all right, if the hon. the Minister wants to fight. What are the facts? A representative from the province came down here to see the Minister on behalf of the province. I have seen the Minister twice, especially once on behalf of the Board and he said that he would give us a reply verbally. Where did I get the verbal reply? One evening at half past ten as I was putting on my coat to go down the steps, the Minister’s Secretary came down to me and said “The Minister says that he is going on with the scheme”. I said “What Minister? Who are you?” He said “I am Mr. Le Roux’s Secretary”. I said “What scheme?” I had not a clue as to what he was talking about. Is that the way in which the Minister sends a decision in regard to a matter of policy of his Department? Is that the way he deals with matters? Does he think that is courteous and the proper way to handle a matter of this kind? When official representation had been made to him by the province, surely the Minister could have dealt with the matter in a totally different manner. I repeat that the hon. the Minister stated in black and white categorically that the Parks Board had been consulted, whilst it is perfectly clear that the Parks Board had never been consulted. Now he gives an official reply in the Other Place to say that they have never been consulted. If he has had no consultations with them a tall, then what kind of a policy is this that the Minister is following? I say that this is a completely false picture that has been presented by the Minister. The hon. the Minister interjected just now and said that I had come a year too late. With what? What did I have before me last year? I had the information in a White Paper that I had received from the hon. the Minister at that time, but the assurances of the Minister then were completely false. So I say that on the administrative side this is the only way I can deal with it. In so far as the actual scheme is concerned, we have to wait for a further opportunity which you, Mr. Chairman, have indicated that I should take.

I want to start by congratulating the hon. the Minister and his Government most heartily under this Vote on the grand Orange River scheme that they are about to tackle. I think it is necessary that we should have more clarity on a few matters in connection with the big schemes which are to be tackled. In the first place, at the time the scheme was announced, certain maps were issued which created the impression that all electric lines, which will run from the hydroelectric power stations, where the power will be generated, will run south, following a devious route all along and just outside the borders of the Free State, to Kimberley.

Order! I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but I just want to give hon. members some guidance on this point. Under this particular Vote hon. members may refer in passing to the Orange River scheme, in broad outline, the merits or the demerits of it. As far as the details are concerned, they must wait until we come to the Loan Estimates where the money for this scheme is to be voted. I cannot allow any details to be discussed under this Vote and I want to ask hon. members to abide by this ruling.

In that case I shall say no more about it; I shall wait then, because the observations that I want to make will deal specifically with this scheme, until the Loan Vote comes up for discussion.

I want to deal with an item under the Minister’s Vote that appears under Item E and then the details on page 163. It is covered by an item “General Pollution Control Measures, R12,000” an “Payment to the South African Bureau of Standards for services rendered in terms of Section 21 (1)of Act No. 54 of 1956, R17,000”. Now, Sir, first of all I want to criticize the amount which is being devoted to this particular subject. The R12,000 we can almost forget about because that includes just general pollution control measures. The R17,000 paid to the South African Bureau of Standards is the item which is really being devoted to the whole question of major pollution control and research. Sir, just to give you an idea of what the Bureau themselves think about this, I would like to refer to the C.S.I.R. Report of 1961 where on page 30 it says this—

They then go on to give details of the research. Now, Sir, here the C.S.I.R. says that only by research can we get the basic fact son which this whole problem can be tackled, and yet here you have an amount of R17,000 devoted to this project for the whole year by this hon. the Minister. Sir, how are we ever going to deal with this problem? During the course of the year he has made a visit to the area concerned, he has answered questions, mainly put by the hon. member for Natal (South Coast) (Mr. D. E. Mitchell)on the Order Paper, and the impression is created that this problem is well in hand and is being tackled properly. I contend, however, that the hon. the Minister is not tackling it properly and the proof of this is quite obvious. It is rather interesting to see that the amount being spent is little more than what is spent on the office services for his Department. It is not as much as he is spending on instruments and the like for his office. Yet this huge national problem, which he himself is creating, is neglected to such an extent that he is prepared to spend only R17,000 through the C.S.I.R. I say that the hon. the Minister is creating this problem, because this hon. the Minister is granting permits for the establishment of industries quite indiscriminately. He is granting these permits without sufficient prior investigation, and then he is devoting R17,000 a year to try and solve the difficulties and the problems which he creates. What is the result of the expenditure? In the Government Gazette of 5 April the Minister has now published a new set of standards for the purification of affluents. It is not long ago, Sir, that this hon. the Minister stood up in this House and withdrew a set of standards that had been drawn up before, and his reasons were quite simple. He said “You can’t draw up a set of standards for the whole of the Union (as it was then), you can’t apply one set of standards to the Republic; you have got to apply them on a regional basis because the problems of each region are different”. Yet here he has laid down a set of standards with which everybody has to comply. The wording is simple “prescribe the following requirements to which waste water or effluent produced by or resulting from the use of water for industrial purposes shall conform after purification He gives a set of standards for water discharged into catchment areas. He then goes on and gives a second set of standards, and it says this”

In other words, he has laid down a standard after saying it was impossible to do so, a standard set of requirements for the purity of water. Sir, I am not going to argue with these standards. I am just putting it to the hon. the Minister that he is the very man who not so very long ago said that you could not lay down a set of standards; yet here, a few months later, he comes before us again laying down such a set of standards. He heads the standards “on a regional basis”, but he say “all areas of the Republic, other than catchment areas”. Now, Sir, either he can or he can’t. At one moment he can’t, and now he can. I will be glad if this set of standards will work. Then I think it is a very good step, an excellent step, and I sincerely hope that they can work. But what I am more concerned with is that the Minister should apply these standards. We make standards, we discuss them” there was a conference called by the Administrator of Natal in 1959, at which a decision was taken to set up an ocean current survey station at Amanzimtoti. I have not seen one thing done to implement the undertaking that was given when that steering committee was formed. Not one thing and we cannot get any information about it. I think this shows quite clearly that whilst we are getting the impression that something is being done about this vital question, which the C.S.I.R. say themselves is one of the most vital subjects we have to tackle at the moment, and it is not being tackled at all. We are just bluffing ourselves that we are tackling it. And unless this hon. the Minister is prepared to get down and really do something about it, we are going to have a national problem on our hands which will cost us millions and millions of rand to deal with, as they have found in other countries throughout the world. These countries would like the opportunity to start where we are now, with comparatively clean rivers and the sea just in the beginning of its pollution, and if this hon. the Minister would do what the 1956Act empowers him to do, he could set a standard for industry which all industry would be prepared to comply with. But he won’t do it, and I don’t know why he won’t do it. Whether he thinks it will frighten industry away or not, I don’t know. I don’t think it would. As long as all industries have to comply with the same set of standards, I believe that industry itself would welcome it because the various competitors would have to start on the same basis. But if he does not start to implement it now, we have not a chance of succeeding and we are just putting a rod in pickle for ourselves for the future.

One effect our hammering at this Minister has had, and I am pleased to say it, is that in the White Paper, the report on the proposed Hammersdale water scheme, he has included an effluent purification scheme so that he does not pollute all the rivers in that area. That is something on which, I think, he can be congratulated.

Whilst I am on pollution, there is one matter I want to take up and in respect of which I want some information from the hon. the Minister. It is on the question of IMCO. This is an advisory committee on the oil pollution of the sea. I don’t know under what other portfolio this would fall. The Minister deals with all aspects of pollution, and I take it that he deals with this one too. There was a conference called for 26 March to 13 April 1962 and I would like to know from the hon. the Minister first of all whether we were represented at that conference, because from the contents of a letter I have, it seems that we were represented. It says “South Africa was represented at the last conference but has not as far as I know implemented the recommended legal provisions”. This is a worldwide movement to protect the beaches and the seas from pollution by oil. It is something which I think deserves the support of South Africa along with all the other important nations of the world, and I think we have a contribution to make, and I would like to hear from the hon. the Minister what we have done about it. It causes death to animals, to birds, it pollutes our beaches and sea. [Time limit.]

I should also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the hon. the Minister on the many large schemes announced this year, and I also want to take this opportunity of thanking him for the big scheme in my own constituency which he has put on the Estimates. But I rose particularly to praise the officials of this Department. I think I can say that I come into contact with the Department of Water Affairs more than most other hon. members in this House. It is a department which deals with practical matters, and one can truly say, without derogating from any other State Departments, that this Department handles the problems of the country and of the public just as efficiently as one could expect any Department of State in any part of the world to do. The Secretary for Water Affairs, in the person of Mr. Jordaan, is never unavailable when the public want to see him. What I like is that his approach, and due to his influence the approach of his whole Department, is not to fob off people who come to see them by means of some excuse or promise, but in every consultation an attempt is made to deal with the problem submitted and if possible to find a solution for it. I feel it is my duty to direct these few words of praise to the Department. Apart from my own experience, during the past days and weeks and months, various bodies, irrigation boards and individuals, have told me of the friendly reception they were given by the Secretary for Water Affairs and the other members of his staff, and the good treatment and willingness to assist they experienced there. Everything done there is done in the spirit of assisting to solve the problems, and I want to say tonight that there are many grateful citizens in the Republic, irrigation boards and other bodies, who have been assisted by the Department of Water Affairs.

But I also want to take the opportunity to associate myself with certain ideas expressed here in regard to the Main Estimates by the hon. member for Piketberg (Mr. Treurnicht), when he said that in view of the announcement of this tremendously big water scheme, the Orange River scheme, we should not just concentrate on that to the exclusion of all other schemes. The same amount of attention should still be devoted to all the other schemes which in fact still form the basis of our use of water in this country. We realize that many applications are received for water schemes from all over the country, and I want to take this opportunity to-night to plead for the area known as the Western Cape. The South-Western parts of the Cape Province are particularly suited to the cultivation of a large variety of products. The soil is generally suitable and the water is particularly available because of the fact that every year during the winter we have a reasonable steady rainfall. It is an area which is not affected by heavy frost; strong winds which cause damage are an exception, and hail is practically totally absent. Then we have the further circumstance that the area adjoining the South-Western Cape is one which is drought-stricken from time to time, and the basic product which can be produced under water schemes in the South-Western Cape, viz. lucerne, is something for which there is a great demand in the adjoining area which is so often stricken by drought.

When one thinks of water conservation, one thinks of the provision of water particularly for two purposes. Firstly, there is the urban consumption of water, where it is used for domestic purposes and also for industrial purposes. In the second place, one thinks of the use of water for irrigation. In regard to the conservation of water for urban use, there are, generally speaking, no great problems, because the expansion is reasonably steady and slow, and provision can be made for it when there is expansion. But the most important reason why it is not such a serious problem is the fact that water used for urban purposes can generally be expensive, and therefore any scheme developed for urban use can usually be quite an economic scheme. But in the case of water used for irrigation there are many other factors one has to consider, one of them being that when water is conserved for irrigation purposes it is essential that that water should be very cheap. Because that is a factor it is also essential that the soil on which the water is to be used should be of good quality in order to have the greatest measure of productivity. It is also important that the climatic conditions should be suitable, and also that when such a scheme is established one should be able as far as possible to make unproductive land productive. By this I mean that it is much better to put unproductive land under production and to make it highly productive than to use land which is under production only to a certain extent and to increase that production. In order to comply with all these requirements, I feel that there are excellent prospects for a scheme in the South-Western Cape which should receive the serious attention of the Minister. I want to ask him again to devote attention to the scheme known as the Aspoort scheme. It is a scheme which can be established on the borders of a very arid area of our country. According to the surveys available to us, no fewer than 32,000 morgen are available for irrigation. The proposed dams will provide for approximately 17,000 morgen. In addition, we have a very low rainfall in that area, of only 2 to 3 inches per annum, but the soil is of a particularly good quality. If we put that area under irrigation, land which is to-day totally unproductive and worth not even R2 per morgen can be made highly productive. In addition there is the absence of bad climatic conditions like hail, heavy frost, etc. In those circumstances one feels that it is desirable and essential that this scheme should be tackled, particularly in view of the fact that it will be able to serve as a supply off odder for the adjoining inland areas which are so often drought-stricken. I want to tell the hon. the Minister that we know that the provision of funds for such schemes does not always rest with him alone, but I do want to tell him also that we, the many thousands of people who can be involved in such a scheme, will assist him in making representations to the man who holds the purse of the country and who has to make funds available for such schemes, namely the Minister of Finance. [Time limit.]

We should like to learn from the hon. Minister whether the sum of money set aside against the item “For investigation of Orange River”, page 163 of the Estimates of Expenditure, will be used solely on the Orange River scheme, or will investigations also be made in regard to watersheds adjacent to the Orange River in, for instance, the Sak River? In view of the sum which was voted last year for investigations of this nature, I should like the Minister to inform us what further work is actually taking place. Has the boring on the proposed tunnel from the Orange River into the upper reaches of the Fish River been completed, or is part of this money to be spent on that work? In regard to the site for the dam at Bethulie–which I believe has been condemned by the Minister–I shall be pleased if the Minister could give us information as to what boring took place there, and what actually was wrong with the foundation.

Order! The hon. member is now circumventing my ruling. This item relates purely to the investigation of the Orange River Scheme. The hon. member cannot obtain particulars of the scheme in this manner.

Mr. Chairman, am I not then entitled to find out exactly how this money is to be spent? According to the Estimates, this money is to be spent on an investigation of the Orange River and I can, surely, ask this question in view of the fact that boring might be envisaged in the Orange River on proposed dam sites which are going to serve the irrigators on the Orange River? It was anticipated that the irrigators of Kakamas, Upington, etc., were going to be served by a dam to be built at Bethulie. I have inspected that site myself several times. It is one of the finest dam sites …

Order! The hon. member can obtain that information under the Loan Vote where the costs of the scheme are provided for.

I am not asking for the cost of the Orange River scheme, or for the cost of any other scheme for that matter. Tam solely interested in the riparian owners of the Orange River. It is most essential that these riparian owners be provided with a permanent supply of water, because we read in the papers that the resources of the Vaal River are being strained to such an extent as a result of the industrial development of the Rand, that the Orange River will have to be developed in order to provide these riparian owners on the Orange River with water, thereby relieving the drain on the Vaal Dam. I have, over the years, been very much interested in the development of the resources of the Orange River itself. We have heard much to-day in regard to the question of a fodder bank. Well, the irrigators along the Orange River, and particularly at Kakamas, have provided us with a fodder bank which assisted us to keep many thousands of our sheep and cattle alive during periods of drought. It is most essential that these irrigators are assured of a permanent source of water. If the supply from the Vaal Dam is going to be restricted, or denied them, then it is essential that the Orange River should supply their needs of water. It is only with these people that I am concerned with now.

I am also interested in why the Bethulie site was condemned. Did the boring disclose that the substratum was defective and if so, what were the defects? I ask this because I have always understood that this was one of the most important sites on the Orange River.

Order! I should like to point out that this item is in respect of the purchase of supplies, aerial photography, rental of instruments and equipment for investigation of the Orange River. Under this item, therefore, the hon. member can ask for all information relating to the purchase of supplies, aerial photography, rental of instruments, etc., but is not entitled to any other information under this item.

I am sorry if I have trangressed your ruling, Sir. In any event, I will leave that matter now, in order to deal with an item under F on page 163, namely an item for the purchase of chemicals for water treatment’ R43,000. In this connection, I should be pleased if the hon. the Minister could give the House any information in regard to the progress with research into the desalting of sea water. Many of our coastal holiday resorts suffer from a water shortage. This does seem disappointing especially when one has regard to the volume of the sea adjoining these places. From information we have in regard to research in America, they have succeeded in reducing the cost of desalting sea water to something like 25 cents per 1,000 gallons. This, to my mind, brings the desalting of sea water within the economic range and makes it possible for desalted water to be supplied to the public in these areas I have referred to. Perhaps the hon. the Minister could tell the House whether there is liaison between our research workers here and those in America, and also what progress has been made with research in this country. Can we anticipate that the sea will be used to add to the water resources of this country? We have enormous areas which lie on our coasts and which are more or less barren. I believe that if sea water can be desalted economically, a new era will be opened for this country. It might, for instance, make irrigation possible in areas adjacent to our seas, and with atomic power, also in areas further inland. We would, therefore, appreciate any information which the hon. the Minister can give us in regard to this matter. I should now like to go back to item E in order to deal with an item “engineering pupils (vacation students), 60 for approximately two months at about R70 p.m.”. In connection with this I want to say that this venture might prove to be an excellent one. Perhaps the Minister could inform us where these students receive instruction; how they are housed; and whether this opportunity is available only to students at our universities who are taking degrees in engineering, or is it also available to those who are not so fortunate as to afford a university education? We would appreciate information in this regard.

There is another item in regard to which I should like the Minister to give the House further information, namely item J—Special flood relief: R433,000. This item is on the Estimates for the purposes of a revote. The sum voted last year for this purpose was R462,000 which would indicate that something like R29,000 was spent during the year just passed on flood relief. I should like the hon. the Minister to inform the House where this expenditure took place. I may have a poor memory because I have no knowledge of any serious floods which occurred in the Republic during the past year. I know the Orange River was in flood but there were no reports in the Press about damage being done… [Time limit.]

I find it difficult to urge this Minister to establish more irrigation works than he has already done, because with his announced schemes he has done more in this regard in the period of four years than one could reasonably expect to be done in a life-time, and a long life time at that. Notwithstanding that, however, I still want to direct requests to the hon. the Minister. I do not do so because I am ungrateful for what he has already done. On the contrary, I do so because I know I am dealing with a person who has already forgotten more about water than most of us can expect to learn in a life time. The matter I strongly want to recommend to him now is that he should have a new survey made of the water consumption at Vaal-Hartz. It is absolutely essential that such a survey should be made. As a result of the basic consumption of water which was allowed at Vaal-Hartz in the past, the land has been over-flooded to a large extent. The result was that the state had to spend thousands of rand in draining away the water in order to save the drowned land. In this direction great success has also been achieved. Now we find that whilst there are areas at Vaal-Hartz where the allotment of water is sufficient …

Order! The use of water does not fall under this Minister.

I want to point out, with respect, that this hon. Minister controls all the water at Vaal-Hartz. All the water there falls under his jurisdiction. The hon. member will admit that this is the case. I have represented Vaal-Hartz for a long time already, and every time there was trouble at Vaal-Hartz I applied to this hon. Minister for assistance and in every case the Minister also told me what he could do and what he could not do. Therefore I think you should allow me to continue.

The hon. member may continue.

I was saying that in some areas at Vaal-Hartz the basic allotment of water was sufficient; in fact, there are areas where there is even too much and where the owners do not use all the water. But there are also areas where the basic allotment is not sufficient, and it is on behalf of these people that I want to plead with the Minister. He must have a survey made of the consumption of water at Vaal-Hartz. It happens that people who go in for horticulture use up their basic allotment and must then be given extra water. Extra water can only be allotted to them if the control board recommends it and the Minister consents to it. The hon. the Minister will agree with me when I say that by the time this consent is obtained that man’s garden has already dried up. The climate at Vaal-Hartz is hot and the soil is sandy, with the result that it becomes very warm. It therefore does not take long before a garden is totally ruined under such circumstances.

When I ask this, I also want to urge the Minister not to allow a single drop of water which can be used beneficially to be lost. At Vaal-Hartz water is wasted—water which can be used to good advantage. Therefore I want to urge the Minister to change his policy in this respect. The drainage furrows made at Vaal-Hartz carry away large quantities of water at certain times to the Hartsrivier, whilst that water could be beneficially used by means of diversion furrows, particularly on some of the dairy farms in the area. I am convinced that the Minister will recognize the reasonableness of my request in this regard, namely to see to it that instead of that water flowing into the Hartsrivier, the people who can use it beneficially should be allowed to use it either by means of dams or diversion furrows, thereby increasing their production. The days when water could be allowed to be wasted are surely past. The policy of the Minister, in fact, proves it. It is essential that every drop of water which can possibly be conserved should be conserved. In order to do that, dams should be built. That is in fact the only way in which it can be done.

In this regard I want to mention a matter which I have repeatedly raised in this House, namely the size of the subsidy granted to farmers by the Government for the building of dams. We have had such severe droughts in this country that one is unable, despite the large settlements and the production of lucerne there, to purchase lucerne to save one’s animals. It simply has not been available. Now it is necessary to evolve some means of preventing a repetition of that position, and that can only be done if the State assists persons who have not the necessary finance to build dams, not with the object of having water when there is no drought, but of having water when there is one. At the moment the Government grants a maximum subsidy of R600 per dam. Except in cases where a dam can be built in the most favourable circumstances, this subsidy is of very little value when it comes to building a dam. I will not say that it is quite useless, because any small dam which can conserve water is useful. But when one has irrigation in view … [Time limit.]

I just want to finish off the points I was discussing when my time expired. One of these points was that I wanted some further information from the hon. the Minister in regard to the conference in London of the Inter-Governmental Maritime Organization. The objects of this Organization are, inter alia, to try and combat oil pollution of the sea and so to protect fish and animal life, and the amenities which people enjoy. It was important enough for us to be represented at the conference of this Organization last year. I should like to know whether South Africa was represented at the conference this year and what the hon. the Minister’s attitude to this Organization is. It is a very important body with world-wide affiliations.

There is one further point I should like to make in regard to the C.S.I.R. and the R17,000 which has been set aside for that body. In answer to a question put by the hon. member for Natal South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell), the hon. the Minister intimated that the C.S.I.R had sufficient money for its research work. Does he honestly consider the allocation of a sum of R17,000 to the C.S.I.R. as a sufficient allocation to enable it to conduct investigations and research into the many problems of which the Minister is well aware? He knows what the problems are which face us and he also knows that this sum of money is not enough. I should like to ask him to give the C.S.I.R. more money and to make it a worth while sum so as to enable it to do its work properly. I think he owes that to the country.

Another matter which I should like to raise relates to the water charges in respect of the Midmar Dam. In a White Paper which the hon. the Minister tabled in connection with this scheme, namely the Umgeni Government Water Scheme, the figure is given at which water is going to be supplied from this dam to local authorities and other users who will make use of this scheme. This figure is 2.25 cents per 1,000 gallons. I consider this charge to be a fantastic one for a scheme of this nature and size. The effects will be that it is almost going to double the cost of water to those local authorities who are going to draw water from this dam. The hon. the Minister knows that the tariffs for the supply of water by his Department from schemes such as this is 1.25 cents per 1,000 gallons. I get this figure also from the White Paper. Coming to the Midmar Dam, however, we find this figure to have risen from 1.25 to 2.25 per 1,000 gallons, i.e. an increase of between 80 and 90 per cent. Talking in cents the increase seems to be very small but when you bring that in relation to 113,000,000 gallons a day, i.e. the supply which will finally be available in 1976, then it is a fantastic sum of money which will be involved. One cannot then think in terms of cents but rather in hundreds of thousands of Rand and probably millions of rand. I brought forward this matter because, as the hon. the Minister knows, the City Council of Durban was going to build a second dam on the Umgeni River. He stopped it, however. I do not want to argue the merits or demerits of that decision, but it has been estimated that if they could have gone on with their scheme, they could have supplied Durban with water at a price very much lower than the price applicable under the Minister’s scheme. The arguments in this White Paper for the high charges are, inter alia, that the rates of interest on loans have gone up by one per cent, that costs generally have increased, etc. Numerous other arguments are advanced in support of this figure of 2.25 cents which is going to be the charge for 1,000 gallons of water from this scheme. As against this, it must be remembered that had the Durban City Council been allowed to proceed with the building of a second dam on the Umgeni, the rate at which water could be supplied to Durban would not have exceeded, to the best of my knowledge, the figure of 1.25 cents per 1,000 gallons. As a matter off act, I think the rate was going to be less, but because I do not have the exact details here, I cannot advance that as a fact.

What does the City Council of Durban charge the consumer for water?

The charges for water are included in the rates and no separate charge is levied for the supply of water. I should, therefore, like to ask the hon. the Minister to reconsider this figure of 2.25 cents per 1,000 gallons. As I have already intimated, I think this is a fantastic figure especially in view of the fact that if the Durban City Council was permitted to proceed with its scheme, it could have supplied water for Durban at a charge of a little more than one cent per 1,000 gallons. This is an important matter and needs investigation. It is also necessary that the hon. the Minister should justify the imposition of such a high charge. It is not enough just to say that it is necessary to recover the capital costs over a certain period. That is not sufficient. I wonder whether there will not be a over-recovery having in mind the price at which water is going to be supplied. He should not load the price to one consumer in order to enable water to be supplied to another consumer at a lower tariff. There are various types of consumers who are going to get water from this scheme. The Hammarsdale Scheme, for instance, is going to be supplied from this scheme. Furthermore, there are the various municipalities and, I believe, the Bantu area in the Pinetown region is also going to be supplied. I should like to know whether it is the intention of the Minister to load the rates to the City of Durban perhaps in order to enable water to be supplied at a lower rate to other consumers. What other reasons does the hon. the Minister have for imposing this particularly high charge to one particular consumer when he is going to reduce it to another, or is he going to charge them all the same tariff? As I intimated before, I think he has over-estimated the amount he has to recover in order to repay the Loan Account.

As far as the Orange River scheme is concerned. I wish to draw you attention to the footnote to Vote 29, on page 160 of the Estimates. This footnote reads as follows’

This Vote includes provision for Departmental services carried out in connection with works approved under Loan Vote Affairs as well as proposed new works still under consideration.

I should like to have your ruling as to whether or not details of the Orange River scheme can be discussed in view of this note.

The hon. member is skating on very thin ice. This footnote does not form part of the funds to be voted. It only amounts to this that the technical services which are provided for in this Vote can be used on the Orange River scheme. I have already given a ruling on this matter and I suggest to hon. members that they wait until such time as the Loan Estimates come up for discussion.

With respect, Sir, I wish to point out that in all probability the Loan Estimates will not come up for discussion and consequently we will not have an opportunity during this Session of discussing such an important matter as the Orange River scheme.

Order! There are still 60 hours left for discussion of all the Estimates. If this particular matter is so important—and I admit that it is—the Parties can make the necessary arrangements to have it discussed.

In view of the fact that the Orange River scheme is still in its initial stages, and seeing that you will not allow us to discuss the matter, I wonder whether it will be possible for you, Sir, to allow the hon. the Minister to give us further details at this stage.

Order! A Minister does not enjoy greater rights than an ordinary member. What the hon. the Minister can do is to outline his policy broadly and hon. members may then ask him questions on that. They cannot, however, ask for any details and the hon. the Minister may not give any details.

Mr. Chairman, I hope I will not fall foul of your ruling. Not matter what wealth a country has, its development remains limited by the amount of water which is available for that purpose. Seeing that that is the position, we must congratulate the hon. the Minister on the tremendous development which he envisages with the introduction of the Orange River scheme. This is the first time that a whole river has been roped in. Having congratulated the hon. the Minister I wish to say that I have one fear in regard to the scheme as a whole. When you think of it that the Vaal River and the Orange River have their sources in the East of our country and their estuaries in the West you realize that nature has placed these rivers in a position where they can supply the most dry areas of our country with water. The fear I want to express is in connection with the idea that water should be taken out of the Orange River to the Fish River and the Sundays River. I admit that the Minister has the power to do so, and also that there are schemes in existence in respect of which we have problems.

At 10.25 p.m. the Deputy-Chairman stated that, in accordance with Standing Order No.26 (1), he would report progress and ask leave to sit again.