Mr. Speaker, the field covered by this Bill has been thoroughly traversed. There is not much that remains to be said that has not been said before. But in an attempt to put this argument on a meaningful basis, I want to challenge the United Party to argue the following three points. In the first place we find that in terms of this Bill the hon. the Minister of the Interior is being empowered to deprive a person of his citizenship when that person already has the citizenship of another country. The Minister may do this if he is of the opinion that it is in the public interest for him to act in this manner.

My first question to hon. members opposite is the following: Should it be possible for a person to lose his citizenship if he has dual citizenship and it is in the public interest that he should lose his South African citizenship? Let us take this as a general principle. Tell us now; as yet they have not told us: Should it be possible for a person to lose his citizenship if it is in the public interest that he should be deprived of his citizenship, when he already has the citizenship of another country? That is the first question I should like to put to hon. members of the Opposition.

But there is a second question: If it is in the public interest that that person may be deprived of his citizenship, in those circumstances, does the Opposition want to suggest that a Minister of State, who is a member of the governing party of the day, is unable to decide what is in the public interest? That is a very important question. Do hon. members mean to say that the Cabinet that has to govern the country, and the Minister in charge of the portfolio concerned, are unable to decide what is in the public interest? Let the hon. members tell us that. I believe the answer to that question must be “yes”. Hon. members will have to admit that the Government of the day must decide from day to day on what is in the public interest and what is not in the public interest. Is it possible for a Government to take such a decision in respect of what is or is not in the public interest, without affecting the rights of people? Of course, when a Government takes a decision that certain conduct is against the public interest, then such a decision is always of a far-reaching nature.

The third question I want to put to hon. members opposite so that they may argue this point with us on this side of the House, is the following: If it is so that a Minister decides every day as to what is in the public interest and what is not in the public interest, where must his powers to take these decisions begin and where exactly must they end? In other words, what we want those hon. members on the opposite side of the House to tell us, is this: A Minister of this State must most definitely act in the public interest, but where exactly must his powers begin and where must his powers end? Hon. members on that side of the House take the general and vague view of being opposed to this Bill, but they must take certain views based on principle in respect of this Bill, and I want to ask them to do so; I challenge them to do so.

Let me put it clearly that in principle the courts are not there to govern the country, but to decide when a person has infringed the law of the land, when a person has offended against the law of the land, and whether or not he has committed a crime. That is the important task which the courts have, and the powers of the courts most definitely extend further than that too. I do not want to deny it, but I say that a strong Government will be evading its responsibilities towards the voters who have put it in a position to govern, if it should always want to shift its responsibilities of government on to the courts. And this Government is not going to shift its responsibilities of government on to the courts. This Government has a duty to govern in the public interest and in the interest of South Africa. It cannot simply take the easy road by saying that it is transferring its rights to the courts. It cannot ask the courts to govern on its behalf. The Government has a duty and a right to act.

Mr. Speaker, before coming to what I want to say about this Bill, I should like to deal with one or two of the remarks made by the hon. member who has just sat down. In spite of all that has been said in the debates that have gone before, on the various stages of this Bill, the hon. member still seems unable to comprehend the basic principle upon which this Bill is founded. He again spoke about the capacity of the Minister to judge what is in the best interests of South Africa. The wording of the proposed subsection (1) of section 19bis of the principal Act, as substituted by clause 1 of the Bill, reads inter alia as follows:

The Minister may by order deprive a South African citizen—

In the next paragraph of clause 1, we have the addition of a new subsection (1A) to section 19bis of the principal Act, which reads as follows:

Now the hon. member who has just sat down said: Fancy doubting the ability of the Minister to decide whether something is in the public interest or not.

The ability of the Minister.

Yes, the ability of the Minister. Mr. Speaker, it is common practice, as a matter of courtesy in this House when we are dealing with a matter of that kind, to say, “I am not referring to the present Minister; he may be succeeded by other Ministers.” Sir, I am referring to the present Minister. I say that it is quite impossible for Parliament to say that this Minister is qualified to be able to judge what is in the public interest when it comes to depriving a man of his South African citizenship, which he has legally enjoyed, which he has acquired in terms of our law. He is a citizen, a co-citizen with us here in South Africa, and to give one man, whether it happens to be the present Minister of the Interior or anybody else, the right to say that it is in the public interest to deprive a man of his citizenship and that there shall be no appeal to the courts and that the Minister shall not be required to give any reason as to why he thinks it is in the public interest, is to give him an unconscionable power. Sir, I am surprised that in the days that have gone by since we had the Second Reading and the Committee Stage the hon. the Minister has not relented; that he has not looked at himself in a mirror and asked himself, “Am I really a man to be trusted with those powers in a democratic country like we claim for South Africa?” Sir, they say that to err is human. We do not want to err any more than is unavoidable when it comes to depriving a man of his South African citizenship. Let us cut out the frills. The hon. member who has just sat down made the same mistake that has been made by members on the other side in talking about people who were guilty of a “misdaad”. Sir, there is nothing like that in this Bill. Under this Bill nobody who is going to be deprived of his South African citizenship has to be guilty of a misdeed. If the Minister had inserted a provision in the Bill to the effect that after a conviction for certain types of crime, the Minister would then consider whether it was in the public interest for that person to remain a citizen of South Africa, then it would have gone some way towards meeting our objections. The Minister would, at any rate, have had a decision of the courts, in which it could have been said that that man is guilty of a crime, and the crime would be specified. It would not be a case of just one man’s own feelings—nor this judgment, Sir, but his feelings. I emphasize and I repeat the word “feelings”. If the Minister has strong feelings about a certain matter, then that person is put in a position of losing his South African citizenship—only because the Minister has strong feelings in respect of that person, based on reports submitted to him. Sir, I want to make this point now and I make it to the hon. member who has just sat down, who quite wrongly referred to the “misdade” of people who may lose their South African citizenship. They may be guilty of no misdeed at all; they may never have been charged with a misdeed. I say that it is the Minister’s feeling that is involved here. The Minister does not himself put on his Sherlock Holmes’ hat and coat and go out looking into the conditions and the circumstances under which one of these people is going to be deprived of his South African citizenship. He gets the papers in front of him. He may never have seen the man or woman. He may know nothing of them at all beyond what he sees in the papers that are put before him. Sir, who guides the import of those papers? Here again, Sir, it may be the feelings of one person initially who makes a report officially, or it may be a poison pen complainant, not even an official. Sir, I stand back for nobody in my admiration of our officials in the difficult task which we as legislators very often impose upon them. There is nothing, Sir, which is so liable to be misinterpreted as the actions of officials in trying to carry out the provisions of laws which we pass here. These laws can easily be misinterpreted and officials can easily be wrongly accused. But, Sir, it need not be an official. It can be a poison pen remaining anonymous. Sir, when provision is made in this Bill by the Minister to lift from him the responsibility of giving the reasons why he is depriving a man of his citizenship, it is not because he does not wish to reveal the source from which the information has first come, but because he may himself be in doubt as to its validity and the reliability of the source from which it came. Because, Sir, I repeat that he has nothing whatever to do with the inquiry; he may know nothing of it. A poison pen accusation from an anonymous source can go through the various compartments of the department until it reaches the Minister, and it can be couched in such form that the Minister thinks to himself, “The sooner this fellow is deprived of South African citizenship, the better,” and that then completes the matter; the document is issued; there is no appeal to the courts; the Minister need give no reason for his decision. Sir, it would be a bad thing if he could fine a person in money. Let us contemplate for a moment that we give a Minister the power to fine anybody R20, without requiring him to give any reason for doing so, without giving the person concerned the right of recourse to the courts of law. Sir, we would think that that was a shocking thing. We would regard it as a shocking thing if a Minister had the power to fine a man R1 000, without any evidence being led in open court, without the Minister being required to give any reasons for his decision, an entirely off-the-cuff decision for no reason known to anybody else. But, Sir, does the deprivation of a man’s citizenship not go far beyond a fine in money? A man who is required to pay a fine of R1 000 or R20 000 or R10 000, or just R20, may feel it or he may not, according to his circumstances, but what do you do to a man when you strip him of his citizenship under those same circumstances? I say that we would hesitate and that even my hon. friends on the other side would hesitate to give any Minister the power to fine a person under those circumstances. Sir, I look at their faces over there. By Jove, I wish I were the Minister; I would fine some of them if I had that power, and I would have justification because I would say to them, “You voted for this Bill, and that is sufficient justification for fining every one of you R1 000 on the turn.” I would not need to go to court to prove that; the evidence that they are all guilty of it would be found in the list of the division that we are going to have on this Bill. Sir, here we are going to deprive people of their citizenship and under these circumstances I think that the Minister should really have had a little introspection and looked into some of the tenets of democratic government. He is a new Minister. He may have a long way to go before a short drop. But, Sir, while he is on that long journey before the short drop, I wish he would take a fresh look at himself, a fresh look at this Bill, and ask himself, “Am I doing the good name of South Africa any good whatsoever by proceeding with this measure, or am I doing incalculable harm, where people will sit down objectively throughout the world and have a look at the legislation being passed by the South African Parliament?” That is what he should ask himself. Sir, he is an intelligent and able young man. I am sure that if he would do that he would come to the conclusion that in the interest of South Africa he should drop this Bill even at this late stage and not proceed with it in Another Place.

Sir, in the course of my argument I shall reply to the arguments which were raised here by the hon. member for South Coast. I think the hon. member became unnecessarily emotional about a matter in which reason should dominate emotion. Sir, in the discussion of this Bill, one hopeful aspect came to the fore, and that is that on this occasion the racial drum was not beaten quite as forcefully as always in the past when South African citizenship was being discussed. Whenever South African citizenship was being discussed in the past, hon. members opposite beat the racial drum very forcefully and always tried to scare hon. members and people who wanted to become or were South African citizens with what this side of the House would then do with them. I say it is a hopeful aspect of this debate that that did not happen this time, because it illustrates how correct the late Adv. Strijdom was when he made his last speech in this House in 1958 and spoke about cooperation between Afrikaans-speaking people and English-speaking people and came to the conclusion that progress could be made in the matter of having proper co-operation between the two population groups only if we had a Republic. The fact that we have been a Republic for 12 years and are able to argue the matter of South African citizenship here without becoming emotional about it and without beating the racial drum, illustrates what a long way we have progressed on that road. We have even progressed such a long way that when the hon. member for Port Natal intimated here that he had dual citizenship, and even when he said that he would rather resign as a member of the House of Assembly before learning Afrikaans, it caused no bitterness on the part of hon. members on this side. It probably evoked a measure of sympathy, sincere and deep sympathy from this side towards the hon. the Leader of the Opposition because he and his party must still put up with an hon. member like that. However, from the discussion of this Bill it is very clear that we are concerned here with three classes of people.

Firstly, we are concerned with the person who has South African citizenship. They constitute the great majority of people in South Africa, that is those with South African citizenship. They are by far the greater majority of people. These people, this class, the people with South African citizenship, cannot be affected by this measure in any way. The Minister cannot act against them because they only have South African citizenship. The second class of person is the people who do not have South African citizenship, but temporary residence permits only. This class of person, too, is not affected by this Bill, because the Minister already has effective measures to act against them, if necessary. The third group is those people who have dual citizenship, and there is only a very small percentage of people in South Africa who have dual citizenship. But even this small percentage of people, that now comes within the ambit of this Bill, may sleep peacefully. The hon. member for Port Natal, too, may sleep peacefully. All of us come within the ambit of the law prohibiting theft. But our sleep is not disturbed because we may possibly be arrested for theft, because we do not commit theft. These people with dual citizenship must first commit a crime; they must act in such a way that the Minister considers it to be in the public interest for them to cease being South African citizens. Only then may the Minister act against them. It is therefore a very small percentage of a small percentage who really comes within the ambit of this Bill.

But Winchester says he is afraid of the Police.

Dual citizenship in itself is no crime, nor is it punishable under this Bill. Only when a person with dual citizenship acts in such a way that the Minister considers it to be in the public interest for him to cease being a South African citizen, may action be taken against him. In that event, however, he still retains his other citizenship. He is not being stripped of citizenship. Most of us do not find it necessary to have dual citizenship. But if such a person should find it necessary to have dual citizenship, and he acts in such a way that it is not in the interest of the country to have him remain here, he will, in fact, be deprived of his South African citizenship, but in that event he still has the citizenship of the other country. We believe, when a person acts in such a way that it is prejudicial to the security and the continued existence of the State and its other citizens—when a person, someone who has dual citizenship, acts in such a way that he prejudices the security and the continued orderly existence of the State and of the majority of its citizens, then we on this side of the House believe that fast and effective action must be taken against such an individual. We believe that on the acquisition of citizenship a contract between the State and the citizen comes into being. It is a contract which binds both with reciprocal rights, duties, responsibilities and a common goal. The State undertakes, inter alia, to provide for the security and the safety and the orderly and continued existence of its citizens. But security does not just imply protection against invaders or against murderers. Security also implies protection against the tyrant, against the smuggler and against the underminer of good morals. Therefore, when one or more of the citizens of the State acts in a way affecting the security and the safety and the continued existence of the majority of the citizens, then it is in fact the duty of the State to protect its citizens against such a person, and such an individual citizen then has to suffer the consequences. When an individual citizen acts in such a way that he endangers the security and the orderly and continued existence of the State and also endangers his fellow citizens, what he is in fact doing is unilaterally breaking the contract which came into being between himself and the State when he acquired his citizenship. He is breaking that contract as regards the responsibilities brought about by his citizenship. After all, we cannot expect of the State to fulfil its part of the contract unilaterally, by continuing to provide protection to that citizen in spite of his actions. In fact it is the duty of the State to deprive such a person of his citizenship in order to ensure the security and the safe and continued existence of all its citizens.

When hon. members opposite argue that this Bill is dragging the sanctity of citizenship through the mud, they are really arguing in favour of the drug pedlar and smuggler and the underminer of good morals, that person who does not respect the responsibility of his citizenship but who hides behind the privileges of his citizenship. The hon. member for Green Point said that dictatorial powers were being given to the Minister in terms of this measure. We admit that wide powers are being given to a Minister, but we also know that it is necessary for wide powers to exist so that they may be used to act against the kind of person whose conduct warrants this kind of action. However, we also know that the Minister already has these powers in respect of other people, for example, people with temporary residence permits. As public representatives we all know with what endless patience the hon. the Minister and his department have acted in instances where people have been here with temporary citizenship. Where we sometimes feel inclined and obliged to make representations for the suspension or deferment of a ban or deportation, we know—I know this from personal experience because of instances which I have handled—with what patience and discretion action is taken in such instances. So we know from experience of instances in the past that action in this regard is not taken precipitately or dictatorially or simply on the basis of the Minister’s feelings, but with proper discretion.

We are looking for immigrants. We are looking for good White immigrants who are prepared to help us develop this country. This Government is grateful for each immigrant who finds it possible to do this and who decides to become a citizen of this country. Even naturalization ceremonies have been introduced under this Government. I myself have taken part in such naturalization ceremonies in which citizens of a foreign country come here as immigrants and accept South African citizenship. In fact we have a celebration when such a person decides to become a South African citizen. Why then should we just deprive a person of his citizenship if there are not very sound reasons for doing so and if it is not in the interests of South Africa? Therefore we believe that these powers must be given to the Minister and we know that these powers will be used with utmost discretion and circumspection. We put a very high premium on citizenship. Our South African citizenship is of so much value to us that we refuse to share it with the citizenship of another country. Our loyalty, our allegiance and our citizenship are so valuable to us that we want to be South African citizens only; we do not find it necessary to cling to the citizenship of another country. If there still are people like that, it is no crime in our eyes, and if there are people who abuse these privileges, it will only be a small percentage. The people who will be affected by this Bill, will be that small group of people who are the scum of the international world of crime, that small group of people who are not welcome in any country, namely the drug pedlars and the smugglers. It is those sadists who slowly torture their victims to death; those are the people with whom we have no sympathy. If we were able to do so, we would like to sweep them off the face of the earth. For that reason, because we know that strong, quick and effective action must be taken against them, we believe that these wide powers should be given to the hon. the Minister. For that reason we believe that it is right and for that reason we believe that they should not have recourse to the courts for the courts to waste their time and money on these people. We are grateful because a Minister of State is prepared to take this great responsibility on his shoulders, for we know that he will exercise his powers with utmost discretion and in the interests of South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Algoa has made a number of statements with which I naturally disagree. One of the statements he has made is that South Africa is very keen on getting immigrants and that we are doing everything to get people to come and settle in South Africa and to become South African citizens. I wonder if the hon. member really thinks that laws, such as the one we are discussing this afternoon, are likely to encourage immigrants to come to this country. People who come from Europe with its tradition of freedom, people who come from America or from other countries, are not likely to be attracted to South Africa when they see the sort of law which is presently being put on the Statute Book. Then the hon. member for Algoa has said that this law only affects a very small percentage of people in this country. Percentages are often misleading, and although it may be true to say that only a small percentage of people will be affected, the number of people runs into thousands. We do not know how many thousands, and I do not think that the hon. the Minister has the figures. We do know that it will affect every single person who was born in this country and who had a British father. He retains as a right his British citizenship, unless he makes a formal act of renouncing that citizenship. There are thousands of those people. There are also people who have come to this country from Britain, who have settled here and have taken out South African citizenship. That class of people also runs into thousands.

They are all drug smugglers, I suppose?

We have a very silly interjection from a gentleman on my left, who says, “They are all drug smugglers, I suppose” in a sarcastic manner.

No, he is asking a question.

This is not important. The term “drug smuggler” is not mentioned anywhere in this Bill, nor for that matter is any other misdeed, as has been pointed out over and over again in the arguments against this Bill. There is no definition whatever of the type of offence the hon. the Minister is contemplating. There is no mention of that in the Bill and, indeed, although the hon. the Minister in an interview he gave to Die Burger, originally, specified that he was thinking of using it against drug smugglers, he later added in his Second Reading Speech that this was only one of the classes of misdeeds he was considering using this punishment against. Therefore it has nothing to do with drug smugglers. It can be any sort of misdeed that the hon. the Minister thinks requires this sort of punishment and, indeed, it need not be any misdeed at all, because no misdeed is specified in this Bill. It is simply what is in the opinion of the Minister and what he considers to be in the public interest. In the absence of any definition of “in the public interest” and in the absence of any limiting clauses as to the type of misdeed, I certainly would not be prepared for one moment to give the Minister these arbitrary powers. I have said before that, even if the misdeeds are specified, I still do not consider that this sort of arbitrary power ought to be given to a Minister, because powers have a habit of being abused. In any case, I am against giving arbitrary powers to Ministers. The experience we have had in the past certainly fortified my view as far as this is concerned. I would say that experience which we have had in the recent past, as close as yesterday, further fortifies my view in this regard, for only yesterday we had an example of a Minister using his arbitrary powers in terms of another Act to ban people who under no stretch of the imagination or even in terms of the report of the commission, could be considered as communists.

Order! The hon. member must come back to the Bill.

I am using this as a comparison and as an example of what Ministers do when they are given arbitrary powers. I have no intention of extending any further in any direction any arbitrary powers to any Minister in this House, be it this Minister or any other Minister for that matter.

I want just to comment on one or two further points. I do not intend going very far because most of the grounds on which this Bill should be rejected have already been expressed. The hon. the Minister did mention in his Second Reading speech that under the Aliens Act, in terms of which he has considerable powers, only eight persons were deported last year. He said that it was only since last year that figures of this description had been kept. He looked them up and said that only eight people were deported last year. He gave us the assurance that not one of these had been deported for political reasons. I accept that, but what he did not mention, of course, were the dozens of people who had had their residence permits withdrawn and had had to leave the country thereafter. There are, for example, the clerics. I would say that at least 25 men of religion have had their residence permits withdrawn in the years 1970 and 1971.

No, not withdrawn.

Well, not renewed.

That is right.

All right, let us be absolutely correct, legally and otherwise. The hon. the Minister is absolutely right; their residence permits were not renewed.

Not without reason.

This, of course, has had exactly the same effect; they have had to leave the country. I do not know what the reasons are because they are seldom given. These persons are seldom if ever given any reasons for the withdrawal and, what is worse, they are never confronted with the evidence on which the hon. the Minister concerned has decided not to renew those permits. As they are never confronted with the reasons, they cannot refute them. While hon. members on that side of the House may have absolute confidence in the reliability of information given to Ministers, I do not have that confidence at all. I may say that this is borne out by a recent law case, namely the Dean’s case, in which the reliability of State witnesses was severely criticized by the Chief Justice who upheld the Dean’s appeal. I think that this is a very telling argument for me to use in this particular case. I do not know on what sort of evidence the hon. the Minister is going to base his decision to withdraw the citizenship of a South African citizen who has dual citizenship, and thereafter deport him. In the absence of, as I say, any appeal and in the absence of any confrontation between the person concerned and the hon. the Minister, I do not see how hon. members can quite cheerfully in this House further extend arbitrary powers to the hon. the Minister. There were other cases last year too where students were deported. These students, Rhodesians and others, were simply put on aeroplanes and sent off. I do not know how the hon. the Minister is going to use his powers. There are persons in this country who were previously or are presently under restrictions, who are South African citizens with dual citizenship. Up till now the hon. the Minister has not been able to deport them, for all I know he may very well deport those people tomorrow. He may withdraw their South African citizenship, whether this was obtained by naturalization or under the previous arrangements with the British Government whereby persons who were here before 1949, I think, automatically became South African citizens. Those persons too, can suddenly and without notice or justification or the right of appeal be deprived of their South African citizenship and be deported.

I wonder what the hon. the Minister would say if other countries took the powers that he has taken here today. If other countries suddenly decided to withdraw the citizenship of citizens in their country who have dual citizenship—who are citizens of that country and of South Africa—and sent back the citizens whom they considered undesirable, the hon. the Minister would not be very pleased at having those people shipped back to him. But there he is going much further. In this case he is going to deprive people who have been here for a generation or more of their South African citizenship and ship them back to countries to which they, certainly the ones born here and those whose fathers were born in England, may never have settled there. As far as I am concerned this is another abrogation of the rule of law and we have had enough of these abrogations of the rule of law in South Africa. I am not about to assist the hon. the Minister in putting yet another such piece of legislation on our Statute Book in South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, a big fuss has been made here about the “question of law” and the courts, but hon. members will recall that the Immigration Act was passed in 1913 which gave the Minister extensive powers. I just want to read a specific section from that Act, i.e. section 3(1) of Act 22 of 1913:

Therefore this right was given to the Minister as far back as 1913. This is the same wording as was used at that time. As far back as the time when that Bill was introduced, the Minister concerned, Mr. Fisher, said that certain principles should be laid down in regard to matters of this nature.

May I ask the hon. member a question? The reference the hon. member made to the Immigration Regulation Act of 1913 dealt with the decision of a board, not with that of the Minister, was it not?

It was also the Minister’s decision. Only on a point of law could the board’s decision be reversed, but they could not go into the merits of the case. The full right was only in respect of a “question of law”; the Act is very clear on that point. The Minister concerned who introduced that Bill, dealt with those very points. He said—and I also want to say this to the hon. member for Houghton—“No judge is allowed to decide on a question of policy.” Here a policy was being laid down and no judge could decide on it. Mr. Fisher went on to say, “It has the right to exclude from any country and to prevent who either mentally …", and then he specified the other grounds on which such people could not enter the country. He went further and said, “They must exercise great care with regard to people who are allowed to enter.” That is what is also being done here in South Africa. That is the situation which we also have here in South Africa at the present moment, namely that we must be very careful with regard to the people whom we allow to enter the country. Therefore we must also be very careful with regard to people who have already been allowed to enter this country. He continued, “Any country who does not have a large population has to be very careful.” Mr. Fisher said that in 1913. In a country which does not have a large population, the Government must be very careful. He went on to say, “Although they may desire the numbers …”. Although they might want the numbers “they must exercise great care in regard to the people who are allowed to enter”. They cannot allow just anybody to enter the country. Hon. members just want to hide behind the courts all the time. That is the argument which the hon. member used here all along, namely that the courts must decide. Already in Mr. Fisher’s speech it was said, “Parliament decides the policy and we would not have a judge to decide the policy.” Those were the words used in 1913. As I have said, that Act has been in existence in South Africa since 1913. The Act was passed by the U.P. Government of 1913.

Those were the real U.P. days.

Yes, a real U.P. Government. Since that time that legislation has remained on our Statute Book and the United Party which came into power, never repealed that legislation, in other words the legislation conferring those powers on the Minister without any right of appeal to or review by the Supreme Court of South Africa. So this is no new principle which is being embodied in this Bill. It is an old existing principle which apparently worked very well in the past, but which now, because a Nationalist Government is introducing this legislation, becomes wrong all of a sudden.

Therefore under these circumstances, where a matter of policy is involved, we cannot leave it to the courts as hon. members opposite would like us to do. It is impossible because from time to time certain information gets into the hands of the Minister concerned. We know the story: We do not trust that Minister. It is a story which sounds like a refrain and not only in these times. I remember Mrs. Ballinger saying at the time when Maj. Piet van der Bijl was Minister of Native Affairs, “We do not trust that Minister.”

Sam Kahn also said it.

Yes, he also said it. It may be that the Minister may have certain information, the publication of which may not be in the public interest. In such cases he needs to take a decision without there being recourse to the courts. I should be very pleased if hon. members would not want to throw everything into the hands of the courts all the time. The courts are to interpret the law as it stands, and that is all. The right of the courts is always only the interpretation of the law as it is passed here.

The hon. member for Green Point has just put a question to me. I want to tell him that there was in fact a board in terms of the Immigration Act of 1913. There was an immigration board but I want to stress once again that that board could only reserve a point of law for the courts. However, under no circumstances could they do anything with regard to policy or with regard to a matter of merit.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who has just sat down referred to the old laws of 1913, the 1930s and later, and what was done to select and allow people to come into the country. I am more concerned with those who are here now, but I must say that those people who did the selections in 1930 chose very wisely, because they allowed me and my family in in those days! The issue at stake here surely—and the hon. the Minister will appreciate it even if hon. members on the other side do not—is that it is not the question of dual citizenship that is under discussion, but the question of the Minister’s right to take away dual citizenship. This surely is the whole crux of the matter. As far as I am concerned I believe that the Minister should on occasion have the right to take away that dual citizenship. With that I have no quarrel at all; but what I do object to, is the Minister presenting a Bill to this House without setting out the reasons for wanting to take away that right, apart from the trite phrase “in the public interest”, and that public interest is determined by the Minister’s own opinion.

Another point that comes to light in this Bill is that it must surely be very seldom that the Government on the other side, so intent on having such wide powers—the Minister himself confesses that they are wide Powers—knows so little about the consequences of these powers. In the course of my speech I shall demonstrate just how little they in fact know. In the first instance the hon. the Minister earlier on the debate confessed that he did not know how many people would be affected. He also did not know how many countries would be affected by this legislation.

I said it was irrelevant.

He does not know. That is really what it amounts to, because they have not done any investigation. In due course the Minister may undertake such an investigation. I shall deal with that also in the course of my speech. If you do not know the number of people affected and you do not know which countries these people have come from, how can you implement these wide powers that are being taken? The Bill does not say either, which offences must be committed before the Minister can act. The Minister has stressed that drug pedlars may be involved here, but nowhere else in the Bill does the Minister say what offences a person must be guilty of, in his opinion, before he can act. So I say again: Here is a measure that the Government seems most ill-informed about, and yet they introduce it.

Mr. Speaker, it is obvious from what I have said, that there are motives behind this measure which lead to a great deal of suspicion. It certainly does in my mind, and in the minds of many members on this side of the House. Before such wide powers are given to any Minister, surely we are entitled to know just what those powers mean, just what is involved and what the Minister will do with these powers. We as representatives of the people of South Africa are entitled to know that we are safeguarding the interests of the people who sent us here. How can we safeguard their interests when we do not know what is in the Minister’s mind, and when it is not stated clearly in the Bill what is in the Minister’s mind?

The people affected, as I said just now, happen to total many thousands. The hon. member for Houghton mentioned a figure, but I shall give the hon. the Minister a very close figure. All one has to do is remember that from approximately 1930 all first and second generation persons from the United Kingdom would qualify under the Bill, because they are all entitled to dual citizenship. They may not have dual citizenship, but they are entitled to dual citizenship, and this is the point.

Yes, I am; many of us are …

There are many of us, and I say that a conservative figure would be no less than 600 000 South Africans, fully-fledged South Africans, with South African citizenship, who would fall under the powers of this Bill we are discussing today. This is a tremendous figure, and yet the hon. the Minister said earlier in the debate that he had no idea how many people were involved. I said too—and the Minister agreed—that we do not know how many countries are affected by this measure. All we know at this stage is certainly that the United Kingdom is one of those countries, but we do not know how many others are involved. But what is probably more important than anything else is that we do not know what the offences are, and to my mind this is the crux of the matter. As I said at the beginning of my speech, if any of these people committed an offence, then we on this side of the House would be behind the Minister in whatever action he felt it was necessary to take against them. But we are certainly not prepared to support a Bill in which the offences for which a person can be deprived of his South African citizenship are not detailed, but in terms of which a man may be deprived of his citizenship if he does anything which in the opinion of the Minister is not in the public interest. What sort of offence is that? Sir, I hope that for as long as I sit in this House the things I will do will certainly not be in the interest of the Nationalist Party, although they may be and will be in the interest of the public. But the hon. the Minister may take the view that what I do is not in the public interest because it is not in the interest of the Nationalist Party. Surely, Sir, if the Minister was so certain of his grounds, he would be willing to have his opinion tested in the courts of law. Surely there are enough laws in South Africa to test the guilt or innocence of anybody who is alleged to have committed an offence, and if a person has not committed an offence in South Africa, what right has the Minister or any government or any political party to take away his citizenship? It seems to me, Sir, that the Nationalist Party attaches too little importance to this question of citizenship. It has moved so many people around in South Africa that it believes that it is a small matter when you take a person’s citizenship away from him and make him leave the country. The person concerned may have lived here for 50 to 60 years, and under this Bill you can uproot him and have him sent elsewhere if in the opinion of the Minister it is in the public interest to do so. Sir, this is a serious thing. Surely the Minister, who admits that these powers are great, should agree that this is a power which he himself would not like to have. Sir, there are other aspects of this Bill which disturb me. As I said just now, if a person has committed an offence and he is found guilty in a court of law, then the Minister can act in any way he likes against him. In this country we seem to have a banning mania, and this is a type of banning. We do not wish to ban a person in this case, so we kick him out of the country, although he has committed no offence. Only this week we have seen how this banning mania works.

Order!

Sir, I say that if a man commits an offence, let us try him in the courts of law.

Order! That point has been made over and over again.

A measure of this sort is not a sign of strength on the part of the Government; it is a sign of weakness. Sir, let us have a look at some of the other things that this Bill does. I said, in dealing with this Bill at an earlier stage, that different Ministers may act in different ways. I have a letter before me from a previous Minister of the Interior, the same Minister who will handle this legislation when it is passed. This Minister of the Interior withdrew the permanent residence permit of a particular person for no other reason, so he informed the people who interviewed him, than that he had to protect certain grades of employees in South Africa in the public interest. In other words, the previous Minister of the Interior decided that there were too many people in this particular professional group in South Africa; that therefore certain South African citizens might find it difficult to obtain employment, so this particular person had his permanent residence permit withdrawn in the public interest.

When was that?

This happened last year under the previous Minister. I am prepared to give the hon. the Minister the name of the person concerned in private, if he wishes to have it. This was the reason given for withdrawing the permanent residence permit, namely that it would not be in the public interest to allow this person to reside permanently in South Africa. This person had not committed an offence of any kind, but the Minister was frightened of a glut in the South African employment market in this particular profession.

Order! The Bill does not deal with permanent residence; it deals with citizenship.

Mr. Speaker, I am trying to point out that the Minister of the Interior, who will deal with this measure, took this view in the public interest, and I say to the new Minister of the Interior that what he considers to be in the public interest …

Order! The hon. member is not only repeating what other speakers have said, but he is repeating his own arguments over and over again.

Let me then put it this way, that this Minister of the Interior, in acting in the public interest, will act in a way that another Minister of the Interior, or any other Minister of another party would not necessarily act. Sir, we have said it before and with your permission I will say it again, that the motives behind this Bill are obscure. The Minister has not stated what he is aiming at and we are entitled to know what he is aiming at. I would like to ask the hon. the Minister a few salient questions in this respect. He says the drug pedlar is one of them. I want to ask the hon. the Minister a direct question. Does he know of any religious workers that this measure is aimed at? The Minister shakes his head but I am asking him a direct question. In a previous speech the Minister said there were not many people that would be affected by it. But then it seems strange to me that the Minister can introduce a Bill which can intimidate something like half a million people when there are only a few people he is aiming at. Surely we are entitled in this House to demand of the Government that not only do they act in a democratic manner in the type of Bill that is introduced, but that they should at least set an example to all the mergent homelands under the aegis of this Government who will follow these examples, by passing legislation in this House which make sense in that it is clearly defined in its intention, and that the Minister, when he does introduce measures into this House should make sure that they are clearly understood and that what he is aiming at is clearly stated.

Mr. Speaker, we have now come to the end of the discussion on this specific subject and to the conclusion of the Third Reading, and actually there is not much more for me to say about the whole matter because, in actual fact, it is all just a matter of one or two concepts that have been represented, over and over again, in various ways. I immediately want to reply to a few of the points raised by members of the Opposition and then in conclusion perhaps adopt a few standpoints myself about the whole matter.

In the first place, when the hon. member for Green Point adopted his standpoint in the Third Reading, he asked me a question that was later asked by other members as well, i.e. who the persons are, what categories, what I have in mind. I can answer the hon. member in just one sentence. The persons I have in mind in this legislation are persons of any category, of any language or group who act against the public interest of South Africa. What more can I now say than this?

In what way?

The concept “public interest” as such has a long history in our country. That is all I can say. I cannot give any more details. The legislation has not been made specific in order to come to grips with Mr. So-and-so or Miss So-and-so. At present I have no one in mind. But as a result of the drug legislation, which I deal with, I have found certain categories of people in connection with whom the general feeling was that action should be taken against them, that they should be expelled from the country because we do not want this kind of person here. When the State decided to take action, we found we did not have the power to take action against them because they had dual citizenship, and one cannot deport a South African citizen. The Minister is adopting the powers to do this when he is convinced it is in the public interest of South Africa that such a person should no longer remain in South Africa, and he does not want him to use his South African citizenship as a screen behind which he can commit his crimes and get away with them. That is the whole reason. A few of the hon. members spoke about the question of British citizenship. I want to say at once that this legislation is not aimed at Britain. It is not aimed at a specific country. That is why I have said, from the beginning, that it is irrelevant what country and what people are affected. Here I am not aiming at a country or a group of people; I am aiming at a number of individuals who act contrary to public interest and who hide behind dual citizenship as a result of which I cannot take action against them. That is what I am aiming at; that is all. To seek ulterior motives behind this, is totally out of place under the circumstances.

I come next to the concept of British citizenship, I have again investigated the matter, and hon. members have had about two weeks in which they could investigate it in order to bring me proof that a person cannot renounce his British citizenship.

They can.

Such proof was not forthcoming, and a person can renounce it. The hon. member for Houghton agrees with me that this can be done. I immediately want to concede that persons in the category of the hon. member for Port Natal and the hon. member for Wynberg—she said she is also in the same category—are entitled to British citizenship as a result of the fact that they or their parents were born in Britain. That is so. The legal position is that the hon. member for Wynberg is entitled to British citizenship, but unless she takes official action, i.e. unless she goes to the British High Commissioner’s or Ambassador’s offices and says she now wants to exercise the right she has and that a British passport and British citizenship should be given to her, she does not have British citizenship. She is entitled to it, but she does not have it unless she herself takes an active step to obtain it. She can do so without any difficulty, but she does not get it factitiously just because she was born there. She only gets it by taking a positive step and saying that she now wants to exercise that right. In the same way, however, she can also relinquish it by saying that she has the right to British citizenship, but that she does not want to use it and that she hereby relinquishes her right to British citizenship. The mere act, on the part of such people, can also have this result. No one is, in other words, as powerless as the picture that is painted here: We are powerless, we cannot do anything; I have British citizenship; I do not want it, but I nevertheless have it. That is not true in practice. British citizenship can be obtained or relinquished by them; it depends on them. I consequently state that the whole argument that is advanced to the effect that a person cannot and that the Minister can take action against these persons or those persons, falls flat. The simple answer for anyone, who thinks he can be done an injustice by this measure, is merely to renounce his second citizenship, and the measure will not be applicable to him. This measure with all the evil powers it will supposedly grant the Minister, is consequently not applicable to such a person. That is the simple answer: It requires an act on the part of such a person. I hope this concludes that aspect of the matter.

I know the hon. member for South Coast as a fiery member who can become emotional about matters. This afternoon he saw fit not to follow normal etiquette and say that this Minister will try to make the best possible use of the measure, but not his successors. He simply said this Minister would make a mess of it. I believe I understood him correctly. I fully accept it in that spirit, except for the fact that I should like to tell the hon. member that this Minister, who will now make such a mess of that, already has similar powers in respect of many persons, but not in respect of South African citizens. I should like to read the hon. member the provisions of section 45 of the Admission of Persons to the Republic Regulation Act, 1972.

Do you distinguish between the right of the Minister in granting a citizenship to a person and in withdrawing or taking away a citizenship after it has been granted?

No.

You do not discriminate?

No, I do not discriminate. I am not talking about that. I am using another example.

I want to read the relevant section to the hon. member in order to indicate the powers which this inefficient Minister, of whom he speaks, has at the moment. I shall purposely read it in English—

Can powers be wider than that?—

That is the only exclusion which we are now amending—

In other words, I have exactly the same powers at the moment against anybody except South African citizens.

I accept that.

Agreed. Let me continue. Subsection (2) reads as follows—

Those powers I have at the moment in my capacity as Minister against anybody except against South African citizens. I agree …

That is the main point.

I, as Minister of the Interior, at present have that power in respect of thousands and thousands of people who live in South Africa and who do not have South African citizenship.

That is right, all the Russians and Japanese …

No, the hon. member must not try to blow that away with his steamroller. It has nothing to do with Russians and Japanese, but it does have something to do with people who are living in South Africa at present, numerous English-speaking people that live in South Africa and do not accept South African citizenship. It has a bearing on Dutchmen and Germans, hundreds of them, who live here and who did not accept South African citizenship. They are good citizens in South Africa. We already have those powers, we could immediately take action and this could be tested in court. The Minister does not have to give any reasons, he can act arbitrarily. What have we done? Last year we took action against only eight persons whom we deported from South Africa.

These are becoming diplomatic words.

I have stated the arguments here very clearly. In other words, I am not apologizing for adopting these powers. Nor is it prescribed what offence the person must commit, whether he must be found guilty in a court, what objections there must be or what the situation must be; the Minister has a completely blank cheque, as far as his powers are concerned, to take action, in accordance with that provision, against all who are not South African citizens. In the past year that powers has been used with so much discretion that we have, under the circumstances, made minimal use of it. Supposing the position were the following. Supposing a person acts in a way which, according to the opinion of everyone, is contrary to the interests of South Africa, supposing there is a general call to the effect that such a person does not belong in South Africa and that he should be got rid of. In addition, suppose the Minister responsible should say: “Sorry, I can do nothing to him, because he has dual citizenship, inter alia, also South African citizenship—I am therefore very sorry, he must remain here, because I can do nothing about that.” It would be a sign of helplessness and frustration. It would be a sign that the Government is not able to comply with its basic duty, i.e. to rule. That is why we are adopting these powers to prevent people from hiding behind South African citizenship in order to get up to all kinds of mischief, saying subsequently that they are South African citizens and that action cannot, therefore, be taken against them. I am not apologizing for these powers. I shall take the matter further in a moment. The hon. member said that reports might come before the Minister from an anonymous poison pen correspondent. Does the hon. member think for a single moment that a responsible Minister, who must answer for his actions in this Parliament, will simply haphazardly decide, on the basis of hearsay in an anonymous letter written by a poison pen correspondent, that someone should be deported as a result of this fine scrap of information? What does he think of the responsible position of a Minister?

But you are basically a failure. You are not a “responsible Minister”. That is your problem …

The hon. member’s biggest problem is that he came to Parliament to become a Minister and never became one. That is his source of frustration. He was specially brought in to become a Minister. What is more, he was brought in to become Minister of the Interior and he never became Minister of the Interior. That is his biggest source of frustration. That is the reason why he is so embittered about the matter. The hon. member for Houghton also spoke about the matter, and her standpoint was that it is a question of differing action. One of the courses of action is not to renew residents permits. The Minister has, in fact, only pinned eight persons down in accordance with that Act, but has kept silent about the number she mentions—she said she could trace 25—whose residence permits were not renewed. When I obtain a residence permit in a certain country, and the residence permit states that I am entitled to remain in the country until 31st December of that year, I surely accept the fact that I must be out of the country on 1st January. I surely cannot assume in advance that I am going to obtain extension upon extension upon extension for many years to come. The fact that I have a residence permit and the fact that it states that I may remain in the country until 31st December, surely means that it is only valid up to that date. Why is there a date if that is not the intention? Renewal is considered on merit and if it is judged that it is not in certain interests for that permit to be renewed, or if there are not sufficient reasons why the permit should not be renewed, we do not withdraw any permit; we simply do not renew it. The original arrangement remains in force, i.e. that when he came the person knew he was staying up to a certain date, and that is then the final date. It is necessary for us to do it like this nor am I apologizing for the fact that we do so. One surely cannot lay claim to continual renewals if there is a specific date specified for one’s residence. There must surely be a reason why he does it. The hon. member asked me, if other countries were to do the same with our citizens as we are at present doing with theirs, how I would react. I want to react immediately. If there are South African citizens who have dual citizenship in other countries, and those countries were to withdraw their citizenship and deport them to South Africa, we would have to accept them because they are our citizens.

You would not be pleased about it.

Of course not! We would probably not want some of them, but no one can give a guarantee of what kind of people are born in a country. We cannot accept responsibility for all the people that are born in the country.

There is a second aspect the hon. member forgets, and that is that in a modern world one cannot, as in the old days, simply move around because there are specific arrangements; it is fixed practice that before one deports a person to another country one must first negotiate with that country about whether it is prepared to take that person back. That is the custom between states. The custom is that in the civilized world, the Western countries, everyone accepts the fact of taking their citizens back. It is international etiquette. Therefore, it is very clear that that negotiation must first take place before a person can be deported. Then there is the other argument, which hon. members regarded as a matter of course, i.e. that when one withdraws a person’s citizenship it automatically means, by implication, that one deports that person the next day. The two actions are not linked up. It does not follow, as a matter of course, that if the Minister withdraws his citizenship he is subsequently going to deport him. In many cases this may be so, but there is nothing that says it must happen. The deportation is not linked to the withdrawal of citizenship.

You use it as a warning?

That may be so. One must act in South Africa’s interest under all circumstances.

The hon. member for Port Natal held it very much against me that I do not know how many people and what countries are going to be affected. I repeat: I am not interested in how many people it affects, or what countries are affected, because I am not dealing with countries or with a mass of people; I am dealing with a few individuals who act contrary to the public interest of South Africa. That is all I am dealing with. The matter is very clear, i.e. that when the Minister takes action against people—individuals are concerned here—he will not act arbitrarily under these circumstances. In a moment I shall indicate what we must do here. The hon. member mentioned an example here in which I am very interested, i.e. my predecessor’s letter which he has there, in which it is stated that a person’s right to permanent residence was withdrawn, if I understand him rightly, because the Minister said it is in the public interest, in his opinion, because there are too many people in the same profession or occupation, etc. I want to tell the hon. member that that is news to me. In the first place the right to permanent residence cannot be withdrawn by the Minister of the Interior under those conditions. Permanent residence is a matter which the Minister of Immigration deals with; it has nothing to do with the Minister of the Interior, to begin with. In the second place, the right to permanent residence cannot be withdrawn for such a reason. There is no such thing. The law specifically provides the reasons under which the right to permanent residence may be withdrawn. I should like to see the letter in order to reply to that, but I cannot imagine under what legal authorization this could take place. I would very much like to see this in order to be able to give him an answer.

I can go further with this matter, but I think I have already answered this aspect sufficiently. There is still another question I must react to, i.e. the question of the so-called religious workers of which the hon. member for Houghton, inter alia, spoke. I want to reiterate again: I do not now deliberately have religious workers in mind as far as this Bill is concerned. I do not have Mr. A or Mr. B or Mr. C in mind, but I want to add in all seriousness: It makes no difference who it is, religious worker, drug smuggler or whoever it may be, if someone acts contrary to the public interest of South Africa, the responsible Minister would be neglecting his duty if he did not take action against him. That is how I see the matter. If I take wrongful action against a person, I shall not be able to accept my own conduct either and I shall immediately have to remove myself.

You may not know because the evidence given to you may be faulty.

From the nature of the case it is as carefully considered as is humanly possible. If there is any doubt whatsoever, that person is given the benefit of the doubt because we know what the situation is. It is very clear.

Let us look at the matter in conclusion. What is the actual position now? The fact that South Africa allows dual citizenship is already an indication of a very moderate attitude. Many countries of the world do not allow dual citizenship. Are hon. members aware of that? A modern state like the United States of America allows no dual citizenship. The moment a person registers as a citizen in another country and votes there as a citizen, he immediately loses his American citizenship. That is the system in America. In America the present position is that one cannot register as a voter as long as one holds dual citizenship. The moment one has other citizenship, one does not qualify as a voter in America. That is the pride of the American people in their own citizenship. We are much more moderate than that. We allow dual citizenship, like some other countries. However, here is a modem Western state that does not allow it, but this is not used as an example.

Yes, but you are allowed to appeal in America if there is any question of deportation.

Yes, that is another matter. I am now speaking of the question of dual citizenship and the fact that we allow it. We are very lenient in this connection. Last time I told the hon. member that there are numerous people with dual citizenship which we in no way intend to take away, people who use their foreign passports with our knowledge. More than 100 per year use their foreign travel documents with our permission, for whatever purpose, because there is a reason for it. We have no thoughts, as far as we are concerned, about touching them, but when a person acts contrary to public interest, it is our duty to take such action.

Is there now some control over the matter? In the first place, when a person’s citizenship is withdrawn, there is a provision that it must be published each quarter in the Government Gazette, and not only vaguely the number of persons, but each name with the particulars of each case. I just happen to have here the Government Gazette of 21st July, 1972. It contains, inter alia, the following: “Following return of persons who have, in terms of section 16 of the South African Citizenship Act, renounced their South African citizenship …” Then there are also persons who lost their citizenship in terms of section 19 of the said Act, whose names are made known here for general information. Then there is a list of names. The greatest number lost their citizenship because they themselves relinquished it and accepted another. There are five who were deprived of their citizenship in terms of the former provisions of the Act, which I do not now want to deal with here. Full details are given here. Here is, for example, the case of Roy Frederick Cousins; his date of birth is 10th July, 1918, and his country of birth is Britain. He is a citizen of the United Kingdom and he lost his citizenship on 8th June, 1972, under the provisions of section 19bis(1)(c) of this Act. The full details are given here. The following one is also very clear: Margaret Tina Shӧpf, born 26.3.1948, country of birth South Africa; she is a citizen of Austria and lost her citizenship in May under section 19bis(1)(a). Those are all the details, and what more does one now want? Section 19 bis(1)(a) provides for example, that a person can be deprived of his citizenship if he accepted the citizenship of another country by formal or voluntary action within the Republic. She accepted Austrian citizenship, and that is why we deprived her of her South African citizenship. In any case, that is how the particulars are given each quarter. But over and above that, these particulars are tabled in this House of Assembly each year within 14 days of the session having commenced. Any hon. member who is interested may fetch that list and under the discussion of my Vote, or whenever the case may be, consult me privately or cross-examine me about what goes on in connection with these cases. The Minister must accept his responsibility as a Minister of the State and explain in this connection. That is why I say that with all these guarantees and security measures, it is essential that we should handle this matter in this way. I am not apologizing. I immediately want to concede that I am taking particularly wide powers in this legislation under these circumstances. I have no illusions about that; these wide powers are, in my opinion, essential in the practical implementation of my duties from day to day. The Minister of the Interior must have such powers in the interests of South Africa. Because these powers are so wide they will be implemented with the utmost discretion by the relative Minister, but the Minister cannot have himself restrained in this case by placing all kinds of restrictions on him when he wants to act in the interests of South Africa and in the public interest. That is the gist of the matter and I am not apologizing for the fact. I just want to say that if we look at a state, it is the basic duty of a government to rule—and this all the inhabitants of every country expect. In South Africa we shall rule, and assume the power to rule effectively, by way of legislation, thereby to act in the public interest of South Africa.

Question put and the House divided:

AYES—87: Aucamp, P. L. S.; Badenhorst, P. J.; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, G. F.; Botha, H. J.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, R. F.; Botha, S. P.; Brandt, J. W.; Coetsee, H. J.; De Klerk, F. W.; De Wet, M. W.; Diederichs, N.; Du Plessis, G. F. C.; Du Plessis, G. C.; Du Plessis, P. T. C.; Du Toit, J. P.; Engelbrecht, J. J.; Erasmus, A. S. D.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Henning, J. M.; Herman, F.; Heunis, J. C.; Horn, J. W. L.; Janson, T. N. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kruger, J. T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J. (Brakpan); Le Roux, F. J. (Hercules); Le Roux, J. P. C.; Louw, E.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, J. J.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; McLachlan, R.; Meyer, P. H.; Morrison, G. de V.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, H.; Munnik, L. A. P. A.; Nel, D. J. L.; Nel, J. A. F.; Otto, J. C.; Pansegrouw, J. S.; Pelser, P. C.; Pienaar, L. A.; Pieterse, R. J. J.; Potgieter, J. E.; Potgieter, S. P.; Prinsloo, M. P.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Swanepoel, J. W. F.; Swiegers, J. G.; Treurnicht, A. P.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Van Breda, A.; Van der Merwe, C. V.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, P. S.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Merwe, W. L.; Van der Spuy, S. J. H.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Vuuren, P. Z. J.; Van Wyk, A. C.; Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, W. L. D. M.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, W. L.; Weber, W. L.

Tellers: W. A. Cruywagen, S. F. Kotzé, P. C. Roux and H. J. van Wyk.

NOES—43: Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Baxter, D. D.; Cadman, R. M.; Cillié, H. van Z.; Deacon, W. H. D.; De Villiers, I. F. A.; Emdin, S.; Fisher, E. L.; Fourie, A.; Graaff, De V. Hickman, T.; Hopewell, A.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Hughes, T. G.; Kingwill, W. G.; Malan, E. G.; Marais, D. J.; Miller, H.; Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Murray, L. G.; Oliver, G. D. G.; Pyper, P. A.; Raw, W. V.; Smith, W. J. B.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Taylor, C. D.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Van den Heever, S. A.; Van Eck, H. J.; Van Hoogstraten, H. A.; Von Keyserlingk, C. C.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Webber, W. T.; Wiley, J. W. E.; Winchester, L. E. D.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: H. J. Bronkhorst and W. M. Sutton.

Question accordingly agreed to. Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Chairman, I wonder whether the hon. the Minister would be good enough to explain to the House how he is going to subdivide Groups I and II in this clause. He gave us an indication during his Second Reading speech that certain substances would be included in Group I and certain substances in Group II. Would he be good enough to elaborate on this?

Mr. Chairman, at this stage I cannot give the hon. member any precise indication, but those specific, dangerous and poisonous substances which are described as irritant, corrosive substances, and which as a rule would have no domestic uses, for example carbon tetrachloride—which as far as we are concerned, is a dangerous substance—will be determined by experts, and the more dangerous substances which are used chiefly in industries, will then be separated from the less dangerous substances, which may be used domestically. These less dangerous substances, which may be identified by means of labels, such as “Jik” or whatever, will then be placed in Group II. I just want to correct one thing, and that is that it is not the intention to include medicines in Group I. That will be rectified next year. Group I includes the dangerous substances such as sulphur dioxide, sulphuric acid, carbon tetrachloride, and so on. I am therefore unable to give an arbitrary definition in this connection at this stage.

Has the Minister got a subcommittee that is working on this question now, or is this being done departmentally?

Work is undoubtedly being done on this question at the moment. It will also help us next year, with the revision of the Drugs Control Act, to omit those substances which do not belong in Group I, and also some which do not belong in Group II. In this regard we require the help of industry, the help of agriculture and the help of others, as I have already explained.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 9:

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment printed in my name, as follows—

I took cognizance of the fact that the hon. member for Berea was concerned about the possibility of the situation arising that people would not make use of their rights if an inspector investigated premises without those concerned being aware of the fact that he was an inspector. The idea raised by the hon. member is acceptable to me, but in order to be fair, we must ensure that the inspector will be obliged to exhibit his certificate. However, one will have premises, such as airports or similar places, where there are in fact no interested parties present, and therefore this amendment has been drafted in this form so that the inspector, even in cases where no specific interested parties are present, may be able to perform his duties. However, if the amendment of the hon. member were to be accepted, the inspector might be handicapped in his work. I hope the hon. member will accept this amendment of mine in that spirit.

Mr. Chairman, I want to express my appreciation to the hon. the Minister for moving this amendment. I believe that it puts into effect more effectively the intention which I tried to convey in my amendment, which is also published on page 65 of the Order Paper. With the leave of the Committee, I would like to withdraw my amendment in favour of the Minister’s.

It is not necessary for the hon. member to withdraw his amendment, because it has not yet been moved.

Sir, I do not want to speak on the amendment because I heartily agree with it, but I want to emphasize again the importance of the training of the inspectors whom the Minister is going to appoint and who will have such very wide powers. Has he any idea how he is going to train the inspectors and also the analysts to do this specialized type of work?

As I said at the start, as far as the analysts are concerned, they will definitely be required to have a degree in physics and chemistry; that will be prescribed. As far as they are concerned, therefore, the hon. member need have no fears. As far as the inspectors are concerned, we have, of course, inspectors all over. We also have inspectors who from time to time are called upon to enforce the regulations under the Food and Disinfectants Act. These people are required to make sure from time to time that they know what they are about so that people can have confidence in them. I do not think the hon. member need worry about that aspect. The matter has been brought to my attention and I am taking due note of it, and we are certainly going to see to it, even if it is by way of in-training, that these people are qualified to do the job entrusted to them.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

House resumed:

Bill reported with an amendment.

I do not feel completely happy about clause 3 as it stands. Looking at clause 3(b), I want to refer to line 20 where it states “for an initial period of not more than five years, and thereafter for such period or periods as the board may determine”. It is an acknowledged practice for the Medical, Dental and Pharmaceutical Council to grant certain people limited registration, whether in medical practice or in pharmaceutical practice or in dental practice. Often it has to do with reciprocity or the acknowledgment of degrees. I say that it is an acknowledged practice which has existed for years, but as I see it a new element is added here and I refer to the new (4)(i). In terms of this a person who had obtained degrees at an overseas university or pharmaceutical school is registered, but he is registered for a period of five years. I do not know what the circumstances are but to me it seems strange that it may be deemed fit to register a chemist and druggist for a period of five years, after which he may perhaps no longer be allowed to practise. It seems to me that if a man is good enough to practise for five years, he should subsequently have the right to continue his practice. If there are other restrictions to which he is subject, for example that he may practise in a hospital, that is logical, but to register him for five years only and then to say that he may not continue in practice, does not sound completely ethical to me. I should like to hear the Minister’s opinion on this.

I would like to support the hon. member for Fauresmith in his plea that this five years be extended indefinitely depending on the ability of the holder of the permit to do his work properly. At the same time I should like to draw the Minister’s attention to those other paramedical services which desire to have the same privilege as he is now extending to pharmacists. In my Second Reading speech I drew attention to those para-medical services, and I wonder whether he could give consideration to those people who over a good many years already have been doing exactly what is being provided for in this clause, and see whether or not he can give exemption to those people who have proved their ability in the past. If they have been allowed to carry on their profession in the past, they should be allowed to do so further. The Minister must know that today, because of the extension of the use of medical aid schemes and benefit schemes, many people who in the past have been able to make a living as paramedics have had that privilege taken away from them. They cannot send out accounts any more which will be recognized by medical aid schemes. They are being deprived of a living although they have given good service, in some cases for over 30 years, to the satisfaction of everybody they have served. As I said to the Minister in my Second Reading speech, there was one particular person who worked in a hospital before the war, in a military hospital during the war and rendered paramedical medical services in the general hospital in Johannesburg up to now. Although he is in private practice today he finds that he cannot make a living any more because his accounts are not recognized by the medical aid schemes, because of the fact that he has not received registration. I think it is a hardship on these people, I plead especially on behalf of these elderly men who I feel should receive protection so that they can carry on with their work. Most of them have vast experience and have recommendations both from institutions and from private medical practitioners. I ask the Minister please to look into this matter to see whether he cannot help these people who belong to our essential paramedical services.

Mr. Chairman, I do not share the anxiety of the two last speakers in regard to the question of chemists and druggists. I want to make it quite clear that I support the hon. member for Rosettenville in his plea for the easing of the restrictions in so far as the para-medical people are concerned, but they are dealt with under another section. What I want to point out in so far as the amendment in this clause under discussion is concerned is that the State President may, for an initial period of not more than five years, recognize the qualifications of a chemist and druggist who has qualified at a pharmacy school outside the Republic. However, I notice the following words in line 21: “… thereafter for such period or periods as the board may determine”. As I see it, the State President gives the initial authority, after consultation with the Pharmacy Board, to allow a chemist and druggist qualified in a country where reciprocity does not apply between that country and South Africa, to practise for a limited period of five years. Thereafter, at the discretion of the board—and as I see the wording, there is no limit—he can go on practising indefinitely under conditions which the board in its wisdom at that time may prescribe in the interests of the safety of the public. I therefore do not have any difficulty with this clause. I believe—here I should like the hon. the Minister to correct me if I am wrong—that the same condition has applied in so far as the medical practitioners are concerned, that the Medical Council has the right, through the State President, to grant recognition under circumscribed conditions. I should like to have the hon. the Minister’s reply in that connection.

Mr. Chairman, I take note of what the hon. member for Fauresmith said with regard to his doubts about the meaning of this clause. To start with, however, I should like to say that this really has nothing to do with reciprocity in this instance. This is precisely how the hon. member for Berea put it. It has to do with a shortage of people in this profession—if there is a shortage—and the right the State President has to determine whether certain degrees in certain countries render people sufficiently qualified to practise this particular profession. From that point onwards it is only the recommendations of the Pharmacy Board that will apply. It is so that one must determine an initial period. I would say that it could be five years or even three or four years, or whatever one wants to lay down. However, a person would not easily come from overseas to work here under limited circumstances without the prospect of being given a reasonable period of time. Very well, take it at five years. In the first place we would have the control that we know that he possesses a certain degree. He obtained a degree at a pharmaceutical school or an institution which should qualify him, and thereafter, although one does not know what kind of person he is, one can at least give him a reasonable time, a period of five years, to prove his ability. One can place him under restrictions to prevent him from entering private practice. For example, he can go and work in a provincial hospital or in a Bantu homeland hospital. When these five years have expired, the commission can make any recommendation. That is what it really amounts to, and it has nothing to do with the aspect of reciprocity. As far as doctors and dentists are concerned, it amounts to exactly the same. These people can also obtain limited registration and practise in this way. Thereafter the Medical and Dental Council can submit certain recommendations to the State President concerning them.

†The hon. member for Rosettenville was a little worried about this matter; as a matter of fact, the other day he also mentioned this matter, so I think that it is a matter about which he is sincerely worried. I can assure him that although we are not at present concerned with these people specifically, I have taken note of what he has said. At the moment we would rather these people had their own professional boards. We would like them to put their house in order and have a professional board, so that one can consult with this professional board. Then one can at least decide on a code of ethics and on certain standards because we have to have control and we are worried about standards. As a medical man, the hon. member knows that that is most important with all of us. At the same time I realize that there are persons who have done a great deal of good over a period of many years. I am going to have a look at this matter and I will see whether my department cannot find some way to put his mind at ease.

Thank you.

I think I have answered the questions which the hon. members have raised. I think I have also given the hon. member for Fauresmith an explanation as far as this clause is concerned, and I shall let that suffice.

Clause agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported without amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

As hon. members are aware, the Nursing Act makes provision for the establishment of advisory committees for Coloured, Bantu and Indian persons to advise the board of the South African Nursing Association on such matters relating to nurses and midwives as are concerned with the race groups in question.

The Act also provides that the advisory committees be constituted on the same basis as the one for the advisory boards, which were established in respect of the Nursing Council.

In terms of last year’s amendment, Act No. 50 of 1972, the membership of the Association and its board was extended so as to include all registered nurses and midwives, enrolled nurses, midwives and nursing assistants, all student nurses and midwives, all pupil nurses and persons of another class who are admissible as members in terms of the regulations. As a result of this the Association made representations to the effect that the basis for constituting the advisory committees be changed so that all the various classes of members of the Association may acquire direct or indirect representation on the advisory committees. Subsection (1)(b) gives effect to the representations made by the Association.

Provision is being made in subsection 1(c) for the present advisory committees to remain in existence until the time of the next election, which will take place in 1967.

Subsection 1(a) only contains consequential amendments.

Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House will support the Bill. I think it is a step in the right direction that the Minister is taking to form these various committees, each representing their own people. However, I have a doubt as to whether or not it is good enough to leave it at that. I would like to know from the hon. the Minister when he replies, what happens when matters come to the notice of the duly elected committee for the Bantu nurses, for instance, and they decide on some action to be taken. Who represents them when they go to the parent association? I feel that, in order to make these committees effective and give them a real voice in the affairs of the association, these committees in turn should be represented by their own people in the parent association. In other words, I would like a direct representation of each of these committees on the Nursing Association. I have not discussed this matter with the Nursing Association, so I do not know how they feel about it, but I think that if these committees are to work and be effective, they must have a channel through which they can express themselves. After all is said these are professional people who have received the same training as all other nurses. They have followed the same courses and they have the same standing in the profession as the others. For that reason I think we should see to it that their representation in the parent association should be a direct one. I would like the hon. the Minister to consider this and to see whether we cannot recommend that the various committees elect to the Nursing Association their own people to represent them on the Association.

Mr. Speaker, it seems to me as though both sides of the House are unanimous on this Bill. However, I am sorry about the comments made here by the hon. member for Rosettenville. For many years now this has been the procedure followed in our country in respect of constituting the Nursing Association and giving the various population groups a say in it. If there is one profession in which we have the best co-operation of all the various population groups, then it is in fact in the nursing profession. I have been personally concerned with them for years, and in all that time of dealing with them on this basis we have always found nothing but satisfaction on their part. There has never been any moments of friction and there have never been any instances of Coloured, Indian or Bantu nurses complaining that their interests were not being served or that their interests were not being looked after on these advisory committees. I think that since we already have such a state of complete satisfaction on the part of these people, we should not create new conditions which may bring about friction where no friction existed before. Therefore I regret that I have to differ with the hon. member for Rosettenville on this specific point.

What is significant in this legislation, is the fact that there will now be improved representation for these people on these advisory committees. As a result of the fact that membership has also been extended now to other groups, namely the enrolled nurses and the nursing assistants, it means that these persons are also being given a say through their representation on the advisory committees. I am very grateful that membership has been extended to these groups, for without these specific groups in our nursing service we would have a very defective service in this country. These people should also be given a say there because we must strengthen confidence on the part of all groups within our nursing service, and this step will strengthen that confidence a great deal.

A second principle which is contained in this Bill and ought to be pointed out, is the fact that up to now there have only been two groupings of non-White nursing staff, namely Coloured persons and Bantu. A distinction has now been drawn and they have been divided into three groups, namely Indians, Coloureds and Bantu. This ought to create even more satisfaction amongst the Coloured nursing staff as well as the Indian nursing staff. This ought also to give rise to much greater confidence in the advisory committees.

In conclusion I should just like to comment on the change effected in the designation “pupil-nurse”, which now becomes “student nurse”. Hon. members will recall that the standards have been raised a great deal in regard to the training of nurses. For instance, nurses joining or wanting to join the nursing profession must at least be in possession of a senior certificate. These are stiff requirements, and the fact that this designation has been changed and the designation “student nurses” is being conferred upon them, is a step in the right direction in lending the necessary status to our nursing profession. Because of the work done by these people they merit the status where status is due to them. I am very glad about these changes and take pleasure in supporting this Bill very strongly.

Mr. Speaker, I have listened to what the hon. members have had to say about the various aspects of this Bill. This is, as hon. members will have seen, a very short measure with only two clauses, and what I want to say I want to relate to the bald facts of the Bill. Firstly, this is merely a request addressed to us that we effect a change in the constitution pursuant to the addition to the framework of nurses or nursing assistants or pupil nurses which was made by way of the Act last year, which the Act defined and which was accepted. Consequently one cannot debate something which is an accomplished fact, namely whether or not these people should have direct representation. That is a matter we can debate on another occasion. What is relevant here now, is in effect whether we are agreed that we should accede to this request. This request was short and to the point, namely to extend the membership of the advisory committees so as to grant in this way representation to more people practising or joining this profession, in which way that representation does eventually filter through to the central representation. Therefore I am sorry that as far as that is concerned, I cannot debate with the hon. member for Rosettenville in regard to representation, be it direct or indirect. However, I have taken cognisance of the evidence furnished here by the hon. member for Bloemfontein East to the effect that in the course of the years of his association with this Nursing Association he could not say that there had been any friction. I think this must in fact be of importance when one gives consideration to whether one is going to tamper with this representation. But, as I have said, this is not a matter to be debated now. The hon. member did raise one important point, namely the question of changing the designation “pupil nurse” to “student nurse”, and this is something one can discuss. We already have the designation “student chemist and druggist”, etc., and similar designations are therefore in use in other professions. It is just possible that owing to the matriculation requirements laid down in respect of these people, they do want to have some status, and that the word “student” may now mean more to some people than does the word “pupil”. I take cognizance of this point and thank hon. members for their contribution.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

The Atmospheric Pollution Prevention Act, 1965, has been on the Statute Book for more than seven years now, and the proposed amendments are the first to be effected to the Act.

There are a few inconsistencies in the wording of the Act, and experience has shown that certain procedures which were laid down are cumbersome and unpractical, which impedes the implementation of the Act. In view of the growing awareness of pollution and the health hazards implicit in atmospheric pollution in particular, preventive and combative measures will progressively have to be applied more intensively and more effectively, and for that reason it is necessary for the statutory provisions, within the framework of which these steps are taken, to be rationalized.

The expression “fixed date” is used in various sections of the Act which do not necessarily relate to the promulgation of smoke control regulations, for example sections 15 and 47(3) and (4). It would greatly facilitate the administration of the Act if the definition of the expression were amended so that it relates to the declaration of smoke control areas and smoke control zones in terms of sections 14(1) and 20(1) respectively.

Section 38 of the Act, which is referred to in section 5(1), deals with appeals which may be lodged against the actions taken by local authorities. As subsection 5(1)(a) reads at present, it provides that appeals may be made in terms of section 38 against decision of the chief officer, which is of course incorrect. This is consequently being remedied in clause 2.

The amendment to the wording of section 9(l)(b) is only being proposed in order to establish above all question that the provision is applicable to any premises on which any building or plant is being erected or on which any existing building or plant is being altered. As the wording reads at present it may be interpreted as if the qualifying phrase applies only to existing buildings and plants.

Section 9(1)(c) requires that where any alterations to existing buildings or plants in respect of which a current registration certificate has been issued are being contemplated, the chief officer shall be informed in writing of the proposed alteration prior to the commencement of such work. No further requirements are stipulated, and it is not logical that existing scheduled processes, with possible large-scale extensions, may be changed at will while it is required that all new scheduled processes shall be properly registered. In order to improve control over pollution in this regard the amendments in clause 3(b) and 4(b) are being proposed.

Experience has shown that the prescribed period in section 10(2), within which the chief officer shall issue a registration certificate or other document, is unrealistic. Consequently the amendment in clause 4(a) is being proposed.

Section 13 provides that any person who lodges an appeal against the decision of the chief officer may continue to carry on the scheduled process pending the result of the appeal. Such gas may however be a health hazard, and in order to protect the public the amendment in clause 5 is being proposed.

Several local authorities are experiencing serious problems as a result of smoke pollution originating in the areas of neighbouring local authorities. There are also cases where local authorities are reluctant to apply properly the powers conferred on them by the relevant portion of the Act. We are of the opinion that with the amendment in clause 6 the application of section 14(6) will be more effective and that it will be possible to eliminate the problems which are being experienced.

Technically the statement in section 15(l)(b) that grit-collecting appliances should be provided to prevent the emission of grit and dust is incorrect. Appliances which are able to meet this requirement simply do not exist, and the best available method is to restrict the emission of grit and dust. Consequently the amendment in clause 7 is being proposed to remedy this matter and we are also availing ourselves of this opportunity to alter the requirements in respect of the weight of solid fuel to the metric system.

At present section 18(l)(d) provides that local authorities may make regulations prohibiting the use or sale of solid fuel. However, there is no control over the use or sale of fuel-burning domestic appliances, and to eliminate this deficiency the amendments in clause 8(a) and 17(b) are being proposed.

In clause 8(b) an error is being rectified in that the power conferred on local authorities in terms of section 18(l)(j) relates to appeals against the actions of officers of local authorities in terms of section 22(3) and not to appeals to regional appeal boards against decisions of local authorities in terms of section 25.

The wording of subsection 18(5) is confusing in that it provides that the Minister of Economic Affairs shall in all cases give his approval to the making of the regulations, while the intention was that such approval shall only be granted in those cases involving the economic aspects, i.e. subsections 18(l)(d) and (h). Consequently this matter is being remedied in clause 8(c).

The provisions of subsections 18(5) and 20(1) relating to the publication of the regulations in question, cause various local authorities administrative problems. In practice it entails that after the regulations have been approved they have to be promulgated in a provincial gazette by way of an Administrator’s Notice. To simplify this cumbersome procedure the amendments in clauses 8(c) and 9(a) and (b) are being proposed in order to place the obligation on the Minister to promulgate the notice.

The Government is in real earnest to counteract the pollution problem with every means at its disposal. In the process local authorities play a very important part and the authorities have long since realized that the effective performance of their functions cannot be done on a part-time basis. In order therefore to enable local authorities to employ highly qualified technical staff for this purpose it will be necessary to subsidize the salaries of such staff. In addition highly specialized equipment which ought to be used by local authorities in counteracting atmospheric pollution is required, and since the costs of such equipment are high, the purchase thereof should also be subsidized. Without the necessary knowledge pollution cannot be counteracted and a great need for research exists. Funds for accommodation, equipment and the maintenance of laboratories for this purpose will also have to be provided by the Exchequer. No statutory provisions exist at present in terms of which money may be applied for the aforementioned matters, and consequently the provisions of clauses 9(c), 17 (the new paragraph 44(dB)) and 19 are being proposed to meet the requirements.

The amendment in clause 10 comprises only the conversion to the metric system.

The proposed amendment in clause 11(a) of section 30(1) is very closely related to the proposed amendment in clause 11(b) of section 30(5). The latter refers for the most part to the determination of financial responsibility relating to the establishment of vegetation on mine dumps. The present provisions are difficult to apply, not only because of possible misinterpretation, but also because of the unfairness of the provisions. The recommended amendments will stipulate the financial responsibility more clearly and will ensure that only the persons who were actually responsible for the source of the nuisance will contribute to the cost of establishing such vegetation. In addition they will involve the freehold owner of the land in question, since it is he who will derive direct benefit from any counteractive measures.

Section 31 makes provision for the establishment of a Dust Control Levy Account from which funds for establishing vegetation on mine dumps may be obtained.

In terms of an agreement with the Chamber of Mines this section has not been implemented and the Chamber itself is attending to the establishing of vegétation. Vegetation which has been established on mine dumps is usually extremely sensitive to any occurrences such as veld fires, soil washaways, to wind and water which can cause damage. In order to protect the capital investment in the establishment of vegetation on the dumps it is necessary to repair any damage, however, slight, immediately. The proposed amendment in clause 12 will make it possible for a fund to be established for such maintenance services.

In clause 13 provision is being made for the making of regulations in regard to any damage to vegetation established on mine dumps. As a result of its sensitivity only a trained and experienced horticulturist is able to determine when damage of a permanent nature has been caused to such vegetation. In terms of the proposed regulations it is being contemplated to control any action relating to the establishment of vegetation, for example the cutting of grass, the harvesting of barley and lucerne, and grazing by animals. These actions, which may even be regarded as justifiable by the freehold owner of the land, could be the cause of great damage to the vegetation. Owing to the unusually high cost of establishing vegetation on mine dumps (currently the cost amounts on an average to between R800 and R1 000 per hectare), it is necessary to adjust any penalties for offences to the nature of the offence and consequently to separate these from the provisions of section 45. Consequently “financial obligations” are being envisaged in regard to offences of this nature instead of penalties, and it will be possible to utilize these for restoration or replacement work.

On 1st May, 1971, Part V of the Act was made applicable on an experimental basis in the areas of jurisdiction of four local authorities. Experience gained during the trial period of more than a year indicates that the present procedure for the testing of emission gases of vehicles is cumbersome, and in many cases impractical. The proposed amendment in clause 14 will prescribe a choice of two simplified procedures which may be adjusted to changing circumstances. In addition provision is also, with a view to the future, being made for control over petrol-driven vehicles which do not emit only fumes. The expression “noxious or offensive gases” which is being substituted for the expression “fumes”, includes any possible emission from vehicles. Owing to the complex technological nature of the repair of vehicles emitting noxious or offensive gases, it cannot be expected of local authorities to prescribe methods of counteracting these problems. Consequently it is being proposed that subsection 37(3) be deleted.

The purpose of the proposed amendments in clause 15 is to bring the provisions of section 38 into line with the object of this portion of the Act, viz. to remove vehicles causing excessive atmospheric pollution from public roads as quickly as possible. Consequently the period in which an appeal may be lodged is being reduced, and the right to use the vehicle, pending the decision of the Board, is being deleted. The period was originally 30 days, and it is now 14 days.

The proposed amendments to section 39 as included in clause 16 arise out of the proposals included in clause 14.

An estimated 40% of the total atmospheric pollution in the Republic arises as a result of the domestic combustion of fossil fuels, which causes a serious problem particularly during the winter months. The proposed new section 44(dA), as embodied in clause 17, is aimed at prohibiting the manufacture or import of conventional (smoke-emitting) fuel-burning appliances and to control the use or sale of such appliances as an interim measure. With few exceptions all the stove manufacturers in South Africa are manufacturing smokeless coal stoves, hot water appliances and boilers, and there is no valid reason why conventional equipment should continue to be manufactured and sold. By means of the powers which are being proposed in this clause it will be possible to take the necessary steps by means of which this particular aspect may be controlled, and provision is being made in clause 17(c) for penalties to be prescribed by regulation for the contravention of such regulations.

The object of the amendment in clause 18 is to eliminate duplication. In terms of Chapter 2 of the Act certain functions and powers in regard to scheduled processes have been conferred upon the Chief Officer. In cases where regulations and by-laws concerning scheduled processes are made by local authorities before the commencement of the Act and are still being applied by such local authorities, it creates problems since there is then dual control. In order to solve the problem the power is being conferred upon the Minister to repeal the regulations and by-laws, or the parts thereof, which are causing problems.

Although prosecutions in terms of the Act are not being encouraged and much success is being achieved by means of co-operation with the parties concerned, experience indicates that the deterrent of the penal provisions is no longer very effective, particularly since the counteracting of atmospheric pollution involves a great deal of money. To strengthen the hand of those to whom the implementation of the Act has been entrusted and in view of the nature of the offences against the public as a whole, it is being proposed in clause 20 that penalties for offences should be made more severe.

With the exception of Parts II and III, which deal with pollution by noxious and offensive gases and smoke respectively, the Act also binds the State in terms of section 47(1). From the contents of section 47(3) and (4) it is clear that it was the intention to exempt the State only from Part III which is applied by local authorities. There is no reason to exempt State-controlled premises from the provisions of Part II, and this part is in fact already being applied to the State. The proposed amendment in clause 21(a) serves to remedy the position.

Smoke control zone orders are worded in such a way that they prohibit the emission of any visible smoke in the area in which the order is applicable. The State would like to set an example in respect of smoke-free operations on premises under State control, and in order to make the application of the said orders effective, the amendments in clause 21(b) and (c) are being proposed.

The proposed amendments were submitted to all interested parties for comment. Constructive criticism received in this way has, as far as was practicable, been incorporated in the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House will support the amending Bill introduced by the hon. the Minister. There are certain matters in some of the clauses that will be further discussed when we come to the Committee Stage. I would like to take this opportunity of making one or two remarks about what has been happening since the Air Pollution Act came into being about 10 years ago. I think each and every one of us, in his ordinary daily life, notices that there has been very little change really in our large cities. We still see large amounts of smoke belching out of chimneys; we still see the exhaust pipes of motor-cars pouring out their gases; we still see dust-storms coming; in the factories we see that industrialists fail to take the precautions recommended by the safety organizations, and one wonders, if after 10 years the Minister finds he has to introduce so many amendments, what the position will be like in another five years if he has to take really drastic action to prohibit people from creating the nuisance with which we are confronted today. We will virtually have to have a new Bill to deal with contraventions of the present Bill. It is difficult for any local authority to be able to contain a nuisance that is created in an adjoining local authority, and one wonders how one can overcome these difficulties. Industry, after all, cannot be disrupted entirely by law. You cannot simply say to factory owners that they must no longer burn smoke-producing substances. You may have a very big factory employing, say, 2 000 people. How can you prevent this factory from operating on the grounds that it is belching out smoke? Are you going to be prepared to close down the factory and put those 2 000 people out of employment? Are you going to stop the goods produced by this particular factory from reaching other institutions and so on which may find them absolutely essential? What does one do in a situation of this kind? I think the Minister did go part of the way when he said that we would warn these people to put their house in order. He would ensure that over a specified period of time they would be made to contain that nuisance and eventually get rid of it. One of the biggest culprits in regard to air pollution in the country today—and I am speaking especially about Cape Town because it takes place more in Cape Town than in any other town—is what is happening in the dock area. There you have a combination of smoke-making institutions. You have the power station and you have the Railways belching out smoke from their engines in the docks and you have visiting ships coming into port. If you drive into town in the morning over Signal Hill, what do you find? There is a thick pall of smoke covering the whole of lower Cape Town. On a windy day it disappears quickly but yesterday and today it has hung over the city like a great big dark pall. In winter months especially, when this is aggravated by other factors, people start showing the symptoms of inhaling this polluted air. The hon. the Minister must work in co-operation with the Minister of Transport to see whether or not he cannot change the system which is at present prevalent. He should see whether electric trains could not be used, and persuade the Minister to get rid of these smoke-belching engines. The power station problem we have down here is found in other towns. It is not this power station alone which belches out these great big clouds of smoke. It happens all over the country. Furthermore, I took a count of motor-cars this morning. I spent about 10 minutes watching motor-cars. Only one out of 12 motor-cars that passed me this morning in a 10-minute count carried more than one passenger. Is it not absolutely ridiculous when you come to think of the amount of gas pouring out of these thousands upon thousands of motor-cars that pour into the city, each one carrying only one passenger? Only here and there you find two passengers per car. I think we must think along the lines of putting more buses on the streets. One bus, I am sure, does not create as much air pollution as all these motor-cars. What does a bus carry? About 70 to 80 passengers. Can you compare the amount of gas poured out by one bus with the amount poured out by 80 to 100 motorcars? We have to think of ways and means to encourage people to use the local transport. I think we should also have lift-schemes introduced to try to encourage people to carry more than one passenger. People can then drive a full car into the city in the morning. Another effect of course will be to relieve the congested parking areas and it will relieve some of the heavy traffic that the roads have to carry, traffic that is increasing year after year. Year after year we need more road space. What is going to be the end? Plans have to be made, and we are the people who have to devise these plans.

The hon. the Minister mentioned the smoke that emits from residences. I suppose he has had an opportunity of going past Soweto in the morning, along the main road that passes Soweto. On a winter’s morning he will not be able to drive along that road because of smog but will have to park along the side of the road until it clears. Talk about a foggy day in London! There is no comparison to a foggy day in Soweto. You just cannot go through it, and all this because of the fuel burnt by the thousands upon thousands of bituminous coal-burning stoves which emit smoke. The cheapest source of warmth is bituminous coal. The stoves that have been put into these houses are built to burn this type of coal. It is very nice for the Minister to say that as from tomorrow we are all going to bum coal that will be smokeless or that we are all going to have stoves that can burn bituminous coal that will not pour smoke out of the chimneys.

What about anthracite?

My hon. colleague asks: “What about anthracite?” I do not know if he knows what anthracite costs today. It is impossible for a Bantu wage-earner to use anthracite coal unless he receives remuneration for his work which is high and above the present usual rate of pay. In the report of the Fuel Research Board there is an interesting statement. With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to read this report. It is well worth reading. It deals with this very subject.

I agree with them.

Now we have both these things: Bituminous coal and some way of burning it so that the smoke will not become a hazard.

That is our Fuel Research Board—

I am one of those people who say that we must get these stoves into these houses, but who is going to pay for the change. That is the problem: Who is going to pay for these stoves? How can we go about it? It means that we have to buy about 20 000 stoves for one area alone. If the Minister is going to help, he would have to purchase these 20 000 stoves and he would have to resell those stoves on a hire-purchase system to the users. They could not pay cash for these, except in a few cases. Can you imagine the amount of money that is going to be involved in such a scheme? However, I say that it is worth it. It is quite obvious that we cannot do it overnight. It is going to take years to do, but I think that if the hon. the Minister wants to be really active in eliminating this terrible source of pollution, he must start now. He must start to encourage these people to buy the stoves and the Government or the local authority can be the agents who will provide the stoves.

I am not going to talk about air pollution from radiation; we have a separate Bill about that. It is, however, terribly important and we must keep our eye on that one as well. I want to come to air pollution by dust. Again here in Cape Town, especially in the centre of Cape Town, we have a wonderful example of what can be done by progress. People say that we must not stand in the way of progress, but look what is happening here. Some of the largest buildings which exist in Cape Town are being knocked down. They are being demolished. There is no control at all about the dust that emanates from the demolition of these buildings.

The mine dumps.

I am coming to that as well. There is no control over it. The same applies to every large centre. In Johannesburg the same thing is happening. The bricks tumble down, the dust falls and blows all over the place, but what is more, the demolishers employ a large fleet of trucks to take away the rubble. These truck companies are paid per load. Hon. members know how heavy the rubble is. These trucks try to make as many trips a day as possible. Their trucks belch along, smoke pouring out of them and the dust falling all over the streets. Bricks fall on the highways, pieces of concrete drop here and glass falls there; they have no concern at all about cars that come behind. Windscreens are often smashed by this sort of thing and the air becomes more and more polluted by the dust that is falling off from these trucks, besides what is happening at the sites of demolition. Some sort of control must be exercised upon these people. I think it should be laid down in this legislation here today if possible, that every single demolisher should damp down the rubble as he demolishes. He should be made to damp it down, to use plenty of water for that. Every truck that is being loaded with rubble also should be damped down. If we do not do that, we are going to have to live with the mess that we see in so many of our large cities. Then we come to the place of the dumping. We are worried about what the mining people are doing with their mine dumps and with the dust that blows from the mine dumps. But the same sort of thing is happening with the rubble. They are making their own dumps today and they are not mining; but they are dumping wherever they can and the wind is blowing this dust all over the place. What does the Chamber of Mines do? As the hon. the Minister says the Chamber of Mines has covered their dumps with grass and they are still covering it. It is costing a terrific amount of money in doing it and some of these dumps have been covered very well indeed. But now the people who are building the roads come and they do not have enough room for the trucks that carry the rubble. The result is that they are building more roads and wider roads to carry the one man passenger motor-car. Where do they have to cut through? They are cutting through mine dumps. Hon. members should go to Johannesburg to see what is happening there. They are cutting through and levelling mine dumps and the dust is blowing all over the city. I do not know how the hon. the Minister is going to limit all this, but these are great problems which have to be settled very soon. While talking about trucks, I have another problem. The local authorities use trucks to carry away refuse. It is quite surprising how much refuse falls off these trucks. Nothing is done about it, and they seem to be immune to prosecution. You find the refuse in the streets and from there it is blown away. In Cape Town it is blown around when the south-easter blows, whether out to the sea or wherever it goes. Most of the houses have bits of rubble, bits of plastic and lots of dust lying in their gardens and on their front doorsteps. I believe that it is time that we do something about it. In our enthusiasm to clean up the city, to keep it clean and to give us clean air, we must make sure that we do not interfere with the livelihood of people. We must give a reasonable period to let the change come to effect. Before I end off my plea I want to say that there are other sources of dust formation. Here some of my farming friends must take a lead. Overgrazing, bad ploughing, the formation of dust—bowls and farmers who allow their farms to be eroded, all these have to be stopped. Lately, since we have had the drought it is becoming more and more evident. When you fly over the country today, you see down below you what has been green and grassy veld in the past now has become a virtual dust-bowl. This can be a great tragedy to the farming community and to South Africa as a whole. This destruction of the upper soil. It is being blown away, ending up in the air which we, willy-nilly, have to breathe.

Finally, I want to say to the hon. the Minister that I think he must take more action with regard to the safety devices that are used in our factories. This is something which must be applied strictly. After all, this Air Pollution Bill comes under the hon. the Minister of Health and it is his job to see that the health of the worker as well as that of the ordinary man in the street is looked after. In factories which produce gases and dust in any form—it may be silica dust, asbestos dust, the dust from iron filings, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, suphur dioxide, etc.—this dust or gas must be contained and the person who works in this atmosphere be fully protected. If the worker himself is found guilty of not carrying out the safety regulations which are laid down, he must be punished. It is no good blaming the employer alone, because the worker himself must also take responsibility for it.

With those remarks, Sir, I want to say again that the Air Pollution Act must be supported and these amendments, which are for the benefit of the people, will be supported by us, on this side of the House.

Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that everyone agrees with the amendments that are being introduced into the Atmospheric Pollution Prevention Amendment Bill. Before I come to other clauses, I should like to focus the hon. the Minister’s attention on clause 8, which amends section 18(1)(d) of the principal Act, and in conjunction on clause 17, whereby the use of fuel in dwellings and the manufacturing of fuel appliances, which are used in dwellings, are being controlled. I find nothing wrong with that—that is correct—but if I look at the principal Act, Act 45 of 1965, I read in section 23(1) that inspectors are prohibited from entering dwellings. I just wanted to ask if it is the Minister’s intention to allow no inspection to be held of this fuel apparatus or fuel in dwellings. I just want to focus attention on that and ask whether section 23(1) of the principal Act should not also be amended.

But that is just by the way. I actually want to confine myself, in this Bill, to clause 9(c), which adds a new subclause (13)(O) to section 20 of the principal Act, and to clause 19 which introduces a completely new section 45A into the principal Act. The newly proposed section 20(13)(O) is, in the first place, concerned with a subsidy, which can be paid out to local authorities for the appointment of smoke control officers, from funds of the Department of Health as appropriated by Parliament. The newly proposed section 45A is concerned with the contribution which the Department of Health can make, from funds appropriated by this Parliament, for research in connection with atmospheric and smoke pollution. These are two clauses that make me particularly happy. I think that if there is one matter that is of utmost importance, it is research, research and more research. Pollution as a problem only hit South Africa after the last world war. It is a typical problem that arose with the urbanization of the population, or let me rather say that is precipitated by the urbanization of the population. To my shame I have to state that according to the findings of the C.S.I.R., actually a certain Dr. Halliday, it is a fact that the city in the country that suffers most today from atmospheric pollution is Bloemfontein. This indicates the extent to which this has already developed. The hon. member for Rosettenville, who has just resumed his seat, argued at length about the vehicles that enter a city. I am in complete agreement with him. As far as I am concerned there is no sense in planning roads, planning more roads and then planning even more roads, and then after those cars have entered the city one does not know what to do with them. Some interesting statistics I came across recently demonstrate that during busy periods of the day a single-lane highway allows a maximum of 3 000 persons per hour into the city in motor vehicles. With buses a maximum of 28 000 persons per hour can be brought into the city on a single-lane highway. By train, on a single stretch, 60 000 people can be brought into a city per hour. As far as I am concerned it is a foregone conclusion that it is absolutely impossible, with the vehicular traffic we have, which is growing more and more dense, for us to continue to descend on our cities to find parking there, but not only to find parking, but, in terms of this measure, to allow atmospheric pollution to take place on a large scale. We can speak at length about lorries that cause dust and about buildings that are being broken down. The gist of this matter, however, is research. The question is how we are to combat all those things. It is very easy to say: Cover it up; that may help. But there are so many things involved. It struck me when I opened Die Burger this morning and saw a cartoon of two penguins standing near Saldanha, the one saying to the other one: “I hope they see to the proper ecological planning of their project; I am tired of being chased from island to island by their pollution.” This is an extremely important matter, and I think it is a matter that South Africa has a great deal to learn about from the world. I also want to say that with the respect I have for South Africa’s scientists, I also think it is a field where the world could perhaps learn a good deal from South Africa. Let there be no doubt about that. It may be said that South Africa is isolated from the world. It is perhaps so in the political sphere, but in the scientific field this is not the case at all. South Africa’s scientists have access to any place in the world. It is clear to me, however, that we need extreme forms of planning, intensive planning. We need intensive planning, not only by the Department of Health, but also from all other departments involved in that. Because these things are so closely related and so closely bound up, this contribution that is being made to certain bodies by the Department of Health is extremely welcome. That is why I would prefer this control to be done in an absolutely co-ordinated manner to include all pollution, whether under the Department of Health or the Department of Planning. This matter is urgent because the population explosion is now involved, and this in turn is so closely related to the Department of Health. These matters are interwoven and inseparable. The moment the population explosion increases, pollution immediately follows suit. I believe, therefore, that research is the only thing that will carry us over the hump. Therefore I am grateful, in the first place, that a contribution will be made in connection with research on atmospheric pollution. In the second place I am grateful that, by way of this legislation, a contribution can also be made by the Department of Health in the form of a subsidy for the appointment of smoke control officers. As the hon. the Minister said in his Second Reading speech, these officers will have to be highly skilled officers. These people must not merely be inspectors. They must be well-equipped scientists and have the potential to do future research in connection with this extremely serious question.

It is my privilege to support this amending Bill. I want to express the hope that this research will still be developed much further. My life, your lives and the lives of our children are very closely involved in this question. I also hope we will reach the stage where we will be able to do research in connection with the long cigars that are smoked by the Secretary for Health.

Mr. Speaker, my colleague who spoke just now, the hon. member for Rosettenville, said that we would be supporting this Bill. I would like to come at it for a moment from a rather different angle to that adopted by the hon. member for Rosettenville and the hon. member who has just sat down. We are dealing here primarily with a Bill which is grappling with one aspect of the pollution of our environment, namely air pollution as the title says. Great emphasis is laid on the threat to public health. The measure here as it was in the original Act seven years ago, is to take measures to try to abate the nuisance and what is more, to try and prevent it. But this is only one aspect of the pollution of the environment. This Bill of the hon. the Minister of Health follows on the lines of the original Act. So many of the aspects that involve pollution of the environment are affecting our health. It would indeed be a contradiction in terms to say that there was any source of pollution of the environment which was not in some form or other detrimental to our health. It would be a contradiction in terms.

We have the position today that the Minister of Planning is the Minister of the Environment in terms of his new title. That is something we have been pressing for from this side of the House for some time. Unfortunately, he is not here. He is the Minister of the Environment, but one aspect of the environment is under the Minister of Health. I want to say that I think that the Minister of Health in the enforcement of this Bill has an extremely difficult and very delicate task indeed—very difficult indeed. We cannot afford to treat this question in its widest sense, that is to say, the pollution of our environment, in any lighthearted spirit. It is a matter of the greatest seriousness. When we see, for example, that one organization in South Africa, our steel works, are prepared to spend R100 million over the next 10 years—R10 million a year—in dealing with the emission of various noxious gases from their chimneys, then we cannot treat this matter lightly.

They would not spend this money unless they felt it was necessary. They are one of the institutions which will be brought within the ambit of this Bill. Sir, various people outside of this House, in many quarters—well-meaning people, and the world is full of them—lay emphasis on one aspect or another of the pollution of the environment: Some people regard the emission from motor-cars as the big trouble; others regard domestic fires and heating appliances in private homes as the big trouble; others regard factories and all their smoke problems as the big trouble, and so it goes on. Sir, these are all merely aspects, however important they may be—and they are most important—of one problem, the pollution of our environment as a whole. The fact that in some cases where air pollution takes place, it may not be attributable directly to some cause or other which is going to have harmful effects on human life, does not mean that it is not affecting our environment. Do you know, Sir, one of the oldest safety measures in coal mines overseas was for miners to take canaries down the mine in a cage. The pollution of the environment, which was not sufficient even to be noticed by human beings, was sufficient to affect the canaries. Here was a simple case where the pollution, before it reached a level where it could affect human beings, could affect another creature. It has been proved in quite a number of countries that there are certain species of trees which not only lose their leaves but die as a result of the pollution of the air which human beings are breathing 24 hours a day, with impunity, so far as they know at the moment. Here is one of the points that I want to deal with from the wider angle that we should be dealing with the whole question of the pollution of the environment. We should not be splitting measures like this and putting this enormously important and delicate task on the shoulders of the Minister of Health, when we have a Minister of the Environment who is going to be dealing, pari passu with this Minister, with certain very important aspects, which are now running against the provisions of this Bill. You are going to have two Ministers dealing with this problem. Sir, in another context in the next few days I hope to show that there are far more than two Ministers dealing with this problem; there are about five or six Ministers. I say that this Minister is going to have a very difficult and a very delicate task, and I want to tell him why. The Act itself—and it is repeated in this Bill—imports the local authority. There are minor amendments made so far as the powers of the local authorities are concerned to issue what they now call “orders”. They were regulations before. They get the approval of the Minister after consultation with the board and then the regulations are published by the Minister in the Gazette and so forth. Sir, in some of the smaller local authorities, where there are big business interests—and I mean big business interests—there is a very natural reluctance on the part of the people who are elected to the local authority to take action against those big business interests; it is natural, Sir; that is the way it goes.

My hon. friend, the hon. member for Rosettenville, dealt with another aspect and that is where you have local authorities, perhaps not very far apart from one another and where the emission of gases from one local authority area can so easily be swept across to affect the next one. The second one is going to get the dirty end of the stick and there is nothing that they can do about it, so far as this particular measure is concerned, if the first local authority is loth to move. The Minister is going to have the difficult task of trying to get action out of people who for economic and other reasons are going to find themselves loth to move. I am sure, Sir, that most of us have had representations in the past where economic development has been contemplated, where big interests have come along and said: “Look, we want to establish a factory here; we want to have a railway here; we want a harbour or some other development; please help us; we want this development.” Economic considerations are at the bottom of it. We want economic development. When that development comes along and it carries a side-effect of pollution of the environment, the local authority or the community which has asked for that development finds itself in a cleft stick. They asked for the development; they wanted it and they hoped all would be well. At present most of these businesses are out to make profits. They do not want to spend a lot of money if it is not necessary, even in dealing with the pollution of the air. So the Minister is going to find himself continually at the wrong end of the stick. Sir, I say at once that I do not envy him his task because I realize how patient he will have to be, for the reasons my hon. colleague here gave. You cannot simply take the big stick and wave it at the big financial concerns, with big factories and big industrial developments. I want to come to one in a moment. The Minister will have to be patient and people will criticize him and ask him why he is not getting on with the job; he has the power in the Bill and now he is lagging; why does he not tackle the problem? He will have to be patient because he will also be short of staff and he will be short of a method of balancing public welfare in terms of economic development against the need and the rate at which he can proceed against people who may be guilty of dilatoriness in taking measures to deal with this matter. The point I want to come to and the kind of thing the Minister will have to deal with is this.

As I read the Bill, and as I read the original Act, there is special provision made for favoured-nation treatment for the South African Railways. I think that is quite wrong. Pollution of the atmosphere is no respecter of persons. If you, Sir, or your family or your children or your friends or even complete strangers, any person in South Africa, suffers from some complaint, such as they have in Japan at the moment where people are dying as the result of pollution of the atmosphere, because they have reached the ceiling at which human fatalities start to take place—under those circumstances, where the atmosphere is polluted to that extent, you cannot turn round and say that you will now go and grouse at Mr. Ben Schoeman, the Minister of Transport, because this pollution of the atmosphere is coming from his trains, and I can single it out from all the other pollution in the air. None of us can do that. So, to give favoured-nation treatment to the Railways is to strike right at the root of what should be the Minister’s prime duty, and that is to have no friends or favour in the whole of this campaign he will have to wage against the pollution of the air. He should tackle this in the most objective manner, and as I say, operate just as firmly against the big as against the small. The man who has a little coal-stove in his house and is told that he is polluting the atmosphere should be treated in exactly the same way as the S.A. Railways or Iscor or any of these other bodies. But the point I want to make is this. What are they going to do about the Sishen-Saldanha railway line which does not come under the S.A. Railways? This is the kind of thing which in practice is going to face the Minister. We are going to have this railway line. There is special treatment for all the railways that come under the Minister of Transport but this is going to be a private railway line which does not come under the Minister of Transport. This is now a matter for the Iscor people to deal with because it is their railway line. Is the Minister now going to be asked to differentiate between the way in which he treats the emission of smoke and coal dust and all the other troubles on the Sishen-Saldanha railway line, differently from precisely the same conditions caused by the S.A. Railway? These are the reasons why I think I have the greatest sympathy for the Minister. I do not generally have sympathy for Cabinet Ministers because they wished themselves into the job, and if he has a burden to carry that is his business. He should not have taken on the job if he did not feel that he could do it. But this Minister is a young man and he now finds himself right inside this trouble. He will find troubles piling up which the Secretary for Health will bring along to him, and I doubt whether he realizes exactly how heavy the load is he is being asked to carry. I want to say this to the Minister in all seriousness. If he is going to make a job of dealing with pollution in the atmosphere of the Republic of South Africa as a whole, he will have no time to give to anything else. This will keep him busy for seven days a week and he will be able to plead on the Sabbath that he is doing a good job and therefore he falls under the injunction in the Bible which permits him to do that.

Let us increase the number of ministries.

That hon. Minister was probably here when he pleaded with the hon. the Prime Minister to give us a Cabinet Minister and a department that will do nothing but protect the environment. Then the hon. the Minister could have this Bill as one under the umbrella of the Minister protecting the environment. You could have water affairs, mines, commerce and industries, the railways, the air, the lot—everyone there as a segment under the umbrella of a Minister who could watch the whole of the development and who would be the authority to whom we could go. This is what is also lacking in South Africa today. Let me give the hon. the Minister a case in point. I went up to the northern part of Natal about six weeks ago as a result of a report that was made to me. There are old, abandoned coal mines. There are dumps from those coal mines and every time a strongish wind blows, it blows clouds of dust all over the landscape. Many of the old mines themselves are by the nature of things a spring, a seepage point, from which water emanates and forms a stream which runs away down to bigger streams. That water is highly polluted with various acids. The dust from those coal dumps pollutes the atmosphere. It is an aspect which has something to do with this Bill. How does the hon. the Minister deal with that To whom do the people go? They asked me to come up so that I could see for myself what was happening. I went to northern Natal. It is not my constituency and I am not throwing any bricks at hon. members—this is not politics. I am not saying that any of the hon. members from northern Natal should have gone to have a look at it. They would certainly have seen nothing more than I saw. To whom do the people go who are involved? There are no owners of those coal mines today, I understand. I looked into the position very carefully indeed. There is not a person or a company on whom you could pin the responsibility. These companies were worked out years and years ago. The mines have been abandoned and the people are gone. What is left there, are the mine dumps. That is the kind of problem. There is no central authority. It is no good coming to the Minister in terms of the powers he has and asking him to pay for the reclamation of those dumps in the way they have so successfully dealt with the mine dumps on the Witwatersrand.

May I say in passing that I agree with the hon. member who has spoken before me and who dealt with the question of the payment out of parliamentary funds of some of the officers who will be inspectors employed by local authorities. In the same context I want to say to the hon. the Minister that I think he should consider whether we should not protect them. My recollection from my old association with the Local Government Ordinance in my province is that we protected medical officers of health and we certainly protected town clerks. They could not be sacked without the approval of the Administrator. In the very nature of things it is a fact that an official who is going to do his duty without fear or favour is going to fall foul of certain interests in his town or community. If he is conscientious and wants to do his job, he falls foul of these people. There may be all sorts of reasons why for some reason or other they do not want him and decide to get rid of him. I think that a man who is going to be an inspector in terms of this legislation should be protected. That does not say that they cannot sack him if they put up a good enough case to the Minister, but at any rate, if he does his job and he does a ticklish job and he does a job which is a delicate job and he feels it his duty and he has to grasp the nettle and do that job, he will be able to feel that at the worst, if he treads on the toes or the corns of some of the local people who are influential folks, they will not be able to sack him out of hand and that he will have an opportunity to come to the Minister for protection. I make that point here. I want to come for a moment to the question of motor-cars and the harm they are doing. I want to start off by saying that where we are seeing that type of pollution of the atmosphere today and many other forms of pollution from factories and so forth, modern science is going ahead so fast today that, in a few years’ time, I have not the slightest doubt, there will be found means of curtailing, limiting and perhaps completely eliminating that kind of pollution of the atmosphere, particularly where internal combustion engines are concerned. I have no doubt that that will be so. The problem has to be dealt with in the meantime; that I accept. I do think, however, that the Minister must be on his guard; he must be watching scientific development all the time so that as the opportunity arises to deal with modern developments and modern scientific advances, it will be possible to use those scientific advances in connection with the solution of some of these problems. The point I want to make is that when a motor-car goes down the street and has badly worn rings or something of that sort, and you see it emitting from the exhaust a black cloud of smoke that runs along the street, everybody notices it. They may have their nostrils assailed by an evil smell; they see the smoke and so attention is drawn to it. But, Sir, if a nice big car goes purring past and you can hardly hear the engine and you feel almost inclined to lift your head in case there is somebody of importance in that car, that car may be polluting the atmosphere worse than the old buggy that is chugging down the road emitting black smoke from its exhaust.

It may even be a Cadillac.

The fact that there is no smoke emission visible to the naked eye does not mean that there is not pollution of the atmosphere, because there is. Of course there is. The very fact that there is combustion of petrol and other natural oils in this internal combustion engine means the emission of certain elements into the atmosphere which are noxious. This is why we often read in the papers about people committing suicide in cars. A man decides that he is going to commit suicide by fixing a pipe to the exhaust and by putting the other end inside of the car. He then lies down and makes himself comfortable, starts the engine going and eventually the body is found the next day. Perhaps the engine is still running or it is not. But, Sir, he does not go out to look for a car that was emitting a lot of smoke because if there was not a lot of smoke it was no good to him; he can have an engine which is purring away very quietly, emitting no smoke at all. But the emission from the exhaust will kill him just the same. He does not need an engine that emits a lot of smoke in order to be killed. Many people, in the winter time in particular, especially some of our people living on a very low economic level, in little cabins or in little “huisies”, shut the door at night and close the apertures to keep out the wind and the cold. They shut themselves in inside; they then take some coal which they put in an old tin with a few holes in it. They light a fire in order to warm the atmosphere and they settle down to sleep. They never wake up again either because once more what has happened inside that room is that they have become asphyxiated but they did not know anything about it. These emanations are not seen; you cannot identify them. In terms of this Bill the hon. the Minister has to deal with all that. He has to deal with that which is seen and with that which is not seen as long as it is a menace to our environment. If it is a pollution of the environment then it falls under the hon. the Minister. I can assure him that once he is accepted and identified by the people of South Africa, the local authorities, the do-gooders—and, by jove, Sir, there are lots of do-gooders these days—they will pile on to his neck the moment they identify him. The moment they can come to hon. members of Parliament—all my hon. friends over there—and say to them: “You know I have this smoke nuisance in this place, or that place or whatever it may be; to whom do I go to get it fixed up?”, my hon. friends, without a single murmur amongst all of them, would say in one voice: “Go to the Minister of Health.”

“I know him well”.

That is right. They will say that they must go to the Minister of Health; he is their man. Without compunction, they will pile the lot on his shoulders. This, unfortunately, is what is going to happen as far as the hon. the Minister is concerned. I can see that he is facing the future with a smile. That shows a certain courageous spirit which I hope will sustain him in the few months ahead that are left to him.

I want to come to another question. I have said that we do not like this dividing up of portfolios like this and the onerous duties which are placed on certain Ministers. We do not think this is the way to deal with it at all. If there is going to be a man who is going to carry the responsibility for protecting the environment, give that responsibility to one man only and let all of us say to everyone who inquires, “That is the man to go to”. Let him then distribute the work amongst the others. I am going to come to the Railways in a moment, but I do want to say that I believe that a Minister, perhaps the Minister of National Education, could do the country a service if he determined that, amongst all the other things our children have to learn at the present time, some small effort is made in classes, and even almost small children, to teach them to be able to “recognize”, shall I say, pollution and I do not mean recognize by eyesight. I mean they should be taught to be able to apprehend, to perceive, to understand that pollution can come from the air, from the water, from the earth and so forth. All I ask is for a little elementary lesson to be given to children in early age so that they shall be brought up as I understand the children of Japan are today. This may sound like a paradox, but one of the greatest barriers to a proper appreciation of pollution here in our country, South Africa, in my opinion, arises from the fact that such a lot of emphasis is laid on old, empty milk bottles, old newspapers, old cans, cardboard and such things. They are so obvious that they get the attention of everybody. So they stand as a barrier in the way of dealing with what are really the true sources of pollution—the things which are affecting our health. Although the objects I have mentioned are certainly part of our polluted environment, their importance in the scheme of things is minimal. So some primary lessons to our school children, just the A B C of grappling with pollution and understanding it, I believe, will be time and money well spent for the future.

I now want to come to the Railways for a moment.

When are you coming to the point?

There is no law compelling the hon. member to sit and listen to my stirring address if he is in the dumps.

Order! This is another kind of pollution. The hon. member may continue.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, this is polluting my ears, not my breathing. The Bill repeats a provision in the Act with merely a minor amendment. In terms of the Act as it was first passed, the local authority could issue orders on institutions other than the Railways. The hon. the Minister shakes his head. Section 47(1) says that the provisions of this Act shall bind the State, etc., but I want to quote from subsection (3):

“Regulations” now reads “order”.

Yes, carry on.

So the local authority now goes through this Minister, the Minister of Health, and complains to him or to the Administrator, but let us leave the Administrator alone for the moment. The Minister of Health goes to his colleague, the other Minister, and says to him: “Look, your department is not playing the game and you are making it hard for me. Your department is permitting this and this to happen; it is polluting the atmosphere and I am getting into trouble over it. Please will you see to it that you abate the nuisance; here is the complaint.” In the next subsection, subsection (4). it is stated that when the responsibility for the pollution or the control over the instrument of pollution is the Railways, then the local authority does not go to this Minister and say to him: “You talk to Ben Schoeman,” but the local authority must go direct to the Minister of Railways. The Minister of Transport is not going to have himself put under duress by the Minister of Health, so that he is, as they used to say when I was a youngster, tied out of this contract. This hon. Minister can go to any other Minister in the Cabinet and pull him up in respect of the pollution of the environment by his department, but not where the Railways are concerned.

The Minister of Transport must report any complaint received by him to me yearly.

Do not let us run too fast. The local authority must direct its complaint to the Minister of Transport. At the end of the year the Minister of Transport must put before the Minister of Health a list of the complaints he has received and he must say what he has done about them. Whatever he has done, there is nothing the Minister of Health can do about them, I can tell you that. We believe that is wrong; the Minister of Transport should be treated in exactly the same way as the other Ministers and a complaint regarding the Railways should be canalized through the Minister of Health. That is what we would like to see in this Bill. We will deal with it more fully in the Committee Stage.

Mr. Speaker, it is gratifying to see that the hon. member for Rosettenville and the hon. member for South Coast support this amending Bill. I must say, after having listened to the hon. member for South Coast, that I would not have liked to hear him if he were opposed to these amendments. I should like to say that hon. members must see the amendments in this Bill, and in the Act as a whole, in perspective. The hon. member for South Coast said quite a bit about the fact that the hon. the Minister of Health is handling the legislation, but I think the whole idea behind atmospheric pollution and the legislation has two definite facets. The first facet is that of a health problem. We are now faced with an atmospheric pollution problem throughout the world, and whatever may be said in this House cannot change the fact, because this is one of the things that goes with development. As soon as one has development, one gets atmospheric pollution, and no one can relinquish development in order to keep the atmosphere clean, and then have no progress in any country. To tell the truth, countries like Russia and China say that development cannot be relinquished at all even though atmospheric pollution is such a problem. Atmospheric pollution must then just be accepted as part of one’s way of life. I do not want to go that far, but I just want to say that in looking at why this problem falls under the Minister of Health, one finds that in other countries and cities, for example in Los Angeles, clearly discernible maladies such as eye irritations and bouts of coughing occur, maladies which are known to all doctors and which occurred as a result of atmospheric pollution. In our own country, for example, we are faced with problems that crop up in the mines, etc. I do not think there is any doubt that the substances causing atmospheric pollution are a danger to health. It is also for this reason that this Bill falls under the Minister of Health. I do not want to go into this any further, because I think everyone realizes that atmospheric pollution is a health problem.

One must look, however, at the second aspect, i.e. that of prevention. The hon. member for South Coast could have a point when he says that the prevention of atmospheric pollution must fall under the Minister of Planning and the Environment. Planning is involved in determining where one would place a factory, how near to a residential area one would place it. At that stage it is not the Minister of Health’s work. The Minister of Planning must see whether atmospheric pollution in its essence can be prevented. I want to say at once, since motor vehicles have been mentioned, that we shall never be rid of the problem; even if we were to reduce the exhaust gases of the motor vehicles by half, in three or four years’ time we shall have twice the number of motor vehicles and exactly the same quantities of those gases in the environment. I also want to say at once that where we erect factories we are going to have atmospheric pollution, but it must be checked at the factory chimney and at the incinerators when such a factory is erected, and that is a planning problem. But since we are already faced with the problem, it is important that we implement the Act from time to time. I want to predict today that in future years the hon. the Minister will come to the House again with many other amendments. If we note the definitions in the old Act, we find that there are about 30 kinds of gases mentioned, excluding all the additional elements involved. One that has not yet been mentioned in this debate is plastic. Plastic is one of the extremely dangerous elements that land up in the atmosphere today. Hon. members therefore grasp the hon. member for Fauresmith’s plea that there should be greater research. It has already been proved in other countries that plastic penetrates to the bloodstream when it is inhaled. It is extremely dangerous. One of the important amendments in this Bill is that the hon. the Minister now has the opportunity to have research done.

I said at the beginning that we should see this whole matter in perspective. It is a matter of national magnitude and it is not exclusive to South Africa. It is a matter that is creating big problems throughout the world. We shall have to ensure that we keep the problem as small as possible. The layer of air that we can inhale and exhale only extends 12 miles above the ground. There are already 3 700 million people living in this 12 mile layer of air. Each of them inhales and exhales 60 lbs. of air daily, with all the pollution it contains. If we take note of this we can realize the problem. I must say at once that no man-made law, including this Bill, can ever eliminate atmospheric pollution. We shall just have to ensure that the public suffer as little ill-effect from that as possible.

There is another aspect that we must see in perspective, i.e. that we are today still unaware of numerous potential ailments that are caused by atmospheric pollution. We know that people inhale certain substances and that this can cause certain diseases. We know that it is said that if one inhales a great deal of smoke and diesel smoke, this could cause lung cancer. But how long does it take one to find this out? And once one has discovered this, how can one prove the cause? I think we should preferably be glad about a few things that are being stated very clearly in this Bill, rather than try to solve the problem here in its full compass. That is impossible, as you know. The one is research, which the hon. member for Fauresmith has already mentioned, and the opportunity the Minister has now to spend money on that. The other is to help local authorities obtain apparatus for the testing of atmospheric pollution. If we note the fact that 30 substances are already described in the Act, the House can imagine the size of an apparatus that must measure all these substances to be able to tell one how much there is in the atmosphere. It is also a fact that within a mile, in a specific city, there is a difference in the tests that are made. We also know that where there is a concentration of people the position gets worse. The problem will, therefore, be worse where many people live together, as against those parts where the plots are large. If we want to see matters in perspective, there is one thing we must try to get. It will not help us to blame the South African Railways, the State or anyone else. In the first place we must obtain the cooperation of the public. It is the public’s future that is involved here. We must gain the co-operation of the industrialists in the implementation of this Act. In this Bill, as in the original Act, the hon. the Minister has again clearly stated that there will be co-operation between the Minister of Health and the Minister of Economic Affairs. It can damage the country’s economy if the Minister of Health were to decide tomorrow to close down every factory in South Africa. There is indeed not a single factory that does not pollute the atmosphere. The quantity of pollution and the quantity of dirty air that is inhaled is what is actually of importance. In his Second Reading speech the hon. the Minister said that the State cannot be relieved of its responsibility in this matter. The State will co-operate with the industrialists and with the public, but I want to say here today that we shall never get rid of atmospheric pollution. Other countries have tried their best. The United Nations even appointed a commission.

†A United Nations Conference on Human Environment was held last year, and the Declaration on Human Environment begins with this note—

*Sir, I think the whole matter of atmospheric pollution depends on that; one must try to keep the atmosphere clean, but we will never really get it as clean as it presumably was when Adam and Eve came into the world. I should like to thank the hon. the Minister for the amendments he has introduced here. I realize that there will have to be many people who will have to help the Minister, but I am convinced that with the help of the local authorities and the inspectors, the Minister is quite competent and proficient enough to handle this matter, in conjunction with his officials, and to ensure that atmospheric pollution is restricted to a minimum.

Sir, the hon. member for Caledon referred to the problem that there is in Los Angeles. I would like to come a little nearer home, because I believe that there is a similar problem in South Africa, in Durban, where the climate is very similar and where the problem is also one of great importance. Sir, the hon. the Minister referred to the question of co-operation and I understood him to say, too, that the State must set an example. The hon. member for South Coast has made some reference to the South African Railways and I intend to deal with that a little later in my speech, but I believe that it is important, as the hon. member for Caledon has said, that in trying to overcome this problem of pollution we should have the co-operation of industry and all bodies which may to some extent in their activities be responsible for some form of pollution. Sir, this brings me to the Bill which was passed in 1965. My colleague, the hon. member for Rosettenville, has referred to the fact that ten years have passed and there does not seem to have been a great deal of progress made. I think he is absolutely correct. We had the commission in 1961; it tabled its findings in 1962, and it took three years before the Act was put on the Statute Book. I believe that this Act has not as yet been used to any great effect. I do not blame the hon. the Minister, because he has not been in this particular portfolio long enough to make an impact in this particular respect. But, Sir, there has been comment from the automobile associations and from industry that the Act of 1965 lacks teeth to a certain extent because there has been a reluctance or a tardiness on the part of the State to promulgate regulations which would give effect to the provisions of the Act itself. It is interesting to note from the report of the Department of Health itself that progress initially seemed to be rather slow. In the reports of the Department of Health for the years 1965, 1966 and 1967, the only reference I could find of any importance to this particular aspect was that the Minister declared that certain areas were to be smoke-control areas under Part III of the Act. It is also indicated in the report that certain areas were to be dust-control areas in terms of Part IV of the Act. Then, Sir, we come to the report of the Department of Health for 1968, and under the heading, “Control of Noxious or Offensive Gases”, we find that things are becoming a little more meaningful in 1968 because we here have the appointment of a chief air pollution control officer but only in a part-time capacity. Here we are dealing with a problem which is escalating, and after three years since the Bill was passed, in Parliament, the Government appoints an important official like this in a part-time capacity. Then in the same year a chief inspector was appointed so that a start could be made in terms of Part II of the Act relating to the control of noxious or offensive gases. It is interesting to read what the report says about the control of motor vehicle exhaust fumes. It refers to Part V of the Act and says—

This is years afterwards—

So, Sir, I believe we on this side of the House can claim that there has been a rather slow start in this particular matter, a matter of which the world is extremely aware and which we in South Africa must accept in many instances is escalating.

I want to deal briefly with some of the clauses and I would like to ask the hon. the Minister if he would be good enough to examine the English version of clause 4 which amends section 10 of the Act, because as I see it, it seems to be that there is a possible printing error in the English section. The amendment in the Bill under clause 4 substitutes in paragraph (b) of subsection (2) of section 10 of the Act, and I quote—

As far as I can see there is no paragraph (c) in section 10 of the Act. I ask the Minister if he could investigate this so that we could have clarity when we come to the Committee Stage.

Then we have the question which has been mentioned by previous speakers in regard to the use of coal-burning appliances in dwellings and the difficulties that might arise if it became necessary to condemn the existing appliances used by the Bantu in various townships in South Africa. The hon. member for Fauresmith referred to the question of research. I ask the hon. the Minister whether he is in a position to indicate in his reply whether there has been research either by the C.S.I.R. of the standards laid down by the S.A. Bureau of Standards, which would assist the manufacturers of such appliances and therefore safeguard the purchasers of these stoves which burn coal, so that at least they will be in in a position not to contravene the provisions of this Act.

Then I want to refer to clauses 8, 9 and 18, each of which has a portion in the amending Bill which deletes the sentence “in the manner prescribed by law for the promulgation of by-laws of the local authority concerned”. This appears in clauses 8, 9 and 18. I want to ask the Minister, because I am not a legal man, whether there is any suggestion that this provides some sort of release or exemption from the terms of sections 109 and 110 of the Republic of South Africa constitution Act, Act No 32 of 1961. As I understand the situation, certain responsibilities are laid on various local authorities which more or less force them to adopt certain means of transmitting information on matters concerning particular local authorities.

Then I want to come to the question of the S.A. Railways. I know that reference has been made to the clause which virtually gives the hon. the Minister of Transport some form of exemption, one could say. I want to read the particular wording on page 20 of the amending Bill under subsection (4) where it says—

And it refers to “any fuel-burning appliance controlled by the Railway Administration”. It continues—

I think it will take a long, long time at the present rate of progress of the S.A. Railways before they can claim to be taking this provision seriously. I want to draw the attention of the House to some particulars which I believe will illustrate my point. I think it is commonly accepted that very little pollution is caused by electric units, perhaps a little more is caused by diesel electric units—I think to a very small extent. But the main culprits in so far as the South African Railways are concerned are the steam locomotives. In most countries in the world it seems that steam locomotives are being phased out in preference to the more modern methods of traction, like diesel electric, etc. I know that only recently the hon. the Minister of Transport was quoted in the supplement to the Sunday Times as having said that he regarded the South African Railways as being one of the most efficient railways in the world.

Who said that? Was it Ben Schoeman?

Yes, in the Sunday Times supplement. I just want to point out that as far as the South African Railways are concerned I know that they are the haunt of the steam locomotive enthusiasts throughout the world who come specially to South Africa in some instances purely to examine all the steam locomotives which we have operating. I believe that we almost hold a world record in the number of steam locomotives still operating on the S.A.R. tracks. This is the position and what disturbs me is the slow progress that is being made in phasing out a major cause of pollution by means of smoke. In 1961 there were 2 743 steam locomotives in operation in South Africa and 11 years later there were 2 436. In a period of 11 years 307 steam locomotives have been scrapped. It means that we still have nearly 2 500 steam locomotives creating smoke sometimes in the problem areas. We have them in some of the bigger cities, like Durban and Bloemfontein, where a great deal of shunting is undertaken by steam locomotives. I suggest that this is something which should be taken into consideration and that our new Minister of Health will have to make very serious representations to his colleague, the Minister of Transport, to see that there is a greater will to overcome this problem, the elimination of smoke from the steam locos.

The hon. member for Fauresmith made an appeal to the hon. the Minister in relation to the question of research. I wonder if the hon. the Minister can tell us to what extent research has been conducted so far in South Africa. My hon. friend from Cape Town Gardens recently tabled a series of questions in regard to the emission of noxious gases from internal combustion engines of motor vehicles. From a study of the replies to those questions I am led to believe that very little actual research is undertaken or positive information known in regard to the amount of noxious gases like carbon monoxide, the oxides of nitrogen, etc., which are being emitted by internal combustion engines. There is another aspect where South Africa could possibly be taking a more prominent part than it is taking at present and that is in respect of the development of means to suppress the emission of carbon monoxide and other noxious gases from internal combustion engines. We know that in America and other countries of the world where they view the problem with a great deal of urgency, steps have been taken and deadlines have been laid down whereby the manufacturers of motor-cars will have to conform to certain standards as regards the emission of noxious gases. We in South Africa have more than a passing interest in this because the catalyst in the apparatus which is being used seems to be mainly platinum and it seems as if South Africa is favourably placed to supply any quantities of platinum which the world may use for this particular purpose. Seeing that we have platinum available in South Africa, are we ourselves doing any research work to make sure that we are keeping abreast with developments overseas, to make sure that we are the leaders in this field? I know that my hon. colleague from South Coast foresees the day when the problem has been overcome, but I think our scientists still have to go a long way. I believe that our scientists in South Africa could play some part in the elimination of this particular form of pollution. I know that the hon. member for Caledon has drawn the attention of the House to what he believed was a contradiction. He said the hon. member for Rosettenville supported the Bill and it seemed that the hon. member for South Coast was not quite so enthusiastic. I believe …

He is new to the game.

Not the hon. member for South Coast—no.

No; the hon. member for Caledon.

I believe it is the duty of the Opposition—and we have carried out that duty this afternoon—to show that although we welcome this Bill and although it will strengthen the Minister’s powers, we still believe that there is a good deal lying ahead in the field of atmospheric pollution in South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, there are a tremendous number of questions to which I must reply. I am afraid that I will not be able to reply to all of them in the time at my disposal. I also want to take the patience of the House into consideration. It seems to me that interest in this matter has increased somewhat. In the first place I want to address to the hon. member for Rosettenville, who spoke first.

†I must say that I share the doubts to a certain extent and the disappointment of the hon. member for Rosettenville as far as the effects of the original Act as we envisaged them at the start, are concerned. I think that the Act did not work out in practice the way we thought it would at that stage, i.e. in 1965. That is some years ago. Of course, in Cape Town we have the south-easter which blows away much of our diseases and pollution. However, by way of this amending legislation, the Government will see what it can do in the case also of the cities to the north, those cities which are and will have to combat more and more the evils of pollution. At the same time I must tell the hon. member that I am convinced that the amending legislation we have in mind will give teeth—as the hon. member for Berea has said—to the present Act. It will give teeth to those instances which are devoted to the combating of air pollution in particular. Had the hon. member listened carefully to the Second Reading, he would have adduced that we were putting our foot further along this road of cleaner cities and cleaner air. We at least want to start doing something really worthwhile. That is where this reference to “teeth” comes in. I gathered that the hon. member also visualized cleaner air. To some extent I got the impression that he wants the measures to be even more strict than they are at the present moment. I agree with him that we should congratulate the Fuel Board for having brought forth this new fuel-burning appliance which emits no smoke. This is really a very big and important development. There is the problem of paying for these new stoves. So many people who cannot afford them at the moment have the old ones. In the meantime we have to look at that position. At least we are trying to control the selling and the exploitation of those people who still have the old stoves. We do not want to force them to sell the old stoves. We want to stop the buying because there is really no reason why they should buy the old type stoves while the Fuel Board and the people concerned and many firms in South Africa have the other stoves available at the very moment. I also share his worries about the dust-bowls that may be created in some parts of the country. It is important to mention matters like that. It is not only the mine dumps that we are really worried about; we are worried about buildings and about industries like the building industry. However, if the hon. member looks at the legislation, he will see that by regulation one can act against these people.

You must do it.

Yes; but we have only started. At least give us a chance so that we can see how we can ensnare all these people.

*The hon. member for Fauresmith raised a few very interesting matters here today. He raised the question of entering houses, from which it appeared that at this stage an inspector cannot simply enter a house. That is true. There is still such a restriction. The inspector may establish that black smoke is in fact being emitted from the house and he may establish everything as it were, but if the owner does not want to allow him into the kitchen it is at this stage still possible that he may be prohibited from entering. This is, however, a starting point from which one has to educate people. If it appears that we are not succeeding in this and these people continue to make atmospheric pollution worse, we will have to take other steps. It is true that the use of fossil fuels in areas like Soweto aggravates atmospheric pollution. When one flies north in an aircraft one can see how the smoke moves over Soweto in the specific direction of Johannesburg. I drove out there myself one afternoon, and realize precisely what is going on there. It is as the hon. member for Rosettenville explained here. But I do not think the hon. member need be afraid that this is going to impede us in any way.

The matter of the State’s contribution to research was raised by more than one hon. member. This is something which deserves attention, but I think it needs more attention from the general public than has been shown up to now. The State is willing to undertake research and to make financial contributions, but the State also realizes that this problem has, in an escalating sense, become quite extraordinarily difficult and impossible during the last three or four years. I myself was able to observe how in five years’ time the number of motor vehicles on the roads has increased and how the air even in Pretoria has become far worse in the low-lying areas. If you rise only 1 000 ft. the air is immediately cleaner.

All the matters which hon. members raised here, those relating to Saldanha as well, will receive our attention. I may perhaps just mention to you that my department, to whom the aspect of atmospheric pollution has been entrusted, has not been ignorant of the fact that there would be development at Saldanha. At least my department foresaw this, and we have already made provisional investigations there. At this stage we are working on a scheme, in conjunction with the C.S.I.R., to establish what more can happen there in future. The hon. member for South Coast mentioned that we have a wider obligation than merely atmospheric pollution as such. I can tell him that it is our intention to include in this investigation all the general aspects affecting health. I am merely mentioning this in passing. The C.S.I.R. is co-operating with us and we are not confined to the aspect of atmospheric pollution only. I have already introduced the Hazardous Substances Bill here. In more than one respect, and here I am in complete agreement with the hon. member for South Coast, we are involved in all forms of environmental pollution affecting human health, and this is in approximately 90% of cases.

†I am really impressed with the zealous way in which the hon. member for South Coast approaches the problem of pollution.

Everything!

Yes, there is a time for everything, a man for every moment I suppose. It is not his moment in Natal any more, but he makes use of the moments in this House to make a good contribution, something which I cannot say of all members on the opposite side. The hon. member asked for that.

It is in the schedule!

I am impressed with the comprehensive and wide-angled view with which the hon. member approaches this problem and I feel that I wanted to say that I regard his contribution and the approach he has to this problem as something that is really commendable.

The hon. member is a little worried about the fact that so many ministries are concerned with the problem of pollution and with the problem of the environment. That is so, we are only human and in administration we are always confronted with human beings who have to be employed in this administrative structure. At the moment quite a few departments—I think the hon. member was correct when he said six departments—are concerned with the problem of pollution and we use the special knowledge of every department, because in every Government department you will find professional men who have the ability to use their specialized knowledge and to contribute their part. The Department of Health has the task of co-ordinating all this work. That is what we are doing now at the beginning. We are working in close liaison with the other departments and that having started like this, the hon. member should at least grant us some time to get this thing off the ground. We have set our sight firmly on achieving something and he must be fair as far as that is concerned. This is what we are going to do, in any case, and this is how we are tackling the problem at the moment. I think the hon. member must admit that we did not let the grass grow under our feet since last year and that it did not take us long to tackle this problem. We have people imbued with the spirit to achieve something against the scourge of pollution. It is something that affects the public. It is very much in the forefront of the public mind at the moment. We therefore need not worry about that. The hon. member has expressed some worry about the part played by the S.A. Railways. If one reads the Act one might be a little worried about the entrenched way, as the hon. member concluded from these various measures, the S.A. Railways are treated, that they are regarded as something special. This is actually not so, but it is only fair that the S.A. Railways with an invested capital of R1 500 million or more should have special problems that they would like to handle themselves. We therefore had to make arrangements for them. If the Minister of Transport gets complaints from local authorities or from anybody else he has to let me know at the end of every year. He has to furnish me with a report on these complaints and he must also indicate what he has done to rectify the matters mentioned in these reports. After that I lay this on the Table; I lay this before Parliament and hon. members then have ample time to discuss it. The fun of the matter is that there has not been any complaints yet.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? That provision is in the previous Act.

That is so.

Has the Minister of Transport during that period of seven years come to the Minister of Health with a record of a single complaint he has received?

I received a communication from him some weeks ago, but it did not contain any complaints.

Did he wish you many happy returns of the day or something of that sort?

As far as the worries of hon. members are concerned, I only did my duty. If there were any complaints, I would have laid them on the Table of this House. I therefore do not think the hon. member need worry about that.

I agree with one of the members who said that we must sort of entrench, perhaps to a certain extent, the position of the inspector. But we must not go too far. This thing has roots and branches. It might affect some of our officials in other departments. At this moment I cannot therefore promise anything in that respect. I also agree wholeheartedly with the hon. member that children at school should be humanely indoctrinated as far as pollution is concerned. I think it is very necessary. It is being done at the moment. Maybe we will have an Anti-pollution Year next year or the year thereafter.

*Mr. Speaker, I shall not take up much more time, but there are a few other members who raised interesting matters. The hon. member for Aliwal made a very interesting contribution.

It was the hon. member for Caledon.

I had almost forgotten the trouncing meted out to the United Party during the …

Order! That has nothing to do with the Bill.

The hon. member for Caledon must not feel badly about this. That hon. member made a very fine contribution and the knowledge he revealed impressed me. I agree with him that it is a matter of national importance. However, not only is it a matter of national importance but one which influences the future of mankind to such a great extent that it is a matter of world-wide importance. It is therefore essential that the aspect of research and the State’s willingness to make contributions in respect of research should be made really effective. We have the C.S.I.R. and other scientists, who are all people of eminent quality. I agree with him that it is a matter of world-wide importance, and that we will play a not insignificant part in the years to come. Of that I am certain. I want to emphasize that we must have very good co-operation, not only from the public, but also from local authorities. We also have people such as the Government Mining Engineer, the inspector of explosives and others who are statutorily able to help us in this respect. There is also the Department of Labour which has control over factories where some of those scheduled processes are today being carried on. I am therefore making a special appeal for co-operation from our communications media as well, of which the Press is one of the most important, to participate in a deliberate campaign to make our people pollution-conscious, or anti-pollution-conscious, if I may use such a big word.

†I do not think the hon. member for Berea wants me to answer him on all the points that he dealt with in his speech. I wish to thank him for his contribution. I have already mentioned what we are doing as far as research is concerned. The C.S.I.R. and the S.A.B.S. are always willing to help us; they are always willing to cooperate with us. There is close liaison between us, so the hon. member can rest assured on that point. They have already done a fair amount of research, although it is not well known. I am not conversant with all the facts concerning the research already done by them. But, of course, hon. members realize that research is a dynamic process. We realize that we can never stop. As I said at the beginning, this measure will give us the necessary teeth to carry out the specific task entrusted to us.

*The hon. member did in fact raise certain problems here to which I cannot at this stage furnish him with a clear reply. He referred to the possibility that we are with sections 9 and 18 infringing the original Constitution Act. I do not think that is correct. There are quite a number of laws in the Statute Book in which Parliament has made provision for the performance of functions which were unknown in those years. To be able to perform those functions Parliament may at any time allocate powers and also prescribe obligations and penalties. I do not think the hon. member need be concerned about that in general, but I shall endeavour to obtain for the hon. member more information in that regard.

†Sir, the hon. member spoke about diesel locomotives. In this connection I want to mention something that is rather interesting. About a week or two ago I received a brochure in which it is stated that steam locomotives are not the big culprits in air pollution. Actually, smoke from steam is much less noxious than smoke emitted from petrol or other fuel-burning substances.

Sir, I do not think it is necessary for me to add anything else.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

On the 5th December, 1966, the State President appointed a commission of inquiry under the chairmanship of the Honourable Mr. Justice F. Rumpff to inquire into the responsibility of mentally deranged persons and related matters.

The Commission of Inquiry into the Mental Disorders Act, 1916, under the chairmanship of the Honourable Mr. Justice J. T. van Wyk, was appointed mainly as a result of the recommendations of the first-mentioned commission which, inter alia, included the following: “A Commission of Inquiry should be appointed to revise Act 38 of 1916 in the light of the problems of today, and to investigate the desirability of reorganizing the administrative control of mental hospitals.”

This Bill has been drawn up largely in accordance with the recommendations of the Van Wyk Commission of Inquiry and also in accordance with the recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry into Psychopathy. At the outset I wish to express my earnest appreciation towards the members of these bodies for the excellent task they performed. I am fully aware of the personal sacrifices that had to be made in order to bring out the reports timeously.

The Bill will take the place of the existing Act which is still in Dutch and English.

It should be emphasized that the Bill does not include the procedural provisions regarding the examination and trial of persons alleged to be suffering from mental illness. The provisions in the present Act relating to these matters, namely sections 27-29bis will, however, be dealt with in the proposed revision of the Criminal Procedure Act.

The existing Act is to a great extent based on the old British Mental Deficiency Act of 1913 and the pre-Union laws of the provinces. In the new Act recommended by the Van Wyk Commission reference is still made to the Commissioner for Mental Health. The post of Commissioner for Mental Health was created in the period following Union when Health was a function of the Department of the Interior. In this Bill reference to the Commissioner in the Bill has been omitted and the Secretary for Health has been entrusted with these responsibilities. This will bring it in line with modem organizational practices. Psychiatric services have developed enormously over the last decade and are no longer hospital bound. The present psychiatric team consists of psychiatrists, medical practitioners, nurses, psychologists, occupational therapists, social workers, etc. Unfortunately we have a great shortage of psychiatrists in South Africa; especially so in the services undertaken by the State. Optimum utilization of psychiatrists should therefore be our endeavour without burdening these persons with unnecessary administrative responsibilities.

As indicated in the White Papers on the Borckenhagen and Schumann Reports, a decision was taken by the Government in regard to psychiatric services rendered by the State and those by the provinces which was confirmed at a later date. The provisions of the new Act recommended by the Van Wyk Commission have therefore been amended to preserve the status quo. This step will enable the provincial administrations to render a psychiatric service to acute psychiatric patients in provincial hospitals while the Department of Health will be responsible for community psychiatric services and psychiatric services in State hospitals. I am quite aware that this is not the only possible solution to the problem, but medicine is not a static science and I am quite sure that the matter will receive the necessary attention at the appropriate time.

The Van Wyk Commission further recommended that a Mental Health Advisory Council or as an alternative that a subcommittee of the proposed National Health Advisory Council should be established to advise on mental health matters. Cognizance has been taken of the Commission’s recommendation and it will receive proper attention after the acceptance of the proposed new Health Bill. In the circumstances provisions with regard to the matter have been omitted.

The Van Wyk Commission also expressed its views in regard to sterilization and termination of pregnancies. It is our considered opinion that sterilization and abortion should not form part of the legislation dealing with mental health and have therefore been omitted. Provision has been made for separate legislation in this regard.

A last matter raised by the commission on which I wish to comment is the question of clinical psychologists. The commission stated quite correctly that, compared to some Western countries, clinical psychological services are relatively undeveloped in the Republic, and recommended that the clinical psychologist should be given greater recognition as regards his role as psychotherapist. This aspect was stressed by the committee with regard to psychopaths. I wish to give the assurance that this aspect will receive the necessary attention in the development of psychiatric services within my department. However, an aspect on which I differ at this stage with the commission is its recommendation that clinical psychologists be empowered to certify a person as mentally ill. The problem I encounter in this regard is that the causes of mental illness often vary and might be physiological and not only psychological. The clinical psychologist is not trained to diagnose physiological or somatic diseases and defects and in a case of this nature it could well happen that a person could be certified as mentally ill while his illness could have been cured by means of a surgical or other medical procedure. The medical practitioner, on the other hand, receives a comprehensive training and is best equipped to make a correct diagnosis. In the interests of the public it has therefore been decided to retain the established practice in empowering only medical practitioners in this regard.

The Bill is divided into eleven chapters. Chapter 1 mainly deals with definitions and I wish to make some observations pertaining to the definitions of “mental illness”, “patient” and “psychopathic disorder”. In its report the Van Wyk Commission pointed out that it will be observed that the definition of a mentally disordered or defective person in the existing Act in effect defines such a person in terms of practical effects. It seemed to the commission that practical effects should as far as possible be excluded from the definition, but should be taken into account when detention, care or treatment is considered to be still incomplete. Section 3 of the existing Act classifies mentally disordered or defective persons. The commission is of opinion that this classification is out of date and that in any event the classification of patients should not be prescribed in the Act. The extent to which institutions specialize in treating particular types of patients should be a matter for medical and administrative arrangement. Greater flexibility is desirable in the certification and classification of mentally ill persons. The commission therefore recommended that the expression “mentally ill” should be used as opposed to the expression “mentally disordered or defective” and that its definition should be broad enough to include, inter alia, all possible classes of “mentally disordered and defective persons”, i.e. all forms of mental ill-health or disability. To avoid any possible misunderstanding it is considered advisable that psychopaths should be expressly included and that an indication should be given of what is meant by this expression. Some criticism has been levelled that the proposed definition would have the effect of declaring all children “mentally ill” as the development of their minds can be considered to be still incomplete. The commission is satisfied that no court would give such an absurd interpretation to the proposed definition.

The same words are used in the definition in the British Act and nobody has to date attempted to attach such a meaning to the definition in the British Act. “Incomplete” in the definition obviously means “abnormally incomplete”. In view of the proposed definition of “mental illness” an amendment of the definition of “patient” is also necessary. It would be entirely inadequate to define “patient” as a mentally ill person or a person suspected of being or alleged to be mentally ill. Only those persons who are mentally ill to such a degree that it is necessary that they should be detained, supervised, controlled or treated or who are suspected of being or are alleged to be mentally ill to such degree, should be included in the expression.

Chapter 2, i.e. clauses 3-7, deals with voluntary patients, patients by consent and out-patients.

Chapter 3 provides for the admission and detention of patients, cases of urgency, mentally ill persons who are dangerous, the official curator ad litem and powers of a judge of the court. Special attention is drawn to clause 13. The Rumpff Commission recommended that section 10 of the existing Act be amended to include the provisions of clause 13 and the Van Wyk Commission concurred. This provision undoubtedly infringes upon what many regard as a principle that the relationship between medical practitioner and patient should be considered to be confidential and the commission was accordingly of opinion that clause 13 should be applicable only to those cases where the safety of members of the public is involved. For this reason the commission recommended that the application thereof be confined to mentally ill persons who are considered a danger to others and not to those considered a danger to themselves.

Clauses 17 and 18 provide for the appointment and duties of the curator ad litem and clause 19 deals with the jurisdiction of the court and/or judge. Clauses 22 to 25 make provision for the issuing of medical certificates under this chapter and clause 27 deals with the detention of patients who are certified as being dangerous.

Chapter 4 makes provision for State President Decision patients, convicted prisoners who become mentally ill, procedure on recovery of such patients or an expiry of sentence, and the transfer and discharge of such patients.

Chapter 5 deals with the admission of patients from other States.

Chapter 6 makes provision for patients suffering from mental illness who reside in private dwellings with relatives who receive no remuneration, and where a charge is made for maintenance and care of such patients, and for the visiting of such patients by a magistrate.

Chapter 7 deals with the licensing of private institutions for the reception and detention under the Act of mentally ill persons.

In Chapter 8 provision is made for the constitution of hospital boards, remuneration regarding the appointment of persons to such boards, visits to institutions by boards, reports by such boards, meetings of such boards and minutes and general duties of these boards.

In Chapter 9 provision is made for the care and administration of the property of mentally ill persons and the appointment of a curator bonis for such purposes.

Chapter 10 deals with the various offences, e.g. unauthorized detention of persons, false statements and entries, wilful obstructions in the exercise of powers, ill-treatment of patients, offences in connection with the escape of a detained person, carnal knowledge of a female patient, and prescribes the penalties in regard to such offences.

Provision is made in chapter 11 for general and supplementary matters such as liability in respect of acts done in good faith, mechanical means of restraint, escaped patients, expenses incurred in connection with the detention and treatment of patients in an institution, the procedure when persons on board ship or aircraft become mentally ill and disembarking in the Republic, holding of inquiries and execution of orders under the Act, medical certificates, visiting of patients and the making of regulations.

The Bill is based on those principles of the existing Act which have proved themselves over the past 57 years and the draft legislation recommended by the commission was of considerable assistance in the drafting of this Bill. The Bill makes ample provision for the protection not only of the public, but of the rights of the individual.

This Bill created the opportunity to consolidate the existing legislation and to modernize the existing Act. In the light of present day psychiatric knowledge provision has been made in the regulations for—

1. (a) the establishment of maximum security hospitals for dangerous patients;
2. (b) the establishment of institutions for psychopaths;
3. (c) the establishment of institutions for State President decision patients;
4. (d) the establishment of child guidance clinics and child psychiatric units;
5. (e) the observation and treatment of alcoholics and drug dependents who are mentally ill; and
6. (f) the provision of community psychiatric services, after-care and follow-up services.

Although not entirely new concepts in modem psychiatry, these matters are certainly new principles as far as the present Act is concerned. In actual fact some of the new ideas have already been implemented, for example—

1. (a) alcoholics and drag dependents have been admitted and treated in State mental hospitals for many years in terms of section 52 of the Act;
2. (b) child guidance clinics and child psychiatric units have been established in various centres by mental health societies and other bodies and the psychiatric cover is provided by State psychiatrists as an extra-mural activity in terms of section 44bis;
3. (c) the provision of community psychiatric services, after-care and followup services form an essential part of the out-patient services established in terms of section 44; and
4. (d) a maximum security ward to accommodate 100 dangerous White male patients has been erected at Weskoppies Hospital, to which some of the hon. members will accompany us next week.

The draft Bill was circulated to approximately 32 different organizations—to our knowledge all the interested parties—for perusal and comments. Constructive criticism was received and has been incorporated in the Bill. The criticism of a certain organization against the Bill in one of its publications has also been noted. This organization not only criticizes the Bill but goes out of its way to cast suspicion on the provisions of the Bill and wages an intensive campaign against the treatment of mentally ill patients in psychiatric hospitals. Unfortunately …

The Scientologists?

I disregard interruptions like this. Unfortunately this type of action is welcomed by certain of our newspapers. I wish to assure these people that the detention of patients is based on sound legal principles and that their rights are safeguarded by the courts of South Africa. The treatment of patients is based on sound scientific principles and this treatment will improve as our scientific knowledge increases.

In conclusion I wish to thank all those responsible for the care and treatment of mentally ill patients. It is realized that they perform a thankless task but I wish to assure them that their devotion to duty, their devotion to their patients and the meticulous manner in which they care for and treat their patients, is highly appreciated.

Mr. Speaker, at the outset may I say “thank you” to the hon. the Minister for going into such detail in regard to the provisions of this Bill. This is probably one of the most important Bills we shall deal with this session. It is not a Bill that has been drafted in haste; it is a Bill that has come about as a result of investigations and a careful study of the conditions in our country and the needs of those people who are unfortunately suffering from mental illness. It is not a Bill that has been brought about as the result of one commission; it has been brought about through the study and application of responsible people into the conditions that exist here today, and I want to congratulate Mr. Justice Rumpff’s Commission and particularly Mr. Justice Van Wyk’s Commission of Inquiry whose report we received only last week. I also wish to congratulate those who have prepared this Bill for presentation. I have had an opportunity of going through this report very carefully and I think it a most responsible report. It is a report of great importance to all those people who have the health of our country at heart. This report dealt with almost every aspect of mental illness and the allied illnesses. It would have been virtually impossible for us to have included in the Bill everything that has been recommended in this commission’s report. I do want to say that the essence of the work has appeared in the new Bill. In a Bill of this kind it is virtually impossible for us to see eye to eye on every clause but, in the main, it is nevertheless a Bill which is most acceptable to this side of the House and I want to say to the hon. the Minister that we shall support him in the passage of this Bill.

An efficient mental health service depends primarily on those people who have been trained to provide this service, and on the places where the service can be administered. As the hon. Minister has said in his Second Reading speech, we unfortunately suffer from a grave shortage of trained personnel in this country. The personnel we are short of are not only the medical personnel, not only the personnel for the para-medical services, but also for the nursing services. I think it is rather wonderful that we have been able to give such a good service up to now with the limited facilities that we have. That does not mean that I agree that we have nevertheless been able to provide this service and that we have tried to overcome the difficulties which have presented themselves from time to time in this country.

When I first came to this House, I made certain representations here in one of my very early speeches and I am pleased to say that at that time notice was taken of me as a back-bencher and also of my colleague, Dr. Radford. We did have the Minister’s ear and changes did take place as the result of some or our very early requests. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then and I must say that the progress that has been made in the treatment of mentally ill people today in South Africa, although not the best, can be an example to a number of other countries around us, especially on our Continent. Here we are streets ahead of any other group of people in any other country on the Continent as well as on some of the other continents as well. When consideration is given to the cost of medical care generally and the rising cost of medicine over the years, it is quite amazing how mental health could been treated so cheaply in our country as compared to other conditions. I want to pay tribute here to the doctors, especially those in full-time service who surely would have been able to do very much better in the outside world, but who have stuck with the Dept. of Health and the Administrations and have done their work so very well. It has been a difficult job to do, because it is one of the most difficult aspects of medicine. They have stuck to their tasks, however, and have done their best for thousands upon thousands of patients that had to be treated year by year. I want to say a word of thanks to the nurses as well. If any part of nursing is unattractive, it is certainly the nursing of mentally ill people. It is fraught with all sorts of difficulties and unpleasantness. It is a wonder to me that the shortages we have are not more.

I cannot say that the accommodation that is provided for the mentally ill is all that is desired. I want to say to the Minister that if he does not intend building a new mental hospital in Cape Town, then he must spend a lot of money to modernize Valkenburg. I had the opportunity of visiting this hospital and I was rather shocked to see what difficulties doctors and nurses are confronted with and the rather shabby conditions under which some of the patients have to be accommodated. I do not want to elaborate on this because it will not get us anywhere, but I just wanted to bring that to the notice of the hon. the Minister and to ask him to do something about it. Whether the new hospital at Stikland is going to be a relief for this position, I do not know; I have not been told about it.

If I may digress for a moment and talk about accommodation for patients, may I say that if any new institutions are going to be built, they must be built in the cities. The days of hiding our mentally ill people behind the trees in the veld in distant places are gone. Because of the situation of many of our mental hospitals you cannot get the staff to go there. Why is it that in a mental hospital you can only get eight or nine part-time doctors to attend? It is because of the difficulty these people have to get to these hospitals which were built many, many years ago—50 or 60 years ago. I am not sure when Weskoppies was built; I think it was at the turn of the century. We hid away our mentally ill people. Today they must become part of the ordinary treatment of ill people. It makes no difference whether the illness is in the head, the chest, or the tummy; we treat them as ill people. We must have them at our doorstep so that we can have easy access to them. It is not only the question of the access of the doctors and that of the nurses, that has to be considered, but we have to consider the patients’ relatives as well. We have to see to it that they are able to contact and visit the patient as easily as possible because part of the treatment of an ill person today, is to make him realize that he is still part of the community. If we can do that we will have the patient with us. We can get his cooperation. It is no good having these patients miles away from anywhere where they are alone and perhaps see their relatives and friends once in three months, or once a month if they are lucky. That has to be stopped. We have to encourage the building of hospitals nearer to the centre of our cities.

While I am on this point I want seriously to warn those people who are going to build hospitals in the Bantu homelands to make sure, whatever they do, to have those hospitals as near as possible or within the most populated areas of those homelands. Otherwise you are going to find the same set of circumstances with which we are confronted at the moment. There are already certain hospitals today without any trained staff whatsoever. I think there is one at Mafeking and one at Kowie, who do not have a psychiatrist on the staff. Every now and again a psychiatrist visits these hospitals. One of the secrets of treating mental illnesses is to get the acute cases as early as possible and to treat them as efficiently as possible. If you don’t do that, that person becomes a chronic ill person. He will then have to be accommodated far longer than would have been the case had he been treated earlier. The queues of chronically ill today get longer and longer and so does the demand for bed accommodation. If we are to have more psychiatrists and psychologists available things would be made easier for us. Does the House realize that there are at the moment only 128—the figure in 1970 was 125—psychiatrists to deal with the mental illnesses of the whole population? The findings of the commission of inquiry headed by Justice van Wyk found that 1% of our population needs mental attention of some sort or other. This means that for a population of at least 20 million people, each psychiatrist will have more than a thousand patients to look after. Is this possible?

The figure is 1 088.

Yes, the figure is 1 088. Of the 128 psychiatrists that are available 42 are in Johannesburg and 29 in Cape Town. That means that 71 of the 128 are in two cities. What about the rest of the country? What about the hospitals that we have spread all over South Africa? What about the homelands?

It is for that reason that when we discuss this matter again tomorrow we will have to look at the question of the facilities that are available for teaching as well as the facilities that are available for bringing in more people into the country to do this work. We will also have to look at other aspects in regard to better facilities and better conditions of employment for the nurses that we want to enroll and have already enrolled in the nursing services for mentally ill people.