During the Second Reading debate yesterday I asked the hon. the Minister whether there was not in fact some type of typographical error in the English version of clause 4, which amends section 10 of the principal Act. According to my interpretation there was no subsection (c) in the original Act although the amendment refers specifically in line 37 to adding subsection (c). I ask for some clarity in this respect.

I want to bring it to the hon. member’s attention that it actually does not refer to section 10 but to section 9(l)(c) of the Act. If he reads it carefully, he will find that that is so.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 9:

I wonder whether the hon. the Minister can give us his assurance that he will consider amending clause 9 so as to make it quite clear that the publications which will have to be made from time to time, will appear not only in the Government Gazette but also in one Afrikaans and one English newspaper published or read in that magisterial area. I think it is very important that this should be done. I understand from the department that to amend this clause at the moment would be difficult, but perhaps the Minister can find ways and means of amending it in the Other Place.

I did not hear you properly.

It just means that where notices have to be published in the Government Gazette, they should also be published in an English and an Afrikaans newspaper circulating in that area.

We can consider that.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 13:

I would like to refer the hon. the Minister to one aspect in regard to this clause. This is the clause which permits regulations to be made by the Minister after receiving a report from the committee. I have every confidence in the personnel of the committee but I submit that certain of the powers now being delegated by regulation might be far-reaching and could involve a great deal of expense. I refer specifically to the new subsection (3) on page 14 which says that the regulations under subsection (1)(d) may impose, in respect of a contravention thereof, financial obligations in connection with the repair or replacement of the means or equipment concerned. I do not believe there is any member of this Committee who has any objection to the provision as it stands. The point I wish to make is that regulations to be promulgated under this particular clause—it applies also to subsequent clauses in the same Bill—could involve industrialists and individuals in a great deal of expense. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister does not feel that it would be a safeguard to adopt a measure which applies in other pieces of legislation, i.e. that the regulations be promulgated for information in the Government Gazette and that a period of three months be allowed to elapse to enable interested parties to make recommendations on the basis of the proposed regulations. I feel that this may create a certain amount of delay but at the most it could not be more than six months. We have been waiting nearly eight years for some of the regulations to be promulgated, and I feel that a period of six to nine months is not excessive. I would like to ask the hon. the Minister whether he is prepared to accept this, and to investigate it, and if possible to make some provision for this in the Other Place, because as far as I am aware, there are two other clauses which deal with this specific matter in regard to the question of regulations.

This is a new provision and it empowers the Minister to make regulations concerning damage to vegetation established for the abatement of a dust nuisance or to equipment used in this connection. It is a general principle that when regulations are made a period of three months is always allowed for comment. Therefore I do not think the hon. member should have problems there. The reason why the Minister is being given the power to make regulations, and he probably agrees with me, is the present-day practice of eliminating delay. But it has become necessary to define and then to combat damage to vegetation, i.e. the cutting of grass and lucerne, etc., and even where the owner himself feels that he should remove it, he may cause a dust nuisance by doing so. I think we agree as far as that principle is concerned, but, in any case, we can consider introducing the three months’ notice if it is not specifically provided for here.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 15:

The point I want to raise in connection with clause 15 is this. The position in the present law is that if a notice is served by the appropriate officer on the owner of a vehicle which after examination is alleged to be emitting noxious fumes or gases, that person has to put the matter right but may appeal. Up to that point the amending Bill is the same but in the original Act, during the period while the appeal was being held, the person was permitted to use the vehicle. The purport of the amendment in the Bill before us is to eliminate the right of the person to use the vehicle while the appeal is being held. This point has been raised by commercial and industrial interests who feel that the provision in the original Act was a fair provision, bearing in mind also that in the case of the Bill before us the right of appeal has been reduced from 30 days, as in the original Act, to 14 days. I have no objection to that. The period for the appeal has been halved; the man now has to get a move on. He has the right to appeal within 14 days, but, the period thereafter, before the appeal is held, is not determined. It may be held up for various official reasons or administrative reasons; it is not determined; there is no fixed time in which the appeal must be held. Fourteen days is fixed for the time in which to appeal but no time is fixed for the hearing of the appeal, and during that period persons who may be involved could perhaps suffer heavy losses if indeed their vehicles are taken off the road. The only way that the present owner of such vehicle has of being able to use his vehicle, would be to carry out the terms of the order, but that is the very thing he is appealing against. He is appealing against the order of the officer concerned, and it may be that he will win his appeal. It does seem to me that there should be some flexibility in the matter and that while the appeal is being heard the person should be free to continue to use that vehicle. I do not want to move an amendment and I do not want to suggest that we vote for the retention of that particular provision, which is section 38(2) of the original Act. I want to bring this to the notice of the Minister. Perhaps he can tell us what the official attitude is. I want to say that commerce and industry are very disturbed about this provision because of the heavy financial obligations which could be laid upon some owners. Perhaps the Minister would be able to indicate whether it is possible, if not here then in the Other Place, to deal with the matter if it appears to the Minister that this is something which is just and equitable under the circumstances.

Mr. Chairman, so far we have not had any trouble in the sense that persons who perform these tasks have been unreasonable. The hon. member says that he agrees with the principle that we must try to limit these people. The hon. member has a practical problem, but I have a practical problem too. We do not want these vehicles which discharge excessive smoke to stay on the road. It is a practical principle. I may add that since we have no real control over the time lapse before an appeal is heard, he will agree with me … In the first instance he did agree that we should shorten the period from 30 to 14 days.

Yes.

That is all right. Our only problem now is that the period before the appeal is heard is long. I shall look into the question of solving the hon. member’s problem, but at the moment there is really nothing that we can do. We could do nothing under the existing Act or under the Bill to overcome that problem. The aspect which he has mentioned is something quite new, but I shall look into that. However, at the same time the hon. member must realize that even if it does entail a certain financial loss on the part of these people, we must err on the safe side because we want to protect the public—we want to have our air clean. We might think along the lines of allowing the person, if the official concerned is satisfied, to keep his vehicle on the road for the period between the date on which the offence was committed and the date of the hearing of the appeal. Such a person will then have to consult the official concerned. We might think along those lines, to be a little more reasonable. I know that some of the industrial concerns are worried about this clause.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the hon. the Minister for what he has said. If I heard him correctly, he has said that up to now they have had no difficulty about this clause. If that is so, it strengthens my argument, because the law on this subject is perfectly clear and if they have been operating under that law and they have had no difficulty …

I talked about the officials and I wanted to indicate that there has not been any objection against the action of the officials.

No objection against the action of officials?

Yes, against the actions of officials who limit these people.

No, the officials are not involved in this, because the law stipulates that—

That is the notice given by the official—

The hon. member must remember that I said that there was not any appeal. Therefore there could not have been any objection and if there were objections, the people concerned did not appeal against the findings of the officials. That is what I am getting at.

I am sorry—I misunderstood the hon. the Minister. Is the hon. the Minister saying that the officials have issued notices to the owners of the vehicles and the owners have not appealed against the orders of the officials?

Yes, that is the position.

Well, then it is simple. For the odd case where an injustice might be done, let the hon. the Minister leave this provision in the Act. It hurts nobody because, as the hon. the Minister has just said, they are not getting appeals. However, there may be the odd appeal now and again where injustice would be done and therefore there should be some provision in the law to deal with it. It will hurt nobody. On the hon. the Minister’s own showing that would be a simple way out of the difficulty.

Mr. Chairman, this is an increasing hazard. We must foresee certain developments. We know that during the past seven years we have not had the success which at the start we thought that we would have. Seeing that this is an increasing hazard and seeing that this provision has been included and also taking the fact into account that I am to a certain extent inclined to accept that the problems which the hon. member mentioned exist, I think that we must let it stand as it reads now. I am not prepared to change the wording at this moment. The hon. member has no worries about the decrease from 30 to 14 days.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 16:

Mr. Chairman, this clause, too, deals with regulations, but in this instance regulations under the heading “air pollution by fumes emitted by vehicles”. It is not my intention to repeat the argument which I used under clause 13, but I merely wish to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to the fact that I believe here again is a case where he can give consideration to the suggestion that the regulations should be promulgated for the consideration of interested parties. I submit that the carrying out of the original section in relation to air pollution by fumes emitted by vehicles will be mainly in the hands of the local authorities and I do not believe that it would be feasible or practicable to institute regulations which many of the major local authorities might not be able to implement. It is for this reason that I appeal again to the hon. the Minister that when he considers the matter under clause 13, also to take into consideration the fact that clause 16 could be affected in the same way.

Well, we may consider that too. I will consider all the instances where the hon. member expressed concern about the 90 days provision instead of the immediate enforcement of these regulations. I think we will make it a general principle that I will consider the specific problems the hon. member mentioned where we did not provide for that specifically as far as the regulations are concerned and where it is practically possible to come to terms with these people with the problems they are going to experience.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 21:

Mr. Chairman, I did not want to take the discussion any further with the hon. the Minister just now when we were dealing with the previous clause. The Minister made the point that he wanted to deal even with the possibility of further pollution as a result of new developments taking place, the increase in traffic on the roads and so forth. Rather than arguing that I am in favour of a little pollution, even if it is not apparent at the moment, I am now reinforced in my desire to discuss with the Minister the provisions affecting the Railways in this clause. This is the clause which gives the Railways favourite treatment. Exactly what is the provision? We can forget the amendment. The amendment is merely to provide for certain standards which are prescribed and for an order instead of a decision in respect of noxious smoke fumes, and so on, and for these things to be dealt with in another manner. It is now being dealt with by means of an order from the local authority through the Minister. What matters is the position of the Railways. In the case of any other department, as shown in section 47 of the principal Act, the Minister for example has a colleague, Minister X in another department, where it is alleged that pollution is taking place, from smoke or what not. It may be the case for example on one of the sugar estates where they still run steam locomotives. It comes under the Department of Industries. The people concerned make a complaint to the Minister. The Minister takes it up with his colleague, Minister X, who is in charge of the Department of Industries, dealing with the noxious effluent coming from a steam locomotive on a sugar estate. This Minister pressurizes the other Minister. The people who made the complaint are the local authority. They have lodged their complaint with the proper quarter; they knew whom to go to. It is clearly set out that they have to go to the Minister of Health and ask him, on health grounds, to pressurize his colleague, the Minister of Economic Affairs, whose responsibility it will be to put pressure on the sugar estate to see that that nuisance is abated. The shunting engines bringing up sugar cane trucks can be dealt with but when it comes to the S.A.R. big steam locomotives standing alongside and taking transfer of the trucks to the sugar mill, then the Minister of Transport is treated differently. This Minister cannot pressurize the Minister of Transport; this is the problem and the point we want to make. It is more than a problem, because we are with the Minister when he says don’t let us even let the little man and the possibility of future pollution pass unnoticed in this Bill. We are busy with the Bill now, and let us catch the little man who has a vehicle, a motor-car or a little truck, a “bakkie” which is emitting smoke. We have never had complaints in the past as far as appeals are concerned, but it might be that a man with a “bakkie” might want to appeal. We are not going to allow him to use the road until he has put that “bakkie” right. Now what about all the steam locomotives on the S.A. Railways? Why does the Minister of Transport get off lightly? I am not concerned with Mr. Ben Schoeman. I have had my difficulty with him and we are the best of friends today. He has met me in every respect and is spending R1½ million on fixing up complaints I made here a few years ago. We are therefore great friends as I also am with anybody who agrees with me. The Minister has gone along with us and I agree with him on clause 38, that we must deal even with the possibility of pollution in future from the little “bakkies”. But what about the big locomotives of the S.A. Railways? Why does the Minister of Transport not get dealt with and pressurized by this Minister the same as all other Ministers in the Cabinet? There is not a clause here exempting the Prime Minister even. In regard to another matter, with which I will deal later on in the day arising out of the discussion yesterday, there are eight Cabinet Ministers involved with pollution. In reply to a question I put to the Prime Minister last year he furnished me with all the answers. This Minister who is the man dealing with the question of public health, is not concerned from whence the threat to public health comes, whether it comes from the private “bakkie”, whether it comes from a private company which has a steam locomotive or whether it comes from the S.A. Railways.

If is a threat to public health then this Minister as Minister of Health has that onerous load quite clearly on his shoulders. He must be able to pressurize the Minister of Transport in the same way as he can pressurize any one of those other seven Ministers. This is the only logical way that we believe you are really going to grapple with the root causes of the problem of pollution, particularly smoke pollution and that type of pollution which emanates from the consumption of coal by steam locomotives, and so forth. I therefore do come back to the Minister in regard to this clause and say that he must bring the Minister of Transport in under the provisions of clause 21(b) instead of putting him out not on the limb, but in a soft, easy, comfortable chair as in subsection (4). The fact of the matter is that with this provision in legislation which has now been on the Statute Book for seven years, if the Railways are to blame the local authority has had to write directly to the Minister of Transport. The Minister of Transport at the end of each year is supposed to prepare a schedule which he then submits to my friend, the Minister of Health, at the end of the year. In reply to a question yesterday the Minister said that they have never had any complaints handed to them by the Minister of Transport. This really surprises me when I think of the complaints that are voiced repeatedly in this House by the hon. member for Port Natal and others who have complained bitterly about the difficulty that arises from the emission of smoke in their constituencies in marshalling yards, and so forth, and also other complaints which I have heard repeatedly and which have been backed up by the local authorities concerned but which have led to no amelioration worthwhile talking about. The Minister of Transport is not even carrying out the provisions of the law. He is not putting those cases in a schedule and submitting them to the Minister of Health, because the Minister of Health says he has never had such a schedule. The Minister of Transport, he says, has never given him a schedule because he has never received a single complaint from any local authority in respect of a nuisance created by smoke or fume or dust from his steam locomotives. It is incredible; it can only mean one thing, namely, that the Minister of Transport is not complying even with the very small disciplines in the present law. He is becoming a law unto himself. We must come back to this all the time: The Minister of Health is going to be given our full support, and if he has to hammer big men as well as small, we are with him. One of the biggest men he must tackle—and it may threaten his future in the political life in this country, which I am afraid I cannot help—is Mr. Ben Schoeman, the Minister of Transport. That is the task that is facing him at the present time. He will have to give him a sedative or something of that sort beforehand so as to put him in an affable frame of mind before he tackles him, but tackle him he must if we are to convey to the public of South Africa the honest belief that the Government is sincere and honest in tackling this problem. If that is to be the case the same conditions that apply to every other Minister in the Cabinet must apply to the hon. the Minister of Transport.

Mr. Chairman …

Support me!

… as one of the few members who originally served on the commission which drafted the Bill on atmospheric pollution which was eventually passed by this House, I can say that seven years ago the commission was under the impression that because of our geographical circumstances atmospheric pollution in South Africa was not yet of such an urgent nature as it had become in many other countries. It is a problem that is localized. I am now speaking in respect of what the hon. member said about the Railways. The fact that after seven years so little has been done in regard to the matter is further evidence of the fact that the matter is not yet so urgent and that it is of a local nature. The problem exists in ports such as Durban and Cape Town where there happen to be steamers and locomotives of the Railways as well. Now I want to point out to the hon. member that it is not so easy to tell the Railways to put an end to this practice all at once. The Railways are doing more than any other body today to combat the problem of pollution on the administrative level.

I did not suggest that; I suggested that this Minister should control the other Minister. I did not suggest that he should stop the trains from running.

Yes, but I just want to prove that the Minister is controlling himself, the Minister of Transport is launching a very intensive campaign in his own department in respect of the reduction of atmospheric pollution by the steam locomotives. The Railways employ inspectors and every year hundreds of drivers of steam locomotives are fined—the hon. member may ask a question about this—for not acting according to the regulations and allowing dark smoke to be emitted from the chimneys of the locomotives.

He is running away.

I want to tell the hon. member that it is a matter which will eventually right itself. The Minister of Transport has intimated that the steam locomotives in South Africa are going to disappear entirely within 15 years. So it is a problem of a temporary nature. In the meantime the department itself is controlling it to the best of its ability. When it comes to the public services the Railways have to render, we cannot step in so easily and say that they must immediately gain full control over the problem. In Cape Town, where for years you had electric buses running, you are today allowing electric buses to be replaced by hundreds of diesel buses which emit some of the most dangerous gases into the streets—much more dangerous than the smoke emitted by the steam locomotives. Because it is a public service we have to tolerate it. For that reason we must also tolerate the power station in Cape Town, which is aggravating the problem. I want to tell the hon. member that while I fully sympathize with his point of view, and with the sense of justice that goes with it, the Minister cannot yield so easily here and treat the Railways in the same way as the ordinary man in the street.

Order! I just want to point out that the hon. members—I have allowed both sides to do so—have really been discussing the principal Act. The amendment that we have before us actually does not deal with the Railways. That is contained in the original Act. Therefore I cannot allow a discussion of that. I am sorry to “pollute” two very good speeches on both sides in this way, but hon. members must please confine themselves to the clause.

Mr. Chairman, as I said at the start, this was a measure which we have in section 47(4) of the present Act and therefore we cannot actually do anything about it now. The hon. member is pleading that I should control or pressurize the hon. Minister of Transport. It is not for the one Minister to pressurize the other; each one of us should do his own job as well as he can—and for the rest we must co-ordinate. Provisions are made that the hon. the Minister of Transport can be called to account for any air pollution caused by the Railways, but as the hon. member for Parow has said, the Railways is a big concern and special factors do apply to them. It is a question of essential services and we must never be unreasonable in our claims against them.

We never suggested that.

We have the same provisions in regard to the dust control at the mine dumps. I do not want to elaborate on a measure that is not supposed to be discussed here, but I think that he hon. member’s difficulties can be easily solved. I do not of course regard the chair that the Minister of Transport occupies as an easy chair. I must tell the hon. member that I think it is a difficult chair and I do not agree with him where he by implication is levelling an accusation at the hon. the Minister of Transport that he does not supply me with the reports that I must have each year. He must remember that the Act provides for complaints to be made by the local authority directly to the Minister, not to the officials. If we have members here who have complaints as far as pollution is concerned, and they know about that, the course for them is clear. They must bring it to the attention of the hon. the Minister and he is under a legal obligation to put all of that together in a schedule and the schedule must be tabled. Then we can discuss it here in Parliament and Parliament can pressurize the hon. the Minister. It is not for one Minister to pressurize another. At the same time I want to tell him in conclusion that this is a gradual process. We are learning from time to time and I am sure that the South African Railways are doing their utmost to aid us in combating air pollution as far as their operations are concerned. I conclude with that. The clause must stand as it is.

Mr. Chairman, I am naturally obeying your ruling and I am grateful for the little latitude that you have allowed with the hon. members who have followed me and myself. I want to come back to this Bill because I want to deal with the amendment to this clause. The hon. the Minister looks puzzled, but he must remember that he is the man who put in these amendments. What he is saving in his amendment is that the regulations are going to be the regulations which he will promulgate through the Government Gazette. If he will look at clause 9 of this Bill he will find that section 20, which is the one under which the notices have been given, has been amended so that the amended clause, which we have already passed, and I may just bring it to his notice, says:

That is in the existing law and then in the place of the reference to bye-laws comes the Minister’s insertion:

That is the amendment and that is what we have before us in the present clause. The new regulations will be published in the Gazette according to this amendment.

Yes.

… comprising now not a standard, but new standards laid down by the Minister. That is the notice we want him to enforce fully on everyone. We ask that the amendment to this clause be applied equally to everyone by the Minister. I am not saying that he must do it in 24 hours. We have ourselves been at pains to point out that the Minister has a difficult job and that in his enforcement he will have to take certain circumstances and priorities into consideration. We trust his judgment, but in this House, according to parliamentary procedure, thereafter we can come to this Minister as the Minister in charge of all these various organizations. He is the man charged with the enforcement; he is the enforcement agency. We can come to him and say: “You are the man solely responsible. We do not want to be fobbed off on to any other Minister.” These regulations are now, in terms of the amendment, being promulgated by the Minister, and no longer by the local authority. That is the amendment to this clause. These are the Minister’s regulations, and we say to him: “Apply them equally to everyone, not necessarily today. Use your judgment; you have to be fair. But apply them equally to all.”

Clause agreed to.

Title:

Mr. Chairman, as far as the long title is concerned, may I ask the hon. the Minister whether he will request the legal advisers to examine the grammar in the English version? It abounds with split infinitives, and I think, just for the sake of having good grammatical English, instead of “to further regulate”, “to better combat”, etc., it would be better to say “further to regulate” or “to regulate further”. I ask the hon. the Minister whether he will give instructions in that regard.

Title agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported without amendment.

Mr. Speaker, last night I was talking about the shortages of personnel and the difficulties being experienced in filling the posts which are offered. I am also perturbed about the distribution of psychiatrists in the country today. If we look ahead and we realize what is going to happen in the very near future, I think we are going to find that in respect of the Bantu homelands particularly we are not going to have any psychiatrists going there at all, unless we can make provision for Bantu doctors to be given the facilities to enable them to become specialist psychiatrists. At the moment this is absolutely impossible in South Africa. The Natal University Medical School is not recognized as a school for specialist training. A Bantu can qualify at this school as a doctor, but there are no facilities there for him to get a specialist degree. That means that the chances of getting psychiatrists to go to the homelands are nil unless the Government opens its doors to allow the Bantu to get their training elsewhere. Where are they to get this training if not in Durban? They would have to go to the Witwatersrand University or to Stellenbosch or Cape Town to get their training there. I would urge the Minister to investigate this problem immediately so that we can overcome this difficulty that stares us in the face. If you do not do that, and if you are going to depend on the White psychiatrists to go to the Bantu homelands, then firstly it is doubtful whether you would get any to go there because of the facilities that are available there and, secondly, it is doubtful whether it would be a wise thing to take White psychiatrists from their present positions in the White areas, where there is such a shortage already, and put them into the Bantu homelands. Sir, here the hon. the Minister and his colleague, the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, have a problem on which they should take their decision immediately. We cannot allow this to go on any longer.

The other problems that face us are, in a way, almost as difficult to overcome. The training of White psychiatrists today is divided between the training that they get in provincial hospitals, in acute cases, and the training they get in the course of their visits to the mental hospitals which are run by the Government. We therefore have two types of centres at the present time that are available for teaching. The mental hospitals, as the hon. the Minister well knows, are situated far from the towns, and because of that we find that there is a lack of enthusiasm on the part of psychiatrists to go there in a part-time capacity. With the travelling that is involved and the breaking up of their own practices, it is not worth while for them to go there. It seems to me, therefore, that, particularly in acute cases, more and more mentally ill will have to be treated in the provincial hospitals, where they can not only receive treatment for mental illness but where they can at the same time get the associated treatment for other diseases that so often accompany mental ill-health. Sir, I do not know how the doctors have managed up to now to provide these services. As I said last night, it is quite amazing to me that it has been possible for them to do so. But I can see a breakdown occurring one of these days. There are too many people suffering from mental illness and too few doctors to treat them. When we talk about mental illness, I am sure that nearly all of us are forgetting the thousands of non-Whites who require treatment today. They are becoming chronic cases; they have to be kept. If these people are kept in their own homes, then it means that there must be somebody to look after them at home, and the whole home economic structure is destroyed by this. We simply have to find ways and means of getting more people to look after them in hospitals. We cannot afford not to allow any of the large Bantu hospitals to be used for the training of these people. I have said over and over again, when it comes to illness, that illness knows no bounds, and I plead with the Minister again to open the doors at Baragwanath Hospital to the Bantu for training. Because the Baragwanath Hospital happens to be associated with the Witwatersrand University, the doors of the hospital are closed to these people. They cannot get the opportunity to specialize there and, Sir, this has to be broken down immediately. If Stellenbosch University would agree—and I urge them to do this—to take Coloured doctors under their wing and to give them an opportunity to specialize at, say, Stikland, or even at Valkenberg, why should they not be allowed to do so? Sir, we got to break down this barrier which exists at the moment on the ground of colour. If the Minister can assure me that he has made plans already for this deficiency in our mental health teaching system to be remedied, then I will retract what I have said, but up to now I see no sign of any improvement. I can only see signs of deterioration in the present position. The hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, who is sitting over there, knows quite well that in the very near future the Transkei is going to get the opportunity of looking after its own health services. Where are they going to get the staff from? I am not only talking about psychiatric or psychological shortages. It is not only that, but of the shortages right through the service. And it becomes accentuated when you find what is happening in this particular division of health which we are discussing.

I also want to say to the hon. the Minister that better provision must be made for out-patient services. I have taken out some figures. Some of them are contained in the report we received from Mr. Justice van Wyk. Out-patients’ clinical treatment has to be stimulated. In the Johannesburg General Hospital they have 22 sessions a week at the out-patients’ department, which is quite a lot, but at King Edward VII in Durban they only have two sessions a week to deal with those thousands of people. At Groote Schuur they have 22 500 out-patients treated, and again at King Edward they have 1 200, or one-twentieth. Why is that, and what is the Minister going to do to rectify the position? If our population is going to increase as it has been doing in the past few years, this possible 2 million patient estimate will multiply and we must be prepared to meet the position very rapidly.

Sir, with all the best intentions the Minister has come with a new Bill and I consider it a very good Bill. It has deficiencies but, as I said, we will discuss those in the Committee Stage; we have a few ideas about it. But basically it is a good Bill. However, it is going to take a tremendous number of trained people, specialist nurses, a bigger enrolment in the nursing services, to carry out the provisions of this Bill.

I just want to say finally that we on this side of the House will help the Minister to do the job he has undertaken in this matter. He must keep us informed. He must tell us what he would like us to help him with. I can give him the assurance that if he does that, he will get the full support of all of us on this side of the House.

Last night the hon. member for Rosettenville made very strong representations here with regard to mental health services. We appreciated the fact that he meant it so sincerely when he said that this legislation afforded us another opportunity of making a general survey of our mental health services and of whatever is associated therewith. I appreciate his attitude and the attitude of the Opposition in that they feel, along with us, that this Bill constitutes another step in the right direction in the development of our country, particularly in respect of health services. But unfortunately the hon. member for Rosettenville digressed a little from his theme by over-emphasizing too that as far as Bantu services were concerned, specialist training really ought to be the main thing. Sir, a few years ago I had the privilege of rendering health services in a neighbouring state. This neighbouring state has a population of approximately 5 million, and for that entire population of five million there is one White psychiatrist in the whole of the country, but nevertheless certain services are being rendered, and what is more, being rendered cheaply.

But I want to return to this legislation. If this legislation achieves nothing more than bringing us to realize anew that here we are dealing with a disease which is universal, which may affect any of us, then we have done very well and have progressed a long way. After all, everyone has the right to become ill, everyone has the right to become physically ill and similarly everyone has the right to become mentally ill. Where did we start? The Act of 1916 has been redrafted and it is fitting for us to reflect for a moment on the view taken by the general public of mental illness. I want to mention a few examples to make us see what the public’s approach is. If I say to any one of my colleagues that he is mad, that is absolutely wrong and I am even liable to be assaulted. If I tell a person that he has taken leave of his senses, the same thing may happen to me. When a person shows some deviation from the normal mental condition and steps are taken to protect such a person and give him treatment, and it is necessary to afford protection to the people with whom such a person comes into contact, such a person is totally rejected in the public eye; it is said that he is mad. We speak in the same way about the place to which that person is sent. It is well known that if I say to one of my colleagues on either side of this House that my brother has gone to a mental institution, it is immediately thought of as something terrible. However, just as anyone of us may have a physical defect, it may happen that we may also suffer a mental defect. That is why I am pleased that this legislation is being discussed yet again. Our attitude towards mental defects must change completely.

This legislation affords us a fine opportunity of doing so. The legislation has been redrafted admirably, and I should like to congratulate the hon. the Minister and his department and his legal draftsmen. In all the time that I have been in Parliament, this is the first Bill I have come across which reads like a story book. It is beautifully written and divided into clauses and chapters, and upon reading the introduction, one immediately realizes with what the Bill is concerned. There is nothing strange about this. It is concerned with the method and the procedure in connection with a person who is not healthy. There are provisions, inter alia, for the protection of a person who is not healthy and so on. There are provisions concerning the treatment and aftercare of such a person, etc. That is very important. This legislation brings us back to the present. As I have said, everyone regards it as something terrible when we speak of someone who shows some mental deviation. But similarly provision is also being made in this legislation for a certain procedure according to which particulars about a person’s property, his treatment, etc., must be filled in. Now we see that this procedure, too, unfortunately amounts to a certification. If we go back in history, the Chief Whip will remember that prior to the 1948 election it was a matter of general discussion that one former hon. Minister was in possession of a certificate certifying that he was not insane. In politics that fact was exploited, because it implied that he had been in an institution for the mentally ill. Only last year during the American presidential election there was a candidate who had had some mental deviation. When it leaked out that he had been in an institution, it was all over for him. Another candidate simply had to be nominated. Today it is still a problem to protect that kind of person against the stigma which still attaches to this kind of illness and to the place to which such a person goes. This, of course, links up with the plea by the hon. member for Rosettenville that our mental health services must be community-orientated. It must form part of the community. This Bill affords us the opportunity of treating mentally ill patients in provincial hospitals and even at home. They may also be treated in clinics as out-patients. In this way we may gradually remove that stigma, because this is an illness.

The hon. member for Rosettenville also spoke about the nursing staff and about psychiatrists. If we can have psychiatric services, mental health services, in our community and if the public can come to accept this illness as something to which anyone may fall prey, it may come about gradually that these services will draw more members of the public more readily and will attract more personnel at the same time. Not one of us would recommend nursing in a mental hospital to anyone. This is still the position. That is still our approach. If we can succeed in integrating these services with out community, I believe that we shall in fact be able to get psychiatrists, psychologists and psychiatrically trained nurses capable of giving special treatment to the mentally ill.

Then there is another important aspect which has also been written into the legislation now, and that is the function of the psychologists. Psychologists are people who can help a person with some deviation, but not a functional deviation or illness, someone who has a disorder or who lives under tension—as we find more and more today—to analyse his problem and to stay on the right course. I believe that in America every millionaire, every wealthy person, appoints a personal psychologist with whom he discusses his problems once a week. In that way he retains his balance in life.

Another aspect of the Bill which refers to the findings of the Rumpff Report is that psychopaths are receiving proper attention. I must relate an anecdote at my own expense. Under the previous Act, I as a doctor could not simply certify someone with psychopathic tendencies, which might erupt at any time. I still remember the case clearly of a young man who was in my consulting rooms that day. I felt that this man was working up to a climax, but I just did not get the opportunity to climb in an say, “Look, we must put this man away, because he is a danger either to other people or to himself.” I was convinced, however, that there was something wrong with this man. Only the following day this young man, who had trouble with his girl-friend, took a dagger and stabbed himself in his heart in front of her. These are things which can happen, but fortunately provision is being made in this Bill for a doctor, when he suspects that such a person may be a danger either to himself or to someone else, to deliver that person to a police officer who may in turn deliver him to a magistrate to protect him against himself as well as to protect others.

We are pleased that the hon. the Minister has rewritten this Act. We appreciate the fact that we have this opportunity of bringing mental health to the attention of this House and the public once again. We must consider that mental health is a service which this department must provide to keep the public as healthy as possible, whether physically or mentally. Therefore I understand the hon. member for Rosettenville having such serious feelings about this matter. However, I also believe that if we were to debate malaria or malnutrition next week, he would be equally serious. That is as he should be.

I want to conclude with one short story concerning the change in our approach to mental health over the years. I still remember very clearly how we as students in psychiatry 30 years ago had to visit mental institutions. It was remarkable that when the professor was lecturing to us and explaining the lectures to us, it was an important aspect of a lecture on psychiatric patients to show and to demonstrate the so-called straitjacket to the students, because that was our approach 20 or 30 years ago, namely that when a person showed deviations, he was simply to be taken somewhere and confined. I just want to make one request to the hon. the Minister regarding my plea about our approached to mental health, and that is when—I refer specifically to clause 24—a magistrate has certified a person as being mentally ill, he may order such a person to be removed. The word “removed” is not good enough as far as I am concerned. I should like to ask the Minister whether we could not possibly say that this person should be “transferred”, or if we could not possibly use some other word. One does not “remove” a patient. One can transfer him from one place to another, but the word “remove” I regard as something impersonal in the sense that one removes a cupboard or a body or something material, but not a person and still less a patient. I want to conclude by congratulating the Minister and his department once again on the good and excellent way in which this Bill was presented to us.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who has just spoken, is a medical man and certainly knows what he is talking about. We are grateful to him for the examples he has given us with regard to mental illnesses, especially the stigma attached to them. If one thinks that, during a survey in Great Britain recently, it was found that approximately 14% of all adults suffered from one or other disability requiring psychological treatment, one realizes how prevalent it is.

There are two mental hospitals in Pietermaritzburg on account of which I am particularly interested in this Bill. I felt that it was high time that this Bill was introduced to consolidate the existing legislation. I am certain that the Bill will be welcomed throughout the Republic, as it is a very, very responsible move. It gives these unfortunate citizens protection both inside and outside of institutions. Probably the most alarming of all is the severe shortage of psychiatrists who are urgently required for this vital service. I refer especially to the shortage of these medicos in the Bantu areas where they should serve their own people. It would be very interesting to learn from the hon. the Minister what steps are being contemplated to train more psychiatrists of all race groups, as the matter is one of great urgency. Unfortunately I must admit that my own province, Natal, lags far behind in the field on account of lack of accommodation and of psychiatrists. I would like to refer to the Natal Mercury of 28th February this year. The article concerned appears under the caption “For many—no hope”. I quote from the article—

That also applies to the Bantu hospitals for which the Government is responsible. Here I would like to point out that Edendale in Pietermaritzburg is quite near to the Fort Napier mental hospital. I take it that the King Edward hospital in Durban, which is near the university, could likewise be used to train psychiatrists.

The Bill provides for the treatment of patients as medical cases and removes that most gruesome practice of isolating mental patients in locked rooms under most degrading conditions. This type of detention is often brought to the notice of the Police when relatives hide mental afflicted members of their families to avoid the stigma from being brought to the notice of the public. In many such cases the victims could most likely have been cured under medical treatment. Here I wish to mention the report of the commission of inquiry. I quote—

A very welcome provision is the treatment of out-patients who are not detainees in institutions. The Police again welcome the provision that patients shall not be detained in police cells unless it is impossible to remove them immediately to institutions or places of safety. Cell accommodation is at a premium at most times and should not be used for this purpose as it would be most demoralizing to both the patients and relatives.

Another most pleasing proviso in the Bill is the prohibition on the signing of medical certificates by persons mentioned in clause 23. This prevents the possibility of unlawful detention of persons who are not certifiable and whom unscrupulous persons would like to put away for some ulterior motive. On the whole the Bill prevents the unlawful detention of patients, provides for medical care and the machinery for their discharge from institutions when they are entitled to their freedom.

I notice from the statistics in the annual reports that as far as mental health is concerned, there are many more male then female patients who are detained or treated in institutions throughout the Republic. Can the hon. the Minister give some explanation for this annual recurrence?

May I conclude by thanking all our superintendents, their medical staff, their personnel and nurses, both male and female, for the wonderful work they are doing in nursing these patients, a job that must be most trying at times.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg City has pleaded here for better psychiatric services in Natal, and more particularly in respect of the provincial hospitals. The hon. member should really know that the provincial hospital services which are provided, are the responsibility of the United Party Provincial Council. I think that it is perhaps a favourable reflection on the Cape Provincial Administration that they have already incorporated psychiatric services to such a great extent in their provincial hospitals.

Here the Nats govern.

But the fact remains that we are living in a time when the demands of daily life on our intellectual abilities and our emotional stability are continually increasing. In short, in this time in which we are living, we must keep our wits about us in order to keep pace with the tempo of life. It is also a fact that the incidence of psychoses in developed countries and also in developing countries is considerably higher than among the more primitive peoples among whom mental defects are more common. The effectiveness of a service in respect of mental illness depends on various factors.

The first important factor in this respect is the availability of a sufficient number of trained, expert staff, a matter which was very strongly emphasized this morning. I should like to associate myself with that. But what is also of importance is the availability of facilities for diagnosis, care and after-care as far as mental illness is concerned. It is also necessary for us to have effective legislation to regulate affairs in connection with mental illness in this country. It is for that reason that I am particularly grateful that we have here a Bill which has not been drafted without circumspection. It is a Bill which has received very thorough consideration and in respect of which research has been done. I think this is indicative of the very high standards we in South Africa have set for ourselves in respect of all medical services.

In South Africa we had a commission of inquiry that drafted this legislation for us. But it is perhaps necessary to take a brief look at a few aspects of the history of mental illness in South Africa. Prior to 1910 each province had its own legislation in this regard and various and differing standards were applies. In 1909, at the time when the South Africa Act came into operation, mental health was placed under the control of the Department of the Interior, because at that time mental health was not considered to be a medical matter. As hon. members know, the provincial hospitals fell under the provinces in terms of section 85 of that Act. Now we have the position that after so many years the Van Wyk Commission has a totally new approach in this connection. They strongly advocate that mental health should again be placed under the aegis of the provincial administrations. It is interesting to know that the institutions for mental health were transferred to the Department of Health as late as 1944. As I have said, previously they fell under the Department of the Interior.

These recommendations arose from another aspect as well, and that is the increase in knowledge which medical science has acquired in respect of mental health. For example, there has been the development of modern methods of treatment as well as the development of certain remedies, for example, the chloropromazins and the phenotiazones, which have made tremendous contributions to the treatment of mental defects. Also as a result of more effective treatment, we reached the stage where the discharge rate of patients from an institution for mental health compared very favourably with that of the general hospitals, and as a result of this, mental health services to an increasing extent fell into the scope of the normal general practice and also of the practising psychiatrist. But, Sir, mental illness could also be treated to an ever-increasing extent at out-patient clinics at the provincial hospitals, as has already been indicated. Psychiatry has also become an integral part of general medicine. Although this aspect possibly does not apply in practice in its full consequences, I think we are moving in the right direction. We cannot get away from the fact that also in normal organic conditions, the psyche plays a very important role. I should just like to refer to the fact that the Van Wyk Commission made a very specific recommendation in this connection. I refer you, Sir, to page 10 of the report, paragraph 2.9.7—

And later in the same chapter—

Sir, we cannot comply with this overnight. It is a direction in which we are moving and we shall have to move in this direction to an ever greater extent in the future if we want to have justice done to psychiatric services in South Africa. We cannot get away from the fact that this direction will bring about better control and more effective treatment; it will eliminate overlapping; it will bring about savings in costs; it will lead to better co-ordination, and in addition to that, it will to a large extent bring about a change in approach in respect of the prejudice we have regarding mental illness, as has been mentioned here this morning.

There are a few principles on which this matter rests, and the first is that mental illness cannot be treated without regard being had to the patient’s other health problems, and the second is that mental health should not be dealt with as a separate phenomenon. Sir, that also creates the need which I stated here a moment ago. Of course this also has the benefit that, should psychiatrists be integrated on the normal establishment of a general hospital, it will also have a very healthy effect on the students who must necessarily be prejudiced to a great extent because psychiatric institutions have existed as separate units up to now. This principle is very widely supported by a large variety of organizations in South Africa. I should also just like to mention, if we have regard to the fact that mental health in South Africa has already progressed a long way, in comparison with other African States, that we must not rest on our laurels, because the position in South Africa is not a completely happy one, because of these very problems I have mentioned here this morning. It is shocking to learn that at least 1% of the total population suffer from schizophrenia. One out of 10 people in South Africa seeks psychological or psychiatric help every year. Only 17% of the total number of psychiatrists in South Africa are in the service of the State. In the survey of psychiatric services provided in South Africa, we should like to pay tribute this morning to the work done by general practitioners in this connection in the past. They have made a particularly large contribution.

But there are also other shortcomings to which we shall have to give attention in the future, and one which this legislation is possibly not eliminating in its full consequences, is the very important aspect of after-care. At the moment quite a number of shortcomings still exist in the whole matter of after-care. There are too few posts and the readmittance rate at psychiatric institutions is too high. We still have a major shortage of workshops and facilities for labour therapy for people who are discharged from those institutions. Our voluntary organizations, that are doing such important work in South Africa, must spend virtually all their time on the maintenance of clinics while they could to a large extent be employed in helping with the aftercare of patients discharged from mental hospitals. Effective after-care has very many benefits. We must also realize that if we have effective after-care; patients may be discharged more readily and beds may be made available more readily to more acute cases. We should also have regard to the matter of higher productivity, particularly in the light of our manpower shortage in South Africa, and to the fact that when such people may be discharged sooner with proper after-care they may also take up their employment more quickly.

But the commission of inquiry also stressed another very important aspect in this regard. I should like to read from that report in connection with children. In other words, the commission came to the conclusion that since most psychiatric and psychological problems arose in childhood, the most effective preventive measures could be taken in childhood. I quote the following to you—

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I move—

1. (a) is of the opinion that the human environment is becoming degraded in so many different aspects that only a full and searching investigation by a tribunal consisting of experts will reveal the extent and imminence of the dangers facing South Africa; and
2. (b) accordingly calls upon the Government to consider the advisability of instituting such an investigation as a matter of urgency under a Minister charged with full responsibility and armed with all the powers he requires to take adequate steps to deal with such dangers.

There is such a mass of material which is at hand with a very slight effort at research on the part of anybody interested, that one really wonders where one can properly start in debating a matter such as we have before us in this motion. We have to make a start somewhere and I should like, merely because it is a convenient point, to start by saying that we have had issued a report on pollution by the Department of Planning in 1972. I have the report entitled Pollution here and I think all members received it. I think that this is an excellent starting point and I want to say to the department through the hon. the Minister that I congratulate them. It is a small document, it is easy to handle and easy to read. It is a document for which you do not need a lot of scientific knowledge to be able to appreciate and understand. It is a document like this which can do so much to get people well informed in respect of matters on which there is a tremendous amount of confusion at the present time.

In addition to this document there has been issued by the Department of Planning a document which is headed Besoedeling, 1971. It is far more voluminous and unfortunately it is only in Afrikaans. It has been out now for some months, but we are still unable to get a translation of the document in English. Although it is headed Besoedeling, 1971, it was, in fact, only published in 1972. We should like to see that document in English. I myself have seen an Afrikaans copy; I have been through it. Here, in a sense, is set out much of the work and the fruits of the labour done by the various bodies, particularly the Prime Minister’s special committee dealing with pollution and the protection of the environment.

I want to quote from the document entitled Pollution and I turn to page 1, the fifth paragraph down, where I read—

That matter being really as stated in the second paragraph—

Emphasis is being laid on environmental conservation. This subsidiary committee was appointed and in the pages of this report there is much reference to it and to the work it has done, first-class work. I repeat that this report is a very, very important document and a very valuable one. At page 13 of the report I read—

The one I have referred to—

I just pray for that. I do not know whether Besoedeling, 1971 claims to be that document.

No.

The Minister says that it does not claim that and I could not believe that is was so. I do not think that this report, although it is recommended in this form in the first report that I quoted, has been put before the public in a form which is easy to handle. I believe it should be. There is an immense amount of valuable information available; there is an immense amount of confusion. So, having made those particular points, I would like to say that my resolution, in the form of the motion which I have moved today, could have been quite unnecessary if the subsidiary committee of the Planning Advisory Council of the Prime Minister as referred to in this report, had been able to get, what I would call an enforcement authority, to take hold of the recommendations which come and get down to the job of dealing with it.

Recently the Chambers of Commerce carried out an investigation amongst over 100 different classes of people, important firms, and so forth. They found that about 10% of the people were just not interested in pollution. Important firms and organizations were just not interested. It does not affect them yet. As the report they issued says, “for them the red light is not yet shining”. I wonder whether one of these days, owing to this lack of interest, based upon lack of information, a lack of perception and a failure to grasp the importance of what the world is facing, we will be able to put a tombstone over the bodies of the last surviving member of homo sapiens, together with all the other living creatures, having prepared it well beforehand. On that tombstone we will write “We made plans to fight pollution”. There they will lie in their grave.

Who will do the writing?

We will write it all out beforehand. There are still plenty of homo sapiens walking about. Sir, this report, page 12, again points to the fact that in the field of scientific research there are no less than 380 scientific research projects being carried out in South Africa. Every one of them is dealing with some aspect of pollution in our environment. The report again comes to the point and says that only when we have adequately dealt with nuclear radiation which may cause biological damage can we consider radioactivity a form of environmental pollution which we should deal with.

I pointed out in another context that the picking up of empty milk bottles, old newspapers, etc., is really very important indeed. We must go ahead with it. But we have to go very much further than that. I have pointed out that the emissions from motor-cars, like smoke and fume, which can be seen, are very dangerous and should be dealt with, but the emissions which cannot be seen are perhaps even more dangerous. When we are dealing with radio-active material, which people do not understand or know about, and which they cannot see, you come to the situation depicted in a newspaper report I cut out the other day. Here I have The Sunday Tribune of 7th January 1973, with an article called “Climax to the Horror of Thalidomide—R40 million but it cannot buy back all those missing limbs’’. It is costing the people who put thalidomide on the market R40 million; it produced these unfortunate little creatures which we have to call human beings because they were born of human fathers and mothers but they were born with missing limbs and twisted bodies, little creatures, breathing, alive. But what is there about them that is human apart from the fact that they are descended from human beings? They are the product of a specific chemical element which was misused by people and it has cost that firm R40 million for one mistake. But what do we know about the effect it is going to have on our race as a race, biologically, which can produce thalidomide children in every respect but where we will not be able to identify the element which is responsible, because it may be the result of rays coming through polluted atmosphere which can change their characters. We know that it is so. We know that the pollution in our atmosphere today is changing the character of cosmic rays that are hitting our earth; we know that because we can see its effect already on some of our lower animals. Some of the literature today dealing with the effect on lower animals, the effect on them through the alteration of cosmic rays which are reaching the earth, makes most astounding reading. It is not only the air which is being polluted in that way by fumes. Here I want to say that in every aspect of our lives we are by the air we breathe, the earth we walk on, the food we eat, the means we have of travel, the clothes we wear, today exposed to pollution of some kind. Not so long ago we read in the newspapers of some unfortunate children who came into contact with certain material which killed them because that material had been in contact with a certain type of poison which had such a long-lasting effect that it actually killed the children who were associated with the particular garments which were made from that material. This is the kind of thing that is happening, but people do not know it. I felt a thrill of pride when the State President in his speech at the opening of Parliament gave the Minister of Planning a new title, namely Minister of Planning and the Environment. I felt we were making progress, because we now had a Minister and not a group of Ministers who would be the Minister of the Environment. My heart sank when the Minister of Health came along and introduced a Bill to deal with the question of pollution of the atmosphere. I then thought that this new Minister is the Minister of the Environment as long as it does not involve the air we breathe. Apart from that he is the Minister of the Environment in which we live. But I am still living in hope, because he as the Minister of the Environment has the very unsavoury task of starting to work on his colleagues until he becomes the number one man who is going to deal with the protection of the environment in all its aspects. Only then, as I am asking in my motion, will we be able to get right down and do something. We are planning, we have research projects, we are looking into this, we are investigating that, but I want to say in this regard that I was struck by a newspaper article in The Cape Times—I hate quoting that paper, but I cannot help it; it is one of those things where I have to grasp the nettle sometimes—of the 1st March, 1973. That is not very long ago. It sounds to me as if it was only yesterday.

Many a true word is spoken in jest.

The hon. the Chief Whip is no doubt referring to the fact that I said I was prepared to grasp the nettle. Yes, I am prepared to grasp the nettle. The Chief Whip ought to know that by now. This article says: “Six thousand flee their homes as killer gas escapes”. What happened? A ship on its way to Australia with lethal gas in big containers found some of them were damaged in a storm, a round dozen. She puts into Auckland and they unload the gas from the 12 damaged containers and stored it for the night in the middle of Auckland. It is incredible and unbelievable that anybody who has gone further than Std. I and who is in a position of authority could permit something like that happening. Yet it happened only just the other day. The police and the local authority officials had to go out and clear all the homes round about of people because already at that stage, when they discovered what was happening, 350 people had to have treatment in hospital while 45 had become seriously ill and had to be detained—all because of that one mistake. This gives me the peg on which I want to hang at any rate one part of the speech I am making today. As I say, how woefully short is our time to deal with these matters. In an issue of this kind, to whom do the people who first get to know of the catastrophe, go? One of the first things, in my opinion, that the Minister of Planning and the Environment should deal with, is to publicize the authorities who have to deal with the pollution of the environment. If it concerns pollution of the air and it has to go to the Minister of Health, well and good, but I do not believe it concerns the Minister of Health when you are dealing with complaints in respect of radio-active material. This is a matter which is far bigger than the scope of the Minister of Health although I may say in passing that every aspect of the pollution of the environment, whether it is pesticides in the soil or whatever it may be, affects the Minister of Health of course, for he is the man who will have to provide the hospital services to deal with the people when they reach the stage of requiring hospitalization. In the meantime the protection should come from the Minister of Planning and the Environment. Therefore I say we should know to whom the public should go. I would have found it difficult to know to whom to go under those circumstances described in the newspaper. I would have gone to the local authority. Do you realize what it meant to the local authority concerned when those 12 leaking drums of gas were stored in Auckland? They could not even send one single person to go and handle the gas. They could not attempt to do anything about it at all until such a person was clothed in proper clothing to protect him from being killed by the gas itself. Is that uniform, that type of clothing, that special equipment stored all over the place where it is easy to get at? Yet is is the kind of thing that can happen. I doubt very much whether we have a single municipality in South Africa which has the necessary kind of uniform, equipment and clothing which will permit men to go in and handle great drums of this type of chemical without endangering their own lives.

I am not going to elaborate on the question of oil pollution of our beaches and all that goes with it. That is a subject on its own. We could spend the whole day debating that subject because it has reached such enormous proportions. It is of such financial import to us that my mind is starting to boggle at the contemplation of the risks we are running in South Africa in this regard. May I say that the report from the Department of Planning and the Environment, headed Pollution, which I have referred to with approval, deals briefly with those matters. It is to the point and sets it all out very simply. I hope hon. members will spend some time in reading this report. All I want to say on the question of oil pollution is that the responsibility in this regard has been transferred from the Department of Economic Affairs to the hon. the Minister of Planning and the Environment, and also to the Department of Transport. Let me say that we on this side of the House are very pleased indeed to see that; we pleaded for it three years ago and are therefore very pleased indeed. In one of the very last letters I received from the Secretary for Industries, dated 22nd March, 1972—only last year—he said the following, and I believe that this is where the man finally threw his hand in:

This is from the official letter from the Department of Industries:

I think that is a pretty good start which has come from the Secretary of the Department which at the time was charged with the responsibility of combating pollution. What does he tell us? He tells us that the public and the Press seem to labour to a considerable degree under the mistaken belief that oil pollution can be combated effectively. In other words, the implication is that it cannot be combated effectively. This is the department that was in charge of it. Where do the ordinary man and woman, where does the member of Parliament go when the department says: “You are wrong, you know; you have the wrong idea when you think that we can combat oil pollution. We cannot.” He goes on, and I am not going to read all of it because I am short of time:

When I read this, I thought to myself that this poor chap has thrown his hand in, that he has just given it up, but it may be true and I believe it is true. I believe that in all fairness, quietly, objectively, the Secretary for Industry has put down there what is absolutely true. We are under the mistaken belief that oil spills can be dealt with. We believe that the richest and the biggest country in the world—who would it be but the United States of America?—could handle the Torrey Canyon disaster for example. He says that they cannot, as late as March last year, which is exactly a year ago, and if there have been any great steps forward then I am yet to hear of them. But I want to emphasize that we want to know to whom we can go to deal with pollution in its various forms, pollution of the air, sea, the rivers, the dams, the soil and every other aspect. We want to be able to know whether that pollution is taking place and here we need scientific guidance. That is why I ask for what is here called a tribunal. It is not a tribunal in the sense of three people; it is a tribunal in the sense of the special subsidiary committee referred to in this report which has done such good work, the subsidiary committee under the Planning Advisory Council of the hon. the Prime Minister. That subsidiary committee can do the job. They are not all scientists, they have specialists in various disciplines and that is what we want. We want the widest possible spectrum provided for these folk, qualified, each in his own discipline, to have a look at the question and then come back to us and enunciate degrees of priority. This is the first thing South Africa has to spend money on and I emphasize that because all these things are going to cost money. Where does the money come from? Are we going to start arguing whether it is going to be Parliament, the provincial councils or the municipal councils and allow the pollution to go on raging through our atmosphere, through the sea waters which are today becoming more and more polluted, through our big dams or through our rivers? Do we allow the pollution to go on raging while we argue who is going to pay to take steps first to stop and then to redeem the position? This is where we want to know who is going to pay. We want it to be clearly set out in words of one syllable that the public shall understand. Then they know that they can take the complaint to so-and-so in regard to that kind of pollution, once they are able to recognize the pollution. They should know that the payment will follow such and such a line. Some years ago, in connection with the Water Act, we tried to get an enforcement agency. I want to ask the hon. the Minister to, in view of the statements that are made in this booklet, to tell us in his reply today—and I am not dealing with the sea, but with our freshwater lakes, our rivers, our dams, our ponds and our fresh-water system—who is the Minister who has charge of the research and the enforcement of our laws dealing with the pollution of those fresh waters in our country. Who is the Minister and to whom can we go if there is pollution in a river, a dam, a lake or in any of our fresh waters? To what Minister can we go with the sure knowledge, with the certainty that we are going to the right Minister who is charged with the responsibility of seeing that the law is enforced in regard to any transgressions in respect of pollution of those waters? Sir, it is vital that we should know this. We must know what the danger is and what danger is paramount. Radio-active fall-out a year ago was of little consequence in South Africa, but has it become of greater consequence? Is air pollution the most dangerous, and if so, where does this come from? From whence does it spring? Can we tackle that? Our money is going to be limited. The hon. the Minister of Health is going to have a thankless task, because he will have to go very carefully in the enforcement of the law which has now placed this power in his hands.

So that we may identify the pollution, may I say that I believe that there are certain practical steps to be followed, and I should like to recommend them to the hon. the Minister. The first is by legislation. Our laws are quite inadequate. Then there is research. I have pointed out that last year there were 380 research projects already under way in South Africa. Then there is education, and by this I mean education for adults, education for our children and education for people who must be specially trained to handle the enforcement of our anti-pollution laws, whatever field it may be in. It is no good hoping that we can just go into the streets and recruit people to go and enforce special laws dealing with the amelioration of the position and, if necessary, the prosecution of offenders who may be guilty of polluting our environment. Then, Sir, there is the question of the non-Whites. They need special treatment. It is no good sending into the highlands of Zululand a fellow with a M.A. or B.Sc. degree that he acquired at a university if he cannot speak their language and does not know anything about their customs. The first thing he will do is to put their backs up because of his approach in trying to get them to understand some of the dangers which affect them as much as they are affecting us. In dealing with the non-Whites, whether they are the Bantu, the Indians or the Coloured people—and particularly do I speak on behalf of the Bantu—I say that you have to have a psychological approach to make them willing to listen, so that they will be prepared to lend their aid, because they are part of our population here in South Africa. You cannot poison only the White population; you cannot have the environment of the White population polluted while the other folks go free; nor can we pollute their environment while we go free.

So, Sir, this is a vast subject, but with these few thoughts I would say to the Minister that I am glad that he now has the title of Minister of the Environment. I congratulate his department on this booklet. I ask him please to give us the other booklet referred to here, in handy booklet form, so that the public may be instructed. We want to know who is going to enforce the law and what is going to be done in regard to research, so as to show us which dangers have the top priority, so that we can grapple with those which are worst in the first instance.

Mr. Speaker, we have listened attentively to the hon. member for South Coast. In 1971 a very similar motion was introduced by the hon. member for Orange Grove, and last year a very similar motion was again introduced by the hon. member for South Coast. On both of these occasions we thought it fit not to introduce an amendment. I believe that there is no one on this side of the House who does not greatly appreciate the hon. member for South Coast and his people on the other side of the House, for the serious way in which they approach this matter. But for reasons which we shall try to give this afternoon, we have nevertheless thought it fit to move an amendment. We agree with most of the points mentioned by the hon. member, but despite that fact we have nevertheless thought it fit, for reasons we shall give, to move the following amendment this year—

1. (a) conscious of the dangers threatening the environment and the urgent necessity of combating the pollution thereof in its various forms; and
2. (b) mindful of the respective roles to be played in this connection by the public and the private sector,

Notwithstanding the fact that we appreciate everything said by the hon. member for South Coast, we nevertheless move this amendment because we on this side of the House should like to act somewhat more positively. Sir, there are other hon. members on this side who are going to participate in this debate and for that reason I do not intend to dwell on all aspects, but we on this side should like to express our appreciation towards the Government, for the reasons we shall mention later; thence this amendment. Sir, we have great appreciation for the work which is being done by the Committee on Environmental Conservation, which was established in 1972 and to which the hon. member for South Coast also referred. This committee is under the chairmanship of no less a person than the Secretary of this department, who, at the same time, is the Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Planning Advisory Council, as the hon. member said. We are very grateful for this committee which is constituted of representatives from all the important state and statutory bodies which are up against pollution problems. We are very grateful for the fact that we know that it is this very committee which reports directly to a Cabinet Committee, of which the hon. the Minister of Planning and the Environment is the Chairman. We therefore have the assurance that the information collected by this committee is reported directly to a Cabinet Committee, i.e. to the Government itself. Sir, this South African Committee on Environmental Conservation is of great value because information is passed to this committee by many very important and responsible bodies. The president of the C.S.I.R. is the chairman of the national work groups which perform certain tasks and subsequently supplies this committee with the necessary facts. Sir, our environmental problems cover a very wide field; they cover our soil, our water resources, the atmosphere, the sea and ultimately man himself. It goes without saying that many of these fields fall within the operational spheres of many of our departments of state and statutory bodies. We think, for example, of the Department of Planning and the Environment, the Department of Health, the Department of Water Affairs, the Department of Mines, the Department of Agricultural Technical Services, and statutory bodies such as the Atomic Energy Board, the Medical Research Council and the Fuel Research Board. All of these people, in one way or another, have the task of concerning themselves with the acquisition of knowledge in connection with these pollution problems to which the hon. member referred. This is the wide front on which our people are giving attention to these problems, ones we have already identified to a large extent, and finding solutions to them.

We want to contend ourselves by mentioning just a few examples. We want to refer to the Water Research Institute of the C.S.I.R. which is concerned with the purification and the reclamation of factory effluent. Only yesterday we had here at our office a man who is stationed at such a regional office in the Wester Cape where they see to the factory and other effluent in the Berg River and concern themselves with our sea areas, here at Strandfontein, and with various projects. In other words, we note with appreciation, and our people must note with appreciation, that we have identified the problem and are trying to do something about it. Then we have the atmospheric pollution group of the C.S.I.R. We do not want to say a great deal about that, because we know that this group, not only in the urban areas, but also where new industries are being established, is doing a gigantic job of work in this very regard. Our hearty thanks to the hon. the Minister and his department, as well as to the president of the C.S.I.R. for the visit the executives of the planning groups on both sides could pay the institute in Pretoria. I want to tell this House, and our people outside, that we were impressed by the work these people are doing, for example, with regard to the establishment of the third Iscor at Newcastle, in which case they eventually located these factors, after thorough research had been conducted, at a place where it could do the least damage, as regards atmospheric pollution, to man and his environment. In this century in which we are living we are also concerned in a division of aviation engineering. Since we have this other level of pollution, they are engaged in the question of aircraft noise at our airports. Surely we cannot let this pass unnoticed and not express our appreciation. Our Fuel Research Institute is engaged in the development of smokeless carbon, and our people must know this. Recently we saw the wonderful effect this kind of research can have on a metropolis such as London in respect of smog. There are parts of that metropolis in which smog, as we knew it there, has virtually disappeared. It is simply amazing. In other words, we concede that these problems exist but we move this amendment out of appreciation for what our people are doing about them.

Then we come to a totally different aspect, and that is the work done by our National Parks Board and other park boards in connection with the protection of our fauna and flora. We may have something more to say about that in a moment if time permits. Then, last but not least, time being short, we cannot but refer to what our Department of Agricultural Technical Services, under the guidance of these bodies to which we have just referred, is doing, and what they have already achieved in respect of conservation farming practices. No, Sir, we cannot allow these matters to pass unnoticed and not express our appreciation. During the visit to the C.S.I.R. last year the president joined our group at a late stage because on that day—the hon. member also referred to it—he had to attend a very important meeting on floating water plants, such as hyacinths in the Hartebeespoort Dam. We have identified this problem and our people are at present actively engaged in giving their attention to this kind of pollution. We have another water pollution problem in our peri-urban lakes, particularly in the region of the Witwatersrand. Another work group is essentially engaged—I feel inclined to say engaged every day—in dealing with that and they are doing everything in their power to find solutions. Will you allow me, Sir, to point out to this House what bodies are engaged in this? There is virtually no body which is not engaged in dealing with the problem of the pollution of inland waters. Engaged in this is the C.S.I.R. itself, the Department of Water Affairs, the Department of Agricultural Technical Services, the Department of Health, the Department of Planning and the Environment, the Bureau of Standards, all the Provincial Administrations, the University of Natal, the Rand Afrikaans University, the University of the Orange Free State, the University of Port Elizabeth, the University of Potchefstroom, Rhodes University, the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Pretoria. In addition to all these bodies there is also the Water Research Commission of the Rand Water Board. What struck me on the occasion of that visit was the fact that the museums of Albany and Port Elizabeth had not been omitted. In other words, we are engaging everyone in this problem which we have identified and of which we have taken note. We have not only taken note, we are also giving it our attention.

There is another programme in respect of ecology. What are these people concerned with? These people are concerned on a totally different level. They are concerned with the conservation of threatened and rare animal species for posterity and therefore it is a privilege for me, as a much younger man, to convey our thanks to the hon. member for South Coast for what he has done in respect of this matter. If we think of the white rhinoceros which would almost have become extinct if it had not been for that hon. member, we must thank the hon. member most sincerely. Not only the white rhinoceros but all species of animals which are threatened with extinction are being protected in a scientific manner. Everything in our power is being done in this connection. I wonder if the hon. member will take it amiss of me if I refer to him and say that he saved the white rhinoceros because he himself can sometimes act like a white rhinoceros. Therefore we respect him and appreciate him. It was once my privilege to travel to Bremen on a ship on which there were four white rhinoceroses. The first group cost R10 000 apiece, and now they are already so numerous, the hon. member for South Coast has farmed so successfully, that they can now be bought at R5 000 apiece. In this motion we must express our thanks to all persons and bodies who have made these things possible.

There are also people who concern themselves with threatened and rare species of plant life. In these two respects we think of—see the extent to which we already have co-ordination—the Departments of Agricultural Technical Services and Forestry, the Parks Board and the Universities of Cape Town, Pretoria and Stellenbosch. Through the C.S.I.R. and by means of this programme in which they are engaged, they are giving attention to noxious plants, herbicides, insecticides and other related matters. I think we should really note with appreciation today the fact that in South Africa these problems are in the first place being identified by this department with all its related bodies and in the second place that attention is given to all the problems to find the necessary solution.

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

Afternoon Sitting

Mr. Speaker, before the House adjourned for lunch, I was pointing out what had been done in this country over approximately the past 12 months with regard to all these problems which are being experienced in connection with pollution on the levels referred to, viz., the land, water resources, the atmosphere, the sea, and man himself. We tried to indicate that we are in full agreement with everything which had been said by the hon. member for South Coast. We felt however, that we wanted to avail ourselves of this opportunity to prove what had been done during the past year to cope with the problems which arose, in a meaningful and co-ordinate manner. I do not believe that I am exaggerating when I say that what has been done in respect of this matter in the past year is surely one of the most comprehensive national programmes which could ever have been launched in respect of this matter. That a great deal more could perhaps be done, we concede. With a view to the fact that we are contending here with a serious problem, we would like, by means of this amendment, to convey our sincere thanks to the Minister and all the related organizations which have given him meaningful support in the recent past and have made it possible for us to demonstrate to this House and to South Africa what has in fact been achieved. We trust that in the years ahead we shall continue to do the same.

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that the Government side has broken with the old tradition of the past today by introducing an amendment on the question of pollution through the hon. member for Smithfield. There should not be any division of opinion in this House on matters as important as this one. The motion will in any event lapse, and we shall not have a division on it. I am therefore unable to understand the motive behind the amendment.

I am convinced that every hon. member in this House does believe that the standard and beauty of our environment is being impaired by modern civilization and by man. I am sure that every member in this House will agree that we must stand together and join hands in protecting our environment. I cannot believe that today, as in the past, there are still members in this House who will say that we are against progress when we plead for the combating of pollution and the protection of the environment. I cannot believe that there are still members who will say by way of interjection that we are against progress when we plead for a Ministry of Pollution, as we did in the past. Later we will not be able to grow and progress if we do not begin today with the control of pollution and the protection of the environment. There is enough evidence of serious pollution in the world around us as well as here in our own country. This excellent report, Besoedeling, 1971, points out that as far back as 1930 6 000 people in the Meuse Valley in Belgium were affected and took ill as a result of atmospheric pollution. Sixty of those people subsequently died. That did not have the necessary effect which one would have expected. We find that other countries in the world saw the example, i.e. 60 deaths, but that they did not take much notice of it, nor did they do much to combat similar incidents in their own countries. In this report there are two excellent examples of what still happened after that, which I wish to read to the House. I quote (translation)—

Their health still suffered because of it ten years after it had happened. There is also a second incident. I quote

That is the gravity and the extent of this matter. It is for that reason that this side of the House approaches this important matter with such seriousness. There is also the classic instance in Japan, in the small fishing community of Minamata, where the cats went mad and the people also began to die after a while. It happened in 1953 in the most southerly island in Japan, viz. Kyushu, when the cats began to pine away in the streets. They became sick and staggered around, while some died. Some fell into a coma, while others went mad. In December of that year the first people died of convulsions. Over the following eight years 43 people out of a population of about 10 000 died, while 68 people, most of them babies and children, suffered permanent impairment in an awful manner. Some of them were mentally affected, intellectually retarded, and some also sustained physical injuries. I am not even including the hundreds of people who were only temporarily affected and the others who possibly sustained pre-natal brain damage. The symptoms shown by these people were very strange indeed. First there was a loss of co-ordination, a kind of numbness of the limbs. Then there was also partial deafness and blindness. Some of them had involuntarily convulsions, some wept and screamed in an uncontrolled manner, after which they fell into a coma and died, just as the cats had died. The authorities did of course investigate the position immediately, but they could not determine the cause of this strange condition. Many thought that these people were suffering from a form of brain fever. After a few years’ search and research the cause was found, and it was found in the mud and slugde of Minamata Bay. They found that the sludge contained 2 100 parts of mercury per million, coming from the drainage sewers of a neighbouring factory. It was also found that the fishes and sea-life had been contaminated by mercury. This fishing community was to a great extent dependent for its food on the fish and sea-life which they caught. In spite of this warning in Japan and the example of the chemical and plastics industry which had caused the pollution, this still did not cause the authorities to wake up to reality and bring the importance of the matter to their attention. Barely four years later a similar tragedy was repeated in the small Japanese town of Nügata, where 28 people were seriously affected and five died. It takes a very long time to make governments, other authorities and the man in the street aware of the seriousness of problems of this type. In this instance the source was once again a plastics factory which polluted the sea with mercury via its sewers. These were merely the symptoms which could be measured and the people who could be counted. There are many of them who showed chronic and subclinical symptoms with effects which could not easily be detected and measured. Large numbers of children sustained permanent brain damage as result of this unpleasant experience. It is also known now that this type of poisoning can cause mutations in the cells of living organisms. These mutations can be brought about by damage to the chromosomes, which can even affect posterity, and there were also indications that a large number of deformed babies were born as a result of these disasters.

There are also other heavy metals which can cause poisoning of this nature, such as chrome, cadmium, selenium and lead. In Roman times lead poisoning was already a problem. The skeletons which they are now digging out in places such as Pompeii and Rome, particularly those of the richer classes, often show signs of lead poisoning. Even today the damage can be detected in the skeletons. This lead poisoning was sustained through the drinking water in their houses, in the fountains which the rich Romans so liked to have in their courtyards. They were mainly the ones who were affected by it. In order to operate these fountains, the ancient Romans laid lead piping to bring the water to their houses. Consequently large numbers of them died as a result of lead poisoning.

In spite of this age-old warning which has been clearly recorded in the annals of history, we find that lead poisoning is still a common occurrence today. This is found particularly in children living in old houses where a paint was used which contained lead a few years previously. It was fashionable to finish off the woodwork with white lead paint. Subsequently one finds children biting on the window-sills and taking in the lead in that way. Now and then such instances still occur. In spite of these repeated instances of lead poisoning, we find that this Government still allows the big petrol and oil companies to add tetra-ethyl lead to their petrol for no very important reason, as far as we can ascertain. The purpose behind the addition of the tetra-ethyl lead to the fuel is to reduce the engine knock. Apparently it does not affect the octane rating in any way. I myself have already seen petrol attendants affected by lead poisoning as a result of the fact that they are continually in contact with petrol fumes. There are also sub-clinical phenomena which could possibly affect these people. These are not easy to notice, and consequently I would like to ask the Government if they would not seriously investigate this matter with a view to ascertaining whether it would not be possible to forbid the addition of tetra-ethyl lead to fuel. As far as I can find out, there is no definite reason why it should be added. This is done for no reason connected with engineering nor for the manufacture of a high-octane rating. To me it seems that the only reason is to improve this knock property of petrol. The Standard Oil and Gulf Oil Companies in the United States say that if they gave up using tetra-ethyl lead it could possibly be more expensive to manufacture that fuel, but they admit that engines would in that case very probably last longer and that the wear and tear and maintenance costs of such a motor vehicle engine would be reduced. It has been determined in Britain, in places such as London, that the removal of the tetra-ethyl lead from petrol has enabled them to reduce the pollution of the air by lead by about 7%. That is still well below the danger zone and by this I do not wish to suggest that we are all very close now to the point of sustaining lead poisoning, but if the environment and the air which we breathe is gradually poisoned by lead, it means that we shall be able to tolerate so much less of those heavy metals if we should take them in from some other source. The point is that so many children play in playgrounds next to the expressways of our cities and in the little parks and lawns where this lead is slowly settling and accumulating in the form of a grey dust. Is it necessary for us to be instrumental in such an accumulation of lead in our environment? I would like to plead that this matter to be carefully investigated with a view to forbidding it.

Now we come to the point that there are thousands upon thousands of manufacturers, industrialists and companies, each of which is polluting the atmosphere in its own way, because of its activities, by means of its chimneys, sewers and refuse dumps. How is the Department of Planning going to investigate all those various industries? How can an inspectorate, with the limited manpower available, visit all those hundreds of industries and crawl into holes to ascertain the extent to which they are polluting the environment? Therefore I wish to suggest that the only practical way in which something like this can possibly be done, is by compelling such industries through legislation to send in, of their own accord, statements specifying the kind of pollution which their particular industry is guilty of. The engineers of such an industry are themselves aware of the kind of pollution which their chimneys cause and of the type of waste material which runs out of their sewers, because they can test it themselves and they should be obliged to fill in those forms themselves and send them to the departments which are responsible for and concerned with the matter. Such a system is already being applied in the United States. It is nothing new, and I feel that we could perhaps apply it very profitably here in South Africa as well. If such an industry should then make an incorrect return, the Minister must have the right to take that industry to court in terms of legislation. To me this seems to be one of the only practical methods for trying to cover this whole field of pollution. It will very greatly facilitate the task of the inspector. It will also facilitate to a tremendous extent the drafting of priorities and the isolation of those industries which are most guilty of polluting our environment. We on this side believe in the principle that each manufacturer should be held responsible for his own pollution and also, where possible, for combating it. Legislation requiring this return also fits in with that principle.

I would like to support further the motion by the hon. member for South Coast and ask for a separate ministry with its own department to combat pollution of the environment. There must be a permanent vigilance body which will be able to protect the three branches of pollution of the environment—the air, the land and the sea. The department must have blanket powers and must be able to accost other departments if the action they take should perhaps not be positive enough. In the United States of America they have such an organization, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, with an administrator, Mr. William Doyle Ruckels-hause. President Nixon called him “the enforcer”. In common parlance he is known as the pollution policeman. I feel that it is essential that we in South Africa should have here a similar inspectorate which can take action in instances where there is serious pollution.

What is the position in South Africa today? We see that the protection of the environment has been bogged down in a number of committees, or that is how it appears to me. There is, firstly, the Department of Planning and the Environment under the hon. the Minister. Then there is a Cabinet Committee consisting of the Minister of Planning and the Environment, the Minister of Health, the Minister of Economic Affairs and the Minister of Water Affairs; four Ministers are therefore serving on it in an attempt to co-ordinate matters. Then there is also the Prime Minister’s Planning Advisory Council, which in turn has established an auxiliary committee on pollution, a committee consisting of 10 departments and eight other bodies. I just hope that they will be able to co-ordinate that complex organization of theirs properly in the future. To me it looks very much like the Tower of Babel, and we just hope that they will be able to function correctly in the interests of South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, although I cannot agree with the request contained in the motion moved by the hon. member for South Coast, I really think that he deserves credit for creating another opportunity to discuss this very urgent problem of pollution. We must also give the hon. member credit for his dedication in this respect. In spite of his age, he is still willing to put in much time and energy to protect what is worth while and beautiful in nature.

I am still dangerous.

Yes, I am coming to that aspect. If Parliament can succeed in holding out the hon. member for South Coast as an example to the general public and get more people interested, individually and collectively, I think we will really be making headway in this respect. Where the hon. member for South Coast fails, however, in his endeavours towards a wonderful ideal, is in the practicability of what he suggests. I agree with the hon. member for Smithfield and therefore heartily support his amendment, that the problem of pollution has already been identified and that the hon. the Minister concerned and his department are making headway to such an extent that it really deserves the gratitude of every person interested in this problem. We have already passed the stage where it is necessary to have a tribunal, as the hon. member for South Coast has suggested, a tribunal consisting of experts to investigate the dangers of pollution. We already have expert knowledge; we already have a Minister of the Environment, who is also the Minister of Planning, and this Minister and his department are dealing with this problem with the very able assistance of several committees, the committees and numerous experts referred to by the hon. member who has just spoken and the hon. member for Smith-field. I do not think that we here in this Assembly can regard ourselves as experts or try, as casually as we have today, to act as experts. We should really leave that to the people who are experts indeed. What we need now at this moment is to get the general public interested in supporting the efforts of the hon. the Minister and his department.

*In the past, when motions of this nature were discussed, the hon. member for South Coast even went as far as saying that there should be an individual Ministry with an individual Minister, who should even be sought outside Parliament, if necessary. This well-nigh puts me in mind of what the hon. member for Smithfield said this morning in affectionate reference to the hon. member for South Coast, when he spoke of him as a “white rhinoceros”. The idea the hon. member expressed here last year, in respect of the kind of man who must hold this office, makes me think that he wants a kind of white rhinoceros to charge people and bump them around. I believe it is a good thing we have a Minister who wants to persuade people and prevail upon them to co-operate for the sake of this big ideal. Therefore it is perhaps fitting for me to remind the hon. member for South Coast and the hon. member for Benoni, on this occasion, of the statement which the hon. the Prime Minister issued on 31st July last year when he brought about changes to the Cabinet. He said—

This is proof that this matter is regarded at the highes level as one of our foremost priorities. The problem we are faced with, and which we want to discuss today, not as experts, but in outline, is a world-wide problem. What bothers one is the fact that this problem is linked and closely related to the increase in the number of human beings, their progress and the creation of more pleasant possibilities of existence. Man, who has more intelligence than any living being in creation, is the creator of this particular problem. His conquest of the technological field, specifically, is aggravating this problem by the day. Therefore I say that we must make man aware that he must apply his intelligence, and not only his intelligence, but also discipline, in order to overcome this problem. Here in South Africa we are lucky, in a certain sense, in that we can learn from the adversity pollution has brought to other parts of the world, from the problems it has created, but also for solutions that have been found. Here there has already been reference to several countries, and those of us who have visited Britain are aware of all the things that have been put to work to overcome the problem. That is why I say we are lucky here in that we can learn from the problems that have cropped up elsewhere in the world, but also from successes that have been achieved, and we are also lucky in that we are at a stage of development where we can still intervene in time to ward off many of these problems. But since we are discussing this matter in the foremost assembly of the country, I think our actual task here at this level is to overcome this problem, to convince the general public of this problem as best we can and to convince them that success is eventually going to depend not only on the hon. the Minister and his department, but also on the co-operation of every member of the public. The message we can convey to the public is that everything that is worthwhile in life has a price, and progress also has a price. One of the prices is this problem of pollution. The second message we can bring the public is that the Creator in His wisdom intended that there should be order on earth, in our environment, order and balance, and if man—the one with intelligence—disturbs this, by whatever means, the price of that disturbance is a high one. Sir, the hon. member for Smith-field has referred here to the various forms of pollution that occur. I do not want to go into that any further. I just want to mention two, one which he perhaps did not mention. The one creating the most concern at present, as far as people are concerned, is the pollution of the oceans, the increase in tanker traffic that we are experiencing in this country in particular, because everyone must go round this southern tip; and if one sees the size of those ships, if one sees how they are being built bigger and bigger, and if one realizes that the sources of fuel for the generation of energy in the world today is still oil, to a large extent, one realizes that this transportation of oil across the oceans will only increase, and in particular here around our coasts. We are faced with the problem that we can do here what we can—and a tremendous amount has been done here apart from the legislation that was passed the year before last—but apart from what we can do, who controls a ship and its crew when it is way out there on the open sea, beyond the boundaries of any country, and when there is reckless conduct, and the ocean and the sea life there are polluted, and eventually also the coastlines of countries bordering on that sea? I mention this as one of the big problems which not only we, but also the world, are faced with. But, Sir, I also want to mention another problem, a form of pollution which will make it specifically difficult for the hon. the Minister to control it all in the way the hon. member for South Coast requests that it should be controlled, and that is the pollution of the human spirit throughout the world. Mr. Speaker, a few days ago a debate was conducted here in this House that arose from the pollution of the spirit of young people in this country. The hon. member for South Coast said we must prevent everything that pollutes the environment in which we live. One cannot touch spiritual pollution; one cannot point it out. But this is also part of the environment in which we must live. Therefore I want to advocate, since we are today appealing to the general public to stand together, that parents and other responsible people, the educators of our youth, must, in good time, guard against the spirit of our young people becoming polluted, otherwise we shall also have to pay a price for that.

In conclusion, I believe that with a view to the co-operation of each individual and the co-operation of communities, we shall also in future have to obtain the co-operation of schools, of service organizations, of industrial organizations, agricultural organizations and even voluntary organizations, such as the one established here last year in the Boland, i.e. the “Association for the Protection of the Environment”, which itself acts as a watchdog to call the attention of the relevant authorities to things that go wrong. I also believe that we should, in particular, make use of our communications media, the Press, radio and future television, to bring this extremely important problem home to our general public.

I should like to associate myself wholeheartedly with the tribute paid by the hon. member for Stellenbosch to the hon. member for South Coast for the part which he played in presenting this motion. The motion moved by the hon. member for South Coast deals, firstly, with the human environment as it is to be found in South Africa, and, secondly, it makes an appeal to the Government to take urgent steps to transfer the fullest responsibility to a particular and separate Minister of this House so that he can fulfil his task realistically and effectively. Sir, pollution in one form or another is a centuries-old problem. The fact of the matter is that the pollution which the world is today experiencing began with Adam and Eve. I want to emphasize that pollution goes hand in hand with our population explosion. Even though this serious problem has always been with us, it has now become a problem of great consequence to our civilization. It is clearly a problem which we may no longer ignore. Let me explain at once that I am fully aware of the excellent work which has already been done by our own Department of Planning. I want to pay tribute to them for the two publications which were recently issued, namely Besoedeling, 1971 and Pollution in South Africa, 1972. These two publications do much to train the spotlight on various facets of this problem, but my specific question is whether the Government has progressed far enough and rapidly enough in its attempts to tackle this matter effectively. We may well ask how much time we still have available to cope with this urgent problem before the vital factor of costs delays our intentions.

†Sir, the scene for this motion was set by the hon. Dr. Connie Mulder when he as Minister of Planning in a foreword which he wrote to a splendid exposition, completely non-political and factual, to “Population Explosion and Pollution in Southern Africa”. He said then—

Sir, it is a well-known fact that man is the dirtiest animal on earth, and in order to indicate the real sense of urgency which motivates the resolution before the House today, I want to refer briefly to certain observations contained in Dr. Nick van Rensburg’s “Population Explosion and its twin-brother Pollution”. I wonder whether it is generally realized that if we accept our present population and growth figures, we must accept that the total population of South Africa has increased more than fourfold in the last 66 years. The total population’s annual rate of increase between the years 1960 and 1970 was 3,4%. At that rate we shall redouble our population in the next 20 years, and should this growth be sustained the figures in a projection for South Africa are as follows: In 1990, 44 million; in 2010, 88 million; in the year 2030, 176 million; in the year 2050, 352 million; and in the year 2070, 704 million. These figures defy the imagination, but they are nevertheless realistic and are not culled from political speeches, but from statistics which are completely cold and calculated. It is figures like these which have led to the comment that there is no point in industrialized nations philosophizing about a better way of life in this world, about a better quality of life expanding nations, unless this explosion in population and the rate of pollution can be contained. We know that developing populations call for wider roads, more and more motor-cars, larger power stations and all that these mean, for faster aeroplanes and all that these mean in pollution of the atmosphere, more and more pesticides to ensure that we have larger and greater bumper crops—all this in a world which is shrinking all the time. The implications are: More pollution, fouler air, more hideous rubbish dumps, noise which is becoming unbearable and intolerable, less pure oceans, less pure drinking water and bodies which have become polluted and poisoned with the intake of pollution.

It is only during the last decade that we in South Africa have realized that air pollution is, in fact, an urgent problem and today motorists approaching Johannesburg on a still winter’s morning are conscious of what a polluted atmosphere or polluted city looks like. The Iscor works on a still morning can no longer be seen from the Union Buildings. What can be seen are never-ending smoke clouds billowing from the steelworks, blanketing almost the whole of Pretoria in thick, musty smoke. In Cape Town the thick pall of grey smoke which today hangs over our mother city is worse than anything that one will see in Europe. Can we continue to tolerate these twin towers of pollution, whether the boilers have been converted or not? Can this monstrosity be left in Cape Town, the mother city of South Africa? Port Elizabeth is not without its pollution and I quote briefly from a comment in Commercial Opinion, the journal of the Chamber of Commerce in which a contributor says:

Small wonder then that the hon. member for South Coast is today calling in his motion for a strong Minister, a pollution policeman. Yes, what we require today is a pollution policeman with powers to enforce strong laws, laws with teeth and which make provision for penalties which are both effective and realistic. We have to face up to the basic economic problem of protecting the environment. We have to realize that effective protection of the environment may limit in some way or another the growth of our material wealth. But, Sir, if we are to avoid the by-products of a rapid population growth, namely poverty, hunger, illness, ignorance, frustration and want, then we will have to plan today for a population that will number over 50 million by the year 2000. We must not leave, as a heritage to our children, a world that can be described as “this dirty world, this ugly world”, a world in which the assaults on our senses are borne out by pollution.

To bring the position just a bit nearer home. In terms of the Johannesburg city area, excluding Soweto, a further 32 similar sized cities will be required to accommodate the increased population in South Africa by the year 2000. This massing of populations in cities is the largest single cause of pollution. There is the difficulty of getting rid of garbage and waste in these cities, and it has been said that in due course man will bury himself under his own garbage. Sewage is becoming a growing source of pollution and lakes and rivers throughout the world are becoming hopelessly polluted. In order to stress the seriousness and urgency of the situation, I want to make the point that today the river Rhine is the largest open sewer in the world. I want to make the point that nothing lives any more in the river Seine South of Paris. The once flourishing sardine industry in the mouth of the river Nile has long since peted out. The city of New York dumps daily more than 200 million gallons of sewerage into the Hudson River. The Swiss Lakes of Zurich and Geneva are today biologically dead, and Lake Eirie, between the United States and Canada, is not only biologically stone-dead—its waters are poisonous to human beings. Now, Sir, even our lakes, vleis and rivers in South Africa are becoming polluted. What is more, the sea is becoming rapidly polluted, and in our cities noise is becoming a major threat to peace and health of every inhabitant. The time has come for man to be brought to the realization that this pollution and ruination of the environment cannot go on indefinitely. The earth, after all, is finite. With the exception of a few kilograms of rock brought back from the moon, man has not yet succeeded in increasing the surface area of the earth by one square inch. There is a sense of urgency about this which is expressed today in the motion before the House. The twin evils of environmental pollution and over-population are leading to malnutrition, undernourishment and poverty. So, Sir, we have the vicious cycle of uncontrolled pollution of air, water and other sources, which is again leading to a deterioration of our cities and their degeneration into slums. This vicious circle is forcing mankind to reflect, to come to its senses and to come to the realization that the time has come when we must act.

It is for these reasons therefore that I support this resolution wholeheartedly and hope that the Government benches will realize that in the resolution there is nothing political. It is merely a desire to create a pollution policeman who will protest us from ourselves.

Mr. Speaker, with further reference to the last statement made by the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens, namely that the motion introduced here by the hon. member for South Coast has no political motive, I should nevertheless like to point out that the hon. member for Benoni did in fact try in the course of his speech to bring in certain political overtones. If I do the same, namely to refer to certain political arguments about this question, I do not apologize to the Opposition for that approach.

We can go on for hours telling each other about the dangers of pollution and we can paint very gruesome pictures to each other of a world which will be uninhabitable by 1990, of a world population which will have to wear gas-masks. We can try to scare each other with statistics in respect of overpopulation, such as the fact that three new hearts begin to beat every second. We can keep each other occupied until late by quoting statistics of millions of fish which die daily as a result of pollution. In the last place we can also take a look at agriculture and tell ourselves that if we do not stop sending plastic material into the world immediately, we are going to lose tons of beef every day and every year.

But an approach such as this will bring us nowhere. I wish to suggest that the hon. member for Benoni and the hon. member for South Coast attempt to fall in with the pattern of thought of this side of the House, and that pattern is that we have identified the problem and that we are now ready for action. That side of the House has up till now given no indication that they are aware of the fact that this hon. Minister has declared war against pollution of the environment. Only yesterday we discussed legislation, to which I do not wish to refer any further, which indicates that the Government is in the process of giving local authorities the teeth to contend with this matter. Therefore I wish to say to hon. members opposite that if I do talk politics later, they must kindly reply to me. It is very clear from what was said here by the hon. member for Smithfield that the machinery which has been established by the Government is adequate to deal with the problem. It is also very clear from this report which was referred to namely the report of 2nd March, 1972, on pollution, that action will also be taken on other levels of government, namely by local authorities and provincial authorities. They will be expected to implement or improve existing legislation, and then we have in mind the field of noise and air pollution in particular. In the last instance, while we are dealing with the public sector, we must consider whether the public sector has adequate machinery to hear complaints from group interests or from people who would allegedly suffer damage in the event of pollution or of the environment being affected. Therefore I want to put it for the consideration of the Minister that the time will arrive when the need may arise for a regulating authority within the framework of his department in one or other which can see to it that certain norms are laid down for, for example, damages and that certain norms be laid down for, for example, action against certain bodies who in spite of warnings by the Minister still do the opposite.

I just want to refer in passing—not in this particular connection—to our unsightly gravel quarries, and so on. These are all things which can be rectified by negotiations. Consequently I foresee that the need will eventually arise for such an umbrella body which would be able to handle such matters. The public sector has identified its task, but can the same be said for the private sector? I want to suggest that the time has come for the hon. the Minister to give us an indication of the extent to which the private sector has an essential function to fulfil.

It is true that in this country growth is of the utmost importance. The problem is, however, that there is a certain cost factor attached to growth which has not yet been reflected in the income and expenditure accounts of industrialists and other companies. What I mean by that is that, if companies are concentrated to an increasing extent in certain areas, if the plans of industrialists lead to congestion, we may get traffic congestion, pollution of the atmosphere and socially maladjusted people as a result of a shortage of living space. Therefore I wish to say to the hon. members on the other side of the House, and to the hon. member for Benoni in particular—and here the political side of the matter becomes relevant—that, if the other side of the House is serious about the fight against pollution, it would be a cornerstone for the total attack which we are going to launch on pollution if they should decide to propagate a decentralization programme together with this side of the House, at all times, with all industrialists.

We do it often.

We do not come to know about it. We have never heard that side of the House make a case for industrialists to decentralize. Last year in June/July a world conference was held concerning the conservation of the environment. At that conference, which was arranged by the UN, we were represented by our Secretary as well as by other people from the Department of Planning and the Environment. There it was stated very clearly and unambiguously that heavy industries are the direct cause of pollution of the environment. Arising from that it was recommended that consideration be given to decentralizing to developing areas such as Africa in general, and South Africa. In the course of that conference, for example, representatives of countries which are already developed asked for provision to be made for as much as 2% to 3% in the cost programme of each industry for the protection of the environment. In other words, over and above any other reason why decentralization should take place, this side of the House also has this very important argument which we present today to that side of the House: If hon. members opposite are in earnest about this matter, they must support us by making an appeal, now—I do not know whether there is going to be another speaker on this side—for decentralization on a tremendous scale. Furthermore, in case it should happen that developed countries, such as some European countries and the United States of America, should decentralize to Africa and South Africa in particular, it would be fitting and proper for us to make provision in our planning even at this stage for a cost factor of 2% to 3% or more for the protection of our environment. We have already made progress in this connection. When an application is being considered by the Industrial Development Corporation, they conduct a detailed investigation into the process used by an industry and they also try to take account of the facets of the process which could bring about pollution of the environment. Now I feel that the time has come for us to request the hon. the Minister—since he is handling the overall situation in respect of other departments as well—that we should have built-in a far stronger factor when we consider this aid. Once we have reached that stage, we shall in fact be able to expect other industrialists to make provision in their expenditure in future for the social costs resulting from their industries. Then it is not inconceivable that each industry would be prepared to make a small contribution, a contribution based on its profit, to a fund which would enable us to combat pollution and to protect the environment.

In the time that is left I would like to refer to a last facet. We can effectively apply all the applicable statutory laws, but if we do not succeed in stimulating man’s social conscience as regards his environment, its maintenance and protection, we shall not succeed in any campaign. Therefore I foresee—and it was also foreseen by this conference to which I have referred—that we shall have to develop in our system of law a set of rules regarding the private rights of the individual which are affected by pollution. There is no difference between the man who takes a pistol and shoots down a street with that pistol, or the person who drives down the street at 90 miles an hour and who does not care what he hits, and the situation where a person pollutes the environment with his industry while it does not matter to him what he affects. Therefore I foresee that in the not too distant future an individual will come forward and bring an action against an industry as a result of personal damage which he has suffered. That will be the beginning of an interesting revolution in our system of law.

Mr. Speaker, I am surprised that the hon. member for Bloemfontein West could make the call on this side of the House that he made this afternoon about decentralization of industries. After all, he has sat here for many years and has heard the point of view of this side of the House very often. I would like to tell him that the concept of decentralization of industries is one which is very near to the heart of hon. members on this side of the House. It is in fact a child of the father of the hon. member for Benoni who began it many, many years ago; it was his brainchild. He forgets that it took us many years to get that side of the House to understand that decentralization did not mean taking the industries to the borders of the homelands but taking them into the homelands. We are right behind the concept of decentralization of industry and I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister and to the Government to do everything they can to bring industries to the Eastern Cape and Border, because that is where we need industries to create the employment for the unemployed who are coming there and who are there today. I make that call to the Government to bring industries to our area.

May I ask the hon. member a question?

I do not have very much time; the hon. member can ask me a question in another debate. I think that covers the challenge of the hon. member for Bloemfontein West completely.

There was no challenge.

You are right. It seems very strange to me this afternoon to be taking part in a debate on the pollution of the environment, when one of the worst and most despicable forms of pollution at the present time is the printed word. As an hon. member of this hon. House and of this hon. Opposition—honourably led and which has always conducted itself honourably—I still feel contaminated by the slime emanating from the sewers of the editorial offices of the Sunday Times and the Daily Dispatch of East London. The reckless irresponsibility, evasion and contempt for the truth of the editorial staff on these newspapers strengthens my argument in support of the motion of the hon. member for South Coast. He asks for one ministry and I will in the latter part of my speech indicate where the staff of this ministry should be. Perhaps this hon. Minister which the hon. member for South Coast proposes should have a member of his staff on the Press Board of South Africa to see that what is printed in our newspapers is unpolluted and true. But let us get to the actual facts of pollution.

But you were on the facts.

Those are good facts but I do not think they are quite within the ambit of the motion. There are two kinds of pollution that we have to deal with in South Africa today. The one is caused through the reckless exploitation of raw material for the financial gain of mankind. The other is caused through the reckless and indiscriminate destruction of the environment through the effluent and the gases emitted from the machines and appliances invented for the profit and comfort of mankind. I wish to deal with both these forms of pollution, particularly in relation to the seashore and the destruction of our marine life within that zone. There is in this regard a need for a single Minister. One finds when one is dealing with an estuary of a tidal river that the inter-tidal zone falls under the Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure. When you are dealing with the marine life and the exploitation thereof in the inter-tidal zone you are dealing with the Department of Sea Fisheries which falls under the Minister of Economic Affairs. When you are dealing with this type of pollution in that same zone which is portrayed here—if the hon. the Minister will look he will see a black smudge here of oil pollution on the beaches—then it is the Department of Transport. This all covers the same zone and the same type of marine life. I believe that this is a cardinal example of the need and desirability for one single ministry to look after the environment. Both these forms of pollution must be controlled. We have recently had seaweed and oysters stripped off our eastern coast. The hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs if he were here would have to admit that. It is an incidence which I have been fighting since November 1969. When I put a question to the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs on 6th June last year in this connection, he admitted that he had had 34 complaints from individuals and organizations. And when you add up the individuals and organizations in the list of 34, it must run up to close on 6 000 people. When I asked him whether he would consider the establishment of oyster reserves on the coastlines of Alexandria, Bathurst and Peddie, and whether his department would liaise directly with the Department of Ichthyology at Rhodes and the Eastern Cape and Border angling people in this connection, or whether he would make a statement on the matter, the answer to the first question was “No”, the second falls away, and the answer to the third one, “No”. Sir, I am glad to see that the hon. the Deputy Minister of Finance is here, because he will remember that he was once in charge of nature conservation in the Cape Province …

That is why matters deteriorated to such an extent.

… and that his department were endeavouring to do their best for the protection of this marine life, but that they could get nowhere because they were blocked by the department in which he now holds office. Sir, I am glad to see his smiling face, but I would appeal to him to do something about this reckless exploitation of our marine life. I wish to quote to this House a portion of a letter I received last year and which, I believe, the hon. the Minister also received, from Mrs. Margaret Smith of the J. L. B. Smith Institute of Ichthyology at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. Mrs. Smith is a world renowned figure on marine life, and she says—

In regard to our coastline, as I have said earlier, there are three departments in charge of this; if you include the Department of Nature Conservation of the Cape Province there are four departments in charge of this, and I believe that hon. members on the other side would do well to agree with the motion of the hon. member for South Coast and call for this single Ministry. Sir, according to Time magazine, one gallon of oil affects the oxygen content of 400 000 gallons of sea-water, and when the hon. member for South Coast talked about the maximum amount that we could deal with as 5 000 tons, how many millions upon millions of gallons of sea-water and sea-life are affected by that? But, Sir, it is no good our attempting to overcome oil pollution from the sea if we do not tackle this pollution at its source. We on this side of the House were most grateful to hear over the news that tenders have been called for certain patrol boats to patrol our coasts, because I believe that what we need here, in order to tackle that pollution at its source, is to form a coastguard in South Africa under the Minister of the Environment to go and tackle these boats that are blowing their bilges off our coast so that we can have somebody to prosecute. The legislation is there, but we cannot catch them. Let us catch them with the coastguard and prosecute them.

Sir, I want to raise another matter under this motion, because in thinking of a coastguard in South Africa, I also thought of the difficulty that we have in the Defence Force with the national service of certain conscientious objectors. I felt that possibly here was a way of employing these people productively in the service of the State. I contacted certain parents here in the Cape, who in turn contacted their sons in detention in Voortrekkerhoogte, and I am told by these conscientious objectors that the feeling at Voortrekkerhoogte among the detainees was that if they were sentenced by a civil court to do this type of work under a Minister of the Environment, they would accept that sentence. Sir, I am not pleading the cause of the conscientious objector, but I hate to see the wastage of manpower that comes about when people have to sit in detention barracks for 12 months. I believe it is the concern of all members of this House, and I should think that it is something that might be attended to in the near future. They could be usefully used in combating the pollution of our environment.

Sir, I think it was a very good thing that this House discussed this very important matter of pollution and of the environment today. I want to say at the outset, while I still have time, that I want to give the country the assurance once again that the Government is very much in earnest about the protection and the preservation of the environment and the prevention and combating of pollution. We do not intend to allow the environment in all its facets to deteriorate, or perhaps I should say deteriorate further, from its present condition. On the contrary, the Government and I as the Minister in charge are determined to improve the environment and to combat and prevent its deterioration in every field. No one should be in any doubt about this.

†Mr. Speaker, may I express my appreciation to the hon. member for South Coast for bringing forward this motion, thereby allowing the House not only to receive an amendment but also to discuss this very important matter. I also intended to say something nice about the hon. member. But he has been so embarrassed by all the praise he has received so far that I will just say that I think he is an example to many people in this country when it comes to the environment.

Hear, hear!

I want to thank him for his word of thanks with regard to this publication that we issued on pollution. With regard to the other one, Besoedeling—1971, I am sorry that the translation has not yet been completed, but it is rather a thick document, as the hon. member has said, and we hope to have the translation ready round about April or May. The other publication which I envisage is also in the course of preparation.

Is this the report of the special subcommittee?

Yes. Sir, although I agree with most of what the hon. member for South Coast has said, there are one or two points on which we differ, and I should perhaps deal with them first. I do not suggest that they are of very great consequence, but by dealing with them I can also illustrate my approach to this important matter of the environment. The hon. member wants a full and searching investigation by a tribunal of experts into the extent and imminence of the dangers facing South Africa. Mr. Speaker, I do not want to belittle those dangers; they are there. Nor do I say that we know everything, but I do say that we know enough to be able to act. If we can combat and halt all the pollution in its various forms that we know of, with the knowledge that we have today, then we shall indeed have made wonderful progress. I also think that it is not feasible for any one commission or tribunal to investigate pollution in all its numerous forms. This is a vast subject. The environment embraces practically every aspect of our lives. We have, as part of the machinery that we have created so far, the South African Committee for the Protection of the Environment and, as has been said here, the Secretary for Planning is the chairman of this committee. Then there are 23 other members representing Government departments, semi-government institutions, the four provinces and South-West Africa and the universities, etc. Should more knowledge or information on any specific area of pollution be required, or should difficulties or obstacles be encountered in the combating thereof, then I can call on this committee to undertake further investigation, which the committee usually does by setting up a subcommittee of specialists in the particular field that is being studied. This has happened in the case of litter pollution, to name only one instance. At the very moment experts are studying this problem from all angles—factual, legal, economic and administrative—and when I receive their report we shall act. In the meantime we are bringing our machinery in order. Let me give a further instance to illustrate my point. We have the National Advisory Committee on Air Pollution under the chairmanship of Dr. Halliday of the C.S.I.R. I can assure the hon. members that there is no aspect or form of air pollution in South Africa which this committee is not completely knowledgeable about and which has not already been studied. We can get all the scientific advice and information from them that we want. The need only is, as the hon. member has said, to act as far as action is possible. This is the way in which we will act in regard to all forms of pollution if it becomes necessary, be it in regard to our rivers, the oceans, our agricultural soils, our landscape, parks and open spaces and the environmental problems of our cities, etc.

I wonder whether the Minister will deal with this point. Are these committees which have been referred to, in a position that they can report to the Minister from time to time on the changing emphasis of priorities? What is of the highest priority today may be over-shadowed by something of greater importance in six months’ time because it is more dangerous. Are your committees able to deal with the question of priorities?

Yes, I have no hesitation to reply in the affirmative and to assure the hon. member for South Coast that this South African Committee on the Environment which meets regularly is a committee consisting of experts in all the various fields and they can form a very sound judgment on what is the most pressing problem from time to time and what should receive priority. Therefore I say that the problem of pollution—and it has been said by the hon. member for Stellenbosch—has been identified in all its various forms. Any further information required can be obtained by way of the machinery we have set up through these committees. Therefore I have come to the conclusion that at this stage there is no need for another tribunal to conduct a full and wide investigation into this all-embracing subject, the environment, because no one can be an expert on everything.

That brings me to the second part of the hon. member’s motion, namely his request for a Minister charged with full responsibility and armed with all the powers necessary to deal with the matter. He was supported in this by the hon. members for Cape Town Gardens and Albany. Well, as the House knows, the hon. the Prime Minister has appointed me and has made me responsible for all matters concerning the environment. I say that I see myself and my department as the environmental watch-dog. I will go further and say I also see us figuratively, as the supreme commander of all the forces waging war against the dangers of pollution in South Africa.

And the Minister of Health?

As the supreme commander, the overseeing authority in South Africa, who watches everything and is knowledgeable and informed on every subject in every field.

Ben Schoeman is in trouble now, is he not?

No. But we shall not shirk this duty. I and my department will make every effort to make a success of this assignment. I am in the same position with regard to planning in South Africa. I am, in a sense, also the supreme commander of planning in South Africa and I have not taken out a whip yet and gone about the provinces and the State departments with it. But do you know, Sir, that we have been receiving the most wonderful co-operation during the last two years that we have handled planning. We have received praise, and we are really going places in regard to planning in South Africa. We are doing good work and there is absolutely no reason whatsoever why we should not achieve the same success here with this approach which I am at present following. Then I want to say it is not possible for one person or for one department to handle physically all matters relating to the environment. It is absolutely impossible. Otherwise you can have one Department of the environment taking over the whole of the administration of South Africa. The S.A. Railways own locomotives which pollute the air, whether they be coal or diesel. Must I for that reason now take over the S.A. Railways? But I am the watch-dog and I can speak to my colleague when any matter of pollution arises, and I have the Cabinet behind me. You must remember I have the hon. the Prime Minister behind me.

You must not only bark; you must bite.

I am coming to the biting. In regard to biting, we had the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens. He suggested that I must have teeth and laws with teeth. Immediately thereafter he mentioned the Iscor works in Pretoria. The Iscor works in Pretoria belch out a lot of smoke, but they were established at a time when there was only one process in the whole world to make steel and that was the Bessemer process. It is absolutely impossible to make steel in the Iscor works without smoke belching out there. It happens in most cases of pollution that the time arrives when the economic life of those furnaces expires and actually Iscor is now installing new furnaces in the light of new technology. The new process will cause much less pollution. The hon. member for Cape Town Gardens spoke immediately thereafter about the twin chimneys down at the Cape Town harbour. In that connection he referred to the power station as “this monstrosity”. That is the whole point: If we had had this Department of Planning and this Department of the Environment—when the next motion is under discussion we shall talk about planning—and if we had had this planning a long time ago, this power station would not have been located where it is at the moment; it would have been way out of town. What can I do now? Does the hon. member blame the Government for it? What can I do about it at this stage? There is a change-over from coal to diesel but there are a lot of technical difficulties which have to be overcome. The people are doing their best. This is not the Government’s fault and it is not because I do not have teeth. You can have all the teeth in the world and it will not help you. In the same breath the hon. member also spoke about Soweto in another sense. The trouble about Soweto is a very real trouble, as hon. members will appreciate. We have perfected the smokeless stove, but all those hundreds of thousands of people—I do not know how many—who live in Soweto still have the old type of stove, the coal-burning stove, and they paid for those stoves. We are looking into this matter, but it is not so easy just to issue an edict that as from tomorrow everybody is obliged to use only new smokeless stoves. About a week ago we discussed the law wages these people were earning. We can try to make a plan, but at the moment the most we can say is that in all new townships these new stoves must be installed. That is the sort of thing which we do.

I take an interest in these things because it is my job. I am the Minister of the Environment and I can poke my nose into any issue that I wish to. I just wanted to say that. My time is limited and I must hurry along. I want to ask who must do this job. Hon. members have agreed that when it comes to oil pollution the Department of Transport is the proper authority. I think so too. They control the harbours, they have the tugs there, they have the storage facilities for the equipment and chemicals which they use and they have all the other facilities and the personnel. If hon. members want to pursue the argument to a logical conclusion, they must also say that my department must now take over the combating of oil pollution at sea, but they have not done that.

There is this matter about litter in South Africa. About a month ago I had a conference with the Administrators and they unanimously requested me not to have an anti-litter Bill passed by Parliament. They asked that Parliament should merely pass enabling legislation empowering the provinces to pass their own anti-litter ordinances. I agreed with them, because then the measure will come from the people themselves. You cannot force the protection of the environment, or anything for that matter, down people’s throats. That is a point which has been made in the course of this discussion by hon. members on both sides. You must have the people of South Africa, to whatever race they belong, with you to co-operate with you and to assist you. Then you are on the way to achieving success. Sir, we are going to go about the matter in a concerted way, and when we act, we will act in Cape Town, Durban, the Transvaal—all over South Africa.

I do want just to read to you—my time is running out, but we will talk further under my Vote—once more from this very good publication, The Human Environment—The British View, issued by the Department of the Environment in Britain. They quite rightly say, with some pride, that they were the first department of the environment in the whole world. I must say they have achieved a lot of success. If hon. members will not criticize me too much, I can perhaps say that I contemplate paying a visit to the British Department of the Environment to make a real study of what they are doing there, how they have achieved their success and how they regulate the relationship between the central Government and the various people who are doing this work. In this publication they say, further—

But then they also say that they have brought in various Ministries—

I repeat, “planning and pollution”, because these things go hand in hand. But it reads further—

*So this is what I really wanted to tell the hon. member for South Coast. We have created certain machinery. That machinery consists of the Cabinet, myself as the Minister of Planning, with my Cabinet committee—it will probably not be necessary very often, but I can consult this committee—and the South African Committee for the Protection of the Environment. Then we have the various departments and the provinces, each with a law in terms of which it operates. I think our machinery is good. We just have to expand that machinery, and someone just has to see to it that that machinery works and is utilized; and I give that assurance.

The hon. member for South Coast asked me who was responsible for the question of water pollution. That is of course the Department of Water Affairs, the department which controls the inland waters of South Africa and which has to store it up and share it out to be used. That is the department which is responsible—I cannot say: “Look, the Department of Water Affairs has so much water in the Vaal Dam; it can give that authority so much water, but I am going to lay down the conditions on which you may use it.” The Department of Water Affairs gives water to a factory under a permit and then it lays down the standards and provisions according to which the water has to be used, purified and reused, and when the water is returned to a public stream, the water must be of a certain standard. If there are complaints, I think we had better address these to the Department of Water Affairs. However, if anyone is unable to obtain satisfaction from the Department of Water Affairs, I am also prepared to discuss the matter with my colleague on behalf of the public and to see how far I can take it, as I have done with other cases of pollution.

Is the control entirely in the hands of that department?

Yes. The hon. member for Benoni dealt with the question of lead in petrol and advocated an investigation. There is nothing wrong for the investigation. It is true that England is going to introduce it. Another investigation was also conducted in England and two groups of people were taken. One group consisted of taxi drivers who continually came into contact with petrol and petrol fumes and the other group consisted of a number of housewives living in a remote region. There was no difference, as far as they could ascertain, between the lead content of these groups of people. However, we shall go into the matter. I have already replied to the hon. member for Albany. If one has an authority that controls oil at sea and oil is washed ashore, what other people can prevent this? That oil is washed ashore and marine life is affected, no matter how great a pity it is. My opinion is that this is the concern of the Division of Sea Fisheries, which is in charge of the conservation, promotion and breeding of marine life. I cannot intervene there. I have a house by the sea myself. There is a certain area where we can remove shellfish from the shore; we cannot go deeper than this and the boats from the sea cannot come closer than a certain distance either. There is an area in between where these creatures can breed. We have to be told this by experts, however, the experts being the Division of Sea Fisheries. They do not come into the picture only when oil is washed ashore and some of those shellfish or penguins are killed or polluted. They are working at it all the time. It is the work of the Department of Transport to see to it that no oil is washed ashore, or as little as possible, and in addition there are the local authorities which intervene to see what they can do to prevent and to solve a bad situation which we all deplore.

I do not want to belittle any contributions by hon. members on the other side, because they were all good, but I want to tell hon. members on this side that I am proud of them today because they made a positive contribution. We are not saying that we see only the death of the environment before us. Matters may be serious, but we are saying that we see life before us; we are not approaching this question of the environment in a spirit of defeatism. We are tackling it to overcome the problems and to conquer. The world has a great problem, a difficult problem, in this regard, and theoretically the world will suffer in times to come. We have drawn from the riches of the earth to a fantastic extent in our age with its new technological dispensation. Approximately one-third of the world’s population has achieved a very high standard of living. We cannot say that the growth of the world should now slow down for that reason, because the growth of the world must continue, also to rectify what we have done wrong in the developed parts of the world. It must also continue in order to help those people, the other two-thirds of the population of the world who are living in poverty today, who are living in dirty slums, and to give them a place in the sun as well. So the growth must continue, but I want to say that all men and women, we here in Parliament, our provincial councils, our city councils, etc., must do their best in this regard. Our city councils with their officials have such a tremendously important task and I want to appeal to them today, to everyone, to anyone with authority, to ask themselves how the environment will be affected by their actions. We must all write this in capital letters for ourselves and then we must go on developing our country. We must go on growing. The ecology and the economy must make peace with each other. They must co-operate in the conservation of the environment. The ecologist and the economist must think in harmony, plan in harmony and act in harmony.

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

Mr. Speaker, before I introduce my motion I want to convey my appreciation to the Government for having established this important Department of the Environment. After what we have just heard from the Minister, we foresee that this department will be of great assistance to us in South Africa in so far as the planning and the development of our environment is concerned.

Mr. Speaker, bearing in mind the fact that the average annual increase in the population of South Africa to the end of this century will be approximately one million people, which means that in South Africa a new complex of a size equal to the Cape Peninsula has to be established annually, and also bearing in mind that 80% of the production of South Africa is being produced on approximately 0,4% of the surface area of the Republic of South Africa which is situated in four metropolitan areas, I want to move in all humility this afternoon—

1. (1) notes with appreciation the comprehensive planning of all parts of the Republic that has been carried out by the State, the progress that has been made with the policy of multinational development and the sustained growth rate in all parts of the country; and
2. (2) emphasizes the importance of—
   1. (a) co-ordinating planning (i) in metropolitan and potential metropolitan areas and (ii) between areas that are being developed for the individual nations in terms of the policy of multi-national development;
   2. (b) planning specific regions with a view to developing each region according to its potential; and
   3. (c) creating effective planning machinery for the entire country.

It is not necessary for me to point out in the motivation of my motion that South Africa today is the country with the most rapid growth rate in the entire continent of Africa. It has been possible to achieve this only because the country has for the past quarter of a century been blessed with a Government which has pursued a policy which could make something like this possible. This rapid growth rate has also brought its problems. Open spaces which 50 years ago had only to be reserved for the creation of essential services have to be purchased today at extremely high prices. I am referring to services such as by-passes, freeways and housing projects. Fifty years ago these requirements were not anticipated. Today thousands and even millions of rand are being spent on the stimulation of growth points for the sake of decentralization. Such growth points of virtually the same extent would have arisen if the need for them had been foreseen 50 years ago, but it would also have been necessary to plan for them. Today we are perceiving these things and are planning for them, but it is costing many millions of rand. This planning is being tackled dynamically, and there is great appreciation for this. I do not have time, with the time at my disposal, to go into details, but there will be other speakers who will deal with more particular cases. I just want to mention that we note with great appreciation the guide-plan committees which are almost every day working actively on various guide-plans. I want to refer here to the guide-plans in respect of Newcastle, Richards Bay, Saldanha Bay, the Cape Peninsula, Witbank and the P.W.V. complex. We are aware that this drawing up of guide-plans in which all the interested parties are involved will produce many difficulties and growth pains, but we are also aware that great progress has already been made with certain of these guide-plans and that development is taking place, of which Newcastle is a striking example. Nevertheless, we are on the right road as far as this kind of planning is concerned.

I want to come now to the point of multi-national development, as mentioned in this motion. Could anyone point out to me any country in the world where, in the short space of 25 years, as much has been done as we have done in South Africa to give shape to the development of the numerous peoples here at the southernmost point of Africa? I do not want to go over the entire history of the struggle since 1948, but I do want to make one request today, which is that when this Government is criticized for not having made further progress with the implementation of its policy of multi-national development there should be objective retrospective consideration of all the impediments and obstacles which have over the past 25 years been placed in the way of the National Party in the actual physical implementation of that policy.

You are still looking for excuses.

I should like to see the chapter of that piece of history being written, and being written now. The present generation thinks it was all plain sailing, but we who were part of this process know what a satanic struggle was waged against us and is still being waged against us. The Government persevered, and today we see the results. I hope that the boundaries of the various geographic areas of these peoples will be finalized during the present session of Parliament so that we may all know the actual situation of the land left to us by our forefathers. [Interjections.] Few people in this House have had the opportunity my friends and I on the Bantu Affairs Commission had during the past plus-minus eight months to travel the length and the breadth of the country and in particular through these homelands in which the Bantu peoples have to establish themselves.

With or without Police?

I want to say that I think that we can declare with the utmost conviction in this House today that enormous progress has been made in these areas as far as the development of these peoples is concerned. We will be the first to admit that not everything has been done which ought to have been done, but if we take into consideration that it has at most been a period of a decade during which we have actually been working on the physical implementation of this, we can say that great progress has been made, but we are convinced that the foundations have been laid for sound multi-national development in South Africa in future.

In this motion hon. members will also observe that we emphasize the importance of control over and development of our metropolitan areas. A half century ago the Witwatersrand—I am mentioning that example—consisted of small towns scattered from Randfontein to Springs and Nigel. Today one is hardly able to drive from one point to the other without driving straight through a developed and built-up area. This pattern in that part of our country we also find in other parts of our country. We find it for example in the Cape Peninsula where the same pattern of development occurs. We find it in Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage where the trend of this development pattern is already in progress. We find it in East London where this pattern is taking shape in a more northerly direction towards Berlin. We see it in Durban with the development along the South and the North Coast. We see it in the Richards Bay-Empangeni area. We see it in the entire Witbank complex. We see it in the P.W.V. complex. The latter area is one which will develop from Sasolburg through Vereeniging and Vanderbijlpark to the Witwatersrand and circle round to Brits. From thence it will link up with Rosslyn, through Pretoria North right into Pretoria itself, from whence it will spread out to Bronkhorstspruit and through Bapsfontein back to the Witwatersrand. This is a pattern of development which we see coming in South Africa. When we see this pattern of development in South Africa we must realize one thing, namely that problems are going to be encountered here. We are grateful that the Department of Planning and the Environment has, in co-operation with other organizations, already recognized this pattern and is giving consideration to the problems which will arise as a result of it. These great agglomerations of cities and towns have common interests. I want to ask this question: Has the time not arrived for positive and effective consideration to be given to the establishment of metropolitan councils for these various areas which are developing in this way? In a country like South Africa with its shortage of trained manpower we must do everything possible to utilize to best effect the manpower at our disposal. I am advocating the coordination of planning and services in these metropolitan areas. Co-ordinating bodies, metropolitan boards must be established which will see to the co-ordination of these areas.

Inter alia, the policy of multi-national development implies political independence, but also mutual co-operation in the economic sphere among various ethnic groupings, each in its particular homeland. In addition it implies infrastructures which will form a unity in each of the areas, but which on a higher level again will form part of the greater infrastructure which serves South Africa as a whole. I want to emphasize that there should be effective co-ordination of the planning of each of these separate ethnic homelands; it has to comprise a harmonious part of the overall plan for South Africa. We cannot emphasize strongly enough that constant consultation or even compulsory consultation between the planning authorities of various ethnic homelands and the planning authorities of the group areas must take place.

Another point made in my motion and one which I wanted to dwell on for a few moments, is the planning of specific regions. The urbanization process in South Africa has taken the form of an over-concentration in the metropolitan areas. Eighty per cent of the production in our country takes place in four metropolitan areas situated on 0,4% of the surface area of our father-land. The bright lights of the city have blinded the eyes of the population to the opportunities which still exist in the rural areas or which could be created there. Smaller towns are no longer attractive to the ambitious young man and woman. The average age of the rural population is increasing; the number of children is decreasing and schools are closing down. My own little home town, Strydenburg, is an example of this. It is a very fine example. I can elaborate at length on this subject. We must remember that it is in the heart of White South Africa. There the Whites have to develop their own homeland to the maximum. Mr. Speaker, these towns still have to fulfil an essential function, and we want to emphasize that they must be assisted. I should like to leave this idea in your midst—perhaps I am not being original as far as this idea is concerned; it does not matter; I merely wish to emphasize this idea again—which is that a study should be made of these towns, together with their surrounding regions, so that each such region may be classified in order of importance into principal and subordinate towns, which will determine the development pattern of each town. Sir, we emphasize that a detailed study should be made of every region demarcated in this way around a major town in order to discover the full development possibilities of such a region and to draw up a programme of action in terms of which such a region may be systematically developed to its full potential to the advantage of the inhabitants of the country as a whole. I am convinced that the hon. the Minister and the Department of Planning and the Environment are in agreement with us as far as this matter is concerned; I know that they are favourably disposed to it. I also know that the authorities, local as well as provincial, feel just as strongly in regard to this matter. It is a fact that we cannot expect the central planning and environmental department to undertake all this planning. I see their task as that of a policy-making and co-ordinating body which has to indicate clear guidelines, within which each implementing party has to play its role. Mr. Speaker, they are situated hundreds of miles from these regions. It is physically impossible for them to undertake this planning themselves. I see the planning of these regions as the task of the people who live in the regions or areas themselves. They know what their ideals are concerning their environment, and what their regions are capable of. They must themselves plan positively and encourage action. Mr. Speaker, we are aware of the legal problems involved in establishing such planning machinery. This does not always work out well on a voluntary basis. I do not want to go into the details now, but I want to mention in all humility that it seems to me as if a new planning authority is required to act within such regions. It should consist of leading figures within that region, who will represent the urban as well as the rural areas within that region. They must make use of the expert knowledge and trained planners, who should preferably be employed by them on a full-time basis.

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege for me to convey this gratitude and appreciation here to the Government and in particular to the hon. the Minister and the department, and also to emphasize the importance of this important work which has to be done in the metropolitan and regional sphere.

The hon. member for Langlaagte has submitted here to us an interesting motion but, if he will permit me to say this, also a strange one. It is one of these omnibus motions in which he sought to cover a very wide range of matters and which in my opinion should actually fall under the Department of Bantu Administration and Development rather than the Department of Planning. But, in the second place, it would appear to me as though the hon. member made an attempt here, in his motion and also in his presentation of it, to reconcile things which are in effect irreconcilable. But the third impression one gained, was that the hon. member had been startled to a certain extent. I do not know whether it was Mr. Jaap Marais and his people who had given him a fright, but I think he was actually trying here to buoy up himself.

Sir, just let us take a look at this motion by the hon. member as he presented it to us. In the first place, he expressed his appreciation for the comprehensive planning of all parts of the Republic. He even referred to an overall plan which he wanted for the whole of South Africa. But now I do not understand this hon. member’s approach. When we talk about such a comprehensive plan for all parts of South Africa, surely one is from the nature of the case thinking of the Bantu homelands. Now I want to ask him what planning is at present being done in the homelands. That he definitely did not mention to us. The hon. member forgot to tell us that in terms of section 13 of the Physical Planning Act the homelands are specifically excluded from that. They cannot do planning there, for that has been specifically excluded in the Act. Now I do not understand where the hon. member is taking us. How can that fit in with his motion?

But, secondly, he made great play of the question of progress in the sphere of multinational development. Well, one would have expected him to have given us some indications in that regard of the progress that has in fact been made in that respect. Our impression is that the very opposite is true, for once again one is thinking of the homelands. One can prove, as far as the present homelands are concerned, that their per capita real income today is not much higher than it was at the beginning of this century, but one can go further and say that a large part of their national income still comes from South Africa, from the services they sell here, and that very little of it originates in the homelands themselves. In fact, the largest group that are in employment in the various homelands, are in the service of the governments which are subsidized by our present Government here. Therefore, how can one talk of the tremendous progress—and he even mentioned the words “enormous progress”—in the sphere of the economic development of these parts? The hon. member was actually boasting here of what had been done there, but as I read the situation most of the authorities on this matter in South Africa are really alarmed at the small amount of progress that has been made.

Now, in discussing further the concept of multi-national development and the tremendous economic progress that has taken place, according to the hon. member, I ask him what economic progress has there been for the Coloureds in their specific multi-national context. We do not know a thing about that. We know the Government is engaged in initiating a kind of growth point here at Mamre, but we do not know what percentage of the Coloured population this is going to absorb and involve. But what about the Indians? Where is their multi-nationalism? I think the Government has in this respect thrown in the towel a long time ago, and the only thing the Indians are going to get, as far as multi-nationalism is concerned, is separate residential areas.

Throughout his motion the hon. member referred to the large-scale growth rate throughout the country. Of course, in this respect we must clash with him again, for our view is, and all the information points to this, that over the last number of years there has been relatively little economic growth. The growth rate has been extremely low. The hon. the Minister of Finance explained this to us yesterday. He said he had to curb the growth rate; he could not stimulate it, and he motivated that. He said that, in the first place, there had been inflation and, in the second place, our foreign reserves had been too low. Sir, once again I find this a strange approach, for how does one get over the question of inflation? If one does not have growth and one has inflation at the same time then one gets what they call stagflation, which is much worse than inflation. In fact, most people point out nowadays that the best way to combat inflation is in effect to have faster growth; one must outgrow it. And inflation is, in any case, relative. There are many countries in the world with high rates of inflation, but then their growth rates are so much higher.

But, in the second place, they said we could not grow any faster because our foreign reserves were so low. Once again I cannot understand this. It stands to reason that if one does not grow one’s foreign reserves will be low, for then one does not have anything to export. As far as this matter is concerned, the Government is in my opinion like a dog that wants to bite its own tail. At an ever increasing pace it is moving in circles while chasing its own tail, and I am just afraid that one of these days the Government will succeed in biting its own tail.

I also find this motion by the hon. member to be quite ambiguous. In the first part of the motion he speaks in the very highest terms of what the Government has already done on all these various levels, and then he says in the second part of his motion that the Government should be encouraged to do what he says they have already done. This is an ambiguity which I really do not understand. For this reason I move on behalf of this side of the House the following amendment—

I should like to motivate this amendment. We find it so easy to talk about economic growth, but perhaps we should have clarity on why economic growth is so important for South Africa at this stage. I think one can identify a few factors. In the first place there is the particularly rapid increase in our population. There is talk that by the end of this century we shall have 50 million people in South Africa. There is also the particularly rapid increase in our labour force. In this green booklet that was published by the Department of Planning, it is indicated that from 1960 to 1970 our labour force showed an increase of 1 300 000 people. This is an increase of 3,4% per year, which is of course a particularly high one. It is higher than the 3% indicated by Liebenstein as a criterion which one may use in this regard. What this signifies, once again according to this green booklet, is that approximately 150 000 Bantu are entering the labour market every year. Opportunities for employment must be created for them. I think it goes without saying that our growth rate will have to be higher than 6% per year merely in order that opportunities for employment may be created for all the Bantu entering the labour market. In the second place, rapid economic growth in South Africa is important since foreign exchange is still being derived mainly from our gold mines, and although we are in this regard doing very well indeed at the moment, all the indications are that our gold mining industry may become exhausted within the next 20 years. The third important reason why we must have rapid economic growth, is of course our increasing expenditure on defence. We are already spending far more than R350 million per year on defence, and there is every indication that this figure will probably rise rather than drop. In the fourth place, rapid economic growth is essential for South Africa because in a pluralistic community such as our own it is easier to preserve racial harmony when there is economic progress rather than when there is economic stagnation. For this particular reason it is essential for South Africa to grow economically, for if we do not do this we shall explode ourselves politically.

In our own case rapid economic growth is also essential because the standard of living of such a large percentage of our population is still a relatively low one. When the Government always compares our economic growth rate with that of Britain and that of America, it is actually a comparison which is meaningless. We must compare ourselves with countries which are on a similar economic level, and economically they must of course develop at a much faster rate than do the economically mature countries.

Mention examples.

If we accept that economically we must grow rapidly, I think we may state at the same time that we have the necessary ingredients at our disposal. We have sufficient capital in South Africa. Savings have already reached such a level that we can raise sufficient capital locally, and we can also attract it from outside. We have the manpower. We have virtually inexhaustible economic raw materials, and we have management which can maintain a very high standard. Under all these circumstances it ought therefore to be possible for South Africa to have very rapid economic growth, which the hon. member has now indicated is the case.

But now there are certain problems why we cannot grow as rapidly as ought to be the case. The hon. member immediately lay his finger on one of them. He said our manpower had to be utilized in the most effective manner. But, surely, that is precisely what is not happening at the moment. That is our argument. Our entire economic development programme is based on the fact that manpower productivity will have to shoot up by approximately 2,8% per year. After all, all of us know that this is not the case at the moment.

How do you want to solve that problem?

Oh, of course I shall tell the hon. member. He should just listen attentively to me. In the first place, manpower productivity is directly related to education. Years ago Unesco made a study in which they found that there was a direct and positive correlation between the education index for the various countries and their gross domestic product. Sir, what is happening in the sphere of education? As far as our Whites are concerned, it is of a high standard. I accept that. But as far as the non-Whites are concerned, and especially the Bantu, surely we all know that it is absolutely inadequate.

What about all the other countries? Mention me one country in Africa which is better.

Let me finish my argument first; then the hon. member may make his own speech. Sir, it has been established that when a worker has received high school training he is usually 40% more productive than one who has not had any high school training. Let us just take a look at the Bantu workers in South Africa. It has been determined that at the moment three out of every 1 000 Bantu who are economically active, have received high school training. The system of education is therefore inadequate, and nobody can argue that away.

In the second place, one must have industrial training. On every occasion on which we have yet pleaded for that and even submitted private Bills to the House, the Government voted against them, for they merely say, “You want to open the floodgates.” The floodgates were opened years ago already. When 80% of one’s workers are non-Whites, how can one still talk about opening floodgates? The water has run out long ago. I shall answer the hon. member further. He wanted to know how one was to obtain more effective productivity. Once again he will find an answer in this booklet, which was prepared by Dr. Du Plessis, who I think is the deputy economic adviser to the Government. I quote from page 5, where he indicated that where there was complete mobility of labour, we could obtain a higher growth rate. He went on to say (translation)—

What the hon. gentleman actually meant, but did not state here specifically, was that manpower productivity depended on mobility. One’s labour force must be able to move. It must be able to move in the vertical sense. It must be possible for people to move up from the bottom in the hierarchy of jobs. But this cannot happen here, because the Government introduced job reservation. In the second place, one has this when there is mobility in the sense that workers must be able to move from the less productive sectors in the economy to the more productive sectors; in other words, they must enter into the manufacturing industry. But once again the Government curbs this, actually prohibits this, through the application of the Physical Planning Act. How can one therefore have productivity under these circumstances, when the Government’s ideological approach diametrically opposes this? But now I also ask: Where in the world can one have high productivity if one perseveres with this system of migratory labour which we have? In those circumstances we can never have productivity.

Are you against decentralization?

The hon. member is for ever making speeches while sitting in the comer over there.

But I am asking you a question: Are you against or for decentralization?

I did not say a single word about decentralization. The hon. member has only woken up now. In the final instance, the reason why we cannot have increased manpower productivity, is that the Government has too large a percentage of our economically active White group in its own service. More than one-third of the Whites in South Africa who are economically active, are working for the Government and its associated services. Now I want to quote another set of statistics which I think is alarming. Only recently I read that 45 % of the Whites who are economically active and are graduates, were in the employ of the Government. Here one has a small White population that has to keep the whole economy going, and almost half of the people who have had higher university training, are not employed in industry but working for the Government.

May I put a question to the hon. member?

No, my time is extremely limited. Now I just want to refer to another point which was referred to by the hon. the Minister. He said in the sphere of planning …

I have not made a speech yet.

No, but in the previous debate the Minister referred specifically to his role in the sphere of environmental control, and at that stage he said he was the “supreme commander” in that sphere. He said he was doing exactly the same as he was doing in the Department of Planning; he was also the supreme commander. Now I should just like to take up this little point with the hon. the Minister. He will perhaps recall that last year, in a previous debate, I referred to the Saldanha project and contrasted it with the St. Croix project, and at the time I asked him whether he and his department had done a feasibility study, a feasibility analysis, for this is a matter which implies long-term interests for South Africa. If he is such a “supreme commander”, I would have accepted now that in this case he would have set his seal on it. At the time he gave me a negative reply and said that officials in his department had in fact taken part in discussions and that he was a member of the Cabinet committee, but that this was actually a matter for the Minister of Economic Affairs and that he had to handle it. Now, surely, we all know that there is a conflict between the Department of Transport and the Department of Economic Affairs. If the Minister of Planning were such a “supreme commander”, one would have expected him to have asserted himself in this sphere. However, this did not happen, and I do not know where we are going.

My time has expired, but I should just like to summarize by saying that planning of a high standard is being done by the department. However, our argument, as contained in our amendment, is that this planning is being curbed because there is an ideological framework which was laid down by the Government and within which all this planning has to take place. Let us forget about all these other things and let us see South Africa as one economic whole, which in fact it is. Let us plan it as such. Let us see the homelands not as separate areas, but as underdeveloped economic areas, which they really are. Let us then develop them on that basis. Here the Government now has such a tremendous bonanza in the form of all the gold-mining premiums it is getting. Why does it not use some of that money for planning South Africa properly and developing it as a whole? If one views the arguments in this regard in this light, I assume that this House will be quite justified in rejecting the hon. member’s motion and accepting our amendment.

Mr. Speaker, this motion by the hon. member for Langlaagte is a broad and comprehensive one. Basically it concerns our entire growth pattern in this country. The hon. member who has just resumed his seat, has revealed a typically U.P. mentality, a steriled mentality, towards a topic as important as this one. An extremely short time has been allocated to me, and therefore I want to leave the hon. member there.

In the short time at my disposal I should like to make a few comments on point (b) of the second part of this motion, which deals with—

As a Boland representative in this House, I want to refer more specifically to the Boland region—this old, traditional part of the country. I want to say that over the past few years I have on more than one occasion, both in and outside this House, been one of the Cape Cassandras who repeatedly complained about the growth pattern in the Boland and expressed my concern at the lack of a real growth momentum in this old, traditional, historic part of our country. In this process I joined others in complaining, in the first instance, about the lack of development in regard to our water potential in the Boland. We told one another that our water was running down to the sea, and that water was actually our sine qua non here in the Boland. We complained about over-concentration in the Cape metropolis. We produced proof indicating that this over-concentration in the Cape metropolis had reached the point where we had to give very serious attention to it. We complained about the best Boland agricultural lands situated along the Cape Town-Paarl-Wellington development line which were falling a victim to housing schemes. The Paarl-Wellington valley is a beautiful, fertile and colourful part of the world. Hon. members will probably have seen in the newspaper this morning that the three Matie lasses for the carnival all hail from this valley. We expressed concern because this beautiful Boland valley, with its select agricultural lands, is being taken up today by one housing project after the other. As Cassandras from the Boland area, we complained in this process that insufficient emphasis and development powers were being concentrated on the Cape Town-Saldanha development line, a vicinity in the Boland where some of our poorest agricultural lands are to be found. However, this afternoon I can rise here and as an inhabitant of the Boland I can testify with new excitement in my heart that I think we in the Boland are facing a totally new future. A new world is awaiting us, if we approach it correctly and actively in the future. Why do I say this? In the first instance, year before last, on 2nd September, the Minister of Water Affairs announced a Boland water plan, a plan which stands there like a network which is going to unfurl and which, basically, is going to serve this part of the world. Last week the Minister of Economic Affairs announced the Saldanha-Sishen project. This is a project which brings us face to face with a totally new future situation as regards growth momentum in the Boland. Last year, after pleas which had been made here repeatedly, the Minister of Planning announced the Government’s plans in terms of which new growth will be created in the Darling-Mamre vicinity within the framework of the Boland’s pattern of dual development and a double-town system. We read last week that difficulties were being experienced with the construction of a nuclear power station at Melkbos, which is going to desalinate sea water here on the Boland coast and which will bring about a new power supply in this area. I was pleased to see that, in spite of all these difficulties, this project would be proceeded with. In other words, thanks to what I have just mentioned, we are faced with a totally new approach, a new future as far as this, the oldest historic part of our country, i.e. the Boland, is concerned. In this process there are four aspects which I want to mention this afternoon and for which I think we must immediately get the Government’s attention if we want to give to this new pattern which is going to develop, the right momentum and the right approach in the future. I want to mention these four aspects very briefly.

The first is that I think we shall have to take another and more penetrating look at this project at Mitchell’s Plain. Here in the Cape metropolis we are saddled with this tremendous concentration of our country’s Brown people, especially on the Cape Flats. All the signs of over-concentration are there, and the population increase in many parts of this complex borders on the biological maximum today. Apart from this it is a fact that the latest figures have shown that the absorptive power of this metropolis from the Greater Boland complex is something in the region of 3,63% per year. In addition to that it is true that in this process on the Cape Flats we are engaged at present in ploughing under the vegetable garden supplying the Cape metropolis. Hon. members have seen what difficulties the Department of Transport has been experiencing in constructing the necessary railway line to these parts. I feel that from the point of view of planning we should take another look at what we are going to do here. Should we stimulate further the over-concentration in this complex?

The second point I want to mention—this is actually bound up with the previous one—is that on this growth line, to which I referred, i.e. the growth line from Cape Town in the direction of Saldanha, we should imaginatively stimulate new growth in the vicinity of Mamre and Darling. This is the project that was announced by the hon. the Minister last year. In passing I want to take off my hat today to the Department of Planning, for I am aware of the basic work that has been done of late so as to create here within the framework of the Boland pattern of a double-town system, a dual bias, growth momentum in this vicinity. There is the beautiful link with this part of the coast, Silverboom Strand, the seaside resort which is going to be built there and which will be the Sea Point of our Boland Brown population. There is, on the other hand, the fact that Darling was the first town where border-area benefits were granted. I can testify here today that in the recent past it was possible for us to lure four clothing factories there apart from the reaction from the private sector. In other words, in this specific vicinity we are faced with the situation where, if we want to use our planning machinery in South Africa correctly, we can create a model situation within our Boland pattern. I want to make an appeal to the hon. Minister. Is it not possible for us to create here new growth or faster growth to serve as a safety valve for the Cape metropolis?

The third aspect I want to mention, is concerned with the question of the siting of the fourth Iscor. The Government has announced this very colourful project in the vicinity of Saldanha. In the month ahead a decision has to be taken on where the fourth Iscor will be sited. Now I want to say that I do not expect an answer from the hon. the Minister this afternoon. He hails from the North-Western Cape, and if he does not answer me, I shall not exactly pick a quarrel with him. I just feel that I cannot allow this opportunity to pass without pleading for the sitting of the fourth Iscor here within the borders of the Boland. I shall tell hon. members why. The fact of the matter is that over the past number of years, as far as the creation of new future patterns in South Africa is concerned, many millions of rand have been invested in what I would call the wonder formula of separate territorial freedoms. A new world has been created between Black and White in this country. Many millions of rand have been poured into our border areas and into the Bantu homelands, and quite rightly too. It is true that ¾% of our country’s Brown population are resident today in this old historic part of the Boland. Whereas we artificially started creating a process of spatial organization and made new provision, the effect was actually a meagre one. Last year we came forward with the announcement of border-area benefits for this first Boland town, namely Darling. The other town that was announced at the same time was, I think, Worcester. I think it is time that, seen against this background, a more extensive and effective investment could be made to give further momentum to this dual pattern between White and Brown here in the Boland as regards the development of the process of spatial organization. Therefore I want to make a plea to the effect that, when the fourth Iscor is going to be established, we shall not merely look to rands and cents but have regard to this basic fact here in the Boland.

The fourth aspect which I think should receive our attention since we are facing a new future now, is what I called in the beginning the concern at the taking up of our best agricultural lands here in the Paarl-Wellington valley. Sir, we simply cannot allow this process to continue like that.

What about the motion?

Open your eyes and then you will see what is said there. Mr. Speaker, I said we were on the eve of a new situation with new emphasis on this growth line from the Cape metropolis which could serve as a safety valve for over-concentration here. The time has arrived for us to do something about this situation during the course of this very year, and I want to make this plea to the hon. the Minister: Is it not possible for us also to look with new eyes at the concern about this Paarl-Wellington valley, and is it not possible for us to create a safety valve here as well? I advocated this here in the past and this afternoon I want to repeat it: Here we have the second old traditional Coloured township in the Boland, namely Saron; and in numerous respects this particular vicinity lends itself even more today to what we have done in the vicinity of Mamre. The Saron and Gouda area is situated on the main transport route, the main railway line and the main power supply line to the North. It is situated in the heart of our water network here in the Boland, namely Saron. This area also has some of the poorest agricultural land here in the Boland. It has wind to counteract pollution. It has a natural link with this old traditional Coloured township, Saron. Let us take a fresh look at this particular vicinity in the light of what we have done in the Mamre-Darling vicinity. Let us grant border-area benefits to the two adjacent towns, i.e. Porterville and Turbagh, and create a new growth point here. If we do that, I think we shall be making full use of this new pattern with which we are faced here in the Boland. In view of what I mentioned to you as having happened over the past few months, we shall be creating a totally new and rounded off pattern for the future, a pattern in which a new process of spatial organization will be applied. We shall be able to look at a new world in which White and Brown can live side by side. Please note, Sir, we cannot wish away from us this large concentration of Brown people in the Boland. As far as I can see, they will be there in our generation and also in the time of the next generation and the ones after that. This is a process and a situation at which we must look with new strength and imagination.

Sir, I listened with interest to the hon. member for Moorreesburg speaking, with praise, of the proposed development of the Sishen/Saldanha Bay scheme, a subject which is obviously close to his heart, covering a group of people and an area of country in which we know he has a great interest. But, we are dealing with a motion which notes with appreciation a number of things, one of which is the progress that has been made with the policy of multi-national development, and the other is the importance of planning in order to further that multinational development. Sir, I would like to put one question to the hon. member for Moorreesburg. I want to ask him whether what I am about to say is representative of the policy of multi-national development, or whether it constitutes planning to that end. I would like to ask the hon. gentleman where the labour is to come from to build this R500 million scheme. Where is the labour going to come from, firstly, to build that scheme and, secondly—if I could have the attention of the hon. member because I am replying to what he has just said—where the labour is going to come from to man the big industrial development, the secondary industry, which it is envisaged will follow the building of that line. Sir, I will tell him where it will come from. Train-loads upon train-loads of workers will come from the constituency of the hon. member for Transkei—trainloads of them, Sir, far more than we have in the Western Cape at the present time—in order to provide the labour force for the development which the hon. member for Moorreesburg welcomes. Sir, if there is anything which is the very antithesis of what the Government stands for in its multinational development, it is just that. The whole object of the policy is not to bring train-loads of Bantu into the Western Cape, to areas where they have never been seen before; that is not the object of the policy, as I understood it. The object is to get them out, to get rid of them. This development, which I agree with the hon. gentleman is a praiseworthy planning attempt, will defeat the whole object of this motion.

Sir, the motion has been put forward by the hon. member for Langlaagte, a gentleman who wears two hats. His first hat is a senior member of this House, the Member of Parliament for Langlaagte; his other hat is chairman of the Bantu Affairs Commission, and in that capacity he has during the last six months been extremely active. He has spent a great deal of time, in the cause of multi-nationalism, planning “die erwe van ons vaders”, about which I shall say a little more, in various provinces of this country, including Natal. Sir, I do not think anything can demonstrate more graphically what he has been doing than the phrase which he himself used. He said that it was necessary to go through with this planning so that we would all know “waar die erwe van ons vaders werklik lê”. I have always understood the term “erwe van ons vaders” to indicate that inheritance of our forebears, more particularly relating to land, which we have inherited down through the generations from our forebears. Sir, you can imagine my astonishment when I heard from the hon. gentleman that these are to be planned for us and that we are to be told the areas which our forebears have delved and dug and settled over generations and which we can now call our own. I would have thought, Sir, that we all knew those “erwe”; the Black man knows his “erwe” and the White man knows his. But, Sir, that is the whole object of the exercise. When this Government and its departments and its commissions get going, nobody knows where his own “erwe” are. You must remember, Sir, that in this motion we are praising the Government and expressing our appreciation of the comprehensive planning that the Government has done and the progress that it has made with the policy of multi-nationalism. I would like to say a word or two about the visit of the proposer of the motion and his commission to Natal, because the whole object of that visit was the very business of planning for the policy of multi-national development, not physical planning, Sir, not industrial planning, not agricultural planning, but purely political planning. I want to say at once, in case there are any misapprehensions, that the reception which the hon. gentleman and his colleagues received in Natal was the very opposite of what he received in certain parts of the Transvaal. He was shown courtesy and friendship and hospitality, and I may say that at that level the visit was extremely pleasant. But one must give a little serious attention to what actually took place. Before the visit a map and two lists of affected properties was issued by the department of the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration, upon which the visit of the Bantu Affairs Commission to Natal was to take place and which was to serve as the basis for discussion. I may say that neither the map nor any of the two lists of affected properties agreed one with the other; so initially we were faced with the conundrum of which to go on. When that was finally sorted out, the commission of the hon. member for Langlaagte arrived. The very first thing he did was to disclaim all responsibility for the map which had been issued by the hon. the Minister’s department at a ministerial Press conference—that is how it was launched. But he made it clear at meeting after meeting that that map was certainly not the map of the department, it was not the map of the Minister and it certainly was not the map of the Bantu Affairs Commission. I actually made notes of this at the time the hon. member was speaking.

Of the department but not of the Government. It contained the suggestions of the department.

I will say exactly what the hon. gentleman said. The hon. gentleman said it was the work of one official of the department; it did not have the stamp of authority of the department and it was merely a piece of kite-flying as a basis of discussion. That is precisely what the hon. member said at meeting after meeting at which the hon. member for South Coast and I were present. Now, Sir, you can imagine our astonishment when we were led to believe that a map involving the movements, if it were to be fulfilled, of some 300 000 to 400 000 Bantu, some 8 000 odd Whites and some 3 000 or 4 000 Asiatics and Coloureds should be launched on the public without the authority of the Government or of the commission whose job it was to inquire into it. Well, it was on that basis that we were asked to consider this. Sir, you would have thought that anyone embarking on a large scale redrawing of the boundaries of the province, would initially have done a survey in depth of the topography, of the water resources, of the human resources of all races who were to be involved, of the employment opportunities which existed and which were to be affected by the proposed changes, of the industrial potential which was available, of the agricultural and pastoral potential which was available, of the existing industrial foci present at the time, such as sugar-mills and industrial enterprises of that kind and of the infrastructure which existed, like roads, railways, telecommunication systems, power lines and bus transport, and how these things would have been affected by the proposed changes and the changes in population involved. You would have thought, Sir, that if we were to praise the Government for their planning all of this would have been done before the plan was drawn up to provide for the new political dispensation in Natal. But what did we find? Far from that having been done, here you had a plan done by one man, according to what we were told at the commission of inquiry, and the further the hearings went the clearer did it become that no investigation of any depth at all into all these relevant factors had in fact taken place. Now, let me give you an example, Sir, with reference to just two areas, of what I am saying. Let us take the Entumeni farming area, which is an intensive sugar-farming area, inland from Eshowe, and let us take Reserve No. 8 at the coast, which is a well-established Native Reserve. One of the proposals was to declare the Entumeni farming area Black and Reserve No. 8 White and to undertake a transposition of Bantu people from one area to the other. The Entumeni farming area is an area with its own sugar mill, supplied not by railway and tramline, as most mills are, but entirely by road transport. It is a marginal mill, marginal in the sense that if any of its cane supply is reduced, it goes out of action as an economic proposition. In addition, I should say it is a hilly area where in order to carry on successful, intensive sugar farming one needs high capital investment and heavy mechanical equipment such as only large-scale White farming enterprises can afford to have.

What did the Government’s proposals suggest? Firstly that Bantu from a different area be introduced into that area; that is to say Bantu taken from a flat area where farming conditions are easy, where they are cheap, where the soil is light, where cheap second-hand lightweight equipment can be used to do it and where there is convenient transport to a local mill. They are to be removed from this area where conditions are ideal for small-scale peasant farming of sugar. There are very few areas in South Africa where it can be successfully done. They are to be moved to an area where that type of cheap peasant farming of sugar cannot be undertaken. That is the first point which any farmer in Zululand could have told the hon. the Minister’s department. Not only that, but it is an accepted fact that in all Bantu agriculture in the sugar industry the production per acre is roughly half of that of the White areas. This means that with that given acreage of land the production of sugar for the Entumeni mill would have been substantially reduced under the Bantu system of agriculture and it would have ceased to be an economic operation because it is a marginal enterprise.

Further, so inadequate was the investigation that a significant percentage of the farms that supply the mill at Entumeni—and as anyone who knows sugar will know, you are to supply a given mill under quota and in this instance, apart from quotas, there was the physical difficulty of those farms being unable to supply any other mill, because of the lack of transport facilities—were not to go Black; they were to stay White. You would have the position under independence, which all this is aimed to bring about, that certain of the White farmers there would supply a mill in a foreign state.

Are you giving evidence now?

I am putting forward the evidence and I am not merely talking on abstract prospects.

I have heard that evidence before.

I know you have. [Interjections.] What is the point I am trying to establish? I am trying to establish that in one small corner of a whole province—this is repeated over and over again—with reference to one comparatively small economic enterprise, a mill and its surrounding cane farms, there was a complete bungle because there had been no analysis in depth, there had been no survey, there had been no proper planning before this blueprint was introduced. One can go on to quote example after example of cases of this kind.

I can give you another case. At Empangeni, about 40 miles away from the place that I mentioned, there is a large fruit factory relying almost entirely on the canning of pineapples which it exports overseas. It is a very large enterprise. Its principal point of supply is a very large pineapple estate owned by itself, but which is situated in a different area.

We have heard that evidence too.

The hon. gentleman may not like it, but I propose to say it. Here you have a pineapple factory whose economic life depends upon a pineapple estate owned by itself about ten miles away. So good was the planning of the department and of the Bantu Affairs Commission before it that this enterprise was cut in half under these proposed plans. Half of it was to go to KwaZulu for Bantu peasant occupation and the other half to remain in White ownership. The result would have been, of course, that not only the agricultural side of it became uneconomic, but the factor would have had to close down as well—entirely uneconomic! There is a second example. Let us go to further examples on the side of the Bantu. Let us come back to the same Reserve area, Reserve No. 8, which I have just mentioned and let us look at the position of the Bantu there. You have in this Reserve two types of Zulu. There is the fellow who has become westernized and runs a little cane farm for his own profit—the same as you and I might do, but on a smaller scale. Then we have the tribalized Native living there as well, who is farming under the old tribal system with a few head of cattle, some mealies and his family and himself working either full-time or part-time on the White farms nearby. Then you have the womenfolk going daily to work, doing what we call to labour coming back to their homes at night because there are children in the kraal. Not only do you need land for the occupation of the Zulu farmer, you also require part-time occupation, which is provided by the White farmer for the womenfolk and the juveniles and without which many of those people would starve because the Reserves cannot now provide a livelihood for all the people that are required to live there. If all these people were to be moved to Ntumeni, they would virtually be entirely surrounded by Native Reserves. Only by long-distance transport could work be provided for the women and the juveniles, who can get it after a 20 minutes’ ride on somebody’s vehicle in the area in which they are sitting at the present time.

Sir, I have given just two examples, which one could multiply over the whole of Natal. Here a plan was seriously put forward for the consideration of people to whom it was of intense interest, because they were affected the moment this plan was published. In many instances, if your farm fell into a proposed Black area, you could neither raise money on it nor sell it, before anything was done, merely because of the issue of a plan which was the handiwork of one member of the Minister’s department. I know of instances where wealthy families where there had been a death, had to raise tens of thousands of rands for death duties and were financially embarrassed, since they could not raise money from a bank, because the farm happened to fall in the proposed Black areas on this map. There were serious implications involved, and I think it is an incredible state of affairs that this could have been done and proposals put forward for discussion without even the most elementary survey of what is involved. As I am reminded, this is what we are supposed to congratulate the Government on. I may say that we still do not know the final answer. The hon. the Minister or the chairman of the Bantu Affairs Commission, one or other, or both, are rather like the blushing bride, a little nervous of revealing their charms apparently. But, Sir, it has to be done and it has to be done soon.

I must conclude. But let me try to summarize the difficulties the Government is faced with here. I do not blame entirely either the Bantu Affairs Commission or the hon. the Minister for the situation that has arisen, because their policy demands the impossible. Their policy demands the consolidation of the Bantu areas of Natal for political reasons, without regard to the basic infrastructure which exists in that province. The infrastructure—the roads, railways and other communications—and the economic advantages, have been built up largely by the White people in the White areas. In between the White areas are scattered a large number of Bantu areas. Those Bantu areas, in the way the province has grown over the last 150 years, are dependent in every way on the infrastructure which is in the White areas. The hon. member for Langlaagte was sent off there to do the impossible, to create a political consolidation which was at complete variance and in conflict with the physical infrastructure which already existed. So, you see, Sir, one can condemn the Government out of hand for not having done any sort of survey such as I may say the Natal Provincial Administration has already done for part of Natal, for far less involved considerations than the political re-drawing of the map. The Natal Provincial Administration has done some of these, but Zululand is the one area which the province has not yet touched in this regard. The Government has done nothing in that regard at all. We should not be praising the Government for the comprehensive planning it has done and the progress it has made in multinational development. In respect of Natal, the development began last year, 1972, for the first time. It was not anybody else who hindered the Government in the implementation of its policy in Natal. They did not even try to implement it until last year. Then, where one condemns them—one may and should condemn them out of hand—is that they embarked upon a largescale consolidation scheme of this kind without having done any scientific analysis of the situation beforehand at all. The result has been an immense feeling of insecurity, principally amongst the Whites, but also reaching to certain of the Bantu, many of the Coloureds and a lot of the Indians. There is furthermore the embarrassment which now attaches in respect of the whole business. I do not believe there is anything which can better support the amendment which was moved by the hon. member for Hillbrow than the situation in Natal at the present time resulting from the Government embarking upon its so-called policy of consolidation.

Mr. Speaker, I have listened attentively to the hon. member for Zululand. It was not my intention to take part in this discussion, but it is becoming very apparent that a great deal is being said about the Bantu and the Bantu areas. Pursuant to what was said by the hon. member for Zululand it is necessary for me now to express a few thoughts. I understand, of course, that being the leader of the United Party in Natal, the hon. member holds a responsible position. Prior to being elected he started asserting himself at the meeting held in his constituency, at his home town. I shall come back to that in a moment. But now he wants to build on that by speaking in a disparaging manner.

Firstly, I want to say at once that I strongly object to the fact that at a public meeting of the Bantu Affairs Commission that hon. member tried to make a big fuss and referred disparagingly to the plans that had been submitted. He used the same words, “unscientific” and “unplanned”, and I now want to invite the hon. member to my office in order to show him the written report which accompanied that plan. He spoke of one official. That official was in charge. His name is mentioned, but he is not the only person who is working with that. A whole section of people are involved in that matter. I can tell the hon. member that the section of my department and that particular official also consulted the Department of Planning, the Department of Agricultural Technical Services and the sugar industry. They went into the matter in reasonable detail.

Before this plan?

Yes. Before that plan they consulted people. That was done at the beginning, although perhaps not in respect of the greater details, which, according to the hon. member, should have been done. Now you will understand …

May I put a question to the hon. the Deputy Minister? Is he aware that at every meeting of the commission the chairman of the commission said, “This plan has been prepared by an official in an office in Pretoria; his name is So-and-so”—and he named him and said, “He sits on my left; he is the man who prepared this plan”. Is the hon. the Minister aware of that?

I am not aware of that.

Order! I cannot allow statements.

As I have said, I am not aware of that. Nor do I think it is relevant. I am now giving the information here.

I was putting a question. I asked the hon. the Minister whether he was aware of what transpired, which was recorded.

I am not aware of that, nor do I think the interpretation of the hon. member for South Coast is quite correct. We arranged for the official in charge of the section which prepared the plans, namely the planning branch of my department, to accompany the commission because he, as a senior official, was also very conversant with that matter. I think he was introduced in that capacity, but the interpretation given to it now is as though only one person was supposedly responsible for it. I do not think there is any need for us to quarrel about this matter. Let us now inform them what the position is. I was informing them by saying that there had in fact been a thorough inquiry and that various branches of the Public Service had been consulted in regard to the preparation of that plan. I have obtained in writing from the people concerned a very fine motivation for that plan. If the hon. member wants to come over to have a look at it, I can show it to him. Then he will accept that what he said here is not really the case. Then he can apologize to the official, who is a very capable official and who has rendered long service not only in the interests of the Public Service but also in the interests of the country, for the rubbish of which he delivered himself at a public meeting. He being the one who is uninformed, he has made these wild allegations without orientating himself and ascertaining precisely what the position is.

Are his facts wrong?

Yes, his facts are wrong.

In what respect?

He said that no inquiry had been made, whereas an inquiry had in fact been made. I can prove this to him.

What about the two examples?

Those examples were checked again. I told him that the inquiry had not been made in detail, as he would have liked it to be. Now you can understand, Mr. Speaker, that if one submits plans in respect of which one wants to obtain the views of the whole community involved in the matter, one cannot work out all the details first. There is no point in doing that. As one has ascertained the feelings and the views of the community and of the industries that are involved, one goes further and then the final plan is prepared. The approach is to consult the public as far as possible before final plans are prepared. These final plans are now being put forward after thorough preparation and a thorough study of the problems encountered in practice. The hon. member mentioned the case of sandy soil as against the better soil of Reserve No. 8, and said that the people could not plant sugar there. We are aware of those problems. But I can tell you, Sir, that I am at the same time engaged in negotiations with the sugar industry for bringing about a large-scale revolution in the production of sugar in the Bantu areas. We have been thinking of making the mill at Entumeni an out and out Bantu mill and of pushing up its production so that it might be worth-while. We are engaged in all those things, but they are not relevant when a public inquiry is being made. It cannot be expected that we must make available a host of scientific particulars. I am outlining the background to the hon. member, and now he simply says that it happened everywhere that no investigations were made. I want to tell him that there were cases where the officials, on the strength of all their consultations and their investigations, arrived at findings with which he will not agree and with which many other people will not agree. However, that is no reason for referring disparagingly to people who did a very thorough job. With a great fuss reference is now being made to a small error on the map as compared with the name-list of farms. Large numbers of farms are involved here, and certain farms were mentioned whose boundary lines did not agree with the lines on the maps. This is in fact the case. This type of error can creep in. It was eliminated and the discussion continued. I only feel that it is very unfair to intervene at any stage in a large-scale planning which is in the process of being developed, and to say that it is wrong and unscientific. Reference was made to the question of pineapples. We know that there are industries at various places and that in the process of consolidation, for instance, a factory will have to relinquish land of the Whites who are serving it. All these are factors that must be taken into account. There are 110 factors exercising an influence when one has to plan for these removals. Now the hon. members says that we are only concerned with politics. Basically politics are important, for what is involved here is that one must draw clear lines for Whites and non-Whites in this country for their places of residence. This is being done in order to get political stability. I am telling that hon. member that if one does not have political stability, one cannot get economic stability either. According to the line of reasoning he followed here this afternoon, the existing Black spots must remain as labour reservoirs for the community surrounding them, and then all the problems will be solved. One does not solve problems that way. The approach of this side of the House is that thorough planning should be done as regards the division of land between Whites and Blacks in this country. But, no matter what criticism he may have, and we accept that criticism can be levelled, I want to tell him that this is the most meaningful effort that has ever been made in the history of this country to have a proper division of land between Whites and Blacks, and we, White South Africa and the Bantu peoples, will in the future be sincerely grateful for this effort that was made. I want to emphasize once again …

May I put a question to the hon. the Deputy Minister? In the first place I want to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister whether the consolidation, as it is going to be effected now, is going to be the final consolidation. In the second place I want to ask him whether this is going to be the basis on which negotiations for independence will be entered into in the future.

The plans being submitted now, are the final ones. All I can add is that it will perhaps be unwise at the moment to say that they are 100%. Changes may be effected here and there. Once we have defined the borders and we find that it is better to effect changes here and there we shall do so, but with this qualification, I say, namely that these are final plans.

In six pieces?

No, those are proposals for the public and they are still going to be submitted to this House. I repeat that those were proposals put forward by the Department—even if this has already been said repeatedly. However, they are still subject to inquiry. The Bantu Affairs Commission under the chairmanship of the hon. member for Langlaagte went out to investigate the position and listen to public representations. In the light of these representations they drafted a report to the Minister, and from that report which they drafted, along with the department’s report, we shall submit proposals to this House. This House will refer them to a Select Committee. On that committee the hon. members serving on it will also be able to make their respective contributions. Instead of letting off steam in public against the department and its officials, that hon. member is, I hope, going to get the opportunity to make a positive contribution with all his scientific approaches so as to help us to find a meaningful solution to these problems. In any case, this is the procedure, and while I am speaking I want to express my appreciation to the Bantu Affairs Commission, to its members and especially to its chairman, for the work they have been doing in this regard in conjunction with officials of the department over the past year. I have already said that this is the most meaningful task that has ever been undertaken in this country in this regard. We had the co-operation of several branches of the Public Service, and we hope and trust that a very important decision will flow from it, a decision which will determine the relationships between Black and White in this country in the future. As far as these matters are concerned, I want to say in general that we do not only see the Bantu as people who have to sell their labour to the Whites and whose places of residence must be such that they are useful and within easy reach. These things will in fact play a role, a major role, because the Whites in this country are the persons with the spirit of enterprise giving the stimulus to development, and so forth. If we want to have permanent peace and peaceful coexistence in this country, it must also be possible for those Bantu to develop to the level of being employers in this country. This is the approach and reason why these various areas in Natal and elsewhere in the country must be consolidated to form meaningful units. I can tell hon. members that it would have been much better if we had undertaken that task 20 to 30 years ago and had obtained proper borders and had brought these people together. That would have been easier. There has been large-scale development in the meantime and large numbers of people are involved, but I can tell hon. members that this side of the House, the Government, is not going to recoil from the magnitude of this task. We are going to undertake that task and we are dealing with it at the moment, as the Bantu Affairs Commission has already indicated. In spite of problems we are going to undertake this task which will help to bring about better distribution and better planning. In this matter the Minister of Planning and his department will, as far as planning is concerned, be in a position to say that there are permanent lines and that it will be possible to plan development along those lines. As far as the homelands themselves are concerned, we are engaged in large-scale physical planning. That is one major reason why we want consolidation. There will be final lines and one will be able to see how one should plan. We cannot leave Natal, which gives the impression of a patchwork quilt today, in the condition in which it is. That hon. member will agree with me. When one has 205 pieces of land for one people, then one has to contend with an impossible position. How is one going to handle that in terms of those hon. members’ approach to a federation? What part will be urban Bantu and what part will not? They simply do not have the faintest notion of how they will handle the matter. The basic planning in which we are engaged, is meaningful and important. I do not think those hon. members who are now referring to it in a disparaging manner, have really made a meaningful contribution. I therefore want to express the hope that they will be more constructive from now on. Whether they are going to do this or not, I want to give them the assurance that we are proceeding with it. It is basically important that these things be done in the interests of everybody who is involved in the matter.

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the second part of the motion as printed, but I want to state right at the outset that I cannot support the first part of the motion. I should therefore like to support the amendment as moved by the hon. member for Hillbrow. There are few people who would agree that there has been comprehensive planning of all parts of the Republic as is being suggested in this motion. This is simply not the case, not is it consistent with the facts. There are still many regions and districts in the Republic of South Africa where there has been no overall planning yet, and for which no guide plans have been drawn up. I think of the extensive areas in the Northern Cape, parts of the South Western Transvaal, the districts of Herbert, Barly West, Mafeking, Lichtenburg, etc. Consequently. I cannot help feeling that this motion is an extreme one and that it was moved in an effort to advertise the little work the Government has done. Perhaps some progress was made with the policy of multi-nationality and multi-national development in the past. At present there is not even a policy for the Indians. We cannot get a definite answer to what this Government is going to do with the Coloureds. There is little development for the various peoples in large areas of the Republic of South Africa.

Let us take the planning for the Indians on the East Rand as an example. Here our experience conforms to that of the hon. member for Zululand. The National Party Government has been trying since 1949 to remove the Indians who are living in dire conditions in Germiston and to resettle them on the East Rand. According to the policy of this Government the Benoni area has been proclaimed as the only area for the settlement of Indians on the entire East Rand. In Germiston at present there are about 30 people living in one house. At present there are still about 347 Indian families in the Asiatic Bazaar, of which 99 are owners of dwellings, while 248 families are sub-lessees. This gives an average of approximately 3,5 families per house. These particulars are based on figures I obtained from the Director of Non-White Affairs in Germiston. It is clear that it is absolutely imperative that these people should be removed to an environment in which better conditions prevail. We cannot tolerate such a situation. Benoni is only too willing to accept, to help and to accommodate these Indians, provided we also receive the necessary assistance from the Department of Planning. The problem in the present critical situation is that the Department of Planning and the Group Areas Boards cannot give a definite answer to the question of where those Indians should be resettled. In the whole of Benoni there are at present not more than about 53 flats available in which to settle this large number of families. There are large areas situated outside the municipal area of Benoni. They are situated in the municipal area of Brakpan, but according to what we have ascertained the National Party of Brakpan refuses to relinquish any part of their municipal area for the establishment of Indians. The Indian area in Benoni itself, namely Action-ville, is surrounded by industries, mining areas, etc. There is simply no room for further expansion, except for a few sites with clay sub-strata where very extensive foundations will have to be laid when houses and other buildings are erected there. If we had only been able to persuade the National Party of Brakpan, the Department of Planning and the other organizations, that problem could have been solved a long time ago. They are confined in the straitjacket of their own ideologies and the limitations of their own policy. The result is that they simply cannot accept the challenge of the future. They cannot solve the problems of the country. Consequently slim conditions of the worst kind are developing before our very eyes.

In the Benoni area, which has to be the future Indian area for the East Rand, we need space in which to resettle the Indians from Bakerton and those from Nigel and the other peri-urban areas. We must also make provision for the future increase, which will mean a twofold one over the next 25 years. If we do not decide soon those areas will become built-up as a result of new residential extensions. It is really becoming imperative that we do something about the conditions there. I should like to request the hon. the Minister to give his attention to this problem as soon as possible. The Indians of Actonville also live next to an adjoining area by the name of Wattville, where a large number of Bantu have at present been settled. The idea was that the Government would remove these Bantu from Wattville and take them to Daveyton so that the Bantu could all be together there, and in that way create more room for the resettlement of Indians. But, Mr. Speaker, you yourself will appreciate that Indians are not eager to occupy the houses only recently made available to them by Bantu. We also know that those Bantu would not really like having to go all the way out to Daveyton to travel daily from there by train, at a far higher cost, to their present places of work to which they are at present able to walk. The other problem which will arise as a result of that is the following one: The Indians are to a large extent dependent upon those Bantu because they trade with them. As a result of this trading with the Bantu in the neighbouring Bantu township of Wattville, this Indian community is completely self-sufficient and in no way a burden to the State. If these Bantu now have to be removed, a task which I should not like to undertake and which the officials there would not like to undertake either, I can assure you, Sir, that that Indian community will become dependent on the State. They will simply be unable to maintain themselves.

We see similar planning in other parts of South Africa where Bantu have been removed from certain areas where they were previously living. One could almost say that they are banished to areas such as Sada and Dimbaza and Bathlaros in the Kalahari where they lose their animals, where there are no work opportunities, and if one visits those areas one sees women and large numbers of children there without the head of the household, without the husband who has to maintain discipline. He is working as a migrant labourer somewhere on the Witwatersrand. He only comes home annually to beget another child. He comes home to spend a few weeks there and then returns. We have found on the Witwatersrand that it frequently happens that this migrant labourer not only keeps a concubine in Johannesburg, but that he also spends his total income on her, and consequently one finds that his own family, his wife in the homeland, starves, and as a result the taxpayer of South Africa has to subsidize those people. Sir, does this look like proper economic planning? It is perhaps ideological planning in terms of the policy of the Nationalist Party, but it is not planning in the interests of the growth and progress of South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Benoni confined himself chiefly to conditions on the East Rand and the position of the Indian population there. I do not want to say much about that, except to just ask him what the United Party’s policy actually is in respect of the Indians and the Coloureds. If I understand their policy correctly, in this respect they have, too, already taken over Government policy. If I am to judge from the drawings, in which they present graphically how they see the political scheme of things for the future, they are giving the Coloureds not only one legislative assembly, but two.

That is wrong.

I therefore say that it looks to me as if the United Party has already completely taken over the Governments’ policy as far as the positions of the Indians and the Coloureds are concerned.

And before 1948 it was integration.

Sir, as far as the positions of the Coloureds and the Indians are concerned, the policy of this Government was already summed up here last year in a debate about the Coloureds, which I myself introduced, when we advocated that in future full-fledged—and I underline the world “full-fledged”—towns and cities should be planned for the Coloureds. Because we know that we must share this country with these minority groups, we also believe consequently that the Coloureds can only come into their own if they are ordered in a community in such a way that they have not only a residential area, but a full-fledged town and city in which they can live their lives to the full. If the United Party wants to make a good contribution to the future happiness of Indians and Coloureds in South Africa, they could also just take over fully this part of the National Party’s policy.

Sir, I think the motion, which the hon. member for Langlaagte moved, has come at a very fitting moment. The Department of Planning was established on 5th August, 1964. In August of this year this department will be about nine years old. This department has now had the opportunity, over a period of almost a decade, to show the direction in which it is moving and what role it can play in the body politic in South Africa.

But it is also important, for a second reason, to look at the role of the Department of Planning at this stage. In its policy of multi-national development, the National Party has, at this stage, almost brought what were formerly depressed areas, and which were called Bantu homelands in the course of time, to the point where we can think of national states for the various Bantu ethnic groups in South Africa. We shall have to give fresh thought in future to how we must plan South Africa to ensure that the relationship between these Bantu states and White South Africa can best be arranged and regulated. There is also a third reason why I think we must take a fresh look at the role of this department; it has started to become clear that what I mentioned here at the beginning of last year, bloc formation in the world, is something that will take shape at a much more rapid pace in the future. On that occasion I pointed out that Europe is now becoming unified and that Britain and its partners have now also entered the European Common Market, so that we virtually get a united Europe; that in such a situation a country like Japan, with its powerful industrial machine, will now have to find a market in the world for its products, and that it is consequently not difficult to predict that in time a big economic bloc will also come into being in the East. Two days after I expressed that idea here, an article appeared in the Cape afternoon paper in which attention was drawn to the steps Japan has taken, and intends to take, in the regulation of its relations with Red China. A while later an article again appeared in the same afternoon paper in which there was an exposition of the appeals made by Soviet Russia to Japan, in particular, to make a big contribution to the development of Siberia. I believe that these are but the first signs of the establishment Of what will eventually be one of the biggest power blocs in world history, i.e. that in the East a great economic bloc will come into being. It will inevitably have to come because Japan is excluded, to a greater extent, from the market in America and to a large extent from the market in Europe, and it will consequently have to try to create a bloc in the East where it can sell its products.

The question is now what the position is of South Africa, in particular, we who are more dependent upon imports and exports than virtually any other developed country in the world. Therefore I think that the Department of Planning, in particular, must help South Africa to develop in such a way that it can play the proper role in the establishment and the development of a bloc, too, in our part of this continent. I have already mentioned that South Africa, virtually more than any other developed country in the world, is dependent on imports and exports. If one looks at the percentages that go to make up imports and exports, as against the total national product, and one compares this with other countries, one gets a picture in which it is about 8% for the United States—i.e. the percentage of its imports and exports in relation to its national product—and in the case of Great Britain, which is preeminently a trading country, it is about 28%. In the case of South Africa, however, it is about 40%. This underlines the fact that South Africa is, in particular, a country that must take note of its export and import position. We must consequently ensure that our country develops in such a way that specifically because of this factor, which affects its future more than that of any other country, it will develop to the utmost and that its economy will never suffer any damage. Today I just briefly want to underline the two tasks which the Department of Planning carries out in this country, as I see it. The first is to let South Africa develop in such a way that it can play its proper role on this sub-continent. The second task is to ensure that South Africa, as a national entity, develops in such a way that its resources are utilized to the utmost and that we also have balanced development throughout South Africa. As far as the first role is concerned, i.e. that South Africa must be planned in such a way that it can play the best possible role on this sub-continent, I want to point out that before one can think further along these lines, one must see what the South Africa of the future is going to look like. If we were to look at what is happening on the west and east coasts, we would see that as far as both Angola and Moçambique are concerned, virtually all their development is centered on large cities at the coast. In the north of Angola one gets Cabinda, where fairly rich oil wells have been discovered, and to the south one gets Luanda, Benguela, Lobito and Moçamedes. If one looks at the east coast one gets, from the south of Moçambique to the north, Lourenço Marques, Beira and now also Nacala. One finds, therefore, that the chief development in these neighbouring states of ours is not in the interior, but along the coast. It now becomes clear to one that if South Africa wants to play its proper role in southern Africa, its trade routes, as far as future trade is concerned, must not be in the form of long railway lines that run across national borders that can be closed with five minutes’ notice, that they must not be in the form of long railway lines that are subject to sabotage, that they must not incorporate an expensive process of transport by rail from South Africa to the north, but that they should pre-eminently take the form of ocean transport, of coastal navigation. I therefore think that if the Department of Planning wants to draw up a guide plan of how the South Africa of tomorrow should look, it will have to regard South Africa’s role in southern Africa and ensure that this over-concentration in the P.W.V. area is avoided, that more balanced development should come about and that the pattern, which has now been created with the development of Richard’s Bay in Natal, and also with the newly announced development in the Western Cape, i.e. that at Saldanha Bay, shall become the pattern of the future. I therefore want to make an appeal to the effect that the Department of Planning, in its view of a guideplan for the country as a whole, should bear in mind the fact that we shall only be able to play our role to the full if our export industries of the future are established in cities at the coast.

In this connection I also want to point out that the total production of the manufacturing sector in South Africa was R2 100 million in 1967. In that year the exports of the manufacturing sector amounted to R690 million. In that year the manufacturing sector exported about one-third of what it produced. It is now estimated by the Industrial Development Corporation that our total national product at the end of this century will be about R58 000 million, and that the contribution of the manufacturing sector ought then to be R21 000 million. If the 1967 pattern continues at the end of this century, it would mean that the manufacturing sector will have to export goods to the value of about R6 000 or R7 000 million per year to countries abroad. This means that an enormous part of our total production will have to be destined for export. It goes without saying, as far as I am concerned, that these export goods can only be competitive on the world market, not only in southern Africa, but throughout the world, if we ensure that our future export industries are concentrated in what I should like to call coastal cities. I therefore think we can be grateful for the fact that the Government has decided that this Saldanha project must now be tackled. It is a project that will perhaps only bear its first fruit four years from now, but because it will be tackled now it will, in fact, be able to do its share in time, as it grows, to ensure that there is sufficient room for the establishment of industries in places situated at the coast.

I do not want to elaborate on this subject any further, except just to point out that one of the biggest projects in which South Africa can co-operate, for the good of this whole sub-continent, is the tourist industry. It is one of the industries where no other country can play the role that South Africa plays, specifically because South Africa is a part of this area. I believe that in the years to come tourism can become one of the foremost spheres of cooperation, in particular between South Africa and our neighbouring states, because in this sphere we do not compete but cooperate with them so that this area as a whole can play a bigger role in world tourism. If we see this pattern of development in South Africa, i.e. that in our case, as in the case of Angola and Moçambique, large cities develop all along our coasts, we shall be able to create something that can become virtually unique in the world, i.e. a tremendous, new tourist route that stretches from one side of Africa, virtually from the equator, virtually to the equator on the other side of Africa. It would reach from Luanda on the west coast to Nacala on the east coast. I believe that this could become one of the big attractions of the future in world tourism arid that we can make a big contribution towards bringing this about if we ensure that development in South Africa takes place according to this pattern.

There is also another reason why I think we must try to have industries develop at the coast. We live in a warm region, in a warm, dry country, a country in which one would find it difficult, even with the development of the Orange River area, to imagine large industrial complexes in the interior, because I believe one can only obtain high productivity if people feel very happy in the area they are living in. In the first place they must not be subject to extremes of climate, and in the second place they must, as far as their families are concerned, live in the best possible conditions. I therefore believe that it is in the interests of South Africa and its industrial development that we must ensure as far as possible that our industrial development in the future will take place at the coast.

In this connection I should like to endorse what has already been said this afternoon by the hon. member for Moorreesburg when he advocated that the fourth Iscor be erected at Saldanha or in the Boland. We have this large concentration of Coloureds in the Cape Peninsula and the Boland, and we must consider what their future is going to be. At this stage the total Coloured population of the Cape is just under two million, but within 28 years from now their numbers, in the Cape Province alone, will be 4,5 million, and if the demographic position remains the same as it is today, there will be one-third of that 4,5 million living in the Cape Peninsula alone, i.e. 1,5 million. I do not believe this will happen, because I believe no government will allow this to become the future pattern here. I therefore think it is imperative that another large growth point be created that should not only remain an export harbour for ore, but should be a new, big city of the future. To initiate this development, we must ensure that every possible industry that can be placed there at this stage, is in fact localized there, and that is why I consider it to be essential, in spite of the claims that other areas may perhaps have, that we do not overlook this overwhelming factor, i.e. that we must find a refuge for the Coloureds of the Western Cape who will largely be living in the Boland area in future.

I briefly want to say a bit more about the Department of Planning itself. I have already mentioned the role it must play in determining our role in Southern Africa. I believe that in the first place this department was not established for that purpose, it was established to ensure that balanced development will take place in our own country. As things have developed in the past 8½ years, we already have a reasonably clear picture of what this department will be like. We have taken note of the results they have already achieved in the studies of various regions that have been completed from time to time, and the guide-plans that have already been drawn up for certain areas. I think, however, that we must see the role of this department in a much wider sense. Unfortunately South Africa’s pattern of development has thus far been such that all development has virtually taken place in only three areas. About 50% of the manufacturing sector has been concentrated in the P.W.V. area and a further 30% in the Durban and Cape Town areas, so that these three areas take care of about 80% of the production of secondary industries in South Africa. I believe it is our duty, as members of the present generation, to ensure that this development is decentralized to a much greater extent in the future. I want to link up with an idea that has already been expressed by other members, i.e. that we should not see every small spot in South Africa as a new growth point. In that way we shall never serve any one of these areas. We must rather ensure that there is first centralization before there is further decentralization. The task of the various regional development associations must therefore not be to agitate for every small town to be given border area benefits, etc. All of them can surely not hope to draw secondary industries. Their task should much rather be to ensure that, besides the few selected growth points, supplementary development takes place in their own areas.

Mr. Speaker, we all agree with the hon. member for Vasco that there must be development in the country and that there has in fact been a certain measure of development. We, however, say that development has not been sufficient and that under this Government’s ideological policy development cannot take place properly.

The hon. member for Moorreesburg referred to the development at Saldanha. I want to confirm what the hon. member for Zululand has said, namely that the establishment of that scheme is going to mean the establishment of yet another big Black city alongside Saldanha Bay. In any event, the Blacks are going to be brought in to help in the development of the scheme and to build it up. The establishment of this big scheme there is, in fact, therefore contrary to the policy of the Government.

The hon. the Minister apparently this morning said that he was the supreme commander over all the other departments in so far as the planning of this country is concerned. He reminds me of General Wavell. When General Wavell was removed from the Middle East to the Far East during the last war after Japan came in, there was confusion in the Far East. General Wavell wrote back to Mr. Churchill and said: “I don’t mind holding the baby, but why give me twins?” This is what is happening to this poor Minister. He has not only got the baby, he has got twins, because in his planning he cannot intervene or interfere in the Bantu areas. I am surprised that the hon. member for Langlaagte should have introduced this motion. He is the very one who should know that we cannot possibly appreciate the comprehensive planning of this Government. He in his capacity as chairman of the Bantu Affairs Commission knows that the planning has not been anything but comprehensive, especially in so far as the Bantu areas are concerned. Now, what progress has been made in regard to multi-national development? This year the hon. the Prime Minister appointed a socio-economic commission to help him plan the future of the Coloureds. This Government has been in power for 25 years. Only now, after 25 years, when they reach a stalemate do they appoint a commission to help them. What happened earlier on when Dr. Verwoerd was still alive? He realized that he had no plan. He realized that the Nationalist Government had no multi-national development plan. So he appointed a socio-economic commission to help him, the Tomlinson Commission. What I have here is the abridged form of their report; the full report consists of many volumes. One of the main recommendations of this commission was that the Whites must be allowed to play their part in the development of the reserves. I do not have time to read all the relevant references, but I have them all here. Another recommendation was that the Government should spend at least R208 million in ten years. This report was tabled in 1956, but Dr. Verwoerd rejected the main recommendatons of that commission. Had Dr. Verwoerd accepted the commission’s recommendations, we might have seen some development in the Bantu areas. But he rejected the recommendations of his own commission, because they did not fit into his ideological plan. Had they carried out the recommendations of the Tomlinson Commission, the Whites would have been in the Transkei and the other reserves long ago helping to develop. Dr. Verwoerd said the money recommended to be spent by the commission was far too much and was not necessary. He did not even establish the development corporation the commission suggested. What do we find now? Individuals have to come in to help the Government. Mr. Rupert is now starting a bank to help develop the Bantu areas. They have gone completely back on Dr. Verwoerd’s policy. Now the Whites are being asked to go into the reserves. One only has to go into the Transkei and see the development which is taking place now. But it is too late. This development has taken place in the last two to three years and there is certainly some development now with the arrival of the Whites. White enterprise is now allowed to help them. To see how contrary to Government policy this development now taking place is, one has only to read what Mr. Prinsloo, a senior official, said in 1955: “All expansion of industry and other European interests in the Transkei has now stopped, and there is no hope that permission would be granted by the Department of Native Affairs for extensions.” This is what Mr. C. W. Prinsloo, chief information officer of the department said. He went on: “Umtata and other European settlements should be regarded as temporary European townships which would in time be taken over by the Natives as they progress in their development and become able to manage their own affairs. The department is not in favour and will not permit any further development of European interests in these townships.” You must go to Umtata now and see what is happening there. The Minister himself is buying up land for White occupation, for building blocks of flats, because they have to bring in White entrepreneurs to help them.

The hon. member for Vasco referred to tourism and he appealed for further planning in tourism. I agree with everything he has said, but one of the biggest tourist attractions in the country is being neglected and is not allowed to be developed for tourists. I am talking about the Transkei, the coast of the Transkei. Hotels are not allowed to be built to attract tourists. I have appealed before for this area to be developed. It is the biggest tourist attraction we have, but because of the Government’s ideological policy nothing can be done. Dr. Verwoerd wished to rely on the peasants’ subsistence economy to provide for the development of a country with millions of people, and he failed. Mr. Blaar Coetzee, when he was Deputy Minister, tried to bolster up the morale of his people by saying what development was taking place. He made a speech in 1966, and hon. members will remember that he staked his whole political future on the fact that the Blacks would eventually go back to the Black areas. Well, we know what has happened to his future! In 1966, that means 12 years after the Tomlinson Commission had been appointed, he said: “The Bantu Investment Corporation was established only about five years ago and the Xhosa Development Corporation only last year.” The Tomlinson Commission recommended the formation of these corporations in 1956; so five years were wasted. He also referred to the humble beginning of industry in the Transkei which was taking place, but too much time had been wasted. I do not have time to go through the rest of his speech, but we see now seven years later, that he was talking absolute nonsense about what development he hoped would take place in the reserves and that the Africans in the townships would be taken back to the reserves. I do not blame this Minister, and I do not blame the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development for what is happening, because they have been left with the baby. The fault was made by Dr. Verwoerd when he laid down his policy in terms of his ideology. That is when the mistake was made and now they are trying to catch up. They cannot hope to catch up and give sufficient jobs for the natural increase in the reserves. Take the Transkei, the best developed of all the reserves. There is no hope of catching up with the natural increase in the population, so how can they possibly hope to establish enough work for those in the White townships who have to go back to the reserves? There is unemployment in the Transkei. You only have to read the discussions in their Assembly how they complain about the conditions under which their men have to work in the White areas, the conditions of recruiting, the migrant labour—they are all up in arms. One only has to read the discussions in their Parliament to see that pages and pages of their Hansard are filled with that. Although the conditions are so unsatisfactory they have to leave the Transkei because there is no work for them in the reserve. As I have said, the most progress has been made in the Transkei. But what is the reaction of the Transkeian leaders themselves? We know that Chief Kaiser Matanzima supported the Government’s policy of separate development. He was the first of the African leaders to support it and he played ball with the Government all along. He was critical of the other Opposition parties and did what the Government wanted him to do. But what is his reaction now? This is what he said on 29th January this year: “Those of us who have co-operated with the Government in finding a solution, are showing signs of despondency because of the insincerity of the White man in carrying out the policies to their logical conclusions. We shall therefore not be accused of being double-faced if we launch a consistent attack on the Republic Government and accuse them of policies which will forever deprive the Black man of his means of livelihood on his own land.” That is the complaint of an African leader who was sympathetic to the Government’s policy. We find that other African leaders are taking the same line, they are becoming more and more critical. Chief Gatsha Buthelezi sees no future for Zululand if he is only granted the area the Government proposes to give him when Zululand is consolidated. One of the problems we have in our development is that we are wasting our main asset, namely the supply of labour which we have all round us. We are wasting it because we are not training our labour properly. We do not have sufficient trade schools to make these men skilled. If we had more skilled men we could have more development and more progress. I accuse this Government of neglecting the Africans living in the urban areas. There are no trade schools for them; they have to battle to get any kind of education. There should be technical colleges for these people. I heard the figures given by this Minister of Immigration this morning. The immigration figures are in fact dropping. We had fewer immigrants last year than we had the year before last and even fewer this year. That means that we have to find the extra labour here and the labour has to be trained. But this Government’s planning does not provide for that. Unfortunately my time is up and my indictment against this Government is that it is not doing proper planning for the future of this country.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Langlaagte, I must say, made a good planning speech. I should very much have liked to have seen that subject taken further, but unfortunately, as far as I am concerned, the debate took a different course and time has also run out, and I shall therefore say what I have to say on physical planning and on what we are doing. If I understand the Standing Orders correctly there is fortunately no time limit then.

The hon. member for Vasco made a positive contribution, full of constructive suggestions, as one usually has from him. The hon. member for Moorreesburg made a speech which contained specific points to which I shall reply. As regards the hon. members of the Opposition, I am not going to reply to the speech made by the hon. member for Zululand, nor to the speech made by the hon. member for Transkei. The Deputy Minister has already replied to the hon. member for Zululand, and the hon. member for Transkei …

Where did he reply to me?

I said the hon. the Deputy Minister has already replied to the speech made by the hon. member for Zululand and then I went on and wanted to say that the hon. member for Transkei would realize that he had spoken on a subject which did not really fall under my department; consequently I could not reply to everything.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? Does the hon. the Minister of Planning play no part in the consolidation of KwaZulu?

Not in the preliminary stages; only in the final consideration of the plans.

I thought you were consulted in regard to consolidation. Did the Minister not say so?

Yes, the Minister said officials of my department were consulted.

*I should like to reply to the hon. members for Hillbrow and Benoni if there is sufficient time, for they raised specific matters. But first I should just like to react to the matters raised by the hon. member for Moorreesburg. I think that they are of importance to us.

In the first place the hon. member discussed Mitchell’s Plain. The position there is that this matter has a long history. Mitchell’s Plain did not spring up overnight like a mushroom. In the ’sixties and perhaps even before that, serious consideration was being given to the development of proper beach facilities for the Coloureds. Something exceptionally good was found for them in the entire Strandfontein area. In that time already it was clear that the residential expansion for the Coloureds in the Cape Flats would have to link up with that fine and large piece of coastal area which the Coloureds received on the Strand side of Muizenberg, i.e. the Strandfontein area. Therefore I do not think it was wrong to think in that direction. There was the pressing need for Coloured housing on the Cape Flats. I can only tell the hon. member that when the matter was brought before me for the first time the Divisional Council had a housing shortage in regard to 19 000 families, which it in fact had on its hands and had to find houses for. The Cape Town City Council had 13 000 Coloureds on its hands, who were living on the Cape Flats and whom it had to find houses for. This gave a total of 32 000 houses which were urgently required two years ago for the Coloureds on the Cape Flats. These were for people who were living in squatters’ conditions, or were living in overcrowded conditions. We were receiving complaints from many people and from many quarters. We then proclaimed this area. It is not a rich agricultural area. There was fine silica sand on one part of it, and this we reserved. The rest we then proclaimed for development. I do not think we could at this stage intervene and draw a line through the housing planning for Mitchell’s Plain. That would be impossible. At that stage, and even up to the beginning of this year we thought, in fact, that it would take us at least four to five years to establish the first housing in Mamre. We cannot allow the backlog which existed to continue or become worse, for it is constantly becoming worse. Consequently I think the hon. member will simply have to accept that the development of Mitchell’s Plain will continue. Last year or the year before last I said that I would proclaim no further Coloured group areas here, except for rounding off purposes. I shall abide by that statement. Consequently Mitchell’s Plain is the last major development area for Coloureds for residential purposes on the Cape Flats.

We come then to Saron, which the hon. member also mentioned. I want to say that I think he has a good case there. I should very much like in my time, if it is in any way possible, to do something to alleviate the pressure which exists on the Paarl / Wellington area. I do not know to what extent Stellenbosch is included in this. This would really be something to which we could look back with pride if we were able to accomplish something like this at the right time. The most I want to say today is that I have taken thorough cognizance of his suggestion. We shall give a little thought to this matter.

As far as Mamre is concerned, do you know that we have proclaimed more than 7 000 hectares in the Mamre area. Two farms have already been bought up there. The divisional council has begun, on a basis of all possible speed, to establish facilities for Coloureds there at Silverboom Strand. By means of an overseer whom they appointed there over the holiday period they made a survey there and found that over the principal holidays there were up to 2 500 Coloured visitors on one day. Without doubt we are going to establish a very fine beach development for the Coloureds there and during this year, 1973, the facilities there are going to be expanded on a very large scale.

I should like to mention that, after certain important transactions were disposed of yesterday, I am able to state today that the Cape Divisional Council has agreed to develop the industrial area adjoining the Coloured group area of Mamre with Government loan funds which it will receive from our Department of Planning. From that loan which we will grant to the Divisional Council, from the amount of R200 000 which we approved the other evening, it will purchase land from Cape Town. It will also cover the development costs as far as possible out of that amount. Next year we will probably request supplementary amounts for the Council. The Divisional Council will deal with the coordination of the project through a committee which it has appointed and on which the Divisional Council, the Department of Planning and the Environment, the Department of Community Development, the Province and the Decentralization Board will serve. This committee will maintain supervision over the industrial area which the Cape Divisional Council will purchase and develop with all possible speed. In any case, the Divisional Council is now proceeding with all possible speed with the development of that industrial area and the provision of the necessary services. I should like to convey my gratitude and appreciation to the chairman and the members of the Cape Divisional Council and their staff for their fine co-operation, for the spirit of goodwill which we at all times experienced from them during the negotiations.

I then come to the fourth point which the hon. member mentioned. The hon. member for Vasco also mentioned this. Both hon. members mentioned the fourth Iscor which has then to be established at Saldanha.

No, it is not all that easy.

No, but the hon. members mentioned this. I should very much like to say that it is incorrect to speak of a fourth Iscor. There is no such thing, and it is not in the picture at all yet; in fact, it is possible that for quite a number of years no consideration will be given to a fourth Iscor. However, it is not for me to discuss this; it falls under my colleague, the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs. All that is relevant at the moment in regard to this entire project is the semi-processing of iron ore, and I take it that that is what hon. members were discussing. The aim of the process is to manufacture cast iron or bar steel (knuppelstaal). I do not know precisely what one calls it. That is all that is relevant at the moment. In this connection I just want to point out that it must be clearly understood that the Northern Cape also has a claim and we cannot now from Parliament, from Iscor or from anywhere else for that matter, create the impression that a decision has in any respect been taken already. In fact, we have not even discussed it or thrashed it out; there have only been ideas that it must come, and even if it were true that it is included in the scheme in principle, that is as far as the matter has gone at present. I should just like to make this clear.

I want to tell the hon. member for Benoni today—and I do not want to quarrel with him for we run into one another here in the Lobby—that I feel very much like taking him to task. The week before last that hon. member came to see me in my office with a deputation from the town councils of Benoni and Germiston, and they sat down around a table to discuss this matter with me. He then came to make certain requests to me and today he stood up here and condemned me. I am still considering the representations which they addressed to me and now he comes here this afternoon and made a political issue of these matters. What does he expect me to do now? Must I be so politically humble now as to say to him: “Please, Mr. Van Eck, you asked me for something and then you took me roundly to task; in spite of that I shall still give you everything you asked for?” I think it was very wrong of the hon. member to make a political issue of this matter. If he had wanted to discuss the general principle of the regional settlement of Indians on the East Rand under my Vote, he would have had a point, but he came here and discussed Benoni, he discussed Actonville and that area which is in such and such a condition. Since I told him the other day that other town councils on the East Rand have also been to see me and that they had also wanted to discuss this matter with me, and that I would give my best attention to this matter, I now feel that the hon. member could just as well have waited with this matter. Since I have now expressed my disappointment in him my duty to the country probably requires me to forgive him and to take the entire matter under consideration now on its merits. However, I hope that he will not again make such a mistake.

Then I also want to set the hon. member for Hillbrow straight about something. He wanted me to enter the Saldanha/St. Croix dispute; he wanted me to say to the hon. the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Economic Affairs: “Hold on, fellows, I shall decide what has to be done here.”

But you said you were the supreme commander.

But surely this is not an environmental matter. In what respect does the hon. member relate this to the environment where, as I said—and I say it again—I am the supreme commander, in regard to which the hon. the Prime Minister has given me instructions, which I want to carry out in my way, which I think will be a reasonable one? Surely this was not relevant here. The hon. member wanted me to make an economic evaluation of the two projects and to decide, but surely it is the Cabinet’s decision. The investigation of the various aspects, problems and whatever else is connected with that, was the work of my hon. colleagues, the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Economic Affairs. Of course I gave my opinion at the Cabinet meeting. My officials played a part in this and I stated my standpoint from my point of view, namely that of the Department of Planning.