Mr. Speaker, I move—

Mr. Speaker, we have had a week of debate on railway matters, and I must say that listening to the debate took me back a long time in memory. I think the hon. the Minister will agree that reminiscences are sometimes permissible provided that they are diplomatically chosen. In this case the people concerned are retired and cannot be reached by yellow canaries, the disciplinary dockets, should the Minister so choose! So I want to reminisce a little on what I was reminded of this by this debate. The hon. the Minister often refers to the fact that he himself was on the footplate. But he is not unique, as I think I have told him before. Probably at about the same time as the hon. the Minister was on the footplate—no—I should say quite a few years afterwards, when I was a little boy—believe it or not, I was once—I used to watch a train coming up a long slope into the village where I lived. It used to puff and it used to chuff and the wheels used to spin round and round while the train stood still. Sir, that is what the debate on that side seemed like over this last week. Hon. members opposite puffed and chuffed and blew off steam, but the wheels stood still. In those days, Sir, they did not have automatic equipment; they used to have to throw sand on the rails to give a grip to the wheels.

They still do.

Yes, but they do it automatically. At that time they used to do it by hand out of a sack. I used to go along and help them until I graduated to riding on the footplate. At first they used to allow me just to pull the string to blow the whistle; that sounded fine, and that is what those hon. members have been doing; they have been blowing the whistle, making the noise. Then I graduated a bit further; I was allowed to work the lever that made the wheels go backwards and forwards. I can therefore say that I was also a train-driver. Sir, just as I did then, trying to help the Railways, so we are trying to do it now as an Opposition. We are trying to put some sand on the rails so that the Government can get a grip on the problems that face them. To help them we put forward four positive proposals. The first dealt with wages. Our proposal was that wages should be adjusted to keep pace with the increase in the cost of living, and the second was that we restore the protection to the railway worker afforded by the Rates Equalization Fund and the cash resources of the Railways. The other two suggestions were, firstly, a revision of the rating system and a sharing of the burden by the State of the loss on the conveyance of uneconomic traffic. But the Minister, with casual irresponsibility and with specious arguments, simply shrugged off the positive suggestions that we had made to try to assist him in solving his problems. In regard to wages keeping pace with the increasing cost of living, he carefully avoided the principle and talked about overtime being based on basic salaries and not on allowances. We had already said “pensionable allowances”, otherwise he would alas have used that as an excuse. He talked about the impossibility of adjusting salaries and wages, and other members on that side built up a fantastic picture of salaries having to be adjusted and of deductions having to be adjusted month by month. However the principle was avoided by the hon. the Minister and the members who spoke on his side, the principle that there should not be long time lags, running into years, between adjustments, during which the benefit of any wage or salary increase is dissipated by rising living costs before the railwayman gets his increase. When railway personnel have lived on a fixed scale for two years, with the cost of living eroding the value of their money, with inflation eroding the amount of goods that they can buy for that money, then by the time they get an increase they have already accumulated debts; the benefit of that increase has already gone and they are back to square one; they are back to where they were two years before, when, as in this case, the increase is simply equivalent to what they have lost as a result of the increase in the cost of living. That aspect, that basic principle, was avoided by the hon. the Minister. He simply said, “I have not got the money and I cannot do it.” But, Sir, it comes to the same thing in the end. If you are going to have to give an increase of R100 million, to the staff in 1973, the extra cost would not have been very high if you had spread that increase over the last two years instead. That money still has to be spent now; but the difference is that the burden has had to be borne by the railway employee over the intervening period. We have had no reasons given to us as to why our proposal for a constant adjustment—not necessarily monthly; it could be quarterly or even half-yearly—cannot be considered. In regard to the building up of the Rates Equalization Fund, the hon. the Minister shrugged his shoulders and said, “Yes, of course I want to do that; I will do it when I have a surplus.” But, as the hon. member for Yeoville pointed out, there is no planning. The Minister simply says, “If and when we have a surplus, we will deal with this matter.” In regard to our proposals for revision of the tariff scales, again the hon. the Minister avoided the principle which we had raised. He divorced the rating from the method which we proposed in the fourth leg of our amendment and pooh-poohed the idea of a revision on the grounds that the traffic could not carry more than it is carrying now. But that was not our suggestion, Sir. Our suggestion was that if the Railways are required to carry uneconomic traffic in the interest of the State, then the State should participate in carrying the burden; and the Minister himself accepts the principle. He himself emphasized the numerous fields in which the Consolidated Revenue Fund, the State, does in fact subsidize the Railways. It subsidizes them in respect of resettlement areas, of Bantu townships. It subsidizes exports. In other words, the principle is accepted. The hon. the Minister himself accepts it, but he rejects the concept that his problem requires other State assistance to enable him to provide uneconomic services which the welfare of South Africa, as opposed to the welfare of the Railways, demands. The hon. the Minister did a neat egg-dance on this and simply brushed it aside. Out of all the outcries of hon. members, the mbongo-speeches thanking the Minister, the dutifully blind-folded approach to the debate, the only positive proposals came from this side of the House. There were one or two members, courageous members—and I want to give credit to them—who tried to lift the blindfold a little. There were one or two on the other side who pleaded for more housing. One of them was an expert, the hon. ex-member for Umhlatuzana. He is an expert on housing; he has experience of it. He buys houses from Community Development and he knows what it is like to renovate houses and to put them into a decent condition and to make a profit out of them. He is an expert on it. He himself drew attention to the unsatisfactory state of housing in his own constituency. Other members also raised the question. There was even a member who supported our view, but in more gentle terms, that the disciplinary system needed looking at. There were members who spoke of the single purpose line to Saldanha. So I must give credit: there were members on that side of the House who realize these problems and who attempt to point them out. But on the whole the Government’s attitude to this whole debate has been simply to plug along and to hope for better days.

The Railways have the technical efficiency and leadership in many fields. There is a programme of modernization. There is a programme for bringing in new ideas, computerization and other modern aids which are needed. There is increased productivity. The traffic is available, though not the selected traffic the hon. the Minister would like. But we have all those requirements which should be leading to financial strength—financial improvement. All we seem to lack is the ministerial leadership to keep pace with the technical modernization of the Railways. We are getting bigger and better engines and greater traction power. We are getting modern aids and we have all sorts of new plans to make the Railways more streamlined. But the hon. the Minister is tied to outmoded ideas when it comes to tariffs and to attitudes in regard to staff. He cannot keep pace with modernization. He is afraid of sticking his neck out too far. I know that sometimes your neck gets chopped off if you stick it out too far, but when you are dealing with a huge organization like the Railways, you have to stick your neck out sometimes, and I believe the hon. the Minister is not prepared to stick his neck out far enough in regard to the ministerial leadership which is required to keep pace with the technological and mechanical advances. But there is no point in flogging a dead horse, Sir. The hon. the Minister obviously is not prepared to move.

I am not dead yet.

What we need, is a new driver, and there is no driver available on that side of the House. There is not even a fireman being trained. What we need is a new driver, like the hon. member for Yeoville. When he gets his hand on the throttle you will see things move, Sir. But I am not going to waste your time, Sir, or the time of the House.

Will Mr. Schwarz allow him to drive?

You see, Sir, that is one of the things that the Nationalist Party does not understand. What the Nationalist Party does not understand is that the United Party has variety; it has flexibility and represents all South Africans, whatever their language and whatever their religion or their creed. They all have a place in the United Party.

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

Yes, I want to come back to the previous Deputy Minister of Transport, whom that hon. Prime Minister appointed. Where is he now? He is playing trains in New Orleans. I am talking about the lack of a driver for the Railway train in this Cabinet, Sir. I had to reply to the hon. the Prime Minister to point out that there is not even a stoker being trained. The last stoker they had to send so far away from here that if he had gone another 10 miles, he would have been coming back the other way. But we need a new driver from this side of the House, because we have flexibility and variety, we have financial knowhow and we have the know-how to deal with people.

I want to come back to the question of dealing with people. The hon. the Minister has been very careful to avoid many of the issues raised dealing with the people who keep the wheels of his trains turning, the people who provide the labour, the work, and the energy and who make the sacrifices in time and in family life and in health in order that the Railways may continue to carry more and more traffic at a greater productivity rate. One of the things the Minister avoided was the question of the load of overtime on these people. He referred to it in passing but the Minister himself is concerned about it, because he appointed an inquiry to go into the social and physical effects, the effect on family life, the psychological effect and other effects of excessive overtime, starting with an investigation at Germiston. I would like the hon. the Minister now to tell us the results of that investigation, to tell us what the experts, the psychologists, the people who know what they are looking for, found in regard to the effect of excessive overtime on the railway staff. I will not take it further but I hope the hon. the Minister will give us a frank picture of the findings of that report.

When we dealt with housing, the hon. the Minister said 70% of his married people were housed.

Married and unmarried.

Seventy per cent of married and unmarried, of the total White employees? Sir, I do not know what computer the hon. the Minister worked it out on but according to the latest figures …

The unmarried live in hostels.

According to the latest figures, 19 215 servants are housed under the home-ownership scheme. Under the assisted housing scheme there are 16 194. That is a total of 35 409, and in departmental houses there are 23 430. Now, by the very nature of it, the 35 000 who own their own homes must basically be people in the higher grades. A house costs something like R16 000 minimum, up to R20 000 or R25 000. A man earning R160 a month is not generally the man who buys a house privately. A large section of those people are employees who are at least above the R200 a month scale. There will be others, but similarly there are people in higher grades, for instance station-masters, as one of the hon. members mentioned, who have departmental housing. Therefore, those in the lower grades in the ownership scheme will be compensated by those in the higher grades in the departmental housing scheme. That makes it a total of 58 000 out of a White work-force of over 100 000. My submission is that it is the 30% who are not housed, who are the people in trouble because they are the people who cannot afford to buy a house. They cannot be assisted under the home-ownership scheme, and they cannot be assisted under the assisted ownership scheme because they do not have the money or the income to enable them to own their own home. It is that very 30% who are the people who are in trouble.

The allocation of these houses works on a points system. I want to quote an example from a letter I have dated the 27th September of last year. This was a case which I took up. This man applied for a house and was placed 125th on the waiting list. After a year he applied again and found that he was number 131 on the waiting list. He was six places lower down than when he had applied before. When I took up this case in September last year he had dropped from position No. 125 on the waiting list to position No. 136—11 lower down than when he had applied nearly 20 months before. Let us look at this chap. He is not a man who has just joined the Railways. He is a man with eight years’ service. He gets five points for each year of service: that gives him 40 points. For each year of continuous married service he gets five points. That gives him another 40 points. For each unmarried child or dependant he gets 12 points. He has four children; that gives him 48 points. For each previous unsuccessful application he gets five points and as he has made two such applications, he gets ten points. Here we have a man with 138 points and with eight years’ service. Instead of getting nearer to a house, he gets further and further away from it. I have not made this up. This is a letter from the System Manager in which this is set out. These are the facts, and he does not dispute any of the facts I submitted in my inquiry. The explanation given is that people have been transferred to Durban and have been given priority. I accept that there are certain cases which have to have priority. The excuse is always that there is a housing advisory committee which does the allocations. That is true, but what is the fact? The fact is that a man with eight years’ service and with a wife and four children gets further and further away from getting a house.

The whole of last year there were 443 new houses built. We have heard about the tremendous amount of money spent on housing, but what you do not hear about is that 168 houses were withdrawn from service. Therefore your net gain in departmental houses over the whole of South Africa in a whole year was 275. The gain was not the 443 which were built, but that number less the number of houses withdrawn from service.

It is at this time that the hon. the Minister has raised the rentals of houses. I accept that economically there is every justification for an increase as the rentals which were being charged were very low, but the hon. the Minister himself pointed out that this was part of the compensation for the below-the-breadline wages which are paid in many grades. Therefore it is not simply a question of being an uneconomic rental; it is a question of being part of the perks which enable people to stay on in the Railways. At this time, when things are so tough and the cost of living is so high, to suddenly slap on a 40% increase, means that the railway worker’s increase of 15% has automatically been reduced, and he is automatically back to below the standard to which he lived two years ago. The increase has simply compensated for the rise in the cost of living. The 15% increase plus the 3½% pension contribution, i.e. 18½%, against an 18% inflation. Therefore, the salary increase is simply compensating him. With the increased rental, it means that the standard of living of every person in a railway house is reduced if he is lucky enough to have a house. These are matters that are worrying people. I know that hon. members on that side, despite their whistling in the dark, have the same problems. People are coming to them with these problems and complaints.

Let us just look at the disciplinary system. I have raised this matter year after year. There is not one hon. member on that side of the House who can put his hand on his heart and say that the people are happy with the disciplinary system, except apparently the hon. members for Uitenhage and Koedoespoort. These are the only two who are quite satisfied that everything in the garden is rosy and that all the Railway workers are happy. Sir, I have also helped workers with their “canaries”, as the hon. member for Uitenhage has done. I have helped them to draft their replies to the disciplinary charge. But it makes no difference. Let me say at once that I accept that there are the chancers, the no-goods and the triers-on. I have had cases of men who came with the sob story that it was the first time ever they had done anything wrong, yet they had been fined R30. If you investigate the matter, you find that the whole front sheet of the file is full of offences, and that they have started on the second page already. You will always find those chancers. But, Sir, about one in four or one in five of the people that come to me have genuine complaints. I have quoted some here before. There was the case of the man whose spectacles were lost in the post and who could prove that it was so. I obtained the evidence from the oculist that his glasses were lost in the post. I provided it to the System Manager myself. The worker was fined because he could not read a number on a truck and transposed two numbers. Justice, Mr. Speaker! I have tried to help drivers, one of whom in one case was guilty of a minor traffic contravention. No sympathy was shown at all. There are also cases of people who have refused to work overtime. There was a case where a driver believed he would endanger his train if he carried out instructions. He was fined for it and his promotion was withheld a year. I have all the details here; I do not want to go into them. This sort of case I know enjoys the sympathy of the General Manager. I know that he is sympathetic to the real human needs of the people working on the Railways. But this attitude does not percolate through to system level; because it is at system level that the basic discipline is applied. I do not want to criticize individuals, but I feel that the attitude of the top management is not being reflected at system level.

Let us look at the appeals’ position and compare it with a normal court of law. In the last three years, of promotion appeals which went to the General Manager 59 were upheld, and 347 were rejected, 53 were upheld and 357 rejected and 44 upheld and 278 rejected. That could be reasonable; but when you come to disciplinary appeals only 19 were upheld and 151 were rejected, 11 upheld and 180 rejected, 18 upheld and 183 rejected respectively during the last three years. And when they go on final appeal to the board, the position is (during the past 4 years): On promotion, none upheld and 141 dismissed; four upheld and 90 dismissed; one upheld and 114 dismissed; none upheld and 93 dismissed. Under discipline the position is as follows: 21 upheld and 61 dismissed; seven upheld and 69 dismissed; six upheld and 93 dismissed; and seven upheld and 93 dismissed. Does the hon. the Minister mean to tell me that his whole system is so perfect, that every System Manager is so perfect, that every disciplinary officer is so perfect that when these cases go on appeal you get only that very small percentage of cases which was genuinely as miscarriage of justice? Surely, in the very nature of life, you must get more than nil out of 93 appeals to a board being genuine and justified. These are the figures, and whatever the justification might be the fact is that amongst the men there is an attitude of: “What is the use of appealing; it is a waste of time.” They spend time and effort and in the end the answer is just a rubberstamp “no” and the appeal is dismissed. I have read letter after letter. The wording is the same. “Your case has been considered,” and this and that and the other. It is a stereotype letter that goes out as though from a sausage machine. I cannot believe that in the whole of South Africa your disciplinary officers are so prefect that they do not make mistakes. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Durban Point has given a vivid description of the speech he was going to deliver. He chuffed and puffed through for a matter of 30 minutes but talked about the most important issues for approximately four or five minutes only. He dealt for 25 minutes with matters that should have been dealt with in Committee. I think he missed his vocation. He should have joined the Railways as a little boy and should have become a driver. I think he would have been a good driver and an excellent puller of a whistle lever. He probably would have been a better puller of a whistle lever than a politician. He said that the United Party tried to help the hon. the Minister and the Railways by putting sand on the rails. But I think that they were really trying to put sand into the works. Judging by their proposals they are trying to wreck the Railways. During the course of my speech I will reply to the more important matters which I he hon. member raised.

*The hon. member for Durban Point referred to the proposals which the Opposition had made concerning the replenishment of the Equalization Fund, and the desirability of linking the price index to wages and salaries. They also pleaded for a revision of the rating policy, for the Railways to be run on an economic basis and for losses to be made good from the Consolidated Revenue Fund. That is very interesting. The hon. member for Yeoville dealt with these three points during the Second Reading debate and in the Committee Stage. However, he spent 90% of his time on the cost of living factor. The other factor, i.e. that of a revision of the rating policy, he did not motivate. There was no profound analysis of the matter. He did not explain how it was to operate. I think he made a very disappointing attempt at substantiating his own proposals. I believe that the attack launched by the Opposition in the debate on the Railway Budget was in point of fact an admission on their part that the Minister and the Government were running the Railways in a very effective and orderly manner. It was in fact, from our point of view, a victory for the Minister. I say this because they did not mention a single word about the primary function which the Railways has to fulfil in this country. They did not mention a word about the Railways being the carrier of the people and its goods. Since they did not talk about that, I assume that they accept that this function is being fulfilled effectively. They did not mention a single word on the question of whether the Railways was keeping abreast of the development in South Africa or not and whether it was rendering its services to commerce and industry in a satisfactory manner or not. They were also silent on the planning of the Railways. A few loose statements were made sporadically, but they did not mention a single word about whether or not the Railways in its planning was providing the infrastructure which the country requires for its development. As we know, the Railways is one of the biggest contributors in this regard. They did not say a single word either on the question as to whether the quality of the services which the Railways was rendering in South Africa was better or worse than that of services rendered elsewhere in the world in comparable countries. After all, we must be able to draw comparisons with other highly developed countries. They did not mention a single word either on the question as to whether or not structure of tariffs of the Railways in South Africa was on a level similar to that of other countries, in other words, whether it compared favourably or unfavourably with them. They did not mention a single word either on the question as to whether or not the management of the Railways was of a similar quality as that found in the private sector. They did not indicate whether these were comparable. Therefore I accept that they are satisfied that it does compare favourably with the private sector. Finally, they even refrained from referring once again to the question of whether or not the price structure of the Railways was competitive within the whole economic framework of the country. Whether it was far too high or too low, went unmentioned. I have sympathy with the Opposition. To attack the Railways and to omit all these factors, indicates very clearly that the Railways is being managed well. They based their attack on two points of minor importance only. For the rest the silence from the side of the Opposition is a total admission of the effectiveness with which the hon. the Minister is running the Railways. The amendment moved by the Opposition, should really have been a motion of thanks and congratulations to the Minister.

I should now like to debate in all fairness the points of attack raised by the hon. members in order to see whether anything is to be said for them. The hon. the Prime Minister always says that we must take out the innards and look what is inside. Their first point is that we must replenish the reserves. That, however, is not a point of criticism by any means. All they did was to confirm the obvious, the accepted and the acknowledged. For what purpose was the Equalization Fund established in the first place? After all, it was not established for fun. It was established in order to build up reserves which could serve as a cushion against deficits in the future. Now use has been made of those reserves. It goes without saying, however, that as soon as there are surpluses, such surpluses will in the first place be channelled to that fund. So that is no point of criticism.

Now I come to their second point. They say that the losses of the Railways are to be covered from the Consolidated Revenue Fund. That is their first point. The second is that the rates must be put on an economic basis. During the Second Reading debate the Minister read out to members: the instruction as contained in the Constitution. I am merely referring to the instruction in the Constitution according to which the Minister is to manage the Railways. I do not want to deal with that again; it is clear. I want to concede that if the Railways were to get into difficulties as a result of emergency or unforeseen circumstances, the State would step in. After all, the Railways is its creation, its child. But, Sir, to want to lay that down as a policy in normal times, is, I think, to move on very dangerous grounds, because the basic principle of any body ordering public services, on any level of government throughout the country, is that that body must be self-supporting. It must be self-supporting for the specific reason that no additional taxation should be imposed on the taxpayer in general and that people who do not make use of those services need not pay for what they do not use. That is the first basic principle. But many other important factors are also involved. If one is rendering a service of this kind and one makes it self-supporting, then one has two motivations. In the first instance the price of those services must be competitive. In order to be competitive, one must take another factor, and that is effectiveness, into consideration. If these two factors are not present, then one is on dangerous ground. For that reason it is extremely important for the Railways to be self-supporting, because that is the motivation for keeping that organization on its toes.

Then I come to the second concept of their recommendation. That is that the determination of rates should be effected on an economic basis. The present position is a very complicated one. In the first instance, rates on articles are levied on a selective basis. Secondly, the rates are determined on the basis of a mixture of two principles. The first principle is that the price of the article must at all times be competitive in the particular economic framework. The second principle is, of course, the production cost principle. Mate these two principles and apply them selectively and we find the following result. We find that there are certain goods which are transported at a very high rate and which yield a very high profit, but the price of that article remains competitive in the economic framework. Then again one gets certain other goods which are transported at a low rate, at a rate below cost. One suffers a loss on that, because the cost principle cannot be applied to those goods. Should the cost principle be applied, then the price of that article cannot remain competitive and therefore it can no longer be produced. That is completely out of the question. Therefore it is very clear that the economic principle, the cost principle, cannot be applied throughout, because then the prices of certain articles will be completely excessive and ridiculous. That is why I said that this principle of rate determination was an extremely complicated one. It is applied regularly. The Railways owes it to the economy of the country in general that the prices of all articles which it transports, must remain competitive. So it is perfectly clear that all goods cannot be transported on an economic basis. But the hon. member for Yeoville says blatantly:

I want to tell the hon. member that if he makes such ill-considered statements, he is not going to oust that invisible leader of his in the Transvaal, “ou Harry Velsmous”, at their congress this year. If his proposal had read that because Railway tariffs were too high, and because that had resulted in the prices of the products which were being transported, rising too high and no longer being competitive, and that the S.A.R. consequently had to suffer losses, and that the State should step in to help in that case, that would have been another matter, then his proposal would have made sense. However, the proposal which he did make, does not make sense. I believe that the present rating system is justified. It is internationally accepted by other railways that this is the acknowledged method which is to be applied in transport. It is also economically sound for the profits on high-rated traffic to be offset and utilized in transporting low-rated traffic.

And if they are too small?

No, they are not too small. I shall indicate to you in a moment that they are not too small; this works out. As I have said, it is acknowledged that economically it is completely sound to do this. The principle involved here is that the railway user is the first one who must be responsible, and he must pay. Therefore it is acceptable that the 30% high-rated traffic carries the 70% low-rated traffic. But at the same time, while that is taking place, prices remain absolutely competitive. Up to now the Railway rates have been very competitive, and the Railways have rendered exceptional service to the people. The Railways have been self-supporting all these years. From 1962 to 1965 there were surpluses. In 1966 there was a small deficit of R13 million. In 1967-’68 there were surpluses. In 1969 there was another deficit of R13 million. In 1970 there was a surplus. Then, in 1971, 1972 and 1973 we had deficits. The deficit in 1971 was small; it was R11 million, but the last two deficits were R44 million and R45 million. We had the reserves for that. It was for that very reason that they had been built up, for the years of deficits which were to come. I think it is a wonderful achievement of the Railways that they have never had to apply to the State for assistance. Now, however, the United Party says that we must make it our policy to do so. Are we then, as is the case in other countries, to have the position, too, of the taxpayer having to contribute? After all, it speaks volumes for the Railways that up to now they have been self-supporting. In Britain the taxpayer pays approximately R111 million a year, in Canada R63 million and in Belgium R48 million. Japan’s taxpayers pay R385 million a year to keep its Railways going. But the South African Railways find it possible to go ahead on their own, without placing a burden on the shoulders of the taxpayer. And on top of that, the Railways have managed all this and they have been self-supporting without harming the whole economic structure of the country. I cannot accept this viewpoint of the United Party. I think this is a completely ill-considered proposal which they have made.

Then I want to come to the next point, and that is the proposal by the Opposition that the wage structure is to be linked to the rising cost-of-living index. Sir, if one looks at this proposal superficially, then it looks a very good one. I think the United Party has made this proposal for a specific purpose. The hon. member for Yeoville is an old politician and he knows that there is going to be another general election in 1975. He came along with this proposal because it was such a fine sounding one. But there is one very important problem involved in this proposal, as other hon. members on this side and the hon. the Minister have already explained. If one links the Wage structure to the rising cost-of-living index, then the expenses of the Railways will rise every month. How on earth is one going to get the income for defraying that expenditure? Hon. members did not tell us that. They did not work that out for us. Is one going to increase one’s rates monthly or every three months or every two months, or what is one going to do? No, Sir, I think that hon. members on that side talked very fast without thinking.

We did it for eight years.

You cannot do it in that way.

We did it for eight years.

Yes, but we do it on another basis.

We did it for eight years on this basis.

Sir, there is no difference between this side of the House and that side of the House in our desire to compensate the worker for the rise in the cost of living. It is merely a question of method, and I say that the method proposed by the hon. member is totally unpractical for a large organization such as the Railways. But there is another very important reason. As you know, Sir, the Railways plays a tremendous role in this country in the determination of the cost structure. It is imperative for our tariff structure to remain stable for as long as possible, and the reason for that is that many of the economic activities of the country use the Railways’ tariff structure as part of the basis on which they make their calculations. Think of the hundreds of thousands of tenders which must be drawn up for the provision of services, based on railway tariffs applicable at that stage; think of the tremendous number of long-term contracts; think of the budgets prepared for big firms and which are based on this tariff structure. Sir, tariffs cannot be changed every month or every three months or every six months. That would cause chaos in the industrial life of the country; we cannot do it.

Can you not make it every five points?

No. Sir, since 1940 our tariffs have been increased in cycles of every three or four years.

And now they are becoming progressively shorter.

I agree that the cycles are shorter, but surely the hon. member will concede that the reason for that is to be found in the complete instability on the international monetary front, which is beyond our control. There are periods of stability, but the point I want to make is this: In the Committee Stage the hon. member for Yeoville accused the hon. the Minister of being unsympathetic towards the railway worker. He says that we on this side of the House do not want to protect the railway worker against inflation. I want to tell him that that is not true. The hon. member made this proposal, so as to enable him to make some political capital among the voters and to catch a few votes by saying that the Government does not want to protect them. The Opposition now wants to adjust salaries and wages every month.

No, not every month.

Well then, every three months. What difference does it make? The hon. member makes the accusation that we are unsympathetic towards the workers, but what do they want to do? They want to give the worker an increase which will be commensurate with the rise in the cost of living. But what has this Government done in years past? Since 1963 the salaries and wages of the workers in this country, expressed as a percentage, have risen much higher than the cost-of-living index, but we make salary and wage adjustments every three or four years; it is a better and more orderly method. Let me mention a few examples. The increase in the wages of mineworkers exceeded the increase in the cost-of-living index by 34%. The figure in the case of factory workers is 37%, construction workers 60%, wholesale and retail workers 44%, civil servants 44% and the railway workers 49,9%, that is from 1963 to 1971. That is what we on this side of the House have done. No, I just want to tell the hon. member to go and look up what happened in Sweden. They tried to link these things, to link the rate of inflation to salaries, and they rejected it as totally and utterly impractical. They no longer accept it. No, we look after the railway worker. I want to say that the railway worker has confidence in the National Party and will not be misled by these stories dished up by the hon. member for Yeoville, and he will still vote for the National Party in the future because he knows that his future is safe in our hands.

Listening to the speech of the hon. member for Pietersburg I found it very enlightening because it showed that he lacked a complete knowledge of Railway financing. It was quite a good speech to listen to but it did not apply very much to the Railways.

To deal with one part of his speech first, our proposals in regard to the linking. A cost-of-living allowance with salaries have been applied elsewhere and are incorporated in industrial labour agreements. What the hon. member does not understand is that we have the Rates Equalization Fund which enables the Minister to balance the increased salaried wages when the cost-of-living has gone up. That is what the Rates Equalization Fund is for. The hon. member should read about it. The hon. member does not understand that it takes about three years to negotiate another agreement with the staff association with possible salary rises, and after three years you then get a terrific jump in rates to meet the cost of the rise. What we want is to put a shock-absorber on so that we do not get this jump in rates, but we get smooth running as far as the Railways are concerned. That is the background. The hon. member went on to tell us that the Railways have to be run on economic lines and that they should only apply a tariff according to what the traffic could bear. I want to ask him whether he thinks that the tariff being paid by the petrol users in Johannesburg is a fair one. Does he think the profits the Minister makes from the pipeline are fair? Does he think that the average motorist should be dunned to this extent? This was a bad year but the Minister is still making R43,5 million out of pipelines. Last year he made R51 million out of that pipelines.

It is economically justified.

Do you want the public to subsidize the motorist?

I will come to that. Does the hon. member think that the motorist and the commercial users of motor vehicles are in the luxury class?

That is a department of the Railways.

The hon. member does not understand what we are really talking about. I want to quote another example. Does he think that the high wharfage charges in the harbours and the extra crane charges are fair? Does he realize that ship owners are going to rationalize their services and cut down wherever they can? Does the Minister think he will get any more by the application of those rates? The hon. member’s arguments are not really sound when you come to examine them.

But I would like to get back to the Budget as a whole. I was reading the closing words of the hon. the Minister in the closing debate last year when he reminded the House that it was his 18th Budget. So this must be the 19th Budget that he has introduced in the House this year. This is what he thought last year, and I think we should remind the hon. the Minister of it because he is always reminding us of what we said in the past. He said that it was a very fruitful debate and that he trusted that in the year which lay ahead, the financial position of the Railways would improve so that he might present a much more favourable Budget the following year. He said that that was possible and that he had a great deal of confidence in South Africa and that he was sure that an economic revival was going to take place and that he was sure that by the end of the following financial year the economic position in South Africa would be quite different from what it was at that stage. What really happened was that the economic position had deteriorated. We cannot blame the hon. the Minister for the forecast he made at that occasion. I think the whole presentation of his Budget shows his very great disappointment not so much in South Africa, but in the fact that the economic situation in the country had deteriorated. During this entire Budget debate he offered really no solution to his troubles.

We know that the increase in rates was merely something temporary to meet the wage demands by his employees. He was not able to offer any solution to the problem of arresting this galloping spiral of cost-of-living increases. He admits that the in creases which he gave the employees will have evaporated by now by the rise in cost of living. I think he expects that at any moment he will get a demand for increases in pay. We came to him with a solution to try to help him. We offered him the system where cost-of-living increases should be linked to salaries so that this stop-gap bargaining could be stopped.

I think the hon. the Minister realizes that the political economic policies of the Government are affecting his running of the Railways. He is trying to run the Railways on business-like lines, but unfortunately he has to consider a Cabinet which is politically motivated. This places him in a very difficult position. South Africa is probably one of the largest gold producers in the world today, but we find that we are not even able to control that market. We are just a small potato amongst the big nations of the world. At the present time the world is probably facing one of the greatest financial difficulties that it has ever faced but I do not even know where our representation is in this crisis because I notice that the hon. the Minister of Finance is still in this country. We do not account for much. We just have to tag along with the rest of the world whatever the bigger nations do. We know that with gold we are in a sound position, but gold must not be our only solution. We have to increase our exports to a larger extent. The hon. the Minister of Finance will probably come here, smile at us and say that he has not done so badly this year; but that is not enough. He will say that exports have been increased and therefore he has more money in the kitty.

I think the Government has to realize that it must wake up to the fact that we cannot continue to adopt this sort of isolationist policy. We have to become big. We have to do something about that which they are always telling us, namely that we have to have an outward-looking policy. If we are going to improve our railway systems and our finances in this country, we have to do something about improving our exports and the general business in this country. What we are suffering from today, is a setback and depression in the business world. One has only to look at the empty buildings and empty shops to realize this. We are told that the Government is going to do something to trigger off the economy, but they fail to do it. The hon. the Minister told us that he was hoping that something would happen. It is like Mr. Micawber, who was constantly waiting for something to turn up. The hon. the Minister, I think, recognizes the fact. In order to obtain greater productivity in the Railways and to overcome his difficulties, he has slowly altered the labour pattern in his service. But he has never been able to get this policy across to the Central Government, with the net result that he experiences today a shortage of staff. He reminded us several times during his reply to the Second Reading debate that we were always hammering him to implement the recommendations of the Schumann Commission’s report. When it was issued, we thought it was a very good report. I think it is still very relevant. He has adopted certain recommendations of the report. Hon. members always ask: “Do you want the Central Government to pay for this and for that?” Sir, let us see what the Schumann Commission says. The report reads, inter alia:

So, Sir, here you have it. The general feeling in 1964 was that the uneconomic services the Railways were forced to run, should be subsidized by the Central Government. We have the position as far as Bantu and Coloured transport is concerned. When the hon. the Minister builds a line for a private user, he requires a guarantee from the user before building the line.

That is quite a different principle.

It is the same principle. The Minister should come to the Government and say: “I do not mind building the line, but you must finance the losses.” He is building a major railway line from Vryheid to Empangeni and a new harbour at Richards Bay. It is going to cost this country millions of rands. I am not against it. Nobody is against it. One likes to see development. However, I think that the Railways should be subsidized until that line becomes viable. They should not be expected to carry the very substantial losses in the way of interest on capital for the building of that particular line. The same principle should apply as in the case of private lines. The Minister has applied the same principle to the Sishen/Saldanha Bay line. He is not having anything to do with it. He has laid down certain terms. He realized that that line was going to cost a lot of money and did not see his way clear to build it. He said “Let them build it”. He is applying that principle there, and he should apply it elsewhere as well. Then there would be some common sense as far as the Railways are concerned. The hon. the Minister in financing the Railways finds himself in a desperate state at the moment. During this session we have just given him the powers to go into the open market and raise money, something that he never had before. In order to finance his capital works, he is going to raise a foreign loan of R85 million. He is going to get R247 700 000 from the Treasury, R41500 000 from the Betterment Fund, R5 500 000 from the Level Crossings Elimination Fund, R1 000 000 from Capital Credits and R2 000 000 from recoveries from municipalities, constituting a total amount of R382 700 000 for capital and betterment services. So one gets an idea of the state of the finances of the Railways at the present moment.

I would like once again to refer hon. members to the addendum to the report of the Hiemstra Commission submitted by Mr. Purvis. He expresses concern about the state of the finances. He says:

This is a person that used to be in the position of financial manager on the Railways. He is considered a very sound person otherwise he would not have been appointed to the commission. I think he is the type of person in whom even the hon. the Minister has great confidence and that is the reason why he is used in different respects. He does not feel that we have gone far enough. He says—

Let us not play around as far as the finances of the Railways are concerned. The Railways is in a very sorry state. I do not blame the hon. the Minister for that. I think he is a thorough and good Minister as far as the Railways are concerned. He blunders occasionally and at times he can be rude. This is the hon. the Minister’s 19th Budget debate. He is unfortunately in the unhappy position that he has to try and steer his ship or drive his engine, if I may use that term, through a maze of political economic policies of the Government. He has great difficulty in doing that. The hon. the Minister should not accept that we are trying to make cheap politics with the amendment which we have proposed. This is the sort of thing we will do when we are in power after we have straightened out the muddle that we will possibly find there. We are amazed that the Government has decided to reject it. As in the case of the Schumann Commission report of 1964 when the hon. the Minister only adopted a few recommendations, I am pretty certain that within the next year or so we will find that the Government would have adopted our amendment, may be in its entirety. One should remember that the Railways are in a bad way. Something will have to be done to assist them. We have offered solutions but things are going to get worse. The hon. the Minister must take note of that.

There is one item in respect of which we in the Western Cape are disappointed. I know that he has certain affiliations with the Eastern Cape as far as Port Elizabeth is concerned. The hon. the Minister has an attitude of indifference to the Western Cape as far as industry is concerned. He has told me in the past that we will never see any development at Saldanha in our time. I have always differed with him and I think we are going to see something now. I am not talking about the Sishen/Saldanha line.

I should like to point out to the hon. the Minister that we in the Western Cape require some growth point for the very substantial Coloured population that we have here. When he contemplates the establishment of works, etc., he should think about the position as it exists in the Western Cape. I have seen the Saldanha scheme all along as a substantial growth point as far as the Coloureds are concerned. I think that the line they will build through there is going to solve a lot of the queries and troubles of the hon. member for Namakwaland in so far as the vast mineral wealth of the Northern Cape is concerned. Those of us who come from other parts of the country do not realize that our great mineral wealth other than gold lies in the north west Cape. We have a vast mineral wealth there in the way of copper and other minerals. The money which the Government has derived from the Kimberley diamond mines is well known. A terrific potential for this country, other than gold, lies in the North-West Cape. That is why I get very disappointed with the attitude of the hon. the Minister in so far as development there is concerned. He just brushes it aside. I have great confidence in Saldanha Bay. I would like him to adopt the same confidence in respect of Saldanha as he has in Richards Bay. I think Richards Bay is a wonderful idea and the right thing to do. It is going to cost us a lot of money and I do not think the hon. the Minister should pay for it. The Central Government ought to pay for it as it concerns the development of the country as a whole. The same applies to Saldanha Bay.

Mr. Speaker, a very important difference between this side and the opposite side of the House in judging the finances and the management of the Railways is to be found in the fact that that side of the House fails to see the tremendous influence which the management of the Railways has on the economy of the country. When it suits them they also fail to see what influence the economy of the country has on the economy and the finances of the Railways. When it suits them they want to compare the Railways with a business in the private sector, but when it does not suit them they approach matters from another angle. But the essence of the judgment of the finances, the utilization of reserves and the adjustment of salaries and wages, can never be seen other than in the light of the influence which these things have on the economy of the country. When the Railways prepares its budget it must have more regard to the influence which the economy of the country will have on its finances, than would a private business. I think that that is where the real difference lies. Let us look into the question of reserves about which such a great deal has been said. The Opposition wants to create the impression that when the reserves of the Railways are utilized, it is a sign of bankruptcy. That is by no means the case. The Railways must handle reserves in a way very different to that in which an industry handles its reserves. The Railways must build up its reserves and deal with them in such a way that they may fit into the pattern of the national economy without its being disturbed. What has happened, is totally practical. The hon. the Minister could have increased rates indiscriminately last year without touching the reserves. But why did he make use of the reserves? It was because he had to take the national economy into account. This side of the House is therefore unable to argue this matter on the same basis as that side.

I want to mention another example. It concerns the adjustment of salaries and wages of the railway staff. We heard about it from the hon. member for Durban Point and the hon. member for Yeoville. They came along with the very nice proposal that wages and salaries be adjusted two or three or four times per year for them to keep abreast of the cost of living. But that is not all that is involved in salary adjustments on the Railways. There is another very important factor which we may never forget and that is that where adjustments were made in the past—this has already been said but I just want to make another point in this connection—that was done in such a way that those adjustments exceeded the rise in the cost of living by far. I say that this has already been said here a number of times, but what is important, is that when adjustments are made, these provide for an increase in the standard of living of the railway staff. That is what these hon. members fail to realize. If the hon. the Minister were to follow the advice they had given him, it would mean that the standard of living of the railway staff would never be increased. It is in this respect that the United Party erred when it was in power. The railway official had the lowest standard of living at the time when they were in power. In their time the standard of living of a railway official was such that a stigma in fact attached to a person who was in the service of the Railways. It was necessary for this hon. Minister not only to eliminate the gap which existed between the railway officials and the other workers in the country who were in a better position, but also to ensure that they kept abreast of any rises in the general standard of living at all times. Consequently their standard of living is no longer what it was 20 years ago. The standard of living of the railwayman has been improved to such an extent in this short time that today it is as good as and even better than the standard of living of officials in other sectors. One can see this very clearly when one looks around one. There was a time when the railwayman, because of his standard of living, was in fact cooped up in railway camps. They were people who could make no contribution to the community. What is the position today? His standard of living today is such that railwaymen are leaders in their own communities. If we looked at city councils throughout the country today, if we look at communal bodies, I do not think we will find one of these bodies on which railway officials do not take a leading part. For that reason railwaymen should be warned that if this is the policy which will be implemented by the United Party, if it should ever come into office, it would …

Very soon.

Very soon? Mr. Speaker, they have so little to say in this Railway debate that they are actually joking about it. The railwayman ought to take note that if this policy as advocated by that side were to be implemented, their standard of living would follow the same road to where it was when that side was in power.

There is another very important factor which determines the standard of living of these people. That is the housing conditions of the railway people. I want to concede immediately that there is still a shortage and that there is still a demand for railway housing. I concede that, but let us look at the housing, the quality housing provided for the railwayman today. I want to say today that if the Railways can afford to build 300 houses of high quality, it should provide those 300 only in preference to building 600 houses of poor quality, because when that happens there are two factors which immediately enter the picture. The first is this; if the Railways provides low quality housing, that housing cannot be built in the best parts of a municipal area. So the position when this Government took over, and particularly when this Minister started giving attention to the matter, was that railway housing was concentrated in the poorer parts of a town or a city. The reason for that was the low standards of that housing. Today the railway officials live in the best parts of any municipal area. That places them in a position of being able to educate their children under circumstances similar to those of any other person who can demand the best for his children.

What has in fact been done in connection with housing? Up to this stage a total of 44 096 dwelling units have been made available by the Railways under the various schemes. These are dwelling units which have been made available and not to supplement existing units. Many of the old existing units had to be replaced because they were of such a poor quality. Here I want to mention the practical example of Bloemfontein, and I want to express my deepest gratitude to the hon. the Minister for what he has done in respect of housing in Bloemfontein. If you ever wanted to see desperate housing conditions, Sir, you should have gone and had a look at the housing conditions under which railway officials lived in Bloemfontein. Those houses had to be destroyed; they had to be replaced; they had to be flattened with bulldozers. We had to make up leeway. The old U.P. houses had to be destroyed; they had to be replaced by new houses. As I have said, up to the present 44 096 houses have been provided for railway staff, that is railway families. But, Sir, how far does that go? If we take it that every family comprises four members, then that means that approximately 180 000 people have been provided for by means of this high quality housing. Therefore the position will still be, possibly for some years to come, that there will be people who would like houses but cannot obtain them, but the leeway is being made up, so much so that at this stage, taking into account the finances of the Railways and the influence which this has on the economy of the country, 70% of the railway officials are being assisted by the Railways in respect of housing. Sir, the Railways Administration must be seen as one of the institutions of the country which has not only economic influence in the country, but also a tremendous social influence in this country, and these are the factors and the facts on which the control and administration of the finances of the Railways must be judged. Sir, the joke was cracked here by the hon. member for Durban Point—I think he did that in order to gain time—that the hon. the Minister should be replaced by the hon. member for Yeoville.

That is a stupid joke.

It was really a joke, in this sense: If the feeling of the railway officials of this country were to be tested …

Then they would vote for Steyn.

… Then it would be the biggest joke of all, because the Opposition wants to put in charge of this organization, which has tremendous influence in the country, a person whom the United Party itself does not even want to have in charge in its own ranks.

The hon. member who has just sat down, referred to the fact that the Opposition had said that they would like to replace me with the hon. member for Yeoville. They do say, “We want to replace Ben Schoeman with Steyn,” but then they add, “Thank God Ben Schoeman is there!”

†Mr. Speaker, I only want to comment on one of the remarks of the hon. member for Durban Point. He says that the United Party has flexibility and infinite variety. No truer word has ever been spoken. They have so much flexibility and variety that members of the public never know where they stand with them; they do not know how long the United Party is going to maintain a certain policy.

The United Party is a true reflection of South Africa.

The public knows that they are so flexible that they change their policies every six months; it is no wonder that they have been in opposition for 25 years, and while they continue with flexibility and variety, I am afraid they are going to stay there for all time to come.

Sir, I am afraid that although repetition is tedious, I will have to repeat what I said in the Second Reading and in the Committee Stage in reply to some of the points raised by hon. members. I require at least 10 minutes to do that, and in the circumstances I move—

Agreed to.

Precedence given to private members’ business.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

I want to point out that I regard this motion as being very necessary. It is, furthermore, a motion which is not contentious. It comprises gratitude and appreciation for the support afforded by the State to the Human Sciences Research Council or, as we call it for short, the HSRC. We regard this motion as being important because it affords us the opportunity not only for expressing appreciation for what is being done by the State to employ this important organization usefully, but also for expressing the appreciation and the gratitude of the public of South Africa to the Human Sciences Research Council, its council, the president and everybody who is assisting it for the invaluable services they are rendering South Africa with so much competence and thoroughness and with so much devotion.

Mr. Speaker, we are living in an age of materialism, which often becomes a threat, so that we run the risk of setting too much store by material values and of over-emphasizing technical and scientific trends at the expense of the human sciences. Here, therefore, we now have the opportunity of putting the emphasis on the major task and the important sphere of the human sciences and the work done by the council which is trying to promote those sciences and to apply them in a useful manner. We feel it is only natural and desirable that more justice should be done to HRSC. I think we know far too little about the great job of work being done by the HSRC. The following are some of the questions one comes across in discussing this important matter: What is the Human Sciences Research Council, what does the HSRC do? Does it justify its existence; would it be a loss if it were abolished and the R2 million to R3 million annually spent on it were saved? Would we ever miss it if it were no longer in existence? Does it play such an important role that we cannot do without it in this country? To these questions we want to try to find an answer by way of this motion. And now I want to say at once that for the sake of having a clear point of departure when we talk about “geesteswetenskappe” (human sciences) in Afrikaans, we should not think in terms of a religious conception of “geestes”. As far as the questions are concerned, the matter will become clearer to us if we have regard to the 10 different institutes constituting the present scope into which the HSRC gradually developed from its humble inception in 1929, where we find its first roots.

I just want to refer briefly to the various institutes. Speakers on both sides will have the opportunity of going much more deeply into what is being done by each of those institutes. But just to give a general impression of what is being done by the HSRC and what these various institutes are, we shall just mention them in passing. There is the Institute for Historical Research with the Dictionary of South African Biography, of which two parts have already been published and of which the first one, so I have been given to understand, has already become Africana. In that work it is endeavoured to furnish a complete record of all persons who had any influence on South African history, here in our country or from beyond our borders. Then there is the Institute for Information and Special Services. This institute is responsible for replying to inquiries about teacher training received from countries abroad, and also for an assessment or evaluation of such overseas educational qualifications, certificates and diplomas, etc., as people may bring along with them when they want to carry on their occupation here in our country. We know that during the time when the Czech refugees came to our country in large numbers, there were 350 to 400 such certificates and diplomas which had to be evaluated every month in order to determine whether they had attained the standards set by us in this country in respect of such qualifications. There is the Institute for Communication Research, which is at present undertaking large-scale television research on behalf of the S.A.B.C. They want to determine the changes emerging in respect of the use of leisure in attitudes to, views on, outlooks on and patterns of life before and after the introduction of television.

There is the Institute for Manpower Research, which is working along the lines of making a survey of the manpower in all its facets in an attempt to determine what the demand will be in all the various spheres in 1980. Then there is also wage research, which is related to this. A determination is being made of what the relationship is to be between the various levels of training as regards salarization and, similarly, as regards women’s labour as well. In addition they are doing research on the utilization of manpower. The national register of human sciences, which is being kept by them, contains a record of all persons who studied human sciences and who graduated. Their research also covers manpower problems in respect of the development of homelands, the development of decentralized areas and the development of the manpower potential. In the latter regard we are thinking, for instance, of that outstanding project which was launched in 1965 and which we may call the talent-survey project. In 1965 they started to take all the standard six pupils throughout the country and to make an accurate survey of their mental potential, etc. At the moment they are carrying on with follow-up studies in order to determine what is going to become of those young people. This is outstanding, accurate research from which important conclusions can be drawn.

There is the Institute for Research Development, which is responsible for the administration of funds for research outside the scope of the HSRC, such as at universities. In 1970-’71 an amount of R387 000 which had to be administered by the HSRC, was made available for this purpose. Furthermore they are responsible for the research bulletin, which contains a record of all registered projects at universities in order to eliminate unnecessary duplication and therefore waste of money and labour. One can well imagine a student wanting to do research in a certain field and, after having taken all the trouble and spent money on it, finding out that research has already been done in that field before. If something of that nature happens it is a duplication, and the trouble he took was therefore in vain and the money he spent, fruitless. This body is trying to eliminate the possibility of such a thing happening and is doing so by way of the research bulletin which it keeps and keeps up to date.

There is the Institute for Educational Research, which undertakes to do research at the request of the National Education Council. In respect of education we are witnessing at this very moment a new dispensation in which we find differentiated education. Allow me to make bold to say that in my opinion the HSRC has to a large extent worked out and provided the blueprint for that differentiated education. Bound up with this we have the Institute for Psychometric Research. This institute has already designed, on a large scale, disposition tests which are being applied throughout the country with the greatest measure of success. This test material is only available to selected persons, so that it is not something cheap which can be huckstered about and so that it can only be applied in a very responsible manner by professional persons trained in psychometrics. Then there is the Institute for Sociological, Demographic and Criminological Research. Through them research projects of very great importance are undertaken, such as family planning. In these days in which we are continually hearing about population explosions and similar problems, one can imagine what an extremely important field of study and project this is. There is the project in regard to relations research, such as the mixing of Bantu and Coloureds.

Then we have the institute for statistical Research, which properly analyses and tabulates all the data of the various institutes, draws conclusions from them and bases projections on them, and which also plays a very important role in the sphere of education.

Then there is the Institute for Languages, Literature and Arts, which is made up of Divisions for Onomastics, Art Documentation, the Music Encyclopaedia, Music Documentation, etc. This has merely been a fleeting, cursory summary of the tremendously extensive field covered by the HSRC. It will be worth the trouble for our people to visit the HSRC personally. They will find that not even in the space of weeks will it be possible for one to grasp fully the scope of the task performed by these persons. Here we have therefore a picture of the comprehensive task of the HSRC. The HSRC itself has expressed its view of its own function as follows (translation)—

If the man in the street should ask one what the object of the H.S.R.C. is, one could tell him in clear and less scientific terms that the object of the HSRC is to sum up man as a whole, in all the facets of his physic, social and professional life, for the purpose of creating improved circumstances for his development which will be beneficial to himself and to society. If one were to ask me whether the HSRC really justifies its existence, I should say that this is very definitely the case, for the following reasons: In the first place, the norm which applies to all these institutes is the one laid down for us in the Bible, i.e., the tree is known by its fruit. Each of these various institutes which I mentioned and about which hon. members will still hear a great deal later on from other speakers, has already produced results without which the country would have been spiritually poor and backward. Let me mention an example by briefly referring to the Institute for Psychometric Research, the psychometrics of the HSRC. Here we have a catalogue containing a comprehensive list of all the tests which they have already standardized and which measure with the greatest accuracy and are applied with the greatest caution, the results of which one can build on. But what have we achieved by these means? We are living in a time in which we are continually hearing that we must utilize our available manpower sparingly, because we do not have much. We must therefore ensure that that manpower is not misplaced in any way, but that every person is placed correctly according to his talents, according to his ability, according to his aptitude, according to his fields of interest, etc., with due regard to possible bottlenecks in his personality. But how can that be done if one does not have reliable criteria? That is where these standardized tests come in, to make sure that justice is done to a person in accordance with all his characteristics in the employment in which he is placed. Only then can the highest productivity be accomplished.

For that reason it is in fact essential that a start be made at school. That is why we have differentiated education today. But differentiated education would simply have been absolutely worthless if we did not have psychometrics, which forms the kingpin for the classification of people. As far as the criteria are concerned, I want to say that a test applied for Whites cannot be taken and applied just like that in a non-White or Bantu society. One would obtain lopsided results. That test must be standardized for the specific society for which it is intended.

For English and Afrikaans as well?

Yes, for English and Afrikaans-speaking persons as well. If, for instance, we were to take today one of the American tests and contrast it with the Louwrens questionnaire, for example, one would probably obtain quite different results, the reason being that the one test has been standardized for one society and the other test for another society. That alone is to my mind major proof of how extremely important this HSRC is.

But in taking a look at its growth, we see that in 1929 this council started operating in a very humble manner subsequent to a plea made as far back as 1917 by the farsighted late George Hofmeyr, the then Secretary for Education. By 1934 it had grown into the South African Council for Educational and Social Research. In 1946 it became the National Council for Social Research. In 1969 it was given its present name, i.e. the Human Science Research Council, which was established under the Human Sciences Research Act, Act No. 23 of 1968. History has therefore replied in the affirmative to the question of whether the HSRC is fulfilling an essential function, for if this were not the case, it would not have grown but fallen into decline over the years.

The third reason I advance is that there is a long waiting list of extremely important projects, a list which is growing all the time. The people have discovered the HSRC and are now coming to the HSRC with various projects; from all quarters projects are being referred to them by important organizations. I may therefore say that every cent of the R2 710 700 allocated to the council in the 1971-’72 financial year, was an important investment. One looks forward to seeing that the growth rate of the HSRC will not be curbed but that a growth rate of approximately 5% will be maintained.

For that reason I say, in conclusion, that if this motion merely causes the spotlight to fall on the great value of the HSRC to the development of our country and elicits appreciation for the work of which so few people seem to be aware and will promote interest in the HSRC, this motion will have served its purpose. South Africa would lag behind in all spheres if the HSRC were to disappear. That is simply inconceivable to us, and would also be a catastrophe for us.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to associate myself with the speech made by the hon. member for Kimberley South by expressing, in the first place, my gratitude to the liaison officer of the HSRC, Dr. Attie Venter, who has been at the disposal of members of this House during the past week and has provided us with information. I also want to mention that we on this side of the House have come to know the hon. member for Kimberley South as a person who is in earnest about the social and welfare work in this country. For that reason it is therefore no surprise to us—in fact, it is fitting—that it had to be this very hon. member who introduced this motion on the human sciences today. I listened very attentively to the speech made by the hon. member, and it is very clear to me that the central theme of his speech is in fact commendation of the work done by the HSRC and that, at the same time, he is looking for support for the work of this council.

†Mr. Speaker, in order to strengthen the argument of the hon. member and perhaps also to pin-point the difficulties of the Human Sciences Research Council, I wish to move as an amendment—

Mr. Speaker, mankind is about to enter the last quarter of the 20th century. It is doing this at a time when man finds himself in a society which is not only the most advanced and sophisticated of all times, but at the same time also the most complex society of all times. Judging from the rapid progress which has been made during the first 70 years of this century, one can with certainty anticipate an astronomical increase in scientific knowledge over the next 25 years.

Because of all this, man is constantly creating a new world for himself with new tools of civilization. He has to because he realizes that the world of today will be too small to accommodate the generations which are to follow. Furthermore, he also realizes that the tools of the civilization of today will, in fact, of necessity become obsolete. In order, therefore, to meet the challenge of tomorrow, man cannot solely rely on advances in the field of the natural and applied sciences. If he should do so, man will run a risk of becoming an even greater stranger, and I want to underline the words “an even greater stranger”, in the society he is part of. A century or two ago it was still possible for a fairly intelligent person to leave his environment and to settle in an untamed, remote and, an uncivilized part of the world where he, because he possessed a full knowledge of his own limited society, could reconstruct on his own a new civilized society which closely resembled the one from which he departed. But, Sir, those days unfortunately are gone. We live in a technological age; we live in a scientific age where we find, as I have said, that man is already a stranger in his own society. It is only when one moves into the field of human sciences that one in fact finds that man becomes the central point of investigation. It is only through the application, for instance, of the knowledge of the human sciences that man can be taught how to tolerate, live with and appreciate the very scientific and technological world he himself has created. As a result of this modern world in which we live, man is exposed to undue tensions and frustrations. It is in the light of this that we on this side of the House have absolutely no hesitation in expressing our gratitude for the work done by the Human Sciences Research Council, because through its ten institutes it is, in fact, busy investigating and doing research on man and man’s relationship to his society. Other members on this side of the House and I will during the course of our speeches endeavour to highlight certain of the achievements of the Human Sciences Research Council and we will also make certain suggestions concerning future research projects which we believe are important.

*Since we on this side of the House are also convinced, however, that as a result of a shortage of funds the HSRC is sometimes obliged to place important projects on the waiting list, we ask the Government, as we have also done in our amendment, to consider the desirability of affording increased financial assistance. When this council was established in 1968—as it was put by the hon. member for Kimberley South—it had already had quite a number of predecessors. At the time the then Minister of National Education mentioned the fact that since the Second World War the natural sciences and the applied sciences had shown more progress than had the human sciences. It was obvious, therefore, that in respect of the human sciences there was a backlog to be made up. What do we find after four or five years? We find that this backlog, if measured in terms of the contribution made by the Treasury in respect of the various education bodies, is growing. The contribution made to the HSRC, expressed in terms of a percentage of the total amount made available for National Education or the various educational bodies in South Africa, has in effect shown a decrease over the past number of years. In 1969 it was 2,44% and in 1972-’73 it was 2,24% of the total. In 1969-’70 it was sixth on the list of priorities and for the past two years it has been last—in other words, eighth on the list of priorities. In all honesty I must admit that it is in fact true that, according to the index figure, it has shown the fourth fastest growth. However, when one considers that the HSRC started with a very low initial amount, it is very easy to show growth on the basis of the index figure. I shall give you an example. In 1968 and 1969 the difference in the amounts made available to the C.S.I.R. and the HSRC was R9 398 000. In 1972-’73 the difference was R13 666 000. That is the position in spite of the fact that the HSRC is actually showing more growth according to the index figure. It is also disquieting to see that the annual increase in the amount is showing a downward trend. However, it would be ridiculous and irresponsible of me if I tried to suggest that the research in respect of the natural sciences and the human sciences be treated on exactly the same basis. That is not the object of my amendment. I may tell hon. members that we have come forward with this amendment because we are convinced that more priority should in fact be given to it. I said we would give attention to the research work undertaken by the council. In the first place I want to give attention to the research work in which the Institute for Educational Research has been engaged during the past few years. Since April, 1969, this institute has published 20 reports dealing with research work. At the moment it is engaged in more than 20 important research projects. Some of these research projects may in turn be subdivided into a number of smaller projects. There are approximately 18 research projects on the waiting list. The most comprehensive research project of the Institute for Educational Research is to my mind the report of the committee on differentiated education and guidance in South Africa and South-West Africa, Parts I and II. This report required research on the entire field of education, i.e. didactic, socio, ortho and psycho-pedagogic research. It also included comparative education, without which their work would not have been of much value. After all, we must learn from the mistakes made in other parts of the world. In addition it included school guidance as well.

I have already said that we are living in a technological age, an age in which tremendous challenges are offered to mankind. We find ourselves in a complex world and in a complex society in which the interdependence of the one person on the other is growing daily. Because we are so interdependent on one another, the one person on the other, the one community on the other, the one race on the other, it is absolutely essential that every person in this country should serve a useful purpose as a social being. Everybody realizes that one can only serve such a useful purpose as a social being if one has been trained for a specific task. Once we achieve that, man will attain social competence. The problem has always been how to attain social competence through education, especially if regard is had to the diversity in the nature of man in that one person differs from the other in respect of aptitude, interest and mental powers, not to mention the different forms of handicaps one finds among the diversity of people. Of course, the solution is implied in the application of an effective system of differentiated education. Here I believe that the praise should be given to the Human Sciences Research Council for the work done by them to make differentiated education possible in South Africa. As a result of the introduction of differentiated education in South Africa we now have a chance to convert our human resources into our greatest asset instead of our greatest liability. But there is still a long road ahead of us in South Africa before differentiated education may function successfully. The development of the new system is going to create new problems. The hon. the Minister will find that he will to an increasing extent have to rely on the research work done by the HSRC in order to solve these problems.

The hon. member for Kimberley South dealt with the Institute for Psychometric Research in an excellent manner. All that is left to me is to emphasize the connection that exists between the success of differentiated education and the progress in respect of psychometric research—in other words, the connection between the Institute for Educational Research and the Institute for Psychometric Research. Sir, the Institute for Educational Research is in a position to point out to us the best system of education; it can assist in seeing to it that the best syllabuses, the best curricula and even the best textbooks are prepared which will fit in with the diversity of abilities and aptitudes of pupils in South Africa, but if there is a backlog in respect of psychometric research, then all this work is in vain. Without reliable and valid psychometric tests it will be an impossible task for the teacher to determine the exact level on which the child is to receive its education. Without it, I believe, we shall be running the risk of sending out socially incompetent persons into society in South Africa, and without it, I believe, the introduction of differentiated education will not be worth while. Sir, there is just one point I want to mention and that is that at present there are approximately 500 psychometric projects and tests on the waiting list and, as it was put by the hon. member for Kimberley South, these tests are still to be standardized for the various population groups in South Africa.

I also want to refer briefly to the work done by the Institute for Historical Research. I think the time has arrived for the Institute for Historical Research to make an active start with the tracing of original documents in respect of the First and the Second World Wars. I know that they are busy with battlefield history but, Sir, the historian reconstructs the past from the remnants of the past, from the fragments of the past, and I feel that the time has now arrived for them to make contact with as many people as possible who still have in their possession original documents relating to the part played by South Africans in these two wars.

†In conclusion, Sir, I wish to refer to the research work being done by the Institute for Manpower Research. At present it is preoccupied with research work as far as homeland development is concerned and also in connection with the decentralization of industries. But I think that as a matter of urgency it should embark on scientific research to determine the effect of the migratory labour system on productivity. Because, after all, Sir, if the Government’s policy of separate development is to be successful, the number of migratory labourers in South Africa will increase and not decrease. The Tomlinson Commission estimated that a migratory labourer is only available on the labour market for 22,6 years and that he is actually employed for only 62% of that time. The Tomlinson Commission also estimated that the retiring age for a migratory labourer is 41 years. There are, of course, good sociological reasons why this is so. Naturally everybody would like to enjoy family life. In an article in The Chartered Secretary of September, 1972, it was stated that out of a total of 1 140 000 man years available annually, only 480 000 were economically used. This is why I say that the time has come for the Human Sciences Research Council to investigate this as a matter of urgency.

*The work done by the HSRC would be absolutely wasted if it could not point out various alternatives to the State. The State can only derive benefit from the activities of the HSRC if the findings of the HSRC get into the hands of the State in good time, before the State takes irrevocable steps and then finds out too late that other and better alternatives do exist.

I should like to second the motion of the hon. member for Kimberley South. The amendment, which the hon. member for Durban Central moved on behalf of the Opposition, is basically no amendment to the motion of the hon. member for Kimberley South. In actual fact it is more an extension. Therefore I cannot really find any fault with what the hon. member for Durban Central said in connection with this matter.

I recently read this report in the South African Digest of 23rd February, 1973 (translation)—

As someone who is interested in history as such, and more particularly in the history of the Anglo-Boer War, I found this to be a very interesting report. The report continued as follows—

Sir, I was very conscious of the Human Sciences Research Council, which was instituted in terms of Act No. 23 of 1968, and I am also conscious of the council’s composition and functions. I was also aware of the fact that in 1969, in accordance with the functions of this council, an Institute for Historical Research was called into being. However, I was not aware of the fact that the field covered by HSRC, to use the commonly adopted designation in my speech as well, could extend so far that it could, for example, publish a diary such as that of Mr. H. C. Bredell. Because I was glad of the fact that something of this nature could occur on the initiative of the Institute for Historical Research, under the auspices of the council, it stimulated my interest even further. I tried to get to know more about the work of the Institute for Historical Research, and consequently I did a bit more intensive research on the whole matter.

The function of the Institute for Historical Research is, in broad outline, to initiate, co-ordinate and also undertake historical research. This institute is at present organized into three sections, i.e. Source Publications, the Dictionary of South African Biography, which the hon. member for Kimberley South also referred to, and Genealogical Research or Family Tree Research. The section for Source Publications was called into being in 1971. In the short period of its existence this section has already carried out an important task. There is quite a bit of interesting material of a private nature that has not landed up in the State Archives, but which is nevertheless valuable source material for the historical research worker, and which has been traced by this Institute for Historical Research and could thus be saved from disappearance and even destruction. The sources which the section for Source Publications has thus far devoted itself to are diaries, memoirs, etc., which specifically have a bearing on South African history after the Great Trek. At present a series is being produced that relates to the Second War of Independence, and in that way this book was published in December, 1972, i.e. the diary of H. C. Bredell, properly annotated and provided with an explanatory introduction. The strong, living past of the Second War of Independence, which still stimulates the interest of the public, of students and of historians, is illuminated by this diary in respect of a specific facet of our history. In addition there are three diaries and two memoirs which also chiefly relate to the Second War of Independence. Amongst these there are, inter alia, the memoirs of a former chief of the State artillery, which is a war diary of a famous artilleryman. Then there is the war diary of Jan F. E. Cilliers, the well-known Afrikaans poet, the diary of a national scout, the diary of a private citizen, who eventually also landed up in a prisoner of war camp, and the diary of one of the generals from that period, that of General Ben Bouwer. A search is still continuing for diaries or memoirs of a military doctor, an army chaplain, a camp mother, etc.

The most important periods of South African history, as well as specific facets of it, are described in the diaries, as contemporaries of those periods saw them. Since such sources, which are in the nature of popular history, will become freely available, research will be considerably facilitated because those sources need not be consulted in the Archives, where in the natural course of events they would possibly have found a home. It is important to know that the Institute, to which I have referred, does not want to build up a secondary or a second archive; it only borrows documents, makes photostat copies and then returns the originals to the original owners, who frequently attach sentimental value to them. In cases where the owners of such documents want to surrender them, they are transferred to the Archives. One would like to appeal to persons who possess diaries or memoirs, particularly about this period I have mentioned, and also about the period of the 1914 rebellion, to also send them to the Institute for Historical Research at the Human Sciences Research Council for the purposes of donating them, as I have explained here.

In two other fields the Institute has also furnished particularly good performances. The Dictionary of South African Biography also falls under this Institute. The activities connected with this dictionary are directed by a chief editor with a permanent editorial staff. With the assistance of more than 250 co-workers at universities, archives, museums and educational bodies, the biographical articles on persons, who have played a significant role in the history of South Africa, are being drawn up. Two parts of the dictionary have already appeared, containing 1 303 biographical articles. A person must already have been dead for 10 years before his history or biography is included in the dictionary. Publication of further parts of the Dictionary of South African Biography will take place from time to time.

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

Afternoon Sitting

Mr. Speaker, when the debate was interrupted for lunch, I was discussing the work of the Institute for Historical Research, which is under the auspices of the Human Sciences Research Council. The Section for Genealogy, or Family Tree Research, has also become an important sector of the Institute, Every biography included in the Dictionary of Biography specifically begins with a genealogical introduction indicating the descent and kinship of the person being written about. This section is actually supplementary to the work of the Dictionary of Biography. Besides these sections, the Institute for Historical Research also has two additional sections, i.e. that of regional history and also a section for battlefield history. The work of the section for regional history will contribute to South African history being investigated systematically in its various parts. As far as the battlefield history is concerned, I just want to say this: Up to now a comprehensive description of South African military history has been lacking. Two State historians are at present busy in Pretoria compiling the official history of the Second War of Independence. There, of course, the battles will be described in detail on a scientific-historic basis. But the aim of the section for battlefield history of the HSRC will be the eventual publication of an encyclopaedia in which is included all battles and incidents of a military nature—with corresponding maps—that took place on South African soil or in which South African troops took part. One trusts that in connection with research about the Second War of Independence, the battle history will not be duplicated. I say this with a view to the fact that, as I have said, there are already two State historians engaged in covering the whole field of the Anglo-Boer war.

The HSRC has also established the Institute for Languages, Literature and Arts. This Institute comprises, inter alia, the Division for Sonolinguistics. This division’s chief directive is to investigate the position of Afrikaans and English in the Republic. This is being done at the request of the Minister of National Education. In a bilingual country like South Africa it is essential that the language contact situation should continually be studied by scientists. We understand that the division is engaged in an investigation of bilingualism. The problem is just that Afrikaans-English language contact in the Republic covers a broad field of study and that it will be some considerable time before something can be rounded off. Since the Human Sciences Research Council also offers the universities the opportunity to gain access to the masses of language data being gathered during the investigation of the country’s languages, this project could mean a great deal to linguistic research in general and to the Republic in particular. At present work is being done on various aspects of the language investigation. Documentation, inter alia, also falls under this division, and the time has come to give attention to the preservation of documents and objects of a cultural-historic and a cultural-scientific nature. This material has, in fact, sporadically landed up in libraries, and it has been preserved there. The State Archives exclusively preserve State documents. Because no active tracing and preservation steps have been initiated, material of this nature has unfortunately been lost. Existing documents and other documents have sometimes come into the hands of irresponsible persons, and also, at times, into unsafe hands, and in many cases the research workers do not know that such material exists. This documentation is aimed at tracing documents, safely preserving them and making them available throughout the country. But unlike the case of history, to which I referred a moment ago, when documents are always returned, bodies are chosen to keep that material for research purposes. Everything by a writer is kept at one central spot so that research can be done there. The activities of the National Documentation Centre for Languages, Literature and Art have already taken on exceptional proportions, and a great deal of success has been achieved. But in their case there is a lack of space, and this is where I want to link up with the previous speakers, who ask for the provision of more funds for the expansion of the functions of the HSRC in this way as well.

My time is up, but in connection with educational research I should just like to say that in this connection a great deal has already been achieved. I, as a person who is, inter alia, interested in education, want to express my thanks for the regular dispatch of newsletters. In the course of last year we received the informative newsletters of the Human Sciences Research Council, i.e. the issues for June and July, 1972, Nos. 35 and 36, which dealt with differentiated education at the primary and secondary levels. In this way this matter was brought to the attention of the general public, or at least to the attention of persons interested in education, and such persons came to know what differentiated education really embodies.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Koedoespoort dealt with very important and interesting aspects of the Human Sciences Research Council, and I therefore leave the matter there. The hon. member for Kimberley South must please excuse me if I do not emphasize the portion of his motion that expresses thanks to the Government. I preferably emphasize the amendment moved by this side of the House, i.e. that we express our gratitude to the Human Sciences Research Council and that we advocate that the Government grant greater financial assistance to this council. I am nevertheless grateful to the hon. member for Kimberley South for having brought this motion before the House, because it offers an opportunity to raise a matter which I believe ought to have the immediate and serious attention of the authorities, i.e. the tremendous population increase in the Republic of South Africa. I believe we should talk about this in a debate such as this, where the atmosphere for it is right, because this is a ticklish question in South Africa. There are countries in the world already giving attention to this matter. They have been doing so since shortly after the last World War, with a great measure of success. The methods of combating the population explosion one finds in co-ordinated, planned and motivated family planning. At a later stage I shall deal with the success of many Eastern countries. In this respect, I believe, the Human Sciences Research Council has already done particularly good spade work. One reads in their annual report for 1971-’72, in the section about the Institute for Sociological Research, the following—

Then they mention that they have already tabled reports about the fertility pattern amongst the Coloureds, as well as two reports about the family-building process of the Bantu in the urban areas of Cape Town and Durban, and reports about similar research amongst Bantu women in Soweto. The report continues—

But it is very clear, from certain research reports, with what problems we are faced in this respect. Here are three reports, which I have already mentioned, which offer very interesting reading matter; but the question one can ask is: How far has the Government progressed in respect of recommendations concerning problems these people are faced with? Research alone will not produce anything unless the Government also takes action and gives serious consideration to the problem of the tremendous population increase we are at present experiencing in the Republic of South Africa.

With what object does the hon. member envisage this population planning?

Sir, I have just begun my speech. If the hon. member for Carletonville would use a little patience, I would come to that.

Today I should like to express the gratitude of this side of the House to the Human Sciences Research Council for the good spade work they have already done in this respect. One wants to lodge a plea with the hon. the Minister, the hon. the Minister of Planning, who is present here, and with other Ministers for rapid priority to be granted to this problem. The word “pollution” is on the tongues of every second South African. But the impression is being created that what I want to call “population pollution” is being approached very reluctantly in South Africa. The average growth rate of the South African White population over the past decade, from 1960 to 1970, is calculated at 2,4%, in contrast with East Germany’s growth rate of only 0,2%, as against 2% for Australia and New Zealand. The White growth rate in South Africa therefore exceeds that of many Western countries. The South African Bantu, Coloureds and Indians, in their turn, exceed the growth rate of peoples of other colours in the world. We find that the Bantu population is increasing at a rate of 3,63%, the Coloured population at 3,23% and the Indian population at 2,87%. If one compares these figures with those of people of other colours in the rest of the world, for example the Philippines, one would find that the growth rate there is 3.3%; in Pakistan it is only 2,1%; in Brazil 3%; in Argentina 1,6%; in Mexico 3,4%; in Ethiopia 1,7%; and in Tanzania 1,9%. According to this the population increase of South Africa is one of the highest in the world. If one projects the figures, our present population figure of 21 million will quadruple over a period of less than 30 years. One thinks involuntarily of problems such as housing, transport, the feeding of the people, and work opportunities. I believe that South Africa will rapidly be experiencing a tremendous population pollution problem, if I may call it this. This will be happening even in my lifetime, but perhaps not in the lifetimes of other hon. members, for example the hon. member for Carletonville, who is much older than I am.

It is not the years that count—it is the fibre!

The rapid population increase could have extremely serious consequences for South Africa within the next two or three decades if we do not put into operation a full-scale family planning scheme for all the population groups in South Africa.

Our first and foremost problem is, of course, to motivate the people of South Africa—I am speaking of the Whites, the Bantu, the Coloureds and the Indians—and convince them that family planning is in their own interests. Let me immediately issue a warning that keeping such a scheme secret would be fatal for South Africa, because when it comes to the motivation of family planning two very clear and opposite standpoints must be borne in mind. In the first place one finds that of the Bantu, the Coloureds and the Indians see their greater numerical strength as the only efficient weapon they can employ against the Whites in South Africa. Secondly, the Whites want to safeguard themselves against the mass of people of other colours in South Africa by, inter alia, immigration and the emotional appeals from time to time that the Whites should have more babies, that the Whites should have larger families. Herein lies the problem. The Human Sciences Research Council broached the matter, but without a full-scale aid programme on the part of the Government, and without a fully-motivated programme of action, we will not get much further than merely a few research reports. If one is to motivate the people of South Africa, I believe that the motivation in respect of the Coloureds, the Bantu and the Indians is merely that in the modern world in which we are living, quality is much more important than quantity as far as human beings are concerned. Examples abound. The knobkerrie and the assegai have been replaced by the atom bomb; the small Israeli Defence Force is today quite capable of holding its own against the numerically stronger Arabs, while India, with its millions of people, can definitely not be counted amongst the big powers in the international sphere. Unlimited increase in numbers causes the further impoverishment of the already impoverished; it also results in a decrease in the already low standards of living; it allows the percentage of illiterates to continually increase, and results in malnutrition, while one also has many problems in respect of health services, etc. Therefore we must also bridge the attitude of people in South Africa about “the greater the population, the stronger the people” and emphasize that the welfare of a people lies, indeed, in quality. The motivation in respect of the Whites is certainly not contained merely in a one-sided emotional appeal for larger White families, and in conjunction with that the reduction in the increase of the non-White population groups. We should rather attempt, if we want to be realistic, to retain the status quo, as it exists in South Africa today, i.e. that each population groups retains its percentage share of the total South African population. By projecting the 1970 growth rate figures to the year 2000, one finds a very interesting situation. One finds that the Whites, who at present comprise 3,7 million people, at present constitute 17,8% of the total population. But if they grow at the present rate, and all the other peoples also grow at their present rates, one finds that by the year 2000 the White percentage of the total population will have decreased from 17,8% to 12,7% and that that of the Bantu will have increased, on the other hand, from 69,7% of the total population to 75,6%, that that of the Coloureds will have decreased by a meagre 0,4% and that of the Asiatics by 0,2%. The deduction one involuntarily makes is that the Whites, because of the fact that they are the most civilized and the most developed in South Africa, have already been applying family planning in a very natural way for decades. In these modern times young married couples—and I am speaking from experience—think seriously and give very thorough consideration to the matter before they start a family. The factors one must consider are: Can one afford it; can one leave the child something better than he found in the world; can one send the child to university—these are all considerations of great importance to the civilized population group of South Africa. In other words, the Whites are already applying family planning on a natural basis. An appeal to the Whites to have more babies, simply has the opposite effect. The Whites take no notice of that, while the non-Whites see this as a threat to their weapon of numerical strength. The failure of any attempts amongst the non-Whites by the Department of Health and various local authorities to promote family planning is obvious. An attempt at the national level and the involvement of all population groups, including the Whites, therefore becomes essential. The danger of unplanned increases in the numbers of human beings must be pointed out to everybody in order to eliminate the suspicion and mistrust that exists at present. Family planning is a totally new concept to millions of South Africa’s people. Specifically for that reason the Bantu in particular would very clearly want to know what the Whites are doing about the same question. Sectional research could very easily jeopardize this whole effort.

It is very interesting that countries like Japan, Singapore, Bermuda, Taiwan and Hong Kong have already achieved a large measure of success in this respect. I believe, in truth, that these Eastern countries are setting the world an example. The success of family planning in these countries is indicated in a table which one finds in Population in Five Continents, 1968. This table indicates that Japan has been applying family planning since 1947. Over a period of 21 years one finds that there has been a reduction in the increase per 1 000 from 34,3 to 13,7. In Singapore, over a period of 15 years, there was a reduction in the increase per 1 000 from 45,8 to 28,6; in Bermuda over a period of eight years there was a decrease from 27,2 to 20,3; in Taiwan over a period of 7 years from 50 to 32; and in Hong Kong over a period of 10 years from 37,4 to 24,9. The U.N. also very strongly advocates this principle. If we in South Africa were to make such an effort, we would certainly not have U.N. opposition in this respect. Instead of our having a population of between 50 million and 70 million by the year 2000, at the present population growth rate, we can, by the application of family planning with a reduced average growth rate of say 2% per year for all population groups, i.e. just less than is the case at present for the Whites peg our population increase at about 40 million people by the year 2000. In respect of the Bantu this means only half the success that has been achieved in countries like Japan, Bermuda and Hong Kong. We as Whites of south Africa have a choice: Either we must continue to be-emotional and propagate the increase of whites at a more rapid rate, which would jeopardize family planning amongst the non-Whites, or we must restrict ourselves to preserving our percentage of the total population in South Africa. As matters stand at present, the major percentage of Whites, as I have already said, apply family planning in a natural way. The non-White population increase continues unrestricted except for a small measure of success that certain local authorities and the Department of Health have achieved. Today so much is being said about pollution, but action against population pollution appears to be something that is too hot to handle and which everyone is reasonably afraid of; they do not want to touch it. The HSRC is doing good work in this respect. They have a right to very high priority as far as the Government is concerned. Research alone, without any action on the part of the Government, as I said at the very beginning, would make a farce of the HSRC in South Africa.

I want to conclude by telling hon. members that if one notes the tremendous population increase at present taking place in South Africa I, as a young man a member of young South Africa, cannot but become concerned about the matter. A start must be made somewhere, as far as this matter is concerned, a matter that is a tremendous source of worry to many people. I think that if the Eastern countries, which I have mentioned, have proved to us that this can, in fact, be applied successfully, the time has come for us also to expect our Government in South Africa to immediately give its urgent attention to the matter. The Human Sciences Research Council is specifically the body that can do this research with the utmost measure of success and which can make submissions to the Government.

Mr. Speaker, in his speech the hon. member for Turffontein showed how close together are the boundaries of the human sciences, which we are dealing with today, and the natural sciences. He did incline a little to the natural sciences and place the emphasis on nature. The matter which the hon. member dealt with here is, of course, a very important and topical matter. I am not so sure that it is a matter we can profitably discuss across the floor of this House. He mentioned various countries where family planning has been applied with great success, but those countries are, of course, all countries with homogeneous populations. From the nature of our population composition, from the nature of certain traditional opinions and prejudices that exist amongst certain national groups, we know that many of our enemies are ready and waiting to accuse us very quickly of genocide if we were to tackle this matter on a scientific basis. It is, of course, a very sensitive matter, a matter we must tackle with a great deal of circumspection. For that reason I should prefer to come back to the field of the pure human sciences, which this motion is actually concerned with.

I should like to express my thanks to the hon. member for Kimberley South, who placed this motion on the Order Paper. It is also a good thing for us to be speaking about the human sciences in this House. In the periods in our history when the human sciences were actually the only form of scientific knowledge with which humanity concerned itself, man left large and rich legacies in the form of painting, sculpture, literary and other works of art. In our time the natural and applied sciences have, in particular, made giant strides and mankind his reached unparalleled heights in the scientific and technological spheres. With a view to the danger that man himself might degenerate into an automatized machine-being, we may never ever neglect or disregard the human sciences. South Africa is fortunate in having a number of statutory and autonomous bodies, for example the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, i.e. the C.S.I.R., the Atomic Energy Board and the Bureau of Standards, all of which are bodies that have achieved tremendously high standards of effectiveness, particularly in the field of research, and are internationally known. We are very grateful to this Government for the fact that these various bodies obtain the necessary support. Now we also have the Human Sciences Research Council, which was called into being by way of legislation in 1968. We are very grateful for the fact that this council is also doing a big job, even though the work is perhaps less sensational than the work of the other councils and boards I have mentioned. All these boards and councils are intent, primarily, on doing research, which is the foodstuff of all the sciences and the arts. If research were to dry up, so would the arts and the sciences. I therefore also want to take up the cudgels, particularly on this occasion, and lodge a request to the effect that a gulf should never develop between the various autonomous boards and councils, and also the Human Sciences Research Council, and our universities, because we should also like to regard our universities as important places where research must be done. I know there is very good co-operation between the various boards and councils and our universities, and I want to believe and trust that this co-operation will continue to be developed and that it will become ever closer so that no gulf will develop between those various bodies. The Human Sciences Research Council (the HSRC) is today an enormous institution with a total staff complement of considerably more than 300 persons. The research personnel alone number more than 200, and it is important to note that virtually without exception these are persons with post-graduate qualifications and also people with advanced research work to their credit.

Sir, amongst the many activities of the HSRC, I briefly want to point out the functions of a few of these institutes, and I am just mentioning briefly the Institute for Information and Special Services, which does very valuable work, not only for Government bodies like the Public Service, the Public Service Commission and the Immigration Board, but also for private bodies like the Chamber of Mines, various city councils, Iscor, Sasol, etc. This institute is, in the first place, a service department whose object it is to collect, coordinate and publish when necessary authoritative information about upbringing, education and training in the Republic of South Africa. The institute also collects information in connection with the human sciences in general in the R.S.A. as well as abroad, and makes this available to those who are interested. But probably the most important task of this institute is the evaluation of educational and training qualifications obtained abroad, and this is very important because one frequently encounters people who arrive here from abroad with all kinds of qualifications, and because we do not know what the value of those qualifications are, it is difficult to evaluate them. The Joint Matriculation Board, for example, frequently has problems determining whether the qualifications of people coming here meet with the enrolment requirements of our universities, and they then refer these cases to this institute for the evaluation of these certificates. In the case of the Immigration Board, too, which obtains applications from prospective immigrants, to make sure that the qualifications of those immigrants comply with the minimum requirements of the board, they are also referred to the Institute for evaluation. The same co-operation, as far as evaluation is concerned, takes place in co-operation with the Public Service Commission, the Provincial Education Department, the city councils, commerce and industry, Iscor, Escom, Atlas, Anglo-American and all those bodies. Good work is therefore done in a broad field by this institute. In addition there is also a very important service which the institute furnishes in the compilation of certain publications, for example Education in the R.S.A. and University Education in the R.S.A., which is distributed abroad on quite a large scale by our Department of Information so that people in friendly countries abroad can acquire knowledge about our education system. I should also like to refer to an important publication of this institute, i.e. University Training and Career Possibilities. Sir, it happens so frequently that in spite of the vocational guidance facilities that exist at schools and universities, our young people do not know what direction to follow after matriculation, and eventually just go to university for the status and sometimes take courses there with subject combinations that are absolutely worthless to them in practice. If these students were to study the publication of the HSRC, University Training and Career Possibilities, before going to a university, they could organize their courses with greater purposefulness and they would more easily find their feet at university. I therefore want to take this opportunity of also very strongly recommending this publication to our high schools, which prepare pupils for university.

I next want to mention another very important institute of the HSRC, i.e. the Institute for Communication Research. This institute has only just taken shape two years ago, in 1970, but its work is of the utmost importance for South Africa because we are preparing ourselves for television. When television is introduced in two or three years’ time, South Africa will go to meet the full intensity of a communications revolution. Television is regarded by most researchers as the most powerful mass medium in the whole world. It is therefore essential that research should already be done now, on a scientific basis, so that its beneficial influence can be fully utilized and its detrimental influence be excluded from society as far as possible. Therefore the main function of this institute is to do research into the effects television could have on the community. In this connection South Africa is in an absolutely unique position, as far as the whole civilized world is concerned, because we are the only country doing research along these lines before television is introduced. Other countries, which already have television, neglected to do this research in advance, and it is impossible to do research after the event because one’s results are contaminated by factors that did not apply before its institution. One of the hon. members opposite, the hon. member for Orange Grove, attacked this research project in the Press and said: “It is prying into the private lives of individuals.” That may be so, but it must be remembered that this kind of investigation about opinion formation will naturally be contentious. If, however, the influence of television on opinion formation must be investigated, it is essential that the investigation should be searching and thorough, otherwise it is a waste of time. It is therefore of fundamental importance that individuals’ opinions about matters like Sunday sport, abortion, drugs, etc., should be investigated now, and if similar investigations are repeated a year or two after the introduction of television, it can very carefully and scientifically be determined what television’s influence on public opinion is. Research is also being done concerning the influence of television on the utilization of time in the case of school-going children, and on other mass media such as newspapers, etc. All these research projects could, within a number of years, lead to South Africa’s being far and away a leader in the Western world in this field, in the influence of television on opinion formation, because we are beginning with this research before television has been introduced and we can therefore still consider matters more clearly.

In the third place I briefly want to refer to the functions of the Institute for Manpower Research of the HSRC. The manpower question in South Africa is extremely complicated, particularly because we have a manpower surplus amongst non-Whites and a manpower shortage amongst Whites; or, in different terms, we have a manpower surplus in the case of unskilled workers and a manpower shortage in the case of skilled workers. This question has many facets; there is no simple solution for it. There are, in particular, three aspects of this question that require profound research. Firstly there must be an investigation into the nature and extent of the country’s manpower potential and factors and circumstances influencing the development of this potential. Another aspect is the supply and demand of manpower, including factors related to the unbalance between supply and demand and, thirdly, the utilization of the manpower must be investigated. Research about our manpower potential is extremely important, because on that rests the sound growth and development of the Republic of South Africa. The comprehensive research projects, which the HSRC undertakes in this connection, are definitely of very great importance to our entire economy. In fact, it is of utmost importance for the country’s economy that there should be a sound balance between the manpower supply and demand. The objects of manpower planning are to bring about such a balance and to maintain it. Pre-estimates of future manpower situations are therefore made, on the one hand on a broad national level, which includes all population groups, and on the other hand on a detailed basis in respect of a specific professional group or a particular geographic region. In this connection I should like to refer with great pride to a number of very valuable publications which have been published as a result of this institute’s research projects and are available in our parliamentary library. I shall only mention a few examples: “The Demand for and Supply of Engineers” is one of the projects already completed. Another is “a Pilot Study on the Bantu Entrepreneur in the Tswana Homeland”. This also has to do with a project that has already been completed. In addition I mention “Part-time Work for Married Women”. Another I want to mention is “Werksge-leenthede in die Oos-Transvaalse Grens-gebiede” (Work Opportunities in the Eastern Transvaal Border Areas). There are also several other publications.

In addition there are also quite a number of projects that will be undertaken shortly. One aspect about which research will perhaps be done shortly, is the rate at which posts, for which Whites can no longer be found, can be filled by non-Whites. Another is the demand for and supply of manpower with post-standard 10 training, excluding university education. A third concerns manpower aspects of the Sishen/Saldanha project. There are other projects that could possibly be planned.

From this hon. members can form a picture of the extensive activities of the HSRC. A word of appreciation must be extended to the Government, which has allocated about R5 million for this important work over the past two years. This attests to in sight and vision, because the HSRC’s work is done without fanfare. It is not as graphic as that of the C.S.I.R. and other bodies. There are naturally no limits to the essential nature of this work, and the more money there is available, the more research can be done and the more quickly can it progress. Therefore I want to express the hope that the amount of R2,5 million budgeted last year for the HSRC, will gradually be increased annually so that this important work may still be continued with, because material prosperity alone is no guarantee for the survival of any people.

Specifically in periods when it is enjoying material prosperity, a people must employ those means with which to enrich its spiritual assets. It is specifically a present-day tendency to employ material prosperity for objects of the senses. I therefore want to praise the Government for also having done what is necessary, in this connection, to make the necessary funds available for the development of our human sciences.

Mr. Speaker, I also rise to support the amendment moved by the Opposition and to convey our good wishes to and express our appreciation for the valuable work done by the Human Sciences Research Council. I also rise to ask the Government to give serious consideration to increasing the financial aid for the Human Sciences Research Council. The original object of the founding of the HSRC was to place research in the human sciences on an equal level with research in the physical sciences. However, if one looks at the Treasury’s contribution to the HSRC, one will notice that today they are no nearer to that object than they were originally. In 1969 the HSRC received a donation from the Treasury of R1 329 000, which was approximately 2,4% of the total amount spent by the State on research in the physical and human sciences. During the past years this percentage showed a downward trend so that it only constitutes 2,24% of State subsidized research today. In other words, of the eight research institutions appearing on the Budget, this is practically at the bottom of the priority list. During the last financial year the increase was only 6,5 %, which to my mind does not even compensate for the depreciation of our money. We want to express the sincere hope that the next Budget will bring a steady increase in the grant, an increase which will compensate for the high rate of inflation and, in addition, will bring about additional growth. I find these ever increasing demands which will be placed on future generations, really frightening. Our modern civilization has already become so versatile and intricate that one has to make a special effort to be able to keep up, let alone make any headway against the keen competition which is the order of the day. To be able to meet the demands, one must be well adjusted, because the strain is increasing all the time. One should also be better equipped as far as one’s academic qualifications are concerned. The magnificent work done by the HSRC makes this possible, but unfortunately there is this sad phenomenon that it has become the stepchild or the Cinderella of the Treasury.

The Human Sciences Research Council covers an astonishingly wide field and has approximately ten different institutes under its control. In the first place, the HSRC makes funds available for awards and grants, and even bursaries, for research in the human sciences, as well as to private researchers and State institutions. The Council itself undertakes research through its own staff, consisting of about 200 different professional staff members. They undertake some basic research and much more applied research.

I should like to refer to some of the ten institutes. In the first place, we have the Institute for Languages, Literature and Arts, which undertakes research work on place names, the origin of certain words, etc. Only recently we heard an early morning talk on the radio by Prof. Nienaber, in which we were given some indication of the origin of some of our interesting place names. He was also responsible for the interesting dictionary of Hottentot names. There are several other researchers, such as Dr. B. F. van Vreden, who undertakes research in this field and tries to trace the interesting old place names used by transport riders in the old days when the people had to use wagons and lived close to the earth, and who also makes available to us reference works to enable us to undertake the necessary research to ascertain where these interesting names come from. For instance, I have in mind some of the interesting names one finds in Griqualand West. On the Orange River one finds a place called Seekoebaard. There are places like the “Meel Hoogte” (Flour Hill), where the old wagons plodded through the white dust. I am thinking of the “Skameldraai” (turn-table bend) on the way down the mountain where it was always feared the turn-table of the wagon would fall out when taking the sharp bend. These names are today being recorded, researched and their origin determined.

We also have the Institute for the Performing Arts, which endeavours to collect all the interesting documentation by the various authors and musicians in order that it may be preserved for posterity. I am thinking of contributors such as Prof. Lemmer and others who regularly send in their original compositions and documents to be kept there. Then we also have the Institute for Historical Research, which is divided into three departments, viz. the Dictionary of South African Biography, the Department of Genealogical Research and the Department of Source Publications. In the Department of Genealogy, or family research, we have already had the publication of the Stamregister van die Eloffs in SuidAfrika compiled by J. H. van Dyk. We also know that a Genealogical Association exists in South Africa, which publishes the magazine Familia in which much valuable information is recorded. But many books have already been published concerning South African families, books that are sometimes difficult to obtain. At Rhodes University we have the Cory Library where information concerning the 1820 Settlers, their genealogy, family names and experiences are kept. Unfortunately we do not have a centre where similar information concerning the other genealogical families may be collected. We know that Dr. Pama has revised the book on the old Cape families, and all his valuable documents and manuscripts are being kept at the HSRC. But we do not regard this as sufficient by far. Today anyone who undertakes research concerning his ancestors often have to travel extensively through the country to do so. He has to visit the old Cape Archives and the various church archives. The documents are scattered throughout the country, often even in old Bibles, and one should like to see all this interesting information brought together in one centre. I should also like to see the mass of valuable information which is being collected by the population register at the moment and which will probably not be needed later, to be made over to this Institute eventually.

As I have already said, we also have the Department of Source Publications, the main task of which is to collect, publish and distribute valuable documents and manuscripts, etc., and unpublished diaries of the past. Scores of these valuable documents are simply incinerated by widows, relations and heirs every day, and it is an essential function, especially for future researchers in history, for these documents to be collected. Another important function to be fulfilled is to photograph travel journals and documents oversea and to bring them to South Africa. Such a department of Source Publications will be able to fulfil this very function. I am thinking of that valuable travel journal which has not been made available here in South Africa at all and which is being kept in a library in Britain. For years it was not even appreciated how valuable that particular document was. These manuscripts have been kept in that library in Suffolk until Dr. Kieser paid a visit to the library and found that it was the travel journal of Col. Robert Gordon, officer-in-charge of the garrison here at the Cape in by-gone days. He was the man who undertook interesting journeys to the Orange River and, in fact, gave the Orange River its name. In those days they called it the Garieb. It was also he who undertook the journey down to the mouth of the Orange River and from there upstream to the point where Prieska is situated today. He recorded the names of the various Hottentot tribes he encountered along the way. He made an interesting survey of the distribution of the different species of game, some of which were seen by him for the first time. He also made detailed geographical notes of even the heights of the various mountains. He also gave the mountains names, which were probably the first names given to many of our mountains in Namaqualand and in the Karoo. I am convinced that many of those names are lost today. Some of them are probably still without names, except for the ones Robert Gordon gave them. I should like to see these valuable manuscripts purchased for South Africa, and if that is not possible, that photostatic copies be made of them so that they may be made available to researches in our country. I am aware of the fact that these documents will contain a great deal of valuable information for zoologists and ethnologists who study the ways of life of the Hottentot and Bushmen tribes, because these manuscripts also include a magnificent collection of drawings at present being kept in the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam and said to be the work of the same person. If one could study them in conjunction with the travel journal, of this man, I feel that one would be doing pioneer work in the field of history and that this would also be a source for future researchers.

Then we also have the Institute for Manpower Research, which aims to determine the nature, type, size and also the problems of our labour force. Here in South Africa we have special problems on account of so many different ethnic groups having to try to co-operate one with the other. Many of them have to develop from a primitive level of civilization to a modern, technical and highly industrialized civilization. Consequently there are tremendous problems of adjustment. I still remember very well the time when the Industrial Development Corporation established one of its first industries at King William’s Town and the tremendous problems experienced to keep in service the available labour. After working for a short while, the labourers were often found to go back home for the next couple of months. Because they had one or two months’ pay in their pocket, they regarded themselves as being quite rich and they consequently felt it was no longer necessary for them to work. Consequently these, the early border industries, found they had a tremendous labour turnover. They found they had to train new labour all the time, and for them this was a demanding task. It affected the growth of the industries and the reliability of their product. The Institute of Manpower Research aims to try and solve many of these social and spiritual problems. This also has a bearing on our economical development programme which was fixed at a growth of 5,5% per year in the past and recently increased to 5,75%. We on this side still feel that it is too low. The Institute of Manpower Research strives to try and establish the potential, the future demand and availability. I want to stress once more that this work is of incalculable value, even for South Africa’s future economical growth.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is quite clear that members on both sides of the House have the utmost praise and appreciation for the work done by the Human Sciences Research Council. I want to say that in this instance we want to congratulate the founders of this Council, not only on the thought behind the establishment of this council, but also on the result obtained.

It was the National Party.

I do not care who it was. If it was the Nationalist Party, I say thank you very much to the Nationalist Party. Perhaps that is one of the big differences between hon. members on that side of the House and ourselves on this side of the House, i.e. that we take upon ourselves the right to criticize and congratulate, while they can only congratulate their own Ministers and can never criticize them. Therefore we are much more honest in our political opinions.

Hear, hear!

Today I had the privilege to go and look at the institution of the C.S.I.R. By the way, the C.S.I.R. was instituted by the United Party Government. I saw the progress the C.S.I.R. has made in their research here in False Bay. It is clear as a result of research we have already made tremendous progress in the field of the natural sciences. I think it is fantastic for us as South Africans to see the progress we have made. Sometimes we had to rely on our own sources and do the research from scratch. As I understand the set-up of the Human Sciences Research Council, it is also the aim of this Council to place the human sciences on the same level as the natural sciences. I think that would be a joyous day, for throughout the world there is the tendency to have a gap develop between the natural sciences and the human sciences. I think this is a gap that should not exist. We have seen that the natural sciences are shooting ahead and that certain changes are taking place as a result of the natural sciences which in turn have an effect on man, his community and his way of life, while the human sciences were not prepared for those changes. In many respects it has completely upset the whole social set-up. Therefore it is so imperative that research should be done in the human sciences.

I do not have much time at my disposal, but I do want to say that I am very sorry about the attack made by the hon. member for Algoa on the hon. member for Orange Grove. There has been a high level of debate for quite some time and I intend to keep it at that level. However, I do not think I can let such an attack pass by. It concerns the opinion poll about television conducted by the Institute for Communication Research and about which the hon. member for Orange Grove made certain remarks, stating that he was not satisfied with it. I do not think we should see this as a criticism of the Human Sciences Research Council, as the hon. member for Algoa does. I shall also reply to the hon. member about that. We see here that good work is being done by the Human Sciences Research Council, but unfortunately it is being done in collaboration with the old S.A.B.C. That is where the fly got into the ointment, for Dr. Piet Meyer who sits in his little office and thinks out these questions, pushed in a question every now and then amongst all the good ones—99% of these questions are good questions, which were put with a specific scientific purpose in mind. I have here the questionnaire and I can extract Dr. Piet Meyer’s questions from it. I will start on page 2 where, inter alia, the following questions appear—

These are quite good questions which have something to do with communication. Then comes Dr. Piet Meyer’s question—

Yes, that is his question. There are a few other questions with which there is absolutely nothing wrong, and then we again find—

[Interjections.] There, Mr. Speaker, we now have, purely and simply, “Current Affairs.” It is the opinion of “Current Affairs” which is being bartered here, and they want to see what effect they have on the public. Here is another question—

There is a criticism which they mentioned with regard to the United Party’s sports policy, and they now want to see to what degree their criticism has had any influence there. But then we come to Dr. Piet Meyer’s special hobby. It was also taken up in this report, and it is also a question which he probably included here by special request—

May I put a question?

I think it is very, very clear that these questions …

Order! The hon. member is asking whether he may put a question.

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately my time is extremely limited. I can tell that hon. member that I give classes after hours. If he wants to come then I shall answer all his questions. I shall tell him everything he wants to know, as well as a few things that he does not want to know. Then there are a few other questions which are also interesting. One wonders what they are doing in a report such as this. There is, for example the following—

I wonder whether Dr. Piet Meyer is aware of that question. The report continues in this manner; they even take up the cudgels for “Current Affairs” by stating the following—

It is as a result of questions such as these that the hon. member for Orange Grove expressed his objections with regard to this particular piece of work. It is not because we think that there is anything wrong with the work done by the Human Sciences Research Council, but because we unfortunately see in it the diabolic hand of the S.A.B.C.’s Dr. Piet Meyer. We do not mind if a political opinion poll is held, but then we expect Dr. Piet Meyer to make that political opinion poll a public opinion poll; he should not try to hide it behind another kind of opinion poll.

Can you prove that?

The hon. member asks me whether I can prove that. I cannot prove it, but I say that as a result of the nature of the questions, it seems to me as though the questions were possibly asked by him. That is what I say. [Interjections.] Sir, hon. members are really feeling it now.

I still have two minutes left, and I should like to speak about another very important matter. It is also work done by the Human Sciences Research Council. I refer to the research being done with regard to criminology. A certain degree of research in this field of the criminology, particularly as far as it concerns other investigations, has already been undertaken by the Institute for Sociological Research for some considerable time, but during the past three or four months a full-fledged department undertaking this research, namely the Institute for Sociological, Demographic and Criminological Research came into being. It is something which I welcome wholeheartedly. You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that I introduced a motion last week asking for a full-scale investigation regarding criminological research in South Africa, to see where the problem …

Order! We have disposed of that motion. We are now dealing with another.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, but with respect, it is the research which is now being done by the Human Sciences Research Council.

I should not like the hon. member to discuss that motion again.

With respect, Mr. Speaker, I now want to deal with the good work done by the Human Sciences Research Council in this regard. Unfortunately it is a matter that is new to them, but I am glad to see that they exhibit the insight which hon. members on that side did not want to exhibit during the discussion of my motion; that they are, in fact, prepared to undertake this investigation and that they realize that it is essential for South Africa to institute an investigation of this nature. Sir, I would like to wish them everything of the best with this kind of investigation. I only hope that the Government will use the benefit to be derived from it and that they will approach the Human Sciences Research Council and give them more money, as is asked for in the amendment by the hon. member for Durban Central, also to do further, better and more complete research concerning this specific problem and that the hon. the Minister will take the necessary steps in this regard.

Mr. Speaker, in his introduction the hon. member for Kimberley South posed the question whether the HSRC really had an essential function to fulfil; whether it was justified that so much money be set aside for this purpose; whether it could really be approved that so much specialized manpower be employed for the task performed by the HSRC. Having listened to the discussion on this motion—I want to say that I listened very attentively and with great interest to every speaker—I am convinced that the speakers who took part in this discussion on both sides of the House answered his questions in full. It is clear to me that there is no difference of opinion in this House on the necessity and the importance of research—all kinds of research. It does not matter whether it is research in the sphere of the natural sciences or in the sphere of the human sciences, whether it is fundamental research or applied research. Everybody is agreed that research is essential and important. In fact, to a very large extent our existence and continued existence depend on thorough and scientific research. There is therefore no need for us to discuss that aspect any further.

Sir, I want to express my thanks to the introducer of this motion for having brought his motion to this House. I think that if this House has ever spent its time profitably during this Session, then it has probably done so by way of this attempt at bringing the activities and the significance of the Human Sciences Research Council to the notice of the public. I am particularly pleased that the various speakers who took part in this debate—I do not know whether they intentionally did this beforehand or whether it was mere chance—divided amongst themselves in such a fine manner the ground to be covered. Some of the speakers gave us an outline of several of the branches of the activities: then there were others who only elucidated and discussed a single aspect of the activities of an institute. Together they did excellent team work in bringing to the fore and requesting support for the truly significant work done by this council. Sir, one of the speakers—I think it was the hon. member for Benoni—has already mentioned that my predecessor said that research in the sphere of the human sciences was less spectacular than it was in the sphere of the natural sciences and that that was therefore the reason why it was lagging behind. But I want to say most emphatically that research in the sphere of the human sciences is not less important than research in the sphere of the natural sciences simply because it is less spectacular. I regard it, for a variety of reasons, as being of equally great importance that this research be done, and I think that the speakers on both sides of the House who took part in the debate this afternoon have proved this over and again. Therefore I want to join them in their word of thanks for the activities carried out by this council, and I want to congratulate the council on the achievements it has attained and the fine progress it has made in the short period of its existence. However, I want to say—and it is not because I have cause for saying this, but this is well meant and positive advice which I am giving to the Human Sciences Research Council and its supporters—that its prestige with the public, with this House will be determined by one single factor alone, and that is the quality of the research done by it, not by the number of institutes that are established, not by the number of members of staff appointed by it, not by the size of its budget, but only by the quality and the scientific character of its work. To that I want to add that it is perhaps fitting in these times in which we are living to urge, in a quite sympathetic and positive manner, discretion in the spending of all these amounts of money which are made available. By that I am not suggesting that there has been any injudicious spending up to now, but I think a fitting word to remind them of this necessity would also be very appropriate here.

Sir, we now have before us a motion introduced by the hon. member for Kimberley South, a motion in which he expresses his gratitude to the Government for the support afforded by it to the Human Sciences Research Council, which has enabled it to achieve the results we have just discussed. In contrast with that we have an amendment which apparently seeks to go a little further, which seeks to be a little more specific, but now I find it interesting that the hon. member for Florida, who spoke towards the end, was actually speaking against the amendment proposed by his own side.

He was only making a noise.

For he said that his side was not expressing gratitude to the Government; he wanted to express gratitude to the HSRC only. Then the hon. member for Florida said—and I took it down—“If it is the Nationalist Party, then I thank the Nationalist Party.” Sir, it is the National Party; therefore he was actually speaking against his side’s amendment. But this is merely an indirect comment I want to make in this regard.

Sir, during the course of the discussion several of the speakers put forward certain suggestions. I made a note of quite a number of them. I may, for instance, mention the suggestions put forward by the hon. member for Durban Central on the collection and preservation of historic documents and on research on migratory labour and productivity. The hon. member for Koedoespoort spoke about our archives and historical documentation, and he put forward certain suggestions in that regard. Then there was also the suggestion put forward by the hon. member for Turffontein, who spoke on one specific topic, namely family planning, and in passing I should like to congratulate the hon. member on the way he presented this very important matter in this House. Then there was the further suggestion by the hon. member for Benoni to the effect that data obtained by way of the population register should not be lost but ought also to be sent to this institute for safekeeping. Finally, Sir, we had the suggestion by the hon. member for Florida on criminology. I take it that all these suggestions will come to the notice of the Human Sciences Research Council, because this is the body which decides by itself on research projects that are to be undertaken and on the order of priority in which they are to be undertaken. Therefore I do not think it is necessary for me to reply specifically to each of these suggestions. Sir, this question was put here by the hon. member for Turffontein: What happens to all these useful and interesting reports; is it worth while to have those reports published and distributed and to have them find room on the shelves of libraries and reference centres? I just want to tell the hon. member that those reports—and this also became apparent from the discussion—are indispensable for forming opinions and formulating policies. Without such scientific research projects it will be extremely difficult to formulate policy or opinions. It is for these purposes that this research is done. I may as well mention a few examples that are within my ministerial province. Reference was made here to the report in regard to differentiated education. It was held up as an extremely important report, which in fact it is. That report has unquestionably helped a great deal to form opinion and policy in connection with our new system of differentiated education. I also want to mention in passing that not all credit is due to this research project on differentiated education, but I want to emphasize that this was most definitely one of the strong contributory factors to the forming of our opinions on this matter.

I want to mention a second example. The hon. member referred to the report on the training of engineers. I can tell you, Sir, that this report was one of the factual reports which guided the Government in its decision not to proceed at this stage to the establishment of a new faculty of engineering in South Africa. Therefore, the value of this research, of these reports, cannot and must not be under-estimated, for they are, as I have already said, instrumental in forming opinions and formulating policy.

Now I should like to come to the second aspect of this motion, namely the financial provision that is made. Arguments were advanced here which in fact sought to show that the Human Sciences Research Council, seen in the light of the allocation made on the part of the State for research purposes, also to other research bodies, was actually showing a downward trend as far as priority was concerned. That I want to dispute, and I want to do so on the basis of the same data put forward by the hon. members who spoke about it. They pointed out that of the eight research bodies the HSRC occupied the bottom position in the 1972-’73 financial year in respect of the total allocation of funds from the Treasury; in other words, the HSRC was eighth on the list for 1972-’73. But that was based on actual figures, on actual amounts; that is the case if one takes them into consideration. In my opinion it would be a much more sensible and reliable criterion if one were to judge the matter on the basis of the position occupied by them in the growth index—in other words, the extent to which these allocations had increased. In doing that, we see that in 1972-’73 the HSRC actually occupied fourth position as far as the growth index was concerned. And if we also have regard to the fact that the universities are not exclusively research institutions, and ought therefore actually to be omitted from this list, then the HSRC occupies the third position on this list. In other words, I think this is actually a misleading conclusion that was drawn by hon. members on the Opposition side from the decrease in the percentage from 2,44% to 2,22%. The position in regard to the budget is in fact that the Human Sciences Research Council obtains its funds through the estimates of my department as they are voted by Parliament. It will interest hon. members to know that the Treasury has already approved in principle that the Human Sciences Research Council can get an increase of 5% in the total annual allocation. As hon. members know, the budget of the Human Sciences Research Council is actually made up of three components. In the first place there is current expenditure; in the second place there are research allocations; and in the third place there are capital funds. Apart from this increase of 5% which has been approved in principle, the Treasury has also agreed to the Human Sciences Research Council being able to decide in its own good judgment whether it will use some of the amounts voted for current expenditure also for research allocation purposes. In this way research allocations can therefore be considerably more than will perhaps be evident from the budget when it will be presented to Parliament. It will also interest hon. members to know that the recommended increase for 1973-’74 will amount to an increase of 6,6% on the previous year’s amount. Therefore there is already a considerable improvement over and above the 5% for which the introducer of this motion pleaded.

In discussing money matters, we should also see them in perspective. In taking a look at the annual report, we will note that the balance sheet reflects an investment of R220 000 with the Public Debt Commissioners and that the profit and loss account shows that the revenue as at 31st March, 1972, was R109 456 more than the expenditure. The Human Sciences Research Council is therefore not really quite as poor and impecunious as some hon. members wanted to suggest to us.

I believe I can say that the Government is very thoroughly aware of the importance of this council, that it goes without saying that sound growth must take place gradually and that the Government will do everything in its power to stimulate this growth as long as this council does work of a high quality and a scientific nature. In that regard, however, we have no problem at the moment.

With reference to specific points raised during the course of the debate, I should like to put a few matters in perspective. In the first place it appeared to me as though there are some hon. members here who are slightly confused in their minds as to the function of our archives and that of the Institute for Historical Research of the Human Sciences Research Council. All I want to say in that regard is that we shall have to watch this development in order to ensure that no overlapping of services and resultant waste of money takes place. At the moment this is not causing any concern, but I am pleased that the hon. members touched upon this matter. I think the hon. member for Koedoespoort was the first one to touch upon it, and the hon. member for Benoni also referred to it. This is an important point and we shall have to keep our eyes open as far as these matters are concerned.

Then we had something of an enlivenment in the debate when the hon. member for Florida spoke about the socio-cultural research undertaken by the Human Sciences Research Council in conjunction with the S.A.B.C. As far as that is concerned, there is something which the hon. member does not know. I do not take this amiss of him, for how could he know it? He does of course see evil intentions behind this research, something which is absolutely out of the question. He will not know, of course, that the co-operation lent by the S.A.B.C. in regard to this research project amounts to their making available annually an amount of money to the HSRC for the purpose of carrying out this research. I am no scientist and therefore I cannot judge the quality of these questions; for that reason I shall not assume to myself the same right which the hon. members for Orange Grove and Florida assumed to themselves, namely to comment on the merits of a few of these questions. The point at issue here is a socio-cultural inquiry. It is an extremely important inquiry which has to be made and for which there is a tremendous amount of interest abroad since South Africa is actually the only suitable guinea-pig in this regard, because we are a developed Western country which does not have television yet. That is why countries abroad are particularly interested in this research project and why we must proceed with it, even if it costs us a great deal of money. I think the misgivings expressed by the hon. member were perhaps not intended to be as grave as that. Perhaps he merely intended them to be a point of criticism, which simply happens to be the function of an Opposition.

With reference to the emphasis the hon. member for Kimberley South placed on the importance of the Institute for Psychometric Research, I should like to put one case very strongly. The measuring of intelligence, or psychometrics, is an extremely important aid, although only an aid, in our guidance which forms part of our policy of differentiated education. I want to emphasize this because I am afraid that persons who do not grasp the whole context properly will perhaps be of the opinion that in the application of our policy of differentiated education we are merely going to apply psychometrics and will then, using that as a basis, allocate the pupils to the various fields of study, something which is not the case at all. Psychometrics is but one of the aids which will be used in this guidance. I should like to reassure any person who has any misgivings in that regard.

I think I have now done justice to the standpoints brought to the fore by each of the hon. members who took part in this discussion. I want to conclude by saying that I thank each and every one of them for the way in which they prepared themselves and for the consistently positive contributions they made. I want to tell you that as far as the Government is concerned, it will continue to support the Human Sciences Research Council, as was proved by it in the past.

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

Mr. Speaker, one of the greatest responsibilities society has towards its citizens today is to encourage thrift; to ensure that a considerable proportion of the earnings of the population is not spent on the immediate satisfaction of needs, and sometimes wants, but that part of these earnings are saved to be used, either by the State or by major institutions, for the capital requirements of the economy. We in South Africa are utilizing a number of motivations for encouraging people to save. When it is necessary we increase the interest rates. At the present juncture it is the policy of the Government to allow several savings schemes which are exempt from taxation on the interest earned, and to give people who save certain capital benefits, inter alia, in terms of the system of premium bonds, where after five years, and again after seven years, a capital bonus is paid, although it is disguised as an increased interest rate for the one year. Because I believe, and this side of the House believes that economizing, thrift and diligence should be encouraged in the people in every possible way and that every form of motivation available should be utilized, I should like to move—

I want to say at once, as I did in 1971, that what I am moving is the official policy of the United Party. It was discussed at our central congress and was accepted there by the Leader of the United Party as part of the programme of action of this party, and hon. members may rest assured that when we take over the reins of government, this will become part of the legislation of South Africa. Of course, the particulars which I shall put forward today are not necessarily the official policy of the United Party, but when I put forward a similar proposal two or three years ago, it met with such general approval that I think I am entitled to assume that when the day arrives—and may it arrive soon—on which we introduce premium bonds in South Africa, then the plan, with a few necessary amendments perhaps, which I put forward at the time and shall repeat today will be the scheme of the United Party. There is just one appeal I want to make to members at the outset of this discussion and I am doing this in all earnest and very sincerely. This House of ours is known for its avoidance of all frivolity and hypocrisy, which is as it should be. I want to make a special appeal today to the effect that we should uphold that tradition of the South African Parliament in this discussion, and that we should refrain from exposing ourselves to any accusation of hyprocrisy. I hope for example that we will not find that there are hon. members opposite who object to it because it would allegedly be a form of gambling, while we are at the present moment expanding the practice of gambling in South Africa and making this possible for the man in the street by creating opportunities for placing off-course bets on horse races in what is officially known in English as bucket shops. I only hope hon. members opposite will bear these facts in mind before they piously maintain that what I am advocating here is a form of gambling. Otherwise I shall ask them to be consistent and say that they will vote against the motion, but that they will also, at the first opportunity, introduce legislation against this new expansion of the practice of gambling which is today the official policy of the governing party in the Transvaal, the Free State and now, so I have heard, in the Cape as well. In any case, I can rely on the hon. the Deputy Minister of Finance who has until recently succeeded in delaying this expansion to the Cape Province, to take the lead in ensuring that this does not happen here. Certainly, if he is not going to do this. I can rely on him not to use that kind of argument here today but to discuss the matter on its merits.

What I am proposing here is not without precedent. In France, for example, they have a system which may be described as one of terminal bonds. There people lend money to the State and then, by way of a ballot the names of certain of those who lent money to the State are selected in terms of that scheme and their loan is paid back to them immediately after the ballot, in addition to all the interest which they would have earned up to the end of that period. Then we have here in South Africa—the hon. the Deputy Minister is aware of this, and I hope he remains aware of this—a system which we call “terminating building societies”. People lend money to a building society, just as they do today, but they do not borrow money from the building society when they want to build a house one day. A regular draw is held. Then the full amount to which they are entitled according to the contribution they made is paid out immediately to a limited number of the lenders. In other words, the interest which they would have earned on the capital is paid out to them in advance. This is quite legal and very popular in South Africa, although the number of societies is diminishing.

They are becoming fewer.

Yes, they are becoming fewer, but it is quite legal and is very similar to the suggestion I am making here.

The scheme which we are proposing is more closely related to the scheme which has been operative in the United Kingdom with great success since 1st November, 1956. There they call them premium saving bonds. The scheme there is that the public opens subscriptions at post offices, banks and savings societies in units of R2 to R500, which are then accepted by the Government as a loan. However, no interest is paid out on these loans. A drew is held every month. Those people who are so fortunate as to have their names drawn receive a prize. There are certain interesting provisions which we in South Africa ought to take over as well, for example that loans are made only to the individuals. Financial institutions, business firms and companies cannot participate in this. The second provision is that an individual may only have a maximum of 2 000 bonds. No person in Britain may invest more than R4 000 in this way. It is interesting to note that two years ago the maximum was R2 500. So popular is the scheme and so great the demand, that this maximum was recently increased to R4 000 or 2 000 bonds per person. The interest rate on the shares is 4¾% and, after a person has lent his money to the Government for three months, he qualifies to have his name included in the draw, and his number of shares is included every time the draw takes place for as long as he leaves his money there. He may withdraw his money at any time, and if he should die, his estate may benefit from it for 12 months afterwards. After 12 months the money has to be withdrawn by the estate. The prizes—this is something in which you and I are interested—range from R50 to R100 000 every month.

Do you call those “prizes”?

Yes, I call them prizes. In the case of South Africa, I prefer to call them bonuses, but I am referring now to the British system. I do not know whether my hon. friend wants me to ape everything Britain does, but in South Africa I think we should call these bonuses, for that is what they really are. What does my hon. friend call it if a person wins money on the horse races?

A dividend!

Yes, then it is a dividend. The prizes range from R50 to R100 000. Every month there is a prize of R100 000, and every week an amount of R250 000 is set aside so that there are four prizes and in some months five prizes of R25 000. Then there are a large number of smaller prizes, prizes from amounts as small as R25. It is interesting to note that as a result of the success of this scheme it was resolved in the British Budget, which was introduced on 6th March of this year, to set aside a further 25 000 of R4 000 each, i.e. 100 prizes of R4 000 each will be added every month. Of course, the persons eligible for these prizes are selected by means of a machine, a very interesting machine called ERNIE. ERNIE stands for Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment. It could be said that the entire process is similar to some of those advertisements of food producers which state: “Never touched by human hand”, for ERNIE is not human. This scheme is a tremendous success in the United Kingdom, just as the French scheme is in France. Between 1st November. 1956 and May, 1972, an amount in round figures of R3 000 million was invested in this scheme. If one takes into account all the withdrawals over the past 16 years, there is still an amount of R2 000 million in that scheme today. This represents an average withdrawal of approximately R74 million per annum. It is a remarkably stable form of saving. Then we must also take into account that Britain has experienced another phenomenon in regard to their national savings certificates scheme. In the previous financial year, 1971-’72, an amount of R1 000 million was invested in national savings certificates, but in the same financial year an amount of R730 million was withdrawn. This means that in one year ten times as much money is being withdrawn from the national savings certificate scheme than the average amount withdrawn from this premium savings bond scheme. That proves how stable it is. It proves that the people who invest in this way are really being taught to be thrifty. They are really acquiring this and do not use the savings machinery of the State, such as the Post Office and national savings certificates, as a cheap bank. The money remains there because they have a strong motive to continue to save.

Now I want to give hon. members an idea of the public interest and the degree to which people as a whole are participating in this form of saving, which is also a form of entertainment and pleasure to them. It is interesting to note that from 1956 to the present, R700 million has been paid out in prizes, and hon. members can guess to how many people these were paid out. Some of the people did perhaps win a prize more than once, but this does not happen very frequently. Nine million people have already, during a period of 16 years, won prizes under this scheme.

How many people participated in this scheme?

Approximately 20 million people participated in it.

How do you come by that?

My figures are quite correct.

I simply wanted to have the figures.

I do not like that hon. member, who in the days when Mr. Phillip Moore made a similar proposal spoke the greatest nonsense that has ever been spoken in this House, to accuse me of submitting incorrect figures to the House. There are approximately 20 million people whom own or previously owned savings bonds.

Now I want to propose that we introduce a similar scheme in South Africa, but with one important difference. This is that the total amount of interest earned on these savings bonds need not be paid into a bonus fund, but that one half should be paid out to the people who lend money to the State. Suppose interest of 6% is earned; then the people who lend money to the State receive 3% interest per annum. The reason for my suggesting this is partly to salve the conscience of the hon. the Deputy Minister, since he feels so strongly about any form of gambling. But I am also doing this for a more practical and more important reason. This is that when people lend money to the State, particularly to the South African State, with this Government in power, something should be done to protect them in some measure against the consequences of creeping inflation. For that reason I believe that 3%—the half, if it is 6%—should be paid back to them as a measure of compensation for the erosion of our money, and that a further 3% should then be used to establish a fund from which it will be possible from time to time to pay bonuses. Just by way of illustration, to give hon. members an idea of how it would work, I want to mention the following: In the beginning of course one will have to wait until a capital fund is built up from the bonds, and since it will take three months before the money qualifies to form part of the distribution of bonuses, one could say that in those first three months prizes or bonuses will be distributed in units of R10 000. For each R10 000 which will be available in the fund in the form of half of the interest, it will be possible, as soon as there is an amount of R10 000, to pay out at the outset one prize of R1 000, two of R500, three of R100, 20 of R50 and 268 of R25. But the fund will soon grow quite considerably. Much of the money which today crosses our borders illegally on its way to Portuguese East Africa and some of the former Protectorates, and particularly to Rhodesia, would then remain in South Africa to be utilized by South Africa in the interests of developing South African’s infrastructure and for other constructive objects. If the fund grows as this one in Britain has grown, it ought to amount to R150 million within a decade. Suppose the fund soon reaches the R20 million mark—and that will happen very quickly—then an amount of R600 000 in interest will be available per annum, or R50 000 per month. Then one will be able to pay monthly bonuses as follows: One of R20 000, one of R10 000, two of R1 000, four of R500, six of R100, 40 of R50 and 526 of R25.

You really are having a nice time handing out prizes!

Yes, and it is so practical; it is happening. This is what is so interesting and, Mr. Speaker, I know that it is going to be introduced in South Africa. I only hope that we will not have to fight for this as long as we had to fight for television and the Orange River scheme. The scheme is inevitable for South Africa, as were so many other schemes which the United Party advocated in this House. We shall continue to advocate this until we bring the Government to its senses, as in the case of television, as in the case of the Orange River scheme, and as in the case of immigration. There are dozens of other examples of this, where the Government was slowly and without any real enthusiasm forced by the facts of the circumstances, by the hard facts of reality, to accept and implement our policy.

Sir, before very long the fund could top the R100 million mark. This would then mean that the money available for bonuses will amount to R3 million per annum or R250 000 a month. That amount would then be available as a motivation and a strong encouragement for our people to save money. I think it was in 1964 that Mr. Moore proposed such a scheme. Two or three years ago I proposed one, and what were the objections which were raised by the other side to this motion? I should like to mention them. One was that money should earn interest. It may be an objection to the British scheme and it may be an objection to the French scheme, but it is not an objection to the scheme I am proposing, for the money would also earn interest for the individual.

The second objection is that it would be a form of gambling. I have already made the request that any person on the Government side who rises to his feet and advances that argument should think twice, particularly after the events of the past two years in our Provincial Councils, for the Provincial Councils are today actively encouraging gambling of a very dangerous nature in South Africa. But other members on this side will have more to say about this. Sir, we must remember what the essence of gambling is. The essence of a game of chance is that a person wagers part of his possessions, that he risks part of his possessions, and that that risk is determined by chance. Sir, in this scheme not one participant is risking part of his capital possessions, for it remains intact and it is kept more intact than it would normally be kept by the Government because interest is paid on it to the subscriber, apart from that portion of the interest which is used for prizes. Sir, how can one be up in arms against any system in which there is an element of risk? There are few things in our lives of which chance does not form an element. The greatest gamble in the world is to be born, for it is determined by chance whether one will be the son of Harry Oppenheimer or the son of the Deputy Minister of Finance; and, Sir, if one is opposed to a game in which an element of chance is involved then one should make a law in South Africa making our death duties so high that every child in South Africa will be born of parents who have had an equal opportunity in life, from the beginning, or else one would be admitting that there is in fact an element of chance in life.

You have learnt nothing since the year before last.

Sir, I do not like quoting from the Bible, but the Bible abounds with examples where, with the approval of the Highest Authority, gambling is allowed. [Interjection.] My hon. friend there has mentioned Jonah.

You also mentioned that the year before last.

Yes, and I shall mention it again. I also mentioned the year before last that when the Israelites came to the plains of Moab, the Lord said to them: “Ye shall divide the land by lot for an inheritance among your families”. I also mentioned the year before last that for many years compulsory military service in South Africa was determined by means of a ballot system.

That is an entirely different matter.

Sir, here we have a very interesting difference of principle; if the Government wants to do it, it is wonderful; if anyone else suggests it, it is gambling.

Sir, then the objection was raised—and I dealt with this last year as well—that these bonds will compete with normal forms of saving, and with other savings schemes of the Government, where it will not make any difference, but that it will also compete with the building societies and with trust companies, etc.

Ask Hymie.

But, Sir, why not? The Government competes with these people. For how long has the Government not taken tax-free loans from the public, and granted the same privilege to the building societies, although they still have not granted this privilege to the banks? But the difference is that one is competing here for money from a specialized category of the available money. Here one is competing for money from people who would normally perhaps not save, who have another outlook on life, but one is using a motivation which would perhaps make a stronger appeal to them than it would to other people, and I think it is in the public interest that every form of motivation should be applied to help people save. I think that the argument that it is competitive is an extremely poor one.

Then we had the argument that this would not encourage thrift. But, Sir, if one has a system of loans to the State, which encourages saving among people who would otherwise perhaps prefer to invest their money in Rhodesian sweeps, then surely one is encouraging thrift among people in whom it is necessary to do so, and one is using that motivation not to the advantage of foreign countries, but of one’s own country, and it is important, particularly to us, who have grave problems with the unparalleled poverty which we still have in large areas of South Africa, that we be able to use the money in those areas and in South Africa itself to strengthen the infrastructure of our economy by building things such as hospitals and schools, etc. That is the strongest argument I can find.

This was one of the arguments, namely that it would not encourage thrift. But the other argument, which was used very deliberately, was that it would encourage over-thriftiness, and that it was unsound for a people to save money. I have here with me the Hansard of 1964 and there, in column 977, the hon. member for Piketberg was speaking. I am reading from the English translation of what he said. But you should listen carefully, Mr. Speaker, for you will find it difficult—not to follow, but to believe. This is what he said about the scheme—

Have you ever heard anything like that in your life before, Sir? I want to put this question to the hon. the Deputy Minister. Look, we have just devalued. The gold price is high and his Minister will probably come to this House with a surplus of R100 million or even R200 million. [Interjection.] No, I do not want him to discuss this, but I want to put this question to him. Have the circumstances in South Africa changed to such an extent that he is now able to agree with the hon. member for Piketberg that our people should be discouraged from saving? I do not want to do him an injustice, but will he say that it is no longer necessary for us to encourage people to save?

Surely there are times when it is necessary to save, and times when it is not necessary to save.

I only hope the Deputy Minister will deal with this, for I must honestly say that if he agrees with the hon. member for Piketberg, his whole case collapses. One of the main principles of the financial administration of the Government of South Africa is then proved to be fraudulent. I think we must clear up this matter, because it is very important.

Then there is another aspect which I heard about for the first time two years ago when I moved a similar motion, and do you know from whom it came? From my •good friend the hon. the Deputy Minister of Finance. At the time he was not yet Deputy Minister of Finance, he did not at that time have advisers to keep him on the right course, and for that reason I forgive him. But he said this plan was unscientific. He will have an opportunity to speak, and he must tell us in what respect it is unscientific. Then he must say it is unscientific to apply any motivation to encourage people to save. Then it is unscientific to pay people interest on money and not tax them on it. Then it is unscientific to give people capital privileges if they save. Then it is unscientific to have a Post Office Savings Bank. I think that two years ago my hon. friend was perhaps called upon unexpectedly to delay this matter. He has had two years in which to change his mind, and I do hope he will not present the same kind of argument again.

Unfortunately my time is running out. I just want to emphasize that the disadvantages of this scheme which have been mentioned, and the arguments against it are not really substantial, as I have indicated, but the advantages of this scheme are unquestionable. In the first instance it will, as the hon. member for Piketberg also said, encourage and stimulate the sense of thrift of our people. It will encourage the desire of people to make a capital gain, and this is a very good motive for any person who believes in private ownership and private enterprise, as we do. We can use that urge people have as a motive in another form to save. For you must bear in mind, Sir, that most people in South Africa—the middle classes as well as the less well-to-do—do not share the privileges of the rich, namely that they can look forward in their lifetime to considerable capital gains which are not taxable and are therefore able to accumulate something and leave it as a considerable inheritance for their children. Most people in South Africa work to satisfy their immediate needs. But here we are also giving them a chance to acquire capital gains. The gambling element in this is no greater than the gambling element which applies in many business enterprises in South Africa today. It means—this I want to emphasize—however, that hundreds of thousands of people who do not have the opportunity today, because they are not well endowed with capital and therefore cannot look forward to building up capital gains on their capital, will in fact have the opportunity, as nine million people in Britain have had during the past 16 years, to acquire a tax-free capital gain.

The third advantage of this scheme is that we will in this way be able to create an important source from which capital will be made available to the State. If we are in earnest about the problems confronting us, if we are in earnest about eradicating poverty in South Africa, if we are in earnest about creating a federal system or a system of separate nations in South Africa, we must bear in mind that the greatest enemy we are dealing with is poverty, the poverty of 80% of our people, or of our population if hon. members prefer it like that. Here is a means by which more capital can be acquired painlessly to be applied to the creation of the infrastructure and to economic activities which will make it possible for us to cope with that scourge of poverty, that grinding, oppressive problem of poverty in South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member began on a very sarcastic note and charged this side of the House with being holier-than-thou.

No, I said you must not be.

Very well then, I want to give the hon. member the assurance that I shall now prove to him on sober, practical economic grounds that his scheme is a rotten scheme, and that no holier-than-thou attitude will be involved. The hon. member also took the view that two wrongs make a right.

But make this one right.

He said that because we already gamble, we might as well continue gambling. This was his statement: Because we already gamble by means of horse races, we might just as well gamble, with this, too. Let me ask, however, whether any responsible Government with good intentions concerning the good of its peo-would continue developing further opportunities for gambling.

I have said I would analyse and then reject the scheme he proposes on sober, practical economic grounds. Let us look at what he wants the scheme for. He wants the scheme to make money to cover the necessary State expenditure which must be incurred. His scheme also proposes that investors should be protected. Furthermore, his scheme provides for the exploitation of man’s gambling instinct. Lastly the scheme proposes that our people will be taught to save. I want to deal with this last element first because the hon. member for Yeoville regards it as the most important element. If one begins with an investment of R2 500—and let us say the interest rate is 6% per year, to begin with a certain figure—the income accrued as interest would be R150 per year. Half of this the hon. member wants to pay out to the investor and the other half he wants to place in a pool. From time to time it would be decided by ballot who would receive payments from that pool. The hon. member implied that the investor would not be deprived of all his money, since he would still get back half of the current interest, that is R75 of that R150 per year. If the investor left that R75, which is being retained for the pool, in normal Government investments at compound interest for 10 years, half of the interest which would then be paid into the pool, would amount to R988 after 10 years. What could he not have done with that R988!

He could not have done better than to give it to the State for a good purpose.

Sir, I shall tell you what his chances are. Remember, I said that I am going to prove on sober economic grounds that the hon. member’s scheme is a poor one. What are the investor’s chances as far as this scheme of the hon. member’s is concerned of faring better and getting more than R988 out of the investment he has made? I worked it out statistically using the example the hon. member himself gave, that out of R10 000 one could give one person a prize or bonus of R1 000, two people R500, three R1100, 20 R50 and 268, R25 each. If the investor, who invested his money in the gambling scheme of the hon. member for Yeoville, wants to fare any better than the investor who invested his money in the State in the normal way, he must receive R1 000 in that 10 year period. What it amounts to is, that one out of every 294 persons would have the chance of faring better than the person who invests his money with the State in the normal way. One requires 10 people to accumulate R9 880. This is almost the R10 000 of which the hon. member was talking. If one then makes a further statistical calculation, one finds that one out of every 13,3 people will fare better than the normal investor with the State.

That is a good sporting chance.

Precisely, Sir. My statement was that it is a rotten system, because only one out of every 13 persons will fare better than they would at present. Now the hon. member wants to throw to the dogs a good system by which people are saving today, and put in its place something else in which only one out of 13 would fare better than they do today. Is this worth-while, Sir?

Now the hon. member tells me: Yes, but it is so popular that this or that number of people in Britain take part in it. All I can say to that is that it is a very dangerous criterion. Because people by nature have a gambling urge, must this be encouraged? The hon. member makes the statement that even though only one person out of every 13 gets more out of it than he would get at present, he would still do so. That is most certainly no testimony of good sense on the part of any citizen. If only one out of 13 can fare better than he can at present, and he accepts that system, it is most certainly no testimony of good judgment on the part of the citizen concerned. I want to give you the assurance, Sir, that the judgment of the citizens of this country is still of a better quality than that. Now the hon. member will ask me: Why is it so in Britain? You must now excuse me, but I want to state that this is the case because the whole system in Britain has been putrefied by a gambling urge. Just look at the soccer pools where hundreds of millions of rand are gambled away and at State lotteries where hundreds of millions of rand are gambled away. It is true that the hon. member grounds his whole argument on the gambling instinct of man, but what becomes of the character of the people if this Government simply has to play along and prey on that gambling instinct and increasingly encourage it.

Today again I want to indicate to the investor a much better course of action than that which the hon. member for Yeo-ville has suggested. When all is said and done, the first half of the hon. member’s motion asks for something which already exists today in this country. The first leg of the motion reads: “That this House requests the Government to introduce a system of premium bonds whereby the capital investment of subscribers will be protected.” The hon. member said that if the investor is paid out half of the interest—in my example of 6% interest, this is 3%—his capital is protected against the erosion value of his money.

Not under this Government.

I am speaking about the motion which the hon. member himself moved. Then his money is protected by 3%, which compensates for the erosion of his money value. Then he still gets no income on his money. His money still earns nothing, but he gets that 3% to compensate for the depreciation in the value of his money. But we have already, since last year, had a system of premium bonds in terms of which better provision is made for the decreasing value of money. The investor gets 5¼% on his money in the first year, 5¾% in the second year, 6½% in the third year, 6½% in the fourth year, 6½% in the fifth year, in the sixth year 7 % and in the seventh year 7%. Then at the end of the seventh year he gets a bonus of 4½% on the capital he has invested, considerably higher than the bonus the hon. member has proposed. He thinks in terms of 3% at the most, and this present scheme by the State gives him 4½% on his investment, and then each year he also has an income which varies from 5¼% to 7% on his investment.

But how much can he invest?

R40 000 per family. What is more, the interest is tax free. Now where could one want to get a better scheme than the one we already have? Why must we accept such a rotten scheme as the one the hon. member for Yeoville has proposed, to replace this good system? This is an excellent scheme.

I want to present the public with a far better form of investment, a form of investment where his money will be far better protected. Here I refer to the house ownership subsidy scheme which was introduced last year, according to which a person with an income of not more R5 000, that is the man in the street whom we would like to protect, can invest money in a building society at the prevailing interest rate. The State then subsidizes that interest rate by 2%.

That scheme is a non-starter.

In other words, if the prevailing interest rate is 6%, the State adds 2% and the person then gets 8% interest on his investment. When his investment, together with accumulated interest, reaches R4 000, he can use that money in part payment on a house, or a plot with a house, or he can build on a plot. Then, by means of this scheme of the State, it is made possible for him to obtain his own house. Where can one get a better form of investment, which offers better protection to the value of your investment, than specifically an investment in fixed property? That is what the State gives to the investor in South Africa, i.e. a house ownership scheme according to which the person can get his own house, and with the assistance of the State he can become an owner of property. You will not be able to find any better form of investment anywhere in the world. I fully agree that we must make plans to protect the savings of the people. If one does not protect the savings of the people, one cannot expect the people to save. And if one does not save, one has no capital. Therefore I fully agree that the savings of the people must be protected, but then one must do so on a sober, economic basis and not on a “hit or miss” basis. I say again that in terms of the scheme suggested by the hon. member for Yeoville, only one out of every 13,3 people can fare better than they do at present. Then I have not even included the house-ownership scheme according to which the State contributes 2%. I am only referring to normal savings bonds or national savings certificates or Post Office savings certificates. Only one out of every 13,3 would fare better and the other 12 would be worse off. They would be stupid to fall for that scheme. But I don’t believe that the people of South Africa and this House are that stupid. Therefore I wholeheartedly want to oppose the motion by the hon. member for Yeoville.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Paarl has attempted to digress from the main principle of the question which is before us, which is the establishment of a premium bond system, by going off into figures and calculations. Surely his whole argument fails as one finds that this system is flourishing in countries throughout the world and that it is being supported by the citizens of those other countries. Surely that in itself shows that the system can be so established that it is an attraction as well as protecting the capital that is invested.

There have been many suggestions as to how this premium bond scheme can be organized so as to provide the maximum benefit and security to the investor. I find in the library, for instance, that as far back as 1929 a letter, Sir, was addressed to your predecessor and the members of this House by a certain gentleman who said that he was quite opposed to lotteries and sweep-stakes but that he certainly was in favour of premium bonds. It would take me some time to read the very detailed exposition of how he suggested the premium bonds should operate in this country, but I would commend them …

But we have premium bonds!

No, I am talking of the premium bonds of the type mentioned in this motion, not the premium bond of the R40 000 investment type, which is a misnomer. Actually, it is a premium to the wealthy to escape income tax on their investments. I want to suggest to the hon. member that he study this book, which is in the Mendelssohn Library, so that he can see whether this scheme can be effectively planned and operated. I will give him the reference.

What is the reference?

It is a letter which was addressed to the Speaker of this House and to the members in 1929 when the same matter was discussed in this House.

I am certain that Shaw wrote this and made this approach before our provincial administrations entered into the field of participating and benefiting from gambling and straight gambling on horse racing. I want to draw the attention of this House—when we look at the moral issue of premium bonds—to the fact that we must first of all look at what is happening in this country, and what is happening in every province of our country, with the consent of the Nationalist administrations. These are not matters which have been introduced by the immoral members of this side of the House, but a system which has been introduced by and is flourishing under the Nationalist Party. Provincial revenue benefits from four different aspects of horse racing and gambling in South Africa. It benefits, first of all, from the tax on the totalisator; secondly, it benefits from the betting tax and, thirdly, from the entertainment tax which is levied on persons attending race meetings and, fourthly, it benefits from the licence fees which it levies on horse race courses, bookmakers, race course licences, Tattersall licences and totalisator licences. The total tax at the present moment that is being levied is a tax of 7% of gross takings of up to R12 000—this is in the Cape Province; it may vary slightly in the other provinces—and 8% above that. So far as the bookmakers are concerned, there is a tax of 1% on the bookmakers’ net takings and a tax of 3% on punters’ winnings. The hon. member for Paarl is worried about not getting the full rate of interest, but at the present moment the province takes 3% of the punters’ winnings on the race course. When it comes to the entertainment tax, 33⅓% of what is paid over 50 cents for admission to a race course, goes into the coffers of the provincial administration. Fourthly, the licence fees which are levied range from R5 to R100 in respect of these four categories of licences. The latest figures I have for the Cape Province indicate that in the year 1970-’71 the Cape Province received an amount of R1 336 910 from the totalisator tax. From the betting tax it received R896 800, from the entertainment tax an estimated amount of R150 000 and from licences an amount of R10 000. If this were such an evil and if gambling were so evil and so detrimental to the interests of the country as a whole, why is it that the same provincial council has now followed the others?

And he was an M.E.C.!

The whip was withdrawn from the Nationalist members of the provincial council and they were able to vote, and they voted no doubt as their electorate wanted them to vote, namely in favour of off-tote betting. This off-tote—the “licensed bucket shops” as they are called—is for persons who are not interested in horse racing. They do not go to the races; they do not go to see the horses; they do not even go to see the parades that take place in the public enclosures and so on …

The fashion parades.

… like the fashion parades and others. These people do not go near the course; they probably do not know what a horse looks like when it is saddled to participate in a race. But these people can now gamble. They can now lay bets and it is estimated that within the next four years the revenue to the Cape Province from these people on pure gambling will be an amount of an additional sum of R1 million to R1½ million over and above what the province gets from the totalizator. One wonders why it is that we should suddenly have this attitude which the hon. member for Paarl resorted to finally, namely that there was something morally wrong with the scheme suggested by the hon. member for Yeoville because there was a slight gambling aspect in so far as those who received an additional rate of interest on their investment were concerned. I want to say that if the hon. Whip on the other side in charge of this debate were to lift the whip this afternoon, if he would withdraw the whip from hon. members opposite, it would be interesting to see how they would record the views of the electorate they represent in this House. When one looks at these figures in respect of this revenue to the provinces, and one takes the high moral attitude that gambling is wrong, one could say that we ride upon roads which are financed from gambling, that our children go to schools which are financed from the proceeds of gambling, and that we enjoy ourselves in nature reserves which can be established because of the proceeds of gambling, at least partially. Those are the fruits which we enjoy from this very modest aspect of gambling, namely the tax on horse-racing in South Africa. What the fruits would be of a properly organized premium bond scheme, and what could be achieved with the funds which would be available from such a scheme, I leave to hon. members to imagine.

Let me say further that I believe that the Consolidated Revenue Fund of this country benefits also from what can be termed in a real and objective sense, gambling. I refer to the tax on the purchase and sale of marketable securities. Sir, do you know that the revenue we receive from the tax on share transfers is R30 million per annum? This is money which comes to the Consolidated Revenue Fund. The buying and selling of shares is certainly not divorced from gambling. I want to ask hon. members opposite whether they do not, at their party fund-raising functions, participate in the various raffles and whether they do not take part in competitions which are decided by lot. If that is in order, do they want us and the country to believe that sin can be divided into those little sins that do not matter and big sins that do matter? If it is gambling to decide on an additional rate of interest by lot, then it is gambling to award any prize at a “stryddag” of the Nationalist Party by lot, because it is equally wrong.

Have you ever been to a National “stryddag”?

Sir, I say quite openly that as far as I am concerned, I welcome these lotteries. I enjoy them. I do not think the hon. member for Yeoville has gone quite far enough in his proposal. I believe there is a case to be made for a State lottery. That is my personal view, but I do want to say that the proposal which has been made by the hon. member for Yeoville is one which deserves, and should have, the support of this House.

I want to point out that in the case of betting which takes place in connection with horse races, and from which the provinces derive this financial benefit which I have indicated, the capital of the investor is at risk from the very moment he places his bet with the bookie or pays it over the counter to the tote. In the case of premium bonds the capital investment remains secure to the investor for all time. The only question which arises then is whether he gets an X rate of interest or X plus Y rate of interest on his investment. I believe that this premium bond system would, to put it this way, put the cherry on the top of investments for the small man who has a little money to put away in a savings account. It would just add that extra cherry on the top for him, which is provided for the wealthy to the extent that they can invest, and invest to their benefit, in the Government tax-free premium bonds which exist at the present moment. Sir, when a man’s income tax is at the very lowest rate, what benefit is it to him to invest his money in the premium bonds the hon. member for Paarl said he should invest in? It does not benefit him. The tax-free aspect of the income he earns on his meagre savings does not mean anything to him. That benefits the wealthy man. It is a great advantage to the wealthy, but it does not help the small investor who is in the minimal range of income tax payments at the present time. Sir, I believe that those premium bonds will be putting the cherry on the top for the finance houses, for the pension funds …

How is it going to help the poor man?

He would have his investment in a premium bond at a guaranteed rate of interest, with the opportunity of getting the benefit, on a draw, of an additional rate of interest.

And a capital gain.

Sir, the hon. member for Piketberg has interrupted me. I was reading some debates in which he participated in the past. He said that we must earn our money and not benefit by chance; that it would be corruptive for people to get money which they have not earned. Sir, I want to ask the hon. member for Piketberg this question: When he invests in a vacant piece of ground and retains it for five years, hoping for capital appreciation and then sells at a profit, has he earned that capital appreciation; has he become corrupted because he did not work for the additional money which he got out of that investment?

Or if he takes fishing shares and does some fishing.

Sir, I want to go further. If the hon. member buys shares which yield a low return and he buys them for capital appreciation, is it a corrupt investment? Can it corrupt the morals of the hon. member? Sir, it is a normal, legitimate method of investment for a man to be prepared to accept a low return on his investment in the hope of capital appreciation at some future date.

I only buy good shares. I do not take chances.

The hon. member must not adopt the attitude that it is immoral for the small investor to have the benefit of a gain by chance if he gets additional interest on his investment, when the wealthy man is able to invest in shares and look for a capital gain by chance on that investment.

Sir, I want to sum up by saying this. I believe, as has been said by the hon. member for Yeoville, that a scheme of this sort would stimulate savings by individuals; that it would stimulate savings not only by the general body of individuals but would also stimulate savings by people who perhaps today do not think of saving and certainly do not waste money on the tote or with the bookmakers. Here they would be encouraged to place their money on savings with the possibility of the cherry on top by way of an additional amount of interest or a bonus on their investment. Secondly, I believe that the money that leaves this country at the present moment from the small people is a considerable sum of money. Hon. members know as well as I do that there is no difficulty in buying tickets in a foreign sweepstake, even in Cape Town. It is quite easy to get them. How the money goes out of the country, I do not know, but it is a simple matter to buy tickets in foreign sweepstakes. In the case of foreign sweepstakes, our people spend their money, it is sent out of the country and it is gone. Surely they should have the opportunity of investing that money in premium bonds in this country instead of sending their money out of the country to the extent that they do today.

Finally, I want to say this. Those members of the public who feel, as the hon. member for Piketberg felt, that they might be corrupted if they were to gain some financial benefit which they had not earned, need not participate in the scheme. There are many of us who never go near a racecourse because we are not interested in betting, and members of the public who feel that this would be such a corrupt scheme need not participate in it. But I want to say that if it is introduced into this country, and I wish it were, and hope that the hon. members opposite believe it should be, then the support of the scheme would come from the vast majority of the people in this country; the vast majority of the decent upright people of this country would support it and not feel that they are being corrupted morally by an investment of this nature.

The hon. member for Green Point is usually a man who, when he discusses a matter, does so in all earnestness and with conviction. I would have expected him to begin his speech this afternoon by telling us that there is a great need for this type of saving in South Africa, for the reason that South Africa’s coffers are somewhat empty and that the Minister of Finance has good reason to be very worried. The fact is that the hon. the Minister of Finance did not even think fit to attend this debate this afternoon. Never have I seen a Minister of Finance strolling through the lobby with as wide a smile on his face as the present Minister of Finance has had on his over the past few months. Therefore I do not think that hon. members opposite have made out a case at all for offering the public extravagant new inducements at this stage, even to the extent of exploiting their gambling instinct to induce them to save. If we look at the saving habits of our people over the past two decades, from 1953 to the end of 1971, you will find that the average rate of saving, that which individuals saved from the percentage of their income which was available after they had paid tax, was 10.4%. In that period of 19 years the average amount which the general public saved, expressed as a percentage of their income, was 10,4%. You will also find, Sir, that over that whole period the rate at which the public saved was more or less constant and proportional. The lowest rate in a single year was in the year 1964. In that year the percentage saved by the public was 8,3%. The highest rate of saving for a single year was in 1967. In that year it was 13,4%. So we find that in these two decades after the last World War the average percentage was always about 10%. But in 1970 concern was expressed because the rate of saving had dropped substantially. In that year the percentage saved by the general public was 8,6% of their income, which was only ,3% higher than the lowest point reached in 1964. But in the very next year, in 1971, the rate of saving rose again and even exceeded the average of 10,4%—in 1971 it was 10,7%. Now I want to state in the first place that if we look at the saving habits of our people over the two decades after the last war, we shall find that the people of South Africa have kept their saving habits virtually constant and that in the most recent times the rate of saving has tended to go up slightly. Now these hon. members come along with this motion and, in the first place, make the statement that it is not a form of gambling because they suggest that the individual who will save in this manner will not lose any of his capital. I want to suggest to them that if one goes to any person and offers him a rate of 3% or 4%, as they suggest he should get, he would by no means be interested in such a form of saving. He would go for the average that he could get from any company which takes money on deposit. He would want 7% or 8% on his investment. What is the hon. member for Yeoville really asking? He asks that the individual should not gamble with his capital, but with his interest, for that is part of the money to which he is entitled. In other words, there is nothing wrong when I gamble with R10, but as soon as I gamble with R100, that is not right. That is the kind of logic one must expect of the Deputy Leader of the United Party in this House. It was also said that an investment on the Stock Exchange is a form of gambling. Can a person who is in a responsible position deliver himself of greater nonsense than that? I should think that there probably are people who invest on the Stock Exchange in that way, but if we as responsible individuals want to state in this House that any investment on the Stock Exchange is a form of gambling, we shall be doing our country no favour. The Stock Exchange is one of the bodies by means of which savings must be encouraged so that capital for the development of our industries in South Africa may be made available. The demand for capital will grow progressively in the coming decades.

Do you not invest for capital gain?

Yes, but you do not gamble for it.

I think that we should rather educate our public to realize that it is essential that investments be made on the Stock Exchange and that they should be made in a responsible manner. People should not simply go mad as they did in July 1969; they should save in a responsible manner by means of judicious investments on the Stock Exchange.

This motion does not introduce a new idea to the House. In 1964 the then hon. member for Kensington, Mr. P. A. Moore, moved a similar motion. We who knew him know that at certain times he liked to speak in lighter vein and to provide a little light entertainment for his audience. I believe that on that particular day in 1964, when he moved that motion and linked it to the diligence and other praiseworthy qualities which must exist in a people, he was in one of his lighter moods. Exactly two years and two weeks ago, on 2nd March, 1971, the hon. member for Yeoville, who is not paying attention to this debate at the moment, moved a motion which was virtually the same. He soon found that he could only move it as a private motion and that he did not receive a great deal of support from his fellow-members on that side of the House. Therefore he had to call in the help of the hon. member for Durban Point. The hon. member for Durban Point was in a very good mood that afternoon. He was in one of his very best moods. When he could find no arguments which could in any sense be called serious arguments, he dug up anything under the sun with which he could support the motion of the hon. member for Yeoville.

He is still doing it.

He used the argument, for example, that if this is a form of chancing one’s luck, life in general is the same thing; if you walk across the street the possibility exists that you may be knocked down and killed and therefore you should not walk across the street.

Is that not so?

He went on to say that if you get into a motor vehicle, the possibility exists that you may die in a car accident and therefore you should not get into a motor vehicle. He also said that if you marry, there may be a divorce or something else occur, and for that reason you are taking a chance and for that reason you should not marry.

That is a chance.

The hon. member continued in that vein and said that when he looked at hon. members opposite he could not believe that life was really such a big gamble, because the cute babies of 40 years ago were now the hon. members who were sitting opposite him. I want to recommend that speech to any young hon. member as the kind of speech which should be made in this House when one really has no arguments whatsoever to strengthen the case for which one is pleading. If that were to be our approach to life, that life is a gamble and that we should for that reason encourage this system, which is purely a form of gambling, and link it to the best quality which any people can have, i.e. its thrift, we would be turning life into a farce. The fact is that we received our intellect, our intelligence, in order to conquer those risks that exist in life. I received my eyes so that, when I cross the street, I may first check whether it is safe before I cross over. I received intelligence so that I might gain experience, and when I drive a car, I do so with skill and judgment and I ensure that the chances of being involved in an accident are reduced to the absolute minimum. Similarly I received the ability to learn about business, so that I could reduce to an absolute minimum the possibility of myself and others losing anything when investing in shares on the Stock Exchange. In the same way I was able to call on a young lady for some years before I decided to marry her, so that I could judge very well before taking this momentous step in my life. In this way one can continue, ad infinitum, to refute these frivolous arguments to which we have had to listen in the past.

I do not believe that the hon. member for Yeoville, having found out in 1971 that the opinion of this House is overwhelmingly against it, would in the normal course of events, with his spirit of originality, have brought such a motion before the House again within two years and two weeks if a change had not occurred in their party. The fact is that he has a new leader in the Transvaal. If that new leader cracks the whip, the hon. member for Yeoville too must dance to his tune. The Transvaal leader of the hon. member for Yeoville introduced into one of the biggest finance companies in our country a principle which is fashioned after the same model, namely the principle that when you want to encourage people to buy, you should put up a number of prizes for them every month. So it seems to me as if the principle which the leader of the United Party in the Transvaal has established as the official policy of his company has also been laid down by him as the policy of the United Party, and that all the people of South Africa will now be taught to save in this manner.

But I do think the hon. member for Yeoville drew up the first part of his motion in all seriousness. Personally I should be very glad to support it. When the Government asks for the savings of the people of South Africa, it must ascertain to what extent it can ensure that the capital thus saved will be protected. That is the tendency with all bodies which borrow money from the public on a long term basis, either as deposits or by way of assurance policies, to ascertain to what extent they can limit the risk caused by the current rate of inflation, which may to a large extent remain with us in the future. It is for that reason that the big companies are today no longer satisfied to offer only a reversionary bonus or a cash bonus on policies, but also try to link them in some way to growth funds and share investments on the Exchange or even to investments in fixed property. I believe that they have realized that with the tendency towards inflation which we have had, particularly after the Second World War, it is necessary for them, if they want to take the funds of the public over a long period, to protect the public to a certain extent against the erosion of money. For that reason I think that it is necessary for the State, too, to take this into account to a large extent. If one looks at the tendency of the cost of living index of, say the year 1918, one finds that for the period 1918 to 1928 there was a rise of only ,5% in the cost of living. From 1928 to 1938—the year taken as a basis—there was a drop of 6,5% in the cost of living index. When the war broke out in 1939 the cost of living index began to rise. For the period 1938 to 1948 the average rise in the cost of living was 4% per year. If we look at the post-war period from 1948 to the end of 1972, we find that the average rise in the cost of living was 3,4% per year. In the 24 years that the National Party has been in power, during which it has governed as well as any government on earth could have done, otherwise it would not have been returned every time with larger majorities, and during which it has utilized all possible skills which it possesses to keep the cost of living index as low as possible and labour productivity as high as possible, taking into account our divergent population, and during which it has encouraged the population to save in every possible way, we have nevertheless found that there has been an average rise of approximately 3,4% every year. I think it is reasonable that the State should take into account this tendency, which may to a great extent be here to stay, when asking the public for its savings. It was for that reason that the Lodder Committee, when it was asked two years ago to investigate the question of savings which must be channelled to the State, came with this scheme of premium bonds. The hon. member for Paarl explained the scheme to us this afternoon. What it amounts to, is that the rate of interest paid by the State must not only be more competitive, even going up as high as 7%; certain bonuses must also be paid, namely a bonus of 2% if the money remains with the State for five years and a bonus rate of 4½% if the money stays with the State for the full period of seven years. I believe that this is the first attempt made by the State to contend with the problem of the erosion of money. I believe that in course of time the State will also be able to refine its methods to a greater extent. As greater knowledge is acquired and experience is utilized, the State, in order to remain competitive, will also be able to improve the encouragement which it gives through this system of premium bonds and it will remain competitive enough to receive its rightful part.

In conclusion I should like to point out that the State will not benefit by the introduction of this method which is being suggested to us here by the hon. member for Yeoville, because the State can never hope to outbid the private sector as far as this kind of idea is concerned. So if we should now introduce a form of gambling with a system of interest and give a prize to one out of every 13 savers, so that the State may obtain their savings in this way, I believe that it will only be a question of time before the whole private sector with its wide spectrum comes along with proposals which would make them even more competitive. Then we would only have set a new ball rolling, the momentum of which we would not be able to determine in the long run. The further responsibility rests on us as the leaders of this country not to set a wrong example to the races who are still earning very little, really, and who have a relatively low income. I do not believe that we should be rendering a service to the Bantu peoples of South Africa by introducing an element of gambling into State Finances now. We should not be rendering them a service by teaching them that one should be satisfied with an interest rate of 3% or 4% on one’s savings because by gambling with the other 3% or 4% one may win a big prize. We should rather ensure that the productivity of our non-White races is increased as much as possible. If the hon. member for Yeoville, who is also the shadow Minister of Labour in the Opposition, had rather come along this afternoon with a proposal aimed at increasing the productivity, not only of the White man, but of all races in South Africa, I think that he would have received very strong support from this side of the House. If, for example, he had told us that, considering the possibility that the State may have some surplus funds this year, that money should to the greatest possible extent be poured into our university institutions, as advocated by the hon. member for Johannesburg West, and into other educational institutions in South Africa, including the non-White educational institutions, I believe that he would have rendered a great service to South Africa. But after listening to him I believe that he has only become a slavish follower of his hon. leader in the Transvaal and that he has not fulfilled the responsibility which also rests on him as shadow Minister of Labour in this House.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Vasco did me the compliment of replying to the speech I made two years ago. That shows what a good speech it must have been and what a deep impression it must have made on the hon. member. He has obviously been turning this over and over in his mind for two long years. Two years later he has tried to answer it, but he has not answered it. He has not answered the claims I made. I want to deal with the approach taken by the hon. member for Vasco. I want to start with his definition of gambling. Gambling, surely, involves the option of winning something or losing something. If you have nothing to lose, it is not a gamble. A gamble must have the two elements of gain and loss. In this case the hon. member for Yeoville is proposing a scheme whereby the investor has nothing to lose because, firstly, he gets his capital back and, secondly, he gets interest on it to ensure that it is protected against erosion.

Only half of his interest.

No, he gets some interest on it, whatever the interest may be.

Three per cent.

No, the hon. member is taking an arbitrary figure. Because we have said 3%, he is saying: “Well, that is only half the interest.” The issue is that he gets his capital back and he gets interest on it. I shall argue in a moment as to whether it should be 1%, nil per cent, 3% or 10%. That is a matter of degree. The hon. member reminds me of a girl who, when she was asked if she favoured certain activities, said: “What do you take me for?” The man then said: “If I paid you R50 000 could we go off to the Riviera?” She said: “Well, that is a different matter.” He then said: “Well, now we have established the principle, let us get down to the price.” That is what the hon. member is doing. He has established the principle; now let’s get down to the quantum. The hon. member for Vasco has completely the wrong view. His view was that, if you gained something or did not gain it, it was gambling. There must be an element of risk for it to be a true gamble.

[Inaudible.]

No, surely! What is gambling? If you go gambling at the races, you put money on a horse and you either win or you lose. On this scheme you can only win, but you cannot lose.

One can win but 12 can lose.

One will win and the other 12 will get their money back. Therefore nobody loses and that is the point. Nobody loses because he gets his money back and that is the difference between this and gambling. I would be much happier if we had a straight lottery, but when you are dealing with persons who are so hidebound in their thinking as this Government is you have to go slowly and you have to take little steps at a time. So we are trying to propose something that will not clash with the consciences of even the most sensitive members on that side of the House, in other words a scheme which is not a gamble because there is nothing to lose. Having established that this is not a gambling system I want to take up the next argument raised by the hon. member for Vasco. He said the Minister of Finance is walking around with a big smile and does not need anything to attract capital. He said: “Hy het geen spesiale aantrekking nodig nie.” But if we do not need to attract capital why have we just passed a Bill through this House giving the Railways the right to raise their own overseas loans because the State was unable to assist the Railways? In the debate that finished this morning we discussed the Budget which followed on the Additional Appropriation during which it was disclosed that the South African Railways had had to sell stock at a loss in order to raise capital, in order to raise hard cash. They had sold stock at a loss of over R1 million.

R2 million!

They sold stock at a loss of R2 million. They needed money so desperately that they had to sell their stock and lose R2 million on it. And then this hon. member said that we do not need capital. The Post Office has taken powers to raise their own loans. Escom has powers, Iscor has its own powers and each one of them is looking for capital. Each one is striving to get capital for itself to such extent that, as I said, the Railways virtually had to sell their boots, they had to sell stock at a loss. When we are this desperately short of capital that the Government has to go to these ends, surely every possible step should be investigated and taken to try to raise that money. What are we suggesting? We are suggesting that we add to the facilities for savings a scheme whereunder the Government benefits, nobody loses and according to the hon. member for Paarl’s figures, which I will accept, one in 13 will win something.

Twelve persons lose.

The point is that this is the miracle gamble. One wins and nobody loses, and not one wins and 12 lose. That is where the hon. member for Paarl goes wrong. If the person wants to invest in the present premium bond scheme he has to be a rich man. That is the problem with this Government. All they can think of is the rich man. They can only think of the rich man, the Haakenheimer who wants to invest R40 000. We are talking about the ordinary small man who cannot invest in the R40 000 scheme outlined by that hon. member.

That is the maximum and not the minimum. He can invest R1 000 too.

Yes, but that scheme is not designed for the little man. If the little man wants to invest and if he wants to put in a rand every month, he can do it. At the end of the period he will have R2 or R3. But that is still available to him. Nobody is saying that he cannot invest in that scheme. What we are trying to do is to add something new to it, something additional for the person who is not interested in that scheme, the person who, like the average human being, likes a little bit of interest in life and likes to take a little bit of a chance. Mr. Speaker, let me look around here. I seem to recognize some gentlemen with whom I have had dealings! Sometimes I have been fortunate and sometimes I have been unfortunate, but that is the luck of the draw. These dealings are quite illegal; I accept that. The hon. the Minister of Justice will probably have BOSS on to me just now, but the fact is that this happens, even amongst those of us who sit here, and even amongst the Government members who are so totally opposed to any sort of scheme at all, even if there is no risk of loss. But they are prepared to take a chance. They will have a flutter. [Interjections.] Do those hon. members mean to tell me that they have never been to a race-course and that they have never put a rand on a horse? Do they mean to tell me that they have never taken a bet on an election? I am open now for bets on Umhlatuzana, if anybody wants to come and talk to me afterwards. I hear big talk there. I am always prepared to talk.

This is life, Sir, let us face it. Why do we try to put a blindfold on ourselves and pretend that things are different from what they in fact are? If something is a fact, why run away from that fact? Why pretend it is not there, and then rub your hands and say: “Aren’t I good; I am protecting people from their own weaknesses.” Mr. Speaker, this Government which says that, is a Government which rules as the result of a lottery. Have they forgotten that? Have they forgotten that they rule South Africa as the result of a lottery, as the result of drawing lots? In 1948 in Natal there was a tie for the Senate. Nine people had to put their names into a hat, from which eight would be drawn. The name which stayed behind was that of Senator Bawden, and the name which came out was the name of an ex-communist whom that party put in, Senator Pettersen. The ex-communist became a Nationalist Party senator and it gave them a majority of one in the Senate, which enabled them to rule. This was done by the drawing of lots. So, not only did they use an ex-communist, Sir, but they drew lots to gain control of the Government of South Africa. They, who govern by lot and who got there by lot, are now the ones who say that we must not even have a premium bond scheme whereunder there is nothing to lose. South Africa was the loser in the case of that last lottery in 1948, but this one has no losers. We come to the Government day after day, asking for certain things. My hon. friend, the hon. member for Umbilo, recently asked the question: When are we going to have a hospital at Kwa Mashu? The reply was: Perhaps we will start planning it in 1980. In seven years time they will start planning it, Sir.

Perhaps.

Yes, perhaps. In the case of Durban Station, we have been waiting 15 years since it was decided to build it. In the case of the hospital at Umlazi it is going to be another five years before it is ready. In the meantime people can die because we have no capital with which to build hospitals to care for the sick, to care for the needy. Our mental institutions are overcrowded. Old-age pensioners have to live in backyard rooms. They have to live in hovels because we do not have the old-age homes in which they can live a decent, clean life. They have to make do with any corner where they can find a bed and a roof over their heads. All these things South Africa needs, and it cannot have them because it does not have the money. The Government says: “We only have so much money; that is all we have and you cannot have these things.” When the hon. the Deputy Minister comes to Durban next time, I shall take him down into some of the backyards in my constituency.

Take him on a Saturday night.

No, I shall take him in broad daylight and show him the conditions under which pensioners and aged people are living. I shall show him the condition in which aged White people are living and he will feel ashamed that the Government of which he is a Deputy Minister should allow this sort of condition to exist in South Africa. I shall take him in broad daylight and I shall show him the suffering and the tragedy which could be prevented with money, if it were there. Then I shall take him to Prince Street and show him the Tafta old-age home. I shall show him what can be done and how people can live. These were people who were living in those same tragic conditions, but for whom Tafta House suddenly became available. That house was made available because people got together and built an old-age home. They built it with money, with hard, cold boodle, the boodle we are trying to make it easier to collect, in a painless way. But the Government says no, for high moral reasons it would corrupt the character of the people if there was a chance that somebody might win a little bit of money. Just the mere chance of winning some money will corrupt the character of the South African people. So it is better that the sick should die; it is better that the poor should live in hovels, than that we should risk corrupting the character of the people.

Does the hon. the Deputy Minister know that in Lourenço Marques they have another lottery, over and above the normal cash lottery? They have a lottery for homes. They raise money to build houses. It works this way: People take out multiples of tickets. I think it costs them 50 escudos per unit. For each unit your name goes into the draw, and that money is used to capitalize the building of flats and duplex maisonettes. At the end of each month, as many flats or duplexes as are available become the prizes. Those who have bought the tickets and have raised the capital, go into the draw and the lucky ones are given their flat or duplex. They pay a normal economic rent after that; they do not get it for nothing. They do, however, get occupation of a home. The capital to build that home is raised interest-free by this form of lottery. So they have not lost anything. The money they have put into that lottery remains their share in the company which owns the building. So, whatever money they have put in, remains a capital investment and they pay a normal rental, less their share of investment. The same sort of principle applies, namely the principle that they have nothing to lose because their money remains invested in the building. What they win is the right to occupy a flat.

Mr. Speaker, I went to look at that housing scheme. It stretches for kilometre upon kilometre. There are vast blocks of flats and beautiful duplex maisonettes. They have little gardens and swimming-pools around them. A beautiful city is growing up on the outskirts of Lourenço Marques, financed entirely by the housing lottery. Yet, when we want to suggest a similar sort of system, a system with no loss, to help the people of South Africa and the Government of South Africa, the answer is: “No, you will corrupt the people.” Mr. Speaker, I do not get the logic of it. Today you can buy shares on the Stock Market and then you can get a Chweidan or a Poplak or a Sidarel, and your money is gone. That is not Government policy; it is the system of private enterprise under which we live, where every man has the right to do what he will with his money. If he wants to put it into stocks and he is taken for a ride by a crook or by a bad businessman and he loses it all, that is his loss. That is the private enterprise system. Inherent in the private enterprise system is the right to do what you will with your possessions. We are only asking for the right for the people of South Africa to be able to do what they like with their money, to invest it in a form in which they see an attraction because there is a chance of a prize; and if one man in thirteen wins something and does better than he could otherwise have done, then that person has got something on which he was voluntarily prepared to take a chance, and those who took a chance and did not get a prize have lost nothing because they get their money back again with interest.

Sir, where is the logic of the Government’s objection to the proposal that we have put forward? Where is the logic of this thinking of a Government which can allow and extend opportunities for genuine gambling and yet refuse people the opportunity of investing in something which is not a gamble but which is an investment in the interests of the State? The hon. member for Paarl said that no responsible Government would extend the chance to gamble. Of course that is not true. Sir, do hon. members opposite want to say that the Governments of France and Britain and of virtually every country in the Western civilized world are not responsible Governments? Are we the only country in the world with a responsible Government? Will the hon. the Minister agree with his colleague and say that America, Britain, France, Belgium, Portugal and Italy are all countries with irresponsible Governments because they allow their people to gamble? I hope the hon. the Minister will answer. I hope he will say to America: “You are an irresponsible Government because you allow Las Vegas.” I hope he will say to our friends in Italy: “You are an irresponsible Government because you have casinos and you have a lottery.” I hope he will say to all these countries: “We regard you as unfit to govern; you are irresponsible.” Sir, where is the logic of it? Johnny is the only boy in step; all the others in the world are out of step. South Africa alone marches out of step with all the rest—the only country in step. But, Sir, it goes further than that.

That is a disgraceful remark.

The hon. member for Bellville says that this is a “disgraceful remark”. Let me ask him this: If 100 people apply for a crayfish concession and one person gets it, is that not a gamble? Ninety-nine have lost and one has got it. Therefore there are 99 losers and one winner. Is that not a gamble? When I say that South Africa is the only country with a responsible Government and the rest of the world, the whole world, is irresponsible, then the hon. member for Bellville says that it is a “disgraceful remark”.

It is a disgraceful thing to say that we are out to step.

But that is the position if we are right and the rest of the world is wrong. I say we are the only ones in step.

*I did not say that we were out of step. I said that we were the only one in step; that the rest of the world was out of step; that is exactly what I said.

†Sir, we know what the Government’s attitude was with regard to television, but now we are eventually going to get that “evil little black box”. Now we are going to go on pleading for this other sort of 20th century innovation and one day we will also get it. Either we will get it because we will be the governing party, which will be soon, and then we will do it ourselves, or this Government, which has seen the light so often and so quickly sometimes, may suddenly next year be accepting the scheme.

The hon. member for Paarl spoke about the new state housing scheme as a better investment but, Sir, we are not talking about a better investment; we are talking about a way to raise capital which can help in the progress and development of South Africa. If in this process we appeal to the natural instincts of the vast majority of our people, what is wrong with that as long as you appeal to their instincts in a way in which you cannot harm the people themselves or their families? That must be the test, and under this scheme you cannot harm their families. If a man goes and puts his weekly wages on a horse and loses it, his children can starve, but if a man goes and puts his weekly wages into the premium bonds that we are suggesting, then he can get his money back the following Monday and feed his children if he needs the money for that purpose.

Sir, this is not a threat. This is not something which can harm the people, which can cause suffering to wives and children. It is not a form of gambling in the sense that it can corrupt the character of our people, as was alleged by the hon. member for Paarl, who said that it would corrupt the character of our people if we appealed to the gambling spirit. But this is exactly what we are trying not to do. Instead of allowing people to gamble on horses, would it not be far better if that money went into premium bonds? In other words, you are using the gambling instinct of the people to divert them from true gambling with a chance of loss, into security with a chance of gain. That is a tremendously different proposition. [Interjection.] Sir, it sounds as though the message is getting through. I hear the bells ringing in the heads of the Nationalists. There is some member whom the gong has already struck and I believe this is the moment, the penny having dropped, to anticipate that the Deputy Minister is now going to stand up and say: I am completely convinced and I am prepared to be one of the 13,3% who may be able to go home and say: “Look what I got this week; let us go out and buy you a fur coat.” And he will not have gambled but he will have got something which he did not have before, and that by investing his capital in premium bonds. I hope he will now support the motion.

Mr. Speaker, I listened with close attention to the hon. member for Durban Point. I appreciate his friendly gesture in inviting me to visit Durban with him. I want to say at once I am prepared to accept the invitation if he guarantees my safety in the places to which he is going to take me.

You will be safe with me.

It is important that I say at the outset that the United Party has, through all three its speakers, virtually informed the House that it accepts the principles of a State lottery. It is important that they should have said this in this specific debate on the motion moved by the hon. member for Yeoville, for by doing so they have said by implication that they want to use this motion of the hon. member for Yeoville, not to promote this noble objective to which they were referring, namely the tendency to save, but that they, in the first place, want to get a foot in the door for what they are really advocating, which is a State lottery. Let me say at once that if the hon. members want to debate with us the matter of a State lottery, the merits or disadvantages of such a scheme, I want to suggest that they place a motion to that effect on the Order Paper. Then we will be able to discuss the principle of a State lottery with one another, and argue the matter. But I think it is wrong to couch the motion in the terms which they used, as allegedly having certain other objectives, while the hon. members are in reality advocating a State lottery.

There are certain remarks made by hon. members opposite which I cannot allow to go unanswered. The hon. member for Green Point knows that I have an extremely high regard for him, but I cannot allow to go unanswered the charge, or the statement, that the Stock Exchange as an institution in this country is nothing but a gambling house.

But many people are using it as a gambling house.

Then the hon. member is using it, because it is this, as a motivation for his motion. I want to remind hon. members of the criticism which they levelled in 1969 when there was a slump on the Stock Exchange as a result, inter alia, of speculative activity. Did hon. members then find the reason for this slump in the gambling element, or did they blame this side of the House for the slump in the Stock Exchange. We can debate matters with one another, but we should really refrain from making such superficial statements that they prejudice a national institution which exists in the country. This is not conducive to the general interest.

What the hon. member for Durban Point did—I do not want to take this amiss of him—for I think it is in fact evidence of a lack of insight—was to present the Utopian ideal that if we would only introduce in our planning an element of gain which could be brought about by way of drawing lots, all the people would be provided with housing, all the people would be cared for and all the evils in society would disappear overnight, as if the circumstances to which he was referring—I want to say at once in exaggerated language—were attributable only to a lack of capital, as if one only needed capital to be able to build houses, homes for the aged, hospitals and other institutions.

That is a large part of it.

Surely no person with any understanding of economic principles could agree with him when he makes such statements in such a frivolous way.

It is a fact that this motion has, in different words, been introduced for the third time in this House now. It was introduced in 1964 and again in 1971 by the late Mr. Moore, and by the hon. member himself, respectively. The motion which has now been introduced does not differ in principle from the motions previously introduced. However, there is a new element in this motion, which is the idea of protecting capital against inflation or rising prices. The hon. member said that he was including this particular aspect so that it would be possible to satisfy our side because people would then at least be able to receive part of the interest.

That was in the 1971 motion as well.

I should like to refer very briefly to the components of the hon. member’s motion. The first is the protection of investment capital; the second is the interest earned on the specific investment; the third is the partial application of interest earned on the investment for the establishment of a pool; and the fourth is the allocation of prizes by way of drawing lots to a limited number of people who participate in this specific form of investment. What is the financial argument, for surely this is the fundamental issue, which may theoretically be advanced by hon. members opposite as motivation for their standpoint in regard to the issuing of balloted premium bonds? I find that the two reasons which may be advanced, and which were advanced, are in the first place that individuals should, by way of their savings, make a greater contribution to State financing, and secondly, that this should encourage or personal thrift. I think I understood the hon. member correctly in this specific regard.

Yes, you understood very well.

In so far as the hon. member and his colleagues were making an appeal for an increased tendency to save in our country, in so far as they were making an appeal for us all to save, I personally cannot enter into any argument with the hon. member. On the contrary, I recall that when this side of the House pointed out, not so long ago, that it was in our national interest that more money be saved, that a greater portion of our income should be saved, it did not always meet with a sympathetic reception from the hon. members opposite.

You are thinking of the hon. member for Piketberg.

I shall reply to the hon. member for Yeoville on his statement on what the hon. member for Piketberg said. I therefore find no fault with that appeal of the hon. members. I want to say at once that if we want balanced growth in our country—I want to emphasize at once that it is essential that we should by means of balanced growth increase and improve the welfare of the total population of the country—we must realize that in order to achieve that, capital will be required, for, as hon. members were quite justified in saying, capital represents an important, one of the most important growth potential components.

I want to make the general statement that saving is the basis of growth; this was true in the past and is still true today. The hon. members know that in the former barter system people had to keep back portion of their yield or income because they had to buy other essential necessities of life with it. This formed the basis of specialization and mass production which is conducive to growth in any country and which forms the basis of our present-day economy. And now, in our times, growth is equally impossible without saving. This is so because without saving credit is impossible, and production is a function of credit and investment. For that reason saving is synonymous with investment. Without saving it is on the one hand impossible to build up surplus stocks, and on the other hand it is impossible to import. This of course retards the development of our country. To the degree in which the hon. members therefore advocated the whole idea of saving, we on this side of the House are in agreement with their standpoint.

The second facet of the hon. member’s motivation I find in the fact that more funds have to be placed at the disposal of the State to enable it to undertake its financing or to incur capital expenditure. The point was well made that the State is entitled to part of the savings of our population, for this is the basis of sound economic development. The part of the savings which the State should receive depending on the country’s level of development—I want to emphasize this—should not be out of proportion, for otherwise the private sector which is equally entitled to part of the country’s savings, will not be able to find the necessary funds to fulfil its functions. While the State, with the portion of the savings which were channelized to it, is responsible for the establishment of infrastructures, it is equally essential that the private sector, to utilize properly the infrastructure that is created, should in turn receive a fair portion of the savings in general. The private sector needs that portion of the savings so as to be able to finance development projects and in that way make its contribution to the economic welfare of the country.

In the first place it is therefore necessary that we should ensure, in regard to saving in general, that there is a balanced distribution among the public and private sectors. It is as important to note that if the hon. member’s motion were to be accepted, the State would then be placed in a more favoured position than the private sector. I do not know whether the hon. member proposes that what he advocated for the State, should also apply to the private sector.

But the private sector is not receiving tax-free interest.

It is important, for he said that we should apply any motivation which we can utilize for encouraging saving. We must use the natural instinct of the person to make money quickly as motivation if this will bring about greater saving. From that I conclude that he believes that the participation in such a scheme is going to assume such proportions that millions of rand are going to be channelized into it. But, Sir, surely that does not mean it will be new money; surely it simply means the re-channelization of money from one direction to another. Then surely it has to be in conflict with the interests of the private sector; then surely it has to disturb the relationship in this specific connection. I do not think we can approach the savings channels and opportunities which exist or have to be provided in such a haphazard way as the hon. member is doing in his motion.

Let us consider for just a moment the savings facilities which do in fact exist; let us consider their efficiency. The hon. member for Vasco has already indicated effectively that an increased percentage of personal income is being saved, and that last year it amounted to 10,8%. I want to suggest that the savings facilities which the State has made available, makes provision for all circumstances and income groups. I do not think the incentive to save should be based on the fortuitous gain which some person may find in this specific form of investment. The hon. member is quite correct that England has a similar system. In fact, it is the only country of which I am aware that has a similar system to the one advocated by the hon. member.

They use all the interest.

They use all the interest, but the fact of the matter is that a profit may be made by lots being drawn. The French system, as the hon. member correctly remarked, is something quite different. It consists of paying out certain investors in advance at the rate of interest for the full term before that term has elapsed. But the fact of the matter is that the facilities for saving which we have for channelizing money to the State have worked effectively to date. I do not want to take up the hon. member’s time now by enumerating these facilities. I think they are aware of them. But I do want to mention only one specific aspect, namely the success of our bond issues. It appears that the amount of the subscriptions to the various series received with effect from November, 1966 was R331 million, of which an amount of R267 million had not yet fallen due by the end of February. I am trying to indicate in this way that the State’s facilities for saving are adequate to channelize to the State that portion to which it is entitled. If this were not the case, and there were reasons for us to reconsider the position in future, I would be quite prepared to join hon. members opposite in looking for an improvement to the existing methods, and perhaps to find new methods. But, Sir, it would be irresponsible, when one considers the principle and methods of saving, to bring an element of gambling into it. Let hon. members argue about a State lottery or about bonds if they wish, but I want to request that we should at least display more responsibility in respect of financial planning in this country than hon. members opposite did.

The hon. member for Durban Point took us on a world tour. He arrived at the conclusion, because we said we do not want this and are responsible enough not to introduce it, that we are accusing all the other governments of total irresponsibility. Sir, that is absolute … I may not use the word.

Why do you say that?

I want to say at once that this proposed scheme will not encourage thrift; I cannot accept that as such. Secondly, why should part of the amount which would normally be available for interest payments, be spent in this way? As the hon. member for Paarl indicated, 12 persons have to be penalized in order to benefit the 13th. There is no person who would suggest that this would be an effective method with regard to the planning of facilities for saving. Sir, this will surely not encourage thrift—it is more likely to encourage an urge to gamble. I want to conclude by saying that there are various methods and opportunities for investors to protect themselves against the value of their money diminishing. Secondly, the State also supports the small investor to allow him to share in the capital appreciation which he is seeking—but in a planned way, and a way not linked to an element of gambling. The fact of the matter is that there are various schemes by means of which the State helps investors to invest in property. But we must also bear in mind that approximately 83% of the total saving in this country is institutional or rather contractual saving, by means of which people in that sphere of investment are also afforded an opportunity of obtaining the capital appreciation which they desire, whether they are small or large investors. However, it is also true that 17% of the total population is responsible for 88% of the total saving. If we want saving of an adequate extent to finance the projects which the hon. member mentioned, we must also make available to them the facilities …

And give them the incentive.

… and give them the incentive to make investments. What are the facts now? What incentive already exists for this upper income group to save? Do you know that one single taxpayer, if he avails himself of all the investment possibilities which have been made available by the State, may earn an income of more than R15 000 without paying any tax? I do not want to tire hon. members with the details, but I want to conclude by saying that savings possibilities cannot be established in the manner which they are in fact proposing. Secondly, thrift is not encouraged through the methods proposed by the hon. member. Thirdly, if the State were to do so, it would be re-channelizing money from other institutions, institutions which have a particularly responsible role to play, for example from building societies concerned with the provision of housing, from the money of insurance companies, from banks, and from all the parties which are responsible in their turn for mobilizing savings and then utilizing this for the development of our country in general.

Mr. Speaker, I do not think I shall reply to this debate at any length, because I think that this debate has nevertheless achieved a very important and worthwhile object, namely to indicate clearly how the official standpoint of the Government and Government members, forced upon them by the Whip, differs from the standpoint of the Opposition and the United Party. I want to say that I have no doubt at all, after what we saw a few days ago in the Cape Provincial Council regarding gambling, that should this matter, which does not really entail any gambling, be left to a free vote in the House there would be a substantial majority in favour of my motion. I have no doubt about that. I think that it is a pity that we do not have more matters which we can regard as matters for the individual conscience. We on this side of the House, in matters concerning liquor and the liquor trade, have for years not stood under the Whip. I think that is what should have happened in this case as well. But it is a fact now that as far as the parties are concerned, we differ officially on this matter and we shall continue to do so until the Government gains a clearer insight into it. Today I had the feeling that I was reliving the history of South Africa, because I heard just as many convincing arguments when Mr. Bowker proposed year after year that we should proceed with the Orange River Scheme. Today the only thing which is worthwhile for the Government to boast of as something constructive for South Africa, is the Orange River Scheme. I listened to the debates on television, the little box with a light in it like a bioscope, and the evils which it would bring, how it would take up the leisure time of the people, how it would confine people to their houses. I heard it all. Now we must assume that we have a good Government, for they are going to give us television and not just black and white television, but full colour television. They are going to make it a colourful evil for South Africa. These things are so clear and I predict today that if the Government remains in power for another three or four years, another of the issues at the next election will be a plea from them that premium bonds should be introduced in South Africa. However, there are two other small matters which I should just like to deal with very rapidly.

I was interested in the statement the hon. the Deputy Minister made to the effect that one could get up to R15 000 per annum tax free on loans to the Government and to building societies.

Investments.

Investments with the State and with building societies. But after all, these are still loans to the State and to building societies. This is very interesting, and a very good thing. It is right that the motivation to save should be encouraged in people. Why, with the exception of the Post Office Savings Bank, are there no such incentives for the poor man? What is the minimum investment in regard to what hon. members opposite call premium bonds?

R500.

How many people are able to save R500 in a lump sum? What I am asking for is a motivation …

What about national savings certificates and the Post Office?

As regards the poor man, I only know of the Post Office. I do not agree with the system of national savings certificates, because there is a minimum amount which has to be invested. What I am pleading for is something which can make the monotonous, boring and miserable life of the ordinary man in South Africa more interesting and at the same time afford him an opportunity of making a contribution to the harnessing of capital by the State. The second point I should like the hon. the Deputy Minister to be clear about in this mind, is that what we are asking for is not a State lottery. To help him, now I shall be very primitive and elementary in my argument. A State lottery is similar to betting on a horse. It would be logical if that party which is making the “bucket shops” official and legal were to vote for a State lottery, but not us. After all, we are not a “bucket shop” Opposition. The point is that in terms of our scheme a person buys a security or a bond from the Government; he is therefore lending money to the Government, and when one day there is a distribution of prizes, that person does not lose his money as with a bet or in a State lottery. That money remains his, it remains with the State and every month when the prizes are handed out, that same money is taken into account in the determination of who is going to win the prize. If he should find himself in difficulties he can at any time withdraw his money on demand from the Post Office. One cannot do this if one has lost one’s money to a professional bookmaker or a totalisator on a horse race. One cannot do this if one has lost in a State lottery. How then can the hon. the Deputy Minister suggest that what we are proposing is virtually the same as a State lottery?

But is the interest not his money?

He gets his capital back plus interest, and uses part of his interest to make his own life more interesting. How a person spends his money is his business. It is not the same as a State lottery in which he may lose part of his capital. That is the difference and it is a very important one. Then I just want to say that it is very unfair to suggest that my friend the hon. member for Durban Point said that this system of creating State capital would solve all the problems the State has in regard to capital. He referred to the serious matters which require attention and which will require the investment of capital and he pleaded that we should apply every possible means to obtain the necessary money. He pointed out that this was a useful way, that this was a constructive means which the State was at present ignoring completely. I think it was a sound argument which had nothing in common with the Minister’s reply because that is not what anyone on this side of the House thinks. Only the hon. the Deputy Minister is capable of attributing such ideas to other people.

We shall continue to plead for this because we are in the right and we shall win, just as we won with television, with the Orange River Scheme, with immigration and with dozens of other things. With this conviction I now wish until I again have an opportunity of pleading the matter, to withdraw my motion.

With leave, motion withdrawn.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.