Mr. Chairman, since this debate is now coming to an end, there is one matter which I should like to bring to the attention of the House, and that is the role which agriculture plays in Africa. South Africa acts as a leader towards our neighbouring states in the sphere of food production. It is our intention to extend the hand of friendship in various fields, and not only as regards the provision of food to the African countries. Apart from various other fields, there is for example the field of research results. In this connection I just want to refer to one case. Last year 128 million doses of 32 different kinds of vaccine were supplied by Onderstepoort. Of these, 240 000 doses of two different kinds of vaccine went to Angola, 203 000 doses of 20 different kinds of vaccine to Botswana, 215 000 doses of seven different kinds of vaccine to Lesotho, 692 000 doses of 12 different kinds of vaccine to Malawi, 10 600 doses to Mozambique, 2 890 000 doses to Rhodesia. 618 doses of 20 different kinds of vaccine to Swaziland, 10 510 doses to Zaire and 1 661 000 doses of nine different kinds of vaccine to Zambia. I wonder whether President Kaunda, for example, realizes how dependent his country is on our country as far as agriculture is concerned. It is very important that we take cognizance of these achievements of an undertaking like Onderstenoort, which plays a leading role not only in Africa but throughout the entire world in the sphere of agriculture.

In conclusion I should like to pay tribute to more than 8 000 officials, from the most humble to world famous researchers, in our department, who are quietly performing a tremendous task to produce food for a growing population not only in South Africa, but in the rest of Africa as well.

In my opinion the contributions made by hon. members on both sides of the House in this debate were commendable. Sir, in agriculture in South Africa one knows that something is going to befall you every day; only you do not know at what time. But I feel that with the spirit which prevailed here towards the producer as well as the interests of the consumer, this debate was a commendable one, and I thank hon. members for their contributions.

Votes agreed to.

Revenue Vote No. 42 and S.W.A. Vote No. 25.—“Health”, and Revenue Vote No. 43.—“Health: Hospitals and Institutions”:

Mr. Chairman, this is the first occasion on which the hon. the Minister is handling the debate on the Health Vote; I wish to congratulate him and, at the same time I want to warn him that this is a difficult portfolio that he has to deal with.

The years that have gone past have shown that although there has been a tremendous amount of money spent on health services, virtually and basically our health services today are not very much better than they were ten or 20 years ago. I am not saying that what happens in hospitals has not improved, whether those hospitals are central or provincial hospitals, but I am saying that overall the position today is not much better than it was 20 years ago.

Especially in Natal.

The main reason for this, Sir, is the fact that the basic structure of the health services is not good. By “basic structure” I mean that the educational facilities which have been provided in the past have not been properly planned. We have to take into consideration that the greater part of our population is non-White, and over the last 25 years during which this Government has been in office no provision has been made to raise the standard of education of the Bantu sufficiently to bring them up to university level. Sir, I want to tell this Committee what the position is today as far as health services are concerned in relation to medical practitioners and nurses. The figures I have, and I must admit that they are a year or two old, show that there were 11 494 medical practitioners of which 1 255 were interns, 2 771 specialists and 2 654 medical students. In other words, only one-fifth of the total number of practitioners are medical students today. If we want to retain the patient ratio as it is at the moment, one doctor to every 1 850 of the population, we will require in the next 30 years to train 15 000 more doctors. In the past 30 years we have only trained 7 000 and what with the present average turn over I cannot see the position other than deteriorating. The average increase over the three periods of ten years each that I am going to tell the Minister about now, shows that we have not planned properly for the increase of our population. In 1940 to 1950 we turned out 221 doctors per annum. In 1950 to 1960 we turned out 224 doctors a year, and in 1960 to 1970 we only reached 297. Now, these are very, very unsatisfactory figures. The population growth shows that we should be training far more non-White doctors than White doctors but in practice of course this is not so, nor is it likely to be so if we carry on as we are doing now, and in the foreseeable future the whole position of the service as related to the doctor-patient ratio will deteriorate very drastically. The only way we can improve the position is for a much more vigorous educational policy than we have now. We will have to have a totally new educational policy as far as university standards are concerned among the Black people. We have to bring them up in such a way that they come into line with the White population. Today we find only a very small number of Bantu students in matric. In 1970 for instance there were 2 846 in matric. Of these, only 1 013 reached university level, and of the 1 013 that did reach university, only 181 had mathematics which entitled them to go further into the professions that require mathematics, like medicine, architecture, engineering, etc. It must be remembered that none of the Bantu homelands at the moment are providing any facilities for these people to get the type of training we want them to get. I cannot see what improvement there can be unless today we start with a new method of selection of students and a new method of encouragement of the Black students who are at school and who want to go to university. As I said, the small group of 181 must provide not only the medical practitioners, but the engineers, the architects and the chemists, etc., and there is a further complication in the service provided, because it is so badly distributed. Especially the White doctors who have been brought up in a sophisticated atmosphere and who live in the towns do not want to go to practise in the Bantu homelands after qualifying. They do not want to go into the country areas. It is really only the dedicated few who do this very necessary work, and the only way to get more people to go to these areas is if we have a demand for jobs. However, today not one of our departments can fill the vacancies which are occurring—not a single one. Whichever department you look at, you can see vacancies, for professional people, especially so in the health services.

The nursing position, however, is a little better. It is not good but their numbers have increased. I am going to deal with the period 1960 to 1970. During that period the number of White nurses increased from 17 900 to 24 500; the number of Coloured nurses increased from only 1 000 to 2 000—the number was doubled —and the number of Bantu nurses increased from 5 147 to 11 244 more than doubled. In all, the total shows a very satisfactory increase, because there was an increase from a total of 24 000 to a total of 38 000. We should also look at the ratio. The White nurses are in a ratio of one nurse for every 173 White persons, the Coloured nurses are in a ratio of one to 884 Coloured persons and the Bantu nurses are in a ratio of one to 1 509 Bantu persons.

The method of choice to overcome our shortages should obviously be to train those people who are already trained as nurses, further in hospitals, medical schools and technical colleges. I want to make myself quite clear in this regard. We have material that has already been trained for three or four years. I should like to suggest that the hon. the Minister go out of his way to encourage this training, as he is doing, I am pleased to say, in regard to tuberculosis. In regard to the treatment of tuberculosis he is encouraging the use of specialist nurses. I should like him to go further and to treat other nurses in a similar way so that they could be encouraged to enter the medical schools for further training in specialized work.

The idea would be to delegate more functions to the nurses in order to allow them to do their specialist work. We in this country do not want a system, as has been suggested by one of the hon. the Deputy Ministers, of second-class doctors. Such a system would be fatal. We do not want that, but what we do want is to utilize the services that we have at our disposal. This can be done by forming teams. I should like the hon. the Minister to consider the institution of a health team service situated in various parts of our country. Each of these services should have on its staff a doctor, nursing aids, nursing auxiliaries … [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Rosettenville congratulated the hon. the Minister on his appointment half-heartedly but I want to congratulate him heartily. I also want to avail myself of this opportunity to congratulate Dr. De Beer on his appointment as Secretary for Health. I am sure that in the years ahead we shall find that these two gentlemen will co-operate most cordially to the benefit of the health of our people.

The hon. member for Rosettenville’s main theme was that we neither have nor train sufficient doctors. We have had this shortage in our country for years. We know that the existing medical schools have not had sufficient clinical material to provide a sufficient number of trained medical staff. We are grateful that it was decided last year to establish a medical school at the University of the Orange Free State. I am sure that such a medical school will bring a great deal of relief in so far as the shortage of White doctors is concerned. We know that the Ga Rankuwa Hospital in the vicinity of Pretoria is almost ready for use and we also know that the intention is for Bantu nurses to be trained there. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether it would not be possible to establish a medical school at the Ga Rankuwa Hospital so that Bantu doctors can be trained there for the homelands. I should also like to ask whether it would not be possible to establish a medical school at the University of the Western Cape to afford the Coloured people better opportunities to be trained to serve their own people.

I am particularly worried about the medical care of our pensioners and other needy patients. We know there is a shortage of physicians, and for that reason there is also a serious shortage of district surgeons. I hope that the idea raised a few months ago, i.e. that we should train some kind of quasi-doctor to help us, will not find much support. I hope that we shall forget that idea as soon as possible. I said that we have a very serious shortage of district surgeons, and this can be ascribed to various factors. To begin with, we have the renumeration which goes with such an appointment. I know salaries are adjusted from time to time, but I want to say in this House today that salaries are not being adjusted adequately. If for example one considers the work done by a district surgeon and compares it with the income a private doctor would earn under similar circumstances, one finds that the remuneration a district surgeon receives is about one-twentieth of the renumeration a general practitioner would receive.

I think that the basis on which the salaries of district surgeons is determined, should be adjusted and that the people who are responsible should give some consideration to this discrepancy. Then, too, there is the kind of work a district surgeon is expected to do, quite apart from his usual consultations and domestic calls. A district surgeon must also undertake post-mortems, investigate all murder and accident cases as well as all cases of assault and rape. Then, too, he must examine people who are charged with driving under the influence of alcohol. This work must be performed day and night. Besides these examinations he must perform, he must give evidence in the courts. Often he finds it difficult to get away from the courts and he has to waste the whole day in court. In some cases a case is postponed after he has already wasted his time and he has to give evidence again in court or in the Supreme Court on a subsequent occasion. All these factors make doctors reluctant to apply for posts as district surgeons. Besides the services of the district surgeon which, are at their disposal, there are also clinics at most hospitals for pensioners and for the needy where they may receive treatment as out-patients.

I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether it would not be possible to tighten up the co-operation between the Government, the provincial administrations and the local authorities through which decentralized clinics may be established at strategic centres and which could then be served by all three of them. In this way a better service could perhaps be rendered. In view of the changes introduced as far as the training of doctors is concerned, we now find that a doctor will receive five years’ training and that he will receive two years’ training in a hospital. Some of these people could be used to man these clinics. There is a further possibility to which the hon. the Minister could give his attention and that is to approach the local doctors in various towns and cities, or the retired doctors, as to whether they would not assist in these clinics on a sessional basis if a shortage of doctors is experienced. I am sure he would have considerable success if he were to try and introduce this scheme. I am sure that one can leave this matter in the hands of the hon. the Minister and his department and that they will find a solution for this.

I want to say a few words in connection with the announcement made recently by the Pharmaceutical Congress to the effect that chemists will be prepared to supply patients free of charge with contraceptive pills on recommendation from family planning clinics. This caused quite a stir in some circles and the fear has been expressed that this would encourage licentiousness and promiscuity. This is a reasonable deduction to make, but we must remember that many kinds of contraceptives have been freely available from chemists for many years. We have in this country a very high incidence of illegal abortions, some of which result in the death of the pregnant woman or lead to permanent damage. The birth of an unwanted or illegitimate child can cause much grief and trouble in a family. Abortions are not freely obtainable in South Africa, and I hope that we shall never have it on demand. I therefore feel that there are two sides to this matter. I would rather see an unwanted pregnancy being prevented than see it subsequently terminated.

If we consider European countries and countries such as Japan, we find that family planning is being applied. In a recent report I noticed that the Chief Minister of KwaZulu, Gatsha Buthelezi, asked his people to keep the cradles empty in order to assist in uplifting his people in the economic sphere. I understand that Chief Minister Kaiser Matanzima has made a similar decision. It is their business if they decide on that course in their territory. This is an indication that all these people are thinking in terms of family planning. I think people who are opposed to this, are a little behind the times, and I feel that the people who want to apply family planning, should be given the opportunity to do so in a proper way and, in particular, that they should be informed how to do so. I am also sure the hon. the Minister and his department will take the necessary steps in this connection.

Mr. Chairman, when I sat down previously I was busy talking about the establishment of health centres throughout the country. I want to say to the hon. the Minister that I do not think that these health centres should only be established on the platteland or in the Bantu homelands, but that they should be provided in the cities as well. It is in that way that we can try and relieve the burden that is at present carried by too few because of the shortage of medical personnel. When I talk about medical personnel, I am not only talking about doctors, but also about the para-medical services, the nurses, the nursing assistants, health assistants, and so on. All these people have to be relieved of some of the work they are doing, and if they are properly co-ordinated into teams I am sure that they can cover a very much wider field and give a better service than they are giving at the moment. When you come to think of it, instead of sending all these people to university we could train them for certain work even if they do not have a martriculation certificate. It is not necessary for a health assistant or a health auxiliary to have a matriculation pass. He could reach Std. 8 or 9 and go into a technical college to learn his particular job there. He will work with, and get direction from, the medical officer in charge. In this way we can cover a vast area of our country quite efficiently. While we are developing this basic structure that is so necessary, the present sick people must be given the necessary attention, those that require help now. In South Africa it is really amazing that on the one hand you have the spectacular results of the highest sophisticated medical and surgical achievements which are acclaimed world wide, while on the other hand you are fighting, because of the shortage of personnel, to keep at bay things like infectious diseases and malnutrition. This is not because we do not know how to handle them. Just look at what happened last year. There was an outbreak of malaria which spread rapidly. There is an increase in the incidence of syphilis and gonorrhoea, while we can barely keep the spread of tuberculosis in check. Bilharzia is spreading, and even in this day and age we find hundreds of Bantu children suffering from kwashiorkor. We are really not doing very much to eradicate these ills. I am not saying that we are not doing much in helping these patients, but we are not doing much to eradicate the ills. They are still with us. All we can do at the moment, as far as I can see, is to prevent them from spreading as rapidly as was the case previously. Our hospitals are first-class institutions for those that are in the hospitals. Once you are in hospital you get nothing but the very best. I think that our provincial hospitals are a model to the rest of the world. I think that some of our central hospitals are without a doubt equal to the best there are in the world. But it is not the people in the hospitals I am complaining about; I am complaining about the queues of people outside the hospitals wanting to get in. That is where the problem lies. The queues are getting longer by the day and nothing seems to be done to alleviate the position. The disturbing part of this is that, although we have large hospitals, and new hospitals are being built, there are empty beds in these hospitals because we do not have the staff to look after the patients who would normally be in the beds. However, as I have said, the queues outside are getting steadily longer.

Let us look at the question of kwashiorkor. Why should there be this scourge in our country, especially among the Bantu children? When you come to think of it, there must be a fault somewhere. Perhaps it lies with the distribution of food. I listened carefully last night to the hon. the Minister of Agriculture when he was talking about food distribution. Hon. members were talking about excess production and wastages that occur. Surely, something can be done to curb this wastage; surely something can be done to co-ordinate what we are growing so that there will not be wastage. When you come to think of it, it costs as much to give a Bantu child two cups of skimmed milk a day for a whole year as it does to keep him in a hospital for one day. That shows how crazy part of our set-up is. These little children, when they are given treatment get better quickly; they get better very quickly once they are given proteins and so on. Look what we could save if we could distribute our excess. How many thousands of gallons of milk are today being wasted? We do not know, I am sure. The farmers, after taking the cream off, do not know what to do with the milk. I am not an expert on this matter, but I am certain from what I have heard that it must be very difficult for some farmers to have to transport it in, pack and sell it, especially if one bears in mind what the price of skimmed milk is. Surely, if the distribution were better organized we could give this excess to the people who need it?

With our population increase, we will have to feed more and more people. More and more people will require medical care, which fewer and fewer people are able to afford today; even those who belong to medical aid schemes of any sort are finding it more and more difficult, not only to pay the excesses that accrue to them even if they belong to a medical aid scheme, but even to pay their subscription. With the continually rising fees, especially in nursing homes, with the rising prices of drugs and so on, you find that people just cannot be admitted to medical aid schemes under the contributions that were previously asked for. When joining a medical aid scheme as a condition of employment, it becomes so bad that a lot of people ask for exemption from joining such a scheme because they cannot afford to pay the contribution on the salaries they are earning. More will be said on this subject by one or two other members on this side of the House. We on this side of the House have been asking for years for the introduction of a nationwide medical aid scheme. We want it for all the people who wish to join; we want it to be voluntary; we want the people to have a choice of doctors. We want them to be able to go into a nursing home without the fear of incurring a crippling cost. The State must play its part in this. We want them, as well as the employers of labour to be shareholders and we want the man who is going to receive the benefit to pay his contribution as well. I am sure that the medical profession, the nursing profession and the para-medical services will all co-operate if given an opportunity to take part in such a scheme. Those who do not want to join the scheme, need not join it, but let us give those who want such a scheme the opportunity of being able to enroll for such a scheme. As I have said, if you want a good service you have to have proper co-ordination. You have to make sure that health, education, agriculture and public works get together, otherwise the limited funds which the hon. the Minister has at his disposal—I do not want to suggest that they will be wasted or dissipated—will not be able to be used in the best possible manner. This hon. Minister in contrast to other Ministers has a further complicated system. He has delegated some of his powers to local authorities. He has delegated some of his powers to provincial authorities. He undertakes to do some of the services as well. Now, recently a further complication has come about. The Bantu services have to be considered. There are also delegations that have gone to the Bantu homelands. Where is all this delegation of services going to end? It is going to become further decentralized. We must make sure that when we decentralize the services that we do it in such a way that everybody is benefiting by it. Is it a good thing at this stage to give health services to the Bantu homelands? [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, what the hon. member for Rosettenville, who has just resumed his seat, really did today, was to fire a cartridge of fine shot from which he had removed the tip. In fact it was a whole volley. It almost made me think of those people who bombarded Kaunda’s cities with hand grenades. However, he touched on one important matter at the beginning concerning the training of doctors. This is a delicate matter. Very recently an article on the training of medical students, written by Prof. Hennie Snyman, dean of the medical faculty of the University of Pretoria, appeared in “Geneeskunde”. Prof. Snyman made out a very relevant case. As far as the training of doctors is concerned, we, as the White section of the population, have as a matter of fact already produced the maximum number of doctors we are able to accommodate. We are already training more White doctors than the percentage we are able to accommodate and we are practising piracy in regard to the other professional sections of the population. In South Africa a larger percentage of the White population are being trained as doctors than in any other country in the world. One must see all these matters in perspective. This is the position before allowance has been made for the doctors who are going to be produced by the University of the Orange Free State. Therefore, as far as the White section of the population is concerned, one should consider very carefully before pleading for another medical faculty at this stage.

Then the hon. member made the accusation that an insufficient number of matriculants qualified for training at the medical school at Durban-Westville. What is the real position if these matters are put in their true perspective? The hon. member knows very well that the medical faculty at the Natal University is not being utilized to its full extent. The hon. member is also aware of the fact that Coloureds and even Bantu may be trained at the Cape Town University and at the University of the Witwatersrand today if they have the necessary permission. So there is no question of there being insufficient facilities for the training of non-White doctors in South Africa. That is by no means the case. But I concede the point to the hon. member that there is an insufficient number of suitable and able matriculants to be trained. But it cannot be said that the Government has not done its duty in that regard. I want to mention two figures only so as to illustrate what the Government has done in regard to Bantu education, and what potential this Government has created by bringing Bantu to matriculation standard, from which point they may be trained as doctors. In 1960 there were 957 Bantu pupils in matric; 12 years later, in 1972, the number of Bantu pupils in matric was 4 541. This gives one an increase, expressed as a percentage, of approximately 450. If there is still anyone in this House who wants to say that as far as this matter is concerned the Government is not doing its duty, he is not keeping abreast of what is going on in this country. I concede; Bantu education is still a long way behind, but its development is a gradual process which must be built up from ground level. If it is said that there is a shortage of doctors, I shall concede the point at once, and every one of us will concede it. There is no argument about it.

If there is talk of tuberculosis which we are unable to control, that, perhaps, is a problem which arises not only from a shortage of doctors, but also from the fact, as the hon. the Minister said on another occasion that it is such a mysterious disease. We have all the answers as far as that disease is concerned, and we have all the medications one can use, and yet we are unable to exterminate the disease. The decisive facts in that connection, facts which were mentioned by the hon. member opposite as well as the hon. member for Geduld, are perhaps those relating to the disturbing population increase which is taking place. We have a population increase of 3,5% per annum. There is no sense in making a projection for the year 2000. Suffice it to say that the projection made some time ago, I think it was in 1958, by Prof. Tomlinson was that by the year 2000, 25 million people would be living in this country, while I should just like to point out that the present population is already 22 million odd. You will therefore see, Sir, that our population increase is phenomenal. It is one of the highest in the world. Our population is increasing to such an extent that whatever plans we may draw up in regard to the training of doctors, we shall never be able to make up that leeway. So we have to look for a solution in another direction, because we have to look for a solution. If we consider the socio-economic and health conditions of the population, the only other possible solution which can be found, is family planning for the whole population on a proper basis. I am convinced that a solution can be found in this way. I just want to mention another figure in this connection, which has been handed to me. In the past 14 days alone, 112 babies were born at the Tiervlei Hospital on the Cape Flats. These mothers have been interviewed and of those 112 babies, 75% to 76% were unplanned. But, Sir, to me that is not the worst of all. Of those unplanned 75%, 68 were unwelcome even after birth. Is that not an indictment of ourselves, Sir? Does that not provide us with an incentive to make a plan? I believe that the Department of Health is capable of establishing all these clinics. It is a minute before twelve o’clock. One sees speculation in the newspapers as to where the next Iscor should be built. When one looks at the population figures, the question arises whether the plea should not rather be for an Iscor to be built every year. Sir, you realize the impossibility of that. Therefore, the solution to this problem is to be found in an intensive campaign of family planning, and in this campaign the Department of Health must have the assistance of every man and woman, of whatever race, in this country. The department needs the assistance of the Press. It will need the assistance of television. I know that the Department of Health is engaged in intensive planning, and I hope that by this time next year, the department will have made so much progress that it will be able to provide us with statistics on the results achieved in its planning campaign.

Sir, the hon. member for Fauresmith referred to certain matriculation results in relation to the intake at the non-White medical school at the University of Natal. The hon. member may not be aware, or may not have taken due cognizance, of the remarks of the Dean of the faculty, in the course of which he pointed out that of the total number of suitably qualified matriculants who offered themselves, he took only ⅙th because had he taken more it would have increased the failure rate, the drop-out rate, due to the fact mainly that secondary education was inadequate. Sir, I leave the matter there.

Why blame the Government for that?

Well, who is responsible for secondary education for the Bantu but this Government? It has been responsible for years and years.

It is not responsible for the failures.

It is not a question of the ability of the students; the high failure rate is due to the system.

At any rate, Sir, I want to come back to the Vote itself and say in the first instance that it is gratifying to note that there has been an increase of R10½ million in the allocation for the Health Vote this year. The health problems of the country are very important and it is gratifying to realize that the Government appreciates that the necessary money has to be made available. But then, Sir, I want to ask the hon. the Minister why there has been a reduction in the allocation for family planning. There has been a reduction of approximately R200 000 under this heading. Will the hon. the Minister give some indication as to the reason for this?

Then I would like to deal with the question of medical and dental expenses in relation to the Medical Schemes Act of 1967, because I want to suggest to this Committee that the middle income group is finding it more and more difficult to keep pace with rising medical costs. John Citizen, particularly John Citizen employed in the private sector, is finding that his salary increases are not keeping pace with the increase in his subscription fee to the medical aid society to which he belongs in order to ensure some form of health insurance. Sir, we accept that under the present situation in South Africa we have three strata; we have the poor, we have the middle income group and we have the wealthy. I believe that as far as the poor are concerned, the Government and the provinces are providing all the services, or most of the services, which are necessary, and that it is not unreasonable to accept that the State’s contribution to sick benefits should diminish with the increase in the earning capacity of the population. Sir, when we come to the wealthy, I think we are agreed that they can afford to look after themselves in sickness and in health. Then we have a large sector of the population in State employ. These people have the benefit of some form of State subsidy when it comes to their medical insurance. We know that it is accepted in South Africa, basically, that health services should be provided on the basis of employer-employee participation. We know that this operates in the larger organizations in commerce and industry, in the private sector, but when we come to the self-employed middle-class individual and the employees of small firms, the position is that although they may be members of medical aid schemes, they find that their increasing subscription fees to these schemes are a burden which they cannot carry. They find, too, that in cases of medical emergency or expensive surgical procedures they simply have no means of dealing with this problem. A limit is placed on the benefits to which they are entitled, and as soon as they reach that limit, it is over to them, and any high bill for medical treatment can be financially crippling to a family for years to come because they have no other recourse. It is no use saying that they can go to the hospitals, because if they do go to the hospitals they will be charged in any case on the basis of their income. Sir, I say that there are these problems and that they require more and more urgent attention. I admit that there are further shortcomings and difficulties. There is, for example, the question of exclusions, to which the hon. the Minister himself referred when he addressed the first conference of the National Society of Medical Aid Schemes. He said that exclusions were a source of concern because you find that medical aid schemes exclude the cost of preventive medicine in the form of immunization for example. The hon. the Minister himself mentioned Hong Kong ’flu and things of that kind and said, to use his own words, that such a principle was “totally wrong”, because it is false economy, because ultimately the medical aid schemes will be put to greater expense to deal with sicknesses which may have been prevented by preventive medicine and immunization. Sir, another factor which is causing disturbance and concern is the fact that there are a thousand doctors and 255 dentists who have contracted out of medical schemes. This, I believe, is a matter which inconveniences the public.

Another matter which I want to raise in this regard is the lack of up-to-date information. The last mention of medical schemes appeared in the report of the Department of Public Health for the year ended December, 1968. The last report, which is already years out of date, made no mention, as far as I could see, of medical schemes, or of action under the Medical Schemes Act.

I believe it is absolutely wrong that the State contribution only amounts to the administrative expenses of the scheme. In these particular Estimates the amount is R20 500. Sir, I do not believe that it was the intention of the commission which was appointed in 1966 to investigate the medical aid schemes—and I was a member of that commission—that the State should make no positive financial contribution to the scheme itself. I believe that the members of the commission felt that at the very least there should be a “hard luck” fund. Those people who, through no fault of their own, exceeded the limit of their benefits, would then be able to go to that fund for help in cases of extreme emergency. Sir, I believe that the Medical Schemes Act makes provision for this, because it refers to the levy which shall be collected and then it says “and such other money as may become due to the fund from any other source”. I want to suggest that at this present moment the State is a sleeping partner with uninvested capital in medical schemes in South Africa, and I do not believe that this is a situation which should continue indefinitely. You see, Sir, precedents already exist where the State has assisted people who require some sort of medical scheme or medical benefits. I want to refer to one to which reference is made in the latest report of the Auditor-General for 1971-’72. It says here that the Treasury approved of a 60% subsidy to provide medical assistance for ex-members of the Police Force and their families, whether they had retired prior to January, 1964; and in these very Estimates under the Police Vote, provision is made for an amount of R79 000 for this purpose. Nobody begrudges that, but I am pointing out that the State accepts that principle under certain circumstances. I believe that particularly subscribers to medical aid schemes, who have now retired, also deserve the sense of security which the State could give them if the State itself participated in some way in the financial set-up of medical aid schemes. Sir, I want to take the largest medical benefit fund of all, the S.A. Railways and Harbours Sick Fund. This particular scheme, which was enacted by legislation in 1913, has been receiving subsidies for 60 years, and up to date I calculate the amount of these subsidies to be approximately R57 million. During the last year, from April, 1972 to February, 1973, an amount of more than R6 million was paid into the fund as a subsidy. And one must not forget that this particular fund has the advantage of exemptions from customs and excise duty as well in so far as its medicines are concerned. Then there is yet another subsidy. This appears under Vote 27 in these Estimates, where it is indicated that an amount of over R4 million is provided as a contribution to the Medical Aid Association for Public Servants. So, if we take just three—the Police, the Railways and the Public Service—we find that in a matter of a year the State has contributed by way of subsidy more than R10 million, but when it comes to the private sector, mainly affecting the middle-income groups, the State’s contribution to administrative cost is limited to R20 500, and I do not believe that this is enough. We must bear in mind that there are approximately 1,5 million people who belong to these medical aid schemes and according to the figures we were given last year, this includes something like 18 000 pensioners and something like 9 000 widows. I believe they have every right to expect that the State will play some part to give them this sense of security, which they need in their old age when illness is inclined to be more frequent and to be of a more serious nature. [Time expired.]

The hon. member for Berea has referred to a certain class of patient who finds it very difficult these days to keep up their subscriptions to medical aid societies because of the increasing cost of belonging to these medical aid societies. I want to state that I have full sympathy with them, and here I feel with the hon. member that something should be done about this. But I want to state here and now, and I want to state it categorically, that I am not in favour of the Government being asked to subsidize these various schemes, for the simple reason that once the Government interferes regarding subsidies to these various schemes, the Government has to have a say in these schemes and this will only lead to what we in South Africa do not want, and that is a socialized medical scheme.

No, not necessarily.

I feel that there are other ways in which the problem can be solved. For instance, I feel that the employers may be requested to make bigger contributions and to subsidize the contributions of their members to these various schemes. Otherwise his plea has my full sympathy. Something should be done about these people.

*With reference to this, I have here in my hand a report of a survey made of the cost of medicine in this country compared with the price paid for the same medicine in England. Before dealing with this matter, I just want to congratulate the hon. the Minister and his department very sincerely on the initiative which they exhibited in referring this matter to the Price Controller for proper investigation; for when one considers the results of this survey and considers what price the public has to pay for certain medicines which are freely used by doctors in this country, and one compares it with the prices the public has to pay in England then there is something drastically wrong with the whole system. I do not have the time to deal with this whole report in detail, but I should like to mention it to you, Sir, that a survey was made of exactly 100 types of medicine commonly used in South Africa. The prices paid in this country, were compared with those paid in England. The shocking discovery was made that 35 of these medicines are being sold in South Africa at a retail price that is over 100% higher than in England. There even are cases where the price charged in South Africa exceeds the price charged in England by as much as 333%. In the case of 17 types of medicine, the prices differ between 75% and 100% and in the case of ten types of medicine between 50% and 75%. This gives us altogether 62 types of medicine. Nor were these types of medicine chosen specially for the purpose of the survey, but these were findings after a random test. Of these types of medicine 62% are being sold in South Africa at a retail price which is 50% higher than the price paid for them in England. I do not want to make any accusations. We know where the fault lies. We believe the investigation that has been asked for will most probably bring these reasons to light.

I want to make haste and deal with another subject, and I want to refer especially to the question of our psychiatric and psychological services in this country. This subject roused my interest on account of my being a member of the Schlebusch Commission. While we were investigating a particular institution near Johannesburg, I became acquainted with a highly sophisticated method of psychological therapy which is being used for all kinds of unholy purposes in that particular institution. The hon. members are aware of the contents of the third interim report submitted by the Schlebusch Commission, in which a detailed report is given on the use of the so-called “sensitivity training”, also known as “T group training” which is in fact a psycho-therapeutic method for the treatment of psychological conditions.

I want to put it quite clearly that I am definitely not opposed to the method as such, because this method plays a very important part in the therapeutic treatment of people with personality or behavioural deviations or other psychological problems. However, I want to object most strongly to this method being practised by people who are not trained for it at all. I want to make an urgent appeal to the department to give its urgent attention to this matter, in co-operation with the South African Medical Council. I do not ask this only for the sake of the unfortunate victims of people who, under the banner of so-called training in the method, have done inestimable harm to the psyches of those victims; I also ask it in the interest of the safety of our country, because in the hands of those who are not ethically orientated towards it, this particular technique is a definite danger, since it is aimed at breaking down the super ego, the conscience of the patient. When the conscience has been broken down, it is impregnated with new norms and morals geared at a level lower than that to which the patient has been accustomed. I ask that this matter should receive urgent attention because I feel that this is not a method which should be abolished, since, in the hands of clinical psychologists, it is definitely an excellent therapeutic remedy.

Furthermore, I want to make a plea for the department to give its attention to the shortage of properly trained clinical psychologists we have. Today the approach with regard to psycho-theraphy is developing towards a multi-disciplinary one. Today it is not only the psychiatrist who treats people who are mentally disturbed or who have psychological problems; there are also the psychiatric nursing staff, the psychiatric social workers, the clinical psychologists and all those dealing with such a patient. As I have said, today the approach with regard to psycho-therapy is a multi-discipline one. We find that there is a tremendous shortage of properly trained clinical psychologists. On 31st December last year 124 psychologists were registered with the South African Medical Council, but this number included all psychologists and not only clinical psychologists. According to the Van Wyk report approximately 85 clinical psychologists were registered at one stage. Since 1st January another 12 have been registered. Therefore we can take it that there are approximately 100 or slightly more clinical psychologists in South Africa at present. At present only 34 aspirant clinical psychologists are being trained at hospitals falling under the Department of Health. The Van Wyk Commission, which inquired into psychiatric services, or rather the commission of inquiry into the Mental Disorders Act, found that it is a fact that one in every ten people requires psychological treatment at some stage or other during his life or experiences problems in regard to his psyche. Considering that figure, it is imperative that very careful attention should be paid to the training and status of these clinical psychologists. At the moment the clinical psychologists are regarded as practitioners of a para-medical service. I want to plead that consideration should be given, in collaboration with the Medical Council, to granting a separate professional status to these people. I am not pleading for these people to have a separate statutory council, but I am pleading for them to be regarded on the same basis as dentists, in other words, as a separate professional discipline under the South African Medical Council. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I think the hon. member for Cradock has obviously given the official answer of the Government when he stated that he did not believe that the State should make any financial contribution to medical aid schemes because, he said, this would lead to socialized State medicine services and to the Government getting involved whilst this was not a healthy development in medicine in this country. I would like to say immediately that if you add the amount that has been allocated to the homelands to the amount for the Republic itself, which includes medical services to Whites, Bantu, Coloureds and Indians, you get an amount of R88 million. I think this is a ridiculously low amount if you are to face the question of health in South Africa. If you listen to the speakers on the Government side, there is a constant plaintive note from them as well as to the conditions which pertain in the country today. The public is considerably worried about two important factors. The first is the lack of hospitalization at a reasonable cost, firstly because there are not sufficient beds to accommodate them and if there are beds at all, there are not sufficient nurses available to look after those patients. Secondly, the public is very worried about the cost of medicine, medical fees, theatre fees and the fees for other services performed by surgeons and specialists. What is happening today is that medical schemes are finding themselves almost congested with the ever-rising costs, and are therefore demanding more and more fees from the members who constitute the membership of these schemes. The eventual result is that people are constantly dropping out because they cannot afford to continually face the rise which in some cases is as much as between R25 and R30 per month for a family. I would like to tell hon. members that this question of socialized State medicine is a bogey which the Government must put completely out of its mind because it works extremely well in Australia. Australia is also a highly capitalized country; there is no question of socialism in Australia. There was a very interesting article on this subject which was published in one of the newspapers not long ago. I do not need to quote it because I myself know what the circumstances are in Australia because I have visited Australia a couple of times and I have read some of the articles which have been written by some of their leading authorities in the medical and health world. In Australia they only have 78 medical aid schemes against the 300 which are currently registered in the Republic of South Africa. Their subscription fees go from 25 Australian cents per week to 38 Australian cents per week for single people and from 50 Australian cents to 75 Australian cents per week per family. Since an amount of 75 Australian cents is almost equivalent to 75 South African cents, it means that they contribute R3 per month per family to their medical aid schemes. There, for instance, no one pays more than five Australian dollars, which is almost equal to R5, for any services at all in a hospital. It can be the most serious operation which requires a lengthy time in the operating theatre, but R5 is the maximum that is paid. In regard to medicine, 50 cents is the maximum that is paid for any prescription, because the State supports people in regard to the cost of medicine with what it calls the “national health list”. With regard to hospitalization, there are the medical aid societies, while the rest of the costs are provided by the State. The Australian Health bill runs into considerably more money than ours does, and their population is only 13 million at the moment. Admittedly, they have a much more sophisticated population, but nevertheless I believe that R88 million for the Republic of South Africa and the homelands is a ridiculously low sum. I think that the hon. the Minister must review the whole situation. He must have the courage to face up to modern times.

I saw some very interesting articles in a Pretoria newspaper, articles which were very well worked out and were the result of a tremendous amount of research. Inclusive of private beds, it is stated there that there are only approximately 2 000 beds in Pretoria to meet the demands of a population of ¼ million. As my hon. friend for Rosettenville has said, we are dealing with a situation today which is no advance at all on what the position was 20 or 30 years ago. That is simply because we are afraid to face up to the situation. In a budget of R3 500 000, R88 million to cover 21 million people is a ridiculously low sum by any standards. In this regard I feel that the pleas made by this side of the House for the Government to step into the medical aid scheme world and to play its proper part to ensure that the middle class and the poorer people, the old pensioners and all those who fall into the middle class and lower so far as their wage-earning capacity is concerned, should have the opportunity of enjoying the benefits which medical aid is supposed to bring. Medical aid was not only established as a business undertaking for those who established them. It has a little more in it than that. It has the community spirit in it; it has the human aspect to it. Therefore the Government should encourage it; it should encourage the thinking in that direction, and it should play its part financially to ensure that it is able to meet what is called for by the public. Let me just name a simple example. Most medical aid schemes limit the amount of medicine they are responsible for to approximately R110 per year for a member and his family. I want to tell the hon. the Minister about a specific case where someone was ill for approximately 2½ months. The pharmacist’s account, for whatever reason it might have been—because the quantities of different tablets that had to be taken to ensure the future health of the patient— came to R115. That made up the entire bill for the whole family. Therefore nobody else in the family could get any further moneys from medical aid to pay for the prescriptions that might arise during the rest of that year in respect of any other member of the family. The whole thing becomes ludicrous, and I think the hon. the Minister could do well—and I have exhorted the hon. the Minister’s predecessors in the past to take this attitude—to look into this question and how it is dealt with in Australia, which affords us the best example. The freedom of the choice of a doctor is granted to the patient there and the cost is kept low. The State there faces up to its responsibilities.

Finally, I would like to raise one other point with the hon. the Minister to which I think he can give us a reply. The hon. member for Transkei asked a question, namely what was happening in the Transkei in regard to the Umtata Hospital. There had been a report in the paper that two White matrons had been dismissed by the Transkeian Government; in fact, they did not know why it had happened. They alleged that negotiations were under way to decide when the Transkeian Government would take over the health services in the Transkei. These people got the assurance from Pretoria that they would only be replaced if they decided to resign or when they went on pension. They themselves say that they were shocked and bewildered when they were informed when their posts would be advertised to be filled by others, possibly by persons from the Transkei itself. The question I would like to put to the hon. the Minister—perhaps he can help us—is: Who are the present matrons of the general section of the Umtata Hospital and of the T.B. section of the Umtata Hospital? Perhaps the hon. the Minister can give some clarity as to why this high-handed action was taken, especially in view of the assurances that have been given that the Umta Hospital would look after the White and Coloured people who need hospital attention in the town of Umtata until things gradually begin to clear. It is in any case perfectly clear from what the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development said, that Umtata and other parts of the Transkei would be peopled not only by Transkeians themselves, but also by other population groups of the Republic of South Africa. So, provision will have to be made for these people. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, in 1968 the hon. member for Berea introduced a private motion here concerning drugs, sedatives and the abuse of dagga, etc. I also took part in the discussion on that motion and I want to refer back to my Hansard in which I pointed out the tremendous increase in the use of sedatives and soporifics throughout the world. I said (Hansard, 1968, col. 2748)—

I went on and said—

When making that appeal, few of us thought that the same tendency would also occur in South Africa. On 24th March, 1973, an editorial appeared in the journal of the Medical Association in which the following was stated—

We can only come to one conclusion, i.e. that our medical profession has reason to do some heart searching as well. The medical profession should also consider the implications and complications of this massive use of addictive drugs. I read on—

I, who am standing here this afternoon, was a member of the profession myself and I therefore have the right to express some objective viewpoint as against my erstwhile profession. Arising from this, it is tragic to be able to say—and I have to say this with a feeling of shock—that the director of the Transvaal Education Service has made a survey of the use of tranquillizers and soporifics in the Transvaal hospitals where a record is kept of each tablet. Sixty per cent of the total number of beds available are to be found in the Transvaal hospitals. This does not include the 40% of the private institutions. Nor does it include the approximately 3 000 to 4 000 private doctors in their consulting rooms. Nor does it include other methods of obtaining tranquillizing tablets. In the number of beds which are subject to control the figure for one year was 25 833 500 tranquillizing tablets. This was the figure for White patients in the Transvaal provincial hospitals. It was also found that in one hospital 57% of the White out-patients received a tranquillizer, quite apart from other medicine. So, too, it was found that in the hospitals in which control was exercised, up to 53% of the patients who were confined to bed were given a sleeping pill every night, as well as a tranquillizer in addition to another tablet, perhaps to wake them up. We must see this matter in its true perspective. Since we have the Medicine Control Council, the Medical Council and the medical schools, this is a shocking state of affairs—and I have to speak to my own profession—that in this same report we find the following—

I regret that I as a doctor should have to address these appeals at this stage to the medical profession, the Medical Council, the Medicine Control Council and the medical schools. If there is a single case where the hon. the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions has to send one patient to the Magaliesoord Rehabilitation Centre as a result of drugs prescribed by a doctor. I should have to bow my head in shame. Unfortunately, these things happen, “for the sake of peace”, or in the sense of “you’ve got to go where your bread is buttered”. I hope this is not the case with my own medical profession. We must do our duty in this regard.

In the last few minutes at my disposal I just want to bring another minor matter to the attention of the House. If we look at the Order Paper we shall see that a piece of legislation appears there concerning occupational diseases in mines, legislation which has been completely re-drafted. We accept this to be a process in the development of our country. We also have certain legislation under the Department of Labour for accidents and legislation controlling factories in regard to dust and other matters. Whatever we do, we should always be aware of the fact that the Department of Health is responsible for the health of the individual, from his cradle to his grave. For that reason I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister that, where possible, there should be closer co-operation between the Department of Mines, which controls certain legislation on health the Department of Labour and the Department of Health. After all, we are dealing with the same people. Whether he works in a mine, whether he works in an industry, or whether he gets home in the evening, he remains physically the same person, and there are many of these conditions in respect of which it is impossible to draw a vertical line and say— “this condition he contracted in the street, that condition he contracted in the mine and that condition he contracted in industry”. That is why I should like to address an appeal to the Minister in this regard. I know there is co-operation, but I want to request that this co-operation be extended, particularly in respect of research on industrial and other diseases.

Mr. Chairman, I should like, at the outset, to express my thanks for the good wishes which some hon. members conveyed to me. I appreciate this, as well as the good wishes which were conveyed to Dr. De Beer, who is present for the first time as head of this department.

†I particularly took note of the fact that the hon. member for Rosettenville referred to my immense task. It is definitely a task which will be increasing over the next few years; I am very sure of that. My task is an overall one, which relates to the health of our country as a whole; I am not implicated in the more personal aspects of the provision of medical care to our people.

The hon. member for Rosettenville commenced his speech by criticizing our health services. He said that the facilities were not well-planned and that the standards of education of the Bantu were not good enough. The standards of education of the groups mentioned by the hon. member are matters which are handled by the Departments of National Education and Bantu Education. Had he spoken about the Coloureds, of course, I could have answered him. The figures he quoted to show that we had not planned well were in fact belied by what he said himself as regards our doctor population. It is so that none of the Bantu homelands provide facilities for the education of medical men at the present moment. We are endeavouring to provide those facilities, and we are making a start at Ga Rankuwa, but at the same time one must bear in mind the question of personnel, which is really a matter of concern to us at the moment. The hon. member also mentioned the fact that our doctor population, after so many years, is still not adequate. I read an article some time ago, which gave the figures in this connection. According to this article, 20 years ago one person in 2 200 was a doctor. The ratio is now one in every 1 850 people, whereas in the rest of Africa there is one doctor in every 6 000 people, and in some cases the ratio is as low as one in every 40 000. I do not think that our position has therefore deteriorated, and the same holds true for the nursing profession. As far as I am concerned, however, it is not only the position of our well-qualified medical men which is of importance, but also the question of our para-medical services. In that respect we have endeavoured to provide for our people to a greater extent than in the past. Members of the para-medical staff sometimes have to undertake certain tasks of doctors, because we have a shortage of manpower. We cannot resolve this problem by just saying that we must get more doctors. We have a shortage of manpower, and the hon. the member has acknowledged the fact that we have not got enough Bantu. Coloured and Indian matriculants, and these people have to have at least some basic training to equip them for such a very intensive and difficult course as medicine.

That is my point.

We are, in collaboration with the South African Nursing Council and the South African Medical and Dental Council, investigating ways and means of increasing the number of Bantu students who take up medicine, although their numbers are increasing yearly. More of them are taking the first-year course than ever before.

The hon. member also spoke about the Bantu health personnel. Sir, the training of nurses, medical technologists, radiographers, occupational therapists and physio-therapists has already commenced at Ga Rankuwa Hospital, and health inspectors are being trained in sufficient numbers.

As far as T.B. statistics are concerned, the hon. member expressed his concern about tuberculosis and the increasing incidence of that scourge. I can tell him that in 1972 we only had 42 000 new cases. I say “only” because this represents a reduction of more than 10 000 cases in comparison with previous years. There is some cause for gratification that for the first time these figures showed a reduction in 1972.

Then the hon. member went on to say that we must use our medical personnel and our health care personnel in the rural areas and towns, and he referred in this regard to the community health centres. I can assure him that the principle has been accepted. We are now collaborating with the provincial administrations, on our initiative, and we are setting up these health centres where doctors can confine themselves to the work for which they were trained, and we supply nurses and other para-medical personnel to assist them so that we can have a more efficient utilization of health care personnel. Sir, as far as kwashiorkor is concerned, which is not always due to under-nourishment but sometimes also to malnourishment, I want to say to the hon. member that our efforts are directed towards improving our methods of education and towards reaching the masses of the people by means of mass education.

*The hon. member for Geduld discussed the establishment of a medical faculty at Ga Rankuwa. The question of the training of students, as I have already said, is a matter which falls under the Department of Bantu Administration and Development. But my Department of Health would render all possible assistance if anything like this were established. Planning in this connection is in progress; the idea is that that is the course such development should take.

The hon. member also referred to co-operation between the Department of Health and the provincial administrations. In this regard I have already referred to the community centres where we are making full use of the medical staff and the availability of medical services in the rural areas in that we are involving doctors and nurses, and even members of the public, in these centres, where we are now giving the district surgeons clinics where they then do only the essential work, and the rest of the work is done by para-medical staff. In this way the district surgeons are able to accomplish far more. It is a comprehensive out-patient service, for even psychiatric outpatient services are being provided for local authorities; it is also possible to provide services there in regard to contagious diseases such as tuberculosis, as well as other services which are being provided in the out-patient divisions of provincial hospitals. Therefore, as far as this is concerned, there is really very good co-operation.

I want to link this up at once to the question of the lack of district surgeons. Today we have 352 district surgeons on our list. Of those 52 are vacancies, and this indicates that the situation is not really all that serious. We can make do, provided we utilize all these people correctly. The question of salaries is a major problem and we are making constant attempts to improve the position of these people. Sometimes we are also obliged, if they are not available, to arrange with private doctors that they provide the service, and they then do so at medical tariffs. In some cases, for operations for example, they allow a rebate of 25%. But we are trying our best to improve the position of district surgeons, and I may mention that there has recently been a 10% increase in the number of applications we are receiving. The position is therefore improving, not only because of the working conditions which we have improved, but also because of the salaries which we have already improved. Then there are the complaints about the miles. This year we are going to change the allowance, which was previously 10 cents a mile, to 10 cents per kilometre. The person is then at least 160/100% better off. Nursing aid for the district surgeons is gradually being introduced. We shall also appoint doctors on a sessional basis where we do not have district surgeons, to assist the Department of Health in this way.

The hon. member discussed a medical faculty for Coloureds at Western Cape. I must say that this is something which we are contemplating, but to establish a medical faculty is something which sometimes takes a decade or longer. For that reason we decided two years ago to begin with the first prestige profession in that direction, viz. dentistry. After making arrangements with the University of Stellenbosch we succeeded in acquiring a section of the Tiervlei Hospital, and as from this year the first dental students, 16 of them, will be enrolled, and these people will complete a full course and qualify as dentists. I think this is actually a milestone. They will complete a full course, and we will make use of the lecturers of the University of Stellenbosch, but the students will receive their degrees at the University of the Western Cape.

The hon. member had problems in regard to medical pensioners, etc. Well, he knows what the position is. The ordinary pensioners may of course receive free treatment, and in addition there is a test for some civil pensioners which the magistrate has to apply. I do not know whether very much more remains of the points raised by the hon. member to which I still have to reply. There is the question of pharmacists and medical supplies, and he also discussed family planning. I shall say something about that. I have mentioned that we will involve private doctors in our ordinary treatment procedure.

†To come back to the hon. member for Rosettenville, he spoke about health centres again but I think I have already elaborated on that. He mentioned the possibility that some of these people who can in some sort of way be occupied in health care should also be allowed to go to colleges to be trained there in para-medical services. That is what is happening at the moment. We are already trying to aid these people and to encourage them to train for these courses. There is one point on which I must disagree with him, and that is that it is virtually impossible to eradicate certain infectious diseases. It has to do with the socio-economic attitude, sometimes, the social customs and the cultural attitudes of people. It has to do sometimes even with religion and some sort of, not malnutrition, but the way these people like to eat certain kinds of food. It is very difficult to educate these people. Diseases like kwashiorkor, I suppose, will always be with us as far as the Bantu people are concerned, unless they reach the stage where they are socio-economically so uplifted that we need not worry anymore about their diet. I can only say that we are trying to help to the best of our ability by supplying these people with skimmed milk. There we have a very good system. I think I am still going to say something about medical prices and medical aid schemes a little later; so I do not think I will reply to the hon. member on that just now, and also on this question of the State medical scheme. I think we can talk about that a little later. We can perhaps include that in the matters which are still to be raised by other speakers.

*The hon. member for Fauresmith spoke about the University of Natal which is not being utilized to the full for the training of non-White students. This is true, and I have already referred to it, so I am not going into it again. We simply do not find the people coming forward, despite excellent bursaries and despite legislation which this House passed, in terms of which we may award students bursaries to attend White universities, but I am not yet satisfied that we are getting enough of these people. Too few of them are really qualified to be able to get through this especially difficult course. Possibly the people are there, but the fact remains that they are not coming forward, and it is extremely difficult to go out and look for them. But he did at least admit that the number of Bantu pupils has increased by 400%, so that the future prospects for these people are reasonably good.

The hon. member for Fauresmith also discussed family planning. I feel I should say something about family planning at this stage. A population explosion is currently in progress throughout almost the entire world, except parts of Europe; and South Africa is also contributing its share, particularly owing to the nature and the composition of its population. But we should also, to a certain extent, be positive and not make fear our motive, nor should we think only in terms of numbers. We should in fact think that the fundamental reason why we have to apply family planning is a socio-economic one—medical instruction, but with a socio-economic reason, viz. to enhance the socio-economic level of families where unsystematic family development or family planning is an impeding factor to a good life. That is the point. We must adopt that course. That is in fact the approach which we should adopt. If there should happen to be a decrease in the population, as will inevitably happen, then we have to accept that a low growth rate is an incidental result of such planning. There are many things involved in this. There is the matter of people’s culture, and there is the idea that the one group regards the anxiety of the other at the population explosion as a political ruse to keep them down through their numbers, etc. I am not one of those people who at this late stage, when everyone throughout the world is discussing the socio-economic problems and everyone is discussing the danger threatening the world, really becomes very anxious. There is the prospect that agriculture with its wonderful technology will still be able to provide us with enough food in 20 years’ time. Therefore I am not fear-ridden. Even if these things happen, I am not one of those people who are aware only of the fear that we will not make the grade; we will, provided we cause a healthy technology of the mind to go hand in hand with this growing technology in the industrial and other spheres. A reduction of the population growth is therefore merely a sign that we are achieving success. The position at present in South Africa is that in 1965 the overall increase of the White population was 24%. The increase six years later, in 1971, was 23,1%; in other words, the increase was less by ,9%. That is not very considerable, but if one takes the death rate into account, then what remains is an increase of 14,5% for the Whites. These are the statistics of our Department of Planning for 1971. In 1965 there was a population increase of 44% among the Coloureds, but after six years this decreased to 35,5%, which means a decrease of more than 8%. We have therefore, to a large extent, succeeded in doing very good work among the Coloureds, who live in places near to us such as the Cape Peninsula. Among the Asiatics there was a population increase of 32,2%, but after only six years, in 1971, we found that the population increase was greater, viz. 34%. It is difficult to obtain statistics pertaining to the death rate among Bantu, and consequently we have to make use of estimates. The estimate, after the death rate had been subtracted from the birth rate, was that the Bantu population increased by 28% in 1971. It is true that the Bantu population is increasing at a tremendous pace. We are all aware of the population explosion which is in progress in our country as well.

These increases which I have mentioned, still indicate increases which are entirely too high. It is felt that if we could have approximately 2.5 children per wife, we would be able to save the position, and the world would not double its population over the next 20 years. We would consequently not experience so many more problems in the spheres of food supply, pollution and quite a number of other environmental problems.

If we are aware of these things, we need not be afraid of the future. We could concentrate only on the facts and have confidence in our own technological ability to devote the necessary attention to this matter. What is important is that we should devote attention to this matter. It is extremely important that we should devote attention to this matter. I said a moment ago that I was not one of those people who are fear-ridden in regard to this matter. However, I also want to say that I am not one of those people who believe that one should not say anything about it in the age in which we are living. We can now discuss these matters with an open mind, in view of the reason why it is necessary.

The authorities have a special duty here. The authorities have a special duty to the whole of South Africa. In this way we must take care of the Bantu in the homelands as well as those in our White areas. We must also take care of the Coloureds, Indians and the Whites. However, we cannot merely want to act mechanically, and force down the numbers. The socio-political situation must also be taken into consideration. We are therefore co-operating with these people. In our pluralistic society we are dealing with people who are accustomed to other social and cultural structures, and some of them therefore have to be persuaded to proselytize among their own people. If they proselytize among their own people, although they do not even possess the same knowledge as we do, they nevertheless achieve by far the greatest measure of success.

I want to reassure the hon. member that we in South Africa have a good top-level leadership as far as these matters are concerned. We are trying to adapt ourselves to changing circumstances, times and demands, and we are succeeding in doing so to a large extent. We have already made considerable progress towards a sound population policy, and have established sound administrative structure. This is functioning in an integrated way from the very highest to the very lowest level. We are at this stage applying family planning services at various centres. We re-organized the Department of Health last year, and the post of Family Planning Director was amalgamated with the post of Personal Health Director, so that attention could be devoted to personal health services in this connection. We have strengthened that division and appointed to it a full-time medical officer who can deal with training, who can make evaluations, and who can take care of medical research. All these facets are essential, for we are dealing here with continuous requirements which have to be taken into account for the purposes of any proper programme. The more intensively we become involved in the programme, the more organizational adjustments will have to be made, for we have to try to man or expand the administrative structure more effectively. The Department of Health has eight health regions, and for each of those eight regions we have already established a permanent professional post. Since we did not, at first, receive applications for all those posts, some of these posts will be up-graded. At present they are posts for Government medical officers. During March of this year 315 000 people requiring family planning services turned up at the family planning clinics of seven regions. We are thinking of appointing lay organizers if we should feel in the long run that we will have to capitulate as a result of the fact that there are not enough trained doctors. At the same time we are involving the homeland governments in this matter. We are involving them in such a way that they take the initiative. I can now inform the hon. members that the leaders of approximately 10 million of our homeland inhabitants have already stated themselves positively in favour of family planning in their homelands, and have done so in public, and have asked us to help them with its application. That is what is now being done. Talks have already been held at Nongoma to establish a committee for better family planning services in KwaZulu. Talks have also been held already in the Tswana homeland, and there we are receiving the best co-operation from the authorities. We expect to hold talks soon with the Ciskei authorities as well. Hon. members will therefore be able to understand that we are making good progress in this sphere. Each of the four provincial administrations last year appointed medical officers with the specific object of setting family planning services in motion in their hospitals, something which was not previously the case. The State has agreed to subsidize these schemes in full. If it is a question of money, I just want to mention the following particulars to hon. members. Whereas R200 000 was set aside four years ago by the Treasury, an amount of R1½ million has been set aside for that purpose this year. The hon. member for Berea said that the amount which had been appropriated for that purpose was inadequate. In reality we did not use up all of the amount which had been appropriated for the previous year. We must have the people to fill these posts. We purchased an enormous quantity of supplies which would have seen us through very comfortably last year. In point of fact we have increased the amount required for this year considerably, in comparison with the amount which was used last year, because our efforts this year are escalating. In my opinion the scope of our work is escalating, and for this year we received an amount of approximately R1½ million which in my opinion will be quite sufficient for what we are planning for this year.

The money is the one item; the other item is the subsidies paid by the State. Then there are the priorities which have to be determined correctly. One has to determine one’s priorities correctly, and there has to be the right attitude. There have to be information services and clinic centres have to be provided where this work can be done. The provinces are helping us with this and we are already obtaining the services of private doctors to help us. The Pharmacists’ Association will also be assisting us soon. They are prepared to expand the number of distribution points for contraceptives. We do not want to go any further into how this is being done, but I can assure hon. members that the contraceptives will not be given to anyone who asks for them. It will take place under controlled conditions. A film will be made and next year, which will be celebrated as a Family Year throughout the world, a stamp will be issued by the Department of Posts and Telegraphs to bring home the idea of family planning. In addition we will introduce an emblem for those people who participate in family planning. We are also using the radio and the Family Planning Association to make people more aware of this.

I do not want to say any more about this matter, except that I just want to mention that courses for nursing sisters are being introduced, two-month courses, by means of which they are trained to train other people. The processing of statistics in our department, which is still in its initial stages, will gradually be utilized to better effect. We are not receiving all the statistics we want yet, but quarterly statistics are being collated, by means of which the number of people who attend our clinics are determined. We will soon convert to computer analyses. A considerable amount of research is also being done, and various new substances are coming on to the market. With the help of the various gynaecology departments of our universities, new substances are being manufactured by the companies and thought is being given to manufacturing a substance which can be administered once every six months by means of an injection, and with which a person is made infertile for that period. This is the possibility which exists, but still has to be investigated. In addition socio-demographic studies are being made by the Human Sciences Research Council. It is therefore extremely important that the hon. member should take cognizance of what is being done in South Africa today for family planning, and that we already have a comprehensive policy in that connection. I think that I have furnished a reasonably adequate reply to this aspect.

†As far as the limit of medical services under medical aid schemes are concerned, I now come back to this question. We have very good reasons why the Central Council imposed these limits, this disincentive. The hon. member expressed concern about the fact that about 1 000 doctors and 250 dentists contracted out, but this is the basic right of any medical man, i.e. whether he wants to contract out or not. They only represent about 10% of all doctors, however. I do not think I need comment on this subject, because it is a right about which these people are very jealous. I am not going to worry too much about this, because if we can succeed in getting 90% of the doctors to contract in, I think we have achieved something considerable. As far as the medical aid to public servants are concerned, I want to mention that the State as an employer only provides medical aid to his own employees, namely civil servants, the Police, military personnel, the S.A. Railways staff, etc. We know what happened in the past with medical aid schemes, State interference, State help, and so on. We also know about the British social health scheme. I do not want to comment on all these aspects now, apart from saying that I do not think the State must interfere too much with the free medical aid scheme system as we have it at the moment.

*The hon. member for Cradock discussed the high costs of medical schemes and also the high costs of medicines. The high costs of medical schemes are caused by the fact that if a medical scheme provides 100% assistance, it is not always able to keep up, and simply has to increase its contributions from year to year. It is therefore inflationary as well.

What about the Australian system?

We shall leave that system at that; the hon. member probably knows more about it than I do. I am discussing our own system now. Why do we let a matter get out of hand, like a runaway horse? Let us regard this matter in its essence. A doctors’ services are only used where they can be used effectively. One of the principal reasons why one belongs to a medical scheme is to make provision for catastrophes. If it were not for this, almost no one would belong to a medical scheme. If I knew that I would only visit a doctor occasionally, why should I belong to a medical scheme? For catastrophic situations which may arise, such as surgical operations, radiological examinations and other things which come upon one suddenly there is absolutely no disincentive and these medical schemes can be made to pay in full. It is therefore not in this respect that they are being restricted.

As regards the high price of medicines I just want to inform the hon. member that I asked the Price Controller as long ago as 28th August, 1972, to look into the high price of medicines. Newspapers which therefore want to congratulate themselves because they referred to this on 28th March last year already, while we are only doing something about it now, do not read the newspapers of their colleagues or do not know what is happening. I said at that stage already, at the Transvaal Congress, that we were going into the matter, but that it was a matter which the Price Controller was investigating. Approximately three weeks ago the attention of the Price Controller was drawn to the difference in the prices, which the hon. member has just mentioned now, i.e. that enormous differences in prices occur, in some cases three times as much and in other cases almost five times as much as overseas. This is a matter to which the Price Controller is now devoting urgent attention. This matter was therefore brought to his attention by the Department of Health.

The hon. member for Jeppes asked for State contributions to medical schemes. This is in fact one of the problems and we cannot contribute to these, for we would then be helping the process of escalation and would be causing costs to soar even higher. The responsibility of the State then becomes greater and greater and that is where the first pressure is exerted for a State medical scheme. We prefer to introduce a disincentive. I have had personal experience of this over many years that although one should not go to a doctor for no good reason there are nevertheless a tremendous number of people who do so. However, the abuses do not only occur in that respect, but sometimes lie with the doctors themselves when they write out prescriptions for medicines. We are therefore not in favour of the State involving itself in this matter. If the hon. member were to explain the Australian scheme to me properly, I should like to hear more about it. I am afraid that I do not know anything about that scheme, but I should like to hear about it from the hon. member, for then we could look into it a little more closely. I just want to inform the hon. member that the Tomlinson Commission instituted an investigation into a State scheme in South Africa years ago, and came to the conclusion that it would not pay. In England the Beveridge Commission decided to introduce a national scheme, but what has the result of that been? Ultimately they paid hopelessly too much.

†Britain has become the happy hunting ground for everybody who wants free medical services. Lately we have had the rise of voluntary medical schemes in Britain. I am glad that the hon. member for Jeppes hastened to assist me in asking for more money. I am always asking for more money. I quite agree with him on that.

*As regards the matrons of the Transkei hospital, I just want to inform the hon. member that they were originally seconded to the Transkei hospital. They knew that this was the case. We would definitely have employed them if the Transkei hospital had not needed them, but at the moment they are working there. Otherwise we would definitely employ them.

I am pleased the hon. member for Brentwood discussed the abuse of medicines and the excessive quantities which are being requested on prescription. This is a matter which is of great importance, but I want to nut it to him like this: Let it be emphasized, but let this also be a kind of representation from the highest Council Chamber to our doctors, that we are aware of this and that they sometimes contribute to promoting abuses of this kind. We should like them to look into this matter with great responsibility. We have the Drugs Control Board and the South African Medical Council which will look into this matter. This matter will definitely be attended to next year by means of legislation.

As far as occupational diseases in mines, etc., are concerned, the department always co-operates very closely with the departments in question. If there is therefore a little lack of co-ordination, it is something which we will in due course iron out. It is also my policy to go into this matter and to see whether we cannot iron these things out.

At this stage I think that I have, for the time being, said enough.

Mr. Chairman, the last member that spoke before the hon. the Minister was the hon. member for Brentwood. The hon. the Minister has replied to him, but I too would like to congratulate him on bringing that very important matter before the House.

*When the Voortrekkers came down in their wagons from the high Drakensberg plateau to the low-lying areas of the Umsumduzi Valley in Natal, they saw the crystal-clear water shining and sparkling in the Umsumduzi River for the first time. This inspired them. This was also a sign of expectation and of firm belief. For that reason they decided to establish a town on that beautiful river. That is how the city of Pietermaritzburg was founded. What has become of that river after all the years of the development of mankind? This beautiful river is now something of the past. Now the water of the Umsumduzi is polluted.

†It is not my intention to be provocative in raising this matter, as both my city council and I in the past have worked in harmony with the Department of Health. However, my constituents feel that it has become a matter of such urgency that it should be raised in Parliament. I therefore want to ask the hon. the Minister to find a solution as early as possible to what appears to be a deadlock between his department and the Department of Bantu Affairs. I sincerely hope that the proclamation of the KwaZulu areas will not put a further spoke in the wheel of progress. Time is marching on while, on the other hand, the number of Bantu in this area is forever increasing. The Umsumduzi River is comparatively short in length. It rises to the west of the city of Pietermaritzburg. Practically the whole catchment area of the river is occupied by Bantu squatters— they can hardly be placed in any other category. The question is where do they come from? Are they deserters from farms? Do they come from Bantu areas and homelands, from far or near? Who is supposed to control the influx into this area? The chief of the area allots building sites on payment, needless to say, of a fee. He must find it most lucrative. The exception is the permanent residents in the Swartkop location. The Henley dam, one of the main water resources of Pietermaritzburg city is also situated in the Umsindusi River, practically in the centre of this catchment area. This polluted river then flows through the city and eventually empties itself in the Umgeni River, which is one of the most important water supplies of Durban city. It is practically impossible to estimate the Bantu population living in this catchment area. The Government appointed consultants, Messrs. Van Zyl and Viljoen of Pretoria, who estimate that in the not too distant future some 350 000 to 400 000 Bantu will be living in the area known as the Greater Edendale, which includes the Swartkop location area. One shudders to think what amount of pollution matter in the form of indestructible plastic material is introduced into this area daily, in the form of packaging for food only. There are no public water points. The river and its tributaries, all polluted, are the main water sources, both for domestic and ablution purposes. No form of sanitation exists, with the exception of a few private ground-pits. The nearest bush, if available, or the open veld, are the toilets of this large population. I leave it to your imagination as to what happens when a heavy downpour occurs and what pollution material lands up in the Henley dam and in the river. When I took up the matter from a health point of view with the Minister of Health in September, 1971, it then seemed like a one-man crusade over the past 15 years by the city engineer of Pietermaritzburg to get people in high places to do something about the dangers of an epidemic in the entire Umsumduzi catchment area upstream from the city. During a visit by the then Minister, Dr. De Wet, I accompanied him on an inspection to the Imbali and Edendale areas. In November, 1971, he informed me that the matter would be given priority attention by the various departments concerned and that a satisfactory solution would be implemented in the not too distant future. However, in March, 1972, I was informed that some 70 000 Bantu would have to be resettled, which would be no mean undertaking. This number has now reached 300 000, according to statistics. As far as I can see, only an epidemic will arouse the Department of Health into action. It is a matter of extreme concern to the residents of Pietermaritzburg. If an epidemic did occur, it would be chaotic, as the Edendale Bantu Hospital is, I believe, overcrowded. At times patients have to sleep on floors in the wards. It would therefore be pleasing to learn what active steps the hon. the Minister intends taking in this very urgent matter. I do not think time is on our side any longer.

In conclusion, I should like to refer to the ministerial authority and correspondence G.12/2 dated 17/11/71 received from the Department of Health. The Deputy Minister of Bantu Affairs did give us a ray of hope that he would do everything possible to ease the lot of the Bantu living in areas adjoining urban areas. They should at least have a roof over their heads, clean water to drink, sanitation and health protection. The Edendale Bantu Hospital has to cater for all these Bantu, including those living in Imbali and the Pietermaritzburg and Midlands complexes. There must also be beds available from time to time to provide for accident victims. There appears to have been an upsurge of bus accidents in and around Pietermaritzburg during recent times. The hon. the Minister is therefore kindly asked also to investigate the question of providing additional beds at the Edendale Hospital as early as possible.

Mr. Chairman, I have no fault to find with the remarks by the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg City, but I think I should say a few words about the standpoint taken up by the hon. member for Jeppes. This afternoon he delivered a plea here for a form of “socialized medicine” in South Africa.

He did not say that.

All right; call it “national health”. I do not mind if you call it that. It is the same thing, anyway.

No, it is not.

Sir, for many years I have been delivering pleas in this House for us in South Africa to be spared the evils of a national health scheme. The hon. member does not take into account the fact that the composition of the population in South Africa is a heterogeneous one which differs completely from that of Australia. Sir, hon. members opposite continually seek to make political capital out of health matters. [Interjections.] Health services should not be discussed on the level of politics. But what did that side of the House do prior to the provincial elections? They covered the whole of the Transvaal and said, “You must vote for us and we shall give you free hospitalization.” Is that not true? Now I ask the United Party here this afternoon why they have not introduced such free hospitalization in Natal, because, after all, they are in power in Natal.

You control the finances, that is why.

All it requires, is approximately R4 million, and they receive R40 million from the State in any event. Sir, those people must be consistent when they try to make political capital out of as important an aspect of our life in South Africa as our health services. In fact, as far as I am concerned, we in South Africa have, comparatively speaking one of the best health systems in the world. I think that our professional standards in South Africa are also among the best in the world. Moreover, we are grateful to know that we now have two young, dynamic men, in the persons of the hon. the Minister and the new Secretary for Health, to see to the future of our health services in this country.

But, Sir, let us not merely pat ourselves on the back today. We on this side of the House are also prepared to see to certain shortcomings, even though those shortcomings exit in Natal. In the structure of our health dispensation in South Africa, too, there are certain shortcomings. I really hope—I do not want to anticipate the recommendations of the van der Merwe Commission—that many of the problems will eventually be ironed out. We find ourselves in a period of transition, and as a result of a degree of unwieldiness in this present system, certain shortcomings do exist. In this regard I want to refer in particular to certain problems we are experiencing in Natal, particularly in regard to our hospital services. It has already become a standard excuse, when we ask for better and more services in Natal, to say that the necessary staff and manpower are not available. Now I want to know today what the provinces, and the province of Natal in particular, are doing to solve this difficult problem. Why must this problem always be laid at the door of our Minister of Health? I think that there is a big question mark hanging over a few important aspects in regard to training facilities and the conditions of service of staff. I now ask the question: Are we really giving this matter sufficient publicity? Is sufficient active recruiting being undertaken so as to meet the staff shortage in our hospitals? This afternoon I also want to ask why the status of the nurse has not yet come into its own. I also want to pose this question: Is it not a disturbing situation to find that the MEC in charge of hospital services in Natal, Mr. Watterson, replied to a question put to him in regard to the bilingualism of nurses at Addington Hospital, that he was unable to do anything about the matter as the nurses would tell him, “Go to blazes”? Sir, what kind of situation must be prevailing if an MEC has to come up with a statement such as this? Such arrogance really goes against the grain. What I am debating here in Parliament is in fact a provincial matter, but where else am I to raise this matter? That is why I ask the hon. the Minister this afternoon to take note of the problems which exist.

I should also like to make a few remarks in regard to planning. Every province does its own planning. One wonders at times whether the co-ordination mechanisms which exist in regard to planning, are quite in order. In Natal we have various towns, for example, Glencoe, which has more than 5 000 White inhabitants, which do not have any hospital facilities. I have in mind a place such as Pinetown, near Durban, which has more than 40 000 White inhabitants. So, too, there are many other places in Natal which, as a result of poor planning, suffer from a shortage of hospital facilities. I want to know why it is necessary for us in Newcastle, the “boom town” of Natal, to suffer chaotic conditions in regard to hospital services. The U.P. administration there has known for four years that the third Iscor is to be built there, but they have been sitting on the matter all this time; they are not doing a thing. Sir, I want to tell you that the chaotic conditions in Newcastle’s hospital is due to the poor planning of that party’s administration in Natal. What is more, why is it necessary for our doctors to go on their knees in order to obtain proper equipment? Why must they sign petitions and beg the provincial administration in order to obtain basic facilities? Why is it necessary, four years after the announcement of Iscor’s construction, for operation lists to be cancelled and for specialists to be turned away from the hospital because there are no facilities for them? Sir, the hospital there is occupied to more than 100% of its capacity, and the non-White hospital is occupied to more than 120% of its capacity. They may well say that non-White hospitalization is the responsibility of the Department of Bantu Administration, but I want to point out that it is still going to take a very long time to make up the leeway caused by that party’s provincial administration in Natal. That is the gist of the problem.

I should like to ask the Minister, due regard being had to the autonomy of the province, to give his attention to these matters nevertheless. I should also like to ask the Department of Health to investigate to an increasing extent any shortcomings which exist in regard to hospital services in the Bantu homelands, so that these problems may be solved. Sir, we should also like to convey our thanks to the Department of Health for the tour through the Transvaal they organized last year for the health groups on both sides of this House. It was an extremely interesting and illuminating tour. We are very grateful for all the facilities which were made available to us. We were really impressed with what was already being done in the Transvaal homelands. It was an exceptional experience for us to see how the Ga Rankuwa Hospital was already being put into service to an increasing extent, and to see, too, what the various mission hospitals were doing in the rest of the province, and we should like to convey our best wishes to the Department of Health in the tremendous task they have, also in the Bantu areas, as an agent of the Department of Bantu Administration and Development.

Mr. Chairman, I must refer the hon. member for Newcastle to this very excellent publication, which was published by the Natal Witness on Monday, 21st May. I want to say that if that hon. member had taken the trouble to read this, he would not have made the irresponsible statement which he made in this Committee this afternoon. I want to ask him why he tells only half the story about the Newcastle Hospital. Why does he not tell the end of the story, when as a result of this petition which was arranged by people like himself, by political agitators, an inquiry was held which totally exonerated the authorities at the Newcastle Hospital? Why does he not tell that half of the story as well?

On a point of order, is the hon. member entitled to refer to the hon. member for Newcastle as a political agitator?

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that.

Mr. Chairman, with respect, I did not refer to the hon. member as a political agitator. I said “other political agitators”.

The hon. member may proceed.

Thank you, Sir. I did not refer to the hon. member as a political agitator. If I did, I apologize. I did not intend to convey that impression, but I said that there were political agitators who did raise this particular point. But, Sir, I do not think that I need waste any more time on him. I am sure that hon. members know now that we did not get the full story from that hon. member. [Interjection.]

I want to speak to the hon. the Minister in the few minutes at my disposal about the dairy industry, and I want to appeal to him in all seriousness to do what he can, through his department, to try to place this industry back on a sound footing, because I believe that untold harm has been done to what is a basic industry in this country, an industry which is essential to the health of our people in this country, because of irresponsible statements which have been made by medical and paramedical people. I want to say that this started particularly with his predecessor in this post. In fairness to that gentleman, I must say that perhaps his statement was misconstrued, or that a different slant was given to it outside of this House, but the fact remains that untold harm was done to this industry by his particular statement, from which the inference was drawn that it was not healthy for people past middle age to partake of butter, cheese, whole milk and other dairy products. This is the inference which was drawn from that statement, but there is other evidence which has subsequently come to light. I refer to a report in a medical magazine with regard to research undertaken at the University of Tasmania by a Prof. J. B. Polya and Dr. R. S. Parsons, where these gentlemen had been puzzled by the “apparently contradictory influence of the much-maligned substance, cholesterol”. It goes on to read—

Sir, I believe that at the same time research has been carried on in other parts of the world and that particularly in Israel a particular fat has been isolated in the blood of the human being, a fat which is now claimed to be the cause of the clotting when a heart attack takes place, and that this has nothing whatsoever to do with cholesterol from animal products. Sir, in America Dr. Robert C. Atkins, who is associated with St. Luke’s Hospital, has also published a book in which he makes the following telling statement—

He goes on to make the following rather startling statement—

He continues—

Sir, it was only a little while ago that one of the senior medical practitioners in this country, a man who is recognized as an authority on diet and on heart diseases, said to me that the time has come when we can, with confidence, group those persons who say that animal fat is harmful, with the type of person who still says that the earth is flat.

I commend these reports to the hon. the Minister. I am prepared to make them available to him and to his department. I do not have to tell him, because I am sure he knows about these reports. But I want to plead with him and his department to do what they can—and I am glad to see that the hon. the Minister of Agriculture is here because I am sure he will support me in what I am saying this afternoon—to place the dairy industry back on the footing which it held before. I believe that this harm which has been done can be undone. I believe that with proper handling and with the statements made by the right people in the right places, public confidence in the consumption of butter and other animal fats can be restored. I want to associate the poultry industry with this too. Eggs have also suffered because of these stories that have gone the rounds. I believe there is sufficient medical evidence today for this department at least to reconsider its viewpoint and to tell the people of South Africa that there is not really the danger which has been believed to exist in regard to the consumption of animal fat.

At the outset I should like to raise a few matters concerning medical services in my constituency of Caledon and in particular in the areas of Gans Bay, Stanford, Napier, Baardskeerdersbos and Pearly Beach. I mention these places because not one of these towns has a doctor practising there any more. Stanford, Baardskeerdersbos and Gans Bay have many elderly people who are dependent on the services of a district surgeon, but in none of those places is there a doctor to be appointed as district surgeon. The problem of the shortage of district surgeons has already been dealt with by the hon. the Minister, but since I am saddled here with a practical problem I feel that a plan should be made quite apart from the overall plan for district surgeon services.

I want to put it in this way, that here we have a golden opportunity to use the services of a district director to undertake a survey and to recommend in that survey a modus operandi to provide those people with health services. I suggest that the idea of establishing clinics at each of these towns is a very practical idea, clinics in charge of a nursing sister who has had additional training in out-patient services and also in dealing with the less dangerous diseases. The medical practitioner of a neighbouring town, perhaps Hermanus or Bredasdorp, could then visit these clinics once or twice every 14 days to attend to patients who need attention, and also to render the sister the necessary assistance. But besides that, this sister could be linked telephonically to her headquarters where there would be a district surgeon or a medical practitioner for that area, so that this person may receive advice from time to time.

I think it is important to draw the attention of the House to the fact that when we introduced the day hospital system in Cape Town, we found that 77% of the people attending such an out-patient’s department did not really require specialized services. We went ahead and introduced it and the figures compiled a year or so ago indicated that of those people attending the out-patient’s department, only about 8% required special attention. I shall venture to say that out of the 90% who consult a doctor, perhaps 50% could be attended to by a capable and efficient sister. I am now referring to complaints such as burns, injuries, colds, and if it should occur that a serious case were to turn up, such a person, after a telephone conversation with a doctor, could be taken to the nearest hospital by ambulance.

I appeal to the Minister to give particular attention to the introduction, through official channels, in that area which I have referred to, namely Gans Bay, Stanford, Napier, Baardskeerdersbos and Pearly Beach, a health service of this nature and not to leave it to the inhabitants to ask for their own service. I mention Baardskeerdersbos in particular, a small place where there is no village management board or municipality. Stanford does have a service now but it is connected with the Province. I feel it is the responsibility of the Department of Health when it comes to old and indigent people. Other people who can afford to do so can pay a reasonable amount for treatment given there. I therefore want to suggest to the hon. the Minister that if it becomes necessary—to me it would appear as if it has become necessary—to request more money, at least the salaries of those vacant posts of district surgeons should be used for this purpose since that service does not exist at present and the funds appropriated for it will not be spent in any case. The money which will therefore remain unspent could therefore be spent on these clinics.

I want to come to a second matter. I found it encouraging to learn from the speech of the hon. the Minister what progress has been made in regard to family planning throughout the Republic. I was also pleased to learn about the discussions which have already taken place with the leaders of the KwaZulu and other homelands. I think the point which the hon. the Minister made is a very important one in the sense that there will be full co-operation on the part of the Black leaders. It is also interesting to look back over the history of this matter. In 1960 it was Family Year in South Africa. On one occasion Dr. Piek delivered a paper and I want to quote just one paragraph from it, because I think that what he said at that time is just as relevant, if not more so, today. I quote (translation)—

I should like to appeal to the hon. the Minister to ensure that what was said as long ago as 1960 should continuously be borne in mind in the active role the Department of Health plays in family planning. We must therefore have co-ordination, particularly in the economic sphere. In this regard, of course, the hon. the Minister also mentioned the socio-economic conditions.

However time does not stand still and we now find ourselves in the year 1973. The hon. the Minister pointed out that the U.N. has already decided that 1974 will be known as Family Planning Year. Next year a world congress will be held and I want to plead that South Africa take an active part in it. I even want to go so far as to say— without pleading for myself—that members of this House should also be enabled to attend that congress as well as members of the homelands governments and the Coloured and Indian Councils. In addition, officials of the Department of Health and the various Provincial Administrations should also be given the opportunity to attend the congress. I feel that even though it is going to cost the Government a good few thousand rands, this will be an amount well spent because on the occasion of that congress our homeland leaders, our Coloured and Indian leaders as well as members of this House will come to appreciate that this is a problem which is being tackled throughout the world and that ideas can be freely exchanged on this matter. I therefore want to ask that South Africa take an active part in that congress. After all, the hon. the Minister has already announced that we are going to design appropriate postage stamps which will be available next year, but I believe that we should also concentrate on the congress as such.

When we discuss this matter it is quite clear that it is essential for information to be made available on a large scale. We can therefore make a start with this as far as the various terms are concerned. We hear that some people refer to family planning, while others talk about family regulation and another group, about birth control, but all have the same thing in mind. As a matter of fact, these terms are so divergent, it is simply not true. There is a world of difference between the concepts “population planning”, “family planning” and “family regulation”, which is only the physical aspect. A week or two ago there was a report on the front page of a Sunday newspaper from which it was quite apparent that the concept “family planning” had been misunderstood. In that report we noticed that three of our most prominent clergymen in South Africa adopted three different points of view. Perhaps this is also because people occupying those positions have not been adequately informed so as to enable them to realize what family planning is, before making statements of that nature. Unfortunately some of them have already made such statements arising from incorrect reports or incomplete reports which appeared there. I want to say that if one considers that information should be made available, I want to plead for an effective information programme which would be adapted to each group in this country. The hon. the Minister indicated that a great deal has already been done in this field, but it is essential that a very effective programme be designed in the field of information. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, it is quite interesting to listen to the hon. member for Caledon, who has just sat down, because he occupied a position in the Cape Provincial Administration where he was what one could call the “provincial minister of health”. Although I did not come in contact with him, I did hear of the work he has done. It is interesting to hear him talk about the provision of facilities in his constituency but one wonders why he could not have improved the position in that constituency more than it is at the moment when he was a member of the executive committee in charge of hospital matters. There are places in his constituency such as Kleinmond where the medical facilities are practically non-existent other than the services of a district nurse. They do not even have a doctor at Kleinmond other than those who come there on holiday. His constituency is blessed with a very fine hospital at Caledon, but unfortunately this hospital suffers because of a lack of staff. I do not know whether it is the hon. the Minister’s department’s duty or whether it is the provincial administration’s duty to provide these clinics suggested by the hon. member for Caledon, but I do know that what is wanted in these areas is the provision of ambulance services. It is wanted in these areas the majority of patients who are Coloured or Bantu and who have to go from say Kleinmond and these other areas to the Caledon Hospital for treatment have to go by taxi or they have to hire a truck to take them there. It is very costly and they can ill afford the expense. Whether it is the hon. the Minister’s department’s duty to provide these clinics or whether it is the duty of the provincial administration, I do not know because their functions are so closely related. But I do know that the hon. the Minister’s department makes a contribution towards ambulance services. I hope that he can do something for these outlying areas. I think it is very necessary and I suppose that there must be other areas at the coast and other places that must be affected in the same way. The hon. member for Caledon can tell the hon. the Minister where these areas are.

I would like to come back to the Vote itself and I want to thank the hon. the Minister and his department for making the facilities available for hon. members to go on the trip to inspect health services in the Bantu areas in the Transvaal. We saw the vast organization which exists there to provide health services for the Bantu. We saw what has been planned there and we saw what is being done at Garankwee where they are building a big Bantu hospital. However, listening to the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development and the hon. the Minister of Health when they talk about handing over the duties of the Department of Health to the different Bantu States, one realizes how immature these people are to take over this vast health organization. After all, the Bantu States are part of the Republic and I think that the administration of health services is still the responsibility of this Government. It is not good enough to say that although we are going to hand over health matters to the Bantu we are going to keep an eye on it. I do not think that is good enough.

Don’t you trust them?

I don’t say I don’t trust them, but I do not think they have reached the stage where they can take over these matters. One can only think of the high standard which the different provinces in spite of difficulties, have achieved with their health services. It has taken them years to do so and I feel that while these Bantu states may eventually be in a position to take over health services I think it is too early in their existence to hand them over at the present moment. I think it will be a dangerous move as far as they are concerned and also as far as we are concerned, because the Bantu come into the White areas and if there is no proper control over infectious diseases we are asking for trouble.

I think all of us who went on this trip were struck by the loyalty of the staff and the work they were doing under difficult conditions. Some of them were working in hospitals where there was a great shortage of staff. It struck one immediately as to where the necessary additional medical personnel was going to come from to staff these hospitals. It is very necessary to have highly qualified staff at these hospitals. It is a necessity to have specialist treatment on a sessional basis during the week. I understand that at one particular hospital doctors come all the way from Pretoria to provide sessional services. I would say that this cuts into their time considerably and I think it is a matter that must cause concern to the department. When we talk about the existing training facilities at the University of Cape Town and at the University of Durban-Westville, one wonders if these facilities are enough for the training of Bantu doctors in this country. I do not know if the training material amongst the Bantu people is available, but when one considers the large Bantu areas where they have large provincial hospitals one is amazed to find that there is no medical school in a place like Port Elizabeth or the Grahamstown area to train medical personnel there. One wonders why the Government has taken no steps in and near Pretoria to establish a medical school to train Bantu doctors and other personnel. When one goes through the list of hospitals one finds that the department controls about 19 000 beds, not including the hospitals administered and run by the various missions. I was pleased to learn that it was not the intention of the Government to close down the mission hospitals. Those of us who were on this trio were impressed with the work that was being done by these mission hospitals. Some of them have imported their own highly trained specialists. On several occasions we saw that they also actually trained medical nurses. I asked some of these Bantu nurses where they came from and where they planned to go after they had had their training. I was amazed to find that these girls would go back to Soweto once they were trained, because there were no adequate facilities to train them there. From what I could see, the training was of a very high standard. I am not a medical man, but I was happy to have been associated with Groote Schuur hospital for some time as its chairman. I was impressed with the facilities available for training purposes. One hopes that the Minister will not fall for the idea of closing down these mission hospitals. I do not think that they should be closed down or taken over until the Government is in a position to replace them and it is not in that position at the present moment. I would say to the hon. the Minister to give very serious consideration to the training of doctors.

However, this is going to take a very long time. I do not like the idea of having a second-class medical profession, but whether we like it or not, I think we will have to go in for a period of recruitment of medical personnel from overseas and elsewhere to staff these particular hospitals. I do not think we can wait 10, 12 or 15 years in order to staff these hospitals. I think we must plan to staff them with our own personnel, but at the same time we must provide staff for these particular hospitals in the interim period. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I hope that the hon. member for Salt River will pardon me if I do not follow up on what he said. I only have five minutes and I should like to raise a matter which affects my constituency. I should like to associate myself with what was said by my colleague, the hon. member for Caledon, when he spoke about the shortage of district surgeons in the rural areas. I just want to mention the fact that we in the Karoo are faced with what is perhaps a completely different position to the one he is faced with, because of the tremendous distances between towns in this specific part of the world. It is not so easy, therefore, to find a solution for this shortage of doctors in the rural areas. In my immediate neighbourhood, for example, there are two small towns, Steytlerville and Klipplaat, which have no doctor at all and which must be served by the doctor living at Jansenville. In fact, he is also the only doctor at Jansenville. Now you can imagine, Sir, to what extent this man must exceed himself in order to serve this vast area. [Interjection.] The hon. Whip sitting in front of me says that he fell ill there and it so happened that this same man attended to him. And at Murraysburg, Aberdeen, Richmond and Willowmore there is also only one doctor. This situation, of course, makes tremendous demands upon these people. Now it is also true that the rural areas no longer attract doctors and I can only mention that this is not as a result of considerations of salary or even income, because these people all tell you that they earn enough money. The salaries paid to district surgeons are outstanding. That, therefore, is not the reason why they do not stay in the rural areas. You can appreciate that when a man is alone in a town and must serve a large area, as in the case of Jansenville where three different towns must be served, he is never able to rest. He must work virtually day and night. Nor is there an opportunity for him to rest a little over a week-end or pay a visit to the city. In fact, he even has very little time to spend with his family. Now it is also true, unfortunately, that these people are unable to get a locum tenens for week-ends or even holidays. They are therefore never in a position to take a holiday because they can never find anyone to relieve them. I have thought about possible solutions to this serious problem because I realize that the Minister’s signature will not solve this problem. I wondered whether doctors have not been allowed to specialize too quickly. I am told that after a doctor has served as a general practitioner for only two years, he is allowed to specialize. I am also told that many of these doctors serve these two years in a hospital and then they specialize. I am also told that some of our large cities have far too many specialists, particularly in certain fields. If this is the position, I ask myself the question whether this is in the interests of the country and whether we should not investigate the situation very carefully and put it right. I also wondered whether the need in the rural areas could not be relieved by making use of graduates who are doing their year’s training in hospitals. I wondered, for example, whether a bank of doctors could not be established at these training hospitals, so that doctors in the rural areas could be relieved for week-ends, or perhaps even for longer periods and in this way be allowed to go on short holidays. I think that it would also prove to be practicable to use this bank to assist with clinic services in places where, for example, there is no doctor at all. In this way such doctors would regularly come into contact with the rural areas and perhaps develop an interest in the rural areas. In this way, too, they themselves would be able to investigate the potential of the rural areas. I should like to address a serious appeal to the Minister to help us in this vast area by giving his favourable consideration to these few suggestions I have made and in this way to find a solution to this problem.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to use the few minutes at my disposal to put a few questions to the hon. the Minister. In the first place I want to refer the hon. the Minister to stories that are circulating in connection with the training of so-called “medical assistants”. Without going into this matter in any depth, I want to ask the hon. the Minister to take a very clear stand on this issue once and for all. Without putting words into the Minister’s mouth, I want to express the hope that he will now tell the world that South Africa is not prepared to accept these medical assistants.

But in conjunction with this I should also very much like to advocate this afternoon the greater use of nurses to relieve the doctors’ task. I think that we in South Africa are in a very fortunate position, i.e. that people are increasingly presenting themselves for training as nurses, people who are amongst the very best in South Africa and the world. I also want to point out that the number of nurses is increasing. The hon. member for Rosettenville referred to the numbers earlier this afternoon, but the latest figures I have at my disposal relate to the number of persons who were registered on 31st December last year. According to my information we have at present 43 672 nurses on the register, which is a fine figure. Because this is so, I honestly believe that a number could be furnished, from that group, who could be specially prepared and trained to take over certain tasks that are at present being dealt with by the doctors. I also want to refer to the fact that at present there are 734 persons who are busy with a degree course in nursing at one or other of our universities. I also think that this group of people could furnish a very big contribution, particularly in this connection. But I cannot, either, let the opportunity pass without advocating that our young girls, in particular, should come forward and apply to become members of the nursing profession. One does not have to wax lyrical about that. The fact remains that it is probably one of the very finest professions which any young girl could take up.

While I am dealing with the question of the nurses, I wonder whether the hon. the Minister would be so kind as to tell the House, in connection with the International Congress of Nurses that has just been held in Mexico, whether he has taken note of the standpoint of that congress with respect to the attitude which South Africa has always adopted on the question of the same roles, etc., and tell us what his attitude is in that connection. I think it is also the right time simply to pay particular tribute, in the same breath, to the South African deputation at that congress for the very fine and striking way in which they stated and dealt with South Africa’s case.

Lastly I want to refer to the incident in my constituency earlier this year when someone used a certain spray on farmlands adjacent to residential areas. I want to thank the hon. the Minister and his staff for the speed with which they took action to investigate that matter. But what I actually want to broach now is the possibility of there being a repetition of this kind of incident, and of a spray being used which may really be perilous to the inhabitants of that community. I should like to know whether the Minister could tell us this afternoon if he intends to take very drastic action if such offences take place, so that this could serve as a warning to people who were possibly thinking along those lines.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to ask the Minister of Health whether nationwide standards can be laid down for the protection of the public against the dangers of asbestos. It is now 65 years since the first case of disease linked to asbestos fibres was first reported. There are three types of asbestos, chrysotile, crocidolite and amosite. They all have a very high tensile strength and are used in a wide variety of ways in industry and also in the building trade. Crocidolite is produced in the asbestos hills, which are found in a 402 kilometre long strip between Koegas and Kuruman. Then there is a second area in the Transvaal, south-east of Pietersburg, which stretches from Chuniespoort 80 kilometres eastwards to the Olifants River. This is a good insulator at moderate temperatures and is used for insulation in shipbuilding, the lagging of boilers and steam pipes and the manufacture of battery boxes and asbestos cement products such as pipes, ceilings, roofing, floor tiles, etc. The world annual production of asbestos has increased considerably since the turn of the century. It has in fact increased more than a thousandfold and the production was something like three million tons in 1968.

Although it has been known for the past 65 years that a severely crippling and sometimes fatal lung disease called asbestosis, which is a type of fibrosis of the lungs, develops in persons inhaling asbestos dust during their work, it is only over the last few decades that other more serious health hazards, such as cancer of the lungs and of the abdominal cavity, have been clearly shown to be associated with the occupational exposure to asbestos fibre. The alarming things, Mr. Chairman, is that it has been increasingly recognized that such effects are not confined to workers in asbestos-related trades and industries, but are also applicable to the general public.

Another disease associated with asbestos is the calcification of the pleura or the depositing of insoluble calcium salts in the lining of the lungs. Selikoff found that of 1 117 asbestos insulation workers, 150 suffered from pleural calcification. Malignant tumors of the lungs and of the abdominal cavity, known as meso-thelioma of the pleura and peritoneum, were linked to asbestos exposure by J. C. Wagner in 1960. He did his work here in South Africa and he found 33 cases of diffuse meso-thelioma which were reported from a mining community, which was probably Kuruman.

J. G. Thomson, a pathologist from the University of Cape Town, first proved how widespread the existence of asbestos bodies was in the sputum and lungs of the general population. He showed that in 500 consecutive autopsies in Cape Town, 26,4% of lung smears showed the presence of asbestos bodies. Recent studies confirmed his work. In Pittsburg 98% of lungs examined contained asbestos bodies. The frightful feature is that it may take anything from 20 to 40 years after the initial exposure to asbestos fibres before the appearance of the malignancy. Wagner and his associates diagnosed 87 cases of meso-thelioma of the lungs and two of the peritoneum in a crocidolite-producing area—probably Kuruman—but only 12 of these cases had been directly exposed to industrial asbestos. Seventy-seven had nothing to do with the industrial use or the mining of asbestos.

Sir, there is scant published data about the levels of airborne asbestos fibres in the ambient air around us, but there is enough evidence to make me feel alarmed. Philadelphia has 45 to 100 times one billionth gram asbestos per cubic metre of air. This could mean something like 100 million chrysotile fibrils per cubic metre of air in the city of Philadelphia. In New York in a study of over 3 000 autopsies it was found that 1 449 or something like 48,3 % of the lungs examined contained asbestos bodies. Thus Selikoff came to the conclusion that chrysotile asbestos fibres are probably common in the lungs of most urban dwellers. This evidence, Sir, I believe, justifies the introduction of emergency standards for the protection of the public against the dangers of air-borne asbestos and also to prohibit the spraying of asbestos-containing material at all construction sites and the visible emission of asbestos particles during the repair and demolition of buildings. The building trade is possibly the biggest user of asbestos. They use it as insulation; they saw it and the dust is found in plentiful supply. Even a paper maché, which is widely used in schools, contains a large proportion of asbestos, according to Street. Paper maché mixers used in the United States contain up to 50% of asbestos, and I certainly hope that this is not the case here in South Africa.

Sir, I believe that it has become imperative that the use of all forms of asbestos should be severely restricted in South Africa, except where it is absolutely necessary and where no substitute can be found.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to take this opportunity, here at the end of the debate, of also conveying my thanks and appreciation to the Department of Health for the work it is doing for us in this country. I think that we in South Africa can be exceptionally proud of the high quality of our medical services, and here I am thinking of what is being done by the State, the Provinces and by local authorities. But we cannot lose sight, either, of the valuable work being done by the private practitioners and the young girls who, in the hospitals, are prepared to sacrifice their time and energy to minister to our ailments and alleviate suffering.

Sir, in connection with a recent visit I made, I want to focus the attention of this Committee, the Press and the general public on the important and valuable work being done by the South African Institute for Medical Research and the Poliomyelitis Research Foundation. Sir, attached to those institutions is a team of industrious and dutiful, dedicated scientists, doctors and technicians who are busy, from day to day, conscientiously manufacturing sprays and vaccines which are vitally necessary and important to our whole community. In the manufacture of the sprays and vaccinations, a great number of mice, marmots, monkeys, snakes, scorpions, spiders and, in particular, horses are needed for anti-serum and to supply serum and blood for the manufacture of cultures. Sir, these animals are used in order to manufacture vaccines and sprays against, inter alia, dreaded diseases such as hydrophobia, tetanus, diphtheria and snake, scorpion and spider bites. The horse plays a very important role in this. The horse is particularly suited for this purpose because it is a tame animal which can donate a large quantity of blood at a given time. So, Sir, the S.A. Institute for Medical Research needs about 150 to 200 horses, apart from the needs at the provincial level and also the needs of the Department of Health. To get hold of these horses the Institute is compelled to compete on the open market. They must buy at auctions and public sales where they must compete with the buyers of horse meat. The result is that exorbitant prices sometimes have to be paid to get hold of horses for the Institute. You will realize, Sir, that this serum and anti-serum are of great importance to our country and for the combating of these diseases I have mentioned. But this goes much further because this serum is of inestimable value—we cannot do without it—if we consider how much it is needed by our boys and young people on our borders, and here I can also include our neighbouring states that make use of this. Therefore today, in the short time at my disposal, I want to appeal to everyone who can assist the Institute in getting hold of sufficient horses. Today I want to make an appeal to members of this House of Assembly to make a special point of propagating this appeal in their constituencies during the recess. I want to appeal to our horse owners and our farming community to make available those horses which are no longer any use to them. Sir, I also want to make an appeal to our newspapers, Afrikaans and English language newspapers, to give a little more publicity to this matter. There may be owners who are prepared to donate their horses to the Institute, but that is not the spirit in which I am making this appeal. The Institute is quite prepared to buy those horses and to pay for the transport as long as they can just get hold of suitable horses. Big strong horses are specially in demand. Horses which can perhaps no longer do service on farms, can still be made use of for years by this Institute. Here they are particularly well cared for; they are very well looked after; they get the best food and medical care, and they could still serve man for many years to come.

Mr. Chairman, my time is up. I shall conclude by repeating this appeal, because here we are dealing with a matter which is certainly not brought to the attention of the public every day, and here I hope we shall obtain the support and co-operation not only of hon. members, but also of the Press and other bodies in propagating that matter.

The hon. member for Kempton Park will excuse me if I do not react to his speech, but there is a matter I should very much like to bring to the notice of the hon. the Minister, and that is the question of industrial rehabilitation or rehabilitation services not only for injured workmen, but also for those who can allegedly do only light work or others who are perhaps suffering from some physical defect or a neurosis or an emotional instability. In South Africa this matter has not yet received the necessary attention. I should very much like to appeal to the Minister that, with a view to the serious shortage of manpower, specifically of skilled Whites, which is at present slowing down the economic growth rate, we should give urgent attention to a scheme which could speed up the return to productive work of all the injured or emotionally ill, or which could fully utilize the dexterity and skill which the handicapped person still commands.

†Rehabilitation is of course not only a medical problem but also a sociological one, and it is essential to the well-being of our nation that we should rapidly develop a new attitude towards the restoration to health, working capacity and social independence of the incapacitated. Such a new approach must strive to replace the dependence on State disability grants, and must lead to the establishment of retraining workshops and rehabilitation centres where occupational therapy and vocational training could be practised. Apart from some sheltered employment workshops sponsored by the Workmens’ Compensation Commissioner and the limited rehabilitation scheme at the Conradie Hospital in Pinelands, this principle is not being generally propagated and accepted in South Africa.

Experts in this field maintain that the bodily shock associated with serious injury has its counterpart in the mental shock of a man suddenly confronted with the economic and social consequences of his disablement. The experts also tell us that the early treatment of the injured and disabled, both from the physical and psychological aspects, does much to reduce the period of disability. But it is not enough to get a man back onto his legs; he must be got back into his old job or another suitable job, and this calls for treatment and guidance beyond the hospital stage. Today the injured person goes home after being discharged from hospital. There are no rehabilitation facilities available to him, and such persons either make their way, as best they may, back to their old employment or, if this is beyond their reduced capabilities, they drift around seeking alternative employment, and usually they and their families have to adapt themselves to reduced financial circumstances. I realize that rehabilitation schemes would require the services of many specialists—such as surgeons, general practitioners, psychiatrists, disablement and rehabilitation officers, occupational and physiotherapists, motion study engineers, and industrialists. But the State should not hide behind the difficulties, the obvious difficulties, at present hindering this essential development. We must realize that rehabilitation centres are an investment which could pay rich dividends by taking persons off the dole or State aid and making them, once again, productive.

*Industrial rehabilitation may no longer be postponed. In the United Kingdom industrialists are obliged by the Disablement Act to draw 5% of their labour force from the ranks of those with physical disabilities, or those who have suffered physical disabilities. I seriously want to request the Minister to give his urgent attention to this matter. Investigations will reveal what the final content of such a programme should be, its scope, whether it should be piloted on the provincial or on the national level, its financing and administration, etc. But the hon. the Minister and his department should give guidance in this matter, which is one of urgent national importance. I make this plea to the hon. the Minister, and I ask him to give this his serious attention.

Mr. Chairman, I want to furnish the hon. members with replies in the sequence in which matters were raised.

The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg City was worried about the pollution of the Umfolozi River. I do not like passing the buck to somebody else, but in this case he should direct his pleas to the Department of Bantu Administration and Development as well as to the Department of Water Affairs.

As far as the health hazards are concerned which he mentioned, it is the position that the Secretary for Health functions as the local authority. However, this function has been delegated to the local health commission of the Natal Provincial Administration. As the hon. member does not seem to be satisfied, and as I am sure that he has reason not to be satisfied—this was revealed by his speech—I am going to take this matter further.

I want to say that as far as his remarks in regard to Edendale are concerned, we are at the moment planning for additional accommodation.

*The next member to whom I have to reply, is the hon. member for Newcastle. He discussed the Natal hospital services. I have to agree with him that it is extremely necessary that there should be co-ordinated planning between the Department of Health and the provincial administrations. Possibly there is room for improvement here. Coordinated planning is sometimes impeded if the necessary confidence is lacking and if the steps taken are not taken with the necessary balance to encourage that mutual confidence. If that co-ordination does not improve I shall, in some way or another, have to take more positive steps in this case. However, I do not want to utter any kind of threat, for it is the function of the Provincial Administration of Natal. I am nevertheless involved in this as well.

These complaints have been raised now, and I want to point out that for many years the Natal Provincial Administration was the body which had to take care of hospital services and even of the Bantu as well, since it was the adviser to the Department of Bantu Administration and Development. It was only in 1971 that the Department of Health took over the responsibility for providing medical services in Bantu homelands on an agency basis. Up to that date the province had acted as the adviser to the Department of Bantu Administration and Development in regard to the services in homelands within the borders of the province. I know that Mr. Watterson, a Natal M.P.C., complains from time to time about the Government which is not doing its duty there. However, I think that his complaints constitute a rather serious complaint against his own administration in that they, when they were the planning advisers, themselves failed to do what was necessary. However, the Department of Health which inherited this situation approximately two or three years ago is expected to remedy everything in a day. I do not think that is fair. In any case, I am taking cognizance of what the hon. member said.

I could mention briefly that the Department of Bantu Administration and Development informed us as agent that 1 200 beds were being envisaged at the Umlazi hospital, and that the groundwork which had already been commenced would be completed in 1974. As usually happens with major contracts, the hospital will only have been completed by 1978. At Kwa Mashu they are working on a hospital with 750 beds. An additional 40 beds will be provided in the Murchison Mission Hospital. I am not saying that this is enough. On the contrary, I am also concerned about the bed position in our hospitals for the Bantu population of Natal.

I have been informed that the following clinic services are still being provided at Umlazi: A polyclinic which provides preventive services and maternity services, a type 3 clinic providing the same services, an additional type 3 clinic which will soon come into operation, and a further clinic which has already been approved but which will be constructed in the near future. At Kwa Mashu the following clinical services are being provided: A polyclinic controlled by the Natal Provincial Administration. That is as far as the information goes which my department received from the Department of Bantu Administration and Development. I think it is only fair and just that I have rectified this matter.

†I still have something else in my mind in so far as co-ordination and possible integration is concerned in the field of health services in South Africa. I have to work in co-operation with the various provincial administrations and the local authorities. We have to work in close liaison because health services are supplied on the various levels of government. As I have indicated at the start, there are three levels of government, namely the Central Government, the provincial administrations and the local government authorities. There should be close collaboration but unfortunately this is sometimes sadly lacking.

As far as psychiatric services are concerned, I am glad to be able to tell the hon. member that I have reached an agreement with the provincial administrations and the universities that these services will now be integrated to a large extent. If this integration takes place, I think we can provide better care. Then there is the co-ordinating council in regard to hospital services, or one can call it the co-ordinating health council. We usually get together once or twice a year and I am supposed to be the chairman of the council. I have only attended one of the meetings so far, but there we discuss matters where we reach decisions by consensus. Actually these discussions take place under a gentlemen’s agreement, that if matters are discussed in confidence we do not talk about it outside. There is one instance which has come to my notice where this was not observed. I feel I must mention this because it may affect our collaboration in health matters in the future. Collaboration and co-ordination is not a one-sided affair; there are two or more parties to it. Some time ago a matter pertaining to the remuneration of doctors was the subject of discussion at one of the council meetings. It has come to my notice that it was publicized in the Press shortly afterwards in spite of the fact that a special plea had been made that this information should be regarded as confidential. When incidents like those occur, a seed of doubt is sown among the various parties concerned. This matter is now receiving my attention. Although I said at the start that very good relations existed between the different authorities and myself, I must say that I cannot allow that such relations be jeopardized. If these relations are jeopardized, the service in general may be jeopardized. We should not harm the service in general by acts which are not in the best interests of our country. I am going to take up that matter in good time with the party concerned.

We also heard from the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District today. The hon. member is concerned about the dairy industry and about a statement made by my predecessor a year or two ago. It is not for me either to condone or to repudiate that statement as such …

Why not?

It is not, because at this particular moment there is not sufficient evidence to prove that when you indulge in dairy fats your coronary arteries will be affected. We must all advise our people that we are still in a research stage as far as this disease is concerned. There are a 1 001 opinions on this matter and although the hon. member’s medical evidence may have sounded very convincing I can from my part provide him with many more articles which state quite a different point of view. Therefore, at the moment there is no conclusive evidence which proves that cholesterol as such is a very important factor in causing coronary diseases.

What happens to the poor patient when he falls between two doctors?

He should not fall between two doctors. I believe one of them should catch him. I think the hon. member and the Dairy Board need not worry about this matter. A categorical statement to the effect that a high cholesterol content as such leads to coronary thrombosis and that it is produced by dairy fats and that this causes a chain reaction is not a fact which has been proved by medical science. I think one should observe moderation as far as these things are concerned. Moderation as far as all good things, even butter and eggs, are concerned, is something which I have nothing against. I have found no evidence that that is deleterious to the health of the normal person who does not indulge excessively in other things.

*The hon. member for Caledon discussed district surgeon services and put forward a special plea for his own constituency, i.e. the Gans Bay/Stanford/Pearly Beach area. This forms part of the recommendations of a committee which investigated the deficient district surgeon services and the problems we are experiencing in that regard. We shall certainly give attention to this matter. We are affording relief in those areas in the country where the greatest need is prevailing. In any event, we shall go into the hon. member’s request.

†The hon. member for Salt River spoke about ambulance services. Ambulance services are provided by the provincial governments, local authorities, and so on. In some cases private organizations too provide ambulance services. Some of these services are excellent while others are not entirely satisfactory. Where we are eventually going to land up as far as ambulance services as an auxiliary service to medical care is concerned, I do not know, but I agree with the hon. member that this is something we should investigate to see if we cannot provide one centralized service from where it will be controlled by one authority. I think this is possible and that in the near future we might give this possibility more attention.

I am also worried about the training of medical personnel, but I think I have already replied to that aspect in full. I cannot agree with the hon. member where he said that the Bantu people are not ripe enough to take over their own health services. One of the conditions is that we must aid them as we have done in the past and our people will be there to do so. At one time or another, however, they must learn to walk and they have decided amongst themselves that that time is now.

*The hon. member for Graaff-Reinet has the same problem in regard to district surgeons and the immense areas which have to be served in his part of the world. It is true; it is a major problem. One cannot of course manufacture these people, and one has to use one’s initiative and commonsense to see to what extent one can help these people. In his case as well we will consider the establishment of clinic services in the larger centres. The officials of the provincial administrations, the State and the local authorities could co-operate on this. I have in mind nurses and certain kinds of assistants who could be included, and then the district surgeon who does only the essential work. The hon. member put forward certain suggestions, but I should like to inform the hon. member at once that I cannot agree with him completely. A doctor who has just finished his training at the hospital cannot, in any case, practise on his own. What experience can there be for him now unless he prefers to remain a general practitioner for the rest of his life. The present system of training does not lend itself to that. In the second place it is an impossible task to let a person specialize in a certain direction, and then bring him back to the rural areas. They simply do not come back. They can specialize today without ever going to the rural areas and without ever becoming a district surgeon or a private practitioner. Therefore I do not know whether it will work. The hon. member referred to a panel of doctors, a “doctors’ bank”. In this regard as well we do not know whether it will work. If one has so few doctors that one cannot produce one from anywhere for these services, I really do not know whether a panel such as this will be available anywhere. I think we could take into account that the hon. member is one of the persons who represent an area here in which there is real need. We shall therefore do our best, with the services we are envisaging, to take that area into account.

The hon. member for Springs put a question to me arising out of a remark which was made by the hon. member for Salt River, viz. the question of second-class doctors. This question is at present the subject of a polemic among some doctors, both here and abroad. However, I think that the majority of the medical profession in our country is opposed to this. The nursing profession, through its mouthpiece Prof. Searle, who wrote a very good article in the Medical Journal, is dead against it. There are conditions overseas which led to their having had to train certain people, but I do not know whether one could call them second-class doctors. There is such a movement afoot in the United States. I just want to mention to you that our department is not in favour of second-class doctors. That is our policy. Our policy is to concentrate on thorough medical and nursing services. The paramedical services for which we are training people, do in fact require a lower standard of those people, but at the same time a standard to which a certain achievement is attached.

The training takes place according to a certain curriculum. Under his professional council such a person is afforded the opportunity of acquiring a training. In other words, we have control throughout. Our medical services in South Africa accomplished great things in the past. We had an exceptionally good name; why should we throw that name away? I am very certain that in the Bantu homelands, with the help of the people I have mentioned, we shall succeed in this difficult task. Personally I have never yet received any such request, nor have I made any comment on this, but since the hon. member asked me about this, this is my reply.

As far as the international nursing conference is concerned, the hon. member for Springs mentioned how well our nurses conducted themselves there when an effort was made to kick South Africa out. I just want to add my tribute to his. I think that they acted commendably. Prof. Searle herself was there, as well as other persons including representatives of the Department of Health, the Department of Foreign Affairs and others. Eventually that attempt was unsuccessful.

I think that we have already, by correspondence, replied to the question of pesticides. If there is anything further which hon. members want to know about this, I could just say that we passed an Act this year, the Hazardous Substances Act. We accept that statistics will in due course have to be made available. In addition stricter action will have to be taken with regard to the use of these noxious substances, of these pesticides.

I wonder whether I could not just reply to a request addressed to me by the hon. member for Maitland. He asked what we are doing at present in respect of psychiatric services at Valkenberg. The following changes to Valkenberg hospital will be effected during the next 2½ years: An amount of R220 000 will be spent on training centres for nursing staff, and on wards for 60 White psychiatric patients—these are for elderly people; and I am not looking at the hon. member for South Coast because I think he is an old elderly person; an amount of R564 000 will be spent on additional wards for 272 Coloureds and on an out-patients ward. It will be possible to complete these two works within a year. An amount of R2 330 000 will be spent on the reconstruction of accommodation—three wards—for 150 White patients and on the construction of a new admission ward for 60 White patients and on an occupational therapy complex for Whites. These will take 2½ years to complete, for, as you could hear for yourselves, it is an immense task. An amount of R600 000 will be spent on the construction of a new storeroom and workshop. In addition the Department of Public Works has agreed that we should also construct a maximum security ward, something which has been needed there for many years, as soon as possible. In this connection I cannot mention any fixed amount to you, Sir, but I assume that it will be in the region of R400 000. Therefore it is a question of slightly more than R4 million which will be spent there during the next few years.

The hon. member for Benoni gave an interesting lecture on asbestosis. I have been wanting to ask him who wrote the speech, for he must certainly have had a little help —it is indeed a very difficult subject—unless he is of course an expert on the subject. As far as asbestosis is concerned, I must inform him that I am not altogether conversant with this matter, because it does not really fall directly under my department. Asbestosis is in fact covered by the Occupational Diseases in Mines and Works Bill, a Bill which will soon reach the Second Reading Stage. Regular research on asbestosis is being undertaken by the National Institute for Occupational Diseases, which is in fact indirectly linked to my department through the South African Medical Research Council. In any case, since my department is concerned with the general health of the population, we are very concerned about the effect of all this mesothelioma, which I do know something about. I came across such cases in my practice. We are aware of these dangers, and the hon. member need not be concerned that we are not giving attention to this matter.

The hon. member for Kempton Park praised private practitioners and put forward a special plea that we should help people to find enough animals for the manufacture of vaccines. One does not always appreciate what a life-saver a vaccine sometimes is. Since the hon. member praised the horse which has, in the course of history already been accorded so much praise, even at the present day, I want to associate myself with the general appeal of the hon. member in this regard.

The hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central put forward a plea for the rehabilitation of people who are handicapped, sometimes slightly and sometimes more seriously. It is true that medical attention is necessary here. Sometimes orthopedic attention, and sometimes even psychiatric attention is required. However, my department is only concerned in this as far as medical assistance is concerned. It is a matter which falls under the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions, with the assistance of the Department of Labour and a multi-disciplinary team, which then assists these people. However, by way of amplification, I must mention to him that it is not only in the Cape Peninsula that one finds institutions where provision is being made for these people. In the Transvaal, as well as in Durban, there are quite a number of these institutions. I visited some of them when I was Deputy Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions.

I think I have replied to most of the questions put to me by hon. members. I should like to thank very cordially all of them who made a contribution to this debate. I think this debate was conducted in an exceptionally good spirit, and contributions were made which were indicative of originality and which in more than one respect caused me to see matters in a new light. The times we are going through at present is an era in which there is an expanding tendency as far as the functions of the Department of Health is concerned. Our work is increasing all the time, because man through his endeavours and his technical skill is creating more and more problems for himself. We cannot, as was the case 40 to 50 years ago, concentrate only on certain diseases. Our problems and our functions are increasing all the time. We have to deal with pollution, about which hon. members said very little, but about which we have recently been hearing a great deal and reading a great deal in the newspapers. We are dealing with dangerous substances and with the pollution of water, the atmosphere and the soil. We are dealing with occupational diseases which are increasing as a result of industrial expansion. In other words, environmental factors are becoming increasingly important to us. My department will, as far as human health is concerned, become more and more involved in this kind of service. Therefore my department also has an expanding function, and its other functions have to be viewed in perspective. Next year, for example, because some of our laws have become anachronistic, we want to revise the Medical, Dental and Pharmacy Act. This Act is already 45 years old, and we now want to divide that Act into three different acts. There will be a Medical and Dental Act, a Pharmacy Act, and also a separate act for drugs, for drugs require increasing control. The prices of drugs, the use and the excessive use, etc., has to be controlled. We feel that we should adapt our laws in a specialized way to the demands of modern times.

Then there remain all the tasks which we will still have to cope with as a service department. In addition there is international co-operation in the field of research, to which attention will have to be given. I want to point out that although we are now out of the World Health Organization, we have in recent years had regular contact with this organization owing to the fact that, in the case of diseases such as malaria, we are among those countries which have made most progress with research. These people are therefore able to make use of our knowledge for the welfare of all mankind, including Africa. In that respect, and in other spheres as well, there is good co-operation. We still have to take into consideration the position of tuberculosis, and we also have to devote our attention to many other diseases. We have to act in respect of family planning. This is another of the problems which have arisen as a result of our population increase. We must act as a watchdog in respect of the hygiene of our people. Perhaps hon. members have gradually come to realize this as we debated these matters.

I want to conclude by saying that my department wishes to reorganize itself and to adjust to changing demands and changing times. We are intensely involved in this and we are working on it. Re-organization is taking place, and there is better co-operation with other levels of government which have stated themselves to be prepared to co-operate with us. I am pleased to be able to say that we are making progress on that basis. We also have to see to our manpower position. It is extremely important that we do not harness our manpower incorrectly. Eventually we must render the best medical care to the greatest possible number of people at the lowest prices. How we are going to do this is one of our major problems. For that reason I appointed a commission of inquiry last year with instructions to investigate the high cost of private hospitals. At the same time we are ensuring that other costs do not rise in such a way that we will subsequently not be able to control them.

Votes agreed to.

Revenue Vote No. 44, Loan Vote G and S.W.A. Vote No. 26.—“Coloured Relations and Rehoboth Affairs”:

Mr. Chairman, may I please have the privilege of the half-hour? Before I come to the actual contribution I want to make, I should like to tell the hon. the Minister that I am somewhat disappointed—and I think many members on this side are also disappointed—at the fact that his department’s report was only placed on our desks today. It is a comprehensive matter which we are going to discuss here in the next few hours at our disposal, and I think it would be a pity if hon. members are not up to date with the latest developments in the departments and administrations that fall under the hon. the Minister. For that reason I regret that we have only now received the hon. the Minister’s report. I hope that next time, before his Vote comes up for discussion, we shall be given ample time to enable us to look through the report.

Sir, the hon. the Minister was previously Deputy Minister of Coloured Relations, and now that he is in full control of this department, we on this side want to congratulate him on the honour that has befallen him and immediately express the hope that during his term as Minister, exceptionally good relations between the Whites and the Coloureds in this country will be built up. Over and above the handling of the administrative side of his department, it is surely his biggest task to ensure that there are good relations between Whites and Coloureds. In this connection today I want to extend this compliment to the department, i.e. that I think that it has thus far gone out of its way to cultivate good relations between the White and Coloured group. In other words, they approach their task as officials in a spirit of tolerance, and I also believe that they approach their task in a spirit of sincerity towards the Coloured community of this country. If, during his term of office, the hon. the Minister continues to let that feeling filter through, he cannot but receive praise from this side of the House; because, Sir, it is very clear to us that the Coloured community of this country is no longer prepared to accept a second-class form of citizenship. That is no longer their fate; they are on their way, as I see it, to much more responsible citizenship. An erstwhile Administrator of the Cape said at one stage that we should realize that the Coloureds are not lepers; that we can co-operate with them; that they have feelings just as we do and that if there is discrimination on the basis of colour, the Coloureds perhaps feel this more than any other group.

Sir, we on this side shall concentrate chiefly on two aspects. The first is the question of whether we accept the best that the Coloured population has to offer South Africa, and the second question is how they are progressing towards more responsible citizenship and what can be done to extend that responsible citizenship even further. Sir, I now come to the first question, i.e. whether we draw out the best that the Coloured population can offer. In the past, as a result of illegitimate births, drunkenness, absenteeism on the part of certain Coloureds, the average man gained the impression that the Coloureds are not really able to get very far. I think this impression was ascribable to a number of factors. The first factor was that the Coloureds, like a large group of Whites in South Africa years ago, were regarded as the working class, as people who chiefly had a rural background and who did not have a high degree of schooling. But I think that the facts are in complete conflict with general opinion. The facts of the matter indicate that in the very recent past, amongst the Coloureds, an outstanding leadership class or an elite has begun to develop. More and more Coloured children are at school. So today we find more than 500 000 of them at school. More and more of them must do responsible work. More and more of them find themselves in the professional classes today. The Coloureds have, therefore, already proved that it is possible for them to rise above the low standard which was maintained by them for, say, 30 or 40 years. The point now is that the overall majority of the Coloured population are today still living in the most penurious of circumstances, and unfortunately there is not yet sufficient proof that the overall majority of them are playing a greater role in the economy of the country and that they can play a greater and more profitable role in this respect. Here today I do not want to place the blame on the Coloured population. I think it is here a question of the situation being comparable with the early thirties and the late twenties, when we encountered a poor White question and when it was necessary for us to commence with a great upliftment programme. Likewise it is very clear that we shall have to increase considerably our upliftment programme amongst the Coloured population group with a view to being able to make much better use of these people in our economic life. The greater and better the educational and upliftment programme is, the more shall we witness the disappearance of the prejudice, which may still exist amongst the Whites. I am saying that exactly what was done in the case of the Whites 30 or 40 years ago on an extended scale, will have to be done amongst these people on a greater and more extended scale. The facts of the matter are that there are still too many Coloured children who attend school up to Std. 2 or Std. 3 and who are compelled, because of circumstances, to relinquish their schooling. As a result of socio-economic conditions, as a result of the fact that there is perhaps a lack of motivation on the part of the parents, or that the home circumstances are not conducive, those boys and girls are forced to leave school. It may perhaps be that a large percentage of them would not have got far either. Their drop-out rate is too great and more will undoubtedly have to be done to see whether we cannot reduce this drop-out rate amongst the Coloured children. For that reason I am saying that I believe that at this stage we are still not extracting the best from the potential which the Coloured population offers us. I want to say that we are proud of the fact that progress has, in fact, been made. One sees it everywhere one goes. One sees it in the number of cars that many Coloureds have today. One sees it in the neat houses the Coloureds have built or purchased for themselves and one sees it increasingly in the clothes they wear. They have not only become more and more Westernized, but there is a larger sophisticated class developing in their ranks. The difference, the gap between this sophisticated class and the less well-to-do individuals, is unfortunately too great. I think that under these circumstances it will increasingly become our task to ensure that that gap, between the less well-to-do Coloureds and the sophisticated, elite, developed class, those who have a high standard of living and who to a larger extent associate themselves with Western civilization and are an example of that civilization, will have to be narrowed. We must see whether we cannot bring the lower income group up to a higher standard. I am convinced of the fact—hon. members on this side will also furnish proof of that—that there are many spheres in which we have not yet progressed far enough and have not yet got the best out of the Coloureds.

I want to cross over to the next point and ask how we are progressing with them along that road towards responsible citizenship. It is perhaps necessary for one just to take a brief look at the background against which we have made progress in this respect. Thus it can be said that historically, in the cultural and economic spheres, the paths of the Coloureds and Whites run very close together. This situation has given rise to the fact that the Whites’ approach to the Coloureds has traditionally been distinguishable from its approach to the other non-White groups. Towards the Coloureds we have always had an approach that has differed from our approach to the other non-White groups. Bonds of friendship and goodwill have consequently, in the majority of cases, also been more strongly cemented between the Whites and the Coloureds than between the Coloureds and the other non-White race groups. Apart from the difference in colour, the Whites have always been able to get through to the Coloureds more easily as well. This has been so because of the strong similarities between them and us in the spheres of language, tradition and culture. On the part of the Coloureds there has also been a greater willingness to accept the dominant, systematic approach of the Whites. This relationship between Whites and Coloureds has frequently created the impression of a so-called fatherliness or paternalism. For generations this relationship continued undisturbed. However, particularly since the Second World War this state of affairs has changed drastically, and the Coloureds are no longer prepared to accept the leadership of the Whites in all respects. They are now revealing to a greater extent that they want to do things with the Whites.

Through the Coloured Persons Representative Council, in the first place, this Government has given them the opportunity of looking after their own affairs. We on this side do not object to that fact. It is also our approach that each race group should handle its own affairs as far as possible. It does not want unnecessary interference on the part of other race groups in those matters which it is intimately acquainted with. It is not our wish that this should happen either. That is why we say that the United Party will give them a chance to realize their citizenship by way of their Coloured Persons Representative Council. It can still be taken much further. In future that council could be composed solely of elected members without there being any nominated members. That is what the United Party would like to see. We should like to see further powers being granted to that council.

How many councils do you want?

We should like to see the Coloured Persons Representative Council being empowered to levy taxes. We would have no objection to its obtaining those powers. Our view is that under our federal development the possibility of two Coloured Persons Representative Councils arises. The one would be composed of representatives from the Western Cape and the other would be composed of representatives from the northern parts of the Cape and the other provinces. If hon. members on the opposite side of the House do not want it like that, that is their affair, but the important point is that it would be a Coloured Persons Council which would give those people the opportunity to realize greater and more responsible citizenship. The contrast and difference between the approach of those hon. members and our approach is that they see in the Coloured Persons Representative Council, the creation of an individual, separate Parliament. The United Party cannot see the Coloured Persons Representative Council as a full-fledged Parliament in the sense that this Parliament, for example, is a full-fledged one. It is simply impossible to have that situation. Hon. members on that side of the House can, for example, take a look at the view of a person like Mr. Willem van Heerden, who is the chairman of the board of directors of Rapport. On 17th March, 1972, he said (translation)—

In other words, this political thinker also envisages the possibility of two separate Parliaments, in the true sense of the word, existing in the same territory in South Africa and that those two Parliaments can exist as two sovereign Parliaments. He also appreciates that there should be closer liaison between the two. This side of the House goes even further with its approach, and we say that standing consultative committees must be created between that Coloured Persons Representative Council and this Parliament. There matters can be discussed jointly. I do not think that hon. members on that side of the House would regard this as such an erroneous idea either. It has struck me that the Cape leader of the Nationalist Party, Mr. P. W. Botha, said last year in his New Years’ message that he has never objected to the fact that liaison will come in the form of such a standing committee. Steps will therefore have to be taken for the further promotion of the responsible citizenship of the Coloureds, and in this respect it will have to be done in conjunction with the Whites.

In our federal plan we see the Coloured Persons Representative Council as an opportunity for us to join them in discussing and planning matters of common interest.

Business suspended at 6.30 p.m. and resumed at 8.05 p.m.

Mr. Chairman, before the adjournment for dinner I mentioned the fact that we on this side of the House think that the Coloureds are progressing along the road towards responsible citizenship. I think it would be a good thing if the hon. the Minister—and this is the point I should like to make—could present to us what the Government’s plans are for making the Coloured Persons Representative Council a fully elected council, whether he is thinking in terms of additional powers that he wants to grant them and also what his view is in connection with the liaison between Parliament and these people themselves. At the moment the liaison chiefly takes place by way of the Coloured Council’s Executive Committee and the Cabinet. The ordinary members of this House play no role in the negotiations and the consultations that take place between the Government and the Executive Committee.

I think an ordinary member of this House is only able to furnish a contribution, when it comes to consultations with these people, and to give them further guidance and direction. I recently read a book that is composed of papers delivered at this “Workshop” that was held here in Cape Town quite a while ago in connection with certain aspects of Coloured policy. In one of those papers there is an excellent summary of the contribution made by the Coloureds during the past three sessions of the Coloured Persons Representative Council. Although criticism was expressed about the contributions of a large portion of the representatives in that council, there was also a great deal of praise for the major portion of the members in that council. That is why I am saying that in that Coloured Persons Representative Council it is not necessary, either, for the liaison to take place solely between the Executive Committee and the Cabinet. They, too, as ordinary members ought to be able to form as good a link with this Parliament. We on this side would like to hear what the attitude of the Government and the hon. the Minister is in connection with this matter. Last year the hon. the Minister made a speech which was quoted in Die Burger of 18th January, 1972. The heading of the report was “Time not yet ripe for Coloureds to obtain South African citizenship”.

The hon. the Minister did not propose that they would obtain citizenship; he simply said that the time was not yet ripe. If the time was not ripe at that stage, one would at least like to see the hon. the Minister more or less fixing upon some date in the future when he thinks it would be possible for them, as we put it, to obtain more responsible citizenship. A previous Prime Minister said, at one stage, that within ten years the Coloureds would be able to accept more responsibility and would virtually be able to control their own administration of Coloured affairs. That ten-year period was already up two years ago and questions are now being asked by these people. There is a degree of restlessness amongst responsible Coloured leaders because they would like to do more for their own people and therefore want greater responsibility. I am raising these matters because I think the time has come for us to give that greater responsibility to those people and that we can indicate that we are prepared to accept that greater responsibility from them. With this I want to conclude in the hope that the hon. the Minister will also give us replies to these matters in this debate.

Mr. Chairman, in initiating the discussion of the subject of the development and advancement of the Coloured population the hon. member for Newton Park covered a fairly wide field. I have no fault to find with many of the ideas he expressed. However, when it comes to the United Party’s political recipe, of course, he immediately falls into the race federation theme which has actually been rejected by their own people. So there is no need for me to deal with that. I want to point out that as far as the question of the development of the Coloured population is concerned, I agree with many of the things he said, and, furthermore, that the hon. the Minister and the department responsible not only for Coloured relations, but also for the administration of the various facets of Coloured activities, are in fact engaged in this major task of development. The hon. member referred to Coloured leadership, a Coloured élite, that has developed over the past years. These are people to whom he gives recognition and to whom he expresses appreciation. I should like to point out that they are the fruit, the result, of this very policy of separate development.

It was very difficult for any ambitious or able Coloured person to develop or reveal his talents and his ability to any real effect under the old dispensation. Today, after the establishment of group areas, there is ample opportunity for the Coloured businessmen, some of whom also serve on the Coloured Representative Council, to realize themselves fully and to become prosperous people, as some of them already are. At the time when, they still had to live chiefly in the so-called locations and backstreets in the poorer parts of the city, there was very little opportunity for them. We could elaborate on this matter a great deal, but the fact remains, whether we are speaking of the political leadership which some of them are able to provide today, or development in the field of business, or in the field of education, that it is the policy of separate development which forms the basis of these things. The hon. member for Newton Park could profitably associate himself with these ideas and, on the basis of this idea, go ahead with his development plans.

Before expressing a few ideas on the task of the development of the Coloured population, I first want to make a few general statements. I want to point out that one cannot make someone a present of development and progress; that one cannot hand out progress and success to someone else; and that one cannot imprint civilization on someone else. This also holds true of the development of peoples. One cannot make a particular people a present of development, progress, prosperity or civilization, not with the best will and the largest sums of money in the world. These are things which must be achieved on the road of painstaking labour, plain hard work of the intellect, the heart and the hand. That is why, when we have a dialogue on the Coloured population, and are often concerned about conditions which are still totally undesirable, we should not envisage a short cut as far as the development of the Coloured population is concerned. Then we must take the fact into account that we do not, in the first instance, have the money we should perhaps like to spend in one year. But in addition we should remember that their development, progress and prosperity, whether on constitutional level, in the business world, in the social sphere or on educational level, will have to be achieved by these people themselves. I should like to emphasize that.

In the light of this I should like to mention a few things which we on our part could do for the Coloureds to assist their development and then, on the other hand, a few things which they will have to do for themselves if they want to progress. In the first instance I want to mention that in the course of years we shall have to make more land available to the Coloured population for settlement purposes. It is undeniably so that we do not envisage a homeland, a separate fatherland for the Coloureds.

What does Andries say?

But I think that we could do a great deal by making it possible for the Coloured to acquire property for himself in certain areas set aside as Coloured territory. The present position is that Coloured reserves exist in which land is in the hands of the Coloured population in accordance with a system of communal ownership. I do not want to discuss that, and I have no fault to find with it, although we know that there are certain shortcomings in the system. But if we consider the town and urban population and particularly the population increase in the Peninsula, I think that a real need exists. When I think about this, I also have in mind land for recreation areas for the Coloured population. Often I see Coloured families along the roads, obviously decent people, who probably also want to get away from the city with its hustle and bustle and confined spaces, and then go for outings which they have alongside the roads. I think that many of them do not really know where they could go over a weekend or of a place where they could go for some relaxation or to have a holiday. Now I am pleased to learn that the Government has in mind the appropriation of a generous amount, through the Department of Planning, for the development of a large seaside complex along the West Coast at Silwerstroom for the Coloured population, which, to the urban population in particular, will be a major accommodation. Therefore, when I talk about more land for Coloured settlement, I have in mind more living space where the Coloured population may settle on the basis of property ownership.

Unfortunately I do not have the time to elaborate on this any further, but I should like to mention a few things which I think the Coloured population should do for itself. When we talk about Coloured education, we should remember that the Government and the departments concerned can make certain facilities and opportunities available; but when we come to the standards of Coloured education, the matter of obtaining university degrees which will equip members of the Coloured population to teach high school pupils as full-fledged, qualified teachers, then that is the task for the Coloured population itself. Then they should utilize to the full the university facilities which already exist. Then they should not be satisfied with inferior qualifications. Then the Coloured teacher must strive to obtain the best qualifications possible. Then the Coloured child must set himself ideals, and strive to equip himself as well as possible. There are opportunities, Sir. Today there are many opportunities in our business world. You can go and have a look at any large factory, for example in Epping, and you will see, Sir, that Coloureds are employed not only in the workshops, but also in offices and everywhere. Therefore opportunities do exist for many responsible people.

Sir, this also applies to the cultivation of a sound community feeling. This is something we cannot do for the Coloured population. We can help them, but they must undertake that task themselves in regard to their own people. That is why, when we see how filthy some of the Coloured areas are, and how papers, plastic bags, tins, containers, bottles, etc., are strewn around, we realize that it is impossible for the city authorities to perform that task for the Coloured population. They will simply have to do the job themselves. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member who has just sat down made certain pleas, very few of which I disagree with. I will concede to the hon. member that whenever he speaks in this House on the Coloured issue, he is at least very sincere in what he has to say, and that is a rarity on that side of the House. [Interjections.] Sir, he pleaded for more ground for the Coloureds, and I agree entirely with him in that regard as well, but he did surprise me in that he did not mention one of his pet theories, namely a homeland for the Coloured community. However, since we see the solutions as regards the Colourds from a slightly different angle in that respect, I should like to move on to other aspects.

The political issues have already been dealt with by the hon. member for Newton Park. I do not wish to deal with those, but I would like to say to the hon. member who has just sat down that none of the political policies of the Government or of this side of the House will be possible to implement if we lose the goodwill of the Coloured community. I would suggest to the hon. the Prime Minister, whom I am very pleased to see here, that if we have not lost this goodwill up to now we are very close to losing the goodwill of the Coloured community, and if we should lose the goodwill of the Coloured community, no political solutions offered by any of the existing political parties in this country will be acceptable to the Coloured community.

No thanks to you …

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Prime Minister says “no thanks to you”, but his party has just celebrated 25 years in government, and I would say that it is certainly no thanks to them. Most of the problems that have arisen in the Coloured community have in fact occurred during the last 25 years. Sir, I should like to highlight some of these problems. I have in the past, at every opportunity, raised the plight of the Coloured community in regard to their townships and in regard to their housing. I have raised these questions at every opportunity because I believe that this is the most serous aspect which can affect the losing of the goodwill of the Coloured community. I should like first of all to point out to the Minister and to the House that we are now approaching the end of a parliamentary session, and to my knowledge this is the first time this session that matters and problems affecting the Coloured people have been discussed. When they have been discussed, they have been raised by members on this side of the House. The situation to my mind is serious, but although we discuss everything under the sun in this House, I believe the last time the Coloured community was discussed here was exactly 12 months ago today. Two million people in South Africa surely deserve better of the White Parliament of South Africa, which controls their destinies to such an extent and which has shackled them to such an extent. It is obvious that if we are going to gain the goodwill of the Coloured community, we shall have to put right immediately some of the hardships under which they are suffering at present. If one reviews the progress we have made in the last 12 months, in other words, the progress this department and this Government have made, one realizes immediately that the housing position for Coloureds all over South Africa is worse than it was 12 months ago. One will realize that too many local authorities are taking a leaf out of the Government’s book by not paying the sort of attention to this problem that they should do. I know that in my own city of Durban they have estimated that 25% of the Coloured community can build their own homes, but if they went into the facts as they should have done, they would have realized that this figure should not be any higher than 24½% This is not only the fault of the city of Durban; it happens in Cape Town, too, where they are not building enough houses to cater for the increase in the population; it happens in Johannesburg, and it happens all over South Africa.

Nonsense!

I wish that hon. member who says “Nonsense!” understood something about this situation. Sir, the population is growing to such an extent that we are not building nearly enough houses to cater for this increase, but in the meantime we have moved over 400 000 Coloured people, with something like 200 000 still to be moved. I would suggest to the hon. the Minister for Coloured Affairs that if he wants to try to restore some of the goodwill between the Coloured people and the Whites, he should insist that not a single further Coloured family be moved by the Department of Community Development until it has housed those families who need housing at present. Sir, why should we have to report to this House that a mother of children has burnt herself to death because she has waited ten years for a house …

That is an isolated case.

Sir, that hon. member who says that it is an isolated case no doubt read the other day, as I did, that there is a family of Coloureds in Johannesburg living in a cave. I suppose that is an isolated case. Is the fact that a third of the Coloured population in Cape Town is unhoused also an isolated case? Sir, when a third of the Coloured population is unhoused, it means that something like 100 000 people in the Cape Town area are not suitably housed, but to that hon. member the fact that 100 000 Coloured people are not suitably housed is an isolated case. Sir, I would say to hon. members opposite, and particularly to that hon. member who makes these insane remarks, that he should go out and speak to the Coloured people, if he has the nerve to do so, because he will soon find that their attitude towards the Government and towards White people generally—because they blame everybody for this—has in fact reached the lowest ebb that it has ever reached in the 300 years of our history. Mr. Chairman, within the last couple of days we have read in the newspapers about Coloured families near Simonstown who are going to be evicted. They have been evicted once already and are now going to be evicted because their earnings are higher than the permissible income limit. Sir, I want to ask this Committee and the hon. the Prime Minister what would happen if this regulation—this instance of audacity and hardship—was applied to the White people of South Africa. They would treat the people who made this regulation with the contempt that they deserve. Mr. Chairman, the facilities in the Coloured areas have not improved in the last 12 months; in fact, they have deteriorated, and in my own city of Durban, despite the fact that the Minister, who was then the Deputy Minister, visited the area, we still have a transit camp, which was supposedly established for three weeks but which has been there for 14 years. Let the hon. member who has been making these interjections, but who has since left the Chamber, tell those Coloured people that they should be happy under the régime of this Nationalist Government.

In the time left to me I want to go back to the question of the Coloured Development Corporation. Sir, if one studies the two reports which they have issued, one sees that they have assisted financially no fewer than 37 liquor licences, mainly in the Cape Peninsula, and that they have spent over R1 million in doing this. In fact, as far as I can see, this amount which they paid for liquor licences is the second highest amount that they have paid for any Coloured business, yet crime is increasing in the Coloured townships; drunks are a common sight in the streets, and in these townships one hears cries of despair which all fall on deaf ears. The leaders of the Coloured community have pleaded that no further liquor licences should be given to members of the Coloured community, but the hon. the Minister allows the Coloured Development Corporation to continue to hand out liquor licences, despite the fact that 52,3% of all Coloureds convicted of crime are convicted of crimes committed whilst they were under the influence of liquor. Sir, I would suggest that this is a disgrace not only to the Coloured Development Corporation, who by and large do a good job, but that it is a disgrace to the Department of Coloured Affairs that allows this to happen. Every person in Cape Town can see the evidence of drunkenness in our streets and of mounting crime, but hon. members opposite have one consolation and that is that they do not live in the Coloured townships, where the decent Coloureds despair of this attitude and are frightened to leave their homes at night for fear of being assaulted. Sir, I would like to appeal to the hon. the Minister, who has shown just flashes of compassion in the past, to put his foot down in this case and to insist that no further liquor licences be given to the Coloured community. If he does so, he will merely be carrying out the wishes of the Coloured leaders themselves, who deplore the granting of liquor licences to members of their community. [Time expired.]

Sir, if we have ever had a demonstration of what has been achieved by the National Party after 25 years in power, then we have just had it here, in the sense that we have reached the situation that the Coloured is no longer represented in this House and that his spokesman here is no longer the type of member who has spoken here tonight about the situation of the Coloured and who simply sows bitterness and claims in the same process that it is the deeds of this Government which have supposedly destroyed all goodwill between White and Coloured. I think that we have come to the end of an era, in which members such as the hon. member for Port Natal, who by no means holds a brief for the Coloured, have tried to pass themselves off as holding a brief for the Coloured community.

He does not even know the Coloureds.

Sir, we stand here this evening after 25 years in power as a National Party which should not be judged by empty words, but which can decidedly be judged by its deeds. Sir, one asks oneself the question whether the Coloured today is better off than he was 25 years ago, because he can rightly claim that he is better off. Sir, it could only be an ignorant or a wilful person who would say that phenomenal progress has not been made by the Coloured in all spheres, progress to which one can barely do justice within the space of a 10 minute speech.

Sir, under the circumstances I want to dwell on an aspect of progress by the Coloureds in which this Government has decidedly played no part, and that is the progress they have made when it comes to the matter of numbers. I want to confine myself largely to the Cape Peninsula, because a good third of the Republic’s Coloured population is living in the Cape Peninsula and in Greater Cape Town today. Sir, during the period from the 1921 to the 1960 census, our White population in the Peninsula increased by 140%. In the same period, however, the Coloured population increased by 271%. But, Sir, let us come back to the years in which the National Party has been in power. The percentage increase of the Coloured population in South Africa as a whole, from 1951 to 1970, amounts to no less than 83%, in other words, virtually a twofold increase in the past 20 years. In the last 10 years, in other words from 1960 to 1970, the percentage increase in Greater Cape Town alone, if one takes it as extending as far as Worcester and Wellington, was 62%. But what is to us the most important figure, is that in the Wynberg magisterial district alone, which includes a major part of the Cape Flats, the Coloured population increased by 78% in this period from 1960 to 1970. In the course of this process of continual and accelerating increase in the Coloured population in the Cape Peninsula, the Government is obliged to continue building houses, clearing up slums, creating employment opportunities for the Coloureds and creating more living space for them. In the meantime the Cape metropolitan area has been attracting 3,23% per annum of the Coloureds from the immediately adjoining Boland areas. Besides this influx from the immediately adjoining Boland areas, the birth rate of the Coloured at this stage is close to the biological maximum. In consequence we have to build an ever-greater number of houses, we have to develop and stimulate an ever-greater number of industries in order to create employment opportunities, we must continue to push up costs in order to provide services, and the more services one creates, the more vicious this vicious circle becomes in which we find ourselves. To come back to my own situation, I want to tell you, Sir, that within the borders of my own constituency I have five full Coloured constituencies plus two halves. I want to say that every day of their lives my own people are faced with an over-concentration of Coloureds on the Cape Flats, because basically we form a buffer region between the Coloured residential areas and the White residential areas in the Peninsula. That is why we are unable to speak academically about this whole situation. We cannot consider these matters from an easy-chair, because every day of our lives we come into close contact with the reality of this situation. That is why I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister tonight to help us in the Peninsula to draw off this increasing over-concentration which we have on the Cape Flats in particular. We do not ask this in a spirit of hatred for the Coloured people. On the contrary, it is precisely because we should like the Coloureds to have the same living space as that which we claim for ourselves. We ask this for the very reason that we want to try to create new opportunities for the Coloureds, too. Only the establishment of industries at another place could check this tremendous influx to the Peninsula which is taking place at present, but then we should have to check that influx before the alternative area of Mitchell’s Plain has been taken up completely. The only possible alternative at present, is the Saldanha complex, but significant industrial development will first have to take place in that area. Lately there has been much controversy: Should Iscor process its iron ore at Sishen or at Saldanha? Seen against the background I have sketched for you tonight, Sir, we can have no doubt on this score. If we want to exercise any kind of significant control on the phenomenal influx of Coloureds to the Peninsula, we shall simply have to have that processing plant at Saldanha—not that this processing plant will be the solution to all our problems; it is the associated industries which will arise around this pre-processing which will save the situation. That is why we have no hesitation whatsoever in asking the hon. the Minister tonight for his support in opening up for us, through this action, a new and alternative source of labour in this area, so as to assist in relieving this serious situation which has arisen on the Cape Flats.

To conclude, I want to say in the same breath that there is probably a very large percentage of Coloureds among whom a great deal is still amiss as regards their approach to labour as such and among whom there is a total lack of proper family planning. A tremendous task of uplifting a large section of the working classes still needs to be done. It is problems such as these in the development and evolution of a people’s continued existence which will not be capable of solution simply by throwing open the doors of the Nico Malan Theatre or playing cricket with them. Only when the educated Coloured, together with the well-meaning White, is prepared to hold out a hand to that mass of Coloureds who do not as yet enjoy the same privileges and are not used to a better standard of living, shall we be able to succeed in uplifting them.

In the course of his speech this evening, the hon. member for Newton Park accentuated the socio-economic upliftment of the Coloured. With that we have no fault to find; we go along with that. This is precisely what has occupied this National Party for the past 25 years. But this evening the hon. member for Port Natal came along and wanted to create the impression in this House, and also to the outside world, that this party was neglecting the interests of the Coloured people and that the Coloured people found themselves in a sad position. I want to ask the question: Where was the hon. member 25 years ago? In actual fact, one wonders where he is at present. But 25 years ago the Coloureds here in Cape Town and in the surrounding areas found themselves in the most terrible conditions. When we think back tonight to the Windermeres, the Kensingtons, and the Acres, we must realize that those areas were cleared up during this Government’s term of office and that we have also made provision for our Coloureds’ needs for proper housing. When one listens to the Opposition when they speak of upliftment, one really wonders whether they are being sincere in this regard, for exactly a year ago, on 30th May last year, the hon. member for Maitland said in this House—

A year ago it was that party’s policy that Coloureds would be represented by Coloureds in this House and tonight they sit there quite piously and we may say the position is that they have taken over our basic policy with regard to the Coloureds. Last year the hon. member for Wynberg rose in this House and spoke contemptuously of the Coloured Persons’ Representative Council. She spoke of the growing frustration amongst these people. Tonight one feels inclined to ask: Where is she tonight? The hon. member for Bezuidenhout also spoke in this vein, and as far as he is concerned, I can also ask: “Where is he tonight?”

He is ill.

One can also put the question whether those two hon. members agree with the Opposition as far as the change in the Opposition’s policy is concerned. That is why the Prime Minister could say the following in this House on 25th April—

But tonight the Opposition has to reply to further questions. I think they have had sufficient time to think. They must tell us what other powers they will grant to the Legislative Assembly that we have not yet granted to that Legislative Assembly? But the Opposition must also come forward tonight—and I believe the Coloured population outside wants to know—and say how many Coloureds there will be in the federal council and what powers the few people there will have, and what matters will be discussed in that federal council. In contrast to these obscurities in the policy of the United Party which exist because they refuse to reply to these questions, there is, however, the very clear policy of this side of the House which they often laugh at. I refer to the policy of parallel development.

On the road to nowhere.

I refer to our policy in terms of which we say that these two groups will never grow into each other, but that the interests of each will be dealt with to the best of our ability. That is why we gave the Coloureds a Coloured Persons’ Representative Council. However, the hon. member for Newton Park wants to know from the hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs when it will ever be a fully elected council. Surely our hon. the Prime Minister gave the answer after the hon. the Leader of the Opposition had asked the same question when the Prime Minister said that it would be after the next election. After all, we have liaison machinery which, as the hon. Prime Minister said, works 100% in practice and which the Coloured Council prefers.

Let us leave the United Party at that. We on this side shall continue with this task of upliftment, we shall continue with this task of socio-economic upliftment because we regard it as priority No. 1 as far as the Coloured population is concerned.

Will they be able to go to the Nico Malan Theatre?

We have before us the annual report of the Department of Coloured Relations and Rehoboth Affairs. This is not a report containing nothing but statistics and figures, for behind these statistics and figures there is the hard work which has been done by Whites and Coloureds in order to achieve success in this socio-economic upliftment. Further proof of the honest attempt by this side of the House, is the appointment of the commission which is inquiring into the socio-economic and political life of the Coloured. This is not a commission which was appointed to lay down policy, as the Opposition often wants to suggest, but this is a commission to evaluate, to establish, the bottlenecks which exist and to remove those bottlenecks in co-operation with the Coloured Persons’ Representative Council. It is important that this should be done. I should like to quote what was written in Die Ligdraer, the monthly publication of the Dutch Reformed Mission Church (translation)—

This publication goes on to say—

With speeches such as that made by the hon. member for Port Natal here tonight, White and Brown will not and cannot find each other in this country.

Why not?

But we shall continue to make our contribution and to fulfil our task, and we shall enable the Coloured community and actively help them to make up the leeway and to eliminate the deficiences in their community. However, then the Coloured leaders, too, must come forward and make their contribution. For instance, we may call to mind what is already happening in the field of sports …

Ohhh!

That hon. member may groan until tomorrow morning, but it was this Government that enabled the Coloureds to select their own teams. It was during the term of office of this Government that a Coloured team played rugby against England at Athlone last year. I want to say tonight that something like that would never have been possible under this Opposition. If there are obstacles in the field of sports, such obstacles should not be laid at the door of this Government alone, they should be laid at the door of certain Coloured leaders, too, who want mixed sports, even at club level. However, we say that this will not and cannot happen. Such obstacles should then be laid at the door of those Coloured leaders who bar the way of the development of their people and who bar the way so as to render it impossible for the Coloureds to avail themselves of their privileges as they should.

What are they saying in Oudtshoom? Come on, let’s hear.

We have many Coloureds in Oudtshoom and they are very well looked after under this National Party. [Interjections.] We shall also make a contribution so that these two communities, White and Brown, may live together in peace and with mutual respect in this country. This is our desire and it can be done in this country of ours, provided that every one is prepared and willing to make a positive contribution. In the same way we expect of the Coloured from his side to make a contribution out of goodwill and through positive action. It is true that a people saves itself and builds itself. Tonight the hon. member for Newton Park tried to draw a parallel between the Whites in the ’thirties, when we had to deal with the poor White question, and the Coloureds. We know what happened in those years, but we also know that our leaders bent down to their people and that they were prepared to help to raise them up. That is why the task with regard to our Coloureds is not only a task for the Government, but also for the people. In other words, it is a task to which everyone of us must make an important contribution. It is most unfortunate that isolated cases of unpleasantness do occur at times. It is very unfortunate that someone like Adam Small should wrest some of these cases completely out of context and then run to the Press with letters. I believe that if we have a positive approach and if we are prepared to support and assist each other, we can indeed progress along this road of parallel development, of which we are proud.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Oudtshoom asked all kinds of questions about the policy of the United Party for the Coloureds. I think that the hon. member must ask himself or his Government where they want to go as far as the Coloureds are concerned.

Surely I have told you.

When the political future of South Africa’s two million Coloureds are at issue, one finds it particularly difficult to make the broad philosophy of the Nationalist Party applicable to this community. The logical and theoretical consequences of this whole concept of separate development would in practice mean that the Coloureds should have a separate homeland, a separate geographic state. What it would amount to is that there would have to be a separate state for the Coloured nation. This theoretical approach completely conflicts, in truth clashes, with the practical implications, because historically, geographically and ethnically the Coloureds are no more a separate nation than any White community in South Africa could be. If this community cannot fit into the broad philosophy of separate nation-states, it is, after all, the generally accepted Nationalist Party alternative that they should integrate with the Whites in South Africa. That is surely the philosophy of the “either or brigade” in South Africa—either segregation or integration. That is the approach of the Nationalist Party. [Interjections.] If the Government cannot segregate the Coloureds in South Africa politically and geographically it means, according to their own policy of either integration or segregation, that South Africa’s two million Coloureds must integrate with the so-called White South Africa.

What are you going to do, André?

If one approaches a matter in that light, there is immediate opposition as we are now encountering it from hon. members of the House. If an individual national-state and assimilation with the Whites are both unacceptable, what remains as the alternative. Perhaps this problem presents us with an opportunity to obtain clarity about certain aspects of terminology that are so easily confused in Afrikaans usage, for example, the concepts “nation” and “people”. Which of these concepts is applicable to the Coloured people? Do we speak of a Coloured nation or do we speak of a Coloured people? My opinion is that these concepts easily create confusion in Afrikaans usage. For the purpose of my argument I want to distinguish between “nasie” which is translated in English by “nation” and “volk” which is translated in English by “people”. We in the United Party accept the Coloureds as a separate people, “’n aparte volk”, but we accept the Coloureds as part of the South African nation. The Nationalist Party, on the other hand, argues that every nation is entitled to its own separate nation-state, and this is specifically where the whole philosophy of the Nationalist Party crumbles. Do the Coloureds, then, form a separate nation? No, the Coloureds form a separate community, a separate people with an individual identity, but they form a part of the South African nation-state. [Interjections.] It therefore follows that as a component of the whole, the Coloureds should be given the opportunity to enjoy full-fledged citizenship as a separate community and as a separate people in the framework of South African nation-state. This process will have to take place without integration and without discrimination. The United Party’s federation of South African peoples, approach “’n federasie van Suid-Afrikaanse volke” makes provision for this. Please note, we do not sneak of a “federation of South African nations”, we speak, in fact, of a “federation of South African peoples”. The partnership between the White people, Coloured people and other peoples within the framework of a common geographic nation-state, remains the only realistic approach. The loyalty and patriotism of two million Coloureds is conjoined with that of the Whites towards one joint South African nation-state. “Multi-nationalism” in the true sense of the word in respect of the Whites on the one hand and in respect of the Coloureds on the other, together within the one geographic area, would simply bring about conflict and discord in South Africa. Therefore clarity must be obtained, therefore some direction must be given, and that is why I believe in the approach of the United Party. The Whites, in terms of our policy, with their Legislative Assemblies, the Coloureds with their Legislative Assemblies and other peoples in South Africa with their Legislative Assemblies, must all be co-ordinated in a federal council which will develop evolutionarily under the guidance and the regulation of this present White Parliament. What does the Nationalist Party offer the Coloured people of South Africa? It offers them this White Parliament with a subservient appendage, i.e. a Coloured Parliament, which must go to meet the future under the supremacy of the Whites. There are people in the ranks of the Nationalist Party who want the logical and theoretical consequences assimilated with everyday practice. The hon. member for Waterberg, the hon. member for Rissik and the hon. the Minister of the Interior are all adherents of the idea of a separate nation-state, a Colouredstan for South Africa’s Coloureds. The hon. member for Piketberg, who spoke this evening, suddenly grew very quiet about the senate plan he spoke so much about in the newspapers. Why does he not come to the fore now? I want to tell him that he and the rest of the Nationalist Party will have to accept the United Party’s principle, i.e. that the Coloureds are a component—one of the peoples—of the whole of South African nation-state. Constitutionally provision will have to be made for these people in the framework of a federation of South African peoples.

What is your Bushman policy? [Interjections.]

When the question of the relations between Whites and Coloureds are at issue, one finds confusion in the ranks of the Nationalist Party. One then finds that the ideological theories that are applicable to the homeland Bantu with ethnic and tribal ties cannot as easily be applied to the Coloureds of South Africa. Then one wants to know where the Government is heading, and that is the question the hon. member for Oudtshoorn would do well to answer. This question cannot be evaded. I want to tell you that this is beginning to make the Afrikaners in South Africa uneasy at heart. The Coloureds speak the language of the Afrikaner; the Coloureds are helping to develop the Afrikaner’s culture; and the Coloureds are part of Afrikaans history. No one in this House or outside this House can deny the Coloureds their place as a component, as one of the peoples, one of the parts, of the whole South African nation-state that we have in this country. The White people, and particularly the Afrikaner people, have had close ties with the Coloureds for many years, and those ties are in the process of crumbling under this Nationalist Party’s rule. There are very interesting remarks about this which I do not have the time to quote. Hon. members would do well to look at Sunday’s Rapport and read what the hon. member for Moorreesburg says about the Coloureds. I regret that I do not have the time to quote this here this evening.

Mr. Chairman, I listened with much approval to the major part of the speech by the hon. member for Newton Park tonight. I made a mental note of the fact that we have made a great deal of progress, for I perceived a wide interest in the Coloureds in his speech, which we never heard from that side of the House in the past. When we read Hansard of the early fifties, we find there the bitter debates conducted from that side of the House on the Coloured vote. Where are the days when the Coloureds meant nothing more to the United Party than people whom they went to fetch in the shiniest cars on election days so that they might fulfil his function at the polls by voting against the National Party, whereupon they took the Coloureds back home again? Then it was all in order for them to go back to their misery and their shanties for the next five years, whereupon they were again fetched to fulfil the function. Those were the days when they, as far as the education of the Coloured people was concerned, showed no more interest than to take them by the hand to help them sign their names so that they could be placed on the voters’ roll. When I listen to the speeches from the opposite side now, it seems to me those days are over. That is why it is possible for me to make a mental note of the fact that we are glad that we are entering a new era and getting a new approach to the Coloured people, also from the opposite side of this House. If the hon. member for Turffontein, who spoke before me, wants to accuse us of having taken over the United Party’s Coloured policy, he should really take another look at the situation.

I did not say so.

When one looks at the position now and one also looks at their federal policy, I want to point out to him in the first place that the question of a common voters’ roll was something for which the United Party put up a last ditch stand. The present position is accepted by the United Party today. Surely it is not we who have taken over their policies; surely the shoe is on the other foot.

What did Dr. Verwoerd promise the Coloureds?

We are not concerned with Dr. Verwoerd now, but with the situation as it is at present. When Dr. Verwoerd was alive, the situation was different. He could handle it then, another Prime Minister is handling it now.

In the few minutes I still have at my disposal, I want to touch on another matter. If we believe that it is the primary objective of the Department of Coloured Affairs to develop, uplift and strive for the welfare of the Coloured population, there is a matter which I should like to bring to the attention of this Committee tonight and to the attention of everyone who has the welfare of the Coloured people at heart. I refer to the uncontrolled and unplanned influx of Coloureds from the rural areas to the cities. It has assumed such immense proportions that we may speak of a national migration in miniature. When a people migrates on a vast scale, things happen that really hurt many of those who migrate. When one takes a closer look at the position, it seems as though the rural Coloureds are attracted by the bright lights of the cities, as though these hold an irresistible attraction for them, and that they think to themselves, “If we could just get there, we shall be happy.” And from the distant rural areas the Coloureds in the city are envied and those Coloureds also want to come here.

In the second place we can now appreciate that the Coloured, who is above all a social being, wants to be where large groups of people are concentrated. Of course, in the process of migration, he also derives satisfaction from being amongst many of his own people. The real reason probably is to make a better living in the city than that which is offered to him in rural areas. It is true that the possibilities of employment are greater in the cities than in the rural areas and salaries and wages are also higher than in the rural areas. But in this process the free housing, the fuel and—I have no hesitation in mentioning this—the free meat, which form part of his wage, are forgotten while in the city everything must be bought at very great expense. But for many of them who move to the city haphazardly, it is a disillusionment when they do not immediately find the job they have been dreaming of, and if they have brought their families along, a critical situation arises, and many of them go to bed hungry.

But the greatest problem is actually encountered in the field of housing. If we take into consideration that there is an annual population increase of approximately 3% amongst the Coloureds—I am in fact speaking of the Coloureds in and around the cities only—we should realize that the municipalities, the divisional councils and the other bodies that provide housing, simply cannot keep up with that population increase of 3%. The means they have at their disposal, are simply not sufficient for meeting that demand. And now the Coloureds from the rural areas also come into the picture. He comes and knocks on the door and says, “Here I am too. What about me? I also want a house.” In that process it often happens that they move in with friends or relations, whereby a state of over-crowding is aggravated further. Then there are so many of them who move out to the Port Jackson bushes. This does not happen on the Cape Flats alone; it happens at virtually everyone of our larger towns. There in the bushes they make themselves a home under a few sheets of corrugated iron. Sometimes they simply cover themselves under a tree under a few hessian bags. The tragedies which take place there, are terrible to witness. In the first place, such a person’s health is ruined under these circumstances. To remain healthy the first requirements, after all, is that one should have protection against the elements. When the wind blows through the shelter and the shanty he has constructed after a fashion and he becomes ill, he does not receive the necessary medical treatment there. This is the source of many of the cases of tuberculosis which we still find amongst the Coloureds. It is impossible for his family-life to continue normally, for a bedroom is, after all, the first requirement for keeping a family together, and this he does not have there. Crime is the order of the day. How often do we not find the smuggling of dagga and liquor taking place under those circumstances? If they do not have jobs, many of them go hungry, and they also become the victims of skollies. That which they can still bring together, they are robbed of by the skollies. Eventually the position is such that the authorities concerned, be it the divisional council, be it the municipality, have to step in to clear up those dens of iniquity. Then, Sir, the Press is at hand. In bold and dramatic headlines the story is told of how inhuman these bodies are and how these people, who at least had some shelter, are scattered. Therefore I want to make an appeal to everyone dealing with the Coloured population, people such as the teachers, the administrative personnel, the clergymen, to bring the Coloured who wants to move to the city haphazardly, to realize that he must first establish whether he will be able to get employment and housing, before he leaves that which he does have.

Mr. Chairman, although I agree with the last part of the speech made by the hon. member for Mossel Bay, I want to reprimand him with regard to the first part of his speech. But that may not be necessary, for when the hon. member for Turffontein asked him what had been promised to the Coloured people in Dr. Verwoerd’s time, his reply was more or less as follows: “When Dr. Verwoerd lived the position was different, and it is no use attacking me on this matter now.” His attack on us referred to a much longer period than the one during which Dr. Verwoerd was in power; he spoke of the period since 1948. So he contradicted his own argument. But as far as the “planlose intrek” (unplanned movement) of Coloured people to the towns is concerned, I want to associate myself entirely with the hon. member.

†Mr. Chairman, I do not believe that this is really something which can be described as a “planlose intrek”. I think the reason behind this movement to the towns is to be found partly on page 3 of the department’s report. Par. 2.5 reads inter alia as follows—

And then, in par. 2.5.0., on the same page, we find the following—

It is not only that which draws them to the towns, Sir; it is the fact that they want their children educated. In the platteland areas there are no sufficient education facilities for the children of these Coloured people. I think this is a great problem, and I believe that the Minister, in conjunction with the Coloured Representative Council, should give attention to this matter in view of the fact that from next year we are going to introduce compulsory education for Coloured children. Sir, we are finding this not only in the Cape Peninsula and on the Cape Flats, which the hon. member for Tygervallei also spoke about, but all over the country, wherever there is a town and wherever there is a school.

*What is happening? We Whites moved in from the rural areas, and now the Coloured people, too, are moving, for they are proud and they want their children to be educated. As a result of this they find themselves in a sorry plight in our cities.

†We read in the newspapers, both the English and the Afrikaans newspapers, of the tragic conditions that are obtaining outside our towns because of this movement into the cities. I believe that there are two things which are drawing the Coloureds to the cities. The one is higher wages and the possibility of work, and the other is that education facilities are to be found there for their children. On the farms today Coloured housing is not even subsidized. The farmer has to build these houses himself. The Coloured schools are not sufficiently subsidized. They have to be built by the Coloureds or by the farmers. What facilities are there in our platteland towns? What hostel facilities are there for Coloured children whose parents work on the farms? What happens then? Because the child has to be educated, the parents move into the town. I believe that this question of education, especially when it becomes compulsory, will draw practically every Coloured off our Karroo and Boland farms. This will happen simply because of the fact that the facilities are not to be found in the country areas. I believe that we are going to have an even worse housing problem and an even worse squatter problem than we have now. What planning has been done to meet the situation? What planning has been done as regards the provision of teachers? What planning has been done as regards the provision of facilities in the rural areas? Here I refer to primary schools on the farms and secondary schools in the platteland towns. What planning has been done in that regard? What planning has been done to provide subsidies for better housing on the farms? What planning has been done to provide better schools on the farms, and to provide subsidies to assist those Coloured people and the farmers on the platteland to provide those schools? What planning has been done to provide hostels for the children in the larger educational centres? Here, Sir, I would suggest to the hon. the Minister that he should act in conjunction with the provincial councils. Many White schools and White hostels on the platteland have closed down because of the depopulation of the platteland. Where these schools and these hostels are situated conveniently, the Minister should negotiate right now with the provincial councils so that he can make use of them to prevent this movement of the Coloured people from the platteland. We cannot leave the platteland totally in a vacuum. That platteland must still be there to feed the nation. It must still be there to provide a basic rural population, both Brown and White, for our people. I believe that the Minister should negotiate with the provinces now so that where schools have been closed down through lack of White pupils, they can possibly be reopened, if they are conveniently situated, and used for Coloured pupils. I do not believe that sufficient planning and sufficient thought have gone into this problem. I think all of us in this House believe that the basic requirement to uplift the Coloured people is compulsory education. But if it is going to be done without planning, we are going to find greater chaos than we have at present, simply because we are going to create a tremendous housing shortage, because these people will have to come into the cities to educate their children. How else will they do it? They cannot just board them in the bush.

Sir, there is another question I should like to raise very briefly. I hope that I shall be clearly understood in this regard. I refer to the question of maintenance grants. I have been watching this position for a number of years, and on page 7 of this report one finds the details of the maintenance grants set out. The maximum basic allowance payable to an applicant is R7-50 per month, plus an amount of R4 per month in respect of each of the first three children, and R3 per month in respect of the fourth and every succeeding child. Besides the basic allowance, there is a bonus of R10-50 per month, and an additional bonus of R2-75 per month. Then there is a further supplementary allowance of R1-25 per month. In other words, a woman with four illegitimate children can earn R37 a month simply by having the children. Now, Sir, I have nothing against keeping a family together, and I have nothing against the granting of an allowance for the preservation of those children, but so often in the poorer classes this money is spent in the canteen and wasted on liquor. I appeal to the Minister to have a very careful look at this, to see whether we cannot perhaps provide food and clothing coupons—which probably will also be sold—or to ensure that there are sufficient welfare officers to attempt to cope with the problem. One has only to go to a platteland town on pension day to see the amounts squandered on liquor. This money never reaches the children who require it. I think that, in conjunction with the Coloured Representative Council, we should see that there are hundreds more welfare officers watching this position among the Coloureds. If food and clothing were provided instead of money which can be wasted, I think we would get further in our attempt to uplift the Coloured people. I appeal to the Minister to look very carefully into these two matters I have raised this evening. I look forward to hearing his reply.

Mr. Chairman, we have listened to the Opposition this evening, and thus far we have obtained nothing but negative, destructive and even disparaging criticism in their approach to the Coloured problem that we have here in South Africa. What has been their attitude to the Coloured population? It has been nothing but a negative attitude that they adopted. There are, as you know. Sir, flowers from which one can extract honey, but one can also extract poison from those same flowers, and that is exactly what they have tried to extract from that lovely flower this evening. They only try to suck out poison. I do not expect the Opposition merely to express praise and appreciation here this evening for what has already been done by the Government in respect of the Coloureds. They are certainly entitled to criticism as well, but one does at least expect, in addition, a positive approach in respect of certain questions. Sir, it would appear—and this has been their attitude every year—as if the Opposition are maliciously bent on having the policy of separate development fail. What does the Opposition achieve by this negative attitude they are adopting? All they are doing is to disrupt the good relations that exist between the Coloureds and the Whites. The impression is constantly being created by the Opposition that nothing is being done for the Coloureds. That a great deal more must be done in future is true, and I would probably be one of the last to fail to acknowledge that, but let us be reasonable and face the facts. Let us acknowledge that during the 300 years before the National Party came into power, virtually nothing was done here for the Coloureds in South Africa. Let us also look at the positive side and ask ourselves what has already been done for them. If we were inclined to discuss the positive side of the issue, we could probably discuss the matter for days. The previous hon. speaker spoke here about education. What is the position as far as primary education is concerned? I just want to take the past year. In 1964 there were 386 000 Coloured children at school, and eight years later, in 1972, there were 558 000 Coloured children at school—almost double the number. Take secondary education, i.e. from Std. 6 to Std. 10. In 1964 there were 37 000 Coloured children at school, and in 1972, eight years afterwards, there were 68 000 of them—again almost double the number. What has happened in the Technical College for Coloureds in the six years of its existence? During the first year, in 1967, there was a total of 199 full-time and part-time students. By 1972 that number had already increased to 856. Sir, what about their own university which we established for the Coloureds here in the Western Cape? That is the very university which was described by hon. members on that side of the House as a “bushveld college”. Sir, I could continue in this vein and give you figures in respect of housing. In the year 1960-’61 4 729 economic and sub-economic dwelling units were erected for the Coloureds at a cost of R3.1 million; in 1971-’72 no fewer than 16 800 dwelling units were supplied to the Coloureds at a cost of R21,4 million. Sir, is this now a Government that has not met its obligations in respect of the Coloured community? What is the position of those 120 000 Coloureds in the Transvaal? Those were a lot of people who were completely forgotten by the United Party in Transvaal. Where did those Coloureds live before the National Party came into power? Sir, these are people who had to live in the Bantu locations amongst the Bantu, and it is this Government that took those Coloureds out of those Bantu locations and again gave them a feeling of human dignity. I want to invite you to come and look at one of those group areas near Boksburg and to look at some of those dwellings which the Coloureds have erected for themselves and which they have ownership of.

I now want to ask the Opposition another question. We are told each time by the Leader of the Opposition and numerous people of theirs that if they were to come into power they would repeal the Group Areas Act. It is going to be repealed.

Who said so?

I could mention to you numerous passages from Hansard in which the Leader of the Opposition said that. The hon. member for Hillbrow said it, so did the hon. member for Wynberg and the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. They said that if they were to come into power, they would repeal the Group Areas Act. [Interjections.] Or must we now accept that the Group Areas Act, which they have opposed to such an extent, now meets with their approval?

The Group Areas Act would be amended.

You see, Mr. Chairman, that is the double talk which Harry Schwarz speaks about. [Interjection.] I stick to the fact that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, in fact several of them, said that they are going to repeal the Group Areas Act. I now want to ask them: What are they consequently going to do with the Coloureds? Are they going to allow those Bantu and Coloureds to live amongst each other again? A great deal has been said here this evening of their federation plan, but what was the position, politically, of the Coloureds in the north? They were a forgotten lot of people, without any franchise and without any say. As the hon. member for Mossel Bay has said, there were only the small group of people in this South which the United Party acknowledged on election day.

Sir, I want to tell you what recreational facilities have been created for the Coloureds. Go and have a look at Boksburg, at that dam, that beautiful swimming bath with all the facilities that are being created for them, something they have never before been able to share in. That is what the National Party created for them. I want to add that we do not begrudge them that, because our attitude has always been that we do not begrudge them what we demand for ourselves. And in the economic sphere, to look at the report of the Coloured Development Corporation, we can only say that the progress that has been made here in the past 10 years since its inception, is phenomenal. But I should like to quote a single sentence from the report—

In the light of this single brief sentence, I should like to refer to that Coloured group area at Boksburg, Reiger Park, in which there are also still certain Indian traders. I should now like to ask the hon. the Minister this. I know it does not fall under his department, but I want to ask him whether he would not use his influence so that we can resettle those Indian traders somewhere else, so as to protect the Coloureds there against the competition of those Indian traders who are much stronger financially and who also have greater business acumen.

Before starting my own speech, I just want to address a word of thanks to the hon. member for Piketberg, who is the chairman of our National Party study group in regard to the Coloureds, for his contribution here this evening. I think it was a very sound one, and we on this side of the House are grateful that we have such men who are able to provide us with such levelheaded and thorough guidance. Then I also want to address a word of thanks to the hon. the Minister in whose able hands this portfolio will be in the future. I want to say that I am not being chauvinistic in this respect, but I do think that if there is anyone who is able to look after Coloured affairs and will be able to do so properly, then that person is a Van der Merwe, because the Van der Merwes have been in this country since 1661 and they are therefore in a position to speak with authority. I want to tell the hon. the Minister that we greatly appreciate the quiet and restful way in which he sets about matters, and these include the handling of the Coloured population in South Africa. When we consider the population questions and the race and population situation in South Africa, there is one thing which one finds striking and makes a deep impression on one time and again. I refer to the really disturbing lack of knowledge as far as the whole question of the population situation in South Africa is concerned. It is natural to be inclined to look for this lack of knowledge of our South African situation among one’s opponents. In fact, one often finds that this manifests itself among those very people who want to discuss this matter with great prolixity without having the necessary knowledge. I think that that lack of knowledge is to be found not only among the critics of the policy of separate development but also among its advocates. There are many people in South Africa who are in favour of or opposed to our policy and who, in my opinion, do not have an adequate knowledge of the population problems of South Africa. This lack of knowledge has quite a number of consequences. The first consequence is that when people discuss this matter, we find that in many respects this is done in an unscientific manner. Listening to discussions of the population questions, one finds that one must do a lot of sifting in order to separate truths from untruths. Another consequence is that there are so many people who come up with spurious solutions. It is very easy for them to discuss these things. In this connection I am thinking especially of those people who are outside active party politics …

Like old Gideon.

… but to whom it is so easy to come along with solutions to these problems. This lack of knowledge also holds dangers for the various population groups or peoples in embryo in South Africa, with the result that not only the Whites but also the non-White groups in South Africa should take note and realize that all people who like to talk about the population situation and the population question in South Africa, very often do so in a way which holds dangers for the continued existence of the various groups. What is more, this inadequate knowledge very often clouds the relationships within South Africa. Furthermore, a lack of knowledge also plays into the hands of the enemies of South Africa. Not only does it play into the hands of the enemies of the Whites; it also plays into the hands of the enemies of the non-White groups in South Africa. It causes an unnecessary guilt complex in many of our people, and very often it also gives rise to irresponsible demands on the part of the non-Whites. I say that in effect this lack of knowledge is present in everyone in South Africa, White as well as non-White.

That is why it is imperative that from now on, in our discussion of these questions in the future, we should ensure that, in this House as well, we set an example to the people outside. As far as I am concerned, I think that the discussion tonight has been of quite a high standard.

In our struggle to develop a policy it is necessary for us, above all, not to be sensational, but rather for there to be sober, realistic thought founded on a thorough knowledge of the meeting and development of our peoples in South Africa. Every time I consider the position of the Coloured in the maelstrom of South African politics, I become more and more convinced that of all political systems—in this hon. members of the Opposition will differ with me—the policy of parallel development as planned and directed by the National Party holds the best possibilities for the Coloured people. The most important reason for this is that our policy does not stem from a “do good” policy. Our policy does not stem from a kind of perverse guilt complex or a Rousseau humanism or a British Imperialistic policy. If I wanted to embroider further on this subject, I could say that the hon. member for Port Natal is guilty of the latter. I think that the hon. member for Port Natal has failed to make any worthwhile contribution to this debate. Owing to the absence of the hon. members for Bezuidenhout and Wynberg we have been able to debate the Coloured question on a high level this evening. If I were to sum up now, I think that the hon. member for Port Natal is a poison pill from the political pharmacy of Harold Wilson.

Oh!

The hon. member’s roots in South Africa are similar to those of the hon. member for Houghton according to the summary which the hon. member for Yeoville presented of the hon. member for Houghton. The standpoint of the hon. member for Port Natal on South Africa and his solution for South Africa amount to a mushroom solution which has no roots. I say that the hon. member for Port Natal can take this example from discussions and debates, as seen by the hon. member for Yeoville in particular, namely that if one wants to discuss population questions in South Africa in a responsible way, one’s roots must be deeply anchored in the soil of South Africa.

Oh!

I want to say to the hon. member that he would make a more worthwhile contribution to the solution of our problems if he did not isolate petty little incidents and blow them up out of all proportion.

Four hundred thousand people is just a small little group!

This evening I want to tell the hon. member that he should take a look at the history of the Coloured population in South Africa from 1653 right up to the present. In doing so he will see whether they have ever, in whatever facet of their pattern of living, had a better dispensation than they do under the National Party policy. [Interjections.] This evening I want to issue the challenge to the hon. member to tell me in what sphere they are not better off than is fact they are under National Party régime. I want to ask him this in regard to housing, the social welfare of these people, their education and their political dispensation. I want to tell the hon. member that he must go and read up the history of this matter. In doing so he will find that neither under the Dutch East India Company, nor under the British from 1795 on and up to the time when the National Party took over, were the Coloureds afforded greater and better possibilities than has in fact been the case under the policy of the National Party.

What do they say themselves?

I want to tell the hon. member to go and read the Hansard debates. I also want to tell him that he should go and read the Hansard debates and that he should go and read what these people say. There are today a larger number of Coloureds who can take cognizance responsibly and gratefully of what the National Party has done. There will be many who will say that we could do more. Many of them will also concede that they themselves could do more. No party, no human organization can ever do enough. I just want to refer the hon. member briefly to the report of the department. I know that there has been criticism of the fact that the report was received too late, but I want to tell the hon. member for Newton Park that if one keeps one’s finger on the pulse of the activities of the Department of Coloured Affairs, one need not really wait for their report. One makes a running study of one’s subject and a running study of those things one is interested in. I want to tell the hon. member for Port Natal … [Time expired.]

What do you offer that is better?

Mr. Chairman, I want to say at the outset that my information is that the hon. member for Bezuidenhout is ill in bed and that the hon. member for Wynberg is speaking at a symposium. I listened with interest to the hon. member for Rissik when proudly he associated himself with the hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs and claimed the same name. I am aware of the clear and frank way in which the hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs approaches his portfolios but I also want to say, “Sommige van die Van der Merwes in hierdie Raad is ’n bietjie deurmekaar.”

I would like to return to the hon. member for Boksburg who is not here now. He accused the United Party of having a negative policy. If that is the position, all I can say is that the policy of some members of the opposite side is a double negative and there is just nothing positive arising out of it whatsoever. He also made a most extraordinary statement which he was most reluctant to substantiate. I have seen the hon. member for Boksburg quoting in this House at length from the Sunday Times, but when it comes to quoting from Hansard and putting a true picture of what the United Party has said time and time again, the hon. member for Boksburg was “tjoepstil”, and I want to put it straight for the record that we have never said that we would do away with the Group Areas Act. We said that we would review and amend me that the Coloured people do not receive their just due in all parts of the Republic.

I want to be objective and say that I find it encouraging to see that the increase in the expenditure for this particular Vote has been trebled in the last 10 years and that the present estimates indicate that there is an amount of R118 million at the disposal of the Coloured Representative Council. We know that we live in times of financial stringency, but I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister that there is an imbalance of State expenditure and that there is an incorrect assessment of priorities facing the peoples of South Africa at the present time. I raise this with the hon. the Minister because I believe that as far as this House is concerned, the happiness and the welfare of the Coloured community of South Africa rests in his hands. It seems to me that the Coloured people do not receive their just due in all parts of the Republic.

In previous years I raised in this Committee the question of the appalling conditions of the sports grounds of Coloured schools in the Wentworth area in Durban and the answer that I was given, arising from this matter, was “a lack of funds”. I accept this answer—it might have been a lack of funds—but I am also positive that the members of the Executive of the Coloured Representative Council would not willingly accept that position except for the lack of funds. They would not willingly accept that the condition of playing-fields for Coloured children compares unfavourably with the playing-fields provided for school children of other races. This seems to me quite obviously the case in Durban. I ask the Minister whether he is satisfied with the anomalies that do exist in State expenditure. At present we have in the Wentworth area of Durban more than 6 000 pupils at school and my information is, and I have seen them for myself, that the sports fields resemble the Sahara Desert and that the nearest swimming-bath available to the pupils is 11 miles away.

I want to point out to the hon. the Minister that on the other hand we have the Department of Public Works in a release of information through the Department of Information indicating that R220 000 has been provided, and this they say quite frankly is not the final cost, for a swimming-bath and a theatre complex at the University of Durban Westville. This university at present has a total enrolment of approximately 2 000 students. In passing I want to say, with reference to the theatre complex, that the Coloured community in Wentworth, the most concentrated area for Coloured people in Durban, does not even have a community hall and to my knowledge this position has existed for over 10 years. There is still no hall for their cultural development. This may be separate, or parallel development as the hon. member for Oudtshoorn referred to it tonight, but if it is, it is not equitable and I want to suggest that the Coloured people are noticing these things and that they are resentful because of them.

I would also like to refer briefly to the Council for Culture and Recreation. I am proud to be a member of that council, but I feel helpless and unable to fulfil my purpose because my hands are shackled by the Treasury. I can speak only on my own behalf but I believe that there are other members of this council who feel the same way as I do. I want to point out why. In the report for 1970-’71 it was indicated that R130 000 was allocated to the council to encourage and further the interests of ballet, art, music, opera, drama, sport and recreation, youth organizations, women’s associations and the Eoan Group. The next year this amount was reduced. What do we find on the other hand? We find in the report of the Department of National Education for 1971-’72 that R1½ million was granted to the four Performing Arts Councils and that in the year 1972-’73 this amount was increased by R600 000 to R2,164 million. This report, to which I have referred, continued and said that this amount was further supplemented by provincial administrations, local authorities, box office takings, etc. I think that what is so significant is the passage which follows in the report, which says—

I ask the hon. the Minister kindly to bear this in mind when in future amounts are fixed to be placed at the disposal of the Council for Culture and Recreation.

Then I want to refer briefly to the question of education. My information indicates that in the Wentworth area approximately 812 flats have been planned and are in the process of being erected. My question to the hon. the Minister is whether he can disclose if adequate plans have been made to provide adequate schooling for the additional number of children that will obviously be present from the occupancy of 812 flats in this area. My information is too, that the schools are already overcrowded and that many of them are operating double shifts.

I want to deal with another aspect which arises from the report of the Education Council for Coloured Persons. On page 2 of the report it refers to the visit of the Deputy Minister of Coloured Affairs, Dr. S. W. van der Merwe—this was in the previous year—to the council during its session on the 13th and 14th March, 1972. In his address, it says, the Deputy Minister referred to the legal position of the council and the status of the council. The report continues—and I quote—

I would like to ask the hon. the Minister what progress has been made in the intervening 14 months since he, as a Deputy Minister, made that statement to the council. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I may as well start with the last speaker. I have here an interesting newspaper report entitled “Mr. Harry Schwarz congratulates Nationalist Party.” This report reads—

I think that in this respect Mr. Schwarz has once again set an example which could have been followed.

†Mr. Chairman, I would like to respond to the hon. member for Berea. He raised a number of points, not all of which I shall be able to answer satisfactorily. As regards his question about the Education Council for Coloured Persons, I do not know what has happened as yet. I suggested that they should try to establish some sort of liaison with the National Education Council, and I left it to them to decide. That is, in fact, a matter which should be dealt with on a lower plane. It is not for me to start negotiations in this regard. But in any case, seeing that the hon. member is concerned about it, I shall go into the matter and find out what the position is.

The hon. member raised a few local matters, especially as regards the planning for schools, etc., in the Durban—Wentworth area. I cannot answer him now in this regard. I shall see to it that we supply him with the necessary information. I do not want to furnish any facts which cannot be substantiated later on.

The four performing arts councils are receiving more than R2 million this year from the Department of National Education. That is a huge amount of money. If one compares it with the amount allocated to the Council for Culture and Recreation it looks as if we are not even thinking about recreational facilities for these people. At any rate, it is a matter of obtaining the necessary funds. The C.C.R. falls under the jurisdiction of the Coloured Administration. If they can make out a case, I shall be quite willing to go to the Government and see whether we cannot find more money. This applies also to all the other matters he raised as far as money is concerned. I can really only beg and borrow. It is not for me to decide, especially as far as housing and similar matters are concerned. I want to add an admonitory remark that it is not my duty alone to see to the happiness and welfare of the Coloured people today. I think it is the duty of all of us. We must all be imbued with a desire to work or the happiness and welfare of these people. I think this is very important. I do not think the hon. member raised any other matters to which I must reply. I am glad that he noticed that expenditure in respect of the Coloured Representative Council and the Department of Coloured Relations and Rehoboth Affairs as such has trebled in recent years. The reason is, of course, that we have a good Minister.

*Now I should like to start at the beginning, namely with the hon. member for Newton Park, who was the first speaker. In actual fact he made a speech here tonight indicating that in most cases he agreed by and large with the policy and aspirations of the National Party. I have taken cognizance of the fact that he is disappointed at the report having become available too late. It is true that many of the departmental reports are late. In any case, sometimes there are reasons for this, but I shall see to it that attention is given to this matter. I want to thank the hon. member for his congratulations, and I want to thank him for the fact that he envisages good relations with the Coloureds. I also want to thank him for his commendation of the good work done by the department. I do not agree with him entirely when he says that the Coloured person is a second-class citizen. The Coloured person does in actual fact find himself on a road along which he may eventually claim for himself full citizenship in his own circle, and the road ahead for the Coloured person has as yet not been determined finally. Sir, whenever we try to determine the future road for these people, the poor Opposition comes forward with such an interesting plan that it is talked out within a short time. They have now come forward here once again with their federation policy. Sir, I think the hon. member summarized quite wrongly what I had to say about citizenship. I was not referring to full citizenship; on the contrary, this is what I said on 17th February, 1972—

This is what I said. In other words, the Coloureds cannot lay any claim to it at present, and not one single White party is able to guarantee them that kind of citizenship. Why does the hon. member therefore level reproaches at us in regard to the question of citizenship?

I want to agree with the hon. member that many of the Coloureds have, even psychologically as well, risen above their earlier period of subordination, and that education has had a great deal to do with that; but the former poverty-stricken existence of many Coloureds has made room for a better existence and an aspiration to better things. This is true, and education has had a tremendously great deal to do with this. If I had the time to give the hon. member a summary of what this Government has progressively done over the years in order to educate the Coloureds, then he would be astonished himself, because I do not think that he has made a thorough study in this regard. The programme of upliftment which we started for the Coloureds, was in fact only started positively in 1960, after the lengthy constitutional struggle amongst ourselves, the Whites, on what the nature of the political dispensation for the Coloureds ought to be.

A great deal of time was wasted through that struggle. In those years we argued about the Coloured person’s vote instead of keeping it separate and seeing to his welfare. A positive start was made with that programme of upliftment in 1960, and over the past 12 years we have done a tremendously great deal for the Coloureds. I could mention the various steps seriatim to the hon. member if he wants to know what they were. It is true that the level of education attained by a large number of the Coloureds is still too low. Our aim is to overcome these educational shortcomings among these people by, inter alia, introducing compulsory education for Coloured children as from next year.

Sir, the hon. member for Albany does not have a particularly good understanding of compulsory education. In the rural areas, where a Coloured child lives more than five kilometres away from the school, compulsory education will not be applicable to him. We do not want the rural areas to be depopulated at a fast rate as a result of the introduction of compulsory education. We must have regard to the fact that the necessary facilities can only be created gradually, but the fact remains that we are now committed to introducing compulsory education for the Coloureds. In that way and in other ways we are trying to raise these people to a higher level, but it is not only our duty to raise the Coloureds to a higher level. I am referring now to those Coloureds who are still poor and needy and who are still in a state of psychological subordination. It is not only the duty of the Whites and the duty of this Government to uplift these Coloureds; it is also the duty of those 10% or 20% of them who, in the period in which we are living, have availed themselves of the opportunities given to them by raising themselves and rising above the rest; but we find this unfortunate phenomenon that these people who have risen above the rest in life, are often not concerned about those who are underprivileged; on the contrary, to an increasing extent they want to identify themselves with the Whites. We honestly feel that they should turn back and look after their own brothers. We are not unwilling to do our share in that respect.

Sir, it is true that historically the Whites and the Coloureds have come a very long way together. I am pleased that the hon. member agrees that every group should manage its own affairs—that is the basis of our policy—and that the Coloured Persons Representative Council should be improved as compared to what it is at the moment—it can be improved—and that it should eventually consist of elected members only. I agree with all these things. There are no impediments preventing the Coloureds from eventually progressing to the stage where they will have full control over their own affairs. But I do not know how the hon. member arrived at the idea of two representative Coloured councils. I do not know how one is going to divide up this country so as to establish two Coloured councils. Why should there be two, even if this were only based on numbers? On what grounds does the hon. member want to have two representative Coloured councils? I do not think he has a very good case there. There is the question of liaison, which the hon. member mentioned. I am replying reasonably fully to what he said.

We have the question of liaison with the Coloured Persons Representative Council, liaison which is so important for enabling these people, by way of indirect democracy, to bring via their own Council all the needs of their people to the notice of this Parliament and the Government. We have tried to establish for them the best liaison machinery that is to be found, in conjunction with them and in consultation with them. Although it is not a full-fledged Parliament, it is a fact today that the Coloured Persons Representative Council, through the manner in which it is possible to have discussions with one another and to plead their cases, actually represents its people just as well as we do; in fact, the representation is in some cases even better than that of the Whites sitting here. This is what it amounts to.

The liaison is with the Executive.

I cannot hear properly what you are saying.

The liaison is with the Executive, and not with Parliament.

I am pleased that you have mentioned this now, because you spoke about liaison committees. They have standing committees and we have standing committees, and we are now to have liaison, not so? In other words, we should now have liaison. I do not know in what way any other races are maintaining liaison. Surely there are the Bantu as well. Why do you not ask for liaison in that regard? The Bantu do not have in their Parliament people who are maintaining liaison with our Parliament.

But this is what our plan says.

Let your plans say that, but the fact remains that we have put this to these people; we mentioned the obstacles to them, and this liaison committee, which consists of parliamentary parties, all of them except the Labour Party, which does not want to have anything to do with the White Parliament, eventually agreed. Or does the United Party think that they want to have anything to do with it? They also disapprove of your policy in every respect. Apart from the Labour Party, which does not want to have anything to do with this Parliament, they all said they were agreeable to the kind of liaison we suggested to them, and with their consent we decided on a kind of liaison which has broadened out to such an extent that, whereas initially it was only maintained with the Prime Minister and subsequently with the Prime Minister and the Minister of Coloured Affairs, it is now being maintained with eight, nine Ministers, liaison through which these people are able to discuss their affairs fully, in all respects. I say that they are getting better representation than some of your own people are getting at times.

But the hon. member asked me a few questions. The one question was whether the Minister had any plans in regard to the Coloured Persons Representative Council; was it his intention to grant them full representation on the basis of elected members? The answer is “yes”. Even after the 1974 elections we shall not be able to grant them this, for we have a great deal of other work to do, such as delimitation here and in South-West Africa, and elections which we must organize. It is therefore very difficult for us in practice to divide up the country into 60 constituencies instead of 40, and we subsequently agreed with the parties there that this could in fact take place in 1979. So, there you have the answer now. As far as their powers are concerned, there is nothing to prevent these people from telling us tomorrow that they want to make all their education laws themselves, and we can make arrangements for this Parliament to repeal the Education Act by way of delegated legislation so that they may make their own education laws. There is nothing to prevent them from making laws in respect of their own rural areas. There is nothing to prevent them from asking, if they so wish, for poll tax to be imposed on their own people if it is possible for this to be implemented and for us to see whether the time is ripe for them to be able to impose a poll tax on their own voters. In other words, we are steadily moving further and further ahead with these people. How are we now to have discussions with these people who do not want to maintain liaison or have discussions with us, who want to identify themselves with a Black polarization and range themselves on the side of the Black people? Those who want to have discussions with us, are all being represented on this liaison committee.

The hon. member referred to Mr. Wolfgang Thomas’s summaries of and praise for the work of the Coloured Persons Representative Council. I want to tell him that it was actually a critical review of the effectiveness of the Coloured Persons Representative Council. He put forward suggestions as to how they could improve their work. However, these are suggestions which we can also give to these people from time to time and which they will be able to use profitably.

I think I have more or less replied to everything that was mentioned by the hon. member for Newton Park. However, I want to tell the hon. member in the final instance that Dr. Verwoerd envisaged certain things for these people ten years ago. Everybody who has read his speech of 12th December, 1961, and does not conveniently forget half of it, will know that he did not promise anything but said that we would start this way and that this would be the road we would follow. He also said that he envisaged a certain period in which …

[Inaudible.]

He said that was the way he envisaged it. He never said he was promising this to them. Nowhere in that speech will one find something like that. The hon. member should go and read it more carefully. Many of these things are sometimes misquoted and then some of our Whites have a hand in helping the Coloureds to misunderstand them, which then forms the basis of some of their grievances.

The hon. member for Piketberg made a very fine speech tonight. He specifically drew attention to the major development which we had been undertaking since 1960 and which was sometimes held against us. The hon. member pointed out that it was as a very result of the National Party that the elite came into being. The hon. member also pointed out that one could not enforce development.

I am glad that he made pleas for more land for the Coloureds. If there is one thing which is near to my heart and with which we should to my mind deal more rapidly, then it is in fact these land questions, the division of land and the fact that the finalization of our group area delimitations must be disposed of as soon as possible. I realize that recreational facilities for the Coloureds are not what they should be. I can only exert myself for these facilities to be improved wherever this is at all possible.

As far as university education is concerned, I also believe that in this respect the Coloureds have a task of their own in trying to influence their own people to go in for higher education and avail themselves of their own institutions.

†The hon. member for Port Natal referred to the White people and said that we should not lose ground in the field of goodwill towards the Coloured community. He was very concerned about this aspect. I agree with him, but at the same time I should like to point out that in some instances the Coloured people are responsible for the fact that the goodwill which is shown is placed in jeopardy. We also find that politicians who advocate goodwill sometimes use this Parliament to say things which are not conducive to fostering that goodwill.

*I understand that the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said earlier this year, in the presence of the person to whom he was referring, that that person had to sit behind a rope in the Cape Town City Hall. He said that that person was always being excluded, and in order to take his example further the hon. member then referred to the public gallery of the House of Assembly. I shall now quote the following passage from his speech (Hansard, 1973, cols. 1137-8)—

That type of half-irresponsible thing which is said, does not bring about good relationships between our people.

And if it is so?

You had every opportunity to do this. The hon. member could have gone to the Select Committee on Standing Rules and Orders and put this request to them. The hon. the Minister did in fact reprimand him afterwards. If he had experienced problems in that regard, he could have asked the Select Committee on Standing Rules and Orders for permission to offer a cup of tea or coffee to a member of a non-White group. He could have set the matter right if he had wanted to do so, and then it would not have been necessary for him to give expression to these matters in a political manner. In fact, this was subsequently put to him that way. [Interjections.]

†Therefore the hon. member will see that the question is not as serious as he thinks as far as it concerns the question of goodwill. One must never create a tension psychosis, and that is what some of the hon. members are doing. We must always be very careful in not aiding a tension psychosis, because that is what the people who are agitating for polarization between Black and White are doing all the time. They want to create this psychosis which has an increasingly harmful effect, and in the end you are not able to stop it at all.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? Will the hon. the Minister tell me whether it is wrong for us to raise these matters affecting the Coloured community in this House?

It is any hon. member’s right to raise any matter, but the way in which a matter is raised in this House is of great importance.

When you raise it year after year and nothing happens …

You have not raised it year after year with me in any event. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. the Minister should rather proceed with his reply.

The hon. member for Port Natal also spoke about the housing position, in Durban and in Natal as a whole, as a matter of fact in the whole of the country. I think he is a little off the mark, but it is very difficult for me to speak on or to react to a question on the Coloured housing position. As I have said, I can only borrow and beg. I am doing that all the time.

You can put pressure on the department concerned.

That hon. member does not know what pressure I am putting on them all the time. The hon. member must bear in mind that they also have their troubles and sometimes they are very convincing. I know of the movements of the Coloured people and I must be honest when I say that I am deeply concerned about the fact that some Coloured people are moved away at the beginning of the winter. It is always at the beginning of the winter that we find cases where you get heart-breaking stories while there are so many …

Hard lines.

Hard lines?

We do not say that. We have so many open plots and erven in literally thousands of them—but these people are always ready to start new developments. The result is that the Coloureds must be moved away, since these new developers have no time to wait to get their machines going. I do not mind saying that, because that is something that is causing deep concern with me. I think they can go slower with their development plans.

That is the finest statement I have heard from that side of the House in many years.

Well, then I am grateful to hear it. It is my personal opinion. I do not think to do that is right. For that reason I wrote a letter to the Administrator a week or two ago, wherein I asked him to use his influence with these local governments in order to retard some of these developments.

Hear, hear!

I am not telling the Administrator what to do; I cannot do that, but I can at least plead with him to see whether we cannot make use of the open erven instead of starting with these new developments. At the same time we can see whether we cannot do away with the backlog in Coloured housing. However, we have our problems as well. We have heard of those problems from hon. members who have spoken in this House, and one of the problems is the demographic movement of the Coloureds from the platteland and the country to the towns. As far as that is concerned, we can do very little. That is why Mr. Tom Swartz and other Coloured leaders have a duty too. I asked them to plead with their people and to tell them not to move to the towns, or to the big centres like Uitenhage or Paarl, before they are sure that they will be able to get housing.

The hon. member for Port Natal also spoke about the Coloured Development Corporation. This is a statutory body which has statutory rights to grant licences to help the Coloured people in industry and commerce. Does it not sound a little derogatory if we always bring to the fore the fact that some Coloured people tend to drink too much? However, we must not deprive them of the opportunity of having licences for restaurants and drinking places. I do not think that I can do anything about this. All I can do is to bring the hon. member’s suggestion to the attention of the Coloured Development Corporation, but I can do no more than that.

I just want you to think about it and you will come to the same conclusion to which I came.

The hon. member for Tygervallei referred to the Peninsula’s large Coloured population and their population increase. He also referred to the over-concentration on the Cape Flats and asked for my assistance in order that it might be counteracted. I have just indicated what I am doing in order to counteract this overconcentration. He went on to link this with the question of where one had to create points attracting Coloureds. With the Mitchell’s Plain extension we have such a point quite close to the Cape Peninsula. We also have a similar point in mind in regard to the Mamre complex. In this regard the hon. member also made a plea for a steel industry to be sited at Saldanha. I am very sorry, but this is a matter on which the Cabinet will have to decide. If the hon. member argued on the basis of Coloured labour and, with a view to that, suggested that Saldanha be developed in order that it might serve as a point attracting the Coloured population, then I am afraid that I do not agree with the hon. member as far as Coloured labour alone is concerned. I know that if Saldanha becomes a large town a great deal of labour will be necessary. The kind of labour that will be used, is a matter which we can discuss later on.

May I put a question to the hon. the Minister? Will Bantu migrant labourers be preferred to Coloured labourers?

Yes, that is a bigger possibility. Apart from this I want to be honest and say that I am not the person who will decide on this and that this is a matter for the Cabinet. However, since the matter has been raised here, I am merely giving my views on it as far as the Coloureds are concerned, because the Coloureds are my responsibility.

The hon. member for Oudtshoom made a very interesting speech. He drew attention to the inconsistency of the policy of the United Party, which only a year ago still wanted to see the Coloureds in this Parliament, and now no longer sees its way clear to having them here.

You know what the reason is for this.

How am I supposed to know what the reason is? I think most of the members opposite do not know what the reason is, and how am I supposed to know what the reason is? It is true that White and Brown must continually get along with one another. I do not even want to say that they must get along with one another, for they are already doing so, in spite of the fact that there is tension from time to time. We are next to one another and need not concentrate on the differences all the time; on the contrary, we should concentrate more—this should be above politics —on the things on which we agree. We shall do our share, but there are many Coloured leaders who ought also to be doing their share. In fact, there are very many who ought also to be doing their share. I am very sorry to say that their ranks include boycotters and blackmailers in regard to politics, people who can do a little more if they are at all sincere in their approach that we must co-operate and that we must have peace here. If that is done, there will be fewer of those people who go overseas in order to organize boycotts against us and who are trying to bring about polarization between White and Black within this country. If these people should pause to think, they will find out that on the part of the Whites, too, they are getting much more affection than was the case in the past.

Giving a political-scientific account, the hon. member for Turffontein spoke here about a separate homeland which the Coloureds supposedly had to have because they were not members of the Afrikaner nation. They were to have a separate geographic territory, they were to have a sovereign national government, etc., and the hon. member said these things were in conflict with the practical implications. It is true that those who have orthodox views on human relationships and political relationships are unable, when they have to define what a state or even a nation is, to see beyond a geographic territory. They think in terms of a Bantu homeland, a sovereign national government, etc. However, there are many other things which bring people together. We do not say that the Coloureds are a separate nation at this stage. I do not agree with the person who says this.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? When you refer to “at this stage”, do you mean that time can in due course make them a separate nation?

Time has made separate nations of many different people in the years that have passed. I say that this is possible and that they are heading in that direction and are being helped to head in that direction. When people are in the process of becoming a nation on their own, a kind of aspiration and self-respect is created which may help them on the road ahead. I do not say that these people already constitute a separate nation. Just bear in mind that what I am saying is that in terms of the policy, as we are implementing it now, they are moving in that direction. One of the aspects of a separate nation is that such people have self-respect and their pride; they have a kind of feeling of solidarity. These are some of the aspects of a separate nation which are developing amongst the Coloureds. Now the hon. member says here that there has to be either segregation or integration. Good heavens! This poor member is now talking the way some people were talking in politics 25 or 30 years ago.

What people? Only this year you were still talking that way.

In America people talked that way, here people talked that way; there are many places where people talked that way. It was said that there had to be either total segregation or total integration. To that hon. member those are the only two alternatives.

I said you people were saying so.

I am very sorry, but then I do not agree with the person who said it here.

Pottie said it and Adv. Strydom said it.

Where is the person who said it here? Nobody here said it.

Adv. Strydom said so.

It was not said by anybody who is here today. In the past many things were said. I am telling you now that it is not necessarily a case of total segregation or total integration.

Then you are becoming a U.P. supporter; that is good.

Oh, no, a great deal of water will run into the sea before I go to such lengths. As long as there is water in the sea, I would rather drown than do that.

Order! The hon. the Minister should rather proceed with his reply and not react to every individual interjection.

I like doing so, of course, but I shall abide by what you say. I wonder whether the hon. member has ever considered the pluralist idea reasonably fully; one can have a geographic division up to the point to which it is possible. We have the Group Areas Act and other laws which are helping the Coloureds to a large extent to move in the direction of developing into a nation through their cohabitation and through other reasons. We are giving these people as much authority over as many of their own affairs as is possible, without saying to them that they will only have authority over specific matters in future. They are getting authority over matters of which they have control at present and also over matters of which they may still get control in future. In other words, we are moving along a certain course and are not stagnant, as was in fact said by the Prime Minister as well.

Now the hon. member has come along with his story of “peoples”. They talk about “peoples”. America is a federation. Now the hon. member links the idea of “peoples” with federation. In spite of the fact that America is a federation, they do not talk about “American peoples”. It is the “American people”. The federation consists of 50 states. The hon. member said, —he stated this very clearly—that the idea of multi-nationalism did not fit in with the idea of “peoples” at all. Who said the following?—

In “pluralist countries” one finds “peoples”, as the hon. member said, namely Black ones, White ones, Brown ones, etc. The person I have quoted here is the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. There is multi-nationalism in Russia with “peoples”, and yet the hon. member says the two concepts are not reconcilable with each other.

The academic argument on the question of whether a person is a Brown Afrikaner or not—it is a good thing that he referred to it—does not concern me. It is academic; it is not for me to say. Because I am speaking on behalf of the Coloureds, I say that it does not concern me. If people want to amuse themselves with that in these times in which we are living, they are welcome to do so. Therefore, any hon. member opposite is free to quote from Rapport or any other newspaper—it does not matter. I am not carrying on any feud with any newspaper. I think it is useless. I think it is a waste of time. It is true that one feels at home with one’s people, and that there is nothing wrong with wanting to be a member of the Afrikaner national group. But I think that this idea, i.e. that we as politicians continually allow ourselves to be drawn into academic arguments, has got to stop. To us as politicians it would be a good thing if this came to an end.

Finally, federation means that all the constituent elements and the federal central government have constitutional rights which they already had before federation. In South Africa that is totally impossible. No federation is possible here, for, as against what is said by the United Party, namely that there must be White leadership, the majority must govern in the central government in a federal state. That is something we all know. In other words, that policy of the United Party falls apart completely the moment when the label of federation is attached to it. I do not wish to reason further with hon. members about this now. They talk about White leadership. They talk about the Coloureds being part of the history of South Africa. I just want to tell him that they are such a part of the history and know the Afrikaner, the U.P. and all the others so well that they will not allow themselves to be deceived by anybody. That is why all the non-White leaders are saying that they do not agree with the federal policy of the United Party.

I want to thank the hon. member for Mossel Bay for the fine contribution he made, and the same goes for the hon. member for Albany. As far as I am concerned, he also made a good contribution, although his summaries were not correct in all respects. I shall give him an outline of the position in regard to the hotels, buildings, etc., planned by us. I shall speak on the abuse of welfare grants at a later stage. I shall give an explanation in this regard at a later stage. I shall also reply tomorrow to the hon. member for Boksburg as well as the hon. member for Rissik. At this stage it is time for me to content myself for the time being with what I have said.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 23.

House Resumed:

Progress reported and leave granted to sit again.

University of Durban-Westville Amendment Bill.

Bill read a First Time.