Mr. Chairman, before we adjourned last night, I had referred to the International Building Research Congress, held in May 1974 under the direction of the Director of our Building Research Institute, Dr. Webb. I want to mention that this well-planned and well-organized congress was attended by world authorities from North and South America, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the Far East. I think that the whole country is indebted to Dr. Webb for having been instrumental in arranging this congress. The matter which I wish to raise with the hon. the Minister is one which was of urgent common concern among all delegates to this congress, namely, the necessity to control the peaks and troughs of demand on the building industry. These are the peaks and troughs which cause rises in building costs because of excessive demands on the industry at one stage, at certain periods, and then inhibit development of prefabricated systems because these are not viable; the capital investment in them is not worth while unless there is a regular demand for the product. I raise this matter now because last year on the question of provincial council financing I raised the question of the provision of capital funds for the provinces. In the time available to me I can only deal with certain aspects of the Cape Provincial Council.

After we had the debate in this House, the Administrator of the Cape Province presented his Budget. According to the Hansard of the Cape Provincial Council, this is what he said—

Now, so far as the State is concerned, there has been introduced into the Public Works Department a system of minimum planning over a five-year period so as to try to even out what I have already referred to as the peaks and troughs of demand on the building industry. However, can this be done as far as the provinces are concerned? If I can have the hon. the Minister’s attention for one moment, I should like to refer him to certain figures. On 1 April 1972 the capital works approved as far as the Cape Province was concerned, amounted to R165,5 million. By 1 April 1973 that figure had risen to R205,25 million.

These increases are on the original estimated cost and not on revised costs which, as the hon. Minister of course knows, are rising rapidly year after year. Last year the increase on the original estimated cost, not on the revised cost, was R39,75 million. For the year 1973-’74, the province received R37,2 million. In the present Estimates that we have before us there is the figure of R41,9 million for the current financial year. These figures reflect capital expenditure at an original estimated cost of something in excess of R200 million without regard to cost increases and without regard to the revision of prices. In order to show what can possibly be anticipated in dealing with these essential provincial works, one only has, for example, to look at the Nico Malan Theatre, the original estimated cost of which was R6,5 million. The final cost is R11,7 million. The Tiervlei Hospital which was entered upon as a necessary work of the province at an estimated cost of R17,5 million is now going to cost in the neighbourhood of R70 million.

The position is becoming alarming as far as the provinces are concerned. No account can be taken by the provinces of the demand for urgent new capital works with the backlog that they have at the present time. I do not have to tell the hon. the Minister what is expected of the provincial authorities in regard to buildings which fall under their responsibility, for example, in connection with the West Coast development scheme and Saldanha Bay. Last year the Administrator did remark in his Budget that this matter was receiving the attention of the Government. He said—

Order! Don’t converse so loudly!

I hope the hon. the Minister can hear me over the din that is going on.

They are making a terrible noise.

Yes, “M.C.” always holds meetings while we are talking.

Shut up!

The Administrator went on to say—

I hope that the hon. the Minister will be able to outline to us what he has in mind because in my reading of the Budget which is before us, the figure that is provided for certainly does not indicate that there is the remotest possibility of the provinces being able to plan, as is being done by the Department of Public Works, a five-year programme, knowing that it can be put into operation and carried through to the end. I shall be grateful to the hon. the Minister if he can tell us what is being done in this regard, because, as I say, this is a matter which needs urgent attention and which is causing some alarm as far as the provincial authorities are concerned. It is a long time since I was on the Cape Executive Committee but I can tell the hon. the Minister that there are still works which were approved and regarded as necessary and urgent at that stage, some ten or 11 years ago, and which still have not been tackled as far as the province is concerned because of the lack of finance. I am sure that this position also obtains in the other provinces, but in the time at my disposal I have only been able to deal with the position in the Cape.

Sir, there is another matter in regard to the provinces that I want to raise. There seems to be a periodical desire on the part of certain people to attack the provincial system, its need and its function in the general system of government in South Africa. We had the most recent example only a few days ago when the president of the South African Agricultural Union suggested that the time had come that the provincial system should be done away with. Sir, I am sure that the Minister will agree with me that the provincial councils have a very vital role to play in government in South Africa, and I hope that the hon. the Minister will be able to say immediately that this suggestion which has come from this source is not one which finds favour with the Government. Sir, we have this direct contact with the provinces and I believe that they must not be hamstrung, through insufficiency of funds, to get on with their work and to do it efficiently, because if this Government puts a stranglehold on them, both as regards capital and revenue funds, then this is the reaction that one is going to get; in other words, people will call for the abolition of the provincial council system, a step which would be to the detriment of the country.

Finally, Sir, I want to make this point: Just as the responsibility is placed on the Minister of Finance to table the report of the Controller and Auditor-General in this House within a certain period, so the responsibility is placed on the Administrator to table the report of the provincial auditor within a certain period. That time limit has been exceeded in the past and it was exceeded last year again, with the result that one found that when the Provincial Council was in session in the Cape, its Select Committee on Public Accounts did not have the published report of the provincial auditor before it.

Sir, I hope that this matter will receive the hon. the Minister’s attention because it is one of importance to the Provincial Council. It should be in a position through its Select Committee on Public Accounts to scrutinize expenditure so as to satisfy itself that the money voted by this House has been properly spent by the province.

Sir, I only have a few minutes at my disposal, and I therefore do not want to react to what the previous speaker said here. I should like to speak about estate duty. I do not want to ask for it to be abolished, but there nevertheless is a bottle-neck I should like to mention here today. Of course, I fully realize that the State has to collect the necessary revenue in some way or other and that it cannot summarily abolish estate duty. There are certain priorities to which the hon. the Minister has to give attention and preference when mention is made of tax relief. If we think of what has to be done to combat inflation, to encourage industrial production, etc., then I do think there are other preferences that come before estate duty, but from time to time pleas are made, through congresses, through agricultural unions and farmers’ associations, for estate duty to be abolished. I believe that many of these pleas are based on ignorance. Not all these people understand what estate duty actually embraces. Many of them inveigh against estate duty, but they do not realize that they themselves do not have to pay estate duty. Sir, I have gone through the Secretary’s reports for the past few years, and it seems that between 21 000 and 23 000 estates are reported in the various orphan chambers every year, and that close on 90% of these estates are not even considered for estate duty. Only about 10% of these estates are actually considered for estate duty, and even as far as that 10% is concerned, so many rebates are applicable that in the end only about 5% of the estates are actually assessed for estate duty purposes.

If that is the case, abolish it.

Sir, when we think of marriages in and out of community of property, what do we find? In years gone by we found that most marriages were contracted in community of property, but in the past 20 years the pattern has changed somewhat. Nowadays we find that the number of marriages in community of property and the number out of community of property are about equal; perhaps there are slightly more marriages out of community of property. That means that the combined estate assets of the husband and wife are actually considered now for estate duty assessment. Sir, I can also tell you what the State’s revenue from estate duty has amounted to over the past few years. In the year 1965-’66 the State collected R14 200 000 in estate duty; in 1966-’67 it was R19 800 000 and in 1967-’68 about R20 million, but in the year 1970-’71 the State’s revenue from estate duty came to R29 300 000. In 1972-’73 it was R29 million, and in 1973-’74 it was close on R30 million. Sir, now I come to the point I should like to make: Since 1968, the last time concessions were made in regard to estate duty during the past 6½ years, the value of fixed property has increased considerably. In my constituency, in my district, in fact, in my immediate surroundings, there are farms which have increased in value by up to 100%. Sir, this state of affairs is definitely not to the advantage of the agricultural industry and the country in general, for many of these farmers who would formerly not even have been considered for estate duty at all, now find that their estates will indeed be subject to estate duty. I know of a man who has three fine, large farms; he has three children, and each of them would of course have inherited a farm, apart from other movable assets and the proceeds from small investments. The value of his properties used to fall just under the minimum for paying estate duty, but with the increase in the value of his fixed property he most definitely qualifies for estate duty now. Sir, I therefore want to ask whether the hon. the Minister cannot consider granting a measure of relief here. Perhaps he could look over the rebates once again; this was last done in 1968, 6½ years ago. On the other hand, a percentage discount could perhaps be allowed on the valuation of the fixed property. That would immediately bring considerable relief to the farmers. When we look at the increase in the State’s revenue from estate duty over the past eight or nine years—from R14 million to close on R30 million—we see that the State’s revenue from estate duty has more than doubled itself. For these reasons I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he would not review this whole set-up of estate duty so as to accommodate the agricultural sector. It will really be to the benefit of the country. The value of the farmers’ land has risen, but over against that we cannot say that the money has appreciated in value; on the contrary, money has depreciated in value, and their heirs, when they inherit, are now going to land in the position that some of them will have to take up mortgages on the land or that some of the land will have to be sold in order to pay estate duty. Sir, for a young man to enter the agricultural industry nowadays with a major financial burden on his shoulders is definitely a great disadvantage, especially if one thinks of our climatic conditions and the threats such young people will have to face in the future.

Mr. Chairman, I hope the hon. member for Potgietersrus will forgive me if I do not follow his line of argument, but I want, in the few minutes available to me, to deal with Vote No. 8. the Mint, the Vote with which the hon. member for Bethlehem dealt briefly yesterday. Before doing so. Sir, I want to make this comment, viz., that the Kruger rand today has become everyone’s favourite as a hedge against inflation. The price of the Kruger rand is, of course, tied up with the price of gold, and I want to say that we on this side of the House have always recognized and do recognize the tremendous effort that the hon. the Minister of Finance has made on behalf of South Africa as an ambassador whenever he has had to face tough opposition at meetings of the International Monetary Fund and other monetary conferences. Today the price of gold stands at $158 and the price of the Kruger rand at R118. It was said by Mr. James McClure, a United States Senator speaking before the National Committee to legalize gold that, throughout history Governments have feared that gold would provide an alternate, perhaps a preferred currency, to whatever intrinsically valueless form of tender was provided by Government fiat. What has happened at the moment is that there has come to be a dramatic famine in Kruger rands, both locally and now also in the overseas markets. If you will recall, Sir, as far back as 1967 the Treasure authorized the Mint to produce the Kruger rand and the first intention was that this would be a prestige coin consisting of one ounce of fine gold with the head of President Kruger on one side and our Springbok emblem on the other side. It was to be a prestige coin which would be available to tourists to take away with them; it would be available to South Africans and it would also be available for investment. The hon. the Minister of Finance is on record as having said that the best hedge against inflation is saving. I took this advice back to my university son and daughter and they asked: “Dad what do we save?” It then occurred to me that one of the most sensible things to save would be the Kruger rand. I do not appear to have been alone in this premise. All of a sudden banks are distressed. Their conditions are chaotic and one finds that they are being rationed, in a branch of a major bank in this country for instance, to one or two Kruger rand coins per week. Now, I believe that the hon. the Minister of Finance should take this House into his confidence today and declare his Government’s policy with the regard to the availability and the production of the Kruger rand, particularly the uncirculated Kruger rand. I do not think it is satisfactory that we in this country should be allowed gold ownership in the form of the Kruger rand and then find that it is available only to the very fortunate few. I know that the same famine has now developed in Britain, Germany and Switzerland and in fact all the hard currency countries where the Kruger rand is allowed to be marketed. We now have to face the fact that in America it has become permissible for American citizens to enjoy private gold ownership and we must predict quite understandably that there will be a tremendous further run on the Kruger rand. I believe that if we are going to have this coin available on request, then we must plan ahead. The Mint must be enlarged and we must have a clear policy. But unfortunately, because of this fictitious scarcity which has been allowed to develop, the Kruger rand has attracted to itself a premium of approximately 20% in excess of the value that one would normally pay the banks. This is an unhealthy situation and again it merely adds to the inflationary trends. I believe that it should be the policy of the Government to maintain the value of the uncirculated Kruger rand at its stipulated basic price, accordingly to the London price fix plus the 8% handling charge. If we are going to see prices being openly advertised in our local papers in terms of which private purchasers will pay R15 in excess of the daily bank price it is, I believe, not healthy. On the other hand, Sir, the Kruger rand can be a most valuable export commodity and I would go as far as to say that it is probably our finest South African ambassador. It has crashed international borders where we have failed in sport and in many other fields, like the diplomatic field and the cultural field. The Kruger rand is welcomed in every country of the world. It is our likeable and our most wanted ambassador. If we are going to retain this strategy, I believe we must plan logically and make the rand available as a normal trading commodity at the price at which gold fluctuates. I do believe that we have every right to support the hon. the Minister of Finance in his prediction that very shortly the gold price will reach the $200 level. If that is so then we should be exhorting every individual in South Africa to save and to have in his savings portfolio a considerable proportion of Kruger rand. It is a tangible indication of our country’s best-known asset and most indestructible asset. It is also our one guarantee against the ravages of inflation. There is little use in us telling our people today to save in paper money because, if our present rates of inflation continue at 15% or thereabouts, we shall see prices doubled or savings halved within the next five years.

Then, too, I want to ask the hon. the Minister of Finance if he would not consider, more parochially, the question of the number of Mint-proof Kruger rands that are made available annually to numismatists. I understand that there are in excess of 10 000 registered coin collectors in South Africa at the moment. In America there are 15 million registered coin collectors. The annual production of 10 000 Mint-proof Kruger rands, which are available to the selected few who are on the lists of the Mint, is certainly not sufficient to give anything like satisfaction to either the local or overseas demand. Again, for this reason, it appears in practice that those who are in possession of a Mint-proof Kruger rand are guaranteed an enhancement in capital value of almost 40% per annum. During the last financial year the Mint was able to make available to collectors on its lists a maximum of five Kruger rands each. This year the allocation has been reduced to only one per person. Clearly, the waiting list is so long today that it is unrealistic to hope that one will be able to get on to this list in the future.

I believe, Sir, that in addition to the Kruger rand we should now be considering, as the hon. member for Bethlehem suggested, the production of a R5 gold coin. We already have a R2 gold coin and a R1 gold coin. I should like to go further and ask the hon. the Minister to consider whether the Mint could not be permitted to produce, in fine gold, quarter-ounce coins and half-ounce coins. This would make it more possible for the man in the street to purchase such a coin on special occasions, for instance as a birthday present for his children or grandchildren or for celebratory occasions of that nature. I believe that in this manner we would be encouraging our own people to save, and to use for such saving a commodity which is produced in South Africa, with South African techniques and by South African know-how. Gold is, after all, our most typical commodity. At the same time people will be saving an asset which, as far as the future is concerned, will appreciate as the value of other currencies depreciate. I believe it is only fair to ask the hon. the Minister to make a statement to this House explaining why it is that this sudden famine in uncirculated Kruger rands has occurred, and what his policy will be in the future, firstly in regard to the private ownership of fine ounce Kruger rands by South Africans and, secondly, his overall strategy and policy in overseas markets in the hard currency areas such as Britain, the United States, Germany, France and Switzerland.

Mr. Chairman, I want to come back, in the first place, to the observations made yesterday by the hon. member for Ermelo in connection with the flow of capital between South Africa and the L.B.S. countries, i.e. Lesotho, Botswana and Swaziland. In effect he suggested that a restriction be imposed on this circulation of capital since industries or businesses might develop in those countries which might for certain reasons compete with similar industries in our country. I just want to tell the hon. member that this capital ratio which exists between us and our neighbouring states is something which is historic in origin. We have always had it. It also forms part of the customs union of which these countries are members. One of the ingredients of the customs union is the free movement of capital, of labour and of goods. We now have the movement of goods between us, and I think that it would not be in the spirit of the customs union if a restriction were imposed on the amount of capital flowing from this country to Lesotho, Botswana and Swaziland. I may inform hon. members that at the moment we are engaged in negotiating the establishment of a monetary Union with those three states. The discussions have reached a very advanced stage, and I hope we shall be able to conclude them within a few weeks’ time. In that agreement a monetary union, with these four states as members, will be established. Certain points will be raised, especially in regard to the movement of official capital. I do not think that we should exempt the movement of ordinary capital. This is historic and has always formed part of a customs union which has existed between us. It also forms part of our assistance to the neighbouring states. We are rendering covert and overt assistance to our neighbouring states in various forms. I think that this method of rendering assistance helps to develop the neighbouring states. We do not believe in the “beggar-they-neighbour policy”, but we believe that it would be to our advantage, too, if states such as Lesotho, Botswana and Swaziland could develop. This is an advantage of the monetary union of which we form part, and it would also be to the advantage of South Africa if they could be better consumers of our services and goods. The hon. member need not have much fear in that regard, because the amount of capital flowing in that direction is so minute that it makes virtually no impression on our total capital flow. The risk involved is apparently a considerable one, and the amount of capital going to those countries is very small in proportion to the total capital investment.

The hon. member for Bethlehem once again raised the matter of the Kruger rand, the R5 piece and the Burgers pound. These were interesting thoughts, and it is interesting that the hon. member has reminded us that we are going to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the minting of the Burgers pound—which very few of us possess and which many would like to possess. To my mind it is not right to strike a new coin on every occasion of that nature. We are careful; we are, as it were, sparing with the striking of new coins. For that reason I think he will understand that we shall consider the matter very carefully before giving thought to the striking of new coins.

†The hon. member for Green Point mentioned a few matters with regard to the capital works of the provinces. I fully agree with the hon. gentleman that this is very important and that we should have a plan to work upon as far as the capital works are concerned and as far as they get capital from the central Government for their capital purposes.

There are many sources.

Yes, from whatever source, but I just want to inform the hon. gentleman that we have worked for many years in order to find a formula for the Revenue Account of the provinces. We have found a new formula and I think it is working fairly well if you see the amounts which the provinces receive every year from the central Government for revenue funds. I think it works quite well and they are very satisfied. Some of them were against this proposal at the beginning, but I think that they are very satisfied, today. We also have a revolving fund under the old system. If they need more money there is a revolving fund from which they could borrow temporarily and repay later when they have surpluses in their accounts. We are now doing the very same thing in regard to capital accounts. I must confess that this is a very difficult matter. We have been working on it for some time already and I hope that we shall be able to present something to the hon. gentleman and the country shortly. Although we have not reached the formula, we are working on one very sincerely. At the present moment we are negotiating these matters with the provinces on lines which follow more or less the lines on which we grant them money on the Revenue Account. They could not be quite the same because circumstances in regard to capital needs are different in various provinces. Allowances have to be made for the differences in the various provinces. As I have said, we work more or less on a basis of revenue which is given to the provinces and the particular circumstances of every province. So far I believe the provinces are fairly satisfied. Of course, no one is ever wholly satisfied. There is not a single department of my hon. friends sitting here—although we are on very good terms—which is satisfied with the money I grant them on Capital Account. If we gave them all the money they required on Capital Account, I would like to hear what hon. gentlemen on the other side would have to say about it. We have to cut down on these amounts every time. Otherwise the Capital Account would grow to unpredictable proportions, which is something we cannot allow. Under the circumstances, since we cannot grant everything a province demands from us, I think they are fairly satisfied.

Education and health are vital.

We always negotiate with the provinces and we are always prepared to give way if they have a reasonable request. However, I must add that it is very difficult these days to project from two to five years forward. We even find in the central Government that, where we have made provision for expenditure of so much per year over five years in order to build a certain project, after the second year we find we are completely out. No one can really tell you what costs such as building costs will be next year or the year after. So it is understandable that the provinces do not always remain within the amounts they bargained for. However, I can assure the hon. gentlemen that we will do everything to expedite the formulation of that formula, which we know is urgently required.

The hon. member mentioned that some people are attacking the provinces. I can say that it is not the policy of the Government to do so. I think we of the Government have never expressed ourselves in any derogatory fashion towards the provinces. We have never said that the provinces should be abolished, but have always, as a Government, stated that we think the provinces play an important part in a country such as South Africa in respect of its whole governing framework.

As regards the reports in respect of public accounts, I admit I did not know that they were late. I shall go into the matter and I shall try to expedite the reports. It is not really my work, but I shall try to influence them.

Under the 1972 Act the responsibility is yours as well as of the Administrator.

I know, but he is responsible in the first place. I am unfortunately responsible for many things that I cannot always attend to.

*Mr. Chairman, while the hon. member for Potgietersrus was speaking, I thought he had started a good thing, and I almost started feeling pleased that someone here was saying that there had to be taxes. I thought we now had someone here who was saying that it was a very good thing that we were all paying taxes. However, he had hardly said that when he asked us to abolish estate duty. The plea that we should abolish estate duty is one we have often heard before. We had various arguments from various angles on the necessity for abolishing estate duty and how it was to be undertaken. I do not wish to bore the House with figures, but I nevertheless want to mention briefly how this Government has considerably reduced estate duty over the years. In 1948, when we took over, a person who had an estate to the value of R50 000 ...

Rand or pound?

A person who had an estate worth R50 000 paid an amount of R4 824 in estate duty. Today that person pays nothing. Even a person with a wife and two children and an estate worth R120 000 would have paid more than R24 000 in estate duty in that year but would not have to pay anything today. As far as my rich friends are concerned, if a person leaves an estate of, say, R300 000, he would have had to pay R107 000 at that stage, but at the present stage these duties would come to R37 000—a third of what had to be paid formerly. Therefore we have already made a great deal of progress as far as reducing estate duty is concerned. As my hon. friend himself said, in a case of riches which were not earned by the taxpayer himself but accrued to him as a result of inflation or whatever, it is so much easier for him to part with some of them. If we do not get that money, I shall have to collect more in taxes from my friend and other friends sitting here. Then we shall have to demand more from the poor and from the middle-income groups so as to make up for what we are losing to the more wealthy. To my mind these words, which all members have probably heard before, namely “to tax and to please, no more than to love and be wise, is not given to man”, are true indeed. This is one’s problem in these circumstances.

†The hon. member for Cape Town Gardens asked me a few questions about the Kruger rand. It is true, and one reads it in all the papers, that the Kruger rand has become a very much desired coin all over the world. Every day we receive reports, the last from Britain, that the demand for Kruger rands cannot be satisfied. We are happy that our own Kruger rand has become such a desired object. The main reason why the demand could not be satisfied here and in the rest of the world is, in the first place, because the demand grew so fast that it could not be satisfied immediately. The second reason is that there was some difficulty experienced by the refinery in Germiston which supplies the blanks to the South African Mint. The Mint then stamps these blanks for the Chamber of Mines. The whole business of selling these coins has nothing to do with the Government. The Government only comes into the picture in so far as the Government Mint mints these coins from blanks supplied by the Chamber of Mines. The coins are then returned to the Chamber of Mines in the amounts required, which in turn distributes the coins to its various distributors all over the world. As I understand this refinery has not been able to supply enough blanks to meet the need. At the present moment the refinery is busy enlarging its capacity—I understand they might even treble the capacity—so that more blanks will be available. The supply can then be increased for the world at large. I deliberately say “the world at large”, because I cannot promise the hon. gentleman that we will make many more Kruger rands available for sale in South Africa. It is not that we do not like our people to buy Kruger rands. It is true that it fights inflation, but as hon. members know, we have always been, and still are, dependent upon our export of gold to earn foreign exchange. If we should sell too many Kruger rands locally we will lose the foreign exchange which we need so badly at the present time. As long as the balance of payments situation constitutes a problem, I think it will be unwise to supply too many Kruger rands to our own people. The demand here is very high. We will investigate the matter, but I doubt whether it would be the right thing to increase the amount sold locally as we are able to earn foreign exchange by selling these coins overseas. As far as the outside selling of the Kruger rand is concerned, with the cooperation of the Chamber of Mines, the people who actually sell these coins, I am sure that the supply will be increased very shortly. The hon. member also referred to the quarter-rand and the half-rand. These are matters which we will discuss with the Chamber of Mines, as the Government does not handle the sale of these coins. The Kruger rand weighs an ounce, but there are also quarter- and half-rands. We will discuss this matter with the Chamber of Mines to see whether it is practicable to issue these coins on a commercial basis.

Votes agreed to.

Chairman directed to report progress and ask leave to sit again.

House Resumed:

Progress reported and leave granted to sit again.

Mr. Speaker, before continuing with what I have to say, I think I should tell the hon. the Minister that I have traced my three missing calls. One of them came through after three minutes 20 seconds and the caller was told that the member—who was at that moment sitting behind me—was not in Parliament. The other took four minutes 35 seconds to come through while the third caller gave up because he did not have the time.

I promised yesterday that we would study the Budget and give considered judgment of our reaction. I regret that the first impressions we obtained are the correct ones. It is an unimaginative, plodding, pedestrian Budget. It is as though the Minister has all the time in the world to put right the backlog and the problems which he faces. We give credit—not stinting but unstinting credit—for what has been achieved. However, we look at this budget in the light of the requirements of South Africa. What did it reveal? It revealed that the Post Office is R10 million better off. There was R6 million more income on revenue and R4 million less expenditure on capital. Consequently they have R10 million as an additional surplus. It reveals further that the South African users of postal and telephone services will spend R66 million more in the current year. It reveals—and we welcome this—that when one has sorted out and classified it, in fact less capital is being funded from revenue this year. It shows this as 50%, but in fact, when Post Office savings, etc., are calculated as loan and not revenue funds, it shows that we are spending less revenue on capital. We believe this to be the correct direction. But what it reveals, more than anything, Mr. Speaker, is that greater demands are going to be made on this hon. Minister and on the postal and telecommunication services.

I intend to deal with those demands, but before doing so, let me say that the Budget reveals one other interesting thing. It reveals an attitude typical of the Minister. This was no slip of the tongue but was printed in his Budget speech. We must therefore accept that it is correct. It showed that there are some 14 000 “non-people” in his department. He quoted at the beginning of his speech what I believe was possibly Freudian wishful thinking. He quoted the “establishment” of the Post Office, and said that it comprised 41 545 Whites and 8 727 non-Whites, a total of 50 272. What is before this House, however, are estimates of operating expenditure. If one turns to the estimates which we are now debating—we are not debating the hon. the Minister’s speech but these estimates—one finds on page 12 a heading “Establishment”; not “Employees” but “Establishment”. This schedule quotes the number of Whites and non-Whites on the “establishment” of the Post Office. This shows a figure not of some 50 000 but of 65 744-15 500 more on the establishment than the figure given by the hon. the Minister in his speech. The significant thing is, however, this. Where the hon. the Minister said that the Post Office has an establishment of 8 727 non-Whites, the Estimates we are being asked to vote show an establishment of 23 045 non-Whites. The hon. the Minister may say that these are simply casual employees. Last week, however, I asked the hon. the Minister what the pay-scales were of various groups of employees in the Post Office. The position as at 31 July 1974—some four months after the date at which the “Establishment” figures are reflected—reveals that there were 62 981 employees in the Post Office. In his speech, however, the hon. the Minister indicated that there were over 64 000 employees in the Post Office. Now either there are some 2 564 persons, less resignations, who are not being paid—on 31 July, 39 000 Whites were being paid while, according to the hon. the Minister, 42 000 were employed—or the 23 000 non-Whites who are being paid do not exist because the hon. the Minister says that there is only an establishment of 8 700. If we were merely playing with figures in this regard, it would not matter at all but I believe this to be a Freudian slip. It is a manifestation of the approach of this hon. Minister. Because he does not want the non-Whites there, they just cease to exist. Therefore, some 14 000 non-Whites who are employed by the Post Office do not exist on the hon. the Minister’s establishment although they exist on the establishment reflected in the estimates, and we are being asked to vote the money to pay them. However, in the mind of the hon. the Minister, they do not exist. I believe that it is time we got away from the myth that non-Whites are there only to serve their own people and homelands and that in fact they do not really exist; that in fact we only have an establishment of 8 000 and the 23 000 who are being paid at the moment are not really there. I believe that the answer to part of the problem is the myth in which the hon. the Minister and the Government believe as agains the reality of the position. The reality is as reflected by the department—that these people are working and are being paid; the myth is that the hon. the Minister says that they do not exist and are not on the establishment. We believe that not only do they exist but that they are the answer to many of the problems experienced by the Post Office. By all means make administrative arrangements to avoid friction. One can let these people work in different zones. One can make whatever administrative arrangements are necessary. I very much appreciate the attitude of the relevant Association, the Telecommunications Association, which I think recognizes the reality as well. My appeal to the hon. the Minister is that the Government should recognize what the department and South Africa always recognize—that we cannot run services like these with White labour only. When one hears that there are only 8 000 employees on an establishment, then there is something really wrong or else the hon. the Minister is bluffing himself.

The Budget divides itself into four heads. Unfortunately, it will be impossible for me in the time at my disposal to deal adequately with all four of them. I shall deal with some and other hon. members on this side will deal with the others. These four heads are: policy and finance, telecommunications, postal services and staff.

The overall picture is a very sorry one because it is a question of where you set your sights. Do you set your sights on not going backwards so fast, as I put it yesterday, or do you set your sights on going forward? I believe that the department has set its sights correctly. It has set its sights at real growth and real economic development, but when you look at this Budget, Sir, when you look at the attitude of the Cabinet in regard to the overall financial situation, then I believe that the department is being let down by the policy laid down by the hon. the Minister and his Government. If you look at the 1969-’70 report of the Postmaster-General, you will find the aims and objectives of the department set out there, and those aims and objectives are admirable. But, Sir, I do not believe that the hon. the Minister has an idea of the magnitude—or if he has an idea, he appears to be overawed by the magnitude—of the task which faces him. He is facing 21 years of lack of planning and lack of progress. [Interjections.] Yes, 21 years, and the figures prove it. Sir, now that the Post Office has become autonomous we find that there is a bit of progress but over the last 21 years, before the Post Office got its autonomy, a backlog had build-up which cannot be dealt with by normal means. I am sure that the hon. the Minister does not believe that we are still in the era of the tomtom and forked stick but his approach to the Budget seems to show it. He is trying to tackle this backlog with worn-out tools. Sir, in order to emphasize how we feel about it, I move the following amendment—

1. (a) overloaded and outdated telephone exchanges and the maintenance required by the system;
2. (b) the excessive backlog and waiting time experienced in the provision of potentially profitable new services;
3. (c) the lack of effective action to overcome staff shortages in essential fields; and
4. (d) the lack of reserve resources needed to meet the requirements of a growth economy.”.

Sir, let me deal first with telecommunications which are referred to in (a) and (b). We have heard a great deal about the new number of subscribers who “have been enabled to dial direct”. What the hon. the Minister means is “enabled to try to dial direct”, in many cases, if they have the patience. Sir, we acknowledge the progress that has been made, but what are we faced with? I quote from Live-wire of December 1973. Live-wire, the official journal of the Telecommunications Association quotes statistics to indicate that in 25 years we will require 5 million telephones and that the number of calls will go up from 2 million per year to 10 million per year. Sir, these are not my figures; these are the figures given by people who work in the department and who should know what they are talking about. In this Budget we have a capital increase of 12,92%, but if you eliminate the R5 million for the Atlantic cable, for buying shares in a company, you are left with 9,73% and if you eliminate overseas payments you find that there is an increase of only 9,25% in capital expenditure on communications within S.A. in the Post Office Budget. That increase will be absorbed by inflation, let alone the backlog from last year and the normal growth of the country. And from revenue we are spending some 21% more. If you eliminate interest on capital, etc., you find that only 11,5% will be spent on providing actual additional service to the users of the telephone. I do not have time to quote all the figures, but suffice it to say that over the last five years local metered calls alone have increased by 17,6% per year. That is the increase per year, and we are going to spend an additional 9,2% of capital and 11% of operating expenditure to meet that demand of 17%. That is why I say we are budgeting to go backwards slower and not to go forward. We have heard—and we admire the spirit in which we have heard it—of the telephone service improving, of beating the telephone backlog, etc. and we admire what has been done. But this is the cold reality and I am afraid that the reality will be expressed as it was in a story in Rapport, “Dit is hel om te bel”. That, Sir, is what I am afraid of. This year it is “hel om te bel, en nou kos dit nog meer”.

*That is what we are afraid of, that after all the money it is still going to be “hel om the bel”. That is why we say that this Budget is not taking the initiative, that it does not display the vigour and daring required for tackling the backlog that already exists. The hon. the Minister spoke of the decrease in the number of applications on the waiting list. According to him there are now 96 812; but a few months ago, in March this year, there were only 93 000. In other words, even though the number has dropped from 109 000 to 96 000, the backlog has been building up again this year. The applications on the waiting list have increased by 3 000 over the last few months, since the last session in February this year. In February the Minister said—and this is recorded in Hansard and in the Annual Report—that the backlog was 93 000. The Annual Report said that it would be 93 000 and the Minister said it was. But now it has grown to 96 800. So the backlog is growing and we are entitled to say that we are not meeting the problem.

We believe, Sir, that although it has been started, the only answer lies in more imaginative and greater use of private enterprise. Let them take over a telephone exchange and say to a company: “Build it, equip it and run it for five years.” It is good business. There is a 20% profit. There is a 30% income per rand of investment per telephone. There is an income of 30 cents per rand per year for every rand spent on a telephone, and a profit of nearly 20%. So it is good business. Now why does not the Minister take a few areas where he is in real trouble and say: “Not only can you supply the equipment according to contract, but you can install it and run it for five years.” That of course would give a bit of competition, too. Then you would not get a reply, when you apply for a telephone, that your application will be considered in 18 months or two years time; you might have a company saying: “Do you want it installed this afternoon, or tomorrow morning?”, as happens in America and other countries. Mr. Speaker, I do not have the time to elaborate on this, but we believe that the Budget does not reveal the initiatives necessary to destroy the backlog, let alone have reserve resources left in order to meet the demands of a growth economy.

Sir, let me look for a moment at the postal side. We congratulate the Post Office on having reduced their anticipated loss of R18 million to R6 million. No doubt mechanization is playing its part. I have been studying the reports, and the first time we heard of mechanization was in the 1966 report, where it was said that machines had been ordered for mechanical sorting in Pretoria. In 1969 we got facing and cancelling machines. Now I want to ask the hon. the Minister to tell us the result of this mechanization. Let me take the case of the new sorting machines. They appear in a photograph in the annual report of the Post Office. They are designed to handle up to 25 000 items an hour. In the photograph there are five operators at these machines, which is, according to the report, the number required to operate them. But, if you count the number of machines, Sir, there are six addressing machines. I suggest to the hon. the Minister that in fact it takes six operators to code the output from one machine. I suggest that in addition, if you take other employees associated with the machine, you have up to ten persons working with a machine. So we have ten people working a machine with an output of 25 000 per hour, which to me means 2 500 per worker per hour. An ordinary sorter can sort approximately 2 000 per hour. So the increase, for this capital expenditure, is 500 per worker more. And yet this appears, as I can see it, to be the basis on which the total forward-looking anticipation of quicker sorting is based. I hope the hon. the Minister will be able to prove with facts and figures that I am wrong, that he will be able to show that my information is incorrect, that in fact five people handle the machine, that in fact these are the only people who work on the machine, that there is nobody else doing any other job associated with it and that this new system is going to turn out the quantity which is anticipated.

Before I leave postal matters, I want to turn for a moment to the question of a commemorative stamp, for which I asked yesterday. I should like to repeat my request to the hon. the Minister for a commemorative stamp to be issued in September 1975 to commemorate the 25 years since the death of the late Gen. Smuts. I am sure the hon. the Minister would not like it to be thought that he was a Nationalist and not a national Minister of Posts and Telecommunications. I believe that it is unfitting that the late General Smuts should be the only Prime Minister of South Africa who has not been commemorated by a commemorative stamp.

Sir, I have other points, but perhaps we can raise these later. In the few minutes left to me, however, I should like to turn to the question of staff. The first item with which I wish to deal is the announcement by the hon. the Minister that he intends to abolish the Post Office Staff Board. I know that he has support from organizations on this, but I put it to him—and I ask him to check this—that there is among many Post Office I workers serious concern at the suggestion that the Staff Board be scrapped and replaced by an advisory committee. They look to the Staff Board as their final court of appeal, as the protector of their rights. They expect that there they will get justice. If an advisory committee is established, as has been suggested in some quarters, with the Postmaster-General as chairman, that will be part of the Administration. I do not suggest that it will be unfair and that it will not give total justice, but I suggest that it will not carry the same confidence as a staff board which acts independently, as opposed to an advisory committee with the administrative head of the department as chairman of that body.

Then I want to turn to the question of working hours. In the higher grades of clerical and administrative work in the Post Office 42 hours are worked per week, and in the lower grades 44 hours. In the Public Service all administrative and clerical staff work 40 hours per week and on the Railways they also work 40 hours per week. When you get to technical and running staff, different factors apply, but at this stage I want to deal only with the administrative and clerical staff. In other words, in the lower grades in the Post Office the clerical staff works four hours per week more than any other clerical staff in the Public Service, and in the case of the higher grades they work two hours per week more than the higher grades in the Public Service. I do not say that we must cut down the hours of work, but I say that they are entitled to proper consideration in their scales of remuneration and in their working conditions to make up for this. One suggestion which I do believe should be considered, is that the Post Office should only open from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. on Saturday mornings, as the banks and some of the building societies do. It gives two hours to those people who have to transact business on a Saturday morning, but it means that you will not have to have a full staff on duty, while still being able to provide a service. You would also provide greater leisure opportunities for the staff and come nearer to the objective which has been achieved in many other departments where they work a five-day week. If this were done, I believe it would not inconvenience the public because as it is now, financial business is restricted to certain hours. From my information Post Office business on Saturday mornings, even in the rural areas, between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. does not justify keeping the post offices open.

I do not have time to deal with other aspects of staff, but I should like to refer briefly to housing. We find a great improvement in the housing position this year, because 54 houses were built last year and this year 55 houses are to be built. In other words, one more house. Two blocks of flats are to be built. This brings about an increase of 50% in the expenditure on housing. It is chicken-feed, however The escalation in building costs alone over the year is going to absorb a good slice of that and then we are going to have one more house and two blocks of flats in two growth areas where accommodation is absolutely critical.

If some of these things which I have mentioned were done, I believe there would not be the resignations which this department is experiencing. I believe the Post Office would have a more contended staff and I believe the Post Office would be able to fill many of the vacancies which ecist now. The hon. the Minister would not need to have establishments which vary so greatly from the actual employment if we were to make full use of the non-Whites in South Africa. Industry shows the high technical skills which the hon. the Minister himself is getting from them. If we really are to tackle this job, wipe out the backlog and be able to deal with the natural and normal growth of South Africa and give the service which South Africa is entitled to, I believe that this is the starting point for attacking that problem. Then we would not have to go on with the outdated methods of switching, for instance, but we would be able to introduce the system which the Railways have introduced. I hope the hon. the Minister listened to his colleague when he explained how the Railways have modernized their system with cross-bar equipment. In the Post Office we have one new electronic exchange and that is the total contribution to the electronic age. I believe the Railways have gone on to a system which according to them—and one of them must be wrong—is the ideal system. My time has expired and we therefore cannot support this Budget.

Mr. Chairman, in the first instance I want to congratulate the hon. member for Durban Point on his first speech as the main speaker opposite on the Post Office, and express the hope that he will be successful in future and that things will go well for him. However, that is where the limelight ends for him. Yesterday I saw him entering this Chamber like a pretty young bride in his white attire. He said fine things here, but, upon my word, that is where it ended. He will find out yet that his party will berate him about this poor performance of his this afternoon.

But I shall be a very productive bride. [Interjections.]

The hon. member said quite a number of things here this afternoon, and in the course of my speech I shall deal with all of them. I do not want to deal with him too vigorously. I want to be fair, because what does the hon. member really know about finance? In all his life he has never spoken on the Post office, and therefore I think that it was very unfair of the United Party to give him that task to perform. You can see what happened yesterday, Sir. I would have done something else, but to make something out of it the hon. member started running around in order to put telephone calls through. I think we should really treat the Post Office Budget much more seriously. We should take a somewhat closer look at what is stated here. However, I want to associate myself with what the hon. member said, and I think that we on this side of the House and South Africa as a whole should thank and pay tribute to the hon. the Minister, the Postmaster-General and the entire staff for this excellent Budget. I ask myself how the Opposition can ever criticize such a Budget. Nothing but good things can be said about it. Why is this so? To those gentlemen who do not know, I want to point out that the hon. the Minister himself is a former Post Office official. Thirty-nine years ago he himself was a posts and telegraphs assistant. As long ago as that he got to know the Post Office people. He is a son of South Africa who has been serving the National Party over all these years and knows what the needs of South Africa are. I also want to mention to this House that he was a member of the Posts and Telegraphs Union, whose motto was always to be a “Strong Shield” for its members. This is what this hon. Minister together with his whole Post Office staff is for South Africa—a “Strong Shield”.

Let us take a look at this Budget. In a few words we can say the following about it: There were major salary increases; more extensive, better and more effective service in all respects; tremendous capital developments, which the hon. member disparaged and to which I shall come back; and there was no increase in the tariffs. Surely, these really are sweet-sounding words. South Africa says is grateful for these things. Here I just want to quote the concluding words of the hon. the Minister—

Why did the hon. member for Durban Point not study this splendid annual report? We received an annual report from the department which is as good as can be produced by any department. I wish one had more time to enjoy this report as pleasant, light reading. It contains all sorts of data, statistics and tables down to the minutest details. However, the hon. member quoted to us from Rapport and said (translation) “It’s hell to phone”, it costs more to make telephone calls, etc. After all, the tariffs have not been increased. Is the hon. member not perhaps referring to France? Now the hon. member pretends that this is the case in our country. Does he realize that since 1968 tariffs have only been increased twice? The effective joint increase in the tariffs for Post Office services is only about 28%. On 13 February 1974, during the previous session, the hon. member for Constantia predicted, according to Hansard (col. 825), that Post Office tariffs were going to be approximately 15% higher than would be necessary to finance expenses. What a prediction that was! The hon. member should tell us how he is going to substantiate the statement he made in this House earlier this year. At the time he said that because the Minister had not reduced tariffs and had used capital to finance the Post Office, he was following a course which did not combat inflation. How does the hon. member reconcile that? He should elaborate somewhat on that statement this afternoon.

What has happened to the Post Office over the past 12 months? The Post Office has grown as it has never grown before. Hon. members would be well advised to study the annual report of the department. I feel sorry for the hon. member for Durban Point, for does he realize that the operating expenditure doubled itself during the past five years, i.e. from the 1967-’68 financial year to the 1972-’73 financial year? During the same period the Post Office also doubled its assets. As far as capital expenditure is concerned, the cost of providing one telephone was virtually trebled, an increase from R487 to R1 360, whereas the investment for every working telephone increased from R213 to R365. It costs money to instal telephones, but in spite of this and in spite of the shortage of trained artisans and capital, which is a world-wide phenomenon, the net increase in telephones oyer the past year was 111 573. But for 615 this is just as much as the total number of people who voted for the United Party in the Cape during the past election. What is more, no fewer than 471 000 telephone services were performed during the past year. These are cases where telephone services were either provided, discontinued or transferred. That work had to be done. This is much more than the total number of votes polled by the United Party and the Progressive Party all over South Africa during the last election. They only polled 431 328 votes. That shows one that they will only appreciate the extent of this once they start counting heads. However, they do not understand it, and it seems to me they do not want to study the data. It is said that it is being proposed to increase the number of telephones to more or less 2 million next year. That means approximately one telephone for every White voter in South Africa. Where in the wide world does one find similar circumstances? As a result of inflation and high costs, which also affect the Post Office adversely, one finds that the capital being invested does not yield such wonderful profits. For every rand invested in telecommunications, the revenue dropped from 36 cents to 30 cents. But in spite of that the Post Office has kept pace with requirements and has developed second to none.

The hon. member for Durban Point referred to a backlog, but let us see why this is the case. We know we had a financial backlog in the Post Office. The Post Office only became independent on 1 April 1968. But what happened before that time? Why did we only become independent that year? This hon. Opposition opposed it. When the then Minister of Posts and Telegraphs introduced his motion of policy in the Senate in 1958 in order to make the Post Office autonomous, the United Party opposed it. They opposed it year after year, but what happened? It was subsequently referred to commissions and committees again, and when the legislation had to be passed in 1968, they wanted to take the credit for it. No, the National Party came a long way to accomplish these things.

Let us take a look at the four years before the Post Office became autonomous. What happened at the time? You know that at that stage the annual surpluses of the Post Office were paid into the Treasury. An amount of R138,9 million was paid in. And the Post Office received only R116,8 million as loan capital for financing developments. Now you may ask: Why was this so?

That was a scandalous Government.

That was a scandalous Opposition, Mr. Speaker. They never helped us, because over the years the National Party was struggling with a backlog dating back to 1948. But the Post Office could never become autonomous so that it might be run as a business concern. It helped to finance the country. In many respects it helped to establish an infrastructure in South Africa, something which this Opposition neglected to do in the days they were governing, in the previous half-century during which they were in power. Mr. Speaker, you can see what a setback this was for the Post Office and why it took it so many years to become autonomous.

This afternoon the hon. member spoke about the telephone service. I am also going to speak about the telephone service for a while. You know, Sir, we do not want to hide this; it is true that there are three major problems in regard to the telephone service today. The first one is the overloading of the metropolitan network during peak hours. This is true. And we are not running away from it. The second problem is the failure on the part of the Post Office to provide a telephone immediately to every person applying for one. One cannot produce telephones by merely pushing a button. It takes time; it costs money. Do hon. members realize this? Let me take my own constituency as an example. There is a house, it is demolished and a block of 60, 70 or 80 flats is erected on that one stand. A line cannot be constructed simply overnight. That exchange has to be expanded first. As it is, just about all those exchanges are working at full capacity. And surely hon. members know that it takes time to enlarge an exchange, to build a new one and to lay all those cables, etc. Surely these are not things that happen overnight. The third problem we have in connection with the telephone service is the high percentage of calls which have to be repeated before one can get through. I want to tell you that we do not find it easy to get through. If the hon. member wants to come and tell stories here, I can very easily tell him a big story. But I serve South Africa; I want help to build up the Post Office; I want to see what I can do. In thinking about the overloading of our telephone service, we must appreciate that 81,70% of the country’s telephones are connected with automatic exchanges. Problems can arise, Sir. We are, after all, dealing here with a machine, and if only our people in South Africa would be more reasonable, if only they would refrain from having long chats when they use the telephone during the day ... We can request our people to cut short their telephone conversations. We can also ask people to ensure that when the landlord is away the servant makes less use of the telephone. That is another thing we can do. A third point, Sir, is that we should request our people to make greater use of the reduced tariff periods after office hours and over week-ends. It would be a good thing if the Press in South Africa would once again bring this to the notice of the public. Sir, let us take a look at the number of telephone calls made during the period 1972 to 1974. There were 3 519 million metered calls, inland calls. That is approximately one telephone call to every human being living on this earth. That is more or less what it amounts to. Let us, for a moment, compare South Africa with England and other developed countries of the world. The position in London is that only 63% of the calls made are successful at the first try. The position in New York and Paris is the same. I want to ask the hon. member for Durban Point to make a random test. I am sure that in the case of at least 90% of his calls he will get through at the first try here in South Africa. There are problems, and we are not running away from them. We are realistic in regard to these matters.

The number of outstanding applications for telephones is 96 812. This is the figure which is on record. However, to what extent is that figure real? People apply for a telephone, they do not get it immediately and move away in the meantime. I want to suggest that many of these people whose names appear on the list no longer want telephones. There are many of them. I am speaking from experience now. There are people who told me that they had applied for telephones, but who no longer want them at the moment. Let us consider the question of telephones further.

Let us, for a moment, see what the position was on 31 March 1948. At the time there were only 318 581 telephones in South Africa. There was a waiting list of 79 100 applications for telephones, almost as many as there are today. When we add the two, we find that the over-all need for telephones came to 397 618 in that year. That means that the percentage of people who were unable to get telephones came to 19,89%—almost one out of every five who could not get telephones. That was the position in 1948, when the United Party was in power. What was the position on 31 March this year? As at that date there were 1 857 713 telephones and only 96 812 applications on the waiting list, a total of 1 953 925, i.e. a mere 4,9% of people who are unable to get telephones today, if they want them. This represents one out of every twenty. What does this look like to the hon. member for Durban Point? In his time it was one out of every five and in our time it is one out of every twenty. I think there is something of a difference; thank goodness for that little difference!

The maintenance of our telephone network costs money. We must appreciate that approximately three-quarters of the total number of staff employed are concerned with maintenance work. We cannot simply draw all those people away so that new telephones may be installed. Nor can we simply put all the work out to contract. Hon. members know that the Post Office goes to very great lengths, very, very great lengths, to put work out to contract. From 1967-’68 to 1973-’74 the total annual expenditure on maintenance increased from R21 million to R52 million. Hon. members can see that the amount of money spent on maintaining and modernizing these telephones is not being left behind. I want to say this to the hon. member: One struggles up to a certain point and then things are a little bit easier. We have almost reached that point, and I do not mean Durban Point! I could go on talking about the construction aspect, but I want to hurry since there are other matters that I should like to raise. Over a period of many years we on our part said we did not want television, for very good reasons. There are arguments for it and there are arguments against it. We know that the Opposition introduced motions here in which they pleaded for the introduction of television, and now they are becoming very frightened. There has also been a request from business men for the introduction of television to be postponed. Sir, the fact of the matter is that we have decided to introduce a television service, and, as I see the matter, we cannot back away now; it has to be introduced, and this places a much greater responsibility on the Opposition, because now they have to help their own business men to find artisans to instal television sets and to maintain these services. At a later stage I shall have more to say about the business men of South Africa in this regard; I think hon. members will find this information interesting.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Minister called upon our business men to refrain from enticing the technical staff away from the Post Office. I want to go further by saying that we should think of introducing legislation to prevent business men from employing Post Office staff involved in the manufacture or maintenance of television sets.

We are not in Russia.

Sir, that hon. member has just made a cynical remark here about Russia; I think he ought to be ashamed of himself.

This only happens in Russia.

He ought to realize that he is the representative of his constituency in this House. Sir, the Post Office fills a role second to no other institution in South Africa. We need our Post Office, not only for telephones but also for many other services as well as for strategic purposes, and if South Africa’s telecommunications system should break down, where would we and that hon. member, who has just made that cynical remark here, find ourselves then? His head would then be worth no more than mine. He should not try to play the fool here when we are dealing with important matters such as these. I think we in South Africa must realize that Defence and the Post Office are like two cart-horses which have to run side by side, and that we dare not neglect them.

Sir, the hon. member for Durban Point spoke here about the mail sorters, and I should like to say a few words in that regard. Surely the hon. member knows—he could have read it in these publications—that in 1968 a mail-sorting machine was installed in Pretoria on an experimental basis, a machine which can sort 14 000 postal articles per hour. It requires six operators to do so. An order has now been placed for three machines for Johannesburg and two for Cape Town, each of which can sort 25 000 postal articles per hour. Only ten operators are required per machine. Sir. the hon. member said one person could sort 2 000 postal articles per hour by hand. How many persons is he going to find who will be able to do that? The hon. member must at least be reasonable. Only the best sorters can sort 2 000 postal articles per hour.

Is the report wrong?

Only the best sorters can sort 2 000 per hour, and it is impossible to keep up that pace from morning till night, for hours. But, Sir, this can in fact be done by a machine, because that is after all not going to collapse. The hon. member must at least be reasonable.

The hon. member also asked for more non-Whites to be employed. I think the Post Office is doing for its non-Whites today what few other businessmen in the world are doing. It is stated here; the hon. the Minister furnished these figures yesterday. Let us just take a look at the salaries attached to a few of these posts. There are four posts in respect of which the officials receive more than R6 000 per annum, almost the same as that hon. member receives as a member of this House. There are ten posts in respect of which the maximum notch is R5 000 per annum, and there are 347 posts at a salary of R4 000 per annum. I do not want to repeat everything again. It is stated in the Budget speech. I do not think the hon. member really did justice to himself.

Where do we in South Africa stand as far as the Post Office is concerned? I think that if we have to pay a compliment today, it should be to the hon. the Minister and to the Postmaster-General and his staff for what has been accomplished in South Africa in recent years, and especially for the infrastructure that has been established in South Africa. After all, nothing can proceed without telecommunications. We want to express our sincere thanks for that. We have also had a petrol crisis in South Africa, and who took the lead in order to help to save the position? The Post Office was ready at once—within a few weeks—to issue petrol coupons should that be necessary. But even the hon. the Leader of the Opposition did not have a good word to say for the Post Office at the time. He said they could not do it and he made it seem as though they were too weak and too incompetent. I do not wish to tread on his corns, but that is the impression he created. We must bear in mind that the real national product showed an increase of 10% during the past financial year and that, at ruling prices, it showed an increase of 25%. All of these are things which require manpower and money, but the Post Office has kept pace in spite of them.

There is just one other point I should like to deal with before concluding, and that is in connection with the financing of the Post Office. Those hon. members have been pleading that much more be borrowed in order to finance the Post Office. Where do we stand as regards our financing in South Africa? We had a commission which told us clearly, scientifically, how the Post Office was to be financed. None of these hon. members have quoted one scientist or authority to say that the Post Office should be financed in a manner other than on a 50-50 basis, i.e. 50% from its own funds and 50% from loans. Then I also want to make it very clear that the 50% from its own funds includes the provision for depreciation.

If one takes out that provision for depreciation and takes into account nothing but revenue and profits, one finds that in the past year, 1972-’73, it was only 18,18%, for 1973-’74 only 14,88%, and for the last year approximately 13,65%. Where do the hon. members get the idea that we should now take that away as well? Surely that is not right. Let us look at just one item, namely the provision made in these statements for interest. Under expenditure provision is made here for R52 820 000 in respect of interest. This is the provision which has been made now, this year, for paying the interest and dividends on the money already borrowed. Admittedly, more dividends are received from the overseas cable company, etc., but this is 12,6% of the total expenditure, and if we had to borrow much more still, this figure whould in due course come to approximately R80 million and more, and we as the present generation should not murder the future generation by passing everything on to them whilst we ourselves want to live on the fat of the land.

Mr. Speaker, I express my thinks for a splendid Budget. South Africa will pay its tribute for it to the Minister and the staff of the Post Office.

Mr. Speaker, I should very much have liked to congratulate the hon. member for Sunnyside as the chief spokesman on Posts and Telecommunications on the Government side, but unfortunately I am unable to do so. I listened to him very attentively and I must honestly admit that, being as yet a relative newcomer to this House, I am amazed at the hon. member for Sunny-side being the chief spokesman on that side, for he actually told me nothing. I do not know whether he actually said much about the Budget. I did hear him refer to an outstanding Budget. Apart from that he mentioned the tremendous capital expansion without increased tariffs. But I want to put just one question to him. Does he know that there was capital under-spending? Certain capital spending was postponed and that is why tariffs were not increased. That is quite clear, and one need not spend half an hour discussing it.

Sir. I do not intend reacting any further to what the hon. member for Sunnyside said. I should like to say something about Posts and Telecommunications as a business undertaking. To run a large business undertaking such as this department successfully, it is extremely important for it to be able to depend on staff who are satisfied with their conditions of service and work together as a team. I think that when the hon. the Minister introduced this debate, he omitted to furnish us with a number of important facts relating to the staff. We had expected, inter alia, to get further particulars in connection with the new Service Act which had been promised to the staff. We found it a pity that the hon. the Minister had omitted to say something about that. We should like to know when this legislation is going to be introduced and what its more important features are. This is so important that we expected the Minister to begin his speech in that vein. We should also like to hear about the abolition of the Post Office Staff Board. That was referred to by the hon. member for Durban Point. It has been the watchdog of the staff for many years.

We should also like to know how the staff are going to be protected in future if that board is abolished. We should very much like to know what sort of body the new staff management board will be, what its functions and powers will be and how it will be constituted. In which way is it expected that it will be able to afford the staff the same or better protection? The hon. the Minister is silent about these important questions, and we are wondering why. Surely he can take us into his confidence. All we know about this matter is to be found on page 5 of the Estimates of Operating Expenditure, where the remuneration of the chairman and the members of the Post Office Staff Board is shown. According to these particulars the remuneration is considerably lower than it was previously. Nothing is said about this in the memorandum. Nor can I find any provision for the members of the new staff management board.

We on this side of the House want to have the fullest particulars on this matter. We are concerned about the protection of the staff. There is no doubt that the staff have problems. That is evident from the resolutions by the 39th Congress of the Postal and Telegraph Association of South Africa, which was held during March 1974. Altogether 46 resolutions were adopted. I shall refer to only six of them. These resolutions appear in The Postal and Telegraph Herald of April 1974. The first resolution embodied in it reads as follows (translation)—

A second resolution is—

A third resolution is—

A fourth resolution is—

A fifth resolution is—

The last resolution I should like to mention is—

There is not enough time for me to devote sufficient attention to each of these resolutions in my speech, but I do want to refer to two of them. In looking at page 7 of the Estimates of Operating Expenditure of the Department of Posts and Telecommunications, hon. members will see in paragraph 4.1 that subsistence comes to an amount of R2,13 million this year, which is the same as last year. There was therefore no response to the resolution concerning subsistence. The position appears the same as far as the vacation savings bonus is concerned. I do not think the increase in the amount voted, an increase of R300 000, complies adequately with the resolution.

The hon. member for Sunnyside spoke about television and I also want to say something about it. It now appears that there are serious misgivings about the full-scale introduction of a television service on 1 January 1976. The Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce has complained that unnecessary secrecy on the part of the hon. the Minister is hampering the orderly introduction of television, and has requested a round-table conference where difficulties may be ironed out. It is surprising that no steps have been taken to inform commerce properly.

The Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce is not the only body complaining about that; the Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut also has misgivings about it. They are asking that the introduction of television be effected more gradually. It would therefore appear that commerce was not consulted at all about the question of the procedures applied in respect of the introduction of television. [Interjections.]

Order! The spirits of the hon. member for Boksburg are running too high.

The Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut has asked for the rate of introduction to be slowed down and says in its statement that a deceleration ought also to give the six approved manufacturers the opportunity of giving urgent attention to the programmes for training technicians and semi-skilled labourers and to ensure that these technicians are not drained away from the Post Office on such a large scale. I must say it is very alarming to hear that these technicians are being lured away from the department. It would appear that the luring is being done by members of the consortium. I should like to know why there is no agreement between the hon. the Minister and the consortium in this regard. Apparently the hon. the Minister approved the members of the consortium. They were approved some time back, and I should very much like to know whether it was not a requirement for approval that an approved member would ”not be permitted to lure technicians away from the department. We hope the hon. the Minister will inform us fully on this situation.

†In connection with television we should also like to know whether the hon. the Minister has appreciated fully the significance of community antenna television, which is also known as CATV, or Cable TV. When the commission of inquiry into television reported in 1971, they said that cable television created problems in regard to control and recommended amendments to the Broadcasting Act in this regard. The commission also recommended that cable television should be considered as a means of providing a television service. We on this side of the House believe that further investigation of the long-term possibilities of cable television should be carried out, because it appears more than likely that this procedure could provide a more efficient T.V. service in our large cities and in areas of inadequate “off-air” reception, in the shor-term, as well as providing more efficient communication generally in the long-term. It seems that the hon. the Minister was hinting at this long-term project when he spoke to the Engineers’ Association on 14 October 1973. On that occasion he said, inter alia—

We trust therefore that the hon. the Minister has already seen the light in this regard and that he will in fact launch a further fullscale investigation into cable TV.

Finally I should like to deal with the Post Office Savings Bank and National Savings Certificates, which have now been taken over by the Post Office. The hon. the Minister seems to be very shy about taking over the Post Office Savings Bank because all he has told us is that R12,5 million of the many millions that are in the Post Office Savings Bank accounts and the National Savings Certificate accounts are being used as capital this year. We believe that far greater use could be made of the funds of the Post Office Savings Bank and the National Savings Certificates in funding the loan capital of the department. Why does the hon. the Minister not tell us what funds he will have available? As far as we are aware most of the funds have been invested with the Public Debt Commissioners and they will be there for a period of time. We would like to know which of these investments mature during the next five years—at least that would be a start—and what amounts would be available to the department as capital. We believe that this is vital information. It is the sort of information which we would have expected the hon. the Minister to have available to give us in the speech he made yesterday. We would also like to know whether the hon. the Minister has thought of negotiating with commercial banks so that amounts due to depositors can be paid to them through the commercial banks acting as agents, and deposits be made in this way as well. This would make the Post Office Savings Bank more popular. At the same time we would be glad to hear whether the hon. the Minister has taken any steps to investigate further the Giro system in relation to Post Office Savings Banks and in collaboration with commercial banks. I think hon. members would know what it is I refer to as the Giro system, so it will not be necessary for me to go into detail. Suffice it to say that a Giro system, coupled to your Post Office Savings Bank, would enable depositors to transfer funds from one account by means of a transfer voucher without any cost to either party. This is a very great benefit and facility which is being denied South African depositors. I do not want to go into the history of the Giro system, but it is a very interesting one. I might just mention in passing that those countries that have employed this system find that it pays for itself. It does not cost the depositor anything at all; the whole system is provided free. At the same time this will make the Post Office Savings Bank more popular than ever and provide the department with all the capital funds sufficient for its needs. It is necessary that the Giro system be investigated again, particularly in the light of new techniques and procedures now available in the telecommunications field and the computerization of the department’s operations. The hon. the Minister told us that at this stage the department is practically fully computerized and that the department has all the new systems that can be employed to make information available at a moment’s notice. If this Giro system is coupled to the Post Office Savings Bank any information required about a depositor’s account would be immediately available at any time. Any deposits or transfers made will also be available. It is really quite astounding when one realizes that in countries like the Netherlands a daily statement is sent through the post to every depositor so that he can know the state of his account from day to day at no cost at all to the depositors. I believe that this system is something which the Minister should really go to town on. I believe it is something on which he can build the entire capital structure of the Posts and Telecommunications Department. I believe it will grow in size to such an extent that it will keep pace with inflation and will also serve as a very useful means of combating the rather unpleasant aspects of inflation. For that reason I support the amendment of the hon. member for Durban Point.

I wonder whether hon. members who are present here this afternoon will recall where we were precisely 35 years ago. Perhaps some of them were not yet in the land of the living, for on that day a very heated debate took place in this House of Assembly. It was the day on which the previous Government, a United Party Government, plunged this country into a war, viz. September 1939.

Were you opposed to it?

I am now going to prove to them to what extent I was in favour of it. I was working at the time in the Germiston post office. The Government of that day told young men like myself that we should go to war. Because money was scarce in those days, and one earned the princely salary of £7. 10. 6d. in the Post Office, the Government of General Smuts said that what we earned on the battlefield would be paid to us over and above our salaries. That was a promise which was never kept. On 13 May 1940 I decided that if that was the way a United Party Government treated a person, I would have nothing more to do with them. All that they gave me for that empty promise was a war medal ...

Unskilled labour earned very little.

We had a person in the Post Office at the time who told me that there could only be one Postmaster-General, and that there was no reason why I could not be that person. I can tell the hon. member for Durban Point now that there can only be one Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, but that it cannot be him.

I do not intend reacting any further to what hon. members opposite said, except to refer to the mechanical mailsorting machine which the hon. member for Durban Point remarked on, this unit which handles 25 000 mail items per machine per hour. Now I can state from experience that in the days when proficiency tests still had to be taken in the Post Office to see how rapidly one could handle mail items, an official had to be able to sort a certain number of items per hour. This figure of his of 2 500 per person per hour is an unrealistic figure. It is just not physically possible.

I said 2 000.

Even 2 000 is not possible if one has to keep it up for ten hours a day

The annual report says 1 800.

Mr. Speaker, I sorted 1 800 in half an hour, but one cannot keep it up. That is the point. Because of the shortage of available trained staff it is a very good policy to mechanize as much as possible.

I also want to refer to the postal code book which all of us received a year or two ago. These code numbers are a prerequisite as part of the address. There is one little matter I should like to mention here. There are a few cases where we have names such as Middelburg in the Transvaal and Middelburg in the Cape; Heidelburg in the Transvaal and Heidelburg in the Cape. There is a Cleveland in Johannesburg and a Cleveland in Ohio, America, where some of you may perhaps have been already. There is also a Johannesburg in the U.S.A., and there is a Malvern in Natal and one in Johannesburg. These code numbers facilitate sorting and also eliminate errors. Since I am discussing it, I should like to ask whether it is not possible to make this edition of the postal code book more attractive. In the same breath I also want to ask whether it could not be made available to members here in the House of Assembly. I do not have one in my office, and I miss it.

Not a great deal of credit is forthcoming from the Opposition for a very good Budget. The criticism which was levelled, was half-hearted, because they realized that this is an excellent Budget against which few attacks can be made. What the members on the opposite side also referred to was that the position in other countries in respect of certain services is possibly better. I have before me here a few newspaper cuttings—the one dated as recently as 20 August 1974. This appeared in The Argus—

It goes on to say—

There is nothing of this nature at all in South Africa. Here in South Africa there is a flourishing economy. The Post Office and the telecommunications system is part of this flourishing economy. If it were not for the Post Office we would not have had this flourishing economy. Mr. Speaker, let us consider the position in the U.S.A. to which glowing reference is always being made. Here I have the US. News and World Report of 1 July 1974—

Here is the London Daily Telegraph of 14 April 1974—

So I could go on to quote other examples to you. Since I am talking about newspaper cuttings now, there is one matter I should also like to mention in this House. A few years ago, when this department became autonomous, there was a great deal of general criticism on the part of the Press. I do not want to single out any particular newspaper. The necessary support for this move on the part of the Press was simply not forthcoming. Perhaps one should also lay this at the door of the Opposition, who were very often the prompters of the criticism which appeared in the newspapers. Many of the newspapers still supported them at that time. There was a totally negative attitude on the part of the Opposition. We recall how the former member for Orange Grove made attacks on the hon. the Minister and never expressed a single word of appreciation. In the course of years the hon. the Minister, staunchly supported by his staff, has succeeded in establishing greatly improved relations between the Press and the Post Office, particularly in respect of posts and telecommunications. In my opinion this is a very fine trend. There has to be criticism; one appreciates that. But the criticism must be constructive and not contemptuous or derogatory. This service which has been rendered to South Africa by the Press on the one hand and the Post Office on the other, under the guidance of the hon. the Minister through his Postmaster-General, to create better relations with one another, to keep the Press constantly informed of the problems, of developments and of the expansion of services, has been to the benefit of the Post Office, the entire service. I trust that the Press, the department and the hon. the Minister will continue in that way to maintain those sound relations with the Press. Since the Post Office and the telecommunications system form part of communications, in the same way as the Press, I think it is necessary for the relations between them to be sound.

If one considers the financial aspect of the report, one is impressed by it. I know that this has been mentioned before, but I just wanted to emphasize it again. During the past financial year a deficit of R18,7 million was budgeted for, and the actual loss amounted to only R6,2 million, a reduction therefore of R12,5 million. To my mind this is something positive. This position is attributable to thorough control of expenditure. To me this indicates growth and thorough control. It indicates even greater initiative on the part of all the officials of the Post Office to make of this business undertaking an even greater success than it is at present. There is more accurate allocation of expenditure which resulted from improvements in the bookkeeping system. These are also positive improvements. There is also the question of increased revenue. The revenue from the telecommunications service for the financial year 1972-’73 amounted to almost R226 million, as against expenditure of just over R200 million. There was therefore a surplus of R25,5 million. On the other hand, however, the Post Office division, over the same period, showed a deficit of R7,5 million. What this amounts to is that the one part of the service is inevitably being to a certain extent subsidized by the other division of the telecommunications service. It is an historical fact that under the old dispensation many services were maintained which were uneconomic and in regard to which sound business practices were not applied. The department is systematically eliminating these uneconomic services. However, one cannot suddenly eliminate something to which one has become historically accustomed over a period of decades. Recently I heard—these figures can be confirmed—that the uneconomic services which are still being maintained by the department, still amount to approximately R25 million in one year. This was either during last year or the year before last. This is a very large amount. The twice-daily deliveries in the major cities such as Durban, in regard to which questions have already been put and the bulk of the post is delivered in the morning and an afternoon delivery is also insisted upon, is one of these services. This is being done at great expense, for the postmen are of course people who receive salaries, and this is a labour-intensive service. The public should please take cognizance of the fact that one cannot keep on providing uneconomic services. If one is not prepared to pay the increased tariffs which these services necessitate, then it is no longer possible for services of this kind to be rendered. Who would want to pay four or five cents more for a letter? There are places where there would have to be more centralization so that this amount which I mentioned could systematically be reduced. I assume that one will probably never be able to eliminate it, but for the sake of the necessity of the communications services which have to be provided, there are also certain services which will have to be maintained in the interests of the country and one has no complaints to make about those. But it is a different matter when people, merely for the sake of a little more convenience, want to receive post twice on one day.

Sir, I conclude by paying tribute to the hon. the Minister and his staff for the wonderful report which was submitted here and I should like to express the hope and the confidence that next year, when we receive another report from the Minister, he will be able to bring us just as favourable to report. Sir, if this were a business undertaking and the board of directors had to appoint another chairman, I think that there would be an unopposed motion that this hon. the Minister should take over the reins again for the next year. I therefore reject the absurd amendment of the hon. member for Durban Point which is merely aimed at kicking up a little dust. There is nothing of substance in his amendment.

Mr. Speaker, most people, I suppose, with the exception of members of the chorus of praise singers, some of whom we have heard here this afternoon, are, at one stage or other, critical of the service or the non-service which the Post Office renders in this country. This is hardly surprising because it affects everyone; it affects more people possibly than any other department of State. And when it comes to telephone services, the criticism is inclined to become bitter. Sir, I think it is important for us to try to find reasons for this almost universal criticism of so many aspects of Post Office activity and then, for the purpose of trying to put things right, to find out where the culpability lies. Sir, anybody who listened to the hon. the Minister yesterday and who has taken the trouble to read the annual report of the Postmaster-General for 1972-’73 can come to one conclusion only, I believe, and that is that given a different political framework in this country over the last quarter of a century, the troubles of the Post Office today would have been infinitesimal compared to what they are at this very moment. I will try, Sir, to motivate this statement.

We all know and we have heard here this afternoon—the hon. member for Durban Point made this point effectively—that the problems of the Post Office are basically due to an appalling staff shortage. “A chronic shortage” was the phrase which the hon. the Minister used yesterday. My point is that these shortages need not have grown nearly as great as they are today if the steps that are now being taken, reluctantly as far as we can make out, to recruit and to train Black and Brown labour, had been taken 20 years ago—as they could well have been taken and as they should have been taken. The reason why this was not done is quite obvious: it was a purely political reason, the determination of the party in power to reserve all skilled occupations for Whites. Surely, Sir, the shortages could have been anticipated; surely people must have realized that labour on this front was going to run out sooner or later. Now at long last, in 1974, after this Government has been in power for 26 years, people of colour are suddenly being trained as technicians and electricians—thank heaven for this—but on a scale so modest that even on a longer-term basis the present intake is going to make very little difference.

We have been told by the Postmaster-General that plans are far advanced for the training of Coloureds, Indians and Bantu as technicians to serve their own people in their own areas. Non-Whites came in as electricians and learners for the first time in 1971. By last year there were only 171 of these people on the pay-roll. There are two points that one wants to make in this connection. The concept of technicians serving their own people in their own areas is fine, and nobody objects to this, but why, when we are faced with a crisis of the proportions with which we are faced today, is there not a vastly increased intake of trainees, technical and others? For heaven’s sake, let us put them into service wherever the need is great, and heaven knows it is great all over, and not only in their own areas. A little of this is happening, but it is so inadequate for the needs of the day. We know that the training of labour takes time, but I think it is important to realize that in practice it takes less time than people tend to think. Certainly it takes less time than the opponents of this system would have us believe. If we had started training non-White technicians 20 years ago, think of the situation we would have been in today. And it is the politicians who are to blame for this. They are also to blame for the hopelessly inadequate financing of the years gone by, the refusal of the department to depart from this White skilled labour philosophy, and the general shortsightedness in planning. Let us make no bones about this.

Now we are assured that as far as skilled and semi-skilled non White labour is concerned, everything is being done “in strict accordance with Government policy”. Sir, that is exactly the trouble in this situation. That is South Africa’s choice today, either, to take just one aspect of the Post Office activities, to have a telephone service which is inadequate very largely because of strict adherence to Government policy, or to bring about a radical modification of Government policy to ensure a vastly increased intake of non-White labour of all kinds and so, among other things, provide an adequate telephone service in the foreseeable future, and not in the sweet by and by, which will be the case if we go on training them as we do at the moment. Sir, I suggest that the choice before this country is simple. In the context I am talking about, it is either ideology or efficiency. The experience of the Post Office over the last 25 years has proved beyond any kind of doubt that you cannot have both. But today, as the result of shortsightedness and this fixation with ideology, South Africa is suffering all the wretched consequences of a needlessly large telephone backlog; of a shockingly high percentage of local and trunk calls which in the words of the Postmaster-General “require repeated attempts before a successful connection is obtained”. It is suffering inordinate delays in repairs and in installation services. Countless, but countless, public call offices simply do not function. Anyone who has had the experience of trying to telephone from the Johannesburg railway station will confirm this. There is 98% of non-functionability, if I may invent the word. South Africa, I suggest, is suffering all this and more primarily because of this obsession not to train Black people for skilled work except in exceptional circumstances; and when they have absolutely no option they do it reluctantly.

Let us consider the ideological restraints under which the Postmaster-General and his staff work. These are restraints, Sir, which I suggest to you are not only crippling in their implications for the day-to-day functioning of the Post Office, but which also prevent, I believe, intelligent forward planning such as should have been undertaken a quarter of a century ago. Given these disabilities and their consequences, I suggest that the Postmaster-General and his staff have often come close to achieving the miraculous. I would say without any hesitation that the public of South Africa owes the Postmaster-General, as well as the department and its staff, a great debt of gratitude for the work that they have done over the entire field of their operations.

I have heard an hon. member pleading for some brightness in certain publications, but I should like to say that I believe the Annual Report of the Postmaster-General is one of the most attractive documents that has been produced by a department of State and it is informative. I think the department deserves all the credit for this. To me this Annual Report is a sad document. It is an account of achievement in the face of tremendous odds and, reading between the lines, a story of failure because of political considerations regarding the use of people and the lack of foresight in the years gone by which is linked with it.

Against this background I should say that it is perhaps surprising that the telephone backlog, instead of being just under 100 000, is not twice that size. I think it is remarkable under these circumstances and with these disabilities that they have been able to increase the total exchange capacity in South Africa by 12% in the past year, that internal calls have increased by 23%, overseas calls by 40% and external traffic by 39%. These are remarkable achievements. I think it is almost unbelievable that there will be more than two million telephones in operation next year, wrong numbers notwithstanding.

I would agree with the hon. member for Durban Point that the situation is not necessarily going to improve. This is what I think this House ought to realize very clearly. It is not going to improve in spite of the best efforts of the Postmaster-General and his staff and in spite of grudging political concessions regarding the training of skilled workers. In fact, the chances of this situation growing far worse are very, very real indeed. The Postmaster-General—I should like to say this as an old newspaper man—is refreshingly honest and outspoken in his assessments and his public announcements on these things. He has spoken of “an alarming staff drain”. He was talking about the private sector which he said was stealing trained men because it was failing to train sufficient electronic engineers. He has warned that this draining away of people could be—this was his word—“catastrophic”. Out of a total technical establishment of 12 000 the Post Office is losing 1 000 per year and it has only been able to train 900 a year. In other words, it cannot even keep up with its present establishment. The situation inevitably is going to deteriorate. Only a few months ago—I think it was in June—the Postmaster-General said “I am at my wits’ end about technical staff”. The advent of TV will, of course, aggravate this position. I think if we realize these things we can see how close this country is today to a crisis of major proportions in the field of telecommunications. The years 1975 and 1976 may still, as we have been warned, “turn out to be the years of our final defeat”. I am not saying this. These are the words that are used by people in the department who know. Yesterday the hon. the Minister warned us that the tempo of resignations “steeply increased during the first quarter of this financial year”. The imagination boggles at the prospect of the present situation becoming “catastrophic”. Why do we not institute crash training programmes to obviate a worse crisis?

The hon. the Minister yesterday appealed to the private sector not to pirate staff. The appeal from his point of view is perfectly understandable. However, it is not in accordance with the facts of life. Labour, certainly White labour, because it is allowed to go, will go where it can earn the most money. This kind of draining is simply a reflection of the reality that there are no longer, and that there have not been for the last 10 or 15 years, for those who could see a few years into the future, enough White hands to go round.

The suggestion of the hon. member for Sunnyside that there should be legislation against the movement of people from the Post Office sounds to me so shocking that I wonder whether he realized what he was saying.

A sort of efflux control.

Surely this is nothing but direction of labour. I do not want to restrict labour from moving from the State. In fact, it happens nowhere in the free world. [Interjections.] Somebody very rightly on my right says that it sounds like Russia. It certainly sounds like that to me. This is no solution to our problems; in fact, I can think of nothing more calculated to make people want to scuttle out of the Post Office service than talk of this kind. This is bound to happen, if you tie them down.

Further deterioration in the telecommunication services is going to come unless drastic measures are taken to relieve the labour crisis in the way we have outlined here. We must realize that the telephone service will get worse instead of better. Maintenance and repair services will either become more tardy or are going to stay the same at the expense of further development and the Post Office will remain unable to improve the quality and the extent of a fine service with that sense of urgency which the situation demands.

You are a pessimist!

Mr. Speaker, in spite of this unrealism on my left—which is really my right—the prospect is a dreary one. It is a dreary one for anyone who can see and for anybody who has eyes to read. Nobody can blame the present Minister of Posts and Telecommunications for the lack of planning of a quarter of a century ago, but we can and we do blame him for having been so ideologically hidebound during his term of office.

I want to deal with two other matters briefly. Firstly, I want to talk for a minute or two about the recent strike of between 500 and 700 Coloured and Indian workers in the engineering postal division in Durban. We were told that agitators were behind it. That may be the case, I do not know, but it seems to me to be a rationalization which is too easy to make. Besides, it is hardly necessary in this day and age to say that agitators only succeed when they find fertile ground or a receptive audience on which they can operate. Be that as it may, could we not have avoided a situation such as the one which arose when—I am quoting newspaper reports—150 Black strikers stood outside the Pine Street entrance of the post office while White employees could be seen loading postal vehicles with bags of mail? I suggest that nothing could be more calculated to incite inter-group hostility than the use of White employees in this kind of situation in full view of Black employees.

What do you want them to do?

I believe it is a case of insensitivity. I do not know whether these hon. member heard what I was saying. It is an insensitivity that must be avoided in the future.

Then there is one final point I should like to make. I want to ask the hon. the Minister to remember the plight of the people of colour, since we have hundreds of thousands of them living on the outskirts of our big cities where the need for telephones is quite desperate. I have figures here, but I do not have the time to give them to the hon. the Minister now. Looking at these figures, I believe that these needs are real indeed. I know that this is a difficult request to make at a time like this, but the need for it is real; it is dire. I hope that the need of these communities will be borne in mind when the time comes and when it is possible to provide additional telephone services.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Parktown ...

Are you related to the man?

I am not related to the Van Collers nor am I related to a Botterbul. The hon. member for Parktown is a man of fairly responsible appearance and does not look as though he belongs in that clique of Auntie Helen’s, but after his speech today I see that he is one of the Auntie’s little chicks. The hon. member for Parktown made the assertion that ideals and efficiency ...

Not ideals.

“Ideologies and efficiencies”.

Not ideals, but ideologies. There is a very big difference.

Yes, he made the assertion that ideologies and efficiency cannot go together. Is that correct? I want to state unequivocally that the ideologies and efficiency of his side of he House are proved in this Budget. I also want to put it very clearly—there should be no secrecy in this regard—that we do not believe in doing away with the colour bar. This party is governing South Africa; we can thank our lucky stars that it is not the Progressive Party. We do not begrudge training to the non-Whites of South Africa and it so happens that they do receive training, too, but they are provided with that training in order to provide a service in their own areas for their own people. What is morally wrong about that?

Nothing. Who says that it is wrong?

That is the ideal. The hon. member for Parktown went on to say that we should have trained the non-Whites 20 years ago. We started in 1948 with political training as well as other forms of training in order to provide the non-White in his own area with the opportunity of developing technically and at sundry levels in society. You see, Mr. Speaker, they begrudge the non-White the opportunity of providing a service to his own people in his own area. I had a strange feeling that the hon. member for Parktown was not part of the Oppenheimer set-up, but I fear that he goes along with this little Waddell after all. [Interjections.] I beg your pardon, Mr. Speaker, I mean the hon. member for Johannesburg North.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition made the statement in this House that “due to the bickering in the United Party, the result is as it is”. However a drop in numbers was not the only result. We have now had two Budgets in this House. In the Budget of the Minister of Finance, the hon. member for Yeoville took the place of a man like Mr. Sonny Emdin, and in the Post Office Budget the hon. member for Durban Point took the place of a man like Etienne Malan. This is a disaster which has struck the United Party. I just want to say that the behaviour of these members has been extremely bad. To try to present this department in a bad light, is extremely bad.

Let us take a brief look at the set-up in other countries. Hon. members opposite remonstrate with this department and say that we should have made a start 20 years ago with the training of Bantu. I want to ask the hon. member for Parktown: What is the position in Great Britain, in France or in West Germany?

Not as bad as here.

I am not talking to you. I am talking to the member who is sitting behind you. What is the position in Great Britain, in West Germany and in France? Have they got any colour barriers there? I know the hon. member was not talking about this, but I want him to tell me why their telecommunication service is in a much worse state than ours.

That is not true.

The hon. Leader of the Progressive Party does not know what is true and what is untrue. Let me quote.

Have you been there?

The hon. member for Johannesburg North asks me whether I have been there. I know a lot of Scottish immigrants who are an asset to this country. Unfortunately I cannot say the same about him. I want to quote from The Daily Despatch, an overseas paper. The article is headed “Phone frustration” and goes on—

Yet there is no trouble overseas according to the hon. member for Sea Point. The Daily Telegraph in Britain reports as follows—

But the hon. member for Sea Point says there is no problem as far as telephones are concerned overseas and that only South Africa suffers from this problem. It is shocking.

He never said that.

He did. When I asked him why he did not compare the position here with that in other countries, he replied that that is not so.

*What about France? France is years behind and millions are waiting for telephones. Two million Frenchmen are waiting for telephones. Hundreds of thousands have been waiting for longer than six years and others for as long as ten years. Those are the reports we are receiving. The hon. member for Sea Point should talk about things he has knowledge of, but I am afraid he knows very little about a great many things. What is the true position as far as our Post Office is concerned? The Post Office is today one of the biggest business enterprises in the Republic of South Africa. Now the chief spokesman opposite is sitting and laughing.

I was not laughing; I was greeting a Nationalist.

It is always worthwhile to greet a Nationalist, because they are honest people. The hon. member would be well advised to do so more often. What is the position as far as the Post Office is concerned? While I have said that it is one of the biggest business enterprises in the Republic, it is also true that it is, inevitably, exposed to inflation, a phenomenon which occurs throughout the world. This Budget constitutes unequivocal proof of the efficiency of this particular department. What has made this possible? It was the Post Office Readjustment Act of 1968. From 1968 to the present time, gigantic developments have been taking place in this department. There have been greater flexibility and possibilities for financing.

At present a great deal is being said here about the telephone shortage. All of us have that problem in our constituencies, because one likes to provide one’s voters with telephones. Why, though, are hon. members not more realistic in their standpoint concerning the development of this department? Hon. members only talk about the shortage of telephones, but why do they not talk about the increase in telephone traffic?

I did; I quoted the figure of 16,7%.

The increase in telephone traffic, the metered call-units only, was 2,7 million during 1970-’71, while last year it was 3,5 million. The position in regard to calls to countries in Africa, is interesting. In 1970-’71 the duration of calls to countries in Africa in minutes was 31 700, while this year it was 3 352 000. Therefore there is liaison with African states and it is not only the Progressives who are in contact with the African states. This department deals with major capital expenditure. It deals with extensions in the field of telecommunications, and a new era in the fields of electronics, satellites and all manner of other developments which are taking place. In addition it has had to cope with salary increases. But notwithstanding all this, tariffs have risen by only 28% over the past five years, while this year, in this Budget, no tariff increase has been announced in any sphere. What has the increase in the price index been over the past five years? It has been 35,2%. In other words, by dint of its efficiency, this department has made it possible to announce that there will be no increase in tariffs. Let us draw a comparison: Tariff increase 28%, consumer price index 35,2%, wholesale price index 36,2%. It is the most conclusive evidence possible of efficiency in the economic world when a department can announce a tariff increase over a period of five years which is less than the rise in the consumer price index. This is a proof of efficiency. Then the hon. member for Park-town comes along and says that there is a lack of efficiency. That is a very poor show, Sir. And now it may be said—and I know that this, perhaps is what the next speaker is going to say: “Yes, but the expense involved in telephone services in South Africa has increased.” What are the costs of telephone services per annum in this country as compared with other countries? And hon. members of the Progressive Party can listen. The following is a comparison between telephone costs in this country and other countries: South Africa R85,85; the Netherlands, R119,19; United Kingdom, R129,96; France, R204,52; West Germany, R278,03; Australia, R199; Japan, R119. We enjoy the cheapest telecommunications service in the world in South Africa. Is that not an achievement? And notwithstanding this, it was not necessary to increase any tariffs. We are dealing with a major problem in South Africa. We are entering a new epoch. High priority will be given to the technical development of our country. This is an era of electronics. This is an era of major expansion, whether in television or telecommunications—there are various fields. It is well that this department, this Minister, have enabled a chair to be established at the University of Pretoria to meet these needs. It is well, too, that we have Olifantsfontein and the extensions which are being made there. At present 500 students can be trained there. When the extensions have been completed, no fewer than 650 students will be trained there. It may occur as regards television that the private sector will attract some of our technicians. But this is an extremely dangerous position ...

What will the duration of the course be?

Just give me a chance. The position, Mr. Speaker, is that with the coming of television the private sector, the dealers, will attract our technicians. I want to make an urgent appeal for our technical colleges, National Education, our technical colleges throughout the Republic of South Africa, to offer courses in electronics—throughout the Republic. My information is that the youth are taking a close interest in this field of study. My information is that the youth in the rural areas are taking a close interest in this field of electronics. I therefore think that it is important that National Education should offer these courses as soon as possible throughout the Republic, in the various technical colleges, in order that we may provide for the future and for the technical explosion and development which is going to take place in this country.

That is the first time I have heard you talk sense in this House.

We just don’t converse enough.

*I think I am speaking on behalf of this whole House when I say that we want to convey our thanks, our sincere thanks, to the telephonists, the women and men in this Parliament, for what they do for us members of Parliament. The thoughtfulness, friendliness and absolute willingness to assist all members of this Parliament to converse with people throughout the Republic of South Africa, can only be acknowledged with appreciation. I believe that this service which these few people are rendering here, is a symbol of what the Post Office means for the Republic of South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Rustenburg began his speech by making some rather snide remarks about the hon. member for Durban Point and the hon. member for Yeoville. My rejoinder to the hon. member in this regard is to say that it is a sign of the great amount of talent that is available in the United Party that we are able to replace an Etienne Malan with a Vause Raw and a Sonny Emdin with a Harry Schwarz.

Hear, hear!

The hon. member also made a feature of the problems in regard to the shortage of telephones that exists in overseas countries. He also compared some of the charges applicable in overseas countries with those ruling in South Africa. I am not in the slightest bit interested in comparisons with overseas countries. Our duty in this debate is to deal with the position of the department in South Africa and to ascertain whether our department in this country is doing its job as well as possible. I hope that hon. members will agree that that is the purpose of this debate.

I should like to start by making some comments in regard to the annual report of the department which has been highly complimented during this debate. I should like to say that I find this an excellently produced report and that it contains a great deal of very useful information. It gives us, as members of Parliament, a knowledge of the working of the department which is very useful to us if we are to perform our duties effectively. I particularly like the addendum on the last page which provides us with information in regard to certain key items, information which is six months later than the date of the report. I also like the six-year comparison that has been given in respect of quite an amount of information. However, I also wish to bring to the attention of the hon. the Minister certain criticisms that I have in regard to this report.

The first of these criticisms is that in this report for 1972-’73, certain information which was supplied to us in previous years in the statistics to supplement the Postmaster-General’s annual report which used to be tabled—it has not been tabled this year—has been omitted from the main report this year. I refer in particular to the schedule of deferred applications for telephones which was given to us previously in considerable geographical detail. This was very valuable information as far as we as members of Parliament were concerned because it enabled us to assess the telephone position in our own constituencies. I hope that in future years the full amount of information will be included in the annual report. The second criticism that I have in regard to the annual report is the length of time it takes to produce and make this report available. We do get regular, up-to-date information published in the Government Gazette in regard to revenue and expenditure on a monthly basis, but this report which covers the period to 31 March 1973 was only signed on 15 January 1974 and was only made available to members of Parliament some considerable time thereafter.

This is a Budget debate. Do not discuss the report; discuss the Budget.

This is a Budget matter too. As we stand here today on 4 September 1974 debating this Budget, the latest balance sheet for the Post Office, the latest auditor’s report, reflects the position as at 31 March 1973, over 17 months ago. In fact, I would describe that balance sheet, that auditor’s report, as now being Africana. Mr. Speaker, if you judge the size of the Post Office on the size of its assets, the Post Office is the twelfth largest business organization in South Africa. Of the 11 organizations which are larger than the Post Office, eight are in the private sector and six of those eight are public companies which have to comply with the Companies Act, and complying with the Companies Act means producing reports within a maximum period of five months after the end of the financial year. In fact, all of the six public companies which are larger than the Post Office produce their accounts in a much shorter period, the average period being three to four months after the end of the financial year. I would suggest to the hon. the Minister that if larger organizations than the Post Office, organizations which on the whole are more complex, can produce their reports so much quicker than the Post Office, we are not asking too much in asking that the Post Office should speed up its reporting. It would greatly facilitate our job as members of Parliament if this were done.

Mr. Speaker, there is one aspect of the hon. the Minister’s Budget speech on which I want to comment and that is his stated intention of adhering slavishly to the recommendation of the Franzsen Committee that 50% of capital expenditure should be financed by loans and 50% from internal sources. Fortunately on this occasion the hon. the Minister appears to have adopted a new formula for defining what constitutes loan funds and what constitutes internal funds, because on this occasion he has classified the funds generated by the Post Office Savings Bank and by National Savings Certificates not as loan funds but as internally generated funds. I personally would have taken the opposite view; I would have regarded Post Office funds as being loan funds, but I am pleased at the hon. the Minister’s decision because it does mean that he is asking for a lower contribution to capital from revenue than would otherwise have been the case, which in turn has meant that he has not had to increase his charges in order to raise capital. I think this has been a major factor in this Budget in enabling the hon. the Minister not to have to raise charges. We on this side of the House have consistently opposed too high a contribution from revenue to finance capital expenditure. By all means make adequate and liberal provision for depreciation so that assets can be replaced at their escalating costs, but after you have made that provision for depreciation I would suggest that you want to go carefully because any additional provision that is made for financing capital from revenue, after you have made your depreciation charges, means raising the charges you have to make for your services. This applies particularly in such a capital-intensive industry as the telecommunications industry. This is a very capital-intensive industry where R1 of investment brings only 30 cents of revenue, so that relying on revenue for capital places a very heavy burden on your revenue account. And that is my answer to the hon. member for Sunny-side, who raised this matter earlier in the debate.

I am glad to see that the hon. the Minister is following the advice which he has had given to him year after year, even though he may have followed it inadvertently on this occasion. What does worry me, though, is that by slavishly following the 50: 50 formula and by being so reluctant to increase the borrowings for capital purposes of the Post Office he is stifling the growth of the telephone system.

What about the interest charges?

He has budgeted, in monetary terms, for only a 9% growth in capital expenditure for the telephone system. With inflation rampant as it is—and I use the same word “rampant” that the hon. the Minister used himself—a 9% increase is not even sufficient to cover the rate of inflation, so that the capital expenditure on telecommunications this year in real physical terms is likely to be less than it was last year. In our view, in the view of this side of the House, this is no way to catch up with the telephone backlog and it is no way to provide the country with an efficient telephone service.

Now, Sir, I should like to say something about the Post Office Savings Bank. We on this side hope, as the hon. member for Wynberg said, that the Savings Bank is going to play an increasingly important part in the financial structure of this department. This is one area where the Post Office is in direct competition with private enterprise. In all of its other operations, its telephone and mail operations, it has a virtual monopoly and is therefore shielded from the icy winds of competition. In this area, though, in the area of the Savings Bank, the Post Office is undertaking an operation whose efficiency can be measured in comparison with other organizations doing the same thing. It is very desirable, therefore, that the efficiency of the Post Office Savings Bank should be as high as possible. It is very desirable to use this medium to promote savings to the maximum extent and so help in the fight against inflation. It is very desirable to use this medium to provide an expanded source of capital for financing the capital works of the Post Office. Unfortunately it cannot yet be said that the savings schemes which are handled by the Post Office, namely the Post Office Savings Bank, Savings Bank certificates and the National Savings certificates, have been a success. Certainly they were not a great success while they were handled on an agency basis. We hope that they will be a greater success now that they are being handled for the Post Office’s own account. As an indication of the lack of success of the Post Office savings schemes, I would like to quote a comparison of how deposits in the commercial banks’ and building societies’ saving schemes have grown in comparison with deposits and investments in the Post Office’s schemes. If you take a comparison between 1968 and 1973, which is the period covered in this report, you find that commercial banks’ and building societies’ deposits have grown by 76% The Post Office Savings Bank deposits, which one can regard as being exactly the same type of operation, have grown by only 16%. The Post Office Savings Bank certificates have actually fallen by 1% while National Savings certificates have decreased by as much as 33%, a third. When you take account of the built-in advantages which the Post Office savings schemes have, the fact that the rate of interest of the Post Office Savings Bank has consistently been higher than the rate of interest offered by building societies and commercial banks on their savings schemes, when you take account of the huge network of offices which the Post Office has for the convenience of lenders and to promote its schemes and when you take account of the tax advantages of the Post Offices savings schemes, I think that this performance can only be regarded as very poor.

The mere fact of the take-over of these schemes by the Post Office for its own account, is not in itself going to help. Definite steps to improve the position must be taken. The recent improvement in the interest rate in respect of the Post Office Savings Bank and Savings Bank certificates and the improvement announced by the hon. the Minister in his Budget speech on National Savings certificates may help, but I do not think that they really get to the bottom of what is the reason for the relative lack of patronage of Post Office savings schemes. I say that because, as I have already said, the interest rate factor has always been more favourable in the Post Office Savings Bank than it has been in competitive schemes, and yet the Post Office Savings Bank has not succeeded in those circumstances.

I believe that we must look in other directions as to why the commercial banks and building societies have been more successful in attracting deposits. I believe that there are three factors that are responsible for the relative success of these institutions. The first is the better service which they offer; the second is the fact that the Post Office applies apartheid to its customers which the commercial banks and building societies do not; and the third is the fact that the sales promotion, marketing and publicity of the building societies and commercial banks have been more effective than those of the Post Office. In the time that I have available I should like to deal with these three factors.

I shall deal with the question of service first. The commercial banks and building societies, I think, offer quicker service. I think they offer more personal service, there is less red tape attached to their service, they offer service in more attractive and pleasant surroundings than the Post Office and they offer service in business premises that generally are more centrally and conveniently situated than post offices. The Post Office on the other hand, by its very nature, has difficulty in offering a personal service. Its premises are unattractive and the assistants are behind bars. They remind one more of police stations than they do of commercial banks. On the whole, Post Office premises are not very conveniently located in cities and towns. I have been disappointed recently to see that in the suburb of Claremont in Cape Town the Post Office has been moved from a prime position on the Main Road, to a position on the first floor of a building in a side street. To my way of thinking that is not the way to attract business to the Post Office.

Then there is the question of apartheid. If I were a non-White and I had the choice of lending my money to an organization that made me enter through a separate door, that made me stand in a separate queue and that served me at a separate counter, as against a bank or a building society, where I was not subject to those indignities, there would be no doubt in my mind at all as to which choice I would make. I am quite certain that it is a strong factor against the investment of savings by non-Whites in the Post Office that they are subjected to apartheid regulations.

Finally, I want to deal with the question of sales promotion and marketing of savings services. Although the commercial banks and the building societies do not make a great deal of noise about their savings schemes, I believe that they do a very effective marketing job. In comparison I find that the sales promotion of the Post Office is unimaginative and prosaic. I am glad to see that the present Budget puts aside a sum of R202 000 for publicity and I believe that this is a sufficient sum to do a good job in publicizing savings programmes. I hope that the hon. the Minister will take the best possible advice in the expenditure of this money, because it will be well worth his while to do so.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Constantia should not think that I want to be unfriendly to him, because I quite like his face. However, I must say that he sputters away like a pot boiling over and I am being honest when I say that I had difficulty in following him. Nevertheless, in dealing with this Budget, the essence of the Budget, in my opinion, is to be found in the last paragraph of the hon. the Minister’s Budget speech.

Order! Hon. members are kindly to refrain from making personal remarks about other hon. members.

I said that in the last paragraph of the hon. the Minister’s Budget speech, which reads, inter alia: “I am glad to say that despite salary improvements and rising costs, the Post Office has succeeded in averting tariff increases at this stage ...” is to be found the essence of the Budget speech. I think it is significant if we bear in mind that there are steadily rising prices in all spheres in South Africa and if we take into account that there has been a salary increase for our Post Office officials—for which we are particularly grateful to the hon. the Minister—that we could have been informed here yesterday that there were to be no tariff increases. I expected the hon. member for Durban Point and the other hon. members on that side of the House who took part in the debate, to stand up and thank the hon. the Minister for the fact that no tariff increases were being announced here. Before I go any further, I want to congratulate the hon. member for Durban Point on the fact that he is now the chief spokesman for Post Office affairs on that side of the House. I want to tell the hon. member that he tried, yesterday and today, to criticize this Government, but I must tell him in all honesty that it is with a great deal of longing that I call to mind the hon. Mr. Etienne Malan. I am convinced that he would have done much better. What, in effect did the hon. member say yesterday? The hon. member for Durban Point made a big fuss about the fact that he had supposedly booked a few phone calls, inter alia from Johannesburg and Durban to here, of which only one came through. He said that as far as the others are concerned, he is still waiting to get through. When one is engaged in an important debate such as this, the least one expects is that the hon. member for Durban Point will approach the Government with more constructive criticism. Among other things the hon. member pleaded here for a stamp to commemorate the late Genl. Smuts. I want to tell the hon. member that he should perhaps seriously consider asking the Minister to have a commemorative stamp printed in honour of the memory of the United Party. Looking at hon. members on that side of the House, I wonder what a stamp like that would look like. If we were to put the hon. member for Durban Point or the hon. member for Umlazi on that stamp, I believe it would have to be a very big one.

Before dealing with the other statements made by the hon. member for Durban Point and other hon. members on that side of the House in respect of the telecommunications system, I want to touch on another matter here, because to me it is a heart-felt need. I should like to congratulate the Postmaster-General and his officials on the fact that our policy of working is recognized by the Department of Posts. I want to bestow the highest praise and the greatest recognition on the department’s engineers and on its administrative and certain clerical staff as well as on the senior technical and uniformed staff and certain telephone operators who have decided to work longer hours in that department for South Africa. I wonder whether we are able to realize for a single moment what this means for South Africa. It means, in general, a 5% increase in productivity. Whereas there is a shortage of about 4,8% in the industrial sector, one asks oneself whether there will not be less talk of labour shortages in South Africa if everyone in South Africa were prepared to work harder. In the Post Office, 10 000 officials declared themselves to be prepared to do this, and it is illuminating to know that the gain, expressed in terms of labour, is over 875 000 manhours per hour. This is a great praiseworthy effort and I should like to make use of this opportunity to express our sincere thanks and appreciation on behalf of the whole House. I should also like to link to that the appeal that has been made for us in South Africa to save fuel. This department’s reaction was immediate. I found it instructive to hear in the hon. the Minister s opening speech yesterday that there had been a saving of almost 20% over this period. This testifies to the loyalty and the faithful service which these people in this department give to South Africa.

Let me come back, now, to our telecommunications problems. I want to say right at the outset that this side of the House realizes full well that telecommunications problems do exist in South Africa. I readily concede that there are certain bottlenecks in South Africa. In this connection one is reminded of the Witwatersrand and other growth points in South Africa. Who is really responsible for the bottle-necks and telecommunications problems there are in South Africa? I admit that it is this Government, because this Government has governed South Africa for the past decade and longer in such a proper and orderly fasion that there is stability in South Africa in the economic sphere today, and that we have never before, in the entire history of our country, flourished to such an extent. Consequently, one has to understand and grasp that where there are growth points—one is reminded of Newcastle, Phalaborwa, Nelspruit and other places—this department has an enormous task to perform in keeping abreast of the development in those parts at all times. In this regard one is reminded, too, of Cape Town and Johannesburg in particular. Mention has also been made this afternoon by hon. members on that side, of services in other countries of the world I shall come to that in a moment. However, I just want to dwell briefly on the fine development which has taken place in South Africa over the past number of years in the field of telecommunications services. On 31 March 1940 there were approximately 202 000 telephones in the country. In the five years that followed, the network grew by only 47 000 telephones. From 1945 to 1950 the increase was 136 000 and from 1950 to 1955 it was altogether 228 000. Therefore, in these five years, the increase in the number of telephones provided was more than the total number provided since 1940. The 613 000 telephones on 31 March 1955 increased to 858 000 on 31 March 1960, an increase of 245 000. The one million notch was passed on 31 March 1965, while five years later, on 31 March 1970, the 1½ million notch was reached. All indications are that the 2 million notch will be reached in the current financial year in South Africa. It was stated today that our telephone services in South Africa are very poor. I find it interesting that whenever they are dealing with matters in South Africa, and this includes telephone services, hon. members on that side of the House always try to maintain that our services in South Africa are among the worst in the world. It is a known fact that this telecommunications problem with which South Africa is battling, is a result of the rapid economic development in our country. As such it is not a problem unique to South Africa. Every country in the world is battling with telecommunications problems. I want to state as a fact that our telephone service in South Africa is one of the best, when one compares it with those in other countries, in spite of the fact that there are certain bottlenecks. I believe, however, that we have made wonderful progress over the past number of years. I want to quote the following excerpt from the Financial Mail of 7 November 1971—

The hon. member for Rustenburg has mentioned this, but let us now, for all practical purposes, take a country like England. Our telecommunication service in South Africa is much better than that of England. Our services here are better than those in West Germany, and are far better than those in France. I want to read to the House what the position is in England—

What is the position in France? Hon. members opposite always want to maintain that our services here are poor and are the worst there are, but what is the position in France? Let me quote the following—

But what is the position in South Africa? 68% of our householders have telephones. I quote further—

I want to read to you what the position is in Italy. The following is illuminating—

I could continue in this way and also mention the example of Brazil. In virtually every country in the world they are battling with the problem of telecommunications. Sir, the fact of the matter is that neither this department nor this Minister nor the National Party Government has ever flinched from problems which may have arisen in the past.

Hear, hear!

Sir, I want to tell hon. members that it is unnecessary for them to tell us about the problems in South Africa as far as telephones are concerned. Through orderly planning, through this department and its able Postmaster-General and all its officials from the highest to the lowest this Government will ensure that in the years that lie ahead this service will be expanded in an admirable way. It is perhaps interesting just to note that as far as our telecommunications services in South Africa are concerned, I could furnish you with the figures, but unfortunately my time is running out—we have made exceptionally good progress over the past number of years. I want to tell you—I said this on that previous occasion in 1968 when the Post Office Re-adjustment Bill was being piloted through Parliament—that what I foresee for this department is I believe fine new horizons. In spite of the weak criticism, if I may put it that way, Sir, which has come from that side of the House, I am convinced that South Africa and its people know that in this department we shall at all times be inspired by the ideal of providing the finest and the best services for our people.

Hear, hear!

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Welkom seemed a little disturbed that we have not joined the choruses and paeans of praise that have been issuing from the other side of the House in regard to this particular Budget. He also accuses us of claiming that the South African telephone system is the worst in the world. I have listened to this debate and I certainly did not gain the impression that we on this side of the House are maintaining that our telephone system is the worst in the world. What we do suggest, Sir, is that it could have been a lot better had we not had a Nationalist Government for 26 years, a Government which was not prepared to make use of the material right on its doorstep, the non-White people who could have been trained to become telephone technicians and provide South Africa with a very much improved service. This is what we are complaining about. I do not blame the hon. the Minister wholly for this, though he is party to it through his own Government. The hon. member for Welkom quoted certain figures. Well, we can quote figures too. I want to refer to the latest survey which I have been able to find. This deals with countries of the world which have more than 100 000 telephones. There are 62 such countries listed in this survey. I find that in this list South Africa comes 26th out of the 62, with 1,6 million telephones as at 1972 when the figures were released. What is very significant, however, is that the percentage of increase in South Africa—over the period from 1962 to 1972—has not shown the increase that has been reflected in other countries. South Africa, finds itself 44th out of 62 in the list of countries in the survey. The hon. member for Welkom also referred to the position in France. He takes the worst case in Europe. Let me tell him that in the survey, which reveals the number of telephones per 100 of the population, we find that the figure is approximately seven, in South Africa. We find that there are 29 other countries ahead of South Africa in so far as these particular statistics are concerned. South Africa falls in the same bracket as countries such as the Argentine, Bulgaria, Hungary, Panama and Uraquay.

You see, Sir, the hon. the Minister revealed yesterday that there had been some progress in overcoming the backlog but this is not a very impressive improvement. I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister that many White users are disgruntled and that many non-White needs for telephones are simply not being met. I raised this matter under the Part Appropriation debate in the previous session and I quoted figures on that occasion to show, in my opinion, that the demands of the non-White population—particularly those surrounding the large cities—were not being met. I know that the hon. the Minister indicated at that stage that there was no discrimination. If he says that, I have to accept it. However, what I do want to point out, is that the figures themselves present a pretty doleful picture of the position. I believe that the figures which I shall quote representing the Durban area, the townships for the Coloureds, Indians and Bantu, reflect the general picture as it prevails throughout the Republic. This is what I find. Taking five townships—three African, one Indian and one Coloured—with a total population of almost 600 000 people, I find that during the past 18 months there has been a total of 755 applications made for telephones in these townships and that during that period only 51 installations were made. I repeat, these townships house 600 000 people. Of the 51 installations I mentioned, 16 were for private telephones and 35 for business telephones. Let me be perfectly frank about this. The answer which the hon. the Minister gave me in reply to a question, indicated that as far as Austerville was concerned, although 40 applications had been made by the Coloured people living there for telephones—this township has a population of something like 20 000 people—the hon. the Minister was unable to give the figure in regard to the number of installations because the lines were supplied from two exchanges. I understand his problem. The hon. the Minister pointed out that there would be improvements because a new exchange would be put into operation in Austerville but that it would not be ready until 1978.

Let me now take the position of the Bantu people in the three townships around Durban:—Kwa Mashu, Umlazi and Clermont. Altogether they make up a population of 433 000 people. What is the position there? In the past 18 months, only 13 installations have been made for private telephones and 24 for business telephones in these three townships. One would think under those circumstances that there would at least be adequate provision made for public telephone call-boxes in these areas. However, the answer I was given indicates that this is not the case. In these three areas representing nearly 500 000 people, there are but 28 call-boxes available.

Let us look at the position of the Indians. We find that in Chatsworth, which is probably the place with the largest concentration of Indians outside any city in South Africa, a new telephone exchange was put into operation in June this year. I only hope that this exchange will be able to make good the shortfall that has existed in this area for a long time. In the past 18 months there have been 471 applications and only 14 installations have been effected. I want to say that in the interests of public safety, and of public health, as well as of good race relations, this is a serious position and should not be permitted to continue. I am aware of the difficulties. The hon. the Minister told me himself in reply to my question that the Africans in the townships live some distance away, and it becomes a complicated and expensive business to provide the necessary cable facilities. However, I do not believe that this position should continue much longer.

I also want to refer to the quality of the service. There are many aspects in regard to the quality of the service about which I feel we can be satisfied, but there are other aspects which give cause for concern. I want to quote from a letter which I received from a person in my constituency. This is a man who works for a company which needs his services during the day and also at odd hours. He addressed this letter to a regional director. This is what he said—

This was now in April; the original phone incident occurred in January—

I cannot say that I blame him, and this is not a unique situation. It is not unusual for people to have a telephone and suddenly to find their service cut off for up to 30 or 40 days at a time. I realize that this is due to a shortage of technicians, but I believe the shortage of technicians is due to the attitude of this Government over the years in that it failed to train the people concerned.

That is the exception to the rule.

What is the rule? Cut them all out?

During the Part Appropriation debate in February I raised the question of the telephone directory in Durban, and here I must commend the Minister for his courteous reaction to the points I made. It would appear that there was some difficulty in the publication of the list of Consulates, that they appeared under “Konsulate”, and that they were listed in the Afrikaans section, in English. The Minister undertook to look into it. He did so and he indicated that the position would be improved. But since then I received a further intimation indicating that, in the telephone directory in Durban, attorneys, architects, physiotherapists and veterinary surgeons had all received the same treatment, and that they were listed in the Afrikaans section, in English. I drew the attention of the hon. the Minister to this and I again express my appreciation because he indicated that there had been mistakes, that these would be rectified in the 1974 telephone directories and that in future one entry would be free while the other one would have to paid for. The one free entry could appear in the language section of the person’s choice. Now I want to take this further and suggest to the hon. the Minister that he could make it easier for people who are looking for the various professions in the yellow pages of the telephone directories. I am referring to the latest one in Cape Town, the 1974-’75 directory. I find in the Afrikaans section: “Advokate: Lede van die Kaapse Balie; sien onder ‘Advocates: Members of the Cape Bar’ in Engelse deel.” Now I would like to suggest to the hon. the Minister that instructions be given to the publishers of the yellow pages to indicate there, at that stage, on what page in the English section or in the Afrikaans section the names do appear. I think it is uncalled for that one should have to go back to the index to check up to find in which section in the other language the actual names appear.

Then I notice that a newsletter called Tele News was circulated in February 1974, and that on the back page it says: “Save petrol. Shop the yellow pages way”. I think that is a very good suggestion, but I would like to suggest to the hon. the Minister that he also, in subsequent issues of Tele News, issues an appeal: “Save time: Keep a pencil and paper near your telephone”. Sir, I do not know whether I am a Jonah, but I find continually, on making a telephone call, that I am told: “Just hang on a moment while I go and get a pencil and paper.” We know that our telephone services are operating under pressure and every time this incident occurs I believe it leads to frustration and further delay and further inefficiency.

Sir, I wish now to deal with the question of postal deliveries and collections, in the short time available to me but before I leave the question of the telephone directory, I want to make one further suggestion to the hon. the Minister, and that is that in the telephone directories which deal with platteland towns, where the name of the town appears at the top of the page, the postal code could also be listed. I believe every effort that is made to publicise the postal codes will help the Post Office to deal more efficiently with the sorting and delivery of mail and it will not involve any expense, if the town is Amanzimtoti, the postal code is listed; if it is some other town, the postal code of that town should be listed.

Now referring to postal deliveries and collections, I want to quote a rather delightful situation which was referred to by the Chamber of Commerce in Durban. It dealt with the Chamber’s representations in 1875, 99 years ago this year, and this is what it said at that stage—

Sir, that will be 100 years ago next year and I can give the hon. the Minister incidents where mail lies for 24 hours before it is collected, because in the case of the urban post-boxes some of them merely indicate that letters are cleared daily. So if the unfortunate person who posts the letter does not know when the mail is cleared, that letter could very well lie there for 24 hours before being collected. I appreciate—and the Minister has indicated this in his courteous way—that there are problems in regard to fuel. That I accept, but I want to put a suggestion to him that he has no conception of how much fuel can be wasted by the people who have to have these letters posted for early delivery and who make special trips to their nearest post office where there is a more frequent clearing, or who make special trips to the main post office to be assured that their letter will be posted and arrive on time. The position does exist in an area a short distance outside Durban, and the matter has been brought to my attention, where businessmen are finding it difficult through normal postal services to convey mail. They have to make other arrangements because they find that in the receipt of tenders and the posting of quotations and tenders, they have missed the bus. By the time their letters are conveyed by normal post the tenders have been closed. The hon. the Minister indicated in his Second Reading speech yesterday that some of these difficulties were being solved by the introduction of self-service post offices and he cited experiments taking place in and around his own constituency. It would seem from the reports that this is a promising way of increasing service to the public and at the same time keeping the ever-growing wage bill down. But I want to suggest for the serious consideration of the Minister that he should give serious attention to the suggestion that perhaps mail-boxes could be fitted to the buses of municipal transport services. I would like to suggest that perhaps he could take one city as a trial for this experiment. I would suggest that he take the city of Durban, because of the steepness, the topography, and the difficulty some of the older people who live in these areas experience because they are a long way from the post office. I would suggest that if there were a post-box on the buses, not only for the passengers but for the residents at the rermini, those people could go at a fixed time to post their letters and there would be no problem of clearing these letters, because all buses end up at the termini at reasonably regular intervals. The conveyance of the letters from the termini to the post office would not, I believe, present any problems. I suggest that it would ensure that fuel saving is stepped up and I believe that there could be a speedier service in the collection of letters.

In the few minutes left to me I want to deal briefly with the question of postage stamps. I want to support my colleague, the hon. member for Durban Point, in his appeal for a special commemorative issue for the late Field-Marshal Smuts, and I want to refer to some aspects of the 1974 commemoratives. The British Settlers 50 commemorative is a horizontal picture, and the SABC 50 Years of Broadcasting has a vertical motif, but these stamps are almost identical in colour. I believe that when commemorative issues are decided upon, and if they are issued round about the same time, the colours should be different, because I believe that would lead to less confusion and make things less time-consuming.

Finally, I have one appeal to make to the hon. the Minister. There are continual complaints that the stamp machines so often are not working and often are quite empty of stamps. I ask the hon. the Minister whether steps can be taken to see that this matter in general is dealt with so that the public can get an after-hours’ service for the supply of stamps when they need them.

Mr. Speaker, at the outset I should like to convey to the two new chairmen of the two groups my sincere congratulations on their appointment as chairmen of the Posts groups of the National Party and the United Party. I take it the hon. member for Park town is the chairman of the Progressive Party’s Posts group, and I want to congratulate him as well in that capacity. I am pleased, though, that I will be able to rely on my new chairman for a much longer period than the United Party will on their chairman, who is merely keeping the seat warm for his successor who will, apparently, soon be here. I only hope he will at least receive a bonus for this additional work he is doing.

Sir, I want to begin with the plea made by the hon. member for Durban Point yesterday, one that has again been supported now by the hon. member for Berea, which is that we should issue a special stamp in honour of Gen. Smuts. I want to say at once that I have a great deal of appreciation for that suggestion. It is a fair request in view of the fact that we have already issued special stamps for former Prime Ministers. It is therefore only fair and fitting that a special stamp should also be issued in honour of Gen. Smuts. Despite the fact that we already have the full number which we usually issue in the ensuing year, I nevertheless think that this is an exceptional case and I have decided that we will issue such a stamp for Gen. Smuts next year as an exceptional occasion. I should like to suggest that the Opposition, that made this request, could perhaps think of an idea to which we could link the stamp other than the 25th anniversary of the death of Gen. Smuts. There is perhaps another great occasion in his life with which they want to associate it, and I would welcome any suggestions from them in this regard; if not, the stamp will be issued in any case.

Sir, I come now to the other matters which were raised here. The hon. member for Durban Point referred to the difference in the figures. The difference is attributable to the fact that they refer to posts on the one hand and persons occupying those posts on the other; that is responsible for the difference which occurs there.

A difference of 14 000?

There are, for example, many non-Whites in posts which are not classified, and because there are many posts which are not classified, one finds this difference between the number of persons employed and the number of classified posts. If the hon. member wants to go into this further, he is welcome to do so in the Committee Stage.

May I ask a question? Does the hon. the Minister mean that there is something like 8 000 posts and 14 000 which are not classified posts? In other words, the ratio of unclassified to classified is 14 000 to 8 000. Is that what he means?

Yes. Many of the non-White workers are in posts which are not classified as such, and this is responsible for the difference. I should like to thrash out this matter further with the hon. member in the Committee Stage.

The hon. member stated here that the Government had failed the Post Office in the performance of its task. Sir, that is not the case. I think the Government has done a very great deal to enable the Post Office to carry out this enormous task. For example, it appointed the Franszen Committee; subsequently the Government enabled us to raise foreign loans to help finance our capital works; and the Government agreed to the Post Office Savings Bank being transferred to us, which also entailed tremendous benefits for us. The assistance which we have received from the Government in this regard has been exceptional.

The hon. member then mentioned that in spite of the fact that the number of awaiting applicants for telephones is now less than a year ago, it is nevertheless 3 000 more than when the Part Appropriation was introduced. Sir, this is simply an indication of the tremendous development in our country. I have stated on a previous occasion, and I do not hesitate to repeat it here, that a country like South Africa which is developing at such a tremendous rate, will always have a waiting list; we must face up to this fact.

A growing waiting list.

To think that we can eliminate the total waiting list entirely in a rapidly developing country like South Africa, is completely unrealistic, and this Government does not claim to be able to do the impossible.

It is an ever-growing waiting list.

Sir, the waiting list has dwindled, as the hon. member well knows, and in addition we have accomplished the feat of installing more than 111 000 telephones in the past year, more than in any previous year, but one will probably have to accept that this will make no impression on the Opposition, because they do not want to find themselves in the position where they have to thank the Government.

Sir, the hon. member also repeated his request that we should make use of private initiative.

†We do use private contractors. As a matter of fact, we make quite a lot of use of their services to assist us with the installation of certain of our exchanges. In fact, only this year we paid about R10 million to private contractors for these services. But, Sir, it is quite a different matter when you come to the maintenance of exchanges. When you come to the question of maintenance, you have to make use of foreign labour, of people who are not in your own Service, and this causes friction. We cannot afford to have that sort of friction, and that is one of the reasons why we cannot make use of private contractors for maintenance work, but we will continue to make use of their services as much as we possibly can for the installation of exchanges.

*The hon. member also referred to the sorting machine in Pretoria which allegedly works so slowly and is not very economical. Sir, we introduced this machine years ago as an experiment. It is a sorting machine which has already been standing there for a few years for the actual purpose of training officials in operating such a sorting machine. We will now have two new machines, one in Cape Town and one in Johannesburg. These are completely modern machines which can handle far more mail than the machine in Pretoria. When the hon. member visits Pretoria again he is welcome to go and have a look at the machine, for even though it is an old machine, it is a machine which can sort mail items in a remarkable fashion; it almost seems as though it has X-ray vision. In any case, the two new machines will be able to handle 25 000 mail items per hour, an astonishing achievement as compared to the existing one which can handle 14 000 per hour. The experience we have gained with this machine has served a good purpose; we can see how it works; and on the basis of that experience we were able to buy these two new machines. One will simply have to keep on acquiring the latest machines.

How many operators?

We still have to acquire the two new machines; they have not yet been installed.

Is it ten?

The number of operators which will be required, is not mentioned here, but it will be able to handle 25 000 mail items as compared with 14 000, and that is significant.

That hon. member, as well as the hon. member for Wynberg, raised the question of the abolition of the Staff Board. Sir, all four staff associations asked me to abolish the Staff Board. They said that they were unable to regard the Staff Board, as it existed and functioned, as a true protector of their interests. They said that we could preferably incorporate the staff protective function in the department. I intend, during the present session, to introduce a Bill to amend the Service Act and the new Service Act will in fact make thorough provision for this staff protective function.

Then the hon. member referred to the 42 and 44 hour working week. These apply to the clerical and administrative staff. I want to say, to the credit of the Post Office staff, that the hours were lengthened at their request. The hon. member will recall how, three or four years ago when my predecessor, Mr. Basie van Rensburg, still occupied this post, the clerical and administrative divisions of the Post Office voluntarily offered to work two hours longer as their contribution to boosting this country’s productivity.

When it comes to the suggestion that counter hours on Saturdays should extend to 11 a.m., I want to point out that the Government has already shortened the counter hours from 1 p.m. to 12 noon. If the hours are shortened even further, it may cause inconvenience for the public, and we cannot lightly cause such inconvenience to the public. I do not want to say that such a shortening will not take place in future, but we will at all times take the convenience of the public very thoroughly into consideration.

Will you have the business turnover between 11 a.m. and 12 noon investigated?

Yes, we could have this done again. We did at one time institute an investigation into the business turnover between 12 noon and 1 p.m., and found that it was very slight. The Posts and Telegraphs Association is in fact the staff association to which these counter staff members belong. This association is in fact the proper body to make representations concerning this matter, for it is their people who have to work that extra hour. If they present a strong case and advance the plea that little work is being done, I shall certainly submit this matter to the Cabinet again. However, I shall do so only if very convincing evidence is submitted in this connection.

The hon. member for Sunnyside also referred to the effect which electronics and television would have on our staff, and more particularly to the enticing away of our technical staff. I wish to express the hope that employers will take very thorough cognizance of this and that they will at least treat us like South Africans in this regard. This has a bearing on what the hon. member for Wynberg advocated. He referred to the six contractors which are manufacturing television sets, and asked whether we could not reach an agreement with them to the effect that they will not recruit any of our people. We do have an agreement with them that they will not appoint, any of our people, but the problem does not lie so much with those six contractors, but with the scores of dealers throughout the country who will sell television sets. They have to maintain those sets and for that reason the dealers are the people who will be a threat to us. The threat on their part will be far greater than that on the part of the six manufacturers of sets. Therefore I made an appeal to commerce and industry yesterday, and I think that that appeal can be very heavily emphasized as far as the trade is concerned.

As regards the attitude of the staff associations towards us, I could just mention that this is of the best. With reference to the recent salary increases we have received expressions of appreciation from all four staff associations. There is a cordial feeling of co-operation between us, and therefore we definitely cannot complain about it.

The hon. member for Wynberg referred to the question of cable television. This is a matter which is not the responsibility of the Post Office, but which was first investigated by the Meyer Commission and then by the Electronics Committee which found that cable television, if it were to be introduced at a later stage, would constitute certain advantages, but that the conventional television, the emission type, would at this stage be most suited to our purpose. Cable television will constitute certain advantages, especially when it comes to certain of the Bantu townships, but it was felt that we cannot at this stage tackle both at the same time. The emission system is deemed to be the best at this stage.

As far as the Giro system is concerned, the same answer applies. I can point out that there is a committee on which the Post Office and the Reserve Bank and the Treasury are represented, to investigate the Giro system. It is true that it would really mean a very great deal to the Post Office if this system were allocated to us.

The hon. member for Germiston District requested that we make the postal code books more attractive. That is a good idea. We even intend including advertisements in it. The hon. member also asked that it be made available to members of Parliament. That is an idea to which we shall certainly give attention.

It is available if hon. members are sufficiently interested in it to go and collect one.

Oh, that is a very valuable suggestion the hon. member is now making to us. I think hon. members could react to it.

The hon. member for Wynberg also referred to the congress decisions of the Posts and Telegraphs Association. All I can say is that we are continuing to hold talks with them, and therefore there are no problems in that regard.

Then the hon. member also referred to the Savings Bank and asked me to furnish him with information in that regard. Unfortunately the hon. member came to this House a little late. If he had been here last year, he would have received a great deal of information.

†The hon. member for Constantia referred to the time lag in publishing the report. That is so, but of course this is an election year. As a result of that it was delayed, but the normal procedure is of course to publish it before Parliament starts so that it can be available in order to be made use of in discussions. It is our aim to have it done in that manner also for the future.

In regard to the Savings Bank, it will interest the hon. member to know that the new arrangement is working excellently. As a matter of fact, we are receiving quite a lot of money and at some future date we shall be able to furnish the hon. member with the particulars. However, I think that the new system is a success. With reference to the Blacks, it is interesting to see that they are making much more use of the Post Office Savings Bank today than they had been a year or two ago.

*The hon. member for Parktown stated his standpoint, and like other hon. members of the Opposition said that if we had had a different labour policy all these problems would have been solved. A major consideration in regard to labour, whether it is among Post Office workers, factory workers, or workers of whatever kind, is to have labour peace. If one does not have labour peace, one could have the best policy in the world, but one would still have such an upsurge of labour unrest that there would be no productivity. This side of the House believes that the labour policy which it is applying in all the spheres ensures us of the greatest degree of labour peace, and has therefore resulted in the greatest productivity.

As I said in my speech yesterday, we are at the same time bringing in non-White labour as rapidly as possible, but we can only do this—and then I want to confine myself exclusively to the Post Office—if we have the co-operation of the staff associations. We cannot go over their heads. That is not the way in which one promotes labour peace and productivity. I said two years ago at the Telecommunications Congress that we would like to move in this direction, and we would like to train more non-Whites, and that we were asking for their co-operation in this regard. However, I did give them the assurance that I would not take any steps before I had their full agreement. And it works. We have their agreement; by means of consultation we achieve a great deal with these people. Owing to understanding and cooperation, the training of 70 Indians was accomplished. In this way we can gradually utilize more and more non-Whites. However, there is no short-cut to that position.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. the Minister a question? I should like to know whether the hon. the Minister could reply to my question I posed in regard to the maturation dates for the various investments with the Public Debt Commissioners and the amounts which will become available to the Department through the Post Office Savings Bank.

I should like to reply to that question in the Committee Stage. If the hon. member would not mind raising that again in the Committee Stage I shall be able to give him the full particulars then.

The hon. member for Berea referred to the posting boxes on buses. We shall go in upon this suggestion. The hon. member has made quite a few suggestions today regarding different aspects and we shall certainly go in upon those suggestions because it seems to me that there is something to be said for them. If it is feasible, we shall certainly tackle it.

The hon. member has also referred to the provision of telephones in Bantu and Indian townships. Our planning is aimed at providing services as soon as possible. The hon. member can be assured that as our finances and our personnel allow it, we shall certainly provide those services.

The hon. member also made a suggestion about the information in the telephone directories. This is a suggestion which will certainly receive our attention.

*We have had an amendment here today requesting that this Budget should not be passed. Since the House is being asked to vote on this matter, I should like, in regard to the hon. member’s amendment, to quote a telex message which I received this morning. This is a telex message which was sent by the National Consultative Committee on Post Office affairs. This is a committee on which Assacom, the FCI, the Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut, Seifsa and the Chamber of Mines are all represented. In view of the amendment introduced by the Opposition, the House would be interested in hearing this telex message. This National Consultative Committee—

This is an opinion to which this House could certainly attach value.

Question put: That all the words after “That” stand part of the Question.

Upon which the House divided:

AYES—94: Albertyn, J. T.; Aucamp, P.

L. S.; Badenhorst, P. J.; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, G. F.; Botha, J. C. G; Botha, L. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Botma, M. C.; Brandt, J. W.; Clase, P. J.; Coetzee, S. F.; Cronje, P.; Cruywagen. W. A.; De Beer, S. J.; De Jager, A. M. van A.; De Klerk, F. W.; De Wet, M. W.; Diederichs, N.; Du Plessis, A. H.; Du Plessis, B. J.; Du Plessis, G. F. C.; Du Plessis, G. C.; Du Toit, J. P.; Engelbrecht, J. J.; Erasmus, A. S. D.; Greeff, J. W.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Hartzenberg, F.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Hefer, W. J.; Herman, F.; Heunis, J. C.; Horn, J. W. L.; Janson, J.; Janson, T. N. H.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotze, G. J.; Kotzé, W. D.; Langley, T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J. (Brakpan); Le Roux, F. J. (Hercules); Lloyd, J. J.; Loots, J. J.; Louw, E.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, P. S.; McLachlan, R.; Meyer, P. H.; Morrison, G. de V.; Mulder, C. P.; Munnik, L. A. P. A.; Niemann, J. J.; Nothnagel, A. E.; Otto, J. C.; Palm, P. D.; Pienaar, L. A.; Pieterse, R. J. J.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Smit, H. H.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Terblanche, G. P. D.; Treurnicht, A. P.; Ungerer, J. H. B.; Uys, C.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, P. S.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Spuy, S. J. H.; Van der Walt. H. J. D.; Van Rensburg, H. M. J.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Wyk, A. C. (Winburg); Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Viljoen, M.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Vilonel, J. J.; Vlok, A. J.; Volker, V. A.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, W. L.

Tellers: J. M. Henning, J. E. Potgieter, A. van Breda and C. V. van der Merwe.

NOES—37: Aronson, T.; Bartlett, G. S.; Baxter, D. D.; Bell, H. G. H.; Dalling, D. J.; Deacon, W. H. D.; De Villiers, I. F. A.; De Villiers, J. I.; De Villiers, R. M.; Eglin, C. W.; Enthoven (t’ Hooft), R. E.; Graaff, De V.; Hickman, T.; Lorimer, R. J.; McIntosh, G. B. D.; Miller, H.; Mills, G. W.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Olivier, N. J. J.; Page, B. W. B.; Pyper, P. A.; Raw, W. V.; Schwarz, H. H.; Streicher, D. M.; Van Coller, C. A.; Van den Heever, S. A.; Van Eck, H. J.; Van Hoogstraten, H. A.; Van Resnburg, H. E. J.; Von Keyserlingk, C. C.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Webber, W. T.; Wiley, J. W. E.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: T. G. Hughes and W. M. Sutton.

Question accordingly affirmed and amendment dropped.

Bill read a Second Time.

Business suspended at 6.35 p.m. and resumed at 8 p.m.

Evening Sitting

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment standing in my name, as follows:

In so doing I have the feeling that I am about to achieve a triumph in this House because the hon. the Minister will accept this amendment, which is purely a textual correction to the Bill.

I do accept the amendment of the hon. member for Houghton and I do hope she will be grateful for small mercies.

I wish to object to the hon. the Deputy Minister having spoilt a glorious record. The hon. member for Houghton brags that in all the years she has been in Parliament she has never contributed one accepted amendment. I think it is a shame to break that now.

Mr. Chairman, one of the principles of this Bill accepted at the Second Reading is that the decision of the appeal board shall not be subject to appeal to a court of law. That is in clause 38. It seems to me grossly inequitable that an appellant who is denied the right of appeal to the courts against the decision of a committee, and is also denied the right to give or adduce evidence before a committee, as is set out in clause 2(b), should further be denied the right to give or adduce evidence before the appeal board. The legal maxim audi alteram partem, which is a cornerstone of our law, means not only that no decision should be taken before parties affected by such decision had been given an opportunity of putting their case, but also that such parties should in fact be heard and, I might add, listened to.

Hear, hear!

A party cannot be heard unless he is allowed the right to give and to adduce evidence. The proviso to clause 36(3)(a) is but cold comfort for an appellant, as allowing the appellant to give or adduce evidence is left to the absolute discretion of the appeal board. What sort of justice will this provision give rise to? An appeal board, clothed with the discretion to allow evidence, will not easily decide to allow such evidence. There will surely be thousands of appeals to be heard. An appeal board will also be subject to human frailties, and wish to conclude the appeal within the least possible time. Mr. Chairman, much has been said about the safeguard constituted by the review procedure to be applied to decisions of the appeal board. I believe, however, that such review will be of little importance unless the reviewing court has the benefit of the evidence given or adduced by the appellant.

I think it might be interesting to look at what might in fact be the record of the proceedings. I feel that the record of the proceedings of the appeal board will probably be limited to the report referred to in clause 36(6)(a). Should this be the case, the record of the proceedings will be limited to two things only. It will first of all be limited to the documents relating to the appeal and secondly, to the decision of the appeal board and the reasons for its decision, as is provided in subsection (6)(b).

In the event of my surmise being correct, my fears for a miscarriage of justice are more real than ever as the court of review will have nothing but an empty shell upon which to review the decision. I would like the hon. the Deputy Minister to tell me what in fact the record of the proceedings will be. In my opinion the record should include, in the first place, the pleadings, including the reasons for the committee’s decision, the notice of appeal, including the grounds of appeal, and all other documents which, in a court of law, would be regarded as court documents relating to the appeal. Secondly, it should include the evidence given and adduced at the hearing of the appeal by all parties, including the appellant and his witnesses. Thirdly, it should include all documents admitted as evidence. Fourthly, it should include the findings of the appeal board and the reasons for such findings.

Finally, it should also include the decision of the appeal board and the reasons for such decision. Were a court of review to be furnished with such a record of proceedings, the court of review would indeed be able to consider all aspects of the appellant’s case and would be able to decide whether the appeal board’s decision should be set aside and referred back to the appeal board for reconsideration. Without such a record, however, the court of review will have nothing to review as there will be nothing to indicate whether any illegalities or irregularities in the procedure of the appeal board took place.

Should my assumption be wrong and the record of the proceedings include all these items to which I have referred with the exception of the appellant’s evidence and that of his witnesses, I believe that the position would be just as bad as if no record of proceedings were submitted to the court of review. If one looks at clause 36 one will find that it is most offensive in its present form in that it deprives an appellant of ordinary natural justice and will lead to a travesty of justice. If clause 36 were to be applied in its present form, it would have the effect of allowing the appeal board to go through the motion of hearing an appeal, but without in fact doing so. Any decision of an appeal board in those circumstances would be a hollow sham and I and hon. members on this side of the House would be ashamed to be associated with it.

The clause offends in another respect as well, in that subsection (4) provides that the hearings will be held in camera. It is also a cornerstone of the administration of the courts of law of the Republic that justice should not only be done but that justice should be seen to be done, and should be seen to be done by the general public. The only exceptions to this rule are those in which a party or complainant is a member of a particular class of persons, such as, for example, children of tender years, and to protect them from the glare of publicity the proceedings are held in camera. This is certainly not the case in relation to appeals before the appeal board. The discretion given to the board to allow members of the public to attend the hearing, does not remedy the effect of the offending subsection as the discretion can be exercised in a arbitrary manner and will probably lead to all hearings being held in camera.

How can you say such a thing?

The drafting of the subsection, Mr. Chairman, makes this quite clear. Had the draftsman been given instructions to allow the board to hold certain parts of its hearing in camera, he would have phrased the subsection quite differently. Clause 36, if left unamended, will present yet another legislative stick produced by the Nationalist Government with which South Africa’s enemies will beat her. Accordingly, I move the amendments standing in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

1. (1) To omit all the words after “matter” in line 62 up to and including “appeal” in line 2, page 51, and to substitute “and shall have the right to give or adduce evidence”;
2. (2) in line 25, page 51, to omit “not”; and
3. (3) to omit the proviso to subsection (4).

Mr. Chairman, it is with disappointment that we on this side of the House learn from a jurist that he is prepared to condemn a body which is being established with good intentions, even before such body has begun to function. The hon. member who has just resumed his seat condemned all aspects of this appeal board in advance implying that it would be a tool in the hands of the Government. Let us consider the three basic statements he made.

He said that an appellant who appealed, to this appeal board will be unable to put his case properly without also giving evidence, as though he had never heard of such a thing as a petition in the Supreme Court. In a case such as this an entire judgment is given after arguments advanced by advocates without evidence being given.

Where is a petition referred to in this clause?

I want to compare this procedure with two possible procedures one is able to follow in the Supreme Court...

This cannot be compared with the procedure with regard to a petition.

... when there is no fundamental dispute over the facts, but when a matter is judged on the basis, of written representations, sworn statements which are attached in support of the case of both the parties, and where the judge hands down judgment after he has heard argument.

Where is the record?

I shall come to the record in a moment. Let us take an example. Let us presume the case in question concerns a book. This book then constitutes the facts of the case on which judgment has to be given. No evidence is necessary. The book itself is proof that it exists and the contents of the book are self-explanatory. All that is to be decided upon, is whether such book—once more by way of example—is offensive to public morals or not and, if so, is undesirable.

Why can there be no evidence on it?

No limitation is being imposed on the appellant in respect of his representations. He is allowed to attach sworn statements to his representations.

It is absurd to use such an argument.

He will be able to attach to his representations statements by competent witnesses and in his representations can make out a case as to why viva voce evidence is needed in this respect. This appeal board will then decide, on the basis of such representations, whether or not it will hear oral evidence.

It is in their discretion.

As in the case of a judge in a case submitted to him by means of petition or by means of notice of motion, he has to decide whether or not it is necessary to call witnesses. That is why I want to say that the hon. member who has just resumed his seat, really did not analyse this matter in depth, or otherwise he is being extremely wilful.

In the second place, I can appreciate that the hon. member is rather sensitive about the matter of records, particularly in view of his record in Wynberg. As far as the record is concerned, the clause states quite clearly that part of the papers will consist of those papers which have a bearing on the matter. The papers which have a bearing on the matter will be, firstly the publication or object in question, secondly the representations which have been made, including such sworn statements as the appellant may possibly want to add, and thirdly the actual argument advanced. What other facts are contained in a record and what more does the hon. member want the record to contain as has, in fact, been the case before this appeal board? The appeal board also has to furnish the reasons in full and any court, with such a record in front of it as is set out in subsection (6) of section 36, will be able to decide whether or not there is any need for review.

In the third place, Sir, the hon. member said that, because a provision exists to the effect that this hearing shall be in camera except where the court otherwise directs, the hearing will always be in camera. That was a far-fetched statement to make. But let us consider why this provision is in the Act. The essence, the nature, of the investigation which has to be carried out demands that it should be in camera, because this appeal board as such has to hold session now to decide whether the material it is judging—whether a book, film or object—should be made available to the public or not; and would it not be absolutely absurd to say that each such hearing should be open to the public? If a film, which has enjoyed great publicity in the newspapers—a film such as “Last Tango in Paris”—is shown, where are they going to get a hall that is big enough for the public to be allowed to attend the preview? If the argument of the hon. member is accepted and “Last Tango in Paris” is submitted to the appeal board, then the public must have access to see it before the appeal board decides whether they will be allowed to see it or not. Surely it is an absolute contradictio in terminis to advance an argument such as that in this House. We really expected more from the hon. member after the fine maiden speech he made. Sir, this appeal board, which is going to be constituted in an equitable way, this appeal board which is going to be constituted in a balanced way, will certainly in the case of, for example, a book with high literary value and in cases where our literary people show great interest in the appeal, say that the public is welcome to come and listen to the arguments in this case. For that reason, Sir, I want to say with great respect that the hon. member did not make the full facts and the full juristic insight I believe he is capable of available to the Committee.

The hon. member for Vereeniging has referred to the good intentions contained in this Bill. When I listen to him arguing, I think to myself that he is performing here as the Devil’s advocate, and I would like to say to him that the way to Hell is paved with good intentions. Because, Sir, what have we got here? We have in this clause a provision, first of all, that there are certain persons who can give evidence, and then the appellant may question them, and then he is left with the result of his cross-examination, or the cross-examination through his legal representative, of such evidence as is put up on behalf of the objectors in so far as the publication is concerned. Sir, that is half the case, because then it is left entirely in the hands of the appeal board as to whether he himself can give evidence; whether he himself can present the other side of the case. Mr. Chairman, I do not have to remind you that there are some people who are pig-headed, and those of us who sit in this House and listen to arguments coming from the other side of the House realize that you can never convince certain people that their views might be incorrect. Sir, the appeal board will then sit with the one-sided story of those persons who brought the appeal, and the man who is affected, the man who is to suffer the consequences of a decision against him, cannot lead any evidence to gainsay the evidence which has been led, unless the board in its generosity agrees that he may lead evidence. The hon. member for Vereeniging shakes his head. Let him read the clause.

Read it slowly.

The clause reads—

So obviously the witnesses are those whom the appeal board has decided it will hear.

Why do you not read the rest of the clause?

Do you want me to read it all? I have read it before. It says “but shall not have the right to adduce evidence provided that the appeal board may in its discretion allow it to adduce evidence”. I have already read that. The hon. member for Caledon was fast asleep when I said that the appellant was entirely in the hands of the appeal board as to whether or not he could lead evidence.

Is that not the present position?

No, it is not the present position. It is not an appeal court.

What about the Durban case?

Yes, I will come to that. I am very glad the hon. member referred to the Durban case, because one of the greatest criticisms of the Supreme Court in regard to appeals was that it was not able to hear further evidence. Why must we perpetuate something that the judges themselves have damned and criticized? [Interjections.]

Order! I appeal to hon. members on both sides. I shall give everyone an opportunity to speak. However, hon. members should cease making interjections.

Mr. Chairman, I am very glad the hon. member mentioned the Durban case, because I want to read what Mr. Justice Fannin in fact said. Mr. Justice Fannin, you will recall, Sir, was dealing with an article regarding test-tube babies that was published in the magazine Scope, and in dealing with this matter he said—

Then he refers to the Heinemann case, where hon. members opposite have quoted partially from the judgment of Mr. Justice Rumpff, not the whole judgment; they quoted obiter dicta and not from the more important aspects of his findings. But Mr. Justice Fannin said that this was the great problem of sitting on appeal without being able to adduce further evidence or to hear further evidence, as happened recently in the case of the Cape Supreme Court because of the present law; the Government now want to perpetuate an evil, because what happens? A committee decides on a certain publication and I as the affected person—the writer of an article or of a publication or of a book—can appeal to the appeal board. Now, Sir, where is there justice in the procedure that follows? The committee can adduce all the evidence it likes, but not the appellant. It can adduce all the ex parte statements from any number of witnesses, those who are the self-appointed custodians of our morals throughout the country. They can produce all this evidence, and all that I have the right to do as an appellant is to put questions to them, to cross-examine them. I have no right myself to adduce evidence which perhaps I might even find available from the verligte members on the other side, to say that these persons who are opposed to the publication are wrong. I am not looking at the hon. member for Rissik now. Sir, the point is that we are now to have a Jobsided appeal board with no semblance of judicial status or standing and no semblance of independence. That is what we have, because what is the appeal board to do? It hears only one side of the case, namely only the evidence which the committee wishes to lead. All the appellant can do is to question those witnesses. The hon. member for Bellville knows that even he with his high status as a cross-examiner cannot always break down witnesses, although he can lead rebutting evidence. He can look for witnesses to give rebutting evidence if he himself cannot in cross-examination break down the one side of the story. That is what we are asking for here. We say that there should be a right to rebutting evidence, because if we do not allow that, what does this board do? It becomes a board which has to make a subjective decision on half a case and is apparently to be the sole arbiter, according to the Government side, on what is right and what is wrong for the public morals of South Africa.

Mr. Chairman, at a time like this in the evening I think it is time to have some common sense put into a law ... [Interjections.] I do not think that common sense or the democratic principle is the monopoly of the legal profession although they seem to think so at times. I think I ought to say right away that I support clause 36 fully and especially the procedure to be followed by the appeal board. I do not want to read the whole clause; I merely wish to read a few extracts.

Would you like the Medical Council to act like that?

I shall come to the hon. member for Green Point. He may need some medical attention towards the end of the evening! He must not get excited when we deal with a Bill like this. Let us consider clause 36. Let me quote portions of subsection (2)—

I think it goes without saying that it is quite obvious that that is what the board must do. That is the first point. The second point is to be found in paragraph (c) of subsection (2):

Obviously the board must look at the reasons; it must consider the whole appeal. I now come to subsection (3) (a) which I am not going to quote in full as it has already been read by the hon. member for Green Point. This subsection provides inter alia—

Read the rest of the clause.

I am going to come to the rest because that is the important point as far as I am concerned. I am trying to make a speech from my point of view, not from the point of view of the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South. [Interjections.] It would be practically impossible for him to try to make a good speech from that side of the House. I read further—

This is the point which the hon. member for Green Point has stressed—

The hon. member for Green Point immediately assumes that the appeal board will never use its discretion if there is any discussion which leads to any problems ...

It is a fundamental right.

... arising and the questioning of the witnesses while evidence is given on the committee’s decision.

May I ask the hon. member a question?

No, I shall come to the hon. member for Wynberg; I have his name on my list. [Interjections.] I come to the fourth point, i.e. subsection (5)—

I think that is a very important point and I shall return to it a little later. I use subsection (7) as a further bit of evidence, but I shall not read the whole subsection. I come to line 43 which reads—

Those seven points are the basic points on which I support this clause. I want to say that what is provided for in this clause was not always part of our legislation. Let us for a moment look at the history. The hon. member for Green Point, when he spoke a little while ago, asked, “Where is justice?” Let us look at Act No. 9 of 1913. It was not introduced by this side of the Committee.

That was before the rinderpest.

Yes, that was before the rinderpest.

†I should like to read section 23 of Act No. 9 of 1913. This deals with the importation of goods. It might seem strange to the hon. member, but until 1944 this was the only clause that dealt with this type of literature coming into the country. As a legal man he should know this and it should not be left to a medical man to have to tell him that.

I know it, and I am glad you have found it.

Paragraph (c) of section 23 includes—

Perhaps I can leave out a few of those items, but it goes on to say, in respect of these items—

They still had access to the courts.

Only in cases where there was mala fides. As far as I can find out and as far as I have been advised, a court is ruled out.

Stick to medicine!

Order! I appeal to the hon. member for Green Point to control himself.

The decision of the Minister was final.

Now I want to come to a very important point which I introduced when I spoke on one of the other clauses. I spoke about a letter which had been written by Mr. Stuart Cloete. I was referring to the procedure of the appeal board. The hon. member for Jeppe said that there had been provision for an appeal all along the line. He said that there was the right to appeal to the Supreme Court in Stuart Cloete’s time. Then the hon. intellectual giant from Griqualand East came in and said: “Why did he not appeal?” The complaint Mr. Stuart Cloete had was that he was banned, that he never had a chance to appeal and that he never heard the reason. That is why he said that he supports this type of Bill. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South said some very nasty things as well. He said that Stuart Cloete had suffered at the hands of the Nationalist Government.

Hear, hear!

As hon. members will see, facts do not always lie only on that side of the House. Let us take Hansard, Vol. 31 of 1938. On 15 February 1938 a question was asked in this House by Mr. Paul Sauer. He asked the then Minister, the late Mr. Stuttaford, the following question:

Mr. Stuttaford banned “Turning Wheels” and he did so in the time of the United Party Government. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South now stands up in this House and says that he suffered under the hands of the National Party. This book was banned in terms of Act No. 9 of 1913.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. member a question?

Mr. Stuttaford banned this book in terms of this Act in terms of which the Minister’s decision was final. What was Mr. Stuttaford’s answer?

This is probably the translation because I do not think that he was capable of speaking Afrikaans:

There he said: “Om hierdie rede het ek die boek verban.” Minister Stuttaford banned it in 1938 and it was done in the time of the United Party Government.

*Where is the loquacious hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South now? The other evening he really scared me and made me think of the hon. the Minister of Agriculture who said he reminded him of Goliath.

† I want to come to the final point and that is that when you deal with publications of this nature, you must have a certain procedure. One of the points which was mentioned by the hon. member for Green Point was that the public was not allowed at these hearings or the screening of films. The hon. member for Vereeniging dealt with that. It is one of the ways of giving these books and films the utmost publicity. Why would they have free publicity? I think the hon. member mentioned a case of a very interesting film being screened for the board in Cape Town. If it were open to the public you would have thousands of people attending to see the film for nothing in the first place—I do not think that they are allowed to ask a fee under the law ...

You would be first in the queue.

Secondly, you will probably find the hon. member for ... no, I would rather leave that. At this time of the evening, I would rather not say that I should like to say that I fully support this measure and it is time that that side of the House supported this side of the House when it comes to absolute common sense in the protection of the morals of the people in this country.

Mr. Chairman, if I may follow on some of the remarks made by hon. members before me and particularly the remarks made by the hon. member for Vereeniging where he argued that the opening of the hearings of the appeal board to the public would allow people of a sensation-seeking nature to attend, I find his argument entirely fallacious because it is my view that this whole clause should be posed in the positive and not in the negative sense. It is our view that all the hearings of the appeal board should in fact be open to the public unless the appeal board finds cogent and sufficient reasons to close the hearings to the public. That should be left to the discretion of the members of the appeal board. To place a blanket over the hearings of the appeal board is to cast doubt on what happens behind those closed doors, and to state that the public will rush to the hearings and viewings of the appeal board to see a film or have knowledge of a book, is absolute nonsense. After all when matters of this sort are discussed in courts and a particular film is shown, the public as far as I am aware, do not go in with the judge to see the film. The judge decides by himself on the film. I find this whole argument totally negative and without any merit at all.

Arising out of one argument mentioned by the hon. member for Vereeniging, I would like to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister whether a verbatim record is going to be kept of the proceedings of the appeal board. If so, no mention of it is made in this clause at all. All that appears is that the appeal board shall furnish full reasons for its decisions and, as was quoted by the hon. member for Vereeniging, the report which is drawn up includes the documents relating thereto, as well as the decision of the appeal board and of course the reasons for the decision. Mr. Chairman, what would such a report be used for? The purpose of providing such a report is firstly so that the public can see what happened and so that it can look at the decision, i.e. it is in the public interest to issue such a report. Secondly, and more important, such a report enables the appellant to take the matter further if he finds it necessary. He can for instance take it on review, as is provided for in a later clause in the Bill. If the verbatim record of the proceedings is not available and if, in fact, a record is not kept, how can an appellant prepare a case for review? From the documents to be provided in this report it will not be evident in any way as to what irregularities may have transpired in the hearings of such an appeal board. It will be evident neither to the appellant nor to the public. Furthermore, if the case is a lengthy one, the appellant may not have kept complete and accurate notes of everything that happened. As such it is a gravely limiting factor in respect of the right of the appellant to have the full record of the proceedings in front of him in order to prepare a case to put to court on review.

The Supreme Court Act, if I remember correctly, provides that when a matter is brought on review—I am speaking of reviews generally—the proceedings and the documents relating to the proceedings and to the decision which is under review, shall be provided to the Supreme Court. I am not certain whether this conflicts or fits in with the provisions of this Bill. If it conflicts with such provisions and in fact verbatim records are not kept, then even in the hearing on review, which in my view is an emasculated review in any event, it becomes even more limited since the court in terms of this clause will not have before it a record of the full proceedings of the board. Therefore I think that the arguments raised by the two hon. members who spoke before me, are quite invalid and without any merit at all.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Caledon has brought the name of Stuart Cloete into this debate. He mentioned it again earlier on. In case hon. members in this Committee should get the idea that Mr. Stuart Cloete is in favour of censorship of any kind at all, I should like to give them these two very brief quotations because . .

What about the letter?

I am not doubting the existence of the letter. I think we should hear these views to see whether he in fact supports censorship as one may believe from what the hon. member for Caledon said.

What is the date of that quotation?

Do not be so afraid. Mr. Stuart Cloete said:

He went on to talk of writers being emasculated by the threat of censorship. He said:

He was talking of this banning in 1938.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Cloete claims to hold the record for books on the banned list in South Africa. So he is the ultimate authority on this. He has had four books banned.

When was the last book banned?

How Young they Die was the last book that was banned, in 1971. It is absolutely wrong to suggest that he would support censorship in any form at all, and I think we should put this record straight, Sir.

But when did he say that?

In 1971, but what does that have to do with it? [Interjections.]

We have now had the benefit of the opinions of the hon. members for Wynberg, Sandton and Green Point. Not only do they profess to be honourable gentlemen, but educated gentlemen as well. I should now like to tell the hon. gentlemen that if they had appeared before a board of examiners with the arguments they have raised here this evening. I am afraid they would have scored very low marks. I would have given the hon. member for Wynberg nought out of ten. Of course nought out of ten is not terribly bad for him, for he is used to getting nought. He usually gets nought out of twenty-four. I think, in a certain respect, I would have given the hon. member for Green Point half a mark. But let us examine their arguments, Mr. Chairman. The hon. member for Wynberg tried to suggest here that there is no opportunity for an appellant to submit evidence to the appeal board. And he took this argument further, and it is this argument to which I would allot a definite nought out of ten. He did not take the further provisions of the legislation into account; he did not take into account that the appeal board may, in its discretion, allow evidence. He did not take that into account; that is why I am giving him nought out of ten for that argument. The hon. member for Green Point did concede that a discretion is vested in the appeal board. And that is why I will allot him half a mark. But the hon. member spoiled it by proceeding on the assumption that this discretion the appeal board has will not be exercised by the appeal board, and that the appeal board will never permit an appellant to give or lead evidence. He spoiled his argument by saying that, and I am obliged to subtract that half mark again. The hon. member for Green Point, with all his experience as a learned gentleman, ought to know that if this appeal board improperly fails to exercize its discretion in favour of the appellant, the appellant may take this appeal board on review. This is a discretionary matter. If the appeal board exercises its discretion mala fides, or in an improper manner, the appellant knows that he can take the matter to the Supreme Court for review.

Why does the hon. member object to an appellant having the basic right to adduce evidence?

I give the hon. member for Sandton nought out of ten for this question. This question has already been adequately replied to by the hon. member for Vereeniging. He replied to it very well by explaining to the hon. member that he has the right to apply to have evidence in any event. The hon. member compared the procedure ... [Interjections.] Hon. members must give me a chance now; they have put a question to me and I want to give them a reply. The hon. member compared the procedure to the petitioning procedure before the Supreme Court, which is in fact the procedure which has up to now been adopted in all the casses brought before the Supreme Court. It was brought before the Supreme Court by means of motion proceedings, as well as affidavits. The hon. member knows the present legal position in respect of this situation, i.e. that viva voce evidence is not allowed; even evidence is not allowed, i.e. in the present situation. As things are at present evidence is not allowed, and the only object for consideration is the matter itself which is being considered. Hon. members know that very well. In fact, they conceded as much through what the hon. member for Green Point said. By means of interjections hon. member s now want evidence. Eviis the law as it exists at the moment. Now we have an extension of this situation. Firstly, the appeal board has a discretion to allow an appellant to give evidence if he can furnish proof that it is important for the decision of the board.

Where does it say that?

It is here in subsection (3), i.e. “provided that the appeal board may in its discretion allow an appellant to give or to adduce evidence relating to any matter in connection with his appeal.” I have already dealt with the question of discretion and the hon. member should have listened to it. Here we now have an improvement in the position, if hon. members now want evidence. Evidence can now be given if the appellant can make out a good case as to why it should be given. That is the first point. The second point is that if the appeal board itself feels that reason exists for evidence to be given, it is very clearly provided in subsection (3)(b) what kind of evidence can be led. This paragraph reads as follows:

1. (i) the chairman of the committee which gave the decision in question;
2. (ii) any member of the directorate; or
3. (iii) the appellant in question or any person who made representations relating to the matter concerned ...

These persons may all be called upon by the appeal board to give evidence before it. All these possibilities are now open, possibilities which, please note, do not exist under the present procedure before the Supreme Court. At present the parties are limited to certain affidavits wherein they set out the point at issue. The hon. member for Green Point will remember very well that we recently had the case of Republican Publications v. the Publications Board, when Dr. Gericke of the D.R. Church wanted to give evidence by means of an affidavit and was refused. A certain Right Reverend gentleman of the Anglican Church also wanted to give evidence, and this was refused by the Supreme Court. The possibility remains that as long as the appellant can prove that this evidence is essential and important to the case, the appeal board has the opportunity to exercize its discretion in favour of the appellant; not only that, but the appeal board may, even if the appellant has not made out a good case, even decide meri motu that it is in its interests to hear this evidence. This evidence may then be led. That is, indeed, a great improvement on the present position. I am therefore giving hon. members opposite nought out of ten for their arguments in connection with this matter.

I want to go further. This entire argument of the hon. member for Sandton in connection with allowing the public to attend the hearings to be held by the appeal board, was of such a nature that I was inclined to give him half a mark for his standpoint that it should be stated positively and not negatively; that we should rather say the public may be allowed to attend hearings unless a decision to the contrary is taken. The hon. member should not condemn this appeal board before he has seen it in operation. That is the trouble with hon. members opposite. They are already, at this stage, trying to arouse feelings against a body that will have to watch over the morals of their children and mine. Hon. members opposite are already trying to make that body appear ridiculous in eyes of the public. They are trying to make it suspect. Hon. members opposite should be careful that they are not in this way cutting a rod for their own backs. I want to say this to the hon. member for Sandton. There are good reasons for this. If he, as we did, had opportunity of seeing some of the evidence submitted to the committee, of seeing some of the documents submitted to the commission, I am sure he would have decided for himself that the vast majority of the documents tested were documents which ought not to reach the eyes of the public. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member who has just sat down, endeavoured, like his colleagues on that side of the House, to throw as much confusion into this debate as possible. Far from listening to a lecture from him, we think, it is time he attended some lectures himself so as to realize the futility of appointing a board which we immediately realized had so many defects that it was our duty to protest as strongly as we could; to analyse it and to point out the weaknesses in the machinery of this board so that, despite the fact that unfortunately a principle has been accepted, some effort would be made by the hon. the Deputy Minister in Another Place to remedy these weaknesses that are apparent in this machinery. Firstly, we want to know what will be before the appeal board when it hears an appeal. The committee itself when it makes a decision in terms of clause 11(2)(b) decides without hearing any person whether any publication or object or edition is undesirable. In other words, a book or a publication is placed before it for its consideration. It then takes steps to deal with that publication by considering it in terms of its own rules and regulations. Then, without hearing any persons, it arrives at a decision. If an appeal is brought, the grounds of the appeal have to be submitted by the appellant. No evidence will have been adduced as to why the committee has come to a particular decision. No record is placed before the appeal board. The appeal board simply has to review the matter just as though it were the committee itself once again. That is a completely fallacious manner of dealing with an appeal. In normal appeals—this is a system which is an age-old traditional system in South Africa—in all Western countries, the appeal court sees a record where evidence has been adduced for and against any contention. It reads the cross-examination. It reads the full reasons for the decision based on the evidence that has been adduced. This appeal board will not have that particular opportunity. It will simply read the decision and then it will have to deal with the matter as provided for in this bill without hearing evidence, and merely listening to representations from a legal representative. Evidence can only be adduced if the appeal board decides that it would like to hear evidence. Sir, what is the position if a publication has been declared desirable or not undesirable and the Minister decides to direct the appeal board to reconsider its decision? What steps does it then take? Take the case of a publication that has been declared to be desirable. There is no evidence at all, except that the committee, which has seen the particular publication, has decided that it is desirable. The Minister then goes on appeal or directs the committee to reconsider its decision. Is that an appeal in terms of this clause? Does the committee follow the procedure laid down here? Who does the committee ask to appear in front of it—the Minister and his legal representative? What evidence will he be asked to adduce? Does he call the people who have a financial interest in the publication or the persons who are responsible for the publication of that particular document? Sir, these are questions which are completely unanswered here. The board is being given the right here to use its discretion in any manner it may see fit; there is no limit placed on its discretion; it can decide in its own discretion whether it will allow an appellant to give or to adduce evidence. Everything is completely in the hands of this appeal board which will have no background, no rules, no inherent rights for the appellant, no Supreme Court rights which are basic to the constitution of the country. It is a board with purely arbitrary powers and which will make its decisions on the basis of general, vague provisions contained in this Act. It will have full discretion to handle the matter as it sees fit. I think, Sir, that the public is entitled to be treated on a very much more ethical and judicial basis than is provided for in this particular clause. That is our complaint, and we have every right and justification to place it before this Committee. Our purpose here is not to try to deride this board; our objective is to illustrate that this machinery is going to be unsatisfactory. Sir, where appeal machinery of this type has been provided for in the past, it has proved to be unsatisfactory and an effort is now being made here, in a more elaborate fashion, to make this machinery workable. But this appeal board will not have to follow the normal rules of justice in this country; it will not have to follow the normal Supreme Court procedures, and it is obvious that it will operate in an arbitrary manner. Its powers are actually unassailable. It would not be easy to take a decision on review, it would be very difficult to prove mala fides in terms of this particular clause because of the wide power which is given to the board. Sir, how are you going to establish mala fides? How are you going to be able, in view of the wide discretionary powers given to the appeal board, to prove to the Supreme Court that the appeal board acted in a manner contrary to the provisions of the statute? I say that it would be almost impossible to call for a review, and it would certainly be impossible to succeed, when the matter is taken on review, on the ground of mala fides. The whole of this clause, particularly having regard to the manner in which the committee is to deal with the matter, indicates complete confusion in the mind of the Minister in making provision for an appeal board of this nature. Therefore we find it is impossible to deal with it. The hon. member for Bellville for instance says that the appeal board has the right to allow evidence to be given or adduced “as hy dink dit is belangrik”. Nowhere in this particular clause are any grounds given as to why he should use his discretion. It does not even suggest that he should think it is important. He may use his discretion in an arbitrary manner because there are no limitations here and so that argument, we maintain, is completely futile. Sir, we appeal to the hon. the Minister rather to give some teeth to this suggestion of review by the Supreme Court and to provide certain grounds of appeal. That is not an unusual thing to do, to provide an appeal board with certain grounds for an appeal. There should be certain matters in regard to which there is a reference to the Supreme Court for a decision, or there can even be an appeal in the form of a stated case by both parties, but at least it would be in the form of an appeal which would enable the judge objectively to assess all the facts that are placed before him, and all the actions of the board in regard to its discretion in permitting evidence to be led or otherwise. That would give teeth to any suggestion of going to the Supreme Court, but as regards an approach to the Supreme Court on the basis of review, the hon. member knows as well as anybody else does how almost impossible it is in this type of review for a court to set aside a decision. I submit that if the hon. the Minister sincerely believes that his board can work, he must give some teeth to the Supreme Court aspect of this matter and provide a proper method for going to the Supreme Court on appeal from the appeal board. [Time expired.]

I want to ask the hon. member for Durban Point not to take it too much amiss of me for having made a small concession to the hon. member for Houghton. During the long debate I have also made considerable concessions to their side and I am, after all, trying to keep things in proportion, and what I allowed the hon. member is only a ‘small concession.

They are insatiable.

I come now to the amendment of the hon. member for Wynberg. It is more or less along the same lines as the amendments to clauses 14 and 22 which, I think, were moved by the hon. member for Green Point, as well as the amendment to clause 32 which we have already dealt with, where it is now being proposed that persons making representations in the case of a direction by the Minister and appeals by the directorate, will have the right to give or adduce evidence. To include the giving or adducing of evidence by the appellant as a right here, and not as it is now being provided in clause 36(3)(a) where it may be done only with the consent of the appeal board, will lead to the proceedings of the appeal board becoming very protracted. That is one matter we should bear in mind. One of the objectives with the establishment of the appeal board is to create an administrative-judicial body which will, on the one hand, be held in the necessary esteem, and which will also enjoy the confidence which both sides of the House have spoken about, which will enjoy the confidence of a court of law but which, on the other hand, will also have the flexibility of an administrative body which can act quickly. I should just like to mention this first before I come to the other arguments. We then come to the fact we cannot argue away that appellants may also submit the grounds for their appeal in writing, in full. In this connection I just want to quote to the hon. member something which appears in the evidence given before the commission. The witness was Mr. Justice Kowie Marais and inter alia, the following appears on page 107. The chairman had asked him a question about the audi alteram partem rule (translation)—

This question is now being put by the chairman to a judge of our Supreme Court. The judge’s reply to this was (translation)—

The witness went further. The question was put to him (translation)—

The witness replied (translation)—

The judge saying this had also reasoned out the matter. I believe hon. members on this side made it quite clear that the whole case could be put through the submission of that written evidence.

Nonsense!

However, I want to come to the second, third and fourth amendments and I am simply putting them all together. I come to the question of the admission of the public. It is stated clearly that there is also a discretion regarding the admission of the public. The public is not being permanently excluded. Where films are exhibited which have been censured by a committee it would be impractical, as hon. members suggested, to give the public the right to see those films. Surely it would be undesirable for the public to have the right to view something which a committee has found to be undesirable. The decision has to be made first. If the appeal board feels that the public can be admitted, they will use their discretion. Hon. members are even casting suspicion on the discretion which, in terms of this clause, may be exercised by the appeal board on two occasions.

But it will never be exercised.

The hon. member for Wynberg persists in that opinion. He assumes that the appeal board will meet in camera and that no light will ever fall on the matter under discussion. That is his assumption and he adheres to it. We will not be able to convince him and consequently we may as well stop talking about the matter.

The hon. member for Jeppe says that, even where they have to use their discretion, the appeal board will act arbitrarily. However, as soon as the appeal board acts arbitrarily by, for example hearing only one side of the evidence, it will constitute grounds for review, not so? Surely that is as mala fides as could be.

No, you are quite wrong.

I do not think I am wrong.

The appeal board has a discretion in this reagard.

It is interesting that there is suspicion-mongering here, and that strange reasons are being advanced as to why it will not work. The hon. member for Green Point also suggests that the one side will have the right to give evidence while the other side will be excluded. If anything like this were to happen, it would constitute grounds for review. I am convinced of that. The hon. member ought to know this better than I since he is a jurist and I am not. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Sandton is also wrong. I say the appeal board has a discretion to allow or not to allow people. Now, what is the difference if we say they are allowed and, as a result of the exercise of a discretion, they are not allowed? Surely it is six of one and half a dozen of the other. I do not know why the hon. member is arguing about it. Surely they can exercise that discretion as improperly the other way round. Why should their discretion, if stated in his words, suddenly be acceptable to everyone now? When stated in our words, however, the discretionary right of this appeal board is called in question. For the information of the hon. member for Sandton I want to point out that the evidence also forms part of the record, does it not?

Do you not agree that the words “provided that the appeal board may in its discretion allow an appellant to give or adduce evidence” excludes any other person except the appellant from giving evidence?

I do not agree with the hon. member.

That is what it says.

Subsection (3)(c)?

I am referring to subsection (3)(a).

Subsection (3)(c) there as well. I want to tell the hon. member for Sandton that evidence forms part of the record in terms of subsection (6)(b). I am referring to that again, but I do not want to devote much time to it for if the hon. gentlemen on that side of the House argue that the one side will be allowed to give evidence in camera while the other side will be excluded, we may as well forget about it. If the hon. member for Jeppe accepts, at this stage already, that arbitrary action will be taken here, we have no need to argue with each other. Then those hon. members have a preconceived idea we will not be able to change. We believe that the provision, as it appears in the clause and as it was stated by the hon. members for Bellville, Vereeniging and Caledon, is very reasonable. It has been stated very reasonably and the procedure is quite reasonable. At least the hon. member for Wynberg wanted to be a little positive. He outlined the procedure in five points. I almost think that that procedure is correct, except for subsection (2) where evidence is led.

Mr. Chairman, may I put a question to the hon. the Deputy Minister? Suppose a good party supporter were appointed as chairman of that board, a man like the hon. member for Bellville, for example. He then has to use his discretion. Does the hon. the Deputy Minister think that he will not use his discretion arbitrarily?

Those hon. members are again assuming that when this side of the House brings a Bill to this House and then wants to prove to those hon. members that it is going to work, it will spoil its own case by appointing a favourite? Once again the hon. member’s point of departure is quite wrong. In any event, if the hon. member for Bellville is appointed, his judgment will be more reliable than that of the hon. member for Wynberg, if that is the way they want to argue. That is what I have to say to him at this stage.

I think I have replied to most of the points of criticism.

Mr. Chairman, I do not think that the hon. the Deputy Minister was quite right when he gave us an interpretation of what Judge Marais said. What Judge Marais really believed in his heart when he said that the record placed before the Board should be in writing, was that the court of first instance would have heard evidence. If that record of evidence comes before the appeal court, then it is in order that it should be in writing. However, there is another aspect which I want to deal with very quickly. Before I get on to it I just want to say to the hon. member for Caledon that I am sorry that he became a little bit personal earlier on in regard to the hon. member for Griqualand East. I would say to him in reply that in regard to legal matters he is a very good doctor.

What I really want to come to is that I do not believe that the people of South Africa really realize what this Bill means to them. I do not think they have had it explained to them in ordinary, everyday terms. I want to suggest right at the very beginning that what this Government is doing in this Bill, in this clause more particularly, is that they are creating a Frankenstein monster which is going to eat them up. I shall tell hon. members how it will eat them up. With reference to clause 36(1), I want to deal with the question of the appointment of the chairman. The chairman of this appeal board is appointed for five years. In fact, he has a better job than the chairman of the Broederbond because he knows he is going to be there, whatever happens, for five years. Much as I have studied this Bill to find a clause dealing with his removal from office during hose five years, I could find none. The Government is stuck with him; he is appointed for a period of five years. What powers are given to him? He is given the power to appoint his own assessors at his discretion.

From the panel.

Yes, from the panel. He has the power to appoint his own assessors, but if he cannot appoint assessors from that panel who are going to be satisfactory to him, he is also given the power to appoint other people as assessors to his own appeal board. Then we come to clause 36(1) in terms of which we find the chairman can make his own rules. Not only does he appoint his own assessors, he can also make his own rules. Having appointed his own assessors, and bearing in mind that the board shall have a quorum of only three, the board shall then decide who must give evidence in terms of clause 36(3)(c). What happens in terms of clause 36(3)(a)? The person who appeals to the appeal board can question persons giving evidence, but only those persons may give evidence who have been selected at the discretion of the appeal board. Finally, what we find as well is that the board through the chairman and his appointed assessors can decide how much of their proceedings is going to be seen by the public in general. Do the people of South Africa really know what this Bill constitutes and what we are creating if we pass this Bill? I do not believe that the public of South Africa realize what is happening here. I believe that in this day and age we cannot possibly accept what to me appears clearly to be a complete travesty of an appeal board.

Mr. Chairman, I see the hon. member for Vereeniging shaking his head already. He must be patient; I am coming to him in a moment. I want to start by referring to the hon. the Deputy Minister and to say that he in fact gave us a non-answer. I do not blame him for that, because he has no answer, nor have the two lawyers at his side, one of whom is not even paying any attention at the moment. Could I have the attention of the hon. member for Bellville for a moment? Thank you, I am glad to have his attention. The other is the hon. member for Caledon who has also turned into a lawyer just recently. He must not let himself be led astray by one of the members of the Progressive Party—I see that he is consulting with the Progs at the moment. Perhaps he can do better for himself by consulting with them rather than trying to be the lawyer he set himself up as a little earlier in this House. I want to say that I hope that hon. member is ashamed of himself for what he said a little earlier in this Committee. He quoted clause 36(3) but he left out the vital part. What did he in fact do? He quoted that subsection as we propose it should be amended. viz. to leave out the phrase “but shall not have the right to give or adduce evidence”. I challenge that hon. member to look at his Hansard tomorrow and then to come and apologize to me, because he did leave that out. I want to suggest that he left it out deliberately in an attempt to misguide those people who will read Hansard when the time comes.

Mr. Chairman. on a point of order ...

Order! The hon.

member must withdraw the word “deliberately”.

I withdraw the word “deliberately”, Sir, and I say he did it in an attempt to mislead those people who will read Hansard in future days.

Apologize about Stuart Cloete.

I am coming to Stuart Cloete, but I am not going to apologize about that matter. That is the hon. member who will have to apologize. Let me then deal with Stuart Cloete first. I must ask the hon. the Deputy Minister’s pardon, but he will have to wait a while. The hon. members for Bellville, Vereeniging, Klip River and Waterberg were with me when I, privileged to be a member of the commission, visited the offices of the Publications Board. Did they see that book Turning Wheels on the table or not? Well, let us hear from them. Did we not pick it up, examine it and wonder why it had been banned? I am speaking of those four members who were with me. Let us hear from those hon. members.

Which book are you referring to?

I am referring to Turning Wheels. Was it not there? Of course it was there. And was it not there because of a decision of the Publications Board in terms of the Act of 1963?

Are you saying it is banned now?

It was reconsidered by the board after 1963 and it was still banned. I want to ask the hon. member for Caledon whether he would suggest that it should be unbanned today.

It was banned in 1938 by Stuttaford.

Does the hon. member say that today it should be unbanned? It is the hon. member for Caledon who takes me to task for saying that Stuart Cloete is the one man who has suffered more at the hands of this board than any other South African author. Does the hon. member for Caledon deny that many of Stuart Cloete’s books have been banned by the Publications Board?

Why do you not come to Turning Wheels?

Turning Wheels was banned by this board when it was reconsidered by this board. This is the point. I want to hear from him or any one of those members whether they would recommend that Turning Wheels should be released for general reading. [Interjections.] Come on, give us an answer.

That is not the point.

Well, let me put the question in another way. Was the Minister right in 1938 in the decision he took?

That is not the point.

Of course it is the point, because in 1938 when that decision was taken, Stuart Cloete had the right to appeal to the courts. He had the right of appeal to the Supreme Court, Sir, which he will not have when this Bill is through. And that is why I say to the hon. member for Caledon that if Stuart Cloete is in favour of this Bill today, he has been misled by that member regarding the provisions of this Bill. He will no longer have the right of appeal to the courts. There will also be other rights he will not have, Sir.

What right of appeal did he have?

No, that hon. member must not come along with his nonsense now. Somebody said just now that as a lawyer he makes a good doctor. I think he makes a good butcher because he butchered subsection (3) by leaving out that paragraph which was of the utmost significance. Now let us come back to the hon. the Deputy Minister. The hon. the Deputy Minister—I ask you with tears in my eyes!—says that the reason why they are not going to allow evidence before the appeal board is to speed up the process. I ask you with tears in my eyes. Is this really a reason for taking away from the people of South Africa the inherent right of every citizen, i.e. the appeal to an independent court? No, Sir, I am sorry. This is the final admission by this hon. Deputy Minister that he has in fact a very poor case. He goes on and quotes the hon. Justice Marais. This is the evidence of one person, of one witness, and I hope those other hon. members of the commission, who are sitting there in the back row, will pay attention because I want to ask them to corroborate what I am saying now. We did have the evidence of Mr. Justice Marais. And he did say exactly what the hon. Deputy Minister quoted. But, Sir, how many other witnesses did we have who pleaded for the retention of the right of appeal to the courts? The General Bar Council of South Africa, the Bar Council of the Orange Free State, the Book Trade Association, the Cape Bar Council, the Church of the Province, the English Academy, the Federation of Film Societies—I am not reading them all, Sir! I refer hon. members to pages 56 and 57 of the minority report (para. 2.8.4.2. et seq.). I refer them to that; there you can see all the names: The Committee of University Principals, die S.A. Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns, and what did they say? After they had been bamboozled by a couple of members of the commission into accepting the idea of a review which is not a review when you look at clause 39 of this Bill, they said—

This I think is important—

Not even that was accepted by the other side of the House, Sir. And what about the FAK, die Federasie van Afrikaanse Kultuurverenigings?

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, clause 35 has already been agreed to and I just want to ask whether the hon. member may again speak about the establishment of an appeal board?

The hon. member is just explaining his point. The hon. member may continue.

The FAK, Sir, said that it was still in favour of a body of appeal, the chairman of which must be a judge. In other words, Sir, they are not even getting second prize from this Nationalist Government. They are not even getting the second prize which is an appeal board with a judge as its chairman. I am afraid this just goes to show the absolute intolerance of that side of the House regarding any interference with any decree that they want to make. And then, Sir, we have the hon. the Deputy Minister coming along, after having put up such a weak case, and saying that he wants the appeal board to have the confidence of the public. It should have the confidence of a court and the flexibility of an administrative body, he said. Sir, this is a very high ideal. I would love to be able to support him in the high ideal he has expressed here. But I am afraid that as long as we have a Bill which contains the provisions which are contained in this chapter, it is impossible for the public to have confidence in such a body. The hon. the Deputy Minister asks us to have confidence in it. He has already accused us on this side of the House of doing our best to undermine the confidence of the public in this body which he is now establishing. But when you think that here is a body which is going to be comprised of people possibly with no practical judicial experience at all—possibly no practical judicial experience at all—and which is going to decide a matter with no written record of previous proceedings before it, with no oral evidence put before it, a decision which is not going to be taken in the glare of publicity, where the Press will not be allowed to attend, which will be taken in a dark room in Pretoria, a tiny little room which will only be big enough to house the members of the appeal board, the appellant and his attorney—with all this the hon. the Deputy Minister still asks us to ask the public to have confidence in such a board. I am sorry, Sir, I do not believe that the public of South Africa can ever have confidence in such an appeal board.

Amendment moved by Mrs. H. Suzman agreed to.

On first amendment moved by Mr. J. I. de Villiers,

Question put: That the words stand part of the Clause,

Upon which the Committee divided:

AYES—82: Badenhorst, P. J.; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, G. F.; Botha, J. C. G.; Botha, S. P.; Botma, M. C.; Brandt, J. W.; Clase, P. J.; Coetzee, S. F.; Cronje, P.; Cruywagen, W. A.; De Beer, S. J.; De Jager, A. M. van A.; De Klerk, F. W.; Diederichs, N.; Du Plessis, A. H.; Du Plessis, B. J.; Du Plessis, G. C.; Du Toit, J. P.; Engelbrecht, J. J.; Erasmus, A. S. D.; Greeff, J. W.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S.F.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Hartzenberg, F.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Hefer, W. J.; Herman, F.; Heunis, J. C.; Janson, J.; Janson, T. N. H.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotze, G. J.; Kotzé, W. D.; Kruger, J. T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J. (Brakpan); Le Roux, F. J. (Hercules); Lloyd, J. J.; Loots, J. J.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, P. S.; McLachlan, R.; Meyer, P. H.; Morrison, G. de V.; Mulder, C. P.; Munnik, L. A. P. A.; Niemann, J. J.; Nothnagel, A. E.; Otto, J. C.; Palm, P. D.; Pienaar, L. A.; Pieterse, R. J. J.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Smith, H. H.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Terblanche, G. P. D.; Treurnicht, A. P.; Ungerer, J. H. B.; Uys, C.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Spuy, S. J. H.; Van der Walt, H. J. D.; Van Rensburg, H. M. J.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Wyk, A. C. (Winburg); Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Viljoen, M.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Vlok, A. J.; Volker, V. A.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, W. L.

Tellers: J. M. Henning, J. E. Potgieter, A. van Breda and C. V. van der Merwe.

NOES—40: Aronson, T.; Bartlett, G. S.; Baxter, D. D.; Bell, H. G. H.; Boraine, A. L.; Dalling, D. J.; Deacon, W. H. D.; De Villiers. J. I.; De Villiers, R. M.; Enthoven (’t Hooft), R. E.; Fisher, E. L.; Graaff, De V.; Hickman, T.; Lorimer, R. J.; McIntosh, G. B. D.; Miller, H.; Mills, G. W.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Olivier, N. J. J.; Page, B. W. B.; Pyper, P. A.; Raw, W. V.; Schwarz, H. H.; Slabbert, F. van Z.; Streicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Van Coller, C. A.; Van den Heever, S. A.; Van Eck, H. J.; Van Hoogstraten, H. A.; Van Rensburg, H. E. J.; Von Keyserlingk, C. C.; Waddell. G. H.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Webber, W. T.; Wiley, J. W. E.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: T. G. Hughes and W. M. Sutton.

Question accordingly affirmed and amendment dropped.

On second amendment moved by Mr. J.I. de Villiers,

Question put: That the word “not” stand part of the Clause,

Upon which the Committee divided:

AYES—81: Badenhorst, P. J.; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, G. F.; Botha, J. C. G.; Botha, S. P.; Botma, M. C.; Brandt, J. W.; Clase, P. J.; Coetzee, S. F.; Cronje, P.; Cruywagen, W. A.; De Beer, S. J.; De Jager, A. M. van A.; De Klerk, F. W.; Diederichs, N.; Du Plessis, A. H.; Du Plessis, B. J.; Du Plessis, G. C.; Du Toit, J. P.; Engelbrecht, J. J.; Erasmus, A. S. D.; Greeff, J. W.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Hartzenberg, F.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Hefer, W. J.; Herman, F.; Heunis, J. C.; Janson, J.; Janson. T. N. H.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotze, G. J.; Kotzé, W. D.; Kruger, J. T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J. (Brakpan); Le Roux, F. J. (Hercules); Lloyd, J. J.; Loots, J. J.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, P. S.; McLachlan, R.; Meyer, P. H.; Morrison, G. de V.; Mulder, C. P.; Munnik, L. A. P. A.; Niemann, J. J.; Nothnagel, A.E.; Otto, J. C.; Palm, P. D.; Pienaar, L. A.; Pieterse, R. J. J.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Smit, H. H.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Terblanche, G. P. D.; Treurnicht, A. P.; Ungerer, J. H. B.; Uys, C.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Spuy, S. J. H.; Van Rensburg, H. M. J.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Wyk, A. C. (Winburg); Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Vilonel, J. J.; Vlok, A. J.; Volker, V. A.; Vorster, B. J. Vosloo, W. L.

Tellers: J. M. Henning, J. E. Potgieter, A. van Breda and C. V. van der Merwe.

NOES—40: Aronson, T.; Bartlett, G. S.; Baxter, D. D.; Bell, H. G. H.; Boraine, A. L.; Dalling, D. J.; Deacon, W. H. D.; De Villiers, J. I.; De Villiers, R. M.; Enthoven (’t Hooft), R. E.; Fisher, E. L.; Graaff, De V.; Hickman, T.; Lorimer, R. J.; McIntosh, G. B. D.; Miller, H.; Mills, G. W.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Olivier, N. J. J.; Page, B. W. B.; Pyper, P. A.; Raw, W. V.; Schwarz, H. H.; Slabbert, F. van Z.; Streicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Van Coller, C. A.; Van den Heever, S. A.; Van Eck, H. J.; Van Hoogstraten, H. A.; Van Rensburg, H. E. J.; Von Keyserlingk, C. C.; Waddell, G. H.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Webber, W. T.; Wiley, J. W. E.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: T. G. Hughes and W. M. Sutton.

Question accordingly affirmed and amendment dropped.

I put the third amendment moved by Mr. J. I. de Villiers.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Chairman, will you please record the objection of the official Opposition in the Minutes?

Sir, will you please record the objection of the effective Opposition in the Minutes?

The objection of both parties will be recorded in the Minutes.

Clause, as amended, agreed to (Official Opposition and Progressive Party dissenting).

Clause 37:

Mr. Chairman, this clause is the clause which is designed to protect the members of the appeal board from what is termed in the marginal note “contempt”. It is interesting to see that it has been found necessary by the hon. the Minister in the drafting and introduction of this clause to go far beyond the protection that is considered to be necessary for a judge of the Supreme Court or a magistrate. Sir, one wonders why it is necessary to provide in this Bill for protection which, as I say, goes beyond that which is afforded to judges and to the judiciary generally. These are somewhat exaggerated provisions, particularly when one realizes that these are provisions designed to protect an appeal board from criticism when that board itself, in terms of this Bill, acts in a manner which can only invite criticism, because it comes to its decisions without hearing evidence, unless it in its own discretion chooses to hear evidence. It can sit behind closed doors and admit those whom it chooses to admit when it is deliberating. The Government now proposes to weave around this board a protective cocoon so that it can sit inside duly hooded and carry on with its deliberations without having to face any criticism from the outside world. Now, what are we being asked to legislate? We are being asked to legislate that nobody should insult the board. One has only to imagine the description which has already been levelled by reason of the decisions of other boards, e.g. that they are a lot of bone-heads, and one will now be liable to a fine of R500 for saying that. One will be liable to a similar penalty if one disparages the board by saying that they are sitting in hooded seclusion, deciding on publications. That is subject to another R500. It goes further and states that one must not belittle them. If one were to query that any member appointed to the appeal board was suitably qualified or educated to perform his task, that is another fine of R500. One cannot prejudice the board either. If somebody writes to a newspaper and praises some publication and says that he cannot understand why it has even been considered by the board, that there should not be any hesitation in passing it, etc., he is prejudicing the findings of the board. It goes further and says one cannot influence the findings of the board. Under the previous clause we have already dealt with, one cannot make representations and here we say that there cannot be an expression of public opinion because it would be influencing the board, and any newspaper that publishes it would be liable to penalties. To go further, it would be a punishable crime, subject to a fine of another R500, if one were to anticipate the proceedings or findings. So an expression of opinion that no intelligent appeal board could ever uphold a decision of a committee which has banned something, would be an intelligent or an unintelligent anticipation of what the board might do, and would also be subject to a penalty under this clause. I mention these things because these are perfectly ridiculous provisions to put into a Bill to provide for the protection of a board which has a status inferior to that of a regional or an ordinary magistrate in the eyes of the public. Because that is all it is. This is a board sitting, as I have said, in seclusion and deciding on matters without any appeal against its decisions. Yet it must be protected from any criticism whatsoever. It is extraordinary that it takes three subclauses to say how this board must be protected, while only one of those subclauses has application to a judge of the Supreme Court, i.e. subclause (c), which says that nothing should be done which in relation to a court of law would have constituted contempt of court. I cannot for the life of me understand why this protection should be afforded unless, Sir, the Government and the hon. the Minister in introducing this legislation anticipate what we say to him we will get, i.e. a continuous public outcry against the administration of this Act and its consequences in so far as the public is concerned, its consequences on the art and the literature and the life in those spheres in so far as South Africa is concerned. We anticipated it and warned the Government that that criticism is going to come and now, in order to protect themselves, they must, as I say, weave this cocoon, this cottonwool cocoon, around the appeal board to see that it will not be criticized. I therefore move the amendment standing in the name of the hon. member for Durban North on the Order Paper, as follows—

Mr. Chairman, I should like to support the amendment moved by the hon. member for Green Point. I must say that I had a most extraordinary feeling as I listened to the hon. gentleman talk and I had another extraordinary feeling as I read very carefully the words of the paragraph which he proposes should be omitted. I wondered where I had seen those words before and I wondered why the words of the hon. member for Green Point had made such an impression on me. Then I realized that this paragraph was exactly the provision which was inserted into the regulations to protect the Schlebusch Commission, the exact same words. The hon. member is a member of the Schlebusch Commission which actually asked for that protection. Members of the commission went to the hon. the Prime Minister and because of the continuous public outcry and public criticism, which evidently had been anticipated, these words were inserted into the regulations by the Prime Minister to protect the members of the commission who presumably also sat in hooded seclusion and who, if I may quote the hon. member, could obviously also be called “bone-heads” by the public. No doubt this is the same sort of anticipation that the members of the Schlebusch Commission had when they went to the hon. the Prime Minister to ask for protection. I do not have the exact wording, but unless my memory serves me badly, practically the identical wording was inserted in the regulations. Yes, it was exactly the same wording.

I am very glad to see that the hon. member for Green Point objects to that as far as the appeal board is concerned. I could not agree with him more. I hope that he will carry his objection a little further and see that it applies also to himself and the commission on which he is sitting. Because there is no doubt whatever that mutatis mutandis everything that he said tonight, with which I agree absolutely ...

And whole-heartedly?

... and wholeheartedly about the appeal board and the absurdity of putting a provision in the law to protect this board which does not have the status of a regional magistrate, could be applied to the regulations that are protecting the Schlebusch Commission. I support the hon. member wholeheartedly.

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

I believe that most of the points mentioned by the hon. member for Green Point, hold good for this amendment as well. It does seem to me as though the hon. the Deputy Minister is oversensitive as regards this clause. What greater protection do members of this board need than that which one finds in the courts? Contempt of court covers a wide field and a large series of possible actions which could also be directed against these members. I really do think a measure of oversensitivity is being displayed here. It seems as though that side of the Committee is more or less anticipating that awkward decisions are going to be taken by a committee and consequently they want to protect the members of the appeal board to such an extent that they will virtually be protected against all criticism in their actions. I believe it to be absolutely unnecessary to go so far. As a matter of fact, this makes it somewhat cumbersome if one wants to create the impression that the people who are to be appointed to this board, are completely above criticism as regards things concerning art, literature, etc. I therefore ask that my amendment be accepted.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Houghton, somewhat eclipsed during this session by the new boys sitting with her ...

I wish I had three times as many members.

... found it necessary to make remarks on a matter about which she is not qualified to speak. She does not appreciate the differences which exist between the position of a commission which has been appointed by the State President from members of this House, and a board which is nominated by a Minister for a purely administrative action in terms of an Act. I want to say further that the hon. member had not read the first reports, which were very short reports, before she commented on them. She obviously did not read the other reports of the commission because had she read them, she would have been aware that every witness who appeared before the commission was entitled to and did have legal representation and that every witness who appeared before the commission—I ask her to look it up because the reports were given to her—was. after having given evidence, invited to add further comments. She will also find that a person holding the position of professor of law at one of our universities who appeared before the commission also received this invitation and that some in fact did add further comments. This is quite a different position from that which exists under this Bill.

But I allow the hon. member to have her little dig at this thing, because there is, after all, so little happiness for her in this life at the present moment with the politics that she is propounding in this House.

I am enjoying myself, thank you.

As far as we are concerned, we believe that it is unnecessary for an administrative body which is not a judicial body and which is not performing a judicial function. This body is purely an administrative body with a standing of the nature of this particular commission to which I have referred.

As far as the amendment which was moved by the hon. member for Rondebosch is concerned, I feel that it is correct that the clause goes beyond merely provisions for contempt. However, if one is to have any control whatsoever at the sittings of the appeal board, one can hardly imagine that it should be permissible for anybody to misconduct themselves in such a way as to interrupt the proceedings of the board in the course of its deliberations. That type of conduct is one with which we would not approve in any event. It will be the same as contempt of court and is merely an elaboration of subsection (1)(c). Therefore we cannot support the amendment which was moved by the hon. member for Rondebosch.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to put a question to the hon. member for Green Point. Did he consider himself to have been concerned and is he of the opinion that he has now managed to get out of that corner? Now he refers to the protection afforded to the Schlebusch Commission since its members were appointed by the State President. Here, however, we are concerned with an appeal board the members of which are to be appointed by the State President as well. So where does he see any difference?

Mr. Chairman, the first point i intended putting to the hon. member for Green Point, has just been raised by the hon. member for Klip River, and that is that the members of this appeal board, too, are to be appointed by the State President.

And also Members of Parliament who are appointed.

If hon. members who are appointed to a commission by the State President have the right to protection, why do they not want to afford the same proetction to this body which is to be appointed by the State President as well? We really enjoyed that private altercation between the hon. member for Green Point and the hon. member for Houghton. I am thankful she trod on his toes a little, because I think she let him have a bit of his own medicine. Since the hon. member for Green Point said we were affording the appeal board more protection than that afforded to an ordinary court, I want to tell him that in view of the attitude of hon. members on that side, this body truly needs protection, even more protection than that afforded to a court at the moment. If any offence were to be committed and someone were to anticipate the decisions of this appeal board, surely the matter could be decided in an ordinary court as to whether an offence had been committed or not.

The hon. member also mentioned another aspect when he said that no one might write reviews on a book, a film, an object or a publication. Reviews may still be written, because about most books there will not be any doubt. Those books will be released on the market and reviews on them may be written. Let us assume that a publication was in fact submitted to the appeal board at a later stage. In that case a notice would be published in the Government Gazette that this publication was undesirable. From that time on those who wanted to write about that publication would have to be somewhat more careful so as not to anticipate the decision of the appeal board. Once the appeal board has given its decision, however, anyone may again write about that publication.

And now I want to reply to what was said by the hon. member for Rondebosch. Let us be honest, the present Publications Board is probably the least protected court in South Africa, if I may call it a court. Over the years this position has been used with a will by the most severe critics of control by inveighing against that body, its members and its decisions in a manner which after a while no longer constituted criticism, but something which actually bordered on vilification. We know it, and it will become more intense still. It really does not bother me and I am thankful we are able to afford this body this wide protection, because, as I have already said, when I listen to speeches from that side, it seems as if this body needs to be protected even against them. We have to make provision for ensuring that this appeal board will not be subjected to as much contempt and vilification as the existing Publications Board was subjected to. Only in this way shall we be able to inspire this semi-judicial establishment with confidence once again. We, the public, will get confidence in them through the judgments they give. We should give them the opportunity of reaching that point where we are able to say on the basis of their judgments whether we agree or not. I feel very happy about this and I think that it is very necessary for this protection to be given to the appeal board.

Amendment moved by Mr. L. G. Murray negatived (Official Opposition and Progressive Party dissenting).

Amendment moved by Dr. F. van Z. Slabbert negatived (Progressive Party dissenting).

Clause agreed to (Official Opposition and Progressive Party dissenting).

Clause 38:

Order! This clause contains one of the key principles of this Bill on which many speeches were allowed during the Second Reading. I think hon. members have already put their standpoints clearly and fully in respect of the abolition of the right of appeal. No opportunity will therefore be afforded to debate this matter any further, except for at the most one speech from each of the parties on this clause. I cannot think of any other details that can still be discussed.

Mr. Chairman, this clause is the clause that, more than any other, has the total opposition of the Progressive Party. This clause is probably what this Bill is all about. I believe that the hon. the Minister brought in this Bill particularly to take censorship out of the jurisdiction of the courts. The rest of Bill is window-dressing to enable him to do this. In his introduction of the Bill at the Second Reading, the hon. the Minister described, and I quote—

This is the English version—

Mr. Chairman, this is rubbish! Where are these conditions of permissiveness and degeneration?

In Orange Grove.

Not in Orange Grove. Again I quote the hon. the Minister—

I believe, Sir, that the present Entertainments Act does a more than adequate, if somewhat incompetent, job in this direction. Where is this stream of moral pollution? Are copies of that pernicious, potential destroyer of morality. Playboy, available on every street corner? Are the morals of South African society collapsing about our ears? Of course they are not, Sir. The Bill is aimed at something else. And this something else has not been attained under the Entertainments Act because there is recourse to the courts. Time and again—and the many court actions in respect of Scope magazine are an example of this—the so-called norms of a certain section of the other side of the House have been frustrated by the impartial attitudes adopted by the courts, which have as always independently examined evidence in the open, according to due process of law, and made judgment accordingly. The ox-wagon mentality and medieval viewpoints of those who wish to force their narrow standards on others have been curbed because of the right of appeal. I do not believe, Mr. Chairman, that committees, appeal boards and the directorate can take the place of the courts in the final analysis, whatever their expertise. The real expertise, in matters of judgment, comes from an independent judiciary. The hon. member for Waterberg, at one stage of this Bill, drew the analogy of a law against theft, such a law being a necessity to protect honest people against dishonest people. This is certainly so. But in cases of theft, a court of law is the final arbiter. The attitude of my party, Mr. Chairman, is that the freedom of the individual is best protected by judicial process and not by committees, directorates or appeal boards, the make-up of which we are most suspicious about. When recourse to an independent court of law is denied, our suspicions become very much stronger. We believe that this clause should be negatived in its entirety.

Mr. Chairman, in my view the words “a committee, the directorate or” in this clause are in the first instance redundant. They have, I believe, been placed there ex abundanti cautela, out of excessive caution. It is clear from the clauses already dealt with that the decisions of these bodies—i.e. the committee and the directorate—are not appealable to the courts. The machinery of the appeal board is, and has been in previous clauses, set up to provide for the place to where an appeal lies from a committee. All that is relevant in this subsection is that it places beyond all doubt that decisions of the appeal board are not appealable. Herein lies one of the main errors of this Bill in general, and this clause in particular. It removes the last vestige of respectability and fairness from this measure before Parliament today. During debates on previous clauses numerous suggestions in regard to this appeal board, were rejected, suggestions relating to the selection of the personnel of the appeal board, suggestions in relation to the procedure to be followed by the appeal board. We now have before us the situation that the hearings of the appeal board will not be public. Now, in terms of this clause, the last weapon open to the Government to attempt to create an atmosphere of confidence in the public mind by means of allowing the decisions of this specially created, untried and untested appeal board to be subject to appeal to the courts, is swept away. It is a self-defeating clause and it is a sad one. The hon. the Deputy Minister can argue as to the efficacy of this body. He can argue as to the standing of the appeal board, he can argue as to the quality of the members who will comprise the appeal board and as to the continuity that will be created by the appointment of this body, but in the end result, by denying to the aggrieved parties the right to appeal on the merits to a superior court manned by judges, against the findings of the appeal board, the Minister is irrevocably creating a situation and a climate in terms of which many writers, publishers, artists, film producers, not to mention the public, will regard the last door to literary and artistic freedom in South Africa as having been shut tight. He is opening the door to literary, artistic and film mediocrity in South Africa. That is why we oppose this provision.

Mr. Chairman, our stand point in regard to this clause is quite clear. We definitely do not believe, as was said by the hon. member for Sandton today, that this measure will merely give rise to shoddy products in the different spheres he mentioned, and that we shall have no art in South Africa. At the moment we have a system of control which has its shortcomings and I believe that, even under the present circumstances, we in South Africa can be proud of the things produced by our artists and by those who have been endowed with the gift to create. The hon. member for Orange Grove belittles everything from top to bottom, from the appeal board to the directorate and the committees. However, we know what the attitude of that side of the House is, viz. that they want nothing to do with control as such and that they place the freedom of the individual far above the welfare of the community. I think our attitudes are perhaps in direct opposition to one another and perhaps we shall not be able to convince one another any further in this regard. I want to conclude with that; I believe that, with the establishment of the appeal board, we are introducing here into the legislation of South Africa and also in relation to the exercise of control, something we shall eventually find will stand us in good stead, although certain problems may arise.

Clause put and the Committee divided:

AYES—81: Badenhorst, P. J.; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, G. F.; Botha, J. C. G.; Botha, S. P.; Botma, M. C.; Brandt, J. W.; Clase, P. J.; Coetzee, S. F.; Cronje, P.; Cruywagen, W. A.; De Beer, S. J.; De Jager, A. M. van A.; De Klerk, F. W.; Diederichs, N.; Du Plessis, A. H.; Du Plessis, B. J.; Du Plessis, G. C.; Du Toit, J. P.; Engelbrecht, J. J.; Erasmus. A. S. D.; Greeff, J. W.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Hartzenberg, F.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Hefer, W. J.; Herman, F.; Heunis, J. C.; Janson, J.; Janson, T. N. H.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotze, G. J.; Kotzé, W. D.; Kruger, J. T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J. (Brakpan); Le Roux, F. J. (Hercules); Lloyd, J. L; Loots, J. J.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, P. S.; McLachlan, R.; Morrison, G. de V.; Mulder, C. P.; Munnik, L. A. P. A.; Niemann, J. J.; Nothnagel, A. E.; Otto, J. C.; Palm, P. D.; Pienaar, L. A.; Pieterse, R. J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Smit, H. H.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Terblanche, G. P. D.; Treurnicht. A. P.; Ungerer, J. H. B.; Uys, C.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Spuy, S. J. H.; Van der Walt, H. J. D.; Van Rensburg, H. M. J.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Wyk, A. C. (Winburg); Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Viljoen, P. J. van. B.; Vilonel, J. J.; Vlok, A. J.; Volker, V. A.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, W. L.

Tellers: J. M. Henning, J. E. Potgieter, A. van Breda and C. V. van der Merwe.

NOES—39: Aronson, T.; Bartlett, G. S.; Baxter, D. D.; Bell, H. G. H.; Boraine, A. L.; Dalling, D. J.; Deacon, W. H. D.; De Villiers. J. I.; De Villiers, R. M.; Enthoven (’t Hooft), R. E.; Fisher, E. L.; Graaff, De V.; Hickman, T.; Lorimer, R. J.; McIntosh, G. B. D.; Miller, H.; Mills, G. W.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Olivier, N. J. J.; Page, B. W. B.; Pyper, P. A.; Raw, W. V.; Schwarz, H. H.; Streicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Van Coller, C. A.; Van den Heever, S. A.; Van Eck, H. J.; Van Hoogstraten, H. A.; Van Rensburg, H. E. J.; Von Keyserlingk, C. C.; Waddell, G. H.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Webber, W. T.; Wiley, J. W. E.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: T. G. Hughes and W. M. Sutton.

Clause accordingly agreed to.

Clause 39:

Mr. Chairman, in dealing with clause 39 of this Bill, I should like in the first instance to point out that this clause is really completely unnecessary. This is so because the Supreme Court has an inherent power to review the decisions of quasi-judicial tribunals and other statutory bodies. This is an inherent power which the Supreme Court has had for many years, in fact since the days of the Charter of Justice. There is also a very responsible authority for the statement I have just made in the form of a judgment by Chief Justice Innes in the case of Johannesburg Consolidated Investment Company v. Johannesburg Town Council, 1903, Transvaal Supreme Court, at page 115, in which the learned Chief Justice said the following—

That is, the Supreme Court—

As I said, Mr. Chairman, the inherent power of review of the Supreme Court goes back many, many years. This judgment I have just referred to was given in 1903. The power of the Supreme Court in so far as its inherent jurisdiction to review is concerned, is exactly the same today as it was in 1903.

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, are hon. members permitted to stand in the gangway and talk to other hon. members?

Order! Hon. members must not stand and converse in the gangway while an hon. member is speaking.

That being the case it will immediately be clear that clause 39 is completely unnecessary in this Bill. Apparently, the only reason why this clause has been incorporated in the Bill is because the clause seeks to limit the right of the reviewing body. This is done in two ways. Firstly, it states that the decision shall be reviewed by three judges—it specifies that it shall be a three judge court, a full Bench—and secondly states that the court reviewing the decision of the appeal board, if it sets aside that decision, shall refer the matter in question to the appeal board for its reconsideration and the giving of a decision. This second provision of the clause, namely, that the reviewing court, if it sets aside the decision, shall refer the matter in question back to the appeal board for reconsideration, is a limiting factor on the inherent right of appeal which the Supreme Court has. Were it not for the fact that subsection (2) of this clause is incorporated in this Bill, a court reviewing the decision of the appeal board could, if it felt it was necessary to do so, substitute its own decision for that of the appeal board. The limitation that is being placed on the right of review of the Supreme Court in this connection is, therefore, a very important one. I believe that anyone who is bluffed into thinking that this review of the decision of an appeal board is the sort of review one finds in all cases in the Supreme Court today, must realize that he is being led up the garden path. I believe that hon. members on the other side, including the hon. the Deputy Minister, are trying to lead not only this House but the public and the electorate as well, up the garden path by means of this provision. I think that the time has now arrived when the hon. the Deputy Minister should admit that he is doing so—that he is in fact leading the public and the electorate up the garden path. He is leading them to believe that this is the sort of review to which they are entitled in regard to the appeal board.

You are inciting us.

Mr. Chairman, I am afraid that the hon. member is so inaudible that I am unable to reply to that interjection.

In the ordinary course of events the court of review would be able to review a decision of the appeal board on more or less the following grounds: Firstly if the court found that the appeal board had failed to apply its mind to the issues before it; or secondly, if the reviewing court found that the appeal board had been grossly unreasonable in coming to its decision; or thirdly, if it felt that the appeal board had failed to take into account matters which it was obliged to take into account and had relied upon matters upon which it was not entitled to rely. This is what would normally have happened. We must remember that this appeal board is composed of what I called earlier, a party hack who will be appointed as chairman, together with two assessors of his choice. They will have the right to frame the rules of that appeal board.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 23.