Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.

I would first like to comment this afternoon on a statement which the hon. the Minister made in reply to the Second Reading debate. In that reply he made this statement—

I would like to say to the hon. the Minister that I hope he is not adding tariff policy to his armoury of measures which he uses to control the balance of payments. If there is one thing the businessman needs to conduct his business properly it is certainty, and if the hon. the Minister, as he appears to have said in this statement, is going to vary his tariff policy according to variations in the position of our balance of payments, he will place businessmen in a position of considerably greater uncertainty than they are in at the present time.

The second matter I should like to comment on is that I support wholeheartedly the amendment which has been moved by the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens, eliminating all items of sales duty appearing in the schedule to the Bill. In his reply to the Second Reading debate the hon. the Minister asked how we are going to afford to do without this revenue. Well, I do not know how much revenue will be lost if the sales duties included in this Bill are reduced to nil, but if it is the total amount that has been budgeted for on the revenue estimates for revenue from sales duty that amount will be about R190 million. To my rather simple financial mind, if you are budgeting for a surplus of R288 million—of course, that is going to be put to loan account, but you are budgeting for a surplus of R288 million—you can afford to do without R190 million without going into the red.

I should like now to come back to the taxation proposals as they affect the textile industry. I would like to say to the hon. the Minister that I am extremely concerned at the effect which these additional duties are going to have on the price of clothing and on the cost of living. I am extremely concerned. I do not dispute that a problem does exist in the textile industry but I do dispute the diagnosis which the hon. the Minister has made of this problem. I believe that the main cause of the present trouble in the textile industry is not that there has been a flood of imports at cheap prices. The main problem is the backlash which the industry is suffering from as a result of the over-ordering of textiles that took place in the first half of this year. Now, that over-ordering was not only on imports; it was also on textiles produced in this country. In the past two or three months we have had a complete change in the whole textile situation world-wide with the result that orders which were placed in excess of normal requirements earlier this year have been pouring in for customers.

They have become overstocked and now their position is such that they have to carry heavy stocks at a time when capital is difficult to obtain and is expensive. They are consequently liquidating those stocks and the flow of orders to the textile industry has naturally diminished. This is an unfortunate situation, but it is one which occurs from time to time in business. It is, however, a situation which is likely to be temporary, even though it may last for a few months. This is not a situation which is confined to the South African textile industry. It is a world-wide situation. The textile industry in virtually every country—certainly every country I know of—is going through a bad time. That is the reason why prices have dropped.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order …

Order! I want to appeal to hon. members not to converse so loudly. It is very difficult to hear what the hon. member is saying.

I should like to add that most imports which are still arriving and are likely to be arriving till the end of the year were ordered at the higher prices that were ruling before the middle of the year when prices started to drop. Imports which are arriving now were not only ordered at higher prices than are ruling now, but they are also going to incur these viciously increased duties. Since July, as I have said, prices have dropped. I agree in principle that a certain amount of additional protection is needed. However, I believe that the extent of the duties that have been levied on textiles under this emergency measure is quite unnecessarily high. In fact, it is savagely high. When I spoke during the Second Reading debate I did mention one or two examples. I should like to quote one or two more examples of the impact of these duties.

I quote these examples in respect of woven texturized polyester fabrics. I have one example here and this is not a particularly extreme example. On a cloth with a home cost of 70c, the old duty was seven cents or 10%, while the new duty is 47½c. A consignment of similar cloth with a home value of R3 000 was subject to an old duty of R1 100 while the new duty is R4 300. I think the Minister must take this very seriously. There is only one mill which can produce this cloth satisfactorily for the local industry. The total production of this mill is approximately 4 million metres per year. It produces only four types of this cloth. The total demand for this cloth is estimated at between 40 and 45 million metres per year. Local industry is therefore in a position to supply only approximately 1/10th of the demand of the market. These duties are quite prohibitive and out of all proportion to the needs of the local industry. What is going to happen now is that imports will have to continue because these items are in demand and the local industry cannot supply them. The duties are going to be passed on to the consumer, prices are going to go up and the Government will have succeeded in stoking the fires of inflation even more. This is exactly what happened last year in regard to a duty which was placed on this exact same cloth. A duty was placed on it in August; it continued to be imported, and the duty was added to the price the consumer had to pay. That duty was removed last December, but it has now been reimposed for a reason which I find very difficult to understand.

What I have said about woven textured polyester fabrics also applies to other items which are included in this taxation measure. I would like to say further that these duties are unnecessarily complicated in their application and they have the effect of bearing much more heavily on lower-priced cloths than they do on higher priced cloths. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the moment the Opposition speak about “we on this side of the House” we should remember that the matter under discussion is being viewed in a political and not in an economic light. When one speaks about national affairs or about the extension of a unit—be it textiles or an industry—one should see it as an extension in the national interests and not in a political light.

†One hon. member in this House who I think deserves more consideration is the hon. member for Constantia. I think he is one of the people in South Africa who helps us to get a better view of things, but I think that he should break away from the political situation. I do not believe that this hon. member fits in in the political situation; he is an economist and not a politician. I as a newcomer, therefore, want to advise him that he should stick to economics and leave politics.

*He has the ability to appreciate the true facts of the economic situation, but the moment he enters the field of politics, he talks himself into a corner. It is important for us, as the hon. member said, to note that our textile industry in South Africa does not yet have its complete structure, that it has not yet been built up to provide in all our needs, but that we are approaching that situation. At present the industry is unable to meet the demand for all the commodities. In this regard I am thinking of the commodities which can be provided by Japan, Taiwan and places such as Hong Kong, where a substitute is as good as the genuine article and where those materials have replacement value. Over there the industry has become so proficient that they can put anything on the market and it will be accepted by the South African buyer. This brings our industry to its knees and strikes at its tender spots. This happens because in this way one can, for example, replace a roll of curtaining which costs R45 with a substitute which costs only R29. For this reason it is necessary to have a customs duty to protect the home product and to give viability to the development of that product. I do not think any hon. member opposite can, except in an attempt to make political gain out of this in a whining voice, do anything but agree that if we do not tackle this matter at its roots and rectify it, we shall create unemployment right down to the lowest levels, even in the agricultural industry. Here I am thinking of the cotton industry, for instance. In other departments, too, we shall be creating a shortage of employment if we should permit these materials to be imported freely. We cannot get away from that. The previous hon. speaker said very clearly that the whole world had to contend with overproduction today, or with the problem of converting materials into money. Unfortunately other countries regard us as a very easy market. It is for that reason that we must apply these measures of control. I think it is essential.

The previous speaker, the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens, delivered a sharp attack on sales duty. Sales duty is the privilege of a buyer to buy. The hon. member for Losberg made this point very clearly. A joke was made by a joker in the United Party, i.e. the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South. I do not think one should take it seriously. In any pack of cards there are two jokers, or sometimes only one, and one simply has to accept this. One finds this in politics as well.

He is both.

Yes, perhaps he is both. The hon. member for Yeoville, whom I know as a man who knows the economy and who does at least put South Africa first, would definitely not make such a statement. I believe, for instance, that had he been here yesterday, that discussion would not have taken place. I know he is in control of the United Party. It is only the leader who does not know this yet.

You must be careful; they are going to impose an antidumping duty on you in a minute!

No, Sir, the only thing you cannot dump is the United Party members; they have not got them. When we are faced with the gravity of a situation, whereas we have to attend to the development and extension of existing factories in the textile industry, which is not the easiest of industries to control, which have a flavour of their own, in respect of which we are in fact inexperienced, although we have been engaged in it for a long time, we have to realize that we cannot easily compete with Taiwan, Hong Kong, and so forth. It is difficult to compete with those countries, and that is why we need tariff levies. I believe that the Opposition, too, will understand and appreciate this situation in the interests of South Africa.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Langlaagte, who has just sat down, looked as if he were dumped and stumped at the same time because he certainly did not speak on the measure which is before us. He said that hon. members on this side of the House make a political issue of everything and then he proceeded to make a political attack on the hon. member for Constantia. To those who listened to this debate, it must be abundantly clear that hon. members on this side of the House are genuinely and sincerely concerned about the effects which this legislation will have. We have spoken out loudly and clearly because we believe we are speaking in the interests of all the people of South Africa when it comes to the effects which this legislation which is before us will have. The hon. member for Langlaagte did not deal with the effects of this legislation and, as I have already said, I do not think he understands what this legislation is actually about.

I want to refer to the taxation proposals. Businessmen tell me that to import nowadays is like playing Russian roulette. As hon. members know, Russian roulette is a very dangerous game and people burn their fingers playing it. That is the position with which the importers in South Africa are faced today. Commerce and industry feel that the hon. the Minister has acted without taking into account their legitimate interests and aspirations. I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister to exempt goods immediately which were shipped before the new duties were announced. Some of the importers whose goods had already been shipped when the duties were announced would gladly have cancelled those orders, but they were not in the position to cancel those orders because guarantees had gone out and they were obliged to accept delivery of the orders. The importers in turn have had to turn to their bankers, their financiers and their shippers in order to get expensive finance. The main problem is that the expensive finance is not even available from those sources. Where the expensive finance is available to a few select importers, the public are dealt a double knock-out blow, because the importer will pass on the higher duties to the public and at the same time will pass on the higher interest rates to the public. The effect on the cost of living is going to be devastating. The hon. the Minister mentioned that he has had very few representations made to him but I may mention that some of us have received many, many letters. I only want to quote two short paragraphs from one of the letters I have received. I quote—

I have spoken to people in commerce and industry and they are honestly and truly battling to keep their heads above water. The hon. the Minister must accept that. These people are conservative businessmen in the best sense of the word. I want to tell the hon. the Minister that they tell me that this could possibly be the last straw as far as they are concerned. I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister’s fair sense of justice, which I am sure he has, and ask him to revoke the new duties on the goods which were on the water at the time when the announcement was made. If we look at the statement of the chairman of the National Clothing Federation, we see that he said that the industry was facing the biggest crisis ever. He went on to say that clothing manufacturers would have to find between R10 and R15 million to pay the higher duties and to clear their imports through Customs. He said further that many people simply cannot find the money to do so. The sharp increases in the duties on imported materials which were intended to aid the local textile manufacturers have shattered the clothing industry’s economic structure. The Government, in giving aid to one industry is in the process of ruining another industry. There are something like 800 manufacturers involved who employ something like 100 000 people. The hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs must come to the assistance of these people. If the hon. the Minister accepts no other proposal from this side of the House, there is one proposal I would like him to consider, viz. that he must as a matter of urgency allow the Reserve Bank to assist commercial banks to lend more money to importers to pay the extra duties in order to safeguard their economic survival. I think that if the hon. the Minister makes that one concession, he will at least enable sound business people to continue trading. At the moment the position is that the banks are not able to lend them the money they require. I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister to make more money available to commercial banks through the Reserve Bank for the express purpose of assisting importers who find themselves in the position that they cannot raise the money to pay the extra duties.

The Reserve Bank is autonomous.

This is a very urgent matter and I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister that, if he still wants to discuss this with the Reserve Bank, he holds back his reply until he has had that discussion in which case we can perhaps continue with this measure at a later stage.

Mr. Chairman, I made the statement here last night that our problem with the Opposition was that they did not have an economic philosophy and consequently criticized left, right and centre and in the process frequently contradicted one another. Now, what happened here this afternoon was that the hon. member for Constantia—if I could have his attention—delivered another plea here for the abolition of sales duty on all items set out on pages 95 to 111 of the Bill. It has always been the policy of this side of the House to make the man pay who can pay so that funds may be available to accommodate the less well-to-do. The hon. member for Constantia as well as other hon. members of the Opposition want to abolish sales duty on items such as articles of furskin (see sales duty item 138.00, tariff heading No. 43.03) and articles such as: “pearls, worked, but not mounted …; precious and semi-precious stones, cut or otherwise worked; articles of jewellery and parts thereof, of precious metal or rolled precious metal; articles of gold-smiths’ or silversmiths’ wares and parts thereof; articles consisting of, or incorporating pearls, precious or seme-precious stones (natural, synthetic or reconstructed)” (sales duty item 144.00). These are all articles which may be considered as falling into the luxury category. The hon. members want to abolish the sales duty on these luxury articles. I shall tell you what the Government does: It levies a sales duty of 20% on all these luxury articles, and then increases the subsidy on bread by R43 million. This Government takes from the person who can pay and distributes the proceeds among the less well-to-do section of the population. Therefore, the sales duty cannot be abolished. Now the hon. member for Constantia says, “Yes, but the Minister budgeted for a surplus of R245 million; he might just as well obtain his funds from that source instead of levying this sales duty.” I have always thought it to be sound financial policy to budget for a surplus in times when a very high rate of inflation is prevailing, which is a measure one employs to withdraw more money from circulation so as to combat inflation in that way. That is why I can see no reason why the sales tax on this long list of luxury articles should be abolished, for it provides a handy income by means of which further concessions may be made to the less well-to-do section of the people.

Mr. Chairman, it is perhaps unfortunate that a political note has been introduced into this debate by the Nationalist Party, because quite clearly the hon. member for Constantia approached this matter on an extremely high level and, I think, demonstrated his knowledge of the subject on which he spoke. But since a political note has been introduced into this debate, I applied my mind to what we were actually discussing in this particular Schedule. May I now analyse the three things that have been discussed and apply them politically. Firstly, when you have something that is desirable, something of which you want more, you allow a rebate of duty. Clearly this side of the House would then be entitled to a rebate of duty. Secondly, if you have something which is undesirable but plentiful, then you impose an anti-dumping duty. No doubt the verkramptes in the Nationalist Party, of which there is no shortage, would have an antidumping duty applied to them. And then, Sir, when you wish to encourage something that is greatly desirable like a new industry, you nurture it: you see that it gets tariff protection. I think that those few Nationalists on the other side of the House who are displaying some little independence of thought need tariff protection, to protect them from the dumping of the verkramptes on that side of the House. Sir, if you want to talk politics, I think that is a very easy subject to introduce into this debate.

Sir, I want to say one word of thanks to the hon. the Minister. He does not get many words of thanks from me but on behalf of the mothers of the many daughters who have to take ballet lessons and wear out ballet shoes, I think we should thank him for the relief of duty in respect of ballet shoes. That is one thing which, in this whole mass of documentation, appeals to me.

The hon. member who spoke immediately before me had a somewhat novel approach to this subject. His principle is that you must hammer and squeeze the man who can pay and you must extract as much as you possibly can out of him. This is now a new principle of taxation which has been introduced by the hon. member. There is no question of equity or of justice; it is a question of squeezing people until there is nothing left in them. This is what the hon. member says. His words were: “The man who can pay must be made to pay”.

Mr. Chairman, may I put a question to the hon. member? Can the hon. member tell us whether it is unfair to impose a tax on those people who are able to pay it?

I was just about to deal with that. Sir, the hon. member is always just a little bit premature, particularly when he finds himself in somebody else’s seat. With great respect, there must be equity in taxation. Sales duty is a form of taxation and there is no doubt about it. You cannot squeeze people unfairly or unjustly and apply that as a new taxation principle in South Africa. Then, Sir, he does something else which I think is equally unjust. He takes the particular amount we receive from sales duty and relates that to bread. With great respect, why does he not relate it for example to the hon. the Minister of Defence’s portfolio and say that we are spending it on guns, instead of saying that we spend it on butter or bread? This is ludicrous. Quite obviously, the revenue all goes into a pool and from the money which you have available, you spend various sums on defence, on subsidies and on matters of that sort. This rather shallow political trick of trying to relate sales duty to the bread subsidy is so transparent that it is not, with respect, worthy of the hon. member. But. Sir, let me take him up on this argument. I want to hear talk about the housewife, not about the rich person but about the housewife, the woman who is keeping her home going. Perhaps the hon. member will say that women do not need cosmetics and that they do no need perfumes. Are those luxuries to his way of thinking? Because the duty on perfumes and cosmetics for the ordinary woman is still 20%. But, Sir, the hon. member is entitled to shave for much less than it costs the woman in duly on cosmetics. Is that equity? Is she the rich person who has to be squeezed, and is he the poor man who is entitled to that benefit?

Sir, let us deal with the other things which concern the running of a home. Sanitary and toilet articles still have duties imposed upon them. Presumably, according to the hon. member’s way of thinking, sanitary and toiler articles are luxury articles. Let us go further. A shopping bag is subject to a 10% duty: that is a luxury, according to his way of thinking. Cups and saucers and chinaware are still luxuries, to his way of thinking. Sir, we have made the point before that these are not luxuries; they are fundamentals. But perhaps there is one luxury which should have been dealt with and that is ink-removers to remove some of the stains upon the political scene in South Africa, of which we could list a few. Maybe that would then also not be regarded as a luxury.

The U.P. needs that in the Transvaal.

That hon. member over there is such a stain that no remover would want to get near him. [Interjection.] The hon. member must not get emotional about this; his blood pressure is going up. But, Sir, let us go on and make a plea for the housewives of South Africa who are having to cope with problems such as the rising cost of living and who find that toilet articles and household requisites which are essential are still subject to the sales duty, which is in fact assisting to promote the inflationary spiral. Sir, if you want to deal with inflation, if you want to reduce the cost of living, today is your opportunity; today is the opportunity for hon. members opposite to vote for the amendment of the hon. member for Gardens in order to assist in the fight against inflation and to introduce a degree of equity in the South African scene in this regard. I believe, Sir, that the housewife is very badly done by in these schedules. You can go through the individual items and you will see that in one case after another the tariffs remain at 10%, and in some cases even at 20%, even in the case of the cheap articles of adornment, not the items of expensive jewellery which the hon. member gets excited about, but the cheap plastic necklaces and little things like that with which perhaps some of the less affluent people in South Africa like to see the ladies adorned; these items still have to bear a duty of some 20%. Sir, I believe that the housewife has not been treated fairly in this particular piece of legislation, I believe that something should be done in order to improve the lot of the housewife, and that is why I certainly feel that anybody who has the interests of the housewife at heart and who has the fight against inflation at heart will vote for the amendment proposed from this side of the House.

I think the hon. member for Constantia spoke about the removal of sales duty and what it would mean. Now, if sales duty were to be abolished entirely, it would mean a loss of revenue totalling approximately R192 million. According to an estimate made by the Reserve Bank during 1973, the duty represented about 1,7% of private consumption expenditure on goods. If there were to be an escalation of even 50%, as is being alleged in some quarters, the factor would be 2,6%. For the information of hon. members I want to mention, however, that the question of the desirability of an alternative form of taxation, in particular a turnover tax levied at retail point, has been receiving the attention of the Standing Committee of Inquiry into Taxation Policy of the Republic for a considerable time, and that the matter will receive further attention when its report has been received.

†The hon. member for Constantia referred to my reference to the current account and the balance of payments. All I obviously had in mind there was that it must be looked at in relation to my earlier statement that we try to keep a proper balance between imports and home production, and if imports do become excessively heavy then obviously we must look at it from that point of view as well. But there is no question of using this tariff in order arbitrarily to play around with the balance of payments. That is not our policy at all. Now, it is interesting that the hon. member expressed some doubt about imports. He did not seem to think that such large imports have been coming in.

I did not say that.

Oh, I understood you to say that you thought that perhaps we were overstressing the imports. If I wrongly understood the hon. member, I obviously will not pursue that. But it is interesting that the hon. member for Walmer in this context should have spoken about imports to the value of millions of rand being on the water. Now, the point is simply this that yesterday I mentioned that I have no discretion in changing the duty in so far as imports which are still on the water are concerned. This is something which the Board of Trade and Industries will obviously look at in the context of the very thorough longer term inquiry it is making, and if this sort of thing needs to be changed at all, that is the point at which we would obviously have to deal with it.

But these people have to pay duty on it.

That does not matter. I have certain legal powers. I do not have other legal powers, and that is the position.

Have you lost your powers?

I think the hon. member is grossly exaggerating the position of the clothing industry. I want to say that I found myself in some difficulty here. I understood that we were dealing with an amendment to the effect that we should abolish sales duty. The hon. member spoke virtually throughout of customs duties and the duties on textile goods. But in the process of talking about that he used some very strong terms. He said that the effect on inflation would be disastrous and he said that the Government by adopting the policy it has, had shattered the clothing industry’s economic structure. With great respect, Sir, this is absolute nonsense. There is no other way I can describe it than complete and utter nonsense. Why did the hon. member not tell the House that in the last few months the clothing industry has had two instances of protection through higher duties?

That is what the chairman of the Federation said.

Why did the hon. member, if he has gone into the clothing industry’s position, not give the House this material information?

That is what the chairman said.

Never mind the chairman. I am dealing with the facts. The hon. member raised certain matters in the most extravagant language, talking about shattering the structure of a major industry, but what are the facts?

Those are your facts. [Interjections.]

The hon. member ought to listen before he makes these statements. I am giving him the facts. The Board of Trade and Industries considered the request of the clothing industry for greater protection which it made earlier this year. It amended customs duties to afford protection against low-priced imported clothing. Those were imposed on 6 September 1974, almost exactly a month ago. What has happened to clothing prices? Have clothing prices shot up as the hon. member said they would? Why have clothing prices not shot up as a result? I am not aware that this has had any effect on clothing prices. In the case of knitted clothing, increased duties were imposed on 10 May 1974. This is a very material point which the hon. member should have mentioned to us if this industry is in such dire straits, which it is not. This industry has yet to make specific representations to the Government if it is in such dire straits. The Board of Trade and Industries is there and it will go into this matter of the clothing industry’s position, as I said yesterday, with great care. If a reasonable case is made out for the clothing industry to have even further protective measures over and above the ones it has had twice this year, obviously the Board of Trade and Industries will recommend accordingly and the department and I will look at this matter with very great sympathy. That is the position in that respect.

The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South is not here today. He became a little excited last night, as hon. members will remember. He complained about a whole wide range of sales duties. He talked about a long list of goods, including carpets, furniture, cutlery, stoves, razors, razor-blades and others. It must be remembered that the sales duty on these goods has already been reduced. I furnished some of the figures yesterday and the information is perfectly clear. Most of these goods are also durable and do not have to be purchased every day. Certainly, in many cases, they do not have to be purchased again for several years. It is therefore not as if one is imposing a duty on goods which are absolutely essential and which are bought by most households every month or even every year. That is the first point. Another important point, in my view, is that where sales duties are operating they are mostly in the region of 5% today. The fact that we have those sales duties has undoubtedly made the buying public much more discriminating and discerning when it comes to buying.

Ah, come off it.

I believe that if one has these duties a man or woman is going to say: Do I really need that? Many of these items, as I say, are not goods that one buys every day. If that is not so, it is a pretty poor comment on the buying public, and I think I have a better view of the buying public than my hon. friends opposite.

The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South made an impassioned plea that the sales duty on fireworks should be abolished so that more children could buy fireworks for their displays. This comes at a strange time, however, because many local authorities and responsible bodies are making representations to do just the opposite. They are pointing to the grave dangers of accidents and harm to children every year as a result of these fireworks. Then the hon. member came to his piece de résistance and mentioned stoves. He mentioned pressure stoves, in particular.

Even the United Party cannot afford fireworks.

No, they cannot. They have their own brand. The hon. member referred to pressure stoves and said that the Government had put up the duty on pressure stoves and that this was an article that had to be bought by the poorer people, for example the non-Whites. So here we were allegedly placing a very substantial burden on those people. This is, of course, quite incorrect. The sales duty on pressure stoves has not gone up. It has gone down, in fact, from 15% to 5%. What happened was that the customs duty on certain stoves went up in order to protect the local industry, after very careful inquiries had been made by the Board of Trade and Industries.

*When we are dealing with sales duty, a sudden switch is made to customs duty but we are told we are dealing with sales duty.

Has there or has there not been a substantial increase in the price of pressure stoves?

If the hon. member had been here—I do not know if he was here last night —he would have heard the hon. member talk about the duty and not about the price.

He talked of the price.

He talked of the duty and I noted it down. He said that the sales duties were up. He might have said that it would have an affect on the price, but the point was that we had put up the sales duty on pressure stoves. The hon. member can check on that. I am dealing with duties here and he said with great heat …

He was talking about a hot subject.

You are quite right—he was talking about the wrong subject.

“Hot” subject. Not only do you not write down properly—you don’t hear properly.

That hon. member was not here. I remember the hon. member for Durban North saying that his policy is what it is and if I were he I would not enter into a debate on pressure stoves. It would get much too hot to handle. The hon. member said that sales duties had gone up, while in fact they have gone down substantially on pressure stoves.

The hon. member for Cape Town Gardens put his case as he always does—calmly and quite objectively on the facts. He referred to the sales duty on motorcars.

*In this regard I have a few interesting figures. Motor vehicle sales during the period from January to July 1974, were 128 837, while it was 128 109 during the corresponding seven months of last year. I want to bring it to the attention of the hon. member that motor vehicle sales during the same period this year were 20% down on the sales during the corresponding period of last year. Consequently South Africa’s position is far stronger in this respect than the position of the rest of the world. Yet I should like to give the hon. member the assurance that we are keeping a sharp eye on the position and, if it becomes necessary to do something about the matter, that it will most certainly be done, because we realize that this is a very important industry. I am mentioning these figures simply because I think that they are important.

†Speaking about customs duty again, the hon. member for Constantia said that these duties seem to fall more heavily on the poor. It is, of course, and ad valorem duty and the more expensive the article, the bigger the amount that has to be paid.

These duties are not ad valorem.

My information is quite clear that the duties I am talking about, on the lower-valued goods and the higher-valued goods, are ad valorem. If this is so, this of course does not hold good. I will check on that and will deal with it further during the Third Reading debate.

*I do not wish to speak any longer, because to some extent I have replied to most of the matters raised.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? Are you going to react to the suggestion that you make a recommendation to the Reserve Bank that they allow the commercial banks a little more liquidity to assist importers who are specifically affected and who do not have sufficient funds to pay the duty?

If the hon. member would give me some specific facts about this matter, I will certainly look at it right away. The hon. member must tell us exactly what he wants us to do.

Question put: That the percentage rates stand part of the Schedule,

Upon which the Committee divided:

AYES—100: Aucamp, P. L. S.; Badenhorst, P. J.; Barnard, S. P.; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, G. F.; Botha, J. C. G.; Botha, L. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Botma, M. C.; Brandt, J. W.; Clase, P. J.; Coetsee, H. J.; Coetzee, S. F.; Cronje, P.; Cruywagen, W. A.; De Jager, A. M. van A.; De Villiers, D. J.; De Wet. M. W.; 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.; Hartzenberg, F.; Hefer, W. J.; Herman, F.; Heunis, J. C.; Hoon, J. H.; Horn, J. W. L.; Janson, J.; Janson, T. N. H.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotze, G. J.; Kotzé, W. D.; Krijnauw, P. H. J.; Kruger, J. T.; Langley, T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J. (Brakpan); Le Roux, F. J. (Hercules); Le Roux, J. P. C.; Lloyd, J. J.; Louw, E.; Malan, J. J.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; McLachlan, R,; Meyer, P. H.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Munnik, L. A. P. A.; Nel, D. J. L.; Niemann, J. J.; Nothnagel, A. E.; Otto, J. C.; Palm, P. D.; Pansegrouw, J. S.; Pienaar, L. A.; Pieterse, R. J. J.; Potgieter, J. E.; Potgieter, S. P.; Rall, J. W.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Smit. H. H.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Swiegers, J. G.; Terblanche, G. P. D.; Treurnicht, A. P.; Ungerer, J. H. B.; Uys, C; Van den Berg, J. C.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Merwe, W. L.; Van der Spuy, S. J. H.; Van der Walt, H. J. D.; Van Heerden, R. F.; Van Rensburg, H. M. J.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, A. A.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Vilonel, J. J.; Vlok, A. J.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, W. L.

Tellers: J. M. Henning, N. F. Treurnicht, A. van Breda and C. V. van der Merwe.

NOES—43: Aronson, T.; Bartlett, G. S.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Baxter, D. D.; Boraine, A. L.; Cadman, R. M.; Dalling, D. J.; Deacon, W. H. D.; De Villiers. I. F. A.; De Villiers, J. L; De Villiers, R. M.; Eglin, C. W.; Enthoven (’t Hooft), R. E.; Graaff, De V.; Hickman, T.; Hourquebie. R. G. L.; Hughes, T. G.; Jacobs, G. F.; Lorimer, R. J.; McIntosh. G. B. D.; Miller, H.; Mills, G. W.; Mitchell, M. L.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield. G. N.; Olivier, N. J. J.; Page, B. W. B.; Pyper, P. A.; Schwarz, H. H.; Slabbert, F. van Z.; Streicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Van Coller, C. 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.; Wiley, J. W. E.; Wood. L. F.

Tellers: W. G. Kingwill and W. M. Sutton.

Question accordingly affirmed and amendment dropped.

Schedule agreed to.

Schedule No. 2:

Mr. Chairman, I want to raise one matter because this Schedule deals with the anti-dumping duties. I want to discuss the question of the policy which was applied in dealing with this particular matter. [Interjections.]

Order!

I think there is a problem which I am sure the hon. the Minister is aware of, and that is that not only in South Africa, but … [Interjections.] I think that the hon. the Minister will be able to hear better if we allow everybody to have their tea first. Then I shall carry on.

That is for the Chair to decide and not for you.

The hon. the Minister cannot hear what I am saying [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member may proceed.

I am sorry, Mr. Chairman, but I want the hon. the Minister to hear so that he can reply.

Because of the liquidity problems not only nationally but also internationally, there is a fear that firms, industries and concerns of various kinds are going to be liquidating stocks in order to generate cash. I think this is a reasonable conclusion to draw. The symptoms of it are already evident not only in South Africa but world-wide. The question I want to pose to the hon. the Minister arises out of the imposition of the anti-dumping duties in this Schedule. We want to know what steps he is going to take in order to ensure that the desire to achieve liquidity internationally does not create an adverse impact in respect of the South African economic scene, particularly as far as the industries are concerned which are presently not protected by anti-dumping duties. I think this is an important point from South Africa’s point of view. It has another implication of which I think the hon. the Minister is fully aware because he touched on it a little earlier. That is that there is little doubt that the import bill in South Africa is tremendously high at the present moment. There is also very little doubt about the fact that the whole question of the balance of payments is therefore causing some concern. Whereas it is perfectly true that we are not applying the provisions of the Customs Act in order to deal with this aspect of the matter, I think we do have to consider the question of antidumping duties where this is a world-wide phenomenon which is beginning to show its head and which will possibly create problems for South Africa.

Mr. Chairman, the position is that this is very much a matter for the Board of Trade and Industries. Anybody concerned about this issue would of course be perfectly free to make representations to the Board of Trade and Industries who will then immediately investigate this matter. With regard to the question of textiles I can say that, in fact, the Board of Trade and Industries is already looking into this matter. I think we are all very conscious of the fact that there is a shortage of liquidity in relation to demand. Therefore, in the case of any specific problem he will have to take steps in the constitutional way. I think the hon. member was perfectly correct in raising the issue, but that is how we will have to approach it.

Schedule agreed to.

Schedule No. 3:

Mr. Chairman, as we all know, this Schedule deals with rebates. I want to deal with the rebates in respect of a specific item, namely those rebates in this Schedule which relate to the petro-chemical industry. The issue I would like to raise with the hon. the Minister is whether in respect of petro-chemical products the hon. the Minister will not approach the whole question differently in order to ensure that petro-chemical products enter South Africa at the lowest possible prices, bearing in mind the problems South Africa has and will have with regard to oil and therefore petro-chemical products. I say this with particular reference to those products which are not manufactured in South Africa. In other words, one must bear in mind world oil prices and petro-chemical prices but at the same time one must bear in mind the necessity to ensure that our own industries are given a chance of developing. To repeat, I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he will not adopt an approach in respect of petro-chemicals which will enable prices to be kept at the lowest possible levels in a very difficult set of circumstances.

Mr. Chairman, that is another matter which I shall certainly refer to the Board of Trade and Industries. I think the question of the petro-chemical industry in South Africa is an extremely important one. I myself am inclined to think that, if one looks ahead and considers the big reserves of coal and other materials that we have, the petro-chemical industry may well become one of the major industries in South Africa. It is already strategically of primary importance. As regards the rebates on the duties, I shall certainly refer this matter to the Board of Trade and Industries.

Schedule agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported without amendment.

Third Reading

Mr. Speaker, I move, subject to Standing Order No. 49—

Mr. Speaker, this legislation deals, of course, with a number of different types of duties that are imposed. The matter that has given rise to the most debate has been the question of sales duty and, in particular, the impact of those sales duties upon the poorer sections of the community. It is quite clear that they will have a very real impact. The hon. the Minister sought to explain this away by saying that the existence of this sales duty—if my memory serves me correctly, he gave the example of a 5% sales duty—acts as a disincentive to people to buy. With great respect, that would apply if the sales duty were imposed in respect of non-essential items which people did not essentially require. It certainly cannot apply in respect of the ordinary necessities of life which people are required to buy. Let us take a very simple example, the sales duty in respect of matches, which is the very 5% that the hon. the Minister referred to. I cannot believe that there is a single person anywhere who would not buy matches when he wanted them because of a sales duty which would be imposed. I cannot believe that the hon. the Minister, for example, would give it a second thought when he next enters a shop to buy a packet of razor blades, as to whether he should buy those razor blades or not because there is a 10% sales tax in respect of razor blades. It is really an utterly nonsensical argument when it comes to that type of purchase. Do we really think, for example, that a woman who has to buy some cosmetic—and cosmetics have become part of a way of life in our Western world—will say that she is not going to buy that cosmetic because a sales tax has been imposed in respect of that item? It is perfectly true that the hon. member for Paarl may not buy all the gold and diamond jewellery that he is able to afford, but in respect of ordinary and normal requirements, this does not have an effect.

Sir, I want to put a further point to the hon. the Minister which I think he has overlooked, and that is that the hon. the Minister of Finance, when he announced the concession he was giving, said in this House that he hoped that these concessions would be passed on to the purchasers. But what has happened in the interim? It is well known that in the interim freight charges have gone up, that clearing charges have gone up, that the cost of interest to finance goods has gone up and that the cost of the basic product has gone up. As far as the public is concerned the concessions which have been granted have virtually disappeared if they have not in many cases been exceeded by the spiralling of costs which has taken place in the very short time since the hon. the Minister in fact announced the concessions in his Budget speech. That is why it is necessary today to reconsider this matter and say: “Is it not necessary for the Government to take further steps in order to fight inflation?”

There is another matter I want to touch on, viz. the whole concept of customs duties, the concept of duties which is contained in this legislation. Here I want to refer to what I believe—and I think the hon. the Minister will agree with me—is a real disability as far as South Africa is concerned, and that is that we as a nation do not belong to a trading group or an economic community in the true sense of the word. Our problem is that we as a country are being more and more isolated in the world. We are not part of a community of people joined together by economic requirements. We are faced with people who are making threats against us such as threats of boycotts and sanctions and all sorts of restriction in respect of our trade, and we stand in all this alone. We have no associate membership with the European Economic Community. We have no membership of any economic community in Africa. We have no membership of any economic community anywhere in the world, whether it is actual membership or associate membership. I believe that one of the major problems which confront the hon. the Minister and which confront South Africa is how we are going to overcome this. I think South Africa needs to take the initiative to try to get some form of associate membership with other economic communities wherever it is possible, and to seek to negotiate this. Secondly, in respect of Africa, we need to create a situation where it will be of benefit to other people to be in an economic community with us. It may be that we may have to make sacrifices initially in order to achieve that situation, but in the long term this will not only be for our economic benefit, but also for our very physical security in Southern Africa as such. If the hon. the Minister sets himself no other task during his term of office, I believe he should seek to create a situation in which we have an economic community in Southern Africa, and to offer to our neighbours, and perhaps to people who are a little further away, real benefits from economic association with us. If he were to achieve that, then he would have achieved a major break-through for South Africa and for our well-being as such. I believe that this is a matter of the gravest importance. It is related to this legislation because our only real association at the moment is with GATT, and membership of GATT, as we well know, while it has advantages also has certain disadvantages which arise from time to time, particularly in respect of import control and the application of import control measures.

Sir, as far as this legislation is concerned, to deal with one last matter in regard to it, I believe that we are facing a very real problem, firstly, in regard to the question of the balance of payments, which the hon. member touched upon, secondly with regard to the very high level of imports and particularly in regard to the high level of imports of consumer goods, which perhaps some of us could do without at this particular juncture. Sir, what is also happening is that because of the liquidity squeeze, the seriousness of which I do not think I can overstress because I believe that this liquidity squeeze is something which has very serious consequences, people are being forced to liquidate inventories, as I indicated during the Committee Stage, and I believe that this in turn will create further problems in the South African economy. Sir, the hon. member for Walmer touched on a very important matter, and I want to relate it not only to the point which he raised but to the broad picture which arises from it. We are presently in a situation where the credit squeeze, the inability to borrow and the high cost of borrowing is starting to cause insolvencies at an ever-increasing rate, not only the insolvency of businesses which are uneconomic but the insolvency of sound businesses but which just cannot find the money in order to finance their expansion. Sir, if the hon. the Minister will talk to people in the commercial world they will tell him the following: “I am trying to collect my accounts; I have a very sound business; when I go to some of the biggest concerns in the country they tell me, ‘We are sorry, we cannot pay you in 60 days as we promised; we think we will be able to pay you in 120 days’.” Sir, that businessman then cannot pay his own creditors; his inability to pay some other firm creates a problem of liquidity for that particular firm, and so it goes around and around in a circle. At the present moment there are large sections of the business community which are caught in this circle and cannot get out of it. Sir, when one business goes bankrupt, it does not only affect that business; a whole group of businesses are all affected by it. Sir, I cannot over-stress the seriousness of this matter. It may be necessary to look at this urgently. Perhaps “may” is the wrong word; it is necessary to look at it urgently and I think the hon. the Minister should do this. It is true, Sir, that we are in an inflationary spiral; it is true that the Minister and the Government are wedded to using the credit squeeze in an attempt to check inflation. But, Sir, it does not help you to feed the patient if the patient is dead. You need to keep your business community alive; you need to keep your business community going, and I make this appeal to the Minister not in a spirit of political in-fighting but in the genuine belief that this is essential for the economy of South Africa as a whole, which is valuable and which we all seek to safeguard in this House.

Sir, I wish to refer very briefly to a point mentioned by the hon. member for Constantia during the Second Reading debate, and, I think, also during the Committee Stage, and to which I did not furnish a specific reply. He said that if the sales duty were to be abolished, this would not really create any financial problems for the Government, as there was a large surplus of more than R200 million in the Budget. This was very clearly his argument. Sir, I want to stress very clearly that in this uncertain world in which we all find ourselves, a surplus of more than R200 million certainly is not exorbitant, for we have to keep abreast of events abroad. We are a country which trades with the outside world on a large scale. Our imports and exports probably amount to 40% or more of our national product, and I think this is something we should always bear in mind when we speak of a surplus in the Budget. The R192 million which we would have to surrender if we were to abolish this sales duty, is a serious matter for this Government, from the revenue point of view.

†Now I would like to refer to the hon. member for Yeoville. First of all he tackled me and said that I had argued that a 5% sales duty on an article would act as a disincentive to buy. Now, of course I did not use that phrase at all.

That is what you said.

No, I did not. I said I thought that the effect of sales duty quite clearly would be to make buyers more discriminating and discerning as buyers than otherwise. That was my clear statement. It does not refer to one particular item, and what a person might decide to do in regard to one particular item, whether it is an incentive or a disincentive. The point is that, in regard to the buying pattern, if the Government puts a duty on an article you are going to buy, on this range of goods we have, I am perfectly sure that unless the buying public are completely irresponsible, they will look twice before they buy. They will then be a little more careful as to how they buy. That is what I said, but I did not say it was a disincentive or an incentive.

I think it is a matter of interpretation and the words I used. That is the point which I will certainly stand by. The hon. member mentioned matches, but I would like to ask him whether he thinks that if the sales duty on matches were reduced or abolished, the price would come down. It would have no effect on the price of an article like that. [Interjections.] Then there is this question of prices and whether these duties are passed on or not in the prices. The point is that the Price Controller’s inspectors are busy all the time checking up on these things. They are constantly examining the position in the world of buying and selling and the reports of the inspectors are to the effect that the reductions in duty are passed on and that the public is getting the benefit. I would not like to say that in every single case I could prove that that is so, but the Price Controller’s inspectors are covering a very wide field, and that is in fact the report they are making to us and I think that point must be borne in mind.

Then the hon. member for Yeoville referred to the broader trading aspect. He said we stand alone in world trade and asked whether we should not have associate membership in some trading bloc or some economic community, etc. Now of course the point of the matter is that we are the biggest member by far of the customs union in Southern Africa, which is a very important bloc. We also have a trade agreement with a country like Rhodesia, which is a very valuable agreement to us and to them, I believe. Then there is GATT. Our membership of GATT ensures us most favoured nation treatment, which is extremely important, and this is worldwide. I think that is an extremely important point, that we are members of GATT and enjoy most favoured nation treatment as a result. But I would like to say here that the hon. member is preaching to the converted.

My outlook here is absolutely clear, that we have built up over the years very strong and very sound trading relations with a whole number of countries. Clearly, where we have done that and where there are benefits flowing both ways, because trade is a two-way business, we certainly intend from our side to do everything possible to maintain and strengthen those trading relationships. I think our policy proves it. However, we are not satisfied to leave the matter there. We are being extremely active. In fact, the Departments of Commerce and of Industries can just about handle the inquiries we are receiving and the preparations we are making for sending trade missions at high level to many countries of the world and for receiving them from a number of countries of the world. In fact, we are in the process of concluding trade agreements which will be of very great value to South Africa. I cannot be more specific at the moment but I can assure the hon. member that we are carrying what one might call our foreign economic policy to the very limit of our capacity to handle it. I believe we are doing so with excellent results.

I now come to my last point. The hon. member referred again, as he did last week, to the increasing number of insolvencies and the credit squeeze. We appreciate the fact that there are businesses and banks which would like to have more liquidity than they have. We are perfectly aware of that. The Reserve Bank is watching the situation and so is the Department of Finance. They are doing so virtually day by day. Our great concern is to maintain the balance, as far as we humanly can, against demand inflation because there are strong elements of cost inflation in the economy, as the hon. member knows.

We are trying to hold the balance against demand inflation, but at the same time not in such a way as to prejudice the sustained economic growth we have been experiencing for quite a long time, let us say for a year at least. This is all important. From time to time it does happen that when there is a boom some businesses paradoxically run into precisely these liquidity problems at the height of that boom. Unfortunately, some businesses over-trade. One cannot lay that at the door of the Government. It calls for very astute judgment on the part of businesses. In fact, as Keynes, the famous economist said, the real challenge to the business world comes at the height of the boom. That is when virtually the greatest challenge occurs because if a business has not followed a sound financial policy it is likely to be caught out. It tends to over-trade.

What about the challenge at the depth of a depression?

Yes, there is a challenge at the depth of a depression, but the whole country will then be in the same mess. I can only say that the Government is very aware of the fact that in some cases there are serious liquidity problems. It is not as if we are not extending credit. As I mentioned last week, if one looks at the position during the past eight or nine months of this year, as compared with last year, one will see that a most substantial increase in credit has been made available. Where the money goes is very hard to determine. It just disappears as and when it is issued. We are keeping an eye on this matter and I can assure the hon. member that instead of simply letting the whole matter slide and encountering very serious demand inflation, we are doing all in our power to provide more credit as we go along each month. At this moment this matter is decidedly being given top level attention by the Government. I can give that assurance.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

In the Medical, Dental and Pharmacy Act, provision is made for control over the possession and sale of poisons, habit-forming drugs and potentially harmful drugs, and for the classification of drugs and substances in schedules to facilitate control, while the Drugs Control Act makes provision primarily for control over the manufacture of drugs intended for human use, as well as for the registration of such drugs.

The Medical, Dental and Pharmacy Act is at present being revised, and since the revision now coincides with the revision of the Drugs Control Act, it is the intention to remove the provisions dealing with drugs from Act 13 of 1928 and to include them, together with a few other modifications, in the Drugs Control Act, so that all the provisions dealing with this specific subject are contained in the same Act, in other words, to bring together what belongs together.

In the English version of the Drugs Control Act the word “drug” is used for medicine. In the South African community, however, the word “drug” has assumed the meaning of “verdowingsmiddel”. Consequently the opinion is held in the community that the present Act controls “ver-dowingsmiddels” and that the body which exercises control is called the “Verdowings-middels” control board, of which the chief official is the Registrar of “Verdowingsmiddels”.

†Mr. Speaker, it is now as good a time as any to shake off the yoke and to abolish this erroneous connotation from this piece of legislation. Wherever the word “drug” appears in the existing Act the relevant provision is therefore amended in the Bill before the House. An amended definition of “approved name” is proposed because the existing definition may be interpreted to mean a brand name or a trade name and in its present form it may cause confusion. The approved name of a substance, according to international custom, is the name reflecting the principal ingredient in the substance and which is internationally recognized in scientific fields. The expression “pharmacist” is substituted for “chemist and druggist” in accordance with the provisions of the Pharmacy Bill.

Section 1(2) as presently defined means that a medicine, if manufactured by another manufacturer, must be regarded as another medicine, thus a change in manufacturer of the same medicine would necessitate a new registration. It was originally intended that the council should determine whether medicines are the same or not, and in subsection (2) we are now making provision for this. Subsection 2(2) is merely a consequential provision.

In terms of paragraph (a) of clause 3 the council shall consist of at least seven members and of not more than 11, and provision is made in paragraph (b) for the compulsory appointment of an additional medical practitioner with a speciality in medicine. This is done at the request of the council to ensure a better balance in the council.

In clause 4 the provision in section 4(4) of the existing Act, whereby the State President shall determine the remuneration and allowances of a member of the council, is amended and this power will now vest in the Minister who shall determine the remuneration and allowances in consultation with the Minister of Finance. This will relieve the State President of unnecessary administrative obligations. In the same clause provision is also made for the dissolution of the present council before the expiration of its term of office. The present council was appointed on 1 April 1971 and its term of office will expire on 30 March 1976. As I have indicated provision is made in the Bill for the control over the sale of scheduled substances. This aspect was not a function of the present council and there might be a deficiency in the council in this regard. In the circumstances I am of opinion that it would be in the best interest to make provision for the early dissolution of the council should the necessity arise.

Not to be inconsistent with Act No. 18 of 1973, it is proposed in clause 5(c) to change the expression “of unsound mind” to “mentally ill, as defined in the Mental Health Act 1973”. Clause 5(d) is to amend the existing section 6(4) to clarify the original intention that a pharmacist shall not be deemed to have an interest in the sale of a medicine by reason only of the fact that he sells medicines by retail in the ordinary course of carrying on his profession.

*Clause 6 provides that the chairman of the Medicines Control Council shall also call a special meeting of his council if the Minister requests him in writing to do so. This provision is being made to ensure that, if a situation of urgent public interest should arise, the Minister has the power to convene the council to consider it.

Since it is deemed necessary to cause a member of a committee of the Medicines Control Council also to receive due remuneration for his services as member of such committee, provision is being made in clause 7 to amend the existing section 9(4) of the principal Act in such a way that such remuneration may be determined by the Minister in consultation with the Minister of Finance in addition to the allowances for which provision already exists.

Clauses 8(2), 10(2) and 12(2) are necessary consequential amendments as a result of the change which is being introduced in the use of the word “drug”, so as to obviate any possible legal implications.

Section 14(1) of the existing Act provides that no person may sell any medicine which is subject to registration unless it has been registered. Section 14(4), however, makes provision for a saving in the case of medical practitioners and pharmacists to dispense medicine to a patient under certain circumstances, and provides that such medicine need not be registered. However, the provision may be misinterpreted also to mean that medical practitioners and pharmacists may manufacture and sell medicine on a large-scale without it being necessary for them to register it. For that reason an amendment to the said section is being effected in clause 12(1) whereby it is being clearly stated that this saving refers only to medicine which is intended for individual patients.

Clause 13 entails inter alia an amendment to section 15(5) of the existing Act, in terms of which every medicine is registered under the name on which the council decides, instead of having to be registered under its “approved name”. In other words, this will enable the council to register a medicine under its trade name as well. This is necessary because a medicine frequently does not contain a single main component the name of which may be regarded as being its “approved name”, which consequently interferes with the registration process. The contemplated amendment will therefore solve a major problem in the registration of medicine, i.e. if the council is able to decide under what name a medicine shall be registered. Furthermore, this clause entails an amendment to the existing section 15(11) in terms of which the registrar is expected to cause the prescribed particulars in respect of applications for registration to be published in the Gazette as soon as possible, instead of within 14 days. All that is involved here is the practicability of the requirements. Sometimes it is simply not practicable to cause a notice to be published in the Gazette within 14 days.

It is our intention to amend the existing section 17 of the principal Act by means of clause 15 so that in the case of a registration of a medicine, in addition to the name of the medicine, the active components of such medicine shall also appear in the notice which the registrar has to publish. A further requirement is stated, i.e. that the name of the applicant shall be published instead of the name of the manufacturer. Under the circumstances it will therefore not be necessary to repeat the entire process of registration and advertisement if the manufacturer of the medicine should change.

The requirement that the active component shall appear alongside the name of the medicine in the notice, corresponds to the amendment of section 15(5). This information is particularly necessary if a medicine is registered under its trade name.

Subsection 17(2) falls away. In practice it happens that application is made for the registration, for example, of a hundred preparations which are of the same kind but which are manufactured by different firms. If a problem arises with the registration of one of these preparations, the registration of all the other preparations is delayed as a result of the requirement for simultaneous notice to be given of those preparations. With the deletion of this provision it is possible to expedite registration, particularly since it sometimes takes up to one year to solve the problems attached to the registration of the particular preparation.

In clause 16 an amendment to section 18(1) of the existing Act is inter alia being proposed in terms of which it is being provided that no medicine or scheduled substance may be sold unless it has been properly labelled. Additional to that it is being required that the active components shall be indicated on the label. Such requirements are also being laid down in respect of any advertisement of a medicine or scheduled substance. In addition it is being required that in the case of a registered medicine the registration number shall also appear on the advertisement or on the label. Together with the amendments which we have effected to section 15(5) and 17(1)(a), the stumbling-blocks which have hitherto existed in the form of the conflicting interests between the provisions of the principal Act and the laws on trademarks and patents, will be removed, since it is not possible for any further problems to arise in regard to the use of the approved name on labels.

An amendment is also being effected in subsection (3) whereby the labelling requirements of subsection (1) are not applicable if a medical practitioner sells the medicine, and if he is of the opinion that it would not be in the interest of the particular patient for the prescribed particulars to appear on the label. When the medicine is being made up by a pharmacist on the prescription of a medical practitioner, the medical practitioner shall endorse the prescription with the words “non nomen", and initial such endorsement. In paragraph (c), apart from the existing exemption in regard to labelling requirements of a pharmacist selling medicine from a labelled receptacle, provision is also being made for a medical practitioner, dentist or any person acting on behalf of a hospital to be exempted from such requirements. A patient need not always know what is contained in the bottle. Sometimes it is not good for his nerves. The name and address of the medical practitioner, dentist or hospital, the name of the medicine and in respect of a registered medicine, its number, shall in such a case be stated on the label.

†In clause 21 schedules are created into which substances may be classified. This will simplify the administration of the Act. Substances are scheduled from the safer substances in schedule 1 to the more dangerous substances as the numerical designation of the schedule rises. The schedules are further so designed to cause the least possible inconvenience to the public to obtain medicine whilst the greatest possible control measures are enforced. Subsection (1) prohibits the sale of any medicine or scheduled substance by any person who is not a holder of a licence issued by a licensing authority, under prescribed conditions.

There is, however, a proviso in subsection (1) to provide that a medical practitioner, dentist, pharmacist or veterinarian shall not require such licence to sell such substance in the course of carrying on his profession.

Subsection (2) provides that the licensing authority referred to in subsection (1) may withdraw or suspend any licence, and is compelled to withdraw or suspend such licence on the recommendation of the Council.

Sometimes medicines are stored or displayed for such a long period that such

Mr. Speaker, may I inform the hon. the Minister at the outset that it is the intention of the official Opposition to support this Bill, and may I express my appreciation to him for the careful manner in which he dealt with the Bill, which is a complicated measure and one which is very involved for those people who do not have to deal with matters such as these from day to day. I would also like, Sir, to express my appreciation to the people behind the scenes. They must have spent many hours in conjunction with the Medicine Control Council and the Pharmacy Board in compiling the Schedules, and I express my appreciation to them as well. Sir, I was very interested to learn from the statistics which I am about to quote what the position is in South Africa at the present moment in regard to one drug, namely cannabis or dagga, and all the other drugs scheduled in this particular Bill. Sir, according to the figures given to me in answer to my question, it appears that from 1 July 1972 to 30 June 1973—these are the latest figures available—more than 20000 people were convicted of being in possession of dagga and that 2 200 were convicted of dealing in dagga, which is only one prohibited dependence-producing substance. But when it comes to the scheduled drugs—and there are thousands of them—the figures show that in the same period 54 people were convicted of possessing dependence-producing drugs and that 69 were convicted of dealing in dependence-producing drugs. Sir, these schedules cover many hundreds—in fact I would say thousands—of drugs when one takes into consideration not only the name of the article listed in the schedules, but the admixture or the preparation which is included in the schedules. At first sight I think one could say that with the seven schedules which have been designed specifically to protect the public, the department has created a seven-faced club with which to swat a fly, but I must say that that is not the full position although that may appear to be the case when one considers the question of dagga in relation to the question of the possession and the sale of dependence-producing substances. But, Sir, despite that, we in the official Opposition believe that this legislation is necessary in the interests of the public themselves. I want to refer briefly to the Minister’s indication in his Second Reading speech of the change of the term “drug” to “medicine”. We understand the difficulty in terminology that existed in the Afrikaans translation. I think this change is a wise one and I believe that the term “medicine” will come to have a much broader and better defined connotation as time goes on.

Sir, the Minister referred to certain of the clauses and he indicated that in so far as registration under clause 15 was concerned, he felt that the new procedure would speed up registration. This, I believe, will be a very welcome step because I know the magnitude of the task facing the Drugs Control Council in the classification and registration of various drugs, and I believe that anything that can assist to speed up the registration in order to ensure that full control can be exercised is to be welcomed. Sir, I would like also to welcome the Minister’s comment when he indicated that the preparation of medicines, which legally has been the right of the medical profession over many years, will have to be done on a personal basis. The medical practitioner, his partner or his locum tenens will personally have to compound the preparation. In fact it is only right and just that it should be.

I want to refer to the definitions briefly. I believe it is desirable and welcome that the term “hospital” is now defined in this Bill. We also have “medicinal purposes” defined. It is interesting to note that “medicinal purposes” excludes the satisfaction of a habit or craving. Then I notice, under the definition of “Sell”, the words “for human use” have been omitted and I want to ask the Minister in his reply to indicate whether there is any specific reason for that omission. Clause 15, in regard to the notification of registration or cancellation in the Gazette, has been broadened. I think it is an advantage because it now requires, in the case of a registration, that the active components of such medicine must be stated.

I should like to deal just briefly with clause 16, which deals with labelling and advertisements. Subsection (2) states that no person shall in writing advertise any medicine for sale unless …, and then it lays down certain details. This, I know, is part of the original Act, but I believe that the term “in writing”, as it is stipulated, excludes radio advertising and I believe will probably exclude T.V. commercial advertising. However, it discriminates somewhat against the small man, the small manufacturer whose outlet, whose market, is not sufficient for him to indulge in radio programme advertising and who confines his advertising to the written word in the local Press. We find here that if he uses a written advertisement he has to provide many details which are not called for when the medicine is advertised over the radio. In the written advertisement he must include the approved name, the registered number—it must be in letters of a certain size—the active components, mass or volume and the number of units of such components. I believe this is a hardship which should be investigated at some future date in order not to place any difficulty in the way of a small manufacturer who complies with the conditions in regard to the registration of drugs but who has virtually one medium only for advertisement and that is by the written word.

I notice that clause 16(3)(c) makes the issuing of directions optional. While it may be convenient, I believe that the fact that directions need not be stated on the label of the medicine could lead to misunderstanding and to incorrect administration. It has been my experience that the people who come in and purchase a medicine do not always absorb the verbal directions for administration that are given.

We come now the part of this same clause which deals with distribution and the limitation upon selling in bulk containers. A doctor may compound a medicine in sufficient quantity for a specific patient and so also may a chemist, but it must be just the quantity for that particular patient. At this stage I want to raise the question of how that particular clause will be implemented. Will it be implemented on a completely impartial basis in regard to any inspection that arises from the various clauses of this Bill? My information is that past records give cause for concern in that there has been discrimination in the manner in which inspections have been carried out. I quote from the latest figures which are available, given to me in answer to a question in the earlier session this year. I asked for the number of inspections in respect of habit-forming drugs and potentially harmful drugs, carried out on medical practitioners, and I received the reply that there were 250 inspections carried out. This is for, I would say, roughly 7 000 general practitioners who at least by law have to keep a register of habit-forming drugs. Thirteen dentists and 1 420 pharmacists were also inspected. In all seriousness I say to the hon. the Minister that I am sure that he and others are aware that the number of contraventions in regard to the distribution of potentially harmful and scheduled drugs by chemists and druggists is minimal. A relatively small number of them have appeared before the statutory body of the Pharmacy Board over the years and I do not believe that there is a general tendency to contravene the strict regulations.

Now we come to clause 21 which deals with the introduction of the nine schedules. Two schedules deal specifically with prohibited dependence-producing drugs and I do not think there is any difficulty there. The remaining seven deal with more than 400 medicines and these medicines in many cases involve the admixtures or preparations of various drugs, so that a vast number of medicines is dealt with in the seven schedules. I believe that it would be an extremely difficult task for a busy medical practitioner to keep himself thoroughly au fait with the various provisions of these nine schedules. Let us take the first two. The hon. the Minister referred to these. They are relatively simple, because basically they provide that children under the age of 16 may only obtain supplies of these drugs in Schedules 1 and 2 by means of a prescription or else by means of a written order supplied by someone over the age of 16 who is normally known to the supplier. It is necessary for a record of the sale to be kept, either by recording the sale in a book or by keeping the note. Then one comes to Schedule 3 which contains 11 substances, not counting their preparations. These are substances which can only be sold by a pharmacist on the production of a written prescription by a medical practitioner or on verbal instructions from a medical practitioner who is known to the pharmacist. In large cities this could prove a source of confusion, although I realize the necessity for this. Schedule 4 refers to 94 substances plus their preparations and admixtures. Here the requirements are that there must be a written prescription issued by a medical practitioner or verbal instructions from the medical practitioner, but that he shall within seven days furnish a prescription confirming such verbal instructions. This sounds very fine but the experience we have gained since the promulgation of the sixth schedule in 1954, indicates that more often than not there is an absence of the confirmation. The latest figures in a survey conducted on sixth schedule drugs, in respect of which it was provided that a doctor shall within, I think, 48 hours furnish a written prescription to the supplier, showed that 98% of these verbal or telephonic prescriptions had not been followed up by the required written confirmation. I consequently envisage that there will be administrative difficulties here.

When we come to Schedule 5 we find another 83 substances with their preparations and admixtures. We find that a written prescription is required. It can be repeated under prescribed conditions, but the number of repetitions must be stated and also the intervals at which the prescription can be repeated. In that case the last supplier of the medicine has to keep the prescription for three years. In this instance the prescription cannot be dispensed on the verbal instructions of the medical practitioner.

We have other substances in Schedule 6. We find that in terms of this schedule, which involves a mere six substances, they cannot be supplied except in a limited quantity unless the prescription is presented within 30 days of the date and unless the seller enters the prescription in a special prescription or order book. It further requires—I have no objection to this, because I realize the necessity for such control—the wholesaler, the manufacturer, the importer or the exporter to keep a record of Schedule 6 substances and that this record must be balanced quarterly at the end of March, June, September and December, and that this must be done within three days. I hope in the Committee Stage to appeal to the hon. the Minister to be a little more generous with this limit, because I believe it is absolutely unfeasible and impracticable to suggest that at the end of the year, after the New Year celebrations, when everybody has been extremely busy, a manufacturer, wholesaler or importer will be able to deal with quite a large number of substances and balance the register within three days. I think they have other much more important work to do at that particular time of the month.

Then we have Schedule 7. Here another 97 substances with their derivatives and admixtures are involved. These cannot be sold without a prescription presented for dispensing not later than 30 days from the date of issue. The quantity which the doctor may prescribe is also limited to a 30-day supply. Here again these particulars must be kept in a Schedule 7 substances register. This applies to the manufacturers, wholesalers, importers and exporters. The requirement here again is that the register shall be balanced four times per year and within three days on each occasion.

I want to refer the hon. the Minister to the fact that in clause 13 which deals with the registration of medicines—the hon. the Minister referred to this matter in his Second Reading speech—the term “14 days” in the original Act is being done away with and has been changed to “as soon as possible”. I realize that this is in regard to publication in the Gazette, but I also appeal to the hon. the Minister to show a little latitude in so far as the various people who are required to keep and balance these registers are concerned.

Then we have Schedule 8 where there are only 14 substances which, in terms of the Bill, may include their isomers, esters, salts, preparations and admixtures. These are prohibited dependence-producing substances and here the control is under the strict surveillance of the Secretary for Health. Very welcome provision is made for research projects to take place under the authority of the Secretary for Health. The last schedule deals with the acquisition and use of substances for prescribed purposes for the treatment of a particular patient, and here the Secretary for Health is the person who is able to issue the authority. There are only two substances in this schedule, namely the amphetamines and the dexamphetamines. I believe that this provision is to be welcomed, because it does enable medical practitioners under conditions of strict control to treat cases such as narcolepsy and other complaints which specifically need the use of amphetamines.

I want to welcome the provision in clause 21(14) to which the hon. the Minister also referred in regard to the provision of medicines scheduled under Schedules 1, 2, 3 and 4 where the pharmacist may supply a greater or lesser quantity than that ordered by the general practitioner. The Minister explained that it meant in effect that pharmacists would be entitled, with a 25% limit either way, to supply an original pack which was either 25% less or 25% more than the actual quantity prescribed by the doctor. The hon. the Minister referred to the question of cost and I want to endorse this, because I believe that this provision, which is a very wise provision, will have the effect of eliminating in these particular instances a cost which will have the result of the patient receiving the medicine at a lower cost than hitherto.

Then the hon. the Minister also referred to clause 24 in regard to the appointment of inspectors and he indicated that the Secretary would now attend to this detail. But I think there are other factors which give cause for satisfaction. Now the inspectors are firstly not responsible to the laws governing the public service. They are appointed after consultation with the council, and they need not be officials of the Department of Health. I have no real complaints about the operations of the officials appointed by the Department of Health. I think that they have done a wonderful job over the years, courteously and efficiently. However, I believe that the time has come, where we have such a complicated set of schedules, that the inspectors appointed to handle these schedules shall be people with a special knowledge of the work they have to do.

It is interesting to note that in clause 27, the new section 29, under “offences” the new section 22A, which deals with the nine schedules, is included. It is quite obvious that the Minister and his department mean business in so far as any contraventions which may take place under the schedules listed in this particular clause are concerned. The penalties are not particularly light, because they make provision for a fine of R500 and/or imprisonment of six months for a first offence, a fine of R1 000 and/or imprisonment of 12 months for a second offence. This is an indication that the department will view seriously any contraventions in that direction. However, in my opinion, the success of this Bill in the controlling and preventing of abuse will depend mainly on the effective implementation of the clauses relating to the schedules. I trust that the powers of the inspectors given under the Act and under the regulations, and the manner in which they are carried out, will be absolutely impartial, and that they will deal with all people who, under this Act, are legally entitled to handle or dispense medicines.

As far as the provisions in clause 31 are concerned, I find it gratifying that the Minister may make regulations on the recommendation of the council, and also that these regulations will be published in advance in the Government Gazette for information and comment. I believe that that is a very welcome stipulation.

Despite all the complications and the additional responsibilities which certain people will now have to carry when this Bill becomes law, I believe that it is necessary, because it regulates drug usage and seeks to control drug abuse. The smooth working of it will depend on the harmonious cooperation of the medical, dental and pharmaceutical professions. I believe it will also depend on the sympathetic understanding of the general public, who may be a little frustrated because there may be delays in complying with the stringent regulations. I believe, too, that it will depend on the impartial implementation by the inspectors of the various provisions.

I want to assure the hon. the Minister that the pharmaceutical profession, as I understand, will carry out its responsibilities under this Bill. It has done so in the past. I conclude by referring to the report of the Grobler Committee, which states in paragraph 451:

Mr. Speaker, you must pardon me for having been so slow in rising to my feet. I was under the impression that the hon. member would ask for an extension of time to address this House so as to dispose completely of the matters which he raised. We on this side of the House want to say immediately that we are very pleased that the Opposition, the official Opposition as the hon. member for Berea put it, support this measure. I also want to congratulate him on his obvious knowledge of the contents of the Bill. In the time I have been in this House, and before this too, I came to know him as a person who has been well trained in his line, and who makes a study of his subject before speaking here. This could perhaps be a lesson to many hon. members on that side of the House. I should like to make use of this opportunity to congratulate the hon. the Minister and his department on the amending legislation which has been submitted today, and on the way in which the hon. the Minister presented his Second Reading speech. The amount of work which went into this legislation is phenomenal. If one examines the schedules, and one examines the making of regulations which this measure is making possible, one finds that virtually all of the preparations have been covered. I do not want to say that all of them had been covered, because I have not yet seen the legislation which covers everything. Nevertheless I say that virtually everything is being covered in this legislation.

I think we have to accept for a moment that this legislation deals with two aspects. Firstly it deals with the principle involved in the legislation, and secondly it deals with the administrative aspects. The principle is aimed solely at not only protecting the public, but also protecting persons such as the manufacturers, medical practitioners, pharmacists and veterinarians—in fact, anyone concerned with veterinarian substances and medicines. In a time in which there has been tremendous progress in the field of medicine, and when scores of new medicines are appearing on the market, it is extremely important that amendments to the legislation should take place from time to time. The previous Act was introduced nine years ago. If one considers the first part of the legislation, one finds that almost all the amendments which are being effected are simply consequential, and I do not think it is necessary to deal with them. If one considers the amount of work required to effect these amendments, one is amazed that the legislation is already before us today.

I want to comment on the word “medicine” which is being substituted for “drug” in the English version. In the book written by Dr. John Grobler, entitled Dwelmiddels, Vyand No 1, he specifically mentions the fact that there is this play on words here which is not always very clear. In the Afrikaans version of the original legislation reference is made to “medisyne”, while in the English version reference is made to “drugs”. He therefore proposed that the word “medicine” be substituted for the word “drug”. That is precisely what this legislation is doing. This appeared in the report of the commission which went into the use of drugs.

I also want to congratulate the hon. the Minister on the fact that medicines will now be registered under the trade name of the medicine concerned. The problem had arisen that medicines contained so many types of substances that one did not know precisely what medicine one was dealing with.

I want to repeat that the principle being incorporated in this legislation is simply for the protection of the public, and for the protection of the persons working with preparations of this kind. In regard to the registration there is another very important point to which the hon. the Minister referred briefly, which is that medicine should be identified beyond any doubt. One can no longer continue to have medicines today which have not been properly identified.

Clauses 22(a) and 35 are of course the two important clauses in this amending legislation, while the other clauses are simply adjustments to the old Act. As far as I am concerned, it is important that medical practitioners, dentists, pharmacists and veterinarians are to a certain extent being exempted when they require certain medicines for their patients. I think that the hon. member for Berea has already pointed out that they are not free to dispense as much medicine as they like now. This is an important point, and I think that it is exceptionally important because it protects the medical practitioners as well. Clause 35 is actually part of the administration of this legislation. Anyone giving this legislation a casual glance would perhaps have been alarmed by the very long list of regulations which may be made by the Minister. Upon going through it carefully, however, one will see that every regulation refers to something which is very important, and that if there had not been such a list in respect of which regulations may be made, it would have been quite impossible to enforce the legislation. In the proposed new section 35(2) on page 45 of the Bill mention is made of the important point in respect of the regulations, which is that—

and make it operative, and in terms of which persons are invited to address representations concerning it. In my opinion this is an exceptionally good provision, for it affords the people who would have an interest in this matter, the opportunity of examining it.

There is one last point I still want to indicate. In his opening words the hon. member for Berea referred to dagga. I think that one should perhaps just set the record straight in this regard. Dagga is being covered by the proposed new section 22A(10). Perhaps it would be a good thing for the non-official Opposition to take cognizance of this as well, for I was present in this House on one occasion when they adopted a different attitude to dagga. In subsection (10) it states emphatically that—

Dagga, or cannabis, as defined in Schedule 8—

I think that it will be very clear to this country as well as to this House that this substance, dagga, is regarded as being a very serious drug in South Africa. Since it is already having a tremendous effect on large parts of our population, and in particular our Coloured population, I think we should felicitate the hon. the Minister on the fact that it is now being written very clearly into this Bill that dagga is not something to fool around with in South Africa.

From this side of the House we once again want to congratulate the hon. the Minister and his department, and say that we give this Bill our full support. If problems do arise, and time will show whether there has to be any amendments, we shall, as the hon. the Minister said, give our attention to that.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the hon. member for Berea for supporting this Bill on behalf of the Opposition. As he said, it is such a good Bill that from the start there was no question of his not supporting it. I think the way in which he dealt with the Bill shows that he made a very good study of it; in some instances he may even have studied it better than I myself have done. I thank him for going into those matters in which he is really interested. Indeed, many of the things he mentioned are very important. Seeing that we are ad idem on most of the aspects of this Bill—there may perhaps be a few small matters in connection with which he may have some suggestions to make in the Committee Stage—I do not think there is much for me to comment on after what he has said about the Bill. I agree with his sentiments on the Bill as such and I also fully endorse his thanks to the departmental officials who went into the existing Act and brought out this new Bill after a short space of time. He will recollect that this is the fourth new Bill we have had during this session. The departmental people undertook a monumental task and perhaps did not sleep for many nights because they had to bring out this Bill in good time so that we could put right what may have been going wrong for so many years. The hon. member has referred to the question of dagga and I fully agree with what he has said. He has also mentioned the fact that we have omitted from certain clauses provision in regard to the use by human beings of drugs as such. We have done that because veterinary surgeons are also supplied with some of these medicines these days and they must be brought in as well. Some of the medicines which are prescribed for animals are also used by human beings. I welcome the fact that the hon. member shares our sentiments in regard to the question of having inspections carried out in so far as habit-forming drugs and more dangerous drugs are concerned. I think it is essential that such inspections should be carried out. Although we have not had a sufficient number of inspectors, clause 24 may perhaps enable us to appoint more officials to ensure that the regulations are being complied with to the letter. It may not always be possible to accomplish that, but I think that we will have more success than in the past. In framing the regulations we shall take into account the fact that the busy practitioner will be faced with an onerous task to comply with all the minor details as regards the control he has to exercise in connection with these psychotropic substances. Initially we are not going to make it too difficult for these people but I must also point out that as time passes we shall tighten our control. I think the hon. member will agree with me as far as that is concerned.

*I do not want to go too deeply into the other reservations. The hon. member mentioned certain aspects which we shall certainly give attention to. There need not be any doubt on that score. I want to thank the hon. member again for the fact that he went into this legislation so carefully and also for the contribution he made.

I also want to thank the hon. member for Caledon, not only for staying on in this Chamber while we had to wait for this Bill to be discussed, but also for having acquainted himself thoroughly with the provisions of this Bill. He obviously made a careful study of them. Although he did not speak for long, he showed that he had gone into this legislation very carefully. He made a splendid contribution in respect of the important clauses in this Bill. It is a good thing that we express our opinions on such important clauses. I was amazed at his knowledge of this matter, and I am convinced that he read through this legislation very carefully. I know that he was fully informed as far as the previous Bill was concerned. This could have been a temptation not to examine the present Bill all that carefully. However, he did not succumb to the temptation, and I thank him for that. His references to the various provisions were particularly intelligent and valuable ones. We agree on all the various provisions and because we agree. I do not want to occupy the time of the House any further.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Committee Stage

Clause 1:

Mr. Chairman, I wish to move the following amendments—

1. (1) In line 7, page 9, to omit “or mass”; and
2. (2) to omit all the words after “medicine” in line 7, page 9, up to and including “final” in line 9.

Sir, may I just motivate these amendments briefly. Subclause (2) reads—

Sir, I pause here to say that the intention of my amendment is to delete the word “or mass”. I do not believe that they are necessary in this particular context; I believe that they are redundant and I move for their deletion. In my second amendment I seek to delete after the word “medicine” the words “and the Council’s decision in regard to the question whether medicines are the same or not shall be final”. Sir, to my mind this seems to be a contradiction of a section which I believe is in the principal Act, and here I refer to clause 23. I do not wish to discuss the merits of clause 23, but let me merely say for the information of the Committee that the intention here is to delete the words that the decision of the Medicine Control Council shall be final, because clause 23 reads—

I believe that because of that it is unnecessary to have the wording as it stands in the Bill at present and I move its deletion.

Mr. Chairman, I accept the hon. member’s amendments.

Amendments agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 21:

Mr. Chairman, I move the two amendments standing in my name, as follows—

1. (1) In line 9, page 27, to omit “or” and to substitute “, trainee pharmacist or unqualified assistant or by a”; and
2. (2) in line 42, page 37, after “dentist”, to insert “, pharmacist”.

I just want to motivate the amendments briefly. Subclause (4)(b) reads that any Schedule 2 substance shall not be sold—

It is felt that since trainee pharmacists and unqualified assistants can prepare Schedule 1, 3 and 4 substances, they should also prepare Schedule 2 substances, which are less dangerous than 3 and 4. That is my first motivation.

My second motivation of the new section 22(15)(b) is that provision was made in the past for a manufacturer’s representative to leave certain medicines with medical practitioners to be tested. We want to add pharmacists here.

We, the official Opposition, have no objection to and support the amendment of the hon. the Minister, because I believe it gives clarity and will lead to better implementation of the provisions of that section. That also applies to the second amendment in line 42. I would now like to move the following amendments to clause 21—

1. (1) In line 48, to omit “or suspend” and to substitute “, suspend or restrict”;
2. (2) in line 1, page 33, to omit “three” and to substitute “fourteen”; and
3. (3) in line 15, page 35, to omit “three” and to substitute “fourteen”.

The object of the first amendment is to make another provision with regard to the power which the Drugs Control Council may exercise over licences issued by a licensing authority. The subsection is a short one and I read it in order to make its intention clear. Subsection (2) says—

The intention of the amendment is to add the word “restrict” as well so that the council may recommend the withdrawal, the restriction or the suspension of a licence for good and valid reasons. I feel that only to have the provisions to withdraw and suspend may be a little drastic, because one could find a patent medicine dealer in a certain area selling what could be a more or less harmless nostrum. However, there is a tendency amongst a certain group of people to abuse and to take this particular preparation to excess, which could cause suffering. I realize that it would be a slow and protracted process for this substance then to be rescheduled. It may not be necessary; it might just be a local phenomenon, for a temporary period, that people have a craze for using a specific medicine, or taking a specific substance for medicine. I do not think it would be fair because the general dealer might be implicated in selling these medicines unrestrictedly. It would be unfair for him to have his licence withdrawn or suspended, because if he is a patent medicine dealer in an area where there is no other supplier of any other form of medicine, it could result in a hardship to the general public. I feel that should a case such as this arise—it may be a hypothetical case but it can lead to a practical difficulty—it would be an advantage for the council to have the right to restrict the licence in order that a particular preparation which may be causing problems in certain areas at a special time to be restricted, or that the dealer may be restricted from effecting the sale of that medicine.

I come now to the second amendment, and I refer hon. members to page 33, line 1. One must actually refer to the previous page because we are dealing here with the question of the balancing of the Schedule 6 Substances Register. As I mentioned to the Minister during the Second Reading debate, this balancing has to be carried out at the end of March, June. September and December. In the past, when habit-forming drug registers were balanced, it was the practice to allow a period of grace of 14 days—I think the period was actually extended to the 15th of the month. I believe that was fair. To stipulate in the Bill that these registers have to be balanced within three days following each of the above dates, i.e. four times a year, could place an onerous administrative responsibility on the people who are called upon to balance the registers. I should like to make a suggestion, particularly in respect of the end of the year when people return from their holidays. I am aware of the fact that 1 and 2 January are holidays but in terms of the Interpretation Act the next three business days would then apply. The person concerned would not necessarily have to complete and balance his register by 3 January. I appreciate that fact. However, this is an extremely busy time of the year for any dealer in medicine, and I believe it is a little unrealistic to ask him to comply with that provision. The same applies to line 15 on page 35. This deals with Schedule 7 substances and the balancing of the Schedule 7 Substances Register. Here again the balancing must be effected four times a year, and the provision as it stands is that the balancing shall be completed within three days after each of the above-mentioned dates. Here again, in this particular schedule, a large number of substances is included. There are more than 97 substances, and if one adds various admixtures and preparations, the balancing of this register could be quite a task to carry out in three days at the busiest time of the month and at the busiest time of the year. I ask the hon. the Minister to give sympathetic consideration to these amendments, which I believe are intended only to make the implementation of the Act more feasible and practicable for those who have to carry out its provisions.

Mr. Chairman, all three of these proposed amendments are well motivated and I accept them.

Amendments agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Schedule B:

Mr. Chairman, I would like to refer to Schedule B where under the item “Inhalants” reference is made to “albutamol”. I believe that a gremlin must have got into the printing machine when this Bill was printed and would therefore like to move as an amendment—

This amendment also applies to the Afrikaans text.

Mr. Chairman, because of the meticulous way in which the hon. member for Berea has studied this Bill, I gladly accept this amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with amendments.

Report Stage taken without debate.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

As is evident from the long title, the proposed amendments deal mainly with administrative and domestic matters, and the provisions contained in the Bill are to a large extent self-explanatory. However, hon. members will permit me to dwell briefly on the necessity of the envisaged amendments and to furnish the House with more particulars.

Clause 1:

This clause substitutes section 32 of the principal Act and is aimed at facilitating the service of the required notice of a proposed action as well as the service of any process in which the Minister is the defendant. Apart from making provision for the limitation of actions, section 32 only provides at the moment that notice in writing shall be given to the defendant.

Since the Minister of Police, as the Minister in charge, is cited as the defendant in all proposed actions, it is being required by law that the notice be served on the Minister’s office. In practice receipt of the notice is merely acknowledged and the documents are referred to the department for dispatch. However, one often finds that prospective plaintiffs experience problems in serving the notices in time within the provisions of the Act as a result of the Minister’s office being moved between Pretoria and Cape Town every year. Such cases have given rise to unnecessary actions, costs and trouble having to be incurred by plaintiffs, the Attorney-General and the department. There may even be hon. members in this House who can speak of experience in this regard and who will therefore welcome the envisaged amendments.

The object of the provisions being added to section 32 is, therefore, not only to facilitate administration and relieve the administrative pressure on the Minister’s office, but also to benefit prospective plaintiffs.

Clause 2:

The necessity for the provisions contained in this clause arises from a tragic incident on 8 March 1974, when a South African Police patrol led by Sgt. J. A. Kuhn was surprised by a band of terrorists on the bank of the Zambezi. The four constables who made up the patrol along with him were brutally murdered by the terrorists, whilst Sgt. Kuhn was presumably abducted by them. Up to now it has not been possible to establish what the sergeant’s fate was. One can only conjecture at it. As a result of Sgt. Kuhn’s absence, which undeniably resulted from the performance of his duties in terms of the Police Act, and because the Act does not make provision for cases such as his, the problem has arisen that his salary could not be lawfully paid to his wife. However, temporary authorization was obtained from the Treasury for paying his salary to his wife in the meantime, until such time as statutory authorization may be obtained. This insertion is therefore necessary to make provision for his case, as well as for possible future cases, so that the salaries of missing persons may be paid to their wives or other dependants. In order to make this matter clear, I just want to add that subsection (4) of this clause has been inserted as a safety measure so as to give the Commissioner of Police the power to exercise some control over money paid out to wives or dependants in terms of these provisions.

Clause 3:

This clause contains the short title and also provides that clause 2 shall be deemed to have come into operation on 8 March 1974. It is essential that this provision be made retrospective so that it may cover the case of Sgt. Kuhn, who has been missing since that date.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the official Opposition and those many members of the public and police who are involved in the terms of these two clauses, I welcome this measure very much. As the Minister has quite rightly said, the effect of clause 1, which amends section 32 of the principal Act, will be to streamline the procedures and to ensure that no time is wasted. I do not intend to regale the House with the very funny situations that arose in the past as the result of this delay, nor with the very sad ones, suffice it to say that this is a very good measure and is welcomed by everybody who has to deal with civil actions in regard to the police.

The hon. the Minister has told us why clause 2, whereby the new section 34E is inserted in the Act, has been included. I can assure the Minister that this will be a welcome measure to all those wives and dependants of members of the Force who are called upon to perform these extraterritorial duties, particularly when something should befall their beloved ones. We unfortunately too often read about casualties up at the front nowadays, and this is a very welcome measure because it is going to afford relief to those people who are left behind, their beloved ones. This side of the House endorses and supports what the Minister is doing in this regard.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that we support this Bill unconditionally. It will give a measure of security to the wives and families of the men who are taking on these very hazardous jobs. We approve of it.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to express my appreciation to the Opposition for their support of this Bill.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Committee Stage taken without debate.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Chairman, for the information of the Committee I should like to mention at this stage that Mr. Jan Niemand, who has been Secretary for Community Development since the previous session of this House, has decided to exercise his option and retire on pension from the service of the department upon reaching the age of 60 years. Mr. Niemand has come a long way with the department, in fact, he was one of the architects of the department. On this occasion I should like to place on record my appreciation for the valuable service he has rendered and for the zeal with which he has dedicated himself to the department. I trust that Mr. and Mrs. Niemand will enjoy a pleasant retirement. Then I want to mention that Mr. Louis Fouché has been promoted to the post of Secretary for Community Development in the place of Mr. Niemand. Mr. Fouché, too, has come a long way with the department; in fact, he has been in the service of the department virtually since its inception in 1964. In later years he served the department as senior deputy secretary, until he was promoted to Mr. Niemand’s post this year. I have confidence in Mr. Fouché’s capabilities, and I believe that in their dealings with the department hon. members of this House will find that they have a very approachable and very zealous official in Mr. Fouché.

I should also like to take this opportunity to make certain statements in connection with new developments in respect of the collection of rentals in both new schemes and old schemes undertaken by this department or with the aid of its funds.

It has been decided that the rentals on all new housing projects financed from the National Housing Fund be reduced by almost 3% for approximately the first five years of the redemption period of the loan in order to bring the rentals within the solvency of the tenants. This reduction without extending the redemption period is being made possible in that redemptions are taking place on a sliding scale with an initial deloading factor and, after approximately ten years, a loading factor. As hon. members will agree, it is almost certain, in terms of the trend which has manifested itself over the past three or four decades at least, that the solvency of people occupying houses is constantly improving as a result of income improvements, so that someone who is at present doing a certain job at a certain salary might find it difficult at this stage to afford a rental of, say, R50, while the person who might be doing the same type of work in ten years’ time might receive such an improved salary for that work that he might quite easily be able to afford an adjusted rental which may be far higher. Hence the initial deloading which, in the manner I indicated, may result in even better accommodation being obtained at an initially reduced rental. The following examples will illustrate my statement: For a dwelling which costs R7 067, the monthly rental will, in terms of present formulas and at an interest rate of 8%, amount to approximately R65 for the full period of redemption if the loan is paid off in equal instalments interest and redemption—over a period of 30 years. In the case of a monthly rental at a deloading of 3%—for the first five years—the rental will amount to only R52-57 for that period. Of course, after that it will rise, but by that time the solvency of the persons concerned will, it is expected, have improved to such an extent that they will find it much easier to afford it than is the case at present. I may mention that this new formula of initial deloading was referred to the town treasurers and housing managers of the local authorities of virtually all the major cities in the Republic in order that they might test and study it properly, and that one and all not only welcomed it, but also accepted it enthusiastically and even welcomed it as an exceptional step forward by my department. The instalments on sold properties are being adjusted in the same way.

This system of deloading and loading may interest building societies and financial institutions, and I should like to invite them to consult further with my department on this matter, for this system also holds possibilities for the private sector, working on the basis of the same principles, to reduce rentals and redemption instalments initially and for the first decade, subsequent to which gradual increases may be introduced.

A further relief measure as far as rentals are concerned, is the rationalization or levelling up of rentals payable in respect of old and new dwelling units, which I am also announcing here now. This matter has been receiving attention for many years, but on account of its particularly difficult nature, it has just never been possible to find a realistic formula which could be applied in practice. However, recently my department once again tackled this problem actively, since rentals on dwelling units, especially those erected in the ’seventies, had risen to such an extent that a solution had to be found. That solution has now been found and a formula for determining rentals has been worked out, a formula in terms of which tenants in newer dwellings are being given considerable relief through a system of rent reduction on newer schemes and relatively small loadings on rentals for older schemes. This is being implemented in such a way that the interest and redemption pertaining to the total number of dwellings in the area of jurisdiction of a local authority remain unaffected.

I do not want to burden hon. members with complicated formulas, but want to content myself with a few examples and the statement that the new rentals have in practice been tested and found to be correct by the treasurers of all the major local authorities. The following examples are self-explanatory:

All that is happening, therefore, is that the rentals in respect of dwelling units which were built years ago but which, in most instances, are just as valuable as dwellings as are new houses, are being increase to a realistic level, and that those increases, in turn, make it possible to effect a reduction in the excessive rentals of new dwellings caused by high building costs, land prices, high rates of interest, and so forth. Of course, care is still being taken to ensure that the monthly rental does not exceed 25 % of the income of the bread-winner occupying the dwelling unit. This new rental formula will come into force as from 1 January 1975, which coincides with the date on which the new sliding scales are going to be made applicable.

Mr. Chairman, at a later stage I hope to make a statement in connection with community facilities.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask for the privilege of the half hour?

On behalf of the official Opposition I wish to associate myself with the remarks made by the hon. the Minister in connection with the retirement of Mr. Jan Niemand as Secretary of the department. We remember Mr. Niemand for the conscientious manner in which he approached his duties and responsibilities as Secretary of this important department. We wish him and his wife a happy retirement..

To mr. Louis Fouché we wish to say that we welcome his appointment as the new Secretary of this department. We are confident that we can expect from him the same conscientious approach to the problems of his department as in the case of Mr. Niemand. We wish him a happy period of service in his new office.

Hear, hear!

Mr. Chairman, I wish to begin by dealing with the matter of housing. I want to pose firstly this question: What should be our objective in South Africa in the sphere of housing? I believe that the objective should be to ensure that adequate homes are provided for all our population, whether they be White, Coloured, Indian or African. I include Africans merely in passing because the Department of Community Development is not concerned with African housing and we shall not be able to discuss this matter any further under this Vote. I suggest that it is essential that all our population should have to be properly housed in order that the nation will be physically, socially, culturally, and politically a healthy one. As has often been stated, home-ownership is one of the most stabilizing factors in any community. Conversely, any serious shortage of houses generates many social problems. I want to examine the present situation in South Africa in the light of the objective which I believe we must set ourselves, namely, the objective of providing adequate homes for all our people. The most recent statistics in this regard are those as at 31 December 1973 which were provided by the department in answer to a question by my colleague, the hon. member for Berea, and which appear on page 128 of the weekly edition of Hansard, No. 3 of 20 February 1974. As at 31 December 1973 the estimated shortage of houses throughout South Africa was: Whites, 6 100; Coloureds, no less than 62 400 of which 50 000 was the shortage in the Cape Province alone; and Indians, 16 600 of which 12 600 was the shortage in Natal alone. This gives us a total shortage of 85 100 housing units. This is a huge figure, and just how serious the situation is becomes obvious when you look at the estimated shortage in relation to the building rate. Sir, what was the building rate? Here again I quote from figures provided by the department in answer to the same question. It appears that during 1973 the numbers of houses made available for each race group were as follows. So far as Whites are concerned, the department provided 998, the local authorities 4 278, a total last year of 5 276; so far as Coloureds are concerned, the department provided 794 and the local authorities 11 235, making a total of 12 029; for Indians the department provided 5 729 and the local authorities 4 434, a total of 5 013, making a total for all races, both by the department and the local authorities, of 22 318. Mr. Chairman, I suggest to the Committee that it is obvious that at the present rate of building there is not the slightest hope of catching up with the shortage. Even at the anticipated building rate for the next few years there is very little hope. As an example I would like to refer this Committee to the figures, again provided by the department, of the anticipated rate at which housing will be provided during the next five years. I quote again from the reply to the same question: the department and the local authorities are now prepared to erect during the next five years from ten to twelve thousand dwellings per annum for Coloureds in the Cape Province alone. Then the sentence goes on to read

Sir, the anticipated building rate is 10 000 to 12 000 dwellings a year for Coloureds in the Cape Province throughout the next five years. That is undoubtedly a commendable figure, and I do not wish to denigrate this effort, but, Mr. Chairman, looking at it in relation to the shortage, it is far too small. I have already quoted the shortage in the Cape Province alone of 50 000 dwelling units. At that rate, it would take the next five years just to catch up with the present backlog, let alone the future increases which are going to take place during the next five years. So it is my submission that at the present rate of building, the rate we have been accustomed to in the past few years, we have not the slightest hope of catching up with this backlog. That means that the shortage is going to become greater. It means also that the housing shortage throughout the country which is already serious could easily develop into a housing crisis with all the injustices, unrest, bitterness and social problems this would create, unless proper steps are taken in time to meet this problem. In case it is thought by the Committee that the statement I have just made is merely alarmist exaggeration, let me point out two things.

Firstly, the figures I have quoted are the department’s own figures, not mine, and presumably they are conservative and they are not exaggerated. Secondly, the figures relate only to the type of housing for which the department is directly responsible, namely economic and sub-economic housing. Those figures do not take into account the present housing needs of the lower and middle income groups which up to now have been provided by private enterprise, mostly by means of building society bonds. Finally, I would point out that the figures relate to present shortages only within the sphere of economic and sub-economic housing and do not take into account future needs.

Now, what are the future housing needs for all race groups in South Africa? It is frequently said these days that between now and the end of the century—and I would remind this Committee that that is only 25 years away—we will have to build as many dwelling units as have been built in South Africa in the past 300 years. This means, according to the president of the S.A. Institute of Town and Regional Planners, speaking to a recent metropolitan planning conference, new urban settlements for a further 12,5 million South Africans, 12,5 million people who are to be housed within the coming 25 years. Now, Sir, can there be the slightest hope of achieving even half that target if we are to carry on as we are at present? Obviously, in my submission, there is not, and I would now like to ask this Committee to consider what is required.

I believe two things above all are essential. Firstly, that we have accurate statistics of the existing housing shortage and accurate statistics of future needs. In the second instance, we must have, in my submission, a completely new approach to the provision of housing, firstly, by making far greater use of private enterprise, secondly, by making use of new methods of financing housing, and thirdly, by new methods of planning and construction.

I should like to deal with these two basic essentials, which I have proposed in some further detail. Firstly, without accurate statistics we cannot solve the problem because we cannot plan sufficiently accurately for the years ahead. I believe that it is in the sphere of statistics that this department has failed in the past. As an example I should like to draw attention to the sort of answer we have had to questions such as: “How many persons are there on waiting-lists for housing in the main centres of the Republic?” I do not wish to quote because the answers are fairly lengthy, but year after year the answers have indicated that the waiting-lists for houses are inaccurate because there is duplication in the lists kept by the department and those kept by local authorities. From these waiting-lists it is consequently impossible to know what the real housing shortage is. I have to give credit to the department for adopting a slightly different approach at the beginning of this year. In reply to the same question I quoted previously, the question put my colleague, the hon. member for Berea, the department had the following to say:

I compliment the department on obtaining a better assessment of the position. However, I should like to know from the hon. the Minister how accurate even those figures really are. How did the department set about arriving at these figures? I stress once again that unless we have the most accurate figures we can obtain, we are going to continue to flounder and the problem is going to be aggravated over the years. I consequently appeal to the hon. the Minister, and to his department, to make it a priority, either through the department alone, or in conjunction with the Department of Statistics, to set about obtaining the most accurate statistics possible and keeping them up to date. In my view that is the first requirement.

I now wish to deal with the other essentials I have suggested. I have suggested, firstly, that we should provide a completely new approach to the problem of housing by making far greater use of private enterprise. I think the facts speak for themselves. I do not need to elaborate on this very much. Let me take the example of Coloured housing in the Cape once again. If, in fact, there is a shortage of 50 000 Coloured houses in the Cape alone, and the department and local authorities with all their resources are not going to be able to provide housing for these Coloureds during the coming five years at a faster rate than 10 000 to 12 000 houses per year, it is quite obvious that a new approach must be adopted.

That new approach, in my view, can only be by making use of private enterprise in this sphere. As far as sub-economic housing is concerned, this is clearly a matter in which private enterprise would hardly interest itself because of the very low cost of the housing. This is obviously the type of housing on which the department and local authorities should concentrate. I believe that in the sphere of economic housing there is a place for private enterprise, provided that the necessary financing is made available. Obviously private enterprise which has to make a profit to survive, cannot provide the type of economic housing which is required at the building costs as they are today and at the cost of finance as it is today. I would urge the hon. the Minister to think of new methods for encouraging private enterprise to lend a hand in performing this very important task. I believe this can be done as it is done in many countries overseas by various means such as providing finance at a lower interest rate which would make it attractive for private enterprise to come into this sphere. I would emphasize for those members of the Committee who feel that if private enterprise is brought in, it might take an unfair advantage of the facilities offered and make a greater profit at the expense of the department or the State, that this can be restricted by various means so that the profit element, whilst being reasonable, will not be excessive. This is one example; there are many other ways which are being adopted overseas in different countries to bring in private enterprise to assist the State which in most countries of the world is not able to provide all the housing required even in the category of economic housing.

I see that my time is becoming limited and there are a few other matters I should like to deal with. I would like to urge the hon. the Minister to discuss with his colleague, the Minister of Finance, ways of assisting the lower and middle income groups of people, particularly young married couples, to own their own homes. I do not need to emphasize to this Committee the extent to which the cost of housing is rising. The Bureau of Economic Research points out in its latest bulletin that last year the average cost of houses went up by no less than 25%. It goes on to say—

This is undoubtedly the position and ways and means must be found of assisting in providing that category of housing as well. While I accept that it is not the direct responsibility of the hon. the Minister’s department, he is, after all, the Minister of Community Development, and I suggest that he has a responsibility to discuss the matter with the Minister of Finance and to provide the means for resolving this problem. We on this side of the House have suggested various methods to him in the past, and I think it is time the Government gave serious consideration to these methods and introduced some of them at any rate.

I want to deal briefly with a few other matters. The hon. the Minister, in reply to the question which I put earlier in the session, said that he intended to introduce legislation to extend the dates from which appreciation contributions in respect of affected property become payable to the Community Development Board in terms of the Community Development Act. I want to point out to the hon. the Minister that these periods expire early next year. Unless they are extended during this session, considerable hardship could result.

I am going to deal with that.

Thank you.

As far as rent control is concerned, the report of the Johannes Committee of Inquiry has been with the Minister for two years. I suggest it is ridiculous for the Government to dither for so long on a matter affecting so many people. The problems which caused the Government to appoint the committee are still there. In fact, even more problems exist. There are more complaints today. I believe that the public in general, and landlords and tenants in particular, are entitled to know the findings of what was in fact an expensive inquiry paid for with taxpayers’ money and conducted by busy business people. I call upon the Minister and the Government to stop dithering over this matter, to table the report, and to get on with the job of amending the Act.

The question of sectional title is not directly the responsibility of the Minister, since it comes within the jurisdiction of the Minister of Justice. However, it was hoped that this Act would assist in alleviating the housing shortage. It is clear from an answer I received from the hon. the Minister of Justice today that very few sectional title applications have been made. Very few transfers of ownership in units have been made. In fact, there have only been 14 in Pretoria, 4 in Pietermaritzburg, 6 in Cape Town and 25 in Johannesburg. That relates to deeds registries, and not necessarily the towns themselves. I think the hon. the Minister should discuss with the hon. the Minister of Justice whether the time has not come to consider during the early stages of the session of Parliament next year the possible appointment of another Select Committee to consider whether amendments to the Act should not be made to make it more effective and workable, and easier to implement generally.

Finally, I must draw the hon. the Minister’s attention to the fact that once again we have to discuss his Vote with a report which is very much out of date. The latest report of the department is for the period ending 31 December 1972. We have made complaints in the past on this subject, and I believe it is something which the hon. the Minister and his department should do something about. The House is entitled to have up-to-date reports of the department. If it is not the case, we are not getting the full information necessary to debate the Vote.

In the time still available to me I merely want to raise the following matters. I particularly want to ask the hon. the Minister and his department to rethink completely the matter of the provision of housing in South Africa. I hope that if not in this debate, we shall at least hear from the hon. the Minister early next session about the new thinking and the new approaches of his department and of the Government to a serious problem which already exists and which could, as I have said, develop into crisis proportions if proper steps are not taken to deal with the matter soon. If it cannot be done during this Vote, then at least it should be done during he early part of the next session.

Mr. Chairman, I want to associate myself at once with the welcome extended by the hon. the Minister to Mr. Louis Fouche as the new Secretary for this department. I think that he has already, at this stage, made a tremendous impact on the department with his humanity, his thoroughness and his total dedication to the demands of housing in South Africa. We from our side want to wish him all of the best for his period of service.

I am scarcely able to reply to the hon. member who has just resumed his seat because he dealt with such a potpourri that it would take more than half an hour to reply to it whereas we only have 10 minutes to speak.

To start with, I think it would be as well to state a few basic facts on the basis of which we can advance our arguments without scoring political points off one another. The first fact is that this Government is doing an enormous amount in respect of housing for all races in South Africa. From 1948 to 1972, no less than R670 million has been spent on 232 000 living units in South Africa. I want to deal with the more recent period, namely the period from 1970 to 1974. During this period, 58 000 Coloured houses and 25 000 houses for Whites have been built. Secondly, I want to say that notwithstanding this fact, there is still a backlog, chiefly in respect of Coloured housing, and specifically Coloured housing in the Cape Peninsula. There are enormous numbers of squatters in the Cape Peninsula today, estimated at about 21 000 families, and I believe that the extent of that squatter problem is causing us deep concern. I believe that all parties in this House will make an honest attempt to find a solution to this squatter problem.

Thirdly, I want to state as a fact that between the census years 1960 to 1970, the Coloured population of the Cape has risen by 181 000, or 44%. This gives some indication of why the problem in respect of Coloured housing is such a major one.

Fourthly, I want to mention that the responsibility for Coloured housing has devolved chiefly upon the State. We must take into account that the municipality of Cape Town and the divisional councils of Cape Town and Stellenbosch will together have to build 48 000 houses for Coloureds within the following five years. Forty-eight per cent of the Coloured population within the Cape Town municipal area are already living in houses provided by the city council with the aid of State funds. If we add to this the number of houses provided to Coloured individuals with a 90% loan in terms of the house-ownership scheme, we can see that more than 50% of this particular race group are already living in houses financed by the State. This gives an indication of the enormity of the task of providing Coloured housing.

Against this background I want to dwell a moment on the squatters and the squatter problem in the Cape Peninsula. Besides other factors that lead to squatting, it is also an indisputable fact that a substantial percentage of squatter families are not only economically unhousable, but they also fall into a category that is not capable of complying with socially acceptable norms. They are the people who do not want to live under better conditions. Squatting is part of their philosophy of life. I want to go so far as to say that they are among the foremost exponents of the cult of freedom. In other words, such a person pays no rent or tax and has no worries about house-ownership. He is like the lily of the field: He spins not neither does he weave, but if “tomorrow is another day”, he is happy.

Such a group is the group of squatters to be found in the area known as “Muizen-berg free land”, which is really city council land intended for White housing. A survey made in that free land area shows that 80% of the heads of families living on the free land earn a significant salary, in other words, they qualify for municipal housing. What is very important is that 35% of those families have moved to Cape Town over the past two years. The greatest percentage of those who have moved apparently come from Marina da Gama. Recently the hon. members for Pinelands and Orange Grove visited that area and after their visit they issued a statement to The Argus. Time does not allow me to go into the details of the statement. I do not have time now to point out certain serious errors in their statement. What is important to me in that statement, is the essence of it as contained in the heading of the article, namely “Progs in call to legalize squatting”. In fact, in this statement they are pleading for something similar to a “site and service” scheme in which provision is made for water, sanitary and rubbish removal and where every squatter can knock together his own shack. As long ago as last year the hon. member for Green Point pleaded this case in the same light when he discussed a Revenue Vote. One appreciates the spirit of urgency displayed by hon. members in regard to this problem, but in my opinion neither this nor any other Government can put the official stamp of approval on squatting because they would thereby be giving it permanence. I do think, though, that there is a middle way for which we ought to have the co-operation of the Opposition and for which I want to plead here today. The Cape Divisional Council has a scheme in Elsies River in accordance with which families are temporarily accommodated in a transit camp until permanent housing is available for them. For this purpose they have prefabricated wood and tin structures with an asbestos roof that can be partitioned into four rooms and which have a floor area varying between 380 and 400 square feet. The cost of those structures, amounts to about R500. The Faculty of Architecture of the University of Cape Town fully accepts those designs. That says a great deal because they are not people who will try to make things easier for us. Our difficulty now is that the Department of Community Development has not yet approved this development as an emergency measure, with the result that loan funds are not available for this purpose. The Director of Housing of the Cape Divisional Council informs me that if they could find loans for development of this kind, within one year the Divisional Council would be able to accommodate all squatters in their service area, except those squatters in Elsies River, at a cost of about R2 000 000. That is why I want to make a very earnest plea this afternoon for the hon. the Minister to give his personal attention to this scheme and for the department to consider financing this kind of development. I think that this is really the only way in which we will be able to make a significant impact on this problem in the short time at our disposal. I want to concede that there are dangers inherent in this scheme, too, dangers I hope to deal with if there is an opportunity to do so arises in the discussion of this Vote. The one very definite condition we must set for this kind of development is that it should not take place in groups of larger than 200 units. That is the size of scheme that the local authorities will be able to handle to good effect. The capital expense in respect of these schemes can be recovered over a period of seven years because one would want to keep these rents as high as possible. This may seem a strange statement, but the Cape Divisional Council finds that if this rent is not kept at a level equivalent to that of a normal house, they find it difficult to get those people transferred from that house. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I am very happy to be able to follow the hon. member for Tygervallei in the problem that he has raised and his suggested means of combating it, viz. the question of squatting. When I made some remarks in this regard earlier during this session and referred to the question of site-and-service schemes, I did so because I myself had had the opportunity of seeing the working of a site-and-service scheme in a very poor country, viz. Malawi. I have the report here in relation to what was done. In Blantyre itself there were something like 100 000 squatters living in one area. They were causing some trouble as far as the city was concerned. The authorities did not merely tell these people: “You cannot squat here; you must move somewhere else.” These people were put on the road towards appreciation of home ownership and what it means to own a piece of ground. This was what was done. An area was laid out with elementary roads. Sites of approximately 4 000 sq. ft. were measured out and water points were put in. These sites were then let to individuals to take occupation of them. They are permitted to build their own homes. The basic construction material there is of course mud blocks but they are supplied with a stable-type door and two window frames for about R3 or R4. They then build their own homes. It has been remarkable to see how many of these squatters who started off with a very temporary and unsightly building have, within a short period, built something better. As one of the officials of the Malawi Housing Corporation said to me, they start trying to keep up with the Joneses. They find that the person next door has a better house than they have and so they start improving their own home. I do not feel that the hon. member for Tygervallei is correct when he states that the Coloured people are in the state that they are in because they have no desire to uplift themselves. I believe that we have vast areas on the Cape Flats which could be laid out under these site-and-service schemes where these people could be set on the road towards acquiring a pride in owning their own home. In Malawi the sites are made available at a very nominal rental and the lease was over a very long period. Up there, if they work and they wish to buy some building blocks or something of that nature to build their own homes, they are assisted to buy these at a very cheap price. I should like to show the hon. the Minister some photographs which I took myself to show how this scheme does work in relation to poor people who do not have the finance to buy homes and who are given an incentive to uplift themselves and become a strong community.

I want to say that, as most of us are, I am extremely worried at the present time about the shortage of housing in this country. When we stress this fact, we are not trying to minimize what has been done by the department. I believe, however, that the situation is such that we have to think of new ways of dealing with this problem. It is shattering to find that if a young person wants to buy a house these days, let us say for R12 000, and he can get himself an 80% bond on the normal market, he needs a cash sum of R2 819 to pay his deposit and the transfer costs of the bond. He also has to pay R105 monthly over a bond period of 1*5 years or R95 monthly over a period of 25 years in interest and redemption charges on that 80% bond bearing interest at 10.5%. When one adds to this rates and taxes and so forth, one realizes that it is virtually impossible for a young person to obtain a house on this basis unless he is in a very much higher category than the people who are most urgently in need of housing. They need this housing. There is a wide gap between those people who are covered by the economic and sub economic housing schemes of the department and those who can afford to acquire homes on the open market. Another matter which I believe we in South Africa, and the department, should be thinking very seriously about is to avoid obsolescence of existing buildings. In my constituency as it has now been delimitated, one is amazed, coming through the Woodstock area into the city, to find the very well-built terraces of houses which outwardly have become dilapidated and look as though they are almost “bouvallig”. But. Sir, they are not in fact. What has happened is that over a period of time nothing has been done to improve them and to modernize them. One only has to look what happened in Cape Town where Coloureds have been moved out of homes in Loader Street, off High Level Road, and in Newlands and other places to realize what can be done for the renovation of existing premises. I believe that we should look into the system which applies in Great Britain and which I learned about when I attended the National Building Research Congress earlier this year in Durban. In Britain they have a system of improvement grants—in the time at my disposal I cannot go into the details—under which owners can get State funds in order to modernize or at least to improve and to make these types of buildings more habitable. Sir, the Prime Minister has recently seen at Tulbagh, for example, what can be done to restore buildings. That sort of restoration is being done throughout the country. But here in our very midst, in what we sometimes regard as slum areas, there are buildings or terraces of buildings with character which could be made highly desirable residences for people at very low rentals.

Can they not be assisted through the local authorities?

In the United Kingdom that is done. There it is done through the local authorities. The local authority authorizes the renovation and funds are made available very much in the same way as the Housing Commission here makes funds available to local authorities for building schemes. They also make funds available for renovation schemes. I believe that that should be done and can be done.

Sir, there are just two other matters that I want to mention in the time that is left to me. The first is the question of tax rebates on bond instalments. This is something for which I have asked over and over again. The information I have from the United Kingdom is that where this allowance is made on properties up to a value of £25 000, an 11 % mortage rate is reduced to 7,73%. This is an appreciable concession, and it brings houses within the reach of many people. Many young married people are able to acquire a home of their own if instead of having to pay the current rate of 11% or 10½%, the real rate is reduced to 7,73%. Sir, I believe that this is something to which the Government should give attention. We can do it in this country; we can afford to do it, and if we do it it will help considerably to relieve the housing shortage.

Finally, Sir, I want to appeal again to the hon. the Minister in regard to the embargo placed on White non-profit companies in regard to the building of houses for the Coloured people. Sir, the Citizens’ Housing League in Cape Town has a proud record over a period of 40 years. During that period they established housing schemes such as Bishop Lavis Township and others for Coloureds on the Cape Flats. They also built housing for Whites. But in the year 1963 they were prevented from building housing for Coloureds, although they wanted to do it. The same applies to the Pinelands Development Corporation. They started schemes in the Cape Flats and towards the Muizenberg area for Coloureds, and again they were told that they could not build for Coloureds but only for Whites. Sir, these people are prepared to do this work. They have the business establishment to do it, and I do think that the hon. the Minister should reconsider the embargo which has been placed on this type of organization and that he should allow them to get on with this job. They are prepared to do it; they are willing and can do it effectively and economically for the benefit of the Coloured people to alleviate the housing shortage in that particular field.

Mr. Chairman, the pessimism which was evinced by the hon. members of the Opposition about the housing shortage is something we can understand on account of the unrest prevailing in their ranks, so much so that many of them feel they no longer have a political home. In contrast with that I do want to agree with the hon. member for Musgrave, i.e. that it is a known fact that, in view of the natural increase in population and the immigrants that are entering the country at such a rapid rate, the South African building industry will have to repeat the total achievements of the past 300 years within the next 30 years—in other words, that we shall have to provide the same number of dwelling units within the next 30 years as have been built in the past 300 years. Now, the question is how we are going to manage this, especially in the light of prevailing economic conditions and rising costs, as a result of which the ability of people to afford housing poses an ever greater problem. The hon. member for Musgrave’s solution is that we should make greater use of private undertakings, but surely this is once again a question of money and of where that money is to be found. But I think the solution is to be found in this: Keep this National Party in power for the next 30 years and, just as they have done with all the other major problems, they will solve this one, too. [Interjections.] It is with pride that we can say that as far as the provision of housing is concerned—and in referring to our lower and middle income groups, I mean Whites, Bantu, Coloureds and Indians—this National Party Government has a very fine record, if we consider that since 1957 an amount of R540 million has been made available to the Housing Commission for housing purposes. On the latest Estimates alone, we notice that a further amount of R58 million is being made available. But the fact remains that there will always be a housing shortage. Surely it is unthinkable that we will ever have a state of affairs where every person in South Africa will readily be able to walk into a house and call it his own and say that he now has what he was so anxious to have. But at the same time I also think it is unreasonable to blame the Department of Community Development for that shortage. Surely there are other bodies, too, who have a responsibility and are able to help. [Interjection.] There the hon. member for Durban Central says that the town councils should help. I want to agree with him. Local authorities, too, have that responsibility, the responsibility of providing for housing by undertaking housing schemes for the middle and lower income groups. But I have reservations about many of our local authorities which are not willing to cooperate and make provision for the establishment of sufficient housing schemes for those lower and middle income groups, because there are local authorities which are more obsessed with the establishment of prestige residential areas so that only the higher income groups are catered for as far as housing is concerned. We have frequently heard the complaint from the man in the street that he cannot afford a house, and I have sympathy with him. This is true. There are many people who are struggling to obtain houses and to pay for them, but has the time not arrived for us to do some soul-searching and ask ourselves whether all those luxuries in housing are really necessary? This is perhaps a question we might ask ourselves, for I am amazed when I hear how some people complain about the cost of housing and the instalments attendant upon it. Should one go to that house, one would see all the luxuries which have been incorporated there, luxuries which that person knows he cannot afford. Throughout the country, under the economic schemes, very neat and respectable three-bedroomed houses are being made available to our people by the department at a cost of R8 000 to R9 000. I have also had the experience that if one moves one kilometre away from that economic scheme, one sees houses of the same size offered for sale for at least three times that price by a private construction firm. I am not trying to say that the higher building costs of the “spec” builder are the only reason for this situation. I say it is those unnecessary luxuries which are built into those houses. I want to concede that increased building costs also contribute to housing being more expensive, but is the land set aside and developed as a residential area not being utilized un-economically? Are the large stands on which houses are build really necessary? It is calculated that the cost of services in respect of a stand approximately 900 sq. metres in extent constitutes about 40% of the ultimate purchase price, while the cost of services for a stand of 750 m2—which I regard as quite adequate—is 25% lower. Smaller stands will not only make it possible for the man in the street to own his own property, but will also, I believe, offer a solution to the tremendous increases in rates which are constantly taking place in our towns. It would result in the man in the street also being able to afford those rates.

On page 8 of the latest report, under the heading “Symposium on high-density housing: a new way of life”, I see that certain recommendations are being made. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister can tell us how much progress has been made with the resolutions adopted at that symposium as far as this department is concerned. I think one other fact which we will perhaps have to face and accept, whether we like it or not, is that the average salary-earner will be compelled to abandon the traditional way of life as far as housing is concerned. We shall have to accept that the solution to this problem is, to a large extent, to be found in high-density housing. I personally see nothing wrong with that, provided it is well planned so that every prospective home-owner may obtain and afford the necessary facilities.

Mr. Chairman, I do not intend following up on what the hon. member for Boksburg said. I should like to return to an issue raised by the hon. members for Tygervallei and Green Point, i.e. the question of squatting. I appreciate the fact that the hon. member for Tygervallei mentioned that they too were concerned about this problem and did not see any necessity for making the problem of squatting a party political issue. At the same time the hon. member referred to the fact that the department of architecture of the U.C.T. was busy with research along these lines at the moment and is also prepared to assist in any way to alleviate this problem. I should just like to refer to this fact because, when I was at university in the department of sociology, I was involved with research in collaboration with the department of architecture. My third-year students at the time visited many of these squatter camps and I can assure the hon. member for Tygervallei that these people are not as happy and carefree as he suggests they are. The living conditions in which they find themselves are not as pleasing as he suggests they possibly are.

However, I think the important point to make is that the squatting problem can only he understood against the general background of Coloured housing. When we talk about squatters we talk about what the hon. the Deputy Minister mentioned to be about 108 500 people in the greater Cape Town area. When we look at the squatting problem against the problem of housing, it must be borne in mind that it is estimated that 42% of the Coloured population live under inadequate housing conditions. It is further estimated that in 1972 we already had a housing backlog of approximately 41 500 houses. The other day in reply to a question the hon. the Deputy Minister mentioned in the House that the backlog for the total Coloured population in 1974 was 50 000 houses. If we want to accommodate the normal population increase in the Coloured population calculated at 3.6% per annum, then we shall have to build approximately 40 000 houses, by 1980, but at the moment it is planned to provide 50 000 house by this time. Therefore, with the present housing schemes and programmes we would barely be able to accommodate the normal increase in the Coloured population. This does not take into account the existing housing shortage, the people who are removed in terms of the Group Areas Act and the people who are moving in through the process or urbanization.

Returning to the possible solution mentioned by the hon. member for Tygervallei, I want to point out that transit camps will become permanent squatter communities. I want to make a couple of suggestions which I sincerely hope the hon. the Minister will take into consideration. These suggestions refer to a possible solution in order to cope with this problem and I really make them not in a party political spirit. I do not think one should make a party political issue of this. The first point which we have to realize is that squatting is a permanent problem and that it will remain with us for the foreseeable future. We cannot talk about solving the housing problem and think that we will thereby solve the squatting problem. We are going to have squatters in the greater Cape Town area for the foreseeable future and by that I mean for the next 30 to 40 years. Once we have accepted this position, then we have to realize that there is a short-term as well as a long-term solution to the squatting problem. The long-term solution is obviously to provide houses eventually, whether we do it by accommodating squatters in existing communities or by the creating of transit camps for them before they can be accommodated in such communities. The short-term solution, on the other hand, is to allocate areas in the greater Cape Town area where people can squat legally. This is the only way in which we can do it.

I know that the Government is extremely sensitive about this because it could then be used as an accusation that the Government does not provide housing and therefore legalizes squatting. However, we are simply closing our eyes to a problem which exists in any case. If we do demarcate these areas which would serve as rudimentary forms of transit camps we can provide basic facilities such as water, sewage and perhaps even basic building materials so that these people can provide some kind of dwelling for themselves. I can assure the hon. the Minister that if he moves into these squatter camps he will find that although they look like heaps of rubble, as we who have flown over these camps in order to land at D, F. Malan Airport have seen, there are social communities in those camps. Such a community operates in a way which we cannot possibly understand. These people have a social system of their own, but we can help them to live under better conditions and we can help them to develop a sense of community development in such areas.

A third method of solving this problem which I am afraid may become a controversial issue, is to stop removals in terms of the Group Areas Act until we have adequately housed those who do not have houses at the moment. Why remove people from places where they do have houses and then put them into houses specially built for them instead of for those who do not have houses? I know that 50% of the new houses built have to be allocated to so-called “misplaced persons” in terms of the Group Areas Act. You will remember, Sir, that a few weeks ago Prof. Erica Theron made mention of this. She is, after all, the chairman of the commission of inquiry into the Coloured population. She said that it was necessary as far as possible to stop group area removals in order to accommodate those people who do not have houses at the present moment. I think it is very important that this factor should also be taken into account.

Another point I would like to make—it has already been made by a previous speaker—is that the Government should assist local governments with interest-free loans to cope with the problem of providing housing. These local authorities, as well as the Government, should proceed as fast as possible with existing housing programmes. Sir, I want to assure you that if these suggestions can be followed, just to cope with the problem of squatting, I myself will be prepared never to make a party political issue of the whole question of squatting. I can assure you also, Sir, in the light of the research I have done in this field, that there are many bodies throughout the whole spectrum of the political scene that would be willing to assist. Industry, various departments of universities, local government bodies and even voluntary organizations in the greater metropolitan area of Cape Town will be willing to assist to cope with the problem of squatting. At the moment everybody blames the Government. Everybody says, “Well, the Government is falling behind with its building programme and is not going to be able to cope with the question of squatting.” At the same time, however, there is a certain impermanence about the situation of the squatters on the Cape Flats.

*Sir, I feel very strongly about this matter, because I think we are going to have a major problem in the Cape area alone within the next five or ten years. This does not apply to the Cape Province alone, but also to the urban areas in Natal and in Johannesburg where the whole question of squatting is going to become thé social problem of those areas. I just feel that there is some potential in these communities— I am speaking from limited but nevertheless first-hand experience—which we could utilize, if only we displayed some realism and did not pretend that these people did not exist, and proceeded with building programmes we are unable to complete rapidly enough or with all kinds of interim measures which do not penetrate to the heart of the matter in any case.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Rondebosch, who has just resumed his seat, raised a very serious matter here which is assuming fairly wide proportions, particularly in the Cape Peninsula. But whether the solution he suggests would really be a solution, I very much doubt. The problem is that he is asking for money to be made available to provide a kind of service which would not really be positive nor would it really contribute towards solving the problem. Even though we were to try to make the building material available for structures of that kind, it would seem that we should get nowhere that way. But what is more, if one legalizes squatting, one would simply encourage to an even greater extent the influx of people from elsewhere, particularly from the country areas to the city. It is a fact today that local authorities, the city councils and the various divisional councils in the Peninsula, are placing a damper on this influx of people by not allowing squatting. I therefore have very serious misgivings. We realize that this is a very thorny problem, but I very much doubt whether we would be able to solve it in this way.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 23.