Mr. Speaker, I move—

1. (1) from Saturday, 26 October, Saturdays shall be sitting days, and on these days the hours of sitting shall be 10 a.m. to 12.45 p.m.;
2. (2) from Monday, 28 October, the hours of sitting shall be—
   1. (a) Mondays to Thursdays:
      10 a.m. to 12.45 p.m.
      2.15 p.m. to 6.30 p.m.
      8 p.m. to 10.30 p.m.
   2. (b) Fridays:
      10 a.m. to 12.45 p.m.
      2.15 p.m. to 6.30 p.m.

Sir, I do not think it is necessary for me to elaborate in detail on this motion. I think hon. members realize by this time that we should take every possible step to conclude this session as soon as possible. We started with evening sittings late in this session, we shall only start with morning sittings towards the end of the session, and for that reason I feel at liberty to introduce this motion at this late stage. In this motion it is proposed that as from Saturday we sit every morning until we finish next week. The Whips on the various sides of the House have agreed that this is in order, and I assume that hon. members on both sides of the House will concur in it. The only difference between this and the programme we discussed with one another is that I am now reserving Tuesday evening as well for the purpose of evening sittings—in other words, that as from Monday we shall have morning, afternoon and evening sittings. I have added Tuesday evening for the sake of extra safety, in case it should be necessary. Should we require that extended time, we could therefore use that time. I shall not make you sit longer than is really necessary. If we agree to this motion, the position will be that if we do not discuss the other legislation at too great length—the time for the stages of the Appropriation Bill is fixed, except for speeches made by my colleagues … [Interjections.] Unfortunately my colleagues have to speak in order to bring the truth home to you, but I have asked them, too, to speak more briefly. I am therefore asking this of all of you. If we follow this policy, I think we shall finish in this House by Thursday. I am not able to give any guarantees as far as the Other Place is concerned, but I think we may finish here on Thursday. You know that we still have quite a number of Votes and a great deal of legislation, including legislation relating to taxation, left to deal with. I cannot give any guarantees in respect of the Senate, but I hope that on Friday we shall have finished everything here, I think, Sir, everybody will agree with me that it is necessary for us to pass this resolution.

Sir, it is essential for the proper and efficient working of Parliament that there be meaningful cooperation between the Whips of the different parties and the Leader of the House. There can only be proper planning if the Whips know what legislation and other measures will be introduce and laid before the House and what more is expected of us. Now, Sir, what has been our experience this session? On 27 September the Acting Leader of the House told us, obviously in good faith, that the Government hoped to dispose of the legislation up to and including No. 23 on that Order Paper. Item 23 was the consideration of the Report of the Select Committee on Railways and Harbours. He went on to say that legislation added to the Order Paper subsequent to that date would probably have to stand over. We were told too that apart from that legislation we would also have legislation dealing with pensions, the Post Office Service Bill, the General Law Amendment Bill, the Defence Bill and customary financial measures which would still have to be introduced. The object of an announcement of this nature is to enable members to plan for their change of residence, the schooling of their children and their transport home. Hon. members were first given to understand that the session would probably finish by the 26th of this month, i.e. at the end of this week, but on the 11th of this month the Acting Leader told us that those who thought we would finish by then would certainly have to make other arrangements, because obviously arrangements had already been made by members. He hoped that we would be able to finish by the end of this month. It seems, however, that even with the additional sitting hours now proposed by the hon. the Leader of the House we will be lucky if we terminate the session by the end of this month.

What has happened to the Order Paper? We are now to proceed also with the National Parks Amendment Bill, which was No. 17 on the Order Paper then. Thus it was not to be considered at that stage but now it has been transmitted to the Senate to be dealt with first there. Thereafter it will be introduced in this House. In addition we have the Companies Amendment Bill, which was not on the Order Paper, the Hotels Amendment Bill, the University of the Orange Free State Amendment Bill, the Railways Construction Bill, the Group Areas Amendment Bill and two new Bills of which notice was given yesterday and another Bill of which notice has been given today. Also, two Bills which we were given to understand were to be withdrawn and which were actually withdrawn, have been included in the General Law Amendment Bill. I refer to the Magistrates Court Bill and the Liquor Amendment Bill. Now, we have already voiced our disapproval of this action. I will not take it further except again to reiterate that we deprecate this ruse to circumvent an announcement by the Leader of the House. I shall be the first, Sir, to admit that both the Leader of the House and the Minister of Defence, who acted for him while he was away, have done their best to avoid these additional sitting hours. They have left over the announcement as long as possible. But I say that before they try to fix the date for the prorogation of Parliament in future, they must make absolutely certain what legislation is still to be introduced.

Hear, hear!

If the Leader of the House takes a strong line with his Cabinet colleagues and makes it quite clear that after he has told Parliament what legislation will be dealt with, he will not allow further legislation, we can estimate more correctly the final date without the additional sitting hours. When the new rules were agreed to in 1964, it was thought that we would avoid lengthy sittings. Nobody can ever pretend that lengthy sitting hours make for good legislation.

I hope the hon. the Leader of the House will not do what his predecessor so monotonously did every year by telling us that he expected us to object, that if he had been in the Opposition he would have objected too. We do not want that kind of reply. What we want the hon. the Leader of the House to tell us now is that he has done pretty well this session, that he will do better in the future and that he will see to it that his colleagues introduce their Bills in time.

Hear, hear!

When the hon. the Minister says that he is pleased that the Whips agreed … [Interjections.] I want to point out that we did not agree to lengthy additional sitting hours. All we discussed was which would be preferable, morning sittings or evening sittings.

Or a time-limit.

I do not want the hon. the Leader of the House to think that because we discussed the matter of which would be preferable, i.e. morning sittings or evening sittings, that we agreed to these sitting hours.

This is his first session as Leader of the House. We have got on very well with him. He has worked well with the Whips. We shall not vote against him on this occasion, but this is a warning that in future we will do so unless he gets his colleagues to cooperate with us.

Mr. Speaker, it does not surprise me that the hon. member protested against this motion. It surprises me that he did not protest. That hon. member has been in Parliament for 26 years.

Too many.

He knows that, in all the time during which he has been a member of this House, the legislative programme has never progressed exactly as we expected it to do. He knows we have never had one single year in this Parliament in which we were able to determine the times accurately.

In the days of the U.P. they were even longer.

He knows that in all the other years we started with evening sittings and with morning sittings at a much earlier stage. I think he should really have risen to thank us for not having started with the evening sittings and the morning sittings at as early a stage. I shall now do the opposite. I am sorry about what has happened. I was not fully aware of what my hon. friend had arranged in my absence. Besides, we do not always know what legislation will become important at a given moment. The Government has, on its part, tried its best. I think my hon. friend, with whom I co-operated very well on the Whips Committee, should express his gratitude for our having in fact succeeded, despite having so few evening sittings and so few morning sittings, to get so near to the mark that we shall be proroguing as soon as the 30th of this month.

Will you do better next year?

Yes, I shall do better.

Motion agreed to.

Order! Before I call upon hon. members to address the Committee I must point out that the principle contained in this clause has been fully discussed at the Second Reading. In accordance with the practice of this House I shall accordingly only permit two Opposition members, say one of the United Party and one of the Progressive Party, to state their objections to this clause and the Minister to reply. The same position applies to clause 10. Further discussion will be strictly confined to the details of the clauses and the amendments to such details.

Mr. Chairman, in terms of your ruling there can only be limited discussion on clause 1 of this Bill, because, as you have said, there has been a full discussion on this matter at the Second Reading.

This Bill is in effect a two-clause Bill and the principle involved in both those clauses, viz. clauses 1 and 10, are very much the same. Because of the nature of the amending Bill, viz. a Bill to empower the Transkei and other homeland Governments to legislate in certain fields, and because of the way the Bill is framed, it is of necessity so that the discussion at this stage will cover almost the same ground as we have covered at Second Reading. I therefore do not propose to go into detail on the merits of clause 1 save to summarize our point of view. Being a party that believes in the rule of law and a party which believes that there can be legitimate invasions of the rule of law by the Executive only in times of war or in a state akin to a national emergency, we are opposed to granting the powers which are set out in clause 1. A perusal of the Bill will show that these powers are very wide and, if passed, will enable the legislative authority of the Transkei to prohibit organizations, membership of organizations, the objects of such organizations and the prohibition or restrictions of individuals being office bearers of those organizations. It can also prohibit the publication of speeches of any individual.

All this can be done in order to maintain public safety, public peace or good government. This is framed in such wide terms that it could be used, as we have said at an earlier stage, for almost any purpose indeed. We shall for those reasons, of course, be voting against clause 1. Nevertheless, it is the function of an Opposition at the Committee Stage, even if one is against a clause, to try to limit its bad effects. For that reason I move the amendment printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

In terms of the amendment as drafted, the exercise of the powers of banning, and so forth, can be exercised only with the prior approval of the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development. We believe that it would be an improvement of an admittedly bad clause if it were not merely a ministerial approval which had to be granted, but that the more formal approval of the State President were required to be given. That would mean that the exercise of this particular power in any case would have to be placed before the Cabinet. There would have to be a justification for its use; there would also have to be a recommendation to the State President who, in turn, would apply his mind to the matter. Because that more formal procedure would make the granting of this power less easy, we believe that it would improve what is nevertheless a bad clause and a clause which, nevertheless, we shall be opposing.

Mr. Chairman, as the hon. member for Umhlatuzana has just said, the arguments against this Bill, which are mostly aimed at the principle contained in clause 1, the one we are now discussing, were very thoroughly canvassed yesterday during the Second Reading debate. I have little to add to what I have already said on behalf of these benches. I just want to say that nothing which the hon. the Minister said in reply to the debate yesterday has in any way assuaged my fear about the powers which are being given to the Transkei Assembly in terms of clause 1 of this Bill. They are very wide powers indeed. My party is against the extension of any such arbitrary powers to any of the homeland Governments, and in this case the Transkeian Government, which we are discussing now.

The hon. the Minister did emphasize to us, discussing this clause yesterday, that of course any powers used under the clause would be subject to his approval. That is provided for in the second part of the clause we are discussing. I want to put it to the hon. the Minister that he is, believe it or not, after all, only mortal. It is possible that this benign Minister, who is going to exercise these powers with such care and obviously is not going to approve of any abuse of such powers, is, like all other mortals, going to pass on into the night, so to speak. It may very well be that he is replaced by a Minister who is not as careful and painstaking, someone who will not scrutinize the powers the Transkeian Assembly will use under this clause, as the hon. the present Minister will no doubt do. The powers which he is enshrining today will be exercised after he has gone, and we certainly would not, in any case, be prepared to leave the administration of such powers in his hands, let alone in the hands of a Minister whom we do not even know. For those reasons alone our fears have not in any way been set at rest by the fact that the Minister says we have all forgotten that in the second subsection of this particular clause there is a limiting factor, viz. the approval of the hon. the Minister.

I would also like to ask the hon. the Minister to reply to the question as to whether or not he intends to keep proclamation 400 on the Statute Book now that he is giving these powers to the Transkeian Government. Yesterday I detailed the powers which the Transkeian Government has had since 1960 under a so-called emergency regulation. They are very wide powers indeed. Now, however, under the clause we are discussing, the hon. the Minister proposes to give almost as wide powers again to the Transkeian Government. Is there a necessity to keep proclamation 400 in effect in the Transkei?

Order! I think the hon. member is going too far. We are not dealing with proclamation 400.

Sir, these two measures contain similar powers, and I want to know from the hon. the Minister why he is giving these powers when they are already in existence as far as the Transkei is concerned. They are particularly applicable to the Transkei. What is the necessity for this clause when similar powers have been exercised in the Transkei since 1960? We are going to vote against this clause, and I would like a reply from the hon. the Minister on this particular issue.

Mr. Chairman, I want to start by replying to the arguments raised by the hon. member for Houghton. Just like the hon. member, I also have very little to add to what I said yesterday. Just as the hon. member was not persuaded by me, I was not persuaded by what she said today. The hon. member asked me a question in regard to proclamation 400 and, if you will allow me, Mr. Chairman, I want to say to the hon. member that proclamation 400 and the legislation which is before us do not cover exactly the same field.

Not exactly, but close enough.

That is the one reason why proclamation 400 cannot just be repealed. The main reason for that, and the actual reply to her question is that as long as proclamation 400 is regarded as necessary and is desired by the Transkeian Government, as I have said so many times already in reply to similar questions by the hon. member, it will be retained. If it is no longer necessary and it is not desired, the position can be reviewed.

*As far as what was said by the hon. member for Umhlatuzana is concerned, I want to point out that in his first few sentences the hon. member dealt with the clause in fairly general terms. It is not necessary for me to deal with it in general, because we dealt with it yesterday and during the previous stages. There is really no need, not even for record purposes, to repeat it here.

The hon. member moved an amendment to which I should like to reply. I have to point out that if this amendment were to be accepted, it would really have the effect of involving the State President in issues which may often be of a quite personal nature in the area concerned as well as in issues which may moreover take on a strong party-political colour. One cannot, in fact, talk about it with any certainty, but one can anticipate it. These days we are trying to keep the State President out of such personal anomalies and discrepancies. We do not wish to involve him in them. Secondly, I think the hon. member will agree with me that if the words “the State President” were to be substituted for the words “the Minister”, which would have the effect of providing that the State President was to be the co-ordinating and the controlling agent, there would have to be further insertions in the Bill as well so as to lay down the procedure of how the State President was to be reached by the persons concerned. Otherwise some enabling provision would have to be inserted in terms of which that procedure may be prescribed by regulation. For these reasons I regret having to tell the hon. member that I cannot accept the amendment. However, I want to give the hon. member food for thought. When the Bill was being drafted, we thought along the lines of what the hon. member said today, i.e. whether involving the State President should be considered. For the reasons I have just outlined to hon. members, and also as a result of legal advice we had taken, we decided against it. Therefore, I regret that I am unable to accept the amendment.

Amendment negatived (Official Opposition and Progressive Party dissenting).

Clause put and the Committee divided:

AYES—95: Albertyn, J. T.; Aucamp, P. L. S.; Barnard, S. P.; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, J. C. G.; Botha, L. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, S. P.; Botma, M. C.; Clase, P. J.; Coetsee, H. J.; Coetzee, S. F.; Cronje, P.; De Klerk, F. W.; De Villiers, D. J.; Diederichs, N.; Du Plessis, A. H.; Du Plessis, B. J.; Du Plessis, G. F. C.; Du Plessis, G. C.; Du Plessis, P. T. C.; Du Toit, J. P.; Engelbrecht, J. J.; Erasmus, A. S. D.; Greeff, J. W.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Hartzenberg, F.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Hefer, W. J.; Herman, F.; Heunis, J. C.; Hoon, J. H.; Horn, J. W. L.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotze, G. J.; Kotzé, S. F.; Kotzé, W. D.; Krijnauw, P. H. J.; Kruger, J. T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J. (Brakpan); Le Roux, F. J. (Hercules); Le Roux, J. P. C.; Lloyd, J. J.; Loots, J. J.; Louw, E.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; McLachlan, R.; Meyer, P. H.; Morrison, G. de V.; Muller, H.; 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.; Potgieter, J. E.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Schoeman, H.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Swiegers, J. G.; Terblanche, G. P. D.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Uys, C.; Van den Berg, J. C.; Van der Walt, H. J. D.; Van Heerden. R. F.; Van Rensburg, H. M. J.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Wyk, A. C. (Maraisburg); Van Wyk, A. C. (Winburg); Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, A. A.; Viljoen, M.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Vilonel, J. J.; Vlok, A. J.; Volker, V. A.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, W. L.

Tellers: J. M. Henning, A. van Breda, C. V. van der Merwe and W. L. van der Merwe.

NOTES—41: Aronson, T.; Bartlett, G. S.; Baxter, D. D.; Bell, H. G. H.; Boraine, A. L.; Cadman, R. M.; Dalling, D. J.; De Villiers, I. F. A.; De Villiers, J. I.; De Villiers, R. M.; Eglin, C. W.; Enthoven (’t Hooft), R. E.; Graaff, De V.; Hickman, T.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Hughes, T. G.; 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.; Raw, W. V.; Schwarz, H. H.; Slabbert, F. van Z.; Streicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Van Eck, H. J.; Van Hoogstraten, H. A.; Van Rensburg, H. E. J.; Von Keyserlingk, C. C.; Waddell, G. H.; Webber, W. T.; Wiley, J. W. E.; Wood, L. F.

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

Clause accordingly agreed to.

Clause 7:

Mr. Chairman, the new subsection (3) which is being added to section 3 of the Bantu Homelands Constitution by paragraph (b) of this clause, refers to a law made by the State President. I want to ask whether this provision is intended to relate also to proclamations issued in terms of section 25 of the Bantu Administration Act?

Mr. Chairman, when we refer to laws which may be made by the State President, we mean the proclamations.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 9:

Mr. Chairman, may I put an identical question to the hon. the Minister in this connection? I want to ask whether the words “law made by the State President” once again applies to proclamations issued in terms of section 25 of the Bantu Administration Act?

That is what is intended hereby.

Mr. Chairman, I have a problem in this connection. Here we are dealing with the second phase of the development of a Bantu homeland. I just want to refer to what to my way of thinking seems to be an anomaly, if I am interpreting the clause correctly. As I read it, this Parliament may not make a law which relates to the matters listed in the Schedule to the principal Act, but the State President does have the power to legislate by way of proclamation in respect of those matters relating to the homeland concerned. To me the position seems to be that the State President may make laws in terms of his power to issue proclamations, while Parliament does not have this power. I should like to know whether or not my interpretation in this connection is correct.

Mr. Chairman, I am afraid this is not so. The State President has the prescribed powers of issuing proclamations and for the rest the Bantu governments concerned have the powers laid down in the Act.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 10:

Mr. Chairman, I move as an amendment—

Is the hon. the Minister accepting my amendment?

No.

The hon. the Minister has stated in respect of the amendment moved to clause 1 that he thinks it would be preferable to keep the office of the State President out of this type of legislation. We agree with him in the sense that it is such bad legislation that it would really be advisable to keep the office of the State President out of it. Sir, section 3(2) provides—

Schedule 1 is part and parcel of this particular clause because it sets out the type of law that may be passed by the Legislative Assembly, so willy-nilly, until some amendment takes place, the State President is to some extent involved and in this case he is involved, as we have suggested, in very bad legislation. Since this is a drastic measure, we find it extraordinary that provision is made in subclause (2) that any power conferred on a homelands authority may be exercised only with the prior approval of the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development. We cannot understand why there should be this division of authority between the Minister and the State President. In any event we do not regard the office of the State President as being involved specifically in the implementation of this type of legislation, because although the State President finally approves of legislation passed in this House, he does so on the recommendation of the Cabinet. The object of this amendment then is to ensure the intervention of the Cabinet; to ensure that any powers conferred upon these authorities are used only after the fullest and most careful consideration at the highest level of government. Sir, the arguments which the hon. the Minister used yesterday are arguments which can easily be refuted. We do not want him as Minister in charge of this department to be involved in the administration of legislation by what he hopes will eventually become an independent State. If, therefore, we have to bear with this unfortunate legislation, we feel that it is wiser that the office of the State President should be involved so that the necessary decisions can be taken at Cabinet level and not by the Minister alone. The Minister went on to say—and this makes one more concerned—that the reason for putting forward this legislation is to give training to these new Legislatures in the administration of their States. Sir, he is starting from completely negative premises. In other words, he proposes to train them how to deal with subversion and how to deal, in a very arbitrary manner, with people who express opinions which run counter to their particular thinking. Sir, if there is a state of emergency or if there is any suspicion of subversion or any suspicion that any organization is carrying on activities which are contrary to the maintenance of proper government, then one can understand that in these emergency situations one has to take extraordinary measures, but here, Sir, the Minister wants to train the homeland Governments to follow a system which we regard as pernicious and as completely abhorrent to the whole system of democratic government and to the rule of law and the maintenance of civil liberties. We regard it as abhorrent to that system. The Minister now wishes to extend this by training these homeland authorities in what he calls proper democratic government. [Interjection.] Sir, the details of this measure were discussed yesterday, as the hon. member well knows; he also knows what the Chairman’s ruling was on the matter mentioned by him. I want to say further that this is bad legislation and the objective of the amendment is not to improve this legislation—I do not know how it can be improved—but it is to make that bad legislation a little less bad, so that we can at least try to have a certain degree of control over the temptation of whoever may be in power to make use of something which is only normally made use of by people who desire to maintain control at all costs, by people who have other than proper motives in maintaining proper government. That is why we do not like this legislation. It is all very well for the hon. the Minister to be amused. He thinks I have a lot to say while I merely want to bring home to him that the arguments he used yesterday to justify this legislation are completely unjustified. They are unwarranted statements, which could be tom to ribbons. I would like to say immediately that we move this amendment because we believe it will make this bad legislation a little less bad.

Mr. Chairman, I want to move the two amendments printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

1. (1) In line 9, page 9, after “1974,”, to insert “and within the area for which a legislative assembly has been established as defined in section 1(2) of this Act,”; and
2. (2) in line 16, page 9, after “any”, where it occurs for the second time, to insert “such”.

Yesterday the hon. the Minister referred to clause 1 and said that clause 1 referred to the Transkeian Bantu areas. I was aware of that. The only thing my amendment seeks to do is to limit the scope of the powers geographically which is not the case as regards clause 10 at the moment, although it is as regards clause 1. For that reason I believe the amendment ought to be acceptable to the hon. the Minister so that we may also limit clause 10, as in the case of clause 1, to the areas over which the legislative assembly concerned has jurisdiction. In other words, this is something purely geographical, as in the case of clause 1, because clause 1 is limited to the Bantu area of the Transkei, but here in clause 10 there is no reference to a geographically defined area. I think clause 10 ought to be brought into line with clause 1, and this is why I have moved the amendment. My second amendment is simply the insertion of the word “such”, since the Minister admitted yesterday that there had been a typing error. I had hoped that the hon. the Minister himself, with all the powers of delegation he has received since that time, would have moved that amendment.

I have delegated it to you.

Then it gives me great pleasure to move the amendments.

Mr. Chairman, this clause is in essence the same as the clause we have already debated in some detail. I simply want to reiterate the opposition of these benches to the principle contained in clause 10, which is the same as that contained in clause 1. This enables the hon. the Minister to give the same powers, presumably if requested, to other homeland Governments. I am prepared to say that I have no doubt whatsoever that the Ciskeian Government will be very quick indeed to take the hon. the Minister up on his kind offer and to ask that the powers in terms of clause 10 be enacted for the Ciskeian Assembly. I say this for a very good reason. I mentioned yesterday that the one and only homeland leader who had given his unequivocal approval to the powers being introduced today, was Chief Sebe of the Ciskei. The reason is that there is an opposition party which is presently making considerable headway in his area. He sees in this an easy weapon with which he can in fact disarm this opposition party. Already one of the executive members of the party has, at the request of the Ciskeian Government, been banished. The hon. the Minister said yesterday that that was not relevant to this Bill because that person, Mr. Mtshizana, the attorney whom I mentioned yesterday, had been banished under another Act. That is correct, of course; he was banished in terms of the Native Administration Act of 1927. That part of the hon. the Minister’s statement is factually correct. But it is a specious argument for him to say that it is not relevant to this discussion. It is extremely relevant to this discussion because the reason why the Ciskeian Government had to ask the hon. the Minister to intervene was that they did not have these powers of banishment or banning themselves. But now the hon. the Minister is giving it to them on a platter. They will now be able to go right ahead and by intimidation, or by the example of simply banning or banishing a few people, emasculate any political opposition in the territory.

That is not the truth.

That is the truth. Mr. Chairman, the hon. member makes a lot of speeches sitting down.

He can go to sleep again.

Yes, perhaps I should just let him go to sleep again. I was in fact going to give him some material which might send him to sleep. I was going to suggest that he read one or two of the articles which I received today, and which give the history of opposition to the governing party. This banishment happened to be imposed upon a person living in an urban area in the Ciskei, namely Mdantsane, where the Ciskei National Party was making considerable headway against the National Independence Party, which is the party in power.

Helen, you know that is not true.

The very man who was making headway, was the man who has been banished.

Order! The hon. member for Carletonville must withdraw the words “you know it is not true”.

I withdraw them, Sir.

You should stand up and do it nicely. The hon. member has no manners. Mr. Chairman, I submit therefore that the contention of the hon. the Minister that the case of this attorney is irrelevant, carries no weight at all. It is very relevant, and I have no doubt whatever that this enabling provision that we are discussing today is going to be used by the Ciskeian Government in order to get rid of political opposition. The hon. the Minister said that he did not approve of this, and that the last thing he wanted was for homelands Governments to have one-party States. Sir, he could not find a better way of encouraging exactly that which he says he disapproves of. We shall vote against this clause.

Mr. Chairman, I do not know why the hon. member for Houghton is speculating about the question as to which homeland will be the first to exercise these powers. I am certainly not going to speculate about that.

*As far as the other two hon. members who spoke are concerned, I just want to say that one of them, i.e. the hon. member for Jeppe, has a funny way of arguing. The hon. member for Jeppe said that I had advanced totally invalid arguments, totally irrelevant reasons and totally unsatisfactory reasons yesterday. Just before he said that, he had tried to refute my arguments of yesterday. If something is totally invalid, totally irrelevant and totally impotent, surely the hon. member need not have wasted so much time on dealing with it. In my view the hon. member also attached the wrong connotation to the reference to training I made yesterday. It is not a question of this being the only type of training a Bantu Government needs. I said very clearly yesterday, with reference to the words used by the hon. member for Umhlatuzana in a previous speech, when he pointed out the necessity of learning the skills of government, the arts of government, and of resisting the pressure governments might experience, that in a modem world and a world which was becoming more and more difficult, other governments were experiencing these problems too. Governments, too, have to learn to deal with these difficult things. In this connection this type of power serves as training in respect of the difficult duties of a government. This is not the only training they need, but surely it is good for them to gain experience in these matters. Experience is possibly a word which is more acceptable to the hon. member than the word “training”. So that Government will gradually gain experience in this, rather than plunging into it all at once. It is true that the State President does become involved in all kinds of administrative matters in connection with legislation, something to which the hon. member also referred. However, we made it very clear today—I am only referring back to it and do not have to repeat what was said when we were dealing with clause 1—that we did not want to involve the State President in all kinds of unpleasant things arising in the homelands and which were either of a political or personal nature. There are cases where the State President could possibly become involved in terms of old legislation, but to the best of our ability we do not want to have this happen in these times. Perhaps it is better for another person who has to brave the political winds in any event, a person such as the Minister, to see to these things. To use the same terms as the hon. member for Jeppe, it is not a valid argument to my mind to say that the words “State President” should be inserted as the matter would then go to the Cabinet. If a Cabinet Minister has to take responsibilities such as these, it is of course not an identical case to the State President taking them. We know this. However, the Minister also stands in a ministerial relationship to the Cabinet and also has ministerial responsibilities towards his Prime Minister, as well as towards other colleagues. My colleague, the Minister of Justice, is really the Minister who administers most of the laws which these people will be able to invoke if they want to use this type of power. So there inevitably are, inter-ministerial consultation and joint ministerial responsibilities. Consequently I am of the opinion that the hon. member’s rejection of these ministerial responsibilities does not stand on such strong legs as the hon. member maintains.

I should like to confirm the powers I delegated to the hon. member for Edenvale by saying that I am prepared to accept his amendment concerning the insertion of the word “such” in the English version, as moved by the hon. member. It will probably effect a minor improvement and bring about greater clarity. As regards the other amendment of the hon. member, I want to remind hon. members of what I said in this connection yesterday. I had little time this morning, but I have had another look at it. I have found further confirmation for what I said to the hon. member yesterday in this connection. More strictly speaking than yesterday, those words are in fact unnecessary. Yesterday, I told the hon. member that it was unnecessary, to insert those words, and I repeat it, as the same effect was achieved without the insertion of these words. When we look at the existing legislation, we see that these words which the hon. member seeks to insert, already exist in the enabling legislation of 1971, i.e. in section 3 of Act 21 of 1971. The marginal note reads: “Legislative powers of legislative assemblies”. This is the general legislative authorization. “(1) Any legislative assembly may—(a) for the area for which it has been established make laws …” If the legislative assembly is to be established, this is done by proclamation, as we saw yesterday. There are quite a number of proclamations in this connection because there are quite a number of areas. I simply took the nearest one, i.e. the proclamation which refers to the Ciskei. The heading of this proclamation, proclamation R110 of 1972, reads: “Area of the Ciskeian Legislative Assembly”. The proclamation explicitly provides: “The area consisting of—(1) the areas …” I need not read all these names. A long list gives all the areas concerned. In other words, I think it is clear enough that the legislative power for which provision is being made in the new clause, is properly defined in terms of the existing legislation for the other legislative assemblies, excluding that of the Transkei. I am more convinced now than I was yesterday that this is the case. However. I shall promise the hon. member something; for you see, Sir, the two of us work together very well, quite different to what I thought earlier on this year. I have even accepted an amendment from him.

Oh!

Now don’t be jealous! Now the hon. member is jealous. If he behaves himself in this way I shall be able to have better co-operation with him as well. During the interval after the Bill has been passed here and before it is discussed in the Other Place, I shall have another look at this. If necessary, I can effect an amendment on the basis of the hon. member’s suggestion. However, if, in consultation with my law advisers, I find it to be unnecessary, I shall add nothing. If an amendment is effected, the hon. member will know about it, because in that case the Bill will come back to this House.

First amendment moved by Mr. N. J. J. Olivier negatived.

Second amendment moved by Mr. N. J. J. Olivier agreed to.

Amendment moved by Mr. H. Miller negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Clause, as amended, put and the Committee divided:

AYES—98: Albertyn, J. T.; Aucamp, P. L. S.; Barnard, S. P.; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, G. F.; Botha, J. C. G; Botha, L. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, S. P.; Botma, M. C.; Clase, P. J.; Coetsee, H. J.; Coetzee, S. F.; Cronje, P.; De Beer, S. J.; De Klerk, F. W.; De Villiers, D. J.; Diederichs, N.; Du Plessis, A. H.; Du Plessis, B. J.; Du Plessis, G. F. C.; Du Plessis, G. C.; Du Plessis, P. T. C.; Du Toit, J. P.; Engelbrecht, J. J.; Erasmus, A. S. D.; Greeff, J. W.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Hartzenberg, F.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Hefer, W. J.; Henning, J. M.; Herman, F.; Heunis, J. C.; Hoon, J. H.; Horn, J. W. L.; Janson, J.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotze, G. J.; Kotzé, S. F.; Kotzé, W. D.; Krijnauw, P. H. J.; Kruger, J. T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J. (Brakpan); Le Roux, F. J. (Hercules); Lloyd, J. J.; Loots, J. J.; Louw, E.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; McLachlan, R.; Meyer, P. H.; Morrison, G. de V.; Muller, H.; 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.; Potgieter, J. E.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Roux, P. C.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Swiegers, J. G.; Terblanche, G. P. D.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Uys, C.; Van den Berg, J. C.; Van der Walt, H. J. D.; Van Heerden, R. F.; Van Rensburg, H. M. J.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Wyk, A. C. (Maraisburg); Van Wyk, A. C. (Winburg); Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, A. A.; Viljoen, M.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Vilonel, J. J.; Vlok, A. J.; Volker, V. A.; Vosloo, W. L.

Tellers: J. P. C. le Roux, A. van Breda, C. V. van der Merwe and W. L. van del Merwe.

NOES—41: Aronson, T.; Bartlett, G. S.; Baxter, D. D.; Bell, H. G. H.; Boraine, A. L.; Cadman, R. M.; Dalling, D. J.; 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.; 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.; Raw, W. V.; Schwarz, H. H.; Slabbert, F. van Z.; Steicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Van Eck, H. J.; Van Hoogstraten, H. A.; Van Rensburg, H. E. J.; Von Keyserlingk, C. C.; Waddell, G. H.; Webber, W. T.; Wiley, J. W. E.; Wood, L. F.

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

Clause, as amended, accordingly agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with an amendment.

Report Stage taken without debate.

Third Reading

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Time.

Mr. Speaker, we are now at the Third Reading stage of a Bill which in its controversial aspects amends those sections of the Transkei Constitution Act and the Bantu Homelands Constitution Act which set up the powers which are exercisable by the legislative authorities of those territories. In other words, we are dealing with amendments to the powers which are to be given to new parliamentary institutions which are being launched in the Bantu homelands of South Africa. This is being done by this Parliament which, with one or two lapses, has a long history of being a free parliamentary institution in a free society. It is not in either of those respects perfect, but it goes a long way to meeting the ideals which we try to cultivate in that respect. It is this parliamentary institution which at this Third Reading is being asked to deal with powers to be given to the new legislatures which we are launching in other parts of South Africa. I would imagine it is our hope and the hope of the hon. the Minister that those parliamentary institutions should model themselves on this one, that their executive governments should model themselves on the executive functions of the South African Government—I speak of governments in general, not of any particular party government—and that they should engender in their countries over which they have jurisdiction a free society. It is true that there have been problems in all these respects in other parts of Africa where new legislatures have been set up. However, it is also true to say, as I believe the hon. member for Houghton has said, that these legislatures have a greater chance of success in Southern Africa than anywhere else on the African continent. When I say a greater chance of success, I mean a greater chance of success of developing along the lines which we would wish to see them develop; that is to say an executive authority that works in terms of a framework of laws and keeps to a minimum the discretionary exercise of executive power, a legislature which is broadly representative of the people that it has to govern and a free society in the terms that I have defined it earlier on in the debates we have had on this Bill. That means that there has to be developed in these governments a measure of flexibility. They have to be taught the ability to bend in order to meet a situation without breaking. They also have to be shown how to adapt to certain circumstances* and they must grow used to the normal pressures which surround every parliamentary institution if it is to remain a democratic institution. Likewise, in the field of the executive with which we are concerned here, because these are executive powers that we are discussing, I believe that an executive must be encouraged in a new legislature, to develop what I described earlier as those skills of government which enable it to govern without recourse in normal circumstances to the extraordinary discretionary powers set out in clauses 1 and 10 of this Bill. It should be able to function and meet the stresses of governing a country without recourse to measures of this kind save in exceptional circumstances when it is generally recognized that they cannot otherwise be met. It is common cause that those circumstances do not exist at the present time and I do not foresee those circumstances existing in the immediate future either. I believe that in many respects these legislatures we are setting up and the executive governments that will be responsible to them will have an easier task in this respect than the hon. the Minister and his Government have. Generally speaking, they will be homogeneous, they will be governments of homogeneous communities where there will be a broad franchise. Indeed, it can be said in respect of each of those homelands that there will be a universal franchise. They will not experience the difficulties that beset any Government in South Africa where the franchise is exercised by a section of the community and those who exercise it do not necessarily hold the same point of view as that held by the other sections of the population. Moreover, these governments are unlikely to find themselves in the position in which the present Government finds itself at the moment and in regard to which I believe in some instances it would wish to move a little faster than its electorate will allow it to do. However, these are the problems that face any executive in a democratically elected institution. I do not believe that one would be helping the newly created legislatures or their executive governments by giving them powers of this kind in this early stage of their development. I say this because it is so easy when one experiences difficulties, instead of wrestling with them and overcoming them, to have recourse to powers of this nature. It is like the broad spectrum antibiotic in present-day medicine. It is so easy when there is a problem of diagnosis, to prescribe a broad spectrum antibiotic which covers a multitude of sins, thus obviating the necessity of having to diagnose the illness. We have much the same sort of position here. Whilst I accept the fact that there may well be occasions when powers of this nature are necessary, so long as the residual powers of government remain with the South African Government, so long do I believe that they should be exercised by this Government if they are to be exercised at all. If a time of emergency should arise, the legislature of the homelands can come and ask the Minister for discretionary powers should the need therefor arise. I believe that that would be preferable to powers of this nature being given at this early stage of homeland development. Sir, everybody who is human prefers to have powers which make government easy for those who govern rather than an absence of such powers which make government more difficult. Nevertheless, the whole skill and art of democratic government is to overcome problems of this kind with the very minimum of discretionary executive authority. That is the skill of democratic government and it is that very factor that makes the democratic type of government and a free society one which appeals to all of us. Accordingly, Sir, at the Third Reading we do not find it possible to support this measure and we shall be voting against the Third Reading.

Sir, it will come as no surprise to the hon. the Minister to learn that we, too, will be voting against the Third Reading of this Bill. I think it is a sad day for South Africa that a Government which purports to be the Government of a Western democracy is setting an example to homeland Governments, which the hon. the Minister is always telling us he is leading towards independence, by giving arbitrary powers to them to banish persons and otherwise to restrict the lives of their citizens and to outlaw organizations. I think this is a very poor example indeed for the Government of an established country to be giving to the homeland Governments at this stage or for that matter at any other stage of their development.

The hon. the Minister said that the Bill had been sent to all the homeland leaders for their comment, and he told us that two had reacted positively and had approved of this measure, by which he means, as I read out in the House yesterday, the Government of the Transkei, whose approval was in fact an ambiguous approval, and the Government of the Ciskei, whose approval was not ambiguous but very clear-cut. The hon. the Minister told us that the others had not reacted, and he took me to task because I had quoted from a newspaper the reaction of the homeland leaders of the other areas. I do not know why the hon. the Minister was so incensed by that because they were direct quotations; the correctness of these reports has not been denied by those homeland leaders, and I assume therefore that they were correctly quoted. The hon. the Minister said that as far as he was concerned, he was relying upon the fact that he had sent copies of this piece of legislation to the different homeland leaders and that he had not received any positive reaction, except in the case of two of them, but he said that he had also not had a negative reaction from the remainder. He has apparently deduced from this that silence is consent. Sir, I wonder whether it has ever occurred to the hon. the Minister that leaders who did not approve of a measure such as this do not necessarily demonstrate their consent by their silence. They may simply have decided that there is no point in trying to oppose this all-powerful Government, which goes ahead with its plans, no matter what they say, and therefore, rather than have a confrontation with the hon. the Minister with all his powers, they simply do not react at all. I do not think the hon. the Minister has any right whatsoever to deduce from the fact that there has been no reaction from the remaining homeland leaders outside of the Transkei and the Ciskei that they are consenting to this legislation. Indeed, as I have tried to show, the position is quite the contrary. The hon. the Minister has also said—and in this respect I agree with him because it is factually correct—that this is an enabling measure. He says that whilst it gives powers to the homeland Governments, they need not use them if they do not wish to do so. Sir, that is perfectly true; it is an enabling measure and if the homeland Governments do not want to use these powers they need not do so. If Chief Gatsha Buthelezi of KwaZulu decides that he does not want to use his powers, or if Professor Ntsanwisi of Gazankulu decides that he is not going to use them, or if Chief Mangope of Bophuthatswana decides that he does not want to use them, they need not do so. Six, the point I am trying to make is that although this is only an enabling measure, it is also one of encouragement, and that is what I am objecting to. Maybe the existing homeland leaders will not use these powers, but just as the hon. the Minister will be succeeded by another hon. Minister, so will the existing homeland leaders, who have in fact objected to this legislation and who one assumes will therefore not use these powers, be succeeded by other homeland leaders. They will arrive with all these powers built in, which they can use to suppress opposition parties in their areas. They are now being encouraged to use arbitrary measures which have no part whatever in a democratic State. Since the hon. the Minister says it is not his intention to encourage one-party States in the homelands of South Africa, the last sort of legislation he should be introducing is enabling legislation of this kind. I think it is a dangerous thing for the Government to do. I think the Government should be nurturing and cherishing the values of Western democracy and not undermine them as far as the homeland Governments are concerned. For those reasons we on these benches will oppose the Third Reading.

Arising from what was said here by the hon. member for Umhlatuzana, I have little to add to what was said during the previous stages of this Bill. The hon. member said that the new governments in the Bantu homelands should not be assisted by means of powers such as these. They should not be given these powers, because the Government of the Republic should perform this type of work. But I regret that on this point the hon. member and I are unable either to understand one another or agree with one another. I do not want to agree with him, neither am I able to agree with him that it is correct that, in the case of demanding responsibilities such as these a government has to bear, they should not be allowed to do anything at all until suddenly they have to perform the work. Besides, we do not give them absolute power now either, because these are activities which also involve the Government of the Republic. This is delicate work, and because there are common duties between them and the government of the Republic, matters we have dealt with before, we also involve the Government of the Republic, i.e. the Minister of Bantu Administration, in these matters. That is why they are not being given absolute and unlimited powers to do these things. However, we think this is a far healthier way of allowing them to gain this type of experience and that is why I cannot agree with what the hon. member said. Should emergencies occur in the homelands, they could approach the Government of the Republic and ask us to do something ourselves, or that we should act ourselves, or should help them to take steps. The hon. member will admit that one of the major and most important lessons any government has to learn, is that of accepting responsibility, of learning in order to know what the consequences of a particular action could be. Where a government takes certain steps and perhaps acts unwisely, it learns very quickly what the consequences of such action are, and it learns to tackle a matter with greater care next time. I think that, from a political pedagogical point of view, it would not be correct suddenly to delegate to them demanding responsibilities of this nature which, it is hoped, they will have to use very seldom.

†The hon. member for Houghton repeated what she said before. Consequently, I do not think it is necessary to say anything about it. I differ from her on one point especially and that is when the hon. member says that apparently the homeland Governments and leaders did not wish to disapprove of the legislation which was sent to them in draft form because they did not want to oppose this strong Government of ours. The hon. member says that because she has had no administrative experience with the Governments of the homelands. We put to them many pieces of legislation and we put up to them many other matters, not only in legislative form, and we very often have discussions and interviews with them and, Sir, I can testify to it that the leaders in the homelands, and their Ministers, do come up for their views and do put questions and their wishes to us even if we do not agree with them. It is not a question of their just sitting back because they are afraid or do not see their way clear to take matters up with us. We have these interviews and dialogue takes place. Dialogue is a very popular word today. Since the leaders did not react negatively in connection with this matter, I take it—and I think I am absolutely correct in saying this—that they did not have any serious objections to it at that stage. I do not know what the position is today, but that was the position when we negotiated with them some months ago.

Question put,

Upon which the House divided:

AYES—92: Albertyn, J. T.; Aucamp, P. L. S.; Barnard, S. P.; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, G. F.; Botha, J. C. G.; Botha, L. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botma, M. C.; Clase, P. J.; Coetsee, H. J.; Coetzee, S. F.; Cronje. P.; De Beer, S. J.; De Klerk, F. W.; De Villiers, D. J.; Diederichs, N.; Du Plessis, A. H.; Du Plessis, B. J.; Du Plessis, G. F. C.; Du Plessis, G. C.; Du Plessis, P. T. C.; Engelbrecht, J. J.; Erasmus, A. S. D.; Greeff, J. W.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Hartzenberg, F.; Hefer, W. J.; Henning, J. M.; Herman, F.; Heunis, J. C.; Hoon, J. H.; Horn, J. W. L.; Janson, J.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, S. F.; Kotzé, W. D.; Krijnauw, P. H. J.; Kruger, J. T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J. (Brakpan); Le Roux, F. J. (Hercules); Loots, J. J.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; McLachlan, R.; Meyer, P. H.; Morrison, G. de V.; Muller, H.; 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.; Potgieter, J. E.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Reyneke, J, P. A.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Roux, P. C.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Swiegers, J. G.; Terblanche, G. P. D.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Uys, C.; Van den Berg, J. C.; Van der Merwe, P. S.; Van der Walt, H. J. D.; Van Heerden, R. F.; Van Rensburg, H. M. J.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Wyk, A. C. (Maraisburg); Van Wyk, A. C. (Winburg); Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, A. A.; Viljoen, M.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Vilonel, J. J.; Vlok, A. J.; Volker, V. A.; Vosloo, W. L.

Tellers: J. P. C. le Roux, A. van Breda. C. V. van der Merwe and W. L. van der Merwe.

NOES—41: Aronson, T.; Bartlett, G. S.; Baxter, D. D.; Bell, H. G. H.; Boraine, A. L.; Cadman, R. M.; Dalling, D. J.; De Villiers, I. F. A.; De Villiers, J. I.; De Villiers, R. M.; Eglin, C. W.; Enthofen (’t Hooft), R. E.; Graaff, De V.; Hickman, T.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Hughes, T. G.; 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.; Raw, W. V.; 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.; Webber, W. T.; Wiley, J. W. E.; Wood, L. F.

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

Question agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Chairman, when the House adjourned last night I was discussing the question of Iscor and Saldanha. I want to make it abundantly clear that we on this side of the House feel that Iscor belongs to the South African nation, and that the State President holds the shares in trust for the nation. Saldanha will probably be the biggest single project ever tackled by this Government. We in the United Party are proud of these undertakings, and if a member of the United Party were Minister of Economic Affairs, he would tell the country in depth and in detail exactly what is happening with Iscor at Saldanha. We understand that there is a certain point in time when there is a delicacy in certain negotiations; but what we find impossible to understand, is the attitude of the hon. the Minister when he says that he is not accountable to Parliament for the actions of Iscor. We think he is totally wrong in this regard. I want to make it clear that we feel that the hon. the Minister was in duty bound to answer the questions about the semis plant at Saldanha and the estimated costs. We consider his failure to answer these questions in a very serious light. With those answers, the Minister could have taken the public into his confidence; because of all the schemes the Government has undertaken, as I have said before, in total concept, the Saldanha scheme is the largest by far.

The total cost of establishing Saldanha, including the infrastructure, will amount to thousands of millions of rand. The financing of the scheme will require sacrifices on the part of taxpayers throughout South Africa. Seeing that the taxpayers are going to make these sacrifices, I cannot under stand why the Minister wants to adopt a hooded attitude towards this question. The hon. the Minister is asking Parliament for a blank cheque and he is asking the taxpayers to endorse that cheque. We are not prepared to put up with this sort of situation. We intend exposing the situation at every possible opportunity.

You are just running after the Progs.

I can tell that hon. member that there is only one thing worse than his interjections in this House, and that is the speeches he makes here. In relation to Iscor, the taxpayers are making many sacrifices this year. They have allowed Parliament to inject R130 million of the taxpayers’ money into shares in Iscor. Secondly, we will probably have to waive the dividend of R7,5 million we had to waive last year as well. Thirdly, in introducing the Iron and Steel Industry Amendment Bill, the hon. the Minister said that the Government had agreed to increase the capital contribution of R160 million. In addition, we find that at Pretoria, Newcastle and Vanderbijlpark Iscor will spend approximately R3 238 million from 1974 to 1984. If one takes into account the total cost of the Saldanha project as well, it will cost the Government and the taxpayers many thousands upon thousands of millions of rand more.

Surely, the hon. the Minister must accept that Iscor is responsible to the taxpayers and the people of South Africa, because they have vested interest in the activities of Iscor. I want to ask the hon. the Minister, if it is his contention that Iscor is not responsible to Parliament: To whom is Iscor in fact responsible? Is Iscor only responsible to the Minister in his office? Sir, that is the sort of situation that we cannot tolerate, because then Iscor is being made a secret society. The hon. the Minister has the responsibility to account to Parliament for the affairs of Iscor. Those affairs must stand up to and in-depth exposure at all times, otherwise the public and we are entitled to think that the hon. the Minister has something to hide.

In regard to the hon. the Minister’s refusal to answer fully the questions put to him about the semis plant, I want to point out to him that on page 23 of the 1973 Iscor report, the chairman advised that Iscor was in an advanced stage of negotiation with Voest of Austria and that they have indicated that they would be interested in taking at least a 26% share in the semis plant. There is the answer. Why could the hon. the Minister not have given it to us?

But you have the report?

I knew that the hon. member would ask me that That is what appeared in the report for 1973, a year ago. We would like to know whether negotiations with Voest of Austria have been concluded. The chairman went further and said that the United States and European steel concerns were prepared to consider participation as soon as Iscor and Voest had reached finality. The hon. the Minister also refused to answer questions relating to the estimated cost of the semis plant. Yet, in the 1973 report the chairman of Iscor said that the cost of the Iscor plant would be between R600 million and R700 million. All the Minister needed to say in answer to the question was that the costs had escalated by between 10% and 20% on the amount of R600 million to R700 million. I cannot understand the reason for his secrecy.

I believe that the hon. the Minister is totally, wholly and unjustifiably turning Iscor into a Broederbond type of organization which operates in a cloak-and-dagger way. I want the hon. the Minister to make full disclosures this afternoon. Iscor deserves the support of the hon. the Minister. We are all proud of Iscor and I am assuming that the hon. the Minister too is proud of this corporation. If that is the case, why not give us all the information? I think the time has also come for Iscor to make a study in depth and to have blueprint in relation to its land requirements. The hon. the Minister may say that there is such a blueprint and if there is such a blueprint, I believe he should announce it forthwith and proceed with the acquisition of such land. Even though it is late in the day, the effect of the announcement will be that it will be brought to the knowledge of affected landowners that their land is in fact affected. The effect of this would be that fortunate advance option-holders would not be able to take options and make money as easily as they have done in the past.

I should like to deal with another matter. In an article which appeared in the Financial Mail on 30 August, it was said that only Weeks after the Straszacker Commission submitted its first report to the Minister, the Minister told the Financial Mail that the report would be tabled in this House for discussion. I want to know whether the hon. the Minister or his predecessor told that to the Financial Mail because here I have an article in which that is stated. The Financial Mail goes on to accuse the Government of lacking in moral courage and simple honesty in holding the report back from Parliament. We all know that the Straszacker Report is an embarrassment to the Government because it reveals serious bungling of economic affairs in South Africa.

Do not talk absolute rubbish!

We were also told that the Cabinet decided that Iscor must run the Sishen/Saldanha railway line. I think that the hon. the Minister should be man enough to admit that this was a wrong decision and that they are considering the reversal of the decision. One of the reasons why Iscor was given the right to run the line was, obviously, because the costs for the Saldanha scheme have increased enormously. Obviously it is one way of subsidizing Iscor because when they run the line they can charge themselves what they like. If the S.A. Railways run the line, they will have to pay the current rates. It takes no genius to predict that in time the S.A. Railways will in fact run that line and that Iscor will have to be subsidized. If that day comes, the hon. the Minister must remember that private ore exporters are entitled to exactly the same rights.

The other matter in regard to which I would like to make an appeal to the hon. the Minister is that in view of the tight liquidity situation in the country, I would like to see the hon. the Minister give Iscor and other public corporations all possible assistance to get their long-term borrowing overseas, because if they borrow in South Africa at the present time they can only take more of the money which will make the liquidity situation even more difficult.

There are a few other matters which I should like to deal with very shortly in the short time at my disposal. I saw in a newspaper article that the chairman of a public company handed a 65-page dossier to the Secretary of Commerce of suppliers who form price-fixing rings. These are very serious allegations and I would like to know from the hon. the Minister whether his department has in fact investigated these matters and what the outcome of the investigations has been. Then, according to another article, the Iscor pension fund bought 161 000 Bester shares this year. We would like to know from the hon. the Minister from whom the shares were bought and at what price. The hon. member over there laughs, but it is funny that the Bester group of companies happened to buy wherever Iscor developments were to take place. I do not know whether this is such a wise decision by that pension fund to have bought so many Bester shares.

I should also like to ask the hon. the Minister a question in relation to the crayfish export permits which were granted off the Eastern Cape coast. This afternoon in answer to a question he said that 63 permits were granted. I should like to know from the hon. the Minister whether a full investigation had been done before these permits were granted. I also notice from the answer to the question that the hon. the Minister does not specify what quantity or what period of time the applicants were allowed. I wonder whether he would mind answering these questions now. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I listened with interest to the contributions to this debate and I want to thank my hon. friends on both sides of the Committee for their interest. Of course, certain things were said and certain suggestions were made with which I cannot agree at all, but that is a different matter.

†I should also like to thank the hon. members for Constantia, Cape Town Gardens and Yeoville and I think also the hon. member for Walmer for the kind wishes they extended to me on the occasion of my handling this Vote for the first time in my present capacity. I am certainly very conscious of the responsibility which I carry in this respect.

*I cannot deal fully with all the matters that were raised in this debate, but I do want to deal with some of them. Then I also want to say something about certain policy matters.

†The hon. member for Constantia—I understand he will be here in a moment—dealt with the importance of profits and of competition. Of course we all agree with that; we have said it from this side of the House for years and we have never changed our views on that. Our policy is to strengthen our private enterprise economy, to strengthen our competitive institutions wherever possible, and we certainly have a very healthy respect for profits and the profit motive. Only last week I happened to reiterate my view, and the Government’s view, on this matter in my speech at the opening of the Assocom congress. I do not think I need read what I said, but I spoke, I think, in very unequivocal terms of the very great importance which we attach to profits and to the profit motive as an incentive to the correct type of economic decision-making and to efficiency in our economic affairs. We therefore talk the same language on that.

The hon. member, incidentally, made a very strange remark. He said that the South African economy was not structured for growth. That is a remarkable thing to say in South Africa where ever since the last war we have had a very rapid rate of growth; our average rate of growth, if you take it even more recently—from 1960-’61—comes to nearly 6% per annum in real terms. This is one of the highest sustained rates of growth in the world over that period. We know that at the present time the rate is something like 7% per annum in real terms, which is certainly one of the highest in the world. I therefore do not really know what that particular reference means.

The hon. member also spoke about monopolies and mentioned certain aspects. He mentioned, for instance, the commercial banks and talked about the sort of agreement that the commercial banks have to vary their ledger fees and other charges. Of course, that does not fall within my jurisdiction as the hon. member will know. In general, when the question of price rings arises as well as any agreements in restraint of trade, my view is perfectly clear. I do not like these things at all. That is one of the reasons why I should have liked to have had more time this session to have proceeded with what I consider to be a very important piece of legislation in this regard—its First Reading has already been taken and it is down on the Order Paper for Second Reading—viz. the Trade Practices Bill. That Bill provides inter alia for the establishment of a Trade Practices Advisory Committee which will be a very authoritative and representative body and will be required to advise the Minister on all kinds of matters affecting this kind of activity as well as other activities which that committee and the Government may feel are not to be countenanced. This is one of the answers I think one would certainly give in regard to this particular point. It is true, of course, that monopolies as such are not outlawed by the Regulation of Monopolistic Conditions Act of 1955. Before any action can be taken against any individual monopolistic condition, the matter would have to be referred to the Board of Trade and Industries for investigation and report to the Minister. It would only be where such monopolies were held to be harmful that action would have to be taken. It does not necessarily follow that every monopoly is harmful. Some so-called monopolies are in fact extremely efficient and do in fact produce and sell articles at a lower price than may possibly be done by means of any other form of marketing. These monopolies do exist. Generally speaking, however, I agree that one must watch monopolies and monopolistic conditions. I want to go even further and say that the Government is giving very careful consideration at this moment and has been doing so for some months to the present anti-monopolistic legislation. We are hoping to come forward with certain proposals to improve the efficacy of that legislation as soon as possible. I think hon. members will find this being done in the near future. We are therefore very concerned about any harmful monopolistic conditions or practices or any extension of such practices in our economy.

The hon. member also spoke about the prices of flour and timber and biscuits and other things. All these particular items are subject to price control. It does happen that when representations are received and the Price Controller investigates the matter and, for instance, agrees to an increase in price, therefore, a new price, this new price is announced and affects all the particular producers or sellers at that time. There is nothing strange about that. However, when items like newspapers, tea, coffee, confectionery and so on are affected, these are not controlled items under the price control legislation and it is possible that certain undesirable things can happen in this regard. That concludes my brief reply on that particular point.

*I should like to refer to the speech made by the hon. member for Klip River in which he referred to the importance of the petro-chemical industry. I want to express my appreciation to him for having raised this important matter. I want to tell him that, to my mind, there is no doubt that this industry will become one of the most important industries in South Africa in future. The hon. member referred to Sasol and not only to petroleum products, but also to the by-products, which are extremely important to our fertilizer industry and other industries. Ammonia and nitrogenous substances are quite scarce at the moment. Where we have to import these requirements, we have to do so at a very high price. The Government is thoroughly aware of these circumstances. I just want to tell the hon. member that we have been carrying out a very comprehensive investigation for quite some time to find out precisely what we should do in this direction—whether we should proceed with one Sasol or whether we should have a second Sasol. No one should infer that we are ready to start with a second Sasol just because I said that this investigation had been going on for quite some time. No decision whatsoever has yet been taken in this regard, but what we are doing is to carry out a very thorough investigation into the petro-chemical industry. I think the hon. member raised a very important matter here.

Mr. Chairman, then I just want to refer very briefly to the hon. member for Omaruru, who referred to the important fishing industry. He suggested that we might establish a fisheries board. He also suggested that we divide the functions of the Division of Sea Fisheries between research on the one hand and policy-making functions and control over resources on the other. Sir, I should have liked to discuss these important points with him further, but there is not much time left. However, I think he raised an important matter here. The position at the moment is of course that there is an advisory board for the fishing industry which has certain important functions to perform, but I think his suggestion will go much further. I do not want to express any opinion on the merits of his suggestion now.

The hon. member also referred to the Law of the Sea Conference which was held at Caracas in Venezuela recently. Sir, I recently received a brief report in this regard and perhaps I should just quote a paragraph from it which may also serve as a reply to the question put by the hon. member (translation)—

The conference did not make much progress. Although a great deal was said, not one single concrete decision was made, but the discussions revealed clearly what their objective was, i.e. a 200 mile economic zone. The report reads further—

These 148 countries will meet again in Geneva in March 1975, and they will then resume the discussions. Sir, I think this is very briefly the crux of the matter.

The hon. member for Maitland came to see me about the question of the possible selling of rock lobster quotas. Somebody obtains a rock lobster quota which he might sell again at a high price later. I was able to give the hon. member the assurance that the department maintains its control in this matter. To be able to obtain a rock lobster quota the person receiving the quota has to have a permit. If I want to sell my quota to a friend of mine, he has to have a permit to be able to buy such quota. We are being very careful here. There are cases where, to our way of thinking, it is reasonable to allow a person to sell his quota. The holder of the quota might become ill or he might want to get rid of his quota for other good reasons. In this case we do not want the position to be exploited; we consider every case on its merits, but it seldom happens that a quota is sold. I can assure the hon. member that the department is exercising very strict control over this matter.

†The hon. member for Yeoville and others referred briefly to economic conditions in South Africa and in the world. May I just briefly say that as far as I am concerned, I am extremely optimistic about the economic situation at the moment, and as I see it ahead. It is perfectly true that at this moment there is a certain tightness of liquidity. There is a certain tightness in the capital market, in the money market, and certain businesses are finding it more difficult than others to acquire the ready cash they want, the capital they require to expand still further. As I mentioned in a previous debate in this House, it does happen that as we approach the peak of a business cycle, as we are doing now, as I read the situation, we have these boom conditions—after all, a real growth rate of 7% per annum is an exceptionally high growth rate—and when that happens you find that some businesses tend in technical terms to over-trade and then run into the cash shortages. It can mean a great deal of difficulty for individual firms. But I say again what I said on that occasion a couple of weeks ago, that to generalize and to say that because a few firms are running into cash problems therefore the economy is running down, or that for some reason we are now facing a recessionary phase, is to my mind completely incorrect on the facts. Indeed, in the prevailing conditions I would say it is irresponsible. I am not saying my hon. friend suggested that but I am talking in general about some of the comments that are made in some places. After all, you have to look at our trading position. We are at this moment, and have been for some time, engaged in an exceptionally dynamic foreign economic policy, if I may use that term. At this moment we are receiving, and are about to receive, so many senior trade missions from abroad, and are being asked to send so many top trading missions to other countries, that we have absolutely reached the limit of our capacity to handle these things. We are very actively exploring the possibilities of extending our trading and economic relationships in Latin America and various countries of the Middle East and the Far East, also countries in Africa. That is quite over and above the established trading relationships that have been established over many years with some of the older and more mature countries of the world. I say this, Sir, because I think that in future we are going to witness some very substantial extensions of import and export trade and we will have to face the consequences. But at this moment, despite the increase in imports of something like 50%, i.e. merchandise imports this year compared with the corresponding period last year, and despite the very heavy extra burden of oil imports because of the huge increase in the price of crude oil which we are importing, and have to have, and about which I hope to say a little more in a moment, our export trade has remained buoyant and our gold sales have of course benefited substantially from the higher price of gold on the free market. The result is that after the first nine months of this year—these figures are extremely tentative—we have drawn only R90 million on our gold and foreign exchange reserves. That is not a great deal of money when you consider that the 24 nations, major industrial nations of the world, covered by the O.E.C.D. survey the other day, are according to the latest estimate going to have a balance of payments deficit overall of 40 000 million dollars this year. This is unprecedented in economic history. Fortunately, I believe we rave a very sound balance of payments position. If you look at the import position at the moment, you will see that imports are rather tending to taper off. I believe that we shall witness an improvement in the last quarter as far as the balance of payments position is concerned. As far as the current account is concerned, the merchandise exports against imports, gold sales and the so-called invisible items, for example, freight and shipping charges, insurance charges on the carriage of goods abroad and into South Africa, we will probably end this third quarter with a deficit of the order of R325 million or R350 million. However, the figures are not yet available. If we consider that for the third quarter alone we drew R40 million on the gold and foreign exchange reserves and that our current account deficit was probably about R150 million, it is clear that we got in in capital a net amount of more than R100 million in that period. In the previous two quarters we also had something of the order of R100 million net in capital coming in.

Short or long term?

In short-term and longterm capital. There is quite a lot of longterm capital involved. Therefore, it means in the nine months we have had on balance more than R200 million foreign capital coming in as against a deficit, a negative figure, an outflow for the corresponding period last year. I think these things must be taken into account if we are to keep the balance of payments and balance of trade position in its proper perspective. That is why I say that we have, in fact, a very sound balance of payments position in this country. This is one of the strongest indicators of the state of an economy because, after all, it sums up the state of the economy vis-à-vis the rest of the world, that is, the total of our external accounts.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? If this is the position, why was it necessary for the Director of Imports to make a public statement encouraging people to take credit and thereby creating an impression that, in fact, we are in a very awkward position and that we should be getting relatively short-term credit?

I am glad the point has been raised. The Director of Imports and Exports was looking at the current account and the current account has a deficit. As I said, the deficit in the current account for the third quarter was approximately R150 million. That is more than the amount for the previous two quarters. For that reason, as a prudent step, it was felt that where importers could finance their imports with overseas financing, and where they could extend the period of payment, this would be a sound step. Obviously, the day of reckoning will come. It is merely easing the position because of that deficit in the current account. That, I think, is the answer.

I do not want to say too much about the economic position except that it is extremely buoyant.

*I must say, and this we shall admit at any time, that very serious inflation exists. We are not happy with this state of affairs. We are really taking vigorous steps to fight this inflation as efficiently as possible. However, the Government cannot fight this inflation alone. There will have to be cooperation on the part of the business undertakings and the entire economic sphere. For that reason some of my other colleagues and I have made earnest requests in the past, as I want to do today, for all of us to co-operate in solving this extremely difficult problem. This is a world-wide phenomenon; this is the biggest economic problem in the whole world today. Up to now no one has been able to find a solution for it.

†If one looks at the position in other countries … I do not even have to mention the figures. In Japan there is an annual rate of inflation of 25%, in Great Britain nearly 20%, Australia 16%, Brazil 35% and in South Africa about …

Fifteen per cent.

No, about 12%. But this is too high. I am not suggesting that we are happy with 12% at all. It is an extraordinary thing that although we have an inflation rate of 12%, which is certainly higher than we want to see, it is nevertheless one of the lowest rates in the world, which just shows what state the world is in. But it is scant consolation to our good people who have to pay these higher prices. I certainly appreciate this fact, and that is why the Government is doing everything possible to assist in countering this very intractable problem. I believe that we have to be much more discerning in our buying habits. I really feel that all of us must be more discriminating and more discerning as buyers. We must find out more about prices and qualities. I think we are going increasingly to have to look critically at the question of luxury or luxuriousness in some of our big institutions, with some of our buildings and other facilities. I am all for supporting universities to the maximum, but I think that when a university comes forward at this moment and says that it wants to build a theatre costing R3½ million, it is an illustration of the desirability that we look a little more strictly at these things. This order of spending at this time cannot but be seriously inflationary.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? Will the hon. the Minister confirm that the same goes for Government expenditure?

I very deliberately used the word “we”. So I certainly include us all. I have made the point earlier that we have to stand together in this regard. I am certainly not here today to point a finger at anybody else; I point the finger at myself first. That is the spirit in which I would like to tackle this increasingly as we go along.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? if this is the attitude adopted in respect of theatres for universities, would the hon. the Minister comment on the attitude of the Administrator of the Transvaal in respect of the opera house costing some R25 million in Pretoria?

We can take a whole list of things and ask for comment on each one individually, but what I say applies quite generally. I believe we have to look at all these things very critically and we have to see where we can possibly save. We also have to see if we cannot, in some cases, have things stand over. I do not want to go into all sorts of individual cases. I simply want to illustrate my point and I hope I am being constructive. From our angle we will certainly look critically at this whole question of investment in specific facilities.

It is sometimes asked what the Price Controller is doing to check on the sort of activities which the hon. member for Constantia mentioned or had in mind. I would just like to refer the hon. member to the fact that in the period January to September 1974 the Price Controller, his inspectors and staff, visited 20 600 traders or trading establishments. They found that 3 000 had in one way or another contravened the law in their trading activities. They warned 840 and instituted proceedings against 2 260. As regards the previous year, they visited no fewer than 30 000 establishments. I think that everybody will agree that these are very substantial figures when one works out what the average is per day. This is really quite an impressive figure. Incidentally, I have just been given a note from one of the newspaper representatives to say that he has been told that half a loaf of bread on the Rand, which should cost 6½ cents, is being sold for 7 cents and could I make a statement? Sir, it is very easy to do so. I will hand this matter forthwith to the Price Controller for investigation. I think these matters must be brought to our notice. If they are wrong, they will be put right. As regards this question of inflation and rising costs and prices, I am very pleased to be able to say that as far as one of our major industries is concerned—I refer to the sugar industry—although it is true that the overseas prices are very high, conditions in this industry in South Africa are very strong and favourable. In these circumstances, I have been able to see my way clear to give the millers and planters in the industry, I think, a very fair return for their efforts. However, I also raised the question with the sugar industry immediately: What about the consumer?

*I am pleased to be able to say this afternoon that an amount of approximately R16 million is being earmarked for the benefit of the consumer. Part of this amount will have to be utilized to prevent an increase in the retail price of sugar on account of the increased transport cost of sugar from the coast to the interior. In addition, there are rises in packing costs, which have to be covered as well. After provision has been made for the increased cost, it will mean that the price of mill-packed sugar will on an average be reduced by one cent per kilogram with effect from 1 November in the Republic and with effect from 15 November in South-West Africa. This is not a substantial reduction in the price, but it is nevertheless a reduction. I want to give the assurance that should the favourable circumstances continue abroad, we would give fresh consideration to this matter in the near future. I sincerely hope that we will be able to announce a further reduction in the retail price. I just wanted to make this quite clear today.

Sir, I want to make haste, because there is one very important point I have to deal with. I just want to say in passing that I will have something to say later about Iscor and certain remarks made in that regard in the course of this debate. At the moment however I want to refer to a very urgent matter, i.e. the whole question of the fuel saving measures. It is regrettable that a great many members of the public seem to be under the impression at the moment that this is not a serious, urgent or important matter. After very specific speed limits had been introduced, which must still be applicable, and after some other saving measures had been introduced subsequent to the tremendous increase in the price of oil in November of last year, it now seems to me as if many of our good people are under the impression that they are allowed to exceed these speed limits just as they wish and they can simply ignore these saving measures.

†Sir, I want to say that this is an extremely important matter. I am not able to give you the details on these matters, because those are the very facts which those who are hostile to us and would like to embarrass us outside, want to know. They want to know precisely what we are able to achieve, and I am not prepared to give them that sort of information. That is why, when I was asked by the hon. member for Sea Point during this session to give the actual results of these measures, I said that I could not give these details. I thought it was a matter for great regret that the hon. member for Sea Point then proceeded to make a Press statement. Here I have an example of the statement, which was given very wide coverage, as it was printed in The Natal Mercury of 5 October this year. I quote—

I do not think that it is a question of my having to tell the public whether we are saving 20%, 18% or 15% or whether we are paying Rx million or Rx hundred million more than last year. I think that is quite wrong. None of the countries publish such figures. The hon. the Prime Minister himself appealed to the nation—and he did it more than once—saying that this was an exceptionally serious matter. We have so few limitations imposed upon us in this country and we are so free that in a matter of this kind, which affects the whole future welfare of the country as few other things do, we ask the public for the small sacrifice to drive a little bit more slowly—and incidentally a little bit more safely—and to regulate the buying of their petrol a little bit more carefully so that they do not buy petrol on Saturdays and Sundays in order to cut out what is very often unnecessary long distance driving and which uses a great deal of petrol. When we do that we find that people come along and tell us that it is not necessary. Do they think that the Government would say that it is essential when it is not? There are three reasons why this is essential and each one of them is sufficient to justify these measures. The first is the condition of complete uncertainty in the world in regard to the supply of oil at this moment. I want to pay tribute to the heads of the oil companies in South Africa who have worked and who are working magnificently with the Government on this matter. I cannot stress sufficiently how impressed I am with the way in which the oil companies are assisting us in every possible way. Their authoritative advise to us is that we cannot change these fuel saving measures but that we must conserve oil and fuel because the future is exceptionally uncertain in this regard. Let me give just one illustration. Only the other day the oil-producing countries, the Opec countries, came together and decided that they would not increase the price of oil but that they would just impose a little higher tax on the international oil companies. As they put it, this would not be much of an increase. The estimates are that just that increase in taxation will cost the international oil companies between 5 000 million and 6 000 million more United States dollars next year. Who is to say that there will not be another increase in the price of oil? For that reason alone we have to be prudent and we have to be certain that we are taking the proper precautionary measures. There is a second reason and that is that we have to build up our strategic reserves of fuel and oil in this dangerous world. We are doing this just as much as we possibly can and we are getting excellent co-operation, but there is leeway that has to be made up. None of us and no country in the world expected this calamity suddenly to overwhelm us. We have to build up these strategic reserves and I can assure hon. members that they have to be built up a good deal more than the reserves we have today. The third point is the enormous increase in the cost which the higher oil prices have occasioned. I do not want to give hon. members the full figures today; I do not want to do it for very good reasons, but let me tell hon. members that the increase in the oil import bill is enormous. More than that I cannot say. For these reasons we have to save fuel, and I am not mentioning the safety factor because if I raise this matter, it might be said that this is not something that I should raise but that it is somebody else’s business.

*I want to emphasize that the situation confronting us is a very serious and urgent one. Neither the Government, nor I, can see our way clear to relaxing these measures at the moment.

†If I were to say today that it looks as if in the near future I can relax them, I would be irresponsible. I do not see any chance of that at the moment. However, the Government has said all along—and I repeat it—that if circumstances change so that we can relax these measures in any way, we shall do so, because we do not want to place any unnecessary hardship on the public. I must point out, however, that we all know that more and more people are ignoring these speed limits. I am getting very serious and more and more representations from the public, from people who do abide by the speed limits, asking us to stop those people who are not abiding by the restrictions. They want to know what we intend doing. They say that they are playing the game; why do we allow other people to drive as they do? I am not going to threaten anybody; that is not my object. I am appealing for co-operation, but I would be irresponsible, as the Minister who has the responsibility in this matter, if I do not say that unless the public is going to show a very much greater awareness of the urgency of this matter and is going to play the game, I will certainly see that other measures are taken. How can a Government worth its salt allow this sort of thing to happen?

*We do not say members of the public are not allowed to drive around in motorcars. They may drive around as much as they like, but at the moment they should not drive faster than 80 km per hour. That is all we say. Neither do we say that they are not allowed to buy fuel; we simply say that fuel will not be allowed to be sold on Saturdays or Sundays or after hours.

†France—that great country, one of the strongest economies in the world at the moment—has announced over the last few weeks that next year there is going to be a substantial reduction in the import of fuel and oil into France. They have given notice that this is going to happen so that the public can begin to attune itself to the position where there is going to be a significant quantity less oil and fuel in France. The public will have to accept it. The United States itself is one of the biggest oil producers but notwithstanding that there are speed limits, and those limits are being very strictly enforced. I have reports in this regard. I want to say that I think it is time that the public of South Africa play the game a little bit better. When I say “the public” I have in mind that minority who have taken it into their heads to disregard the appeal which we have made. The majority is playing the game and I should like to express my appreciation for that. There is no question about that. However, I say that if it is going to be the tendency that more and more people simply drive past you at 120 or 130 kilometres per hour, as they did to me again the other night when I went to Stellenbosch, then we shall simply have to consider doing what has been strongly urged upon me from many quarters. This is not a political issue. We are continually being asked, why not immediately introduce legislation in terms of the National Supplies Procurement Act to make provision for the withdrawal of the licences of people who drive in this way or for the confiscation of the vehicle? Why do we not do these things in the national interest? I simply say that I do not want to make any threats of any kind; I appeal to the public: Let us really make an effort and let us conserve that amount of fuel which we can conserve. It is not a very difficult request we are making. Let us therefore build up our strategic reserves without having to incur the enormous extra costs which would otherwise be involved and which would make our balance of payments that much less favourable than they could otherwise be, thereby denying ourselves the opportunity to import other very essential capital goods and other things which we now cannot do because we are paying so much for oil.

*Mr. Chairman, I want to leave the matter at that for the time being. All I wanted to do was to appeal to the public to view this matter in its true perspective and to appreciate that this matter is a serious and urgent one. I think that once the public appreciates this we shall get the co-operation which I am sure we are able to get in this regard.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Minister made a very serious appeal to the public to co-operate so that the fuel conservation measures might succeed. I just want to point out that we in this country are extremely fortunate in so far as we do not find it necessary to use oil for the purpose of generating power. In this regard we are in a far, far better position than, for example, a big country such as France, to which the hon. the Minister referred. We are in the fortunate position that virtually all our energy requirements, our electricity requirements, can be met by means of coal. This is an aspect which is not always emphasized sufficiently—the fortunate position in which we find ourselves.

I also want to express my thanks to the hon. the Minister for announcing that he and his department would again give attention to the anti-monopolistic legislation. In this regard I want to associate myself with what was said by the hon. member for Constantia, who, in my opinion, made a very meritorious speech here on the economy, although I do not of course agree with him in all respects. I shall come back to this later on. In so far as the hon. member for Constantia pointed out the dangers of monopolies, the monopolies in our capitalistic economy, I want to agree with him. This afternoon I want to remind the House that a commission of inquiry was appointed in 1969. This commission sat in 1970. Three members of the Opposition served on that commission, of whom only the hon. member for Green Point is still in this House. The other two Opposition members were Messrs. Hope-well and Emdin. I am sure that those members, including the hon. member for Green Point, will agree with me that we appreciated the necessity of preparing anti-monopolistic legislation. However, when it comes to the implementation of such legislation, it is one of the most difficult matters one could be faced with. It is far easier to say that action should be taken against monopolistic conditions than it is to take real action against such monopolies without harming the economy. In our capitalistic economy there is, of course, an absolute necessity for action to be taken against monopolies, for our capitalistic system can function successfully only if a free market mechanism is in operation. I agree with the hon. member for Constantia that we would not like to have excessive price control. The determination of prices is not the way in which the cost of living should be kept low. I am in complete agreement with him on that point. That is also the reason why most Western countries, countries such as the United States of America, West Germany, England, France and others, have anti-cartel, anti-trust or anti-monopolistic legislation. The only problem is that in introducing legislation to control monopolies, one has to be very careful not to curb one’s economy unnecessarily. If one were to assign the control of monopolies to a Government department, a considerable number of dangers would be involved, and for that reason I want to suggest that the hon. the Minister consider appointing a technical committee consisting not only of senior officials of his department, but also of leaders in our financial and economic life—leaders in commerce and industry. Sir, we are a small country and our market is fairly limited. In a country such as South Africa there are circumstances which sometimes make it necessary for us to have no more than one or two production units. I am referring to the chemical industry in particular. For the production of nitrogen, for example, our market is barely large enough for the production of one very viable unit, and when, for the sake of the economy of large-scale production, one can only have one unit, one will definitely have to have price control in that industry, for if one cannot keep the price low by means of free competition, one will be compelled to keep the price low by means of price control in the case of such product or products.

Sir, I have said that there definitely are aspects of the speech made by the hon. member for Constantia with which I do not agree. For instance, he said—

Sir, man cannot live by bread alone, and there are circumstances in the life of a people which sometimes make it necessary for one even to make one’s economy subservient to vital factors in our national life, for what good would it do us to amass large personal fortunes if we were deprived of our freedom and the right to determine our own future? The hon. member for Constantia pleaded for entrepreneurs to have the freedom to decide for themselves where they will establish their industries. Sir, the Government does not categorically prescribe to industrial leaders where they should establish their industries, but what it does in fact do is to offer certain benefits to entrepreneurs to establish their industries in the homelands and in the border industrial areas. After all, it is most definitely essential that we establish viable industries in the homelands, too, for the day will come when those homelands will become independent. Then they will have to have a well-balanced economy. To provide for that day it is necessary for us to offer these benefits to industrialists at this stage already—something which might possibly be a distortion of the economy, according to the hon. member for Constantia—so that those industries may become well-established.

Mr. Chairman, in conclusion I should just like to bring one other matter to the attention of the hon. the Minister, a matter which, according to the hon. member for Constantia, might also constitute a measure of interference in free economy, and that is that where we are dealing with the exportation of strategic minerals or supplies or even food, we most certainly cannot leave it completely in the hands of private initiative. We shall have to be far more selective in the choice of countries to which we export those materials. Sir, this Government has never believed in boycotts or in boycott measures, but we are living in a world in which trade boycotts are the order of the day; and since this country, too, is sometimes bowed down by the onslaughts of boycotting countries, we shall have to use our strategic mineral, etc., to a far greater extent to break those boycotts. I do not want to go into detail, but I am thinking of such matters as our enormous supplies of phosphates, which may give us access to certain countries. I am thinking of our large supplies of coal, which may give us access to certain countries, and I am thinking of enriched uranium, which, in the foreseeable future, will be able to afford us access in a world which is crying out for sources of energy. [Time expired.]

I quite agree with the hon. member for Paarl when he talks about care being needed when one comes to consider the degree of monopoly in South Africa. Naturally everybody stands for freedom of enterprise where it does not run across the social good, but certainly in a country which has only 25 million people there are going to be certain plants whose capacity will require a certain degree of rationalization if the economy is not to be harmed, and to that extent I agree with the hon. member for Paarl.

Sir, I want to turn to another subject. It was with interest that I read the speech delivered by the hon. the Minister at the opening of the annual congress of the Association of Chambers of Commerce on Monday, 14 October. Among other things, he said this—

And a little later, in relation to UN, he said—

Sir, it seems to be quite clear from these remarks that the Minister was referring only to the White people of our country and he simply ignored the vast majority of the inhabitants of our country, namely the Black and the Brown South Africans. Their plight and their frustration seem to have passed him by. I do not think we can afford that at this point in time. It is self-evident that the hon. members on the other side of the House, the hon. members to the right of me here, and we on these benches, may have very different solutions to propose for the political future of this country. That is of course a fact, but none of the solutions advocated by any of the hon. gentlemen over there or the hon. gentlemen to my right or those in these benches is going to succeed with any degree of the permanence, which is required, unless at the same time we provide a rising standard of living for all those who live in this country. In this connection I should like to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to the report of the Board for the Decentralization of Industry for the year ended December, 1973, to the broader question of the economic development of the homelands and to the implications of that policy for our economic development. Now, Sir, if you look at that report, you will notice that the board approved projects in 1973 which would provide no more than 7 309’ employment opportunities. That was actually a decline on 1972, when the corresponding figure was 7 633. But what is much more significant is that over the whole period since 1960 that policy of the Board for the Decentralization of Industry has only managed to provide 114 700 employment opportunities, 11 000 of which were for Whites, and at a cost, with or without the assistance of the board, of no less than R637 million. That is R6 900 per job. We do not have figures for under-employed or for unemployed Black and Brown South Africans, which would give us one measure of the task which faces us, but we do have estimates of the new number of recruits coming on to the labour market. Prof. Sadie of the University of Stellenbosch has said that during the 1960s the total male labour force grew by 119 000 per annum. This figure is conservatively expected to rise to 162 000 during this decade. 82,5% of that will occur among the Black and Brown sector, and will constitute nearly 133 000 per annum. Therefore, we have a mammoth task before our country, and we cannot afford to fail. Quite apart from all the considerations which make a continuously improving standard of living for all the inhabitants of this country desirable in itself, and even if we do not have accurate figures for under-employment or unemployment the, fact cannot be gainsaid that there is a very large number of those Black and Brown South Africans who are poor and who wish they were not. It surely cannot be denied that it is in the long-term interest of all the peoples of this country, the Whites as well, to have an increasingly prosperous Black and Brown population. This will obviously have beneficial effects both within and without South Africa. If we succeed in continuously enlarging the size of the economic cake it will certainly temper, at least for a time—and time is what South Africa needs—the understandable and growing bitterness over its division. This then should surely be our first objective, i.e. to provide more in the way of material benefits for all the people of this country.

I have said time is of the essence in reaching that objective, and against that framework the question needs to be asked whether the policy of separate development and decentralization can be sustained, if you consider the potential for growth which would otherwise be open for us. The cost as we see it will be huge. In the end it really turns on what this Government means by separate development. If it means trying to create what in effect amounts to a number of separate economies, it is doomed to failure. This can be seen from the attempts to ignore the realities of the presence of urban Black and Brown South Africans and the implications of their permanence. It must be accepted that this country has one integrated economy, and the mutual independence of all the peoples of our country in its economic development will and can only grow. A balance needs to be struck, as even Dr. Riekert has said, or otherwise the undue emphasis placed on the development of the homelands is going to prove self-defeating. This goes far beyond what would be the case if we all woke up Black, Brown or White tomorrow. The development of the homelands must be seen as a consequence and not as an alternative to the established growth complexes of our country.

If the aim of this Government is to attain the separation of the people of our country by this policy, let us be clear that all the people, and primarily the Whites, will have to pay the price. That price will be a lower rate of growth and a lower standard of living than can be contemplated with equanimity for this country. This is particularly relevant, too, if the prophets of doom prove to be right about the future course of economic events in the world. It would be far better for the Government to allow the growth of our country to evolve naturally from the present urban areas, the border areas adjoining them and in the homelands where the matrix of resources is such that businesses will not require much persuasion in the sense that the incentive will not reduce the overall creation of job opportunities. In addition, of course, the Government should provide essential services for their inhabitants. If we go down this road, not only will we get the best possible immediate growth, but in time it will spill over naturally in the sense of physical movement to the homelands. Until that moment arrives, excessive expenditure within the homelands, or undue emphasis placed on uneconomic opportunities in comparison with opportunities elsewhere, will in fact reduce the overall rate of growth within our country. Even if it is done on a massive scale, it is only likely to improve the situation for the majority of people to a certain point, but their standard of living will not be comparable to what could be achieved by the same, or at least similar expenditure in the established complexes of our country, together with a full recognition of their presence there, and of the implications of their presence.

Of course there are major differences between the peoples of our country. Let us recognize that diversity. But let us at the same time realize that we are all South Africans first and inhabitants of the various provinces and homelands second. Let us therefore go for development which will foster and encourage the former, without destroying the latter. Let us not seek to impose an overriding importance on identity, although it may be desired by some, to where it will seriously and adversely affect the progress which would otherwise be enjoyed by all. There are many poor Black and Brown South Africans who, if given the choice, would prefer increased material and other benefits for themselves and their children to that.

Mr. Chairman, this hon. member is trying to suggest that South Africa is truly the worst country in the world and that the non-Whites in this country are starving. Why does the hon. member not speak about how well things are going in this country? Does he not realize that, in comparison with the non-Whites in the rest of the world, South Africa’s non-Whites are best off? Has he ever compared South Africa with the rest of Africa? Does he realize that South Africa’s non-Whites are second on the list reflecting the number of school-going children in African countries? Does the hon. member realize that the per capita income of our Bantu is the second highest in Africa? Furthermore, does the hon. member realize that, proportionately, the Bantu in South Africa own more motor cars than do the people of big and powerful Russia? But now, however, the hon. member is besmirching South Africa here. If this country really is as bad as he makes it out to be, why did the hon. member come here? No, I think this country has treated the hon. member well, and I think he ought to give more credit to the Whites in this country. In no other country in the world has so much been done by so few for the non-Whites as has been done in South Africa. However, the hon. member says nothing about that. I do not want to waste any more of my time on the hon. member if he comes up with such rubbish here.

I feel the need of congratulating the hon. the Minister on his appointment to this portfolio at the time of the latest Cabinet reshuffle. We appreciate his services and we are grateful for what he has already done. We are looking forward to the even greater services which he is going to render to South Africa. I agree with the hon. member for Constantia that economic matters probably rank amongst the most important matters for any country. No country or people can exist or make any progress if it does not have a strong economy. Money is power; money talks and that is why any country which is economically strong has the power to bridge other difficulties as well. It is for that reason, too, that we in South Africa are in a position to treat our non-Whites so well, something which this hon. member does not want to acknowledge.

I should like to refer to one aspect of this department’s activities, i.e. the work being done by the S.A. Bureau of Standards. The head office of this body happens to be in my constituency. It is perhaps a lesser known fact that it is estimated that products worth approximately R350 million are sold under the Bureau’s mark. The Bureau does a great deal, but it is done in silence. However, there is one aspect of their activities which I want to bring to the fore this afternoon, i.e. standardization. I want to make an appeal to our businessmen in South Africa, especially the canning factories, etc., that they standardize. To illustrate this I want to refer to just three products in this regard. When one buys peas at a supermarket today, one finds that there are a large number of different brands with different weights and different prices. Therefore, no housewife can draw a proper comparison. I want to mention a few examples, but since I do not want to advertise these products, I am not going to identify them. There are 439 g tins of peas at 17 cents, 340 g tins at 16 cents, 425 g tins at 22 cents and 793 g tins at 36 cents. A housewife therefore has to make a few calculations before she can decide which one to buy. When one calculates how many grams of peas one obtains for each cent one pays, it works out to 26 g, 21¼ g, 19⅓ g and 24 5/6 g, respectively. I think the time has arrived for us to tell the canning factories in South Africa, whether they can peas, beans or any other product, that they should standardize. This may even be done by means of legislation. After all, we have adopted the metric system in South Africa. With the units of weight used by the factories at present, however, the metric system is completely ignored. If they should standardize, they would benefit, too. Once standardization has taken place, this unnecessary variety we find in a production series will be eliminated, which will also be to the benefit of the producers and canning factories. This would mean a tremendous saving to the manufacturer since it would be possible to have longer production runs. Less equipment would be required for the various sizes, for they would then require only one, two or a few containers, as may be laid down, to the benefit of the housewife, the producer and all of us. Far more accurate costing could most definitely be done, and more effective production planning could take place. A further benefit is that it would be possible to lower production costs and, consequently, the selling price as well. In this way we would also be able to combat inflation in South Africa. It would give all of us, not only the producer, a basis for comparison since we would be able to compare the local product with the overseas one. Moreover, it would effect a substantial saving in respect of marketing costs. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether, if this cannot be effected by persuasion, standardization in this regard should not be brought about by way of regulations. I want to ask that consideration be given to this matter in the light of our system of metric measures.

Now I want to raise a point in connection with our exports. This afternoon I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister to announce an export promotion year. Last year, when I had the privilege of visiting Europe, I saw that South Africa was not exporting enough. Sir, the field is lying fallow. I have ascertained that people make inquiries individually about certain products they want to export, but when the orders are placed, they say, “Good heavens! I can’t do it. This order is too large for me.” I noticed at the Runges Market outside Paris, inter alia, that our proteas were being exported to France through Germany. The person in charge of the Runges Market battled for a long time before he succeeded in importing the flowers direct from South Africa. And so I could point out a number of problems. I want to admit very frankly that the exporters in South Africa are not financially strong. Problems are being experienced in finding the right market. I think this requires a joint effort, as is the case in Israel, France, West Germany and the Netherlands, by one central body with which is affiliated the State with all the various departments, the boards of control as well as commercial bodies, such as Assocom, the Chamber of Industries and the Afrikaanse Handelsinstitute. They should all be brought together under one umbrella and make a coordinated attempt to export all over the world. South Africa is a good trading partner. In 1973 our exports amounted to R2 306 million and our imparts R3 282 million, an aggregate amount of R5 694 300 000, which represents almost one third of our gross national product. This shows us clearly that we are geared for that. However, through the attempts that are being made at present, South Africa is suffering losses. I want to say that as far as our trade is concerned, we could capture the world market to a large extent, and not only through the provisions of products, but also through the provision of services. Our invisible exports, i.e. the services we provide, could expand tremendously. I am thinking of the medical profession, for instance. In respect of veterinary science, too, we have already provided many services abroad, especially in Africa. This could also be done in many other spheres. This may not, be so well known, but the Bureau of Standards also renders very fine services throughout the world. By way of a small co-ordinated effort—I call it a small effort—everyone who is geared for exporting, could be induced to export through one central channel. All the experts in this sphere could be brought together, and in this way we could achieve the best for South Africa as far as exports are concerned. Our gold is a great asset to us, but it is a dwindling asset. Our industries are shooting up rapidly. Our local markets are too small, but overseas there are many, many markets for us to conquer. The world needs food. The world cannot supply Africa and the East with enough food. Because the seasons in Europe do not coincide with ours, we could market a very great deal over there. I am thinking of our wines. In France, the wine country, we can sell a great deal of wine today. But then we in South Africa will have to put a stop to determining quotas for producers. Let us produce as much wine as we can. Let us find the markets overseas. We can find them. We can also find them in the East. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I want to deal with a very comprehensive subject in a fairly short space of time and therefore I shall only be able to touch on the salient points. I want to refer to the energy situation. It has been fashionable in recent months and years to talk about the energy situation as though it were entirely an oil crisis. There is no doubt about it that oil supplies and the utilization of oil form a very large part of the energy crisis, but they are by no means the whole of the energy situation. In recent months and years the oil crisis has given countries to think very seriously about their future energy needs and they have in fact come to certain conclusions. I believe those conclusions are equally valid for South Africa. They have come to the conclusion that in the process of remedying the damage done by the oil crisis and in looking into the future and into the enormous growth needs that the economy will impose upon energy resources, they must look to a kind of spectrum, a combination of various forms of energy which may be employed together in an economic balance in order to ensure that the country in question gets the best value out of the resources available to it and that it is able to maintain the correct spectrum of utilization in order that energy may be provided adequately and cheaply enough to enable economic progress to continue. In South Africa we find that this kind of integrated approach still appears to be lacking to some extent and yet it is vital to the planning of the energy resources which will be fundamental to the economic growth which is necessary and indeed essential if we are going to feed, house and clothe the products of a population explosion that is now going on in this country. The hon. the Minister spoke about oil. I should like to say at this stage that we strongly support and endorse the appeal he has made, namely, that we should continue our efforts to economize on oil by such means as moderate use, moderate speed and so forth in respect of our transport. However, this is only a small part. It is one of the parts of the energy situation which happens to be handled by this hon. Minister. He has the responsibility for petrol economy and oil economy, and the work which is being done by Sasol in the field of oil. The question of exploration is another matter which falls under the Ministry of Mines. Arising out of this question of oil is the thorny question of transport. If we are really going to economize on oil in the long run, we shall have to look very hard at the kind of transport we have in both private and public use. One thing that we should be looking at in common with other countries of the world, is the question of electrically-driven transport. It is possible to take energy from sources other than oil and to convert this energy into electricity. Provided that sufficient progress was made in the development of better and more efficient batteries or accumulators for cars, it would become possible to make ourselves far more independent of oil than we are at the present time. The CSIR, I believe, should be doing this kind of research. It no longer falls under this Minister, and here we have another example of lack of co-ordination and integration in respect of energy.

In the case of coal, this again falls outside the Minister’s province, and I do not therefore wish to labour the point, but it obviously is one of our major sources of energy. It is not possible to think of any particular aspect of energy without thinking at the same time of the utilization of coal in its many forms and aspects. The petrochemical industry, which has been mentioned, is merely one of them.

Then there is nuclear energy, which again falls outside the area of competence of this Minister, and which will have to play a very large part in the future development of our energy resources. There is the hydro-electric potential. Here again the Minister seems to be involved because Escom is very largely responsible for the development of our hydro-electric resources. In the hon. the Minister’s Loan Account we find provision, for example, for the Cabora-Bassa development. Escom will be assisted in developing other hydro-electric schemes. Hydro-electric development, which has an enormous potential in Southern Africa, falls under this Minister, whereas other aspects of energy are not under his supervision.

There is the question of solar energy. We have in this country vast open areas like the Kalahari Desert, which are virtually uninhabited, with a high number of sunshine hours. These could theoretically be an enormous source of energy. This is not an aspect of energy which has yet been fully developed, but if ever there were the potential in any country to add to its energy resources by means of solar energy, we have that potential in South Africa.

In the very short time available to me I cannot go into the numerous possibilities, but I would like to say that this civilization we maintain in Southern Africa depends very greatly upon our ability to develop sources of energy which will be necessary for the firing and the fuelling of our economy, and for maintaining the kind of growth economy which will be necessary in order that we may survive and maintain our standards of living. It is one of the key essentials to the survival of our way of life, and I believe that unless we look to our energy resources, co-ordinate them, integrate them and plan them in a manner which is entirely consistent with the objectives we wish to achieve, we may fall behind and we may find that the targets we have set cannot in fact be achieved.

Under this Minister’s control is perhaps the most important energy provider of them all. I refer to Escom, and it is right when one refers to Escom to pay tribute to the enormous part they have played in the development of the energy resources of South Africa. I believe that Escom is a model of its kind as a supplier of electricity. But Escom itself, which now depends so largely on coal for the generation of electricity, will have to look to other sources. It will have to make decisions in its choices between, shall we say, coal, hydro-electric power, oil, if oil is available, and the other sources such as solar energy, nuclear energy and so forth. It will have to make the economic choices. But it cannot make these choices unless the development is proceeding apace and unless investments are made which will make those choices viable choices, worth-while choices. I believe that we should begin to think very seriously in this country of the creation of a co-ordinated energy policy. It has been done in most other advanced Western countries. They have seen the writing on the wall. They have created ministries of energy, or directorates of energy, in order to give impetus and direction and in order to integrate the various aspects or the various fragments of the whole energy pie, to bring it all together, and to ensure that there is a concerted drive forward. I believe this country needs it too. We have a great potential. We have enormous resources which could be developed. I believe that in the long run we can overcome any threatened penury in the field of energy; but only if we organize and only if we co-ordinate. We have at the moment a fragmented energy situation. We have a balkanized energy world. I believe we must rethink the situation, despite the committees of co-ordination which exist and which are doing valuable work. I have in mind the various committees that exist in various places, right up to the Prime Minister’s Advisory Council. I believe that we need more than just committees. We need a department with drive … [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, on this occasion I shall not react to the speech made by the hon. member for Von Brandis, for I should like to refer to the hon. member for Walmer, who did South Africa a great disservice this afternoon as a result of the reprehensible way in which he attacked and cast suspicion on Iscor.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order …

Mr. Chairman, it is not necessary for the hon. member for Griqualand East to raise a point of order, because I withdraw the word “reprehensible”. I want to tell that hon. member that if he thinks he can promote South Africa’s case abroad in that manner, and then, in the same breath, put the request to the hon. the Minister that we should rely on foreign capital and negotiate loans, I wander what kind of success he can expect us to achieve abroad. What did the hon. member do? In the attack he launched, he even had to make a company such as the Voëst suspicious of South Africa. What confidence can they have in South Africa if a member of Parliament, if I may put it this way, can act in such an irresponsible manner? He went on to speak about a Broederbond-controlled Iscor! Why does the hon. member not go and chat to the hon. member for Benoni? His late father, Dr. Van Eck, was the chairman of Iscor. That is where the Saldanha project originated. Was he a Broederbonder? No, the hon. member should rather go and learn a thing or two before making speeches in this House. I also want to deal briefly with Iscor. I am privileged in that I am not speaking about Iscor by hearsay, as that hon. member did. Nor am I speaking by hearsay as that stooge of Harry Oppenheimer’s spoke about Iscor. The member for Walmer is a fine prospective candidate for the Progressive Party, but I want to say that they are not a political party.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the word “stooge”.

I mean a “political stooge”, Sir.

No, the hon. member must withdraw the word unconditionally.

I withdraw it, Sir. Something is being abused—that is what they did, that and nothing less than that—to besmirch South Africa’s name.

Have you read the report?

I had the privilege of being associated with Iscor for 21 years. I had the privilege of being associated with Iscor’s internal audit department, and I was also associated with Iscor’s financial accounts and cost accounting departments. I was also associated with Iscor’s staff department, so that I had dealings with both the management and the workers. However, the hon. members talk about Iscor by hearsay and on the basis of what they have read. Why does the hon. member not read properly the annual report that was made available to him? He says that he has not received the 1974 annual report. Of course he could not have received it yet, for the 1973 annual report was only published on 31 October. Many questions were put about Iscor, and grave doubts were cast on its efficiency and management, especially by hon. members of the Progressive Party. I say they are not a political party. If I were to analyse the word “Prog”, I would say it stands for “Persons Representing the Oppenheimer Group”. They are not a political party. They are Oppenheimer’s eavesdroppers. The hon. members for Constantia, Cape Town Gardens and Von Brandis also cast doubts on Iscor’s efficiency. Why do these hon. members not make a study of what Iscor is doing in connection with efficiency? Since the earliest days Iscor has had an efficiency department in each of its centres. There is an organization and method section, in which highly qualified persons are serving. Since the fifties there has also been an industrial engineering section, in which some of our highly qualified people are serving, people who make studies, who have to perform certain tasks as far as efficiency is concerned. I want to refer to a few of those tasks. That department is a large department consisting of more than 300 persons, and there are five important tasks in particular which fall under that department. One of the most important tasks that department has to perform is to undertake full-time technical studies dealing with the improvement of production processes and techniques. Where could one wish for better, Sir,? The second task to which I want to refer hon. members on that side is that of evaluating posts and planning manpower, which is done by this department of Iscor. Sir, this is a very important function. No post is created until such time as this department has investigated the matter and determined whether there is justification for such a post, and a salary for a post of this nature is not just fixed in a haphazard way. No, the market trend is taken into consideration to ensure that Iscor does not wrest the salary and wage structure in South Africa out of context. Sir, these are the things for which that department is responsible. A third very important function of that department is to determine standards as far as physical production is concerned. It is laid down how many tons per hour are expected; labour standards are determined and production standards are laid down in comparison with the production standards in similar trades and industries. Sir, there is also another important function which falls under that department—I consider this to be one of their most important functions—and that is their Productivity Intensification Programme, which is generally known at Iscor as the PIP scheme. Sir, this implies inter alia that every employee of the corporation has the right to criticize the corporation’s internal activities. Every employee has the right to put forward suggestions to the corporation, and that is why every employee has an intense interest in the management of the corporation. Where could one find a finer idea to promote sound management? Sir, under that programme they set themselves a target every year. One of the targets they have set themselves for the coming year is a saving of 3 % on their budget, and if they do succeed in effecting this saving, R6,6 million, they will have saved the equivalent of a 3 % saving. Last year they had similar targets and they succeeded in effecting savings amounting to more than R7 million. In other words, they exceeded their target by more than 15%.

Sir, there are other fine things being done by Iscor which I could mention to you, but time does not permit me to do so. I have here an issue of the publication Yskoriaan, in which we read about an “award of R4 079” which an Iscor worker received for a suggestion which he made to the corporation and by means of which thousands of rand are being saved. Sir, that is how those people are trying to promote productivity and efficiency. In this way this department has effected tremendous savings over the years. Sir, there is also another important function which this department fulfils, and that relates to economic studies. A proper economic study is made of every project before it is tackled and in this way the Saldanha project, too, was analysed and investigated. If it appears that a project is not economic, I can give you the assurance that it is abandoned. Apart from this department Iscor has a full-time internal audit department. They also make use of consultants in countries abroad. In 1968, I think, they made use of, if I remember the name of the firm correctly, Booze-Allon and Hamilton, an American firm. But, Sir, it is not so easy to make use of foreign consultants, for those people are not familiar with the labour situation in South Africa. If one were to bring those people to South Africa in order to make an analysis of Iscor’s activities, and especially if one bears in mind that we are dealing here with Black labour, could you imagine, Sir, what consternation they could cause in South Africa? One cannot simply call in a foreign firm of consultants to investigate Iscor’s affairs, and I ask you, Sir, what consultants in South Africa are capable of investigating Iscor’s affairs? Most certainly not the Oppenheimer group.

When they established Highveld Steel, they enticed numerous principal rollers, principal smelters and operators away from Iscor to come and work for them. Sir, and in view of Iscor’s having the lowest steel price in the world, it is subsidizing even the Oppenheimer group as far as steel is concerned. As far as the staff is concerned, I do not believe that one could find a happier staff than that of Iscor. I have here a list of hundreds of names of people who have 40, 35, 30, 25 and 20 years’ service with Iscor. Recently Iscor employed over 700 women on account of a labour shortage. They also take care of the social interests of those workers. For example, they are going to provide a crèche, where children will be cared for from infancy right up to school-leaving age. These working mothers therefore need not entrust their young children to the care of non-White servants. A non-White hostel is being built for Vanderbijlpark at a cost of more than R14 million—the most modem hostel one could find for Bantu in the R.S.A. Sir, we have here a splendid organization of which South Africa may be proud. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I think the hon. member for Vanderbijlpark succeeded brilliantly in exposing two contentious speeches made here this afternoon, i.e., those made by the hon. members for Walmer and Johannesburg North. I think that the hon. member for Walmer has for a long time been trying to sow suspicion of things done by the Provincial Council and the Government. I think he is far too big for his boots. He has been here a very short time and in my opinion he should count his words; otherwise he may regret it. [Interjections]. No, we have nothing to hide. The hon. member for Johannesburg North said some dangerous things here and it was remarkable that as soon as the hon. member for Vanderbijlpark scratched them a little, they began to yelp. The hon. Whip of the Progressive Party, the hon. member for Orange Grove, groaned frequently. I think that what the hon. member for Vanderbijlpark said about that political party, viz. that it is the progeny of a big magnate, is the truth.

I can but repeat what I said earlier this session about the question of inflation. I made the statement, and furnished evidence, that there are in fact members of the United Party and the Progressive Party who hold out the defence budget as being one of the causes of inflation in this country. I do not want to discuss the merits of the case now, because that debate is over. The hon. members can go and read my Hansard. I just want to say that the present American President used these words, and in my opinion they certainly apply to us, too—

That is why I say that it is time for those who do not share our political views, to stop saying that the Defence Vote is the cause of the high rate of inflation in this country.

I want to exchange a few ideas about something that worries me, and that is the prodigious growth of consumer credit in South Africa during the past 18 months. I read that consumer credit has risen by 42% over the past 18 months, from an amount of R1 477 million to an amount of R2 110 million. I find this disturbing, and I wondered whether it was not time for the hon. the Minister to emphasize this point, too, a little, when he talks about discipline among our people as far as implementing the speed restrictions is concerned, because this is a matter of discipline. He must talk to our people and ask them to endeavour to live on a cash basis to a greater extent and also ask—and I am very pleased that the hon. member for Sunnyside touched on this matter—that our people buy more judiciously. One is able to buy judiciously if, among other things, one understands the price and the weight of the object one wants to buy. It is also true that personal savings, expressed as a percentage of earnings, have dropped from 12,1% in 1971 to 5,1% in 1973. In addition, R274 million less was saved in 1973 than in 1972. We know that there have been factors beyond our control. We know that both the poor agricultural harvest and price increases have had a role to play in this regard, but in my opinion there is a third factor too, namely the enormous rise in consumer expenditure. Now there are many people who ask the question whether it is still worth the trouble to save, whether it still pays them to save money. There are people who subscribe to the philosophy that as long as the inflation rate is higher than the rate of interest, there is no sense in saving. However, there is also another truth which, probably, is also very important. One does not get rich from what one earns but from what one saves. This is true and we are grateful for it, because the investor is a very important person in the country’s economy. The person who lends money also plays a role, because he uses those moneys for development. The interest rates that have been increased, have encouraged people to save because only one month after the interest rates were adjusted, there was a rise in savings among the building societies alone of R39,1 million over the previous month. To me it is important that in spite of the fact that the rate of inflation eats away at the value of their money, people still make investments and try to save. I think that judicious spending, a sound sense of thrift and, more important still, greater industriousness, are signposts pointing towards a sound economic growth.

I should like to touch on a second matter. This has to do with the decentralization of industries. The Physical Planning Act was placed on the Statute Book for very good reasons. This Act provides, inter alia, that industrial development must and can also be channelled to so-called outlying areas. Thus the idea of growthpoints and decentralized areas was born, for which we are very grateful because it is providing a major stimulus in certain parts of the country. In my opinion this is a real and positive step forward. However, we are now finding that in some or all of these decentralized areas, businessmen who want to move there or businessmen or industrialists who are there and want to expand further, are experiencing problems. I refer to those who want to do entrepreneuring work or those who want to tackle extensions of existing enterprises. The problem experienced by these people—we have experienced this in my constituency—is that the incentive measures available are not automatically in these areas. I remember very well that local managements were told a year or two ago that the Decentralization Board did not have a sackful of industries with which it could say that the one should go to place A and the other to place B. The local managements were told that they would have to roll out the red carpet for businessmen, industrialists and entrepreneurs. I can testify that a local management did roll out the red carpet, and attracted these people to come and look and investigate, etc. However, the local management is unable to offer those bodies conditions equal to those they can enjoy elsewhere. For that reason I am asking here whether the hon. the Minister would not consider giving us an interim stage, and including some or all of these decentralized areas in the schedule. This would give local managements who try to make use of these benefits that are offered, greater stability and certainty.

To conclude: We spoke about the growth rate and the importance of South Africa having a sound growth rate. We are all agreed on that score. I want to pay tribute to this Government, to the Department of Trade and Industries, to the hon. the Minister and to his predecessor, for what they have done to maintain, a high growth rate. We call to mind the special attention given to the training of our Whites and in particular, too, of our non-Whites. We call to mind in particular the State’s efforts to encourage domestic savings. We call to mind, too, the utilization of available savings in most productive ways and the additional tariff protection of domestic industries. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I am sure the hon. member for Worcester will excuse me if I do not follow up his thoughts. He made certain points with which I cannot find fault, neither do I have the time to answer them. The hon. member for Vanderbijlpark defended Iscor excitedly. We can quite understand that because he represents the constituency where this industry is situated. I will come back to this in a moment.

I just want to refer briefly to what the hon. the Minister said in his reply a little earlier, particularly in regard to the number of visits made by price control inspectors to various business establishments. Perhaps I could have the hon. the Minister’s attention? I am trying to speak to him directly at the moment. Is it necessary for the hon. member for Paarl to stand in the middle of the gangway while I am trying to speak to the hon. the Minister?

I am listening.

It is all very well for the hon. the Minister to say that he is listening. I must demand injury time.

Don’t tell me what to do; just carry on with your speech.

I was trying to speak directly to the hon. the Minister and I would like to have the courtesy of his attention when I speak directly to him.

You are being discourteous.

No. I am not being discourteous at all. I believe it was the hon. the Minister who was discourteous. I believe that the hon. the Minister, in his reply to the hon. member for Constantia, missed the point entirely regarding the question of price control. The hon. member for Constantia did not want to know how many thousands of visits had been made by inspectors to retail establishments to check on underweight and things like that. What he was referring to was the larger and more important issues of price rings, the cartels and the collusion which is taking place. What we want to know from the hon. the Minister is what he is doing in this respect to protect the public of South Africa. What about the monopolies that have been established? Are these being investigated? The Minister has the Regulation of Monopolistic Conditions Act which he can apply. He says that he has no jurisdiction over banks, but I want to say that this Act does apply to banks. The hon. the Minister can use the powers under that Act to investigate what is happening in banks today regarding the interest rates which are being charged. The question the hon. member for Constantia asked was what is the hon. the Minister doing to protect and to defend the public of South Africa. What is he doing to carry out the duties which he should be carrying out? These are the questions to which we want replies from the hon. the Minister.

I want to come back to the whole question of Iscor. We have heard defensive speeches from many members and the hon. the Minister is going to talk about Iscor just now. I want to ask the hon. members outright whether they are satisfied that Iscor is carrying out the purpose for which it was established? [Interjections.] I want to ask the hon. member for Vanderbijlpark if Iscor is able to supply the demands of South Africa today? The answer is that it cannot.

Iscor saw you renegades through the war?

That hon. member can be as rude as he likes, it does not matter. He was the one who earlier had to withdraw three times within two minutes.

The hon. member must withdraw the word “renegades”.

I withdraw it, Sir.

Leave him, Sir; we know that he is a rude member. We do not expect anything else from him. I want to say that the steel shortage in this country is the worst that it has been since 1933. It is so desperate that the Transvaal Chamber of Industries has even had to start a special Steel Users’ Association in an attempt to get some rationalization in this industry in the country today. There is the case of one particular firm with a normal allocation of 550 tons which has been cut to 90 tons, when it can get it. Even so, it has to wait from five to nine months for delivery of these 90 tons. When we come to the question of inflation and higher costs, this firm is being compelled to take only a small range of what it would normally carry, because it cannot order small quantities. Although Iscor is only able to supply small quantities, it unfortunately is charging higher rates because of the small quantities it is delivering to these firms as opposed to the large amounts that are ordered. One firm in Johannesburg has received no steel plate from Iscor for 12 weeks. In fact, one firm advised me the other day that on that day they had tried to buy channel iron, and in the whole of the Witwatersrand there was just none available at all. The only persons who have any supplies are those who placed their orders five to six months ago.

What size?

All sizes. Do you know what is happening, Sir? Stable companies that have been operating for many years are now on the point of going insolvent because they cannot complete jobs. Jobs are up to 90% complete; but they cannot invoice for those jobs today, because they cannot complete them as the result of the shortage of steel. We constantly hear stories of firms turning down orders; not because they cannot execute them, but because they cannot get supplies of steel. Some, in fact, are even reducing staff. Although they have plenty of orders, they cannot get the steel to carry out those orders. Does the hon. the Minister know that the delivery date for steel wire rope ordered today is 12 months from today? Here are members who are defending Iscor. Are we satisfied that Iscor is able to do what it is supposed to do? Inflation is being caused and chased up in the particular industry because of the use of heavier steel sections. Many firms are being forced to weld smaller steel plates together, which brings about unnecessary labour expenses. There is also the question of imports. Because Iscor cannot satisfy the local demand for steel, it has had to import 770 000 metric tons of steel already this year, which is somewhere in the region of 12% of our requirements. Of course, the hon. the Minister knows that some of that steel which was imported, was Iscor steel which had been previously exported. This steel is being imported and we are paying, in addition to the freight charges, taxes to the Government. In addition to everything else, there is a dumping duty on certain imported steel products, which are made from our South African Iscor steel which is being exported. This is also chasing up the rate of inflation.

We have heard this talk of rings, cartels and monopolies. In no other industry does there exist the same rings, cartels and monopolies that exist in the steel industry. What is the hon. the Minister doing about investigating them? I want to mention certain names here this afternoon. I refer particularly to pipe fittings. Malleable iron fittings are manufactured in South Africa, as far as I know, by only two concerns, namely African Malleable Ltd., which is wholly owned by Stewarts & Lloyds, and Monoweld Ltd., although Monoweld is barely producing anything. These two firms are prepared to admit that they cannot meet the demand in South Africa for these products. So the position is that we have to import. The hon. the Minister and his department know that the prices of these particular products are higher overseas than the prices of the locally manufactured products. But when certain people import these products so that we can use them in this country, what is being done? The hon. the Minister imposes an additional dumping duty of R180 per 1 000 kilogrammes. Let us protect our industries when they need protection, but does the Minister believe that this industry needs protection at this stage, when (a) it cannot meet the demand and (b) the prices of the local products are lower than overseas prices anyway? Let us come back to this question of the rings. As I say, only two firms are producing these products, firms which are being protected by this dumping duty of the hon. the Minister. These products are distributed through a ring of five firms, viz. Stewarts and Lloyds themselves, Incledons, National Trading Company, Monoweld and a firm called Hall-Longmore. I believe that the prices of the locally manufactured products, if you can get them, are 20% higher than they should be. That is so because of the fact that here we have a ring and nobody else will be allowed in this ring to sell these fittings. They are keeping them out because they have the monopoly at the top since there are only two firms which are manufacturing these articles. This Minister and his department are assisting this ring by placing a dumping duty upon any products which are imported. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I should like to tell the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South that I am really disappointed in him today. When he addressed the House, no one disputed the fact that it was his turn to speak and that it was his privilege to make a fool of himself, but to have pretended, while speaking, that he was the chairman, too, I regard as having been in poor taste. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South ought really to have shown the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs the courtesy of addressing the Chair and requesting the Minister’s attention through the Chair. Another hon. member was engaging the hon. the Minister’s attention at that stage, but he indicated to the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South that he was listening to him at the same time. I can understand the hon. member being very nervous about the presence of the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs. He is not only an outstanding Minister and an English-speaking person to boot, but he is also the leader of my party in Natal and I can therefore understand why the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South is so nervous when he has to deal with the Minister of Economic Affairs.

I should like to make use of this opportunity to thank the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs and his officials for the sympathetic audience they gave my voters and I when we made a plea for the establishment of a sugar industry in the Hoed-sprit district. While a desirability study is being done in regard to the establishment of a sugar mill at Hoedspruit. I want to ask that the hon. the Minister give very sympathetic consideration to that leanest which is to be submitted to him shortly. I also want to ask that very sympathetic consideration be given to this area in the Eastern Lowveld, which has enormous potential. Many thousands of Shangaans are living in the Shangaan homeland there and this would create employment opportunities for them. It is situated on our eastern border and it would be a good thing if we could establish a flourishing sugar industry there.

The second matter I want to raise today concerns one of our state corporations, namely Foskor. It is really a pity that in general, condemnatory references to the state corporations are so often made, to the effect that they encroach too much on the domain of the private sector. It is not always added that the state corporations tackled certain industrial services for South Africa when it was not a paying proposition for the private sector to tackle such industries, because the risk was too great. Now that those industries are lucrative and profitable, increasing criticism is being voiced, but the fact that the corporations rendered a very major service to South Africa, is forgotten. One of the corporations of which I want to make special mention, is Foskor, the Phosphate Development Corporation at Phalaborwa. It was always assumed that South Africa would always be dependent on imported phosphate. Here, however, we have an undertaking which, when it began operations, processed phosphate ore of the lowest quality in the world. There are many problems, particularly as far as the flotation process, by means of which the phosphate is extracted, is concerned. All those problems have been overcome and although that corporation initially operated at a loss for seven to eight years, it is at present operating at a profit. It is a fact that today we are not only self-sufficient as far as our requirements of phosphate in South Africa are concerned, but we are also becoming an exporter of phosphate. As the hon. member for Paarl indicated, today phosphate is really a very strategic product because it is an essential product for the production of food throughout the world. Foskor also renders very valuable service to agriculture in South Africa. Phosphate fertilization is the basis of field husbandly production in South Africa because in general, the land we have in the Republic is very deficient in phosphate. Phosphate is an absolutely essential requirement for an optimum economic agricultural production. When one considers the enormous increase in the use of fertilizer, one realizes that the activities of Foskor are saving South Africa an enormous amount in terms of foreign exchange. I looked up the figures and found that in the ten year period from 1950-’51 to 1960-’61, the amount spent on fertilizer in South Africa rose from R16 million to R34,3 million. This represents an increase of 114%. Over the subsequent ten year period, viz. from 1960-’61 to 1970-’71, the amount spent on fertilizer in South Africa rose further from R34,3 million to as much as R72,4 million, an increase of 111%. It is significant that in the three years from 1970-’71 to 1973-’74, the amount spent on fertilizer in South Africa rose from R72,4 million to R137 million. This represents an increase of 89% over a period of three years. Thus it is probably not far-fetched to expect that within the next seven or eight years the amounts spent on fertilizer in South Africa will run to more than R300 million. If one considers, too, the price trend in the fertilizer industry, the statement could be made that if it were not for Foskor keeping the price of phosphate at a very constant level in past years, we should have to pay far, far more for fertilizer in South Africa. Since fertilizer is one of the basic means of production in the agricultural sector, increases in the price of fertilizer will also, of course, lead to an increase in food prices. When we talk about fertilizer, it should be realized that potash, nitrogen and other elements are also involved in the manufacture of fertilizer and that some of these substances have to be imported at prices over which we have no control. I therefore want to welcome the plea made by the hon. member for Klip River, viz. that we in South Africa should become self-sufficient as far as the production of nitrogenous fertilizers is concerned. If we consider what has happened to prices and if we take the prices in 1958, 1959, 1960 and 1961 as the base price for an index, we see that in the ten years between 1959-’60 and 1969-70 the index price of fertilizer has dropped from 100,4 to 100,3. It is very significant to be able to note that there has been a drop in prices over a period of ten years. Unfortunately, but owing chiefly to the imported constituents of fertilizer, prices rose by 29% between 1969-’70 and February of this year. However, the point is that in the 14 years from 1959-’60 to February 1974, fertilizer prices have risen by only 29%. In my opinion this is indeed a very minor increase in price if one bears in mind the increase in the prices of other commodities.

In this regard I want to address a request to the hon. the Minister. Whereas phosphate is regarded as a basic means of production in South African field husbandry, I want to ask that it be seen in the same light as far as animal husbandry is concerned. Phosphate is the form of di-calcium phosphate and mono-calcium phosphate is just as basic a means of production in animal husbandry as phosphate is in field husbandry production. In my opinion, excessive profits are being made on cattle-licks, particularly licks containing di-calcium phosphate. Excessive profits are also being made on pure di-calcium phosphate. Di-calcium phosphate should be sold to the processers of fertilizer at the same price as that of ordinary rock phosphate and di-calcium phosphate should be placed under price control. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I want to say once again that I have listened with interest to the contributions made by hon. members to this debate. I find it a pity that the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South grew so heated. I do not think it was necessary.

†All I was doing was checking on the time to see when the debate would run out and when I would have to reply. I listened very carefully to what the hon. member had to say. I do not think it was necessary for anybody to talk about being discourteous. However, I shall leave the hon. member at that because I think that the debate has taken place in a constructive spirit and I hope that we can keep it there.

*A number of important points have been raised by my hon. colleagues, and I should like to deal with them. The hon. member for Paarl referred to the question of monopolistic conditions. He recommended that a technical committee be appointed to conduct a thorough investigation into this matter. I have made a note of this and I should like to discuss the matter with him further. I think we could achieve a great deal by means of such a committee. The hon. member also referred to the exportation of strategic supplies and recommended that we approach this matter with greater discretion in future. I think he is quite right. This is a recommendation we shall keep in mind.

†The hon. member for Johannesburg North in his second speech raised certain matters in connection with Iscor. I shall be dealing with the question of Iscor a little later. I would, however, just like to refer to his remarks regarding employment and my having said at the opening of the conference of Assocom that in some senses employment was overfull. The hon. member went on to say that I was clearly only referring to Whites and that I was not taking the Blacks into account. Let me tell the hon. member that I was not excluding Blacks or non-Whites, as the case may be. It is true that no society or economy is ever in a position where it can offer full employment to everyone. In any case, there are some people who are unemployable. Be that as it may, it is perfectly true that in this country as in most countries in Africa and in many other underdeveloped countries one finds the well-known phenomenon that has been commented on a great deal, the phenomenon of underemployment. This means that people are working but are not working anywhere near their full capacity for various reasons. As far as actual unemployment is concerned, when one considers what is happening in many parts of the world in some of the really leading countries, unemployment in South Africa generally speaking right across the colour line is really exceptionally low.

I would like to refer the hon. member to another aspect of the employment and labour picture in this country. I have here a report which appeared in The Argus on 29 August of this year. This report states—

This is according to the Reserve Bank. The report continues—

This was over a period of four years.

They then go on to say—

They then go on to say—

If you look at these figures and at the earnings side as well—and that affects employment—you can hardly say that we are ignoring the Blacks and the non-Whites. Sir, with regard to decentralization, the hon. member for Johannesburg North was very critical of the figures. I think he quoted figures up to 1973, if I heard him correctly. The total number taken into employment in decentralized industries in 1973 was 7 309, and of those 6 452 were Bantu, but during the six months of 1974, that is to say for half the year only, the total number taken into employment was 6 561—on an annual basis that would be 13 000—of whom 5 700 were Bantu. That would give you an annual rate of over 10 000. These figures are an indication of what is taking place at present. They reflect a very substantial improvement on what took place even as recently as last year.

Sir, if roughly 100 000 Bantu have been taken into employment in these industries, as I think the hon. member said, and if you assume that every one person taken into employment provides a living for seven people—and that is an estimate which has been made by responsible researchers—then you are providing a livelihood for something like ¾ million people. Sir, we must bear in mind that this policy has not been applied in practice all that long. We must not imagine that we can do these things overnight. What we have achieved up to the present has been achieved over a short period of scarcely 12 years. I think we are now getting to the point, as shown by the figures which I have read out here, where there is a very much greater momentum, and I think the picture looks a good deal more favourable than my hon. friend might have indicated. I shall come back in a moment to one or two other points made by the hon. member.

*Sir, the hon. member for Worcester emphasized the necessity for greater saving, particularly in these days of galloping inflation. He is quite right in saying that. He also spoke of decentralization. I just want to tell him, as regards the inclusion of Worcester in the schedule of places where concessions are granted, that the decentralization board is at present conducting a thorough investigation into all aspects concerning decentralization. The whole policy and its implementation are being reviewed at the moment, and as soon as proposals and recommendations are submitted, the Government will take the case of Worcester into consideration as well. I can give the hon. member that assurance.

Sir, the hon. member for Sunnyside, who explained to me why he would not be able to be here this afternoon, referred to the Bureau of Standards. I just wanted to explain to him that the present legislation does not allow the imposition of compulsory specifications except where the safety or the health of consumers is endangered. Actually I want to take this opportunity to appeal to canners to standardize the sizes of their cans as far as possible. In any case, I think that the more we can standardize in general, the better we shall be able to fight inflation and the high cost structure.

Then he referred to exports and pleaded for an increase in our exports. I would agree with him, of course. It is very important for us to keep trying to increase our exports, particularly since our economic growth rate is so high. But I do want to add at once, Sir, that our exporters are receiving generous and extensive aid from the Government in achieving this important object. In addition, the Government and the private sector are associated in a large number of organizations aimed at coordinating and increasing the efficiency of all efforts in this direction. At the head of this organization is the committee of heads of departments, who consult with representatives of the private sector from time to time on the policy aspects of our country’s efforts in regard to exportation. Consequently the Government is in fact doing a great deal to achieve this very important object.

†The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South spoke about various malpractices, as one might be prepared to call them, in the economy, and he wanted to know what was being done about them. Sir, if the hon. member has examples of what might be called malpractices or monopolistic activities which are harmful or which come within the ambit of the Act, then surely he should bring those to our attention and I will immediately see that that is brought to the notice of the Board of Trade for a proper inquiry, as the Act requires. And we will take matters further, if necessary. I think it is very important that all members of the public should do that, because it is quite impossible for us to know precisely what is going on in different parts of the country.

But the hon. member then proceeded to take a few rather hard and, I thought, uncalled for swipes at Iscor. This seems to be the season of the year to attack Iscor. I shall come back to this. Sir, you know, it is very easy for me to say that I am satisfied with Iscor. I am glad the question was asked so that I can answer it quite categorically in these terms. I am extremely satisfied with Iscor, and I say this after I have made what I think is a very close study of Iscor’s activities. I have devoted many hours and days to this and we have had many hours of discussion. I think that Iscor has put up a really magnificent performance under extremely difficult conditions. There is a world-wide shortage of steel, such as we have probably never encountered, and the position is the same in South Africa, where we have one of the highest growth rates in the world at the moment, with our economy bursting at the seams. The market for steel is absolutely insatiable. But despite all that, the latest figures show—and I am giving these figures for 1972, for 1973 and right up to June 1974—that Iscor in that year imported 11,5% and not 20%.

775 000 tons.

It is 11,5%. I think the hon. member said 20%. Let us get our figures in perspective. It is 11,5%. I have the figures here. I say it is easy to criticize Iscor’s performance, but Iscor cannot pick the eyes out of the market like some other producers can do. Iscor has to supply everybody who needs whatever Iscor can possibly produce. It is a public corporation. Iscor has to deal with every single stage of production right from the mine, from the raw ore right through to the final products. There are many other steel producers who do not do that. They use scrap. They start with scrap. The hon. member will know what that means in terms of costs.

*I want to express my sincere thanks to my hon. friend, the hon. member for Vanderbijlpark, for what he said about Iscor. I think it was high time. I want to thank him sincerely for those kind words. He is a man who can speak with authority. He has had 20 years’ experience of Iscor. I think we should choose our words carefully. Iscor’s achievements are really something to be proud of.

†Sir, the hon. member for Walmer, as the hon. member for Worcester said, is a rather young member of this House. He is not an experienced member of this House.

Does that disqualify me from speaking?

I think it would do the hon. member a great deal of good to remember that there are people in this House who have been here a very long time and who can talk with great authority on a number of subjects. It takes time to acquire that measure of authority whereas it is easy to speak with disdain of things about which you know very little.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member has shown this House that he speaks very easily about things about which he knows very little. [Interjections.]

That makes two of us. [Interjections.]

Order!

The hon. member refers in the most scathing terms to Iscor’s purchases of Bester shares, purchases by Iscor’s pension fund. He did it in extremely derogatory terms. The whole implication was that it was irresponsible and that they did not know what they were doing. The hon. member might like to know that Iscor’s pension fund has its own board of trustees, men of the greatest competence, integrity and experience in these matters. Iscor’s board of trustees decides where to invest its pension fund moneys. One of the things in which they invested was in those shares as they also invested in many other shares, debentures and other securities. What is the hon. member trying to imply? Why does he not talk straight?

I have asked for a complete disclosure.

Why does he not tell us that he is trying to suggest, as has been suggested earlier in this session, that there is an irregularity here?

I have asked for a complete disclosure of Iscor’s affairs.

No, Sir, he made a most dogmatic statement and a very derogatory one at that. In the process he made a few considerable swipes at Bester Bros. What does he know about them? What does he know about the contributions this firm is making to housing in this country, especially housing for non-Whites, whom the hon. member for Johannesburg North is so concerned about? Does he know anything about their achievements? Does he know how many houses they have built during the last five years? He has got no conception, yet he talks. I think we should have a little more responsibility in these matters. I should like to tell the hon. member another thing. When the trustees of the pension fund of Iscor buy and sell shares they do not buy and sell shares at any cooked-up price. They deal at the market price on the Stock Exchange and they judge the matter accordingly. What is wrong with that? Has the hon. member any reason to say that these people are incompetent and are not looking after the interest of the pension fund? If not, why did he raise this matter?

Because I want a complete disclosure.

He has got no reason whatever, but he thought he could smear somebody.

That is nonsense.

Oh, yes. This is the season of the year. Everyone can now have a crack at Iscor.

I think you are over sensitive.

Order!

Over sensitive? I can assure the hon. member that I am and always will be sensitive when it comes to these uncalled for and absolutely unjustified attacks upon those who cannot answer in public, who cannot answer because they are not here. The hon. member went on to talk about the semis factory and asked why I should not disclose all the facts about this big new steelworks that is coming up. I have given a good deal of information at different times on aggregate values and the investment there. This is not Iscor. This is a company in the establishes a company in its own right, an international company. What right have I to disclose all sorts of secrets about a company which has its own legal persons and its own shareholders, other than Iscor? Iscor is only one shareholder. Will the hon. member for Johannesburg North tell us these things about Highveld Steel? Of course he will not.

He tells his shareholders.

I shall come to that. Let us get this thing straight. This is not Iscor. This is a company in the establishment of which Iscor is playing a part. It is going to be an extremely important steelworks and is going to cost a great deal of money, as these things do. But it will be a very valuable enterprise for the country. Iscor has been, and is still, negotiating with outside interests to obtain their participation and capital. This is what we are after. We want overseas participation in these big development schemes, the same as all other countries, because of the enormous amounts of capital involved. We want that capital and we want to get experience and expertise at the same time. Does the hon. member think that, when he talks like this, he is assisting Iscor, which is at this moment negotiating outside to obtain this participation from a number of important sources? What is his object? [Interjections] I will come back to that. Then, just for good measure, he throws in the Straszacker Report and says again in a derogatory way that, in any case, Iscor will not be able to operate this line and that this will have to be done by the Railways. What does the hon. member think he really knows about the technicalities of that big scheme? What are his justifications for saying that?

110 000 Railway workers!

I doubt if there has ever been a big public development scheme in this country which has been more thoroughly investigated and to which more expert time has been devoted than this Sishen/Saldanha mine, railway line, semi-steelworks and harbour—this huge integrated scheme. The Straszacker Committee was asked where it thought this huge steelworks would best be placed, e.g. at Sishen, where the mine is, at Saldanha, i.e. the final point where the processing would take place as well as the export, or somewhere else. They gave us their views on that and nobody to this day has asked for this report to be tabled. I have asked around, but nobody can recall anybody ever having asked why this report has not been tabled. It was made perfectly clear that Iscor was building this line and that it would operate it. This intention was never varied from the day it was first decided and made known early in 1973. But it was felt that where this important line of communication was to be provided, running for hundreds of kilometres, that there would be people in the North-west Cape who could benefit from it. Let me remind hon. members that the North-west Cape has tremendous development potential. We have only scratched the surface. The people in that area asked us whether they could also use the line for their specific purposes. They said that this would not happen quickly or on a big scale, but that there will be a need. We therefore asked the Straszacker Committee to look at this aspect as well. The Straszacker Committee looked at this very thoroughly and made recommendations accordingly. We took all that, as well as all the other relevant things, into account and the Government then confirmed—this was done because doubts were again being expressed by people who really did not know what the issue was—that this was the right decision and that Iscor must build and operate this line; and that if it became necessary to convey other goods along this line, this would be done in direct consultation with the S.A. Railways. The tariff would also be fixed in conjunction with the S.A. Railways. If any other connecting services, like branch lines, had to be built, this would be done by the S.A. Railways. What is wrong with that? If the hon. member would care to study these things he would find that Iscor studied with the greatest thoroughness 21 big schemes of this kind in the world and that in 20 of the 21 cases this is exactly how it is being done. But now, suddenly, there is a hue and cry that I am trying to suppress the Straszacker Report. It was never intended that this report would be dished out, just as the first report was not. It was to assist us to see what the further implications might be of this huge scheme. I am prepared to say, having spent hours and days on this matter myself, in consultation with the very best authorities I could find in this country, that in these conditions, and with this huge integrated scheme as it is, where Iscor must have control over the transport costs, which are very high in relation to the total costs, where its exports are sold at prices over which it has no control at all, the scheme can only be viable if one cuts one’s coat according to one’s cloth. It can only be done by keeping costs in control. This is the way to go about it.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question?

The hon. member has spoken twice, but he can ask a question by all means.

Is the hon. the Minister then telling us that Iscor can run the railway more efficiently than the South African Railways?

No, Sir. I believe both can run it efficiently. What I want to say to the hon. member is that from the very start this has been an integrated scheme, where the transport of the ore was to be under the control of the operator itself, as is the case in nearly all the other schemes that have been studied in the world. That is the way in which Iscor can ensure that the scheme will be viable, after having taken all costs and revenues into account. If you split it up you could run into considerable difficulties. That is the position; there is nothing mysterious about it. Great care was taken with this scheme. I hope we have heard the end of these extremely irresponsible speculations one reads about. Nobody is trying to create another Railway authority in this country. This is a single, specific project which has been started after the most thorough study. The whole concept is based on what we have seen in other parts of the world where these things are done and done successfully. So I say again, there is no need for anybody to try to suggest that Iscor is becoming a second transport authority. Iscor is its own transport authority, and nobody else’s. If other goods are carried from time to time, that will be done in full consultation with the South African Railways. The tariffs will also be established in consultation with them.

*Sir, I want to make haste, but I have to say something more about Iscor, for there are one or two matters left which I consider to be very important. I am not satisfied that these matters should stand over. I want to refer again to the hon. member for Johannesburg North.

†The hon. member throughout the session has been prying pretty closely into this scheme. That is all right. If he feels that this is a public corporation and that certain facts ought to be known, I do not begrudge him that. But, Sir, there are certain questions he has asked which I believe I was absolutely within my full rights not to answer. I want to deal with this matter because I hope we can get clarity in this regard for the future. There are a few facts which the hon. member did not tell us. I think it would have been a good thing if this House had known from the start that the hon. member is, in the first instance, a director of Anglo-American. I think we all knew that. Anglo-American control High veld Steel. The hon. member never told us that he is in fact a director of Highveld Steel, which is one of Iscor’s competitors.

What has this got to do with the matter?

The hon. member for Houghton will see the relevance of this point. She must have a little patience. The hon. member for Johannesburg North did not tell us that he is a director of Anglo-American, which owns the Scaw Metals Company which is another competitor of Iscor.

That is not correct.

Does Anglo-American not have a big interest in Scaw Metals?

Anglo-American Industrial Corporation.

Well, Sir, I stand corrected; Anglo-American Industrial Corporation then. This matter goes further. The hon. member is a director, or in fact, I think, chairman of LTA, the big construction group of Anglo-American. Is that correct?

Yes.

Is it correct that LTA has some big contracts with the Sishen/ Saldanha scheme?

It has a contract to build a portion of the railway line.

Of course, that is a very important part of the scheme. The hon. member might perhaps have disclosed these facts when he came with all his prying questions. I want to go further. The hon. member, in a previous debate, when we dealt with the capitalization of Iscor, said that the price of steel should be a great deal higher. I looked up his speech. He said that the price of steel should be higher and that we were making a mistake. The hon. member for Von Brandis supported him. He said that, if the price was higher, Iscor would make a bigger profit and obtain more capital in that way.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 23.