Mr. Chairman, yesterday evening I replied briefly to two questions that had been put to me, but I furnished no particulars. However, since quite a number of speakers have participated in the discussion and have put questions, it is perhaps necessary for me to try at this early stage to reply to some of the questions which were put. I think all of us are grateful that it was possible for the discussion of this Vote to take place in such a calm spirit. This testifies to the fact that this matter, which a few years ago was still very contentious and provoked a great deal of discussion, can now be approached in a calm manner. I want to make the object of this department clear at the very outset, and say its work is always initiated within the framework of the principles and policies of the National Party. I think it is necessary to get this aspect straight at the outset because I hear that from all quarters—not from this House—representations are beginning to come in, the gist of which are that suspicion-mongering and suspicion-sowing are to become part of the pattern. I am pleased that there has been no evidence of this in this House. However, I have been told that people have stated in public that the Department of Bantu Education should not exist as a separate department, together with Bantu Administration, but that it ought to be incorporated in the other departments of education so that the impression may be given to the world that we are putting everything on an equal footing. I am certain that everyone who understands the policy of the National Party has already realized that we are not there to put up wire fences between people with our policy. However, we are definitely not there either to allow an equalization process in no time at all, or to allow education to be used for that purpose. It has come to my attention that, arising out of a speech which I made here a few days ago, in which I said, inter alia, that we would, as Whites and non-Whites, be living alongside one another and working shoulder to shoulder for many years in this country, this has suddenly been interpreted as an equalization of all things, and that all dividing lines are going to be eliminated. It is being said I implied these things. I want to make it completely clear that nowhere did I imply that, and that anyone who reads this into what I said, should have his head examined. I want to make it completely clear that when I say that there will always be close contact on a basis of equality, it does not mean that the policy of separate development need be affected to any extent whatsoever. If, at the outset therefore, representations occur, even if they are only dormant and a faint rambling from far off, that this department should merge into the greater department of a unitary state which has to be created, I want to say that as far as the Department of Bantu Education and I are concerned, we are not in favour of this.

The hon. members now have the right to ask me what object we in the Department of Bantu Education set ourselves. At the outset I want to say that it is no idle talk if we say here and to the world that the object of this department is, within our financial means and within our human means, to afford all the children of the Bantu peoples free and compulsory education. I have said that this should be seen as something which has to be practicable, otherwise it simply creates false expectations in people, and the creation of expectations in people which cannot be met, is sometimes carried to that extreme where it cannot but be seen as a form of agitation. Therefore when I appeal to the hon. member for Durban Central, to the hon. member for Edenvale and to others who are sincerely interested in the Department of Bantu Education, I should like our representations, in this House as well, to be motivated in such a way that they will not be based on idle dreams and a chasing after rainbows, and I do not mean now that this is how hon. members put matters.

There are a few facts which we have to face up to when we speak of compulsory education and of absolutely free education for the Bantu in South Africa. I sometimes wonder whether the Whites in particular in this country are aware that the stage has been reached in South Africa where the numbers of school-going Bantu children from the primary level to the highest level of education are already on a par with the total White population here at the southernmost point of Africa. At present a total of 3 600 000 Black children are attending school. This ought to give an idea, not only of the enormity of the task of having them educated and trained, but also of the enormity of the problems awaiting White and Black South Africa in peacefully accommodating these people alongside the Whites and the other groups.

When I say now that these children are not yet all the children who ought normally to be attending schools, it may surprise hon. members. The number of children of school-going age who would qualify under the present system to attend school, is approximately 5 million. To oblige the hon. member for Edenvale—the hon. member made a good speech—and make the projection over six years, there will be a total of between 6½ and 7 million Black children who would have to be accommodated at school. I now wish to quote a few figures, even though I am not very fond of statistics. What is the position at present. These 3 600 000 children represent approximately 72% to 75% of those who ought to be attending school. In addition they represent approximately 20% of the Black population, and in comparison with the rest of Africa this figure is an excellent achievement if we take into consideration the attitude that is being adopted towards South Africa by the rest of the world. I also think that what one of the members on the Opposition side said, is true, viz. that we should not draw comparisons with the rest of Africa and derive satisfaction from that. I think it is necessary for us to investigate our own case in itself. However favourably our position compares to that of the rest of Africa, I think that if we make a start by drawing a comparison with the other population groups in South Africa, cause for reflection and further action will be found. I wish to mention an example: 22% of the White population are either attending schools or universities, and 27% of the Indian population are attending school, while 24% of the Coloured population, in regard to which there is only partial compulsory education, is attending school. Although there is full compulsory education for the Indians, 27% of the population are attending school, while among the Coloureds, in respect of whom compulsory education is being progressively applied, 24% of the population is attending school. If we were now to project this onto school-going Bantu children and were to introduce compulsory education, I have to warn this House that between 29% and 30% of the total Bantu population in South Africa will consist of school-going children. This ties in with what was said by hon. members in another debate, and what was, I think, said for the first time approximately four or five years ago by the hon. member for Fauresmith in another debate in this House. It was mentioned again in this debate. There is a serious warning we have to face up to. This was also mentioned by the Deputy Minister of Bantu Development, viz. the abnormal population growth among our black peoples.

The figure of 29% or 30% was mentioned. We are familiar with the Malthusian theory. According to the rise in the graph, this 29% will be far greater in a few years’ time. Once we have faced up to this fact, parity has not nearly been achieved with regard to the level of what we are making available for each of these various population groups. I think we owe it to our people to state the position honestly to them. As regards the total number of children, to achieve parity with the Coloureds only in respect of one aspect, viz. the teacher/pupil ratio—and at present the ratio is 1:30—it would mean at the present juncture—and I am saying this to the good friends who referred to compulsory education—will mean the immediate provision of an additional 57 200 teachers, and just as many classrooms. That is according to the present enrolments. In terms of money, achieving that parity would mean the immediate appropriation of an amount of R74 million per annum in salaries, calculated at the average salary of R1 300 per annum for a Bantu teacher.

Additionally.

Yes, additionally.

What does the hon. member for Durban Central say now?

It would also mean an additional amount of R194 million just for the construction of the additional classrooms according to the new formula. I am saying this now with reference to what the hon. member for Carletonville asked by way of an interjection concerning the period within which we would be able to achieve this.

Compulsory education up to what standard?

I took the total number of the entire school-going population up to higher secondary level. I could furnish the hon. member with further particulars, and if there are hon. members who are interested in this, I shall gladly let them have the particulars.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. the Deputy Minister a question? I should like to know whether the department has had the opportunity of working out a seven-year programme in respect of urban Bantu, as was done in the case of the Coloureds? Have they worked out all the implications in respect of teachers, classrooms and finances on that gradual basis and not as something to be introduced immediately?

I want to assure the hon. member that we are trying to do it in this way. For hon. members who are interested, I could just mention that according to the latest figures we have from B.E.R.B.D.—which differ slightly from the census figures which are available— 52%, of the Bantu population is at present in White South Africa as against 48% in the homeland areas. Sixty-three per cent of the school-going population is in the Bantu areas. As hon. members know, it is the policy of this Government that education, particularly higher education, should be homeland-orientated. We have not worked out the precise figures of how much this would cost in the White area, but it would be possible to calculate this and if the hon. member is interested, we could perhaps even work it out together.

I referred to the existing situation, i.e. in which we do not yet have compulsory education and in which all the other amenities for which hon. members ask so readily have not yet been provided. I want to issue the warning again that such pleas create expectations among Black people which we are unable to meet. As far as the Government is concerned there is no separation between the Bantu in the White area and the Bantu in the homeland areas. We see the Bantu peoples as peoples. Let us simply accept once and for all now that we differ on this score. I simply cannot understand why it is constantly being advocated that the urban Bantu should be benefited, while there is no concern for the rural Bantu. I cannot understand why it is always being advocated that we should work out what it would cost to provide the urban Bantu with educational facilities, while we should simply leave the Bantu who are homeland orientated as they are.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. the Deputy Minister a question? Does the hon. the Deputy Minister admit that when we take the social circumstances of the rural population in the homeland areas into consideration, a distinction may in fact be drawn between the urban concentrations—wherever they may be, GaRankuwa, Seshego or Soweto —and the circumstances in the purely rural areas?

The hon. member also said yesterday that he meant by urban areas not only those areas which are situated in the White area. I am afraid that in that respect the hon. member sometimes differs from many of the hon. members opposite. In all fairness to him I want to say that he draws that distinction, but to do so in the homelands, is not possible, and will require a vast amount of study. I can only say that because these are concentrated areas, solutions are of course more simply found in these areas where there are concentrations of pupils who are within walking distance of a school. When we discuss compulsory and free education, there is one error of judgement I should like to eliminate. As regards the concept “free education”, I have already had overseas visitors coming to me and asking me why we do not have free education.

†It is a difficult question to reply to because even our own people do not know that we have free education for all Black children. We have free education for them because they are not paying for the teachers and they are not paying for the classrooms. Of course, it is something different if we say that we have to supply free books. During the course of the debate last year, I replied that I could see a point in that. Not only did I see it, but it was also seen by the department long ago, and we have been working in the direction of providing free books as progressively as possible. I can tell hon. members today that we have reached the stage where we intend supplying all textbooks free of charge to all pupils in all school categories by 1977.

*Why people from abroad tell us that there is no free education here I sometimes fail to understand. I do not know whether our own people all understand what free education is.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. the Deputy Minister a question? He set 1977 as the year in which Bantu pupils would receive books. Will this cover all their book requirements at school?

Just the text books. To continue, I said a moment ago what the position would be if we had to provide the other amenities on a basis of parity.

I want to come to a second matter which is frequently mentioned, namely compulsory education. If we were to introduce compulsory education today from the age of seven, it would mean that a total of 97 000 teachers and as many classrooms would have to be made available. This is calculated on the basis of one teacher for 30 pupils, a basis which is in line with those for the other departments. The cost involved is R126 million in respect of salaries, and R330 million to provide the classrooms which will have to be made available to these people. This will not be a luxury; it is simply a fact that at some time or other we will have to provide those things. There is a further point I want to mention.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. the Minister a question? [Interjections.] One appreciates all the facts and figures he mentioned, but does it remain his and his department’s ultimate objective to provide free and compulsory education for all children?

I should like to repeat what I said at the start of my speech. I may add that I did not only say it then, but that it has also been said by the hon. the Minister himself ever so often that that is our ultimate aim. I am merely pointing out that we cannot and dare not in this House or elsewhere promise people things or tell them to agitate for things when we know that it is physically impossible to provide them, should they be asked for. However, it is our ultimate aim. We are working towards that goal.

*I want to come to my next point. If we were to reduce the school-entering age in the case of Bantu children from 7 years to 6 years, it would mean, according to present calculation that we would immediately have to accommodate an additional 750 000 Bantu children at schools. Once again, worked out on the basis of the same formula, it immediately means an additional expenditure in respect of salaries of R33 million, and in respect of classrooms, of R85 million.

†Just like the hon. members on the other side, I should like to see all these children given the opportunity of being educated. I can also understand how the parents of these children feel about it, but do you think it is physically possible to do it?

Yes.

If the hon. member who said “yes”, can find the money for me, he is much better at finance than I am, but I think I know a little more about politics than he does. In all sincerity, I do not think we can find that money immediately. I think it is quite impractical.

*I should now like to discuss double sessions. I want to sketch a picture for you of the major problems which are being experienced in this regard, and I want to ask hon. members to co-operate so that we may, with tolerance, solve these problems. If we were to abolish double sessions, as has been advocated here, an additional 11 000 teachers would immediately have to be appointed. I have already told the hon. member for Edenvale this. If 11 000 additional teachers were to be required for single sessions, it would also mean that just as many classrooms would be required, which would entail a cost of R37 million, plus R14 million in salaries.

The gallant Scot will provide this in a day!

I am not saying that the position is hopeless; I am saying that what has been achieved by the department over the past few years since 1954, when the department was taken over, is an achievement which no country in the world with such a small White population can equal.

Hear, hear!

Without being boastful in any way, I am saying that the Government will ensure that this position is settled in a normal manner, without overtaxing the White taxpayer or the Bantu parents themselves, or penalizing the children.

How many years is it going to take?

May I ask the hon. the Deputy Minister whether he considers around 2% of the gross domestic product as an inordinate price to spend on education?

I say quite honestly to the hon. member that I have not added up all these figures and I cannot argue with him whether this makes up only 2% of the gross domestic income. I would, however, very much like to discuss this with him, because I, with him, am looking for a solution to the problem, a solution which everyone of us should try to find.

*What I also want to say here is that requests are even received from friends, who are sincere in their intentions, that we should even begin to provide training for pre-school children. All I can say in passing is that this is of course not the responsibility of the Department of Bantu Administration. If we are going to involve pre-school children in this, we are not going to accomplish anything. A positive suggestion was made here concerning the use of television. I can only say that we have already discussed the matter, and the use of television for the lower standards and for pre-school children in classrooms and in places where there are concentrations of pupils will most certainly receive consideration, because this might bring about a major cost saving.

I come to the next point which was mentioned here, a point in regard to which I share the concern which has been expressed in general, namely the number of drop-outs.

†I agree, because that is a loss not only for the parents who have sent their child to school and for the child concerned who somewhere along the road turned away from his studies and took an inferior job, but it also means a loss to the country because we spend a lot on them while many of them are drop-outs in the course of the year. It is, of course, a serious problem. But we are following up this vexed question and are trying to cope with it as far as possible.

*At least I can say that with the new colleges which are going to be established next year, the possibility is there that we will be able to cope with many of these problems in any case. One very gratifying tendency recently was that the increase in the number of lower primary classes remained approximately static at plus minus 6% per annum. In some cases the secondary classes showed an increase of almost 23%. This is a very encouraging sign, even if these are not all to the highest level we should like to see. Nevertheless it is a splendid increase. In this regard I can also say that special classes for the training of the teachers required for this have already been established from the beginning of the year at some of the colleges and we are— I shall refer to this again later on—engaged in the training of people to make it possible for them to provide children with post-primary education. The new colleges which are now being constructed—in regard to which a question was put to me— will be able to provide 1 500 additional teachers at the end of next year. We hope that we will be able to provide 8 000 teachers per annum—with these additional six colleges. That is still not enough; and I want to stress this, it is still not enough. It is therefore necessary to establish even more colleges, since it has been anticipated that by 1980 we will produce only plus minus 10 000 teachers per annum. I just want to say this, in pursuance of what the hon. the Minister said, and I hope that the department will in this regard have the co-operation of everyone on the Opposition benches, on the Government side, and outside this House: In South Africa we have a Constitution Act to which we submit ourselves, and the Minister has announced that in the White area in particular the Constitution Act must be respected as far as the official languages are concerned. I want to spell it out very clearly that if any attempt should be made at these training colleges to give tuition in one official language only, we shall not hesitate to take the necessary steps. If there are teachers who think that they can give tuition without respecting the Constitution Act of South Africa, then they must not take it amiss of us if they do not, owing to the fact that they are not equally conversant in both languages, receive appointments in schools where people wish to receive instruction in both language mediums.

Sir. I want to mention just one other disturbing figure of which we have to take cognizance so that hon. members may perhaps discuss the Department of Bantu Education with greater tolerance. In the postprimary schools for Whites, one finds 35% of the school-going population. In the case of the Coloureds, where education, as far as I know, is only compulsory up to Std. 2, one finds 14% of the school-going population in post-primary classes. Among the Indian population, where education is compulsory, 33% of the school-going population is found at the post-primary level. Among the Bantu population, including the universities and the colleges, 6,5% of the school-going population is to be found in post-primary classes. I hope that we will be able to improve considerably on this figure. Whether we will be able to double it, I do not know. I have already said that the tendency is there, with the classes which we are now making available, for higher education to be in ever-increasing demand, and that we already have reason to feel a little optimistic on this score.

Sir, hon, members have the right to ask me what we envisage for the coming year. I want to repeat what I said at the outset, viz. that it should be clearly understood in the first place, so that we cannot be accused of dishonesty, that it still remains the policy of this Government that the education programme should, as far as is practicable, be homeland orientated. But apart from the Government’s policy, hon. members also know that even in the White area we have members of the various Bantu populations who insist that their children should receive their training in their mother tongue, and therefore our first object is to activate the homeland governments with practical suggestions and with practical assistance to enable them to implement the programme which they would like to tackle. We have already had talks in this connection, and we know what the feelings of the homeland governments in regard to education are. After recent talks with the hon. the Minister, the Minister gave instructions that an investigation was to be instituted into methods for the financing of additional buildings, inter alia for training centres and for the kind of training which could best be utilized in the homelands. Unfortunately it happened in the past that the Department of Public Works had to reduce the overall amount of the expenditure on education of the homeland Budgets, and the homelands suffered as a result; that other works were given priority and that education suffered. For that reason attempts are now being made to make money available to the homeland governments from other sources.

But the question of education in urban areas, secondary education, has also been raised now. You know the formula, Sir, viz. that one secondary school is being established for every 2 500 families. I associate myself with the hon. member for Hercules and others who praised the work of bodies that made it possible to provide such schools. It is not always realized that 16 secondary schools were approved and put into operation last year in the Soweto complex. Nor is it always realized that this formula is being adhered to as rigidly as possible in order to afford these people opportunities, however homeland-orientated we are. This expansion of possibilities will have to be continued. One of the hon. members on this side who came to ask me about this and who has been thoroughly prepared in regard to this matter, will perhaps at a subsequent opportunity be able to inform this House in regard to the farm schools. I should prefer to leave it to him, but I should just like to make one observation. As far as the high schools in the rural areas are concerned, the department also felt that the rural communities are being penalized in that people are moving away from those areas, and one of the reasons they give for doing so is that they are moving to the cities because there are better educational facilities there. I also want to say, and this could subsequently be discussed again, that the subsidy that was paid for the establishment of farm schools was in our opinion very small. I shall discuss this matter again when the other hon. member has finished speaking, but in any event we have obtained provisional consent from the Minister for consideration to be given, with the co-operation of the Bantu Administration Boards, to making secondary schools available for the rural areas as well, so that country children whose parents work on the farms should not be deprived of the privilege which other children in the urban areas, in the more concentrated areas, are enjoying.

Sir, I want to inform you—something which you may perhaps know already— that with the training of teachers and technicians, and the training in trade schools, particularly in the homelands, quite a number have been established during the past year, including a beautiful school at Giyani, which has almost been completed. You also know about the so-called industrial centres, the two types, the one which is operated departmentally and of which four have already been built departmentally, and which will be able to proceed directly with their work, and then the private centres of which one is in operation and another one of which will soon be put into operation with tax concessions. In addition there is the on-the-floor training, in regard to which legislation will be introduced during this session and which we hope will meet with the whole-hearted support of this hon. House. Sir, allow me to make this observation. So much is being said about what the department and the Government is allegedly not doing for education, but I wonder whether, if we were to add up all these indirect ways in which this is being done, the subsidization, for example by means of tax reductions, which are a tremendous concession, how much is actually being done for training, even in the industrial sector. What it amounts to is that in some cases there is already a 100% concession and in some cases a 200% concession in respect of the taxable income of a company or an industrialist, and when it is a border industry it is as high as 225%, which he receives as a concession because he has to undertake that training there.

The hon. the Minister discussed the matter of university training. I just want to say, in addition, that the matter of the establishment of further branches of these universities, as was announced last year, is being investigated. But in addition to that, at the two colleges, at Mmadikoti and at Edenvale, additional courses will now be introduced. In fact, as far as I know, two have already been introduced, viz. courses for electro-technicians and for mechanical technicians at Mmadikoti, and then at some or other school for the deaf, an industrial audiometry course will be introduced. For those who do not know this, such as the hon. member for Mooi River who cannot hear very well, industrial audiometry means the control of sounds to help deaf and retarded persons at schools.

Sir, I have occupied a great deal of your time, and I beg your pardon. I just want to say, with reference to What other hon. members asked, that the department has already appointed a full-time official for adult education, and that in regard to adult education consideration will be given to the work of organizations such as “Operation Up-grade”. However, I wish to issue a serious warning in this regard, to our Bantu population as well. The hon. member for Cradock referred yesterday to the type of role which is sometimes being played, but I do not want to include this specific case here. I want to warn against those people who think that they can make money out of the illiteracy of Bantu. Recently it has come to my attention that, particularly in Johannesburg, there are places offering crash courses in shorthand and typewriting. It costs R40 to R80 for a three-week course, but the people who have taken the course, are seldom able to type more than a few words. In this way they lose their money. I want to issue a serious warning against abuses of this kind, and say to such people that they should approach the department if they want to undertake things of that kind, so that they can be registered at the department. These institutions— evening schools and other bodies—will have to be properly registered.

I have already replied to the hon. member for Edenvale on the matter of apprenticeship in the homelands, as well as the late delivery of books. The hon. member for Durban Central wrote me a supplementary letter because he was unable to complete his speech. I want to tell him that as far as White teachers at farm schools are concerned, I unfortunately have to say “no”, as I did last year. The reason for that is simple. The educational medium on farm schools is the mother tongue. A White teacher will then have to be able to speak Tswana or one of other Bantu languages, otherwise they cannot be used in farm schools. However, I want to reassure him by saying that we are in fact using White teachers in secondary schools, and that we will, as far as possible, make use of their services. The hon. member also referred to “equality of education”. I agree 200% with the hon. member that the standard of education should not be lowered for the sake of the number of pupils. We shall most certainly not do that. In his reply the hon. member pointed out the possibility of a Std. 7 certificate, and I want to promise the hon. member that we shall give proper consideration to his useful suggestions, and that we will reach finality in that regard. The entire matter is still creating problems for us. In the meantime—and this also relates to the late delivery of books—the entire matter of conversion to Std. 6 and of the 13 year term to a 12 year term is receiving attention. This was also the cause of the books not being delivered.

Tribute has been paid to a number of bodies. In addition I should like to add the work being done by Sabra, the study trusts of the churches, to which the hon. member for Hercules referred, and the work being done by lecturers and others who are doing a tremendous amount for us in the homelands. I want to thank the other bodies as well. Recently donations were, for example, made by the Round Table for bursaries. There are many ways in which people can be of assistance. Donations were also received for sport and recreation at schools. The department decided that schools would receive donations for sport and recreation, but only from those bodies that do not wish to make a professional profit out of it. Sport in schools will remain amateur sport. Sport will be used to allow the various peoples of the homelands to compete with another, and in that way get to know one another. We shall therefore use such donations to create recreational amenities for these people.

Once we have trained these people, there is one question which remains, a question which I am merely going to pose and then leave at that. What does one do with a doctor’s degree if there is no work for one other than that of a junior teacher at a school? There are thousands and thousands of people here who have to be trained, and whose training we are discussing. But training and education cannot be viewed in isolation. These people will have to be provided with work. If a person receives a doctor’s degree and he is unable to find work, he becomes an embittered person.

*We will, therefore, have to find employment for these people. In asking for higher education for the young children who are now growing up, please remember that, if we are lucky, we will reach a stage in 15 years’ time when we will have today’s young Black children who will be grown up then and fully qualified to do a job in their homelands or elsewhere and we will, still have those who are unqualified because they did not have the opportunities, but who would still want to live and would have to care for a family. We will also have to take them into consideration when considering higher and better opportunities for the children of Black South Africans.

Mr. Chairman, we on the official Opposition benches welcome the reassurance of the hon. Deputy Minister in regard to the introduction of free compulsory education for the Bantu people. We realize that this must be a gradual process. Today the hon. the Deputy Minister quoted what could almost be referred to as astronomical figures in regard to the ultimate costs of this process. I want to point out two factors to the hon. the Deputy Minister. In the first instance, and I think my memory is correct, it has only been during the last five or six years that the Budget for Bantu Education has been increased almost fivefold. I believe that increase must continue on that sort of basis. I also want to point out to the hon. the Deputy Minister the very disappointing fact that in an answer given to me by the Minister of Statistics this session I was told that in 1974 only 0,53% of the gross national product was expended on Bantu education. This means an amount of R102 million out of a gross national product of over R19 000 million. This is not good enough. As far as compulsory education is concerned, perhaps it would be as well to study the progress that has been made with the introduction of compulsory education for the Coloureds. This has been a gradual process and there has been no sudden astronomical rise in expenditure. I believe there is cause for satisfaction at the progress which is being made. A further point I would like to put to the hon. the Deputy Minister is that I believe that the issue of free school books must be a priority in any increase in expenditure that is given in respect of Bantu education.

Then I want to come back to the question which the hon. the Deputy Minister raised himself in regard to Bantu night schools and continuation classes. According to the latest report the enrolment is just over 7 000 Bantu in 72 night schools and continuation classes. What is significant, if one breaks down the figures which are presented in a very well documented report prepared by his department, is that over 70% of the pupils in these night schools are over 20 years of age. This represents an avenue for adult education which has been largely untapped. This matter was raised during the discussion of a private member’s motion earlier this session. I asked the Deputy Minister for his sympathetic consideration. He said that I could submit my proposals and that they would most definitely consider them. My proposal is straightforward. Government legislation prohibits the establishment of night schools and continuation classes in certain city areas. The Deputy Minister is in the driving seat and not I. With the new outlook that he and some other members of the Cabinet are showing it would be possible to review this legislation so that these schools can be established. Then we will be prepared on our side, where we have some influence with local authorities, to do what we can do to assist the Deputy Minister in finding suitable sites and facilities.

I would now like to deal with the training of Bantu personnel for health services. Again we welcome the announcement of the establishment of a medical school for the training of Bantu at Ga Rankuwa. This is very welcome, but long overdue. When I asked the hon. the Deputy Minister earlier this session whether there were plans to extend the educational facilities for Bantu medical men the answer was that he intended to establish additional training facilities, but that the establishment and siting of these facilities for Bantu medical and dental students were still being investigated.

I am glad that at least one aspect of the investigation has been completed. The point that disturbs me, however, is that there is still a woeful ignorance or lack of planning, because in the same question I asked the hon. the Deputy Minister whether he could give some idea of the output of medical schools which may be established. He made it quite clear to me that he was not in a position to give that information. Although this is not within his purview, the Minister of National Education has been responsible for the education of Bantu doctors since the medical school was established at the University of Natal in 1951. The Minister of National Education also indicated that he was unable to give a projection in regard to the output because he said that there was no significant trend. In other words, from 1951 to 1975 the output of Bantu medical men has not been sufficient to establish a trend which would indicate what the output would be in five, 10 or 15 years’ time—not what the needs would be, but what the output would be. I believe this is a grave and very unsatisfactory position. The other aspect that disturbs me is that this, I believe, will be established in the Bantu homelands.

I now come to the expenditure for health services overall in regard to the Bantu homelands. What do we find? We find that 0,3% of the gross national product is expended on health services in the Bantu homelands. This is approximately one-seventh or one-eighth of the amount of money actually expended on health services in the Republic. The latest report of the Department of Health indicates the lack of personnel. The report states the following:

As the hon, the Deputy Minister knows, they have been administering health services for the past five years. The report continues:

We find also, in the latest report of the Department of Bantu Administration and Development, under the heading “Health Services”, that the department accepts full responsibility for health services in the homelands, although the Department of Health acts as agent. The report goes on to state that the planning and development of hospital services in the homelands indicate that hospitals to accommodate approximately 5 000 more beds are in the process of planning, are being built or are nearing completion. However, where is the staff to serve the Bantu in the Bantu homelands? I believe that the department is at the moment providing the trappings and not the substance. In 1974, in an issue of the publication Bantu, which was devoted wholly to health services in the Bantu homelands, the opening paragraph stated—

This refers to all homelands. What are the facts, however? The latest figures available indicate that there are 72 doctors, no dentists, three pharmacists, no veterinary surgeons, 16 500 nurses, 34 physiotherapists, 58 radiographers, 15 health inspectors and 32 health assistants to cater for a population of about eight million souls in the Bantu homelands. It is this Department of Bantu Education which must provide the qualified people to meet the need for training. It is distressing to realize that the State has no definite answer, knowledge or planning in regard to the actual needs pertaining to the filling of these positions. I have indicated that the hon. the Minister of National Education cannot project because he has said there is no significant trend. This is after 27 years of Nationalist rule. There is no trend. There is no possibility of giving figures. I believe that this has been due, in the main, to the failure of this Government to vote adequate funds for Bantu education. I have indicated that the latest figures of the Department of Statistics indicate the spending of a mere 0,53% of the gross national product. The sad part of it is what happens to this very small number of medical doctors after we have trained them. My information is that they leave the country because they are subjected to the differentiation in salaries.

They go back to their homelands.

They are not there either. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, before dealing with a few matters I want to submit to the hon. House, I want to refer to one approach, i.e. that the materialization of Bantu education is closely linked with financial means and the availability of money. In this rgeard we might find it illuminating perhaps to consider a paragraph from a penetrating study of the educational systems in Southern Africa. This is a penetrating study made by Miss Ruperti. She has, among other things, the following to say with regard to the materialization) of education in the various States (translation)—

She went on to say, referring to the Black States, that ever increasing amounts became necessary for education after independence and that, in all the independent non-White countries, the aid of former colonial powers has to be supplemented considerably from many other countries. The country which pays, also lays down the law. It is also quite clear from a report of Unesco that one-third of the amount spent on education in a country like Botswana, is obtained from abroad. One-third of the amount spent on education in Swaziland, also comes from abroad. I merely quoted the passage to indicate that the financial aspect is the binding factor, the limiting factor and the obstacle in our entire structure. We may realize and visualize what we want to do, but we are limited to the extent of our means.

We now come to an aspect which was not dealt with by the other side of the House at all. We should like to discuss the standard of the education the Bantu people enjoy today. As far as the other problems are concerned, we agree with hon. members. The hon. the Deputy Minister also pointed out that problems do exist. Our department and our Bantu Administration Boards are doing excellent work in dealing with the considerable backlog which exists and the large accumulation of numbers. Let us consider the standard of the education which is being made available to the Black man. Is this quality, this standard of education inferior when compared with any other education which is being made available in this country? We must say that it is not the case. On the contrary; the standard is among the best in the world and nobody can dispute that. The examination papers the Black people have to write are of the same standard as that of the Whites. The examination papers they write are set by the Joint Matriculation Board or the Department of National Education. They are being provided with the best standard of education. The teaching staff in the Bantu schools sometimes perform this difficult task under difficult circumstances, and with great dedication and enthusiasm. We should not, however, deprive these people of the opportunity to work with enthusiasm. We should also not deprive them of the opportunity to initiate either. We should not deprive them of the opportunity to establish their own funds. We should not even deprive them of the opportunity to experience difficult times just as we did not deprive the Whites in this country, particularly the Afrikaans speaking, of the opportunity to experience difficult times in the field of education during the ’seventies and ’thirties. It was the teaching staff who inspired the Whites to develop leaders from their own ranks at that time. I think that there still are leaders in various fields today who used donkeys as a means of transport to attend school in those days—leaders in the economic field, in the social field, in the field of politics and in the field of education. I do not want to say that we should still use donkeys as a means of transport to attend school today; we have passed that stage. But they converted those difficult times into an idealism.

Reference was made, for instance, to the double sessions in the Bantu schools. I admit that this is monstrous, but had it not been for the double sessions, we would have had another half million pupils walking the streets today. We should, therefore, not only refer to the major problem, but we should consider what we can do in this regard and we should at the same time thank the Bantu staff that takes care of those children. At least this is an acknowledgement, something we did not have from that side of the House. The Bantu staff concerned fulfil their task with great enthusiasm. They are creating a spirit of optimism within the ranks of their people. I shall tell you why—because the Bantu staff members are a specially selected corps of people. The teaching corps which is serving the Bantu constitutes the leaders among the Bantu at the moment. They do not harbour a measure of antagonism towards teaching as a profession yet, but they are devoted to their task because they feel they are really rendering a service to their own various peoples. Those people are fulfilling a special task.

We are aware of the problem which exists as a result of the lack of facilities in different fields. The department, however, is doing its utmost to cope with that problem. At this stage the number of pupils increased by 250 000 per annum. That is the additional number of pupils requiring education every year. On the basis of 50:1—which is the present pupil/teacher ratio—it means that an additional 5 000 staff members and classrooms will be required every year to keep pace with this increase in the number of pupils. At R3 400 per classroom, as has been determined by the Department of Community Development, the “small amount” of R17 million is therefore required for the physical provision of classrooms alone. This increase, however, is an indication of the growth and development as a result of this pattern of education, and this we appreciate.

Our education students have great enthusiasm for their work in view of the facilities available to them. There is no problem as far as the recruiting of Bantu students for teaching is concerned. The bursary of R100 per student who stays in a hostel, fulfils all his needs at that hostel. For day students there are bursaries of R40 per year, which also fulfil their needs. The students do not have to repay these bursaries in cash. The same arrangement applies to the White students in this country, applies to them as well. They are allowed to settle their debts by rendering a service. I think this is a sound arrangement. At present the grant is of such a nature that an amount of R123 000 has been made available to student teachers studying at a college, and R51 000 for students receiving university education. It is believed that not all of these amounts have been applied for, but we trust that more students will apply for these bursaries.

In this regard we want to express a word of thanks this afternoon to the Bantu Administration Boards and their staff. We can give the assurance that these people are deeply devoted to their task. I can speak on behalf of my area, which serves as the headquarters of the Bantu Administration Board of the Southern Transvaal. On many a night the midnight oil is being burnt in those offices while officials are planning various matters affecting their task, but in particular matters affecting amenities and the provision of facilities for the schoolgoing Bantu. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Standerton as well as other hon. members on the opposite side, have charged this side of the House with not having appreciation for the work which is being done by the Department of Bantu Education, nor for the progress which has been made, nor for what has been achieved by that department up to now. Of course this is not true; we do have appreciation for what the department has done. We understand the extent of the problem and therefore we are appreciative of the dedication of the department and its officials. Our standpoint is that what has been done does not meet the reasonable aspirations of the Black parents, nor does it meet the real interests of the Black children of South Africa. It is not sufficient for the real interests of South Africa either; i.e. its economic and security interests. In no way does it reflect the ability of the White man of South Africa to provide facilities for the Black people of South Africa. It does not reflect the ability of the South African economy, the vital South African economy, to create better schooling, better education and more facilities for these people. In the good speeches which were made by the hon. members for Edenvale and Berea, the statistics were given which prove that South Africa can spend a larger part of its national product on the education of the Black people of South Africa. However, we are convinced that this is not so much a practical problem or a financial problem, but that it is in fact a problem which arises directly from the approach of the National Party in respect of the racial situation in South Africa.

Because the National Party does not want to regard the Black people of South Africa as full and equal citizens of South Africa, the National Party does not find it possible to persuade themselves to give the Black citizens of South Africa the same services, privileges and rights as in the case of the Whites in South Africa. Basically that is the problem. The basic problem is not a practical or a financial one. The basis of the problem lies in the approach of the National Party, because they do not regard and accept the Black people, the Coloureds, the Indians and the White people as all being full and equal citizens of South Africa. As a Government, they have precisely the same responsibility in respect of the interests and the rights of every South African, regardless of his colour. If South Africa wants to make progress in respect of its policy of détente, if South Africa wants to make progress in respect of the attitude of the races towards one another, if South Africa really wants to make progress in respect of economic growth, if South Africa wants to make real progress in respect of the improvement of the standard of living of all its racial groups, then the National Government must immediately take dramatic steps to improve the education and the training of the non-White groups in South Africa. Sir, we are aware that this cannot take place overnight. We are aware that it will take quite a few years before these objects can be achieved, but our representations to the Government are these: Investigate the situation on a scientific basis and investigate it on the basis that every citizen of South Africa, regardless of his race or colour, will have an equal right to a good education at school; that every citizen of South Africa will have an equal right to training so as to participate in the economy of South Africa, and that every citizen of South Africa will have the right to make, without his being fettered, the best contribution of which he is capable to the economy and to derive benefit from that. We ask the Government to draw up an extensive and imaginative plan to meet these requirements. That plan must make provision for the Government’s being able to eliminate the shortage of schools within the course of a few years, not within 15 or 20 years, but within a few years. The Government must aim at eliminating a part of the shortage of Black schools year by year and also, by the establishment of additional training colleges, at making up the backlog which exists in respect of Black teachers until the whole shortage of teachers has been eliminated. Sir, while we are discussing training colleges, I just want to say that these training colleges should be established in the urban areas where there are thousands and thousands of Black children who have the ability and the desire to enjoy a school and a college education, and where the necessary teachers can be trained. Sir, the gap which exists in the per capita expenditure on education between the White child and the Black child in South Africa, is also something which cannot be eliminated overnight, but it ought to be the aim of the Government to eliminate the gap within the course of reasonable number of years, and to make a plan available, together with a timetable, according to which this can be done. The large gap which exists today, simply cannot be justified. If the Government has honest and sincere intentions of making free and compulsory education available to the Black children of South Africa within the course of the next few years, then the Government must begin by giving immediate and urgent attention to these steps. Sir, we believe, as far as the high schools in the Bantu urban areas of South Africa are concerned, that the Government should abandon its present policy and immediately see to the provisions of the necessary high schools in the urban Bantu areas. As far as the language medium of instruction for the Black people of South Africa is concerned, the Government should leave it to the parents and the representative organizations of the parents to choose which medium of instruction they prefer for their children. I believe that it would be wrong if the Government were to force the medium of instruction of Black children in the high schools of South Africa on to the Black people.

It is mother tongue instruction.

Sir, I just want to mention a further point. It was with joy that we took note of the university which the Government is going to establish for the training of medical practitioners, dentists and veterinary surgeons, but in this connection I should like to ask the hon. the Minister whether he considered establishing the university as part of the Baragwanath Hospital complex in Johannesburg? Why was that hospital, the biggest and the most impressive Black hospital on the whole continent of Africa, a hospital which has a world-wide reputation for the services it renders and which serves over one million Black people, disregarded? Can it be justified in terms of the area, in terms of the interests of the population of the area? Can it be justified that the Government has disregarded the people of Soweto, the more than one million Black people there, when it comes to the establishment of that university? I should very much like the hon. the Minister to reply in that connection. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I always thought that the hon. member who has just resumed his seat, the obstreperous member for Bryanston, was colour blind, but I see this afternoon that he is totally blind, because speaker after speaker in this House, including the Deputy Minister, have proved to him, with exact figures, that what he is asking for is impossible to achieve in the near future, but that dramatic progress is in fact being made. I want to tell the hon. member that there is always a starting point for every problem, where it becomes problematic. This situation has been problematic ever since 1948, when the National Party took over such a bankrupt estate from the hon. member’s party. The position is that in 1948 there were only about 700 000 children in Bantu schools, a large number of whom were in church schools or the so-called mission schools. Sir, I say that we inherited the problem situation from that time. What progress has been made since then? This year, there are more than 3½ million children at school, and that means a 360% increase on the number of children who were at school when the United Party was in office. If that is not a dramatic development, then I do not know what is.

What did you say in 1948?

Today I want to refer briefly to another aspect of the situation which has already been touched upon by the hon. the Minister, and for which I am very grateful. Of the 12 000 schools at which Bantu children study today, 3 815, or almost one-third, are farm schools. That arises from the fact that in the rural areas which surround the larger urban centres, an increase in the Black population has become evident in recent years, not an increase in economically active Black people, but in Bantu children. I know that the United Party will want to allege that this is a result of the Government’s policy, but that is very definitely not the case, because there are two factors which are responsible for this. Either those Bantu parents whose children stay with members of the family on the farm are illegally in the cities as workers, and not in accordance with the National Party’s policy, or the situation arises from the old Bantu custom, of which hon. members ought to be aware, according to which the Bantu’s children, or some of his children, are left with the grandparents to be looked after and brought up. Of course, it is very handy for the Bantu in the city if he can pass his children on to the grandparents in the rural areas and make them somebody else’s responsibility as far as education is concerned. Now I must tell you that these 3 815 schools were built by the farmers, and many more will have to be built. The farmers are sympathetic towards the Bantu and his desire to have his children educated. One of the previous speakers this afternoon made mention of the fact that in the twenties five decades ago, the Afrikaans-speaking people from the rural areas were in exactly the same position in which the Bantu are today, in respect of scholastic education for their children, and that there was that same desire to have their children educated and that farm schools also played a major part in that connection in providing those children with an education. Sir, these schools have been built by the farmers because, as I have said, they are sympathetic towards the Bantu’s desire to have his children educated. Another factor—I shall come to the financial implications later— to which I want to draw the attention of the Opposition and of the whole House as well, is whether the hon. members realize what a tremendous social service the farmers of South Africa are rendering today to the Bantu community and so to South Africa. In many cases, they have double the normal number of children, while the normal number is impressive enough. Now they are responsible for those children in every respect. If the child falls ill, then the farmer’s vehicle and his driver have to take that child to a doctor or hospital. Today, milk from the farmer’s cowsheds ensures that thousands of cases of kwashiorkor and other deficiency diseases from which these people used to suffer, no longer occur in the rural areas. That Bantu child is fed by the farmer, as it were, to a level which can make him human. The farmer is also responsible for building the school himself, and receives a subsidy of only R240 per classroom, while the department itself calculates that to build a classroom costs in the region of R3 400. There are other problems as well. I want to mention a case to you in which I was involved myself. My Bantu workers’ children went to school at a neighbouring farm, until the attendance of that farm school became so great that they could no longer accommodate any more, and in the middle of the year they were sent away from the school. The Bantu came to me with their problem and I immediately began to build a classroom. For ten months the school continued temporarily in one of their houses. I planned a school for them, obtained the specifications and began to build a class-room. For ten months I paid the teacher, because the children had of necessity been turned away from the school in the middle of the year. My Bantu contributed about 10% of the cost so as to get them involved in the whole project. I say again that the subsidy which is given to Bantu farm schools is completely unrealistic. It is not the only factor which we have to take into account. Apart from the service which the farmer renders, it has become essential for him today to provide those facilities for his Bantu if he wants to retain their labour. The fact is that if he does not provide it for them, they simply move to a place where they can obtain it. The farmer is already competing against unfavourable factors to keep his labourers on his farm, and then there is still this further complication. I am very grateful that the hon. the Deputy Minister said that this will be looked into, and I hope that it will be looked into to such an extent that the burden on the farmers can be relieved.

In the few minutes left to me, I just want to tell the hon. the Deputy Minister—he is aware of this, as are all of us—that the educational arm of the U.N. Unesco, is reaching out to the developing world to help with the planning, and whatever else, of education. That arm will also reach out to the Bantu states in South Africa and now one has misgivings in the light of the influence which earlier factors, which did not come from the country itself, had on our Bantu education. I think that it is extremely important for us to know that the education of our Bantu states will be kept within the South African context in the future. It has become necessary, therefore, to expand the project in which— as I understand— University of the O.F.S. is already engaged, viz. to help these people with planning, since they do in fact possess the skill to be able to do this, and I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister that he approach other universities as well and inquire from them whether they would not be prepared to participate in the scheme and assist in the planning for the Bantu states. I say again that it has become important for us to keep the planning of the education and the basis on which it will rest in future within the South African context, if we do not want to create great problems for ourselves in the future in respect of these people. Once again I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister to think in this direction and perhaps to implement this idea.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Sasolburg touched on a very important aspect of Bantu education and I want to return to that because I believe it is something which ought to be underlined. I was going to reply to the hon. member for Cradock but I notice he is not here and during the ten minutes at my disposal I would rather concentrate on a few other aspects which I believe to be very important.

Firstly I wish to refer to the annual report which I have read through with some care. Anyone who reads this can only be aware that there has been what one could describe as a quiet revolution going on in the whole sphere of Bantu education. There is no question, when one reads this report, which covers such a wide area, that a tremendous amount of time and energy and increased funds are being devoted to Bantu education. To that extent the department and the Deputy Minister must be congratulated on the work they have done thus far. Obviously there is no point where one can become complacent about such an important subject as the education of the people of South Africa of whatever race and one has to stress and underline some of the points that have been made in this debate which I do not have to make again. The hon. the Deputy Minister has made the point himself that we cannot be satisfied with the present situation and that we have to double and redouble our efforts in every direction in order that the ultimate objective is reached, an objective which the hon. the Deputy Minister once again reaffirmed today.

In discussing Bantu education there is obviously a vast difference between the urban areas, the town and the rural areas. By way of a couple of questions I want to touch very briefly on the subject of Bantu education in the urban areas, before going back to the hon. member for Sasolburg who talked about farm schools. Last year in this debate I put a question to the hon. the Deputy Minister, but we ran out of time and I did not get a reply. I would be very grateful if I could get that reply today. In the light of the changes that are taking place, and the development or evolution, or whatever one wants to call it, of the Government’s policy regarding people living in urban areas, does this mean that there will be a natural development also of the policy regarding Bantu education? For example, one of the needs, as I understand it, having talked with some of the Black leaders in Soweto, is for a technical college to be built there. The Urban Bantu Council passed a unanimous resolution asking that this be done about 18 months to two years ago. The hon. the Deputy Minister rightly pointed out that there is an enormous need for further money to be devoted to this purpose. I know from personal talks with industrialists in the Johannesburg area that this kind of money for this very vast and necessary requirement in education would be forthcoming. I see this as yet another way in which industry and the State can co-operate in meeting a fundamental need. I would like to know from the hon. the Deputy Minister whether this would be considered at all. Furthermore, as regards secondary schools, because of the 30-year lease and the developing approach towards African people living in urban areas, could we ask whether the time has not arrived to reconsider the policy regarding the building of secondary schools in urban areas? Thirdly, there is the whole question of the medium of education. This is a vast subject and I want to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister to think very seriously and deeply together with his department about allowing children to have the medium of education which is the choice of the parents. This is the kind of choice which I think is given to us and I would hope very much that it could be extended to all parents.

As regards farm schools, I acknowledge first of all and without any reservation what the hon. member for Sasolburg has said, namely that the work done by farmers in the rural areas on their farms is quite enormous and cannot even be described in a few sentences. Large amounts of money have been spent in the building of schools. As I understand it, farmers have to build these schools themselves. They have to provide the managers and are then subsidized by the department. If the figures quoted by the hon. member for Sasolburg are adequate—and I assume they are—then I would agree that the subsidy is hopelessly inadequate. I hope very much that the hon. the Deputy Minister will reconsider this subsidy. One would like to know if it is simply a subsidy per classroom only, whether there is a subsidy per child or whether the teachers are simply paid by the department. The farmers, I understand, cannot be compelled to establish schools. At first sight this appears to be perfectly reasonable. I understand also that if a farmer wants to build a school on his farm, and a neighbouring farmer objects to the building of that school, this objection will be sustained by the department. I am asking if this is so. It it is not, I would be very glad to hear as much. That is the kind of information I have tried to glean. I gather that for every child that goes to that school, a document granting permission to do so must be signed by the farmer who employs the parents of the child. I also understand that permission for that child to attend that school may be withdrawn at any time. Again I put this in the form of a question. Is this so? If it is, it is a very serious matter because the education of that child is then totally dependent on the whim and fancy of the farmer concerned. I do not know the answers to that. I have tried to find the answers in the report. I would like to know from the hon. the Minister whether this is so.

I now come to the whole question of attracting qualified teachers for farm schools. This seems to be a very real problem, a growing one, and one that is giving cause for a lot of concern. One would like to know what the policy of the department and the hon. the Minister is in regard to trying to attract better qualified teachers for the vast numbers of farm schools spread all over our land. Having tried to gather as much information as I can about the farm schools, and having realized that that this is a very necessary part of the Bantu education system at this time in our history, I have realized that there is no enforceable, controlled education for African children in the rural areas. I know there is no de jure compulsory education in urban areas, but at least there is this overall administrative provision of a centrally controlled schooling system in the urban areas. I would like to know from the hon. the Deputy Minister whether there is such a control or extension amongst our farm schools as well, or is the department simply in the hands of the farmer? No matter how much goodwill there might be in the hearts and the minds of the individual farmers, if the child’s education is totally aligned to the good will of the farmer and the department has no method or ability not only to encourage, but also to enforce education where there are children living on a farm, I think we need to look again at the provisions so as to ensure that all the children—whether they be in rural or urban areas—are able to have the benefit of at least primary education.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Pinelands will excuse me if I do not follow up his argument. I want to pause very briefly at what the hon. member for Bryanston said here. He alleged inter alia, in the course of his, shall we say, argument, that the problems which there were in respect of Bantu education in South Africa could be reduced to the basic philosophical outlook and policy of the National Party. He wants to make the world believe that the problems which do exist in respect of Bantu education—and we do not deny that there are problems—are to be found in the policy of the National Party, that it is the policy of the National Party to give the Black man in South Africa an inferior position in this country. It is interesting to look at the real facts of the position in South Africa. On the one hand, we find people who tell all sorts of nice stories, in theory, and try to make the Black man believe that it is this National Government, and in particular, this National Afrikaner Government—which wants to give the Black man an inferior position. When we look at the facts, when we look at the fine report of the Department of Bantu Education and also at the names of the Whites who are in the active service of Bantu education and through that, in the service of the Bantu, then we seek almost in vain for people who are not Afrikaners. Our people, on this side of the House, and our supporters in this country, therefore, do not render lip service to what must be done or not done for the Black man. What we are in fact doing, is to render active service to the Black man. The Afrikaner, in particular, renders active service in this sphere. I want to agree with the hon. member for Bryanston that there is a difference between the basic outlook of this side of the House and that of that side of the House. I do not know where the hon. member for Bryanston belongs these days, whether he is already in the Progressive Party or whether he is half-way there. We see education, also the education of the Bantu, as a method and an aid to train every individual to the maximum of his abilities so that he can be primarily of service to his people. That is the basic philosophy of the National Party, that the primary task of every person in this country should be, in the first place, to devote his powers and his services to the people to which he belongs. In contrast to this, the Opposition, and I think the hon. member for Bryanston as well, does not see separate communities in South Africa, but only a great conglomeration of people in service, apparently, of only one basic need, and that is the need of the economy. As against that, our standpoint is that the members of every separate Black people should be trained to be of use to the particular community and the particular people to which they belong. We admit that there is still much to be done but it does not help, in this connection, to hurl reproaches at the Government. It is very easy to do so. The question, however, is whether it is the task of the State and the task of the White man alone to make provision for the education and the training of the non-White people. Is it not the primary task of every people—also of our Black peoples—to make provision, within its abilities, for the education and the training of its own people? We believe that the Black man who is blessed with good sense, will also see the matter in this way, that primarily he should help himself. As far as this matter is concerned, it is therefore not only a challenge facing the White man alone and, if we have not yet attained Utopia in some aspects, the White alone must not be reproached for this. It is also a challenge facing the Black man to accept his own responsibility in this connection, the challenge of looking after himself in this connection. We are not making excuses for shortcomings which may still exist. We do not suffer from a guilty conscience in this connection, because we know from the history of our own people what happened to us. We know that it was our task to pull ourselves up by our own bootlaces. In the times in which we are living, our Black peoples are in the happy position that they are dealing with a National Government who stretches out the hand of friendship to the Black man and wants to help him on his road ahead, who does not hold his identity and his membership of a particular people in contempt, and does not want to make a Black Englishman or a Black Afrikaner of him, but wants to make every people in South Africa a proud people, also by means of the education which they receive.

Mr. Chairman, I want to reply in brief to a few new matters which were mentioned here. I do not intend replying to them in full, because I hear that we have already devoted too much time to the discussion of this Vote. In any event, if any matters which were raised, should go unanswered, I would be happy to follow them up.

†I want to reply to the hon. member for Berea by saying to him that, as I have already indicated previously, I too am in favour of evening classes. I think I have already proved to him by the support my Department has given to Operation Up-grade and other people who are doing good work in this connection.

May I ask the hon. the Deputy Minister a question? Is he aware that, as I am given to understand—this is subject to confirmation—where Operation Up-grade operates in urban areas, they are limited to five pupils?

I can merely reply by saying that Operation Up-grade wrote to me to ask for an interview. I have already indicated that I am prepared to see them at any time to discuss with them any difficulties they experience. That applies also to other people who sincerely and honestly concern themselves with the welfare, upliftment and education of Black people.

Another point mentioned by the hon. member refers to the medical field. I want to say that I hope that improvements will result from the new faculty to be opened in Ga Rankuwa as announced by the hon. Minister. At the same time you will allow me, Sir, to reply to the question why the faculty was not attached to Baragwanath. Let me say emphatically once again that as far as higher education, especially university education, is concerned, it has been stressed over and over again that we regard these institutions for higher education as part and parcel of the infrastructure to be provided in the different homelands. I hope that in this regard we can come to the point where we agree to disagree. Consequently universities for all the different Black nations in this country will in due course be provided in their homelands. That is our policy and that is the direction in which we are working. Therefore this branch of the university and, as I have indicated, also other branches, are being provided in the homeland of Bophuthatswana where adequate hospital facilities are available. In addition, it is very near to the Pretoria hospital which has all the facilities and expertise needed for the running of such a faculty. It is also near to Baragwanath. Use will be made of all those, as the hon. the Minister indicated when he announced the whole scheme.

I want to thank the hon. member for Standerton for his kind remarks.

*I want to tell him that I appreciate his remark about the Bantu Administration Board in particular, for I think that not only the officials of the Bantu Administration Boards, but also our officials in the homelands, from the Commissioner-General down, deserve much more appreciation from us for the work they are doing. I want to thank the hon. member for his other positive suggestions as well.

†The hon. member for Bryanston has already been replied to partly by the hon. member for Barberton. I do not want to repeat what the hon. member for Barberton said. I just want to reiterate that I think that it has been proved that what the hon. member for Barberton said is perfectly true. People are from time to time accused of being paternalistic towards the Black people. I want to say that as far as I am concerned the Black people have a duty to perform as well. They do not only have a duty. I believe it to be true because I have seen it to be true: The Black people take a pride in providing their share towards the education of their children and all the privileges that they enjoy. I think we should encourage these people to take part in providing these facilities. After recent discussions under the chairmanship of the hon. the Minister it was decided that we would revert to what was done in the past, viz. that where Black parents are interested in erecting a school or providing additional facilities such as laboratories or certain other amenities, the department will subsidize them on a rand for a rand basis in order to assist those parents who are interested in making these facilities available for their own children. In quite a number of cases in the past it has been proved that in next to no time the people were participating in this sort of thing to such an extent that they were making the bricks and carting along the sand and everything that was needed. Hon. members may be surprised to learn that in some cases these schools were erected at a cost to the department of less than R150. I think I am correct in saying that. The secretary of the department nods his head in agreement. The parents themselves contributed towards all the other costs. I think we could do well to remember that.

I want to say that I make no bones about the question of the medium of instruction. I want to be honest with both sides of the House, with English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking people and especially do I want to be honest with the Black people of this country. Our Constitution in this country provides that the two official languages shall be English and Afrikaans. The people trained tor employment in this country will be employed by people living in this country. I know of no case where the question of language has been enforced on a percentage basis. However, I think that between 60% and 65% of the White population are Afrikaans-speaking. The rest are English-speaking. However, we agreed to give full recognition to the two official languages. A Black man may be trained to work on a farm or in a factory. He may work for an employer who is either English-speaking or Afrikaans-speaking and the man who has to give him instructions may be either English-speaking or Afrikaans-speaking. Why should we now start quarrelling about the medium of instruction among the Black people as well? We do not want to make another bone of contention out of this.

Have you consulted them?

No, I have not consulted them and I am not going to consult them. I have consulted the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. What is more, I am not going to force this down the throats of the people. I hope that I am doing this for their benefit. I am merely being honest with them. I want to say that our department tries to influence other departments as well and I am very, very happy with the decision taken by the Transvaal Department of Education that a Bantu language be introduced into our schools. I say that the more languages a person knows, the more that person will be able to understand other people. I believe that it is also to the benefit of those people for them to know both official languages and other languages as well. I should very much like to know additional languages in which to express myself. I want to appeal to hon. members to leave the matter as it is at the moment. The leaders of the various homelands can in due course decide what they want to do in their own homelands where they are the masters. However, as far as the White areas are concerned this is a decision that has been taken and I am going to stand by it. I am not saying this in a threatening way. I am merely saying it because I want to be sincere and honest with the Bantu people themselves. If that hon. member who is shaking his head in disbelief will just stand up and tell me that he wants me to introduce Tswana as an official language if that is requested by the Tswana people, I shall be pleased. Is that what he is after or does he want English to be the official language?

Mr. Chairman, my reply is that the Black parents ought to have the right to choose whether their children are to be instructed in English or Afrikaans. [Interjections.]

Mr. Chairman, all I can say to that hon. member, if he wants to learn anything about the Bantu people in this country, is that all the parents especially on the primary level are interested in having their children educated in their mother tongue. If he does not believe me I can take him to many areas, even Soweto where children have to cover long distances in order to attend a Tswana school. If the hon. member does not believe me he can come with me to the area just north of Pretoria, the Bophuthatswana homeland, where I had to attend a meeting lasting for well-nigh three hours because the Sotho people refused to allow their children to be educated in Tswana. I can call the Chief Ministers of Bophuthatswana, Gazankulu and Lebowa to testify to the fact that they refuse to allow their children to be educated through the medium of any other language but their mother tongue.

*Next I come to the hon. member for Sasolburg, who delivered a plea for a farm school. What the hon. member for Sasolburg said, is perfectly true. I want to tell him that the subsidy was not only an unrealistic one but that it is totally outdated. I am glad he stated the matter in the manner he did, together with the hon. member for Pinelands, and I just want to reiterate that this matter will soon be rectified. Therefore the hon. member need not ask that it be considered. This matter is being considered already, and the subsidy being paid to farmers so as to enable them to keep their labour, will be more than doubled if the first indications are correct. Additional assistance will also be provided. I thank the hon. member for his suggestion concerning the University of the Orange Free State, and other bodies which can be of assistance to us. His suggestion will certainly be looked into, and I can tell him that we are already making use of the assistance of knowledgeable people to rectify these matters for us.

†Lastly, I come to the hon. member for Pinelands. Speaking as one dominee to another, I would like to thank him for his kind remarks about the annual report and about the work done by the department.

*If I may continue in Afrikaans, the other official language, I just want to ask him whether he, as a minister of religion, cannot start doing a little reformation work with regard to the hon. member sitting next to him. By this I do not mean that he should reform him to become a member of the Progressive Party.

†The hon. member put a question to me about the technical college in Soweto. I replied to this question in part on a previous occasion, but I want to repeat that we have just completed the erection of two colleges which will cater in part for the needs of the people there. We will see how this works out and whether the courses can be extended to include other courses. Sir, I have already dealt partly with the question of secondary schools in the urban areas. I dealt with it in the debate on the Bantu Administration Vote, when I pointed out that the erection of classrooms was delayed for a while because of the fact that that amount allowed at the time by the Department of Community Development was not adequate, and that we had to battle to get the amount raised not to R3 000, as stated in the report in the newspapers, but from R1 500 to R3 400 per classroom. With this increased allowance I believe that we will now be able to carry on with the job and erect additional schools with the money available to us.

The hon. member also referred to the objections of farmers to the erection of a farm school. Sir, I agree with him. If there is a farmer who is so obstinate as not to allow the children of the parents working for him to attend a farm school, then that farmer will be ostracized by his fellow farmers, as hon. members on this side who are farmers and as the hon. member for Mooi River will be able to confirm. That farmer’s neighbours will give the final judgment on him and he will find that he will lose his workers. If people are so silly as not to allow the children of the parents working for them the privilege of being educated, then the sooner they change their attitude the better, and when I say that I do so without fear of contradiction.

As far as the qualifications of teachers are concerned, I believe that we will be able to bring about an improvement in this regard when we allow, as has been announced, the building of secondary schools on a regional basis in the areas concerned. This will offer some sort of inducement to teachers to go to farm schools, knowing that they can be promoted to the secondary schools that will be situated in that area. We have in mind also the question of transport, which for many years in the platteland areas, was provided for White children in South Africa. We may be able to go into that when we deal with that scheme.

I wish to conclude by joining with all the hon. members who were kind enough to do so, in thanking the Secretary of my department, who only recently took over. He has had a very serious illness, but happily he is now very much better, and he, together with his other officials, has been doing a grand job of work. We are looking forward to the future knowing that we will succeed.

Votes agreed to.

Revenue Vote No. 9, Loan Vote L and S.W.A. Vote No. 4.—“Transport”:

Mr. Chairman, I raised two matters with the hon. the Minister in October last year and wish to refer to them again this afternoon in the time at my disposal. The first question I raised with the hon. the Minister was the anticipated application in regard to bus fares in the Cape Peninsula. I think for purposes of the record I should state that I wrote to him in October and said that I was anticipating that there would be an application in the near future for a further increase in the bus fares in favour of the monopoly-holding transport company in Cape Town. I added that previously I had appeared pro amico at a hearing for the constituents of Green Point who used the buses, and that there was great difficulty in dealing with the viability of the bus company concerned. I suggested to the hon. the Minister that the difficulty was to extricate the figures of the operating transport company from the figures of the whole group, i.e. Toll-gate Holdings, and I said that it was unreasonable to expect the public at large, the users, somehow or other to organize themselves and to obtain the professional evidence which would be necessary. I said that I believed it was an obligation on the Government to see to it that a proper inquiry was made, particularly in the case of these monopoly companies, and that I expected him or his department to provide some assistance. This was in October, and as I had anticipated, an application by City Tramways, a subsidiary of Tollgate Holdings, was lodged on 12 November 1974, and the application was gazetted almost immediately, on 6 December. It was only then that the hon. the Minister replied to me, on 9 December, some seven weeks after I had approached him on the subject, to tell me that in regard to my suggestion it was not an obligation on the part of the Government to make available adequate professional advice, but that it was the function of the department to assist the public by having all applications for increased tariffs carefully scrutinized by the department’s cost accountant. But what happened to this application? As I mentioned, it was gazetted on 6 December. It was heard on 19 December, a decision was given on 20 December, and the new bus fares came into operation on 22 December. As quick as a flash the bus-users of Cape Town were expected to pay an extra R1,8 million a year in bus fares and in addition the operating company, according to the evidence, was to receive something like R2,1 million in subsidies for non-White users. But what is worse, in this flash decision a minimum bus fare was introduced in Cape Town of 16 cents on weekdays and 18 cents during the weekend. When pensioners in my constituency travel half a mile to the library to get a book and back again it costs them 36 cents on a Saturday to do that. I believe that the Minister has been brutally indifferent to the welfare of thousands of White old-age pensioners to permit such a decision in terms of which a minimum fare of this nature could be imposed. He has been brutally indifferent to the parents of school-going children, when one bears in mind the lack of facilities and special allowances for those children, and to the bus-users in general. I do not believe it is right that the hon. the Minister should expect the ordinary citizen to provide the cost-accounting and the evidence of that nature which has to be placed before the board. The departmental cost accountant is only concerned with one matter, and that is the financial position of the operating company. I will read to the hon. the Minister the report of the departmental cost accountant in 1972. He said—

Unsatisfactory to whom? Unsatisfactory to the shareholders of that company. The Act provides—the hon. the Minister is aware of this—under section 13(2)(e) that the board has to take into account the question of the provision of transportation services at less than the cost thereof where the public interest requires this. Has the hon. the Minister ever asked the board to consider this matter? Has the hon. the Minister ever asked the Cape Town Transportation Board to consider the circumstances especially where the vast majority of bus users in Cape Town use the bus because there is no alternative Railway transport available? I hope the hon. the Minister will see to it that that is done and that such an inquiry is made.

The second point I would like to raise with the hon. the Minister, one I also raised in correspondence with him, is in connection with the authority or the issue of carrier certificates to Blacks to serve Blacks, for instance to operate a school bus for Black schools or for special purpose touring buses. Here again I had correspondence with the hon. the Minister and he stated correctly—I do not question the legal position—that the present legislation empowers the commission or local board to grant authority in competition with an existing and adequate service to an applicant of the same race as the majority of passengers to be served, only if the grant of such certificate will, having regard to the circumstances, be in the public interest. To this the hon. the Minister added “a term that cannot readily be defined”. I would like to refer to a recent application in Cape Town. Because of the terms of the existing legislation a White company was able to satisfy the local board, and the commission on appeal, that existing facilities which were provided by the White company in Langa and Guguletu, the Black townships, were adequate. Under the law that exists the commission was bound. A Bantu who had applied for authority to operate a one-bus service, an application supported by the Bantu Administration Board as well as by the local Bantu residents and the authorized representatives of the Ciskei and Transkei homeland Governments, had to be turned down by the board. I would like to ask the hon. the Minister—I know there is provision under the Road Transportation Bill which is now before a Select Committee of this House to remedy this issue —whether he will not incorporate in the General Laws Amendment Bill, which we no doubt will have this session the provisions which are contained in the draft Bill which is before this Select Committee namely clause 17(2)(a)(i), and thus to give the board discretion immediately to be able to grant licences to Black persons. I ask this because of the discriminatory nature of the present provisions of the relevant Act.

I have another two minutes at my disposal and I would like to raise a matter which I believe is of public interest. I want to refer to the National Sea Rescue Institute. I do not think that I need elaborate on the value of its services to the country, the need for its existence or the necessity that exists for sea-worthy, modern boats. I must, however, express deep indebtedness—I believe on behalf of all of us in this House—to the large number of volunteers who man the rescue craft. I think I should give a brief resumé of what this organization has achieved in the short period of its existence since 1967 when it was launched by the Society of Master Mariners. Up to 30 April 1975 it had carried out 1 287 rescue operations. It had rescued 1 553 people from the sea, it had recovered 357 craft which had been towed in by these rescue boats, and some 306 craft had been assisted at sea. There are approximately 300 unpaid volunteer crew-men operating these rescue boats. Another 150 or so serve on committees and bodies for fund raising. The development over the past eight years has been above expectation. The service is a great credit to the dedicated men who serve voluntarily in these rescue stations. In 1969-’70 Parliament for the first time approved a grant-in-aid of R24 000 to the Institute. That is the figures which again appears after seven years on the estimates. I believe that we have not had sufficient regard to the escalation in the costs involved in the acquisition of the necessary lifesaving craft. One also has to take into account that freak storms and unavoidable accidents in the past 12 months have cost the Sea Rescue Institute something like R175 000 in losses of equipment and craft. I would like to appeal to the hon. the Minister to look into the possibility of increasing this grant to the Institute as soon as possible.

Mr. Chairman, in the limited time at my disposal I cannot reply to the arguments which were raised by the hon. member for Green Point. I only want to refer to his introductory remarks in connection with the application for increased bus fares by City Tramways, Golden Arrow and others. As far as this matter is concerned, the hon. member knows that it is now on appeal with the National Transport Commission, and from the nature of the case we cannot therefore say a great deal about it. As far as Cape Town is concerned, it is the only major municipality which is not prepared to accept responsibility in respect of public passenger services, in contrast with other municipalities such as Johannesburg where considerable losses are being incurred. A few years ago the Municipality of Johannesburg incurred a loss of over R1 million. Here in Cape Town we find that the City Council prefers to derive some revenue from local bus services. When these bus services were offered for sale to the City Council in 1972, they declined the offer. But I do not want to dwell on this matter any longer.

Only last week we heard that South Africa had been expelled from the World Meteorological Organization apparently on account of our domestic policies. Honestly, one is quite taken aback with surprise when one considers these facts, especially the fact that our achievements in the field of meteorological observation have earned for us a prominent place in international meteorology. The fact that we were kicked out by people, some of whom base their weather forecasts on the croacking frogs, surely does not exonerate us from the moral obligation we have towards the international scientific world, which is not interested in playing politics in this sphere. For that reason I want to avail myself of this opportunity to ask the hon. the Minister that as far as meteorological data is concerned, we shall continue to furnish it to the neighbouring states of South Africa.

There is another matter I want to deal with. During the discussion of this Vote in 1970 I discussed the research programme which the department has in Antarctica. On that occasion I asked that the research ship RSA be replaced as a result of particular deficiencies which I indicated at that stage and on which I want to elaborate somewhat today, and more particularly as a result of enormous expansion in our research programme. I believe that my plea was favourably received at that time. It was, however, indicated at that time that no Loan funds for a matter of this nature were available at that stage, but we were given the assurance that the planning of such a new ship would be proceeded with so that plans would be ready when the funds are available for it at some future stage. Therefore, I want to ask the hon. the Minister today what progress has been made with these plans and whether he can give us an indication when it will be possible to replace the RSA. The position today is that we simply cannot continue with proper research with the limited facilities the RSA has to offer. Since the Antarctic Treaty was signed in 1959, activities in the Antarctic and on Marion Island have expanded to such an extent that problems were experienced regularly there during the past number of years to transport our cargo with absolute safety. As a result of increased research activities, the number of passengers have nautrally also increased to such an extent that the RSA is no longer capable of or equipped to convey those people in comfort. This not only causes a great deal of inconvenience but at the same time certain health regulations have to be violated of necessity. I have indicated before now that the RSA is definitely not the most comfortable ship to travel with, because this ship was designed for polar conditions and is not stabilized for stormy conditions on the high seas. In other words, basically this is really a sea-sick vessel, as I see it. In terms of the provisions of the Antarctic Treaty, South Africa is compelled to take along observers and scientists for Sanae. With the available facilities, these requirements can only be complied with partly and then only under exceptional circumstances. In the first place, the RSA does not have helicopter facilities, while it is extremely essential that helicopters should be available under the prevailing conditions. At the Sanae base loading and unloading is always a very time-consuming task, as well as dangerous, because the ship has to moor in the vicinity of a crumbling ice embankment, of approximately 40 feet in height. It happens regularly that the ship cannot get close to the embankment, and then the meteorological teams have to wait until weather conditions improve. In this process a considerable amount of provisions have already been lost through falling into the sea on account of the insufficient facilities available there. At Marion Island and Gough Island it is a regular occurrence that unloading has to be postponed for several days as a result of the tremendously high swell there, something which constitutes a danger to human lives—so much so that several employees have already fallen into the sea. By using helicopters for transporting the scientists, we can also ensure that we can take better qualified and better trained scientists there. It is understandable that highly qualified people, such as professors and so on are not always prepared to go to Antarctica to undertake research for an extremely long period of time. If helicopters were available, which would enable them to land in the interior of Antarctica within a short space of time to do their work there, they would be able to return with the same ship within two months’ time. It would naturally save considerable costs, it would bring about a considerable saving in salaries and would also facilitate research there to a considerable extent. At the moment quite a wide range of scientific programmes are being concentrated upon in the Antarctica. These programmes require permanent, well-equipped laboratories. Mobile laboratories could be used for some of the programmes, but the present RSA does not have these facilities at all. The result is that justice cannot be done to research there which is being undertaken at considerable expense. Certain research projects require areas in Antarctica and on the islands to be visited, something which is not possible with the present means of transport available there. In this way certain kinds of research in connection with marine biology and oceanography, for which a great need exists cannot be undertaken with the present facilities there. One of the major deficiencies at the moment in connection with weather forecasts, is undoubtedly the fact that we have very little information about the area between Cape Town, the Sanae base, Gough and Marion Islands. The distance between the present meteorological station on Gough Island and Marion Island is approximately 3 200 km. They are situated more or less in a funnel shape converging on the southern most point of Africa. Bouvet Island is situated more or less in the middle of that vacuum. As long ago as in 1957 I pleaded for a meteorological station, whether manned or automatic, to be established on Bouvet Island. As the result of the island’s position and the dangerous rocks surrounding it it is essential that a ship with helicopter facilities will be available so that the station can be established there in order to complete our meteorological source network.

I want to conclude by saying that the crew, our staff and our scientists have suffered a great deal over a period of many years, but that they have nevertheless done excellent work in Antarctica. They in particular are looking forward with very great interest to hear what the hon. the Minister has to announce today.

Mr. Chairman, today I want to direct my attention mainly to compulsory third party insurance. I want to say at once that I think we all agree and understand that the increase in premiums was quite understandable and inevitable, mainly as a result of increases in medical expenses, attorneys’ fees, salaries and claims awarded. When we think of claims that are awarded. I think that this can for the most part be ascribed to the depreciation of money. Accordingly it appears that while the average value of a claim settled in 1965 was R300, the average value of such a claim in 1973 was R1 500. In the time to come we can expect that the average of these claims will rise even further and that consequently the premiums, too, may rise. I think we all quite understand this, while we are all upset, too, about the increase in the number of road accidents in South Africa, to such an extent that we have one of the highest accident rates in the whole world at the moment.

It is a basic principle of insurance that the one insured person has to carry the risk of the other insured person. As far as compulsory third-party insurance is concerned, we have the phenomenon that the careful driver has to help pay for the damage which is caused by the negligence and in many cases the reckless behaviour of some drivers. I do not give myself out to be a model driver, because I may simply have been fortunate up to now. Since the commencement of the Act in 1946 I have always paid the prescribed premium without my ever having had a claim laid against me, against the company where I have my third party insurance. I quite realize, too, that it will not be easy to make the principle of no-claim bonuses, such as those applicable to comprehensive car insurance, applicable to third party insurance. But I do think that we shall have to find some sort of method according to which we could impose the burden of accidents on the drivers who cause them, so that this may also serve as a deterrent to them. The approximately 23 500 claims which are reported annually come from only about 1 % of the total number of vehicles which are insured annually. It will certainly not be easy for the 17 different companies undertaking third party insurance to develop a system that will impose an extra burden on one driver out of a 100, and for that very reason I want to suggest that third party insurance be undertaken by only one company instead of 17. I do not suggest that we single out one of the 17 companies which make up the consortium at present, but that we have one single company, which could possibly be jointly instituted by that consortium or, if that cannot be done, the State should think of such a possibility. One single company could bring down the administration costs considerably and at the same time I believe that the process of settling the claims could be streamlined. At the moment the 17 companies each has its own administration expenses, and to my mind this leads to a large degree of duplication. Furthermore I think that one company could bring us much closer to the idea of a central register, a register in which records can be kept of the drivers. Where they are negligent, they can then be burdened accordingly. I also believe that if only one company were concerned in this, it would greatly simplify the settlement of claims. At the moment each one of the 17 companies has its own policy as regards the settlement of claims. I do not have any personal experience of a claim, but I am told that some of these companies after the greatest resistance when a reasonable claim has to be settled, while other companies are much more reasonable in this regard.

I wonder, too, whether the time has not come for us to think of a compulsory balance of third party insurance which we can include in the ordinary third party insurance. Much damage is done to innocent drivers’ cars by reckless drivers. Many of these drivers have no comprehensive insurance for their cars. Usually these are precisely the people who do not own anything, and therefore nothing can be recovered from them for the damage they did. Therefore I believe that, while we have a third party insurance in connection with bodily damage and suffering which can be caused, we can also insure a person in this way against material damage, for which no compensation can presently be claimed in many cases. I believe the principle is the same. I think a compulsory balance of third party insurance may mean that many of our companies will be able to offer us cheaper comprehensive insurance. This is only an idea which I am submitting to the hon. the Minister and, as I know him, I believe that he will have this possibility investigated.

Mr. Chairman, this Vote deals with eight divisions or sub-departments and in the three ten-minute speaking opportunities which this party will have in this debate, it is obviously impossible to deal with all eight divisions adequately. Therefore it is necessary that we select specific items and, in the few minutes at my disposal, I wish to deal with two of those.

Before doing so, I want to refer to the Moodley Transport case which I raised last year. The hon. the Minister at that time promised that the matter would be investigated. I should like to place on record that the outcome of that investigation was made available to me and I want to express congratulations to the official who handled the case. The findings alone came to 103 pages and there were over 300 pages of annexures. All in all, a first class job was done and I want to say to the hon. the Minister that this is the way in which such matters should be handled. Some aspects were raised on which we can check later to see if they have been corrected. There were also some matters affecting the Railways. However, I merely want to place on record that in my view the inquiry was handled well.

The hon. member for Boksburg referred to the question of motor vehicle insurance and this is one subject with which I want to deal. The Government accepts full responsibility for this. It is the sole arbiter. Unlike the hon. member for Boksburg—as one obviously expects from him—I want to say that we in the United Party totally reject the panic increase of 50% in the premiums this year. I charge the Government with basing this increase on pure speculation and guess-work, including the advice of actuaries who obviously have to earn their fees. I challenge the hon. the Minister to produce the evidence on which estimated claims were based which warranted a 50% additional load being placed on the shoulders of the motorists of South Africa. Actuaries obviously always have to forecast disaster otherwise they would not exist, they would not have a job. Every time that the Government looks at any figures it says: “Sock the motorists!” The motorist is a captive victim and they can do anything they like with him. He has to have a licence and he has to obey the law. What are the facts? According to the latest available figures, the facts are that the premium income of the fund was R36,1 million in 1973-74. To this amount was added an amount of R10,4 million in interest, a total income of R46,5 million in 1973-74. The total expenditure of the fund in respect of administration expenses, claims and everything else amounted to R32 million. In other words, there was a surplus of R14,5 million in the fund in 1973-’74. In addition to this there is an accumulated amount of R130 million in the fund. The estimate as far as outstanding claims were concerned—what I call the “guesstimate”—including a 10% provision in respect of inflation—amounted to R125 million. Therefore, even if all those claims were to have to be met, one would still have a surplus. What is the actual position? In 1970-71 it was estimated that 45 000 claims would amount to R72 million. These are round figures. In actual fact they paid out R17,8 million. In 1971-’72 the estimate was R86 million and R24 million was paid out. In 1972-’73 the estimate was R92 million and R31 million was paid out. In 1973-’74 the estimate was R125 million and R32 million was paid out. In regard to this estimated liability from approximately 44 000 claims, half were new claims outstanding at the end of the year and half had been settled during the year. This means that 50% of those claims had already been dealt with and that only 50% was outstanding. There was an amount of R130 million in the fund, and so they produced a figure of R125 million in estimated claims! What is even worse, however, is that of the average amount of a premium of R16 taken over a period of seven years, only R7 went towards compensation. There was quite a lot in respect of legal fees, 96 cents went into the fund as surplus and the rest was spent on administration expenses etc. Less than half of the premium therefore was spent on payments to motorists. I charge the Government with having acted on estimates for which they had no foundation and of unnecessarily burdening the motorists of South Africa with half as much again in respect of their third-party insurance. If they were right, then they still had another year in which to prove that they had been right. They could then have come to us with figures and said: Here are the figures which show that the premium has to be increased. They should not have increased the premium in advance.

As far as the suggestion of the hon. member for Boksburg that there should only be one company is concerned, I want to say that I do not think it will work. We have now had a new company admitted to the closed-shop of the consortium of companies. Despite the fact that we have a Bill before Parliament which is going to compel banks to have a 51% South African shareholding and so forth, the company that was admitted was not even a South African controlled one. I want to know from the hon. the Minister what the tests or standards or norms are that he applied in admitting a new company to this consortium or in keeping out some other company, and whether he applies those tests, standards or norms to the people already in the consortium. My information is—and the figures seem to show it—that some of the companies are not assessing claims properly; they are simply going to court. I do not have time to give all the figures. However, of an amount of some R24 million in claims, approximately R4 million or one-sixth of the total amount paid out in compensation was in respect of legal fees. Some companies are not investigating these cases properly; they are simply handing them over to lawyers and telling them to fight it out. I want to know whether that sort of company will be expelled from the consortium and on what basis new companies will be admitted. I do, however, feel that we need a wide spread of companies to give proper service to the motorist.

In the few moments left to me I want to deal with the saga of Durban airport, which within the next six weeks or so will be reaching the end of a chapter. This has been a fight that has lasted for seven years. I have all the Hansards here which show the pleas I made and the warnings I gave and the threats I made in regard to what was going to happen. I have paid tribute to the staff for the impossible conditions under which they have had to work there. One thinks of the fact that Jan Smuts airport handled million domestic passengers in 1973-’74 on an area of 7 500 square metres. Louis Botha airport handled over 800 000 passengers, more than half that figure, on an area of 860 square metres! This is a disgrace and is due to stubborn and irresponsible dilly-dallying on the part of the Government. Now that we are about to get the extensions I want to say that this is no thanks at all to the bad planning, the dilly-dallying and shilly-shallying that have gone on for seven miserable years causing conditions under which the staff have had to suffer. However, this is not the end of the story for the staff. I want to say that the time has come when the transport staff who fall under this Vote should receive proper recognition. There are air traffic controllers starting at R150 in whose hands the lives of every passenger and pilot rest. When there was a Press report in this regard, what happened? The Director of Civil Aviation lined up the staff. He blustered and threatened them and said that when he found who had talked to a newspaper-man, that person would be sacked out of band. The answer is, of course, that he should have found out what their complaints were. He should not have blustered and threatened them; he should have tried to find out what their complaints were. When this report appeared, immediately there was a witch-hunt to find out who had talked to the Press. I telephoned one of the staff but he would not talk to me. I tried to find out what in fact their complaints were; They would not leak to me. However, somehow the Press got wind of this. I object to witchhunts. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I do not know why the hon. member for Durban Point is getting so excited. I had expected us to discuss this Vote in a calm, restful atmosphere. Sir, I do not really want to comment on the second part of his argument. What I want to do is come back to the first part, in which the hon. member launched a violent attack on the hon. the Minister because the premium in respect of third party assurance had been increased. Listening to the hon. member for Durban Point, one is forced to the conclusion that the hon. the Minister simply increased the third party insurance premiums will-nilly. To begin with, I want to say that if I were a member of the Opposition, I, too, should undoubtedly have tried to make an issue of this matter, but I want to tell the hon. member for Durban Point that I think I should have done it much better than he has, because we on this side of the House understand that in this regard we must bear in mind the rise in the cost of living. This is a matter that vexes us every day. In spite of all the vigorous efforts being made to curb the rising cost of living, it is an acknowledged fact that the cost of living in South Africa and in the rest of the world is rising from day to day owing to inflationary tendencies. You may therefore expect, Sir, that this Government will display the greatest circumspection before placing a heavier burden on the citizens of South Africa by increasing the premium for third party insurance. I think it is important, for the purposes of the record, history of third party insurance. The hon. member for Durban Point knows that the Du Plessis Commission was appointed in 1960 to investigate all aspects of third party insurance premiums. The hon. member knows, too, that the commission recommended, inter alia, that the premium be determined by the Minister of Transport. Sir, what did we find in 1964. Immediately after the Act was placed on the Statute Book—this the hon. member did not mention—the assurance companies responsible for third party insurance immediately made representations to the then Minister of Transport to the effect that the premium should be increased by 20%. Nor, Sir, did the hon. member for Durban Point mention the fact that the then Minister of Transport turned down the application by the assurance companies at that stage, and as a result the travelling public of South Africa was saved an amount of approximately R60 million over the subsequent nine or ten years—the hon. member omitted to mention that. Those are the facts, Sir. I can also tell you that the third party insurance premium—the hon. member did not mention this, either—has not been increased at all since the year 1961, except for an adjustment here and there. The hon. member knows, too, that eventually a consortium of assurance companies was established owing to the fact that certain assurance companies did not want to accept the suggested premium However, at that stage the consortium was satisfied with the premium laid down. This Government certainly did not act without due consideration as far as this matter was concerned. In 1972, because this seemed to be a matter of real importance, the Government appointed actuaries—people with scientific knowledge—to investigate this whole matter, and the fact of the matter is that as far back as 1973-’74, the actuaries recommended to the Minister that the third party insurance premium be increased. At that stage the Minister was not disposed to allow this. On 30 April last year, actuaries were again appointed to investigate this whole matter, and these actuaries recommended to the Minister that the premium be increased. For the sake of interest I also just want to mention that the Institute for Social and Economic Research of the University of the Orange Free State was also approached by the hon. the Minister to institute a scientific investigation and to investigate the funds of the MVA, and that they, too, agreed that the third party insurance premium should be increased, but, Sir, what is important—and in this regard the hon. member’s facts were wrong—is that those actuaries recommended that the premium be increased by 50%. The hon. member for Durban Point intimated that the premium was increased by 50%. The fact of the matter is that in spite of the fact that the actuaries recommended that the premium be increased by 50%, the hon. the Minister and the Cabinet decided that it would be increased by 30%. Sir, I want to use the time at my disposal to give you, very shortly, the reasons why the third party insurance premium had necessarily to be increased. Unfortunately, in spite of the initial drop of 31% in the number of accidents during December 1973, owing to the fuel saving campaign, we find today that the number of accidents in South Africa is mounting again from day to day. Comparing the figures for May, June and July of last year with the figures for the corresponding months of the previous year, one finds that the drop was only 9. I am sorry to say this, Sir, but I believe that if we could get hold of the latest statistics, we should find that as far as road accidents in South Africa are concerned, we have reverted to the conditions that prevailed in the years before the implementation of fuel saving measures. It goes without saying, too, that nowadays larger claims are instituted by third parties who are injured in accidents. Sir, this is a subject we could discuss at great length, but to me it is very clear that whether we want to admit it or not, our people in South Africa are no longer prepared to drive at 80 km per hour. The fact of the matter, and the statistics prove it, is that when one drives more slowly, the accident rate drops, but I believe that our people no longer think in terms of the interests of the country and in terms of petrol saving. I think the statistics prove that our people are driving faster than 80 km per hour today. What is more, Sir—the hon. member for Boksburg also referred to this—this has resulted in the third party insurance premium having to be increased owing to mounting medical expenses, mounting attorneys’ fees, mounting salaries, mounting hospitalization expenses and the awarding of higher claims. Sir, within this whole setup the drop in the value of money has become a factor of real importance, too, because today larger amounts are being awarded by judges in respect of claims instituted than was the case a few years ago. Perhaps I could just quote to you very briefly what various judges have said in this regard: Mr. Justice Addleson said in 1969, “Having regard to the depreciation in the value of money …”. In 1972 Mr. Justice Kotze said: “Regard being had to the ever-continuing fall in the value of money …”. In 1972 Mr. Justice Kannemeyer said, “The award must be sufficient to serve the purpose for which it is made, for nearly half a century, and that during that lengthy period the value of money is likely to decrease considerably.” It would perhaps be of interest as far as this aspect is concerned just to show you how the claims have increased over the past few years. I shall just mention a few practical examples: In the year 1965-’66 the average claim paid was R309. In the year 1966-’67 this rose to R352, in 1969-’70 to R375 and last year, 1973-’74, to R1 491. In view of these facts, Sir, it is self-evident that however unpleasant it may have been for him to do so, the hon. the Minister had necessarily to increase third party insurance premiums in the circumstances prevailing today. The question could perhaps be asked why third party insurance premiums are being increased whereas overall, the premiums for insurance in South Africa are in fact being reduced. In fact, Sir, this is not the correct approach either, because the facts are as follows: During 1965 premiums for assurance were increased overall by between 12½% and 15%, in 1970 by 11½%, in 1971 by 20%, in 1972 by 10% and in 1973 by 18%, representing a total increase during this period of 72%. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I should like to say a few words about our approach to road safety. Arising from that I want to advocate the takeover of all control of traffic and road safety by the Department of Transport. I do not do this lightly, Sir, but because for every right-thinking person today it is cause for concern to see the death toll on our roads mounting steadily, and because to me as a layman, it seems that we have no answer to the question as to how this tendency is to be combated effectively. The fuel saving campaign we launched recently in conjunction with speed limits taught us two useful lessons. The one is that it proved incontrovertibly that the gravity of motor accidents is in relation to the speed travelled. The second lesson it taught us was that if we wanted to achieve anything with regard to road safety in South Africa, we would have to have the co-operation of the general public. If this is not forthcoming then our best efforts will be doomed to failure.

This brings me to the question as to whether our road safety efforts in South Africa can rely on the favourable attitude and the whole-hearted support of the general public. If the reply is “no”, as I think it is, then one must ask oneself the question as to why this should be so. Is it not owing to, I do not want to say our inccorect approach, but then the approach we are adopting at present to the problem we are faced with here? To people from outside, and to me, it seems that at the moment, about 80% of our road safety effort is directed towards the combating of speed. Is it not due to there being such a marked over-emphasis on the combating of speed, and in particular to the fact that there has been such large-scale exploitation of the speed factor, that we have lost the co-operation of our people? Sir, it is indisputable that at the moment the attitude to road safety of the general public leaves much to be desired. In my opinion the reason is that through the years, antagonism has been building up among our public against the way in which certain local authorities use their traffic division as tax collecting machines on the pretext of promoting road safety. The way in which the fines collected by speed traps are used by some municipalities to balance their budgets has degenerated into an evil with far-reaching results. Matters cannot go on this way, Sir, because owing to that kind of behaviour we are not only alienating the goodwill of our public but are also undermining and negating all the fine efforts and the good work being done by the National Road Safety Council and other bodies in regard to road safety. That is why I advocate a new approach to this great and vital task, and this is that the emphasis, as far as our road safety effort is concerned, should be shifted so as to concentrate more on the education of the public, on the inculcation in the public of their responsibility in regard to road safety. It is true that more than 50% of the people who are killed in road accidents are pedestrians, not people who are killed on the road owing to high speed, but pedestrains, and more than 80% of them are non-Whites. That is why it is so essential that the education of our people should receive priority. But if we want to achieve this, then we shall have to take the general public with us in this effort, and I tell you that as long as local authorities are allowed to lay their hands on traffic fines, we shall never get that co-operation from the public …

Hear, hear!

… and the prestige of our traffic officers who have to carry out this task among the public will not be regained. Consequently, the first thing we must do is lay down that all traffic fines accrue to the State and the State should then utilize these fines for certain purposes or, as I am going to suggest shortly, for the maintenance of their own traffic department or for some such project as the building of a second Sasol, But whatever the case may be, this money must definitely not go into the municipal coffers. Hon. members will now ask me where the municipalities are to find the funds to finance their traffic departments. My reply to that is that if this must be a service provided by the municipalities and the local authorities, they should provide this service to the public out of the ordinary rates and not by means of a special tax in the form of traffic fines. In my opinion it is imperative that if we are to tackle this matter properly, we must centralize the road safety effort in the hands of one authority, and in my opinion that authority must be the Department of Transport. At the moment there is an acute lack of co-ordination and organization and too much duplication in our road safety effort and traffic control. At the moment each local authority has a traffic division with a traffic building, with a traffic court, with an administrative staff, with a testing centre, with a maintenance depot, and all this is duplicated from local authority to local authority. There is a total lack of uniform training of these people who have to implement the road safety effort among the public, and justice can only be done to this if this matter is directed into one channel from above. In my opinion, a central traffic control under the control of the department of Transport would not only save the general taxpayer millions of rand, but would also enable us to make progress in regard to the combating of this major problem and would at least enable us to obtain the support of the general public.

The hon. member for Parow has stated quite correctly that many of the people involved in accidents are non-Whites. I think the statistics he gave showed that something like 50% of all accidents involve pedestrians and something like 80% of these pedestrians were non-Whites. Sir, I myself have a fairly positive suggestion I should like to make to the hon. the Minister, and I hope to get an answer from him.

I want to talk about the composition of the National Road Safety Council. I would say that the problems of road safety apply to our total population, Black as well as White. Certainly I must admit that the Road Safety Council is giving attention to every section of the population as far as their educational activities are concerned. Various educational projects are directed towards our Black population. There is the pedestrian project for Blacks, the training that is being given to mineworkers and others, and there are also the competitions amongst Coloured schools. But I should like to suggest to the hon. the Minister that if the National Road Safety Council is really going to function effectively, Black members should be appointed to that council. Regrettably, in South Africa we have reached the stage where Black people have become suspicious of bodies consisting of Whites only and which try to organize their lives for them. The council itself is made up of able men who are doing a very good job indeed, but surely their task would be far easier if the Black people whom they are trying to reach felt that they too were participating in planning and decisions in regard to road safety. I would go further and suggest to the hon. the Minister that he should ensure that membership of the planned Safe Drivers’ Association of South Africa will be open to people of all races. I believe this planned association will give safe-driving certificates to those who are not involved in accidents, and so on. It would be a great encouragement to our Black drivers in South Africa to allow them also to participate in this scheme. Road safety vitally concerns all of us in South Africa and all people in South Africa should be given the opportunity of participating in the process of making South Africa a safer place and making South African roads as safe as possible.

The second matter I would like to raise with the hon. the Minister concerns the whole question of transport in the major urban centres of our country. In 1970—I think I am quoting the Minister’s own statistics—87% of our population lived in the towns. This is a terrific increase since earlier years when something like 50% of our population lived in the towns. The urban Black population has also increased rapidly. It is estimated that something like 93% of our White population will live in the towns by the year 2000. There will be a similar move to the urban areas by Bantu people. We are faced with a growing problem as to how we are going to enable our urban workers to get to and from their place of work. I think it is true to say that our larger cities are already showing signs of strangulation. Anyone who has been in traffic jams during peak hours in Cape Town, Johannesburg or Durban is very well aware of this fact. I think we also should appreciate that 90% of our motor-cars and 70% of our goods vehicles are owned by people, who live in the towns. In other words, the vast majority of vehicles in South Africa are owned by town dwellers. It is, therefore, self-evident that the whole question of efficient urban transportation is of vital importance to the majority of our population. I do not believe that this problem is being dealt with adequately at all. From the report of the National Transport Commission I notice that the following decisions have been taken—

1. (a) That no extension whatsoever of accepted urban freeway schemes would qualify for subsidy purposes; and
2. (b) that no increased subsidies would be made available from the National Road Fund for urban freeway schemes.

Why not? The petrol revenue accruing to the National Road Fund—this amounted to something over R96 million last year— comes out of the pockets of the motorists. As the vast majority of motorists are in the towns, their interests must be looked after. They, after all, pay the money. Road usage is a part of the total economy of our country. I believe that priorities in spending from the fund must include a larger slice for our cities. Nobody is against the provision of first-class national freeway systems in South Africa—obviously we all want this—but I am not convinced that a freeway through the Garden Route, for example, should have priority over urban problems which I believe are much more pressing. At this stage I would like to say that I do not necessarily think that the answer to the transportation problem in our cities lies in the provision of bigger and better freeways. This is not necessarily so at all. In fact, there are probably other answers, better answers. I do, however, believe that the provision of efficient urban transportation is a matter of rational responsibility which no longer can be left to local authorities who are just not in a position to finance major road transportation schemes or freeway development schemes, whichever is decided to be the most efficient way of solving this problem. I am sure that the committee of inquiry into urban transport facilities will make recommendations in this respect, and as the Secretary for Transport is on record as saying that he hopes this report will be before Parliament before the end of this session, I hope we are going to see this soon. It is quite possible that the National Road Fund which, after all, is financed by a tax on petrol which largely comes from the cities will have to be supplemented with additional moneys from general revenue. What I do want to ask the hon. the Minister to do is to take a long hard look at our priorities. I know the fund is having difficulty already paying for the present programme of national road building, which is why we have had to increase the surcharge on petrol, but is this the top priority? I really believe that our city population is being sold down the river. We are faced with a national problem of tremendous importance and the Government has so far not accepted its responsibilities in this matter. It may well be that the National Road Fund must continue to spend money on rural freeways, but somehow or other the money must be found, if necessary from elsewhere, to solve our main problem. I want to say to the hon. the Minister that this Government is avoiding its responsibilities and that it does so at the expense of something which is of tremendous consequence and importance to our national life and our national welfare.

Another matter that I want to raise briefly is the expulsion of South Africa from the World Meteorological Organization. As we all know, the WMO is a specialized agency of the United Nations and co-ordinates meteorological services throughout the world. I would like to know from the hon. the Minister what effect this expulsion is going to have on our meteorological services. I believe that the hon. the Minister should make a statement on this matter. It is highly regrettable that we should continue in so many fields to pay the price for our policies of discrimination and I think that the hon. the Minister should at least say what this means to us at this time. He can argue as much as he likes, but it is the policies of this Government that cause this sort of action from overseas.

Finally, I would like to raise the question of the desegregation of our public transport services. I think that road transportation boards should be instructed to give sympathetic consideration to requests from local authorities to desegregate transport services. I believe there is an application from Durban at the moment to the local Road Transportation Board to desegregate services there. The hon. member for Green Point was talking about the expense of running the City Tramways system in Cape Town a little earlier. I am absolutely convinced that we are running into considerably more expense than we need because we insist on this segregated transport service. South Africa just cannot afford to run segregated transport systems. They are expensive, wasteful and result in our commuters getting inferior service from the money that is available. Could I urge the hon. the Minister to put his mind again to this matter of priorities? Which is more important, an efficient transport system or a segregated transport system?

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Orange Grove raised quite a number of subjects. Among others, he talked about the Road Safety Council and the possibility of having Black people represented on the council. I cannot see it happening at the moment but it may come in the future. We hope however that the Bantu homeland authorities will conduct their own road safety investigations and have their own councils in future, and that, in this way, they will be able to play their part. He also talked about the transport of workers to the cities. This is a very difficult question and I intend to deal with it in the course of my speech.

*The hon. member for Parow spoke about road safety and its concomitant problems. He also referred to the pressing need for co-operation on the part of the public. This afternoon I want to approach the issue of road safety from a few other angles. The first matter I want to mention is that it is largely owing to human factors that so many accidents take place. The second major factor is the roads we build and the means of transport we use on them. In the first place, let us consider the human factor involved in road safety. As the hon. member for Parow said, much depends on the human approach. I want to maintain that the approach here in South Africa is greatly influenced by our laws. Our laws are based on the Roman Dutch legal system. According to this system a man is innocent until proved guilty. At the moment one finds that when a person is caught speeding or infringing any other traffic law, the State bears the full onus of proving the guilt of the transgressor. I am informed that in Switzerland, an entirely different approach is adopted. There it is accepted that a person is guilty until he himself has proved his innocence. This has resulted in an entirely different approach. When an accident occurs there, these people are only too happy to settle the matter out of court. In this way they are saved all the court expenses and other attendant expenses. As regards speeding offences and traffic offences, too, the people are only too willing to pay. Something else I found there was that the fines were much higher. Here in South Africa we find that if a fine of R50 is imposed, people think that is high. In other countries, a fine of R500 is imposed for such offences as crossing the white line, and this acts as a deterrent. In my opinion we should protect people against themselves and assist our courts. Last week we read in the newspaper that a case was thrown out by the magistrate because it had not been proved that the motorist had used fuel in his car. I feel that we should again take a very careful look at cases of this kind and that we should assist our magistrates so that they can find these people guilty without such ridiculous verdicts having to be arrived at.

In overseas countries, one finds that the people are far more courteous than they are in South Africa. Here in South Africa it is a great honour for a person to cross an intersection against the amber light. He boasts of it to his friends. Overseas, I have found that people obey the lights, because they are afraid of the fine that may be imposed. Here in this country, however, this is not the case and people simply continue to cross intersections against the amber light. I also found that the way the lights work overseas is quite different to the way they work here. Here in South Africa I have counted up to ten lights at one intersection, despite which these lights are still disregarded. In Europe there is only one light and it gives everyone a chance—those who want to turn left and those who want to turn right. We could take another look at the way our people obey the traffic signs. There is another side of the matter, too, which I should like to mention here, and that is our roads, how we plan our roads. We are building a large network of expressways to the cities and we are attracting an ever-increasing number of private motor vehicles. In my opinion, the time has now come for us to decide whether we want to encourage private motor traffic as is done, for example, in cities like Los Angeles in America, where they have an enormous network of expressways that bring private cars into the cities on a large scale. The expressways there cut the city up into sectors. There are expressways and intersections wherever one looks, but to get from one place to another can easily take two hours there, because massive traffic jams take place even on those wonderful expressways. On the other hand, we shall have to make a very serious effort to try to have our traffic go underground. I think the time has come tor us to appoint a commission of inquiry to conduct a thorough investigation into high-speed traffic in our cities. We must plan properly for the future. We cannot simply continue to attract motor traffic to the centre city. It is all very well to have good expressways or to have a ring road around the business centre, but that is not the answer to the problem. Good roads in the platteland, good expressways traversing the country, are vital but we can also have too many expressways in a city. We must, of course, have rapid access to the centre of the city, but intensive research will have to be undertaken in that regard, and we shall have to tackle this immediately. Who is to undertake this task? It is not a technical problem only, but an economic one too, because the cost of those expressway systems entering the city is measured, not in hundreds of millions of rand, but in thousands of millions of rand. For that reason it is an economic problem as well. I have thought a great deal about who should undertake this task. I want to voice the idea today that we could not do better than to commission the Railways to undertake this task, since they have the engineers and the experts to do it. I want to voice the idea that we should commission this department as soon as possible to conduct a thorough investigation into high speed traffic in the cities. This will cost money. We shall have to consider the financing of such systems and we shall have to consider how we are going to build them and implement them. A thorough and comprehensive metropolitan transport system will have to be planned. If we do this, we shall still be able to bring our people to the cities where they do business and where they work. In this way we shall be able to keep our cities as they are. We shall be able to construct malls in the cities—something one often finds overseas—that will make the centre of the city attractive, and we shall be able to keep the old sections in the middle of our cities as attractions for the tourist. It is a very attractive idea to bring our people to the cities without the smothering effect of the expressway systems and without the atmospheric pollution caused by cars. Where are we to find the money for these systems? We could obtain it from levies on petrol, we could obtain it by taking a rightful share of licence fees and we could impose a tax on new cars. This is something to which we shall have to give serious consideration. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I should like to say a few words about the Weather Bureau, and I want to refer specifically to the technological era in which they find themselves and to their involvement in research. Before doing so, it would perhaps be interesting to consider the origins of the Weather Bureau. We see that a committee consisting of eight members was appointed by the Government of the Cape of Good Hope in 1860 to deal with matters relating to the weather. The Free State followed suit in 1878, as did Natal in 1884 and the Transvaal, where it was under the leadership of Dr. Innes, in 1902. We find, however, that it was only on 1 April 1912 that organized weather bureau affairs were established under the name of the Union Weather Service, as it was then known. It fell under the Department of Irrigation, and Mr. C. M. Stewart was in charge of the Service. We see that the first weather forecasts were issued from Cape Town on 15 April 1912. From June 1926 the weather forecasting service was transferred to Pretoria where it still is today. In 1933 Dr. Schumann took over and at that stage the weather service was renamed to the Weather Bureau, the name it still bears today. The activities of the Weather Bureau expanded, and after the war it was transferred from the Department of Irrigation to the Department of Transport. We see that the activities of the Weather Bureau have expanded steadily. In 1942 a weather station was established at Tristan da Cunha, but today the Weather Bureau only carries out observations on a small scale there. In 1947 a base was established on Marion Island, and in 1956 a further base was established on Gough Island, a British possession. In January 1916 the National Antarctic Expedition started the Sanae Base in Antarctica. Our Weather Bureau is deserving of praise for its very major contribution to the development of technology of meteorology in the Southern Hemisphere. The scope of its contributions has been such that a regional office of the World Meteorological Organization has been recognized in South Africa. We have heard that there are difficulties in regard to continued membership of that organization, but we hope that by 1 January 1976 those problems may perhaps have been resolved. At the moment the position is that the need for meteorological information is growing daily. It is making ever greater demands on our Weather Bureau and technology plays a vital role in regard to these demands. This is where the research element comes in.

Let us just take a brief look at the present composition of the Weather Bureau. The bureau has a total of 337 permanent, officials, 227 of whom are technical and skilled staff. More than two-thirds of its staff, therefore, are technical staff. There are 20 weather offices, 203 weather stations and over 3 000 rainfall stations. Then, too, it receives information from ships in all the oceans, and from a short time ago, from the weather satellite Essa 8, too, in respect of cloud formations. This information has to be collected, processed and distributed.

Let us just take a brief look at those who play a part in this function of distribution and those who make use of meteorological information. The SABO, the Press, the Main Post Office and the Navy assist in broadcasting weather bulletins and weather reports over the ether daily. There are 47 000 telephone inquiries for meteorological information every year. We find that agriculture, the building industry, those engaged in the establishment of industries, the insurance industry and special organizations such as tourism and education all make use of this meteorological information. Most important of all, however, is aviation. Weather is such an important factor for the airways that the International Civil Aviation Organization has laid down certain requirements in accordance with which meteorological information must be made available.

Let us consider the importance to aviation of meteorological information in our country alone. We have 308 aviation licences, 167 public airports, 237 private airports, four international airports and seven national airports. Looking at the number of flights controlled from these points, we find that over 20 000 international flights, 237 500 national flights and 515 500 other flights depart from or arrive at these airports every year. A total of more than 7 750 000 passengers are conveyed. Shipping, too, is furnished with meteorological information. In South Africa this information is provided annually to 25 000 ships by the Post Office, the Navy, the SABC and other bodies.

I should just like to refer briefly to the armed forces. That is something one does not discuss, but in my opinion we cannot emphasize enough the importance of meteorological information in the strategy of our armed forces in South Africa. We therefore expect that as the need tor information of this kind arises, technology will play an increasingly important role and that South Africa is committed to becoming increasingly self-sufficient in the field of research as well.

I should like to quote a few examples to show how these matters correlate with each other, and then make a recommendation to the hon. the Minister. Looking at research, we see that recently the Weather Bureau received the first transmissions from the SIRS satellite. This is the infra-red satellite that measures the upper-air temperatures and sends readings back to earth. However, upper-air temperatures are in fact meaningless to us if we do not at the same time have the surface pressure readings. This is work which has to be performed by the Weather Bureau. If we consider the CSIR’s research into dynamic meteorology, in the course of which they have already made scale models for applications in regard to SIRS readings, we can see these two as a unity with a vast meteorological potential for South Africa. When we look at our weather modification programmes in the Free State, at those of private companies in the Transvaal and then again at the CSIR’s efforts to construct cloud analysis models on their computers, something that is very important in weather modification systems, then we see that there is a pressing need for co-ordination of these efforts.

I could mention a number of other examples, such as the CSIR’s pollution research group, and the contribution made by thé Weather Bureau in regard to the establishment of industries, for example in Saldanha, to investigate the influence of climate on pollution. Then, too, there are the CSIR’s efforts to measure rainfall with the aid of radar systems, and in addition, the future use of computer systems for weather prediction. Looking at all these examples, we must also bear in mind that the CSIR has national scientific programmes at Gough, at the Sanae basis and at Marion. In view of all these programmes, the question occurs as to whether it is not time for us to rationalize our technological skills in this field. I believe that we should effect some co-ordination with regard to manpower and with regard to our ability to do these things. Looking at the techniques, we see that they are VHF and UHF and HF techniques and in addition, facsimiles, teleprinters and, in the future, meteorological cryptography as well. In addition there are Doppler radar systems and computer systems. Reading the chapter relating to the Weather Bureau in the report of the Department of Transport, we note that it is stated that insufficient research is being carried out owing to a lack of the necessary technical support. I wonder whether the time has not come for the hon. the Minister to consider whether the Weather Bureau should not be seen as an institute of the CSIR, or whether something along those lines should not be considered.

I want to conclude by referring briefly to the weather forecasting of the Weather Bureau, something that has always been ridiculed. A certain farmer said that he never listened to the weather bulletins of the SABC. His friend who was visiting him asked why this was so. He replied that an old Bantu called Johnny who worked for him was very good at forecasting the weather. When old Johnny said that the sun would shine on a specific day, then it shone on that day and when he said that it would rain, it rained. The next morning, while they were walking to the kraal, the farmer wanted to show his friend what a good weather forecaster Johnny was. He said: “Old Johnny, what does the weather look like today?” Johnny replied, “Well, Sir, I had a good look at the weather today, but my FM was out of order last night and now I am not so sure.”

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 23.

House Resumed:

Progress reported and leave granted to sit again.