Mr. Speaker, I move—

The purpose of the Bill before the House is to ask Parliament to make provision for the financing of Government expenditure from 1 April 1976 until such time as the Appropriation Act for the 1976-’77 financial year is passed. As stipulated in the Bill, the amounts required are in fact advances on the main estimates for 1976-’77. Of the amount of R2 343 million required, R2 300 million is chargeable to the State Revenue Account and R43 million to the South West Africa Account. These amounts reflect the expected expenditure of departments for the period of four months from April to July 1976.

Once again I wish to point out to hon. members that Government expenditure shows considerable fluctuations from month to month and that these figures should not be used for making deductions as regards the possible total expenditure for the financial year 1976-’77. In terms of section 4(2) of the Exchequer and Audit Act, 1975, the money may only be used for services in respect of which expenditure was authorized by the 1975-’76 Appropriation Act or in respect of which other authorization by Act of Parliament exists.

Mr. Speaker, as is customary, I intend giving the House a review of our economic situation when I present my budget on 31 March. I should like to take this opportunity, however, to comment on certain aspects of our economy which are of particular interest at the present time.

I shall start with gold, which still plays such an important part in the South African economy. It is easy to lose one’s perspective about gold. We tend to be despondent about the present gold price, and to forget that, thanks mainly to the September devaluation, in terms of rand it is even now higher than the average price on the London gold market in 1974 and more than 50% higher than the price in 1973. We tend to focus our attention on the persistent propaganda about the so-called “demonetization” of gold and to forget that the recent IMF agreement reached at Jamaica—as did last August’s agreement at Washington—in reality reaffirms and entrenches the monetary role of gold.

To put the situation in perspective we should contrast the new position of gold with that which has prevailed in recent years. During recent years the official price has been kept at a completely unrealistic level—first 35 dollars, then 38 dollars and later 42,22 dollars per fine ounce, while the price on the private market rose to much higher levels. Monetary authorities were prohibited from buying gold on the private market and even from buying and selling gold amongst themselves at a price higher than the official price. The effect was to immobilize official gold reserves so that they were practically never used.

For some years there was considerable support for maintaining this situation indefinitely as a deliberate means of demonetizing gold. In the IMF it was seriously proposed that the Fund should be empowered to sell all its gold in the private market over a period of time. There were also proposals to encourage or even compel monetary authorities to sell their gold to the Fund in exchange for Special Drawing Rights, thus giving the Fund even more gold to sell in the private market.

All these extreme proposals have been effectively scotched. The understanding on gold reached in the IMF in Washington in August 1975 and confirmed in Jamaica last month, contains four basic elements: (1) the old and unrealistic official gold price is abolished; (2) monetary authorities are permitted to buy gold on the market and to deal in gold amongst themselves at market-related prices; (3) the use of gold in transactions between member countries and the Fund is substantially eliminated; and (4) one-sixth of the Fund’s gold is to be sold for the benefit of developing countries, and a further one-sixth is to be restituted to member countries. There is also a subsidiary agreement, outside the Fund, among the Group of Ten most important industrial countries—(1) that the total stock of gold now in the hands of the Fund and of the monetary authorities of the Group of Ten will not be increased, and (2) that there be no action to peg the price of gold. This subsidiary agreement is subject to review after two years.

Although the agreements contain phrases such as “ensuring that the role of gold in the international monetary system will be gradually reduced”, it is clear that the effect will be to make gold, which for several years has been virtually a frozen asset, again usable in official international transactions. Moreover, if official gold reserves—as would be logical—are now revalued at about the present market price, they will constitute over 40% of all official reserves, as compared with 3% for Special Drawing Rights. Clearly, gold is still very far from being “phased out” as a monetary asset.

The portion of the agreement which has caused most uncertainty in the gold market and has been the major factor in the fall in the gold price since last August, is the provision for the sale of one-sixth of the Fund’s gold, which is about 25 million ounces. We are told that the sale is to be made by public auctions over a four-year period, and the Bank of International Settlements will be able to buy at these auctions on behalf of central banks. Though the amount to be sold is substantial, amounting to about one year’s South African production over the four-year period, I do not think it is unmanageable, especially with the possibility of central bank purchases as a steadying factor. Moreover, the Fund and particularly the developing countries clearly have no interest in depressing the gold price, since this would reduce the amount of assistance that these countries will receive. Nevertheless, the uncertainty still prevailing regarding the method and conditions of sale by the Fund and the possible effects on the market has undoubtedly tended to depress the price.

There have been other depressing factors, notably substantial Russian gold sales and the possibility of further sales by Russia and Portugal, the strength of the U.S. dollar and relative exchange stability and comparatively high interest rates. These factors may well continue to exert their effect for some weeks or even months to come. But eventually, and particularly when the uncertainty regarding IMF sales has been removed, I believe that more favourable factors will begin to assert themselves in the gold market. We have already seen a fall in interest rates and some signs of increasing exchange instability, and the possibility of renewed inflationary pressures resulting from easier monetary policies overseas is very real. Industrial demand for gold may also provide a useful support for the market. In the longer-run future, and given the political and economic uncertainties which seem almost certain to prevail, I see every reason to be optimistic about gold.

I should like to turn to our balance of payments. The devaluation of the rand last September was discussed at some length in the no-confidence debate, and I do not want to traverse all the ground again, but I should like to repeat that devaluation was no panic measure, but a considered and realistic response to factors which were not foreseen, namely, the prolongation and deepening of the world depression and the sharp decline in the gold price. These factors were not foreseen anywhere by any substantial body of economic opinion in the earlier part of 1975. If the Government had decided at that time to be supercautious, we could have imposed a much stricter fiscal and monetary policy—higher taxes and severe credit restrictions—and just possibly avoided the need for devaluation, though I doubt it. But if our caution had proved to be excessive, we would have slowed down an already declining rate of economic growth, and all to no purpose.

I am satisfied that devaluation was the only practical and realistic way to meet the unexpected situation which confronted us last September, and I have not yet heard any positive and constructive ideas regarding any alternative measures which we could have applied.

To argue that devaluation will reduce our standard of living is to miss the point entirely. The deterioration of our terms of trade resulting from the depression overseas, and the decline in the gold price, naturally and inevitably had an adverse effect on the economy. But the devaluation of the rand was the best way open to us to counter these adverse external forces and to establish a foundation for renewed economic growth, as and when external conditions improve, and thus safeguard our living standards.

Incidentally, there seems to be some misunderstanding about the movements in the exchange rate of the rand in recent years. The hon. member for Von Brandis, for example, referred in a recent debate, if I understood him correctly, to a total devaluation of 35%, which he apparently calculated by adding the devaluations of 12% in 1971, 5% last June and 18% last September. But he overlooks the fact that during this period there were also many appreciations of the rand. Since June 1974 there have in fact been seven appreciations as against six depreciations of the rand against the U.S. dollar. Between October 1972 and January 1974 the effective weighted average exchange rate of the rand against all currencies actually appreciated by about 18%. In June 1975 the rand’s effective exchange rate was higher than in the first half of 1972. Since 1970 the depreciation against the dollar has in fact been 17½% which is exactly half the figure mentioned by the hon. member. As a matter of interest, the German mark depreciated by no less than 15% against the dollar between February and September of last year, that is, in a period of seven months. The hon. member also mentioned a figure of R2 000 million as the deficit on the current account of our balance of payments for 1975. The actual figure is likely to be under R1 800 million, and possibly lower. I am also glad to say that the current deficit, seasonally corrected, showed a significant decline during the fourth quarter of 1975; at an annual rate, it fell from about R1 900 million in the second and third quarters to something like R1 700 million in the fourth quarter, and this despite the decline in the dollar price of gold after August.

Some confusion seems to arise from the injudicious use of the monthly figures of imports and exports published by the Department of Customs and Excise. These figures require adjustment for a number of factors, and it is therefore dangerous to draw from them any conclusions regarding the course of our balance of payments. I think we also have reason to be satisfied with the performance of the capital account of the balance of payments. Total net capital inflow in 1975 amounted to about R1 900 million according to preliminary estimates. This included more than R500 million in long-term private capital during the first three quarters alone. The trend is encouraging, and I think we can look forward to a substantial improvement in our balance of payments during 1976. Much will depend on the speed of economic recovery in our export markets and on the gold price, but there is every reason to expect that our current deficit will be considerably lower than the 1975 figure, and will be covered by the inflow of capital.

I should like to say a word here about foreign loans. In my budget speech last March I referred to the allegation sometimes made that South Africa was borrowing abroad excessively, and one still hears this point being made from time to time. It is true that the State enterprises, corporations, and to a lesser extent the Government, have raised substantial loans overseas. But I do not think they have been excessive in relation to our balance of payments and our economic strength. Only last week one of the State corporations raised a loan of no less than $200 million overseas, which surely shows that our credit standing remains of the first order. It is relevant to note that, as a percentage of our total receipts on the current account of our balance of payment, i.e. our visible and invisible export items, total payments abroad in respect of interest, dividends and branch profits have actually declined, from 10,5% in 1965 and 13,1% in 1970 to an estimated 9,7% in 1975. Interest payments have indeed increased over this period, but this increase is more than counterbalanced by a decrease in the percentage attributable to dividends and branch profits. Our foreign borrowing is therefore well within the limits of prudence.

I hope that the new arrangements for the transferability of the new securities rand, which came into force at the beginning of this month, will make South Africa an even more attractive field for the foreign investor. I understand that the new arrangements have started well and that the Stock Exchange is doing good business in this field.

*Mr. Speaker, I should like to refer briefly to our state of inflation. My colleague, the Minister of Economic Affairs, dealt with several aspects of this matter in the No-confidence Debate, but there are a number of aspects to which I too should like to refer.

In the first place, I am glad to say that our rate of inflation has already come down considerably. If one takes the increase at an annual rate of the seasonally adjusted consumer price index from one quarter to the next, our inflation rate dropped from 18,2% in the third quarter of 1974 to 10,4% in the fourth quarter of 1975—a remarkable decline. However, we are not satisfied yet and consequently we shall continue our attempts to bring the rate down even further.

In my opinion, the effect of devaluation on our inflation rate is often exaggerated. The office of the economic adviser to the Prime Minister calculated that the direct effect of devaluation on the prices of all consumer goods would be approximately 1,4% and that it would be 2,9% and 2,0% on capital goods and supplies respectively.

However, the effects of devaluation, as well as of other recent price increases such as that of petrol, may not have made themselves fully felt as yet, so it is possible that there may be a slight increase in the inflation rate during the next month or two. If we co-operate and if the collective anti-inflation campaign is continued, as I hope it will be, the downward trend should, however, be resumed before long.

The Government has given certain undertakings in the light of the collective anti-inflation campaign, and I should like to report to the House on how we are implementing several financial undertakings. I shall confine myself to the financial undertakings.

The most important undertakings in my field concern the curtailing of Government expenditure and its financing in a non-inflationary manner as far as possible. In this regard I should like to begin by pointing out a few statistical shares which have caused more than one financial commentator to trip up badly in the past few months.

The first one is the exaggerated importance which was attached to the exceptionally high issue from the Treasury account during the first few months of the present financial year. These figures gave rise to all kinds of sensational deductions, for example that Government expenditure would be much higher during this financial year than the amount which the Appropriation Act provided for. Mr. Speaker, we still have financial discipline in this country, and no department may spend a cent without the authorization of Parliament. Of course I shall shortly introduce an Additional Appropriation Bill, as is customary, but I can give the House the assurance even at this stage that the additional expenditure over the amount which was originally budgeted for will not be excessive. It is dangerous, therefore, to project the Treasury issues for a few months over the whole financial year.

In addition, there is a great deal of misunderstanding about the use of the word “deficit” (tekort) in regard to the budget. Traditionally we have used the word to indicate a deficit on Revenue Account, i.e. in broad outline a surplus of current expenditure over current revenue. In the financial and economic analyses, however, “deficit” is mostly used in the sense of ‘‘deficit, excepting loans”, i.e. the total revenue of the Treasury, except for loans, is deducted from the total expenditure on Revenue as well as on Loan Account. The quarterly magazine of the Reserve Bank uses the word in this sense. In my budget speech last March I gave this “deficit” as being R1 125 million. The final figure will be somewhat higher. But we have no particular problem in covering the deficit, as some commentators seem to fear. It is simply the amount we are going to cover from loans, and we shall obtain the necessary loans, as I shall indicate later.

The third statistical snare I want to warn against is the misinterpretation which is sometimes given to the concept of “net claims of the banking sector against the Government sector”, as it appears in the Reserve Bank’s financial analyses in its quarterly magazine. Some commentators interpret any increase in these claims as being automatically inflationary. However, this is not so. In the first place, an increase in these claims may arise from bank credit to the National Supplies Procurement Fund, which is used mainly for storing strategic imported goods. This money leaves the Republic and consequently has no direct influence on our monetary supply, although such build-up of strategic supplies costs us foreign exchange, of course.

Even if the Government sector—which includes bodies from outside the central Government—were to spend the money within the country, one cannot accept that the effect would necessarily and immediately be inflationary. There are many factors which may influence it. During a period of slump, such as the present one, the banks may not use the additional liquid assets they receive from the Government sector as the basis for further credit expansion. Even if they were to use it in this manner, it would not necessarily be inflationary while there is still unused capacity—labour and capital. The bank credit need not even take the form of the purchasing of liquid assets by the banks. The recent four-year securities offered in December are an example of this, although the securities will become liquid assets in a year’s time. The stipulations in respect of additional liquid assets required may also limit any subsequent credit expansion. For these and many other reasons one should be very careful in interpreting the implications of any increase in bank credit to the Government sector.

I hope the House will forgive me for this short lecture on economic statistics, but the misconceptions to which I have referred may give rise to serious misunderstanding and false conclusions.

I now want to return to the collective anti-inflation campaign and to the Government’s undertakings in respect of the curtailing of Government expenditure and its non-inflationary financing.

The House will not expect me to anticipate the additional and main appropriations by furnishing particulars of State expenditure at this stage. However, I want to assure the House that expenditure has been curtailed drastically and substantially. For the present financial year, additional funds have been allowed only in cases of urgent necessity, and for 1976-’77, reductions amounting to more than R800 million in all were effected in the amounts requested by the various departments. It is not easy to retrench on this scale, and I want to express my thanks to my colleagues, as well as to our Administrators, for their co-operation in this difficult task.

As far as the financing is concerned, our revenue has been adversely affected by the drop in the gold price, of course, so that the deficit—excepting loans—will be slightly larger than the amount we budgeted for. We have taken energetic steps to cover the deficit. In September last year we offered Government loans at favourable rates, which produced a net amount, after repayment of the loans which had expired, of approximately R300 million. These loans, the medium and long-term loans, were made available to the public again in October because there was a renewed demand for them, and in that way we collected a further R43 million. We withdrew the approval which had previously been granted to building societies to invest in negotiable deposit certificates and appealed to these societies to invest the money thus made available in the Government sector. I further appealed to insurance companies and pension funds to invest an additional 2% of their assets or liabilities—as the case might be—in Government securities before the end of 1976, as a temporary measure. In December we made available a special issue of four-year securities—intended chiefly for banks—and this produced R90 million.

Our latest step was to issue two Government loans—a long-term and a short-term loan—on attractive terms at the end of January. I am glad to inform the House that these issues were a huge success. Total subscriptions—excepting the Public Debt Commissioners—for the three-year loan at 7⅞% amounted to R376 million and those for the sixteen-year loan at 10% amounted to R117 million. After deduction of the amount repaid on those loans which expired on 1 January and 1 February, the net amount received by the State was R285 million.

By means of these measures we shall balance our Government accounts for the current financial year. What is equally important, we shall also draw a substantial amount of our loan money from the non-banking sector.

The Government gave various other financial undertakings with a view to the collective campaign, and all these undertakings are being implemented. Some are technical and detailed, and I need not deal with all of them here. However, I wish to refer specifically to three.

The first is that the Government undertook to ensure that the monetary supply did not increase excessively in relation to the real or expected increase in the gross domestic product, and to apply the relevant interest rate mechanism effectively. The authorities are ever mindful of this undertaking. Even before the beginning of the collective campaign, the Reserve Bank increased its bank rate in August 1975 and increased the minimum requirements in respect of liquid assets of banks. The latter were increased again in September. Of course, the various measures for financing the Treasury which I have already mentioned will also help to limit the increase in the monetary supply. These measures have been successful and the seasonally adjusted annual rate of increase in money and quasi-money over the period January to November 1975 was 15%, compared to 23% in each of the years 1973 and 1974.

The second undertaking concerns the introduction of building norms for public buildings. Last year a committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Webb of the National Building Research Institute submitted a report of great value for the Treasury and for the country as a whole. Consequently I decided towards the end of last year to appoint a further committee to apply the recommended norms in respect of hospitals and to determine and apply norms for various other public buildings.

Attention is being given in the first place to norms for university buildings and other buildings for higher education. The chairman of the committee is Mr. A. J. Pretorius, Secretary to the Treasury. I am sure that in this way we shall save the State many millions of rands.

The third aspect of Government action against inflation to which I wish to refer is control over the finances of local authorities. I felt—in consequence, amongst other things, of representations made to me by the Administrators—that the time had come for the whole question of municipal finances to be thoroughly reviewed. Consequently I appointed an interdepartmental committee last year, with the Secretary for Finance as chairman, to investigate the whole set-up of municipal finances, expenditure as well as revenue. The committee has just begun its activities.

Mr. Speaker, South Africa is faced with difficult problems in financial as well as other fields, but we have great reason to be thankful. Unlike so many other countries, we have a positive growth rate, while unemployment is no serious problem to us. Our balance of payments has improved, our inflation rate has dropped, and we are able to balance our budget. Our standing in international finance remains high. The rand is one of only 16 currencies which is used in determining the value of the IMF’s Special Drawing Right. In the increase in IMF quotas decided upon in Jamaica, South Africa, by virtue of its economic power, receives a considerably higher percentage increase than many other countries, including countries such as Australia and New Zealand. Problems we do have, but I do not doubt for a moment that in the financial field we can face the future with confidence.

Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House welcome the fact that on this occasion the hon. the Minister of Finance has given rather more details and has also provided a more extensive historical survey of certain aspects of the economy than has been normal in the past in Second Reading speeches on the Part Appropriation Bill. This is something that we welcome.

What the hon. the Minister was doing, was to reply to a large extent to certain of the matters that we raised in this House during the no-confidence debate, in particular the burning questions of inflation and devaluation. This is not the last that we shall hear of those two subjects. We welcome the confidence which the hon. the Minister expressed in regard to the future of gold. To me it seems rather contradictory, however, to hear those words of confidence, which are words that we on this side of the House share when the rand had to be devalued recently in order to raise the rand price of gold.

Although we had discussions on economic matters in the no-confidence debate, this is the first occasion this session when this House is able to get to grips with the economic situation as a whole. We therefore hope that when the hon. the Minister replies to this debate, he will give this House further details of how the Government proposes to deal with the challenging and difficult economic situation which is facing the country. We on this side of the House appreciate the fact that the economic position is difficult—in fact, I would describe it as seriously difficult—and for that reason the attitude that we shall take in this debate will be one of while criticizing the Government for the mistakes they have made—serious mistakes—we shall also indicate the way we consider should be followed in order to deal with the position which is confronting the country at present.

Mr. Speaker, in order to give us time to study the hon. the Minister’s speech, I now move—

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Mr. Speaker, at this state of the Bill there is no purpose in repeating the arguments discussed during the Committee Stage and the Second Reading. There are, however, two major changes which were brought about in this measure during the Committee Stage, and it is important that the significance of these two changes should be made very clear. There has been a great deal of misrepresentation outside South Africa and even inside South Africa in the Press as to the meaning of these two changes. I want to deal firstly with the removal of the territorial restriction on the service of troops. This has been presented in some newspapers and outside the country as meaning that we now intend to fight anywhere in the world and that this discloses our aggressive intentions. It has furthermore been suggested that Parliament is now authorizing our military forces to embark on hostile adventures wherever they like. This is of course not true and is, in some cases, I regret to say even in South Africa, a deliberate misrepresentation of what the amendment provides. The amendment provides that our troops may serve outside the borders of South Africa where South Africa is threatened. In the case of both the fighting of an armed conflict and the suppression of terrorism, there must be a threat against South Africa. Therefore, to present this as though it were a blank cheque to embark on wild adventures anywhere in the world, is totally incorrect. Secondly, we have removed the possibility of misrepresentation which could have existed had we retained the original definition as it first appeared in the Bill describing South Africa as south of the equator. Then we would have pinpointed a zone of the world which could have been misrepresented as being a target. What we have done instead was to bring our Defence Act into line with the legislation of any other country in the world. No other country that I know of has a territorial limitation and we have done exactly the same now. What this amendment therefore has done, was to bring us into line with other countries. I make this point particularly because of what has been written and said and because it was originally my proposal at the Second Reading which has led to the agreement we have reached.

Then there is a second fundamental change which was made during the Committee Stage, namely the incorporation of the provision that if our forces serve beyond our borders for more than one month, the provisions of section 91 of the Act will apply and this will be reported to Parliament within 30 days. This, I believe, was an important amendment which showed the responsibility with which we approach these matters in this House, because it has retained the spirit of the original Act which was that at a time of mobilization, that is in time of war, Parliament would be informed. We have retained that spirit and have incorporated it into the new circumstances which have arisen. This recognition of Parliament’s place in South Africa as the mouthpiece and the representative of the people who are entitled to be informed, is important. We are satisfied, Mr. Speaker, that these two amendments carry the general support of South Africa, inside and outside this House, even in editorial opinion. It is interesting to note that a newspaper which has written some very different tilings in the past states in its leading article today—I refer to The Cape Times—

It is very pleasing when we hear that people who were taking a very different line, now start to recognize the correctness of what Parliament has done. In referring to the matter of Parliament being informed, Mr. Speaker, there have been some very disturbing reports in the Press recently. You will not permit me to deal with them in detail, but if you will permit me, I shall refer to two of them. The first is the campaign in the United States to try to get America to recognize the MPLA and to pressurize America into an agreement with this movement and to co-operate in Cabinda. Another report stated that a South African firm, a firm controlled in South Africa, is in fact co-operating with and paying money to the MPLA in Angola. I do not know whether this is true but this refers to a well-known South African company with diamond interests in Angola. It is reported that that firm is paying royalties, not to a legal Government, but to the MPLA. Then there are also disturbing military reports. We on this side of the House believe that Parliament is entitled to know much more than it knows at present. I hope the hon. the Minister will at the earliest opportunity give Parliament the fullest possible picture of what is happening. In regard to the question of a firm paying royalties to the MPLA, perhaps there are other members in this House who are better qualified to tell us whether this is in fact true. I hope that we perhaps will hear a denial. As America has denied that it has paid oil royalties in respect of Cabinda, so I hope that those who are better qualified than I or the Government to speak about the payment of diamond royalties, will either tell this House that it is untrue, or if it is true, will tell the House why.

I hope, generally, that we will have an opportunity for a fuller debate than this Third Reading makes possible. I hope the Minister will take that first opportunity. With those remarks, Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House support the Third Reading of this Bill which we believe is in the interests and to the betterment of South Africa’s defence.

Mr. Speaker, one is of course very grateful to take note of the responsible spirit in which the official Opposition acted in connection with this legislation. One is very grateful for the support which we received from them in a matter of such importance to the security of South Africa. One can only express the hope that if, later in the session, more legislation is introduced which is intimately bound up with the security of South Africa, they will support it with the same degree of dedication and enthusiasm as that with which they supported this legislation.

If it is as responsible as this one, we shall.

I share the concern of the hon. member for Durban Point about the matter to which he referred, namely the alleged contribution of certain firms to the funds of the MPLA. Like him, I am aware of the fact that there are members present in this House who maintain close ties with those firms. I trust that the hon. members concerned will make use of the opportunity to inform us and will not further arouse our suspicions

As a matter of fact, this legislation represents a very important milestone in the military history of the Republic of South Africa because we are now removing any border restriction from the Defence Act. The hon. member for Durban Point referred to two misunderstandings or misrepresentations in connection with this legislation, but to my mind there is also a third which we must bear in mind. It has been suggested that under this legislation, no voluntary services would be allowed in the future, because this legislation makes the discharge of duties in any place in the world compulsory. I think it would be taking an erroneous view of military strategy to make this misrepresentation because the voluntary element is a very important element in any military operation and one which most certainly cannot merely be thrown overboard. I believe that the military advisers and leaders are fully aware of this principle and that they will not abuse the principle which has been introduced, namely that duties may be discharged at any place in the world. The whole issue of the removal of borders from the Defence Act is of course laden with emotion. Many emotional arguments have been advanced as to exactly why it is wrong. It has been an emotion-laden subject throughout our political history. One calls to mind what the attitude of this side of the House was in 1939. At that time this side of the House felt that troops from South Africa should not be employed beyond our borders. However, circumstances have changed drastically since that attitude was adopted. During the past decade or so the whole structure of attack and warfare has changed throughout the world and it has become necessary for us to streamline our Defence Act in such a way as to adapt it to these circumstances. For example, in the past decade or two we have entered the age of terrorism. There has been vast development on the technological level, especially with regard to certain armaments. We were faced with the decolonization of Africa. This had a very strong influence on our security. New states came into being on our borders almost overnight, states which are very poorly equipped militarily and which do not have the means to make themselves militarily prepared. As has now occurred in Angola, the task which will undoubtedly fall to our lot in the future will be to hasten to the aid of those people when they need it. The rapid unfolding of the Russian policy of world domination has been a particularly important factor making it necessary for us to overhaul our defence legislation, a threat which has now indeed become reality to us. Under such circumstances one simply cannot afford to restrict one’s military advisers and strategists by means of border provisions. Where troops are employed, what they must do and how they must do it must in the first instance be left in the hands of one’s military leaders. The malicious people who try to suck venom from these developments and who infer from this that we have aggressive aims, would do well to bear in mind that it is totally in conflict with the predisposition of this nation to be expansionistic or aggressive. In years past, there have been opportunities when we could have used our military preponderance if we had had aggressive or imperialist aims, but we did not make use of those opportunities and there is no reason to assume that South Africa will abuse this legislation in order to give vent to any expansionist or imperialistic urge.

This legislation is the finest testimonial we could have given our Defence Force, in view of their activities over the past six months. Our Defence Force, its officers, its leaders and its advisers have acted responsibly and shown that under the given circumstances they are able to utilize responsibly these powers which they have been granted. The old Defence Act had indeed authorized our military leaders to cross our borders. We have not introduced this amendment in order to quell doubts in our own minds, but only to quell doubts in the minds of the public. Hon. members will remember that there were those who stated that the powers granted by the Defence Act, had probably been exceeded. In our own minds we were certain that these powers had not been exceeded, but this amendment was incorporated in our legislation to remove all doubt. By means of this amendment we express our confidence in our Defence Force and in their powers of judgment to defend the Republic of South Africa with arms. I say this because the Act now provides, by implication, that it will be our military leaders, in the first place, who will be responsible for determining when, where and how South African troops will be employed. The Parliament of the Republic of South Africa has given them this power and we have the fullest trust that it will be applied with great responsibility and circumspection. By means of this legislation we are expressing our confidence in the Defence Force.

Mr. Speaker, both the previous speakers mentioned that this Bill could intentionally be interpreted incorrectly by ill-disposed people outside South Africa, and that this has in fact already happened. They pointed out that this very weekend it was reported that a man like Nyerere had already made certain remarks in this connection, to the effect that South Africa supposedly viewed the states in its immediate vicinity as colonies. We warned against this very thing. During the Second Reading, and during the Committee Stage, too, we consistently warned against this because we believe that in spite of the good intentions mentioned by the hon. member, it should be clearly stated in the legislation that the measures adopted are related to the good intentions one supposedly has. There is no point in pretending that we on these benches are questioning the responsibility, the acumen, the dedication of the Defence Force as such in any way. We have said this so consistently, that we have a Defence Force of which we can be proud. When one has said that, it does not mean that one can merely give politicians a blank cheque to take decisions and act as they wish, nor that politicians can hide behind the responsible behaviour of the Defence Force when they, the politicians, have to answer for political decisions which concerned the Defence Force. We feel very strongly about that.

We have mentioned various reasons why we believed it essential and desirable that this Bill should first be referred to a Select Committee before the Second Reading. The one point we made, was that different and competing principles are embodied in this legislation, and that these principles are important for the safety and the security of South Africa. For example, there is the principle of service in the defence of the Republic and also the principle of non-intervention in another country’s internal affairs. These are two cardinal principles, Mr. Speaker, which are intimately bound up with the safety and the preparedness of South Africa. We were of the opinion, and we still are of the opinion, that this Bill does not make these two principles entirely clear. Under the circumstances which prevail in a Select Committee one would be able to consider more clearly, under more peaceful circumstances, how one would be able to implement both these principles, and at the same time we should be able to succeed in ensuring the preparedness and the streamlining of the Defence Force.

The second reason is that this Bill includes good as well as controversial proposals and that one would be able to determine in a Select Committee whether there was sense in some of the proposals and whether problems would arise in connection with other proposals. We have said that we have no objection against or any difficulties with the Moratorium Act which is being extended. There is also the question of compensation, the principle of a compensation court on the basis of which people in the Defence Force may be granted indemnity, etc. These are matters concerning which we have not experienced difficulties, but about which we felt that there were certain aspects which could have been discussed more thoroughly and meaningfully in the atmosphere of a Select Committee.

The third reason why we felt such a Select Committee was essential, was that we thought it would have been possible for us to have set the debate on defence, on this Bill, apart from the passion and pettiness of party politics which one sometimes comes across in the House.

Oh shame!

We thought that if this measure could be referred to a Select Committee, this party political scuffle which took place in the Committee Stage could to a great extent have been prevented.

It would have been a minority report.

After all, it is clear from the commentary we have had from that side of the House, as well as from the official Opposition, that that commentary was uninformed commentary. It was simply in terms of their own prejudices. They tried to make propaganda and they are still trying. In fact, if one looks at certain utterances made over the weekend, they are still trying to make a little party-political propaganda about defence matters in South Africa. This is what happened. We wanted to prevent this intentionally by saying that we should discuss defence matters in a Select Committee with a cool head because defence concerns us all. If things go wrong with defence, then we all know it is not asked who is Progref, who is UP and who is NP; then we must all stand together. It is solely for this reason that we asked that this Bill be referred to a Select Committee. However, this was rejected, and now we have an amended Bill before us, before it goes to the Other Place. There are certain amendments which we can support—and we welcome them—but there are others which we cannot support. We cannot understand them and we feel they are still not going to assist us in our problems in the light of certain important principles which are intimately bound up with the security and the defence of the Republic. We gladly accept the amendments which were effected regarding indemnity and compensation when dealing with the combating of terrorism. I should like to remind the hon. the Minister that he promised to look at some of the other amendments which came from these benches concerning the overall functioning of the compensation board. I am convinced that should the hon. the Minister look at those amendments, he would see that their basic motivation is solely concerned with making the Compensation Board function more effectively. Another amendment which we welcome and accept, is the one which the hon. member for Durban Point has already referred to. This concerns the fact that the Government should report when it acts in terms of section 95, 90 and 91. A report should then be presented to Parliament within 30 days. I nevertheless find this a little confusing. If one looks at clause 11 of the Bill, one notes that it is retrospective to 9 August of last year. If one then reads this in conjunction with clause 6 one realizes that in effect it means that had there been an involvement to such an extent in, say, Angola during the past six months that the retrospective provision could also be made applicable to it to such an extent that the Government should have to account for it to Parliament, the question arises as to why, then, they did not do this. Then, too, I find it even more surprising that when the PRP requested last year, before Christmas, that the Government should report in regard to the matters in Angola, the official Opposition said that it was absolutely unnecessary, that Parliament need not be convened. [Interjections.] Now, however, it is said with great ostentation that they are satisfied that this amendment be accepted so that there can be a report made to Parliament. Two to three months ago, however, they said that this was completely unnecessary. [Interjections.] What is stranger still, is the fact that the hon. the Minister himself accepts the amendment and says it is a good thing. However, it has also been said that it was not essential to convene Parliament after 9 August. In terms of the amendment this means that Parliament should in fact have been convened on 9 September 1975, if I am not mistaken. No explanation was given in this regard, but the official Opposition now states that what we asked for in these benches, was the best thing and that it should have happened.

You are now reasoning as if you were in a school debate.

A third amendment which is relevant, is the issue of compulsory military service during mobilization, as well as any territorial limitations in this regard. Both the official Opposition and the Government believe there should be no limitations in this regard, not even the limitations which existed before and which were rather ambiguous. I am referring to the limitations which appear in the Defence Act of 1957. We in these benches believed and argued on the basis that there should be compulsory military service under certain circumstances and that such circumstances should be clearly defined. This, in essence, was the spirit which motivated the amendment of the hon. member for Yeoville. He tried to introduce the idea into the Defence Act that compulsory military service is essential, but should be defined clearly on a territorial basis. The hon. member for Durban Point said it was not necessary, because it was no longer done by any country in the world. Which countries did he have in mind? Perhaps he will say it was America, Britain or a Western European country. We should however bear in mind that we here at the southern point of Africa are experiencing extraordinary circumstances. In fact, we are the last, the only country of which it can be said with absolute conviction that the Whites who live here have no other home whatsoever to go to. We find ourselves in a situation where this is the case. At the same time we are in a situation in which radical changes are taking place near our borders.

The difference between us and the Government as well as the official Opposition as regards voluntary or compulsory military service, is bound up with deeper-seated differences on our side with regard to a policy for the defence of the Republic of South Africa.

You mounted your high horse about the no-confidence motion.

The hon. the Deputy Minister says we mounted our high horse about the no-confidence motion. However that has nothing whatsoever to do with this debate we are now engaged in. What is invalid here is the security of South Africa and the ability of South Africa to defend itself in the most effective manner under the difficult circumstances we are experiencing. I want to illustrate this to him. The first point I want to mention, is that we on these benches believe that everything should be done to increase the preparedness of the Republic, and here the emphasis is on defence. That is why we proposed that for military purposes South Africa be clearly defined, and that compulsory military service within that area was essential for the combating of terrorism and for warfare. This was the basic policy standpoint in terms of which we opposed this Bill.

In the second place we believe that our policy should be formulated in such a way that it should be quite evident, from word and deed, that we have no aggressive interventionistic aims. As far as our international position is concerned, as well as our position in Africa, it is vital that no lack of clarity should develop as regards the military policy of the Republic in respect of the question of interference in the internal affairs of other countries. I am not saying this lightly, because if we look at the position in the international sphere, then it is clear to me that, in the balance of power between the USA and Russia, which the hon. member for Bloemfontein West referred to in the no-confidence debate, South Africa is a negotiable commodity—to both sides. South Africa is a negotiable commodity in the balance of power between the USA and Russia. And either of the two, if it suited them, would snatch at anything in terms of which they would be able to improve their position on the continent of Africa. I have no doubt about that. If it was in the interests of either of the two great powers, either Russia or the USA, and they were convinced that they could extend their sphere of influence in Africa, and South Africa was an obstacle to them in this regard—be it as a result of its internal policy, or be it as a result of its military policy—then they would use it to obtain a foothold. This we must accept as a political fact.

As regards Africa, too, it is clear that Africa has become a new field in the struggle for the balance of power between the USA and Russia. We had evidence of this over the weekend in the Press, in which reference was made to the fact that the USA was being pressurized by its Congress to start negotiating with the MPLA to see whether they could not obtain a better foothold in the Angolan debate by doing so. We have also had examples of this from the President of Tanzania who said in Quelimane that different groups and countries in Southern Africa should unite to take military action against South Africa.

You are putting words in his mouth.

Thus, too …

You implanted the idea in his mind.

That is one of the most irresponsible things that hon. member has ever said in this House. The simple reason is that we made this point consistently, since the Second Reading debate, and now that this point is being proved to be true and the hon. member is realizing he has made a mistake, he says we put the words in his mouth. It is this kind of prejudice and mockery which is in no way in the interests of South Africa when we have to discuss defence matters.

The simple fact is that we have an extremely fluid situation in Africa. The man who is one’s ally today, is one’s enemy tomorrow, and vice versa. If one does not spell out clearly by means of treaties and negotiations what one’s military relationships are with other African states, one is going to find oneself in trouble. It is as clear as daylight. This is precisely what is going to happen in many of the African states situated in our immediate vicinity. Which of us can say with certainty what the position will be in Rhodesia, Zambia, Mozambique or Tanzania in six or seven months time? If one does not state clearly in one’s military legislation that one will only become involved in those areas if there is a clear treaty or agreement, any one of the clashing factions in that society can advance such arguments as, for example that it is stated in the Bill that South Africa has aggressive intentions. Whether this is the case or not, the question is whether it can be read like that. They could use this as an excuse to obtain and to mobilize the support of large powers and to make Africa even more of a battlefield in the struggle between the great powers.

Would you mind if I asked you a question?

I shall give the hon. member a chance presently. This is also related to a further point we should like to make here, namely that if South Africa has done everything to make itself defensible and has clearly stated what its military responsibilities are—as we believe it should do here at the southern point of Africa—then we believe that there is no African state which, in the absence of intervention from outside, represent a real threat to us. We want to add to this, however, that if the great powers were to decide that they wished to enter Africa in force and if we had no allies, we should not be able to compete militarily with the great powers. This is the simple truth; it is a political fact that we cannot compete with the USA or with Russia in the military sphere. We should realize and state this very clearly. Allow me to mention an example. We are at present engaged protecting the irrigation schemes at Ruacana and Calueque, due to circumstances and because we consider it to be vital, so that the schemes can be completed and become useful to Owamboland and South Africa.

Should we not do this?

Of course we have to do it under the present circumstances. That, however, is not the point at issue. Our presence there is controversial. The hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs admitted this by implication during the weekend when he said we should try to persuade the UNO to assist in defending those areas. The point is that we should defend those areas as long as is practically possible. If, however, those areas are attacked by a major power and we have no support from anyone, then it is a cold, hard fact that we shall not be able to defend those areas if we have to compete in the military field. Politically and diplomatically we shall have to use all our contacts and exercise pressure to see to it that it is preserved. However, on military grounds we cannot do this. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member what our attitude should be if South Africa were to be attacked?

I have been trying to explain throughout that our military policy should be such that it should be clear, firstly, that we are defending and safeguarding South Africa against any aggression. “South Africa” should be clearly defined in terms of our military policy, as the hon. member for Yeoville suggested. This would afford a clear indication to any country what we mean by the defence of South Africa. It should not be permitted that our defence legislation should create the impression that South Africa, in terms of its military actions, can go anywhere in the world.

I have tried to spell out the circumstances in which we find ourselves in Africa and in international politics.

Where in the Act do we create that impression?

May I just refer the hon. the Minister to a report—I may not read it—which appeared over the weekend in Rapport, on page 6. The hon. the Minister can go and read it. There it is stated clearly that such an impression was created. [Interjections.] I am replying to a question by the hon. the Minister. It is our policy that we believe that South Africa should be prepared and secure and that it should not create an impression of interventionism and of an urge for expansion and that we should do everything in our power to increase our ability to defend ourselves in this regard. This is one of the fundamental reasons—these arguments which I mentioned now—why we cannot support this Third Reading, because this Bill does not face up to these problems satisfactorily at the Third Reading. There is another reason—which has been referred to on a number of occasions—and this is clause 11, specifically in so far as it relates to clause 6, the retrospective clause which makes the position retrospective to 9 August 1975. One of our objections throughout, since the Second Reading, has been that this legislation was also, inter alia, an effort to condone the behaviour of the Government, not that of the Defence Force, in Angola. We are quite prepared to do this if we can judge in the light of the available facts and of what really happened there. Then we shall be prepared to do that. In fact, we are even prepared to go so far as to say that we can forgive mistakes if mistakes were made. But we are not prepared to say without further ado, when we are insulted when we ask for information, and when we make reasonable requests and they are rejected, that we condone everything the Government has done, because the simple fact is that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition himself said at the end of the no-confidence debate that the answers to the questions which were asked still fail to satisfy; questions still exist. It seems to me that there is a considerable lack of clarity in that party as to precisely how much satisfaction there is, because the hon. member for Newton Park came forward over the weekend and said that as a result of the United Party’s behaviour, there is now practically unanimous support for what has been done in Angola up to now, except for the Progressive Reform Party, which is apparently hoping for a communist victory. [Interjections.] This is absolutely slanderous because we have stated repeatedly that if we do not take care, the behaviour of South Africa and the behaviour of politicians, might in fact contribute towards increasing and intensifying the communist danger in Angola, and this is one of the central questions concerning our involvement in Angola which has not yet been replied to. Are we in a better position now in terms of the threat of Russian imperialism or not? In my humble opinion the answer is: “No.” But the hon. member for Newton Park says here that in fact we wanted it this way, but this is exactly what we fought against. The other point he made was that he condoned everything. He condones everything the Government has done. He condones it 100%. But this is not what the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said in the No-confidence Debate. [Interjections.]

Order! I should just like to point out that we cannot now discuss the events which took place. All this happened under the present Act as it appeared on the Statute Book. The hon. member must therefore confine himself to the Third Reading of this Bill.

With respect, I should just like to receive an indication from you. Clause 11 clearly states that this Bill is retrospective to 9 August. In his Second Reading speech the hon. Minister also said that one of the reasons for this was to see to it that any doubt about the legality of the behaviour of the Government was eliminated.

The hon. member may proceed.

The hon. member for Newton Park said he condoned everything. The hon. Leader of the Opposition says: “No, we are not satisfied.”

Nonsense.

I have the quotation here, from this morning’s Cape Times. We are still going to tackle each other on this matter. Here the hon. member states (translation)—

Except for us, of course. In other words, they agree. They condone this. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout specifically made the point that this could not happen. I quote from Hansard col. 119, where the hon. member for Bezuidenhout states the following—

But the hon. member for Newton Park says: “No, everything is in order and the Government did not make a ‘miscalculation’.” Everything is condoned. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout goes on to say (col. 122)—

From the start we have consistently stated that it is not our policy to condone political decisions without satisfactory information, and this was one of the reasons why we opposed this Bill. The official Opposition has now admitted that they condone all the actions which have taken place since this Bill was introduced. I now want to repeat very clearly that we on these benches believe that a South Africa which is capable of defending itself, is essential, for self-evident, simple and obvious reasons, and we shall co-operate and assist in spite of any innuendo, attacks and slander directed at us. But we believe, too, that when we discuss these matters precisely because it concerns all of us, we should do so in such a way that there is no possibility of our becoming involved in irrational pettiness or scoring political points off each other, but rather that we do this in a responsible manner. I want to go on to say that we made suggestions by means of amendments. We explained them reasonably well, but on every occasion we were insulted or our questions were eluded, were not answered. On these grounds, and because we object that this legislation does not comply satisfactorily with the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other countries, and because the whole issue of military service was not, in our opinion, dealt with satisfactorily, we are unable to support this Third Reading of the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, having listened to the hon. member for Rondebosch, I cannot but come to the conclusion that what the Progrefs really want us to do, is to raise the white flag and throw in the towel. A great deal of suspicion was sown during this debate—during the Committee Stage and earlier. Doubts have continually been raised about the actions of the Government. I found it amusing when the hon. member for Rondebosch referred to the Whites who think that South Africa is their only home. I just want to ask him whether Jan van Eck, the editor of Deurbraak, thinks so too. Does Jan van Eck, who gave up his South African citizenship when he was called up for military service, also hold the opinion that the Whites have no home other than South Africa? [Interjections.]

The Progrefs are actually compelled to take the stand they took during the discussion of this Bill, because they are committed by their previous standpoints and statements. I can imagine that when the news about Angola and South Africa’s involvement in Angola became known, some or the majority of the members of that Party rubbed their hands together and thought that this was possibly an opportunity to catch the National Party unawares and to make political capital out of the matter. There is no other conclusion one can come to and, of course, they were fervently supported by certain of their newspapers in this process. All kinds of questions were asked which, for military and diplomatic reasons, would have been imprudent of the National Party Government to answer. All kinds of doubts and reservations were created in the minds of the people concerning South Africa’s intervention in Angola. This finally resulted in the blatant statement that the National Party Government had made an error of judgment. However, that party did not allow for public opinion; it did not allow for the fact that there would be general support on the part of the public for the Government’s action, support which would exceed the bounds of party affiliation. Therefore that party had to be very careful. On the one hand it had to co-operate with some of its newspaper friends and, on the other hand, it had to keep its options open to make sure it did not close its doors to the general public.

This, then, is the background of their approach to this Bill. They do not really quarrel too much with us about this Bill. There is no great quarrel about this. That is why some of the amendments, and the arguments they advanced in connection with those amendments, are very naïve. The hon. member for Rondebosch has suggested again that this Bill supposedly implies that South Africa has all kinds of hostile intentions towards other parts of the world. Their own amendment, which suggests military service in adjacent areas will definitely invite unfavourable reaction too. The amendments they moved, were actually “yes, but” amendments. On the one hand they support the principles contained in this Bill, but on the other hand they object. I therefore believe that their opposition to this Bill is not based upon principle; it is based on playing politics. This is the only reason why, on the one hand, they object to the principle of the Bill while, on the other hand, they are keeping the door open so that it cannot be said that they voted with the National Party Government.

The hon. member for Rondebosch mentioned condonation a moment ago. In this respect he once again failed to come forward with something positive to indicate what was preventing him from spelling out his actual objections. Since the no-confidence debate we have had much egg-dancing on the part of the Progressive Reform Party. Let us ask them a few questions. The hon. member for Rondebosch and his colleagues asked a great many questions. The amendment moved by the hon. the Prime Minister, especially points out Russian and Cuban intervention and the armed conflict forced upon unwilling citizens. This is the purport of one portion of the amendment. The hon. members of the Progressive Reform Party did not vote in favour of it. We still want to know why they did not. The hon. members for Rondebosch and for Yeoville said it was because they were annoyed at the time. This is the only conclusion which can be drawn. During the discussion of the Angolan affair in the debate on this Bill, not one of the members of that party explained their attitude concerning Russian and Cuban presence in Angola. Now and again they approved of certain steps taken by the South African Defence Force. Now I want to ask them a question: What are they afraid of condoning, and to which actions in respect of our presence in Angola, which has been explained by the hon. the Minister of Defence, the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the hon. the Prime Minister are they opposed? Are they opposed to the fact that we took action against terrorists and pursued them? Do they perhaps have any doubts because the South African Defence Force could have pursued the terrorists too far? The problem with these hon. members is that they make statements which hang in mid-air. Every time they say that they are satisfied with the action taken by the South African Defence Force, but at the same time they ask the question: What happened that we do not know of? Do they really have confidence in the actions of the South African Defence Force, or have they not? What is their present attitude to the posting of our Defence Force on our borders? They always want to keep the door open by not adopting an attitude on this matter so that they will be able to discuss it again at a later stage. They want to keep their options open. During the Committee Stage the hon. member for Rondebosch referred to the fact that “our amendment makes it clear that South Africa has no aggressive attentions”. However, I want to ask him a question: His amendment boils down to the fact that our forces may be compelled to take action in adjacent areas. Do they believe that this provision will escape criticism? Do they think that this is the solution, that this indicates that South Africa has had no aggressive intentions? All the arguments advanced by the members of the Progressive Reform Party only mean that they want to cause a fuss, that they want to record a general objection which is not based on any facts, but only on petty points. Under the circumstances we cannot but reject this with contempt:

Mr. Speaker, at this the Third Reading stage, the emphasis of this legislation has shifted from the question as to where South African forces can be used to the purpose for which those forces can be used in future—in other words, from the territorial limitation to the purpose for which the forces can be used. When we come to consider the question whether we can support the measure or not, I think it is important for us to examine the purpose for which the forces can now be used. The predominant and deciding factor is the purpose for which they can be used. Let us firstly examine the position of South Africa being at war, war declared by this country against another country. Secondly—and I am sure this will interest the hon. member for Rondebosch, who waxes so eloquent about the fact that we have no allies—we should be able to use our forces for the purpose of supporting our allies in fulfilment of treaty obligations. If we do not have this in the Bill, one wonders how one can seek allies.

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

No, the hon. member can ask questions later.

There is also a third aspect. The Bill, as it reads now, provides for the suppression of armed conflict outside the Republic which is or may be a threat to the security of the Republic. The fourth aspect is that it contains provisions for the suppression of terrorism as defined in the Bill. This is the effect of the Bill on the law as it stands at present, but the PRP has decided to vote against the Third Reading of the Bill. They want to oppose this measure and the effects it will have on the Defence Act as it now stands.

I say in all sincerity to the hon. member for Rondebosch that I believe for various reasons he has made an unfortunate speech this afternoon. He has attempted to suggest that the passing of this measure will mean that we in South Africa are declaring that we have thrown overboard the policy of nonintervention in the domestic affairs of other countries. That is an unfortunate thing to come from a member of this House at this time, i.e. that that is what the effect of this Bill is, because nothing is further from the truth. This Bill merely means that we can certainly intervene in an armed conflict where it is a threat to the security of South Africa. This is entirely different to what has been suggested as intervention in the domestic affairs of another country. The second point which the hon. member laboured, and which I can understand, is the desire of his party that this matter should have gone to a Select Committee. One understands that because even their best friends are talking now about the deeper differences within their caucus in regard to this matter. [Interjections.] There are divisions in that party on the matter of defence. It is interesting to note that as we meet this afternoon, neither the hon. member for Yeoville nor the majority of the Reformist members of that party are here. Even their friends have found it necessary to comment on the difficulties which are taking place and which exist to the left of me. There has been a suggestion about the inevitable strains and tensions attendant upon any marriage. Those strains and tensions are apparently disturbing the hon. members next to me. There is also a suggestion that the party must develop its professional sinews. These are comments, not from their enemies, but from one of the friends of that party, who has given many columns of writing to that party on what it should and should not be. The hon. member for Rondebosch made a third point, viz. that there had been a change of attitude on this side of the House in regard to the calling together of Parliament to deal with decisions or actions which had been taken in terms of the Act, and to consider a report to Parliament. When the PRP called for a special session, Parliament was about to convene in any case on 23 January this year. That date was about a month away when they asked for the summoning of Parliament. The Bill now before us provides that hostilities can continue for 60 days before the date on which Parliament gets together; i.e. after 30 days there must be a calling together of Parliament within 30 days. There again one wonders why there has been an attempt to use this point as a reason why there should be opposition to the Bill as it is before us.

What I regard as more serious, are two further comments made by the hon. member for Rondebosch. The first was that our presence in southern Angola at the present moment in the defence of the dam, the irrigation scheme and hydro-electric works is controversial. I hope that he is not suggesting that it is controversial within the ranks of South Africans. I hope that he is not suggesting that there are South Africans who feel that we should not be there. [Interjections.] It would appear that that is what he intends because he said that it is controversial because the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs thought it necessary to suggest that UNO assume a responsibility. I want to say that I believe that was a wise suggestion to be made because we are in fact over the borders of the countries for which we are responsible. I think for the hon. the Minister to make that suggestion is not to admit that this is a controversial matter, but is in keeping, I hope, with the attitude of this country of nonintervention in the affairs of neighbouring countries.

The last of his remarks to which I should like to refer is his emphasis on the necessity of “weerbaarheid” in so far as we in South Africa are concerned. I mentioned at an earlier stage of the debate that this is basic in the training of our armed forces. I think it is a matter which is given the right and proper attention in our armed forces and I believe also that it is equally important that the people of this country should have a similar attitude of preparedness to meet the challenges which come to us in this country. However, we have the hon. member for Rondebosch virtually saying, as has been suggested by the hon. member for Eshowe, that we must just surrender if there is any attack upon us; that we cannot withstand these attacks. I am too much of a realist not to know that there are certain attacks which we will have considerable difficulty in withstanding, but there is a time when one realizes that to say to our people that what they are facing in the immediate future is the inevitability of defeat, is something which should not be said in this House because it is unnecessary to say things of that nature.

The hon. member for Rondebosch has indicated from the benches on my left the unfortunate divisions which exist in that party. It is unfortunate that the hon. member for Yeoville is not here this afternoon because I am prepared to accept that he is a man who would realize that the speech of the hon. member for Rondebosch was a most unfortunate speech. As has been said by the hon. member for Durban Point, we shall support the Third Reading without any hesitation.

Mr. Speaker, when we started the Second Reading of this Bill a week ago I thought that by now we would have finished the proceedings on the Bill and that it would have been lined up for the Senate. However, thanks to the delaying tactics of the PRP on my left there, it is only now that we have come to the Third Reading.

And you are delaying it some more.

I am not delaying it some more, my friend. Having reached its Third Reading, the Bill offers South Africa new vistas which it has opened up to the servicemen, because the definition of the term “South Africa” is now to be omitted, and henceforth servicemen in the S.A. Defence Force will be freed from the inhibiting and out-moded definition of “South Africa”.

Where do you want them to go?

Join the Army and see the world!

This Bill brings us in line with other nations of the modem world to meet new concepts of terrorism and warfare in the defence and security of South Africa. As has been pointed out, this does not exclude the use of volunteers; they can still be used, but when a man is now called up for service in the Defence Force he knows that he is liable to serve anywhere in the defence of South Africa. I look upon this as a proud day for South Africa. Enlisted men will now know that they are liable to serve anywhere without geographic or legal limitations. Service so undertaken in the defence of South Africa will mean the prevention or suppression of terrorism or of armed conflict outside the Republic which is or may be a threat to our country. The Bill has made this quite clear and there should be no quibbling about it whatsoever. Furthermore, henceforth the call-up of men can be approached on a scientific and businesslike basis with an eye to manpower distribution and control. This will mean that essential services will be easier to maintain and organize. We know what happened during the last war and what bitterness resulted. Now everybody will know where he stands and where his duty lies. The Progressive Party has made very disparaging remarks about conscripts.

We did not.

You did. The hon. members kept on saying that conscripts are not as good as volunteers. This is typical of these people: They always deny what they have said. They have been saying all along that conscripts are not as good.

Who said so?

The hon. member for Sea Point said so and I challenge him to deny it.

Are you a conscript or a postscript?

I shall cite my own experience. I was in the South African Forces and in the South African Police Brigade. I was not taken at Tobruk because I was on a course. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, it is funny how one always gets the noise from the cowards, the political cowards …

Order!

The hon. member for Bryanston went to Zululand and said to the people …

Order! What did the hon. member say?

I said “cowards”, “political cowards”.

You did not say “political cowards”.

I said “cowards” and “political cowards”.

Order! Any word that is unparliamentary is not made parliamentary by being qualified by the word “political”. The hon. member must withdraw those words.

I withdraw them, Sir. I was in the British forces. I joined them as a one-pipper. It so happened that the regiment I joined was a professional regiment, made up largely of professional soldiers and territorials who are the equivalent of our Citizen Force. Their morale, their discipline and their whole attitude was an eye-opener. While we were in the thick of things, our casualtiés were replaced by conscripts from Birmingham, “The Gorbels” of Glasgow and other cities. I can say that those men fought with élan. They had guts. They fought with a ferocity that was hard to equal. I also had the experience of fighting against the Germans, Austrians, Czechs and other people. They were not all volunteers; they were conscripted men. No one in this. House can tell me that the conscripted men, whether those of the Allied Forces or those of the Axis Forces, did not know how to fight All this talk of conscripts being useless is a lot of hog wash. [Interjections.] What is more, I Can testify to the fact that these soldiers, whether they were Allied or Axis soldiers, fought cleanly. There was chivalry among the soldiers. One does not want to talk about these things and one is inclined only to remember the funny parts, but I can assure those members who were not in the thick of things, that when you are in the thick of things and bullets are flying, you will fight because you know it is your life or the other man’s life. Therefore I want to ask the hon. members not to decry conscripts. Our present method of national service is not conscription. This is just another way the Progrefs have of pouring scorn on our men. [Interjections.]

During the past week Parliament has been exposed to a view of the pathetic plight of the Progressive Party in all its nakedness. For years the hon. member for Houghton and the sycophantic Press of that party have had free rein. The party then was happy to bask in the warm glow of being soft on communism which was fashionable then. It was also soft on security—very fashionable! White South Africa was nothing but the brutal oppressor of Blacks.

Why do you not say that we were soft on drugs too?

What is more, that party sought the favour of the Blacks against the rest of South Africa, thus encouraging polarization. What is more, in the last few months, we have seen members of the Progressive Reform Party scurrying backwards and forwards to the leaders of Black states whose well-known intention—and they have said it—is to “liberate South Africa”.

That is fashionable too these days.

I should like to know what those members of Parliament said to the leaders of these Black states. I cannot see the hon. member for Sea Point and his cohorts telling the Black leaders that “Nats are nice.” [Interjections.] I think this House deserves an explanation: What did they tell the Black leaders and what was discussed?

Now we know what the U.P. tells Black leaders.

The Progressive Reform Party have fought this measure with slick arguments and snide innuendos. They have tried all along to show up South Africa in a bad light as if we were the oppressor and the invader. They have tried to link up the folly of this Government, as shown in the No-confidence Debate, with this Defence Amendment Bill which is vital for the security of this country. However, we need not worry: The dogs bark but the caravan moves on.

Mr. Speaker, I want to convey my sincere thanks to the hon. members who support the Third Reading. I want to thank the hon. members for Durban Point and Green Point in particular for their positive speeches. The hon. member for Green Point, in particular, sounded a very positive note today, on which this House should, in my opinion, congratulate him. He helped to eliminate a few of the wrong impressions which were created in regard to this legislation. What is the position now? In the first place it has always been stated in the present Defence Act, which is now being amended, that the Republic of South Africa may be defended anywhere in South Africa when it is threatened. All the legal advice which was obtained was in agreement that the term “South Africa” was a far wider term than “the Republic of South Africa and South West Africa”. For the express purpose of preventing misconceptions, we have introduced this Bill in which we provide that “South Africa” has a specific meaning. We have tried to give “South Africa” a meaning in military language. It was our aim to describe our military theatre, our theatre of interest, from which a threat may arise. Any country thinking in military terms regards a certain theatre as an area, greater than itself, from which it may be threatened. Of course this depends on the size and the strength of a country. America’s military theatre is quite probably far greater than ours. However, the fact remains that any country which prepared itself in the military sphere must think in greater terms than its own borders for its protection. I do not think that what I am saying is something new. The hon. member for Durban Point then made the suggestion—with which we were in agreement—that we should rather omit the term “South Africa”, which created confusion in the past, as well the term “south of the equator”, which could also create confusion, entirely and leave it to the military in cases where they have to advise the State President on a possible threat to the country which is building up somewhere.

It is now stated in section 1 of the Defence Act, in the definitions, “service in defence of the Republic”

1. (a) in time of war; or
2. (b) in connection with the discharge of the obligations of the Republic arising from any agreement between the Republic and any other state; …

Therefore the question of an agreement is already contained in the existing Act.

Moreover, the following is stated in section 3 of the Act:

1. (a) on service in defence of the Republic;
2. (b) on service in the prevention or suppression of internal disorder in the Republic;
3. (c) on service in the preservation of life, health or property or the maintenance of essential services …

“Republic” here is more than just the Republic of South Africa.

In addition it is stated in section 3(3) that a member of the South African Defence Force may, subject to such limitations and restrictions as may be prescribed, be required to serve in any portion of that Force, and any such member serving in any armed service, arm, formation, corps or unit or performing any duty in respect of which a special allowance is prescribed, shall not be entitled to such allowance while serving in any other armed service, arm, formation, corps or unit or performing any other duty. The point I want to bring home is that in section 91 of the Act, as well as in the sections to which I have just referred, we are already imposing an obligation on persons who have to render national service in defence of the Republic of South Africa. The allegations which are being made are emanating not only from hon. members of the Progressive Party, but also from some English-language newspapers in the country, and also from another political party which is not represented here, but which is holding protest meetings in the country that are being attended by very few people. Among the charges which are being made from these quarters are allegations that this Government illegally called up minors to render national military service, or made use of them without consulting their parents in advance.

Mr. Speaker, what I am trying to clarify here is that what we have done up to now, according to the legal opinions at our disposal, was in accordance with the provisions of the Act. There was no illegal action. There are certain people who are casting doubt on our actions. Among these are the hon. members of the Progressive Party. Doubt is also being cast on our actions from the ranks of a political party which is not represented here. There are also people from certain newspapers who are casting doubts on what was done. Yet legal opinion states that what we have done so far, was in accordance with the provisions of the Act.

The Bill then goes further and describes terrorism and terroristic activities in another form. The Bill leaves it wide open, as I have already explained here. However, it also goes further with the provisions in clause 1(a), which read:

The reference here is not merely to any armed conflict, but to an armed conflict which threatens the security of the Republic. In addition the Bill states in clause 1(b):

In other words, the Bill now makes it clearer than ever before. In whichever case action has to be taken, it will only be done when a threat to the Republic or to its interests exists. And that is why I am pleased that the hon. members for Durban Point and Green Point made it clear that this misuse, this absolutely flagrant and dishonest representation of what we were achieving here, was not only harmful to South Africa, but was also a crime against the soldiers of this country. What effect must it have? It can only have one effect, namely to sow confusion in the ranks of our Defence Force. Because we have a national defence force, which consists of the Permanent Force, the Citizen Force and the Commandos, there must inevitably be some of them on whom these stories make an impression. What is the object or effect of this? Is it not solely calculated to weaken and to divide our Defence Force on a matter over which there should not be any division?

The hon. member for Durban Point expressed the hope that we shall have a further debate on the Angolan issue. I think there will still be many other opportunities to do so. But there is one thing hon. members must simply not expect of me. I am not prepared to say things which cannot, for diplomatic reasons, be said. Nor am I prepared—whatever newspapers outside may say—to furnish information which could be detrimental to the South African Defence Force as such. I agree with the hon. member for Durban Point when he says that parliamentary control is also clearly written into this Bill, and that the public need not fear that Parliament will not ultimately exercise its control and its say properly. Because I have never disputed this, I accepted the amendment. I do not want to disregard Parliament, but Parliament cannot always be in session. Nor is Parliament always able to act quickly and rapidly in times such as those we are now experiencing, in which forces may be unleashed which we sometimes have to deal with in the utmost haste.

This brings me to the peculiar argument raised by the hon. member for Rondebosch. It was indeed a very peculiar argument. He said that we would not have had all this politicking if we had referred the Bill to a Select Committee. How would a Select Committee have eliminated the fundamental difference between us? After all, the fundamental standpoint of the hon. member for Rondebosch is the same as that of the Hertzogites. [Interjections.] But of course, the hon. member for Rondebosch and his spiritual compatriots say that this Bill is now calculated to allow us to fight anywhere in the world. That is also what the Hertzogites say. The Hertzogites and he are now outbidding one another in an attempt to determine how irresponsible they can be. What a change would a Select Committee be able to bring about in such an irresponsible standpoint?

Harry’s last hope!

I asked the hon. member where in the Bill he gets this impression from, namely that South Africa will now have the right to practise intervention anywhere in the world. He did not give me a reply. He did not quote from the Bill, but from Rapport. Since when is Rapport the authority for the hon. member? The hon. member read someone’s opinion that was probably reported in Rapport. I asked him where it was stated in this Bill that the South African Defence Force had the right to practise intervention wherever it pleased. Where is that stated? Surely this is not true. After all, the hon. member is not an ignorant person.

He is merely pretending to be.

He is merely pretending to be, for surely he knows that it is stated in the Bill that in a time of war the State President shall summon Parliament within a certain period. He knows, in the second place, that the State President may declare a state of emergency. And then certain requirements have to be conformed to. This has nothing to do with intervention. He knows, in the third place, that the State President may declare an armed conflict which in his opinion is detrimental to the Republic to be a threat to the Republic. Where, now, is the so-called intervention which we may freely practise. The hon. member must understand that we in this House are not a lot of children. We are by no means … Do you want to ask me a question? Ask your question, perhaps I can help you.

Is it not true that this question of an armed conflict, as I have already said in the Second Reading and Committee Stage, which has to be suppressed or prevented, offers the possibility of misinterpretation, as has already become apparent from the weekend Press?

Mr. Speaker, must I explain to the hon. member again how an armed conflict may arise? If the hon. member can think of a third way which he can insert in this Act for me, I should like to hear it. The Act already provides that South Africa must be able to discharge certain obligations in terms of agreements which it has with other countries. An armed conflict may arise in that way. Now is that intervention? The Act states further, as he has now pointed out and also said this morning, that when a person is dealing with terrorism, one has to combat it in all its forms. All we are now doing is to say that such a terroristic attack may develop into an armed conflict. Is that intervention?

The hon. member referred to Angola, and I therefore want to define it with reference to Angola. Surely we did not practise intervention in Angola. After all, South Africa would not have intervened in Angola if there had been an authority with whom it could have negotiated on its interests. After all, South Africa had obligations in regard to the lives of people who asked for its protection. Is the hon. member not aware of that? How many times more must I spell it out for him? There are >people who will suffer hunger and thirst if we do not protect those interests. Because there was no authority there, South Africa intervened. What did it do then, immediately? It notified the former authority of what it had done. We did not act self-righteously. We told them that if they would maintain order, we would withdraw immediately. Did they come? No, and then we had to discharge our obligations. What happened then? We then found that a threat was building up against us as a result of the intervention of another country. I now want to ask the hon. member why I have never heard him saying in these debates, or outside in the front lines, that Russia is committing a crime in Southern Africa. [Interjections.] Why is he attacking me because I am resisting a crime which is being committed? He conveniently forgets about the person who is committing the crime, and then says that we are insulting him. The hon. member must not do what the parrot did that joined the crows and, when they began to peck at him, said that he was in bad company. The fact of the matter is that the hon. member could not prove to me where we would be able to practise intervention. The areas in which we may take action in time of war, in a state of emergency, in the combating of terrorism and in the combating of an armed conflict, are all defined in this Bill. The Republic has to be threatened. I am now asking him where the intervention is. Why is he creating that wrong impression outside? What does the hon. member wish to achieve by creating the impression in Africa that South Africa now has a law which entitles it to practise intervention anywhere? What impression does he wish to create in this way? What purpose does he have in trying to give African states the impression, African States that are threatened by communism just as we are, that they are now being threatened from another quarter as well? He must not cry when we mete out punishment to him, or say that we are insulting him.

Is the hon. the Minister aware that persons in America are saying, through the mouth of a person such as Kissinger, and that it is being said in the Press of other Western countries, that South Africa, correctly or incorrectly, practised intervention?

Must I believe something simply because it is stated in the American Press? The hon. member does not want to believe what his own leaders tell him in South Africa, but does believe what is stated in the American Press.

He is a good Yank.

The hon. member said that he wanted to issue a warning. The warning he wanted to issue was that the Republic is not a negotiable commodity between the USA and Russia. What did the hon. member mean by that? Does the hon. member want to imply by that that this Bill is calculated to make us a negotiable commodity for America or for Russia? Why, then, use such an argument? Or has the hon. member suddenly woken up now?

He did not say that; that was not his argument.

There we now have the wisdom from the East! I want to sum up. This Bill is a Bill which deals with threats to the Republic of South Africa which may arise. It is a Bill which adapts the provision of the Act in such a way that we are able, under modern circumstances, to deal with a situation which lies between war and peace, and may sometimes constitute a threat. It is, in the third place, a Bill which affords South Africa’s soldiers greater protection. It is, in the fourth place, a Bill which creates greater flexibility, and which affords our military leaders an opportunity to take action, so that they cannot be accused of not having leaped into the breach when they as military leaders, had to do so. I thank the hon. members for their support of this measure, and I have no doubt that the general public also supports us in regard to this Bill. As far as this Bill is concerned, the vast majority of South Africans think as we do, and any attempt to mislead them, will ultimately rebound very heavily, like a boomerang, against the heads of those who want to derive temporary party-political advantage from it.

Question put,

Upon which the House divided:

As fewer than 15 members (viz. Dr. A. L. Boraine, Messrs. D. J. Dalling, R. M. de Villiers, C. W. Eglin, R. E. Enthoven (’t Hooft), R. J. Lorimer, Dr. F. van Z. Slabbert, Mrs. H. Suzman, Messrs, H. E. J. van Rensburg and G. H. Waddell) appeared on one side,

Question declared agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Chairman, I would just like to draw the hon. the Minister’s attention once again to the fact that a great deal of the Natal Code needs amending, and I hope that at the earliest opportunity he will look at the report which was submitted by the Select Committee to the KwaZulu Assembly to see whether any of these suggestions or recommendations should not be incorporated into the law. I know he has, said that until he is requested to do so by the KwaZulu Assembly, it is not his intention to do so. However, I think a little preliminary study in the meantime would be advisable.

Mr. Chairman, during the discussion of this Bill, I associated myself with the appeal which was made for the hon. the Minister and the Department to give attention to an investigation into the operation of the Natal code of Bantu law. For obvious reasons I should like to repeat this request. I tried to indicate that, in many respects, the Code does no longer comply to the demands of the time in which we are living. I do not want to elaborate on this any further.

I should just like to reply to the argument which has been used, i.e. that nothing can be done about this matter before a request has been made on the part of the KwaZulu Legislative Assembly. Obviously, all of us appreciate the necessity for a homeland legislative assembly to be consulted in matters which intimately affect such homeland. This goes without saying, but this is not at issue. However, I want to point out to the hon. the Minister that the Code contains provisions which go much further than merely the area of Natal, and much further than merely the matters falling within the jurisdiction of the KwaZulu Legislative Assembly. For example, the mere fact that the powers of the State President as paramount chief are defined in the Code, is an indication that it is not an adequate reply to say that only the KwaZulu Legislative Assembly has a say in this matter. I mention this only as one example, but there are numerous other cases which go beyond and further than the powers of the KwaZulu Legislative Assembly.

In addition, it is quite clear that the Legislative Assembly is not fully representative. All elements of the Zulu population are not represented in the Legislative Assembly, and therefore their voice is not directly heard there. It is also clear that, although theoretically provision exists for the legislation of a legislative assembly to be made applicable to its citizens outside the homeland, there are people outside the KwaZulu homeland at this stage who are most intimately affected by this legislation, people over whom the KwaZulu Legislative Assembly has no authority, but over whom this Parliament—and, therefore, indirectly also the department—has authority. It is in the light of these considerations that I make a friendly request that the department and the hon. the Minister should consider investigating the applicability, under the present circumstances, of all the provisions of the Natal Code of Bantu Law. If we use the argument that we are unable to do anything before the KwaZulu Legislative Assembly has expressed an opinion on the matter, I can quite rightly ask—it would be a debating point and therefore of no importance—whether this particular provision in the Bill, i.e. clauses 1 and 3, have been submitted to the KwaZulu Legislative Assembly beforehand. This is a fair question, but apparently this has not been done. I do not take it amiss of the hon. the Minister for not having done so either. However, I want to say that that argument has limitations. In all modesty, I also want to tell the hon. member for Vereeniging, who used the same argument when we were discussing this matter, that as far as I know these provisions have not been submitted to the KwaZulu Legislative Assembly. Therefore there is a limitation on the use of this argument in regard to the request for the reconsideration or re-investigation of the applicability of the Natal Code of Bantu law. I want to associate myself with what was said by the hon. member for Houghton, and I want to make an earnest request to the hon. the Minister to have the desirability of retaining the Natal Code of Bantu law in its present form investigated.

Mr. Chairman, in regard to the final argument advanced by the hon. member and his question as to whether the matter had been submitted to the Legislative Assembly, I want to tell him that this Bill, as it stands, has been submitted to the executive council of the KwaZulu Legislative Assembly. However, the position in respect of the Natal Code of Bantu law does not change. All that is happening now, is that while the Code was enacted as Bantu law by the 1891 Act, it is now being done by a different Act. Therefore, there has been no change in respect of the position of the Code. The hon. member said the Code did not only deal with Bantu in KwaZulu, and during the Second Reading I did not try to imply that this was the case. However, what is important, is the fact that the Code deals with matters, some of which fall under the authority of the KwaZulu Legislative Assembly. There is no need for them to approach this Government to effect a change, because they can do it themselves. There are other matters in respect of which they have to approach the Government should they want to effect a change. Therefore, I want to confirm what I said during the Second Reading. We think it is a good thing that the Select Committee of that Legislative Assembly, which instituted an investigation and, according to my information, is still dealing with this matter, should first approach the Legislative Assembly and that requests should subsequently be submitted for consideration. I want to tell the hon. member for Houghton that such requests, when they are made on behalf of the KwaZulu Legislative Assembly, will receive the necessary attention.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 3:

Mr. Chairman, as it has apparently been stated in the Explanatory Memorandum, the procedure for the submission of proclamations issued in terms of section 25, is being brought into line with the requirements of the Interpretation Act. It seems to me as if this is, in a certain sense, an inevitable consequence, but there are, after all, fundamental differences between the kind of proclamations we find in section 25 of the Bantu Administration Act and the kind of regulations and Government Notices to which reference is made in section 17 of the Interpretation Act. Section 17 of the Interpretation Act reads as follows—

copies of such rules and regulations shall be laid upon the Table of both Houses of Parliament within 14 days, and so on.

Section 17 obviously refers to rules and regulations in terms of powers granted to the State President to issue regulations. The powers granted to the State President in terms of section 25 of the Bantu Administration Act are much wider. Section 25 of Act No. 38 of 1927 grants unlimited legislative powers to the State President over the Bantu homelands even to the extent that, in terms of the power to issue proclamations, he is able to amend and repeal any Act this Parliament may make in so far as the application of such measure on the Bantu Homelands is concerned. My contention is now that the kind of proclamation issued in terms of section 25 is, in fact, something quite different and really goes much further than the rules and regulations for which provision is made in section 17 of the Interpretation Act. I do not want to move any amendment on behalf of the Opposition, but I just want to point out that this proclamation is, therefore, of far greater significance and importance than what is referred to in section 17 of the Interpretation Act. It seems to me after all as if an ordinary list is inadequate. All I want to ask, is whether we could be given the assurance that when this list—we do not want to make matters difficult for the department— is submitted to the House, it should at least contain sufficient details about the contents of such proclamations and that it will not merely be a list of the numbers of the relevant proclamations. I should very much like to hear from the hon. the Minister in this regard.

Mr. Chairman, when these proclamations are laid upon the Table, they comprise all the proclamations containing rules and regulations. In other words, no proclamation which contains a rule or regulation may be omitted. This is one important point the hon. member should not forget. In the second place, the only difference is that while the proclamation itself was laid upon the Table in the past, only a list is now laid upon the Table. In other words, in this list the hon. member will be given an indication of the Government Gazette in which the proclamation or Government Notice appeared. The hon. member may then go into it himself. Apart from this list, the department also tables an Explanatory Memorandum. This ought to furnish the hon. member with additional information so that it will be easier for him to find it in the relevant Government Gazette.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 4:

Mr. Chairman, obviously I am not going to oppose this clause and, incidentally, I am not going to move an amendment. This, together with clause 6 is, as we have said in the Second Reading, the kernel of the Bill. We are quite prepared to support any effort by this Government to fulfil its promises under the 1936 Act and even after any of the homelands may become independent. We simply want to go on record for having said that.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 8:

Mr. Chairman, this clause, as it is printed here, is not acceptable to this side of the House. We believe that the powers for making regulations in terms of section 38 of the Bantu (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act are so wide and drastic that they cannot be left in the hands of the hon. the Minister. This is no reflection upon the hon. the Minister, but is due to the contentious nature of some of those regulations. What I have in mind, is for example paragraph (f) of section 38(1) of the Act which provides, inter alia, the following—

In addition there is paragraph (k), the manner of adducing proof under subsection (1) of section 10. As far as these two matters are concerned, it is very clear that in both cases the privacy of people and the rights of people, in this case more particularly those of the Black people are dealt with in a very drastic manner. Paragraph (f) speaks for itself. As far as (k) is concerned, you will remember, Sir, that in terms of section 10 of the Bantu Urban Areas Act, certain categories of Bantu are exempted from permit control. Now section 10 places the onus of proof on that Bantu to prove that he has been exempted. This in itself is already an element in our legislation, in our administration of justice, which can certainly not be considered as normal. Normally the principle is that the State must prove that a person is guilty. The only exception is normally when that person only has the particular knowledge which will enable him to furnish such proof. In this particular case the deviation is once again of such a nature that we feel that we would rather not have these particular powers of section 38 removed from the hands of the State President and placed in the hands of the Minister.

Mr. Chairman, I agree in principle with the arguments of the hon. member for Edenvale in regard to this clause. Personally I do not think it will make an awful lot of difference in practice whether it is the State President or the Minister. The State President means the Cabinet and, although it has never been my privilege—and heaven help me that it never should be—to be a member of the National Party Cabinet, I doubt whether the Cabinet imposes many restrictions on a Minister in this regard. But in principle the hon. member is right and we will therefore support him.

I just want to point out once again to the hon. member and to the hon. member for Houghton that since my coming to this House—that is approximately six years ago, and I have no reason to believe that it was any different in the time since Union—they have never approved of a delegation of any power from the State President, previously from the Governor-General, to a Minister, or from the Minister to the officials of the department. In other words, if they had had their way, the State President would still be governing South Africa on his own.

Now you are talking nonsense.

No, you have not approved of a single delegation. With which one did you agree? This has not happened since I have been in this House and I do not believe that you have approved any before that time. Consequently I want to tell the hon. members that this is a clause which is being introduced from the point of view of efficiency of government, inter alia, to make this simpler. Surely the hon. member knows that the Minister remains responsible, even if the power of the State President is delegated to him. Moreover, that legislative power, as I said before, must be laid on the Table. This also comes before the Select Committee and as you yourself know, in the case of this department it also comes before the Bantu Affairs Commission. In other words, ample provision has been made for these matters to receive attention, matters in respect of which the Minister takes action. Provision has been made to bring these to the attention of this House and the House can then decide whether it is satisfied with the steps the Minister has taken. In this the twentieth century, this is the correct thing to do from the point of view of efficiency.

I did not know that the hon. the Deputy Minister would come forward with this statement. I recollect that last year we did indeed approve of delegations of powers on several occasions. I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. the Deputy Minister that for the purpose of efficient administration, delegation is necessary. We have nothing against delegation, but I think that the hon. the Deputy Minister is aware of the fact that although it may not make any difference in practice, there is nevertheless a great difference in law whether the power is exercised by the State President or by the Minister. I feel that in spite of what the hon. the Deputy Minister has said, we cannot accept this clause in this form.

Mr. Chairman, it seems to me as though the hon. member for Edenvale is viewing the term “delegation” in too absolute terms. Delegation does not impose any obligation on the person to whom the power is delegated to exercise the delegated power on his own. He feels that the concept “State President”, which in practice means ‘‘the Cabinet’’ is safer; he feels that it is safer for the Cabinet to take an important decision than for the Minister to take such a decision on his own. But there is nothing to stop the Minister, when he decides that a decision is one which may have far-reaching effects, from approaching the Cabinet in that regard, and in practice it certainly happens in this way, in terms of the principle of co-responsibility. But when administrative matters are concerned, which do not have far-reaching effects, and when decisions have already been taken on the principle, then for the sake of efficiency it would be better if he could exercise those delegated powers himself. You may therefore, I think, rest assured, Sir, that co-responsibility will still be accepted by the Cabinet for all decisions on important matters.

I readily accept this, but I want to object to the use of the term “administrative matters”. I have no objection to these being transferred to the Minister. But I read out two provisions from section 38 which do not concern administrative matters but essentially human rights. This is why I feel that in this particular case the power should be exercised by the State President himself, that is, by the full Cabinet.

Clause put and the Committee divided:

AYES—107: Albertyn, J. T.; Badenhorst, P. J.; Ballot, G. C; Barnard, S. P.; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, G. F.; Botha, J. C. G.; Botha, L. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Botma, M. C.; Brandt, J. W.; Clase, P. J.; Coetsee, H. J.; Coetzee, S. F.; Cronje, P.; De Beer, S. J.; De Jager, A. M. van A.; De Klerk, F. W.; De Villiers, D. J.; De Villiers, J. D.; De Wet, M. W.; Du Plessis, G. F. C.; Du Plessis, G. C.; Du Plessis, P. T. C.; Du Toit, J. P.; Greeff, J. W.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Hartzenberg, F.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Hefer, W. J.; Heunis, J. C.; Hoon, J. H.; Horn, J. W. L.; Janson, J.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, G. J.; Kotzé, S. F.; Kotzé, W. D.; Krijnauw, P. H. J.; Kruger, J. T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J. (Brakpan); Le Roux, Z. P.; Ligthelm, N. W.; Lloyd, J. J.; Louw, E.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, J. J.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; Meyer, P. H.; Morrison, G. de V.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, H.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, D. J. L.; Niemann, J. J.; Nothnagel, A. E.; Palm, P. D.; Potgieter, J. E.; Potgieter, S. P.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Roux, P. C.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schoeman, H.; Scott, D. B.; Simkin, C. H. W.; Snyman, W. J.; Steyn, D. W.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Swanepoel, K. D.; Terblanche, G. P. D.; Treurnicht, A. P.; Ungerer, J. H. B.; Uys, C.; Van den Berg, J. C.; Van der Merwe, C. V.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Merwe, W. L.; Van der Spuy, S. J. H.; Van der Walt, A. T.; Van der Walt, H. J. D.; Van der Watt, L.; Van Heerden, R. F.; Van Rensburg, H. M. J.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Wyk, A. C.; Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, A. A.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Vilonel, J. J.; Vlok, A. J.; Volker, V. A.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, W. L.; Wentzel, J. J. G.

Tellers: J. M. Henning, J. P. C. le Roux, N. F. Treurnicht and A. van Breda.

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

Tellers: E. L. Fisher and W. M. Sutton.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 10:

Mr. Chairman, we would appreciate an explanation from the hon. the Deputy Minister with regard to this clause. I am referring to three matters in this clause. It mentions “packaged Bantu beer”, but apparently a holder of an eating-house licence will be able to acquire that Bantu beer only from the bodies mentioned in the clause. It seems, therefore, that it would be impossible for the holder of an eating-house licence to make use of beer powder in order to provide his clients with his own beer. We are actually only asking for an explanation of that. The second point has a bearing on the question of the hours. The question arises whether the hours which have been stipulated here will indeed be sufficient to satisfy the needs of the Bantu public. Reference is made to the opening hour, which is 10h00, as well as to the closing hour at 20h00. This seems to be quite acceptable, because Bantu beer is normally not regarded as an alcoholic beverage. As hon. members know, Bantu beer has a low alcohol content. It seems to me that the argument that the hours for the serving of Bantu beer should be in accordance with the hours for the provision of liquor to Whites, does not necessarily have to be applicable. In the light of the absence of recreational facilities, a need for the provision of Bantu beer with a meal may arise in the evenings. Thirdly, we are also asking for an explanation. May we be told why certain specified days are excluded? I know that the common principle in the White liquor trade is that on religious days there are limited hours only for the provision of liquor to people. Especially because Bantu beer falls under a different category from alcoholic beverages, and because many Bantu do not work on the specified holidays, we should like to know whether it is indeed necessary to apply the provisions regarding the consumption of White liquor to the consumption of Bantu beer as well.

Mr. Chairman, I want to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to the supplying of packaged Bantu beer in eating houses. I think the time has come for us to do something about the litter that is strewn about pavements, streets, shop doorways and open spaces as the result of empty Bantu beer containers being discarded. If we are going to supply the Bantu with Bantu beer in an eating house, I do not think it is proper to supply the beer in packages. He should be served with beer in exactly the same way as when we go to a restaurant and receive a drink from the waiter. There is one danger, of course. It may mean that we shall have to employ inspectors, since it is possible that when you open a package container of beer, the beer may quite easily be adulterated. For that reason I think it may be necessary to have inspectors to test the beer to make sure it is not adulterated. I think we cannot possibly go on and have the Bantu sitting on pavements outside eating-houses as is happening at the moment, or on fields, under trees and in parks, littering the place with these empty containers. I ask the hon. the Minister to go into these matters to see if he cannot at least in eating-houses make sure that the Bantu are served with Bantu beer in containers which can be cleaned and washed and put into service again.

Mr. Chariman, in respect of Bantu beer powder I should like to inform the hon. member for Edenvale that at the time when the municipalities started to manufacture Bantu beer—a function which has now been taken over by the Bantu Affairs Administration Boards—the assurance was given that there would be no competition. I believe this is a sound policy to have from the point of view of rationalization, because the Bantu Affairs Administration Board, just like the municipalities at that time, is a non-profit-making body. For this reason it was desirable to leave the manufacture of Bantu beer to them. When it was decided that those bodies would undertake the manufacture of Bantu beer, the fact was kept in mind that they had to be put in a position to erect the necessary installations and other equipment. If the manufacture of Bantu beer should now be thrown open so that competition could come from elsewhere, it might happen that the existing capacity would not be fully utilized and that the price would then go down to a less economic level. Something like that would of course not be in anybody’s interest. The same principle would also apply if permission were given for Bantu beer powder to be used at the eating-houses, because the position of the manufacturer, the Bantu Affairs Administration Board, would be implicated. That, however, is not all. There is a wide range of Bantu beer powders and it would certainly be necessary to have inspection in order to investigate the quality and to ensure that hygienic requirements are complied with. That, of course, would cause further administration and larger costs. I believe, therefore, that only Bantu beer should be allowed in the eating-houses. That could keep the cost low, something which is in the interest of everybody.

As far as the question of hours is concerned, it is true that the hours do not quite agree with those of restaurants. The hours start at 10h00. Beer and liquor are available from 10h00. Bantu beer may then also be provided. On an ordinary workday it may be provided until 20h00. That is about the time when most Bantu leave the White area and return to their own residential areas. Therefore I do not believe it is necessary to provide Bantu beer after that. There is, of course, a further difference in the sense that while restaurants are not allowed to provide liquor between certain hours every day, Bantu beer may be provided throughout the day. The underlying idea is that Bantu beer should be served to the Bantu during meals, so that they can enjoy it with their food.

In this respect I believe that this measure will have precisely the effect which the hon. member for Rosettenville advocated. Because the beer can be enjoyed in the eating-houses with meals, it will in fact cause the number of beer containers in the streets to diminish. In that respect the measure should have the required effect.

Mr. Chairman, are holders of eating-house licences only allowed to provide meals until 20h00? After all, there are quite a number of Bantu who are legally entitled to remain within White urban areas. The argument which was used, that all of them have left the urban area and gone to their own residential area by that time, does not apply to all Bantu, does it?

Mr. Chairman, it is true that not all of them have to be out of the White area by that time. There are restrictions concerning the times during which meals may be provided, but unfortunately I do not have further details at the moment. The eating-houses are subject to restrictions, just as other bodies are. They are not allowed to remain open throughout the night.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 11:

Mr. Chairman, I move as an amendment—

I want to apologize to the hon. the Minister and Deputy Minister for the fact that the “A” after “20” was omitted in the copy of the amendment which I sent to them. I also want to apologize if any discomfort was caused to them because of this. The amendment is concerned with section 20A of the Bantu Labour Act. As the clause shows, the expression “Minister” means the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, and, except with respect to section 28, includes any officer of the Department of Bantu Administration and Development acting under the authority of the Minister. Section 28 is thus excluded, that is the article in terms of which the Minister is empowered to make certain regulations. So it boils down to the fact that only the Minister can make regulations because he cannot delegate his powers in this connection. Section 20A really contains far-reaching powers. It reads as follows—

So this predominates over any other legal provision—

1. (a) in a specified area;
2. (b) in a specified class of employment;
3. (c) in a specified trade; or
4. (d) in the service of a specified employer or class of employers.

There is no doubt that these powers are indeed far-reaching. For this reason I want to appeal to the Deputy Minister to accept my amendment. It will not detract from the status of the department. All I am really asking is that since the powers are so far-reaching, the Minister himself must exercise the powers which were entrusted to him, and must not delegate them to anybody else.

The power which the Minister has in terms of section 28 and which the provisions of the clause prevent him from delegating is his power to make regulations. The Minister must make regulations himself, about such relatively unimportant things as the way and the form in which applications for a licence or a permit should be made in terms of the Act. Basically this is nothing but an administrative matter which involves no points of procedure and does not affect the rights of anybody, but it is still a power which the Minister cannot delegate. Section 20A, on the other hand, is concerned with the powers which the Minister can exercise to intervene fundamentally in the lives of people. This side has always resisted things such as job reservation, and section 20A is a further provision in the application of job reservation. However, we are not concerned with the principle here and consequently I shall not argue about the principle of job reservation. Because of the importance of section 20A and the powers which may be exercised in terms of it, and seen against the background of the trifles about which the Minister himself must decide in terms of section 28 because he cannot delegate his powers in this connection to officials, I really want to appeal seriously to the hon. the Deputy Minister please to accept this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, when the hon. member was halfway through his argument, I felt like getting up and telling him that he did not have to go any further because we would accept his amendment. I just want to point out to the hon. member that, in a case where the Minister has the power to delegate, the Bill provides that he may delegate. It does not say that he must delegate. It was not the intention with regard to this particular matter to delegate the Minister’s powers. The powers involved would have stayed with the Minister. For this reason we are prepared to accept the amendment of the hon. member because, as I have said, we did not intend to delegate those powers in any case.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 12:

Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the hon. the Deputy Minister could perhaps give us further details about the provision which is contained in this clause. What type of conditions do they have in mind in connection with the facilities which are created here for the borrowing of money? We are really asking the hon. the Deputy Minister for further information before we decide about this clause.

Mr. Chairman, the condition to which the hon. member is referring is the condition which provides that the corporation may borrow money on such conditions as may be determined by the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development and the Minister of Finance. With a view to good financial management, currency control, etc., such a provision is necessary. There are similar provisions with regard to other semi-State institutions which also have the right to obtain funds. If all the bodies in South Africa were to enter the international markets, they would have to compete with one another. For this reason there must be control to ensure that the borrowing of funds abroad is channelled and that an indication can be given to a body that another body is already operating on the same market. On the other hand, a corporation may produce a source in which nobody is operating. That body can then get permission to operate in it. This measure is therefore aimed at ensuring good financial management. The object is to exercise control over the inflow of money into the country and to see that it does not happen arbitrarily.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 20:

Mr. Chairman, with regard to clause 20 I want to repeat, for the sake of the record, the problem which I mentioned in the discussion on clause 3, because here we have a similar case. I feel that the powers of proclamation under this clause—I am not referring to clause 28 now—are just as far-reaching as those under clause 3. I have made my point in this connection and I am grateful for the assurance that the hon. the Deputy Minister gave that a list with further particulars of the proclamations concerned will be made available.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 29:

Mr. Chairman, during the Second Reading debate we discussed the problem of the elimination of the representatives of urban local authorities on the Bantu Administration Boards. I just want to reaffirm our objections about this, because owing to the fact that we do not want to make these bodies too large, we are in danger of losing the co-operation of the people who may have an intimate knowledge of matters and who could indeed also take the public with them in regard to the concrete situations which might exist in the environs of a local authority’s area. From the White Paper, and also from the explanation which was given, it is obvious that there is something to be said for not making the Bantu Affairs Administration Boards too large in certain cases. The hon. the Deputy Minister also pointed out that, when it came to areas such as the West Rand and the East Rand, the Minister appointed the maximum of two instead of the one which he could have appointed. We do want to stress that we consider it to be very important that especially where the consideration of a vast area which occupies a large number of magisterial districts is not applicable, there is indeed no reason for the application of this provision. So we are not opposing this clause; we are only asking for the assurance of the hon. the Deputy Minister that he will take into account this consideration which we have stated.

As far as paragraph (b) of this clause is concerned, we are again faced with the problem that this matter has two sides to it. It would be possible to keep on the board a person who has already lost his membership of an urban local authority, just because such a person might be the blue-eyed boy of the Minister, or something like that. I am casting no reflection by saying this. It is now possible for people who have been defeated in a municipal election and who would therefore not normally be entitled to remain a member of a Bantu Affairs Administration Board to be retained on the board till the expiry of the term for which they were appointed by the Minister. That limitation is there. On the other hand it is also very clear that it may in fact happen that a man who has rendered good services to the Bantu Affairs Administration Board and the Bantu population may be missed by the Administration Board concerned, because he has resigned as a member of the municipal council or has perhaps been defeated in the municipal election. A case can therefore be made out for both sides, and consequently we ask the hon. the Deputy Minister to give us the assurance that this matter will be handled with the greatest circumspection in order to make the functioning of the Bantu Affairs Administration Board as efficient as possible.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to say to the hon. member that it is indeed the intention to act responsibly. The people to whom the hon. member referred are precisely the people who represent the municipalities. If such a person should lose his membership of the municipal council, but remain a member of the Bantu Administration Board, he would at most be able to complete his term. The hon. member himself said that it might be a member who has a thorough knowledge of matters and who does very good work on the Bantu Affairs Administration Board. In that case it might not be desirable to end that member’s term of office at that stage and to appoint somebody else in his place. In such a case we shall act responsibly because we want to retain the co-operation of municipalities.

Clause agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with an amendment.

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

The hon. the Minister of Transport will remember that, during the Second Reading of the Bill, I suggested to him that we did not entirely agree with the blanket indemnity, conferred in the proposed section 304A(7) in regard to stranded ships, in that the hon. Minister could do with them as he liked. We felt that this should be brought within the ambit of the courts. I suggested at that stage the addition of the word “reasonably” to be inserted before “in good faith”. I felt that this would serve the point I was making. However, the hon. the Minister told me in his reply that, had I consulted a lawyer, I would have realized that, in fact, it would make no difference.

I want to inform the hon. Minister that I have consulted several legal advisers on this point, and they were in agreement with my original suggestion. If the hon. the Minister, however, does not like that, I suggest that the words “and without negligence” would bring an operation of this nature within the ambit of the courts. A situation could very well arise in which the hon. the Minister is given very bad advice indeed from any of his officials, this resulting in possible serious repercussions because a ship, valued at several million rand, could be erroneously scuttled. It is our feeling that the courts should be allowed to decide a matter of this nature if there is any negligence at all. I think this is an honourable thing for the State to take responsibility for. In principle I do not think it is a good idea for things to go outside the compass of the courts, and I believe a blanket indemnity of this nature is not a fair thing to do to anyone at all. I therefore request the hon. the Minister to reconsider the answer he gave me during the Second Reading debate, and also to consider accepting this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, my answer to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Orange Grove is more or less the same as the one I gave him on a previous occasion. That is, when the actions of the department result in a difference of opinion, a court will have to rule on the matter. Whether the amendment moved by the hon. member for Orange Grove is introduced or not is neither here nor there. At present the department does enjoy protection with respect to all acts performed in good faith. This does not, however, mean that acts performed in good faith may include negligence for which the department will not be responsible. This is the way it is embodied in the Act in any way. It is obvious. If negligence should occur—and this is also the case in the previous amendment which the hon. member moved—which could give rise to a lawsuit in which it was found that a third party suffered damage due to the negligent action of the department, the department would have to answer for such damage. In my opinion this is obvious. This is enbodied in the Act and it is senseless to add something like this to the clause. Therefore I am not prepared to accept this amendment.

Amendment negatived (Progressive Reform Party dissenting).

Clause agreed to.

Clause 11:

Mr. Chairman, I realize that this particular section of the clause is not under revision at the moment, but I would like to make an appeal to the hon. the Minister, in any future amendment to this particular clause that may be considered by his department, to take into consideration, and to consult his legal draftsmen on, the possible omission of the term “antiscorbutics” in line 22. I submit that Act 65 of 1974, the Drugs Control Amendment Act, gives a very adequate definition of the term “medicines”, which would include reference to the term “antiscorbutics”. Will the hon. the Minister bear this in mind with a view to possible future legislation? My learned friend, the hon. member for Rosettenville, who is a medical man, suggests that this term could even include lemons and oranges.

Clause agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported without amendment.

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

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, during the Second Reading debate we expressed strong objection to the amendment incorporated in clause 3 and I regret to say that the reply of the hon. the Minister was in our opinion totally unsatisfactory. He accused me specifically of misstating facts without quoting one single fact which I was alleged to have misstated. Now that he has had the opportunity of studying my speech as reported in Hansard I hope he will tell me which facts I misstated. The hon. the Minister tried to pretend that I had said that the Railways were taking all the traffic whereas, in fact, the private carriers would still retain some 56% of the traffic. That was exactly what I did say, and exactly what my uncorrected Hansard will reflect me as having said. What I said, Mr. Chairman, was that this amendment skimmed the cream off the traffic, the easy traffic, the full-container loads which could be picked up in one operation and conveyed straight through to destination, and that this was the cream of the traffic, whilst the conventional traffic, the traffic which gives rise to all the problems in the harbour, would be left very generously and very kindly to private enterprise. The LCLs, the less than container loads, would be put into a stacking area by the Railways where it could be opened and distributed by private enterprise. He did not touch at all on the other matters I raised, such as the question of the effective monopoly which a combine, backed by Government money, was likely to obtain in handling the breaking bulk, because if one shipping firm conveys the goods it is likely that their subsidiary is going to handle the clearing and therefore will handle the goods in the bulk breaking area. All in all, he did not reply to the points we raised. He tried to play it low key and he tried to evade the issues we had raised by laying a smokescreen by saying that what we had allegedly said was incorrect. We ask the hon. the Minister to give us specific answers. He cannot deny that he has had objections from the harbour carriers themselves.

In fact, he had another objection only last week, on 4 February. On that date he had urgent representations from the Harbour Carriers’ Association and those representations contained the essence of the case I had already at that stage made in this House. He has not replied at all to the question of the investment of R5,1 million on trailers and mechanical horses in order to take over traffic from private enterprise which claims that an investment of only another R250 000 is required by them. This is at a time when the Government is supposed to be curbing its expenditure, when it is supposed to be fighting inflation by not spending unnecessary money. He did not reply to the suggestion that the Railways should convey from the ships to the stacking area and that private enterprise should then be allowed to collect the full-container loads from the stacking are where they are not in the way of the ship or the clearing thereof or of the transportation of the goods to the clearing area. I can think of no possible reasons why satisfactory co-ordination cannot be achieved in order to make it possible for both parties to participate. The hon. the Minister did not reply regarding the legal dispute and here perhaps I did say something which was not totally correct. I said the Railways knew that they had acted illegally. What I meant to say was that the Railways knew that it was alleged that they had acted illegally and that the matter was being taken to court. I cannot visualize what the Railways were thinking but I assume that they did not believe that they were acting illegally. They believed that they were acting perfectly legally and that is why they are coming to Parliament to ask us to change the law to make sure that what they were doing was in fact legal! But they are not doing it because they had any doubts at all; they are doing it simply because they thought they would like to have this provision in the Act. Or am I perhaps being unfair to the hon. the Minister? Did they think that there was a doubt? Did they expect that there was a doubt?

Where did we act illegally?

In proceeding with the notice to take over the total full-container traffic in Durban harbour. Section 55(1) of the Act provides that the Administration shall not undertake the business of cartage, etc., until two years from the date they advertise. It does not authorize them, in fact it prohibits them, from undertaking cartage in the harbour area and the notice simply means that they will not be prevented from undertaking cartage work. In other words, the notice then allows them to compete in the harbour area but not to exclude other carriers. They could participate; it simply removes the prohibition on the Railways to operate. The giving of notice, the notice which is required in terms of section 55(1), does not entitle them to a monopoly. The original 1913 grant also created entrenched rights for the private carriers. The hon. the Minister will say, as he has said, that the Railways did not act illegally. If they were not wrong in that, and if they did not fear it being tested in court, why come to Parliament to ask Parliament to amend the law? Why waste the time of Parliament if in fact there is no need for this clause because they were acting within the law in any event? The very fact that the Minister has come to Parliament to ask for this power, indicates that he has some doubt and we are not satisfied at all with the answers he has given us. He has not dealt with the question of door to door deliveries which will become possible and which again will exclude the private clearing and forwarding agents from the work for which they are equipped and which they have always done over the years.

Mr. Chairman, I reiterate that we are totally opposed to this clause. We will oppose it as I indicated during the Second Reading, and will vote for its deletion.

Mr. Chairman, there are some points raised by the hon. member for Durban Point which require a reply. He suggested that the carriers should be permitted to deliver from the stacking areas and therefore his point is that these private carriers should in fact be able to skim the cream for themselves. What should be remembered, however, is that this whole containerization business in the harbours is a highly capital intensive undertaking. The handling of containers from the stacking areas is especially a capital intensive undertaking. At the moment the situation is that in the Durban area there are 42 main harbour carriers with 835 vehicles. Apart from that, I am told that there are another 200 ancillary carriers with 743 vehicles. If containers in the stacking area are to be handled efficiently then it must be done on a well-programmed basis, because it is almost impossible for numerous different firms to enter this stacking area with each one wanting a particular set of containers to be delivered to them. The straddle carriers which will be available to handle these huge containers will have to work to a programmed method. If this carrier association, the Harbour Carriers’ Association, had been prepared to form a consortium, so that the whole business could be undertaken by the consortium in a computerized and planned manner, then it might have been possible to continue on the basis which existed before. I understand that the 42 harbour carriers were not interested in forming a consortium to handle this on a single basis. Because of that decision it is almost impossible to give this portion of the work to the Harbour Carriers’ Association if there is to be efficiency in handling this in any way.

*Today, Mr. Chairman, it is necessary to display greater efficiency. The hon. member for Durban Point and hon. members of the Opposition will be aware of the fact that, through the new methods they are using, the Railways organization is developing a more intensive and efficient organization than existed in the past. Therefore I am convinced that, for the sake of efficiency, economic handling and the saving of money and time, it is desirable and necessary that the Railways organization should undertake that part of the handling themselves. The position is that special stacking areas are being built at present. From the container ships the sealed containers will be placed in the stacking areas and taken from there to container depots if they have to be handled and the container opened.

However, when one is dealing with sealed containers which can be delivered directly from the stacking area, whether it be to other cities or in Durban itself, it is desirable that one organization, which can handle the matter with efficient advance planning, should handle the matter. In the case of the container depot where the containers will be opened and debulked, and also in the case of the general cargo which is handled in other depots and not specially in the container depots, the private carrier will still have the right to handle it. It is therefore in the interests of efficient handling, advance planning and the saving of labour and time that it is necessary for this part of the work to be handled by the Railways. In particular I want to point out that, with a view to the rapid clearing of the container quay, it must be possible to deliver and remove 1500 containers every three days. Because it is necessary for this to be done as efficiently as possible according to a computer programme, it is desirable that there should be a central authority over the truck drivers who will have to handle the matter. If there are 42 carriers and a further 200 carriers, with a total of 1 500 vehicles, chaos will result if there is no centralized control and handling of this matter. The hon. member for Durban Point will know that we are not concerned with door-to-door delivery here. I am convinced that it is out of the question that the Railway carriers will find it necessary to deliver a whole series of containers with whatever they may contain to the home of the hon. member for Durban Point on the other side of the Umgeni bridge, as he indicated the other day.

There are also many factories and industries there.

If these are sealed containers which have to be delivered in bulk, the Railways will be in a far more favourable position to deliver it from the container quay directly to the factories. But where we are concerned with containers in the container depot which have to be opened, as I have already indicated, private carriers will have the right to deliver these. Therefore I am convinced that this legislation does not mean an injustice to the private carriers; it is necessary in the interest of efficient, economic handling and to enable the Railways to do this work in the interests of the fight against inflation in as efficient a manner as possible.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Klip River will excuse me if at this stage I do not mention anything which he has specifically mentioned in his speech, but during the course of my speech I hope to refer to many of the matters that he raised. I listened with considerable interest to the hon. the Minister’s introductory speech during the Second Reading, the reply by the hon. member for Durban Point and again to the hon. the Minister’s reply, and I must say that we in these benches are not satisfied with the presentation of the case by the hon. the Minister at all. I consequently move as printed on the Order Paper—

Mr. Chairman, the Durban Harbour Carriers’ Association has been operating in Durban harbour since the harbour started. Entrenched in legislation, as mentioned by the hon. member for Durban Point, has been their right to carry on business in that harbour. From early days, 1913 in fact, the Railways were given the right to come in as competitors, not exclusively, but as competitors, as has been mentioned earlier, if they gave two years’ notice. Now we are faced with the situation where the hon. the Minister proposes that these people who have had entrenched rights to operate and who have been making a living and doing a job within the area of Durban harbour are being legislated out of a considerable part of their business. I am not saying all their business; only a part of it. In his presentation the hon. the Minister said that they would retain a certain part.

Why do you say “entrenched rights”?

Because it was entrenched in legislation. Section 55(1) states:

This presupposes that somebody has to do this work and that there is a right for private enterprise to carry on doing business there. Now the hon. the Minister is trying to take that right of private enterprise away. He is trying to be exclusive and to create a monopoly in a certain area. He says that this will not, in fact, affect the rights of private enterprise because they will still have something to do. My advice, from the harbour carriers themselves, is that they do not believe they will have enough. However fine the words of the hon. the Minister are in saying they will have plenty to do, this is no guarantee to them that they will. They know how that harbour operates because they have operated there for a number of years, and they say they will lose most of their business. One carrier, to whom I spoke, said he expected to lose between 50% and 60% of his total business, and the hon. the Minister did not say that he would be compensated if that were to happen. The harbour carriers have put a lot of capital into buying new vehicles. I may say that they were encouraged by the Administration, because whatever the hon. the Minister may say, the letter from the Administration in 1970 specifically said the carriers should prepare themselves for containerization. The first they knew of any action other than this from the Railways was in 1974 when they were advised that it was the intention of the Railways Administration to take over this aspect exclusively, by which time they had already spent quite a lot of money in preparation for containerization.

Just to back this up I would like to ask the hon. the Minister by whom the containers are being handled at the moment. I am informed that something like 600 containers a week are already being handled, quite adequately and quite happily, by private enterprise. Admittedly this is mostly coastwise traffic, and a very small percentage as yet is coming from overseas. What about this coastwise traffic? The carriers are quite capable of coping with this at the present time and they are very happy that they will be able to cope with containerization when it comes to the fore in a couple of years time. In fact, they say that the total additional capital expenditure they will have to put forward is only R¼million. The hon. the Minister, according to a letter from the Railways Administration, is suggesting that he spent R5,1 million—and this at a time of inflation, when the government is cutting its expenditure.

Vause has already said all that.

He has, but I am expressing the opinions of people in my benches, and perhaps I could say this a good deal better than he. The question of the spending of R5,1 million cannot, I believe, go unanswered by the hon. the Minister. He must explain how, in the inflationary situation in which we find ourselves, he is still prepared to go ahead and lash out and spend this money when he already has the service that is required—advantageously, as far as we are concerned, it is private enterprise that has established it. Now the hon. the Minister wants to push private enterprise into the background. He wants to take over containerization and run it himself. It is interesting to note that, in his reply in the Second Reading debate, the hon. the Minister talked about how efficient the Railways Administration could be. He also said, and possibly quite rightly, that he was absolutely certain that the Railway Administration could do it as efficiently as, or more efficiently than, anybody else. I do not believe that this is the point. I believe that the point of this exercise is that he should not be operating on a monopolistic basis. He should rather come in as a competitor. Then he can prove the efficiency of the Railways Administration’s operation in competition. If it is going to be so efficient, let it compete. The whole principle, the whole operation of our society as a free-enterprise society in this country, is that there should be competition. Frankly, I do not believe that the efficiency of the whole container operation is going to be put into jeopardy because the hon. the Minister lets private enterprise operate in this field. I think that it can, in fact, be as well handled by private enterprise as in any other way.

There are numerous problems. It has been said to me by many people in commerce in Durban that they are not going to enjoy having to work through the Railways for full container loads and through their particular transport carriers when it comes to other matters. They are going to have to deal with two separate people. At the moment they can go to one of the hauliers and ask him to pick up their containers or loose loads of this and that. However, now they will have to go to the Railways to do one operation and to their road carrier, whom they employ in a private capacity, to do other operations.

I would like a specific answer from the hon. the Minister on the question of the 600 containers that are being dealt with satisfactorily by private enterprise at the present time. The hon. member for Kliprivier asked whether I would like to see more hauliers, but I am not suggesting that at all. I think there could be a great deal of rationalization in private enterprise operations. I think there are possibly too many. However, this does not excuse the basic principle of pushing private enterprise into the background and giving the State the monopoly, and I am specifically using the word “monopoly”. The hon. the Minister became quite angry during the Second Reading debate about the question of monopoly. It is, however, a monopoly in a certain area. I believe that this can be handled, without any great additional expenditure, by private enterprise, and I think the hon. the Minister should ensure that private enterprise is allowed to compete in this. They are not asking for an exclusive operation. They are just saying that they are prepared to enter into operations in competition with the Railways and believe they should be given the opportunity to do so.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. member whether he can tell us how easy it is for an outsider to join that cargo carriers group?

Could the hon. member please put his question a little louder?

How easy is it for other persons to become members of this cargo-carrier group?

I think this begs the question. I do not think this has anything to do with the issue I was raising. I would be quite happy to see others join this group. I think the hon. member is referring to the “closed shop” which was referred to in the Second Reading debate and raised by the hon. member for Durban Point. I do not approve of closed shops. I am not saying that the Harbour Carriers Association is a magnificent organization. In fact, I believe that there should be no closed shop. Why create a closed shop on the other hand? By giving total operation to the Railways Administration one is doing something worse. In the Harbour Carriers Association one at least has a number of people operating in competition with each other. However, if you were to give it all to the Railway Administration, there would be no competition at all. I do not believe that this is conducive to efficiency. I believe competition is healthy and that there should be competition. If the Railways feels it can do a better job, then let it prove that. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, at the very outset I want to say that it is absolutely essential, for the purposes of efficiency, that one body—and the one convenient body is the S.A. Railways—should handle the full containers in these stacking areas. What is more: It is essential that there should be efficiency because of the enormous sums of money invested in containerization The hon. member for Klip River often referred to various reasons why it is essential. I should like to add a few.

In Durban alone the Railways will have spent R85 million on containerization by the end of 1979. In the whole of South Africa R375 million will be spent on containerization up to and including 1979. Hundreds of millions of rands are being invested in ships and containers. The hon. member for Durban Point said that I accused him falsely yesterday by saying that he had said that all the containers are now being handled by the Railways and that we were acting illegally and ultra vires. This is not correct. Firstly: The hon. member said that he never said the Railways would handle all the containers. I shall read to the hon. member from his speech at the bottom of page 2 of his Hansard manuscript, dated 4 February—

He was referring to a letter that had been written—

What does all this mean?

I referred to FCL’s throughout my speech.

What does all this mean? I quote again—

Surely “all container transport” means only one thing, and that is “all container transport”. That is all I said to the hon. member. I pointed out to him that his statement was not correct. Substantial part of the containerization, the 600 containers to which the hon. member for Orange Grove is now referring, the containers that will be conveyed by conventional freighters, as well as the half-full containers on their way to depots, will still be handled by these carriers. That is what I want to explain to the hon. member. The hon. member then went on to say—

This is why I accused the hon. member, for what is illegal about that? I shall prove in a few minutes how I can find nothing illegal in what has been done by the Railways. The hon. member went on to say—

That is what I took exception to, because I maintain that we have done nothing illegal or ultra vires. I should like to deal with this.

Will the hon. the Minister be so kind as to read the proposed clause?

Yes, there it is; the hon. members can read it. The meaning of this is clearly that only the Railways will handle full containers in the stacking areas, as we clearly stated. Allow me now to start from the point in 1913 where the Opposition wanted to start, because both the hon. members for Durban Point and Orange Grove yesterday referred to 1913. In 1913 there was a Select Committee here in Parliament and in paragraph 2072 of this Select Committee’s report the following question, put by the chairman to a person who came to give evidence before the Select Committee, appears—

To this the reply was—

As a result of this report—and I am only reading this because this is apparently the paragraph to which hon. members referred yesterday—an Act was placed on the Statute Book in 1916 in which this paragraph was incorporated and which was later included in the 1957 Act in the same form and with the same wording. I should like to read paragraph 55 for the sake of the record—

That is the heading of the paragraph. Now the contents of the paragraph follow—

Now listen to this—

“Such a business.” This is not simply any business in competition, but specific business it intends undertaking and provision is specifically made for this in paragraph 55. If the Administration then wants to undertake business, the Administration has to give two years’ notice that it wants to undertake such a business. Surely these are words that mean something. On 17 January 1975 the following notice was published in the Government Gazette, and once again I read it for the sake of the record—

This was done in pursuance of that clause which provides that we have to give two years’ notice. The hon. member went on to say that we should indicate what type of work we are going to do after two years. We are saying that after two years we shall begin, with the work we specified here, i.e. conveyance to and from the stacking areas. That is what we shall undertake.

Of all containers?

Yes, the conveyance of the containers to and from the stacking areas, in other words, the full containers that are stacked there. That is all we want to do, and now the hon. member resents it if I take exception to the fact that he alleged that we had acted illegally and ultra vires. Surely, this is not so.

The hon. the Minister has just read out the notice stipulating that the Administration will take over all containers, but a while ago he took exception because we said that they will take over all containers.

I shall read it again—

These are the important words. In other words, the Administration has no intention of conveying the containers which are not full and are going to the depot. The Administration will handle only those placed in the stacking areas and which have to be taken from there to various destinations. If the hon. member is satisfied now, I shall resume my seat, but if he is still not satisfied, I shall continue talking because I still have quite a lot to say.

Could I ask the hon. the Minister whether this means that even full container loads coming in on coast-wise traffic, as they do at the moment, will be available for the Carriers’ Association or private enterprise to pick up, or are the full container loads which are now going to private enterprise, going to be directed to the depot to be handled by the Railways Administration?

All full containers go to the stacking area and are handled there by the Railways.

Are those the ones that are presently handled by the private carriers?

Yes, they are partly being handled by them at the present moment.

*It goes without saying that we should keep up with the times. This morning someone said such an interesting thing to me when we discussed this same subject. He said: Well, the world changes. Containerization is an enormous change, almost a revolutionary change in shipping. An enormous amount of capital has been invested in containerization to enable goods to be transported speedily. We are simply compelled to adjust ourselves to these circumstances and make the best of it in the interests of our country and its economy. Perhaps there will be people who are dissatisfied. This morning someone said to me that when we changed over from sailing ships to steamships many years ago, there must have been people who were dissatisfied because the sail-makers and the yarn-spinners were not able to sell as much of their commodities as before. However, we could not stick to sailing ships when a more efficient form of transport was created. The same applies here. We have to adapt our transport system to containerization and make the best of it. The hon. member for Klip River mentioned a point which is very important. They do not want to form a consortium, but we find it absolutely essential that there should be one controlling body in the stacking area. One can imagine what would happen if the 44 cartage contractors had to swoop down on the stacking area. One can imagine the chaos that would be caused if the one cartage contractor wants one container and another cartage contractor another.

Are you not able to organize that?

That is why we say it is absolutely essential that the Railways should remain in control of that matter and that the Railways itself should look after the matter. Hon. members should understand that when a container ship comes in, it has to off-load anything between 1 000 and 2 000 containers. Let us say there are 1 500. Those 1 500 containers have to be off-loaded within 48 hours. Within three days 1 500 containers have to be loaded on to that ship again. Those containers then have to be returned. If this does not happen, the next ship is delayed. Enormous costs are involved in such a delay if the necessary efficiency is not displayed to utilize this great capital investment fully and properly. Hence the need for proper order. It will therefore be the task of the Railways to remove the containers from the stacking area to their destinations with the machinery at its disposal. The same vehicle taking the containers to their destination will pick up other containers on the way and bring them back so that they can be loaded on to the ship again. It is a question of speeding up the whole process.

I do not think there is much more that I can say at this stage. I think we have always acted within the framework of the Act. However, there is something I should like to explain to the hon. member. He has asked why we are introducing this legislation. I explained last Wednesday, during the Second Reading debate, that we are introducing this legislation to put this matter beyond all doubt. The hon. member spoke of lawsuits. Other people are also talking about lawsuits. We want control over the stacking areas and we want legal protection to exercise control there. Therefore we are coming to Parliament to receive that protection.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 22.

House Resumed:

Progress reported and leave granted to sit again.