Mr. Speaker, today preference will be given to Orders of the Day Nos. 1, 2, 4 and 3, in that order. When these Orders of the Day have been disposed of, preference will be given on Monday to Orders of the Day Nos. 5 and 12. For the rest of the week preference will be given to Orders of the Day Nos. 6, 7, 9 and 10, and possibly No. 8 as well. If it is not possible to deal with it next week, it will be dealt with the week after that. I have to point out that the hon. the Minister of Justice will not be here on Monday. Therefore, if his legislation is not disposed of today, he will not be able to deal with it on Monday.

QUESTIONS (see “QUESTIONS AND REPLIES”).

Mr. Chairman, during his budget speech the hon. the Minister referred to the role of the Post Office in helping to establish a comprehensive infrastructure and performing essential public services. We on these benches maintain, and the hon. the Minister himself concedes, that this factor is dependent in the main on staff and equipment. There has been frequent reference to the wastage and loss of technical and semi-technical staff, something which is a matter for grave concern. I would like to suggest to the hon. the Minister that there is a possible means of solving this by making greater use of the labour of our Coloured people in South Africa in general and in Natal in particular. I would like to refer the hon. the Minister to an editorial which appeared in The Natal Mercury of 24 December 1975 in which the claim was made that hundreds of young Coloured people were unable to obtain employment and were driven to crime and vice in order to find some means of existing. In this particular editorial a further claim was made which indicated that hundreds of young Coloured students holding junior and senior certificates had very bleak prospects of obtaining employment. Therefore, I would like to suggest to the hon. the Minister that this is possibly a source of employment for people who can be trained.

The hon. the Minister referred to the question of bursaries. I would like the hon. the Minister to indicate in his reply to the Committee Stage whether the bursaries awarded by his department are available to all race groups.

Then, I should like to deal with telephone and postal services as they affect Jan Burger or Jane Citizen. I want to submit to the Committee that the ordinary citizens of South Africa derive very little personal benefit from the many technological developments which have been planned and which are being put into effect. In this regard I refer to increased telex facilities and to the increased efficiency of overseas calls. We on this side of the House believe they are necessary in the interests of commerce and industry. They are also in the economic interest of South Africa in the international sphere, but they do little to alleviate and placate the ordinary everyday users of telephones in South Africa. Reference has been made to the backlog and I believe the Committee has been made aware of the efforts that have been made to overcome the backlog. There is an improvement, but I want to associate myself with the appeal of my hon. colleague from Umhlanga when he urged that the hon. the Minister could possibly pay greater attention to extending the sundowner service which has been instituted for the use of residential people after normal business hours. I believe it would go some way in solving the problem.

We also have to consider very seriously the delays which are taking place in the telephone service. We know, and the hon. the Minister has conceded, that these delays are due to overloaded services and, in many cases, in the large cities, to obsolete equipment. The hon. member for Durban Point has referred to this in so far as it affects the business sector. I am at this moment concerned with the effect it is having on the private users of the telephone system. I believe that insufficient staff and inadequate facilities on essential services provided by the telephone department, are a cause of this growing frustration.

I want to associate myself with the remarks by speakers on both sides of the House when they pay tribute to the loyalty and—as I have always experienced—the courtesy of the members of the staff of the telephone department. However, for the ordinary user of the telephone services, who has to use the three or four digit numbers in respect of service requirements, inquiries concerning numbers not in the telephone book, trunk inquiries, faults and complaints, the delay is causing great frustration. In many instances the delay in the use of any of these numbers exceeds five minutes. I have been told on good authority that the average delay is approximately two minutes. That may be so when the subscriber is able to get through to the number he wants, because so often, due to the insufficient number of telephone lines, the subscriber strikes the engaged tone time and time again. Once the subscriber has obtained the ringing tone, the instruction is not to hang up but to take one’s place in the queue, because eventually one’s call will be answered. This means a long delay and I can tell this Committee that the delay in raising these particular four-digit service numbers after normal business hours is chronic. I believe that the hon. Minister can help the subscribers in this if he provides more staff and allocates more extension lines to what are in effect essential services for the public of South Africa.

There is another problem which seems to cause confusion and that is in regard to the tones which indicate either “engaged” or “unobtainable”. They seem to vary from exchange to exchange and they create a great deal of confusion in the minds of the users of the telephones. There is yet another aspect, and that is in regard to number changes. I realize that the department takes every step, when numbers are changed, to notify subscribers, but there are occasions when subscribers still use the old number. In many instances, on dialling that number, the indication given is that the telephone is ringing, or else that the line is engaged, whereas, if it has been disconnected, that particular subscriber cannot be reached on that line. A lot of inconvenience could be avoided if steps were taken to provide some sort of automatic notification such as has been employed, with good effect, in the Cape Town area where the additional “2” digit has been added to many of the central town numbers. It is of great benefit to subscribers to be reminded by a recorded voice that it is necessary to dial an additional “2”.

These difficulties only the department itself can remedy, but I believe that there is one case where telephone users themselves can assist in eliminating the telephone user neurosis which is prevalent at the present time. I refer to a case where users are at fault. Frequently, when using the telephone for the specific purpose of contacting a specific individual who may not be available at that number, the caller then wishes to leave a message. What is the result? When the inquiry is made, he is told to hold on while the person gets a pencil. I believe that this happens thousands of times a day in the cities and towns of South Africa. If, for instance, in a large city it happens 1 000 times that somebody goes off to get a pencil to take a message, the average delay caused could be, on the basis of a minute in each instance, 1 000 minutes. This means 1 000 minutes which are wasted and this adds up to nearly 16 hours a day when the overloaded telephone system is being used unproductively because members of the public and users of telephones do not take the simple precaution of having a pencil near their telephone. I believe that is where the Government could help to alleviate the strain on the telephone services, where it could initiate a campaign to educate the public. That is all it can do. However, if every telephone directory issued had a sticker reminding people to keep a pencil near their telephone, I believe that would be one way of overcoming this problem. Campaigns have been initiated for other objects. I can recollect the full-page spreads that appeared daily when the telephone department wished to advise the public that telephone directories had been split up into different volumes and that the yellow pages were now separate from the directory. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Berea will pardon me if I do not respond to his speech immediately. I intend referring to his speech at a later stage, but I first want to deal briefly with the staff matters of the Post Office. I believe that the staff of any business enterprise, such as that of any Government department or other organization—particularly the Managing Director, members of the board of directors and executives—are the most important asset of such organization. In the case of the Post Office it is the Postmaster-General and his four deputies and all the other members of the top management, as is set out in this splendid report of the Postmaster-General. The efficiency of the Post Office depends entirely on the said top management. The attitude of the management towards their staff, and the influence they exercise on their staff, is a decisive factor as far as the success is concerned which is achieved by an organization such as the Post Office. For that reason we notice that thousands of workers in the Post Office have worked thousands of extra hours on a voluntary basis. With a full-time staff of 65 833 the Post Office is one of the major employers in South Africa. During the past year the staff showed an increase of 4%, while revenue increased by 15%. This in itself is a remarkable achievement. The Post Office employs no fewer than 1 600 part-time workers, a considerable percentage of whom are married women. Female labour generally became so important during the past few years that the Post Office is hardly able to do without them any longer. At the moment 15 000 women are being employed, and they are fulfilling a worthy task in all spheres of the Post Office, even in the technical field. The increasing number of women joining the Post Office, is possibly a direct result of the fact that the principle of equal pay for equal work has been applying in the Post Office for many years now.

In these times of inflation, when every person finds it difficult to cope with the problem of stagnant income, the Post Office is creating a welcome opportunity for relief in that people are able to supplement their income by means of part-time work. I want to ask that the top management should investigate the possibility, particularly in the major centres, to create more employment opportunities for part-time workers. I am sure there are thousands of people in the major centres who should like to earn something extra in their spare time. After all, it should be possible for a person to deliver mail in multi-storeyed buildings in his spare time. The task of the full time postman could be considerably alleviated if this could be done. There are also other tasks which could be fulfilled on a part-time basis—after hours, after 5 o’clock in the afternoon. But as important as is the part played by White women in the Post Office, as indispensable has non-White labour in the Post Office become. The 24 000 non-Whites already constitute 37% of the total number of full-time staff. What is particularly gratifying, is that non-Whites are now also being trained as technicians and electricians, and for that reason non-Whites have to be trained to an increasing extent and in increasing numbers. Sir, one does not always bear this in mind, but when the Transkei becomes independent in October this year, the Transkei will inherit a postal service and a telecommunications network which have to be staffed and maintained by its own people. The top management and secretariat have to be of the highest quality and this can only be achieved in terms of the policy of the National Party, the policy of separate development, which makes it possible for justice to be done to the Black man in his own sphere and among his own people. Nowhere else would the Black man have been afforded this opportunity to develop and to be trained, for example, to become a postmaster-general in the Transkei or even a postmaster in Umtata. But I want to deal with the hon. member for Berea now. I agree with him when he pleads for increased utilization of non-White labour in the Post Office and for increased training facilities to be made available to non-Whites. I agree with him wholeheartedly. On the other hand, another spectre was conjured up here yesterday when the hon. the Minister announced that a member of the Opposition had raised objections; he did not only raise objections; he was the leader of a deputation to the Minister to object to certain posts which were allegedly being occupied by non-Whites in the Peddie Post Office. Sir, why are hon. members keeping so quiet now? Was it the hon. member for Albany?

Which member of the United Party was it?

May I ask the hon. member for Berea whether he agrees with that? If something of this nature were to happen in his constituency, would he also lead a deputation to the Minister to object? [Interjections.] Sir, the mere fact that the hon. member for Durban Point wants to put a question to me, proves how panic-stricken they are.

Surely, it concerns the question whether or not it is a satisfactory service.

Oh, I thought it was you who objected.

No, that was not my business.

Sir, this double-talk on the part of the United Party reminds one of the attitude of the hon. the Leader of the Progressive Party in connection with the using of the swimming bath in Sea Point by non-Whites. And what did the hon. member for Pinelands do? He raised objections here because the Bantu were walking through the White residential area of Pinelands to their own residential area in Langa. And what did the former member for Wynberg do? Can you remember, Sir? She complained here because there was no apartheid in the subway in Wynberg. Sir, where do we stand with this Opposition? What is their role in South Africa? Is there yet another role for them to fulfil in South Africa? No, Sir, I want to tell you that South Africa can no longer afford this double-talk and this division in the ranks of the United Party.

They are two-faced.

They are not even three-faced. The whole lot of them, the whole caboodle, are a lot of foxes.

Order! Did the hon. member say that the hon. members here were foxes?

I did not refer to a specific member, Sir. I said that the whole caboodle were foxes.

The hon. member must withdraw it.

I withdraw it. The whole caboodle are not foxes.

The hon. member must withdraw it unconditionally.

I withdraw it unconditionally, Sir. [Time expired.]

Sir, I say that the hon. member was trifling with the Chair.

May I ask the hon. member a question? May I ask the hon. member whether he led the deputation to the Minister to complain about the appointment of non-Whites in the post office at Peddie, because it is in his constituency, not so?

That question is not time off my speech. I have not started talking yet, so do not waste my time which is very limited. I want to deal with the hon. member who has just sat down. He referred to the incident at Peddie. He ought to know, and the Minister certainly knows, that the member concerned arranged for a delegation to see the Minister at the request of the Agricultural Union and the mayor of Peddie, representing the municipality. He did it in the course of his duty as a member of Parliament, to arrange for his people to meet the Minister. [Interjections.] At their request he put a question on the Question Paper. That was answered by the Minister and after getting a reply from the Minister he asked for permission to lead a deputation to the Minister. The Minister knows that very well. [Interjections.]

May I put a question?

No, my time is limited. [Interjections.] Sir, this is probably the last time I will be able to raise the question of the Transkei under the Vote of this Minister, or his budget, because by the time the next budget is introduced the Transkei will have become an independent State. I want to deal with the conditions pertaining to the postal services and the telephone services in the Transkei, which was referred to by the hon. member who has just sat down. I want to make it quite clear that in my criticism I am not saying that the Blacks should not be allowed to take over the Post Office and render the services there. My complaint is that they have not had any adequate training for the job. I could give hon. members examples of inefficiency, almost unbelievable examples. They will find it very amusing, but I can assure them that it is not amusing for the people who have had experience of it. The complaint in the Transkei is that the White officials, who are very dedicated and diligent in performing their tasks in training these people, have tried to do too much too quickly. The telephone service is in a chaotic state. The postal service is bad, but the telephone service is infinitely worse. Although the postal service also is bad it is not as frustrating as the telephone service, because you do not have to sit for hours with your blood pressure rising, waiting for a call to come through. I can give an example of what happened to me in Umtata when I wanted to phone Cape Town. I had to send a telegram to the Cape Town office asking them to phone me in Umtata, because I could not raise the exchange. And this is a common experience. The Minister asked what could be done about it. He must do what the Railways did. The Railways found that a chaotic situation resulted when they replaced, also too quickly, Whites with Blacks. They had to bring back 20 White families to Umtata to relieve the situation. I suggest that this Minister should do the same; he must see that the transfer is not taking place too quickly.

I want to make another appeal to him also. I have over the years appealed for an allowance to be paid to the White officials in the Transkei. They, Sir, are discriminated against in that they do not get the allowances paid to the civil servants who are seconded to the Transkei Government. These White officials who are still in the Transkei do not have a pleasant task in trying to train these people. They have to face the criticism of the general public, because they are held responsible. The position is that unless they train these people properly, there is going to be race tension because of the frustrations of the general public in getting satisfaction from the postal service.

After independence the White officials will no doubt be paid allowances because then they will be working for a foreign Government, but I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister to see that these people are properly compensated now, before independence. Give them the allowances the other officials are getting, because I can assure him that the conditions under which they are working there now are not pleasant, and they will tell the hon. the Minister so themselves. If he wants to create better feeling between the race groups in the Transkei, the Post Office will have to play an important part in seeing that race tensions do not increase and that proper services are furnished to all sections of the community in order to avoid frustration. I had a message from a businessman in Cape Town the other day stating that he could not get through to a businessman in Butterworth. He was eventually assured by the man in Butterworth that he was thinking of moving his industry to East London because of the frustration he was suffering in that area. I appeal to the hon. the Minister to do something about it.

Mr. Chairman, I should very much have liked to discuss love and the postal services this afternoon. But it is a fact that the hon. member who has just resumed his seat and other hon. members on that side of the House, reacted in a rather strange manner to the speech made by the hon. member for Kimberley South. I am referring to the Peddie case now. I must say that to me, as a Nationalist and as a South African who believes in the policy of the National Party, it is a pleasure to be able to participate in a debate on such a pleasant budget as that of the Post Office. Hon. members on that side of the House had a great deal to say about the training and employment of non-Whites. But then they came along with the Peddie story and claimed “the right to know”. Surely, we also have the right to know certain things. I said that I find it a pleasure to take part in a debate like this, because I belong to a pleasant party with a pleasant policy. What I want to know from those hon. members, is whether the hon. member concerned told the deputation what his feelings on the matter were. Did he tell them what the policy of his party was as far as that matter was concerned?

They were all United Party members!

However, there are some more things we want to know. I know that hon. member is hiding behind the Agricultural Union now, but I gained the impression that the members of that deputation were members of that party. We want to know those things. The voters want to know whether that hon. member told the deputation what his policy and his standpoint really were. After all, the members of that Agricultural Union are also members of the United Party. How did he explain the matter to them? No, it will take a long time before we will have finished with this matter. Many answers will have to be furnished to us in this House and to the general public, including the non-Whites.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. member whether, if members of his constituency had approached him to lead a delegation to the Minister, he would have agreed or would he have refused to take them?

Whether I would have replied “yes” or “no” would, of course, have depended upon the specific case, but in every case where I was approached by people, whether it was to lead a deputation or whether it was merely about telephone problems, I had always told them honestly and frankly what the policy of my party was. I also told them honestly and frankly what my standpoint was. We want to know whether that hon. member did the same. We also want to know to which party the members of that deputation belonged. We want clarity; not double-talk. This Opposition very much reminds me of pain. In the old days doctors used to relieve people of pain by inflicting a worse pain upon them. For example, if a person was suffering from toothache and the doctor was unable to extract the tooth, he used to bum the person with a hot iron. When the person was no longer aware of the toothache, the doctor could quickly extract the tooth. I can concede on one point to the United Party double-talk: they are as bad as a toothache; although they are deeply conscious of the pain, the Opposition is suffering from a more burning pain, i.e. the Progressive Party. I said that it is pleasant for me to participate in this debate, and for that reason I find it very difficult to understand how one can drag into this debate on this Bill, as the Progressive Party is doing, the trash literature written by André Brink merely to be able to say something. This can only be compared with the pain caused by the branding iron.

I said I really wanted to speak about love and the postal services. In contrast with the United Party and the Progressive Party I enjoy participating in this debate. I also find it pleasant to compare our position with that in other countries.

†To prove my point I wish to refer to an article from this week’s issue of the magazine Time. The hon. the Minister also referred to this. There is mention here of the possibility of an outright financial collapse within a year and a half in the United States. I quote— One of the bleakest assessments yet of the service’s future is contained in a speech this week by Postmaster-General, Benjamin F. Bailar, before the economic club of Detroit.

Time then goes on to state the following—

Further on it is stated—

That is the position in a developed country like America, in sharp contrast with the position in our country.

*Our Minister describes this Budget as an interesting one consisting for the most part of positive features. Our Postmaster-General does not look pale and is not despondent like the American Postmaster-General. He is grinning from ear to ear and has a healthy bloom to his cheeks which are characteristic of the healthy condition of the Post Office economy. Therefore, one gets quite annoyed when one has to listen to the sickening story from the sickening Opposition benches of the so-called sick economy of this country. This is definitely not pleasant.

Refute the facts.

The “facts” have been refuted here for the past three days. If hon. members cannot even decide whether they want non-Whites employed, how can they decide on complicated aspects such as economic matters? I said I wanted to talk about love, and I am afraid that if I do not make haste I am not going to be able to deal with it. The hon. member for Sunnyside, in a very positive speech, pointed out certain aspects yesterday. He indicated in which way the Post Office and the Government were trying to reduce the inevitable losses incurred on postal services. He referred, among other things, to mechanization and the self-service post office. However, in the short time at my disposal I want to indicate what all of us can do to reduce those losses. This is where love comes into the picture. We must love our people and write to them. However, we must also love our country and do certain things to reduce the losses. We must indicate the postal codes on all letters, and I emphasize “all letters”. I just want to ask again in passing whether it is not possible to incorporate the postal codes in the telephone directory. This would be very useful for obvious reasons. Furthermore, we must also use standard size envelopes. I am referring now to the standard size of at least 90 mm × 140 mm and a maximum of 120 mm × 235 mm. By the way, I think there are very few members in this House who know what 90 mm × 140 mm really means. With all respect, if we say in plain language that it is slightly bigger than 3½ in. × 5½ in. to 4¾ in. × 9¼ in., every member of the public, and we as well, will know what it means. I have here a whole series of envelopes of Parliament itself. It is interesting to notice that some of them are too small by about a millimetre and will therefore also have to receive attention.

I must conclude, because the Peddie case unfortunately took up too much of my time. I say that we should keep our declarations of love within 50 grammes and also within 5 mm, i.e. approximately three-sixteenths of an inch. The only thing in the Post Office budget I do not like is this aspect of “everything by air”. It reminds me so much of the United Party. I also say that we should avoid putting articles in envelopes which are not permissible. I am not referring to revolvers now, as the hon. the Minister has done; I am referring to pins and the ordinary staples produced mainly by machinery which costs millions of rands. Finally, I am referring to advertisements containing phosphate and which are pasted on to letters. If we do this kind of thing the machines are unable, in most cases, to do the necessary “reading” work. I say this is a task we should be able to perform quite easily, but it will be a major asset as far as the Post Office is concerned because if we do this, we shall really make the millions of rands spent on automation worth their while.

Mr. Chairman, the second half of the speech of the hon. member for Krugersdorp will, I am sure, receive the attention of the hon. the Minister. The first half of his speech was largely vitriol and contained very little in the way of hard facts and therefore I do not wish to react to it at all, except to say that the matter raised by the hon. colleague relating to the parcel sent by André Brink will be dealt with later by my colleague. [Interjections.]

I should, however, like to comment on the first part of the speech of the hon. member for Kimberley South. I want to join forces with him in paying tribute, particularly on behalf of the people of my area in the fast expanding Witwatersrand, to the staff of the Post Office. I personally, and people who have contacted me, have received nothing but courtesy from the Post Office in all the services rendered in the community. We in Sandton and in that part of the world appreciate the work done by the Post Office and its staff. We should like the hon. the Minister to know that we are appreciative of the services rendered.

When one reads the report of the department and when one listens to the various speakers throughout the debate and even to the words of the hon. the Minister, it becomes clear that the major problem which seems to face us as members of Parliament and representatives of the people of our constituencies is this enormous backlog of uninstalled telephones which we experience in our constituencies. Just about every member of Parliament will, I am certain, admit that at least 50% of his correspondence with his constituents relates to telephones, the installation of telephones or the maintenance of telephones. [Interjections.] If that is not the case in the platteland—I do not wish to argue the matter—I wish to say that in so far as urban areas and particularly expanding areas are concerned, this sort of correspondence from people receives a tremendous amount of attention from members of Parliament. My area is probably one of the worst hit areas in so far as this backlog is concerned. In fact, the backlog in the area surrounding my constituency totals something like 10% of the entire backlog in South Africa. In a fast developing urban and sophisticated community such as that of Bryanston and Sandton, the backlog was 3 487 at the end of 1975. The backlog in my constituency and its surrounding area was more than the entire telephone population of many small towns in South Africa. Certainly my constituents are champing at the bit. I know that the department is doing all that it can to alleviate the situation and to keep up with one of South Africa’s fastest growing communities. I have nothing but praise for its efforts. People are asked to wait anything from two months to two years for their service. The stated reasons which over many months were given to me for these delays, relate to the congestion of the exchanges, the pending cable work, the constant shortage of sophisticated equipment and staff shortages, particularly of skilled technicians, all of which we are told are matters which are being tackled very vigorously.

However, the question which I want to ask is not so much directed to the department as to the hon. the Minister. I want to know whether the policy of the Executive is keeping up with the department in its efforts to eliminate this backlog. Let us look at one particular key aspect. When buying, renting or occupying a property which already has a telephone, the practice is that the existing telephone is removed and the new occupier has to make a fresh application for a new telephone. This general rule leads to many irregular actions and many malpractices. For instance, rather than wait the standard two months or two years, many otherwise law-abiding citizens, upright citizens, resort to the ploy of not notifying the authorities of their change of address and of paying their accounts in the name of the previous occupier or registered holder. This can go on for years. I know of several cases where subscribers long dead and buried are guaranteed immortality at least in the pages of the telephone directory by having their names listed yearly and for ever.

You will not find that in a working-class area.

Mr. Chairman, if I could remark on that interjection by the hon. member for Umlazi, I would say that this is found throughout South Africa and particularly in the urban areas. The names of long dead and buried people are listed yearly and for ever in the telephone directory while the people who are using the telephones, rather than lose telephonic contact with civilization, choose to suffer perpetual anonymity in the annals of the South African telephone history. There are thousands of ghosts listed in every telephone directory in South Africa, including the yellow pages. This is not a healthy state of affairs. Surely telephones, like fitted carpets, like a stove or a bath in a house, should be fixtures in any modem home. The practice should be amended so that new owners or lessees could have the existing instruments transferred to them with the authority of the previous users. The advantages of such a system would be numerous. There would be a reduction in paperwork, an elimination of technicians’ time required to disconnect instruments, an elimination of technicians’ time required to reconnect and/or to do rewiring and a reduction in the considerable time wasted by the Post Office and by the public in trying to trace subscribers who are known to have telephones but whose names do not appear in the telephone directory.

What is the end result of this? Greater productivity of existing manpower in installation work and in maintaining the existing service. Finally it would strike a blow against inflation by cutting down on expensive and unnecessary extra work. I know that this suggestion is not without problems. I also know that in some instances transfers are already being arranged in this manner. Initially this method—this is a disadvantage—will change the order of precedence on the waiting-lists and I realize that in the initial stages there will be some dissatisfied people. However, as time passes and as communities are established and become more settled and properties are developed, this problem will diminish and within a short time the concept of a list of properties awaiting services rather than a list of individuals awaiting services will take root. I believe that in the end this system will greatly speed up a more efficient service for all. I commend it to the consideration of the hon. the Minister.

I see that I have about 90 seconds left and there is one other point which I should like to raise. I refer to the fragility of the equipment which appears to be used by the Post Office. I am no technician and certainly no expert in the matter, but I want to say that in my area whenever there is the slightest rain, whenever the weather is inclement, whenever there are high winds of any sort, we find a tremendous effect on the telephone service and we find that invariably we have to have repairmen called from all over the constituency. I wonder if something cannot be done to ensure that the services that are installed are better proofed against the weather and the winds that occur from time to time. I find that as soon as there is rain, sure as nuts, one’s telephone service is off for a day, a week or perhaps even two or three weeks while the department tries to repair the line. I wonder if the hon. the Minister can tell us why we install equipment that is so easily affected by the weather and what can be done about this stage of affairs.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Durban Point raised quite a number of matters in his speech yesterday to which I should like to reply at this stage. He pointed out quite correctly that the telephone services are in fact responsible for almost 77% of the revenue of the Post Office. He used this as an argument to submit that I was wrong in my argument when I said that he was obsessed by a single aspect, and a minor aspect at that, and that he was ignoring all the other greater achievements of the Post Office. I just want to remind him that what he, as well as his colleagues, actually did was to concentrate consistently on two aspects, i.e. an unsatisfactory telephone service and the costs of telephone calls. Arising out of that I consider it completely justified—in particular, too, if I take into consideration the exaggeration which accompanied not only his statement, but also those of his colleagues—to say that they concentrated on a very minor component of a far greater whole and that, if one retains one’s perspective the picture is by no means as sombre as he painted it. I can understand that it could, for a person who wants to make a call and who struggles to get through, be a great problem at that moment and could even, as some hon. members said, lead to frustration. But to say that this proves that the Post Office service is in a chaotic condition, as the hon. member for Griqualand East alleged, is really an exaggeration. If the hon. member understands this explanation of mine, he shall see why I made the statement I made.

I want to tell the hon. member that as far as the telephone accounts are concerned, the counting of call units—he objected to that—he raised in that way a problem which I should perhaps bring to the attention of all telephone subscribers in South Africa with emphasis. There are still too many people in South Africa who, when they make a call, think that having done so they can simply speak for three minutes or five minutes and that it does not cost too much. In the case of automatic exchanges the call units are counted by an apparatus. I want to make the hon. member an offer: If he has a complaint in regard to his personal accounts, I am prepared to have his telephone monitored by the Post Office. We shall then, at the end of a month, provide him with a full statement of every call that was made, which will include the number to which it was made, and the duration of the call. Perhaps he will then view the matter in a different light. I do not want to suggest that he is always close to his telephone and uses up all that time he complained about himself. However, we must take into consideration that there may be many people who have access to a person’s telephone and readily make use of it while the subscriber, the person who has to pay the account, is not even aware of it. I want to mention such a case here. It is not a case which I have snatched out of thin air. A certain person addressed serious complaints to the Post Office about his telephone account that had risen astronomically. We monitored his telephone in this way, and the upshot was that he discovered that his wife had developed an interest in a man in a neighbouring town and that, when the subscriber went to his office in the morning, his wife and the person in whom she was interested, spent hours engaged in a telephone conversation. Her husband then had to pay the account. This is not an insinuation against Mrs. Raw now! I am simply saying that there may be other persons who make use of a subscriber’s telephone without his being aware of it. We cannot simply blame the Post Office for it.

The hon. member said that I had not replied to his complaint about the telephone service. In my speech I enumerated a series of measures which we have already applied or which we are in the process of applying to afford alleviation in this regard. I told the hon. member that we are expanding existing exchanges where it is possible to do so. We have been doing this consistently all these years. In addition we are building new exchanges. As expansion takes place, we build new exchanges. We are introducing automation, and we are modernizing. Hon. members must understand that a telephone exchange, and particularly an automatic exchange, is not something one can simply pull out of a hat, or pay for with your loose change. It is something which requires extended planning, and which costs a great deal of money. Therefore the process is by its very nature a slow process. However, we have made wonderful progress in this respect. Development is constantly taking place in all kinds of spheres. The hon. member for Sandton has just been referring to his area. I am pleased that he is grateful for what is being done there. The entire northern area of Johannesburg has expanded very rapidly, however. The people living there are wealthy people. Most of them live on large stands. In addition, there are many flats there. I want to tell the hon. member for Sandton that I know that area well. I know it just as well as he does, because I am also a Johannian. There are fewer flats in his constituency than there are in Hillbrow or Sunnyside in Pretoria, for example. There is no comparison between the two areas. In his neighbourhood there are people who live on sites covering many hectares of land and if a telephone service had to be introduced for them, one would require many kilometres of cable to be able to do so. I am not trying to disparage it; I only want to point out that this development entails heavy costs, and that we are making wonderful progress with them.

The major achievements of the Post Office in recent times—these are also mentioned in the Annual Report—are that it has expanded the capacity of the entire telephone network to a tremendous extent. I have mentioned that in one year 160 000 additional lines were made available. This is no mean achievement if one considers all the problems. The hon. member should accept this as part of my reply to the complaint he presented.

I want to mention another point, and with that I want to leave this aspect. I am referring to the question of preventive maintenance which for many years the Post Office was not in a position to do, i.e. to carry out preventive maintenance work on the cable leads in the dry season, in order to take precautions against the day when the rains came and there were floods. The figures I mentioned in this regard, the percentage elimination of faults, proved the wisdom of working along those lines. I think that the hon. member ought to show some appreciation for this.

I want to raise another matter which the hon. member mentioned. He referred to the surcharges which hotels place on calls. I want to tell him that I do not know where I stand with him as far as this matter is concerned. I know where I stand with the hon. member for Parktown: he wants drastic action; he wants such drastic action that I had to tell him yesterday that I could not promise that I would be prepared to take such drastic steps as he seemed to have in mind. However, I do not know where I stand with the hon. member for Durban Point. On the one hand he complained about it—when we replied to the question the other day, there was a reasonable measure of assent on his part—but on the other hand he has now stated the standpoint of the hotels here.

No, I stated the arguments from both sides and asked: Whom should I believe now?

That is precisely what I mean.

Whom should one believe now?

What I mean is that he also stated the standpoint of the hotels. His standpoint is therefore a “Yes, but” standpoint. What it amounts to is that one should take action, but … I want to inform the hon. member that I also received a copy of the letter which he received from the hotel. The hotel which wrote to him and to me, as well as to other parties, has a service charge of 33⅓% on telephone calls. I have before me documents in regard to the hotel itself. Is the hon. member in favour of my taking drastic action against the hotels if I do not get their co-operation in this regard?

Yes.

At least we know where we stand now. We have had many negotiations with Fedhasa, and the question of what we should do has never been cleared up. However, I should like to know what the standpoint of the hon. member is. He can state his standpoint at a later stage, because he has another turn to speak.

No, I do not.

Does the hon. member not have another turn to speak?

Mr. Chairman, may I repeat the question which I put to the hon. the Minister in the Committee Stage speech? Are the hotels wrong when they say that they do not cover the costs they have to pay the Post Office?

Mr. Chairman, these people do not pay the Post Office anything. What is involved is the installation of private automatic branch exchanges which they are able to purchase from any company supplying this kind of equipment. They do not purchase or lease it from the Post Office. Obviously they have to pay the Post Office for the connections.

And the extensions?

The extensions of such a branch exchange in an hotel are related to the hotel’s internal use. There are lines to all the rooms in the hotel. That is why this matter does not directly involve the Post Office. What I am concerned with, however, is action against abuses when guests are exploited. I am grateful to know that I have the support of the hon. member in this matter. It seems to me as though we will simply have to consider the installation of a branch exchange to be part of the capital expenditure which the person running the hotel or having the hotel built will have to accept. I do not know whether the hon. member agrees with me on this score, that a branch exchange which is installed for the internal use of the owner and his hotel guests should really form part of his capital expenditure, but he should accept responsibility for it and that he should pay interest and redemption on it in the same way as in the case of television sets and radios which he places at the disposal of his guests. I do not know what the standpoint of the hon. member in this regard is, but if he wants to support me in this respect, it would help us considerably.

Certainly.

The hon. member says “Certainly”. I am grateful that we have the support of the entire House as far as this matter is concerned.

I want to expose this type of exploitation by way of an example. This morning I happened to find the letter which I have in my hand, on my desk. It is a letter which I received from a company director in England. This person recently visited South Africa. The account which he received for a telephone conversation lasting four minutes was so exorbitant that he wrote to the hotel owner and mentioned in his letter that he was going to take the matter up with the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications. I want to quote this letter to hon. members without mentioning any names. Hon. members will then understand how justified we are in taking action. This person wrote from England—

The writer then mentioned the name of the hotel. However, I shall not mention its name. He went on to say—

Now hon. members should listen to this—

He continued—

I shall not mention the name of the hotel. The writer continued—and this where South Africa becomes involved. We are trying to attract tourists to South Africa. We welcome them here and would like to give them good service. The concluding paragraph of the letter reads as follows—

The writer then mentioned the name of the series of hotels concerned again, and continued—

What are you going to do about it?

I said that the matter was under consideration and that I was going to take action. Now that I know I have the support of the United Party as well as the Progressive Reform Party, you can be certain that I shall take action. We cannot allow South Africa to be placed in an unfavourable light by actions of this kind, and people visiting South Africa to be exploited in such a disgraceful manner.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. the Minister whether he has any powers at present to take action against such malpractices?

Mr. Chairman, the necessary powers do exist, and we are able to take action. Section 78 of the Post Office Act authorizes the Minister to take action in such cases.

The hon. member for Durban Point also discussed territorial allowances. The hon. member for Griqualand East also referred to this. As the hon. member knows, we have a territorial allowance for Post Office staff in South West Africa and on the Witwatersrand. As far as South West Africa is concerned, our scales are the same as those of the Public Service.

They are not.

As far as the Transkei is concerned, the position is completely different. In terms of a Cabinet resolution, officials who are in the employ of the Transkeian Government, receive a different allowance. Other officials, for example teachers who are in the employ of the Cape Provincial Administration, do not receive the allowance.

They did receive it.

They did receive it, but the Cabinet discontinued the payment of the allowance to these officials a long time ago because they are not in the employ of the Transkeian Government. The hon. member also referred to entry fees.

My plea is that the hon. the Minister should now give them this allowance, for they are working under circumstances which are not very pleasant.

They will not receive the allowance as long as they are in the employ of the Department of Posts and Telecommunications of the Republic of South Africa.

And if they are seconded to go to those areas?

That is a different matter.

The hon. member also referred to installation fees, transfer fees, and so on. The hon. member for Sandton had certain suggestions to make in this regard. If I understood the hon. member for Sandton correctly, he was in favour of a telephone which has been installed in a flat or in a house, remaining there for the use of any future lessee or owner. I do not know whether the hon. member made allowance for the fact that if one does this, it means that such people receive preference over other people who applied for a telephone months ago and whose names are still on the waiting list. Then one will have the problem that a person living in a certain place will say: “This person who moved in last week, is getting a telephone, but my name has been on the waiting list for six months already. Why am I not receiving preferential consideration? If there is a telephone available, surely I should get it.”

I am aware of that argument.

The hon. member says that he is aware of it. The difference between him and me is although we are both aware of it he does not have to assume responsibility for that decision; and I do. The hon. member for Durban Point asked why the full costs had to be paid if a telephone simply had to be supplied to a house in which the connection point had already been installed. The hon.member is not taking into consideration that the Post Office has to send out an electrician with a vehicle to take the equipment there, install it and test it, for if the service is not good, the Post Office gets the blame for it. The time spent on the work and the use of the vehicle are therefore items which have to be taken into consideration. It is for this that the tariff is charged. I have a list of all these tariffs at hand. I do not want to occupy the time of this Committee with it. If the hon. member is interested I could let him have it.

The hon. member also referred to entries. The other day I replied to a question in this regard in the House—a certain person had a telephone entry in the telephone directory. He died, and his wife then wanted that entry in her name. What is the tariff for that change? We charge R10 for such a change. The hon. member must take into consideration that the process which has to be gone through is precisely the same as when a new entry has to be made; the register has to be changed; the computer has to be reprogrammed and eventually, when the address book is bound, it has to be changed there as well. This is a service which is being rendered, and it is obvious that the Post Office charges a fee for it.

I am also mentioning the question of concessionary rental which was raised by the hon. member for Wynberg, and to which I unfortunately did not reply yesterday. I want to tell the hon. member that as Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions I have a great deal of sympathy for this idea. However, one must also be practical and realistic. If assistance is to be given to the pensioners, then it is not the function of the Post Office. The Post Office is not a welfare organization, and is not called upon to render this kind of service.

I come next to a matter which we dealt with here yesterday and which, as it seems to me, is going to haunt the United Party for a long time. This is the case of the delegation from Peddie, which came to see me. There are various hon. members here who tried to come to the assistance of the hon. member for Albany. It is entirely correct that the hon. member for Albany, as member of Parliament, arranged this interview with me. But that was not all. The hon. member for Albany also revealed his personal standpoint.

Never mind, he will reply to you.

I shall furnish the reply if the hon. member would only keep quiet and listen. In the first place the hon. member for Albany identified himself by having the question placed on the Order Paper. If he had not done so, I would not have identified him in this debate.

Secondly, he indicated his personal standpoint in respect of this matter with the supplementary question which he put to me when I replied to his question here. I replied to his question by saying that we had in fact advertised for non-Whites in the Post Office at Peddie whom we wanted to train for service in this Post Office. The hon. member then, on the spur of the moment, asked a supplementary question which amounted to whether we had not taken into consideration that there are still Whites in Peddie. What does that imply? It implies simply—whether he is an MP or an ordinary citizen of the country—that because there are still Whites in Peddie I should not employ or train non-Whites in that Post Office. In spite of that the party of that hon. member tries to make my side of the House believe that we are not prepared to train non-Whites or that the progress being made with what we are doing in this connection is too slow. I think this matter is very clear, and I shall leave it at that. But I do want to say that this matter is, I fear, going to hang around the neck of the United Party like a second albatross.

The hon. member for Bethlehem raised a very interesting point. He asked whether, when we determine the status of a post office—although we are already taking the revenue of post offices into consideration in determining whether or not they should continue to exist—we should not also take into consideration the investment which is being attracted at such a post office. I think this is a very interesting point, but I want to tell the hon. member that if we investigate this matter and find that it ought to be or could be an additional factor, he has to take into consideration that we cannot commit ourselves. Suppose, for example, a post office in the rural areas somewhere is threatened with extinction, as a result of a negligible revenue and a negligible demand for its services. Then it would, in my opinion, be unfair if the farmers in that area, for fear that the post office would be closed, were suddenly to channel, say R1 million into that post office simply in order to preserve it, and then for the next ten years make no further investments. If we have an indication that such a post office has regular investors, we could perhaps take this into consideration. In any case, we shall go into the hon. member’s suggestion.

The hon. member referred to the vulnerability of the telephone network in the rural areas. I have sympathy for his standpoint, for I know that in a border area such as the one in which he is living, it is a concern which many people may have. It is unfortunately the case that the communications of the post office consist of cables and microwave. The provision of the necessary equipment for radio communications in the rural areas is actually, in conjunction with the Post Office, a matter for the Department of Defence and the Department of Police, if circumstances should require it.

The hon. member for Kimberley South referred to the Post Office as an avenue of employment for part-time workers; he calls them spare-time workers. In this respect the hon. member is entirely correct, for we are making use of them on a large scale. As I have already said, we are employing 1 600 of them and we could probably employ even more of them if the people would come forward and offer their services. I also want to say that we are receiving good service from these people.

The hon. member for Griqualand East requested that we should not remove the Whites so rapidly from the postal service of the Transkei. He said that we should emulate the example of the Railways. I want to tell the hon. member that the Post Office has, for more than a decade already, been engaged in training the Black people for services in the Transkei, for the day when they become independent. Already 95% of the Post Office staff in the Transkei consists of Blacks. Therefore the hon. member cannot say that we have not done enough, that we should step up the pace, and that we should keep the Whites back. We prepared the way for this matter long ago. We have made good progress, and we are proud of what we have accomplished. As far as the secretariat is concerned, the people there are fully trained, and they are able to proceed with the service.

But the service is bad.

The hon. member says the service is bad. In what respect? The hon. members living in the Cape, also say that the service here is bad. I have conceded that in certain respects the service is still unsatisfactory, but why does the hon. member now wish to lay this at the door of the Black people in the Transkei who are rendering these services? Is it because they are Black people?

No, I did not say that that was the reason. You are causing trouble again. [Interjections.]

The hon. member for Berea asked whether non-Whites were also making use of the available bursaries. At this stage there are none of them as yet, for we do not have non-Whites in those professional categories, who are able to make use of such bursaries.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Albany does not have to be so hasty to “please explain”. So he need not drink so much water. The hon. member for Mooi River put a question to the hon. member for Krugersdorp about this particularly important matter, asking whether he would not lead a deputation from his constituency even though the matter was contrary to his party’s policy. I want to state my own standpoint very clearly and say that I will definitely not lead a delegation from my constituency should the matter in question be contrary to Government policy. The fact of the matter is—and let us differ on this score—that the hon. the Minister let the cat out of the bag as far as the hon. member for Albany was concerned. In the first instance, the hon. member for Albany led a UP delegation to a Minister. According to the hon. the Minister [Interjections.] … The hon. member for Albany is speaking directly after me and will therefore have his opportunity. According to the hon. the Minister, the hon. member for Albany stated his personal standpoint and it was diametrically opposed to the policy of the United Party.

I should like to come back to the hon. member for Durban Point. He and other hon. members on that side of the House criticized this budget. Right at the start I should like to congratulate the hon. the Minister on this budget and tell the hon. member for Durban Point—and here I am also returning to the standpoint of the hon. member for Albany— that he aimed an unwarranted sidelong blow at the hon. the Minister—why he did this I do not know. Yesterday the hon. member said that he was merely firing a random shot into the bush. I want to tell the hon. member that I knew that this would be a good budget.

On the one hand, I knew that it would be a good budget because the National Party was doing well in South Africa under the dynamic leadership of the hon. the Prime Minister. I knew that it would be a brilliant budget because—and the hon. member for Durban Point must listen to this—the National Party is also doing very well in Natal. I also knew that it would be a good budget because I know that the National Party is doing very well in Durban North, and this is why the hon. member is so ill at ease. As a result of these somersaults and with reference to the double talk of the hon. member for Albany, who is always in trouble, the United Party is going to be even worse off in Durban North. On the other hand I want to tell the hon. member for Durban Point that I knew that it would be a very good budget because the National Party was doing so well in the Orange Free State under the dynamic leadership of the hon. leader of the National Party in the Free State. The hon. member for Durban Point, who made snide remarks about this matter, knows, after all—or has he not yet made calculations?— how many hon. members on that side of the House represent constituencies in the Orange Free State. Has he never counted them then? I want to ask the hon. member for Durban Point if he has not yet counted how many UP Senators represent the Orange Free State in the Other Place. Has he counted how many members of the United Party there are in the Provincial Council of the Orange Free State? The National Party is therefore doing well in the Free State under the leadership of the hon. the Minister. If things are going as well with this important department, of which he is now the head, as they are going with the National Party in the Orange Free State, I foresee only fine and vast opportunities for the department in the future.

Then too, I can congratulate the hon. the Minister on the budget, because the criticism levelled at it by that side over the past few days has been extremely poor. We know that the hon. member for Durban Point can make a mountain out of a molehill when he does not have a case. He tries to blow the matter up out of all proportion. I am now going to quote the hon. member. Just listen. This is the budget of an extremely important department, namely the Department of Posts and Telecommunications. Listen carefully to what he has to say—

His fingers get sore from dialling—

These are statements made in a debate like this. I want to tell the hon. member for Durban Point that in a country as developed economically as South Africa, one must expect that there will always be bottlenecks in respect of telephones.

My time is running out and I should still like to deal briefly with the hon. member for Durban Central. I have always thought that he was a moderate member and that he would not misbehave himself like the hon. member for Durban Point. But do you know what he said yesterday? Yesterday in this debate he said— and I hold this very much against him because I did not expect it from him—that “the economy in South Africa is sick”.

Refute the facts upon which I based it.

I am going to refute them. He said that the economy of South Africa was sick. Last year it was my privilege to be a member of a parliamentary mission to the United Kingdom and I want to call the hon. member for Umbilo, who unfortunately is not present at the moment, as a witness in this connection. Wherever we went in the United Kingdom—and then I am not taking the rest of the world into account—meeting big businessmen, industrialists and economists, there was confidence in South Africa, and I believe that this is the case in the rest of the world as well. In the first instance those people tell you, and I am referring inter alia to Lord Barber, the former Minister of Finance in the Tory Cabinet and world chairman of the Standard Bank, and to Lord Hulme, world chairman of Lever Brothers, that their confidence in South Africa is based upon the fact that there is a stable Government in South Africa which has been in power in the country for the past 27 years. They go on to say that we in South Africa are fortunate because we have a Prime Minister who, although they differ from him in respect of certain aspects of his policy, enjoys the respect and regard of the rest of the Western world. They go on to say that the rate of inflation in South Africa is among the lowest in the world. Furthermore, they say that we in South Africa have no unemployment whereas the figure in England is approximately 2 million. I want to tell the hon. member for Durban Central that statements like his simply cannot do South Africa any good. I believe that the rest of the Western world because of the minerals we have in South Africa, has the greatest confidence in South Africa and in its future development. I believe that in the years ahead, as a result of the rapid development of our country, bottlenecks will obviously occur in a large and important department like the Department of Posts and Telecommunications. That is obvious, because we are not a stagnating country. However, I have the greatest confidence in our party’s leader in the Orange Free State, and in the department as well. In conclusion, I want to say what a former State President of South Africa said: This is simply a “swell” budget!

Mr. Chairman, it was not my intention to enter into the debate at all, and I am not going to pay any attention to the small fry who has just spoken and to others who have spoken. I want to deal with the hon. the Minister. [Interjections.] The hon. the Minister has deemed it fit to raise the question of the Peddie post office, which is in my constituency. He has raised the question of my leading a delegation to him in that connection. I want to point out to the hon. member for Welkom that it was not a “Sap”-delegation. It was the mayor of Peddie and the chairman of the farmers’ association. [Interjections.] Sir, the facts of the matter are these: I stand by the policy of my party as far as the employment of non-Whites in the postal service is concerned, and the hon. the Minister knows it. However, the position at Peddie was explained to the hon. the Minister, not only by myself, but also by the mayor and by the chairman of the farmers’ association. He knows that the Peddie district has been declared a released area by this Government in terms of their consolidation of the homelands policy, that the town has been zoned Black for purchase and that the Government ran out of money and could not go on with the purchases. The result is that there is immense friction—I have spoken about that in this House before—between the Blacks and Whites. There have been murders in that constituency. There have been assaults there. [Interjections.]

That is the result of their policy!

People want an efficient telephone service there, especially at night, so that they can get through to the police—the few who are there.

What an explanation!

If one wants to introduce matters of this nature in an area where there is racial friction that has reached boiling point, one is looking for trouble. That is what has happened in my constituency, and I look after the people in my constituency, whether they be Nationalists, Progressives or United Party members. [Interjections.] They all want to sleep safely at night, and part of their safety at night is the telephone exchange at Peddie. The hon. the Minister, in the interview I had with him together with the mayor and the chairman of the farmers’ association—and may I add that the Postmaster-General was also present—saw eye to eye with us straight away. That interview did not take long. He agreed that it was a situation that could cause friction. Now the hon. the Minister comes, not only to this House, but also to the hon. Other Place, and raises the question of the Peddie post office.

Knowing the facts himself!

Yes, well knowing the facts himself! These facts were explained to him by the mayor of Peddie, by myself and by the chairman of the farmers’association. Nevertheless he allows these small fry from all over the place to come here and shout about the Peddie post office and about the hon. member for Albany. [Interjections.]

Order!

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: Is the hon. member entitled to refer to another hon. member as “small fry”? [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member may proceed.

Thank you, Sir. The hon. the Minister knows that there was no objection to training a Black clerk to serve the Black people in the Peddie post office. However, the objection came as a result of inefficiency in the telephone exchange, and as it was a manual telephone exchange, it was feared that, in the present state of friction, it could cause more friction if conversations between Whites were overheard. He knows that, but he comes to this House and he raised petty politics about a place where the friction has been caused by his Government. [Interjections.] The friction was caused by his Government through their consolidation policy and their failure to purchase the necessary properties. He talks about the Peddie post office hanging around our necks as an albatross. I say that consolidation will hang around the neck of the Nationalist Party until it rots. [Interjections.]

Order!

That is their albatross. [Interjections.]

Order! Hon. members must please give the hon. member for Albany a fair chance to make his speech.

The hon. the Minister knows what the circumstances are, and I believe that he has made himself very small and that he has denigrated his post by trying to play petty politics with a matter that is so delicate in the minds of the people of Peddie. I believe, Sir, that we should train Black people to work in post offices, but I believe one should select the areas. One does not go to a small town where there is friction and try to foist things upon it. This is very similar to the busing incidents in America. This is similar to forced integration. That is not our policy; we believe in training those people and bringing them into the service, wherever it can be done and wherever it is possible to do so, but we do not want the Government to create a point of friction and to force this down the throats of people who are already so tense through the Government’s policy that they do not know what is happening.

Mr. Speaker, I find it very interesting that when the hon. member for Durban Point spoke after the hon. the Minister had presented his budget, he made such a fuss about a random shot he supposedly fired into the bush, but after that he himself set up quite a howl. But what is even more interesting is that, when I listen to the hon. member for Albany, the big difference between the small fishes and the big fish he appropriates for himself is only the mouth and himself … [Interjections.] I find it very strange that the Opposition should be floundering about to such an extent now that the word “Peddie” has been brought up. It is very clear that over the years it has been the policy of the Opposition that non-Whites and Blacks should be trained to help prevent the shortage of trained staff in the Post Office. This has been their policy over the years. Now I find it very interesting that the training was not only so that they could be used in the Black areas, but in the White areas as well. They agree with this [Interjections.] But now a delegation is the hon. member for Albany leads a delegation to the Minister for the specific purpose of objecting to the employment of trained Black staff in Peddie post office. [Interjections.] What is more, we have the hon. member for Griqualand East who said by way of interjection that the service provided was poor because the Black people were not trained, if I understood him correctly. What are we to understand by this, Sir? On the one hand these people advocate the training of Black people to serve in the Black areas and in White areas, but on the other hand they object because the service they are providing is poor, and when they are employed, a delegation is led by one of the members of that party to object to their being employed. Can you possibly imagine, Sir, their propagating a policy and at the same time working against the policy? It is pointless the hon. member for Albany telling us that it was the mayor of Peddie who asked that such a delegation should be received. The point is whether that mayor of Peddie is a member of the United Party, or not. But one gets no answer to that.

He is not.

And the other members of the delegation?.

Neither are they.

Did you associate yourself with their request?

Of course I did; I said so, afterall.

Then it is surely contrary to the policy of the United Party. This is just the point. It seems to me that, besides having a policy for the other parts of the country, the United Party also has a Peddie policy. [Interjections.]

I should like to come back to the budget which has been presented by the hon. the Minister. I think this budget is indeed a black budget for the Opposition because they are floundering around helplessly to find a few points of criticism against it. I think it would have been much better had they rather made use of the opportunity to make positive contributions in respect of this Budget. Naturally the hon. the Minister admits that there are problems, and if hon. members opposite were to take up that challenge, they would be a much greater asset to the country itself than they are now, considering the manner in which they are trying to criticize this Budget. I want to extend my congratulations to the Postmaster-General and his department for this brilliant annual report which testifies to good progress and success. I think that this Budget introduced by our new Minister of Posts and Telecommunications is an exceptional budget in the sense that it also puts his policy to us very clearly. I just want to quote one part of it. The hon. the Minister declares that—

This attests to responsibility. However, on the other hand I want to refer to the reaction of the hon. member for Durban Point. He makes a great fuss about this exceptionally important matter which the hon. the Minister mentioned. Using the issue of delegations from constituencies, the Opposition then tried to drag politics into the Post Office debate. However, what is the staff position?

For a long time there have been loud complaints to the effect that there is insufficient staff to provide the necessary services. However, there has been an increase of 2 511 in the number of staff, or 3,96% of the total. The increase in the number of non-White staff about which the Opposition complained so much, represented 7,59%, while the increase in White staff represented 1,98%. I think the staff deserve special praise for the efficient manner in which they have managed the affairs of the Post Office. It is true that 651 trained technical staff members resigned in 1975—an increase of 30% on the figure for 1974—as well as 661 partially trained technicians and telephone electricians. In spite of the 2 341 resignations over the past five years, the Post Office staff has provided outstanding service. The Post Office and the hon. the Minister have not simply accepted the position in a spirit of resignation. Over the same five year period the staff has been supplemented by no fewer than 3 403 trained persons. Two hundred of the supplementary workers were non-Whites. It must be accepted that we cannot simply have unlimited employment of non-Whites, and in this respect I support the hon. the Minister’s point of view. There are, of course, many factors which must be taken into consideration in the employment and training of non-White postal staff. Indeed, the hon. member for Albany will be able to testify to this most effectively in view of what has just happened here.

You accept it; I do not.

The Post Office makes a special contribution towards the creation of the essential infrastructure of a vigorous economy. I therefore do not believe that the Post Office’s contribution in a variety of fields can ever be overestimated. Here I want to refer to the postal services. Do we realize that in the years 1974-’75, an average of 4,15 million items of mail were handled per day? Do we realized that in the year 1974-’75 no fewer than 4 372 million telephone calls were made? This amounts to 12,25 million metered calls per day. This gives an indication of the vast extent of the service provided by this department. What are 95 000 waiting applicants in comparison with the more than two million telephones in service at the present moment? It represents a scanty 4,5%. The hon. member for Rustenburg clearly indicated that in fact, such a small waiting list testifies to the exceptional growth of our economy, and indeed it is gratifying to know that there is in fact a waiting list.

In this connection I want to refer to the hon. member for Durban Point. Last year he made a great fuss because the public had to make too large a contribution in order to cover capital expenditure. This year on the other hand, he is objecting that progress is so slow. I should like to quote him. In the unrevised Hansard edition of his speech he said the following—

[Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I am glad to hear that the hon. members who come from the Free State are so happy. I am referring in particular to the hon. members for Welkom and Virginia. I could tell interesting stories about the telephone service in Welkom, but I should rather not tell them.

The service is excellent.

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

No, I am not prepared to answer questions now.

Mr. Chairman, then I have to raise a point of order.

Order! What is the point of order the hon. member wishes to raise?

Mr. Chairman, I should like to have a decision on whether petty apartheid and Peddie apartheid are the same.

Order! The hon. member for South Coast may proceed.

Mr. Chairman, I have received a letter from somebody from Welkom, strangely enough. The letter was posted at Port Shepstone, it was correctly addressed and correctly stamped, but it took 52 days to arrive in Welkom. The letter was posted in Port Shepstone on 5 December, but it was only received in Welkom on 26 January. A cheque had been included in the letter. All I can think is that the Post Office probably had to wait for an armoured aeroplane to deliver the letter.

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

Order! The hon. member has already indicated that he is not prepared to reply to questions. The hon. member for South Coast may proceed.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to react to what the hon. the Minister said about the telephone and postal services being so very good, that they are not inadequate, etc. I wish his remarks could have been true in the case of the south coast of Natal, because the people there certainly do not think that either the postal services or the telephone services are adequate. The people who complain the most come from the Free State and the Transvaal. They go down there on holiday and they are cut off completely from their homes as a result of the inadequate postal and telephone service. If I may, I should like to embroider on this for a few moments.

We all pay the same postage. We pay either four or five cents on a letter. The cities, however, get a far better service than the country areas. When I say “country areas”, I classify the Natal south coast as a country area. We have there an area of 50 odd square miles which is serviced by about 15 or 16 post offices, which is equal to what we would find in a big city. Moreover, in the city the mail is delivered, but on the south coast of Natal there is not a single mail delivery service. If one addresses a letter to people on the south coast, it never gets there, unless somebody happens to know by accident where that house is and where the resident collects his mail. This is very awkward particularly for holiday-makers. They leave a forwarding address with their families, which might be “Broadway, Uvongo.” A letter is then addressed to a house in Broadway, P. O. Uvongo, and the letter goes into the post box at the Uvongo post office. But a house in Broadway, Uvongo, may fall under the post office of St. Michael’s-on-Sea, or Manaba Beach or Uvongo and the residents of that house may not necessarily collect their mail at Uvongo post office. The result is that the letter then lies at Uvongo and in the end is returned to the addressor or to the post office for sorting. This also happens with local mail. Accounts of commercial people there are that their letters do not get delivered because they are sent to the wrong post office. Surely, it is not beyond the ingenuity of the Post Office to work out a system whereby addresses can be traced. We have it in the big cities. A letter may be addressed to a house in Church Street, Arcadia, Pretoria. Church Street runs through three or four suburbs, but as long as that particular house is in Church Street the letter gets delivered. Why can this not be done in the case of the south coast of Natal?

Another sore point with the people on the south coast of Natal is the telephone service. The only public telephones as such are installed at the post offices; in other words, in a particular area there is only one public telephone for use by Whites. It is really pathetic during holiday times, when there are 50 000 or 60 000 persons in this very small area, to see the visitors trying to put calls through to their families. Normally these are trunkline calls and the visitors have to wait on the exchange to get them the required number. It is nothing abnormal to see 20 or 30 people queueing outside a telephone booth—when it is in working order. The only chance these people get of putting through calls, is when they come after midnight or early in the morning. It is not unusual to see 15 or 16 people at 02h00 or 03h00 waiting outside a telephone booth. Surely, something can be done about this.

A lot has been said about the servicing of the telephone system itself. We on the south coast of Natal feel that we are being discriminated against, because it quite often happens that you have to wait a week to have your telephone serviced. I know of an instance where a whole area had to wait a week while their telephone system was out of order. They had to wait because of the shortage of trained staff. I am told that this is not unusual. I heard only yesterday that in Newcastle, a huge and growing area, there was only one man on duty.

I also want to say something about the tampering with mail. I had a running correspondence with the hon. the Minister’s predecessor on mail which had been tampered with. Eventually he assured me that traps would be set at that particular post office. Fortunately I happened to be at the particular home the day when the trap was set. It is quite pathetic to describe it. Five letters arrived, all in exactly the same type of envelope and with the address in exactly the same handwriting. They were all posted from the Pretoria post office. When one saw them all arriving together one could not but identify them as coming as a trap and of course nobody opened them with the result that they were delivered as addressed. When a gentleman came around to collect them, I said to him:“Surely you could have got five different people to address these envelopes.” He replied: “Yes, but this is only the first stage of the trap.” I have heard nothing more.

I also want to add my support to what the hon. member for Bethlehem said about the Post Office saving banks. Last year in this House I raised the matter of saving banks and the facilities given to persons who use the saving banks. The then Minister dismissed my suggestions virtually with contempt. He said that the saving banks were not there to compete with Commercial banks and the building societies and that the Post Office was not really after that type of business. This, however, is not borne out by the report, because the business of the saving banks has grown immensely, and according to the estimates of the hon. the Minister I think it is going to grow another R132 million this year. That is a lot of money.

R96 million.

All right, R96 million. I am not going to argue about R40 million. If this business is worth having and worth going after, why does the Post Office not supply some facilities for the people who use this service? I am talking about privacy in particular. To go into a post office with your savings book and the clerk writes in front of the other people exactly how much you have deposited, is not a form of good business. I think something should be done. I am not asking for plush chairs or wonderful accommodation for people who go in there, but at least a little bit of privacy where they can do their business in private.

We want birds like those of the Trust Bank.

In the few minutes left to me, I would also like to plead on behalf of the Post Office pensioners. I raised this last year and I intend raising it year after year. I know it is a sore point with the hon. the Minister because he also is the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions. He is a very sympathetic Minister and I hope he continues that way. I would ask him to give some sympathy to the pre-1969 pensioners of the Post Office. These people have been discriminated against in the same way all the old pensioners of the Public Service have been discriminated against. Some of the pensioners who went on pension before 1969 find themselves drawing a pension a quarter the size of the pension of a person who was their junior in the service. Surely something should be done in order to alleviate the plight of these people. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I know the hon. member for Albany as a calm and steady person of this House, but yesterday afternoon something disturbed him. I have never seen so much uneasiness in the mind of the hon. member for Albany as I see today. He looks pale and referred in derogatory terms to front benchers in this hon. House as “small fry”. Of course, he is a big fish in a very small party, but I am going to leave it at that. What struck me, was his vicious reaction and the utter anxiety caused by his behaviour. I want to ask a few important questions.

Order! I hope the hon. member for Rustenburg is not going to disturb the peace.

No, Sir, I am not going to. It is very important in this House to know where the United Party stands as far as the labour sphere is concerned. This matter concerns the Post Office. We have been waging a battle with them for the past 10 years, and they advocated that work reservation should be abolished and that there should be integration in the trade unions. In the first place, I want to ask the hon. member for South Coast, who preceded me: If they were to decide in Margate to employ Blacks there together with Whites in the exchange, would the hon. member approve of it? I am getting no response. He got the fright of his life. Let us ask a better politician, a person with many years’ experience in politics and who is really a dynamic speaker in this hon. House, i.e. the hon. member for King William’s Town.

What is your question.

Is the hon. member prepared to allow non-Whites to work with the Whites in the exchange at King William’s Town?

Do you want to suggest, for example, that I do not work with them on the farm?

There we have the answer! The hon. member for King William’s Town says he works with them on his farm.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member for Hillbrow is living in a fool’s paradise. He should just keep quiet for a moment. I shall come to him in a moment.

You are living in a fool’s paradise.

The hon. member for King William’s Town says he works with them on his farm. I want to tell him that the policy of his party in the labour sphere is economic integration because they said they wanted to abolish work reservation. The hon. members opposite asked that more attention be given to the training of non-Whites. I want to ask him again whether he is prepared to allow non-Whites to work with the Whites in the Post Office in King William’s Town. It is a simple question. What is his reply, “Yes” or “No”?

Yes, if there are not enough Whites.

What does the hon. member for King William’s Town say? Not a word!

I want to deal with the hon. member for Albany now. Is he prepared to approve of this in his constituency? He proved that he is not prepared to allow this to happen. That is the unfairness that exists. We are trying to establish training facilities for the non-Whites on an orderly basis.

I see the hon. member for Albany is leaving the Chamber.

He should rather leave the Chamber. He looks pale. The poor man is ill. Hon. members opposite are repeatedly trying to create the impression among the people outside that we begrudge the non-Whites, the Blacks or the Coloured people, opportunities. When they are being offered opportunities, one has the reaction we have had today. We had no response from the hon. member for South Coast. The hon. member for King William’s Town said he was using Blacks on his farm, but he did not elaborate on it at all. The hon. member for Albany is leaving the Chamber. The hon. member for Transkei also participated in the debate. I also found his behaviour very strange. The game they are playing is not a new one. The former hon. member for Wynberg was so liberal-minded in this House that it was just not true, but she made a National Party MP come to her constituency, Wynberg, to see whether they were able to establish separate facilities there. We have to be more consistent. The United Party has to behave more consistently. The United Party is what it is because of its inconsistency. It is what it is because it is not prepared to implement its policy honestly and sincerely.

Business suspended at 12h45 and resumed at 14h15.

Afternoon Sitting

Mr. Chairman, there was great confusion in the ranks of the official Opposition when business was suspended. I trust that greater calm is prevailing now.

They had a caucus meeting in the meantime.

It is clear they had a caucus meeting. They are the abolishing party in South Africa. They are the party that pretends that they are going to abolish work reservation but when it affects them, they are no longer prepared to do so. I would have been able to understand the whole argument of the hon. member for Albany if he had felt that he was putting sound relations in these matters first. I asked three hon. members and not one of them was prepared to say that they are prepared to implement their policy. This is a fact; there is no question about it. We are dealing here with an official Opposition that advocates a certain policy, but when it comes to the application thereof, they run away. That is clear. What is wrong? I say unequivocally that this hon. Opposition made a terrible mistake and to try and belittle the training policy followed by the department. They failed dismally in their attempts. A second aspect on which they failed, was the financing of the Department of Posts and Telecommunications. Yesterday the hon. member for Wynberg, who is the new main speaker on postal matters, had the following to say—

I now want to put a question to the hon. member for Constantia. He is a person of sound economic understanding. The major attack the Official Opposition has repeatedly levelled against the Government, was that we are supposed to be the people who are causing inflation in South Africa. We are the people who are allegedly not taking the necessary measures against it. South Africa is faced with an enormous challenge, a challenge of capital formation in order to allow this young and dynamic country to develop, the formation of capital in the private sector as well as in the semi-Government sector. What would we be doing if we were to subsidize telephone services in South Africa? The principle that the State has to subsidize, is an old argument which has always been advanced in this hon. House. However, what is the position, Mr. Chairman? If we were to do this, it would affect the taxpayer. Surely, this is logical. It affects the taxpayer because it pushes up the cost structure even further. We are following a sound policy of 50% from revenue and 50% from capital. This we get from investments, from the 2,6% investments in savings accounts. However, this matter does not end here. The hon. member for Wynberg is opposed to savings investments, notwithstanding the low percentage of 2,6%, because he is of the opinion that it is inconsistent with the interests of the bank sector, the sector in which he is interested. This House should be proud of the financing of the Post Office. There was no need for this department to borrow R40 million from Treasury under these circumstances, circumstances in which we are struggling to obtain capital for the development of our country. However, the Post Office did not avail itself of the opportunity to borrow R40 million from the Treasury. This is really an achievement.

I now come to my own constituency. I am proud to say that the spending by the Department of Posts and Telecommunications in my constituency is clear proof that it is one of the most important growth points in the Republic of South Africa. During the past 10 years expenditure by this particular department on telecommunications alone reached the amount of R4 972 145. Expenditure in respect of postal services alone amounted to R463 000. Therefore, expenditure to the tune of altogether R5,435 million was incurred during the past 10 years. This is immense expenditure. This amount was used for new post offices, new buildings for telephone exchanges, the provision of automatic telephone services, extensions to the post office and the telephone exchange, the provision of the micro-wave system in Rustenburg and Johannesburg, and so on. This is indicative of the growth in this department. This department is the barometer of growth throughout South Africa. I want to tell the Official Opposition today that they have failed dismally in their attacks. They failed because they are following a policy which they themselves are not prepared to implement. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, unfortunately I do not have time to take part in this running battle between the Nationalists and the United Party over the use or the non-use of non-White labour in the Post Office. My party’s standpoint is abundantly clear. We stand for equal opportunities for everybody and we stand for equal pay for equal work. All I would like to say to my hon. friends on the right is that unless they are prepared to practise what they preach, they must not expect anybody to take their preachings very seriously. I would say that if the United Party stands for racial non-discrimination, it should be prepared to back its implementation without equivocation. To an objective bystander and onlooker it seems to be totally illogical in the circumstances to demur at the appointment of Black personnel in a place like Peddie. I really do not see how you can do it.

What does your hon. leader stand for?

Order! The hon. member for Durban Point must give the hon. member a chance.

How my hon. friend from Albany could have associated himself with objections to such an appointment, seems inexplicable to me, in spite of his protestations to the contrary. I just wonder whether this was an occasion …

You just wander all over the place.

I wonder whether this was not a case of the hon. member’s political pedigree obtruding itself in the great battle of Peddie … [Interjections.] Let us leave the matter there, however. It is obviously causing the United Party so much embarrassment that we had better leave it there. [Interjections.] I feel sorry for them, but I cannot do anything to relieve their embarrassment.

*But they will be glad if I leave the matter at that. I regret that my motives yesterday in this House in the case of André Brink’s mail were misinterpreted and, in some respects, totally misinterpreted. This also applies to the hon. member for Krugersdorp. I raised this matter for one reason only, i.e. that it is most important for the public to have the assurance that private mail is not interfered with. This is very important. We have to receive the assurance and we have received it. Furthermore, as I said yesterday, the integrity of the Post Office is involved here. It was, among other things, to put the integrity of the Post Office beyond all doubt that I have raised this matter. [Interjections.]

May I put a question?

No, I only have six minutes at my disposal. The hon. member can put his question next time. I am very glad that, under these circumstances, the hon. the Minister gave us the assurance that the Post Office does not intercept mail—this is the assurance we have just had—except, of course, mail which is inconsistent with legal requirements. I have a personal problem in this regard. The hon. the Minister referred me to section 118 of the Post Office Act. I am just going to quote briefly from this Act. It reads as follows—

My problem in this regard is the words “reasonably suspected”. Under any circumstances a variety of interpretations could quite easily be attached to these words.

Just like the newspapers.

That is so. I feel we are dealing here with a loophole in the legislation which could be unreasonably wide and open to abuse. I do not want to go into the matter any further, because we shall have another opportunity to do so. I therefore want to content myself with the statement that the riddle of the André Brink mail remains unsolved as far as I am concerned. I have here another case of parcels of books which were sent from England to Daveyton in Benoni and never reached their destination. I suspect the customs officials to be involved in this matter, and under the circumstances I shall rather discuss the matter again with the Postmaster-General.

I am very grateful to the hon. the Minister for the clear standpoint he adopted in regard to telephone facilities in hotels. I am very glad that something is going to be done, because this is an untenable position and the example he quoted to us this morning is a crying shame and cannot be tolerated under any circumstances.

†Finally, in the minute or two at my disposal, I would like to raise a small matter and that is the question of the inordinate time that it takes for mail to reach a destination in the city in which it is posted or when it has to travel a short distance. It sometimes takes a letter from Johannesburg to Pretoria, and vice versa, five or six days to reach its destination. A correspondent in Durban—and this will cheer up my friend, the hon. member for Durban Point—states that in his experience it has taken from three to seven days for a letter posted in one part of Durban to be delivered in another part of the city. Whether this points to a delay in sorting or in the delivery stage, I really do not know. [Time expired.]

Schedules agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported without amendment.

Third Reading

Mr. Speaker, I move, subject to Standing Order No. 56—

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Minister has just congratulated me on the acceptance of the post of Chief Opposition speaker on posts and telecommunications, and I want to thank him sincerely for it. I also want to thank him sincerely for the kind words he used in congratulating me. However, the hon. the Minister and I should understand one another very well from the outset, and I want to tell the hon. the Minister that I am quite disappointed at his behaviour in this debate. I am disappointed because the hon. the Minister abused a privileged occasion by bandying what was said on that occasion about the floor of this House. I think it was shameful behaviour on the part of the hon. the Minister, and I think the hon. the Minister has already regretted the fact that he did so, because while this debate was being conducted at a very high level previously, it degenerated into a petty political debate as a result of his behaviour. It encouraged several hon. members on that side of the House to say quite a number of unpleasant things here as far as the hon. member for Albany is concerned. This is to be regretted, and I hope the hon. the Minister has now learned his lesson because if he has not learned his lesson, he must expect that, when any hon. member leads a deputation in future or is asked to lead a deputation to the hon. the Minister in future, any such member will say that he does not want to do so or would rather suggest that the matter be discussed with the Postmaster-General. He would do so because anything he is going to convey to the hon. the Minister in the course of such a discussion, will be bandied about the floor of this House. Because of that no such deputation is going to ask the hon. the Minister to listen to it; they would rather approach the Postmaster-General because they would know that if they discuss the matter with him, they would at least have the assurance that what they discuss with the Postmaster-General will not be bandied about the floor of this House. I hope the hon. the Minister has now learned his lesson and I do not intend continuing in this vein any further, because I want to raise this debate again to its previous standard. Although the hon. the Minister raised the matter first, I am going to leave the hon. the Minister at that.

†It is quite clear to me that when, in my Second Reading speech, I explained to the hon. the Minister that postal services must expand, he did not quite understand what I was talking about. In his reply he hardly mentioned the fact that I had said that I felt that the postal service of this department should be expanded as far as it could go. I felt that it should not be fettered by a lack of funds. The hon. the Minister has said that his policy is that our postal services must expand, but that the keynote of that policy is that this expansion should take place within a certain framework, namely, that the expansion should only take place within the financial resources of his department. I believe that that is how one reads his basic management philosophy. In his speech the Minister said that he had this basic management philosophy. He said that he believed that there should be an expansion of services, but I think he made it quite clear that such expansion should only take place within the framework of the financial resources of his department. The hon. the Minister then went on to say that he faces the future with confidence in the knowledge that the foundation for this philosophy has been laid. I am greatly disturbed at this attitude of the Minister’s, as I do not believe that he has any grounds for complacency. My impression was that the Minister was in fact complacent and that he felt that the services he was rendering as Minister were quite different at the present moment. As long as the hon. the Minister believes in the myth that the Post Office can be conducted as a business, so long will he be compelled to curtail postal services.

Do you favour a State subsidy?

I will tell the hon. the Minister a little later on how I believe that he can deal with the matter. I do not believe entirely in a State subsidy; in fact, I do not like the word “subsidy” at all. As the Minister has raised the matter, I had better deal with that aspect immediately.

There is in the estimates of expenditure an item, “Dividend on Permanent Capital”. Now this permanent capital has an historic interest. It came over to the Post Office when the Post Office became autonomous, and that permanent capital is R199 million. The dividend which is paid on this R199 million is 6% a year, and that is paid into the Consolidated Revenue Fund. This is something which the Post Office is paying the Government, and it amounts to R11 940 000. I do not see any reason at all why this amount should be paid. Surely, if there was some historical reason why it should be paid, any such historical reason fell away years ago. What would happen if we were to cease paying the interest on that permanent capital which, as i say, is quite unnecessary? There is no financial or fiscal reason why this money should be paid. In fact, the Post Office is now subsidizing the Government to the extent of almost R12 million. In other words, the Post Office is subsidizing the Treasury to the extent of about R1 million a month. I think it is quite wrong, and I believe that subsidy should be stopped.

If the hon. the Minister speaks about subsidies, then I say: Stop that subsidy. It is quite wrong for the Post Office to pay the Treasury a subsidy. What would happen if this dividend were not paid? In this past year, the Post Office showed a loss of R15,3 million on its postal services. If one were to subtract this R12 million, there would be a loss of only R3,3 million. The hon. the Minister will say to me: “That is all very well, but if you look at the way we draw our accounts, you will find that this amount of permanent capital, and the dividend that we pay on it, is not reflected in the postal service account. It is reflected in the telecommunications account.”

Mr. Speaker, my answer to that is that it does not matter where it is reflected. It does not matter at all, because if it is reflected in the telecommunications account, it will simply mean that telecommunications will show an even greater profit—a greater profit by R11 million or R12 million. That is what I believe the hon. the Minister should do now. I believe the hon. the Minister should take the bull by the horns this afternoon. He should say:“I am not going to pay this dividend any more.” And I would like to know who is going to stop him from doing that. I would like the hon. the Minister to tell me who is going to stop him from not paying the dividend.

The bull is going to die then!

Mr. Speaker, that is also my answer to the hon. member for Rustenburg, who found some sort of nefarious purpose behind my plea for better postal services. He says that he thinks I am trying to protect the banks. Of course, everyone knows I am a great banker, so obviously, they would think that I want to protect the banks. He is quite wrong, of course. We are not looking after the banks. I want to look after the people of South Africa. I want to see that they get a proper deal as far as the postal services are concerned. [Interjections.] That is what I want to do.

Mr. Speaker, what is going to happen now? If the hon. the Minister does not refuse to pay the dividend, as I suggested to him, it will mean that our postal services will deteriorate and that the public will have to be prepared to live with these inferior services. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister has bothered to inquire as to how the services that are now severely curtailed, measure up with international norms of a good postal service.

I want to tell the hon. member for Schweizer-Reneke that if Sir John Cradock were alive today, he would turn in his grave. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member must not conjure up spectres.

Mr. Speaker, if the hon. the Minister had bothered to inquire as to how his severely curtailed services measure up to the international norms of a good postal service, he would know that the universal postal union has set certain targets for a good postal service. These targets include, in the first instance, that there should be one post office to serve an area of from 20 to 40 sq. kilometres, and also one post office to serve between 3 000 and 6 000 inhabitants. The second target is that delivery of priority items should be made the day after posting within a radius of 500 km.

I know the hon. the Minister will now say to me that he has instituted a priority service. Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Minister’s priority service only deals with the large cities, and it only deals with a very specialized sort of delivery service. There is a great deal of leeway that can yet be made up in respect of the smaller towns within a radius of 500 km of the post office at which the priority item is posted.

As regards the first matter I mentioned, viz. one post office for an area of 20 to 40 sq. kilometres, and for 3 000 to 6 000 inhabitants, the Republic has 1 771 fully fledged post offices. These are post offices at which all postal service business can be conducted according to South African standards. In applying this figure to the international norm, the average area served by one post office is 1 155 sq. kilometres, and the average number of inhabitants served by one post office is 14 863. This falls far short of the international standards. Postal agencies do not provide all the services of a fully fledged post office. For instance, no money transactions can be carried out at a postal agency. There are 1 166 postal agencies in South Africa. The combined number of postal agencies and post offices is 2 937. If we apply this figure of 2 937 post offices and postal agencies, the picture is: one agency or post office to every 696 sq. kilometres, or one agency or post office for every 8 962 inhabitants. Even here we fall far short of the international norm of one post office for an area of 20 to 40 sq. kilometres or for 3 000 to 6 000 inhabitants.

One knows that comparisons are odious, but sometimes one has to drive a point home. I know the hon. the Minister is receptive this afternoon, but I would still like to drive the point home. I think one can only drive the point home by looking at a chart that has been prepared by the International Postal Union, in which it shows how these figures compare in a number of countries. What grieves me so much, is that we in South Africa are more or less midway between Tunisia and Pakistan with regard to the service that we provide. It grieves me a great deal.

Oh, you are talking utter nonsense now! You are not even taking our distances into consideration.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. Chief Whip on the other side said: “Utter nonsense.” Or did he say something else? I know that the hon. Chief Whip on the other side does not smoke, but I did not know that he chewed tobacco, and in future I shall see that he has a little supply with him, at least when I am making a speech.

Sir, if you look at these comparative figures, you will find that in a country like Pakistan, for example, the average area served by a post office is 66,40 square kilometres, which is not bad at all. In Tunisia the average area served by a post office is 469 square kilometres, which is not bad either. If you take all that desert country into account, all that sand, miles and miles of sand, it is not bad at all. If you look at the population figures, the average number of inhabitants per post office over the whole country, you find that in Pakistan there are 9 280 Pakistanis to a post office. As far as the Tunisians are concerned, there are 14 497 of them per post office. We will be slightly better than them if we take our postal agency business into account.

Now, Sir, I believe that the hon. the Minister has quite a number of matters that he still has to reply to. One of them, I think, that he should give us a decent answer to is the matter raised by the hon. member for Umhlanga yesterday in regard to the twilight service. I should like to draw his attention to the fact that the Postmaster-General had an interview with The Cape Times as recently as yesterday, in which he said—

I believe, Sir, that the hon. the Minister should give due regard to what the hon. member for Umhlanga said yesterday and I believe that is a way in which he can clear up this congestion. It is quite clear to me that that is what the Postmaster-General had in mind when he gave this interview to The Cape Times.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who has just resumed his seat, adopted a tone—particularly at the beginning of his speech—which I feel one could take very amiss of him. He expressed his disappointment at the manner in which the hon. the Minister acted here. If one had to take a consensus of this entire House one would receive a very clear reply on this point, which would be that everyone would agree that this Minister has so far conducted himself, and acquitted himself of his task, exceptionally well. I think that that reference was completely uncalled for, and definitely unworthy of the hon. member. As regards the matters which he mentioned in respect of the financial aspects, these are matters on which one could perhaps agree with him. It is in any case a debatable point. I shall therefore leave it at that, so that the hon. the Minister can deal with him.

The matter in regard to which we want a reply, however, and which was also his starting point, concerned the labour situation. Whether we are discussing the Prime Minister’s Vote, the no-confidence debate, private motions, the Railways Budget or any other Vote in this House, there are continual references to labour. It is therefore a very important aspect on which there should be the utmost clarity. To us labour is of vital importance. It is also one of the gravest problems with which the post office is struggling, and for that reason we must thrash out this matter now. The National Party has clearly spelt out its policy through various hon. members, and yesterday the hon. the Minister set the seal on it. We want to train the Bantu to enable them to serve their own people as well, and that is object number one. We want to train the Bantu to do supplementary work here in the White area, too, where we do not have sufficient Whites to do that work. The National Party is constantly being accused of being half-hearted in this respect and of not doing enough. I remember that when I came here in 1970 the “crash programme” was discussed in every debate, and then they “crashed”. We are constantly being told that we have waited too long, are doing too little, and that it is now too late.

It is continually being said that work reservation should be abolished, and it is being blazoned abroad that that policy is discriminatory and oppressive. The questions asked across the floor of this House were intended to embarrass the hon. the Minister and this party. Never before has a boomerang struck the United Party so squarely between the eyes as it did today. When is the United Party going to give us those replies? That hon. member had the opportunity to tell us what the replies which they want to give to these questions are. I ask myself: What is the position of the hon. member for Albany in the United Party now, under these circumstances? We would ask them kindly to do what they say. Surely to say one thing and do another is misleading for us here and for the people outside. One does not know where one stands with the United Party. Tell us whether we should train the Bantu. [Interjections.] They should not hide behind that to find a stick with which to beat the National Party. Now I can go further. Look what the hon. member for Durban Central got up to in this House yesterday by trying to disparage our National Party and our country here. While he is living on the fat of our land, while he is becoming rich here and his party is becoming wealthy and his people are becoming wealthy on the crest of this economy, he disparages it here and refers in this House to a sick economy. I do not know with what he did this. These are the kind of people, the kind of party, which we have to deal with in our arguments in this House, and when we ask them for their arguments, we receive no replies.

On this occasion I should like to refer briefly to a matter relating to my constituency, something which I did not have an opportunity to do last year. If hon. members would glance at page 22 of the annual report, they would see there a photograph of the most attractive post office in South Africa. This post office is really one of our most beautiful buildings, and I should like to avail myself of this opportunity to convey the thanks of my voters to the hon. the Minister, to the previous Minister who was involved in this, and to the department and to everyone who had anything to do with it, for this exceptional post office which we were able to occupy there. Sir, for many years we struggled in Kempton Park. We had a very hard time of it. Our staff worked under extremely difficult circumstances, but this post office makes it possible for us to thrust out our chests and hold our heads high. It creates exceptionally pleasant working conditions, and I should like to thank everyone involved in it very sincerely. I should like to congratulate the architect, the Department of Public Works, the contractors and everyone involved in it on that wonderful achievement. I believe that this building will enable the post office staff to give us even better service than in the past. But I also want to express the hope that the improved working conditions which are being created here will contribute to attracting more staff for us, and to retaining those which we have. Thank you very much for that exceptional post office, Sir.

The budget which we have before us today is a unique budget. I know that it is a very difficult, I think I can say a black budget for the Opposition. The more one considers the budget, and the more one analyses it, the more one realizes that one is dealing with an achievement which cannot easily be repeated. To be able, in 1976, to introduce a budget in which there are not tariff increases, is already an achievement in itself. However, to introduce a budget in 1976, considering the difficult economic circumstances, the spiralling costs and inflationary trends, and to announce a reduction in tariffs in certain respects, is unique. It is an unparalleled achievement; it is unique. Such a budget is above any criticism. It is the best testimonial to our Post Office staff, to our chief officials and to the Minister, for here we have the opportunity to see how thorough the planning was. It is a compliment to our top-level management and to the entire Department of Posts and Telecommunications. I want to thank the staff of the Post Office for this. It was their dedicated efforts which made this budget possible, which made it possible for it to be passed so painlessly—painlessly for us, but painfully for the Opposition. Improvements have been effected and equipment has been utilized on a large scale. In addition, improved methods have been applied. Increased automation has been incorporated into this. All these things have led to enhanced productivity and greater efficiency. Therefore it is surely far-fetched of hon. members on that side of the House to criticize the budget. Surely to do so is to pay no regard to reality. We on this side of the House are not afraid of the future. We are very confident that the Post Office will be able to overcome and solve the problems which still exist, because every problem is being approached in an energetic and positive way, and therefore it will definitely be possible to solve it.

Most of the criticism was levelled at the telephone services. However, I do not have the time to go into this matter in detail. But I do want to say, and do so with emphasis, that we are rapidly eliminating the backlog. I look forward to the day when the problems which still exist will be something of the past.

After another 27 years!

No, it need not be another 27 years. I promise the hon. member that. It is South Africa’s sustained growth, the progressiveness and the fruits of the National Party policy, which are giving us growth pains. But we are rapidly eliminating the backlog. When the year is over and the television service has been stabilized, a settled period may commence. I hope that we shall then have a return flow of the people who left the employ of the Post Office to follow the lure of the bright lights and then discovered that conditions there were not as favourable as they had once been. I hope that they will return to the Post Office, where we need them very much. Unfortunately I do not have sufficient time to go into the particular reasons underlying this matter. However, I think it would be sufficient to say that our greatest problems with the postal services and telecommunication services lie in the lack of trained technicians. If we have these people it will be possible to iron out the problems and it will disappear like mist in the morning. South Africa could have a first-class postal service and telephone service if only we could find enough people.

In this regard I should like to make the following suggestion to the hon. the Minister. I do not expect him to furnish me with a reply to what I am going to raise today. I am broaching this matter because the people of my constituency are involved in it. It involves the automatic private branch switchboard. Most factories and business enterprises, for example banks, use this kind of equipment. The people supplying the equipment install a great deal of it themselves. After that the Post Office takes over, and with its limited number of people it is not always possible for the Post Office to give thorough and prompt attention to this equipment. What is the result? The result is that many business enterprises sometimes have to manage without this equipment for an hour or even more—perhaps for a day. I want to ask the Minister whether we cannot consider affording private bodies the opportunity of repairing the equipment which they installed themselves. In my area it so happens that the firm whose equipment became defective was situated on the one side of the street while the firm supplying the equipment, was situated on the other side of the street. The technicians of the latter firm may not, however, do the necessary work themselves. I realize that the problem does not assume the same proportions throughout the entire country, and I realize that we are unable to make this concession anywhere in the country. However, I do think that it is possible to make this concession on the Witwatersrand, that area with which I am familiar. In this way we would eliminate the frustrations there.

In conclusion I want to mention another aspect. This concerns the people who operate the equipment. Many of the women who operate this complicated electronic equipment have not been trained, even though the Post Office trains these people free of charge. In my opinion many of our firms are not always aware of this fact. We could, by means of a campaign, bring it to the attention of these people that they should really employ well-trained people to operate this complex and sensitive machinery. If we could succeed in doing this, I believe we would be able to eliminate many of the difficulties. These are frustrations which could cause great financial damage. I have had to state my case very rapidly and have perhaps not argued it very well. But I do believe that if the hon. the Minister could persuade the top ranking men in the Post Office to think in this direction, they would in fact be able to devise a plan to help us in this respect.

Mr. Speaker, I always like following the hon. member for Kempton Park, because his constituency abuts on mine and some 3 000 people who live within the municipal boundary of Kempton Park are voters in the Sandton constituency. It was interesting to hear the hon. member pleading for more training and the taking into service a more trained personnel. I am quite certain that he will agree with me that the answer surely lies in the proper utilization of all races in the postal services across the board on an equal basis. I do not really wish to debate the views and the “Peddie-gree” of the hon. member for Albany. However, I would say in regard to the matters which have been raised relating to the representations made to the Post Office at Peddie, that it boils down to one thing, namely that the tragedy of South African politics is that so many people talk about change, the need for change and about the urgent need for a new society in South Africa while at the same time supporting the forces of the status quo with all their might. This in particular is the tragedy of the hon. member for Albany and, of course, the United Party as a whole.

Yesterday afternoon, during the Second Reading debate of this Bill, I was sitting quietly in my bench minding my own business, soaking up the pearls of wisdom cast before me by the experts on telecommunication matters when suddenly, out of the blue and without any warning, the hon. the Minister posed these benches here what I regard as a very important question. Could I ask the hon. the Minister whether it was a challenge or, if I could put it another way, was it an offer? This challenge was aimed personally at me and at my equally inoffensive colleague from Bryanston. [Interjections.] The essence of the matter is that yesterday the hon. member for Parktown drew attention to the fact that Soweto, which is a city bigger than Bloemfontein, bigger than Kimberley, a city of nearly one million people, had only 1 000 private telephones and that the backlog and waiting list for telephones exceeded the total number of telephones installed by this Nationalist Government in Soweto in 28 years. I believe this is a pitiful state of affairs, a state of affairs that epitomizes the policy of discrimination over the years by the Nationalist Party. To serve a million people, all human beings, in their needs or emergencies, there were at the end of 1975 only 39 public telephone booths. It is nothing to be proud of. But the attitude seems to be that they can wait; they do not have the vote; they do not have any say in the governing of their own lives. Rather put a new modem exchange very proudly in Umtata, where the eyes of the world are upon us, than eliminate the backlog in Soweto, which is not big news anywhere. This hon. the Minister says that if I, an inoffensive junior member sitting here, give the word, he is prepared to freeze development in Sandton and Bryanston and give priority to the urgent requirements of the people of Soweto. This challenge raises several points. In a country which already has 2 000 000 plus telephones and which is installing 120 000 telephones a year, the hon. the Minister admits that he cannot deal with the minimal requirements—we are talking about 1 000 telephones—of a Black community on the Witwatersrand without disrupting the entire development of the northern boundary of Johannesburg and the Witwatersrand area. Surely, this is unnecessary. If this Government cannot find the resources, the finances, the manpower and the goodwill to reduce drastically a shortfall of 1 000 telephones in a given restricted community, what is the Government doing? The backlog in telephones in the exchanges of Sandton and Bryanston is at the moment over 3 500. This is nearly four times the total telephone population of Soweto. Every year during the past few years, 9 000 new telephones have been installed in Bryanston and Sandton area. This is almost nine times the total population of Soweto, telephone-wise. What sort of challenge is it to freeze one of the fastest developing areas in South Africa …

And wealthiest.

The hon. member for Umlazi constantly likes to interject and I ask him to be patient. The hon. the Minister wants to freeze one of the fastest developing areas because of a small backlog like this. What the hon. Minister is saying and asking is:“Because my Government has been incompetent, because the Nationalist Government has failed to do its duty over the years, has failed in its will to provide for the needs of thousands of people who have no vote and who are no danger to the Government, electorally, and because you, the hon. member for Bryanston and you, the hon. member for Sandton, who are members of an Opposition Party, have the temerity to raise this problem in public and the impertinence to expose this negligence, therefore you and your constituencies alone must go into telephonic stagnation so that the real culprits, the Nationalist Party, will not have to do something about the matter.” The hon. the Minister is asking Sandton and Bryanston to pay the price of Nationalist neglect of the genuine needs of the Black community in Johannesburg.

I want to speak on behalf of my constituency. We want no special favours; we want no special preference. We shall co-operate with the department. We shall expect no more than equal service with other communities, but it should and will not be the duty of one or more towns or constituencies to bear the brunt of the failure of this Government to provide an over-all and adequate service for all South Africans, irrespective of colour. The task of this department and this hon. Minister is to look after the necessities of all sections on an equal basis. All sections pay the same rates, rental and colour should play no role whatsoever. In conclusion I should like to give the hon. the Minister a bit of free advice. I think he should stop throwing out spurious challenges and should get on with the job of supplying a full service for all the people in South Africa on an equal basis.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Sandton will pardon me if I do not plod around in the sand with him. I think that all that is left to do in the dying moments of this debate on the Post Office budget, is to hold a post-mortem on the speeches made by the hon. Opposition members. One then arrives at two conclusions. The first is that it has been a long time since I last heard so much technical rubbish as I heard in many of the Opposition speeches. The second conclusion I arrived at was that complete confusion prevailed among the Opposition in this debate. They did not always know whether they were dealing with a Second Reading debate or with a Committee Stage. It is characteristic of the confusion which is prevailing in the ranks of the Opposition that they do not always know whether they are Progressive Party or United Party, or whether they are United Party, or National Party. In fact I am afraid to make this last statement because we may find ourselves in the position of the puppy who chased the car in that once they are with us, we will not know what to do with them. The confusion which prevailed among them, has been particularly noticeable these last few days, is that they could not decide whether they were opposed to “petty” apartheid or to “Peddie” apartheid. This is the kind of confusion which prevailed among them. When our hon. Minister introduced this Second Reading debate, he paid credit to his predecessor in a very commendable way by saying that one sometimes reaps what one has not sown. This put me in mind of the parable of the sower. His first two attempts fell by the way side and on stony ground. This put me in mind of the speeches made by members of the Opposition. Those portions of their speeches which fell by the wayside, were devoured very effectively by my colleagues on the National Party side. That which fell on stony ground will wither away under the critical gaze of the general public. The only harvest they will have left, will be “Peddie apartheid.”

On the other hand, however, we see the efforts which our Postmaster-General has been making over the years among the Post Office staff. There the seed fell on very fertile ground to yield, over the years, this vintage budget. In contrast with the hon. the Minister’s definition of this budget as being an interesting budget, I should like to say that it is a wonderful vintage budget for the hon. the Minister, the Postmaster-General and his staff. We can see that the application of a positive policy by the Post Office has indeed borne fruit. It testifies to the application of a policy of sound business principles, regardless of what the hon. member for Wynberg said, the application of sound technical adjustment, the application of sound technical modernization, the application of sound financial management and the unfolding, in the training programmes, of the policy of separate development, and not of “Peddie apartheid”. We could quote several examples from this budget and the reports which have been tabled to prove that it was really a vintage year for the Post Office. I think we could mention 12 such examples of new lines of thought and approaches, but I should just like to mention a few to this hon. House. Firstly I should like to refer to the speech made by the hon. the Minister when introducing the Second Reading debate. To me, who began my engineering career in the Post Office, in the same office as the Deputy Postmaster-General, Dr. Boyce, it was an exceptionally pleasant debate. It was pleasant to listen to the hon. the Minister. I think I can lay claim to having drawn up the first technical specification for the installation of transmission equipment in Worcester in the ’fifties. I drew up the specification in Afrikaans, and it was returned to head office with the request that it be translated into English because the technical terminology in Afrikaans could not be understood. For that reason it was very pleasant to listen to the hon. the Minister, to hear the technical terms flowing from his lips in Afrikaans, and to learn how the Post Office had succeeded over the years in ushering in a vintage year in the field of language as well. Equal treatment for both languages is really something to be proud of.

The second point I want to raise concerns the capital estimates. Of total capital estimates of R246 million there is only R7 million which, as a result of existing credit facilities, is not financed from the Post Office’s own resources, in other words 97,2% derives from its own financial resources. After all, the hon. member for Durban Point made such a cutting remark about the Post Office surplus. He described it as:“Overcharging the telephone users by R64 million”. I think that was a disgraceful remark, but we know that the hon. member does not agree with everything which the National Party advocates. However, his speech teemed with unfair sarcasm. His speech teemed with what I want to call pancake humour which fell so flat that even his own members did not laugh at him. In its recommendations, which this House accepted in toto, the Franzsen Commission stated that 50% of the capital works of the Post Office should be financed from surpluses. If we were now to make an analysis of the capital estimates, we would see that 20% is being financed from surpluses. However, if we include depreciation and replacement—for those accounts are also created from surpluses—we see that 50% of the capital expenditure of the Post Office is being financed from its own resources. Nothing is being made good from the Treasury. This means that the Post Office, in this time of inflation in which we are living, has channelled no new capital into our economic structure. This, too, testifies to a vintage year for the Post Office in the financial field. And, in spite of this, the Post Office is still maintaining a growth rate of 6,8%.

The third point I want to broach, relates to the reduction in tariffs. The hon. member for Wynberg was so confused about tariff adjustments that he was unable to distinguish between surface mail and airmail. Nor could he distinguish between the various standard sizes of envelopes. However, this was typical of the confusion which prevailed in the ranks of the Opposition. Let us now make an analysis of the postal tariffs and consider the increase in weight in proportion to the reduction in tariff. It will be found that there has been a real reduction in tariff of between 270% and 280%. In these times of cost-push inflation in which we are living, this is truly another wonderful vintage year for the Post Office and its staff. What is so excellent about this harvest—despite the R64 million of which the public is supposedly being robbed—is that this harvest is being ploughed back in toto into the ranks of the public and to their benefit.

The last point I want to raise concerns the technical aspect. The hon. member for Durban Point referred here to “400 000 telephones but only 300 000 exchange connections”.

200 000 connections.

I am sorry, 200 000 connections. Does the hon. member now want to allege that there should be an exchange connection for every telephone in the country? Where is the capital to come from? The hon. member is probably unaware that according to traffic counts certain statistical analyses are being made in terms of which these ratios are determined. All these years the figure has varied between 1,6 and 2 telephones per exchange connection. If the hon. member had read only a column further in the report he would have seen that during the same period there had been 100 000 additional exchange connections. Therefore, this is not the heart of the problem. He also referred to the fact that he was in America 12 years ago and had been able to dial a call over a distance of 3 000 miles. He then said he wondered when we would be able to do this. Does he not know that the Post Office began to make provision for trunk-line dialling in the ’fifties already? After all, we cannot do all these things at once. One cannot modernize if one does not have the equipment with which to do so. However, the Post Office has been modernizing over the years. A start was made with the Strowger system, then the MU system, the EMD systems and now the ESK system. However, hon. members must have read what is stated in the report. We have now made such progress that we are able to put the CP44 electronics system into service immediately, so that our country’s trade balance can bear the additional burden. The hon. member does not take this into consideration at all. We could elaborate even further. We could consider our party-line systems. At present nine different conversations can be held on the same physical line.

We could also consider our satellite station. This is another wonderful achievement. Then, too, there is data communication by means of which the Post Office staff enables the banking industry to communicate with the bank’s, computer. Surely this is modernization and surely this enhances the productivity of the entire capital structure, not only of the Post Office, but also of the entire national economy. We could also consider the new telex system, the new failure statistics system and the most modem microwave system in the world, which is the one in South Africa. If we consider all these matters which enhance productivity, we see in the technical categories a wonderful vintage year for the Postmaster-General, his staff and the hon. the Minister. We admit that there are definitely many technical problems. This has to be the case in a system which includes two million telephones, eight million kilometres of trunk line circuits, 59 000 broadcast circuits, 10 700 telex circuits, 6 000 kilometres of microwave, etc. So I can continue to quote an entire list. Surely there have to be technical problems. Our Postmaster-General and his staff are only too aware of these problems. In view of the examples I have mentioned it is extremely important that we, as a House, should take cognizance of the achievements of this department. But what is even more important is that our public, every South African outside, should take cognizance of these achievements of our Post Office. They should take cognizance of the fact that our Post Office, the Postmaster-General and his staff are managing the affairs of the department on a very sound, a very good basis.

I conclude by thanking the hon. the Minister for the fact that there are only 600 outstanding telephone applications in my constituency. I am not going to ask for anything new now, but simply tell the hon. the Minister that next year I should like to ask for a new post office at Bon Accord.

Mr. Speaker, the time limit on the duration of the Committee Stage resulted in my owing quite a few hon. members a reply. I undertook to furnish these replies briefly in my Third Reading speech. I shall begin with the hon. member for Albany. It is very clear that he is angry with me, perhaps even very angry.

He is entitled to be.

Apparently he has also succeeded in involving quite a number of his colleagues in this matter because, of course, he embarrassed them.

Why did you not tell the whole story? Why did you only tell half the story?

Let me say that he is angry with the wrong person. He has only himself to blame for the embarrassing situation in which he finds himself.

He is not in any embarrassing situation.

I want to ask that hon. member and the Opposition in general why the hon. member placed his question on the Order Paper. Why did he not make representations directly to me, or to the Postmaster-General in regard to his problem? He placed the question on the Order Paper on his own initiative, and I replied to it. By way of a supplementary question he then revealed his attitude in regard to the matter. Now he is accusing me of pettiness. I want to ask this question: Who disclosed the facts, the merits of this matter? It is not I who did so. I did not tell this House what I discussed with the delegation.

You made an accusation without taking the facts into consideration.

As I have said, the hon. member only has himself to blame. If he thinks that I am being petty, he will simply have to go on thinking so.

What is the meaning of this incident? It is simply that in the past the United Party has always viewed the training and employment of non-Whites in work previously performed by Whites as a matter of supply and demand. They said:“If there is a demand for work, you should simply employ non-Whites in that capacity and it is your duty to train these people.” That has been the standpoint of the United Party throughout. Their indictment against us has always been that we are training these people too slowly.

That is correct. You trained them too slowly, and you did not train them well enough either.

They also said that we should employ non-Whites in that capacity, in other words, it was to them an ordinary game of numbers: Here is a vacancy and here are many non-Whites whom you can train—train them and fill any vacancies which may exist. I can recall—and everyone in this hon. House knows it very well, that on innumerable occasions, when any Minister on this side of the House rose to his feet and said that it was our policy to use non-Whites, but that it should be done in consultation with trade unions and staff associations, they tried to ridicule us.

But it is our policy as well.

The reproach is constantly being levelled at us that the progress we are making in this regard is too slow. This incident at Peddie has now proved that the existence of vacancies on the one hand and of a demand for workers on the other, is not all that has to be taken into consideration. There may be additional problems that have to be taken into consideration. Do you recall, Mr. Speaker, how that side of this House laughed on the innumerable occasions when this side of the House referred to the factor of friction? Now we have seen that they themselves are concerned about friction which may arise, friction which may arise under completely justifiable circumstances. What happened in this case proved that there are other factors which have to be taken into consideration if one is the responsible party. For that reason, too, I took the representations made by the hon. member for Albany and the deputation into consideration, and I decided that we would allow the training of these people to take place elsewhere.

So he was correct.

I reiterate, the hon. member has only himself to blame for the embarrassing situation in which he finds himself.

It is exploitation.

The hon. member for Wynberg accused me of an abuse of privilege. He tried to read me a lecture. The hon. member for Wynberg has served in this House for quite a long time, and for several years also served on the Provincial Council of the Cape; he therefore knows the procedure. If he wants to accuse me of an abuse of privilege, I challenge him to move that we appoint a Select Committee of this House to establish whether I committed an abuse of privilege here. [Interjections.] You see, Mr. Speaker, he is shaking his head; he adopts theatrical methods and casts suspicion on me as having allegedly committed an abuse of privilege.

I referred to a matter of privilege.

My time is limited. I challenge him to move that we appoint a Select Committee. I am prepared to submit myself to its finding. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, I think we have debated this matter sufficiently now. It unambiguously exposes the double-talk of the United Party on this question of the labour and the training of non-Whites.

You know you are talking rubbish! [Interjections.]

The hon. member for Wynberg also referred to the financing of the Post Office. He referred to the permanent capital on which the Post Office has to pay 6% interest. What he actually did was to ask us not to pay that interest. The hon. member ought to know that the Post Office received this R199 million as permanent capital as a result of the recommendations of the committee of inquiry into the Post Office finances which was appointed at the time under the chairmanship of Prof. Franzsen. Since it was an entirely acceptable offer to the Post Office at a relatively low rate of interest, the Post Office obviously made ready use of that capital. It was laid down in an amendment to the Post Office Readjustment Act, and obviously the Post Office is committed to it and is not going to act in a dishonourable manner by refusing to pay those dividends, as the hon. member proposed.

I want to tell the hon. member for Wynberg briefly that these estimates before us for the next year and also for the present financial year testify to growth. I agree with many of my hon. colleagues who emphasized that point. Thus the hon. member for Wonderboom said that the Post Office, with its budget, had had a fine vintage year. In regard to the finances of the Post Office, the hon. member said that he was not in favour of a subsidy, and that he did not feel too happy about the word “subsidy”. Yesterday I quoted to him from Time magazine of 15 March. Unfortunately I stopped too soon for the purpose of the argument we are now having, and for that reason I want to quote an additional passage. I pointed out the deplorable situation in the American postal services, that they are in fact on the verge of collapse. In spite of a budget of $14,2 billion and in spite of a tariff increase of 26% on all categories of mail, they still have a deficit of $1,4 billion for this financial year, and then the Postmaster-General of America has this to say—

Is that what the hon. member is aiming at, or would he rather have us continue to finance the Post Office in the way we have been doing, where we are not asking for a Treasury loan this year, and for next year have a merely nominal amount of R1 000 there to keep the item open? I think it is far more sensible to do it in this way, by mobilizing the personal savings potential of our own people and obtaining money from that source to render this service in the way in which we are doing.

The hon. member took a delight in comparing standards in this country with international standards.

Not a delight.

In any event, he held it up as a reproach that we in South Africa were allegedly so backward that we would supposedly end up somewhere between Pakistan and Tunisia. That was what the purport of his comparison was.

No.

Surely it is absurd to draw such a comparison if one does not at the same time go into a great many qualifying factors. If we think of the circumstances in South Africa—its vast distances, and so on—does he want us to build a main post office such as the one here in Cape Town in the middle of the Kalahari for example? Who would use it there? If one simply takes a geographic area, which the hon. member did, then this is what we shall have to do. It is foolishness to make such a comparison, unless on qualifies what one is envisaging with it.

†The hon. members for Berea and Umhlanga referred to the “twilight service” and asked for the extension of this service. I am afraid that in this respect we have already done what can possibly be done within the limits of our operations. This twilight service at present operates daily between 5 p.m. and 8 a.m. on weekdays. Over the weekends it operates from 1 p.m. on Saturdays until 8 a.m. on Monday mornings. I am sure, Mr. Speaker, you will agree that the Post Office cannot make any more or larger concessions in this regard.

They talk about the numbers, not the times.

What numbers do you mean?

The number.

The number of what? All subscribers to an automatic exchange may avail themselves of these services. The hon. member for Durban Point is clutching his head. I think something fell on it. They are advocating the expansion of this service.

More people.

Now they are talking about more people I have to use. This service is valid for all subscribers to an automatic network. In other words, what you are asking is that the automatic network should be expanded, and we are doing that. I have provided sufficient evidence during the course of this debate of all the things we are doing.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? Do I understand from the hon. the Minister that the “twilight service” is saturated and that he cannot extend it to any further subscribers?

By no means, it is not saturated.

Well, this is what we want to know.

It just means that all subscribers on automatic telephone exchanges may avail themselves of this service. However, we cannot possibly extend the hours of this service.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? Does the hon. the Minister not understand that I was talking about the better utilization of the “twilight service” in order to eliminate the backlog in central areas?

Mr. Speaker, I cannot, in the time I have to reply to this debate, conduct another new debate on this point. However, I do just want to say that 84% of our telephone services have already been automated. The subscribers to automatic telephone exchanges may avail themselves of this service. If the subscribers do not avail themselves of the service, what can I do to compel them to do so?

Will all applicants be able to have such a service?

Does the hon. member now want to tell me that firms, big business enterprises, should be compelled to make their calls after five o’clock in the afternoon? The people whom he should ask to do that are the housewives and those who are not tied down to office hours.

The poor pensioners.

May I ask the hon. Minister a question? Will the hon. the Minister not concede that I made the suggestion in my speech as to how he should go about this?

Order! That is an argument, not a question. The hon. the Minister may proceed.

Mr. Speaker, I think we should take that point further on some other occasion. I just want to point out that various hon. members made interesting suggestions, and these will most certainly be considered. The hon. member for Krugersdorp, for example, asked why we could not print the postal codes in the telephone directory instead of publishing a separate booklet containing postal codes. Consideration has already been given to this.

It is no longer a booklet.

Since not everyone writing a letter has a telephone directory close at hand, we find that it will be unsatisfactory; that is why we shall continue to make separate booklets available.

It is no longer a booklet. By now it is a rather large book.

It testifies to growth! The hon. member ought to be grateful for that. The hon. member for Berea, the hon. member for South coast and the hon. member for Kimberley South also mentioned points to which I should like to refer. I do not have time to reply to them in full. The hon. member for Berea pointed out that the telephone could be used far more advantageously and effectively by the public. He was quite correct. We are trying to persuade people to do so, but as I have also said, when one is dealing with human beings one is always dealing with their weaknesses and fallibilities as well. Therefore we have here an educational task which will have to be performed. The hon. member for South Coast asked whether we could not make the savings bank services more confidential. I cannot see that the Post Office savings bank service is less confidential than, for example, that of a building society. People also go to a building society and hand in their books over the counter. The amount you pay in is indicated there and if someone looks over your shoulder he can see how much money you have or do not have there. But we could nevertheless look into this matter. These are matters we could discuss. What causes me concern, however, is that the hon. member, as well as one of the other members who spoke afterwards, implied that we are neglecting the rural areas for the cities. If the hon. member would just glance at these estimates of capital works, he would see that we are requesting an amount of R250 000 in these estimates for the Margate post office and that we are in the process of building a post office there which will cost more than R½ million when completed.

The other day I replied to questions he asked concerning the provision of post boxes in his constituency. Therefore I do not think his standpoint is a fair one. The hon. member for Sandton also touched upon this point a moment ago when he was referring to the way in which we were allegedly neglecting the non-Whites. If we were for example to compare our spending on the creation of infrastructure in Soweto, for example, with other densely populated areas in which there was a greater demand for telephones, it would be found that we were spending far more in Soweto than in the other places. Therefore it makes no sense to try to play the one area off against the other. I think we should rather leave this matter at that. As you know, Sir, I am also Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions, and formerly I was also a member of the House of Assembly and I know that the question of pensions is a very necessary piece of equipment in the political machine. Various hon. members have again used it for that purpose in the course of this debate. The National Party need not be ashamed of its record in regard to pensions. The National Party has done a great deal in this respect—to tell the truth, it does something for the pensioners so regularly that the Opposition is constantly harping on that theme in the knowledge that alleviation will come and that when it comes they will be able to tell their voters that it is they who were responsible for the concession. I am afraid that something of this may be true.

The hon. member for South Coast spoke of a letter he had in his possession which took 52 days to travel from the Natal South Coast to Welkom. I wonder why the hon. member did not rather report this to the Postmaster-General? the department could then have investigated the case. But it makes no sense to raise such a matter in the open House.

The hon. member for Sandton also referred to what he called the “fragility of telephone equipment”. This is of course a problem with which postal services throughout the world have to cope with. One of the greatest problems is lightning, against which one is virtually helpless. The hon. member will know—because he lives in Johannesburg— that Johannesburg is frequently subjected to thunderstorms and that a single thunderstorm can put many thousand of telephones out of operation, particularly if the lightning strikes a main cable. Apart from the quality of the equipment which we have, one is and remains defenceless against this one major factor for which there is still no solution. In my budget speech I furnished him with a figure of 8,9%, being the percentage decrease in faults in our cable system, and he will agree with me that we have made a great deal of progress in this respect. I do not agree at all with the calculations which he made. He said that 10% of all persons on the waiting list are in his constituency.

Yes, that is an error.

I think that he is miscalculating there. In his constituency there are 3 487 people who are waiting for telephones, as compared with over-all waiting list of 95 000. That amounts to approximately 4% and not 10%. But I think that these are minor matters with which we should not bother ourselves further now. The hon. member for Kempton Park expressed appreciation for the fine new post office in his constituency. I agree wholeheartedly with him that this is something of which all of us may be proud. He also referred to the private automatic branch exchanges and pointed out that these exchanges are installed by private concerns. He went on to advocate that the repair and maintenance of such exchanges should also be carried out by private concerns. This is something which has already been considered by the Post Office in the past, but the hon. member should not lose sight of the fact that these private branch exchanges are linked to the national network. It may be that the fault occurs in the exchange itself, but it may also occur in the national network. He will agree with me that we cannot allow private contractors to have access to the national network to repair faults, and that was why the department has not up to now been in favour of this.

Yesterday I pointed out to the hon. member for Sandton by way of an interjections that it was the unenviable task of the department and the Minister to determine priorities. I asked him whether he and his colleagues, the hon. members for Parktown, Randburg and Bryanston, would be prepared to have us freeze the waiting list in their areas and concentrate on and apply our resources in the non-White residential areas. He replied to that today, but I can see that his experience as an attorney was of great assistance to him, because he circumvented the point and avoided a direct reply. This is no reflection on the attorney’s profession. I am simply saying that it is a skill he displayed by way of argumentation. The waiting list for private telephones in Soweto at present is 1 240, according to figures with which I furnished the hon. member for Parktown a few days ago. I have just told the hon. member for Sandton that the waiting list in his constituency is 3 487. I agreed with the hon. member yesterday that we should respect everyone’s justified claims, and that we should try to help everyone. If one does not have enough for everyone, and one is compelled to determine priorities, how does one decide? One has to allow oneself to be led by costs and by demand, and that is why we took this decision and are rendering the services as the demand for them arises. He would be the last man who would be prepared to say that we should freeze the waiting list in his own constituency and render the services elsewhere.

Mr. Speaker, I have just received a note from the Postmaster-General in regard to the confusion which arose over the “twilight service”. He informs me that the Post Office refers to it as a “sundowner service”. I thought that this was what certain hon. members called the “twilight service”. Hon. members will, however, understand that in the 2½ minutes left before the debate has to conclude I cannot reply in full to this, but I undertake to investigate further his suggestion of trying to advertise the service. I am sorry that I misunderstood him, and that we argued about this matter unnecessarily.

Vause says he is interested in the “sundowner”.

I am sincerely grateful to all hon. members on both sides of the House who participated in this debate. I enjoyed the debate, and I am glad to see that this House rejected with so much conviction the amendment of the hon. member for Durban Point at the Second Reading, and took the wise step of approving the Budget.

Mr. Speaker, before you put the question, I should like to have an opportunity to make a personal explanation in regard to an accusation which the hon. the Minister …

Order! The hon. member may not offer explanations concerning accusations now. The hon. member may only furnish an explanation if a part of his speech was misinterpreted, and then it should be a brief explanation only.

In my speech I accused the hon. the Minister of having abused a privileged occasion. I simply wish to point out that I did not accuse the hon. the Minister of having abused the privilege of this House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendments which appear in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

1. (1) On page 3, in line 12, after “person” to insert “who is in mora”;
2. (2) on page 3, in line 19, after “demand” to insert:

1. (3) on page 5, in line 16, after “writing” to insert:

1. (4) on page 7, in line 29, after “debt” to insert:

Sir, I briefly want to motivate these amendments. The reason for my first amendment is that, because of the manner in which the clause is drawn at the moment, even if a debt is not yet due and payable, and a letter is sent as prescribed in the proposed new section 56, then, if payment is made, there will also be a right to claim the costs of the letter of demand. In my respectful submission, all that is required is that, if the debt is already due and payable, the costs of the letter of demand which is then sent can be claimed. If the words “who is in mora” are not inserted, the effect will be that the moment a creditor decides to do his collection through an attorney, he will be able to recover part of his costs, even though the debt may not yet be due and payable. That is the motivation in respect of amendment No. 1.

The reason for the second amendment is that, if the debtor is to be liable for the costs of the letter of demand, he should know what the costs are. He does not walk around with a Government Gazette in his pocket. He does not know what the prescribed costs are and if he is not told what they are he cannot pay them. It involves unnecessary attandances, correspondence, etc., and it may end up with judgment being entered against a debtor for the amount of the letter of demand when, in fact, he would readily have paid it had he known what the amount was. That is my motivation for amendment No. 2.

In my third amendment it is suggested that where it says “he shall advise the defendant of such acceptance in writing”, it should be added that the writing should be delivered to him in a manner which can readily be proved, and I suggested here “by personal delivery or registered letter”. However, the suggestion has been made to me by the hon. the Minister that he would prefer “by registered letter” and therefore I indicate that I shall be quite happy to abandon the words “personal delivery of” and merely have the words “by registered letter”, if that is more acceptable.

My fourth amendment is in connection with the proposed new section 60, which reads—

Sir, the words that are sought to be added are “or the distribution of moneys to creditors on behalf of a debtor”. This is designed to do away with what is regarded as a scourge. There are a number of firms, some of which are of a very dubious nature, which regard it as their business to attract debtors to them and to get the debtors to pay money to them so that they can in turn distribute the money to the creditors of that particular debtor. They obviously charge a fee, which is neither prescribed by law, nor under any form of control. The result of this is that many of the debtors who end up in the hands of these people, end up paying more for the costs of distribution to the creditors than what the creditors eventually get. In my view, there should be no right to anybody other than a person who is an attorney, who is referred to here, to be able to levy a fee for distributing moneys to creditors on behalf of debtors. That is the motivation for amendment No. 4.

Is the hon. member prepared to withdraw the third amendment and to substitute a new amendment?

Yes, Sir.

Amendment (3), with leave, withdrawn.

I now move—

Mr. Chairman, I would like to react to the four amendments as moved by the hon. member for Yeoville. Concerning his first amendment— the insertion of the words moved by him—I wish to maintain that it would be completely tautological to include these words. It would certainly not be in accordance with good legal drafting to repeat a provision unnecessarily. Addressing the letter of demand already has the effect of placing the debtor in mora. Therefore to repeat that the man should be in mora is not only completely unnecessary, but could also have a confusing effect. For that reason I definitely cannot agree with the proposed addition of the hon. member for Yeoville.

As far as his second amendment is concerned, I would like to support him. I think that he is proposing a good amendment here. The purpose of this legislation is, inter alia, to limit litigation and to prevent unnecessary lawsuits in order to limit costs. For that reason I believe it to be a good proposal that the costs should be mentioned in the letter of demand so that there can be immediate finality on the responsibilities of the debtor. Therefore, I would like to support the hon. member for Yeoville on this point.

Concerning the third amendment, the hon. member has already abandoned that part of his original proposal which I wanted to oppose. I think it would be a good thing to provide that the notice of acceptance should be sent by registered post, so that proof may exist that the letter of acceptance did reach its destination. The way this amendment has now been phrased, it has my approval and my support.

This brings us to the fourth amendment proposed by the hon. member. Unfortunately I cannot give him any support in this case. This proposed amendment is in fact aimed at protecting the debtor against unnecessary or exorbitant costs which the creditor might incur to recover the amount owed. Accordingly, the Bill already provides that the collection may only be done by an attorney— an attorney who will be committed to the prescribed collection levy. However, the hon. member’s amendment actually concerns the case where the debtor himself prefers going to a debt distributor and settling his debts in that way. I maintain that what is being moved here by the hon. member falls completely outside the scope of this Bill. It is quite possible that there is some merit in his motivation. I would agree with him that malpractices a occur in this respect, but I maintain that this is not the place to rectify such malpractices.

A further reason why the collection of debts should be entrusted to an attorney is that the collection of debts also requires technical knowledge of the law. For that reason it should be done by somebody who has been properly trained for it. But this type of work which the hon. member is dealing with here, namely the distribution of payments between creditors, could be done equally well by an honest accountant or another competent person. Therefore I do not think it is reasonable to limit this kind of work to the legal profession, and for that reason I cannot support the member on this point.

Mr. Chairman, as regards the second amendment of the hon. member for Yeoville on the Order Paper, and the third amendment, as it is now being proposed by him, I am prepared to accept them for the reasons which the hon. member for Yeoville explained. I agree with him. I think they would improve this Bill, and for that reason I shall only say that I accept them. As far as his first amendment is concerned, I agree with the hon. member for Mossel Bay that one would now first have to write a letter to place a person in mora then the provision in the Bill would have to be complied with by having another registered letter addressed to him. In other words, it would in fact bring about the expense of two letters, which is completely unnecessary, because the Bill states that this is a due amount. Under the circumstances it seems to me that that amendment would be completely unnecessary. As far as amendment No. 4 is concerned, I readily concede to the hon. member for Yeoville that in general this practice is an evil because the people who conduct this evil practice do in fact take a very high percentage for their services, a completely excessive percentage. But I have already indicated in my Second Reading speech that I shall order a separate investigation concerning this evil. What this Bill is providing here is that the legal work must be done by the legal practitioners. This is all we want to achieve at this stage. This provision is not concerned with the distribution of moneys to creditors; it is concerned with the collection, and this is really a matter for attorneys. For that reason I am not prepared to accept this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, the second and third amendments moved by the hon. member for Yeoville, i.e. the requirement that the amount of the fees should now be stated in the letter of demand, and the requirement that the letter be delivered by registered post, have our support. The fee in respect of the letter of demand would not be a large amount. I am given to understand that it is probably R1 or thereabouts, and it would be a waste of time and money if proceedings have to be instituted thereafter in order to recover such a small amount if, by placing that amount in the letter, that can be obviated. Of course it is a matter for conjecture as to how many debtors in any event will pay it, but even if a small percentage only pay it, it will be worthwhile and accordingly that has our support. As to the registered letter, the matter has been adequately covered by the hon. member and by the Minister and I propose to say nothing more in that regard other than that we support it.

In regard to amendment No. 1, the proposed addition of the words “who is in mora”, we take the view that those words are not necessary, for three reasons. Firstly the definition of the word “debt” in the legislation is that debt means any liquidated sum of money which is due. That is the first point. Secondly, we have, in line 2 of the new section 56, the words “debt due by him”. Thirdly, later on in the section we find that the incurring of fees and costs are governed by the words “after the creditor has caused a registered letter of demand to be sent”. It seems to me that if the debt is due and a registered letter of demand has been sent, then the addition of the words “in mora” are not necessary. Consequently we will not support the first amendment.

As regards the fourth amendment, I would concede that the matter is arguable, because the words used in section 60 relate to the prohibition of persons other than an attorney or agent referred to in section 22, to be entitled to recover from the debtor any fees or remuneration in connection with the collection of any debt. Now, I would concede that probably those words do not include, as the hon. member for Yeoville in his amendment indicates, the distribution of moneys after the collection of the debt. I think that interpretation is probably correct. But I am inclined to think that there are cases where persons other than an attorney may do it. One thinks of an accountant or a trust company administering an estate. After the debt has been recovered by an attorney, the distribution may be wished to be done by a person other than an attorney, either by an employee of a trust company or by an accountant or somebody of that kind. We take the view then that we shall not support the hon. member’s fourth amendment.

Mr. Chairman, in so far as the first amendment is concerned, I merely want to put the point that in my view in these circumstances the debtor is not in mora until the letter is written and I also believe that the letter should not be the thing which puts him in mora. That is why I believe that the amendment is necessary. But as the Minister will not accept it, I think there is no point in having a lengthy argument about it. As far as the amendment No. 4 is concerned, again I regret that the Minister will not accept this amendment. My difficulty here is that firstly there is no control over the fees of anybody who acts for the debtor in the distribution of moneys to his creditors. He can charge what he likes. A firm can charge what it likes and as the Minister himself has conceded, many of them do. Secondly, there is no provision that such a person must have a trust account which is guaranteed in the manner in which attorneys’ trust accounts are guaranteed. If the man goes insolvent or he does away with the money, then the debtor loses, and as a result the creditor loses. With great respect, I think this is an amendment which is not only necessary but which is socially desirable. Now I accept that the hon. the Minister says he is having another inquiry, and that he may do it in another way or in another form. The difficulty I have is that there is no legislation pending of any kind in terms of which this type of provision may be included. That is why it seems that in these circumstances this is the correct place. I merely want to express my regret that this amendment in the circumstances has not been accepted. In so far as the other two are concerned, I am indebted to the hon. the Minister for accepting them.

Amendment (1) negatived.

Amendments (2) and (3) agreed to.

Amendment (4) negatived.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 2:

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

The reason why I should like to substitute the words is that, in my opinion, the existing wording does not make it clear enough that the commission is to be deducted from the amount payable to the judgment creditor. The creditor must pay the 5% commission and in the wording as it stands this is not stated clearly enough. That is why I move that the words be substituted, so that the provision may be clearer.

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

1. (1) On page 7, in line 47, to omit “or” and to substitute “and”;
2. (2) on page 7, in line 49, after “amount” to insert:

1. (3) on page 7, in line 49, to omit “or” and to substitute “and”;
2. (4) on page 9, in lines 4 and 5, to omit “and in his personal capacity”;
3. (5) on page 11, in line 5, to omit “or in his personal capacity”;
4. (6) on page 11, in line 47, after “income” to insert “and assets”;
5. (7) on page 11, after “administrative” in lines 58 and 59, to insert “and running”;
6. (8) on page 15, to omit all the words after “court” in line 26 up to and including “capacity,” in line 29;
7. (9) on page 15, to omit all the words after “if” in line 49 up to and including “court” in line 53 and to substitute:

1. (10) on page 19, in line 5, to omit “in its discretion may” and to substitute “shall”;
2. (11) on page 19, in line 25, to omit “in his personal capacity”;
3. (12) on page 19, in line 57, to omit “R4 000” and to substitute “R5 000”;
4. (13) on page 21, in line 53, to omit “5” and to substitute “7”;
5. (14) on page 25, in line 31, to omit “an” and to substitute “a written”;
6. (15) on page 25, in line 33, after “creditor” to insert “in writing”.

In the first place I would like to say that what concerns me about this piece of legislation is that, while it is quite correct that there should be a means of enforcing the payment of debt one must not merely look at this from the point of view of the attorney and of the creditor, but also from the point of view of the public as a whole. I regret to say that one of the things that concerns me is that this piece of legislation does not look at the matter from a social or sociological point of view. It does not look at the situation from the point of view of the community as a whole. It is all very well to introduce legislation in terms of which one is now going to be so tough on debtors that one is going to grind them into the dirt; that may be very good from the point of view of the attorney who wants to collect the debt. From a sociological point of view, however, I am not sure that this is the right approach. What worries me is that clause 2 in fact takes us back to the days of Dickens. It reintroduces civil imprisonment in South Africa in a form which is utterly unacceptable to me. That is my main concern about this clause. This is why I make it clear in my first and second amendments and in a number of the other amendments that, once a court has made a determination on the ability of a debtor to pay, and once the court has decided the amount of instalments that should be paid, or, alternatively, once a debtor has undertaken to pay in instalments, there can be a request to commit a debtor for contempt if the obligations are not complied with. However, the suggestion that the moment one has a judgment for a sum of money, irrespective of what the judgment is for or how it arose under the circumstances—it could be a motor accident—one is entitled to commit a man to prison and to apply for contempt proceedings if the amount is not paid, is wrong. One then puts the onus on the debtor to seek to escape imprisonment because he has failed to pay a debt. I thought I had heard the last of this when reading the books of Charles Dickens on England. This is not part of what our judicial structure is all about. I find civil imprisonment utterly repugnant to the basic democratic concepts of South Africa. It is all very well everybody being so high and mighty about creditors but debtors are also people.

Order! The principle has already been accepted. The hon. member must please confine himself to the details of the clause and his amendments.

I am now going to indicate why I think the clause is not an acceptable one. I simply want to make the point that I think it wrong to look upon people who are in debt as being people who are not deserving of protection. There are debtors who seek to escape the payment of their debts, and I believe that there are debtors who are perhaps professional debtors. However, there are also many people in South Africa who are unfortunately in debt. One only has to look at the statistics furnished to see the percentage of the population which finds itself in debt today. This is a sociological problem to which civil imprisonment is not the answer.

I would now like to deal with the individual amendments. The first amendment is to make it clear that there must not only be a judgment, but that there must either be an order or an undertaking to pay in instalments. That is also the effect of amendments Nos. 2 and 3. Amendments Nos. 4, 5 and 11 relate to a new provision in our law which goes quite contrary to what has been accepted in the past. If a limited liability company cannot pay its debts, why should one commit a director in his personal capacity? In his representative capacity this could be done, but certainly not in a personal capacity. It goes contrary to the concept of limited liability which, in fact, is part of the concept of company law in South Africa. Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 will be dealt with by my colleague, the hon. member for Sandton. Amendment No. 8 also deals with the same principle and is a consequential amendment upon the earlier one which I put to the hon. the Minister.

In respect of amendment No. 9, as I have indicated, we now not only seek to commit a debtor for contempt, but also to place the onus of proof on him. What I have in mind here is that the magistrate should merely hear the evidence and, without there being an onus on the defendant, who has to be examined in any case, come to a conclusion. Amendment No. 12 is necessary because of other amendments I am moving to clause 6 in respect of administration orders. I suggest that the amount of R4 000 is insufficient and that it should now become R5 000.

Mr. Chairman, initially I want to react only to the first three amendments which appear on the Order Paper in the name of the hon. member for Yeoville.

The hon. member has just taken up the same standpoint that he took up in his Second Reading speech. In reply to a question which I put to him by way of an interjection, he admitted that he actually wanted to retain the old section 65. We have abundant information and proof, however, that the old section 65 did not function satisfactorily and required amending. The hon. member for Jeppe accordingly said in this Second Reading speech that in general that the proposed amendments were welcomed by attorneys. Therefore it is clear that an amendment had to be effected to section 65. After the hon. member for Yeoville has not succeeded in getting his way at the Second Reading stage, he has now moved this series of amendments in order to undermine the whole spirit of the amendment and to emasculate this amending clause, as it were. The hon. member said, inter alia, the following in his Second Reading speech—

He went on to say—

The hon. member has just said more or less the same thing. But surely, Sir, this is not correct. Only a prima facie presumption is created and it is for the debtor to refute that presumption. The hon. member waxed lyrical about an alleged shifting of the onus, but surely the issue here is information and particulars which, in the first instance, are within the knowledge of the debtor. In other words, it is not really a burden which is being imposed on him and it is wilfulness if he does not want to avail himself of the opportunity to discharge the onus. There is therefore no question of people being imprisoned for debt indiscriminately in terms of this clause. Practice has taught us, however, that it is very difficult to get a hold on some debtors and that measures most certainly have to be put into operation in order to get a more direct hold on these people. It is for this reason that these amendments are so necessary.

The hon. member for Yeoville himself has admitted that the first three amendments which he moved here and to which I am referring, have the effect of bringing about what he had in mind when he made his Second Reading speech, that is, to cause this whole clause to fall through and to take us back to the position as it was in terms of the old section 65. In doing this the hon. member for Yeoville himself advanced the strongest argument against the acceptance of these amendments moved here by him.

In conclusion, I want to refer to the proposed new section 65K, from which it is very clear that a creditor will not be able to take steps indiscriminately in terms of the proposed section 65 as he will be running the risk of having to pay the costs thereof himself. For that reason a creditor will have to be very careful, especially where the debtor has made him an offer. He will have to be very certain of his case before taking the proposed steps, otherwise he is going to bring a lot of expenses on himself.

I think that the necessary safeguards are built into these proposed amendments of clause 65 to prevent a large-scale imprisonment of debtors and unfair action being taken against debtors. I can therefore see no justification for the limitation of the new section 65A(1) as proposed here by the hon. member for Yeoville. I can therefore not support him in the least.

Mr. Chairman, I rise merely to move the amendments printed in my name on the Order Paper, and to motivate them briefly. The proposed new section 65L provides for the release of a judgment debtor from a prison after he has been imprisoned for non-compliance with the order of the court, whether for the payment of the judgment debt, the total amount, or only in respect of an instalment. As subsection (b) of the proposed new section 65L reads at present, it would appear as though the judgment debtor may be released from prison only if he pays the full amount of the judgment debt plus costs. This does not seem fair to me in respect of the judgment debtor who is only one installment in arrear, especially if one has regard to the fact that the court found, when this matter was investigated and enquiries were made into his financial position, that his financial position was such that he was unable to pay the full amount all at once and that he should have the right to pay it in instalments. In other words, the considerations which applied when he was given the right to pay in instalments, have not disappeared. On the contrary; I think it is much more apparent from the fact that he has landed in difficulties in this regard that those considerations still apply. For that reason I feel, in all fairness towards a judgment debtor, that it should not be expected of him at this stage to pay the full amount plus costs, but only the arrear instalment or instalments. Therefore he ought not to remain there longer if he is unable to pay the full amount. This has the additional advantage that we shall be keeping people out of prison in this way and this is something which we should all like to see. As far as the second part of this amendment is concerned, I just want to make the following remark: It is essential and obvious that one does not want to keep anyone in prison for an unnecessarily long period, and as soon as he has paid, it should be obligatory that he be released from prison as soon as possible. Consequently I move the following amendments printed in my name on the Order Paper—

1. (1) On page 27, in line 4, after “paid”, to insert:

1. (2) On page 27, in line 7, after “prison” to insert:

Mr. Chairman, we support the amendments moved by the hon. member for Verwoerdburg. If I could speak now, very briefly … [Interjections.]

Order! Hon. members should give the hon. member a fair chance.

I now want to motivate amendments Nos. 6, 7, 10, 13, 14 and 15, as moved by the hon. member for Yeoville. As regards all that is asked, is that in determining the ability of a judgment debtor to satisfy the judgment, instead of the magistrate just looking at the income of the debtor before the court, he should look at the assets of that debtor as well. I believe this is only correct. Those of us who are practitioners will have experienced the situation in court where the assets of a woman married out of community of property play no role at all in the determining of the amount to be paid off her debt. One very often finds that some people who are debtors, have just about all the family assets in their name. Sometimes two or even three cars are found to be in the names of some women. Very often there are luxurious assets too. This is a discretionary matter for the magistrate in making an order and all that we ask is that the magistrate be given an opportunity to look at the assets of the parties concerned and to properly assess the ability to pay and the bona fides of that person. Without this information I think the magistrate finds himself in a difficult position to make proper decisions. Amendment no. 7 requires a court, in making an order, to take into account not only the necessary administrative expenses, but also the running expenses. This may be an exercise in semantics, but I think it is important, because the administrative expenses relate strictly to the office expenses of the company, the running of the books, accounts, etc. I submit that a company which is entitled only to its administrative expenses, is not in a position to do new business and by including the words “running expenses” I believe it covers the cost of the actual generation of new business, i.e. sending out salesmen and doing all sorts of things which are not covered by the rather restrictive term “administrative expenses”. I would say that this information is also essential and I think the amendment, as proposed, only assists the magistrate in arriving at a decision. In amendment No. 10, we ask that the word “may” in line 5 on page 19 be omitted and that the word “shall” be substituted. Basically this subsection deals with the right of a court to discharge from arrest a judgment debtor once the judgment debtor has satisfied certain requirements. These are set out as follows—

or, in dealing with companies—

The court may make an order suspending or further suspending the execution of a warrant. All we are saying here is that if the debtor is able to satisfy the court, we feel that it should be incumbent upon the court to release the debtor accordingly. This should not be left to any discretion, because we feel that to introduce into a situation, where a person’s liberty is at stake, further imponderables, without specifying what they are, is not desirable at all. The next amendment on the Order Paper I want to refer to is No. 13, referring to page 21 of the Bill. This is really a small amendment to omit the figure “5” and to substitute the figure “7”. The proposed new section 65J(2)(a) at present reads as follows—

Our view is that this amendment takes postal delays into account, affords greater certainty and is slightly more realistic without vitiating the clause. We therefore ask that this be accepted. Amendments 14 and 15 on the Order Paper refer to page 25 of the Bill, introducing, respectively, the words “a written” and “in writing” in lines 31 and 33. The question here is that of an offer being made upon the admission of the indebtedness of the debtor. We merely ask that these offers and admissions be made in writing, because it is upon evidence of those offers that the court is to make a decision in the matter. We feel that if the offer is in writing, i.e. in a documented form, such communication between the creditor and the debtor would carry far greater weight before a court. Misunderstandings could thus be avoided. This would also obviate the need for protracted oral evidence and in some cases it may even ensure that attorneys, who happen to be acting on behalf of creditors, are not called into court to give evidence concerning what was said or not. We ask that these amendments be accepted. We do not think they are all that controversial. In fact, they would only enhance the relevant provision.

Mr. Chairman, I have been accused by my hon. friends in the Progressive Party of having a nose for elections and making speeches in this House to that end. However, that is the only interpretation one can give of the hon. member for Yeoville’s speech on this clause, because at Second Reading the hon. member accepted the principle of the Bill. Sir, as you pointed out earlier, the very provision for civil imprisonment which he objects to now is one of the principles which was accepted at Second Reading. Civil imprisonment in itself is nothing new in South Africa or in Great Britain. The existing section 65 procedure has, for some years, embodied the principle of civil imprisonment when a debtor fails to comply with an instruction or order or judgment of a court in respect of a debt. I do not see the difficulty the hon. member for Yeoville sees in this regard. However, before I go into that, I should perhaps say that I agree with the amendment moved by the hon. the Minister and the amendment moved by the hon. member for Verwoerdburg, as set out on the Order Paper. Before going any further, I wish to move the amendment standing in the name of the hon. member for East London City on the Order Paper, as follows—

Amendments Nos. (1), (2) and (3) on the Order Paper really hang together, and embody the point of view expressed by the hon. member for Yeoville. What is envisaged here is that one should be able to imprison a debtor merely because he has an unfulfilled judgment against him for a sum of money which has not been paid. I, on the other hand, do not take that view at all. The proposed sections 65A to 65M are all to be read together, and although section 65A does, at first sight, give the impression the hon. member for Yeoville objected to, one has to read it together with section 65D, which relates to an inquiry into the debtor’s financial position. In other words, when a notice is issued in terms of section 65A, which is, on the face of it, a notice to inquire into the possibility of committing to prison a debtor who has not paid, it is, in actual fact, only the beginning of an inquiry into his financial affairs. That is all it is. It is an inquiry into his financial affairs as set out in the proposed new section 65D(1). Applicable, too, are the provisions of the proposed new section 65E. Indeed, at the end of that inquiry, if it is found that the debtor cannot pay, he is not committed to prison. So, without going into the principle which has already been accepted, as you have rightly ruled, Sir, I think it is an exaggerated flight of language to say that in this measure we are returning to the days of Charles Dickens, however politically attractive it may be to say that. I therefore do not accept the first three amendments moved by the hon. member.

The fourth amendment on the Order Paper, which deals with omitting “and in his personal capacity”, at first sight might strike one as warranting a query, because I agree with the hon. member that three categories are being dealt with, namely a juristic person, the person appearing in a representative capacity, such as the director and so forth, and then a person appearing in his personal capacity. It seems to me that this is not unreasonable. It is in accord with the appropriate provisions of the Criminal Procedure Act, as I recall it. Apart from other things, it does make it impossible for the person representing the juristic body, such as a director or a secretary of a company, to avoid his responsibilities by being removed from office either by a resolution of directors or simply by virtue of resignation, thus causing endless trouble in that regard to the judgment creditor of a debtor that is a juristic body. Consequently it seems to us that the inclusion of the words “or in his personal capacity” are not unreasonable in this case. I now come to the amendments moved by the hon. member for Sandton. He, firstly, dealt with amendment No. 6 on the Order Paper, which envisages the insertion of the words “and assets” after the word “income”. In the section to which he referred, i.e. line 47 on page 11 of the Bill, it is correct to say that the only aspect dealt with is income. If there were an omission in regard to assets, I would have agreed with him, but there is a clause dealing specifically with assets. That one finds in the proposed new section 65E(1), which in part reads as follows—

That section sets out the proceedings of all types in this regard—

1. (a) that the judgment debtor has movable or immovable property which may be attached and sold in order to satisfy the judgment debt … the court may …

The paragraph goes on to deal with the issuing of warrants and so forth. So in my view there is specific provision here to deal with the point raised by the hon. member for Sandton. Consequently, amendment No. 6 is, in my view, superfluous.

Amendment No. 7, allowing a juristic body, a company, the wherewithal not only for administrative purposes, but also for running purposes, is well founded and will receive my support. This is a difficult matter because it involves language and the interpretation of language, but I think that “administrative expenses” is not the same as “running expenses”. If one is to allow the company to continue to run and so to pay off its debts in instalments, I should think one would require to allow it not only the costs of administering the company but also of running it, which may mean putting aside capital for future purchases and matters of that kind. Amendment No. 7 therefore has my support. In the case of amendment No. 10, we should I think retain the discretion which the Bill provides for at the present time. There can be no harm in retaining a discretion in this regard. Quite clearly, one cannot envisage a court that will retain a person in prison when that person has a good excuse not to be there. Nevertheless, there may be circumstances which would warrant a different approach by a court, and it seems to me that to leave a discretion in the hands of the court can do no harm. Consequently I shall not support amendment No. 10, as moved by the hon. member for Yeoville and referred to by the hon. member for Sandton.

Amendment No. 11 is the same as amendment No. 4, which we have already dealt with. It concerns the question of a juristic person acting “in his personal capacity”. The increase of the jurisdiction from R4 000 to R5 000, as proposed in amendment No. 12, is, I think, unwarranted. It seems to me that, since in the report of the commission it was recommended that the figure be increased from R2 000, as previously applied, to a figure of approximately R3 700, as applied up to 1974, a figure of R4 000 is appropriate at this time. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I should like to address you in regard to the proposed amendments Nos. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15 and also the amendment that appears on the Order Paper in the name of the hon. member for East London City. When we consider these matters I think it is essential that we should once again bear in mind that among those who served on this Committee, is an attorney with 25 years experience of the kind of work now being discussed by the Committee of this House, a person for whom the hon. member for Yeoville himself has a great deal of respect. This is a matter in regard to which practitioners experience a great deal of difficulty. This very week I have had another instance of a messenger of the court coming to me to tell me that he had a warrant involving a large amount of money, a warrant against a company. He had approached the director of the company for money to honour the warrant; the director’s reaction had been to tell him that there were no assets—and that was that. In the present situation it is extremely difficult to proceed with a case against a company when one has judgment against it in terms of which one cannot act against it under section 65. One has to go to the Deeds Office oneself and pay fees in order to determine the assets of the company in question, or one has to go to the office of the Registrar of Companies to obtain details there. Very often these small companies—and they are what we are really concerned with—are behind-hand with the details they have to supply to the Registrar of Companies. Consequently one’s only alternative is to resort to the liquidation procedure. The hon. member for Yeoville has said that it is easy for debtors to apply for voluntary surrender and to initiate sequestration proceedings, but it is just as easy to initiate liquidation proceedings. In other words, as the position stands at the moment, one has in fact to go so far as to liquidate a company before one can really ascertain what assets that company possessed.

Let us now argue on the basis that the director is summonsed in his representative capacity under the provisions of clause 2 and that he does not appear in court. In such a case it is still only the company that has been guilty of contempt of court and no further steps can be taken. In his Second Reading speech the hon. member for Yeoville said:“If one is going to adopt the proposed procedure, one is in actual fact ignoring the whole concept of limited liability.” Surely that is not true. Nowhere does the Bill provide that the director or the officer has to pay this debt out of his own pocket, and surely it is obvious that this is the basic principle of limited liability. More and more company law is moving in the direction of providing that the people who run the company—in other words, the organs of the company—must acquaint themselves with the nature of the business in which the company is engaged. The organs of the company, viz. the directors etc., are too inclined to abuse the principle of limited liability by incurring debts irresponsibly and then hiding behind the principle of limited liability. Sir, I have now dealt with amendments nos. 4, 5, 8 and 11 moved by the hon. member for Yeoville, and with the arguments of the hon. member for Sandton in this connection.

I now come to amendment No. 6, in which the hon. member proposes that the words “and assets” be inserted in line 47. In my opinion the hon. member for Umhlatuzana replied to that comprehensively when he said that reference should also be made to the proposed section 65E. Apart from that, subsection (4) of the proposed section provides that the court must take certain aspects into account. This does not mean that the court does not have the inherent right to take certain other aspects mentioned in the proposed section 65E into account.

Then we come to the issue of the administration expenses. The hon. member for Sandton said that he thought he was engaged in an “exercise in semantics”.

I said other members might think so.

I think that that is the case. I should like to refer the hon. member to the dictionary compiled by Krit-zinger, Steyn, Schoonees and Cronje, which translates “administrasie” as “management” and “management” as “bestuur”. Then I want to refer him to the judgment in the Appeal Division of the Supreme Court in the case of Naidoo v. Mayville Administration Board (1929—Appeal Court Judgments, page 255). On this occasion, for the purposes of interpretation of section 38 (1) of Ordinance No. 4, 1926, of Natal, the learned judge found that—

I think that that settles that aspect.

Then we come to the ninth amendment moved by the hon. member for Yeoville. The stage to which this amendment applies is the stage at which judgment has already been given against the debtor. He has already had the opportunity of making arrangements for the payment of his debts, with the creditor or with his attorney. All those things which he now has to prove are things of which, as the hon. member for Mossel Bay said, he has personal knowledge. Here we must consider the cases under the Insolvency Act, for example, where the onus of proof is also on a woman married out of community of property to show that the assets which she claims for herself out of the assets seized by the curator, belong to her for certain reasons. This onus is a very easy one to discharge.

The next amendment moved by the hon. member for Yeoville to which I now want to refer, relates to the interpretation of the proposed section 55F(3)(c)(iii). Here the hon. member for Yeoville stated in his Second Reading speech that a debtor had to prove that he could earn at least R1 000 a month.

†This does not mean that he must prove that he cannot earn a certain sum of money. It merely means that he has to prove that the money that he earns is insufficient to pay the debt.

*That is all he has to prove. This would be poor legislation if the onus of proving this case did not fall on one of the parties, and the only person who can do this is the debtor. If this amendment is accepted, this particular provision will lose its whole impact.

As far as the twelfth amendment is concerned, I agree with the hon. member for Umhlatuzana that the figure of R4 000 is a scientific figure, and I do not think we need argue any further about replacing it with another arbitrary figure.

As far as amendments Nos. 14 and 15 are concerned, viz. that this offer of which mention is made in the proposed new section 65 K must be made in writing, and that it must be accepted in writing, I want to say that in the first place it is unnecessary. In the second place, account must be taken of illiterate debtors. Furthermore, it must be borne in mind that many of these offers are concluded telephonically. Most important of all is the fact that in any event, the creditor cannot go to court to request judgment in his favour unless he has the offer in writing. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I should like to associate myself with the remarks made by the hon. member for Brakpan concerning the twelfth amendment moved by the hon. member for Yeoville. I agree that the figure has been determined scientifically, and we also noted in the Committee’s report. Apart from that I am of the opinion that an amount of R4 000 which is chiefly in respect of domestic debts, is already an extremely high figure. We must bear in mind that an administration order of R4 000 with additional expenses of about 12½%, gives us R4 500. If an order of R100 a month is issued, it will take a man four years to pay those debts. Consequently, I, too, agree with what the hon. member for Umhlatuzana said.

Sir, I should like to move the following two amendments relating to the proposed new section 65I(2)—

1. (1) On page 19, in line 48, after “order,” to insert:

1. (2) on page 19, to omit all the words after “and” in line 52 up to and including “court” in line 54 and to substitute:

I want to motivate this briefly by stating that the subsection (2) in question deals with the position where a debtor appears before the court in terms of a notice under section 65A(1) for a specific debt and it appears at the hearing that he has other debts as well, but has not lodged an application for an administrative order before or during the hearing in question. The court then considers whether all his debts should be treated collectively with a view to a possible administration order. As the proposed section is worded at present, it is possible to interpret it to mean that a judgment debtor can obtain an administration order without his other creditors being aware of it. I am of the opinion that when a court finds or judges that the debt of a judgment debtor who has other debts ought to be treated collectively with a view to an administration order, the obligation should be laid on the judment debtor to give notice to his creditors that on a specific date he is going to submit his affairs to the court with a view to a possible administration order.

The amendment which I propose therefore means, firstly, that a thorough investigation will be carried out and that a full application for an administration order will come before the court, thus preventing the possibility of a one-sided submission to the court by the judgment debtor. Nor, in the second place, will there be difficulties in connection with the appointment of an administrator, because it is a known fact that there is a possibility of the judgment debtor being placed under administration and the creditors will therefore want to protect their rights and claims by being present; otherwise there would have been uncertainty with regard to the appointment of the administrator. Thirdly, the court will not be overloaded and overwhelmed with work which is really the responsibility of the judgment debtor. It could easily happen that the professional debtor, who very soon acquaints himself with the procedure, will be ready for such an application to the magistrate with details of his debts etc. when he appears in terms of section 65A(1) and applies for an administration order, without his creditors being aware of this. That is why I believe that the amendments will place the situation beyond any doubt.

Mr. Chairman, I have not yet motivated the amendment standing in the name of the hon. member for East London North and I would like to do that now. It appears at the bottom of page 259 of the Order Paper. In essence it is the same point of view as that advanced by the hon. member for Yeoville in his ninth amendment. It deals with the question of onus when it comes to what has to be proved in terms of the proposed section 65F(3) of the Bill. I agree with the hon. member that when it comes to the court deciding on the factors which would obviate his being civilly imprisoned by the court in respect of a judgment which has not been met, the onus ought not to be on the debtor but ought to rest where it always does in a civil case in an ordinary matter and that is on the plaintiff. In order to bring that about the amendment is moved in the form in which it has been printed. The difference in wording between the hon. member for Yeoville and that moved by myself is only because of the different points of view between us in so far as a juristic person is concerned, and the element of a representative being summoned in his personal capacity. To return to the amendment spoken to by the hon. member for Sandton, the thirteenth amendment of the hon. member for Yeoville, I want to state that it has our support, only because it substitutes seven days for the five days stated in the Bill. I suppose this is a figure which is well-known in legal circles. One cannot really say much more for it than that. Seven days is a figure customarily-used in a letter of demand and it seems reasonable that that figure should be used here as well.

Amendments Nos. 14 and 15 of the hon. member do not have our support. That is where, on page 25 of the Bill, the hon. member spoke about the need for the offer made by a judgment debtor to be made in writing. The Bill at the present time refers to the question where it appears to the court that the judgment debtor, after learning of the judgment from which such proceedings were founded—that is the committal proceedings—may then offer to pay the judgment debt in instalments which the court deems reasonable. This is something which, if the court finds it to be reasonable, means that the weight of the law bears less heavily on the judgment debtor concerned.

Sir, a lot of debtors in this country are illiterate, and it seems to me that to impose the requirement that the offer must be in writing, imposes a burden on a great many people, those who cannot read or write. It would mean that they would have to go to somebody else, presumably an attorney, to have their offer made, which in turn means that they would have to incur expense in order to have this done. They would not be debtors if they had the money to incur expenses of that kind. So it seems to us that the Bill as it stands, requiring merely an offer to pay in instalments, whether it be in writing or otherwise, is preferable to amendments Nos. 14 and 15 as moved by the hon. member for Yeoville and as spoken to by the hon. member for Sandton. I think that I have now dealt with all the amendments moved by the hon. the Minister, the hon. member for Verwoerdburg and the hon. member for Yeoville.

Mr. Chairman, I do not believe that I should take up the Committee’s time unnecessarily by once again dealing with all the proposed amendments separately. In my modest opinion they have been thoroughly discussed by the members concerned. I agree with the arguments raised by most of them, and consequently I am of the opinion that a repetition of those arguments would indeed be a waste of time.

However, I want to make a few remarks about what was said by the hon. member for Yeoville, and I am also going to give an indication of which amendments I am prepared to accept. The first amendment which I am prepared to accept, is No. 13. This is an amendment moved by the hon. member for Yeoville for the substitution of “seven days” for “five days”. I want to say, however, that I frankly do not see any necessity for it, but the hon. member for Umhlatuzana agrees with this amendment and says that in legal circles seven days are more customary than 5 days. I am not eager to spoil the small party and if it will make the hon. friends feel happier, I shall indulge the hon. member for Yeoville and give him his seven days.

As far as the other amendments are concerned, I can accept only the amendments moved by the hon. member for Verwoerdburg. I want to express my appreciation towards the hon. member because it seems to me, for the reasons presented to the House by the hon. member, that these amendments are essential. It seems to me that this was an oversight on the part of the legislator and I think that these amendments may be effected to the Bill to good effect. The same holds for the amendment moved by the hon. member for Klerksdorp. For the reasons advanced by the hon. member, I accept his amendment too. I want to express my appreciation towards these two hon. members, because I know that a certain amount of study, cross references and such were necessary for the hon. members to arrive at the amendments.

As far as the first three amendments of the hon. member for Yeoville are concerned, I must say that I am rather surprised at the hon. member’s attitude. I am inclined to agree with the hon. member for Umhlatuzana that the extravagant words used by the hon. member for Yeoville, suggest that he was thinking of the election in Durban North when he was speaking and championing the cause of the debtors. I do not know whether this is so, but it seems to me as if it is the case. I noticed that even the hon. member for Houghton supported him with a few groans and moans. She is wont to do that when she agrees or disagrees with one. Therefore the hon. member for Yeoville most probably advanced his arguments on the instigation of that hon. member. The hon. member conceded that the Bill was a good one and that the new section 65(1) was a good provision with regard to debts paid off in instalments. If this is the case, then the question immediately arises: Why not with regard to a small debt for which a summons has been obtained in a capital amount? What is the difference? If one has to pay off a debt in instalments or in one sum, there is no difference in principle.

I am the last one in this House to question or doubt the hon. member for Yeoville’s legal knowledge, but the hon. member is probably aware of the fact that, in terms of the proposed section 65, a person on whom a summons has been served for a lump sum, has the right to write to his creditors at once and to offer the amount in instalments, and that his offer must be taken into consideration, because, as the hon. member knows, if the creditors do not take it into consideration if it is a reasonable offer, they may be ordered to pay the costs of the proceedings at a subsequent hearing which may take place. This is in terms of the new section 65K as set out in clause 2. The court therefore gives a very clear indication that a creditor must give serious consideration to an offer to pay in instalments—whatever that offer may be. Seeing this is the case, I find it strange that the hon. member used the words he did, viz. that in this regard we were returning to Dickens’s England. Surely this is ludicrous.

I should like to reply to the hon. member’s argument—the hon. member for Brakpan has already replied to it very effectively— concerning the personal appearance of the director before the court. The debt which is involved here, is a small one. One usually finds that it is small companies consisting of one or two persons which owe such amounts. The directors of such companies usually incurred the debt personally. Surely it is only right, if he refuses to pay the debt, which generally will be a small debt for a company, that he be ordered to appear before the court and, if he will not or cannot pay, run the same risk as the ordinary poor debtor of Durban North. Why should the debtor of Durban North have to run a risk which directors of companies do not have to run? I should like to know what the hon. member for Yeoville’s answer is to that. However, in my opinion the hon. member for Brakpan has answered the question well, and therefore it is not necessary for me to go into the matter any further.

As far as the other amendments are concerned, I can only say that I endorse the arguments of the other hon. members of this side of the House who dealt with them. The hon. member for Sandton referred to a court case and said that should insert two words into the clause concerned. However, the matter has already been decided by the courts. The hon. member for Brakpan has already referred to this. Under the circumstances the amendments which have been accepted by me, are the only amendments which I can accept.

I should like to refer to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Umhlatuzana. In this connection I should like to say a few words to the jurists in our midst. We as jurists know that if there be no onus, problems may arise. The less one tells the court, the less the court can tell one. This is why an onus is being imposed upon the debtor.

This is in order to cross-examine him.

It is not a case of cross-examining. The question is: What proof does he bring to court to discharge his onus? One cannot cross-examine a person if you do not have access to his documents. If I were somebody’s legal adviser, and if the hon. member for Umhlatuzana’s amendment were accepted so that there would be no onus resting upon anyone, I would tell my client that he should not take anything to court because the lawyers would tell him that they wanted his books and documents in order to cross-examine him. That is what the hon. member for Umhlatuzana proposes. If I were to tell him not to take any books or documents to court, how could he be cross-examined? If, however, an onus was imposed upon him, he must provide the necessary documents. If he were to fail to do so, it would count against him. It is as a result of this that an onus is being imposed upon the debtor.

Mr. Chairman, I do not want to repeat the arguments I put forward previously. However, I do think there are a couple of things which need to be said. Firstly, I find it perhaps understandable that the hon. member for Umhlatuzana sees elections in everything. Presumably he must have nightmares about elections. One need only talk on an ordinary Magistrates’ Court Bill, and immediately he is off at a tangent about elections. I can well understand his preoccupation with elections, having lost an election with only 30 votes once. I can therefore understand the sort of thing that is nagging him. I can well feel for him. [Interjections.]

Order!

What I would like to say to the hon. member for Umhlatuzana with his cold, clinical approach, is that debtors are also people. I think that this is what he is in fact forgetting in the whole of what he was trying to submit here today.

The hon. the Minister also tried to bring Durban North into the debate, for reasons which I do not understand.

I am only pulling your leg.

You are only pulling my leg?

We want to see how quickly you can become angry.

What he has done—and I am not pulling his leg about it—is to insult the voters of Durban North in describing them as a bunch of debtors. The hon. the Minister can read what he said in his Hansard on Monday. This is what he has done. If one wants to play this game, then one must watch what one says.

One cannot beat Harry.

Unless one is big and fat.

One cannot beat Harry.

Order!

Mr. Chairman, you have to forgive the hon. member. He has had quite a heavy lunch. [Interjections.]

Why do you not grow up?

Well, if you stop having liquid lunches …

It is now three hours later. Can you not grow up?

The hon. member for Umlazi should give the hon. member for Yeoville an opportunity to complete his speech.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. May I deal with the one point which the hon. the Minister specifically asked should be dealt with, and that is the question of representatives of a company being called upon to appear in their personal capacities. There is a great difference between a person being committed for contempt and sent to prison as an individual and a person who is a representative of a company being committed for contempt and sent to prison in his personal capacity because a company has not paid its debts. Some directors may decide not to pay a debt, preferring to put a company into liquidation, and the other director may then find himself being brought to court and committed for contempt for the debts of that company.

Nonsense.

That is not nonsense. It is fact. The hon. member must not display his lack of knowledge of company law

Do not get personal now. Try to be civilized.

The difficulty, as I see it, is that there will be far more liquidations of companies than there have been until now, especially of small companies which should perhaps not have been placed in liquidation at all.

I just want to say one last thing in connection with what I believe is the most important aspect of this clause. The question is not one of increasing a period of time or omitting a few words. The real question is whether one is now going to turn debtors into criminals. That is the test. Until now it has not been possible to commit any man for contempt unless there has first been an inquiry to determine his ability to pay. Now it is being proposed to reverse the issue and in terms of a judgment one is entitled to apply for a person’s committal for contempt, the onus being placed on him to show why he should not be committed for contempt. With respect, this is something we cannot agree with.

Amendment (1) moved by H. H. Schwarz negatived and amendment (3) dropped (Progressive Reform Party dissenting).

Amendment (2) moved by Mr. H. H. Schwarz negatived (Progressive Reform Party dissenting).

Amendment (4) moved by Mr. H. H. Schwarz negatived and amendment (5) dropped (Progressive Reform Party dissenting).

Amendments (6) and (7) moved by Mr. H. H. Schwarz negatived.

Amendment (8) moved by Mr. H. H. Schwarz negatived and amendment (9) dropped.

Amendment moved by Mr. R. M. Cadman negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Amendments (10) and (11) moved by Mr. H. H. Schwarz negatived.

Amendments moved by Mr. A. A. Venter agreed to.

Amendment (12) moved by Mr. H. H. Schwarz negatived.

Amendment (13) moved by Mr. H. H. Schwarz agreed to.

Amendment moved by the Minister of Justice agreed to.

Amendments (14) and (15) moved by Mr. H. H. Schwarz negatived.

Amendments moved by Mr. A. J. Vlok agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to (Progressive Reform Party dissenting).

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 22.

House Resumed:

Progress reported and leave granted to sit again.