I wish to move the motion as printed in my name—

1. (a) reviewing the present system of social pensions for all races; and
2. (b) formulating a comprehensive plan to care adequately for the aged and other social pensioners.

I know that during the course of the last session the welfare of the aged was raised here as an important matter on several occasions. However, I make no apology for raising this matter again at this early stage of the Session. I feel that the position of a large number of our social pensioners has deteriorated considerably, particularly during the last year. Sir, we know that there has been an economic boom in this country; we know that we have enjoyed considerable prosperity, but unfortunately the economic boom has had an adverse effect upon the 500,000 social pensioners of all races. The boom has meant a slight inflation in some spheres and in other cases it has meant considerable inflation, which has adversely affected these people who have to eke out an existence on their present meagre pensions. Sir, I mention the number of people involved in this motion, because this motion deals specifically with the question of social pensions for all races. According to the latest available figures, we have some 523,000 social pensioners of all races.

Sir, I hope that this motion will eventually bring about a relaxation of the means test and perhaps the formulation of a new comprehensive plan to care adequately for the aged and other social pensioners, to which reference is made in paragraph (b) of my motion. This question of the means test is one which affects many thousands of persons who at the present time are precluded from enjoying the benefit of a social pension.

I believe that our present system calls for urgent review and action on the part of the Government. I believe that our present system has become outmoded and that we have outgrown it in South Africa. I believe that there must be a new approach to tackle this question on the basis of new modern ideas. I know that in the past the Government have held the view that the introduction of a contributory pension scheme, or any other radical step of that nature, may lead to a welfare state. I would like to say that we on this side of the House have never advocated a welfare state and we do not intend doing so at this stage. However, I would like to mention that in pressing for a social security scheme we are not advocating a welfare state. A social security scheme is in accordance with modern ideas and modern thinking. For instance, in the United States of America, President Johnson, in a crash programme to end poverty has embarked upon a social security programme which will ensure the necessary security and, after all, the United States of America is the bastion of free enterprise and could hardly be called a socialistic state. I believe, too, that schemes which we regarded some 20 years ago as schemes leading to a welfare state are no longer regarded in that light anywhere in the Western world. I believe that a new approach to this problem has been advocated for many years. We find when we go back 20 years that reforms were already being advocated to remedy faults in our present system. Sir, when we look at the report of the S.A. National Conference on the post-war planning of social welfare work held in Johannesburg in September 1944, over 20 years ago, we find a reference there to a select committee recommendation to “effect a gradual abolition of the means test for old age pensioners”. We know that in 1944 there was a Select Committee of this House which dealt with the question of social security and various schemes. That Committee expressed itself perfectly clearly on the question of the means test system which is still being followed to-day. The Select Committee says in its report at page xix—

Sir, this was some 20 years ago. Certain concessions have been made in regard to the present means test. That is an undeniable fact, but it is also an undeniable fact that the system remains virtually the same as it was many years ago. That is why I hope that the hon. the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions will see his way clear to accept this motion. It is being moved in an effort to induce the Government to adopt a modern approach to this very real social problem. I am sure there is not a single member of this House who has not had numerous requests and numerous problems brought to his or her notice by constituents, dealing with problems which are the direct result of the present system of paying out social pensions. Our social pensions to-day are totally inadequate. Some people may argue that they are not meant to meet all the pensioners’ needs. Unfortunately, the position today is that there are large numbers of social pensioners who are entirely dependent on their pensions. Here I would like to pay tribute to the many welfare organizations which are doing a magnificent job of work in assisting these people to eke out an existence. With the economic expansion which is taking place today, with rising living costs and with the building boom we find that many of these people are being swept up in a quickening current of inflation, and unless they receive some support from welfare organizations they cannot possibly make ends meet. I believe that it is not entirely a State obligation to rescue our pensioners from their present plight. I believe that what is needed to rescue them from that plight is team work between the State and the welfare organizations, but I do believe that the State can play a far greater part in assisting these people in their present circumstances. I believe that the State is under an obligation to improve the lot of our social pensioners of all races. Their present financial plight is a reflection on the country’s social conscience. I believe that in dealing with this matter we are faced not with a problem but with a challenge. I personally like to look upon this whole question of dealing adequately with those who are unable to fend and care for themselves as a challenge, and I am sorry to say, looking at the present living conditions of our social pensioners, that it is obvious that the present system is not meeting that challenge adequately, and that is why I hope that with the adoption of a motion of this nature a greater degree of justice will be meted out to those persons who have made some provision for their old age who are precluded from receiving assistance under the means test.

I specifically refer in this motion to social pensions for all races.

We know that in terms of present Government policy the granting of pensions to the various racial groups falls under the control of the relevant department and no longer under the control of the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions, except in the case of White pensioners. Consequently, if the system is to be reviewed it means that each department has to review the system as applied to the particular racial group under its control, and I think one of the matters that can be considered by an inter-departmental committee is the question of the ratio and the payment of pensions. We have a ratio system at the present time and I believe that with rising costs it is hardly fair to expect a group such as the Coloured people in particular to have to live on half the pension payable to White pensioners. I had a case just recently, just before leaving Durban, where a Coloured pensioner, a widow, receiving the maximum pension of R13.50, for Coloureds, was having to Pay R10 per month for accommodation in a garage and having to live on R3.50. With the present economic bouyancy in this country I think it is scandalous that people are called upon to exist on such miserably small social pensions. This question of dealing with pensioners on a racial basis is a very important matter; we have to consider whether the non-White races have suffered again as a result of the fragmentation of the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions. This is an important issue and I believe that the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions should get together with the other departments administering pensions for the respective racial groups and review the whole position, particularly the question of the ratio of pensions and the question of the means test.

I intend this morning to deal mainly with the position as it affects the White pensioner. Naturally, it also affects the non-White pensioner as their system, except in the case of the Bantu, is virtually the same as the system adopted by the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions for White pensioners.

Sir, one might ask why it is necessary to review the present system. I know that in 1963 the hon. the Minister made a tour overseas where he studied various systems, and I hope that the hon. the Minister will take advantage of this opportunity to put before the House some comprehensive plan to provide more adequately for the care of the aged, and I hope he will tell us in what respects he intends to revise the present means test. I believe that there are three main reasons why our present system is inadequate. I believe that it is unsuitable and outmoded for three specific reasons, the first being the stringent application of the means test and the effect that it has of discriminating against the thrifty and frugal person. The Government makes appeals to the people from time to time to save, but then we find that those who have saved are precluded from receiving a pension because of the low ceiling of the means test I believe that these people are being unfairly penalized. There must be thousands of borderline cases where people are precluded from enjoying the benefit of a social pension as a matter of right.

I intend at a later stage to deal with certain aspects of the means test which I believe should be amended but in the meantime, in dealing with these three main reasons, as to why the present system is inadequate, I want to say that I regard the application of the means test as the main defect in the present system because the application of the means test has an adverse effect on our acute manpower shortage. We know that any person still in employment who is 70 years of age is exempted from the means test as far as earnings are concerned. We know that the war veteran pension is payable from 60 years of age. The result is that in the case of male pensioners, those who are between 60 and 70 years of age, are discouraged from remaining in employment, or from taking employment. Similarly, female pensioners between 60 and 70 years of age are discouraged from remaining in employment, while male old-age social pensioners between the ages of 65 and 70 years are similarly discouraged. Any pensioner under 70 years of age, therefore, is discriminated against, because of the low ceiling of the means test. Sir, there are many of these persons who are experienced and trained workers who could still be productively employed on the labour market but they are loath to come back into the labour market if it means sacrificing their pension. I think this is a serious defect in the present system. I know that the Trade Union Council of South Africa recently submitted representations to the hon. the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions and laid specific emphasis on this particular point. Sir, I had numerous discussions last year with social pensioners. In the course of those discussions certain examples came to light which I think illustrate this particular point. I would like to quote one particular case—and there are many similar cases—where a war veteran, a married man, of 64 years of age. was drawing a pension of R35 per month. His wife was drawing the maximum old-age pension of R27 per month, making a total income for the couple of R62 per month. This man was then offered employment in a position involving lighter duties than he had performed in the past. He was 64 years of age and he regarded himself as still fit enough to make a contribution in the labour market. He was offered employment at R70 per month on a four-day week basis. Now. under the means test a social pensioner is allowed only R26 per month; if he earns more than R26 per month he becomes ineligible for an old-age pension. That means that this couple was allowed a combined income of R52 per month before becoming ineligible for a pension. The husband’s income of R70 per month therefore made both of them ineligible for pensions. They were already receiving R62 per month in social pensions, so it means that this man would have to accept employment for the benefit of receiving only R8 per month. As a working man he would naturally have expenses which he would not have had as an unemployed pensioner. I refer to bus fares, extra clothing and P.A.Y.E. deductions. Sir, can anyone believe that the present system encourages people to remain in active employment? I believe that this is one aspect of our present system which requires urgent overhaul and the urgent attention of the Government.

I have already mentioned that the earnings of the person over 70 years of age are exempt from the means test, but we find that a self-employed person is discriminated against all the way through. The self-employed person is dealt with on a different basis from the ordinary employee. This system destroys initiative and discourages self-employed persons who wish to augment their pensions. I believe that the person who is self-employed should also receive some recognition for the services that he performs in the labour market. He should not be discriminated against in the way in which he is being discriminated against at the moment.

Sir. there are other examples that I could quote. Take the case of widows. The old age pension in the case of women is payable from the age of 60. As from 70 years of age their earnings are not subject to the means test, so again there is a period of ten years during which many women might like to take up full- or part-time employment, but here, too. the main stumbling block for the younger pensioners is the fact that if they earn more than R26 per month they are no longer eligible for the old age pension. Consequently many of these people are loath to give up their pensions. They realize that if they should lose their employment it would take several months before they would be reinstated as pensioners. Their financial position might have changed slightly in the interim as a result of their employment with the result that they may no longer qualify for the pension.

The other main reason why I believe that our present system is not the best system for the country and that we have outgrown it. is the fact that people are not offered any real social security in their old age. Reference is made to the various social security measures in the latest report of the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions. I believe that the cornerstone of any social security scheme is security in old age, and when we look at our present system we find that there is no such security in old age. Unfortunately, there are large numbers of people who have made some provision for their old age who now find that due to increased living costs, that that provision is inadequate. They find that the provision made by them for their old age now disentitles them to a pension. Consequently many of these people look forward to the latter years of their life with a degree of fear and anxiety because they are forced to lower their standard of living. The present system, as I say. discriminates against those who have made some provision for their old age.

Another fault that I have to find with the present system is that the entire amount which is paid out in the form of social pensions is dependent upon Government revenue. The Government is only able to grant small increases in pensions from time tp time. With the rising cost of living our social pensioners are having a tremendous struggle to exist on their present pension, even if they draw the maximum amount of R27 per month. We know that the Institute of Race Relations issued a fact paper dealing with social pensions for all races. One of the most important facts revealed there is the poverty of our social pensioners. I do not want at this stage to dwell on that particular point but it is a fact that great poverty does exist amongst our social pensioners. We find that many of these people have received no increase in their social pension since 1 April 1963. We might ask why there should be a further increase when an increase was granted as recently as April 1964, but the important point is that what happened in 1963 is that an experiment was carried out in the system of pensions whereby a special allowance was paid to those persons who had no assets or who did not have an income of more than R60 per annum from any other source. Sir, when the Minister of Finance introduced his Budget in 1963 he referred to “the neediest of the needy” and these are the people to whom that special allowance was paid. In April 1964, when an increase in pensions was granted what happened was that this special allowance system was abolished. No increase was given to those persons who received the special allowance in 1963. The position therefore is that the “neediest of the needy”, in spite of large surpluses—there was a surplus of R128,000,000 last year—have received not a single cent increase since 1 April 1963 and I stress the fact that they are the neediest of the needy. I believe that if the Government in the next Budget does not give considerable financial assistance and relief to this deserving group of people, they will be failing in their duty as a Government.

Sir, I hope to deal perhaps a little further with other problems which are facing the aged, problems such as adequate care and proper accommodation. There are speakers on this side who will deal with some of these matters at greater length.

The question that arises is what can we do to help these people? I believe that we can meet this challenge in two ways. First of all there is the short-term solution, which will mean the relaxation of the means test, to bring about a greater degree of elasticity so that persons who have certain assets and who are now precluded from receiving a pension, will receive a pension. I submitted a memorandum to the hon. the Minister setting out details of proposed relaxations of the means test. I do not intend to deal with them here in detail. However, the overall principle is that the means test ceiling that was set some 10 or 11 years ago, whereby a single person is allowed to have assets of only R1,200 before deductions are made from his social pension and whereby a married person or a single person living in their own property may have assets worth R2,400, before any deduction is made from their pension, should be raised. Those figures on present-day standards are completely unrealistic. A large number of our municipalities have carried out re-valuations of properties falling under their jurisdiction; other municipalities are to carry out further re-valuations. What does that mean? It means that another deserving group of people will be precluded from receiving a pension as a result of the application of the means test. I believe that that is a great defect in our present system.

Then there is the question of permissible income. I have dealt with the question of the person who is anxious to remain in employment, and I want to point out that the income limit which has been fixed at only R26 per month before a person becomes disentitled to any pension means that they have to be on a very low economic level indeed in order to qualify for a pension. Some of these people have made some provision for their old age by way of endowment policies and small investments which give them a small return every month, but they are urgently in need and deserving of financial assistance from the Government to assist them in this very critical period where the costs of the necessities of life are continuing to rise.

Now, that deals with the short-term solution of the problem. What is the long-term solution? In the second portion of this motion I mentioned the fact that it was necessary to formulate a comprehensive plan to care adequately for the aged and for other social pensioners. Here we find, perhaps as a result of a motion moved by a Government member last year, that an inquiry has been instituted into private pension funds and we on this side of the House certainly welcome that step because we know it will lead to an improvement of those pension funds. Sir, we have an increasing number of persons over 60 years of age—it is estimated that there are something like 300,000 Whites over 60 years of age—and we have a considerable number of those persons covered by Government pension funds and by private pension funds. But this is where our system fails. We have all those persons who fall outside any pension fund, who have no cover, who derive no benefit whatsoever from membership of a pension scheme, unless their income is so small that they have to come to the Government for assistance in order to receive the small pension which is payable to pensioners at the present time.

Sir, I would suggest that the following overall improvement should be brought about in our present system: Firstly, a relaxation of the means test in regard to assets permitted and in regard to the income permitted; secondly a review of the means test from the point of view of our manpower position so that those who wish to remain in employment may do so and still receive some benefit as a result of their employment.

Now I come to the question of those who are not covered by any scheme. We on this side of the House have advocated from time to time the necessity of a contributory pension scheme which would ensure that all persons are covered by some pension scheme, so that they will have the right to claim a pension as a matter of right, and not merely as a favour dependent upon their economic position.

Sir, present-day thinking throughout the world regards security in old age as vitally important in any social security programme. I believe that we do not have an adequate social security programme in this country, because what is lacking in our present system is a contributory pension scheme for those who do not come under any other scheme. I believe that it is not beyond the ingenuity of man to evolve a satisfactory scheme. The hon. the Minister may perhaps adopt the attitude that there is no contributory pension scheme which is suitable for South Africa. I am afraid I cannot agree with that point of view. Although there is a steady increase in the number of persons over the age of 60 years—I believe the percentage is something like 10 per cent in the case of the White population—the number of old-age pensioners has declined over the past few years. I think one of the reasons is the low ceiling of our present means test which precludes those deserving people who went out of their way to make some provision for their old age.

The amount that can be paid to a social pensioner could be increased considerably if the amount available for distribution to social pensioners were augmented by funds from a contributory pension fund. As I see the position, it would be possible to pay our social pensioners a pension of R40 per month, made up of R25 per month from revenue funds and R15 per month from the State contributory fund. We have put forward various points of view in the past as to how such a scheme should operate. We have suggested that the contributions could be on a sliding scale, which would reach its maximum when the contributor becomes 30 years of age. There are numerous organizations who are dissatisfied with the present system. There are many organizations dealing with social pensioners such as the National Council of Women, trade unions, the Moths, the B.E.S.L., the South African Legion. The latter organizations are particularly interested in obtaining some relief for war veteran pensioners. I believe they have a very strong case in asking for the system to be changed in regard to the veterans of the First World War. They say that South African war veterans enjoy the privilege of being exempt from the means test whereas the veterans of the First World War and the Second World War—the veterans of which are continuing to decrease each year—are not. They maintain that those veterans also deserve that privilege to be extended to them.

In conclusion I can only say that this motion is an effort to urge the Government to take a big step forward to meet the challenge of caring adequately for the aged. I believe that if they are prepared to accept this and formulate a plan which will bring about a happier life to all the inhabitants of South Africa it will be a great step forward along the path of providing social security for all our people. The advantage of such a comprehensive plan will be, first and foremost, a relaxation of the means test, which could lead to its eventual abolition when all persons will be covered by either Government or private pension schemes or a contributory pension scheme. It would offer a new deal to the one and a half million social pensioners of all races who are having a great financial struggle against rising costs, because it would eventually mean a substantial increase in pensions. It would offer a new deal to those thousands of deserving cases who have made some provision for their old age but are prevented from receiving a social pension owing to the restrictions of the means test. These persons are sorely in need of financial assistance from the Government. Thirdly and finally, Mr. Speaker, it would offer security to all citizens of South Africa in their old age by ensuring that they are adequately cared for under some pension scheme.

In the short time at his disposal—mine is also short—the hon. member gave the House a review of the planning proposed by him. He jumped from one subject to another. His motion asks for two specific things, the first being that the whole system should be revised. He added that the system should be revised in respect of all races. Sir, I sat here waiting to hear concrete proposals from the hon. member. Does he want to abolish entirely the ratio basis that exists to-day and which also existed under their regime but which was improved during our period of office, or what does he propose to do?

I say it should be investigated and revised.

If it is to be investigated then surely the hon. member must have some plan. The hon. member began by accusing us of having no plan whatsoever. Sir, the hon. member sits in this Parliament every year when the question of pensions is discussed, and year after year I get expressions of satisfaction from both sides of the House, both here and in the Other Place, about two matters; the first of those two matters is the sympathetic way in which we deal with these cases and the improvements that we bring about from time to time. There is not a single hon. member in this House who can make the accusation against me or against my Department that we do not at all times give our attention to all cases put forward by hon. members. We always do so. Mr. Speaker, I always make a point of saying that I will give hon. members the opportunity during the recess, and during the discussions under my Vote, to put forward proposals which they think will bring about improvements. The hon. member now comes along and uses these words in the course of his speech; he talks about “the present system adopted by this Government”. What right has the hon. member to say that this system is one that was “adopted by this Government”? Why is he being so unfair towards the Parliament of South Africa? Throughout the years this matter is one which has been in the hands of Parliament, and that also applies to the period when this side was in power. But he comes here and talks about the present position and “the present system adopted by this Government”. He talks as though this is a system that was introduced by this Government, a system which is absolutely inadequate, a system which has never worked and never will work. Why does he talk about “the present system adopted by this Government”?

Nobody can make the accusation against us that we have not at all times demonstrated the greatest goodwill whenever these matters have been discussed. I have expressed my appreciation every year of the way in which these discussions are conducted here. The hon. member creates the impression that since we last came together here the Government has given no consideration to this matter; that we are simply carrying on under the old system which, according to him, is altogether inadequate. That is the impression that he seeks to create; that is the impression which he wants to give the country. He wants to create that impression before the Provincial elections. That is my accusation against the hon. member, and I am going to prove that allegation. Did the hon. member not hear the Opening Speech of the State President? In that speech the State President referred specifically to this Department and to the changes that we propose to bring about, changes which will be incorporated in the proposed amendment of the Welfare Organizations Act? But, apart from that, the State President specifically used this sentence—

What does that mean? Does the hon. member think that the State President was just making a speech in order to utter a few meaningless words? Did the hon. member read the speech? If he did read it, what was his impression in that connection? If he read it, then surely he must accept that we are giving our attention to certain things. As a matter of fact, I announced the year before last that we were going to give our attention to certain specific things.

May I ask a question?

No, Mr. Speaker, I did not interrupt the hon. member. I feel that the time we have at our disposal is really too short to discuss this matter on its merits. I think we should discuss it further; I think this is a matter that we can discuss with mutual goodwill across the floor of the House; failing that, we can discuss it in private.

The hon. member suggested certain methods here, the one being the short-term method of relaxing the means test. Last year, after my return from Europe, I said that we would give our attention to this question of relaxation. This is not the first time that we are giving our attention to it; we have been doing so for some years, and the hon. member knows that that is so. I have mentioned here year after year what we have done already, and I propose to do so again—

That change brought about a relaxation of the means test. The hon. member conveniently forgets it, but it has been mentioned here year after year.

The assets have remained the same since 1951.

Sir, I did not interrupt the hon. member. Secondly—

That is to say, the threefold system—

It was eventually abolished entirely—

These are all measures which brought about a relaxation of the means test—

This was a tremendous concession as far as the means test was concerned. The means test hit both spouses but we amended it in such a way that the surviving spouse would experience no hardship after the death of the first-dying—

This was a far-reaching change in the application of the means test—

Mr. Speaker, these matters constantly receive our attention, and they have been receiving our attention throughout the years. The following concessions have been made since the 1st September, 1964—

1. (a) The surrender value of policies, the value of motor-cars and unemployment insurance benefits are no longer taken into account for the purpose of the means test.
2. (b) Where dwellings are hired and sub-let the income from this source is only taken into account where rooms are sub-let to three or more persons and then only at a quarter of the rental received.
3. (c) The full assessed pension is payable in the future to pensioners in certain Provincial hospital wards for the chronically sick.
4. (d) All overpayments made before the 1st April, 1960, are written off unless there has been fraud, an error on the part of proxies, or an error on the part of the Office.

Sir, I have said in the past that social pensions are not static. We are constantly bringing about changes. We indicated that the means test would be relaxed from time to time, and I have just shown the House where we have done so. I pertinently informed both Houses of Parliament during the previous session—and I have done so on more than one occasion—that my Department was actively engaged in revising the application of the means test. And now we get this wonderful proposal which germinated in the fertile brain of the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield)! I told the hon. member last year already that we were revising the means test. Why does he come along at this particular stage, when the main Budget is still ahead of us, and give the country the impression that that is what they are asking for? In other words, if we do anything in this connection now, then the hon. member will appropriate for himself the credit for being solely responsible for this relaxation! In spite of all the changes we have made throughout the years, in spite of what we are doing to-day and in spite of what I said last year we intended to do, in spite of what I also told him personally, he comes along with this motion in an attempt to create the impression through the publicity that he is going to get as a result of the introduction of this motion, that he is the only person, that the Party over there is the only party, which gives any attention to this matter. No, Mr. Speaker, this sort of conduct does not behove us in dealing with a Department such as this. I have always asked that we should treat each other with goodwill, that we should appreciate what is done by both sides for that less-privileged section of our population. That has been my request every year. And what is the result? We now find that a method is employed here which I can only describe as political parasitism.

The hon. member knows what the procedure is. He knows that I cannot anticipate the Budget with a motion such as this. He knows that. He knows that it is not customary and he knows that it is impractical to do so. He has sufficient Parliamentary experience to know that, but he comes along at this stage and creates the impression that any concession which may be announced in the Budget, even if it is a continuation of the relaxation of the means test, will be due to the United Party, that the United Party, through the hon. member for Umbilo, forced the Government to make that concession before the Provincial elections. [Interjections.] He wants the kudos for it.

The need is urgent.

The hon. member knows that the “need is urgent”, but he specifically wants the kudos. If any concession is made he wants to claim the credit for having been responsible for it.

I want to deal with the hon. member further and point out that he is out to glorify himself at the expense of the welfare of those people whose interests we are called up to look after.

Business suspended at 12.45 p.m. and resumed at 2.20 p.m.

Afternoon Sitting

Mr. Speaker, I was referring to what I regard as the very fine relationship that existed between the parties with regard to social welfare matters, a relationship which I hope will continue to exist. I want to refer, however, to an interview which I had with the hon. member for Umbilo on the 24th September. The hon. member will recall that interview very well. In the course of the interview he mentioned certain things to me. He said that there were certain matters to which he would very much like me to give my attention. While we were busy, a request was conveyed to me from outside that the Sunday Times was very anxious to see me in order to take a photograph of the two of us. I rather ridiculed the request but I said that if the newspapers were prepared to send people to take a photograph of two handsome people like the hon. member and myself, then at any rate it was something that was to our credit. I turned down the request of the representatives of the Sunday Times. I told them that it was quite out of place for them to want to take photographs whenever there was an interview; I said to them that they had my permission to take photographs of handsome people at any time they cared to do so and that the two of us fell in that category. Thereafter I said to the hon. member: “The problem is this that we would like to keep this matter out of politics, as we have done hitherto.” That is why I say that it was not for nothing that these newspaper representatives came there to take a photograph, nor is it for nothing that newspapers give publicity to interviews in connection with matters which are still engaging our attention. They do so purely for political gain and in order to harm and to prejudice South Africa. [Interjections.] The head of my Department was present. I told the hon. member that for my part it was not my intention to give interviews in connection with this chat of ours because it could always be misinterpreted and because we did not want to drag an important matter such as this into politics. I asked him whether he did not share that view and he said “Yes.” I then asked him whether he would give an undertaking not to give any interviews either, to which he replied “Yes.” He knows that that is the position. The hon. member is honourable enough to admit that that is so. I asked him for that undertaking and as an honourable man he gave it to me in the presence of the head of my Department. That was on the 24th September. I then asked him to submit to me in writing the representations which he had made to me. He did so and I acknowledged receipt of his letter. But on the 27th September I saw the following report—

[Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, that only goes to prove what I have been saying here and that is that they want to appropriate the political kudos for themselves. They are too bankrupt to devise a policy for themselves. I think this is political exploitation of a reprehensible character—

“The Government may give.” What is the hon. member’s object in making that statement? Was there any discussion of an additional bonus of R25 million? Was there? Where did he get this information which he gave this newspaper? What is his purpose other than to make political capital out of it? Let me quote further—

He promises this as an Easter egg! That is the Easter egg that he wants to give South Africa.

What a man! And he does this, Mr. Speaker, after having given me the undertaking, in the presence of my Secretary, that he would give no interviews at all. I quote—

He takes it upon himself to fix a figure. Why did he not make it R175 million? He could have made it any figure. Any fool can give any figure he likes. What was dealt with at this interview? It was “an exclusive interview.” I just want to say that at that stage I had still not received the written representations of the hon. member. He only posted his representations to me the following day and his letter arrived even later in Pretoria. According to this “interview” what did he discuss there? Let me quote a few things—

I should like to know from him what other Minister he saw with regard to pensions.

I saw the Minister of Housing about housing, not pensions.

The report of this interview given by him says—

What did he discuss? Not what he said here this morning. What did he discuss according to this report?—

No.

That is what this report says. The hon. member must have seen this report, and if it is not correct, he should have repudiated it. He must have given this interview and he must have seen this report—

Look how important this man is, Mr. Speaker. He can go along at any time and negotiate with Cabinet Ministers. [Interjections.] No, at any time. But he says he did not; he says he did not speak to other Cabinet Ministers. He could have spoken to them; it makes no difference to me.

He says he spoke to the Minister of Housing.

To the Minister of Housing about this question of the pension scheme? This report says—

Does the hon. member understand it now? If he still does not understand it, then he will never understand it. At this interview he goes on to say, inter alia—

This is the matter which he says here he discussed. He now says he did not discuss it, but why is it stated here in the report of this “exclusive interview?” Why does the report make reference to “a contributory pension scheme?” That term appears in quotation marks. He then gives his own calculation—and this is important—

That is what he also said here this morning—

He does not say who is to pay the R15. He does not say that the employer of the employee has to pay it, but one of them has to pay it. What does he mean? According to this proposal of his, according to this newspaper report, R25 per month is to come out of the coffers of the State. That amount is less than the amount payable under our present scheme. The amount payable under our present scheme is R27 per month. What he proposes therefore is actually a reduced State contribution.

That is the total.

If that is not the position, then he can ask one of his colleagues to give us the correct position. Let me read this paragraph again; he says—

But I want to go further. It says here—

Apparently the hon. member discovered that for the first time in September. But I read out certain quotations here this morning from which it is clear that I made that announcement here last year already during the session. How does it come about then that he was not aware of it; or did he conveniently forget about it? No, I am sorry to have to say that at this specific stage the hon. member wanted to create the impression—and that is why this type of thing appeared in the Press—that he was the guardian angel of these people because the Government refused to do anything in this connection. The hon. member does not wait or want to wait to see what the Budget is going to reveal because then it will be too late for the Provincial elections. He wants to represent himself as having played an important role in this process and he wants to announce that fact timeously so as to bring it home to the public.

Look at the hon. member’s delusions of grandeur—

He is now going to submit a memorandum to me with regard to his proposals but, as I have already indicated, the specific matter which was discussed was the contributory pension scheme.

No.

That is nevertheless what is reported here—

He is now going to tell the Cabinet what they are to do; he is going to send a memorandum to me. And then he suggests that I would be so foolish as to say to him that I will submit his memorandum to the Cabinet for consideration, without putting forward some substantive proposal myself. Does he think I am such a fool? He wants to create the impression that he laid the whole of the Easter egg. He wants to create the false impression that this whole thing emanates from him.

I just want to say that I am still prepared to discuss ways and means and to listen to suggestions from all sides of the House, but I think that when the opportunity to put forward suggestions is abused to this extent, then it is calculated to cause the greatest harm to the social pensioners themselves. It raises hopes in their minds, hopes which cannot be realized, as the hon. member knows very well. It creates the expectation that they will still be able to persuade the Government to accept the contributory pension scheme in spite of the fact that it has been rejected specifically and repeatedly.

Before my time expires I want to mention by way of summary the improvements which have been brought about in social pensions since 1948. In 1958-59 the figure was R30,500,000; in 1964-65 it was R37,200,000, an increase of R6,700,000. As far as the total Budget of the Department is concerned, it was R71,300,000 in 1959-60 and in 1964-65 it was R89,000,000. It is rising year after year, and year after year improvements are being brought about, as hon. members themselves have admitted here every year. But now that there is an election in the offing they want to push all these improvements into the background; they take this first opportunity to create the impression that they are the cock of the walk; they suggest that our present system is no good, that the system should be revised and that they are the people who have now come forward with a better system. The hon. member concluded his speech this morning, however, without having suggested a better system. He still wants to retain the means test. He wants to introduce a pension scheme based partly on contributions. But as far as a basic scheme is concerned he suggested nothing positive and nothing substantive. He comes along and says that our scheme is antiquated. The hon. member will have a further opportunity, but I am sorry that he came along at this stage and misused the short time that we have available to discuss a motion of this kind. I think he did himself an injustice. [Time limit.]

I think it was quite extraordinary to hear a Minister of state reducing a motion that was introduced on such a high level to such a low political level. It is well known that the hon. member for Durban-Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield) has been raising this issue year after year, and I think we all listened with a great deal of pride to what the hon. member as, I believe, the baby member of the House, had to say; coming here with such interesting proposals, and evidencing his tremendous interest in the older section of our community. I think the House should congratulate the hon. member for introducing a resolution of this nature. After all, what is the forum of Parliament for if not to air one’s views, and particularly air the interests of the community. It is the duty of the hon. Minister to deal with suggestions made and not to deride them because he feels perhaps a little peeved that the hon. member might have jumped the gun with regard to any possible changes that the hon. Minister may be contemplating. If my memory serves me correctly, the hon. Minister has for years been congratulating the hon. member for Umbilo for the interest that he has taken in the lot of the aged and the welfare legislation of this country. If you look at Hansard, you will find that the hon. Minister year after year has said that he has noted what the hon. member brings forward and that he thanks him very much indeed for his suggestion and the interest displayed by him. Here we have the spectacle of the Minister not replying to the merits of the debate, but saying that it has been used for political purposes. I would like to remind the hon. Minister that in every country of the world this question of the aged, the care of the aged, social pensions, is being dealt with year after year. The hon. member quoted the instance of the President of the United States. If you go to other countries, countries on the Continent of Europe, to Great Britain, to countries in Australasia, you find that all these countries year after year, provide a forum in their Parliament to discuss and review the whole question of pensioners. The hon. member for Umbilo did not criticize the Government in the sense that he derides the Government. He came along and put before the House suggestions which he felt would introduce perhaps a new programme in our country and give us the opportunity of becoming leaders in this important field of social progress and humanitation obligations to our aged persons. We are after all in the fortunate position of enjoying a great deal of plenty, and there is no reason whatsoever why we cannot continue to try to improve the social position of our people.

The hon. Minister spent all his time dealing with newspaper-cuttings, as if something had cut him very much to the bone. What we wanted to hear from the hon. Minister was the reply he could give to the suggestions made. He virtually told us that the department would not look at them. He regarded it as an insult to himself and his department. Sir that is to me a most childish approach to a subject of this nature. May I remind the hon. Minister that the National Council of Women of this country comprising some 100,000 members, has also been sending in continuous memoranda on the subject. They for instance suggested themselves that “the ceiling or limit of property owned by the present pensioners in so far as the means test is concerned should be raised from R2,400 to R6,000 to encourage thrifty people who have made sacrifices to acquire their own homes, to qualify for the maximum pension”. They have for instance suggested that “the old age pension means test be adjusted so that instead of R2 being deducted from the pension for every R2 that the monthly income exceeds R15, 50 cents be deducted for every R2 in excess of every R15 per month up to R20.” Numerous suggestions come from members of the public to try and alleviate the lot of the old age pensioners.

But what was the introduction of the hon. member for Umbilo? He said that over the last year the position of the old-age pensioner has deteriorated. Everyone knows that the position has deteriorated because of the spiralling costs particularly of food. The hon. Minister knows that foodstuffs have spiralled since 1948 to the extent of nearly 100 per cent, and the over-all spiralling of foodstuffs, clothing and other personal amenities amounted to nearly 80 per cent. It is all very well to say that the pension that is being received has increased to an even larger extent than that, but the value of money has diminished and the cost of food has gone up. All those things are important. This young member has had a lot of experience through his personal contact with cases and he raises before the House this problem and asks the hon. Minister to do certain things. I am afraid that the Minister’s approach did not show goodwill, and anything but goodwill flowed from the lips of the Minister. We are very surprised because the Minister has always courteously listened to this side of the House and we have always commended him on any steps that he has taken. So difficult is the position of the old-age pensioners that even the increase of R2.50 of last year was received by them with the utmost gratitude, not because of the large amount, not because it meant such a great deal to them, but because it was something and every cent counts with them.

One of the points made by the hon. member was the poverty of the aged. We know for a fact that from the survey that was conducted by the National Bureau of Educational and Social Research of the Department of Education, Arts and Science, in 1962, a survey called “The living conditions of the aged” showed that 24.9 per cent (I am talking now of White pensioners’) had an annual income of between R201 to R400 per annum. 21 per cent between R400 and R600 per annum. 7 per cent below R201 per annum. In other words, 47 oer cent, or nearly half, had incomes of R50 per month or less, and over a quarter of the number had a monthly income of only R33.50 per month. It says this—

We know the principle that has been applied to old-age pensions over the years, and we are aware of the fact that it requires the concerted efforts not only of the state but all other sections of the community, welfare agencies, as well as children of aged persons, as well as other members of the family, but nevertheless, Sir, it should be our objective to continue to improve and it should be the duty of members of Parliament, on the insistence of the public to continue to help to bring about an improvement in the condition of the aged. It takes time, but you expect that everyone must give some attention to this particular problem. In America where the same principle applies—I am quoting now from a book “The Older Population of the United States”, written by H. E. Sheldon, and we find in this book—

Every country gives attention to this problem, no matter how advanced it may be.

We also know for instance that the static wage-earner, the man who is not in business where he can increase his income by his own private initiative, is suffering considerably to-day as a result of the constantly rising costs and all the other difficulties of the inflation which is gradually beginning to creep into our economy.

There was another matter the hon. member referred to and that was the question of accommodation. The hon. Minister says that that has been adequately catered for. It has not. He knows for instance—and this is another suggestion he can take to heart—that some years ago the per capita loan granted in building homes for the aged was limited to R1,000 and then it was raised to R1,200. But building costs have gone up during the last two years and surely he must realize that some review is required and a suggestion that it should be raised to R1,500 per capita is certainly not out of place.

Then there is the question of providing a section for the infirm aged. Sufficient is not yet being done in the homes for the aged to attach to every home for the aged a proper infirm section where the aged can be looked after when they become enfeebled and unable to look after themselves. There for instance the per capita requirement should be at least R2,000. We have had experience in one or two homes for the aged in this country where an infirm section has been attached. In respect of such a section the cost is obviously very much higher than in respect of the ordinary accommodation where they can look after themselves. What is wrong with meeting the challenge by a different system of housing the aged? Such system has been tried where you erect blocks of buildings and you do not house 100 or 50 people in an aged home but you provide large grounds and you house 300 or 400 or 500 people. That is being done in Europe as the hon. Minister has seen for himself. He has seen it in Scandinavia, in France, in Italy, in Britain, where they erect special tenement houses. I believe at Pinelands recently a scheme has been completed where they have little flats, two very nice blocks of buildings with little flats to enable aged persons to be housed under the most satisfactory conditions. This is a very important problem and whilst we cannot expect it to be solved in one day, nevertheless, it obviously requires solution. The Rand Aid Association in Johannesburg, one of the biggest institutions for the care of aged in the country, has approached the private sector, and other homes have approached the private sector, and the hon. Minister has often referred to that, and the private sector has contributed very liberally indeed.

Now the hon. member made an interesting suggestion with regard to contributory pension schemes as to the contributions of the State and moneys received from the public, and he has suggested R40 per month. I think it is a very laudable suggestion and I think the hon. Minister should be delighted to have a scheme of that nature before him. If he cares to criticize it, he can of course do so, but he should not deride a scheme of that nature. We have to realize that this whole question of the care of the aged is a great problem of which we can never know sufficient. To-day with the improvement in the health of people, we find that people are living to a greater age and the responsibility resting on the community to-day is very much greater than it has been in the past, simply because (a) we will have a larger number of the older age, and (b), we have to provide much more modern accommodation so as to enable them to fit in, under the modern conditions in which we are living. All countries in the world are doing the same, therefore I feel that the hon. Minister missed a wonderful opportunity today of dealing with this particular issue and trying to give some constructive reply to the hon. member for Umbilo.

There is one other factor that we must take into account. It is not only a question of providing just a few Rand per annum extra for the aged. There are other important considerations. One must preserve for the aged a standard of dignity, one must preserve for the aged a sense of belonging, one must try and protect the aged from loneliness, one must try and keep them occupied in their leisurely time. Those important factors are all arising because they are living longer. When I was in Scandinavia—and I do not want to be criticized on the ground that that is a social welfare state—I saw a scheme which was extremely interesting. The average age of admission there was about 77 and the average age of death was 97. There were 1,600 people on this estate which was just within two miles of the centre of the city. They were there under the most beautiful conditions; they had chapels for every denomination and proper accommodation, they had leisurely hours, they had vocational therapy, all sorts of amenities. Possibly they have the funds, because they run their systems slightly differently, but does that preclude members on this side of the House from suggesting to the hon. Minister that we should advance in our thinking? Must our thinking only be confined to the jealous preserve that the Minister alone can make a suggestion that perhaps an additional pittance should be granted? We realize that the hon. Minister has been abroad and that members of his department have been abroad and have studied the situation, but other people have also been abroad and other people study those welfare projects as well. We are all interested in the welfare of our community—for that reason we are representatives here to further the interests of our community. But there is an example of what can be done. That thought was brought back to Johannesburg. We have an aged home there built on what we call the “village system”. Perhaps these things can be extended. In my own constituency there is a home for the infirm aged, a very small home. Other organizations in the private sector in my constituency are also at the moment endeavouring to provide additional accommodation for the aged, but that is also on a very, very small scale. I believe that if the hon. Minister suggested to the hon. Minister of Finance that out of our surplus instead of R750,000 being voted, a globular sum of say R10,000,000 to R20,000,000 be made available, it would not be a fantastic demand. It is not too large an amount for a country like South Africa with its remarkable development and latent wealth. That could be set aside for one purpose and that is to ensure that we now embark upon a programme of accommodation on a very much better level than what has been provided hitherto to meet the exigencies of the times. Then I would say the hon. Minister is answering the challenge. We do not decry what he has done, but we are asking him to face up to a new concept in respect of the aged. The hon. member for Umbilo asked nothing more. That is the challenge for 1965 and the years that lie ahead. There is the question of people who can be maintained in useful employment. Here is for instance another suggestion from the National Council of Women to the effect that as the years go on people should be given a little additional pension as they get older. There have been suggestions for instance that people who do not take advantage of the pension should for instance be given some consideration when they eventually do go on pension. There are many ideas that one can put forward, but if the hon. Minister is going to adopt the dog in the manger attitude that “you cannot tell me what to do” or “ask me to go to my Cabinet and suggest what they should do”, then we are not dealing with a Minister of Social Welfare, but we are dealing with a stubborn individual who is prepared only to be dogmatic and to follow his own inclinations. That is hardly the way this department should be conducted, and I am very disappointed, as I am sure many members of this House are, that the hon. Minister takes up this attitude, that, after having built up a fair reputation—he should now descend to the political level to which he descended to-day in order to tear a member to pieces who came forth with certain suggestions, a member who is very interested in this subject. I feel that we are entitled to get warm under the collar. [Time limit.]

The hon. the Minister, when he replied this morning, commenced by saying that it was quite clear that this motion had been introduced at a specific time and with a specific object, namely that it should be discussed before the Budget speech was delivered, with the object, if something good emanated from the Budget, of the United Party being able to go to the country during the provincial elections and say: “We forced the Government to do these things because we pleaded for them.” That is what the Minister said at the commencement, and thereafter he continued to make revelations in this House which, I think, were really shocking. One would expect that when any hon. member had abused the accessibility of the Minister in such a way as the Minister indicated here, such a Minister obviously in future would be hesitant in allowing people to come to interview him when they have given certain undertakings and then go out and do the opposite. I think that anyone who tries to condone this is simply making a further moral misstep. Because it has become clear to all of us that this motion is not so innocent, I want to move an amendment. We know the hon. member who moved this motion. He generally comes to this House with a much better case, but this morning he came here as somebody who is nothing else but a tool in the hands of a party, and I regret that he should have allowed himself to be used like that. There is quite clearly a political motive behind the whole matter and therefore I want to move the following amendment—

In order to motivate this matter, I want to say a few things. Firstly, as I have already said, it has become clear from what happened previously that when this matter of the pensioners and the poor people is being propagated, it is done by the official Opposition with party-political ulterior motives. I cannot imagine more deplorable behaviour than to introduce ulterior motives in a case like this where kindliness towards others should be the decisive factor, as was clearly done here. Why should a man go to have an interview with a Minister and at the same time the Sunday Times correspondent turns up there with a camera and asks whether he can take a photograph of that member and of the Minister?

But I did not know he would turn up there.

Surely the Sunday Times must have heard somewhere that that hon. member was going to have an interview with the hon. the Minister, and I can quite imagine what would have happened if the Minister had seen no harm in it and had given his assent. Then there would have been big headlines stating that here was the clear proof of that wonderful plan which the hon. member went to discuss with the Minister and which he wanted to submit to the Minister to persuade him to make so many thousands of rands available to the pensioners. If we look at everything that the Government has done up to now ever since it came into power, how practically year after year it made concessions—we know that the cost of living has increased, but if we take into consideration the increase in the cost of living percentagewise, and we consider the increase in the pension benefits, also percentagewise, then we must admit that the pen-ioners to-day receive proportionately more than they received when that side was in power. Those are facts which cannot be denied.

But the hon. member told us that he was introducing a wonderful motion, and he moved that this House requests the Government to consider the advisability of reviewing the present system of social pensions for all races. I tried to ask myself, because I am extremely interested in the matter, what wonderful system this hon. member would propose to-day. But he proposed no system at all. He simply continually harped upon it that the means test should be relaxed or completely abolished, and further he spoke about a contributory pension scheme. But if a man comes to this House with such grandiose ideas, one expects much more than that. One would expect him at least to have made certain calculations. He should at least have tried to prove to the House by means of figures and statistics what the economic carrying capacity of the country is. Has that hon. member ever asked himself, if one relaxes the means test, how many more pensioners will be added to the number we already have? Has he ever tried to show that if one increases the pension by a few rands, how much extra that will cost the State? He said all the pensions should be reviewed, but he did not say how he proposed to do it, nor did he say whether the present ratio should be retained. He just said in a reproachful manner that the Coloureds receive only half of the pension of the Whites. I assume that he wants to bring it up to a level equal to that of the Whites, but he did not tell us how much extra that would cost. He knows how many pensioners there are, because he says the number is far in excess of 500,000, including all races. Does he think that if one immediately increases all their pension by R10 a month it will immediately solve all their problems? But what would it cost the country if one were to do that, if one immediately gave an extra R10 a month to 500,000 people? How much would that cost He is picturing a Utopia. He allowed these people to dream great dreams. He aroused great expectations in the minds of these pensioners on the basis of the interview he had with the Minister, but he rendered the pensioners a great disservice by instilling those hopes, and it is he and his party who will be responsible if later a wrong attitude develops and Ministers become chary of listening to these plans if misuse is made in this way of the confidence the Ministers have in us.

When we come to the alternative, he spoke about a contributory pension scheme. We know that there are many countries in the world which have such a pension scheme, such an insurance scheme to cover the whole of the population, but study has shown us that not a single one of those systems yet works completely satisfactorily, and that there are many countries where great disappointment prevails in spite of the systems they introduced. We also know that there is a relationship between the number of people belonging to such a scheme and the likelihood of its fulfilling its obligations. The hon. member is concerned about all the races. Has he told the House whether his contributory scheme will apply to all the races, or are only the Whites to contribute? He has not told us what he has in mind. He has not submitted any comprehensive scheme to the House.

But when we come to the second part of his motion, he says that what should be considered further is a comprehensive plan to be formulated to care adequately for the aged and other social pensioners. He talks about a comprehensive plan to care adequately for all the aged. But what is that comprehensive plan of his? Why does he not reveal it to us? It cannot just amount to increased pensions. That is only one thing which will make the aged feel happy and protected. As the hon. member who has just spoken correctly stated, the security needed by the aged does not consist only of the few rands they get. There should also be the feeling that they belong to other people, that they can still render service to the community. There should be the conviction that they are wanted by the State and by others, and that their abilities will be utilized, and they should be encouraged to participate in communal life. Now I say that this Government does not have to take a back seat to any other country for what it has already done in this respect. It is not only a question of the pensions granted by the Government, but if we look at what is being done in repect of the needy people in so far as their housing is concerned, hon. members may be surprised to see that the State makes available funds at ¾ per cent to enable those people to live in a home. We know that funds are made available for the establishment of old-age homes at 1/20th per cent, so that it is within the financial means of every body or community which wants to care for the aged and wants to build homes for them. Last year R750,000 was offered, which makes it possible for those bodies to acquire the land and to build homes. They also receive large contributions from the State to equip these homes. Not a single voluntary welfare organization which wants to safeguard and make these old people happy can say that it does not obtain funds from the State, because the State has made ample funds available. Care is taken of the aged, particularly of the senile aged, those people who require hospitalization, and free medical services are offered to them. I refer to an excellent study recently published by the Department of Social Welfare, in which they advocate the forming of clubs for old people, to stimulate them to become community conscious, so that they will not withdraw into a little room where they just sit and wait for death, but can meet one another and be happy.

One of the most modern tendencies in regard to the housing of the aged is not to place them in a lonely little house but to allow a small community to develop. Hon. members should go and see what is being done at Worcester. There they will see a small community like this, where there are semidetached houses where aged married couples can live. The hon. member who introduced the motion may go and have a look in Pietermaritzburg at the wonderful scheme which Mr. Allison tackled as an individual in order to make old people happy. It is near his home and he ought to know about it. In that small community the aged are cared for spiritually and materially in such a way that they have a feeling of safety and happiness, and that can be done on a much larger scale. If it is not being done at present, it is not the Government which should be blamed for it, but the various welfare organizations and local authorities which can obtain the money to do it. The Government offers them the money with open hands, but they refuse to accept it. They are lot to do so. The community should be made aware of the needs of our old people, and then there is more than ample provision for alleviating their lot.

That is why I say that this motion, which we had eagerly expected, was a bitter disappointment to us, because we heard nothing about this splendid system which would be approached systematically. There were merely frequent references to the means test which is alleged to be such an obstructive factor, and there were pleas that we should do everything in our power to abolish it, and then there was reference to a contributory pension scheme, but we heard nothing to make us feel that here we now had an idea which could benefit the country. Therefore I say that it was a great disappointment to us, and it is quite clear that the hon. member came here with an ill-considered motion just because he has become the victim of a party which finds it necessary to try to make political capital even out of the needs of our poor old people. Therefore I have the greatest confidence in moving this amendment.

Mr. Speaker, this amendment, this “dank die Minister” merely adds fuel to the feelings I had and which I still have after having heard the reply of the hon. the Minister to the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield). I was intensely surprised and distressed to listen to the personal attack made by the Minister on a man who came forward with a constructive idea and with genuine feeling to help others, which I trust the hon. the Minister shares. I had hoped that we could get together on what is not a controversial subject but is a social subject, and between us arrive at a solution to the problem of those among us who for various reasons, whether age or illness or accident, are no longer able to care for themselves. Because that is the problem, and I sympathize with the hon. the Minister. I have the greatest sympathy with him because I think he has a problem which no single man can solve. The Cabinet has put upon him the problem of reconstructing a changing society, a society in which a few men and women live beyond the age of work, and those few receive scant attention from their fellow-countrymen. It has been usual to reject the aged. We know of the cliff in Pondoland over which they used to push the aged when they thought they were of no further use. Then, as primitive societies developed they began to see that perhaps there was value in the aged, they were wise and could give advice and they had experience, and then to some extent the aged were cared for. But the moment their wisdom was queried or they ceased to be of any value, they went back to the cliff. But we have moved out of that time. It is not generally realized that the idea that people should have an age of peace and relaxation in their final years is a recent idea. It dates to the Victorian Age. Before the Victorian Age nobody was cared for in their old age. This Minister is facing a problem which other nations have solved in various ways, or are trying to solve. I would like to quote from Dr. Dormer—

That was a possibility in those times, in the heydey of Victorian England, with its wealth coming from all over the world. But wealth is more dispersed now and countries such as this are faced with this problem to a degree which was never regarded as likely. Medicine has extended the life of human beings, but it has failed to teach them how to live during the extension of their lives. And this hon. Minister, by himself, is asked to solve this problem and to deal with these people. I have no doubt that within the rules of the Cabinet he is given a limit, and he must keep within that limit. It would be unreasonable for anything else to be done. But he must take a different view. He must cease to think in terms of money. It is not pensions that you hand the people; it is life; it is the way to live; it is the possibility of living a decent life and to remain useful. It is the hope of staying in your own home. Those are things that he has to consider, the possibility of work. All this is not handed out as an old-age pension in an envelope at the end of every month by the post office. This is a problem for every Minister. Every Minister must contribute his share. Let us start with Labour. Labour must provide work, and not necessarily sheltered work, but even full-time work. This Minister must forget the figures 60, 65 and 70. which are the age marks on his calendar. Those figures do not mean anything, except to count a man’s birthdays, which is a stupid idea. He may be old at five, and he may be young at 90. Labour is the keynote. Labour must see that work is provided for these peoDle. Many of these people after 65 are capable of as much work as younger men. They have great advantages on their side. They have skills and less absenteeism. They have experience, and they have a great sense of responsibility. Those are things which industry must realize. If a man is perhaps because of his age unable to cope with traffic, let him start working a little later and let him go home a little earlier, so that he is not crushed in the scramble to get on the bus at the hours of nine and five. Let him be paid wages for the time he works, and you can make it up with the old-age pension. [Interjection.] Has the Minister given any evidence that what he said last year has been implemented? We have seen very little of it. I know it is no good talking to the Minister’s colleagues alone. Those colleagues must themselves talk to the heads of industries, and the heads of industries must go down into the workshops. I know from personal experience how difficult it is to get the foreman of a workshop to employ a handicapped man. The Minister of Transport knows all about that. There is only one man you must convince, and he is not a Cabinet Minister or the head of the industry, but the foreman of the workshop. He must be made to feel that he has a social duty to provide work for the man who is a little slower or a little older or somewhat handicapped, or who can only work during certain hours. These men contribute to the wealth of the country.

Take Education. The Minister of Education should be helping. He should provide classes for people in their latter years, before their powers fail, so that they can be re-educated to do other useful work. The whole object of this old-age scheme should be to keep a man living in his own home and working at a job, not to give him charity, and that would be cheaper for the country. If I had my way, I would abolish the word “pension”. It is not pensions that people should work for, but a way of life, to continue usefully, not dependent on the charity of the State, and not having to go along and ask for a little bit extra to meet the rise in the cost of living. No, it is a problem which the Cabinet as a whole should tackle, each Minister doing his share, to lengthen the working life of the people. If it goes to 70 within the next 20 years I will not be surprised, and if it goes to 90 within the next 40 years I will not be here but I would not be surprised. The children to-day will reach the age of 90 and 100 in large numbers. Is the State still going to provide pensions after the age of 60? This Minister, faced as he is with this problem, has failed to convince his colleagues; he has failed at least to take his colleagues with him in setting up a system of leading the people to a useful life until the day comes when they are taken to their graves. He has failed to show industry that if a man gives his working life to that industry, the industry must keep him working to the end and not throw him aside like an old shoe, but rather allow him to work on the days when he can. This is not a small problem; it is a big problem and it is one which the Minister by himself cannot solve.

Mr. Speaker, if it was the intention of the Opposition to soothe the feelings after the storm we have just had I do not think they could have made a better choice than the h on. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford). He pleaded for goodwill towards and assistance to our aged and that is why I do not specifically want to react to what he has said. I shall treat him gently. Mr. Speaker I was told for a fact that there was once a bank manager who was so stirred by the difficulties and problems of a client of his that he genuinely and sincerely wished he could shoot him in order to help him out of his misery. That is precisely how I feel about the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield) this afternoon. We are of course all aware of the fact that the Opposition is politically bankrupt and we appreciate their political frustration, particularly that of the hon. member for Umbilo who is the shadow Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions but I really did not expect him to sink to the level to which he did indeed sink.

The hon. member for Umbilo has always posed as the champion of the under-privileged and the aged, but I think the trend of events, as revealed by the hon. the Minister, has amply proved to us to-day that that is not his object. It is clear that he is more bent on gaining for his party whatever doubtful advantage he can out of this matter than he is really concerned about the position of the aged. What are the facts? The facts are that since this Government has been in power it has regularly, I can almost say annually, come forward with improvements, greater benefits and more assistance to our pensioners.

The hon. member for Umbilo was one of those who also expressed his appreciation of that—let him admit that—but it now appears that he was not quite sincere. The hon. member has fallen into this trap that he has become accustomed to the hon. the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions coming forward with improvements every year. He then realized that it would be possible for him to play the role of a prophet, that he could anticipate certain things, knowing full well that the hon. the Minister would in all probability come forward with improvements. And that is what he has done this year, amongst others, on the strength of the Address by the State President. This year it has actually been proved that the hon. member for Umbilo has gone too far. His most recent performance in this House has proved to us that we are here dealing with a well thought-out but unsuccessful move. In rising to second the amendment moved by the hon. member for Kimberley (South) (Dr. W. L. D. M. Venter), which I do willingly and with a clear conscience, I want to say to hon. members opposite that all the thousands of social pensioners know exactly where they stand with this Government. They also know exactly where they stand with the Opposition and with the hon. member for Umbilo. They know that their salvation does not lie in that direction but in the direction of this Minister and the side he represents. They know that if and when the benefits they enjoy are improved or increased it will be done as a result of planning and prior study by the Minister and his Department of the circumstances prevailing in the country as well as the economic factors involved. They will know that the game the Opposition is playing, a game which reached its climax today, is only a game to score a political point and they will know what to think of it.

Mr. Speaker, as far as the motion itself is concerned, not only is it unrealistic but it is also too late. The right time for this hon. member, or the side he represents to have introduced this motion would have been shortly after the change of government in 1948. He may perhaps then have been able to spur this Government to action. Their advice might then perhaps have been of some value. But, Sir, to introduce such a motion as this to-day, 16 years later, and to think it will be of any value, is simply a case of mustard after meat. Nor is it necessary to spur this Government to action. I do not think any doubt can be cast on what this Government has achieved as far as this matter is concerned. I do not want to quote figures, Sir. The hon. the Minister himself has quoted a few. Last year and the year before they were quoted ad nauseum. Reams of improvements brought about by this Government on its own initiative and as a result of its practical insight were quoted, improvements for which not only the pensioners concerned but members opposite as well, are very grateful. As I have said it is not necessary for me to go into detail but I maintain that a study of those data will prove that improvements were regularly effected, practically year after year. I want to give one figure. Since the advent to power of the National Party in 1948 the total benefits granted by the National Party Government on its own initiative have increased by no less than 170 per cent, while the cost of living index has risen by 71.1 per cent over the same period. Mr. Speaker, reference has been made to the relaxation of the means test. The hon. the Minister also gave us figures in that regard. The Hansards of the past years abound with them. I do not wish to enlarge on that but I just wish to point out one misconception which those people apparently suffer from and which is abused here by certain people in that they try to misrepresent the position, and it is this that although the means test figure has remained constant since 1951 as far as the limitation on means plus pension are concerned, there have been changes and improvements every year since then as far as its application is concerned and the amounts which were paid as a result.

Is it not surprising that annually additional pensioners have shared in these benefits as a result of the changes that were made. People who previously, did not qualify, who could not share in those benefits, came into consideration for benefits under this scheme because of the far-sightedness and progressive attitude of this Government.

Mr. Speaker, I could go on like that; I could point out how the procedure has been simplified by this Department because of its experience and because of the study it has devoted to what was happening here and what was being done overseas. I could point out the investigations that were continually being conducted. Only last year the hon. the Minister said in a similar debate that he doubted whether there was any department which conducted more investigations than his Department. He is continually trying to ascertain in what respects the system can be improved so that justice can be done to those who need it. That is why I say this motion is like mustard after meat. What does the motion imply? In the first place it implies that the hon. member and his party have something better to offer; I take it that they also do so under their election slogan of “we can do better”. We would have expected them to have come forward with a scheme which offered something better, something that would have been carried out in practice, something that would have remedied and eliminated the evils inherent in the old system and something that would at the same time have offered greater benefits. But what do we find? We find that an hon. member recommends a system in which he is not totally opposed to the means test but in which he wants an additional scheme to a State con-tribuory scheme. I find it strange that in view of all the wisdom the hon. member claims to have as far as this matter is concerned, he is unaware of what is happening in other countries where they do operate on that basis. Sir, let me tell you what lesson Great Britain teaches us in this respect. It is a well-known fact that in 1946 Great Britain introduced a contributory State pension scheme on the strength of the Beveridge report, a scheme to which the employers and the employees and the State contributed, in other words, a tripartite scheme. Under that scheme the contributions were collected under the “pay-as-you-earn” system and in spite of that experience showed that the administrative costs of that British scheme were no less than R60,000,000 per annum. That was not all that became apparent. The British Government was obliged to increase its contribution from R60,000,000 to R124,000,000 per annum, but, Mr. Speaker, even that was not all. The Government actuaries evaluated that scheme and came to the disturbing conclusion that deficits could be expected—a deficit in 1971-2 of R620,000,000 and a deficit of R848,000,000 in 1981-2. That was what the Government’s own actuaries found in respect of their system which this hon. member recommends to us as one part of the solution he offers to the problem we are grappling with.

Let us look at the benefits the British enjoy under this scheme. Under this scheme to which he contributes, to which his employer contributes and to which the Government contributes, a single person in Britain receives R20 per month and a married couple R32 per month. Under our scheme to which the employer and the employee do not contribute the single pensioner receives R27 per month from the State coffers and a married couple R54 per month. I ask myself this question: Why must we introduce a system which we know in advance will not offer greater benefits? I should like to know from the hon. member for Umbilo whether he can advance any proof that the system he suggests will offer greater benefits than the existing pension scheme and whether it will satisfy that large number of cases which he calls border line cases. I should like to have his reply to that.

Sir, I want to give you Lord Beveridge’s reply to this scheme of which he himself was the architect. I wish to quote to you from a foreword he wrote to a treatise on “Pension Scheme” by Pilch & Wood. He wrote the following—

That was what the architect of the British scheme had to say about his own scheme. I should like to know to what extent that hon. member would be disillusioned, not after 16 years, but after a much shorter period of time, if his scheme were introduced. We have here an admission by Lord Beveridge himself that his masterpiece which was aimed at eliminating the means test had failed, nor did the maximum relaxation he could bring about offer a better pension than that enjoyed under our existing scheme under the guidance of this hon. Minister.

There is another aspect. What has Britain done in this respect? The Labour Party which is to-day in power in Britain was then in Opposition. They made things difficult for the Conservatives as far as this matter was concerned and they did exactly what the hon. member for Umbilo and the Opposition are doing to-day; They started to make political capital out of it. The result was the so-called “graduated scheme” which was then introduced in England, a scheme under which a person could receive additional benefits, according to his contributions to that “graduated scheme”, over and above the benefits he enjoyed under the general contributory scheme. I want to read to you what Pilch & Wood have to say about this scheme, the “graduated scheme.” They say the following, inter alia—

That is quite correct.

Does the hon. member also wish to introduce a scheme here, with all the accompanying prolixity and doubts, under which the contributors will only benefit after 20 years? My objection to it is this: [Interjections.] Yes, I can also mention the case of Holland. In Holland they also have a contributory State scheme. There a single person receives R19 per month as against our R27 to which they do not contribute. Married couples receive R32 per month as against our R54 per month. I could also mention the example of New Zealand of which the hon. member for Umbilo last year gave us the example. I do not want to go into detail but I want to tell him that in New Zealand beneficiaries between the ages of 60 and 65 only receive benefits under the scheme, which he holds out to us as a model subject to a means test. I ask myself this: Is it fair on the part of the Opposition, by way of mouth of the hon. member for Umbilo, knowing that the scheme they plead for cannot yield better results than the existing scheme, to raise the hopes of the pensioners and to try to criticize this Government which has achieved so much in this respect? I think it is an extremely unreasonable attitude to adopt and I know the pensioners themselves will settle accounts with them at the polls.

This is the first time to my knowledge that a debate of this type has taken on such an unpleasant character.

You looked for it.

How a Minister and his helpers, the hon. member for Kimberley (South) (Dr. W. L. D. M. Venter) especially, can spend so much time in a debate like this attacking a sincere and well-known social worker such as the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield) absolutely amazes me. In the past this side of the House has gone out of its way, time and time again, to thank the Minister and his Department for what they had done for the less-privileged people. There is scarcely a member on this side of the House who has not time after time gone out of his way to show up the Social Welfare Department and the Department of Pensions in a good light. When we come here on a Friday as we have done to-day, and we have to listen to the tirade of the hon. the Minister and that shocking display by the hon. member for Kimberley (South) then I feel that if anybody is going to be condemned for making political propaganda it is the members of the National Party. Surely if we stand here and make suggestions, whether it be in 1960 or 1965, it makes no difference; it just happens to be a coincidence that there is an election in the offing. But why were we not accused last year of doing those things which the hon. the Minister says we did to-day? Why did he not say that we were making political propaganda when we said these things last year? When we repeat them this year it is suddenly political propaganda. How dare the Minister accuse us on this side of the House of insincerity. There is no answer for it.

You are repeating what I said.

Where the hon. the Minister has made good suggestions in the past, where he has increased pensions, where he has given the less-privileged and the under-privileged a better deal, we have congratulated him. The hon. the Minister himself will admit that. Is this political propaganda, Sir? I quote now from a newspaper editorial—

This is political propaganda according to the hon. the Minister and according to the hon. member for Kimberley (South).

That is exactly what I said last year.

When that is said by this side of the House it is described as political propaganda. Why? If I make a suggestion here this afternoon that was not made by the Minister last year or the year before, is it going to be political propaganda? Is it going to be political propaganda if I ask for a better deal for the aged in housing?

According to the Sunday Times it will be political propaganda.

Sir, let us not be childish. I have just read out an extract from a newspaper editorial, and I am pointing out that that is what we think; It was said in 1962, in 1963 and in 1964. Now we say it again this afternoon and now suddenly it becomes political propaganda. The hon. member for Kimberley (South), instead of standing up and giving us a discourse here this afternoon on the difficulties experienced by the aged, the orphans, the blind and so forth, took a quarter of an hour to condemn the hon. member for Umbilo for having the temerity to talk about pensions and a new deal for pensioners.

Sir, I do not want to be accused of making political propaganda, but if the old people are going to vote for us I will be very pleased, and I am going to make one or two suggestions for their welfare. I hope they are going to listen to me and hear what this side of the House wants to do for them. Firstly, I say that those people who possess property must have the rates of that property fixed so that they will not remain at the mercy of municipalities who raise property valuations from year to year. Sir, that is terribly important because these people who are old-age pensioners now, probably bought their properties when they were young people. As the years have gone on so the valuations of those properties have been increased by the municipalities. These people find to-day that as the result of the increased valuations placed on their property they are precluded from receiving a pension. That is one of the things which I would like the hon. the Minister to go into.

May I quote what I said last year; I have it here in Afrikaans—

I am pleased that the Minister does not accuse me now of making political capital and I hope he will take to heart what I have said in the last minute or two and see to it that what he envisaged last year becomes a fact, and that next year we will not be faced with a similar position.

Sir, just recently there was a whole village for sale in the Eastern Transvaal. I do not know whether or not it came to the notice of the Minister of Social Welfare. That village would have made an ideal home for the aged because it had shopping centres, it had flats and homes, a recreation hall and water and light had been laid on. That is the sort of thing that I asked for a year or two ago for those people who can no longer live in their own home, or who cannot be accommodated in the homes of their relatives. I ask that they should be given a place to live together as a community, to work there and to find their own recreation there. This would have been an ideal place for them. It would probably have accommodated several thousand elderly people. There is still time for the Minister to investigate and to see whether such a village cannot be bought by the Government and converted into a village for elderly persons.

Sir, it is up to us to do something about those people who were left out of the last Budget. The hon. member for Umbilo suggested this, and I want to emphasize how important it is for the neediest of the needy to receive something extra by way of pension. The hon. the Minister knows that they were forgotten entirely in the last Budget; they received nothing additional. Those people are finding it increasingly difficult to-day to pay their rent and to pay for their food. It is out of the question for them to buy new clothing; they can no longer afford it. They have to depend on contributions from welfare organizations as far as clothing is concerned. It is imperative and urgent that these people should receive some assistance. Sir, I also ask that the Government should introduce a system of coupons for those people who cannot come out on their pensions, coupons which they can then exchange for food or clothing.

Debate having continued for two and a half hours, the motion lapsed in terms of Standing Order No. 32.

I move the motion as printed in my name. It reads as follows—

Although nobody has thus far really been able to determine the importance and the scope of this disease in South Africa, bilharzia cannot be regarded as a minor disease which is not serious. From a public health point of view bilharzia, because of the physical disability which it causes, ought to be regarded as a very serious disease. Bilharzia claims far more victims than people realize. It causes all sorts of complications in the intestines, complications which cause the victim to suffer and it actually brings about the early demise of the victim. Even in the general economic sphere bilharzia certainly has a hampering influence. As a result of the chronic indisposition of bilharzia sufferers the potential productivity of the population is reduced, particularly in those areas in which we have these wonderful irrigation schemes in our country. Fortunately, Mr. Speaker, this disease is today arousing increased interest. Although bilharzia has been known in South Africa for about a century, it is only really during the past decade or so that the importance of this problem has been realized. Newspaper reports and public statements by influential persons and doctors indicate that this disease is spreading throughout the whole of South Africa. Requests that the State, and more specifically the Department of Health, should control this disease, that they should put more positive measures into operation and take even stronger precautionary measures in this regard, as asked for in my motion, are becoming more general and more urgent. The question which arises in this connection is a threefold one. The first question is this: Does this disease really spread as has been alleged? Secondly, how serious are the results of infection with this disease? In the third place, what can be done to control this disease?

It is necessary to deal briefly but not technically with the incidence and the spread of the disease. The general idea in the past was that bilharzia occurred in those rivers in our country flowing eastwards and that the rivers flowing in a westerly direction were bilharzia-free. Basically, that proposition still stands to-day. Bilharzia is endemic in the waters of the rivers which pour their contents into the Indian Ocean. Bilharzia is prevalent from the Sundays River in the south, through the Cis-kei, the Transkei, Griqualand-East and Natal and up into Southern Rhodesia and Mocambique. As far as the Transvaal is concerned it is prevalent north of the Witwatersrand watershed and in the Eastern and Northern Transvaal. It is even prevalent in the Pretoria area. I remember, Mr. Speaker, that when I served on the City Council of Pretoria, the city medical officer often sent circulars to the heads of schools telling them to warn the children not to swim in the Apies River or even in the Bon Accord dam, north of Pretoria.

The areas in which bilharzia is endemic were determined and chartered about 30 years ago. These endemic areas have remained fairly constant and yet bilharzia has spread fairly widely. The host snail and the bilharzia parasite are already widely spread throughout our country. They occur even in parts of Potchef-stroom, in the Mooi River. They even occur in Skoonspruit in Klerksdorp and in the catchment area of the Harts River, and, inter alia, even at Schweizer-Reneke in the Western Transvaal. All the water from all the rivers, streams, dams and canals in an area where bilharzia is endemic is infected or possibly infected with bilharzia. As a result of the great progress which has been made in the agricultural sphere during the post-war years, large irrigation schemes which are of great value to the country have been completed. But, unfortunately, this development contributes towards the spread of bilharzia which constitutes a great danger to the inhabitants of those areas. It creates ideal conditions for the breeding of the bilharzia—carrying snails. Before Northern and North-Eastern Transvaal were opened up for agricultural and industrial development, the Bantu tribes lived there in their villages. But after malaria had been brought under control, after the means of communication had been improved and after agriculture and commerce and industry had developed there, a more intensive movement of population also took place. This also contributed towards the spread of bilharzia. What is more, Mr. Speaker, with the improvement of the roads and of our means of transport, with the increasing popularity of holiday resorts, of camping spots and of nature reserves which are mainly situated in those areas, visitors came to the areas concerned in large numbers from far and wide. The result is that many of them, unknowingly, have been infected with bilharzia. These visitors and holiday-makers and also the Bantu working in those areas have carried that bilharzia infection to the unprotected waters. In other countries which have to combat bilharzia, there are two factors which constitute a danger, the one being the spreading of the disease by human beings and the other the spreading of the disease by means of irrigation.

There are many bilharzia sufferers in the areas where bilharzia is endemic. Bilharzia is without any doubt the prevailing disease in those areas to-day. It creates the most serious parasite problem. A large section of the Bantu population in South Africa live in those areas and it is mainly the Bantu who are bilharzia sufferers.

I would like in this connection to quote what Dr. P. C. Eagle has to say in this regard. He is the Regional Director of the Northern Transvaal State Health Services. He made the following remark in this connection—

Two important bilharzia parasites occur in South Africa. These are the parasites which cause urinary bilharzia and the parasites which cause intestinal bilharzia. The bilharzia parasite in both cases is a worm of about half an inch in length. In the case of urinary bilharzia the parasite normally lives in the blood vessels of the bladder where the female lays her eggs; the eggs penetrate the wall of the bladder and are then released in the urine. In the case of intestinal bilharzia the worm or the parasite moves to the blood vessels of the intestines. There the female lays its eggs and they penetrate in this case through the wall of the organ concerned and are then released when the bowels are evacuated. The eggs of both types remain viable for a very long time and they hatch as soon as they come into contact with fresh water.

The basic problem in connection with this matter is this. The embryo which hatches from the egg swims around in the water until if finds a host snail. It then penetrates the host snail, breeds in it and multiplies and the larvae then emerge from the snail. The larvae swim about in the water until they come into contact with human skin or human membranes. When people drink the water or wash or bathe in the water these larvae attach themselves to the human skin. They then penetrate the blood vessels, are carried along in the bloodstream and settle mainly in the liver. There they develop to full maturity and in this way the cycle is completed. The human carrier then excretes the parasite, it lands in the veld and as a result of rain or irrigation it is eventually deposited in a stream of water.

The destructive work of the parasite is done in the liver. It is said that it takes the larvae about 20 seconds to penetrate the skin. It takes the parasite 20 years or more to fulfil its destructive function if the person is not treated. It is perfectly clear that his problem can be overcome if the cycle of the parasite can be broken at some stage or other. The snail which is the host to the parasite must be eradicated or methods must be put into operation to prevent the human carrier from spreading the parasite in the veld. People must therefore be taught to boil water which they use for drinking purposes and not swim or bathe in water which may possibly be infected. People in the areas concerned must be taught and trained to live hygienically and not to contaminate the banks of water courses or dams with excreta or urine. Mr. Speaker, this is a really gigantic task and it is extremely difficult in the areas where hundreds of thousands of Bantu live. It is extremely difficult to teach the Banu to live hygienically. We know that elementary hygiene is included as a subject in the Bantu curriculum and we also know that Bantu children are taught the dangers of bilharzia in their hygiene course. But as soon as those children return to their huts and their own environment they discard everything they have learnt and fall back once again into the old way of life of their parents and of their forefathers.

Mr. Speaker, I want to express my thanks and appreciation to the Department of Health which has taken positive steps over the past few years to combat the disease and its spread. The bilharzia pilot committee, as the research committee of the C.S.I.R. is called, also merits a word of appreciation for what it has done. As early as 1962 this committee asked that the bilharzia problem be tackled on a country-wide basis because the disease was prevalent in, and had spread, over very large parts of the country. The research committee of the C.S.I.R. has already done a vast amount of work in this connection. Let me mention a few examples in this regard. For example, they are doing research work at Nelspruit and from there they are extending the research work to the Pongola irrigation scheme and even to the Makatini Flats, to northern Natal where an irrigation scheme is also in operation and to the Letaba area. In the second place the bilharzia unit of the C.S.I.R. is doing research into the spread of fresh-water snails in the various river systems of our country—not only in the bilharzia-endemic areas but also in other river systems of the country. In the third place, Mr. Speaker, the C.S.I.R., in its efforts to combat the spread of bilharzia, has already made experiments with the application of copper sulphate to water in the endemic areas. It was originally hoped that the use of copper sulphate would offer a solution to the problem but it did not have the anticipated results. As soon as the application of the copper sulphate is stopped, the snail again makes its appearance and continues to spread the disease.

The Department of Health, as I have already said, is giving increasing attention to this problem. In June 1962 a national bilharzia committee was brought into being on the initiative of the Department of Health. The purpose of this committee is to act as a central, co-ordinating, advisory and reporting committee and also as a planning committee in order to combat bilharzia effectively. The committee is also receiving the co-operation of various other Departments. I have in mind the Department of Water Affairs, the Department of Commerce and Industries, the Departments of Bantu Administration and Development and the Department of Agricultural Technical Services. There are also other bodies which are co-operating harmoniously in this connection. In this connection I have in mind the Provincial Administrations of the Transvaal, Natal and the Cape. I also want to mention once again the colossal work which is being done by the committee of the C.S.I.R.

The Department has made routine surveys, particularly within the Northern Transvaal area, and in all those districts where bilharzia is prevalent the incidence at this stage is compared with the incidence at previous stages. The necessary control measures are now being taken by the Department, chiefly in the Northern Transvaal areas where these experiments are being extensively carried out. In the district of Pietersburg, Soutspansberg and Letaba a systematic survey of the snail is being made and urine tests are also being carried out at the Bantu schools in that area. All this is being done by the technical officers. The infected water in the Waterberg and Warmbaths regions is being treated with copper sulphate. The interesting fact is that tests have been made in the Potgietersrust area in the Ghompies River—this is the river which runs through the well-known Zebediela estates—and copper sulphate has been used there successfully since 1953. The advantage of copper sulphate is that when it is administered in a small area and is continuously administered, it may well be successful.

The Department of Health has also started with another very important aspect in connection with the combating of bilharzia and that is to give information in connection with bilharzia. I call this a very important aspect. In this connection the South African Press has co-operated very well indeed and they have printed reports about the combating of bilharzia and all the efforts that are being made in this regard. Tour associations such as Rondalia, the A.A. and the R.A.C., for example, included the bilharzia map and the accompanying warnings of the Department in their brochures and in their handbooks and have made the handbooks available to tourists. Radio talks and news reports have also been broadcast by the S.A.B.C. There has been a really positive reaction as a result of all these efforts. The Department has also gone so far as to make bilharzia maps and brochures available in post offices, in police stations and in the recruitment offices where Bantu workers are recruited for work in the bilharzia-endemic areas. I am told that since the Department started this large-scale bilharzia campaign it has been swamped by inquiries from the public. The Department is therefore in a position to give personal information along these lines and in my motion I plead for the sort of publicity which the Department is giving to bilharzia. This publicity has produced the positive result that the public are starting to react. The method of combating bilharzia ought not to consist only of the application of snail-killing chemicals. By the way, Mr. Speaker, in last night’s news over the radio and in the paper this morning we heard and read the following (translation)—

One does not know whether the fish will also die if this substance is administered.

Snail-killing substances can be administered and mass treatment can be resorted to but the important point is that the public themselves must take certain measures. Because there is general interest on the part of the public in this matter and because of the general fear of bilharzia this is a golden opportunity to give the public the correct facts in connection with bilharzia and to encourage them to take the initiative personally and to be careful.

Mr. Speaker, I want to conclude. More and more it is the task of the Department of Health to-day—and this is my plea—to enlighten all the inhabitants as far as possible, both White and non-White, in the areas where bilharzia is endemic, and to persuade them to apply systematically a planned long-term policy in respect of the eradication of bilharzia.

Dr. RADFORD: I have listened to the panegyric on the work of the Department of Health with great interest but not with a great deal of agreement. To my mind there is no doubt whatsoever that the Department of Health has not really tackled the question of bilharzia seriously and drastically. It has been prepared to drift along following mildly what happens in the rest of the world and leaving the infected areas not very much helped. I cannot really say that I blame them for this. The problems are great—much greater than is appreciated by the hon. member who moved this motion.

It was worked out towards the end of the First World War. Before then the problem, which was so grave in Egypt, was brought to the notice of the British Government by Egyptian soldiers and so in 1918 they sent a commission under an R.A.M.C. Colonel, called Leiper, to Egypt to try to find out how this disease was spread He discovered that the intermediate host was the snail. That was the first break-through in the problem of bilharzia. It was probably also the last breakthrough except for another British scientist—I have forgotten his name—who introduced antimony as a treatment.

In any disease which is carried by an intermediate host the problem becomes one of either destroying the intermediate host or sterilizing him or preventing him from carrying the disease. In this case the host is ourselves of course. We have had great success in this regard in the case of malaria which is the best example of an intermediate host, i.e. the mosquito. In regard to the control of the snail the success has not been great. This is not a disease which is confined to this country. It is almost universal throughout the whole of Africa. I have a map here showing where the disease is to be found and the few places where it is not prevalent are southern Africa, South West Africa, Bechuanaland, southern Transvaal, the whole of the Free State, Basutoland and the Cape. Except for the Sahara Desert there are only small areas where this disease is not endemic. It has been aggravated by the introduction of irrigation schemes. In fact the main agent in the spread of this disease has been irrigation—uncontrolled irrigation and irrigation which has not followed a definite plan, i.e. irrigation in which no effort is made to avoid the breeding of the snail.

Here we come to a point where we must look to the Department of Health to see to it that the Department of Agricultural Technical Services does not introduce schemes of irrigation where the engineering is not of such a type as to prevent the breeding of snails. In this respect both the Department of Health and the Department of Agricultural Technical Services have not shown great enterprise. But they have, however, begun to realize that the control, to some extent, of this disease is an engineering and not altogether a health problem. The destruction of the intermediate host, i.e. the snail, has never been successfully carried out. We heard yesterday and early this morning of this new panacea which kills snails over a distance of six miles with a concentration of three parts per million in the water. There have been many similar claims. There are many molluscicides on the market but they have broken down in the end. The scientific attacks on the snail have been unsuccessful. Short of drugging him—and that is not always successful—killing them in large numbers has not been successful. At one time we thought that ducks would eat the snails. That is true up to a point but that, too, has not been successful. I feel that the Minister of Health has not tackled this problem seriously. With all our wealth and with all our available material there has been no real scientific attempt on a large scale to solve this problem. Certain experiments have been carried out by the South African Institute of Medical Research and the Department has had a few other pieces of work done, but there has not been any large-scale attempt. It is time that this Department took over its own research instead of leaving it all to the C.S.I.R. which does it in its own time and in its own way. This problem is a grave one for the areas mentioned by the mover of this motion. In Natal, although it exists, it is not quite so serious, it is not seen to be so serious a disease as in other areas. But until the Department of Health insists that the Department of Agricultural Technical Services co-operates with it and condemns irrigations schemes which are unsuitable and which spread the disease, we are not going to go very far. And I am not asking the impossible. I want to draw attention to Ghana. Now the climate of Ghana is much hotter than ours, Ghana has a very high rainfall and bilharziasis is common there. I will read a short extract—

That is a common fact, but in Ghana they have been able to overcome the problem. The soil of Ghana is not easily tilled by hand, and so most of it is done mechanically. The agricultural methods have been devised to reduce the chances of bilharziasis transmission. These methods include—

In other words they merely germinate the seed. Then—

This has been a carefully planned scheme and it has apparently upset the snail and parasite cycles. In other words, there you have a combination of medical and scientific knowledge and engineering care and attention in a country much worse off than we are, much poorer than we are, with far fewer scientific workers, with one university and only an embryonic medical school, and yet they have been able to deal with the problem of bilharzia in connection with a plant like rice by paying careful attention to these matters.

Now if the hon. member would come forward with some suggestion that the whole problem should be handed over to the Department of Agricultural Technical Services, there might be some sense in what he says. But it remains with the Department of Health, and in my opinion it should remain there. Nevertheless the Department of Health has not tackled the problem seriously, it has not made an effort on its own account to solve it, it has not apparently followed the work done in other countries as it should have done. Efforts have been made and are continuing to be made, as was stated to-day, to kill the snails, but certain problems arise. Firstly, the efforts kills fish, and then it has to be stopped. Occasionally it interferes with plant life. At other times it fails because of the sunlight which affects it. But in general it has not been possible up to now to deal with running water containing living things and kill only the snails. It is quite easy to kill the snail if you make the poison strong enough, but to kill the snail specifically and not destroy or damage other fish, etc., is not possible.

I think we ought to try and think on new lines. It is obvious that the molluscicides have failed. Now, Sir, we in Natal are faced with a problem which kills a few people, nothing like the number of people who are affected by bilharziasis, but nevertheless is a spectacular problem, and that is the problem of the shark. The shark lives in sea water and it attacks humans. Obviously the Natal people want to preserve the bathing amenities and therefore they must deal with the shark problem, although it is not as grave as many people think. I do not know who guided them, but the Natal people have started on a new line. The have realized that it was not possible to poison the sea. So we find that the research workers in the oceanarium in Natal are now attempting to deal with the shark problem by electric barriers, so to create a barrier in the water that the sharks will turn back. This sounds quite unfeasible to the ordinary person and to the ordinary scientific thinking person, but nevertheless men of high standing in the scientific world believe that it is going to be possible. I quote this to you purely and simply to show that it is not necessary to follow the age-old methods which have existed since Ross first discovered the mosquito. We have also at our disposal nuclear reactions, nuclear power. I do not know, but could the solution not perhaps lie in that direction. What I am trying to point out is that the Department of Health has shown extremely little imagination and have been content more to jog along than to think on fresh lines.

It must be realized also that the early phase of bilharzia infection is not very grave, the people are not ill on the whole. That is one of the reasons why the disease spreads so far and so wide because the patients do not seek relief. The average Native accepts it as part of his life and he does not seek treatment, he does not feel very bad. It is only in the later stages, anything from 20 to 40 years after infection, that his health beings to decline and he is unable to work. By that time he can get relief and help but his health cannot be returned to him. Therefore an effort must be made to find the patients in the early stages. The Government many years back instituted school camps and studied the children for infection and dealt with them as they found them. That was all very well, but it still failed to find the patient who was not passing blood—the simplest manner to find out. Therefore various efforts have been made to find a blood test which would provide a diagnosis before the passage of the blood and so make it possible for the doctors to treat these patients early and to destroy the parasite. Here is a line of attack which the Department of Health has failed to develop. I do not say that they have not taken note of it, but all these various tests, the skin test, the blood count test and other tests have not been given the attention, individually, to bring them to a point where it can be said that the test is specific for early bilharziasis. I am not saying that they have not used the tests. I am quite certain that they have. I am not saying that they do not know of the tests. I say that they have failed to give to a scientist or to scientists the problem and say “Solve this problem for us, give us this test”.

Order! Hon, members over there should not talk so loudly.

These tests should be made specific to make it possible to take these children at an early stage and discover the disease before it has commenced to do the ravages which it will do ultimately to their health. Because we have cures for this disease but in the early stage only—in the later stages the harm cannot be undone. If this Department would say to itself: We are going to solve this problem, we will at least find 95 per cent of the sufferers in an early stage and then we will destroy the parasites in them, it would be a great step forward. Then the spread of the disease could be limited, and even more, the lives of these people could be made happier and healthier. If the Department with the true spirit of a department of health went to the Department of Irrigation and told them: “We will not allow you to use those channels because those channels you build are a danger to the lives of the people living here”, then we might achieve something. Under the circumstances I move the following amendment—

To omit all the words after “That” and to substitute “this House is of the opinion that it is in the interest of public health that the State should, in combating bilharzia, approach the problem in a dynamic and comprehensive manner with the object of—

1. (a) declaring bilharzia to be a notifiable disease;
2. (b) providing adequate subsidies for research facilities;
3. (c) encouraging pharmaceutical and other scientific interests throughout the world to study methods of prevention and treatment;
4. (d) encouraging the private sector of the economy to set aside funds for bursaries; and
5. (e) seeking the active co-operation of the schools and of the population in infected areas with a view to their applying modern, hygienic methods aimed at the eradication of bilharzia.”

The hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford) made a very interesting speech in connection with the subject under discussion. He has moved an amendment but I think that virtually every item covered by that amendment is being attended to by the Department at the moment, although perhaps not quite to the extent we would like to see it being done. But he is certainly not asking for anything new, except that the disease must be notified. For the rest, the Department is already doing everything he asks. I want to associate myself with the motion which was introduced in such a capable manner by the hon. member for Pretoria East (Dr. Otto) I do this mainly to emphasize the seriousness of the matter with which we are dealing. It is necessary that the public should have a greater awareness of the fact that there is a steadily increasing number of our people, both White and non-White, who are being infected by this disease and that their energy and physical resources are being drained and sapped by this disease. I want to say that in spite of the fact that as far as medical science is concerned considerable progress has already been made in the scientific sphere over the past years, and in spite of the fact that considerable progress has been made in the sphere of tropical diseases and para-sitiology, it is a fact that as far as bilharzia is concerned we have made hardly any progress at all and we still have not gained the upper hand over this disease. Instead of being able to see a ray of light we must admit that the disease is still spreading. It is an old disease which has been known to man for a few thousand years. Every now and again when mummies in Egypt are examined scars are found on them which indicate that this disease was attacking people many centuries ago. We see that in 1851 the scientist Bilharz described this disease for the first time. Because of this fact the disease was given his name. It is very widespread, almost everywhere in the world. As we have heard, it has spread throughout the whole of Africa, with the exception of a small area here in the South. We find it in Egypt, in Arabia, in parts of South America, in Cyprus, Greece, Portugal and also in the East. As far as we know it was first diagnosed among Whites in the Cape and Natal in 1864 by a person called Harley, apparently having been brought down by people from the infected north. It spread to such an extent that, as the hon. member for Pretoria (East) has said, we are now being warned that the rivers from the Sundays River right through Natal, the Northern Transvaal and the Transvaal Lowveld, are all infected. We are also warned that this snail which houses the parasite (although the parasites have not up to the present been found here in the snails) has already been found in the upper reaches of the Vaal River and of the Orange River. This is a very serious position. We have heard about the life cycle of this parasite. I do not want to discuss it any further but merely want to mention that this disease attacks the human body in a particular way and that it is actually at the chronic stage that all the harm is done. The affecting of the bladder and sometimes of the kidneys, sometimes too of the lungs—and the brain in exceptional cases—leaves the patient with anaemia which affects his ability to work. It is contended that this also handicaps him mentally and makes him struggle on in a physically undeveloped state and leaves him in a weakened position in which he lives a miserable life, sometimes for many years. Unfortunately we have the position that, in spite of what the hon. member for Durban (Central) has said to the effect that we have means of combating the disease, the means we have are as yet quite inadequate. Although it is contended that a great deal of success was achieved in Egypt through mass injections with a certain preparation, we have not as yet been so successful with those means here.

From what we have heard here to-day it is very clear that this disease is caused by a parasite and that this parasite cannot survive unless it comes into contact for a portion of its life cycle with a suitable snail and also with human beings. It has been found that this is a particular type of snail which does not live on the dry ground as in the case of many other snails. It lives in the water. It has also been discovered that the snail is not very partial to swiftly flowing water, swiftly flowing streams or rivers. It is not apparent to any great extent in the middle of large rivers but actually grows and develops best in parts where the water is dammed up—in smaller pools and dams or in places like private swimming baths or small fish ponds in our gardens. This snail flourishes particularly in small pools which are polluted by rotting organic material and dams which are polluted by human excrement. We find that this very often happens at drifts where there are public picnic spots. It is at these places that human excremen pollutes stagnant or very slowly moving water. That is why we also find this snail in the canals of irrigation schemes where the water flows slowly. These canals are very easily infected and this constitutes a great danger to the persons living and working in the vicinity. It has been proved over and over again that water is polluted at places where people gather and when water becomes polluted, the development and growth of the parasitic snail is strongest. To put it another way, it is very clear that human pollution of water is the most important cause of the spread of this disease. We find that the damming up of our rivers for irrigation purposes (and irrigation is necessary for the development of our country) takes place to a large extent on our irrigation schemes and in canals. This is also the case in regard to freshwater-fishing activities and in the growing of rice. All these places are fraught with great danger. When we consider the matter from this point of view we come to the conclusion and are convinced that the question of bilharzia is to a very large extent a question of hygiene. Because as yet we do not have a proven remedy, because we do not have completely effective snail-killing preparations, our present method of attack is more a question of trying to prevent the pollution of our water. We can do much in this connection. Where possible we must ensure that swamps are not found and those swamps that we have must be drained. Where we have sufficient labour to do the work, we must ensure that we do not allow water to stagnate in pools or dams. They must be filled in. We must have adequate drainage facilities at our drifts and bridges. We perhaps do not always realize how necessary these things are and yet they can be done. In planning a drift or a small bridge the road engineer must go to the extra expense of ensuring that the water drains away swiftly and does not dam up. It is necessary to ensure that proper sanitary facilities are available to everyone under all possible circumstances and that where there are bathing facilities, borehole water should preferably be used. It is interesting to note that according to surveys which have been made, as indicated in the “Practitioner’s Digest of Treatment” of May 1963, it appears that on farms on which proper provision existed for sanitary amenities, washing facilities and bathing facilities for the labourers the incidence of bilharzia dropped to 29.3 per cent as against 68.5 per cent on farms where no provision of this kind was made. That is why I say that it is necessary for us to give attention to these matters and to ensure that the people who work on our farms live there under hygienic conditions. It may perhaps be necessary at our irrigation schemes where people are forced to work in water to supply these people with rubber boots so that they do not come into contact with the water. It may be necessary to fence off water sources so that polluted water does not come into contact with human beings and to prevent infected persons coming into contact with clean water which is perhaps to be used for drinking purposes and which may become polluted. Safe water, in other words, borehole water must be used in these areas for household purposes. When we plan housing schemes we must ensure that they are not situated near streams or rivers because we know that it is customary for labourers to use rivers for washing and bathing and so forth. It is also true that when there is a storm, the pollution is spread. That is why we must ensure that we plan our housing schemes so as to avoid this danger. It is vitally necessary to ensure that people do not swim or bath in this polluted water. The Railways can also be of great assistance in this respect. It is possible, particularly in out-of-the-way places for a few water tanks to become infected. One can imagine how this water which is used on the trains can spread the infection. That is why I say that all the available knowledge and advice in connection with bilharzia must continually be brought to the notice of the public. We are very pleased that this is being done and that the Department is concentrating in this direction, that it is continually bringing these facts to the attention of general practitioners and district medical officers and nurses, that propaganda is being made, that thousands of pamphlets are being distributed and that advice is also being given to schools. I am not sure but I think that more could be done in this respect by means of films and additional radio talks so as to bring this matter to the attention of the children, both White and non-White. The step taken by the Department to train Bantu as health extension officers is a very imporant one and I am very sure that it will produce good results. I have been assured that the Bantu is a particularly good worker as far as the tracing of this type of snail and its destruction is concerned. The establishment of the National Bilharzia Committee must also be acclaimed. I think that this is a particularly good thing. It is also a very good thing that various departments are represented on that committee, such as the Department of Health, the Department of Agricultural Technical Services and the Department of Lands, and it is very encouraging to note that the C.S.I.R. is also represented on that committee. I am sure that this will contribute greatly to its success.

Although I realize that for the present information and propaganda will play a very important role and indeed, that these are virtually our only means of attack at the moment, I do want to emphasize the fact that we must realize that the question of changing the way of life and habits of a large section of our people is a very slow process. Personally I am convinced that we cannot wait and simply rely on that process. We must try to make a more direct attack upon this disease. That is why I am fully convinced that the Department of Health must play a more active and direct part in this campaign. It is quite true—we appreciate this fact and are very grateful for it—that the Department subsidizes research in this connection. But I believe that it is necessary for more research to be done and for more money to be spent in this regard. I am also convinced that the C.S.I.R. will not be unwilling to help. I believe that the Department should take the initiative just as it did in regard to malaria and bubonic plague. I believe that it must attack this disease on all fronts through the medium of a permanent team of workers. We must make progress if we tackle this problem systematically. It will be necessary to put inspectors in the field where, just as in the case of bubonic plague and malaria, they will act as extension officers. I also believe, just as happened in regard to malaria and bubonic plague, that in the case of bilharzia the Department will, sooner or later, also have to take action in order to apply preventive measures which have already been tried successfully. If it is true that certain preventive measures have been taken on certain farms with good results, and if it is true that it is precisely steps of this nature which assist us in this regard, then I think that sooner or later we will have to resort to coercion in this regard. I am sure that a great deal of progress will be made with the assistance of the Bantu chiefs and headmen. When I say coercion must be used, I do not mean that the matter is such an easy one that we can rectify everything by means of a law. We know that the Bantu believe in authority and they like to see orders and instructions carried out, those having the authority of the State, but this is not a trait which is to be found only amongst them. Many Whites show the same tendency. I think only of the pleas which are continually being made for safe driving on our roads. We know that this danger never penetrates in many cases until these people see a man in uniform. We all know that years and years of propaganda and information has still not had the effect which it should have had in connection with smallpox and diphtheria. The public remain apathetic and it is only when they are threatened and there is the possibility of their being prosecuted that they queue up at the doctors to have their children inoculated or vaccinated. I think that we will have to give increased thought in the direction or bring pressure to bear upon certain sections of the public in order to force these preventive measures which have been tried successfully, upon people who do not want to apply them voluntarily. I am convinced that if we rely solely upon propaganda or on information or upon the cooperation of the public, which we would very much like to have, we will go on for another hundred years hearing the same story that we have heard here to-day.

Mr. Speaker, it is quite obvious to all of us who have listened to the debate up to now, that we are dealing with a most difficult disease, one which has proved most difficult to eradicate, most difficult to cure or even to treat successfully. Almost 30 years ago I was associated with drawing up a map in conjunction with my lecturer at that time, Dr. Annie Porter, showing the incidence of bilharzia in South Africa. I must say that the map I have got here is somewhat different from the one that was drawn up in those years. But the difference is quite alarming in one respect. The old story of rivers flowing into the Indian Ocean being the only sources of infection has now almost definitely been contradicted. It is quite obvious now that we in South Africa are going to be faced with a most difficult problem when the irrigation schemes of the Orange River and the Vaal River are undertaken, because there lies the future danger of what may happen to the population, in these new irrigation areas. I can tell you. from looking at the old map and again at the new map, that we are in dire danger of finding that almost the whole of South Africa may become breeding-spots for the bilharzia parasite. We have to stop it. As has been said by speakers here this afternoon, it is a matter not only for doctors and scientists or for individuals interested in the work, but primarily a matter for the engineers. It is a disease that flourishes, as was said, mainly in the rural areas. I want to say again that although it was in the past considered to be a disease primarily affecting the rural areas, we have found now that with the easy transport and the popularity of picnic resorts, and the carelessness with which the visitors to these resorts dispose of faeces and urine, and the inability to control human beings from voiding at any place where proper sanitation is not provided, we will find that wherever an industrial area is established near an area where there is irrigation and increased agricultural activities, there we will find potential breeding-spots of bilharzia. It has spread from the villages and tribal areas into the new White-occupied areas, and where we find that White-occupied areas have become infected there we find an influx of non-Whites who were previously probably infected with bilharzia. Migrant labourers are very often found to be 100 per cent infected when they come from certain areas. I would say that any migrant labourers coming down from Central Africa should be tested carefully for bilharzia before they are allowed to work in our country even for very short periods, because they are potential spreaders of the disease.

How can the engineers help us? We know from a study that it is most prevalent along the edges of slow-moving waters in canals, in pools and in slow streams. It is obvious that we must eliminate these wherever we possibly can, and the first thing I would suggest is this: Where canals are essential for irrigation purposes, there the banks of the canal must be built in such a way that there is a pavement on either side of the bank, a pavement which should be concreted and kept free from weeds. The water in the canal should never be allowed to reach the top of the canal and should never be allowed to spill over. There should always be at least a foot of space between the top of the canal and the flow, because it is in the stagnant and slow-moving waters that the snails breed. I say that the canal should have a pavement on either side of it and that pavement should be kept free from weeds at all times. Secondly, it becomes essential then, wherever possible, to have enclosed water pipes so that the snail will never be able to get to the water. In the long run this may prove to be the cheapest way of delivering water from one place to another. It is estimated that at the moment there are 2,000,000 people in South Africa suffering from bilharzia. That is a very high percentage indeed.

All races

Yes. As the hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford) has said, it is a good thing perhaps that bilharzia is not a very acute disease. It is a bad disease, however. It is a disease which does not require intensive treatment to enable people to go to work. In other words, too many of the infected people do go to work. Too many people who have this disease are working in areas where proper sanitation has not been provided. This is where the Minister comes in again. He should not allow any rural activity to take place by industry, commerce, irrigation works, afforestation, etc., without the provision of proper sanitary facilities. For years and years now notices have been put up in various spots, “Beware of bathing in this area; it is infected with bilharzia”, and what do we find Those notices are torn down; they are put up again; notices in wood are then put up instead of cardboard notices. The wooden notices are torn down and used as firewood at picnic spots. I think the Minister must put his foot down. He should make it a punishable offence for anybody to tear down a notice warning people that water in an area is infected. He should introduce a law to penalize people who tear down such notices.

As far as the human being is concerned, it has been said over the years that it is not a dangerous disease, that it is not a killer disease; that it is a disease which is very often cured without any treatment, that it is a self-curing disease, but it has now been found that the incidence of cancer in the Bantu has increased, especially as far as cancer of the bladder and cancer of the liver are concerned. That is one of the reasons why I think it is essential for this disease to be made a notifiable disease, because where a person has bil-harzia and he later dies of cancer we can at least try to find a connection between the cause of death and the original infection. Sir, I do not want to be misunderstood here. I do not want to say that all the cases of cancer of the liver or of the bladder are due to bilharzia, but we must find out where the connection lies. There has been such a great increase in the incidence of these diseases in the last few years that I feel that bilharzia in the chronic stage may be a very important cause of cancer of the bladder and cancer of the liver. I agree with my hon. friend who thinks it is most advisable to have bilharzia declared a notifiable disease. In order to combat the disease thoroughly we have to eliminate the disease in the human being first. We have tried many different kinds of treatment over the years. Lately we have been treating patients by three different methods. We give them tablets or we give them intravenous or intra-muscular injections of different substances but I regret to say that in many cases, as the hon. member for Odendaalsrus (Dr. Meyer) will know, the treatment is almost worse than the disease. The effects of the substances that we use on the individual are sometimes so nasty that the recipient of the treatment will say to his friends, “do not have the treatment; take my advice; keep the disease, they can have the treatment”. I am sorry to say that that attitude is being taken up by the Bantu. The Bantu fears the treatment that he is being offered.

Is the treatment successful?

Not completely, but in very many cases we have good results. On the lighter side I want to say to the House that one of the side-effects of oral treatment is jaundice. You very often get jaundice from the oral treatment. Of course, if a Bantu gets jaundice from the treatment he will say immediately that the White man is now trying to make him yellow. Sir, I am not joking. That is what is going on amongst these people. They are afraid to take these tablets. They would rather go without treatment than go to places where they can get free treatment and be cured. It is difficult to convince these people that they are the source of further infection. You are going to have the greatest difficulty in trying to educate these people to use latrines and not to leave faeces all over the countryside. They will not believe that they are the cause of the disease. That is a problem for the Minister to solve; it is a question of education of the Black people in the area. It is difficult enough to get the White people to co-operate; to get the Blacks to co-operate is a much more difficult problem. This is the Minister’s problem; he has a capable department and it is for him to find ways and means of educating these people.

A further difficulty is the inability of the Bantu to read notices. It is no good putting up notices if the Bantu cannot read them. To an illiterate Bantu that notice or piece of paper may mean anything, so ways and means will have to be devised to show the Bantu, by means of pictures, how dangerous it is for them to carry on with their present habits. The human reservoir of this infection has to be eliminated. The first thing is that we are having difficulty in educating people properly. Secondly, we are having difficulty in getting people to come for treatment because of the unpleasant side-effects in many cases, and thirdly we find that because of its non-acuteness people tend to neglect to treat themselves. We have to do something to educate people to get treatment early, to change their habits and to make the Black people realize that they are infecting their friends and relatives. The next problem is how to get rid of the snails. That has been a very difficult problem in the past, but with this new substance, WL8008, there is a strong possibility that we will at last be able to control the breeding of snails even in fast-running water. I have said before that we must be careful about the construction of canals. The hon. member for Odendaalsrus, if I understood him correctly, wanted to make sure that they were so constructed that they would be fast-running; I want to go further and say that where possible they should be covered completely and, where that is not possible, there should be paving on both sides of the canal, and thirdly, wherever possible, there should be enclosed pipes.

Can one person infect another?

No, you have to have the snail as the intermediary. You have to have the snail and you have to have the water in which the snail lives and you have to have a host to be ready to pick up the infected snail. In children, of course, it has a most deleterious effect in some cases. The mental retardation of school-children in parts of our country is due to some extent to bilharzia infection. I think it is in this field that the hon. the Minister can play his most important role by educating the child at the school. He should do everything in his power to educate them by means of cinematograph pictures, books, ordinary pictures on the walls, notices, etc. That education should be given to the child both in the school and out of school, and at gatherings, especially in the open. I would say that immediately after prayers at schools there should be a warning about bilharzia. At picnics, at barbecues, it should always be stressed how dangerous it is for children or adults to go into water in infected areas.

I want to tell the House that up to now there have been two types of schistisoma which have been responsible for bilharzia. Now there is a third type. This third type is going to prove a headache to us here in South Africa. I refer to a type which has now been found in Zululand and. which is attacking the cattle there. I am not sure whether this statement is correct or not, but it has been said that over a million head of cattle in Zululand in the Mkuse area, have been infected with the Schistisoma Mathei. This type has been found to attack cattle. The cattle are infecting themselves. What happens is that an infected cow or beast leaves droppings on the veld. You cannot go and tell a cow where to deposit its droppings. That cow re-infects the next one through the snail and there is no way of stopping it. It is no good putting up notices—the cows cannot read them. So you can imagine the danger that is facing the cattle breeders in that area. That is a headache for our Minister. I am sorry that the hon. the Minister for Agricultural Technical Services is not here. I know the people from Onderstepoort have already been there to investigate the area but nothing definite has been done. Unless it is stopped now we are going to find that the majority of the cattle in that area will be infected with bilharzia. Incidentally, at the same time as that was happening there there was another liver fluke that was attacking cattle in that area. This was in September last year. The figures I wish to give you, Sir, are authentic, I think. In 1956, in seven large abattoirs 150 tons of liver had to be condemned as unfit because of snail-borne infection. A year later—in one year—the figure jumped from 150 tons to an amount of liver which cost us R5,500,000. This is the problem with which we are faced. As I say, the Minister has had many opportunities of doing something concrete. I hope that, as an outcome of this discussion this afternoon, we will get on with the job in a more intensified form and that the Minister will press for laws to enforce people to look after themselves by being clean in their habits and that he will do everything in his power to make sure that infected waters are suitably treated. That is what he has to do.

We are dealing here with a very difficult problem. I want to thank the hon. member for Pretoria (East) (Dr. Otto) for having brought this important matter to the notice of the House. I think it is necessary for us here from time to time carefully to consider the important problems facing our country. I also want to thank the hon. member for Odendaalsrus (Dr. Meyer), as well as the previous speaker, for the constructive way in which they approached the matter. I cannot, however, say that I am altogether happy about the manner in which the hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford) tackled the matter. It appeared to me as if he was trying to make propaganda and trying to see whether he could not make capital out of it. In order to show the type of ideas expressed by the hon. member for Durban (Central), I just want to remind the House of his reference to “electric barriers”. He says electric barriers are used for sharks in Natal, and he says perhaps they can also be used for snails. I need not go into this further, but it does appear as if he tried to ridicule the matter somewhat. Then he said that isotopes should be used—isotopes to see how the food circulates in the stomach of the snail? It looks a little ridiculous when one advances such arguments in regard to a matter which deserves serious consideration. The hon. member gave me the impression that he was just trying to find something against the Department of Health. He accused the Department of Health of not conducting research. But the development in South Africa is in fact that we have established a large and important body, viz. the C.S.I.R. This body to-day enjoys the respect of the world for the research it has conducted in numerous spheres. It was a special commission, the Du Toit Commission, which investigated the research done in South Africa and which found that it would be best conducted by such a specialized body. The objection of one of those hon. members now is that the Department of Health does not do research. I think he is unfortunately about seven years behind the times, because it is now about seven years since that decision was taken. That decision was taken for the very reason that it is so important that research should be done by a body which was established particularly with a view to doing effective research.

Mr. Speaker, one should regard the Department of Health as an executive department, as a department which is there to use the scientific knowledge of the world in various ways, without itself arriving at scientific solutions. It is the guardian of the health of the people. The Department of Health is not a munitions factory which must continually try to produce new weapons.

One of the attacks made on the Department of Health by the hon. member for Durban (Central) is that it does not prohibit the Department of Water Affairs from building irrigation canals when they do not build them in the way the Department of Health says they must be built. I wonder which Department would permit the Department of Health to prescribe all sorts of things for it? It is true that there is close co-operation between the various departments. Other departments to a large extent accept the advice of the Department of Health, but no department will allow another to dictate what it should do. I am sure the agricultural members of this House would not allow the Department of Health to tell them that certain canals may not be used because they have not been built in the way the Department of Health wants them to be built.

Hon. members raised another point under their motion, namely that the Department should make bilharzia a notifiable disease. In other words, medical men in South Africa must make a survey of all persons who have bilharzia and then inform the Department. Now I ask myself: Of what use will that be Of what use can it be to know which 2,000,000 of the 16,000,000 or 17,000,000 people have bilharzia That may be of use, e.g. in the case of malaria, because to-day we have methods by which we can eradicate malaria. It is easy to do so to-day. But we know, according to what hon. members have already said, that it is not easy to eradicate bilharzia. It is an infinitely difficult task. As the hon. member for Rosettenville has pointed out, it is also very unpleasant. Nor does it help to administer only one application of it. It has been discovered that a person must have up to 15 treatments. He must undergo a series of treatments before he is cured. I really cannot see the use of the amendment moved by the hon. member for Durban (Central).

We should rather try to find a solution to this problem. But before we can resolve the problem, it is important that one should have careful regard to certain aspects of it, because possibly a solution may be found in that way. As the hon. member for Rosettenville pointed out a moment ago, one person cannot transfer bilharzia to another. But the human being transfers it to a snail, and the snail again infects the human being. The human being produces a larva—if I may call it that—which enters the snail. In the snail it changes into another type of larva; it leaves the snail and eventually it again reaches the human being. There are therefore two carriers, viz. the human being and the snail. If that life circle can be broken the disease can be eradicated. If we want to eradicate it in this way, there are various ways. We can eradicate it in the human being or we can eradicate it in the snail, or we must break the life circle. It will not be so easy to eradicate it in the human being once the human has been infected. That will not be so easy, as I have already said, because the remedy to cure the human is so unpleasant, and because it needs not only one treatment but a series of treatments. A Bantu will flee to another part of the country long before he is due for the second treatment. Therefore until such time as we have a remedy to cure the human being it does not appear that this method is possible.

Now there is another method. We can try to break the life circle of the snail by preventing the human being from infecting the snail. Now one must take into consideration that the population of South Africa, particularly in the rural areas, consists mostly of Bantu. The Bantu simply has a different way of life. They are used to making use of the veld. Surely it is impossible to teach 10,000,000 or 12,000,000 people to use lavatories Even teaching this to all the Whites on the farms is already a tremendous task. To expect it from the Bantu seems to me quite impossible at present. We can try, and we might persevere with it, but we need not bluff ourselves that we will succeed in enlightening all the Bantu. Let us accept the fact that we will never prevent all the Bantu from making use of the veld. In other words, we will never be able to stop them from infecting any water they have free access to.

We now come to the third solution of the problem, viz. the attack on the snail. That is the solution which hitherto has received the serious attention of the Department. If the snail is eradicated, it cannot produce a larva which in turn infects humans. Intensive research is continually being conducted in regard to measures to destroy the snail. Fortunately not all snails are carriers of this disease, but only certain kinds. All possible research is being done. The Medical Institute in Johannesburg is continually busy testing all the new preparations which in any way seem hopeful in order to ascertain whether or not they are selective enough for the snail. The problem is to destroy the snail without destroying all other forms of life, without destroying the fish and the birds, and without eventually perhaps also doing great harm to human beings. The problem is to find an insecticide which is selective enough.

Where these snails are found in small spots, one can use poison, and in the Vaal River basin the Department has already discovered a few spots where these snails are prevalent, in this river’s contributaries. The Department has concentrated on such small spots and has destroyed the snails. We can do so there because eventually by the time the poison reaches the bigger stream it is harmless because it has been diluted to such an extent. One can therefore use it in small quantities and in small spots, but one cannot use it on a large scale, and one can particularly not use it in rivers, because when using it in rivers the possibility cannot be excluded of people also eventually being harmed. Fortunately we have succeeded in this manner in keeping the Vaal River uninfected, and that is, I think, already a great achievement. Nobody has ever yet expressed appreciation for what the Department of Health has achieved in this respect. If one takes into consideration that the largest concentration of people in South Africa is to be found in the Vaal River basin, I think one must admit that it is a great achievement that the Department has succeeded in keeping bilharzia out of the Vaal River basin.

In so far as the Orange River is concerned, the Department has already gone so far as to send teams to all sections of the Orange River in order to ascertain whether the snail which carries this disease can perhaps be found there, and fortunately they discovered that these particular snails are not present there. That is not all. The Department is taking steps to-day to ensure that every Bantu worker who goes to work on the large schemes is carefully inspected in order to ascertain whether or not he has bilharzia, and if it is found that he has he is immediately removed. In this way we are already trying to prevent the spread of the disease. Then it should not be forgotten either that we have to be infinitely careful in regard to poisons. Experiments have been made by certain of our scientists in connection with these poisons, particularly in regard to the eradication of the snails. I just want to give a few examples. Malathion has been used and it was diluted to one per 100,000, and with that dilution only a few snails were destroyed, whereas all the fish, crabs and tadpoles, which are particularly the enemies of the snails, were destroyed as well. They then diluted it to one in 10,000,000, 100 times more diluted, so that it could not kill a snail, but it still had the same effect and destroyed the fish and other forms of water life. They even tried D.D.T., and with a dilution of one per 18,000,000 all the fish were destroyed within 24 hours, without killing the snails. They then used a one in 70,000,000 dilution of D.D.T., which has no hope of destroying snails, and within four or five days all the fish were destroyed. I mention this in order to indicate that the Department is busy experimenting. We cannot publicize everything, but we are busy doing it. The problem is to find an effective measure which will destroy the snail but not the beneficial forms of life, and which will not eventually be seriously harmful to human beings.

Now I come to another problem. It has been ascertained that the snail has quite a number of enemies. Firstly the dung beetle has something to do with the matter. The dung bettle takes the faeces containing these bilharzia larvae and rolls it away, hiding it under stones until eventually it disappears. But in the rivers there are also certain water beetles which are enemies of the snails. There is, e.g., the dragonfly. The larvae of the dragonfly destroy the snails. There are certain flies particularly which go and sit on the snails and sting them to death and lay their eggs in them. There are the parasites of water birds, the so-called trematodus, which are at the same time the parasites which destroy the snails.

Let me now explain how the problem of the Department further becomes complicated. When Ngana was being combated in Natal, dusting was done from the air, and the en-tymologists who made investigations there before, and again subsequently, reported as follows. They said that before the dusting of the water one found many enemies of the snails, water beetles, dragonflies, etc., but for years and years afterwards, until quite recently, when the tests were again conducted, one could find no dragonflies or water beetles, whereas millions of snails were found. The hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher) was quite correct—I also saw the report saying that there were a million head of cattle infected with cattle bilharzia, also as the result of the increase in the number of snails and the eradication of the enemies of these snails. Now the question arises whether we should not accept this lesson. Cannot the problem in South Africa be infinitely relieved if we do not continue destroying our friends Are we not busy causing ourselves infinite suffering? Has the time not arrived again to restore the biological balance of nature which we have disturbed to such an extent? Is it not increasingly necessary for us to tell ourselves to-day: Let us in God’s name, in the interest of civilization, protect as far as possible the animals, particularly those which are our best friends, including the water birds

Egypt can also teach us a lesson. A number of years ago they had already spent £125,000,000 in attempts to eradicate bilharzia, but they have made no progress at all. But Egypt has also learnt an expensive lesson, because it destroyed almost all its water birds, or at least allowed them to be eradicated on a large scale. The snails have increased to such an extent that to-day they are almost powerless to do anything. Mauritius and Jamaica have taught us the same lesson. There the birds were eradicated on a large scale, and the snails increased immeasurably. Fortunately those two countries do not have bilharzia. If bilharzia had existed there they would also have paid dearly for their eradication of man’s natural friends.

Now one of the experiments with which the Department is busy at the moment is to ascertain whether by making use of the wild birds and insects one cannot succeed in eradicating the snails (and with possibly even the assistance of tame birds). The Department intends first starting in a small area where the water is fairly inaccessible, and then fencing it off and protecting the birds there, and then checking to ascertain precisely the effect of protecting the birds. If this succeeds, we will perhaps be nearer to a possible partial solution of the problem. We can never in South Africa expect within the foreseeable future to solve this problem completely, but we can perhaps reduce its incidence.

There is also another approach which I want to submit to hon. members to-day. Has our whole approach to the problem in the past been correct? We have always considered that we should try to eradicate bilharzia in South Africa within a short time. Is the other approach perhaps not more correct, viz. that we should systematically tackle it at one point and work gradually until the problem is one day resolved? But let us try to resolve it where its incidence is highest.

Then we must also approach the problem from the human aspect. We have many peoples in South Africa, of various colours. Should we not consider whether the difference between these peoples is not merely one of colour? Is the difference between them perhaps not also in respect of their physical resistance in various spheres? The indications I have received from my medical friends, rural doctors who have made an extensive study of bilharzia in the Lowveld, are that everybody is not convinced that this is a serious disease as far as the Bantu is concerned. In fact, the Bantu does not regard it as a serious disease. But for the White man it is a serious disease. Is the fact not perhaps that the Bantu is to a large extent immune to the deleterious effects of bilharzia, more so than the White man? The Bantu thinks so, at all events. But what are we doing now?

Now we are forcing the Bantu to submit to our solution. I was in the Northern Transvaal recently and the reaction there struck me. We go to the Bantu and say: You have bilharzia and you must now be cured; and then we submit him to this unpleasant cure. As was remarked by the hon. member for Rosettenville, the Bantu puts up such a resistance that he will simply flee, and in addition he has a feeling of vengeance against the White man. I have come across cases where he bitterly tells you: White man, we do not need you and your medicine. That is the ill-feeling we are engendering. Is it right for us to act so drastically? Are we simply to say that we will inoculate the Black man in order to protect him against this disease, whereas it has no serious effect on him? I think our approach should be much more human. Am I wrong in wondering, when the Bantu resists this solution the White man wants to force upon him, when he resists being inoculated, when he resists our wanting to change his habits when he wants to make use of the veld, whether that is the right way of tackling the matter? Would other methods not be better? Would it not be better for us rather to concentrate on cleaning up certain areas where White people live, and later to tell the Bantu: You may enter this clean area only if you are clean as well. In other words, I want to put it this way: Would it not be the humane adaptation to allow only uninfected people to enter the areas where there is no bilharzia, so that those areas will not become infected again? Let us carry on slowly in this way, without enforcing our method. I ask that because, as I have said, I have been struck by the reaction we find on the part of the Bantu to-day. We should not just decide to eradicate bilharzia and then lose sight of the human factor. In the process of eradication we may hurt many people, and that may evoke very unpleasant reactions.

I do not think the Department can be blamed for not giving guidance. The Department is responsible for a tremendous amount of propaganda through its medical men and its nurses and its health inspectors, and in the schools and in the Bantu townships, by means of pamphlets and films. We should not imagine that a problem which has existed for so many years and which is the result of the habits of millions of people, can be resolved immediately. We shall be able to resolve it one day when an easier measure is discovered, when we obtain an insecticide which can easily eradicate the snail without harming other forms of life, but that is not the task of our Department. We are waiting and hoping for it. When these measures become available and the Department does then not succeed, hon. members opposite will be justified in criticizing the Department. But whilst those measures do not exist as yet, none of them can get up and say that the Department is not making use of all possible methods which are available to it.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to associate myself with the hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford), who moved the amendment, and I would like to refer to some of the remarks made by the Minister in relation to the amendment and in regard to the whole aspect of bilharzia.

The hon. the Minister seemed quite definite and said that he saw no virtue in the suggestion that bilharzia should be a notifiable disease. I feel somehow that he has overlooked certain aspects, and also that he contradicted himself, because he then went on to explain the methods that would be adopted in protecting the Orange River scheme. He said that Bantu labour which applied for work in that area would be examined and if they were found to have bilharzia they would not be admitted into the area. Well, it seems to me the logical outcome then, that once a Bantu or any individual has been examined and found to have bilharzia, it should be notifiable, so that there can be control over the disease itself. I believe the statistics and information which would be obtained from the examination of these people, as the result of this becoming a notifiable disease, would help greatly in the research of how to deal with the problem of bilharzia. I was very interested to hear the Minister’s remarks in regard to the molluscicides and the difficulty there is in controlling the water sources of the country in an effort to destroy the snails in their habitat. It seemed to me that there, too, there was an inconsistency. He admitted that in many respects it was not practicable, and I believe he was in very good company, because I have here an excerpt from a paper which reports Dr. Louis Almeida Franco, who is recognized as a world authority, and who says—

The Minister put forward a very novel suggestion in regard to the sealing off of areas, where perhaps an area could be kept free from contamination by not allowing infected people access to that area. It sounds an ideal situation, Sir, but if you are unable to control the water sources, which obviously will flow from non-White areas, where the Minister admits it is difficult to control it, into the White areas where control is to be enforced, then I do not believe that he will ever get small pockets of free areas in the country. I was, however, very interested to hear the Minister’s remarks concerning the great respect he has for insecticides and his appreciation of the danger they constitute to our country.

Then, in regard to the original mover of the motion, I could not help wondering what his object or purpose was in moving this motion. I wondered whether the hon. member’s attention had been drawn to the official Year Book, No. 30, dated 1960, in which a report was given indicating the action which the State had taken in connection with the treatment of bilharzia. I quote—

It seems to me therefore that what the hon. member was asking for, was in fact being done. I wondered whether perhaps his motion could be interpreted as criticism of the Department for not getting on with the job as it should.

Then as far as the hon. member for Oden-daalsrus is concerned, I find his remarks puzzling. He did not seem to see any virtue in the amendment put forward by the Opposition. He said that most of the things which were referred to in detail in the amendment were in fact being carried out. Firstly, I would like to ask the hon. member whom I do not see in the House at the moment, whether bilharzia is in fact a notifiable disease. The Minister indicated that it was not. With regard to the question of providing adequate research facilities, I believe the hon. member for Odendaalsrus indicated that research was essential and that any extension of the existing facilities was desirable.

Now with regard to the question of “encouraging pharmaceutical and other scientific interests throughout the world to study methods of prevention and treatment”, some of us are rather closely associated with these particular interests and we have not heard of any specific venture which has been encouraged, in this country, in regard to the treatment of bilharzia.

I believe that the main purpose of the motion, as put forward by the hon. member for Pretoria (East) (Dr. Otto), was to deal with the problem on naturalistic lines, and I believe from the discussion we have had this afternoon that it is not possible to deal with it on that basis, and I believe that the steps which have been taken on that basis have shown that the problem was far beyond such a simple remedy. We have to deal with a large body of uninformed people; we have to deal with an itinerant labour force and we are also dealing with a labour force which comes from outside our own borders. We have in addition to that a great problem which we ourselves, in the interests of our economy and in the interests of agricultural progress, are creating. I refer to the various constructive and very beneficial water schemes which are being provided throughout the country. We have the Orange River scheme, the Pongola scheme, and the Midmar Dam, but I believe that all of these schemes will add to the threat that bilharzia constitutes to South Africa at the moment. The Minister has indicated that research has shown that there is no infection at present in the Orange River basin or in that area, but the waters of the Vaal flow into the Orange, and I believe contamination is bound to take place when large areas of water are artificially dammed up and lose their natural mobility.

We have another difficulty and that is that where these schemes have been developed the local authorities are at great pains to encourage water sports, such as aqua-planing and other pastimes. I believe that in areas where water has been confined and where it is known that bilharzia will thrive, we have this added hazard of water sports that we will find very difficult to deal with.

Sir, it is interesting to notice the general threat that bilharzia constitutes to the world population, and not only to South Africa. The World Health Organization has estimated that 500,000,000 people in the world could be infected with bilharzia. The hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher) referred to the fact that there were approximately 2,000,000 people infected in South Africa. The estimated total infestation in the whole of Africa is about 10 per cent of the total population of Africa, whereas in South Africa the infestation is already estimated at 12½ per cent of the total population. An approach on naturalistic lines is therefore inadequate, and we have to recognize, I believe, that it is a social disease and approach it from that angle.

I am advised by people who have made a study of bilharzia that a dynamic, scientific approach to the problem could result in the elimination to a large extent, right throughout the Republic, of bilharzia within 25 to 30 years—within the foreseeable future—and J am advised too that at the rate at which chemo-therapeutic substances are being developed, there could be a break-through in this respect within five years. It is to be hoped that these prophecies from the organic chemistry boffins who always seem to be optimistic will, in fact, prove to be correct. I believe that not only must the State act in terms of the motion, it must go further than that; it must offer overall guidance to the whole of the population of the Republic, and it must provide greater research facilities. I do not believe that the present facilities are adequate. Then, too, the question of subsidies for these facilities must not be overlooked. As far as the Provinces are concerned, I believe that the State should assist in the hospitalization of patients suffering from this dreaded disease. When we come to local authorities, I believe it is important for them to maintain contact with the individual control the environment of the individual and ensure the enforcement of the control of snails by exercising control over latrines, swimming baths and other possible sources of infection. Sir, the Minister referred to the question of molluscicides and he mentioned the difficulties there. I believe that the situation in Egypt amply demonstrates the futility of relying solely on the use of poison to destroy the snails, because in the past we have used copper sulphate. Information is available as to the danger which exists to other forms of life if copper sulphate is used. One of the other preparations that has been used in connection with bilharzia is pentachloro-phenol. I believe that to be a very dangerous preparation. Hon. members will realize that it is also used in the treatment of wood and that there are many unfortunate occurrences as the result of direct contact of pentachloro-phenoi with the hands and other parts of the body. It is a very broad problem because it is estimated by those in authority that at least 80,000 to 100,000 square miles of our Republic are infected by the snails. The reference which the hon. member for Pretoria (East) made to this new wonder drug, WL8008, I feel should be treated with a certain amount of reserve because there are so many practical difficulties in the application of a substance of that nature to the vast areas of water sources in South Africa.

We have had many attempts in the past to deal with this disease on the remedial side. We have treated it with antimony compounds. The hon. member for Rosettenville referred to the fact that in many cases the cure was more distressing than the disease. But I do believe, Sir, that we have now reached the stage where we do not rely on hospitalization or even protracted courses of injections. Modern drugs which have been developed from the leucanthone type have succeeded in shortening the treatment period to three to seven days. These drugs have, I believe, to a great extent eliminated many of the unpleasant side-effects, and I am advised there has been a further advance known as B-canthone (WIN 13820) which also is showing a fair degree of success.

Sir, what is the effect of bilharzia on the population One apparently, with many people, is that they develop a tolerance to it, a tolerance which enables them to carry on with their daily work, but impedes their efficiency, affects their mental capability and also puts a very drastic limitation on their powers of physical endurance. I believe, on that basis, that it could have a deleterious effect on the labour force of South Africa—both skilled and unskilled. That is why we suggest in our amendment that the private sector of the economy should set aside funds for bursaries. If the private sector realizes the threat which bilharzia has to its own manpower and the undermining influence it has on the individual’s health, surely it will respond to this challenge which is in the interests of the whole of our Republic.

There is another aspect to which the hon. member for Rosettenville has referred and that is the question of the introduction of Schistosoma Mathei in Zululand. There is evidence that this particular parasite is also becoming a parasite to man. I think we are faced with another problem here and that is, to put it very briefly, ideology versus parasitology, and I think, at the moment, the parasites are showing signs of winning! I believe that in the treatment of bilharzia the ideological legislation which has been enacted over the past years will impede the actual treatment. It seems to me, Sir, that we need many skilled people to deal with the treatment of patients and the discovery and control and other aspects of bilharzia. I do not think we are educating sufficient numbers of the Bantu to do this; I do not believe that they are being adequately trained. And I fear that legislation like the Group Areas Act will preclude a ready source of assistance in this respect—I am referring to the Indians. They are prevented from taking part where obviously the battle of bilharzia will be fought out, in the sparsely populated areas within the reserves and the Bantu homelands of South Africa.

We come to the methods of prevention. I will deal briefly with the methods of detection. It is not easy to detect bilharzia. It needs laboratory facilities; it needs centrifuge screening and microscopic facilities. It has been found in the past that the fluorescent body diagnosis is a specialized technique which can only be carried out by suitably trained people. It is not completely 100 per cent because positive results are even given with this test, after a cure. I believe, Sir, that the failure to detect bilharzia in its early stages throughout the population causes unnecessary suffering. And I believe that it is most important that every effort should be made to accept the recommendation contained in our amendment where we urge the encouragement of pharmaceutical and other interests, to devote their energy and their money to the elimination of this scourge. We have seen marked success in that respect in a similar disease. I believe that in the case of amoebic dysentry, the assistance that has been provided in research by overseas firms who have allocated large sums of money—and I am thinking of an organization in Durban which operates on the basis of a grant from overseas—has helped a great deal in the control of amoebiasis. I believe too, Sir, that we have to adopt a similar method to encourage people to allocate funds to assist us in overcoming bilharzia because in South Africa we have what is really a natural laboratory for their research and their investigations.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 23 and motion lapsed.