When business was suspended yesterday evening I was explaining what the difficulties were in determining the amount of existing claims. As a further example I just want to mention what happened after this report, to which I referred yesterday, was brought out, this very rosy report submitted by an actuary, Mr. Levy, an attorney, Mr. George Cook, and the accountant, Mr. Poole. This report was brought out in September 1963. In December of the same year there was a report from the auditor of Parity in which he said that there was not, as stated in the report on the 31 December 1962 a surplus of more than R1,000,000, but a shortfall of more than R600,000. That was the position as at 30 June 1963. The Parity people contended—and I think that has been established—that the difference was due entirely to the question of the determination of outstanding claims. The auditors contended that Parity had underestimated the claims and Parity contended that they had not done so. I gave a great deal of attention to this matter. I even caused inquiries to be made as to whether, if we proceeded to liquidate the company, the other tariff companies would be prepared to take over Parity’s obligations so that the policyholders and the public would not suffer. The result was not very satisfactory. Certain conditions that were unacceptable were imposed. I caused the matter to be further investigated and my Registrar and I came to the conclusion that we should accept the offer of the directors to allow this point to be further investigated by two independent auditors. I was prepared to accept their suggestion subject to two conditions. The first was that the further investigation had to be completed before the end of January 1964. The second condition was that Parity must buy the period of respite given to them, in this sense that they must provide a guarantee that any persons who took out insurance with them in the interim would not be prejudiced; in other words, that the position as at 31 December would not worsen between that date and 31 January. The Registrar proposed that that assurance must be given in the form of a bank guarantee. That was accepted. Two independent auditors were then appointed on the strength of the contentions of Parity and the allegations made by the auditor. The auditor of Parity was present. The three of them had consultations. The Parity auditor said that he adhered to his previous figures and the other two came to the conclusion that instead of a shortfall of R600,000, as at 30 June 1963, there was a surplus of R300,000. The Registrar, however, was not satisfied and he asked Parity—he could not force them to do so—whether they would not increase their capital. The capital was then increased from R100,000 to R500,000. It was increased to R500,000 by introducing new capital in the sum of R230,000 and by capitalizing reserves of R170,000. In addition to that the Registrar asked—I might almost say that he demanded it: he had no right to force them to do so—the company, which had always charged a lower tariff than other companies, to charge the same tariff as the ordinary tariff companies. The Registrar also insisted that they must bring down their expenditure in connection with the acquisition of policies and administration to the level of that or ordinary tariff companies. All this was accepted.

I want to ask hon. members of this House what ground the Registrar would have had in those circumstances for applying for the liquidation of Parity? It is not what he thinks that counts but what the Court thinks. What would the Court say bearing in mind the fact that there are two independent auditors who say that there is a surplus of R300,000 and that a further amount of R230,000 has been introduced in the form of new capital, over and above the fact that the premiums for the next year were to be raised to those of ordinary tariff companies? I think the difference between the premium of Parity and that of the tariff companies was R3. If there were 400,000 policyholders, the premium income of Parity would have been more than R1,000,000 more the following year. Do you think, Sir, that in those circumstances the Court would have allowed Parity to be placed in liquidation? It would have been fruitless to make such an application. Such an application would have harmed the policyholders of Parity; it would have prejudiced Parity’s business over the next year if an unsuccessful application was made for the company to be placed in liquidation. But the Registrar was still not satisfied. He said that he would wait until the figures reflecting the position as at 30 June 1964 became available before he expressed a further opinion. Two sets of auditors were to be appointed, but I think only one was appointed, and the Registrar asked the firm in question to let him have the figures as soon as possible. I do not know whether the Registrar had these figures early in November already, but he then became uneasy and went so far as to appoint an inspector to institute further investigations into Parity’s position. The inspector went into the position and made certain findings. As a result of those findings the Registrar made use of a new power given to him under the Act of last year, that is to say, to apply for the appointment of a curator. A curator was then appointed and, together with the inspector and the auditors, he went into the matter further and very thoroughly. They discovered quite a number of irregularities, irregularities of such a nature that the Registrar said that he could no longer tolerate this position. It was found that Parity’s administration was just an empty shell, that it had relinquished its control over its investments and that its investments were being handled by a different company; that it had no inkling of or control over the scope of claims payments—this was controlled by a firm of attorneys, Goldberg, Solomon & de Villiers—and that there had been numerous cases of dishonesty and drainage of funds. With the further information at his disposal, the Registrar then proceeded to take the last step which was open to him and that was to apply for the liquidation of Parity.

Mr. Speaker, you will see that throughout the year the Registrar kept his eye on the position. He was not in a position to take action of the kind which hon. members opposite apparently think he should have taken. If he had tried to act along those lines he would simply have prejudiced the entire position of Parity and of its policyholders. The Registrar did not remain idle, however. He constantly acted as watchdog over the interests of the policyholders of Parity and of the public. Sir, I just wanted to give the House the facts so that hon. members will realize that in a matter of this kind one cannot pass judgment on the basis of one-sided allegations and incomplete facts.

I do not want to devote too much time to Parity because this matter is going to be investigated in any case. I thought, however, that I was obliged just to give the House these few facts. Perhaps I should also just deal with one further aspect which has also been referred to here and that is the question as to why a prohibition was imposed on investments by Parity in November 1962, and why that prohibition was lifted in November 1963. As a result of the inspection which was held in October, 1962,—the Leader of the Opposition says that it only took place two years later—certain facts were brought to the notice of the Registrar in connection with the new investment policy of Parity. The inspector drew the Registrar’s attention to the fact that Parity was realizing its investments in quoted shares. In this way it would have been possible for the board of directors of Parity to get an amount of R2,000,000 for re-investment. That is the one side of the picture. On the other hand, it was also brought to the Registrar’s notice that Parity, through its share investment in Tacshare Investments, held the controlling shareholding in Trans-Africa, and at that particular time the position of Trans-Africa was very parlous. It was feared, having regard to the fact (a) that Parity held a controlling interest in Trans-Africa, (b) that Trans-Africa was in a very parlous position and (c) that Parity had realized quite a number of investments, that the proceeds of those investments would be used to put Trans-Africa on to its feet again to the prejudice of the policyholders of Parity. That was the main reason why in November the Registrar imposed the prohibition on investments by Parity without its consent. Parity had to go to the Registrar for approval in connection with every investment. It really amounted to interference in the control of Parity, but we were able to do so and we did it in the interests of the policyholders. This was a great inconvenience because Parity had to come to us in connection with every investment, however small. The Registrar had to approve of every investment. The final court order for the liquidation of Trans-Africa was issued in June 1963. The main reason for the imposition of the prohibition then disappeared. In September 1963 the three independent investigators, the actuary, the attorney and the accountant, brought out their report in which they said that the position was excellent; they said—

It was these two facts—this glowing report plus the fact that the other matter had now been disposed of and there was no longer a danger that Parity could put its money into Trans-Africa—which induced the Registrar on 12 November 1963, to lift the prohibition. That is the position in connection with the lifting of the prohibition. The prohibition was imposed for a specific reason. That reason had disappeared and there would have been very little justification for continuing to waste the Department’s time in this unreasonable way in the light of the glowing report received from these independent investigators. As I have said, I do not want to go into all the details. I have mentioned these two matters in particular because it has been suggested here that the Registrar was idle and did nothing. On the contrary, he acted all along the line in the interests of the policyholders. Hon. members must remember that he has certain powers but he cannot exceed those powers. He does not even have the power to force a company to increase its capital; he does not have the power to liquidate a company; he has to go to Court and prove to the Court that the company is insolvent before he can expect to get a liquidation order against the company. That is what the Registrar did, and I just want to say that as far as I am concerned this matter is now going to the commission of inquiry and the commission can dispose of it. I felt, however, that I should give the House these facts as some sort of counter to the one-sided and incomplete picture painted here by the other side.

I come now to another matter which has nothing to do with Parity. The hon. member for Springs (Mr. Taurog) referred here to Auto Protection and I just want to show how dangerous it is to speak without a full knowledge of the facts. He wanted to know why Auto Protection was not investigated. He says that all the other insurance companies were investigated but that Auto Protection has not been investigated. But that is not true at all. Let me tell hon. members what happened. Inspectors were appointed in August 1962 because the Registrar was not satisfied with the company’s returns for 1961, which were received on 31 July 1962. The report of the inspectors gave the Registrar no grounds for applying for judicial management or liquidation. But the Registrar was still not satisfied. He again asked the inspectors to go further into certain aspects, and that report revealed no grounds for action either. The Registrar then asked Auto Protection for further audited figures, and these were received on 21 March 1963. These figures were incomplete, but the Registrar decided to take immediate action. He was not prepared to wait any longer. A petition was submitted to the Court, based on an alleged under-estimate of liabilities to the tune of R512,000 as at 31 December 1961. Auto Protection opposed this petition and alleged that the under-estimate was only R116,000 and that certain other figures were also incorrect. These are the facts in connection with the investigation and the inspection of Auto Protection. But then the hon. member for Springs goes on to ask, “How was it that the Registrar made application to Court asking that Auto Protection should discontinue its third-party business when he had no right in terms of the Act to do so. The application which the Registrar made to Court was a fraud”. That is the unbridled language that was used by the hon. member for Springs. What are the facts? The Registrar then made this application to Court and Auto Protection undertook to increase its capital by R110,000 so as to cover the shortfall and it also undertook to discontinue its third-party business. The proposal made by Auto Protection was that it would discontinue its third-party business and increase its capital by R110,000. The Registrar then consulted his law adviser, a senior law adviser, and it was felt that this compromise settlement would offer the best solution, because the prospects were not very rosy that the application for liquidation would succeed. The Registrar wanted to prevent Auto Protection from undertaking further third-party business, and the third-party policies were due for renewal within a month. In these circumstances the Registrar did not get a liquidation order, but with the permission of Auto Protection he did ensure that Auto Protection would no longer do third-party business and that Auto Protection increased its capital. The hon. member now wants to know why the Registrar applied for something which he know he could not get, that is to say, that Parity was “to discontinue its third-party business, the application which the Registrar made to Court was a fraud”. Now you will see, Sir, where the “fraud” lies; it lies rather with those people who say that he made application for a discontinuance of third-party business. Part of the offer made by Auto Protection was to discontinue its third-party business, but the Registrar made no such application. The Registrar accepted Auto Protection’s offer. If he had not accepted it, then his application to Court might not have succeeded and Auto Protection would have been able to continue to undertake third-party business and the ultimate result would probably have been great losses for the public. The Registrar prevented this by taking the action which he did, and then the hon. member for Springs comes here and says that it was a “fraud”. This is one of the aspects which was investigated by Mr. Levy when I asked him last year to investigate this matter, and on this point his finding too was that in the circumstances this was the best settlement, the best solution which was available to the Registrar.

May I ask a question?

The hon. member for Springs, after the attitude which he adopted here, can go and put his questions to the commission. I am not prepared to give any reply to a man who acts so irresponsibly. But there is still worse to follow. The hon. member went even further. He went out of his way to dig into all the refuse heaps that he could find in an attempt to find something there that he could put before this House; he acted here without any sense of proportion, without any sense of responsibility. He read out certain letters here. He did not, however, mention the name of the writer.

He did.

The following day the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. van den Heever) asked him for the writer’s name. The first day when he read out those letters he was ashamed to mention the name of the writer. It is quite correct that I received various letters from Mr. Sammel, as the hon. member says, and those letters contained a series of reckless allegations and charges against a great number of people.

May I ask whether the letters were not marked “confidential”?

As far as I know they were, but I am not sure.

If they were, then I should like to know how the hon. member got hold of them.

In any event, they were reckless allegations. I caused inquiries to be made to find out who Mr. Sammel was. Sir, I do not want to be unfriendly towards Mr. Sammel; I merely want to say that it seemed to me that he was an unreliable, irresponsible and unbalanced person, and I think anybody who takes notice of letters of that type also suffers from the same shortcomings. But in spite of Mr. Sammel’s background, in spite of the nature of these reckless allegations, in spite of the unbridled nature of the accusations, I did not leave the matter there. I asked the Registrar to submit a statement to me in so far as he was involved. After he had done so, through the Secretary of Finance, we decided in the circumstances, and with the permission of the Registrar, to send these letters, together with the Registrar’s statement, to the Department of Justice for such action as the Department saw fit. The Attorney-General, after considering the evidence, however, refused to institute a prosecution.

Mr. Speaker, it is on these unsupported allegations by a man like this that the hon. member for Springs now makes these serious charges against the Registrar, and he tells the hon. member for Sunnyside (Mr. van Zyl).“I have it here in black and white.” But the fact that it is in black and white in no way detracts from the fact that this is nothing but scandalous hearsay. I am glad that the hon. member for Sunnyside had the courage to apologize for making an attack upon people who are not in this House. But what about the hon. member for Springs? He is guilty of the same unfair conduct. He made reckless charges here against the Registrar. I do not know whether I am expecting too much of him in believing that he will also have the decency to offer his apologies in the light of the facts that I have revealed here. Sir, this is a distasteful subject and one prefers to say as little as possible about it.

I want to come to another aspect of this debate. There has not been much constructive criticism of this legislation. Certain questions have been asked and explanations given. Some of these questions have already been replied to; there are others which can perhaps better be dealt with in Committee. Sir, some very peculiar propositions have been advanced here. It has been said here that the Minister is responsible for the Parity debacle and for all the other liquidations which have taken place amongst insurance companies. That is what the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson) said. Mr. Speaker, I am fully aware of the responsibility of the Minister as head of his Department if, in the light of the powers that he has at his disposal, he has failed to do his duty. If he does not do his duty he exposes himself to the most serious criticism. I accept that provided it is first proved. But the allegations that were made here went much further than that. To say that I am responsible for the actions of all the rogues and deceivers and for the actions of people who lack sound judgment and have no knowledge of investments and who therefore jeopardize the moneys entrusted to them, is to lay down a strange constitutional proposition: that concept is one which differs entirely from what is understood by ministerial responsibility. If that proposition is to be accepted, then one might just as well say that my colleague, the Minister of Justice, is responsible for all the crime that takes place because his laws and his police have never enabled him to eliminate all crime. Similarly, it can then be said of my colleague, the Minister of Economic Affairs, that he is responsible for all the company insolvencies because he has never succeeded in preventing insolvencies.

The hon. member for Parktown (Mr. Emdin) and the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Hopewell) adopted a more sober attitude. They candidly admit that one can never give a 100 per cent guarantee that moneys entrusted to a company of this kind will be safe. No legislation, no Government, no Minister, no Registrar can do so. I am grateful for these two oases of realism in the desert of senseless wishful thinking that we had here on the part of the Opposition.

Another remarkable phenomenon that we have had in this debate is the fact that this strenuous, mean attack upon me and my Department, based on hearsay, on one-sided incomplete data, was made in spite of the fact that I had announced that a judicial commission of inquiry was being appointed to inquire into this whole Parity affair. Why is the Opposition so afraid to await the findings of the commission? This conduct is not only irresponsible and unfair—I need not enlarge upon the unfairness and irresponsibility of the attack—but it also creates the impression that members of the Opposition are not anxious to await the findings of the commission of inquiry because they might not then have the opportunity perhaps to embark on a smear campaign.

We asked for a commission last year.

What they are doing is to have their last honeymoon, their last fling here, before the findings become public; they are flinging about as much mud as they can as if they fear that this is their last opportunity to do so.

Why?

I just want to say “thank you” for this implied motion of confidence in the Department of Finance; I greatly appreciate it, but it still remains a remarkable phenomenon. As far as I can recall, the United Party and its Press were very much more merciful towards 90-day detainees. What v/as their attitude then? They said: “Do not condemn these people; first bring them before the courts.” The fact that the Minister of Justice had much more information than they had made no difference to them; it did not matter to them how much information he had; their attitude was, “Do not condemn people; first bring them before the courts.” But apparently quite a different rule applies to the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Transport. As far as they are concerned the rule is, “First condemn people without having all the evidence and thereafter you can go to the commission.” That is the rule that they want to apply here. To me this is just another example of this shameless opportunism to which the hon. the Prime Minister referred a few days ago, and to me this is just a further stage in the moral disarmament of the United Party.

The main speaker of the Opposition, the hon. member for Constantia charges me with neglect of duty. But what happened in the case of this legislation? Here we have an important piece of legislation. The hon. member makes a speech in which he makes no reference at all to this Bill. He was so busy slinging mud about that he had no time for criticism. Is that not neglect of duty on his part? That is what he did. the man who now accuses me of neglect of duty! Sir, I am always merciful and I am prepared to accept that he did this because he is convinced that this Bill cannot be improved upon and he cannot criticize therefore. But what then becomes of his charge that we have been idle all these years and that we have done nothing? This is a highly intricate Bill: the matter had to be investigated and I understand that a period of 2½ years was devoted to the investigation. But that is not all we did in these 2½ years. In 1962 we also introduced a Bill; in 1964 we again introduced a Bill, and if it had not been for that Inspections Act, I do not know whether we would have been in a position to find out the things that we did find out. Perhaps I should also be philosophical when my old Tuscian friend attacks me in this way. I am beginning to think that when the hon. member makes an attack upon some, individual or some business it is the best proof one can get that that individual or that business is very healthy. It is not necessary for me to remind hon. members how for years the hon. member for Constantia dragged our economy into the mud here with his jeremiads which reached their zenith here in 1961 when he said that our economy was finished; that we would never again win the confidence of foreign investors in South Africa. And look what has become of his prophecies! As I have said, perhaps it is a compliment to be attacked by the hon. member over there.

There are just a few more points I want to deal with which are a little more relevant to this legislation than the matters with which I have dealt here so far. Many of these points can be dealt with more suitably in the Committee Stage but some general points have been raised here to which I want to reply at this stage.

The hon. member for Pinetown referred to the importance of the staff in an organization of this kind, and the hon. member for Sunny-side asked that at least three qualified accountants should be appointed on the staff of the Registrar of Financial Institutions. I just want to say that immediately after the passing of the Inspections Act of 1962 we approached the Public Service Commission with regard to the establishment of an inspectorate. The Commission felt that the work should be done with the assistance of our own machinery and that there should not be a separate inspectorate. We said that we would accept that by way of experiment. Last year we received approval to establish a separate inspectorate, staffed by a chief inspector and six inspectors of financial institutions. These inspectors will be full-time and permanent officials. The qualifications for appointment as inspector are that the candidates must have the qualifications for registration as a chartered accountant. The six vacancies for inspectors are at present being advertised.

The hon. member for Parktown asked me whether it was a sound thing to place all these discretionary powers in the hands of the Registrar. ln this connection it must be borne in mind that in dealing with technical legislation such as this, somebody will necessarily have to exercise discretionary powers as far as many of its provisions are concerned. That is an essential requirement for realistic administration; in the absence of such provision the law simply cannot be implemented. The most suitable person in the case of this legislation to exercise discretionary powers of this kind is the Registrar, because he is the person who is continually in touch with the circumstances of a particular insurer who may be concerned, but at the same time he is also the person who takes a broader view of the circumstances of the whole of the insurance industry.

The hon. member also wanted to know why the Registrar was being substituted for the Treasury as the person responsible for deciding what securities shall be regarded as approved securities for the purpose of the Insurance Act. This provision is in accordance with the provisions of the Banking Act in terms of which the Registrar may also approve of additional categories of liquid assets and prescribed investments. The hon. member also asked whether it was wise to pay back deposits to an insurer after a certain period, however sound his business may be. He said that it was easier for a sound company to carry deposits than for other companies. On the other hand, it is also less essential that there should be deposits in the case of a sound company. Under the existing Act there is no necessity for sound and established insurers to keep deposits with the Treasury. We have retained this provision. But we are making the tests for the repayment of such deposits much more stringent. Where it was five years in the one case we are now making it ten years and where it was ten years we are now laying down 20 years as the period during which they must have operated a sound business before they become entitled to the repayment of their deposits, and we have a further provision to the effect that if their business becomes suspect at any time, then the Registrar may reintroduce this requirement.

He also asked whether it was a sound thing to give the Registrar the power to approve of all loans made by an insurer. I just want to explain that the basic principle in insurance is that an insurer should work with his own funds and not with borrowed funds as in the case of a banking institution. The Registrar must have power to approve of loans, however, because it would be unreasonable to prevent an insurer who has a shortage of liquidity, for example, to apply for a bank overdraft. That is why we have made this exception here to cover cases where his liquidity position requires it. In a case of that kind a standing approval may be granted to an insurer to borrow not more than, say, 5 per cent of his total assets. In the nature of things severe restrictions must be placed on loans in the case of an insurer because the basic object of insurance is to see to it that an insurer works with his own funds only and not with borrowed funds.

There are quite a few other questions which one could perhaps explain a little better in Committee. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) referred to deposits “within three months or such longer period as the Registrar may allow”. I just want to tell him that I was informed that the new Section 18 bis to which the hon. member referred with approval as containing a particular provision for postponement, is also applicable in this case, because if an insurer has started to make his deposits and for that reason fails to comply with the strict requirements, he can be granted postponement for a period not exceeding five years and, with the approval of the Minister, a further period not exceeding five years.

The hon. member for Ceres (Mr. S. L. Muller) also raised certain points here. I cannot deal with all of them but he raised one point in connection with the Parity agencies. He says that there is a second Parity company which only takes the profits of its agencies.

I think it was Parity Holdings. He wants to know whether something cannot be done in such cases. This is one of the cases in fact where the Registrar intervened. When he found that these moneys which were being paid as agency fees were not going to Parity itself, he said that it was to go to the insurance company itself; we changed this. This measure will now ensure that moneys collected by the agents as premiums will be paid over to the insurer within a fixed period.

I think I have dealt with the main provisions which are of a general nature and I now move the second reading.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

This clause is really consequential to the provisions of Clause 4 which we still have to consider, but I hope I may be permitted to indicate that Clause 4 provides that the Department of Transport or any other private persons authorized by that Department may sell intoxicating liquor and other goods. This clause is consequential to it in this regard, that it seeks to ensure that the provisions of the Liquor Act will not only provide the powers that the Minister is taking in this Bill in the first place, but in the second place that the Department of Transport or a person authorized by it will be deemed to be the licence-holder in terms of the Liquor Act. Sir, I cannot find any other parallel as far as the liquor laws of our country are concerned where a private person obtaining a bar licence can do so by the authorization of any other Government Department. The only other exemption of this nature that exists is as far as the S.A. Railways are concerned. The Railways, to my knowledge, does not put out to tender or authorize persons in the private sector to hold a bar licence and be exempted from the provisions of the Liquor Act. But the clarity I seek from the Minister is this. This is of course the direct parallel of the policy recently adopted by the Railways, where they are divesting themselves of all responsibility in respect of subsidiary services by affording private enterprise the opportunity of supplying those services. I would like to know from the Minister how control will be exercised over these persons? What control will be exercised by the Department in order to ensure that the provisions of the Liquor Act are strictly adhered to? I ask the question, too, because it is presumed that if any other person is authorized it will not be on a temporary basis but on a contract basis for a period of time, and in the event of that person transgressing the liquor laws or not conducting the services to the satisfaction of the public, what steps can the Minister take to withdraw the rights being granted here?

The other point is that one must emphasize the importance of this power because every other distributor of liquor must apply to the Liquor Licensing Court for permission to do so. As far as I know, this is the only case where a person can supply liquor to the public without first appearing before the Liquor Licensing Court and obtaining the necessary licence. I shall be glad if the Minister would give me clarity on these points.

The Bill the House has just passed, the Railways and Harbours Amendment Bill, makes similar provision. The Railway Administration is also letting these refreshment rooms, which includes liquor licences. The purpose of this is that we want these contractors to give the same service to the public as the Railway Administration did. We do not want these individuals who are tendering to go through the usual procedure in regard to the obtaining of a bar licence, and we do not want them to pay the same licence fees because we do not envisage that this will be a very profitable undertaking. But as I said yesterday, conditions are laid down in the tender forms which these persons will have to comply with, and if they do not comply with those conditions, or contravene any of the provisions of the Liquor Act, their lease will be terminated. So there will be adequate control. There are the police at the airports and there are the officials of the Department of Transport who can act as inspectors, but adequate control will be enforced to see that the provisions of the Liquor Act are not contravened, like selling liquor after hours. But as I say, conditions will be laid down by the Department of Transport in the tender documents, and if those conditions are not complied with the leases will be terminated.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 3,

I do not want to cover the ground I covered in the second reading, but I do want to tell the Minister that he gave very unsatisfactory answers to the points I raised. The object of these provisions in sub-secs. (a) and (b) of sub-sec. (1) are either to permit the Department of Transport, on its own authority, or the Minister’s Department, to grant permission to any person to sell, subject to the conditions that the Minister may impose, liquor, refreshments, smokers’ requisites, reading matter and in fact anything that the Minister thinks may be profitably sold at the airports to meet with the needs of the travelling public. In order to do that, the Minister called for tenders. The tenders were not only for these three services, but on the tender form there was also attached a copy of the lease which it was considered that private enterprise must complete in the case of a successful tender. The Minister said that he had an expectation that there would be a number of tenderers. When I asked him how many tenders had been submitted he did not give any reply. We know, and it is common knowledge, that these tenders were sent out in November, so that the Minister must have some information about the number of tenders.

The tenders do not come to me; they go to the Tender Board.

Well, I assume that the Department of Transport lays down certain conditions and demands certain standards.

I do not adjudicate on these tenders.

Then I am even more concerned. The Minister is not only giving out the services on tender, but also the premises. The tender that was given out was not only for services to the public but for the lease of premises, and the clause itself says quite clearly that the tenderer may sell any such goods as the Minister may deem fit. In other words, it may be smokers’ requisites or toilet articles or a chemist’s shop, or anything that the Minister considers necessary for the needs of the travelling public.

But that is being done to-day.

Of course, but what does the tender say?

TBut we are not discussing the tenders now; we are discussing the Bill.

We are discussing what the Minister intends to do and the clause makes it quite clear that either the Department of Transport can carry out all these services, to which we on this side have no objection and never had; it has been the common practice, with one exception, namely that the S.A. Railways supplied the necessary restaurant facilities to the travelling public. The rest of the services conducted there were conducted by private enterprise through the lease of premises. But what the Minister now seeks to do in this clause is to lease premises at Jan Smuts to one successful tenderer, who in the first place does not have to get a bar licence but can also embark on the selling of books and run cafeterias, and he can render a wide variety of services. In fact, the successful tenderer is a monopolist as far as all the space available for these services is concerned, at all the main airports, if he is successful in his tender. The tender form makes it clear that he can tender for all five airports. The point I make is that this is an unsatisfactory state of affairs, because I say unequivocally that it can lend itself to abuse in the first place. It is a short-sighted policy as far as the revenue of the Administration is concerned, and thirdly it will result in inadequate services to the public. I therefore want to move on those grounds, in order to make it quite clear that the Minister will have the power to lease these individual services to private enterprise, because this clause does not make it clear. I move—

In other words, the effect will be that the Minister can call for a tender for a certain premises on any airport, and he can say that he wants a separate tender for the cafeteria at each airport or a separate tender for the bookstalls, or for whatever other service is offered to the public. But as it stands now, the Minister will create a monopoly for a man to tender for services in which he has no interest whatsoever. For example, the sale of liquor is probably the most profitable of all the items, but by virtue of the way this clause is worded the man tendering for that service can tender for all the other services also. The proof of the pudding that my contention is right is the very tender that was put out by the Minister’s Department. In all fairness, I want to say that it was stated clearly in the tender for in that the tender was put out subject to Parliament passing the necessary legislation and approving this clause. But I want to point out to the Minister that this proviso was added and the people who had tendered already were fully aware of the fact that Parliament may take another attitude towards the matter. I therefore trust that the Minister will accept my amendment.

That amendment is quite superfluous. Our legal advice is that the singular includes the plural, so it is immaterial whether we use the word “person”or “persons”. Surely the legal advisers should know what they are talking about. In other words, it is not confined to a person; it can be persons, meaning a company or different persons. Secondly, the Minister has the right in terms of the clause as it stands to let these services separately. There is nothing in the clause to compel us to let all the services to only one person or company.

Then why do you do it?

Because it is in the interest of the Department to do it, but there is no compulsion on us to do it. It was done in an effort to attract the right type of tenderer, that all these services were included in the tender, so that any individual who wanted to tender could calculate whether he would be able to make a profit on the whole thing or not. I am quite convinced in my own mind that in the case, e.g. of a coffee stall, no one will tender for it, and that no one will tender only for the cafeteria, or possibly even for the bookstalls. But to-day the Department of Transport is letting premises, shops, on the airports to hairdressers. So this is nothing new. The hon. member might have a difference of opinion with me in regard to the tender, whether all these services should be let to one individual or not, but that has nothing to do with this Bill. This is merely an empowering Bill to give us the right to do it.

But we must have the reasons for it.

I am giving the reason why all these services were included in the one tender, but that has nothing to do with the Bill. If the Department so decides, it may ask for tenders for the different services. There is nothing to prevent us from doing that. We are concerned with this amendment to-day, and not with the Department’s procedure in calling for tenders. That is a matter the hon. member can debate when my vote comes before the House.

I agree with the hon. the Minister that“person” in this sense could be plural and that he could issue a tender to an association of persons or a company, but that does not cover the whole point. The point is that to that person, singular or plural, he can only grant the right to sell the listed items here which are connected by the use of the word “and”. Therefore he has the power to grant to a person or persons the right to sell the list of items enumerated here. There is no alternative offer here. I think that is the point.

Yes, that is the point.

I am quite prepared to accept an amendment to clarify the position.

I think the Minister will find that that is the position. I also feel that the Minister has taken a very wide view in regard to the unlikelihood of persons tendering for individual items, such as a hairdressing establishment. It is the work of a specialist and a caterer does not normally employ a hairdresser. Similarly, in the case of a florist’s shop, a caterer does not normally sell flowers. Therefore although I think that the food and liquor aspects may well be linked together, when you come to services dissociated from those it is a different matter. I admit that a coffee stall in itself would probably not be a paying proposition, but it falls under the heading of serving refreshments. But at least in regard to items not connected with the supply of food or liquor, I think a change should be made.

But I wish to raise two other matters with the Minister. One is the suggestion that incorporated into these powers which he is granting here to serve refreshments, etc., should be permission to run a duty-free shop such as one finds at most major international airports.

I have no say over that. It is a matter for Customs.

Then may I ask the Minister, whilst at this stage this is still a matter for Transport—this Bill when it becomes law places the onus for these services on the Department of Transport until such time as the Department lets out on tender any or all of these services—therefore, whilst that responsibility is on the shoulders of the Minister, I would ask him to negotiate with Customs …

Order! I do not think the hon. member can raise that point here.

Then I will move on to the other point, which is that the Minister is apparently being very seriously misinformed by his colleague, the Minister of Railways. The Minister stated that one of the reasons for the issuing of these tenders was that a loss was suffered in regard to the catering services. Now here I have the annual report of the General Manager of the S.A. Railways and Harbours for 1963-4, the latest one, and on page 40 we find a clear statement under the heading “Catering at Airports” that—

Quite right.

Jan Smuts Airport reported a profit of R58,987. Now here we have a published report, and I know what the Minister is going to come with. He is going to cover up this profit with other losses. I nevertheless want to bring to the attention of this House the published report of the General Manager, who clearly states here that the catering at airports showed a profit, a total profit, of R47,000-odd, and a profit at Jan Smuts of R58,000. When members on this side tried to point out to the Minister that a profit is being made, and I questioned him as to whether a profit had not been made at Jan Smuts, he said no. Now, what the Minister is going to deduct from this is free meals to staff, meals for aircraft and various other costs which still continue. The fact is that this service either showed a profit, as the General Manager stated, or else this House and the country is being misinformed as to the true position. If there is a loss, why are we and South Africa being told there is a profit? You cannot have it both ways. If there is a loss the public should be told so. The public should not be misinformed and told that there is a profit. The reference to the airports showed a profit, and it was audited and issued as an annual report. The Minister of Railways has either not informed the Minister of Transport, or the latter has not listened to his alter ego. I think we are entitled to know whether those two Ministers are not on speaking terms with one another or whether South Africa and members of this House are being misinformed by this report in regard to the reasons for the letting of these services. I think the Minister owes the House a very clear explanation on the matter.

To pacify the hon. member’s conscience and to make the position perfectly clear, I move the following amendment—

That puts it beyond all doubt. The legal interpretation of “person” is that it is plural as well as singular. And then I want to move—

That will make it perfectly clear that all these services can be let separately. I hope that satisfies the hon. member.

The hon. member has quite legitimate criticism in regard to the figures I gave, and I think the statement in the General Manager’s report created a completely wrong impression. That statement of course refers to the trading profit, and it is quite right as the General Manager gave the figures in his report, but I think in future it should be the actual or net profit on the services which should be given. The report gave the trading profit without taking ino consideration all the indirect costs, which do not include supplying meals to aircraft. As the hon. member knows, there is a separate flight kitchen for that.

With regard to Jan Smuts Airport …

Is this the Minister of Transport replying now?

This is the Minister of Railways replying now. In regard to Jan Smuts Airport the position is that in 1960-1 the net loss was R36,728; in 1961-2 the net loss was R49,776 and in 1962-3 the net loss was R56,554. Then I come to the J. B. M. Hertzog Airport: In 1960-1 there was a loss of R1,489; in 1961-2 R9,898; in 1962-3 R18,329. The D. F. Malan Airport: In 1960-1 the net loss was R3,063, the following year R5,429 and in 1962-3 R17,658. The Louis Botha Airport: In 1960-1 the net loss was R8,945, the following year R14,087 and the year thereafter R15,515. The position with regard to Port Elizabeth Airport is the following: In 1960-1 there was a loss of R3,988, in 1961-2 R4,780 and in 1962-3 a loss of R6,512. Those are the actual figures which were submitted to me when I took this decision. That is why I said yesterday that one of the reasons why the S.A. Railways are withdrawing these services from the airports is that there is a tremendous loss of thousands of rand in the catering services provided at the airports.

May I ask the hon. the Minister whether the causes of that loss will not still remain as a debit to the Administration whereas the profit will accrue to the tenderer?

I do not think so. The Railway Administration has very high overhead costs, as the hon. member knows. That is one of the reasons why the Railway Administration cannot compete with private enterprise. Take private road haulage as an example. The private haulier has very low overheads whereas the Railway Administration has exceptionally high overheads; that has to be taken into consideration, as well as the very high wages paid by the Administration to the supervisory staff. Probably these caterers will make use of non-European staff because White staff is unobtainable to-day for these catering services. Their costs will be considerably lower than those of the Administration. Those are some of the reasons why the Railways cannot make these services pay.

I will be prepared to support the hon. the Minister’s amendment and, with the permission of the Committee, I would like to withdraw the amendments I moved.

Amendments proposed by Mr. Durrant, withdrawn with the leave of the Committee.

That still does not dispose of the other matter. The Minister has indicated that this reason for coming with this amendment is the fact that his colleague, the Minister of Railways, has incurred a loss in respect of the services rendered by the Railways to the Department of Transport with regard to the catering requirements at these airports. When I indicated that a trading profit had been made—and I am indebted to my colleague, the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) for having pointed this out to the Minister—the hon. the Minister said “No, it was a loss.” The Minister now uses the argument that because of the additional expense there is a loss. That is perfectly true, Sir, but that, of course, is because of the additional meals supplied to the staff at these airports by the Railway Administration.

We are not discussing that matter now.

I know we are not.

I merely gave you the information. It has nothing to do with this Bill.

Sir, we cannot discuss things in this House in vacuo. The Minister gave certain reasons for this amendment.

The only reason I gave was that the Railways were withdrawing their service. That is all that is germane to the Bill.

If that is so, there are two provisions here whereby the hon. the Minister can provide these services himself to the Department or he can hand it out on contract to private enterprise. The Minister is not doing it in his Department; he has indicated that he is giving it to private enterprise. Surely we cannot discuss the provisions of this amending clause in vacuo. The point is that if these services are run at a loss by the Railways the Minister is afraid that if the Department of Transport provided these services they would also face a similar loss. Therefore the Minister says that he is now going to give it out to private enterprise. I hope my reasoning is correct.

Your conclusion is wrong. May I point out to the hon. member that I accused him the other day of having misquoted me. I did not say that the Department of Transport did not want to do this because it was run at a loss. I said that if nobody was prepared to tender for these services, then the Department of Transport would have to undertake these services.

I do not see any difference because if the Railways cannot make a profit out of it I cannot see how the Minister of Transport is going to make a profit out of it, because in reply to me a moment ago the Minister said, “It is always run at a loss, so we are going to off-load it on to private enterprise”. That is an impression that the Minister created here.

I did not create that impression. You are misquoting me again.

Then I think we on these benches must have entirely misunderstood the reasons given by the Minister for the inclusion of this provision. That is why it has been inserted here.

On a point of order, may I point out that we are not discussing the Railways at the present time. We are discussing this particular Bill which deals with the Department of Transport, and all that this Bill provides is that the Department of Transport will be able to let certain services to private enterprise …

Or do it itself.

… or to undertake these services itself if nobody is prepared to do it. I must point out that the hon. member is discussing the reasons why the Railways are withdrawing these services. That has nothing to do with this Bill. The fact remains that the Railways are withdrawing their services and the Department of Transport is letting these services to private enterprise.

Order! I have allowed hon. members to raise the matter of Railway services in so far as they form the background to this particular clause, but I agree with the hon. the Minister that I cannot allow a full discussion on Railway affairs under this clause. I should therefore like the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) to confine himself to the details of this clause.

On a point of order, I would like to ask whether the question of a profit or a loss which a tenderer or tenderers will make in terms of this Bill, not in the past but in the future, is not a matter that we may discuss. The Bill provides for a tenderer to provide a service. I submit that in providing that service we should be able to discuss whether he is likely to make a profit or whether he is likely to suffer a loss, and in doing so I submit that we must be able to show why he should be able to make a profit or why he will operate at a loss. This is very material to the question as to whether a tender is likely to be submitted and whether it is likely to be successful. It is material, to our thinking, as to whether this is a good clause or a bad clause.

I have allowed a wide discussion on this clause. I do not think that anything that the hon. member can add on those lines can really make any difference. I think the hon. member should confine himself strictly to the details of the clause and the advisability or otherwise of this particular clause.

I can assure you, Sir, that I have no desire to discuss the problems of the Minister of Railways when we are discussing a clause which affects the services which the public of South Africa will receive at these various airports. Those services are listed in this clause. The new Section 6 his provides that the Minister may through the Department of Transport undertake the sale of intoxicating liquor, other refreshments, smokers’ requisites, reading matter and such other goods as the Minister may deem fit at any aerodrome established and maintained by the Department. These are all services to the public. What distresses me about what the hon. the Minister said just now is that he is leasing all these premises and all these airports to one tenderer because he considers it to be in the interests of the Department of Transport. I thought that the responsibility of the Minister of Transport in the first instance was to the travelling public of South Africa and I cannot accept that of necessity, in a large international airport like Jan Smuts, through which many thousands of people pass in the course of a year, these services which are being put out on a tender basis and which would involve the Department of Transport in a loss if the Department were to undertake these services, would automatically be run at a loss by private enterprise. The only interest that the Department of Transport has in this matter is, firstly that the Department of Transport derives revenue from the leasing of premises at these major airports, and its second interest is to see that the travelling public of South Africa and the travelling public of international airlines are given the best possible service at these airports through the Department of Transport. Sir, there are two ways in which it can be done. It is quite clear from the observations of the Minister that he does not consider that the Department of Transport can give adequate services to the travelling public, that private enterprise can do it better and our contention is that if it is going to be left to a monopolistic private enterprise concern to provide these services, then the travelling public of South Africa are going to suffer in the long run. Sir, it is quite clear that this is going to be a plum tender as far as caterers are concerned because they are going to be exempt from all the restrictions which apply to any other bar licensee. All they have to do is to submit a successful tender to the Minister for the leasing of the premises and automatically they are going to get a bar licence. The higher they tender for the privilege of providing these services at Jan Smuts Airport, the more likely they are to get the contract and to be given a bar licence. The Minister cannot convince me or any other reasonably minded person outside that the bar licence at Jan Smuts Airport, or in fact in any other airport in South Africa, is going to be an unprofitable one. The Minister cannot come to this House with that story because I do not think anybody would believe him. Our contention is this: We have no objection to this being put out on a tender basis to private enterprise: we have no objection whatsoever to the Department of Transport getting the largest percentage of revenue that it can possibly get through the leasing of these premises. But when it comes to the various services listed in the tender that was put out we cannot see that a man who is primarily interested in running a cafetaria or a bookshop is going to say. “The bookshop or the cafeteria is more important to me than the bar licence”. That is a ridiculous supposition.

We have had no reasons whatsoever from the hon. the Minister as to why he does not consider that the individual services rendered at these airports cannot be put up initially on a separate tender basis. The Minister says that he has no information. Of course, he has no information because he does not know what will be forthcoming. Sir, I can tell the hon. the Minister that what has happened in regard to this tender that has been put out is common public knowledge. The Minister probably knows—he does not want to tell the House—that consortiums have been formed, involving undesirable aspects, I think, which are not going to be satisfactory for the travelling public of South Africa. Sir, the Minister has now moved that amendment himself and we on this side support it and accept it, after some persuasion There is provision for the Minister to reconsider this case and I ask him today in the interests of the travelling public of South Africa to reconsider the position, to put out another tender, because it is clear that there can be no sub-leasing. Clause 7 of the lease which was put out states clearly that the “lessee undertakes not to grant to any other person during the validity of his lease the right to offer for sale or sell any other articles referred to …”. The man who gets the liquor licence has to provide all these other services, whether he likes it or not. Sir, we have only one interest here and that is the interest of the travelling public, especially when you consider that Jan Smuts Airport of all places is the shop-window of South Africa. It is the first shoo-window for any tourist when he comes to this country by air. Obviously we want to put up the best possible show in the way of services at a place like Jan Smuts Airport. Nothing in the world will convince me that the Minister’s approach to this matter and that of his Department is going to be in the best interests of South Africa. I fail to see why there should not be at least some offer by the private sector to render these services rather than to leave it to a monopolistic concern to provide these services, as the Minister is seeking to do in terms of the clause as it now stands.

Amendments proposed by the Minister of Transport put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Remaining Clauses and Title of the Bill put and agreed to.

I move—

That the Bill be now read a second time.

The Rhodes University (Private) Act Amendment Bill was proposed by the Council of the University with the object, originally, of making provision for a full-time Vice-Principal by means of a private measure. Where amending legislation is proposed, however, on behalf of an institution, such as Rhodes University, originally incorporated by Act of Parliament and receiving financial assistance from the State, and the object of such legislation is to confer powers that are intended solely for the purpose of ensuring the smooth functioning of the administrative machinery of such institution, without in any way detrimentally affecting the rights or interests of other persons or bodies, and the Government is prepared to sponsor such legislation the Bill may be introduced in the House of Assembly and be proceeded with as a public measure.

The Government having agreed to sponsor such legislation, the present Bill was, with your permission, Mr. Speaker, introduced as a public measure, providing in Clause 2 thereof for the appointment by the Council of a Vice-Principal. Under the existing provision, he has hitherto been elected from amongst the University’s Senate representatives on the Council after consultation with the Principal. It is further provided, firstly, that the Vice-Principal may exercise the powers delegated to him by the Principal, even if the latter is not absent at the time; and, secondly, that the member of the Senate nominated by the Principal to carry out the duties delegated to him, in the absence of both the Principal and the Vice-Principal, may also exercise much of the Principal’s powers as are being delegated to him.

As the Vice-Principal is no longer to be elected from the four members of the Senate serving on the University Council, special provision is made by Clause 3 for his membership of the Council and by Clauses 4 and 5 for his membership of the Senate and the Convocation respectively of the University. Both the Principal and the Vice-Principal are to be ex officio members of all committees of the Senate, whether permanent or not, pursuant to the amendment of sub-section (6) of section 8 of the Act by Clause 4 (c), and no vacancy in the office of Vice-Principal will affect the powers of the University once Clause 6 is given effect to.

On scrutinizing the University’s Private Act with the foregoing amendments in view, it became apparent that other minor modifications, all of them formal in character, might well be incorporated at the same time and this was accordingly done. The phrase in Section 5 of the Act requiring the appointment of a Principal to be subject to the approval of the Minister is no longer current in the legislation governing our residential universities, as hon. members will recall from the debate last year on the establishment of the University of Port Elizabeth, and provision has therefore been made for its omission by Clause 1 of the Bill.

In addition to the provision in Clause 3 for the Council membership of the Vice-Principal already dealt with, the number of Convocation members thereon is changed from two to three, the number of persons representing municipalities altered from two to not more than three, the maximum number to be appointed by certain other bodies set at four instead of two, and the limit of two for co-opted members increased to four. The number of lecturers to be elected to the Senate, which stood at two, is likewise amended by Clause 4 so as to allow of not fewer than two but not more than four; at the same time sub-section (3) of Section 8 of the Act is amplified to do away with an existing obscurity in the wording and to make it plain that the Senate’s jurisdiction in regard to the regulation of discipline is not to be confined within specified limits but is to extend over all discipline generally relating to the University.

The definition of “lecturer”, which is imprecise as it stands, is more fully defined by Clause 7; the words “Governor-General” and “Union” are replaced by “State President” and “Republic” respectively, wherever they occur, by Clauses 3 and 8; and in Clause 9 a short title is given to the Bill, Mr. Speaker, the second reading of which I now wish to propose.

In view of the fact that the University asked this House for this Bill, and I believe drafted and translated the Bill, this side of the House has no objection to it.

There are, however, one or two matters I should like to refer to in connection with this Bill. The one refers to Section 1 which formerly read as follows—

I think it was, if I may use an anglicism, a sore point with the University authorities that they could not appoint a council without the approval of the Minister. But in the course of the years that University too, just like Stellenbosch and Cape Town, and I think also Pretoria and the Witwatersrand, developed; it instilled more confidence in the minds of the people and the State, so that now it has eventually also reached that status, together with our other senior universities, where it can appoint its own principal and vice-principal without interference. In regard to the vice-principal, there is also an improvement in regard to his status. He now also has a higher status. He and the principal are now ex officio members of the Senate and of all committees, and I think we should congratulate the university on the fact that it has eventually attained this status, seeing that it has also attained this higher status now. I think that the University of Rhodes deserves it, that this higher status, in so far as its council and its senate are concerned, is being granted to it, because it turns out men and women who make great contributions in South Africa, particularly in the sphere of science. We know, e.g., what a great reputation its professor of ichthyology, Professor Smith, has attained in the world as the result of the different types of fish he has classified.

Then I want to refer to the provisions of Clause 4 (b) (3) on page 5 of the Bill, which reads as follows—

The words “discipline, and” were omitted before the word “instruction” because those words are inserted later after “residences and of the discipline of the students”. The language has been improved there, and therefore it reads much better now. Although I did not see it at first glance, it is quite clear to me now.

Under those circumstances, and for the reasons I have mentioned, I think that there would be no grounds for us to oppose this Bill, particularly as Rhodes itself, as I have already stated, has asked for it. Therefore this side supports the Bill.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 30 (2) and debate adjourned.

The House proceeded to the consideration of private members’ business.

Do you really believe that?

But the figures prove it. I want to quote from the presidential address of Mr. de la Harpe de Villiers which he delivered at the 1964 Annual Congress of the South African Agricultural Union. He said the following amongst others—

The hon. the Minister relies on the principle of supply and demand for the fixation of prices and I want to read to him what Mr. Douglas Houston said last year. He said this—

He went on—

That is the position, Sir. In this regard I again want to quote from the presidential address of Mr. de Villiers—

He went on—

I am obliged to express the general feeling of our farmers who are convinced that agricultural prices have been and still are being kept at too low a level.

The hon. the Minister of Agricultural Economics and Marketing says he cannot ensure fixed prices unless the Government takes away certain basic freedoms from the farmers. He said, “if the farmer is going to pay for his land what he likes to pay, if he is going to farm with what he wants to farm and if he is going to employ what labour he wants to employ then he must take what he can get”.

But we have another basic outlook. Where a farmer has bought his land at a price he was prepared to pay for it and according to the value which he placed on it he himself should be able to determine with what he is going to farm on that land. But what did the hon. the Minister of Agricultural Economics and Marketing say in February 1962 (Col. 1262)? He said this—

What is wrong with it?

A great deal is wrong with that. Production costs plus a fair return is what this side stands for and that is our interpretation of the Marketing Act.

I want to come back to what the hon. the Deputy Minister said, namely that we lacked confidence in the S.A. Agricultural Union. I want to say straight out that we have the fullest confidence in the S.A. Agricultural Union. I also want to say that I believe that the S.A. Agricultural Union has the fullest confidence in the agricultural policy of this side of the House. Sir, we find that the S.A.A.U. Congress had a resolution before their congress which was very similar to the motion we introduced in this House a year ago. This was how theirs read—

Very similar to the motion we introduced last year. But the hon. Deputy Minister says we have no confidence in the S.A. Agricultural Union!

The President of the Agricultural Union said the following in his presidential address—

Our views and the views of the S.A. Agricultural Union are identical. They agree with us, they support us and we agree with them and we support them. I wonder whether the Government enjoys the confidence of the S.A. Agricultural Union. I wonder whether the Deputy Minister enjoys their confidence? At that S.A.A.U. Congress the hon. the Deputy Minister stated—

In other words, the hon. the Deputy Minister maintains that they are just a pressure group.

Where did I maintain that? I addressed the congress itself and gave it proper advice.

The hon. Deputy Minister appealed to the delegates to come forward with their problems in a co-operative spirit. I repeat that the Deputy Minister has no confidence in the S.A. Agricultural Union. When I read the report of the President of that Union, I find that it is a clear indication that they have no confidence in the policies of this Government.

Sir, our motion speaks of the lack of planning that is ruining the farmers. Last year we pointed out in what plight the farmers were and since then their position has deteriorated further. Their debts have increased; Land Bank loans have increased and their arrear interest has increased from R4,250,000 to R5,000,000 during the course of one year. It has always been the proud boast of the farmers in this country that they have always met their obligations to the Land Bank. We are approaching the position where many farmers will be unable to meet their obligations to the Land Bank. The arrear interest is mounting and mounting and will continue to mount unless a change takes place, like, for instance a change of Government. Unless that happens I cannot see how they are going to get out of their difficulties.

The contribution of our agricultural industry to our national income for the year 1963-4 is down by 4½ per cent whereas it has increased in the case of all the other sectors—industry by 19 per cent, commerce by 15 per cent, transport by 9 per cent and so on. Mr. Speaker, we admit that droughts play a part in the economy of this country. But the drought we are having to-day is not the first drought this country has had. In this country drought is part of our way of farming. It is something we have always had and it is something we shall always have and our economy has to be based on that fact. The farmers’ income have to be based on the taking into consideration of the fact that there are periodic droughts in this country. We find that in the Eastern Transvaal—an area which is not subject to severe droughts—the income of 25 per cent of those farmers is less than R1,000 per annum. In other words, their income is £40 per month—less than an ordinary typist who has just qualified, gets. On that income the farmer must rear his family, clothe them, educate and feed them. I was very surprised to hear the hon. the Prime Minister say the other day that the economic position of the farmer was entirely due to droughts. If he says that I want to tell him that he is completely out of contact with the realities of the position. These ruinous conditions which have forced something like 28,000 farmers off the land are still forcing 2,500 per annum off the land …

That is not true.

The hon. member says it is not true. But the hon. the Minister of Mines said that was the position so I must accept that it is rue. I want to make this point that the farmers’ position is not due to inefficiency on their part. The President of the S.A. Agricultural Union makes mention of that fact—

These people are not being driven off their land because of their inefficiency. They are being driven off because of the economic position in which they find themselves as a result of the price fixation policy of this Government. I know the hon. the Minister will probably tell us of the large sums of money that have been spent recently to assist the farmers during the drought. Those are emergency measures which are needed and which are appreciated. But they are of a temporary nature and will not establish stability in this country.

We had a commission to investigate the establishment of a separate department for agricultural finance and credit, but we have heard nothing more about that. We have heard nothing further about the report of the commission of inquiry into the price of farming machinery. All these things seem to be shelved. I therefore think that the time is long overdue for us to establish an agricultural planning board. A central planning board, as they called it, was called for two years ago by the Transvaal Agricultural Union when they said this—

Die sentrale planneraad moet saamgestel word uit verteenwoordigers van die betrokke staatsdepartemente, die S.A. Landbouunie en die beheerrade.

Mr. Speaker, the S.A. Agricultural Union also asks for a Planning Council on page 51 of their report of this year. They say this—

They go on to say that they consulted the Minister, that the Ministers were sympathetic but that there were very grave practical problems. I want to say this that they have now resuscitated the old Agricultural Advisory Committee. That has been dormant for many years because of lack of co-operation. But that is not what we are asking for; we want something more comprehensive than that. I want to suggest that this Planning Council be constituted in the following manner: As chairman, the Secretary for Agricultural Economics and Marketing; ex officio members: the secretary for Agricultural and Technical Services, an official of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Marketing, a member of the Marketing Council, representatives from the Department of Finance and one from Commerce and Industry and, say, about six members to represent the S.A. Agricultural Union. I think that is how it should be composed. And its function should be to plan an agricultural policy for at least five years ahead, to fix minimum prices for products such as meat, and fix prices for dairy produce, wheat, mealies for several years ahead, to plan the technical requirements of agricultural industries well in advance, to plan the training of the right type of experts, to see that more information is available to the farming community in order to enable them to farm in the most economic manner. Those are my main suggestions. A further suggestion I wish to put forward is that they should plan how to keep the greatest number of farmers possible on the land compatible with a reasonable standard of living. They must plan for the proper conservation of our soil. There are many boards which do excellent work but they function separately. I therefore think that there should be an over-all body to plan the over-all economy of our country. There must be correlation of fixed prices as one commodity affects another. Dairy products, maize and meat products all affect one another. We should plan to use the maize surplus for more and better meat productivity. We should plan to establish an agricultural finance and credit corporation to co-ordinate and administer agricultural finance. We should plan to establish a stable and settled skilled labour force in this country.

The President of the S.A. Agricultural Union recommends that the present Agricultural Advisory Board (recently resuscitated) should be converted into a planning board. Here again, we think exactly as the S.A. Agricultural Union thinks. Such a board will have many projects to carry out and great efficiency will be required. We shall require efficient Ministers. The Department of Agricultural Technical Services will have far greater responsibility than at present and that is a Department which is completely hamstrung owing to the lack of staff. There is a shortage of veterinary surgeons. The shortage at the present moment is 250. We read—

So I can go on—

There is a call for additional staff all over the country to do the work. And I am afraid that under the present set-up the hon. the Minister will not be able to do so and I accordingly move the motion which stands in my name.

I have never seen so much floundering in all my life. We have had nothing more from the hon. member than one extract after another from something said by some person or another. The hon. member has said nothing constructive to indicate what the policy of the United Party is. I quite realize how the United Party feels. I remember their old Strauss policy very well, and that policy has now landed them in the doldrums. Now they want to do something in order to get back into the platteland. As we all know, they have been driven out of the platteland. They now sit in the cities and seek a way back to the platteland. We know them only too well, Sir.

I do not wish to deal with their policy at the moment; I shall do so later. The policy of the National Party is very clear. The Marketing Act was passed in 1937. It was put there at that time by General Hertzog and General Kemp. It was, however, never implemented because war broke out in 1938 and the then Government proclaimed emergency regulations. In 1946 a Commission of Inquiry was appointed in regard to the Marketing Act and three Nationalists, Mr. Stephen le Roux, Mr. Andries Steyn and I, served on that commission. We submitted a minority report. Of course the United Party just laid it aside, and it was in 1948, when the National Party came into power, that this minority report was adopted. To-day we are implementing the Marketing Act on the lines suggested in that minority report. That is a system under which we have definitely got stability, and no floundering; there was a firm basis, namely the Marketing Act. Under the Marketing Act we have made great progress. In terms of this Act we have got the various boards, the Mealie Control Board, the Wool Board and all the other boards, although the Wool Board is on its own. But no less than 90 per cent, or should I say more than 90 per cent, of the products of the farmer are being controlled to-day. Through that we have had orderly marketing. And better opportunities have arisen to build up markets overseas. We did not just grasp here and there. We adhered systematically to the Marketing Act. I just briefly want to show how agriculture has flourished under the Nationalist Party. I shall return in a moment to the old United Party policy, the Strauss policy, as the result of which the United Party holds no more seats in the country districts. They are busy wooing the agricultural unions a little now, but that is as far as they get. I shall take the index figures of agriculture. Take the index figure for crop production. In 1947-8 it was 110, but under the National Party it has risen to 176 and therefore the production has almost doubled. Take horticulture.

During the regime of the United Party the index figure was 96 and now it is 210. Then we come to stock farming. Undr the United Party it was 96 and now it is 147. So I could continue. Take a few important products like e.g. maize. We remember how in the United Party days the maize lay and rotted on the stations and there was no way of storing it. But since the present Government came into power a proper system was introduced so that now there is control over the maize and there is a splendid system of storage. And if there are millions of bags to be exported, we can deliver them on board ship in a good condition, and we can fulfil the contracts we obtain. The same applies to wheat, dairy products and all the other branches of agriculture. During the United Party regime the index figure for maize, for example, was 76 and now it is 172; wheat was 106 and now it is 191; dairy products were 99 and now it stands at 157; slaughter stock was 96 and now it is 127. I am just thinking of wool. Hon. members will remember the wonderful British scheme we had for wool, where the British Government at the time offered us 10.75d per lb. The then Government was so clever that they would not accept it, as Australia did, and they then placed it on a type basis. What happened then? In the first two years of their wonderful scheme we lost no less than £1,000,000 in comparison with Australia. We pointed out that we were suffering losses on the type basis, and it was on the recommendation of the then Opposition, the National Party, that General Smuts went to Cairo at the time and obtained 5 per cent extra, 5 per cent more than Australia. All that emanated from this side of the House.

I just want to point out how we are expanding in every direction. We talk about droughts and about people who are forced off the land. I just want to point out that at the moment there is a Commission of Inquiry investigating uneconomic units. The Government is planning ahead. Then why do they want a planning Council? I do not even know whether they consider that it should have statutory powers, or who should be appointed to it. There we have the great Orange River project, and it is wonderful to think that the smaller farmers who are finding things difficult on uneconomic units to-day will be taken up in the Orange River scheme. There the Government has again planned far ahead. At Grootfontein, for example, there is tremendous expansion to fit in with that future great scheme. Last year R240,000 was spent on expansions at Grootfontein, and again R1,000,000 this year, in order to fit in with the great Orange River scheme. Therefore we have plans to enable all the people who cannot make a living because they are on uneconomic plots to be given an opportunity under irrigation. Work is being done in every respect. The hon. member spoke about technical services. What did the United Party do in its time? Just take the soil conservation districts. In 1947, 108 districts were proclaimed and now there are 819. Through improved benefits and machinery the planning can now be done much faster than in the past. Subsidies have been increased. Whereas formerly it was 20 per cent with a maximum of £2,250 for agriculture, it has now been raised to £600 for camp fencing, £1,200 for providing drinking water, and the subsidies have been increased by 331/3 per cent to 50 per cent—a great improvement in every respect! Now it is said that our farmers find things difficult. Yes, due to the drought many of them find themselves in difficulties, but we also know what the Government has done to help these people. Of course we have great sympathy with the people in the drought-stricken areas like the Northern Transvaal, but the Government has done whatever was possible to keep those people on their farms.

I want to ask hon. members whether they do not know about the stock loans and all the subsidy schemes, the loans for foot-and-mouth disease, the ration loans, the general assistance to farmers—the Farmers’ Assistance Board has been extended to ensure a proper living for the farmers. We realize that farmers in certain areas went through a difficult time, particularly in the drought-stricken areas, but I want to say that I as a practical farmer do not want to return to the conditions we had under the United Party Government. Then we had the Strauss Scheme, which led the United Party into the wilderness. Then measures were also adopted to fix prices and the highest price we could get for mutton was 7⅛. per lb. That is what they fixed for the best meat. What is it to-day? I do not want to make too, many comparisons, but I remember the days when the United Party even went so far as to commandeer the farmers’ sheep. No wonder that some of the English-speaking farmers said: “Strauss must go!” The United Party Government even went as far as to slaughter our last little lambs in order to provide meat for the passing convoys. The highest price people then obtained for maize was 19s., and when, after the war, too much maize was produced and maize had to be exported and a profit of £5,000,000 was made, the then Government took it and put it into their own pockets. It was only in 1948, when the National Party came into power, and when there was still £2,500,000 remaining over, that Mr. Klasie Havenga used that as the first Stabilization Fund for maize. Ever since then the maize industry has flourished. There were droughts, but on the whole the farmers in the mealie belt flourished wonderfully. And what was the highest price that we obtained for our wool under the British scheme? It was £16,000,000. But after the United Party went it increased to £46,000,000 even in the first year under the National Party, and since then we have never obtained less than £36,000,000. But they wanted to steal even some of the money of the farmers.

Now the United Party wants to come back to the platteland, but the farmers know them too well already. We remember the queueing up that took place, when the women fainted from the heat and the poor people did not get enough food. Here and there they managed to get a little potato or two after waiting in a queue. That was under the United Party. But what they actually did was to put Haile Selassi on his throne. I am sorry that he ever got there. Our farmers suffered so badly under the United Party Government that most of us were faced with ruin. Then came the Magna Charta, the Marketing Act, and we stand by the Marketing Act. The hon. members on the other side again try here and there to woo the farmer on the platteland. They incite the farmers in underhand ways, but the farmers reject them. I now challenge those hon. members opposite to go to the platteland during the following election. They will be severely dealt with because our farmers know them. They suffered too much under the United Party. The United Party has no policy, and the pathetic arguments they advance here, the pathetic hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Connan) …

Order! The hon. member must not speak of members of the Opposition in that way.

Let me then speak about the poor Opposition we have. They now seek to throw dust in our eyes by telling us that they have a policy. They have no policy and that is why they have all been kicked out on the platteland. Now I want to challenge them to come to the platteland even during the Provincial Council elections and to see where they will land with their so-called policy, which is not a policy at all. They just grasp at bits here and there.

What is your policy?

The Marketing Act. We have achieved wonderful results. We have orderly marketing, we export our products. The matter is handled systematically. We have a proper storage system. Everything is being done by this Government. The last thing I remember under the United Party Government was the lie-and-rot story. The mealies lay stacked up at stations, covered with tarpaulins, and they just rotted. And now they still have no policy. They are just like vultures. They hover round looking to see whether they cannot peck out the eyes of a poor little sick lamb. All they have got is a scavenger policy.

May I put a question to the hon. member?

Who are you? To think that they could ever come back to the platteland to get seats there—well, it is hopeless! That will never happen. With all their wooing of the platteland they will achieve nothing. They have never had a policy, and still have no policy. When I think that there is someone sitting at the back there, whose name I would rather not mention now, because previously I was ruled out of order when I said something in regard to him—but they are a hopeless lot. We do not need a planning council. The Minister has all the boards he needs for his planning, and therefore I just say that the platteland will never accept them again.

The hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. F. H. Bekker) has sung such a paean of praise to agriculture that I almost thought agriculture was in a better position than any other sector of our economy. We have no objection to the hon. member saying agriculture is in a particularly good position and that the present position is due to the Government. We too say it is because of the actions of the Government that agriculture is in the position in which it is. I do not intend wasting undue time on replying to what the hon. member for Cradock has said. Half the time he talks with his tongue in his cheek and the other half he uses his tongue to talk about “boerehaters”(Boer haters).

Order! The hon. member may not use the expression “his tongue in his cheek”.

I withdraw it, Mr. Speaker. I am convinced that the hon. member for Cradock is not serious when he creates the impression that he is the agricultural clown on that side of the House when we know he is the leader of the farmer group on that side of the House. The leader of the farmer group on the Government side wants us to believe that the farmers are in such a good position that it is not necessary to do anything further in connection with agriculture, because this Government does everything …

Yes.

The hon. member firstly accused the United Party of not having an agricultural policy. We have a good policy. The first cardinal thing agriculture has to do is to get rid of this Government and the Minister of Agriculture under whom the agricultural position is continually deteriorating. The second prospect we hold out to agriculture is a long-term policy, a policy of planning, as the hon. member who introduced the motion has said. The hon. member for Cradock referred to the Marketing Act and tried to give the credit to this Government for the existence of that Act. He then referred to the 18 boards under the Marketing Act, but mentioned only two, the Maize Board and the Wool Board while he should know that the Wool Board does not fall under the Marketing Act. However, the hon. member also talked about wool in particular and wanted to know what the wool farmers received under the scheme of the British Wool Commission. If his memory fails him I want to remind him that during the first year of the war South Africa still had an open market where we had to face Japanese competition.

During the second year of the war and subsequently there was not a buyer for one pound of wool produced in this country. It was then that the wool interests in this country, and not the Nationalist Party, negotiated with the British Government in order to be paid the same wool price as that paid to Australia and New Zealand. Or does the hon. member say our wool was worth so much more? We on this side of the House deprecate the fact that, in connection with a scheme which was in operation for four or five years during the war when there were no buyers for our wool, a member who has been connected with the wool-producing industry for a long time dare to insinuate to-day that someone or other was to blame for it that our wool was sold to the British Government at a low price. I am sorry that the memory of the hon. member is getting so bad. The British Government paid a price for our wool when nobody wanted to buy it. But for that we would have had to dump it in the sea.

As far as the orderly marketing under the Marketing Act, which the hon. member spoke about, is concerned, I can only tell him that we are equally in favour of orderly marketing. But our accusation is that when the boards make recommendations in connection with prices the Minister of Agriculture concerned, particularly the Minister of Agricultural Economy and Marketing, continually uses the Marketing Board to force them down; that he seldom accepts the recommendations of the South African Agricultural Union or those of his boards or those of his management committees, and that the prices have become so uneconomical in many respects that the farmers no longer produce the quantities they can produce.

I just want to deal briefly with the Orange River scheme, in regard to which the hon. member for Cradock has always claimed the lion share of the responsibility for its conception. He assumes unto himself the honour of the planning and the announcement of the Orange River scheme. I just want to say this that if the Orange River scheme has to be developed as set out by the hon. the Prime Minister at a development conference at Port Elizabeth, namely, in the very heart of the White area and that the farmer must not think they will be able to employ Bantu labour under it, but that they themselves will have to till their soil, then the hon. member for Cradock means exactly what the Prime Minister meant when he said: “Farmer, return to the stage when you were the hewer of wood and the drawer of water, the stage where you, together with your wife and children will have to till the soil because you will not have Bantu labour.” Sir, I do not want to devote more time to what the hon. member for Cradock has said.

I want to raise the question of stock breeding in particular. It is impossible, of course, to cover the entire field of the agricultural industry in one afternoon, but I want to make this general statement that, in view of the export figures for last year, agriculture is extremely important. In spite of the fact that the farmers had to produce food for the entire population, agricultural exports accounted for R400,000,000 of our total exports of R940,000,000. That was a considerable contribution to our foreign exchange. It is therefore a sector of our life that must be nursed and which should receive all possible assistance so that it can produce on a profitable basis. In this respect I do not want to express my own views but I want to rely on the annual report of the S.A. Agricultural Union for the year 1964. This report has not been drawn up by a president but by a general board. They say the following in that annual report about agriculture—

I am pointing out how, according to the annual report of the S.A. Agricultural Union, the position of agriculture is gradually deteriorating. I shall deal with the reasons for it in a moment. At the end of 1962 the amount farmers owed the Land Bank under mortgage bonds had increased from R127,000,000 to R134,000,000. I read on—

The report says further—

I do not want to quote further from this report except this sentence—

I yet have to come across statistics which give us a better picture of what the agricultural position is, of how that position is gradually deteriorating, of how less profitable agriculture is becoming and of how people are leaving the agricultural sector and moving to the cities. And when you deny it you are accused of being somebody who speaks with his tongue in his cheek when he says the agricultural position is so sound. The agricultural position is not so sound. The farmers are struggling. I have the reports for years here but time does not permit my dealing with them. The reports of the S.A. Agricultural Union for a year or eight ago contain certain cardinal points in connection with which they have repeatedly approached the Ministers. They have asked for farmers to be registered over a long period so as to enable them to strengthen their organization financially in such a way that they can do certain things for themselves. That was never acceded to. They asked for an agricultural advisory board and the board which was established was abolished. They no longer have that either. They have insisted over a period of years for agriculture to be financed by means of finance corporations or something similar to assist the farmers. That has not been established either. They have insisted on an increase in the price of meat, beef especially, over a period of years. What is happening to-day? The managing director of Central Meat announced a few days ago that the beef position was so critical that it would be years before we shall be able to breed sufficient cattle to replace those we have lost.

If time permits me I shall deal with the hon. the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services later on. It is not surprising that as far as agricultural training is concerned the chairman of the Wool Board in Australia returned and said this country was 25 years behind.

I said I wanted to confine my remarks to stock breeding during the short time at my disposal. I want to give the following figures. In 1932-3, after one of the worst droughts this country has ever experienced and after one of the worst depressions, we had a stock population of 11,500,000 cattle and 40,000,000 sheep. In 1948, when this Government took over, after the war effort in which this country was involved for five years and during which this country supplied ships and armies, something which depleted its stock population considerably, we had 12,500,000 cattle and 33,000, 000 sheep. In 1964 we had 12,500,000 cattle, the same number as in 1948 and 1932, and 30,000,000 sheep. This country which has already had 48,000,000 sheep only has just over 30,000,000 to-day. Are the South African farmers less efficient than those of Australia and New Zealand? Is there a member opposite who will say that our farmers are less efficient?

If the farmers are equally efficient where does the fault lie? Are droughts to blame? It is no use saying droughts are to blame because other countries in the Southern Hemisphere also experience droughts as severe as ours. Sir, let us just look at these figures. Here I have a survey dated 22/1/1965 of what is happening in Australia. I am only referring to the wool production not to the number of sheep. It must be remembered that the wool production of this country has decreased to below 30,000,000 lbs.

It is the drought.

The hon. member again says it is the drought. I want to remind him that Australia also experienced a severe drought. But Australia expects a wool clip of 1,813,000,000 lbs. this year as against our 300,000,000 lbs. Do hon. members opposite realize that it is six times our clip and that you need six times as many sheep to produce it? Do they realize that 15 years ago Australia had a wool clip of 3,000,000 bales, that stock breeding has progressed to such an extent there that they are producing three times as much N beef than they did 15 years ago and that they produce six times as much wool as we do?

How much maize has Australia got?

I am busy proving that the fault lies somewhere else. The fault does not lie with the drought alone, nor does it lie with the farmers even though we accuse them of having uneconomic units. The South African farmers are as efficient as those of any other country, but the reason why the position of half our farmers is deteriorating is because we are saddled with a Government and with two Ministers of Agriculture who have replaced the one Minister we have had for years. The Prime Minister, in his wisdom, then appointed two halves and has now appointed another one, a dream deputy Minister, in order to improve the position but I do not think they will succeed.

I want to deal with the possible reasons for this deterioration, particularly in connection with stock breeding. We have a meat marketing scheme in this country which the country can no longer tolerate. Under our marketing scheme the throat of the animal is first cut and then the carcass is marketed and sold. That is wrong in the first place. It is impossible to withdraw those animals from the market and to cancel the sale. Nor is it possible to prevent female animals being slaughtered. That is one of the main reasons why our stock population is declining. When the farmer requires money he also sends breeding stock to the market. Their throats are cut, the carcasses are sold and nobody even knows whether it was a breeding animal or not. That is the position. We have a Meat Board and I want to know whether there is another board under the Marketing Act which has been deprived of so much power, which is so helpless that it cannot even control the flow of the product to the market? One Friday there are 2,000 sheep on the Johannesburg market and the following Monday there are 24,000. That happened only a week ago. Does anybody opposite think we can allow the chaos which exists in supplying the market with slaughter stock to continue? What is that board doing? Does it provide cold storage facilities and does it protect the price so that it is profitable to the farmer? [Interjections.] As far as that board is concerned I just want to read this short extract—

This is last year’s report—

For heaven’s sake, if that is the case the administration costs have increased even after the board has been less and less active. What does the Auditor-General say on a later page? He says that in 1962 the board collected R10,900,000 in the form of levies and R12,400,000 in 1963. I do not want to deal much further with the Meat Board as such, but if all the boards under the Marketing Act were to operate like the Meat Board does, the sooner we get rid of them the better. They no longer perform a function which is worthwhile and they cost us a mint of money.

Do you want to abolish them?

We have suggested a planning council. As a second reason I want to mention the request by the S.A. Agricultural Union over the years for a higher price structure so as to make production worthwhile. That request has consistently been refused by the Government and the Minister concerned. Responsible leaders in agriculture, whether he be the president of the S.A. Agricultural Union or the managing director of Meat Central, says it is because of these unprofitable prices for cattle that our cattle population has remained the same as it was in 1932, a cattle population to feed a population which has practically doubled.

The third point I want to mention is the lack of a proper fodder scheme, or fodder schemes, the one to prepare the stock for the market and the other to withstand the droughts. In this respect this Government has lagged so far behind that it is impossible to credit it. While I am on this subject, last year when we pleaded with the Minister of Agricultural Economics and Marketing as far as Northern Transvaal was concerned, when the situation could still be saved, and when we suggested that he should merely look across the border and note the system employed in Rhodesia, and make it possible for those farmers who had grazing and water to purchase those cattle and remove them, so that after the drought those farmers could acquire other cattle with the money they had received, he sneeringly asked me where they would get that cattle. The fact remains that that is the best method of saving stock in drought-stricken areas, where the farmer can no longer carry on. It is no use giving him further fodder loans and involving him deeper into debt. Responsible officials in the Minister’s Department say that some of those people have already had eight to nine loans without any hope of ever liquidating them. Of what use is the farmer who lands in that position? Instead of assisting that farmer by giving him fodder loans which he has to repay is it not better to save his stock and rather to finance the farmer with grazing and water so that the farmer in the drought-stricken area can at a later stage buy the animals back. [Interjections.] Had these things not been done successfully in other countries I would not have pleaded for them here. But we have experience of this sort of thing.

I just want to deal briefly with agricultural financing. That is why we plead for a board that can rectify these matters. If this Government does not make money available to agriculture at a low rate of interest we can take it that agriculture will be unable to rehabilitate itself. I think I have proved that, as far as stock breeding is concerned, there has been no progress from 1932-64. The population, however, has doubled and the consumption has of necessity increased. I do not know how we must feed the nation and ensure that our animal population increases, if we do not have particular planning schemes under which it can be done, if we do not prevent breeding stock from being slaughtered and if agriculture is not properly financed. What will the position be in ten or 20 years’ time? Will we have to become importers of meat as we have become importers of dairy products? Dairy products are by-products of stock breeding and I think of a Government under whose policy dairy products were exported in 1963-4. Butter and cheese were exported and only up to the end of September of the same year—unfortunately I do not have later figures—as much as 16,000, 000 pounds of butter were again imported and do not ask me what the subsidies and costs were in that connection. The figures are not yet available. Is that a sound policy?

Mr. Speaker, I notice my time has expired. I want to conclude by saying this. In its motion this party asks for the appointment of an agricultural planning board, not a research board, but a board to plan ahead over long periods so that the farmer may get that stability to which the hon. member has referred this afternoon and so that prices will not fluctuate annually. This Government came into power on the strength of the farmers’ vote. In the Transvaal they came into power on the strength of the farmers’ vote, but the farmers are sick and tired of this Government and this Government will also fall on the strength of the farmers’ vote.

Mr. Speaker, just like the hon. member for East London (City) (Dr. Moolman), I shall not have the time to reply in half-an-hour to all the aspects mentioned here. I can only try to deal with a few points. To begin with, I just want to deal with one of the matters the hon. member has just mentioned, and which was also mentioned in one of the other debates by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, namely that we now have two Ministers and a Deputy Minister of Agriculture, and because they are so inefficient the three of them now have to do the work which one man did in the past. But let us now analyze who in the past did the work which is now being done by these three men. In the time of the United Party, 17 years ago, when agriculture still presented appreciably fewer problems than to-day, the work was done by the late Senator Conroy as Minister of Lands and Irrigation. It was also done by Mr. Strauss, the ex-leader of the United Party, as Minister of Agriculture; and part of it was done by Minister Hofmeyr, who had State Advances and Farmers’ Relief under his control. In other words, 17 years ago that party had three Ministers doing the work. Now the impression they want to create is that the work done by the present three Ministers was done in the past by one person, but let us now see how they did that work.

Senator Conroy manned two settlements with returned soldiers, Vaal-Hartz and Loskop. On the first occasion they specially cut the Loskop settlement as a United Party constituency, but the returned soldiers of both those settlements rejected Mr. Conroy together with his Government. Let us go further. Their Minister of Agriculture was Mr. Strauss, and their own members opposite said: “Strauss must go.” In 1948 the country rejected the United Party because Mr. Strauss was their Minister of Agriculture, but what happened then? Then Mr. Strauss became the Leader of the United Party. In other words, they regarded him as being the best man they had. Later they no longer thought so and then they chose the present Leader of the United Party, but Mr. Strauss led the United Party in this House with 70 members behind him, and the present leader has only 50 members. Now I just want to ask what hon. members think would have happened to agriculture if the present Leader of the Opposition had been the Minister of Agriculture at that time? He could not even keep the United Party together. How would he have kept agriculture together?

But we go further. The hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Connan) then followed the Leader of the Opposition as Leader of the United Party in the Cape Province. In other words, the leader of the party was surely a better man than he was. According to the judgment of the United Party the Leader of the Opposition was surely a better man than the hon. member for Gardens, because he became their leader in the Cape before him. But now I want to ask this: If he were to become Minister of Agriculture in this country, what would happen then? Now I do not even wish to mention the ex-Ossewa Brandwag general. He only came here by the grace of the Leader of the United Party. He did not even become chairman of that party, but out of kindness he got a constituency in East London, not even on the platteland. When I think of what the farmers did to him, and when I remember by whose grace he came here, I wonder what would have happened if he had had to handle agriculture in South Africa.

I now wish to reply to a few of the matters raised during the debate. The hon. member for Gardens said that they supported the Agricultural Union; they agree with the Agricultural Union in everything it asks. But the hon. member for East London (City) (Dr. Moolman) got up and condemned the present meat scheme, whereas the S.A. Agricultural Union supports it. Who is right now? They are just, as the hon. the Prime Minister said the other day, purely opportunistic. If it suits them, they support the Agricultural Union, and if it does not suit them they criticize its standpoint.

But let us now analyze the various accusations made. The hon. member for East London (City) spoke about stock farming and said that the number of sheep and wool production over the years had not increased. Wool is an export product and we all know that its price is a world price. But what the hon. member did not say is that tremendously large areas formerly used for stock farming have been put to the plough in the meantime and sowed to grain crops and maize and other products, and for what reason was that done? Surely it must be because it pays those farmers better to produce grain than to grow wool. But then those hon. members accuse the Minister and the Government of not seeing to it that the prices of grain products are sufficient to cover costs. I am just showing how they contradict themselves. [Interjections.]

Let us now take the statement that agriculture does not share in the prosperity of the country. That general statement is made and then the Chairman of the Agricultural Union is quoted to prove—and that is all the proof they have—that agriculture is not sharing in the prosperity of the country. But what is agriculture in South Africa? Is agriculture maize production or wheat production? Agriculture consists of various products. I want to mention the following fact. I want to mention a number of the products produced. Let me mention wine. Wine consumption in South Africa has increased to such an extent that last year the K.W.V. was obliged to increase its quotas for production by 50 per cent, and there is at present a shortage, whereas four years ago there was a 25 per cent surplus. This greater consumption of our wine products took place at higher prices than those obtaining in the past. Do hon. members now want to say that the wine industry is not sharing in the prosperity of the country? Take the mealie industry. Maize consumption has increased in recent years by an average of 2,000, 000 to 4,000,000 bags a year. Is that not participating in the prosperity? The consumption of meat has increased by between 2,400,000 and 3,000,000 lbs. a month, at an appreciably higher price than in the past. Do hon. members say that agriculture has not shared in the prosperity? Our wheat consumption is increasing by between 400,000 and 600,000 bags per annum. Whereas in the past, with the same production, there was a surplus, there is now a shortage of butter, cheese and milk. The consumption has increased, and at increased prices. Take the poultry industry. We had a great problem in regard to eggs. We had to export eggs at very low prices, but with the prosperity in the country the consumption of eggs increased to such an extent that at the moment the board has to buy in much smaller surpluses than before. In this way I can mention a whole number of these things. [Interjections.] Then hon. members come along with the statement that agriculture does not share in the economic progress. But the members of the United Party opposite are like a lot of parrots. If somebody in the S.A. Agricultural Union says something by way of argument, then they think they now have a great argument and, parrot-like, they repeat it. There are in fact branches of agriculture which do not share the progress and the increased prices. I want to mention one, the wool industry. Wool prices have dropped instead of rising since last year. But wool is exclusively an export product, and the only way to increase the price of wool to the producer in this country is to pay a Government subsidy on that price. Now I ask: Do hon. members want the wool growers to share in this prosperity by giving them a subsidized price in South Africa? Then they should tell us so. They should not just make statements; they should also prove them. Then there are sectors of our agriculture which did not share in the prosperity because of droughts. Unfortunately it is a fact that for the last few years we have had to cope with one of the most severe droughts in our history. The hon. member correctly said that we could always expect droughts in South Africa but this one is of extraordinary scope, a drought which one experiences only once in a lifetime. Those people could not share in the prosperity because they simply did not have the products to sell. But because the Government agrees that agriculture is one of the basic pillars of our economy, it helped those people not only to remain on the land and to continue production, but also to save their stock until it rained again, so that they could carry on.

What about the increased mortgage burden?

I shall come to that. The second argument used to prove that the farmers do not share in the prosperity of the country is that their mortgage burden has increased, but what do they compare it with? They make two allegations. The first is that the Government should play a greater role in financing agriculture, and if it plays a greater role they accuse the Government of having loaned these people more money. You see, Sir, they first say we must give more loans to the farmers, and when we do so they say that the farmers have retrogressed because their mortgage burden has increased. [Interjection.] But does this increased mortgage burden of the farmers prove that they do not share in the prosperity of the country? The hon. member for Pinelands (Mr. Thompson) is an advocate and a business man. I want to ask him this: If he has 10,000 houses which 15 years ago were financed by a building society, and he compares their bonds at that time with those of 10,000 houses of the same standard to-day will the mortgages on the new houses not be much higher? Does that prove now that the people living in those houses are not sharing in the prosperity of the country? But that is the sort of proof they advance, and do you know why they use these foolish arguments? It is because they think the farmers of South Africa are stupid. They think they can catch the farmers with this sort of nonsense, but I want to tell them that they will not manage to do so.

The next accusation is that the principle of the Marketing Act has been violated. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition also said so the other day, and he says that the principle of the Marketing Act is production costs plus. I challenge him to show me where such a principle is contained in the Marketing Act. That has never been the principle of the Marketing Act. For certain reasons in the implementation of that Act calculations were made of production costs in order to arrive at a price basis for a product, but there are 17 different products which are being controlled under the Marketing Act, of which only three have a fixed price, namely wheat, maize and dairy products, and there are only two of them in regard to which production cost calculations have been made, and then only average production cost calculations, with the result that there are always people who are just below or above those costs. That was done to find an approximate basis for price fixation. But now the hon. member for East London (City) accuses us and says the Minister of Agriculture with his Marketing Council is forcing the various boards to keep prices low. I challenge the hon. member to give me any example, whether it is dairy products or maize or wheat, during the last two or three years, where the price which was accepted is lower than the price recommended by the boards. The principle of the Marketing Act has never been that a price based on cost of production plus should be fixed. There is an accepted method of calculating the prices of various products, but there are other products which have floor prices, and still other products which are exported in pools. Take an export product like citrus or deciduous fruit. How can one determine their prices on a production cost basis, because one has nothing to say in regard to the prices? The prices of those export products are obtained overseas, and the price is paid to the producer here through the pool. Therefore this story of the violation of the principles of the Marketing Act is simply nonsensical.

Then I want to come to the next point which is continually being made, namely that the farmer in South Africa receives 3 per cent on his investment.

If he is lucky.

If he is lucky. And then the United Party says that this Government allows the farmer to get only 3 per cent interest on his investment whereas industries earn 15 per cent. That is the argument which is continually being advanced. What is the investment in agriculture, Sir? The investments in agriculture are adapted investments, according to the increases in land values and prices, according to surveys made, whereas profits in industry are based on the actual capital invested in that industry. Now I want to put this question to the Opposition: If one to-day buys land at any price, it is obvious that one’s return on that land will be lower, but if one buys shares in industry at to-day’s values one’s return on those shares is also only 3 per cent or 4 per cent. Therefore if one wants to make a comparison one should take comparable things; one cannot on the one hand make an investment which stands there increasing in value for years and which has not been adapted to the increased values, and on the other hand an investment which is quite unconnected, which was made 15 years ago, and then base one’s profits on that.

But I want to put it to you in this way, Sir: If things are really going so badly for the farmer, if he really has no share in the prosperity, why then are land prices so high?

That is the old story again.

I see the hon. member for Drakensberg (Mrs. S. M. van Niekerk) is going to put her foot into it again; she is going to tell me that land prices have nothing to do with the profitability of the product.

You have stopped her too soon. She is going to say nothing now.

In that same report of the Chairman of the S.A. Agricultural Union which the hon. member quoted here the statement is also made that land prices have nothing to do with the profitability of the product.

Are you now inimical towards the Agricultural Union?

I want to challenge any member of the Opposition, or of the Agricultural Union, if the hon. member wants it that way, to go to Paarl or to Stellenbosch or to any of the wine-producing districts and to buy a farm for me which has no wine quota, and to buy one next to it for me which has a wine quota, and if he pays the same price for the one with the quota as for the one without it, I will readily concede that I was wrong, but I can assure you, Sir, that he will have to pay an appreciably higher price for the one with the wine quota.

But I want to give a very simple illustration to prove this statement. Take the Lowveld of the Transvaal. When it was announced that sugar production was going to be expanded and that sugar quotas would be granted there, what happened in regard to land prices? Land prices increased by between 300 per cent and 400 per cent. Did the farmers pay these increased prices because it would not pay them to produce sugar? These nonsensical arguments are worthless. The fact that farmers are prepared to pay these higher prices must prove that agriculture is very remunerative for a large number of farmers, and secondly, it must prove that the farmer is prepared to invest in agriculture because he has confidence in agriculture and has confidence in this Government.

Your own people do not believe this.

Then there is another argument I want to dispose of. Hon. members opposite again mentioned it here to-day, but the hon. the Leader of the Opposition did so more prominently on a former occasion when he said that it was the policy of this Government to have fewer farmers on the platteland; that it was the Government’s policy that the uneconomic farmer should get out.

Yes.

There they all say yes again. I have repeatedly stated, and I reiterate to-day, that if the State has to do the financing for farmers and has to help them to retain their land or to obtain land, then the State must ensure that that man has enough land, taking into consideration his managerial capacity and his capital investment, to make a decent living on that land, and I now ask hon. members whether they differ from that?

They dare not.

Last year they themselves passed an Act here with acclamation which makes it possible for the Department of Lands to buy more land for a person who has an uneconomic unit and to give him a larger unit; they all welcomed it but now they say that it is the policy of the Government to chase some people off the land. That is the kind of nonsense one gets from those people. Every step taken by the Government through the Farmers’ Assistance Board, through the assistance it gives by way of State advances, through its settlement policy, through the application of this legislation I have mentioned, is designed to enable people to remain on the platteland. But if one wants to let a person remain on the platteland, he must at least stay there under such conditions and circumstances that he can make a decent living.

But you say it is so remunerative!

I want to tell the hon. member that it is not only the poor farmers who are selling their land to-day. If the Opposition wants the Government to prevent people from leaving the platteland, let them come along with a motion that the Government should prohibit people from selling their land. I say that it is not only the man who is in difficulties who leaves the platteland. Many of the farms being sold to-day are being sold because economically things are going so well in agriculture; because there are some farmers who make a lot of money and can afford to offer uneconomic prices to other farmers. They buy out that farmer, and they are prepared to pay these uneconomic prices. Does the Opposition want us to put a prohibition on the sale of land? But now I want to put this question to them in a different way: If they do not want the Government to impose a prohibition on the sale of land, do they want us to prohibit farmers from buying more land if they already have a certain acreage? How can one prevent those people leaving the platteland unless one prohibits others from buying their land? Let the hon. member answer that question. If the United Party wants all farmers who are on the platteland to-day to stay there, and it wants the Government to see to it that they stay there, will they support legislation prohibiting a farmer from possessing more land than a certain acreage? That is a fair question. I put that question to the hon. member for Green Point (Maj. van der Byl). Let him tell us.

Sir, this sort of accusation and argument brings agriculture nowhere; it does no good. The Opposition is rendering a disservice to agriculture in South Africa.

Hon. members opposite spoke about financing through the Department and they ask what has happened to the financing of the Department of Agriculture. The commission of inquiry did not investigate whether a new Department should be established; that is a recommendation they made. They investigated the possibility of providing credit to certain categories of farmers, and that provision of credit, according to their findings, are to-day being implemented by the various Departments which already exist, like State Advances, the Farmers Relief Board, the Department of Lands, and others. We have instituted crop loans and production loans for farmers who cannot be assisted elsewhere, and also all kinds of other loans on which I cannot expatiate now in the short time at my disposal. Those recommendations are therefor being implemented.

Hon. members also want to have a Planning Council for Agriculture. Sir, agriculture is not a separate part of our whole economic structure; it is part of it. Agriculture is also represented on the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, but apart from the planning continually being done by the various control boards, and apart from the committees assisting the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services on various levels in regard to the planning of technical investigations and research, we have also converted the old Advisory Council of the Agricultural Union into a different body which, together with the Departments of Agriculture and other Departments which may be co-opted, can discuss the whole problem of agriculture and do planning. Hon. members of the Opposition are again behind the times in this respect. They are always behind the times, just as the hon. member for Gardens is behind the times in talking about surpluses. He said here that production had increased so much that there were surpluses. Sir, I just want to say a few words about surpluses. Does the hon. member allege that last year we had a mealie surplus when we reaped 66,000,000 bags of maize? I say we did not have a surplus; we exported all that maize and we sold it at good prices, and a product which can be sold does not constitute a surplus. If that were to be so then our wool production would be a complete surplus.

The United Party now wants to make a bid to gain the favour, firstly, of the Agricultural Union. They want to pose as the spokesman of the Agricultural Union in South Africa, because the Chairman of the Agricultural Union said a few things which they, quite behind the times, are now repeating like parrots. I want to give them the assurance that the co-operation between the Agricultural Departments and the S.A. Agricultural Union is excellent. Cooperation does not mean acceding to all requests or having to agree with everything these people say. That is not co-operation; that amounts to bankruptcy on one side or the other. Co-operation means that one discusses the problems and solves them to the best of one’s ability. That is the kind of cooperation we have with the Agricultural Union. The hon. members of the United Party are like a lot of vultures who see a carcase here and there in the sphere of agriculture and then swoop down on it. And do you know what they eventually find there? Eventually they just find a lot of blowflies on those skeletons. I want to tell them that the farmers of South Africa, with the experience they have had of the Opposition in the past, and in spite of the mistrust they are trying to foster in regard to the Ministers of Agriculture, have confidence in this Government. They may go to any rural constituency; the hon. member for East London (City) can go there and I will go there too and then we will see who is sent back to Parliament by the farmers.

We have now had two speakers on that side, the leader of the farmers’ group and the hon. the Minister of Agricultural Economics and Marketing. When the leader of the farmers’ group commenced his speech here he said, “I have never seen so much hedging in this House as I saw here this afternoon. We have a motion here which means nothing. We on this side of the House have always said that we believe in organized agriculture and in the Marketing Act”. These words are precisely the same as the words that he used here this afternoon. He went along and read his Hansard of last year, and not only did he read it but he memorized his speech and repeated it here word for word. Why did the members on his side not help him? His first story was that we on this side were hedging and his second story was in connection with the Marketing Act, but, Sir, has nobody on that side ever told him that the Marketing Act was introduced here by Mr. Strauss, the then Minister of Agriculture, and later on Leader of the Opposition? I would suggest that the hon. member change his tune a little next year.

Let me come to the hon. the Minister. The hon. the Minister argues that in the days of the United Party Government there were three Ministers who were concerned with agriculture; there was Senator Conroy, who dealt with Lands, there was Mr. Strauss who dealt with Agriculture, and there was Mr. Hofmeyr who handled State Advances. But if one has to argue along those lines then there should be four Ministers of Finance at the moment because our Budgets nowadays are so much bigger than they were in those years. The hon. the Minister, instead of replying to an agricultural debate, tried to make political capital here. He referred to the special constituency which was allegedly created at Loskop under the delimitation of that time so as to form a special constituency consisting of United Party supporters. That is what he tells this House, but then he asks the hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Connan) why he is the member for Gardens; he talks about the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and he says that the Leader of the Opposition is so much weaker than Mr. Strauss because Mr. Strauss, had 70 members as against the 50 members of the Leader of the Opposition. But has the Minister forgotten the delimitations which have taken place in the meanwhile? He forgets that the Albany constituency to-day stretches from Grahamstown in a long narrow strip as far as East London, embracing the East London Airport. He forgets how Bloemfontein (District) was delimited. He forgets that Maitland Street in Bloemfontein (City) now falls under Bloemfontein (District). [Interjections.] Sir, people who live in glass houses must not throw stones. The hon. the Minister is the last person, who should talk about delimitations.

Then there is another thing that I want to put to the hon. the Minister: He was formerly the member for Bredasdorp. Does he still recall the funny little speeches which he made here in which he told the House how the hon. member for Sea Point (Maj van der Bijl) allegedly entered the homes of the non-Whites and the Coloureds there and how he lifted his trouser legs? At that time he was the member for Bredasdorp, and which constituency does he represent to-day?

I took a United Party seat from you.

He now represents an urban constituency. Sir, instead of Minister of Agricultural Economics and Marketing the hon. the Minister would make an excellent clown. In replying to the hon. member for East London (City) who had referred to our shrinking cattle and sheep populations, he said: “Does the hon. member not know that large areas of South Africa have been put under the plough and that people are now sowing maize and wheat there?” Sir, it is that very fact which condemns the policy of this Government. Farming was so uneconomic that farmers had to fall back upon cash crops because they could not make a living otherwise. Those cash crops are being exported at a loss to-day, a fact which more than anything else condemns the hon. the Minister because for how many years has he now occupied the post of Minister?

And yet you are still asking for higher prices for those products? Or are you not asking for higher prices?

I will tell the hon. the Minister, with that peculiar little laugh of his, in a moment what I do ask for. The hon. the Minister suggests that the members of the United Party are like a lot of parrots, but let me tell him now what agriculture thinks of him. Organized Agriculture says—

He said so this afternoon—

He said so again here this afternoon.

It still remains the truth.

Organized Agriculture goes on to quote the Minister as having said—

Then Organized Agriculture says—

Mr. Speaker, the old parrot policy, the policy of saying something over and over again like a parrot until eventually you believe it yourself. I quote again—

What is so interesting is the fact that the hon. the Minister had such a great deal to say here about wine. We all know that the wine farmers are faring very well at the moment, and we know why they are doing well. After all, we all know about the Liquor Act which was introduced here. The higher prices have nothing to do with the hon. the Minister; he is in no way responsible for the fact that prices have risen. And then the hon. the Minister talks about the tremendous increase in prices which took place in the Lowveld of the Transvaal when people heard that they might be able to grow sugar there. But let us see what Agriculture says—

The success does not depend on the Minister but on strict control. Organized Agriculture goes on to say—

But now you are behaving like a parrot. What do you say about it?

That is what Agriculture has to say about the hon. the Minister.

What do you say?

Sir, I am afraid you would call me to order if I had to say what I thought about the hon. the Minister.

The hon. the Minister then goes on to say that the Government helped to keep the farmers on their farms. But has he forgotten that 28,000 farmers have disappeared from the platteland?

When; who are they?

He forgets that every year nearly 3,000 farmers clear off the platteland. And then he asks me to put my foot into it by talking about the prices of agricultural land and he asks me: “How must the Government keep these people on the platteland? Are you going to forbid them to buy more land; are you going to forbid them to leave the rural areas?” Sir, those questions are nonsensical. They are not questions which are worthy of a Minister; they are not even worthy of a back-bencher.

Reply to the question.

Naturally, nobody would forbid a person to purchase additional land, and naturally nobody would force a person to live in the rural areas, but is the fact of the matter not that the farmers left the platteland of their own volition because they found that farming was an uneconomic proposition and because of the fact that the Government did nothing to keep them there? The hon. the Minister sat here the whole afternoon but he paid no attention to what the hon. member for East London (City) was telling him. Let me read out a few quotations to him from the “Report of the General Council of the S.A. Agricultural Union for Submission to the Annual Conference”—

are facts which are accepted by many farmers. Surely the hon. the Minister knows that most farmers remain on their land simply because of the appreciation in the value of their land.

Does that apply to the platteland only?

It does not only apply to the value of agricultural land in the rural areas; land values in the whole of the Republic of South Africa in the peri-urban areas and in the cities are constantly rising and that is the only thing that keeps many of our farmers on their land. The hon. the Minister says that certain rich farmers have been selling their land.

But who buys that land?

Naturally there are some rich farmers who sell their land, but why do they do so? They do so because the value of the land has appreciated to such an extent that they are now able to get a decent price for it so that they can retire in their old age and live on that money. The hon. the Minister wants to know from me who the people are who are buying that land.

May I put a question to the hon. member? Who buys the land from those farmers who sell their land—other farmers?

Sir, I was busy replying to the hon. the Minister but he jumped up too soon. Naturally that land is bought by other farmers. They do not buy the land because of what they think they can make out of it but they buy it because hey know that land prices are appreciating …

Where do they get the money?

It is true that there are a few rich farmers who have sold their land, Mr. Speaker. What is it that makes the farmer who is worth his salt retain his land; what is it that makes him cling to it even under those difficult circumstances and under a Government which does not care what becomes of the farmers? Is it not the fact that it is the only asset which the farmer thinks he will be able to leave to his children, that is to say, a farm which is going to appreciate in value? What would become of the South African nation if we no longer had that love for our land, a love which we inherited from our forefathers and which impels us to retain our land at all costs so that we can leave it to our children from generation to generation? Does the hon. the Minister want the farming community to abandon their traditional policy of leaving their farms to their children?

He does not care.

Have you still got your land?

Sir. I still have my land and not even a bad Government will get me off my land.

Sir, I have various congress resolutions here. I have various reports here in connection with certain agricultural products and I want to quote these congress resolutions to you.

United Party congresses?

I want to quote congress resolutions of the S.A. Agricultural Union from the Report of the General Council, and if the hon. the Minister wants to tell the Agricultural Union that their congresses are United Party congresses, then I leave it at that.

I merely asked.

Do you admit that it was a United Party congress?

Order!

I come now to the various products. I want to quote what appears in the Report of the National Working Committee for Fresh Milk—

In which year was that resolution taken?

This is a quotation from the “Report of the General Council for Submission to the Annual Congress on 21, 22 and 23 October 1964” the congress from which the hon. the Deputy Minister ran away. I quote further—

What is spent here on agriculture?

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Deputy Minister will not put me off my stroke. He can work it out for himself.

May I put a question?

No, Mr. Speaker, my time is too limited. I should like to quote to the hon. the Deputy Minister what he himself said in regard to figures. Mention has been made of the gross income of the agricultural industry, but then they say that the total profit from agriculture that year was a little over R105,000,000, and they calculate it as follows—

The hon. member for Wakkerstroom, who has now become Deputy Minister, was one of those members who thought fit to sell his farm and to make a profit. I see that I reminded him of that fact in 1962. When I asked him in 1962 what prompted him to get rid of the farm which had belonged to the Martins family for all these years, he said various things. He then voiced criticism of this side of the House and said—

He was referring to the motion of the hon. member for Gardens and said—

Then he quoted from a publication, “A Survey of Contemporary Economic Conditions and Prospects for 1962”, and he asked to what conclusion they had come—

Then the hon. member said that meant the earning capacity of the population. That increased by 7 per cent, but what is the further finding? The further finding is that agriculture, forestry and fishing had increased by 9 per cent. Are those the qualifications of that hon. member which led to his being appointed a Minister, because he links up fisheries with agriculture?

What are your qualifications?

I shall tell the hon. member. My qualifications for being a member of this House are that I still subscribe to the principle I inherited from my forefathers, and that is that we should have a strong farming population in this country. The hon. member then went further and said a few other things. He said—

He said that while he was mentioning all the things they had done, like, e.g. how members of the Meat Board had gone to Europe, how the members of the Wool Board are always busy going overseas, how people Were sent to the East, how members of the Mealie Control East had gone to the United States, and how nicely these farmers had travelled—“hoe ry die boere, sit-sit-so”. Then he said it was such a pity that the farmers now wanted to sabotage all those attempts. Then he concluded by saying that he wanted to state four propositions, firstly that farmers were amongst the most honourable people in the world.

But surely they are.

But is it necessary for him to say so? Do we not all know it? Why is it necessary to state anything so obvious? I gained the impression that the hon. member did not know what to say. He said, further, that they fulfil their obligations. Secondly: Taken as a whole, our agriculture is basically sound, particularly when it is compared with that of other countries, and to-day it is much better than it was between 1936 and 1948. But he never came to the third one. Then comes the fourth one: The gross income of the farmers has kept pace and compares favourably with that of the urban population. Sir, I have now read out to you how many millions of rands it costs to show a small profit in the agricultural sector, and if those are the qualifications of that hon. member for being a Minister, I must simply say that I pity the farmers. I said at the outset that in so far as our people are concerned, one of the things by which we stood and which we appreciated was that the most stable section of our population was the farmers, the people of the platteland, the people who opened up the country and who learnt to rely on themselves and to stand on their own feet, and by those characteristics they strengthened the whole of the nation. Now we hear all kinds of other arguments. The hon. the Minister of Agricultural Economics and Marketing has now left the Chamber. It matters little to him whether one is here to-day and gone to-morrow. It is a sort of game—“Now I see you and then I do not.” That is how it is with agriculture to-day. But my time has elapsed and I just want to quote what was said by the Commission of Inquiry which investigated the depopulation of the platteland. They said—

To me this is more than just an agricultural debate. To me this is a debate which affects our holiest sanctity as a White nation, and here I do not wish to quote my own words, but the words of that Commission—

The hon. member who has just sat down has made a speech, and some of her colleagues also spoke, but I am still waiting for arguments to support their motion. I am still waiting for proof that there is a lack of planning in certain sectors of the agricultural industry. They have not touched on that yet. They have only carried on a general agricultural debate. I want to react to a few of the arguments used by the hon. member.

The hon. member said that production costs have nothing to do with land prices, or that land prices have nothing to do with production costs. Land prices simply appreciate and as the result the farmers stay on the land. Now it is fortunate that she at least admits that there is in fact appreciation of the value of agricultural land in South Africa, and now I want to ask where the greatest appreciation in land prices took place? Is it not in those sectors of the agricultural industry where production has increased most? What has happened in the Western Province in regard to land planted to vines and export grapes? Is that not the land which has increased most in value? Is it not the grainlands in the northern provinces where the greatest appreciation has taken place? And the appreciation has taken place because the production per morgen of that land has increased. It is as the direct result of the increased production that that land has increased in value.

But the hon. member used another argument which I am glad she used because her leader used exactly the same argument, an argument which does nothing but mislead the country, and that is the fact that under the régime of the National Party of 16 or 17 years 28,000 farmers have left their farms. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said on one occasion, and the hon. member for Drakensberg repeated it, and I am grateful to her for having done so because it enables me now to come back to that allegation, that 28,000 farmers have been driven off the land because the position of agriculture is so parlous. In the first place, I want to say that in fact 28,000 people did leave their farms in that period, but who are they? Were they land-owners?

Yes.

I definitely deny that. Those statistics include land-owners, share croppers and all the economically active Whites on the platteland. That being so, in the years 1936-46, during a period when there was not such tremendous industrial development, and when not so many other opportunities for work existed for people, 13,585 people left the platteland.

Yes, people but not farmers.

They are economically active White people who left the platteland. That proves to me that these arguments of the Opposition are simply misleading the public. It proves the futility of the arguments if they use them to prove that the policy of the National Party is not favourable towards agriculture. What is the most important principle of the policy of this party? I want to discuss this motion and talk about planning, and I want to say that the most important principle of the policy of the National Party is to make every farmer in the platteland an economically independent farmer. That is principle No. 1 of this Government. Why do I say that? I want to show the systematic manner, regarded from various angles, in which this Government is succeeding in that objective.

In the first place we know that last year the Minister appointed a Select Committee to investigate the whole matter of uneconomic units and to make representations in order to solve that problem. Surely that is clear proof that the Government is interested and that there is the desire to give effect to that ideal. But we find that there have been continual adaptations and revision of our financial schemes for agriculture. Last year we again revised the Land Settlement Act, and more financial assistance is continually being made available to the farmers. Financial assistance is provided in all kinds of ways, as the Minister has just said. We have the position under this Government, as the result of legislation it passed a few years ago, that the Land Bank was granted permission to obtain capital in the open market. Why? In order to make more capital available for agriculture. There are the Land Board and the various provisions of the Land Settlement Act, and from time to time more funds have been made available to purchase land, to enable small farmers to buy more land. We know that the Land Settlement Act has been amended in such a way as to enable the State to purchase uneconomic units offered to the State by the owners, so that they may be consolidated in order that more land may be made available to farmers, all attempts aimed at giving the farmers a better opportunity to make a living. All this forms part of the agricultural planning in order to give effect to that ideal of having a strong, economically sound and independent class of farmers.

We find that during the regime of this Government large sums of money, appreciably more than R150,000,000, was made available for irrigation schemes, and not only for the Orange River scheme. Various schemes have been tackled simply because it was in the interest of agriculture to do so, because it was one way of building up fodder banks, something with which the hon. member for East London (City) is so concerned. It is a means which is provided to enable the farmers to build up fodder banks in order to cope with droughts. I have in mind three Acts which stand there as the corner-stones of the agricultural industry, the Marketing Act, the Soil Conservation Act and the Co-operative Societies Act. These Acts are continually being adapted to fit in with changed circumstances and they are being implemented actively.

The accusation has been made by the Opposition that it will take 28 years to carry out all the farm plans which have already been completed. But does the Opposition not know that also in this respect there has been a new approach in order to cope with this problem of the shortage of technicians, and that the soil conservation committees themselves are now being trained to approve those farm plans? The result is that these works are being carried out at a very fast tempo. It so happened that last night we heard a talk over the radio by Mr. Penzhorn on this same subject, in which he mentioned the tremendous improvement which has been made in this respect. Sir, hon. members of the Opposition are listening to people who are not connected with agriculture. They listen to little sums made by those people, and they do not use their own brains. They do not make use of the facilities for obtaining information which they can get from the Agricultural Departments. They refuse to do so. That is the reason why they advance these misleading arguments here.

We find that in so far as research and agricultural planning are concerned, a completely new course, which has never before been followed, has been adopted by this Government. In regard to economic agricultural planning, this Government has been very active ever since 1958 in doing research in this direction. We find that it has obtained the assistance of hundreds of active farmers and that tremendous progress has been made in this respect. We find that as the result of the application of the results obtained from this research, tremendous progress has been made in respect of the margins of profit attained on farms. This Government is definitely and systematically planning to make our agriculture sound and independent.

I should like to revert to a few of the arguments used by hon. members opposite. The hon. member for Drakensberg (Mrs. S. M. van Niekerk) advanced the argument that agriculture is not sharing in the prosperity of the country. One of the reasons they mentioned in support of that argument was the fact that the contribution made by agriculture to the national income fell during the last ten years from 15 per cent to 10 per cent. They do not talk about the relative contributions of agriculture. There is nothing wrong with the fact that the total net contribution of agriculture to the total net national income has declined. On the contrary, that is essential; it is necessary that this should be so if agriculture wants to make progress. If the standard of living of the farmer has to rise, if he has to share in the present economic prosperity, there must simply be an expansion in the other spheres of the economy; then industrial development must take place on a much larger scale than the tempo at which agriculture is developing, because markets have to be created for the farmers’ products. The markets must first be there, and then agriculture can expand. If the market is there, if the purchasing power is there, the farmer can produce more and then he can sell his products, and then there can be a rise in his standard of living and in the prices of agricultural products. That is precisely what is happening now. I say it is a prerequisite that this development should take place in other spheres of the economy. But statistics controvert the statement made here by the Opposition that agriculture is not sharing in the economic prosperity of the country. From 1951-2 to 1962-3 the net national income of the Republic increased by 4.6 per cent. The actual rate of increase of agriculture was 4.3 per cent, which is on practically an equal footing with the average rise in the national income. But as the result of the fact that economically active Whites leave agriculture in large numbers and engage in other forms of activity where there are much greater opportunities than ever before, the per capita income of the farmer is higher than the 4.3 per cent by which the agricultural industry as a whole has progressed in this period of 11 or 12 years. The per capita income of the farmer has shown a greater increase than the per capita income of the population as a whole.

Another argument which was used here again to-day is that we produce the cheapest food in the world. That is used as an argument as to why the prices of primary products should be increased.

Nobody said that.

Oh yes, this argument has also been used in agricultural circles. The hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Connan) used it to-day; he said that we produced the cheapest food in the world. What does such an argument mean? If hon. members and people outside who use that argument mean that the standard of living of our South African farmer is consequently lower than that of farmers in other countries where the prices of agricultural products are higher, then they must say so, but they do not say it, and they cannot say it because it simply is not true.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 32 and motion lapsed.