I move—

This Act was welcomed by this side of the House and in speaking on the third reading I do not wish to imply that we will in any way check its passing, but there are one or two aspects which were not fully dealt with in the previous stages and which I think should be high-lighted now.

I want to draw attention particularly to the fact that now that the hon. the Minister is providing free vaccines and other substances, and he has the power already to make a decree for compulsory immunization under any circumstances that he wishes, I think certain difficulties are going to arise and perhaps he could give some indication as to how he intends to meet them. I refer in particular to the compulsory aspect because there are people in this world who honestly and genuinely object most strongly to any form of injection or anything which breaks the surface of the skin. Some even go so far as to refuse to take medicine, like the Christian Scientists. There are also others who object on the ground that the treatment or the prophylaxis is not altogether free from danger, and here I refer to those people who have heard of the accidents and untoward complications which have arisen in cases of vaccination against smallpox, with disastrous effects such as encephalitis. These two aspects of compulsory vaccination can be troublesome and in other countries, of course, provision is made for conscientious objectors. In the case of a country like England, which is fairly thoroughly vaccinated against smallpox, or at least one thought so, there was last year a fairly widespread outbreak of smallpox following upon the admission to the Midlands of England of a Pakistani who was incubating and who slipped through the immigration mesh not, I think, through any fault of the doctors there but simply because he was not at that time recognizable as being a sufferer, though the absence of vaccination was inexcusable. We also last year had the outbreak in Port Elizabeth following upon the introduction of a Rhodesian woman who slipped through unnoticed. We have also had other outbreaks, chiefly in the non-White areas.

In a country such as this there is always the danger of smallpox, and smallpox is really always with us. The only way to combat it is to have, as far as possible, a fully vaccinated population. In that case, if a few people happen to escape or are conscientious objectors, it is not very dangerous because their neighbours are vaccinated, but the evidence we have from these two outbreaks shows that there has been considerable laxity in insisting on vaccination. I should like the Minister to assure the House that he is satisfied that this slackness will be overcome and that he will see that all newly-born babies throughout the country are vaccinated—and as far as possible all children reaching puberty are revaccinated, thus everyone is vaccinated twice at least during his lifetime. In the case of smallpox, the Minister was also faced with the problem that he had no virologists to take charge of the laboratory and of the animal house where he manufactures his vaccine. Can he assure me that this difficulty has now been overcome. Furthermore, I should like to know something from him about what he does to protect the population from plague. This is always with us and in addition to that, has he any idea that there may soon be some prophylaxis for those people who live in the proximity of these infected rat colonies? Is anything being done to protect these people other than by way of the destruction of rats which destruction is never complete. Lastly, I ask him whether among substances for combating and preventing disease, which he is going to supply free, he intends to include large amounts of the various antibiotics which have a particular action in certain epidemic diseases. You see, Sir, for some years there has been available a well-known antibiotic which makes typhoid fever almost a minor disease. In cases of this sort will the profession be able to apply to his Department for a free supply of these drugs? Lastly, will he consider or ask his Department to consider not using the vaccine for typhoid immunization when he has at his disposal this good remedy, since if there are objectors to this injection I feel it would be unjust and unfair for him to use his powers of compulsion.

It is difficult for me to reply to all the questions put by the hon. member without infringing the Rules of the House because this Bill is really an amending Bill empowering the Central Government to provide local authorities with immunization material free of charge. I shall, therefore, have to be careful that I do not enlarge too much on this but I should like to reply to a few relevant questions.

The hon. member asked what our policy was in respect of compulsory immunization of persons. The Department has always adopted the attitude that nobody has the right to endanger the health or life of others and where it is necessary to immunize somebody in order to safeguard others exemption is not granted, but where the person himself is the only person concerned, where he only seeks exemption for himself, we are fairly generous in granting permission. Because we think the Government is in a better position than the father who, purely on account of personal considerations, exposes the child to serious dangers, to decide whether or not it is in the interests of the child. As the hon. member rightly said in general people are slack as far as immunization is concerned. When there is not a serious outbreak of smallpox or other disease they do not regard it as very dangerous and where we are dealing with a very large non-White population who do not believe in immunization the problem becomes extremely difficult. I think I have already told hon. members in this House that I was recently amongst the Bantu in certain areas where they had to be immunized and where I was informed that they simply said to our officials: “White man, we do not need you and your medicines.” That is their approach. It is only when a disease breaks out and they really begin to appreciate the importance of immunization that they co-operate. Our problem is extremely difficult but it becomes so much more difficult because you cannot prove that a person has not been immunized and you can hardly expect a Bantu to prove that he has been immunized if he is not pock-marked. Therefore to prove that a Bantu has not been immunized, to prosecute him and to compel him to be immunized, is practically an impossible task. We have to succeed in getting the co-operation of the non-Whites generally before we shall ever succeed in having 100 per cent immunization as in other countries.

The final question I can reply to at this stage because it is relevant is whether we also provide other antibiotics free of charge. If the hon. member will look at the clause again he will notice that it deals only with immunization material. In other words, we are only taking the power to provide local authorities with immunization material free of charge, not antibiotics.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

When this debate was interrupted last night …

Order! Before the hon. member proceeds I would like to draw his attention to a remark that he made yesterday, namely that “the Nationalist Party were the greatest rapists of the constitution before the establishment of the Republic”. I ask the hon. member to withdraw the word “rapists”

Sir, if you order me to do so then I must withdraw it and may I substitute …

In a point of order, Sir, will you explain what is wrong with the word used in that context? It is a perfectly legitimate word that is used in ordinary common society at any time and on any occasion. Is there anything wrong with the word, not only in that context but in any other context?

Order! The Chair decides which words are parliamentary and which words are not. The hon. member must withdraw the word “rapists”

Sir, on a point of order may I draw your attention to the fact that the word “rapist” is commonly used in the English language. For instance, there is a poem, “The Rape of the Loch”, and I assume that the hon. member has been using it in that context.

Order! There are many words in common usage in the English language but which are not parliamentary. The hon. member must withdraw the word.

I withdraw it and may I substitute the word “ravishers”

When the debate was interrupted last night I was dealing with the contempt with which this Minister is treating the House and the constitution of every single elected body which our Constitution provides for. Sir, what have the hon. the Minister and his colleague on that side of the House done during this whole debate? The hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) was the first member on this side to speak on this debate, and he moved an amendment and dealt with the various aspects of the Bill and we have not had one answer from any hon. member on that side. The hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn) nibbled around the edges and dealt with certain legal points and asked certain questions. Sir, I have no time to deal with those questions this morning; we can deal with them in the Committee Stage. One point on which he took up the hon. member for South Coast was the question of ejecting people without notice, and he said that this was a common thing. Sir, I want to tell him that even the Rents Act gives seven days’ grace for payment to people who do not pay their rent on the due date.

Last night the other side put up the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. J. A. F. Nel) to ask certain questions. The hon. member asked certain questions and he demanded a reply. I am not afraid to answer his questions, but you know, Sir, we have great difficulty in answering questions from members on that side of the House dealing with matters of this kind because we work in a different frame of mind.

Of course we do.

The attitude of hon. members on the other side and of the Minister—witness this Bill—towards things like group areas, towards development and towards government itself, towards our very Constitution, is so basically different from ours that when the hon. member asks a question he asks it with one frame of mind and I have to answer it with another frame of mind. Words do not mean the same thing to the hon. member and to members on this side. He is motivated in this question by prejudice; I have to answer his questions motivated by ideals. His attitude of mind is one of race hatred; I have to answer him in matters such as this with an attitude of mind of human charity, of Christian charity. He asks whether we are in favour of group areas. Does he not know the legislation that was passed by the United Party Government before? We are in favour of separate residential areas for the different racial groups but we would like them to be voluntarily developed if possible. The method of achieving such an object depends on your attitude of mind, and their attitude of mind and our attitude of mind are almost irreconcilable. [Interjection.] He wants to know whether we are in favour of group areas development. His whole mind is pigeonholed as to group areas. We are in favour of the development of all the areas of South Africa, and we do not make it a condition precedent to that development that there should be regimentation, that our constitution should be abandoned and that all the normal agencies through which people in South Africa have worked since a century before Union should all be abandoned at the altar of a Minister, of a government, whose attitude to elected institutions and to individuals is, “If you are in my way, in the way of my policy, you have to go because I am going to do what I want regardless of your attitude or your wishes”. Then he asks whether development should be speeded up. Of course, development should be speeded up. He says that if the local authorities are not prepared to develop areas, must the Government help them to bring it about? Of course, Sir, the United Party Government always helped local authorities to bring about changes when changes were needed. How does he think the slums in his own area were cleared up before the war? Who does he think built Bokmakiri and Athlone?

Sir, the hon. member for South Coast asked a question which the Minister did not deal with; he asked, “What does the expression ‘urban renewal scheme’ mean?” I challenge the hon. the Minister to deny that in terms of this Bill as it stands now, with no definition of “urban renewal scheme”, the hon. the Minister can take any established area, not one but any established area—not a slum, as the hon. member for South Coast pointed out, an area with which there is nothing wrong—he can take that area and do what he likes with it. He can create a slum there in the end. He can interfere with the rights of every single householder in this country in terms of this Bill. He did not even mention what it meant in his opening address, and not one hon. member on that side has dealt with it. Sir, what does the hon. Minister have in mind? What is he going to do with South Africa; what is this community development that he foresees going to do in South Africa? It has nothing to do with group areas at all. He takes this power here and I say that he takes it surreptitiously because he has not dealt with it at all and it is not defined in the Bill. Even the hon. member for Kempton Park was unhappy about it; he thought it ought to be defined. Sir, this means whatever the hon. the Minister wants it to mean. We want to know what it does mean and we want to know what the hon. the Minister is going to do with it.

You see, Sir, people who buy property in established areas are entitled to the protection of the law in relation to those houses; they are entitled to the protection of the Constitution and they are entitled to have security. As the hon. member for Umlazi (Mr. Lewis) said, every man is entitled to regard his home as his castle, without interference from a Minister, without being subjected to the whims of one Minister. The man bought his house under certain conditions, under a certain state of affairs, having regard to the laws we have and having regard to the Constitution as it is, and no-one in this country, whether he be a Nationalist supporter or otherwise, wants this hon. Minister with his attitude towards the development of South Africa to interfere with the rights which are his heritage, the right to a home—and most people in this country own only one home during their lifetime.

Perhaps the hon. the Minister in his reply will tell us what this Bill is about. Goodness knows that neither he nor any of his supporters has given us any indication as to what the Minister is trying to get at in terms of this Bill. Sir, we have moved an amendment, the amendment has not been answered and we are going to vote against this Bill, and the hon. the Minister must give us an explanation as to what it means, as to where he wants to go, and he must assure the people of South Africa that he is not trying in this Bill, as it appears, to interfere with people who have nothing to do with slum clearance, who have nothing to do with his group areas development, and people who are entitled to feel safe from the machinations of this Minister’s Department.

I hope the hon. member who has just sat down will be patient. Certain figures have just come in my possession in connection with which I want to ask him a question.

He cannot reply to that.

The hon. member must not be ridiculous. In that case I shall confront the hon. member with the statement he has made here. When the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. J. A. F. Nel) asked him last night whether he wanted the Government to help them in Durban or not, the hon. member replied “leave us alone”

He said Durban (North).

Must I take it that what applies to Durban (North) does not apply to Durban?

No.

The hon. member must not hedge. He said “Leave us alone”. Does he only want Durban (North) to be left alone or does he also wish Durban to be left alone? No, now he is carrying on a conversation; he lacks the courage of his convictions.

What is the position in Durban? During the period 1962 to 1964 loans were granted to Durban by my Department—this bad, miserable Department, according to the hon. member for Umlazi (Mr. Lewis)—for economic development in an amount of R14,000,000, R5,600,000 for sub-economic development making a total of R20,278,000. The hon. member says “Leave us alone”. In Durban the National Housing Commission’s own schemes amount to R419,000; the Development Board which is such a miserable lot according to the hon. member for Umlazi: R712,000. Does the hon. member want us to leave Durban alone and withdraw these loans?

Yes, withdraw them.

No, now he laughs; now he is sitting there like a bald-headed Father Christmas. No, what he wants is for us to pour this amount of over R20,000,000 into Durban without having any say as to how it should be spent; that is what he wants and that illustrates the attitude of the hon. member who always presents himself here as a superior person; that illustrates how his whole attitude lacks foundation. The City Council of Durban will not thank him for his assistance and the public of Durban will not thank him. That is why, when the City Council of Durban or public organizations of Durban want to negotiate with my Department, they no longer do it through those hon. members; they approach us direct.

They leave them alone.

Mr. Speaker, in the course of my speech I shall deal further with the points raised by the hon. member because he has only repeated what his Natal leader and others have said. The first accusation made by the hon. member for South Coast was “that the Minister is taking excessive powers to develop pieces of land outside group areas.” According to his amendment he wants it to be limited to group areas. The very party who has always opposed the principle of group areas only wants the principles of the Group Areas Act to apply in terms of their amendment. That shows you, Sir, how logical that party is in its actions! In terms of Section 12 of the existing Act we already have the power, for the purposes of group areas development, to act outside proclaimed group areas. The hon. member for South Coast and other members on that side overlooked that. We already have the power. All we are asking for here is that that power should also apply where we want to act outside group areas, not only for the purposes of group areas but for the purposes of urban renewal or for the purposes of slum clearance. What do we mean? We mean this: That when you declare an area a slum area under the existing Slum Clearance Act you are entitled to declare it a slum area but there is no other machinery except the Development Board, in this case, or the National Housing Commission, in limited cases, to clear up that slum and redevelop the area. I just want to say to hon. members that since we have amended the Slum Clearance Act there has been a noticeable improvement in the exercise of the powers granted under the Act. I trust hon. members will raise this matter under my Vote and I shall then give them the information; it is not relevant here. We must have the machinery to clear a slum when an area has been declared a slum area, and bring about something new in its place. The hon. member for South Coast said “Get on with the job”. Mr. Speaker, we are busy doing that at numbers of places but hon. members opposite are not interested in that. Last year already I made an offer to the committee members of that party who were interested or who ought to be interested in this matter that I would arrange for them to be taken on a tour. Did they go? No, they do not want to see these things. They do not want to see how we have cleared up the slum conditions in Goodwood Acres; they do not want to see what we are doing at Windermere; they do not want to see what we are doing in the old Sophiatown. I say we must have the instrument to convert into something else, that which has been declared a slum, and the Development Board is pre-eminently the indicated body for that purpose because the National Housing Commission is limited to low-cost houses according to the Housing Act. Providing low-cost houses is not the only way in which to give a slum area another character. The hon. member talked about urban renewal; I shall deal with that in a moment.

You should have dealt with that in your introductory speech.

That hon. member is the last person I shall allow to tell me how to make my speech. Last night he talked about “that type of Minister”; I just want to tell him that

I shall not allow that type of member to tell me what to do.

The hon. members for South Coast, Florida (Mr. Miller) and Karoo (Mr. Eden) spoke about “excessive and arbitrary powers taken by the Minister”. But, Sir, they have not read the Bill because in most cases, where reference is made to the powers of the Minister, this Bill, as printed, merely contains existing sections. It is only in a few single instances where the Minister is acquiring such new powers, but the principle is already contained in the existing Act. Their whole argument was based on powers which already existed. Let me give you one example, Sir: The hon. member for South Coast argued at length about the Registrar of Deeds whom we are now supposedly placing in a difficult position. But the principle contained in Sub-section (3) of Section 2 is the same principle as that contained in Clause 6 (b); it is a principle of which this Parliament has already approved. It is a principle with which the Registrar of Deeds agreed after we had approached him. We approached him and he said “yes” it could be done. He was approached personally but the hon. member for South Coast makes a terrible fuss about the injustice we are committing towards the Registrar of Deeds. It is a principle which is already contained in the existing Act and he bases his whole argument on that. In other words, he talks about a principle which has already been accepted in the legislation of the country.

Then we had the most terrible statement of all from the hon. member for South Coast. He says “The Minister is putting up a lot of hotch-potch buildings and creating future slums”. Then he asks “Where is this slum clearance?”. The hon. member for South coast revealed a great measure of ignorance when he said “He is putting up a lot of hotch-potch buildings and creating future slums”, because you must remember, Sir, that we are now dealing with the Development Act and the Development Board does not build sub-economic schemes. In other words, if he has sub-economic schemes in mind as future slum areas, he is getting nearer to the National Housing Commission which does not come into the picture here. Nowhere does the Development Board build sub-economic housing. However, the hon. member comes here and makes a terrible fuss and says we are building slums. All the standards observed by the Development Board are higher than the highest standard of house erected by the National Housing Commission for economic units and that is precisely why the Development Board is used to provide the housing which the National Housing Commission cannot undertake. But the hon. member says they are slums. He is talking in ignorance because all he has to do is to go to Duinefontein, 12 miles from here, and see the scheme the Development Board has carried out there; then he must come back and tell us whether it is a slum. Let him go there. Let him go to Bosmond on the Witwatersrand and see whether that is a slum; let him go to Westville in Durban where we have now entered into an agreement with the City Council that the Development Board will build there; I shall show him the letters the City Council of Westville have written to us in which they express their appreciation of the type of dwelling we are going to erect there. But the hon. member talks about the slums we are building.

I did not say what you have quoted: that is the point.

We were talking about the Development Act and the hon. member said, “He is putting up a lot of hotch-potch buildings and creating future slums”

I have my Hansard here and that is not what I said.

What did the hon. member say?

The hon. the

Minister has ascribed certain words to me and I say I did not use those words. Here I have my Hansard.

Mr. Speaker, then I am either mad or stupid because I wrote down the words of the hon. member and everybody on this side is my witness. I still said to him: “Quote me one example where we are building a slum.” The hon. member is a reasonable person and I want to ask him whether I did not ask him to “give me one example where I am building a slum”? Let him be reasonable.

You put a question to me.

Why would I put such a question to him if he had not made that accusation? The hon. member is now running away from his wild allegation. I say that does not behove him with his status. We all have too much respect for him and we do not expect him to come and sling mud about in this House.

On a point of order, I am asking the hon. the Minister to accept my word when I say I did not say that. I did not say it; I have my Hansard here. He must not argue about what I said or what I did not say; he must accept my word.

I shall allow myself to be accused of misrepresenting anything. The accusation was that we were creating future slums; that we were erecting “hotch-potch” buildings.

I did not say that. And I ask the hon. the Minister to accept my word.

Order! The hon. member for South Coast has explained what he said and I think the hon. Minister must accept it.

Very well, Mr. Speaker, then I accept that the hon. member is running away from his wild statements. [Interjections.] In the second place …

On a point of order, has the hon. the Minister carried out your injunction when he said he accepted that the hon. member was running away from his wild statements?

Order! The hon. the

Minister has accepted it and he is continuing with his speech.

In the second place, even the sub-economic housing provided by the National Housing Commission is of such a nature that it can at any time be converted into economic units. It is planned in that way. The land is planned in that way; the housing is planned in that way. The very object is that they would eventually become economic units. I hope hon. members will be sufficiently responsible to stop spreading these senseless stories in the country.

I do not want to waste too much time on these minor points. A number of serious accusations have been made. In the fourth place, the question of “compensation for goodwill” has been raised here. In the past only compensation for value of buildings and land was paid under this legislation. After I became Minister I paid special attention to this matter in order to see whether further compensation could not be paid because in the past we have had to make ex gratia payments as hon. members know. We decided to follow the example set in the Housing Act which has worked well for years. That is why we are now saying we are prepared to take the question of “goodwill” into account as well. We shall accept the same principle as that contained in the Housing Act which works well. But in this respect we go further than the Housing Act because we take the year which has been most profitable to the person. He can choose it. But instead of hon. members saying they are pleased about these improvements, I am attacked on this issue which is presented as part of the cruel attitude I am supposed to be adopting towards people and their rights. I am responsible for the principle of ex gratia payments being made. This step of introducing compensation for goodwill has also been taken on my personal initiative. I am taking the example of an existing Act which works well. And hon. members are attacking me for having done so. Sir, that is the kind of attitude you get from an irresponsible Opposition.

The hon. member for South Coast made a further point. I hope he will listen because I do not want to do him an injustice. He said “members of boards are now also to become inspectors appointed by the secretary of the board”. Am I doing the hon. member an injustice when I say that? “Members of boards are now also to become inspectors appointed by the secretary of the board”. Did the hon. member say that?

When you have learnt to be courteous towards me I shall be courteous towards you.

Mr. Speaker, before I have finished with this hon. member he will be standing on his head clapping his feet together.

Very courteous.

The hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) is the last person in this House to talk about being courteous. The last person. I now tell the hon. member that that statement of his was also wrong.

Why “also”? Where was he wrong previously?

As his whole speech was wrong and as the hon. member’s entire political life has been wrong. That is why he runs from one constituency to another. I say to the hon. member for South Coast that it is not the secretary of the board who appoints these members but the head of the Department. I explained in my introductory speech that it was the secretary of the Department and not that of the board. They are not listening now, Sir; they are trying to determine what he said or did not say. I am telling him it is the secretary of the Department who makes the appointments and not the secretary of the board. I am telling him that these outside officials who are appointed are appointed to gather statistics and other information for the board so that the board can have the necessary facts at its disposal before it decides. What are we doing further? We say the members of the board must also have the right to enter upon an area and conduct inspections themselves. Why? Because we have constituted the board in such a way that every area in the country will fall under a member of the board. Before a member of the board comes to any decision or makes suggestions at the board meetings he must have been in a position of ascertaining for himself whether the facts at his disposal were correct. The hon. member objects to that. That is the kind of stupidity on the part of the Opposition we have to deal with. Sir.

The most serious allegation made by the hon. member for South Coast, the hon. member for Florida, the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel) and the hon. member for Peninsula (Mr. Bloomberg) was that “The Minister is usurping the powers of local authorities”; “he is freezing property” “cutting across established regulations, town planning schemes and therefore the board is to be exempted from certain restrictions”

Hear, hear!

That was the charge. Mr. Speaker, do you hear those “hear, hears”—they won’t therefore be in a position again to run away from their story.

Why do you say

“again run away”

Because I am accustomed to the hon. member for Yeoville, for example, running away from everything he does.

No, no, now …

Order!

On a point of order, the hon. the Minister is continually suggesting that …

Order! That is not a point of order. The hon. the Minister did not suggest that. The hon. Minister may continue.

I say, in the first place, we are only taking these steps where Government funds are being used. In other words, where the Government makes funds available, as it is now doing in Durban and in other city and town areas, the Government regards it as its right also to be able to lay down the conditions under which those funds are to be utilized. That conforms with the practice of the best organizations of this kind throughout the Western World. Where the Government makes its funds available it also prescribes how those funds should be utilized. That also happens in Boston, America, for the information of the hon. member for Hospital.

Were you there?

No, but I know that they are carrying out a scheme there costing over £90,000,000, money given by the Central Government, and that it is being carried out on its conditions.

What about the local authority?

I am coming to that; I shall reply to you in a moment. So as to ensure that these Government funds are utilized in the right channels we have our own town planners, our own architects and our own engineers. In other words, these schemes are not simply embarked upon on an improper scale at the whim of a Minister; it is being done in consultation with the town planners, architects and engineers available to us, people of whom I am particularly proud. But in spite of that—this was one of the main charges made by that side—we do not do anything anywhere without first having thoroughly consulted the local authorities. I want to say this this morning that with the exception of a few my Department and I personally are on the best footing with most of the city councils.

Your colleagues do not believe that.

As an example I want to say that in a city like Johannesburg the City Council, which does not hold my political views, has agreed to serve on a Government Committee and to undertake the further development there under the guidance of that committee and on our conditions. And that after I have conducted the negotiations. But hon. members tell me I am a dictator who does not want to have anything to do with city councils. Do you see, Mr. Speaker, when one replies to the Opposition they walk about; then they talk; they do not want to listen.

When you become courteous we shall also be courteous.

Hon. members think they can abuse me, as the hon. member for Durban (North) (Mr. M. L. Mitchell) has been telling me my fortune since yesterday, but that I should not retaliate. [Interjections.]

The Burger will again say you are becoming …

I wish the hon. member would look how the Burger depicts him in their cartoons.

The Durban City Council has had discussions with me not once but often in the best spirits and at the moment they are considering a suggestion of a joint committee between my Department and them. I can give numerous other examples. Here in Cape Town, in connection with the areas which have fallen in disrepair, like District Six, there is a joint committee consisting of members of my Department and the Cape Town City Engineer who, with the permission of the Cape Town City Council, serves on that committee. All these things have come about not only as a result of departmental action but because I personally took part in those discussions. Now hon. members tell me I am ignoring city councils; I am taking no notice of them.

I want to return to the hon. member for South Coast. I have his Hansard here. I think the time has arrived for us to clear up this little matter. I have his Hansard speech here. The hero of Natal! “These schemes are simply just hotch-potch schemes, schemes thrown together to meet the need of the moment as the Minister may determine. That is what is taking place”

That is not what you said.

Did I not quote this a moment ago? [Interjections.]

Where is your Hansard?

On the next page: “Is he not just building up slums in the place of those he has demolished?” I say: What shameful conduct. What shameful conduct on the part of a so-called leader! [Interjections.] The hon. member ought to stand on his head now and clap his feet together.

That is not what you said.

That is not what you said.

That somebody can deny his own words here in Parliament; sitting with his Hansard report before him he denies that he said it. What a disgrace, Sir.

Mr. Speaker, I refuse to sit down under this. The Minister did not say those were the words. I demand that we submit my Hansard and his to you tomorrow morning. I demand it; I am entitled to demand it.

Order!

I am not going to sit down and take that from a Minister such as this …

Order! The hon. member can resume his seat. I shall attend to this personally.

I am entitled to insist that the Minister accept my word. He has my Hansard. I did not say it. According to the Rules of the House I am entitled to insist that the Minister accept my word.

Order!

Mr. Speaker, I, too, am going to … [Interjections.]

Order! I shall attend to this matter personally in due course. The hon. Minister may proceed.

I shall also give some attention to it. He says: “He has started development schemes in areas where it is quite clear that those schemes will be swept over by the natural growth of our towns and cities. That must be so. Then those people will have to be uprooted. There will have to be re-planning again. These schemes are simply just hotch-potch schemes.” That is what I quoted.

That is not what you said. We shall get your Hansard and show you.

I quoted; I said “He is putting up a lot of hotch-potch buildings … [Interjections.]”

Do you see now!

“ … and creating future slums.” It says here: “These are simply just hotch-potch schemes, schemes thrown together to meet the need of the moment.”

Yes.

That is precisely what I quoted.

No.

“Is he not just building up slums in the place of those he has demolished? I say, Mr. Speaker, what a disgrace for a so-called responsible member. [Interjections.] He is getting his hiding and he must take it. What these hon. members do not know either and what they have completely ignored …

Why do you not speak the truth?

Holy Politics!

Order!

I appreciate why he feels like that because he has already on numerous occasions made a fool of himself in this House.

Surely a scheme means houses.

What he means perhaps is that it must be a scheme in which the tears of the United Party can be collected. Neither is it a sewerage scheme.

What the hon. member and his kindred spirits have ignored completely is the fact that under the guidance of my Department a committee of experts has been appointed to go into the question of new building methods and material. They have submitted a report—the Louw Report. That report has been made available to the building organizations in South Africa. It has been made available to all the city councils. But I was decent enough to go further. I also made some of those reports available to the United Party. I want to ask the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield) whether my Department did not place him in possession of certain documents concerning the Louw Report and the housing code?

That is so.

In other words, I have also made the most modern suggestions regarding building material and building methods available to organizations throughout the country, including local authorities and the official Opposition. But they ignore the fact that in order to be able to apply new building methods and in order to use other material you cannot act in terms of the existing obsolete town regulations and by-laws. You cannot act under them because most of our by-laws and town regulations prohibit the use of building material and building methods. They know we are trying to have standard regulations accepted throughout South Africa. The South African Bureau of Standards is busy with it but it will obviously still be some considerable time before all local authorities have accepted them. Where the Government is obliged to carry out certain schemes to meet certain housing needs it must see to it that it has the necessary power in conformity with the requirements of new building methods. They accuse me of being a dictator. They have the information. They have the Louw Report which I sent them.

You are dealing with the Housing Bill at the moment.

Oh no. The Group Areas Development Board itself, my miserable friend, makes use of these powers. But I know the hon. member would not understand it.

I want to go a little further. I am supposed to be the person who takes no notice of the Administrators! Last year already I had discussions with the Administrators here in my office in Cape Town. Afterwards I personally attended the inter-provincial Administrators’ conference at which all the members of the Executive Committees were present. I discussed these methods with them. I discussed my problems with them. We parted on the best of terms. But they say I ignore the Administrators. I also had discussions with the United Municipal Executive. The United Municipal Executive met me last week after their meeting here in Cape Town. They came and saw me in regard to this legislation which had then already been published and introduced. They subsequently confirmed their discussion in a letter which I received on 17 February 1965. In that letter they referred to legislation concerning housing and the development of communities. They are the two Bills we are now discussing. Here is the letter: I am prepared to show it to any hon. members. They ask me to do two things in this letter …

Withdraw the Bill!

You are wrong. They ask me to do only two things. In the first place they ask me to amend a certain provision in these two Bills in such a way that the Board and the commission will not have the right to ignore town regulations and by-laws but that the board and the commission will only have that right after I as Minister have given it to them. Sir, shall I read the letter—

That is their suggestion. They do not propose that the board should have this right or that the commission should have it but that the Minister should have it. That is the Executive Committee of the municipal associations.

Why don’t you clap your hands?

Order! I should like the hon. member for Boland (Mr. Barnett) not to make this House appear ridiculous. I warn him.

What is more this body further informed me that they had no objection to any of the other provisions in this Bill. It is the United Municipal Executive.

I go a bit further. I think the Opposition has lost touch with what is happening in the rest of the country to such an extent that one could perhaps not blame them for acting the way they are. Not only am I accused of “usurping the power” but that I am “freezing property”. Here I have a letter. It was written on 3 August 1964:

Signed. Sir by the Town Clerk of Johannesburg! Look at them now, Mr. Speaker!

They are only a local authority.

Now they are only a local authority! Yesterday I was accused of ignoring local authorities! Sir. have you ever heard anything more ridiculous than this.

Hon. members now ask me why all this power if all the local authorities co-operate with me? I said a moment ago that I had the co-operation of most local authorities. As a matter of fact, I am on the best of terms, personally, with most mayors and town clerks and housing committees of the big cities. We have our differences but they also know that once I have adopted a stand in regard to a principle I do not keep changing that stand as they could have expected that side of the House to do. But there are city councils who act foolishly. During the past year the Development Board and the Housing Commission purchased nearly 2,500 plots in areas which have already been planned. Why have we done that? We have purchased these nearly 2,500 plots because we want to expedite the provision of housing, and furthermore so that we are not dependent on the provision of services and planning which sometimes take a considerable time; so that we can carry on immediately with the building of houses.

In this way the Development Board, which is the body concerned here, purchased 300 plots in a certain town. The City Council then met and decided by a majority vote that they would not allow us to build there according to our standards. And remember that the standards applied by the Development Board are higher than those of the Housing Commission. They decided that they would not allow us, Sir. and the assistance of the ratepayers’ association was then called in. I then had the position investigated there. It was found that there were 4,500 registered voters in that city or town, that the ratepayers’ association consisted of 100 members and that at the meeting at which it was decided that we be not allowed to apply our standards there were 38 persons present of whom 24 were ratepayers. Am I to be expected to knuckle under to this small city council where I can house 300 families? That is what the Opposition want. That is why I say we shall carry on with it and we shall provide the facilities to the people of South Africa and not allow such foolish actions to thwart our endeavours.

The hon. member for Karoo (Mr. Eden) said—I do not want to do him an injustice; he must tell me if he did not use the words—“the Minister makes it difficult for local authorities to act.”

That is right.

He went on—Is the Minister going to ride roughshod over local authorities so that people are forced to black belts of towns?

That is more or less the main theme of the hon. member’s speech.

The outer perimeter.

Very well, I shall furnish the hon. member for Karoo with a reply. I shall not reply to him on this point. I shall let a very well-known member of the City Council of Kimberley reply to him and then I shall leave it at that. I shall not make any comment on it. He and that city councillor can then settle it between themselves. I quote from the Diamond Fields Advertiser of 1 December:

I admit this City Councillor is speaking after my own heart because that is what I want. Do you know who it is, Sir? Mr. Graham S. Eden, M.P.! I suggest to the hon. member for Karoo that he goes and talks to Mr. Eden of Kimberley;, that he grants him an audience and the two of them can then settle the matter between themselves. That is also my reply at the same time to the accusation contained in the question of “Is the Minister going to ride rougshod over local authorities?” The reply is no. All I say is that where Government funds are used we should not be tied down by obsolete regulations. We should be able to use concrete, timber frame construction, timber-syporex, if necessary, and any other building methods and use other building material to meet this specific problem. I am not therefore going to ride “roughshod” over local authorities. Surely the hon. member for Karoo is one of those people who, for the sake of being reasonable, will say that as far as I personally am concerned, I have always been willing to co-operate with the City Council of Kimberley in the most decent manner. I do not think he can deny that.

Were you not my guest there on one occasion?

Yes, exactly, but that proves that the party to which the hon. member belongs is wrong, does it not. Now the hon. member says “people are forced to the perimeters of the towns”. But surely I have dealt with this matter on numerous occasions. Why is it that it is the Coloureds and the Indians who are moved in most cases? Firstly, because over the years, for various reasons, they have come to occupy those areas of our cities and towns which are in the worst state of disrepair. I admit there are exceptions. But they have come to occupy those areas mostly and if you wish to do something for those areas you have to remove the people from them. In the second place when you resettle a Coloured group or an Indian group or a White group you have to resettle them in a community. You have to settle them, firstly, on the basis of a worked-out town plan. It is no good providing housing only without a properly worked-out town plan under which there is provision for such facilities as parks, schools, churches, civic centres and that kind of thing. What does the Development Board and the Housing Commission do? Both adopt the attitude that loans should not be made to local authorities unless it is to enable them to carry out a properly approved lay-out plan. The hon. member knows it. Therefore, where we move people we move them to places in the course of becoming towns. One of the essential principles of community development is that you must enable the more richly endowed leader to come in contact with the less richly endowed person in that community. The hon. member will also grant me that, knowing local managements as he does. I admit there are areas that have been surveyed and which sometimes seem to be “bare veld”. But that does not only apply in the case of the Coloureds. You have an area like Bosmansdam which until last year was under bush. We are now providing services there. The first houses to be erected will be without those facilities but that town will grow and we hope eventually to have 5,000 housing units there housing a community of 5,000 families. But that does not come about overnight; it has to grow as the sense of responsibility develops. Do not let us spread this type of story. I want to say to the hon. member today that we should be very careful not continually to tell the Coloureds and the Indians that they are being treated injustly, because by saying that to the Coloureds, as they are being told in the pamphlet issued by the hon. member in his struggle against the Progressive Party, we are doing the wrong thing. I want to warn him: The feelings that are incited by that propaganda will not only be directed against the National Party but against the White man. The consequences of this propaganda campaign of the hon. member in his fight against the Progressive Party which is a foolish irresponsible Party …

Nonsense.

Those consequences will have a boomerang effect on the Whites as a whole. You cannot tell under-developed people the stories they are being told without their eventually developing a hatred for the entire White community. The time has arrived for us to point out to the Coloureds and the Indians the opportunities which are being created for them to help themselves. But there is a second case. The positive work the Government is doing in the form of housing, in the form of social welfare services, in the form of education, in the form of Development Corporations, in the form of financial assistance, is always made suspect, as the Opposition is doing. It will result in something else against which I want to warn this morning. You will find that the governing White section of South Africa will turn against these benefits being given to the non-Whites. You will meet opposition on the part of the greater section of White South Africa to continuing to provide services on this scale to a community who, because it has been incited, rejects everything that is being done for it. Be careful of that reaction. It is beginning to set in. When the day arrives when the White man reacts like that those hon. members will be answerable for it.

The hon. member for Florida raised a point I want to deal with briefly. He raised two matters of importance. The first was—

Is it true that I created that impression?

That was as I understood it.

Then the hon. member understood it incorrectly. I shall read what I said. I have copied this from my original speech. What did I say?—

years …

Not a new concept. I talked about recent

Year or years?

Years. Secondly I said—

How can the hon. member accuse me of having tried to create the impression in this House that I was propounding a new concept? Surely that is unfair. What did I say at the beginning of my speech the other day? I said I wanted to give the background to hon. members for two reasons. I said I wanted to show hon. members how the Department of Community Development had been reorganized and that I wanted to obviate any confused idea that there were to be two boards as off-shoots of the same Department. For the sake of being courteous I tried to paint the background to hon. members, not to justify the Bill, but I tried to assist you so that when you wanted to make representations you would know, when you were dealing with the Slums Act, when you were dealing with the Rents Act, when you were dealing with the Development Act, when you were dealing with the Housing Act, whom to approach in regard to any matter. That is now held against me. Mr. Speaker, have we sunk to such levels in this country that we must exploit everything for political reasons?

The hon. member made another point. I think the hon. member will admit that he did me an injustice. The hon. member shakes his head. Then I cannot help him. If he cannot help himself I cannot do so. But he made a second point and said I must see what the city councils and private town builders were doing in regard to community development. Who has ever denied that? I have never denied that. On the contrary I have repeatedly stated in this House that private initiative was playing a dominant part in providing housing for the people and in the development of communities.

Why this Bill then?

But this Bill does not control those who establish towns privately. This Bill is only to enable us to control local authorities when they utilize Government funds. Does the hon. member not understand that.

Where is that stated in the Bill?

Well, Well! I shall just leave it at that, Sir. Time is running out and there is just one other point I should like to deal with. It concerns the hon. member for Peninsula. With the press in mind the hon. member for Peninsula tried to do something. He tried to say that the steps we had taken in connection with separate facilities for audiences proved that there was a lack of goodwill on our part, particularly on my part. In the first place I am not in charge of this matter of the Cape Town City Council. The hon. member ought to know that. What did I do? I only interjected and said we could not allow a local authority to prescribe to the Central Government concerning a matter of policy. The Government has a responsibility towards the power which has placed it there, namely, the electorate of the country and local authorities are subject to the principles laid down by the Government and not vice versa. Now they make a great fuss about that. What is wrong with that statement of mine?

Then the hon. member said I wanted to plan group areas. That is not right. These are the facts: Where the Development Board wants to act outside a proclaimed group area it cannot do so where the Minister of Planning has already defined the area, and even in a controlled area it will take place in consultation with the Minister concerned. We do not intend bringing all controlled areas under the Act. I said in my introductory speech that there were certain areas, like Fordsburg which is a controlled area where, with our approval, the Johannesburg City Council envisaged big development. We now seek power to make it possible for them to undertake that development. I want to give a second example, District Six, here in Cape Town. If you declare District Six White you immediately have at least 70,000 to 80,000 Coloureds that will have to be moved. If you declare it a Coloured area, you practically allow those conditions to continue because you will still not be able to control the sub-economic development and mal-conditions obtaining there. What have we done now? We have appointed a State committee on which the Cape Town City Council is represented by their City Engineer, a committee on which a person like Prof. Louw serves, with the head of my Department as Chairman, in order to see whether we cannot in the first place replan District Six for redevelopment because you cannot undertake sub-economic development on this valuable land nor can you use the district for housing only. In other words you have to view it from other angles, e.g. from the angle of town planning. That is why we want these powers.

I want to conclude by saying that only one point remains which can be regarded as a reasonable point and that is the definition of “urban renewal”. That point was raised by both sides of the House. I myself do not feel happy about the lack of a definition. I tried my best to find a definition which would not limit us in what we intended doing and the legal draftsmen of the Government are still struggling with it. My own Department is still struggling with it but we can discuss that in Committee. I am not prepared, however, to accept a definition which will only again hamstring the Act as far as our urban renewal efforts are concerned, urban renewal which may have various phases: It can either be housing, or slum clearance or rebuilding of dilapidated buildings or otherwise, or it can be replanning. I am not prepared to accept a definition which will tie my hands in that regard, but we can discuss that in Committee.

Question put: That all the words after “That” stand part of the motion.

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—64: Bekker. G. F. H.; Bekker, M. J. H.; Bootha, L. J. C.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Coertze, L. I.; De Wet, J. M.; Du Plessis, H. R. H.; Faurie, W. H.; Frank, S.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Haak, J. F. W.; Henning, J. M.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Hiemstra, E. C. A.; Jurgens, J. C.; Keyter, H. C. A.; Knobel, G. J.; Kotzé, S. F.; Labuschagne. J. S.; Le Roux, P. M. K.; Loots, J. J.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, J. A.; Maree, G. de K.; Martins, H. E.; Meyer, T.; Mostert, D. J. J.; Muller, H.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, J. A. F.; Odell, H. G. O.; Otto, J. C.; Pelser, P. C.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rall, J. W.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schoeman, B. J.; Smit, H. H.; Stander, A. H.; Steyn, F. S.; Steyn, J. H.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Uys, D. C. H.; Van den Berg, G. P.; Van der Ahee, H. H.; Van der Spuy, J. P.; Van der Walt, B. J.; Van Eeden, F. J.; Van Niekerk, G. L. H.; Van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; Van Staden, J. W.; Van Wyk, H. J.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Venter, W. L. D. M.; Verwoerd, H. F.; Visse, J. H.; Von Moltke, J. von S.; Vosloo, A. H.; Waring, F. W.; Webster, A.

Tellers: D. J. Potgieter and P. S. van der Merwe.

Noes—38: Barnett, C.; Basson, J. A. L.; Bennett, C.; Bloomberg, A.; Connan, J. M.; De Kock, H. C.; Eden, G. S.; Emdin, S.; Gorshel, A.; Graaff, de V.; Henwood, B. H.; Higgerty, J. W.; Holland, M. W.; Hughes. T. G.; Lewis, H.; Malan, E. G.; Miller, H.; Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Oldfield, G. N.; Plewman, R. P.; Radford, A.; Ross, D. G.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Taurog, L. B.; Taylor, C. D.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Van der Byl, P.; Waterson, S. F.; Weiss, U. M.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: N. G. Eaton and A. Hopewell.

Question affirmed and amendment dropped.

Motion accordingly agreed to and Bill read a second time.

Mr. Speaker. I move that this House expresses its concern at the increasing misuse of our country’s seaside, beach and other attractive natural areas through, inter alia, unsystematic physical development, vandalism, exploitation for private gain and neglect, and requests the Government to:

1. (a) take immediate steps to combat this process; and
2. (b) co-ordinate the work of various bodies responsible for planning the physical development of such areas, so as to ensure that the natural beauty of these assets will be preserved for the nation with its increasing need for open-air recreation.

Our country is blessed with natural beauty and a diversity of scenery comparable to the very best in the world. An artist could go into raptures about our mountains, our hills, our valleys, our forests and our long coastline with its picturesque beaches. I shall, however, content myself by saying that our natural heritage is indeed a splendid one. It is a national asset of which we should all be proud and which as far as possible we should preserve unimpaired for posterity. But we who gather here from all parts of the country are perhaps best able to testify as to how everywhere in our fatherland this splendid heritage of ours is being despoiled and how in many places it has already become a dwindling and disappearing asset. As the result of the past development of our country in the agricultural as well as the industrial spheres many of our natural beauties have been affected. We must inevitably accept that as being the price we have to pay for such development, but for that reason it is also essential that we should preserve and protect as far as possible that which still remains unblemished. and that the loss of our natural beauty should be controlled and limited by timeous and effective action.

The scope of this process of the destruction of our natural attractions is so great that it is almost impossible for us to go into details about it to-day, but by way of illustration I just want to give a few examples of what is taking place. To begin with, I want to quote from a letter which appeared in Die Burger on the 2nd instant where the writer says that the beautiful Constantia Valley, a world famous valley with its vineyards and silver trees, will shortly disappear, and all that will remain will be tarred streets, flats and ridiculous little houses built as close to each other as in Bellville; and with the changing of the Constantia Valley into small city plots the Cape will lose for ever one of its most beautiful areas. I do not expect the hon. the Minister to be pleased with this reference to Bellville. but I read the letter as a whole.

Another example of what is going on in our immediate vicinity is the unsightly gravel-pit along the slopes of the Tygerberg. Every day it hurts the eyes of those who live in the vicinity, to see how that historical landmark from the days of the East India Company is being despoiled in such a blatant manner. One asks oneself how, in an enlightened era such as the one in which we now live, it can still be allowed by the Cape Divisional Council and by the Provincial Administration. Sir, the least one can say about it is that it is a public scandal.

But I am particularly concerned about what is happening in this process to our coasts and beaches. South Africa has a long coast-line over 1,800 miles, and 1,600 of those miles form the borders of the Cape Province. Our coast is of the greatest importance with a view to outdoor recreation and water sport, because our country has very few lakes and rivers and other internal waters. The main internal waters in our country are those in our storage dams. Sir, twenty-five years ago it was still a privilege to most of our families to go to the coast on holiday once a year. With the exception of certain coastal resorts our coast was still mainly in its natural state, but to-day it is quite different. Our coastal areas are by far the main recreational and holiday resorts and playgrounds of our people. The coastal areas for a great part of the year teem with visitors from all over the Republic, and in many of these places people throng together to such an extent that much of the pleasure and enjoyment is lost to these visitors. There is even an influx to the small coastal areas which were formerly unknown. There is uncontrolled camping and picnicking, and often the plant growth and the natural beauties suffer. Our coastal areas have also been exploited for commercial purposes in some places, particularly along our western and south-western coasts, where fish and lobster factories are great sinners. I just want to mention the example of one small place, Ysterfontein, near Darling. It is a nice little coastal resort where the farmers of the Swartland and Moorreesburg go at Christmas. There the natural beauties have been grievously violated by the blasting of dynamite for the building of a lish factory of which only the unsightly ruins are still standing to-day. There is also the example of factories along the Natal coast where the waste products and the effluent of those factories flow into the rivers and into the sea, which has created very unpleasant conditions in the vicinity of those factories. The collection of mussels and seaweed on a large scale also constitutes a threat to our coastal areas. That is already being controlled to some extent by the Fisheries Department, but the soil is still being dug up along the coast and that, together with the hundreds of unplanned roads which are being trodden over the dunes, cause creeping sand-dunes which are busy converting large areas along our coast into desert areas. This problem has already assumed tremendous proportions. Between Elands Bay and Lamberts Bay there is to-day a considerable area stretching for miles which has been buried under sand-dunes. In my childhood days there were farms where those sand-dunes are to-day, but it is to-day becoming a Namib desert. The problem there and in many other places is already becoming unmanageable, and only energetic action by the State can change the position. A story is told about an official of the Department of Bantu Administration who put up a beach hut on the Natal coast and trod out a path to it, and within five years it caused a sand-dune of 50 feet in that vicinity.

There is also the problem of private exploitation. of private owners who buy up large sections of our coast and build nice places for their private enjoyment, or otherwise exploit them for commercial purposes. The whole of the Natal South Coast for 85 miles immediately behind State land above the high-water mark to-day belongs to private owners, with the exception of nine miles of coast which falls within the Bantu Reserves; and the same applies to the 45 miles on the north coast to the Tugela. During the last ten years after the last war more than 22,000 small plots of a quarter or one-third of an acre have been cut out there. Along the whole of the South Coast there is to-day less than 15 miles of coast, owned by private people, which is still unblemished. In this regard Mr. R. A. Pistorius of the Natal Urban and Regional Planning Committee says the following:

The physical development of coastal areas and beautiful river-mouths and lagoons has been going on unplanned for too long. All kinds of structures have simply been planked down on some beaches. A typical example of unplanned development in its early stages is the beautiful little place, Still Bay East, which as the result was given the name of Lappiesbaai. Even in places where there was in fact planning, the wrong things were also done, because beautiful rock formations were blasted away or splendid patches of coastal afforestation were flattened to make room for luxurious beach houses with a splended view. Too high a price can be paid for short-session comfort and convenience. It is time that the State should accept greater responsibility in respect of the preservation of these national assets and our heritage. I want to take this opportunity to express my appreciation to all the bodies which have for years been busy combating this process of the destruction and despoliation of our natural attractions; and I want to mention specifically the National Parks Board and the Departments of Nature Conservation of our Provincial Administrations and the work they have done in regard to conserving and protecting our wild animals, birds, marine life, veld flowers and other natural attractions, as also the Department of Forestry which controls and protects our natural forests.

There is, however, much that remains to be done, and I want to ask the hon. the Minister to consider the following matters. Firstly, the State to-day controls 150 feet of sea coast immediately above high-water mark, but there should be greater control over our beaches below high-water mark, which to-day are practically no man’s land; secondly, the problem of shifting sand on our coasts should be more realistically combated by a Government undertaking; and, thirdly, there should be more consultation and planning in respect of roads with a view to nature conservation; fourthly, the physical development of coastal areas, including river-mouths and lagoons, and the layout of coastal townships should take place under co-ordinated planning; fifthly, the erection of factories along the coast, the building of quays and harbours, the prospecting and mining activities along the coast and on the beaches, should all be more effectively controlled. There is, however, a plethora of State Departments, Government Boards and Commissions and provincial and local authorities which are concerned with this matter, and for that reason we ask the Government to take steps now to co-ordinate the work of these different bodies which deal with the physical development of these areas in order to ensure that the natural beauty of these assets will be preserved for the nation, particularly in view of the increasing need for relaxation in the open air.

That brings me to the important matter which is very closely connected to the conservation of our natural beauties, viz. outdoor recreation. As the result of urbanization and industrialization an urgent need has arisen on the part of our urban and town populations to relax outdoors. Together with the process of urbanization the way of life of our people has also changed in many respects. Our national character, which was formed in close contact with the earth, is already being greatly influenced by the densely populated urban atmosphere with its factories, flats, noise and haste. That has a direct effect on the spiritual condition of the masses. I read in the Burger of the 11th instant that one out of every ten Whites in South Africa needs psychological treatment. That means that approximately 300,000 Whites suffer from mental illness, and many of them are employed in industry, as was stated by Dr. Gerald Machanick, the head of the Industrial Safety and Hygiene Section of the Bureau of Standards. He says further—

Hence the great need for escape into the open-air, for rest, calmness and spiritual restoration. It must be accepted to-day that outdoor recreation is a basic need for which the State should make provision. As the result of the process of industrial development and mechanization a revolution in respect of leisure has also arisen in our country. The people in the cities to-day have much more leisure than formerly. The working week, with an average of 70 hours of work, has shrunk to a working week of 40 hours. Leisure is beginning to create problems for our country. This contains great dangers for sections of our population. Someone has said that what people do while they are working does not matter as much as what they do when they are not working. The moral level of every community is determined by its leisure. When people keep themselves busy with creative and constructive things in their leisure, civilization is promoted, but when they spend their leisure in useless activities the social order degenerates and progress is hampered. To-day some people seek escape in outdoor sport, but unfortunately that can satisfy the needs of a small group only, because sport is becoming increasingly organized and specialized and it has also become too expensive for many people. Others, alas also many of our youth, have no option but to seek escape in the streets. But the great masses seek escape outdoors, because it is an accepted fact that nowhere can one become so spiritually restored as when one is in close touch with nature. But open-air enthusiasts, campers, picnickers, anglers and others find it increasingly difficult to find places to go to, because most of the suitable spots in and around our cities are already in the hands of private owners; 83 per cent of the camping and picnicking facilities in and around the urban areas of Johannesburg and Pretoria are already in private hands, and also about 90 per cent of the angling waters in the Transvaal. That is why there is such a tremendous influx to recognized resorts such as our national parks, mineral baths and other established pleasure resorts. At times there are so many people there that much of the natural charm those places should have is lost. Therefore something should also be done to curb the thronging of people to those resorts. Mr. T. J. Steyn, the Director of Nature Conservation in the Transvaal, says—

Now I should like to submit the following points to the Minister for his consideration. Firstly, one of our great assets for outdoor recreation are our irrigation and storage dams, of which there are approximately 230 in the Republic. However, most of these dams are controlled by irrigation boards which can exercise no rights on the adjoining land. That means that access to these dams is made difficult. One can only reach them if, e.g. at the Hartebeespoort Dam, one pays an entrance fee to one of the adjoining landowners. When in future we plan such water schemes, as we are now doing in regard to the Orange River Scheme, the recreational aspect should be regarded as an integral part of the project, and for that purpose sufficient adjoining land should be acquired by the Department of Water Affairs. The establishment and development of facilities for recreation should thereafter be placed under the control of a body like a public utility company which will take into consideration the interests of the broad public. Sir, the Americans have proved that when there is a suitably situated mass of water or a storage dam which can also be used for recreational purposes, then the added value, i.e. the income earned from its recreational use. is greater than the income derived from irrigation or from industrial use. Secondly, our afforestation policy should also be reconsidered in the light of this need for outdoor recreation. The fear of forest fires to-day dominates that policy to such an extent that the public finds it very difficult to gain access to some of the most beautiful places in our country which are under the control of the Forestry Department. The new method which has been tried out with great success in the U.S.A. is to take people into these plantations, under control, and to teach them how to conduct themselves there. The public should be taught to enjoy nature without destroying or despoiling it. In the years just after the Second World War the U.S.A. spent 85 million dollars on adapting their natural forests for outdoor recreation. To-day we have already developed that idea in regard to the Tokai Forest.

The tremendous possibilities offered by State forests, State land, irrigation projects, etc. are still to a large extent undeveloped and unutilized in South Africa. One understands that there cannot be uncontrolled access, but a solution should be found so as to conciliate the apparently conflicting ideas of control and conservation on the one hand and controlled recreation on the other.

Thirdly, I want to plead for long-term planning. With a view to that, available land should be acquired timeously before it falls into private hands to be used for less important purposes. Here the Natural Resources Development Council can play a greater role. A few years ago the Minister of Education, Arts and Science made available an amount of R10,000 for a survey to determine how much space we had available in the Republic for outdoor recreation. May I ask the hon. the Minister what has happened in that regard?

Fourthly, I have already referred to the idea of forming a public utility company which can develop certain areas under the control of the Department of Lands, because private and commercial development gives no guarantee that conservation measures will be applied. Fifthly, I want to plead for the establishment of a national bureau for outdoor recreation. An inter-departmental committee for the planning and development of facilities for outdoor recreation has already submitted a memorandum to the Minister of Education in which they make out a case for the establishment of a national bureau for outdoor recreation. The function of that bureau will be to determine norms, the classification of properties and the provision of technical advice in regard to the planning and development of areas which are earmarked as recreational resorts. I want to ask whether it is still the intention to establish such a bureau.

Finally, I want to raise the question of control. There are tremendous possibilities to-day if the efforts of all the bodies which can make a contribution can be co-ordinated and planned so as fully to develop our natural resources in this regard. Use may be made of the services of local authorities. Local committees can be specially established for this purpose. Farmers can use their farms, if they are suitable for this purpose, under the guidance of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services. The publicity aspect should be increased, particularly in view of the tourist potential. Central control in this regard will perhaps be very difficult because these areas and spots are so widely spread over the country and often also too mixed up with other national interests. It is, however, necessary to ensure that there should be a common viewpoint in regard to these aims. The closer the co-operation between the various bodies, the greater will be the benefits both for the conservation of our natural heritage and the provision of sufficient open-air recreational facilities for our expanding population. Investment in proper recreational facilities will lead to reduced expenditure on services in respect of combating crime, health and hospitalization. Mr. Speaker, recreation should be regarded undoubtedly as forming part of the Government’s obligation in respect of the well-being of the community.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Parow (Mr. S. F. Kotzé) has moved his motion and I want to say at once that we on this side propose to move an amendment;

I want to read it out so that we will know precisely where we stand in respect of the hon. member’s motion and what the attitude of this side of the House is. I want to move as an amendment:

The obvious difference between the hon. member’s motion and our amendment is that we on this side of the House would prefer those bodies which are already tackling the problem which the hon. member outlined here so well, to continue with their efforts by means of assistance provided by the State. We fully agree with the first part of the hon. member’s motion. We agree with the hon. member that this House should express its concern at the increasing misuse of our country’s seaside, beach and other natural attractions. The hon. member concluded his speech by saying that it would be very difficult to introduce central control. His whole argument was that there should be close co-operation between the various bodies which are already doing this work. We on this side have no quarrel with that statement. We think it would be the right attitude because we are just on the eve of great developments in respect of recreation. The motion of the hon. member for Parow is a very timely one.

It is essential for us to realize, as many countries in the world have already come to realize, that the time will come when there will be a great shortage of facilities of this kind, and that the exploitation of our natural attractions should not be in the hands of private persons for personal gain. We realize that, and that is why I say that this is a timely motion which is designed timeously to draw the attention of the people of South Africa to the fact that these things require our attention. It is undoubtedly true that throughout the world people are having more and more spare time. Here in South Africa we are already introducing a five-day working week. There are many industries and businesses which are already working five days per week. Our Public Service too has introduced a five-day working week. There are some experts in this field who predict that before very long the working week is going to be one of 30 hours. Inevitably, therefore, people are going to have more and more spare time. We know too that the introduction of the machine, of mechanization and automation has made tremendous inroads on work formerly performed by man himself. The result is that people to-day have more spare time and that they have more opportunities to give their attention to hobbies and things which formerly did not occupy their attention every day. But our modern way of life has also brought with it tremendous tension and tremendous strains, with the result that to-day there is a great need for recreational facilities. It is usually said that every form of sport is recreation, but every form of recreation is not always sport. A fine example of this is the man who derives great pleasure from watching birds and who draws renewed strength and enthusiasm from birdwatching to enable him to carry on with his daily work but I would not describe birdwatching as a form of sport. Because more and more people go in for hobbies and because the opportunities to practise their hobbies are not always available, we find that people are demanding more and more that they should be provided with the necessary facilities. The areas which offer the fewest opportunities for recreation are our thickly populated urban areas where every inch of ground is taken up and where the density of population creates many problems, particularly for our growing youth. Our growing towns are faced with the same problem at the present time. The result is that to-day there is a growing interest in spare time and in making use of that spare time in the open air. Sir, I have already said that we need recreational facilities to counteract the hustle and bustle of modern living. Another reason, of course, is the rising standard of living of our people. There are very few families to-day who do not own a motor car; the majority of people nowadays are able to go and visit places of natural beauty and recreational spots whereas formerly they had no opportunity to do so. Let me mention another example. Take the question of beach cottages. How many people in South Africa owned beach cottages, say, ten or fifteen years ago? Look at the number of people who own beach cottages nowadays. One need only visit our coastal towns to-day to see how the number of beach cottages has increased in most of our coastal towns. In this regard we undoubtedly face a serious problem; it is a problem which will become more and more serious every year from November to February because more and more people are making use of the opportunity to visit the coast at that time of the year for relaxation. Just look at the development which has taken place in recent years along our west coast. In spite of the fact that the development there is under the control of the local divisional councils, these coastal towns have developed so rapidly that problems have arisen there which the authorities never foresaw. Private individuals have been allowed to buy plots there on such a scale that the ordinary citizen is deprived of the recreational facilities offered by our rivers and coastal areas. It is the sort of thing that will have to be watched. The attention of the local authorities must be drawn to these things and it should be brought home to them that they will have to make provision for the necessary development in the future. I mention this just as an example of what has already taken place.

However, I do not want to deal only with what is happening at the present time in respect of our rural and coastal areas; I also want to deal for a moment with what is happening in our urban areas. The development in our cities over the past decade has been fantastic and it will be even more fantastic in the future. We are going to find that the amount of land available for recreational purposes for children will become less and less in our cities; that it will become more and more difficult to obtain playing space for children unless proper planning is undertaken by the local authorities. It is said that in England they are planning to set aside at least six acres of land per thousand children for recreational purposes and for playing fields. That is the ideal. There are some people who believe that it would be a good thing to set aside as much as 14 acres per thousand people for playing fields, etc., where recreational facilities can be provided. Some of the best planners in the world believe that even 16 acres per thousand people would not be at all excessive because regard must be had to the growth of the urban population in the future. As far as this question of provision of playing fields for the youth is concerned, Scandinavia in particular has taken the lead, followed by America and Britain. They have found there that the provision of playing fields pays rich dividends from the point of view of national health; they have found that the provision of playing fields has considerably increased the ability of children to resist diseases. They have found, for example, that children in densely built-up areas who make use of these facilities show better physical development than those who do not make use of these facilities. The natural playground of the child in the city, of course, is the street. One need only take one’s motor car and travel through the thickly populated areas of Bellville and Parow, during the afternoon, to see how many children play cricket on the street or kick a ball about. But the street also happens to be the most dangerous playground for the child. In other countries it has been found that by keeping children off the streets and catering for them on playing fields, the number of road accidents has been considerably reduced and that there have been fewer cases where children have been maimed as a result of road accidents. By establishing playing fields we also prevent juvenile crime in that we give the children an outlet for their energies. We have numbers of these playing field associations in South Africa. We have them here in Cape Town, in Port Elizabeth and other cities where they are doing particularly good work. It is this type of body with whom I think we should co-operate. This is the type of body to whom we should give greater assistance. Sir, may I just show you how little assistance we are in fact giving these bodies. If you look at the last Estimates, the Estimates for 1964-5, you will find that we voted a sum of R74,490 for the National Advisory Council for Adult Education for the Advancement of physical education. This body in turn distributes these funds to educational institutions, to youth camps and other associations. This Parliament only voted R74,490 last year to help these people. Sir, I ask myself under present-day conditions whether this amount is adequate, and I welcome the fact that the hon. member for Parow has moved this motion so that this matter can be brought pertinently to the attention of this House. The Playing Fields Association in England receives a great deal of assistance from the local authorities apart from what it receives from well-disposed individuals. Here in South Africa the playing Fields Association is almost entirely dependent on well-disposed individuals who are prepared to help them to provide the necessary facilities. Mr. Speaker, I would go so far as to say that we in this country should launch a crusade to find sufficient playing space for our children, particularly in the cities. We know that there is one city, namely Johannesburg, which is already doing a tremendous amount in respect of the provision of recreational facilities for our youth. They have trained youth recreational leaders who are well remunerated and who help to give the necessary training to our young people and to keep them occupied in recreational parks. We know that factories and flats and buildings of that kind are essential in the normal development of the country but we must be on our guard to see that those things are not erected at the expense of the health and the sound mental and physical development of our children. It is no use establishing play-parks unless they are properly organized. In England, for example, they found that where these play-parks were not organized, the children did not take much interest in them. Let me quote from a publication which appeared here in South Africa to show what their experience was in connection with the ordinary play-park where recreational facilities are provided in the form of swings, etc.—

Unorganized play-parks are things of the past; there should be a trained physical instructor in charge of such a place in order to give the necessary training to our young boys and girls.

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

When business was suspended I was pointing out that it had been found in certain oversea countries that the old type of play-park was absolutely out of date and that youngsters were no longer visiting these parks. They therefore decided to follow an entirely new course, and in this connection I want to quote the following—

Just to show you, Sir, how that type of park gripped the interest of the young people, I also want to quote the following—

Mr. Speaker, I think we should learn from the experience of these people overseas and that we should introduce the same type of thing in this country. The trained play-leader is undoubtedly essential in these play-parks. We cannot provide these play-leaders unless we are prepared to spend money; our local authorities should be encouraged therefore to find the necessary funds for this purpose. The siting of such a play-park is also very important. We often find that the site which is chosen is the nearest open piece of veld whereas there are often rivers, streams and picturesque hills and sites near our cities and large towns. Private organizations have done a good deal in this connection but there is still a great deal that can be done by our local authorities.

Let me sum up our attitude on this side of the House in this way: We agree that the problem as set out here by the hon. member for Parow does exist, but there are certain bodies which are already doing their best in connection with the planning of adequate recreational facilities and there are bodies already which are doing a great deal to preserve our natural attractions. At this stage we may perhaps regard what they are doing as inadequate, but if we regard it as inadequate then it is up to us to give these bodies the necessary assistance. I have already mentioned the amount which is voted by this Parliament itself, namely the meagre sum of R74,000 per annum in order to help this Division of Physical Education. We say that the local authorities should be given the necessary guidance where necessary. I think they are all deeply conscious of the obligation or the task which rests upon their shoulders in this connection. Look what is being done by our divisional councils and municipalities along most of our rivers and in our coastal towns. They are giving their attention to these things. Moreover, they are eminently fitted to undertake this task, and it is for that reason that I moved the amendment which I read out here at the beginning.

I do not think it is necessary to say much about the amendment moved by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) (Mr. Streicher). From his choice of words, where he time and again used the phrase “this side of the House”, I get the impression that this is a matter which is being dealt with on a party basis. The fact that he time and again referred to the attitude adopted by that side of the House, and constantly referred to municipalities, created the impression that this, too, is one of the little technical matters with which the United Party is now hoping in a debate such as this to give the municipalities the impression that that side of the House would be more favourably disposed towards them than what this side of the House is. What is more, I see very little sense in the amendment proposed by him.

I wish to congratulate the hon. member for Parow (Mr. S. F. Kotzé) very sincerely on the motion he has introduced here to-day. I am very glad that he got the opportunity of pleading his motion here in order to draw the attention of the public to this matter. He had a very good case to plead, and he delivered his plea in a very efficient and able manner. I think that after the debate that has taken place there is not a great deal to say in regard to the general principle of the matter, but I wish to emphasize that there is one natural law we have to take into account here, namely, that when there is no form of control or planning. the use to which land is ultimately put is determined by the prices offered for it. In my opinion that lies at the root of the whole matter, for in the competition for land between agriculture and industry, between residential needs and recreational needs, agriculture and recreation are unable to bid against the others, with the result that the expansion of cities brings enormous economic pressure to bear against the agricultural and recreational use of land, particularly near cities. It is simply a fact that the expansion of cities takes place at the cost of the natural surroundings as a result of the high prices placed upon land in such areas for residential and industrial purposes. The larger the city, the longer the distances from the residential areas to the city centre become, and the greater the pressure becomes to use all the land near the city centre for residential purposes. If land situated within the radius of urban development is not protected statutorily—I say statutorily, but there may also be other ways—the need for preserving that land as recreational space is outweighed by the economic pressure to use that land for industrial and residential purposes.

In terms of industrialization, in terms of urbanization, South Africa is still a young country. Our urbanization has not progressed very far as yet, but unless we now proceed systematically, certain things will be irrevocably lost, things that we shall not be able to leave to posterity in the way that they should be left to it. What we are doing is fine; I agree with what has been said by the hon. member for Parow; what is being done by the provincial and local authorities and by the Central Government is fine, but it is totally inadequate. If we consider what is being done in other countries—I would not say countries that are in the same position as we are, but a country such as the United States, which I do not wish to present as being a comparable one, but where, too, for many years insufficient attention was given to this matter—we find that in the past years almost a fetish has developed as regards nature preservation. I wish to quote you a few figures, which are not comparable, but which do give one an idea of the attention given to this matter there, as compared with the attention it receives here. The State of Oregon, in the Western part of the U.S.A., has a total population of approximately 1,770,000, as compared with Transvaal’s population, both European and non-European, of 6,300,000. The European population of the Transvaal is approximately 1,470,000. In terms of square miles Oregon extends over 79,000, whereas the Transvaal extends over 110,000. In Oregon there are 22 non-urban provincial parks, as compared with 7 in the Transvaal, one of which is open to the public. As far as expenditure is concerned, Oregon spends R8,260,000 per annum on new development, and the Transvaal spends R62,000 per annum. I mention these figures to illustrate that the more industrialized a country becomes, the more intensely the problem is felt, and the more expensive it becomes to make the provision that has to be made. America is a country that is still in the process of becoming industrialized, but look at an old industrialized country such as Britain. In Britain the cities are still encroaching upon the rural areas; people are still being attracted to the urban spheres of employment. The borders of the cities are still expanding into the green belts drawn round the towns by the planners. Now towns are built in the depressed areas. The result is that the open spaces to be found there are decreasing in number from generation to generation.

It is the old cities in particular that are most severely affected by this problem, as they have all along remained the main centres that attract people, and their populations are still increasing. Amongst all the cities in the world there are very few new ones. All the cities in the world are really old cities. Now I am not referring to South Africa with its cities of 100 and 300 years old. There are in fact very few new cities in the case of which it was possible to plan to meet these needs. In America and Europe one new city has come into existence in the last 100 years, namely Miami in Florida, if we do not want to include the new capital of Brazil, which has been planned artificially. All the cities are therefore old cities. When looking at these old cities, we see that a number of them do have parks and recreational spaces of note, but these spaces are to-day available to later generations, not because they were established as a result of planning and control over the use of land, but because they were left to posterity by benefactors and rulers who stipulated by testamentary provision that the land was not to be used for urban development. Thus we have Richmond Park in London, which is 2,358 acres in extent; Paris with its Bois de Bologne, which is 2,200 acres in extent, and its Bois de Vincennes, which is 2,300 acres in extent. These are of course recreational parks which are situated, I would not say in the very heart of these cities, but within these cities—parks and recreational spaces of a thousand morgen and more.

We have no city in South Africa that can have any such prospect whatsoever, except perhaps Pretoria, which has land adjacent to it and to which I want to refer. Here in Cape Town we have the position that the open spaces against the slopes of Table Mountain, the Groote Schuur Estate and Kirstenbosch are land that was bequeathed by Cecil John Rhodes. Today, with all due recognition, and without trying to make political capital as the hon. member for Port Elizabeth-West (Mr. Streicher) did, I want to say to that side of the House that if ever there was something for which we should honour the memory of Rhodes, then it is the vision that he displayed in buying up that land piecemeal and bequeathing it to South Africa, so that the southern and eastern slopes of Table Mountain are today in the state in which they are. I made a quick count in Rhodes’s will, and found that he had bought and consolidated 146 small pieces of land in this way, land which subsequently became known as the Rhodes Trust. Had it not been for this bequest, there would have probably have been no Kirstenbosch in Cape Town today. I am saying, Mr. Speaker, that I deeply appreciate the vision that Rhodes displayed in enabling us at the present time to continue with the reclamation and the preservation of the slopes of Table Mountain, as is in fact being done.

The work being done today to carry on Rhodes’s work as far as the slopes of Table Mountain are concerned has in the past years been undertaken by the Table Mountain Trust; this a voluntary association that has been formed to carry out preservation and reclamation work on Table Mountain. This was subsequently followed up by the appointment of the Table Mountain Preservation Board. I also wish to say that I have great appreciation for the work that has been done by the Table Mountain Trust and the work that is to-day being done by the Table Mountain Board. I think that the entire Cape Town community and the entire South African community should be grateful for the work that has been done by these people.

In the case of Pretoria there is the historical farm, The Fountains, which was purchased for Government purposes during President Kruger’s first term of office, but which President Kruger then proclaimed as the first wild life preservation area in the Transvaal. It is adjacent to Pretoria, and is within two miles from the centre of the city. It is one of the most beautiful farms imaginable. It has hills and valleys, and its plant life is unique in that area. I do not think any other place in the whole of South Africa has such splendid white stink-wood trees as are to be found on The Fountains. Its own natural water supply is provided by the fountains, which for many years were Pretoria’s only source of water supply. After the Anglo-Boer War. however, the preservation order issued by President Kruger was ignored and the farm began to be used for various purposes. Owing to the fact that there was no statutory prohibition on the use of that land for urban development, as there was a testamentary prohibition in the case of the Rhodes Estate, the farm, especially that portion situated close to the city, was gradually sub-divided and used for urban development. Residential townships, sports fields, a hospital, a school, etc., were built on it. Even office buildings were erected there. In view of the natural law that an extremely high price is placed on land that is situated so near to a city and that is so suitable for industrial and residential purposes, we have to accept that the pressure to use that land for industrial and residential purposes will increase as the years go by. The economic pressure will become so strong that the need for preserving the land will simply not be able to prevail.

I wish to go further. I wish to say that where it was President Kruger’s idea to preserve that land next to Pretoria as an area for the preservation of wild life, where this was his instruction within a few years after the land had been purchased, a heavy obligation rests on our generation to carry out that instruction, even though one-third of the farm has already been lost. Pretoria is really the only city, as far as I know—I do not want to suggest that I am so well acquainted with what is happening in the other cities of South Africa—where there is the possibility of having, like Paris and London, a natural recreation centre of a thousand morgen and more within its limits, something which is to-day the pride of those cities. Pretoria still offers that possibility if we act in good time. Proposals for building a large sports stadium on that land are being considered at the moment. The erection of such a stadium on that land would lead to a tremendous increase in traffic, extensive broadening of existing roads and the construction of new roads. These are economic developments that have to take place. I agree that there has to be development, but if these proposals were to be accepted it would mean the end of the quietness and seclusion of this farm as a place of recreation. When, a few years ago, the S.A.B.C. wanted to erect a tower on Table Mountain for its FM service, the Table Mountain Preservation Board laid down very explicit requirements in regard to the appearance it would present. It did not matter to them how much it would cost the S.A.B.C., but they laid down certain requirements in order to preserve the beauty of Table Mountain. I believe that this is the only way in which to approach this matter. There has to be a body which is in a position to consider the matter without in any way being subject to any economic pressure, and from one point of view only, namely, the preservation of such an area for posterity. The people who have these places in their charge to-day are holding them in trust for posterity. These places are not something that can be sacrificed to the immediate demands of our generation.

I wish to make a very strong plea that wherever in South Africa, particularly in our cities, there are places that are worthy of preservation, the Government should extend to such places as well the principle that applies in the case of this Preservation Board that has been appointed for Table Mountain. This would have to be preceded by a proper survey, on a regional basis, of all the places that are worthy of preservation. Looking at the East Rand and West Rand municipalities one finds that these municipalities are so limited by their boundaries that they are to-day no longer able to build proper and spacious places of recreation within their boundaries. It has to be done on a regional basis. For this reason, with all respect to the ideas of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) (Mr. Streicher), I say that we are here faced with a problem that can no longer be dealt with on the single-municipality basis, but that will have to be dealt with on a regional basis.

Then I just want to express another thought. The activities of municipalities are to-day confined to the area within their boundaries. Once again I have Pretoria in mind, simply because I know more about it than I know about other cities. The old farm of Lewis and Marks—which, too, is a magnificent farm with a natural water supply and splendid vegetation—is situated close to Pretoria, but outside the municipal area. This land is likely to be cut up into small pieces in the near future, and then it will be totally lost. Cannot some formula be found to enable municipalities to buy such land now, in anticipation of future urban expansion, by means of the money that will be donated, as a result of such expansion, for the building of parks and for purposes of recreation? The standard laid down by the Transvaal at the moment is three to four acres per 1,000 inhabitants for new townships that are built. That is the area of open space that has to be provided. If, in lieu of such land, money is paid into a pool for the purpose of setting it off against the cost of such a farm, I am of the opinion that the land that is purchased now will in the long run, in 50 years’ time, even with interest charges and maintenance costs being taken into account, still work out infinitely cheaper than what it would cost to try and find so large a piece of land near the city and to buy it for posterity.

I think the motion the hon. member has brought before the House this afternoon is a very important motion indeed. I hope the hon. member who has just sat down will not think, that because this side of the House has moved an amendment, we are quarrelling with the principle of protecting the areas enumerated in the motion. On the contrary we are fully in support of it. There is no quarrel whatsoever, Sir. I don’t want the hon. member who has just sat down to think that we are trying to gain the approval, as distinct, perhaps, from some disapproval towards the mover of the motion, of our municipalities and that sort of thing. That we can leave out entirely from our calculations. It is true that many of the municipalities are to-day becoming alive to the necessity of conserving our wild life, animate and inanimate. They are conserving our natural resources and our places of natural beauty and so forth. They should be encouraged to do so. But the point we make in our amendment is that we do not think it is necessary to establish another body on top of the existing bodies who already have authority in the areas concerned.

I want to go further and say that in regard to some of the difficulties that have arisen they arise from Government action in that State Departments have failed to appreciate the necessity of preserving our natural assets in the way of natural beauty spots, places of public resort, areas where there is a tendency for people to congregate where they can have their recreation and so forth. I want to give an example. There is a desire on the part of the Lands Department, a desire which they have carried into practice heretofore, to cut up land into small lots and themselves to become little township-makers. They are doing that where State-owned land is concerned. Where there are areas which can be used for public recreation and so forth, we think it is very undesirable that the Lands Department should itself enter into the field of township-making with a view to selling lots to private people and taking that land out of public ownership. As far as that land is concerned, Sir, we have not got so much of it to-day that we can afford to spare any from State ownership to private ownership. What is there to-day in State ownership must be maintained in State ownership. But when it comes to the supervision and the developing and so forth the authorities are already there. If I understood the hon. member who has just sat down correctly the Transvaal was spending something like R262,000 on the conservation of nature and public resorts.

Sixty-two thousand rand.

I see; R62,000. Let us compare that for a moment with my own small province. The Provincial Council has given us just a few rand short of R500,000 this year—half a million rand!—for this purpose. Hon. members may be surprised. But you see, Sir, we have been building on a design for the last 20 years, not only conserving nature, i.e. nature conservation in its wider sense, game reserves and so forth, but we have three different types of reservation which can be applied by proclamation by the Administrator. They are game reserves where the public are allowed in but where all natural resources are cared for and protected. Very much on the lines of the Kruger National Park. In addition to that we have places of public resort where the human being is the dominant element. While we protect all natural resources there the prime important thing is the human being. Those are the places of public resort and those are the kind of places where all kinds of distraction for the human being who is trying to get away from the irritations of civilization can be provided, recreation in the tourist sense, such as fishing, swimming, boating. All those amenities can be provided where it is associated with water. But they are not all associated with water. We have some of these areas running into very large reserves up in the mountains where the same applies. Up in the mountains we protect nature but we allow riding, footpaths for people to walk in and so forth. The human being is the precise subject for the conservation of that particular area. It is conserved for his benefit. Then we have the third class known as nature reserves. There are game reserves, places of public resort and nature reserves. A nature reserve is where man is the intruder and where the power is reserved to the Natal Parks Board to limit entry. As far as possible no limitation is imposed but the power of exclusion is there. In the main nature in those areas is allowed to develop with such limitation in the natural forces as may be decided upon by competent people. When I say competent people, Sir, we have a group of eight scientists at the head of whom is a brilliant South African scientist. They are investigating all problems and questions associated with the ecology of the areas which are under the control of the Parks Board. They decide just what steps are to be taken to preserve the grass veld as grass veld, to deal with bush encroachment, to deal with the protection of the forest and so forth. All those things are being dealt with on a scientific basis by this group of scientists under the supervision of this brilliant young South African scientist.

With half a million rand per annum—it is growing year by year—and the backing of our Administrator and Executive Committee, the Parks Board are able to provide amenities to-day which, in the past, could only be provided by private enterprise. The hon. member who moved the motion was kind enough to let me see the article from which he quoted. It was a speech by Mr. Pistorius of the Natal Town and Regional Commission. He is a member of it. Mr. Pistorius’ complaint is that on the South Coast of Natal there has been a misuse of land, a misuse of land because people were allowed to cut up their pieces of land into half-acre lots and a third of an acre lots, lots which were laid out as private townships under the Private Townships Ordinance. That may well be the view of Mr. Pistorius at the present time. He goes on to say there are not enough people to buy all that land. The land is lying there; it is idle; nothing is done on it. That may well be the case. But we are faced with this position that as long as people in South Africa have the right to buy and sell land we are going to have the position where a private individual who thinks that he can present a marketable commodity to people who want to buy a place on which to build a sea-side hut or whatever it may be they will do with it. That is not to say that the Townships Board in Natal, or the Administrator and Executive Committee are allowing this kind of thing to continue unchecked. They are not. They are putting their foot down now and they are standing on a clause in the Ordinance which says they can refuse to sanction a private township on the ground of no necessity; in other words, that ample provision is made already for private people in certain areas, as undoubtedly must be the case. But that does not take us down to the beach. When I listened to the hon. member who spoke first, it seemed to me that he was dealing very greatly with the problem of the development and the destruction of our amenities at the beach. Right throughout Natal we have that area of land back from the high-water mark know as a State-owned reserve, or State-owned land. I think it is some 300 Cape feet back from the high-water mark. That has throughout been protected. It has been protected, where there were private owners, by those private owners themselves. I say nobody can show us any example of vandalism other than the collection of shells and seaweed and that sort of thing by children. If that is called vandalism, I have to plead guilty, Sir, because we get children coming down there in tens of thousands. That, we believe, is a simple pleasure which should be part of the enjoyment of the facilities down at the beach. But as far as the protection of the bush on the sand dunes is concerned, the protection of the rocks and that sort of thing, the protection of the coral, they are all protected. Once that land passes out of the hands of private ownership and a township is formed a local authority is established and takes over the control. The Lands Department has the final say in the matter. The Minister of Lands, from time to time, has been at pains to see that proper care is exercised in regard to the protection of that land 100 yards above high-water mark and below the low-water mark. When a local authority has reached such a stage as a town board or town council the Minister has been prepared to give them a lease over that land. That is one of the greatest assets we have along the South Coast. No local authority is willingly going to see the amenities on that portion of land diminish in any way. The amenities there are what we sell to up-country visitors. I can assure hon. members who may have doubts about this that they will be surprised how quickly they will be pulled up when they visit the Natal South Coast—they will be very welcome indeed—if they were to infringe the very stringent regulations laid down for the protection of that coast. This was referred to in a public address not long ago, but I want to say that our care of that strip of land has resulted in the discovery of the fact that two of the world’s rearest species of turtles were breeding along the coast line of South Africa. We know it in the past; we have known it for years and years past but there were so few, the area where they were breeding was so isolated, that as long as they were safe we were willing to remain quiet about it and leave them alone in the knowledge that they were protected. But when Bantu from across our border came in, where they had been in the habit of using these turtles for food and where their dogs acquired the habit of digging up the eggs, something had to be done about it. We then went to the Department concerned which controls the beach there, not to the high-water mark, but right down to the low-water mark, and that was the Department of Bantu Administration. I am pleased to say that they took the matter up immediately; they asked us to act as their agents in continuing to protect that area which we are doing. The eggs of those turtles are collected to-day; they are put into a special enclosure where they hatch under 24 hours’ supervision. When the little turtles are hatched they are taken out to sea and released way beyond of the possibility of their falling foul of all the sharks and big fish that gather when those eggs hatch. They feed on the small turtles as they come down into the sea at hatching time. We have turtles there up to 7 ft. long, the Leather Back. There are two varieties, the Loggerhead and the Leather Back. The only other known place where they breed, I believe, is in the Malaya Peninsula where they are in danger of extinction. The picture I want to paint is that there are already authorities dealing with the protection of our natural assets, scenery, beaches and so forth. But what they need is encouragement and help. I have dealt with the question of the Lands Department itself wanting to cut up State-owned land. We regret that very much indeed. We believe that that land should be kept in public ownership. But there is another side to it and that is the development of railways and national roads. We have had two instances of this in Natal. In the one case we are pleading very hard with the Minister concerned not to allow a railway to be driven through a great expanse of natural bush, one of the few natural pieces of bush left along the South Coast of Natal. Another course is open, but now their engineers want to put it through that piece of bush. There are buck there; it will be very hard to replace once the character of that area is destroyed. It has been proclaimed; it is a nature reserve. It is a place which is being protected as a nature reserve. It is not a place of public resort or a game reserve, but a nature reserve where nature is predominant. The second case is exactly on the same basis but it deals with the national road. They want to save a curve in the national road; they want to go straight across so as to avoid that curve. It is going to cost them nearly R750,000, to build that straight short-cut through that particular area but they are willing to spend that money so as to cut out the curve. Mr. Speaker, we are going to have any number of curves left in our national road long after that one has been straightened out. Once that kind of national forest has gone it is gone forever. We can never replace it.

Where is it?

At Ndori Park; just back from the Prime Minister’s residence. It is not a mile away from the house where members of the Cabinet go from time to time. But that is beside the point; I am not complaining about those two instances and making a case in regard to them. They are both being dealt with. The point I am making is that State Departments themselves do not apparently realize the value of these assets referred to by the hon. member in this motion of his, assets which should be protected by everybody, commencing with the Government downwards. If we are not going to allow private enterprise and private people to interfere with these things and to spoil them, then we should set the example from the top downwards until there is an appreciation in the higher circles of the necessity of preserving these natural assets we have. Until the necessity for preserving these natural assets we have got is realized in the highest circles, we are likely to lose them and they are likely to diminish. The argument which will be used will be the argument used in the two cases that I have referred to, and again in the cutting up of public-owned land into half-acre plots for seaside resorts. In the case of the Railways, the argument will be “What harm will it do to have a few trains running through this bush?” It is not a case of the harm of a few trains running through the bush. When you start running trains through a piece of bush which is a nature reserve, you are destroying the whole of the ecology, and you are destroying everything that nature built, and you have brought in one of the most disturbing instruments of human civilization—you change the whole of the character.

Sir, I am not preaching my own thoughts, I am preaching the thoughts of a young scientist we have got at the head or the scientific team that is doing research in Natal at the present time, a man who is a dedicated conservationist, and a man who is trying to preserve the assets we have got, given us by providence, preserved by various means from the ravages of mankind in the past, preserved in the case of Zululand by the tsetse fly and the mosquito. The Transvaal recently has had from us, from the Natal Board, 96 white rhinoceros for the Kruger Park. It is an expensive business catching these animals, owing to the very expensive drugs used, and so forth, and the helpers required. There can be no question about it, we have been selling those animals at R5,000 a pair, which is good hard currency coming to South Africa at the moment from overseas and so forth, but we have willingly given 96 back to the Transvaal, we have given four to the Free State for their Willem Pretorius Game Reserve, we have given some to the Krugersdorp Town Council for their sanctuary there, and so forth, and we are willing to continue doing so. We don’t hold that these assets belong to Natal, they belong to South Africa. That is the attitude that we have taken up. Theses animals are in our keeping, in our care, but they do not belong to us, they belong to South Africa. That is the attitude we have adopted all the way through as far as conservation is concerned. People come down and take advantage of those areas now on the Zululand Coast which are in the care of the Parks Board, and we are getting to-day on some occasions as many as 5,000 visitors at one place, Richards Bay, for example, and places like St. Lucia, the new country near Ouro Point, and so forth. These people are not visiting some outside country. They come to a part of their own country and they are taking advantage of the amenities which they are entitled to enjoy, and which we are protecting in the interests of the whole country. We are doing more than that, we are protecting them in the interests of the scientific world. Some five weeks ago, we had a meeting of the International Ornitholigical Society, a world body. People came from all over the civilized world and lived at the Park headquarters in Pietermaritzburg where we have got a big auditorium, and so forth, which lends itself to that kind of conference, and we were able to take many of the delegates round to see what is being done in connection with nature conservation in Natal, and we had nothing but the highest compliments paid to us by top scientists, world scientists for the work which is being done. So I do feel that the things that are mentioned in this motion here should be protected, but I ask for appreciation to come from the highest level. In my own province I am pleased to say the Administrator as an individual and in his official capacity as the head of the Executive Committee is one of the most enthusiastic supporters that we have got for wild life conservation and the protection of our natural resources. He is helping us with the money that is necessary to take protective measures, because you have to protect these things on the ground by having a body there to enforce protection. You can put laws on the Statute Book to protect an area and then go away and leave that area, and when you come back you will be amazed what destruction has been going on whilst you were away. You even have got to have a guard, or a ranger or a policeman or some one to protect what you have got there, or it will be destroyed. It does not matter how few the destroyers may be, there are always a few destroyers who will come along. So all these things require money and our Administrator and the Executive Committee are giving us money and helping us tremendously and they appreciate the value of these places as far as tourism is concerned, with the result that today we are getting vast numbers of tourists who are coming because some have seen the things that are there which they can enjoy and they go back to various countries overseas and others come because they hear from their friends what is offered there. So we ask the Government not only that it shall interest itself in protection but that it shall strengthen the hands of those who are doing the work today. There is already a Government committee, I believe, appointed under the Minister of Education, Arts and Science, with which we are collaborating and it is very helpful.

There is another point before I sit down, and that is the question of communication. When you are dealing with game reserves and wild life conservation, you are of necessity dealing with areas far away from towns and your centres of human habitation, and we have found in fighting fires and in cases of accident and in dealing with law-breakers that a shortwave two-way radio system is of very, very great importance indeed. The postal officials have been very good to us; they have not been quite as generous as we would like, but they have been good to us, they have given us a system and we have got our nature reserves now coupled up with the head office. But they are not the only ones that use it. As soon as we got that system installed, we went to the police, to the Minister himself, and said “Look, if you want this for police work, let us know, it is available to you, and the same with the military authorities, and we have had the expression of their appreciation of the value of our system because it is only used by disciplined men who come under the Parks Board and who can be trusted. It is of very great value, of inestimable value to us. If somebody is hurt, if there is a bad accident or if a man is taken ill a long way away from civilization, then this radio system is a very efficient means in need for getting help and for getting a man to hospital, whatever the case may be. It is one of the things which in my opinion should be developed right through the whole of South Africa, so that the furthest areas which are being developed should be able to get in touch at some point with civilization.

The principle of this motion we support. We don’t think there is need for another body, the bodies are there to be supported to the fullest extent. I leave it at that and will give the hon. Minister a chance to take part in the debate.

One of the Republic’s greatest assets and riches is its splendid scenic beauty and its great variety of fauna and flora. That was bequeathed to us by our Creator; it was not our own creation. But we run the risk of this heritage being destroyed by development. We live in a country where much development is taking place, and from the nature of the matter any development, whether in the agricultural sphere, in the form of the establishment of townships or in the industrial sphere, is accompanied by the spoliation of nature. That is inevitable, but we do feel that much can be done to prevent our scenic beauties from injudiciously being totally or partly destroyed, and we can prevent our fauna and flora from being destroyed. Particularly we can try to stop their being destroyed through mere vandalism. We must preserve them in order to leave this heritage to posterity. When we take the necessary steps in that direction we should also make it possible for those beauties and that heritage to be accessible to the public of South Africa, and when it is accessible, it must be utilized in such a way that it is not destroyed for posterity.

I need not say much about our scenic beauties because that is common cause. One can travel about the world and visit the most beautiful cities, such as Lisbon in Portugal or Naples or the French Riviera, and one may go to San Francisco or even to Rio de Janeiro, but I still think that as regards pure scenic beauty Cape Town need not take a back seat to any other city in the world. But I do not wish to limit it to Cape Town alone. Reference has been made here to Natal. There is beautiful scenery in Natal and in the Eastern Transvaal, and even the Fish River Canyon in South West Africa need not take a back seat in many respects to the world-famous Grand Canyon of Arizona. We have been endowed with all that. But when we think of our great variety of flora, it is interesting to note that South Africa has been blessed with the richest, the most beautiful, and the greatest variety of veld flowers. It is estimated that South Africa has from 16,000 to 20,000 various types of flowers, natural flowers, most of which are concentrated in the South-Western Cape. In the Cape Peninsula alone there are over 2,600 species. That is more than are to be found in the whole of the British Isles or in southern Australia or in New Zealand, just to mention an example. But we must also remember that much of this great variety is limited to very small areas. There is not a profusion of it spread right throughout the country, and most of it cannot be cultivated either. We have here the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, a place near Kleinmond, and we have a reserve at Worcester, and we have natural gardens in various places, but it is not always possible to cultivate this great variety of flora there. Just think of the leucospernum reflexum. It grows in our gardens, but in its natural state it is found only in a small part of the Cedarberg. In French Hoek one finds the well-known “blushing bride”, but it grows in only a small area. Even the March rose is found only in a limited area, and the snowflower is found only on two or three peaks of the Cedarberg. Even some of our Karoo plants are found on only a few square yards; for the rest they are not found at all. The same applies to the flora in Namaqualand and the Richtersveld, where one also finds extremely rare types of flowers which grow only on a few square yards and nowhere else. We have a great variety of fauna, but many types of animals were destroyed by our forefathers, and that was our loss.

Mention has been made of open spaces, particularly by the hon. member for Innesdale. I agree that we should devote much more attention to that when laying out townships. So often we find that in terms of the ordinance the owner who sub-divides land is compelled to set aside certain open spaces. The tendency is, however, to set aside the poorest areas of that land for open spaces, and often the best areas are sold to private bodies for their own use. I think that from the point of view of preserving the flora and making available the most beautiful areas to the public, we should perhaps be more careful to ensure that not only steep slopes or unattractive areas of land are set aside for open spaces, but that those areas should be reserved which have the best land.

There are quite a number of bodies which are very interested in this conservation aspect. There are the State itself, the National Parks Board, the Department of Lands, the Department of Forestry which has control over large areas of State land. The provinces are also very interested, as the hon. member for South Coast said. I may say that we are aware that Natal has done much to preserve its scenic beauties for South Africa, as he said, and we give them great credit for that. But fortunately there has been, particularly recently, a great revival of interest in the other three provinces also, particularly on the part of the Provincial Administrations, and also in South West. It is a new development, but we give them the fullest support, and I think that if they continue in that direction they will also deserve the thanks of South Africa for what they do in that respect. Apart from the Provincial Administrations, there are local authorities, such as municipalities and even divisional councils, which spend such money and go to great trouble to establish nature reserves in their towns and districts. There is the Botanical Gardens Organization and there are individuals who are always interested in trying to preserve the beauties of nature. It is essential that this should be done and that steps should be taken now.

The mover of the motion referred to the possibility of establishing a bureau, a national bureau, and the hon. member for South Coast also referred to it. The hon. the Minister of Education, Arts and Science some time ago appointed a broad body not only for the protection of our natural riches, but also to make them available to the public. It is no use preserving these beautiful things if they are not accessible to the public. The various State Departments represented on this inter-departmental committee devoted attention to this matter under the guidance of the Department of Education, Arts and Science. We have had reference to the building of railway lines passing through beautiful areas, which has its disadvantages. Apart from the Department of Transport, the Departments of Land, Agricultural Technical Services, Forestry, Water Affairs, Railways and Harbours Administration, Community Development, Tourism, Mining, Indian Affairs, Coloured Affairs and Bantu Administration were also concerned in it as also the Board of Trustees of Mineral Baths, the Natal Parks Board, the Fish Conservation Board, the Peri-Urban Areas Health Board, the Natural Resources Development Council, the Provincial Administration of the Cape (Department of Nature Conservation), the Transvaal and the Free State Chambers of Mines and the two Provincial Administrations of the Free State and the Transvaal were all concerned, as well as the National Parks Board. These bodies were all represented on this interdepartmental committee. The matters to which they have already devoted attention include, inter alia, the urgent need for public recreational facilities, particularly with a view to the future, and the need for a co-ordinated national plan of action and the formulation of State policy in this regard for ministerial consideration, and also the necessity for a country-wide survey of potential recreational areas and the desirability of holding a national conference in regard to the conservation of recreational areas. This committee also investigated the matter of a national bureau, as was suggested here, but still has certain doubts about it. But in certain directions progress was indeed made, and during the week a letter was addressed to me by the convener of this inter-departmental committee on behalf of the Minister of Education, Arts and Science, and I should like to read it because it summarizes the approach to the matter—

Although it seems advisable in the meantime to delay the establishment of the proposed bureau, it has nevertheless become urgent to open the way towards public recreation receiving the necessary attention. Suitable areas are fast being swallowed up by continuous urban expansion and by agricultural and industrial development. Of the whole Natal coast, only 58 miles have not been cut up into private sites and urban areas. The banks of the Vaal River and the Hartebeespoortdam are, to all intents and purposes, inaccessible to the public. Existing recreational resorts are being ruined through being swamped with visitors and natural life in these areas is being threatened with permanent damage. Dangerous pressure is being exerted on existing nature and game reserves, where access by the public should be controlled. As the result of guidance and a national body which can give encouragement, it is hardly possible for our State forests, State land and irrigation schemes to be utilized for public recreation. The commercial exploitation of recreational requirements creates serious conditions in respect of sanitary and moral considerations. Hundreds of new urban areas are laid out without any provision for open spaces at all. Numerous overseas countries made the mistake of not devoting attention to this aspect of national welfare, until open spaces were no longer available or could only be acquired at very high prices. There is an urgent need for educating the public by means of national campaigns to protect our natural heritage and not to sully it. With the five-day week and future automation, higher incomes and improved transport, existing open spaces will be threatened not only by over-population, but this age of leisure will, unless timeous provision is made for facilities for healthy recreation and the utilization of leisure, necessarily result in serious social problems.

In view of the foregoing, the hon. J. de Klerk, Minister of Education, Arts and Science, decided that:

1. (a) In view of the fact that your Department has been established since this matter began to receive attention, your Department is the most suitable body to be entrusted with this co-ordination; and
2. (b) Your Department is requested to deal further with the matter.

That is a synopsis of how the State regards the matter, namely that there should be a measure of co-ordination and that a body should be established to determine certain policy lines. Reference was made here to the Department of Lands which also controls State lands. The Minister of Lands is aware of the problem and of the necessity to conserve the soil, and that it should also be made available in a proper manner for utilization by the public whilst observing the conditions stated here. He also agreed to this matter being further negotiated. There is a great need for it. If we think of a country like the United States of America, which recently started concentrating on it, then it is interesting to observe the large number of national parks they have. Just recently they have proclaimed more than 40 areas which they call wilderness areas where no development may take place. They already have more than 13,000,000 morgen of national parks which are visited by more than 12,000,000 people. That shows what a great asset it is. I think our population has perhaps become accustomed to our scenic beauties to such an extent that they do not always stop to appreciate them or to utilize them to the best advantage.

When we say that this matter should be considered from different angles, I want to emphasize that considerable progress has already been made in this field. The hon. member for Parow has referred to the position at Vaaldam, as well as at the Hartebeespoort Dam, where private owners have authority over land right up to the highwater mark, and he pointed out that those places were practically inaccessible to the public. He asked that we should ensure that this state of affairs does not arise as far as the Orange River project is concerned. I can assure the hon. member that as far as the Orange River project is concerned the committee which has been appointed in that regard and to which I referred has also appointed a sub-committee to devote special attention to outdoor recreational facilities and tourist traffic in connection with the Orange River Scheme. Representatives of the Departments of Planning, Tourism, Water Affairs, the Cape and the Free State Provincial Administrations and the National Parks Boards will serve on that committee. The Department of Planning and the Natural Resources Development Council are at present busy with a survey of the areas surrounding the Hendrik Verwoerd and the Van der Kloof Dams, which are particularly suitable for outdoor recreation, as well as the preservation of our fauna and flora, so as to reserve those areas for these purposes. I may add that whereas in the past just sufficient land was acquired for the dam, that is no longer done. Provision has now been made to acquire more land than merely the land which will be inundated, and as much as possible of that land will be kept for open spaces and the preservation of the fauna and flora, as well as for its proper utilization for recreational and tourist purposes. In so far as these areas are concerned, attention is also being devoted to the drawing up of a preliminary development plan for the area which will be affected by the first phase of the Orange River project. The purpose of this plan is to serve as a guide for the already increasing development and thereby put a stop to the unplanned and undesirable township development there, and to prevent unplanned development taking place as has happened in so many other areas of our country. Because it has already been declared to be a controlled area in terms of the Natural Resources Development Act, no change may be made in the use of that land without obtaining prior permission from the Minister, and in this way it can be ensured that the development taking place there will be in line with this guiding plan which is being drafted by all the interested departments as well as certain outside bodies. I think that also lays down the pattern for future development in so far as it is realized that the dams being built are not there for water conservation only, but that many other aspects, including those of tourism and recreational resorts, should also be taken into consideration.

The hon. member for Innesdale also referred to Pretoria. I agree with him wholeheartedly in regard to the preservation of that heritage he referred to, but I may also say that consideration has been given not only to that area, but that for some years now a very thorough investigation has been in progress in regard to recreational resorts for the whole of the Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging area. Geographically that is a comparatively small area, but one-fifth of the total population of our country is congregated there. The Department of Planning has already progressed far with the drafting of a plan for outdoor recreation there on a regional basis. It is near our large urban areas where the need for recreational resorts is greatest and where the natural and attractive areas run the greatest risk of being utilized for other purposes and thus becoming lost as recreational spots. This is a very comprehensive report and it is almost ready for publication. It will also contain important recommendations for the protection, conservation and development of recreational resorts for the whole of the Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging area. I am convinced that it will make a very important contribution towards complying with the representations made here, in particular by the hon. member for Innesdale and in general by the mover of this motion.

In so far as Natal is concerned, they also have a Committee to prepare a comprehensive development plan for the South Coast, and various Departments are also concerned with that. Outdoor recreation and the conservation of coastal areas will also receive special attention.

Reference has also been made here to the injudicious development of the west coast. In this respect I can also say that last year there was a Departmental Committee under the leadership of the Department of Planning which was sent to make a survey of the potential of the west coast and to make certain suggestions. This report in regard to the west coast was received by the Secretary for the Department this week, and it is now being considered. The aspects mentioned here will also receive attention. I may also mention that even in connection with the recent demarcation of Rietvlei, much attention was devoted to the natural beauties there and the possibility of developing part of it as a bird sanctuary and a nature reserve, although Rietvlei was demarcated as a harbour essential to Table Bay’s expansion. I can give the assurance that with the further planning of the development there this aspect will be thoroughly taken into consideration.

The Department also intends making a thorough investigation in regard to outdoor recreational areas with a view also to tourism; apart from existing resorts, new areas will also be set aside for conservation. There are, however, certain problems connected with it. At the moment there is the control in terms of the Natural Resources Development Act which may be used to prevent injudicious change of use. It will, however, be difficult to control the whole country in that way, and I feel it is necessary to consider whether it is not perhaps possible to move an amendment so as more easily to control that development.

There has been reference to the various bodies. It is essential, in order to make a success of nature conservation, to make use of all the bodies which already exist. It should, however, also be co-ordinated and perhaps a national policy should be developed in that regard. Although we are already devoting considerable attention to this aspect, I can only say that the motion of the hon. member for Parow will help to strengthen our efforts to co-ordinate this matter and to consider what steps should be taken to leave to posterity unblemished as far as possible this heritage of ours, and to develop it in such a way that the present generation can have access to it. I am convinced that this motion will also help to create a greater interest in the country in this very important matter.

Mr. Speaker, his motion is interesting and it is important to this country of ours, and we were all interested to hear the Minister’s remarks. The Minister referred to the tremendous development that is taking place in this country and the effect it will have on preserving the natural beauties of the country. He also said that in his travels round the world he compared the various places in the South of France and South America with Cape Town, and there was just no comparison. I agree with him entirely, but we are a very young country and it will not always remain as it is at present. Our national heritage is a very great one. As a Capetonian I want to say that we have had tourists coming out here recently, and they saw the rest of South Africa and they were impressed by our game reserves, but they said that the beauties of the Cape were incomparable with anything they had seen in the rest of the world. Overseas, where they have destroyed their natural heritage, they are doing everything possible to re-establish what has disappeared. To some extent they have been successful, but they will never really re-establish those countries as they were years ago. When we talk about our national heritage, we in the Cape are inclined to be jealous of our natural beauties here, and the Transvaalers are jealous of the natural beauties of the Eastern Transvaal, and I think the Eastern Transvaal is a very beautiful place. You get that magnificent game reserve of ours which has been developed over the years, and it is one of the highlights of tourist attraction. We have heard about the development on the Natal South Coast. I do not entirely agree with the mover of the motion as to the position there, because the Natal South Coast is a huge recreational area. It is the lung of the Transvaal. We are hoping to replace it one day when it is completely covered with smog, but in the meantime it is the lung of the Transvaal and a huge recreational centre where the Transvaalers go to enjoy themselves.

With all these beauties of out country we have numbers of people and bodies who have set themselves up to look after the natural beauties of our country, and some of them have become statutory bodies. There is the National Parks Board, and the Provincial Councils in Natal and the Cape have game parks. We have an Administrator here who is very interested in the preservation both of the game and the wild flowers. The destruction of the wild flowers in the Cape has gone on to such an extent that we now have very restricted ordinances which even prevent the owners of land from removing their own flowers. That is right, because dealers and people who wish to make money out of our wild flowers have destroyed this wonderful asset we have here to a large extent. Divisional councils have created nature reserves. We have the Table Mountain Preservation Board, which was set up to preserve the whole of Table Mountain in all its beauty. A point I would like to make is this. The Table Mountain Preservation Board is a statutory body and it has already declared the line from which it controls Table Mountain. It has acquired land by exchange and by purchase. But there are many of us who think that that line of control is far too high. When one goes over Kloof Nek down into Camps Bay on your left, above the Main Road, it is tragic to think that a complete township has been laid out there. No houses have yet been built but the roads have been cut and there will be a complete housing scheme up to the contour path, destroying the natural beauty of that area. When you go down further from Bakoven to the Apostle Battery, you find that that property is privately owned and up to the contour path it has been surveyed and a township will be laid out there. It has been said that one of the most beautiful scenes in the world is the view of the Twelve Apostles from the Round House Road or the top of Kloof Road at Sea Point. You see pictures of it in art galleries all over the world. People who have come out to this country say it is one of the most beautiful scenes in the world. What will happen is that if you look from Upper Kloof Road at Sea Point, you will see a complete housing scheme. This matter was brought up in the Provincial Council and we were told that if we felt so heartsore about it we should raise the money and buy the ground.

That brings me to another point. Various societies have been set up, botanical societies and Parks Boards, to preserve our natural fauna and flora, but they all suffer from a terrible lack of funds. Whenever they wish to acquire any land or buildings they have to make public appeals and it takes a number of years before they can raise the money. The Van der Stel Society is making an effort to preserve the old buildings of the Cape, but they have a great struggle to raise funds to acquire these properties. If you drive towards Kirstenbosch on the right-hand side there is another beautiful spot with all the natural flora, but you find that it is being cut down and huge townships are being established right on the slopes of Table Mountain. If you want to see what desecration is, you must look from the top of Constantia Nek and look across Tokai Valley. Then you see what is happening in the Constantia area. It is becoming completely suburban and townships are being laid out there, which has had the effect of destroying the most beautiful spot we have in the Cape. Reference has been made to Tokai Forest. I hope nothing will ever be done to spoil that particular spot with all its natural beauties and the plantations that have been planted there. It has become a lung for Capetonians who wish to go and picnic there, and I hope there will not be too much development for recreational purposes and that it will be left in its natural state so that we can enjoy the natural beauty of that area. We in the cities are inclined to forget about nature at times and we think only of concrete and bricks.

When we come to the tourist aspect of our natural beauties in this country, I do not think we can ever calculate its true value in money. It is one of the industries we are just starting to develop. When you see what happens to a little island like Majorca and the thousands of tourists that are attracted to that island, and how they have developed the natural beauties and provided hotels and how they have revived history, you realize what could be done here. We should do everything in our power at Government level to preserve our natural beauties, and I should like to make this final appeal to the Minister. Do not let us sleep, but let us try to do something about it. The Minister should try to induce the Minister of Finance to find the necessary funds. There is no doubt that this piece of land from Bakoven to the Apostle Battery should be acquired by the State, and something should be done to stop the development of housing schemes on the slopes of the mountain, because that area does not just belong to Cape Town; it belongs to South Africa and if that is destroyed I think we would be doing something that we would all regret in the years to come.

Mr. Speaker, I do not know precisely what the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) (Mr. Streicher) meant by his amendment, because in paragraph (b) of his motion the hon. member for

Parow (Mr. S. F. Kotzé) says that the work of the various bodies responsible for the planning of these areas should be co-ordinated. But surely it is perfectly clear that what he means is that this work must be done by those bodies and that it must be co-ordinated, because unless it is done on a co-ordinated basis it is simply not done. We do have these various bodies but it is because of lack of coordination that we find these things to which the hon. member referred here. One comes across many beautiful places which are so neglected and so dirty that one simply has no desire to stop to spend a little time there; at other places one finds that there is a notice board which simply says: “No admittance”. However, I want to confine myself more specifically to the first portion of the motion which says that steps should be taken to combat that process.

In this age of economic strain and materialism, hustle and bustle and artificiality, one feels the need sometimes to visit places of natural beauty as they were created by the Creator Himself. One needs to be reminded sometimes that not all things are man-made and that materialism and artificiality are not the only things which count. Those man-made things are very necessary in this age in which we are living, but we need more than that. We should also preserve places of natural beauty in the state in which the Creator fashioned them. I want to emphasize that aspect in particular, that we should preserve that part of nature which is still in its original state. I am very pleased that we still have many fine examples of nature unspoilt by man and that one need not necessarily go to remote areas such as those I represent here in order to see such places; there are still places of natural beauty within fairly easy reach of the city dweller in Cape Town or any of our other cities. I wonder how many people in Cape Town know that if they want to see a beautiful waterfall, all they have to do is to travel along this beautiful coastal road leading to Betty’s Bay. When one walks on a little distance one is isolated; one comes across a place where the water plunges down the mountainside, where nerinas garland the cliffs, a scene of indescribable beauty, where one gets away from the hustle and bustle of city life and where peace and quiet descends upon one. When one travels beyond Groenland in the Grabouw district, with its beautiful orchards planted by man, one comes across an area situated between Groenland and Rooi Els River where, but for the road which runs through this area, nature is still absolutely unspoilt. One can go down there by motorcar but one has to obtain the permission of the Department of Forestry. One then rides about ten miles along the Palmiet River and then comes to a point where the Wynand Louw River runs directly into the Palmiet River and the two rivers then wind their way down to the sea. I think this is one of the most wonderful sights that one can imagine because there is absolutely nothing that reminds one of man’s intrusion in this area. Then travelling a few miles along Louw River one comes to an indigenous forest where one can see everything that there is to be seen in the grand indigenous forests of Africa—huge ferns and stinkwood trees which have stood there for generations. One feels at once that one has arrived in another world. One needs occasionally to visit places of beauty not made by man, places of natural beauty untouched by man for centuries. It gives one an opportunity to take stock of oneself and also brings one closer to the Creator who created all these wonderful things, things which no man can emulate. I want to plead for the retention and the preservation of these natural places of beauty, but I also want to plead that they be made more accessible to our people. That is why I am so grateful that the hon. the Minister has emphasized that these places will be worthless unless they are made accessible to man.

I fully realize that the difficulty which faces the Minister and which faces all the authorities which are concerned with this is that there are vandals amongst our people who are incapable of enjoying these things without destroying them and without smearing them. One realizes that this is a serious problem. On the one hand there is a very limited number of these places of natural beauty and on the other hand one wants to make them accessible to people but one realizes that there is always the risk that they may be destroyed. Think of the damage which can be done by careless persons in those untouched areas, to which I referred a moment ago, between the green fields of Grabouw and Rooi Els River; just a match carelessly thrown away would reduce to ruins those thousands of morgen of natural beauty because it would be impossible to extinguish a fire in those mountain ranges and thousands of morgen would be reduced to ashes. In this respect the authorities have to contend with a very serious problem therefore. On the one hand, we want to preserve our scenic attractions for posterity and on the other hand we want to make these places of natural beauty accessible to the public for their enjoyment and for the spiritual enrichment that one undeniably needs.

In the few minutes which is still at my disposal I should like to express a few views as to the way in which we should set about things so that having made these places accessible to the public we can still preserve them and leave them unspoilt. The easiest way, of course, would be to forbid the public access to these places. We would be able to preserve them if we allowed only certain people to visit them for the purpose of inspection but in that case we would have only half an asset. I want to put forward a strong plea that they should be accessible to the public but that the risk of destruction should be eliminated as far as possible.

In the first place I would urge that we should arrange visits to these places by means of luxury tours. I am glad that the Minister of Transport is here and I am thankful for the services which he has already introduced. We are grateful for the fact that the Railways have introduced bus tours in the past, particularly to Namaqualand to enable people to see the beautiful flowers there, and I am grateful for the coastal tours which have been arranged for people who do not own motor vehicles and for others, who, although they own motor vehicles, prefer to enjoy the comforts of such a tour. I want to urge, however, that tours should also be arranged to smaller places offering natural attractions. The roads could be improved at little expense to make it possible for railway buses to use them. Such a service could be of immense value to the public. We know that in many cases the drivers of these buses are people who understand the art of drawing the public’s attention to the natural attractions along the road. I have also noticed already that they pass on information to the public as to how to appreciate these things without destroying them. I think this offers a great potential that we should develop and that the drivers of those buses, when they take out parties of tourists, should strongly emphasize the fact that one can appreciate these things without necessarily destroying them, that one can appreciate our flowers without picking them and that one can walk through the heather without destroying it. I think this is a field which offers great possibilities. I am glad that we have the attention of the Ministers concerned, and I am grateful to them for what is being done, but our plea is that these services should be extended to those areas which are still secrets to vast masses of our people. I repeat that that beautiful asset to which I have referred here is less than 40 miles from Cape Town but I think it has been visited by probably no more than a score of people.

Another way in which we can educate people to preserve and to respect the beauties of nature is through our schools. Our teachers ought to make it their business to teach children how to appreciate and respect places of natural beauty. We have the opportunity to do so through our schools. I think it should be part of the work of our teachers to teach children that when they go out into the veld they should appreciate and protect the things that they see so that there will be an urge on the part of every boy and every girl to do their best to preserve our places of natural beauty. Another way in which we can cultivate a love of nature is by making more use of our land service camps. Wonderful work is already being done but I think too little is being done to cultivate in our children a love of nature as it was created originally. I think lectures should be arranged to educate our youth to develop a love for our natural attractions.

Debate having continued for 2½ hours, the motion lapsed in terms of Standing Order No. 32.

I move—

Sir, the rapidly increasing number of deaths and injuries on the roads is so well known that to avoid boring the House I will give as few statistics as possible.

In 1960 the total killed on the roads was 3,040; for 1961 it increased by 232 to 3,272, an advance of nearly 8 per cent. For 1962 it was up on the previous year by 308 to 3,580, a rise of nearly 10 per cent; for 1963 the figure was, 4,294, an increase of 20 per cent over the year before, whilst the number of injured was 40,726 and the number of accidents 121,202. The figures for the full year 1964 are not yet available but the estimated statistics based on the official figures for the first nine months are the following: killed, 4,904, an increase of 14 per cent over the year before, and an increase of more than 60 per cent over the figures for the four previous years; the injured numbered 44,463 and the total number of accidents was 138,000. Sir, in the last five years 19,050 people have been killed on the roads. This figure is equal to the biggest intake of immigrants we have had in South Africa in one year. Sir, if we go back a bit further we find the official figures for 1956 were as follows: killed 1,414, so in nine years the number killed has risen by 3,490 or just on 350 per cent.

It has been stated by people who should be able to judge that South Africa has one of the highest (or possibly the highest) for all I know, figure of road accident? in the world, in proportion to its population. Many people will agree that this is largely due to a complete disregard by numbers of drivers of the elementary rules of road safety plus a measure of sheer bad manners or lack of consideration for other motorists. Due to the extent of, and the distance covered by, our magnificent carriageways and open roads—again in ratio to the population—it is quite impossible for them to be effectively patrolled by traffic officers, as is the case in more densely populated countries. Speaking from memory, I think in England they have something like 40 cars to every mile of road and there, of course, you can have enough traffic officers to exercise control, but here with our large open spaces it cannot be done. The result is that with the ever-increasing speed of modern cars in the hands of careless or inexperienced or incompetent drivers who, by temperament, lack of courtesy and self-discipline, are often unfit to control any vehicle at more than 40 miles per hour, the accident rate is increasing at this alarming rate. Sir, in the statistics of a large Life Office the claims for the 40 year olds and under group during three years ending 30 June 1964 showed the following appalling figures: unnatural deaths were over 50 per cent of the total claims, viz. 690 out of a total of 1,338 deaths. The suicides accounted for 117, or 6.9 per cent, and 573 or 44.9 per cent were violent, accidental and unnatural deaths, mainly due to road accidents. Sir, compare these figures for the 40 year old and under group with the two greatest natural killers, i.e. cardio-vascular disease, e.g. coronary thrombosis and cerebral haemorrhage 26.3 per cent, and cancer 6.4 per cent. It is terrible to think that of this group—the country’s greatest asset in manpower—these deaths are preventable or completely unnecessary. I say that they are the greatest asset of the country; it does not matter if an old man like myself is killed, but it is the men under 40 who are going to lead the country in the next 20 years; they are the coming executives in industry, commerce, etc. Sir, a loss of 573 persons a year through road accidents is a loss which South Africa cannot carry having regard to the present shortage of trained manpower. It is becoming increasingly clear that trapping by uniformed officers, and subsequent punishment by the courts, is not having the necessary effect, because each year the death rate rises, as the figures clearly show. Therefore I suggest that something new, or novel to this country, be tried (even it has shortcomings), in which responsible citizens can take part much in the same way as the police reserve is able to assist the regular police in maintaining law and order.

Under Clause 8 of the Road Safety Council’s Act, No. 1 of 1960. an action committee can, or has been, established. My suggestion is that this action committee should form a corps of carefully selected honorary traffic officers, both male and female to assist in collecting information on habitually bad or dangerous drivers. This corps—which I will call “T” men and women for short—should consist of responsible individuals who volunteer or are invited to join it. Before being appointed, however, applicants must be able to show a “clean” driver’s licence, of, say at least 12 years’ standing. Other references of reliability can also be insisted on if the committee so wishes. The action committee must also establish a central bureau to which reports will have to be sent.

Sir, what I have just indicated—and what I am now about to put forward—are merely suggestions that the proposed commission of inquiry should consider when investigating causes of accidents. On joining, the “T” officers will be called upon to give a solemn written promise not to report falsely, frivolously, maliciously or for personal reasons, but that they will be entirely objective in the reports submitted by them. They will also be called upon to undertake, if requested, to make a sworn affidavit or, if necessary, to give evidence in court. This will prevent false, frivolous or malicious reporting. The council should also be empowered at any time to cancel an appointment without giving any reason. The duties and powers of these “T” officers will consist solely of reporting cases of dangerous, careless, bad driving or any breaches of the road traffic code. They will report, in writing, the number of the car (and make, if possible) date, time, place, together with a short description of the incident, and names of any witnesses who were with them at the time, should they wish to do so. Other people might not wish to be dragged in and in that case they need not do so. Sir, the Minister of Transport has stated that he proposes to create a Central Bureau. If he does so, then the reports of these “T” officers can be sent to such a bureau controlled by the council or the action committee created under Section 8. This bureau will, in turn, inform the owner of the car of the report, but will not reveal the name of the person who submitted the report. The first letter to the owner should be couched in polite terms warning him that a file has been opened in his or her name, and, should such owner be involved in an accident, or in police court proceedings at some future date, that this dossier can be produced for the information of the court as evidence of driving character—I repeat, merely as evidence of driving character. Where a man has been reported five or six times, this will then be produced as evidence of his bad driving habits. Sir, this will, of course, require legislation. At the same time the addressee, the owner of the car, shall be invited to make any statement he or she wishes. This will also go into the file and be produced if it ever becomes necessary to do so.

The owner may claim that the car was being driven by an employee or a member of his family or some other person authorized to do so. In such cases the owner shall supply the name and address of the person who was driving at the time. A file will then be opened in that person’s name and duly cross-referenced in the files. If the owner of the car was not driving the car at the time of the accident his name will not appear at all in any file. You may have a chauffeur who goes from employer to employer. Thus the report sent in by the “T” officer will be on the driving character of the person who was at the wheel at the time and not on the driving character of the owner unless he was in control. If the owner claims that the car was being driven by some unauthorized person who had stolen it it will be up to him to show to which police station he reported the theft, or if he knows who the unauthorized person was he must give that person’s name and address and a file will then be opened in the name of that person. Sir, it must be clearly understood that these “T” officers are not to be considered vigilantes, snoopers or troublemakers. Further, they will have no police or traffic officer powers whatsoever. All they will be able to do is to submit the report to the Central Bureau.

On joining the “T” corps they will be given a number and they will sign their reports with that number only. They will be told not to disclose to others that they are members of the “T” corps. They are not to go about bragging and throwing about their weight.

That would not be another Broederbond.

No, we would not allow that! The Broederbond must be excluded. Above all, they will be told that they must not attempt to intercept or talk to the drivers of cars on whom they report. Their duty will be merely and solely to report to the bureau. They will also be told to draw up to a kerb as soon as possible, after seeing an incident, and to write down, on special cards provided, the number and details whilst the incident is still fresh in their minds. The “T” officers should not report incidents unless they are sure that they have the correct number of the car; they should not do so for borderline infringements.

“T” men and women will not report on speeding as such (unless it endangers other users of the road), as the judging of speed is difficult and, at best, merely guesswork unless special instruments are used. Seventy miles per hour on an open clear road may be perfectly safe, whilst 30 miles might be dangerous under certain circumstances.

If the bureau considers the report petty, trifling or vague, it will simply ignore it. If a second such report is received from the same observer, the bureau (or action committee) can at its sole discretion strike the individual’s name off the corps without giving any reason Cases will occur where the owner claims that a mistake has been made in the number of the car, and doubt will then be cast on the accuracy of the report. But if subsequently further reports, over a period, are received from different sources, reporting the same individual for violations of the code, the bureau will be able, on the weight of the evidence, to judge whether or not the first report was accurate. If several reports from different sources on other infringements or incidents are received, the drivers repudiation of the first report submitted against him will lose much of its validity.

Sir, the whole idea underlying the proposed scheme is (1) to build up a record against certain drivers for habitually bad or dangerous driving; (2) to serve notice to them that such a reputation is accumulating and can be used against them should they eventually have an accident or be summoned by the police or by any traffic department, and (3), above all, the psychological effect on the habitually bad or dangerous driver if he never knows when he is being watched and reported on. Sir, I am certain that this will act as a deterrent and force such a person to mend his ways, or face the consequences should he ever have an accident or be summoned for an infringement of the road safety code.

The Minister of Transport should also be legally entitled to make public, by publication in the Gazette, or some other special journal, the name of anyone who has been reported, say, five or more times. Just as Dunn’s Gazette gives protection to providers of credit, or finance, so such publicized information will not only act as a further deterrent but also protect vehicle insurance companies and allow of their loading the premiums of such drivers, or if the risk is too great, refuse to insure them at all. Safe drivers will not have to have their premiums increased then so as to meet the bad deeds of the dangerous drivers who are continually breaking the road safety code.

I think that the council should further be empowered, if they possess, five reports from different sources and of different incidents against an individual, to send the reports to the local magistrate, who should be enabled to send for that person and warn him. He would simply send for him and say to him, “Here are five or six reports which have been received against you; I warn you that you are getting a very bad reputation as a driver.” I suggest, Sir, that the rapid rise in the accident rate calls for new and drastic measures and for a more personal approach to this problem. Let this new approach be tried. If it does not work, or if unforeseen snags crop up the council simply has to cease operating this scheme. If the Government takes the simple legislative measures to enable the council to act in the way I have suggested, it does not mean that the council will be forced to use the powers given it if, after a trial, it is found that it does not work. The whole thing will then merely become a dead letter.

This side of the House is strongly opposed to interfering with the powers of Provincial authorities, but this scheme cannot be carried out provincially. A central bureau is necessary therefore, because a dangerous driver may, after a warning in his own Province, be careful there, but become careless again as soon as he crosses the borders of his own Province. He might also move from one Province to another. Therefore there must be a central bureau.

The really dangerous driving, such as cutting in, overtaking on blind rises or curves or corners usually takes place on the national roads where there are few traffic officers about, and on the long open road, where you can see long distances ahead, in the Karroo for instance, they are very conspicuous. If anyone travels on the open roads regularly, as I do, I doubt if a week will pass without his seeing some dangerous breach of the road traffic code. I have witnessed as many as four within two hours and could easily have been killed in three of them.

Sir, I have seen the reports of authorities in other countries where, in part, the above scheme has been in operation for some time with considerable success, but I will not take up the time of the House by giving details as the council—if this motion is accepted—can make the necessary inquiries. This scheme has been tried out in other countries with considerable success. But in none of the reports that I have read from other countries operating a scheme such as this have I seen the following suggestions given here put forward: (1) dossiers being made available to the courts should the person reported subsequently be involved in an accident or the infringement of the road code; (2) the publication of names as a deterrent and for the information of interested parties being legalized; or (3) that after, say, five such reports, from different “T” observers of different incidents being received, the bureau can hand the evidence to the local magistrate to be dealt with at his discretion within the limits laid down in the proposed legislation; that is to say, send for the individual and to warn him.

Sir, I have given only a very rough outline of the scheme. If the Government accept the broad principles of the motion, I suggest that it be referred to a commission of inquiry for consideration and any recommendations the commission may think are called for. Sir, one thing is clear: Steps must be taken to deal with the growing danger to life and limb, and the menace of bad or careless driving, other than merely leaving the matter to be dealt with by the present authorities with their present powers.

The fact is that much of the dangerous driving is being done by drivers not exceeding the legal speed limit. Especially is this so on the national open roads where there is no speed limit. Whilst admittedly speed is a danger, careless driving, or the ignoring of the road code, is a greater danger in many cases. Although more accidents take place in the towns the fact of the matter is that more people are fatally injured on the open roads where cars are involved in head-on collisions at 60 miles an hour. Sir, the tragedy is that in a number of cases the bad driver, whose action has in the first instance been the direct cause of the accident that follows, gets away with it and an innocent driver becomes involved in a fatal accident due to being forced to swerve or brake hard to avoid an immediate accident, only to be involved in one by other cars following or, in attempting to take evasive action, the innocent driver is involved in an accident himself. I have experience of that myself. After having got a gold medal for 57 years of safe driving, I was on the national road while it was raining very hard and suddenly the car in front of me stopped dead; I had to put on my brakes, I got into a skid and went straight into a bank.

Sir, just one more point before I sit down. I think it should be made part of the school curriculum that children be taught the elementary rules of road safety. I know many parents who let their children of 12, 13 or 14 drive their cars in their own grounds, not on public roads, to teach them the elementary things about the control of the car. Many of us (including the hon. the Minister himself) have seen the splendid demonstrations by the Cape Peninsula Road Safety Association, where children, on pedal cars or bicycles, drive round a specially laid out course and are instructed by officials acting as traffic officers. I digress for a moment to give an example as to what I mean. I was taught to handle firearms at the age of about five, and during my lifetime I have taught many children as well as older, middle-aged people, to shoot, and I can make this statement without any fear of contradiction that if a man handles a firearm for the first time when he is about 25 he never becomes a safe shot. I know that the hon. the Minister himself is a great big-game shot himself and he will agree with me. If a youngster is taught at the age of 12, 13 or 14 how to handle a firearm, you will find that later on when he starts to shoot he will make a habit of unloading the firearm before he gets into a car; he will never put down the gun without first opening it to see whether it is loaded even if he know it is unloaded. The same applies to “breaking” the gun before climbing through a fence and never to walk without putting on the safety catch, etc. It becomes second nature to him; and he takes a pride in going through the routine; and he is jeered at by his young friends if he does not. I do suggest that in a serious matter such as road accidents where over a period of five years over 19,000 citizens of South Africa are killed, safe driving is a subject which is important enough to be taught at schools.

Every right-thinking person will agree with the hon. member for Green Point (Maj. van der Bijl) that far too many serious accidents are taking place on our roads and that there is an alarming increase in the number of accidents. Everyone will agree that something should be done to reduce the number of road accidents. Sir, one road accident takes place in the world every four minutes, and for every fatal accident there are 40 persons who are injured. That is the position at the present time according to the statistics. The question is what we should do to reduce the number of road accidents. The hon. member for Green Point has come along with the proposal that we should establish a “T” corps in terms Section 8 of Act No. 1 of 1960. I do not think it was the intention of that section that such a corps should be called into being. I have not had the opportunity to study the hon. member’s proposal to establish such a corps but there are quite a few objections to it which occur to me immediately. In the first place he said that a central bureau should be established and that reports would be submitted to the central bureau by persons whose names would not be disclosed. Where a person drives his motor-car dangerously a complaint would be lodged with the central bureau but the name of the person who submits the report to the bureau may not be disclosed. Under such a system we would again have a secret service, a sort of Klu-Klux-Klan, and prosecutions would be instituted without the accused knowing the identity of the person who lodged the complaint against him. Sir, when such a person appears before the court the complainant ought to be present for cross-examination in connection with the charge which is brought against the accused. Moreover, we have a great manpower shortage in this country and the establishment of such a central bureau would mean far too great a drain on our manpower. There is also a further objection. If I, who come from Pretoria, commit an offence here in Cape Town, according to some secret agent—I do not know whether we should call him “T”-007—his statement has to be submitted to the central bureau; I travel through the country for months and I am only informed of the charge when I return to Pretoria. In the meantime a whole month has elapsed. By this time I have forgotten what happened, and if the case is heard there in Cape Town I have to travel all the way down here from Pretoria. I do not think that the scheme put forward by the hon. member for Green Point, however good his intentions are, would work in our country. I am convinced that it would not have the desired effect and that it is not necessary for the hon. the Minister to appoint a commission of inquiry to go into the “T” scheme proposed by the hon. member. Research has been undertaken in various countries in connection with the causes of road accidents, and they have all come to different conclusions. It would seem that almost every accident takes place under a different set of circumstances; we are dealing here with the human element and the reaction of different persons often differs, even under the same set of circumstances. One person may react in one way while another person may react in an entirely different way under precisely the same circumstances. It would offer no solution therefore to find out how people react under different circumstances. I have taken the trouble to peruse various reports of court proceedings in connection with serious accidents, where persons have been charged with negligent driving of a motor vehicle or with culpable homicide, and I find that the courts have found more or less ten different causes. The first is that people travel at excessive speeds; the second is that people drive under the influence of liquor; the third is that people drive on the wrong side of the road; the fourth is that they fail to pull up timeously when it looks as though an accident is about to happen; they do not know precisely what to do under those circumstances with the result that they do the wrong thing. The fifth is that people fail to give the necessary signals to show that they are about to turn or to stop, etc. The sixth is that they do not give the necessary hand signals; the seventh is that people fail to keep their motor cars under proper control; the eighth is that they fail to take the necessary steps when there are children or livestock on the road; they fail, for example, to blow their hooter or to travel more slowly or to stop their vehicles; the ninth is that they travel without lights at night; the tenth is that they fail to observe one or other by-law or ordinance or Statute. When we examine the causes of accidents we find that people usually contravene one or more of these rules. Where an accused person is found guilty he is sentenced to a fine and/or imprisonment or both. Sometimes the accused’s licence is withdrawn or suspended for a short period. The question is whether such punishment serves as a deterrent; whether a driver, once he has been punished, will again be negligent and commit the same offence again; will the fact that he has been found guilty in a court of law be a lesson to him? I personally feel that the penalties which are being imposed by our courts at the present time do not serve as a deterrent and that the person concerned forgets about it after a few months and once again becomes the same reckless or negligent driver. The question is why the punishment does not serve as a deterrent? My contention is that the penalty is too light. Our penalties in this country generally speaking are too light. Our courts are too inclined to feel sorry for the person who appears before them as an accused, with the result that they do not impose a sufficiently heavy penalty which will really serve as a deterrent. Take the question, for example, of driving a motor vehicle under the influence of liquor. In the case of first offenders, a fine is usually imposed. Within a short space of time the same accused who got away with just a fine again appears before the courts. Upon the second conviction a heavier fine is imposed, and his licence is endorsed or suspended for one, two, three or six months. It is only when he is convicted for the third time that he is dealt with severely and sentenced to imprisonment. Where he has caused a fatal accident his licence is withdrawn and cancelled for good.

To me it sounds almost ridiculous that a much heavier fine should be imposed upon people who are found guilty of poaching. In the case of the poacher it does not matter whether he has been charged previously with a similar offence, he is heavily fined upon his first conviction. I know of a case where a poacher was sentenced to pay a fine of R1,000. In addition to that the rifle which he unlawfully used to hunt was confiscated. There have also been cases already where the motor vehicle used by the poacher has been confiscated. Sir, why is that done? That heavy penalty is imposed to deter poachers; it serves as a deterrent to others. Other people who read about the fine in the newspapers think it over and say to themselves that they are rather not going to expose themselves to the risk of having their motorcar and their firearm confiscated because of poaching.

What is the position in the case of a person who drives a motor vehicle on our roads under the influence of liquor and fatally injures some other person? He is charged with culpable homicide if he was driving under the influence of liquor, or, if he was not under the influence of liquor, he is charged either with culpable homicide or perhaps negligence. What is his punishment? In the case of a first offender a fine of perhaps R50 is imposed, and the motor car driven by him still remains his property. Usually the motor vehicle is insured and the insurance company pays for any damage done to it, and if damages are claimed from the accused by the next-of-kin of the deceased, the accused is covered under third-party insurance or under some other policy and the compensation awarded by the court is paid by the insurance company. The accused himself pays nothing. Even his legal costs are borne by the insurance company. When one weighs this up against the fine which is imposed on the poacher, one asks oneself: “Which of the two is the more serious offence?” In my opinion it is a much more serious offence to kill a person on the road than to shoot game illegally. Obviously, therefore, the person who kills somebody on the road should be punished more heavily than the person who is found guilty of poaching. I would advocate the imposition of heavier penalties and I am convinced that such heavier penalties would act as a deterrent upon persons who drive recklessly.

There are certain countries which work on a system of points. The hon. member for Green Point has proposed the introduction of this “T” scheme, but I want to deal for a moment with the points system which operates in a few countries, where points are awarded to motorists. Where a person drives under the influence of liquor, for example, ten points are deducted; where he travels at more than 40 miles per hour, two points are deducted; three points where he travels at more than 50 miles per hour, four points at more than 60, five points at 70 …

It depends on how many pints he drinks.

Not pints, points. His licence is worth ten points. If he drives under the influence of liquor and he is found guilty, his licence is immediately taken away. If he is found guilty of an offence for which a certain number of points has to be deducted, an endorsement to that effect is made on his licence: “now worth nine points,” “worth eight points”, “worth seven points”, “worth six points”, as the case may be. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that every person present here this afternoon will be extremely careful on the road once his licence is only worth four or five points. He will make sure that he does not drink excessively before he gets into his motor car; he will make sure that he does not exceed the speed limit; he will do everything in his power to retain his licence and to keep his few remaining points because otherwise he will have to walk. Rather than introduce a “T” scheme such as that advocated by the hon. member for Green Point, therefore. I would urge that we pass legislation to provide for heavier penalties in all cases where drivers of motor vehicles commit offences. I am sure that we will find a solution if we impose heavier penalties. No person who has been heavily punished is likely to forget it soon. I have already mentioned the example of the poacher …

By that time it is too late; somebody has been killed already. What we are doing now is to warn him.

Yes, we warn him under this “T” scheme, but we want to obviate his killing a person; let us punish him heavily before he kills somebody.

But if the police do not see him committing an offence, he simply carries on until he eventually kills somebody.

I do not agree entirely with the hon. member. People are constantly being caught for speed contraventions; people are continually brought before the courts for having driven under the influence of liquor without having caused an accident. Those people are a potential danger to others using the roads. I say that when they appear before the courts, that is to say, before they have killed somebody, they should be punished so severely that they will never again commit the same offence. That is the whole object. If their offence was a very serious one they should be dealt with severely and kept off the roads. I certainly think that if we introduce a points system by way of legislation, or if we increase the penalties very drastically, we will get better results than we would by introducing the system proposed here by the hon. member for Green Point. In view of the fact that we have such a great shortage of manpower and in view of the fact that so many people are being killed on the roads, we have no alternative but to take drastic steps. I have every sympathy with that part of the motion of the hon. member for Green Point, as it appears on the Order Paper, in which he asks that an investigation be instituted into possible remedies with a view to reducing the number of accidents on our roads.

I cannot agree with the hon. member who has just sat down that the suggestion put forward by the hon. member for Green Point (Maj. van der Byl), is perhaps not the solution to the problem. I feel that the motion put forward to-day by this side of the House for a commission of inquiry, first, to investigate the causes of the ever-mounting death toll caused by road accidents, and secondly, to try to find a solution to put a stop to those accidents, is one which both sides of the House can support. In moving this motion the hon. member has made the very ingenious suggestion that he has for enforcing these road regulations by means of the appointment of a vigilante force, one might almost call it, of traffic constables. If this could be obtained then the collaboration of the responsible members of the public and their active interest in road safety would be an important step in the right direction. I think both sides of the House are agreed on the seriousness of the situation. We have heard in previous debates and to-day of the mounting toll of road accidents in South Africa which has now reached the stage where it is 17 per cent as compared with the highest in Europe and the U.S.A. which is 16 per cent. We are agreed there is common interest on both sides of the House that methods must be found in order to combat this ever-rising toll.

I notice that on 19 February the hon. the Minister of Transport is reported to have said in the other House that he was of the opinion that the tremendous slaughter of human beings on South African roads was shocking. One would agree with this. But the Minister also said words to the effect that the greatest number of people killed on the roads were non-Whites. This is true. The statistics which Dr. Rigden, the Director of the National Institute for Road Research, gives for non-White casualties in road accidents show that 72 per cent of road deaths are non-Whites of which the Africans total 55 per cent. Now it is interesting that Dr. Rigden also notes that half these fatalities among the non-Whites, including Africans, are among cyclists and pedestrians. In other words, half this figure are the killed; they are not the killers. As the non-European population is roughly 75 per cent of the total population in the Republic the death rate caused by road accidents amongst the non-Europeans is simply proportional to their numbers. It follows therefore that the rate of fatal accidents among Whites and non-Whites is roughly in the end, according to numbers of population, almost equal. Therefore it seems that it is both sides of the population, the Europeans and the non-Europeans, to whom we have to bring home the causes of road accidents and the safety measures which they themselves must take. If you compare the number of fatal car accidents here with that of Britain—I take the 1963 figures—you come to very interesting results. In 1963 the number of motor vehicles in Britain was 10,500,000 and the population totalled 53,000,000. The fatal car accidents resulted in 7,000 deaths. In 1963 in the Republic the number of the vehicles was about 11 million with a population of 16,000,000. The fatal car accidents in 1963 added up to about 4,400 deaths. In Britain you have to consider the very much higher population density, their winding narrow roads, their very bad weather and visibility in winter; their heavy road traffic, not only on the roads but also in and around the towns and the frozen roads at certain times of the year. Of course it is not possible to apply proper statistical analyzes to these figures; the figures would not be available for them. But on simple considerations I think we could agree, because they point at least to the order of the significance, that, firstly, seven and a half times higher the number of motor vehicles causes only about one and a half times the higher number of fatal accidents in Britain as compared with the Republic. Evidently the make of motor car does not come into the picture because much the same cars are used on both roads; perhaps we would have slightly heavier cars here in South Africa. But our weather is better, our roads are straighter and our population density is very much lower. Therefore one would unwillingly approach the hypothesis that the skill and anticipation of our drivers may be slightly less or possibly that the attitude of our drivers towards the protection of life and property may lack discipline. Therefore we seem to be facing these complex psychological facts of our ego here together with all the other factors of motor vehicle traffic. In the final analysis, I would like to put forward, in my opinion, two parallel approaches to this problem, for the consideration of the Minister and the Commission of inquiry that the hon. member for Green Point advocates in his motion.

The first one is education. It was the hon. member for Green Point who mentioned education of children in road traffic and in the handling of road vehicles at an early age. I would stretch it that from the earliest possible age children should be taught road behaviour. Not only as pedestrians and cyclists on the one hand, but on the other hand, also as potential motor car drivers, as motor vehicle drivers. Children should be indoctrinated all through the years of primary school, secondary school and university, with the basic principles of duties of a motor vehicle driver. Special lessons and demonstrations should be given at a more mature age, perhaps during the last year at high school and also at the university, when I suggest that the grim consequences of road accidents should be demonstrated to them by way of photographs and films.

My second point is that a concise code of road behaviour must be drafted. There should be voluntary acceptance of this code by all both those who have qualified in the past and those who qualify for a motor car licence, all new licence holders. The idea of the motor vehicle driver having a duty towards life and property must be kept alive amongst youth right through childhood, and right through up to the time that they take out a motor car licence. I feel that if there was a code of road behaviour and if all those who hold licences to-day and all those who will qualify for licences in future were made to sign this it would go far towards instilling in the minds of all of us the importance of road behaviour. We know that in spite of indoctrination in any field you get a minority who cannot be reached by propaganda of any sort, not even by signing a highway code. I think this has been very well demonstrated among highly civilized people such as those in West Germany and Sweden; the Scandinavian countries. There they have found it necessary to impose heavier penalties. These countries have found that the only way to reduce the murderous toll of deaths on the roads is to increase the sentences. You cannot decrease speed limits any more than they are at the moment on our roads without bring traffic to a halt, to a crawl. We have excellent four and six-lane highways crossing the Republic and they are not death traps. It has been proved in Western Germany that the greater number of accidents does not take place on the through roads, the speedways, but on the lesser roads. There were only some 9,000 in Western Germany last year on the speedways as compared with 300,000 on the lesser roads. It is felt that the solution is for the authorities to consider striking terror into the hearts of those road drivers, the buccaneers of the highway, who are the people who must be weeded out of driving on the roads for they cause many accidents.

In this post-war era we have the young drivers of motor cars who cause, what one might call, “well-being” accidents. These are young people who feel secure in the knowledge that their families can foot the bill for any damage that might be caused. In Western Germany to-day, since the beginning of this year, four heavier penalties have come into being. One is that the driver is sent to prison for up to five years for failing to observe a right-of-way, reckless over-taking or a U-turn on a motorway. The penalties for drunkenness while in charge of a motor vehicle are increased to one year’s imprisonment and loss of driving licence even when no accident has been caused; motor vehicles are impounded under certain circumstances and minor infractions of the highway code are punishable by fines of up to R90. Driving without a licence carries a penalty of an unlimited fine or one year in gaol. If these methods seem very harsh one can only point to the fact that since the beginning of this year, since January when they were imposed, the police in Germany report that people are definitely driving more carefully, since the new penalties came into operation.

The second point that we have to consider and touch upon is alcoholism. The hon. member for Prinshof (Mr. Visse) has already spoken on this to some degree. There have also been systematic investigations in Britain, in the U.S.A., in Sweden and in Austria which confirm the fact that the consumption of alcohol, even in moderate quantities, slows down the reaction and the perceptions of the driver of a motor vehicle. Alcohol consumed in excess has different affects on individuals but the general result is the decrease of inhibitions and this, among very irresponsible people, is one of the most dangerous factors in motor car driving.

Last week the British Medical Association has recommended to ask the British Government to make it an automatic offence, even if no accident has been caused, to drive with a blood-alcohol concentration exceeding 80 milligrams in 100 millilitres of blood. To bring that down to ordinary plain facts that represents an amount of alcohol somewhere in the neighbourhood of 12 single whiskys or five pints of beer. The British Medical Association points out that this level has been chosen as a compromise which could not be reached, so the Medical Association in Britain says, by ordinary moderate social drinking. The British Medical Association also points out that it is possible to commit a statutory road offence with a good deal less alcohol than that in the blood. So the only safe rule is: Drink but do not drive or Drive but do not drink. The 80 milligram level has been introduced in Austria, in Sweden and in the Scandinavian countries and the introduction of it has been considered successful. Last week, on 19 February, when I put a question to the hon. the Minister of Health, the Minister replied that blood alcohol tests were carried out by departmental authorities in the Republic. This service is available to district surgeons throughout the country if requested for and the Minister of Health also stated that the Department of Health had already made recommendations to the South African Police and the Road Safety Association that consideration should be given to using a breath test as a preliminary screening method to ascertain whether the driver of a motor vehicle concerned in an accident should be detained for further investigation. Therefore I would suggest to the hon. the Minister that breath tests should be made a compulsory routine in all cases of negligent driving.

Apart from the causes of accidents there is an obvious need to consider severer punishment as a deterrent against the recklessness of irresponsible drivers. At the moment we have a punishment for death or damage to life which appears not only inadequate as compared with crimes resulting perhaps in lesser harm but the whole purpose of the punishment is proved to be inadequate. It has proved to be a failure because of the ever-increasing number of fatal accidents and serious damage to persons and property. It seems at the moment that at the cost of a fine of R100 or R200, with a suspended sentence, reckless drivers can get away at times with the murder of an innocent person.

I have dealt with education, propaganda and legislation concerning road accidents. A complementary problem to this legislation is the enforcement of these laws by means of additional traffic constables, by means of the scheme such as the one put forward by this side of the House. I feel, in supporting this motion put forward by this side of the House, if it is adopted, we shall be going some way towards ascertaining the causes of road accidents and endeavouring to reduce them.

I have listened with interest to the speeches of hon. members and I have specially been pleased about the constructive suggestions that they have made. This of course is a very important matter. It affects every individual in our country to a greater or lesser extent, but one involuntarily comes to the conclusion that the majority of people have accepted road accidents as a way of our life. Even to-day there seems to be very little interest in this matter, although, as I say, it affects almost every individual in our country. We talk about the slaughter on the roads, we are very concerned about it, we would like to reduce it if it is in any way possible, but when it comes to something tangible being done by the public, we find, as I have said, that they seem to accept it as a way of our South African way of life and very little interest is shown. This of course is a world problem. Every country in the world has to-day to do with this problem and nobody has yet found a solution, and I do not think anybody will ever find a solution. The best that we can hope for is to reduce the accident rate, but to hope to stop accidents altogether is, I think, not possible.

I have said that there seems to be very little interest taken in the matter. Often we find that people who talk a lot about road safety do not practise it. I wonder if the speakers who have taken part in this debate have taken that elementary precaution against serious injury in case of an accident by providing their motor-cars with safety belts. I see the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) (Mrs. Weiss) nods, she has. And the hon. member for Green Point?

I have.

If I would have had one, I would have been dead last year.

I can only say that it has been proved over and over that safety belts do reduce the incidence of serious injuries when there is an accident. Occasionally they are dangerous when you cannot get them loose, but that is the minority of cases.

I want to say, however, Mr. Speaker, that South Africa’s problem is more complicated, I think, than it is in most countries. We have a different kind of population, as I am going to show in the course of my speech, and I will also point out how difficult it is to penetrate the mind especially of the Bantu and to make him road safety conscious. I want to say at the outset that, as hon. members probably know, the Road Safety Council has no executive functions in regard to traffic legislation or the enforcement of traffic legislation. To a very large extent it is purely an advisory body, and a voluntary body. But the Road Safety Council does very good work, and although the results are not tangible in terms of statistics, I sometimes wonder what the accident rate would have been if there was no Road Safety Council. I think it would have been very much greater. I think too, Mr. Speaker, that we are very liable, quite naturally, to become emotional when we discuss this matter. I think we should deal with it objectively and we should see it in proper perspective. I am going to quote some statistics to-day. I must point out to the hon. member for Green Point that there has been a miscalculation in the set of figures which he quoted in his speech. The hon. member stated that in nine years road fatalities have increased by 350 per cent. Now we have only got the complete figures up to 1963. These are as follows—

That is an increase over the nine years of 2,418 or 129 per cent, and not 350 per cent. Of course this is still very alarming.

I got my figures from a reliable source.

I do not blame the hon. member. I know he gave them in good faith, but I think it is necessary to correct the figures.

The hon. member also stated that the reasons for our high accident rate are largely “a complete disregard—by a number of drivers—of the elementary rules of road safety plus a large measure of sheer bad manners or lack of consideration for other motorists”. These are of course contributory factors but certainly not the main reasons for our very high accident rate as has been proved by research, and as I will point out in the course of my speech. The hon. member has also said that the Republic has one of the highest, or possibly the highest, road accident rate in the world in relation to its population. I must say that comparisons on an international basis of the mere figures as such, while no doubt of some use, can easily lead to a distorted picture. One has to take various factors into account, such as differences in the size of countries, concentration and composition of population, distribution and type of traffic, topography, road standards. Thus the relatively low death rate, as opposed to the accident rate, on the roads of England, might well largely be due to the terrific traffic congestion experienced there particularly on its large percentage of outmoded roads. This naturally slows down the traffic and the chances of being involved in a fatal accident under such conditions are much less than where traffic is able to move fast on undivided roads such as comprise the bulk of our own road system.

Nevertheless, there is no industrialized country in the world which is satisfied with its accident rate. It has also generally been found that as the population and the number of motor vehicles increases the number of accidents and fatalities increase. In considering the rise in the South African figures, one of the important factors to be taken into account in the period 1950 to 1963 is the number of motor vehicles on our roads which increased from 636,292 to 1,266,000, that is to say, the number has practically doubled. And since then we have heard of the one record after the other being broken in the number of new motor vehicles being sold in South Africa.

Increases in population and traffic naturally affect the exposure factor and hence lead to an increase in accidents. It is for this reason that the best criterion for gauging our accident position and also for international comparisons is the number of accidents, injuries and deaths per 100,000,000 motor vehicle miles travelled. On this basis we find that while our overall death rate is comparatively high, our casualty rate (i.e. fatal plus injury accidents) on undivided national roads does not compare unfavourably with that on undivided main roads in England.

I want to quote some statistics which are very interesting. Taken on their own, our accident figures as published in the latest statistical year book reveal the following:

Accident rates, i.e. the number of accidents per 1,000 motor vehicles licensed were 96 in 1959, and 84 in 1963. In other words, there has been a progressive reduction.

The death rate, i.e. the number of deaths per 100,000,000 vehicle miles travelled (estimated) in 1959 was 32 and in 1963 it was 39. A progressive increase.

The injury rate, that is the number of injuries per 100,000,000 motor vehicle miles travelled (estimated) was 403 in 1959 and 372 in 1963, in other words again a progressive reduction.

The number of deaths per 1,000 injuries: 79 in 1959, and 105 in 1963.

These figures show that while during the five-year period in question there was a gradual decrease in the accident rate, the fatality rate on the other hand increased.

To a considerable degree the severity of accidents is influenced by speed. The figures I have just mentioned accordingly lent force to the representations made by the Road Safety Council to the provinces for the introduction and enforcement (by way of more intensive patrolling) of selective speed limits on dangerous sections of our rural roads on a larger scale.

The National Institute for Road Research of the C.S.I.R. recently completed an intensive analysis of the accident data for 1962. I want to give some of the results:

It is not a question of the relation between the population groups, but of every 100 Bantu injured about 13 were killed, while of every 100 Whites injured, only five to six were killed.

As far as the pedal cyclists are concerned, it might be that Bantu make more use of pedal cycles than Whites.

The hon. member for Green Point quoted some figures for the age group 18 to 40 and he said that his source was a large insurance company. He very rightly terms this age group as the country’s greatest asset in manpower. In conjunction with the analysis given just now, the following data compiled by the Road Safety Council from statistical reports by the Bureau of Statistics are most revealing. I first take the road fatalities in the age group 18 to 39:

I am not giving the figures for the years in between, but from 1958 to 1962 there was therefore a decrease among Whites of 4 per cent, whereas among non-Whites there was an increase of 45 per cent.

It will be seen from these figures that the efforts of the Road Safety Council supported by the Press, the radio and other publicity media, coupled with those of the enforcement authorities have penetrated to Whites, especially when we bear in mind the increase in traffic and population during the period reviewed. On the other hand, it is obvious that the efforts have not yet penetrated to the Bantu population. And it stands to reason that hazardous road behaviour on the part of the Bantu not only endangers himself but in no small measure also the road-users belonging to other racial groups. I can assure hon. members that the Road Safety Council is alive to the fact that making the Bantu road safety conscious constitutes one of its biggest problems.

As the urban Bantu road-user creates the main problem, it was decided in 1962 that “discussion groups” should be formed to determine exactly what the Bantu himself thinks about road accidents. Eleven groups, each consisting of six Bantu persons of approximately the same status, were formed and after their discussions the reports and conclusions were analyzed.

One of the most important findings arising from these investigations was that the Bantu’s concept of the word “accident” was entirely different from that of the Whites. For the Bantu an accident is not an unforeseen happening or the result of his disregard of of elementary rules of the road, but rather the culmination of the individual’s disregard of his tradition and culture. In other words, accidents are for them punishments dealt out by the spirit world. It will be realized that it is quite a problem to break down this attitude.

A Bantu Advisory Committee was therefore formed comprising 12 prominent Bantu persons, including a minister of religion, the chairman of a school board, two teachers, a radio announcer, a traffic inspector, a clerk, a businessman, an instructor of transport drivers and a former inspector of education. This committee is regularly consulted in connection with all road safety publicity and propaganda for the Bantu and particularly about the best manner of approach.

The Road Safety Council has also taken further steps in an effort to get through to the Bantu. I mention a few of them: Firstly, the production of a road code specially prepared for the Bantu and published in several Bantu languages as well as in English, the English edition being particularly beneficial for large employers who take pains to enlighten their Bantu employees; secondly, school posters and lesson guides are also specially adapted for road safety instruction in Bantu Schools and distributed through the Department of Bantu Education; lastly, with the recent establishment of 14 regional offices in the place of the former five, to cover the whole Republic, provision has been made for Bantu road safety lecturers in each region. They will be appointed in the near future.

The hon. member for Green Point quite rightly stressed the importance of investigating the causes of road accidents and possible remedies. Now the Report of the Committee of Inquiry, the Joubert Committee, which reported in 1958, also stated that in order to determine whether anything positive can be done about road accidents, it is of fundamental importance to know the causes or the main causes of such accidents. This is a very complicated matter and I can best illustrate this by reading an extract from a report on the research which was recently undertaken in the United States of America, which country of course is far ahead of other countries as far as accident prevention techniques are concerned—

From this striking outline it is more than evident that establishing the causes and remedies is not a matter for a commission of inquiry but a matter for continuing research.

It is one of the functions of the South African Road Safety Council to undertake or promote and give financial support to research in connection with road safety and publish the results of such research, and in co-operation with the authorities and bodies concerned to take any steps for promoting road safety that may appear necessary in the light of such results. As there is no single cause and no single remedy for road accidents, the Road Safety Council is tackling the problem on all fronts. The Council has also given very serious consideration to the matter of research. One of the recent, and perhaps most important developments in the field or road safety was in fact the establishment by the Road Safety Council in 1962 of a research committee with a view to giving guidance in promoting road safety research by means of effective planning and co-ordination. In terms of a recommendation of this committee, a division for the planning and co-ordination of road safety research was created on the council’s establishment at the beginning of 1963. As the name implies, the division does not undertake research itself but aims rather to promote, plan and co-ordinate purposeful research.

The following are some of the major points in the objects and functions of the research division of the Road Safety Council, its research programme, and of what has already been done: (a) Analysis of road traffic and road accident statistics with a view to identifying trends and phenomena which could serve as a basis for research projects; (b) compiling of critical reviews of available literature in order to ascertain what could be applicable in South Africa or should be followed up; (c) the finding from the available data those research projects which should be undertaken in the Republic and determining the priority of such projects; (d) determining which organizations could undertake the various projects most economically and effectively, e.g., the C.S.I.R., research bureaux of education departments, universities and other institutions, as well as establishing what support such institutions would require for research projects undertaken by them.

Then there are educational research projects: (a) to determine what would be the best methods of preparing teachers for their duty in road safety education; (b) establishing the best methods for teaching road safety to schoolgoing children; (c) determining the best methods for road safety education and instruction to adults of all races.

The next is research into corrective procedures in respect of traffic offences, determining what the most effective punitive measures would be, taking into account the offender’s sex, age. standard of education, character and personality.

Then we come to particular assignments of a specialized nature: To advise the Road Safety Council as to the desirability of sponsorship to institutions or persons wishing to undertake specific projects of a specialized nature such as inter alia the following: (a) Investigation of the influence of alcohol on the physical and mental faculties of persons and the part played by alcohol in road accidents; (b) investigation of the influence of certain conditions of ill-health on physical and mental abilities and the part they play in road accidents, for example sub-clinical epilepsy, neurosis, emotional disturbance, optical and auditory defects, fatigue and boredom: (c) research projects concerning road engineering, traffic signs and road markings, construction of vehicles and equipment: (d) research into the accident situation in regard to the Bantu population; (e) research into the influence and effectiveness of advertising and publicity on the various population groups in respect of race, age, socio-economic status, etc.

Now I will give the House examples of research projects either completed or still in progress—

1. (a) A research project concerning personality and aptitude tests for professional drivers (Europeans and non-Europeans).
2. (b) An experimental study of the perceptibility of road signs under varying conditions such as speed, background colour, shape, etc.
3. (c) Effectiveness of publicity and advertising methods.

   It might interest the House to know that the research undertaken by the Roads Institute of the C.S.I.R. has led them to the tentative conclusion that publicity and advertising has very little effect on the reduction of road accidents—

4. (d) The practical usability of mobile traffic-training units for road safety instruction in schools;
5. (e) An experiment concerning the training of teachers in the methodics of road safety instruction.

In addition to these research projects arranged by the Road Safety Council itself, the National Institute for Road Research of the C.S.I.R., which is subsidized by the National Road Fund, and also by the Road Safety Council is continuously engaged on various road safety research projects. Among the projects already completed or being undertaken by the institute are the following—

1. (a) Statistical investigation on the distribution of road accidents with respect to their time of occurrence;
2. (b) distribution of road vehicle accidents in the Republic of South Africa with special reference to 1962—the place and time of occurrence;
3. (c) a traffic and accident survey in the central area of Johannesburg;
4. (d) accident and traffic volumes on the northern section of the Pretoria-Johan-nesburg road;
5. (e) questionnaire survey of traffic and accident date for vehicles registered in selected rural licensing districts;
6. (f) driver behaviour at traffic circles;
7. (g) the influence of twilight, darkness and traffic volume on road accident injuries;
8. (h) traffic and accident survey in the central area of Pretoria.
9. (i) comparative visibility of chevrons and a series of reflectors on the rear of heavy vehicles;
10. (j) methods of locating and measuring distances at scenes of accidents and methods for obtaining and recording essential accident data;
11. (k) investigation of requirements for crash helmets;
12. (l) on the spot investigation of specific accidents by a team of experts to establish the underlying causes.

From this brief summary hon. members will see that during a comparatively short while quite an extensive field has been covered, an indication that the South African Road Safety Council, the C.S.I.R. and the other parties concerned are wide awake.

As hon. members are aware I appointed the Du Plessis Committee last year. That committee’s report has been tabled and has stated inter alia, that the manner in which the Road Safety Council functions is satisfactory and effective. The committee also made recommendations in regard to certain other matters, including the necessity for uniform traffic legislation. I have already referred to the Joubert Committee Report that reported in 1958. In all these circumstances therefore I do not think there is need for the appointment of a commission of inquiry as proposed by the hon. member. The Road Safety Council now has a comprehensive plan of action in the different spheres affected by road safety. This plan does not amount to shots in the dark; it is an orderly and systematic scheme framed in the light of the knowledge and experience gained since the traffic problem came to be tackled on an organized basis. But the fact that the Commission of Inquiry is not to be appointed does not mean, however, that the specific suggestions for alleviating the position made by the hon. member for Green Point and others will fall by the wayside.

I want to deal with the specific matter raised by the hon. member for Green Point, namely that an honorary corps of traffic officers should be appointed. I want to say that suggestions on more or less similar lines to that made by the hon. member have from time to time been received from various quarters and carefully considered by the Enforcement Committee of the Road Safety Council—even a suggestion that police reservists be used on a voluntary basis to report dangerous traffic offences they may observe while on duty. In the first place I want to mention certain mistaken beliefs concerning the idea that a small percentage of drivers are responsible for the bulk of our accidents and that by eliminating these drivers we shall be able to reduce accidents dramatically: and secondly, the role of traffic violations in road accidents. Now, the conclusions of the Joubert Committee in this regard were astonishing. It was that the small percentage of drivers who are annually responsible for the largest percentage of accidents comprised chiefly persons who have not had accidents previously and are unlikely soon to be involved in an accident. This was after due inquiry by the Joubert Committee that they reported this. In other words, it is not a specific group of so-called accident-prone people who year after year are responsible for a large percentage of accidents. The small percentage of all motorists who are annually responsible for the largest percentage of all accidents consists of different people every year.

The Joubert Committee Report says further—

The findings of the Joubert Committee are supported by the results of recent research both in South Africa and elsewhere. This research shows briefly—

1. (1) Accident-proneness is not a consistent characteristic possessed by some people and not by others, but is in fact a variable trait which all people have to a greater or lesser extent.
2. (2) Even people who may be abnormally accident-prone will not display this trait consistently day after day. Such a person may for years be free of this symptom and then suddenly, suddenly for some reason or other, the symptom reappears and detrimentally influences his driving behaviour for shorter or longer periods.

As I have said, this does not mean that stricter and more intensive enforcement of traffic laws will not have a salutory effect, but it should be clear that enforcement is no panacea. As I have said, consideration has already been given to the idea of forming an honorary corps of traffic officers. This was in fact considered in collaboration with representatives of the S.A. Police, the Institute of Traffic Officers of South Africa and the motoring clubs.

When was that?

Only recently. I am coming to that. Such a scheme involving the use of members of the public (selected individuals or police reservists) in an honorary capacity was, however, found to be impracticable for various reasons, chiefly the following: (a) Generally they have no legal background and could be vulnerable witnesses; (b) normally they are persons holding permanent employment in a full-time capacity and cannot devote time to giving evidence in court; (c) such a scheme could possibly lead to abuse and malpractices; (d) any member of the public is at liberty to report traffic violations which the police would follow up where justified; (e) motoring clubs are also opposed to the scheme.

A monitor scheme under which specially selected “spotters” merely reported by means of special cards violations they observed to their local road safety association which then sent courtesy letters to the owners of the vehicles concerned and, in the case of people involved more than twice, referred the matter to the traffic department, has in fact already been tried out by two local road safety associations in South Africa but was eventually dropped because of various practical difficulties, including some of the aspects I have mentioned such as difficulty in tracing people who had changed their address and loss of interest by the “spotters”. Nevertheless this does not mean that the idea must be finally discarded. The hon. member has rightly said that a central traffic bureau would be necessary for the scheme to function. The establishment of such a bureau will in effect be a central registry of motor vehicle drivers and their offences, and this has already been approved by me in principle. The scheme proposed by the hon. member for Green Point or a similar scheme can possibly be linked up with the functions proposed for the central traffic bureau.

I have appointed a special committee of experts to work out a practical basis for the functioning of the bureau. They have already made certain recommendations which are being considered at the moment and these recommendations are, inter alia, that (a) a uniform driver’s licence be introduced based upon the Geneva Convention of 1949; (b) existing licence-holders do not forfeit any privileges enjoyed in terms of their existing licences; (c) the existing procedure of endorsing licences be dispensed with as a complete record of contraventions are to be kept by the proposed bureau; and (d) that the functions of this bureau are to be as follows: (i) keeping a register of all licensed drivers and of their convictions; (ii) keeping a register of convictions of non-licensed drivers; (iii) supplying information to courts for purposes of sentences, and to the licensing authorities for possible cancellation or suspension of licences; and (iv) supplying information to licensing authorities for the purpose of considering applications for licences. Hon. members will agree that the proper functioning of this bureau is dependent on the establishment of uniformity in traffic legislation among the different provinces and S.W.A. As I have said, the Du Plessis Committee—the chairman was Mr. Du Plessis, the Administrator of the Free State—has recently recommended uniform legislation and I anticipate that the Administrations concerned will in the near future take the necessary steps to give effect to these recommendations.

Then the National Parks Board has introduced a scheme in some respects similar to the one proposed by the hon. member for Green Point whereby hon. game wardens are appointed who report contraventions of the regulations. This scheme is still in its experimental stage. The experience gained by the National Parks Board may prove valuable in considering the proposed scheme, and should this and other factors indicate that such a scheme or something similar will be successful there is no reason why it should not be introduced.

Has it not been tried out in Canada?

I believe so, but I go further and say it must work in conjunction with the central traffic bureau. It has not been discarded, and there is no reason why it should not be introduced if it works successfully. But it must work in conjunction with the central traffic bureau. That is why I think that before giving consideration to introducing such a scheme, we should use the machinery to be provided by the central traffic bureau for another scheme which has been tried out in certain other countries, namely the demerit points scheme which was successfully applied in certain states of the U.S.A. and some Canadian provinces and which was recommended for introduction in South Africa by the Joubert Committee. The central traffic bureau is, however, a prerequisite for the introduction of the points system. I think, therefore, that we should first of all give priority to this points system which promises to be successful, and thereafter further consideration could be given by the Road Safety Council to some or other supplementary scheme of the nature outlined by the hon. member. The Committee, as I said, has already submitted an interim report and I hope to receive the final report in the near future. It will require amending legislation to introduce a central traffic bureau, and unfortunately that legislation cannot be introduced until next year. But I think it is absolutely essential that it should be established, and I think frankly that this will largely assist in reducing the number of accidents on our roads.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure that the House is greatful to the hon. member for Green Point for introducing this motion. It is a matter which affects all of us and we always welcome all suggestions which might contribute to a reduction in the number of accidents which occur on our roads.

Order! Before seeing the hon. member for Florida (Mr. Miller), I would like to point out to hon. members that in order to make it possible for the Chair to apply Rule 112 (b), it will be necessary for hon. members, and that includes Ministers, to indicate that they are speaking in reply to a motion.

Mr. Speaker, I must say that we do appreciate the tremendous amount of information which the hon. the Minister has given us this afternoon, but I must say that we are extremely grateful to the hon. member for Green Point (Maj. van der Byl) for the fact that as the result of the motion he moved here to-day we have at this stage of the Session been able to get this information and a statement from the hon. the Minister; and because this is a very serious matter in this country, and whilst it is as serious in other countries, nevertheless I feel that it was timeous that a report of this nature should have been presented to the House as early as possible because of the tremendous concern throughout South Africa at our death rate and our rate of accidents.

As I was saying, it is nevertheless still an important problem in South Africa, and we cannot help becoming somewhat emotionally concerned about this problem. Apart from the loss of life, which is a serious drain on the manpower of the country, road accidents also make a deep incision into the home life, the domestic life, of the community and leave some terrible scars on our community. It costs this country something in the nature of R60,000,000 per annum. I would like to point out to the hon. the Minister of Transport that there are many different ways in which you can assess the percentage loss of life, but one must remember one thing and that is that when a body like the C.S.I.R. deals with this question of 100,000,000 vehicle miles and tells the country that South Africa’s loss in 1963 on that basis was rated at 38 as against eight in the United Sates and six in Britain, as far as deaths are concerned, then one realizes that the death rate in this country due to road accidents is one of the highest in the world. For that reason I must say that I was very grateful indeed for the opportunity to support the hon. member for Green Point because I believe that we cannot remain as cool and as calm and as objective as the hon. the Minister suggests we should do. I believe that in dealing with a crisis of this nature there has to be a combination of the mind and the heart. We cannot satisfy ourselves by saying that other countries have similar problems and that we must wait until the various bodies present us with reports from year to year. Sir, the C.S.I.R. is doing a magnificent job. I think the hon. the Minister opened a new building of theirs as recently as 12 February, if I am not mistaken. I think they are making a very important contribution in this field and they warn the country that one cannot just rely on conclusions drawn by laymen as to why accidents take place and how accidents could be avoided; one can only establish the causes of accidents and how to avoid accidents by means of intensive study, but such an intensive study requires funds and manpower to try to find a solution to this problem as speedily as possible. May I just mention the following as an interesting example of what can be done in this regard: I was talking some time ago to a gentleman who is an important figure in this type of work in one of our large cities in this country. He tells me that on a recent trip through America and Europe he happened, on the last day of his trip, to visit a very small country called Israel, one of our newest states, and there he found that they were using a system called the “Greenwave system”. Here we have a country which has not had an opportunity to develop its roads to any great extent because of lack of funds; it has narrow roads and as speedy drivers as any other country in the world. The “Green-wave system” is a very interesting one because it regulates robots at various distances along the highways, and if a motorist travels at a certain speed which is a reasonable speed, having regard to the type of highway, and taking into account the buildings or the development along that highway, he is able to travel smoothly without being held up by robots, but if he travels at an excessive speed he will find that he is held up from time to time by robots because he has not synchronized his speed with the change of robots. This is known as the “Green-wave system”, which is a very interesting system.

It is a good system.

Well, it seems to be all right. This gentleman says that from what he was told it would appear that the average speed resolved itself to about 45 miles an hour. Of course, if there is very little development on either side of the highway and it is a broad road, then the speed can be greater, because the legal interpretation of a reasonable speed, where there is no speed limit laid down, is what is a reasonable speed in the circumstances, having regard to the care that a reasonable driver would exercise.

Sir, another thought is that while education is very important, it should be intensified in the case of the non-Whites, particularly the Bantu, amongst whom we find the highest number of deaths as the result of road accidents. This gentleman says that this is a field in which it is absolutely essential to intensify education because the Bantu community has no appreciation of road regulations and no road sense whatsoever. He says that apart from lectures there should be some visual and physical form of education, and by that he means that the Bantu must see his own people wearing traffic officers’ uniforms on the road; in other words, he must see his own people in action on the roads, endeavouring to regulate traffic and seeing to it that traffic regulations are observed. He says that this would make a very much deeper impression upon the mind of the Bantu than mere lectures at school. Sir in the Soweto area of Johannesburg where we have a population of over 500,000, road safety days have been organized where children are brought to big parade grounds, where they parade with various forms of vehicles, where you have a band playing and a lecture delivered. This gentleman believes that what you need is some visual form of education to make a lasting impression.

It is also interesting to note that the commission of inquiry which the hon. the Minister appointed in 1964, nearly 3½ years after Act 1 of 1960 became law, made five very interesting recommendations. The committee indicated that it was essential to have a more active operational machinery to enable the Road Safety Council to work, with more cooperation from voluntary bodies and more cooperation from the various provinces. I think therefore that this suggestion of the establishment of a “T” corps is an excellent one. In fact, the thinking which motivates this suggestion is similar to the thinking which motivated President Kennedy when he talked about the establishment of a Voluntary Peace Corps, consisting of people who can go out on a voluntary basis and bring a message of peace to the community; that is what this “T” corps would do. It is a very interesting suggestion. The hon. the Minister thought it was a very good one, and I am sure that these suggestions will, as he says, receive attention. There is a great deal of merit in this idea of being able to bring a message to the community, and I think in a country like ours we should as speedily as possible do everything within our power in an attempt to find a solution for this difficult problem that faces us. I would like to say that in June 1964 at the annual meeting of the Automobile Association of South Africa certain suggestions were made there by the then president in the course of his speech, suggestions which I find are incorporated in the recommendations of the Du Plessis Committee of Inquiry. There has been a considerable amount of thinking by various bodies in South Africa ever since the establishment of the Road Safety Council, but I feel that there should be a co-ordinating effort to try to check to some extent the apalling rate of accidents. We must have a combination of heart and mind in this matter, and then I believe that we will at least have some chance of checking the rise in the rate of accidents. It is not a very pleasant thought that this high accident rate has become part and parcel of the South African way of life. It would be a very sad day for South Africa if we accepted this high rate of accidents as part of the pattern of our lives. I realize that the hon. the Minister personally can do no more than make use of these various agencies which he has at his disposal, and he has some very excellent ones. I have no doubt that the intention on all sides is to try to help to pin down the precise causes of these accidents and to assist in overcoming this problem through the dissemination of more knowledge. But I think we have to do a little more than that; we must actually push this matter because these road accidents are making a serious incision into the normal life of our country. Just over the last few days we have had two accidents of a most serious nature. The father of a family of four or five children was killed, together with a child; two parents, elderly people, who could not take the shock, were involved in an accident on the road to Paarl and were killed, and that sort of thing goes on all the time. I do not believe that the quoting of statistics—I accept what the Minister says in that respect—is of great assistance. I believe that we should do what they are doing in Britain where they have established the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, known as Rospa. Their main weapon is propaganda. Propaganda is a highly scientific means of action as well, and while the scientist is busy analyzing, both from the aspect of statistics and visual evidence, as to what the main causes of road accidents are, I believe that the greatest use should be made of the weapon of propaganda, because propaganda has become a very highly developed science to-day. I believe that the hon. the Minister should perhaps consider, through his Road Safety Council, whether we should not have a Department of Propaganda in the Council employing a very much more developed scientific method. Advertising, for instance, which is part and parcel of propaganda is regarded to-day as the biggest industry in the United States, and one of the biggest industries in the world. One has only to look at the Stock Exchange lists of a couple of weeks ago to realize that an advertising agency has almost doubled its share value within a couple of months, because of the profits made by it and because of the work it is doing. It is a very highly developed science, and I think that we should devote more money to propaganda in this connection. I do believe that whilst commissions of inquiry will not get us anywhere, a great deal can be achieved by means of advertising and propaganda. I do not think it was the intention of the hon. member for Green Point to hold up what is taking place at the present time; his purpose is to see that something is done to reduce the number of road accidents, and I think that the Minister should look at the motion from that point of view. Sir, if there is one thing that we must not do it is to allow the voluntary workers who are assisting us in this campaign to become frustrated in their work. We have the co-operation to-day of industry and commerce on all these committees, and members of commercial and industrial organizations. some of whom I know, have complained that they do feel a sense of frustration because they are not being given a lead as to what part they can play in the local sphere. This type of work obviously has to be dispersed into various local spheres in order to achieve the best concentration of effort.

Sir, a wide field has already been covered in this debate and I do not intend to be repetitive. I am pleased that we have had an opportunity this afternoon to deal with this subject and I repeat that we should be very grateful to the hon. member for Green Point. We appreciate the fact that the hon. the Minister has given us such a comprehensive picture of what is taking place. I hope that when a further opportunity is afforded to us to deal with this matter under the Transport Vote, the hon. the Minister will give us a progress report. I think it will be all to the good if the House is kept abreast of developments and kept informed as to the various fields in which the Road Safety Council disperses its activities with a view to solving a problem which causes all of us anxiety.

It is indeed difficult to enter this debate now after so many aspects of the matter have already been covered and after the hon. the Minister has given such an enlightening and detailed reply to the motion moved by the hon. member for Green Point (Maj. van der Byl). I just want to refer to a few general matters. We know that in recent years many attempts have been made by various bodies and organizations, by the Press and the radio and in particular by the S.A. Road Safety Council, to make motorists, and particularly pedestrians, road safety conscious. Mr. Speaker, in this regard I should like to refer to the laudable attempts made by the provincial authorities during the last Christmas holiday. The standpoint on that occasion was not only to punish offenders, but to point out to them the mistakes they made on the roads and to assist them to eliminate those mistakes so that fewer lives would be endangered. During the Christmas holiday, when the roads were filled with cars almost bumper to bumper, the provincial authorities acted very purposefully. We know that the traffic inspectors, who were concentrated at various points, had a calming influence on the ordinary motorist because he know that the reckless motorist would not constitute such a great danger to him because the reckless motorist was continually being watched by the road patrols. It also had a tempering effect on the reckless motorist, because he was continuously conscious that he was being watched.

I want to emphasize only two aspects. We know that many attempts are being made and that many will still be made in future to promote road safety and to prevent slaughter on our roads, but we must accept that there will always be victims on the roads. I want to say something in connection with the handling of the victims of road accidents. The following data were found as the result of an investigation recently made in Scotland. It was found that fewer than one third of the persons dying as the result of motor accidents are killed on impact. Approximately 50 per cent of those injured in accidents and who die later live for at least six hours after the accident. From this it appears that an appreciable decrease in the death figure can be achieved if first-aid treatment is readily available and if measures can be effected for the effective handling of the injured at the scenes of accidents and for their transportation to and their admission to hospitals. In regard to this matter many more complaints were received from the public. I do not want to go into individual cases. It is generally known.

I want to pose this question, and it is really a question to our provincial authorities: Is it not possible to establish special ambulance services for accidents in the provinces, to be financed by the provinces? All the city councils which at present run ambulance services do not always have enough funds to finance the existing services and to expand them. Such accident ambulances should be provided for certain areas and concentrate on certain hospitals. They can also be provided with two-way radio so that there can be communication between the ambulance and the hospital, in order that preparation may be made at the hospital for the admission or treatment of seriously injured persons. On the other hand, the hospitals can then give instructions to the ambulances, if necessary, in connection with the treatment of an injured patient. Improved training facilities for ambulance staff can also be established so that effective first-aid methods can be applied to the injured. Then this lengthy administrative procedure and questioning which sometimes takes place on admission to a hospital can be eliminated.

The second and final point I wish to raise, and which is closely connected with what various speakers have mentioned, is in regard to the co-operation we should have between the existing S.A. Road Safety Council and other bodies. I am glad that there is already harmonious co-operation in this regard. In this connection I also wish to refer to the fact that the good services rendered by the Road Safety Council cannot be proved statistically to-day. But the question is, as the hon. the Minister has said, how many more accidents and how many more fatal accidents there would have been on our roads had it not been for the efficient services already rendered by the Road Safety Council.

One of the objects of the Road Safety Council is to educate the child in regard to road safety, i.e., to start with the child. In the sphere of road safety education, there is already co-operation with the various educational bodies. I want to mention Pretoria. In Pretoria the Council is already busy with a project. The student teachers in the Teachers’ College are being trained in the method of road safety education. It is regarded there as a subject which can be integrated with other school subjects. Furthermore, there are three primary schools in the city which are regarded as model schools for experimental teaching in respect of lessons with which road safety may be integrated. The whole project is under the guidance of a committee appointed by the Director of Education and on which there is a representative of the Road Safety Council. I just want to mention in passing that in most of the curricula in the provinces an element of road safety education has been introduced, but I feel that this is still too little. I should like to express the idea that road safety education should be linked up with the study of history, in the primary schools as well as in the high schools. In the curricula of the various provinces civics has been linked up with history. It also includes the behaviour of one person towards another. I think it is very important that road safety education, seeing that in so far as the use of the roads is concerned it embraces the spirit shown by one person towards another, should be linked up with the teaching of history and civics. We know that the Road Safety Council is doing much good work in the form of competitions arranged between the various cities and in the form of propaganda and research. In that regard we can but praise the work done by the S.A. Road Safety Council and express the hope that they will soon achieve even greater success in this regard.

With the Leave of the House I wish to withdraw my motion, particularly in view of the fact that the Minister has said he will go into the suggestion we have put forward. I would also like to thank him for the very courteous way he dealt with and the very full reply he gave to the motion.

Motion withdrawn, with the leave of the House.