May I, with the leave of the House, make the following statement:

1. (a) In the first place, bank rate will be in creased to 5 per cent with immediate effect.
2. (b) In the second place, the ratios of liquid assets to be held by the commercial banks against their short and medium-term liabilities will be increased, initially, by 4 per cent, that is, to 34 and 24 per cent respectively. Further increases, if necessary up to the maximum of 10 per cent, will be made if actual developments necessitate such action.
3. (c) In the third place, the Reserve Bank will raise its pattern of rates for Government stock by 0.30 per cent effective from to-day. The yield, e.g., for stocks with maturities exceeding three years but not three and a half years will increase to 4½ per cent, and that for maturities exceeding ten and a half years to 5¼ per cent.
4. (d) In the fourth place, the Reserve Bank may decline accommodation, whether sought directly or indirectly, or may charge penalty rates, to any institution which, in the Bank’s view, has been extending credit to an excessive degree and/or for non-essential purposes. The penalty to be applied will obviously depend upon the circumstances of each case. This measure will, in particular, be applicable to institutions which are not as yet fully subject to the liquidity requirements of the Banking Act. The bank may also refuse to purchase, or may apply penalty rates to the purchase of, prescribed assets if, in its view, such purchases result from, or would encourage, excessive and/or undesirable credit extension.

During the past week, the Governor of the Reserve Bank has had discussions with the representatives of all the important types of credit-extending institutions which fall under the Banking Act. He has impressed upon them the need for a substantial reduction in the rate of increase in overall credit expansion, which should conform much more closely with the rate of growth in the real gross national product. He has also emphasized that this reduction in the tempo of credit extension should be selectively applied as far as practicable, the main stress falling on non-essential consumption credit, including credit for consumer durables, such as motor-cars for private use and other articles of a luxury nature. These are largely financed by means of personal loans and hire-purchase operations or by means of various other related devices.

Many hire-purchase and related transactions are conducted by institutions not covered by the above-mentioned measures, and I would appeal now to such institutions to exercise restraint in the extension of credit of this nature.

It is further my earnest hope and strong recommendation that those banking institutions in particular which are not as yet fully subject to the liquidity requirements of the Banking Act will heed the Governor’s request and, in so doing, will also voluntarily subject themselves to the higher liquidity requirements now being applied to the commercial banks.

In the event, however, that these warnings are disregarded, and the scramble for deposit funds, which is presently distorting interest rates (both borrowing and lending) and the flow of funds to various financial institutions, continues, certain powers are being given to the Reserve Bank under Section 9 of the Currency and Exchanges Act which will enable the bank to prescribe maximum deposit rates in respect of any institution which is registered or provisionally registered under the Banking Act or the Building Societies Act.

This step is intended to be essentially of a temporary nature, and the powers are being given to the bank on a stand-by basis. This means that the bank may apply them at any moment but, of course, will only do so if actual developments make such action desirable in the national economic interest. In short, the onus now rests upon the institutions themselves to co-operate fully, and I trust that they themselves will take immediate steps to ensure that the application of these powers, which are as distasteful to the authorities as to themselves, will not become necessary.

All the foregoing steps are designed primarily to restrain the excessive tempo of credit expansion to a rate which will not further stimulate inflationary pressure and will assist in maintaining reasonable stability in the economy. They will not be applied in a manner which will militate against the realization of the maximum sustainable rate of real growth of which our economy is capable. On the contrary, they are intended to assist in ensuring that this growth rate is in fact realized without being prejudiced by inflation. It is far better to impose moderate restraints now than to be faced with the need for drastic measures at a later stage.

I move—

I know it is not usual to have a long discussion at the third reading of a Bill of this nature, because we dealt with all the items in the Committee Stage, but I think this is an appropriate time to draw the attention of the Minister to the fact that these Estimates in many cases lacked clarity. It is expected that when the House discusses detailed Estimates of this kind, not only shall the information be available when the Ministers are asked various questions, but the document itself before us should clearly show what we are asked to vote on. A good deal of time might have been saved in the Committee Stage if we had the information provided in the Estimates. We want to raise our protest on those Votes where not only was there no information but where what information there was was grossly misleading. I refer particularly to Vote No. 31 where provision was made for the erection of industrial buildings and for losses on housing schemes in regard to border industries, etc. Under this heading the increase did not involve any item under that heading whatever. After a lengthy discussion with the Minister of Economic Affairs we eventually elicited the information that R180,000 was in respect of a rebate of railage rates. A good deal of time would have been saved had that Item “E” correctly described the purpose of this increase. I want to bring to the Minister’s attention the desirability of showing as much information as possible on these Votes, and if it is necessary to attach notes, that should be done, particularly when it comes to new items. If there is adequate information on new items, it curtails discussion and gives members an opportunity to study the matter properly. But a good deal of time is wasted when the Minister concerned tries to give information at the last minute, and in some cases it rather appears as if the Minister is avoiding giving information. It is not the purpose at this stage to avoid giving information. I hope that in future the Minister, when he presents the Estimates, will ask the various departmental officials to ensure that the description given of the various Votes is adequate and clear.

What the hon. member asks for to-day is something which has never been done in the past. It would be an entirely novel innovation; not only that, but it would be entirely impracticable. The second additional Estimates are already a fairly bulky volume, and if I can only take one head here, Inland Revenue, there are a number of cases of ex gratia payments. If a note had to be appended to each one, as the hon. member also asked in the course of the discussion of those items, it would make it impracticable. This would be such a bulky document that it would not be of any assistance. The reason why all the Ministers are present when the additional Estimates are discussed, is so that they can give that information to hon. members.

What is the Minister’s answer in regard to Vote No. 31, where the information was obviously incorrect?

If the information is incorrect, that is entirely a different matter. But as far as Vote 31 is concerned, which the hon. member says contained a misdescription, the whole intention was in conformity with accepted budgetary procedure, to concentrate on one item the various losses and subsidies connected with border area development. That is the usual budgetary practice and we did not depart from it there. But if there is any lack of clarity, the Ministers are here to inform hon. members.

Would the hon. the Minister undertake only this, that where there is a new item, it will be clearly stated as a new item, also to assist the Chair?

That is also impracticable, to put in a note appended to these Estimates that it is a new item and giving its full import. In that case we will have the complaint again that the note is not full enough. That is why in many cases it is so obvious, but if it is not obvious the Ministers are here to explain. I am afraid I cannot accept the suggestion, however much I would have liked to do so.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

In this debate, on the last occasion when this Bill was before the House, we had objected to the period of notice being seven days, our objection being that the period was unreasonable and that it could cause hardship. I am not going into all the arguments that we used then, but it is quite clear from the remarks of the Minister that he was unimpressed. He said that our crocodile tears left him cold, and he said that our pleas for these pathetic and pious people (die armsalige en heilige mense wat uitgeskop sou word), these unfortunate defaulters, made no impression on him. He also said—

And he said that we had suddenly found now that this notice of seven days was insufficient and that it was a new principle being adopted, and he said that in fact it had been adopted many years ago, and he referred to the Housing Act. Now I want to point out that when the Housing Act was debated and that principle was accepted, the United Party opposed it, so that we are consistent in our actions. In 1957 we debated this period of seven days’ notice and we actually divided on the issue. And in looking through the names of those who voted against this new principle of seven days, I find the name of F. W. Waring who supported us on that occasion. I am sorry the Minister is not here now, because I would like to hear what he thinks of this provision now. At that time we proposed an amendment that the period of notice be 30 days. Now the Minister has told us ad nauseum that the Department does not act within seven days after default being made. He says they are given up to three months’ time to pay the rental before the notice is given, and he says that they will therefore not take hasty action. But the fact remains that he can take hasty action. He need not wait for three months. It depends on the officials. The Minister himself does not handle all these matters. In this clause now under discussion there is provision for 30 days’ notice for business premises. It is seven days’ notice in the case of property occupied for residential purposes and 30 days’ notice in the case of business premises. I submit that it is quite reasonable to ask the Minister to make it 30 days in all cases. Instead of waiting three months before taking action, he can then wait for only two months and then give the defaulter notice, 30 days’ notice. As we pointed out before, and also in 1957, the notices may go astray, or there may be some delay in getting the notice to the person concerned, and after all seven days does not give much time. I therefore want to move the following amendment—

The effect of this will be that it brings the residential properties under the same terms and conditions as other properties.

Let me tell the hon. member immediately that I am not prepared to accept his amendment. I have already indicated that I am not prepared to accept any amendment as far as this matter is concerned, and I stand by what I said. The hon. member now says that the United Party rejected this principle in the past and that they still reject it. That of course is correct; I have no argument with the hon. member on that score, but since the time when the United Party opposed this principle in the Housing Act there has not been one single occasion on which hon. members have been able to prove that action has been taken in an unjust way, as they contend will now be the case. This has always been a fair section in the Act in terms of which action has been taken in a most just way. Why should this state of affairs suddenly change now?

But secondly, the power which exists in terms of the Housing Act is a power which will now be made available to local authorities and also to utility companies in terms of the Housing Act. Hon. members opposite want this Development Board to be vested with fewer powers than is the case with those other bodies. I told hon. members expressly that the intention of this clause is not to enable action to be taken against people who have valid reasons for not being able to pay. The fact that it is departmental policy to struggle with such people for three months proves that we try to assist people who cannot pay or who find themselves in difficulty. But we want this clause in order to be able to take action against people who are willful non-payers, who refuse to pay, people who for reasons other than an inability to pay, provoke the State and waste public funds. One has simply to give such people short shrift if their actions are deliberate. The fact that this clause is embodied in the Bill will have a sobering effect upon those people. For this reason I am not impressed by the plea made by the hon. member because it is not a plea which is based on the principle that one has to be patient with people who cannot pay. I also say that people who are unable to pay should be given as much assistance as possible and the history of the Department proves this fact. But when one has to deal with wilful non-payers, one must have powers of this nature so that one can take action in the interests of the State and for the protection of the public funds which we use. I am sorry therefore that I cannot accept the amendment.

I am not very impressed with the argument of the hon. the Minister.

Why?

I will tell you why. The Minister has said that at the moment he always gives three months’ notice. Of course he does, because the Act we are amending, the Group Areas Development Act, says that he must give three months’ notice.

No. That is not the point.

Let me read the provision of the Act—

I see the hon. the Minister shakes his head.

I say we do not give three months’ notice. That is not the point.

I accept the Minister’s word, but let me state my case. The position at the moment is that when an area is proclaimed, the Act is quite clear as to the procedure to be followed. It says this in Sec. 21 bis (b)—

In other words, he must issue a proclamation and after a year he must then give three months’ notice to these people.

Order! That has nothing to do with this clause.

On a point of order, the hon. member is dealing with an argument of the Minister in respect of the practice of his Department, and why he is not prepared to accept the amendment to make it 30 days.

Order! That has nothing to do with the clause at all.

On a point of order, I want to ask you. Sir, whether the hon. member for Umlazi (Mr. Lewis) is not entitled to deal with the argument of the hon. the Minister in this regard.

I have given my ruling. The hon. member for Umlazi may continue.

With respect, the position here is that at the moment people in a proclaimed area are subject to three months’ notice after the year’s notice they have received.

Order! This clause does not deal with that. This clause deals with the tenant who does not pay his rent.

No, on the contrary, I am talking on 12quat (b). I am not discussing the question of rents. I am talking about the words “to vacate such property on or before a date upon which he has lawfully been required by the Board to do so.”

Order! That deals with the same point.

Sir, may I just address you on (b). The point there is that it deals with certain classes of people who are affected by Clause 8 of the Bill, i.e., those who have to vacate a proclaimed group area.

No, the hon. member is wrong and he cannot continue along those lines.

On a point of order, the word “or” appears before (a) and (b). It says “If a tenant fails (a) to pay his rent on due date or (b) to vacate on a date on which he has lawfully been required by the Board to do so.” The hon. member for Umlazi is referring to that part of the Act …

Order! My ruling is that it does not deal with that, and the hon. member must please resume his seat.

I wish to move an amendment—

In other words, the Minister can give notice to any person occupying premises, or to a tenant, but I cannot understand why he wants to give notice to a person who lives on the premises, unless the Minister has an explanation which is acceptable. Why must the notice be served on the person who lives on the premises? Now, who lives on the premises other than the tenant? It may be a subtenant or a relation of his who is there on holiday, or it may be a domestic servant, all adult people, but surely the notice must reach the person who is primarily interested in receiving it. May I draw the Minister’s attention to the fact—and perhaps he can give me an explanation of it—that later on in the same clause, on page 16, he also deals with the question of giving notice to people, but there he has excluded any person who may live on the premises. A caretaker may live on the premises. I am merely trying to give the same protection in the first part of the clause as the Minister himself is giving in the case of business premises. In the case of business premises, a caretaker may also be living there, but the Minister has excluded that phrase at the top of page 16. I do not think it is right and fair that notice should be given to any adult person who lives on the premises and who may have no direct contact or connection with the person whom the Minister wants to get at. I think this is a reasonable amendment. I think it is unfair if you cannot find the owner or the tenant, to serve the notice on a servant who lives there. If that person does not bring the notice to the notice of the tenant or the person affected, the tenant is prejudiced. Of course the Minister has a further safeguard. because if he cannot find anybody living there it goes on to say “or by registered letter.” I think the Minister is very much protected in getting that notice to the person whom he wants to reach, and therefore I do not think it necessary to have those words there.

I think the Minister’s argument in defence of the provisions of this clause is mainly based on the fact that it is a clause to deal with those persons who wilfully try to evade paying the rents due. We appreciate, Mr. Chairman, the fact that departmentally, as he has informed the Committee, where it is proved that a person has a legitimate reason for not paying the rental, the period can be extended to three months. The difficulty is that provision is made in this clause that seven days’ notice shall be given. The hon. member for Transkeian Territories (Mr. Hughes) has moved an amendment which I am sorry the Minister rejected. We have to bear in mind that there could possibly be cases where persons who have legitimate reasons for not being able to pay their rental on due date could be dealt with in terms of this clause and not receive due consideration by being given three months’ notice. I think that if it is provided in this clause that the notice shall be 30 days, it at least ensures to a certain degree that those persons who are unable to pay their rent for legitimate reasons will be dealt with in terms of the provisions of this law. The amendment moved allows for 30 days. I think that is a reasonable amendment if we consider that many of these people sometimes suffer a temporary financial setback and then have to look to other sources to obtain financial assistance. I am thinking particularly of persons who, due to prolonged illness, or other financial setbacks, have to make application to welfare organizations to assist them with their rent, and also people who apply to the Department for social relief, previously known as public assistance or poor relief, who too can obtain some form of assistance to enable them to pay their rent. Sir, I submit that a period of 30 days’ notice would enable those people to make the necessary application for their claims to be considered by those organizations, but as this clause stands at the moment, the only notice that is required is seven days’ notice. I submit that it would only be just and fair to ensure that cases of genuine hardship will be able to have the protection of the law and know that no action will be taken against them for a period of 30 days, which would then enable the welfare organization to make the necessary inquiries to see whether financial assistance is warranted.

I should like also to comment upon the provisions of this Bill which I believe go very much further than the provisions of the Housing Act. The provisions of the Principal Act dealing with cases where persons fail to pay their rental on due date, were further amended by Act 72 of 1959. Section 42 of the Principal Act was amended by adding after the word “notice” the words “by letter delivered either to the tenant personally or to some adult inmate of the dwelling”. The Housing Amendment Bill which was introduced in 1959 was handled by the Minister of Health, and I should like to quote what he said on that occasion—

That was the comment made by the responsible Minister at the time when this particular section was amended. My question to the hon. the Minister is this: Why has he deemed it necessary in terms of this clause to extend that provision further? Because this clause which is now before the Committee goes very much further; it says that the notice may be served upon “some adult person living on the property.” There is a marked difference here. We could have the situation where a servant living on the residential property is illiterate. That servant would receive the notice and the notice may never reach the tenant who is being given seven days’ notice to vacate the property. I feel that this particular provision goes further than the provision of the Housing Act, as amended, and I believe that the Minister has given no sound reasons why this clause should go further than the provisions of the Principal Act. I feel that this is a far-reaching clause which I believe could cause a great deal of hardship to genuine cases. Let me say immediately that we naturally do not have any sympathy with the person who persistently and wilfully refuses to pay his rent on the due date, but at the same time we must remember that in terms of this clause individuals who may have genuine reasons for not having paid their rent on due date, can be dealt with and evicted after seven days’ notice in terms of the clause as it now stands.

Section 12quin of Clause 8 is one which I, for one, find extremely difficult to understand. This is the clause which deals with the changing of the name of any township or part of a township if the board owns all or the majority of the erven or lots in such township or part of the township; it then provides for certain procedures to be adopted. Sir, one can understand the right of the Minister and the board to choose a name for a township which it (the board itself) or any Department under the control of the Minister may establish, but when it comes to an established township which has a name …

Why are you whispering?

Well, I am trying the soft-sell, as they say in advertising …

We rather like it.

I do not quite understand why the hon. the Minister wants this power. Let us take an example anywhere in South Africa; there is a township in Johannesburg called Roosevelt Park, named for a very good reason at the time of the establishment of the township, and apparently with the approval of most, if not all, the people of Johannesburg. It happens to be in the constituency of the hon. member for Florida (Mr. Miller), he tells me; I did not know that.

That is all that saves him.

In this particular case, it is possible that, surveying the position in Johannesburg, the Minister may decide that the board shall acquire a certain proportion of the erven, the majority of the erven or a substantial proportion of the erven. The Minister is then in the position where, through the board as his agency, he can change the name of this particular township which I have chosen at random. There is obviously a very strong temptation for certain people who have access to the Minister to change the name, for reasons best known to themselves. I say this because we have had, not in the very recent past but in the past, unhappy instances of names having been changed, names which had some communal or historical association. I think, for example, of Roberts Heights, changed to Voortrekkerhoogte. I am not complaining about it …

That was done in terms of a United Party decision in 1938.

Sir, I am not criticizing it.

Order! I would like to point out that the right has been accorded to the board to change the name of the township under certain circumstances. The principle has been adopted at the second reading and the hon. member must be careful not to attack the principle.

Sir, the words which are being added here are: “notwithstanding anything to the contrary in any law contained, but subject to the provisions of sub-section (2) the board may, with the approval of the Minister, change the name of any township …” As it is printed here, this has been inserted.

On a point of order, if the hon. member is going to move for the deletion of Section 12quin which he is entitled to do, then surely he is entitled in support of that amendment to argue that the whole principle should be thrown out at this stage.

Order! There is no such amendment before the Committee.

I am sorry, Sir. I have the amendment here. In that case I wish to move the following amendment immediately—

As I was saying, I am not complaining of that change or criticizing anybody for it; I was about to say that at that time, the change, as is usually the case, aroused a great deal of controversy and a great deal of hurt as far as certain sections of the community were concerned. In the case of the names of established townships, townships which have been named for very good reasons, for example, after a Prime Minister or after a member of the community who rendered service in that particular city or town, after a former …

Mayor.

No, Sir, they seldom name them after former mayors. I was about to say after a former administrator. There are townships which have been named after prominent South African artists; there are names associated with historical incidents which are of significance in the interests of South Africa. What I am saying is that in no case does a name just happen to a particular township; there is nothing haphazard about it. From my experience of a local authority and of the Townships’ Board and of the Provincial Administration, the choice of a name is usually preceded by very careful consideration, if not controversy; and by the time the name is chosen and given as the name of the township, it has been very carefully considered by the people most directly concerned. I want to put this to the hon. the Minister: I do not say that he is going to use this power every time the board acquires a majority of the erven in a township or acquires the land in a particular township, but I do say that his successor may, whoever he may be. I do not say that the Minister will of his own volition want to go round changing the names of townships just because the board has acquired a shareholding in a township, but I say that he will be under pressure to change the names of townships. He will be under pressure, make no mistake about it. I do not want to make a controversial statement here, but I happen to know that in certain of the municipalities of South Africa at the present time there is a great deal of, if not public, covert controversy about the intentions of certain people or certain groups or associations of people to change the names of streets and townships, and to make all kinds of changes which unfortunately have a political significance. I want to avoid the situation arising where the board, under pressure, approaches the Minister to change the name of the township merely because the board owns the erven there. We would then have the situation which was recently exemplified in the case of one of the towns in Zambia, which was Northern Rhodesia formerly, where they decided to take the name of a former premier of the Federation, Sir Roy Welensky, off the foundation stone of a public building. That is the sort of thing that people do, driven emotionally. We do not understand, therefore, what the value is of having this power. I am afraid it can be abused; I think the Minister agrees that it might be abused. What earthly good does it do him to have this power? The power of naming a township should surely lie where it lies to-day. In consultation with the Townships’ Board, the Administrator agrees to the naming; why must the board interfere with this? In order not to create unwittingly a situation that can only cause mischief, dissension and division in the community, I would urge the hon. the Minister to accept this very simple amendment which asks for the deletion of Section 12quin. [Interjection.] Is it not a simple amendment?

It is very simple indeed.

I am glad that the hon. member for Middelland (Mr. van der Merwe) has come down to my level. I know he was described in a newspaper this week as an expert on the United Nations, and I wondered whether he had ever been there. At any rate, if he and I are both simple, then I am in very good company. I move.

The hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel) has moved an amendment in connection with the naming of towns. It is the practice in South Africa for the names of persons to be linked with all kinds of bodies, even with municipal areas. This has not only been the case during the period of office of this Government; it has always been so; it is part of the tradition of South Africa. For example, we have Hertzogville, Krugersdorp and so forth. The United Party also practiced it during their period of office. On the other side of Humansdorp there is a small town which the Government laid out just after the war. The town is called Clarkson, the name of a man who was a Minister in the United Party Government at the time. What is wrong with that?

That name goes further back than that.

The hon. member for Hospital begrudges this Government what he wants the United Party to have. But I want to return to the argument which has been advanced here by the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield) and others, in regard to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Transkeian Territories (Mr. Hughes)—that a period of 30 days’ notice should be given.

The hon. member for Umbilo said that they were not trying to protect the people who were deliberately seeking to avoid paying their rent. I want to say that the actions of the United Party are aimed at making the position of the Department of Housing untenable in this connection. They are making a plea here for people who are not doing their duty towards the State. They are pleading for those people who are deliberately misusing a privilege which the State has given them. That is what the hon. member for Umbilo is advocating.

But the clause makes provision for seven days’ notice to be given.

If this amendment of the Opposition is accepted, it will make the position of the Department quite untenable. If the amendment is included in the Bill we will in effect be telling the public: “You need not pay your rent within 30 days”. When one investigates the position as far as insurance companies and other bodies are concerned which allow a certain period of grace for the payment of premiums, one finds that that period of grace is utilized to the maximum. If we tell a man that he can pay his insurance premium 10 days after the due date, he will not pay his premium on the due date; most policy holders will pay their premiums nine days after the due date or even on the 10th day, and the same thing would happen here. If we include a provision in the Bill to the effect that people will have 30 days’ grace, the general practice will be for people not to pay their rent within the first 30 days. The hon. the Minister has stated very clearly here that it is standing policy that no action will be taken against people within 90 days. This legislation is simply aimed at giving the Board the necessary power to take action after 90 days, not after 30 days, against people who wilfully neglect to pay their rent, not against people who in any way show that they are prepared to make some plan or other to pay their rent. If a person finds himself in financial difficulty and is not able to pay his rent, he does something about it; he approaches the Department and explains that there is illness at home or that he as the breadwinner has not been able to work for a month and he asks for an extension of time. The Department will always assist a person in such a case. In fact, it is standard practice to assist such a person. This clause is simply aimed at enabling the Board to take action against people who are consistently trying to shirk their responsibilities. It gives the Board the right to take action against such persons after 90 days. These people cannot expect to be give a further 30 days’ grace once the period of 90 days has elapsed; if their rent is still unpaid after 90 days, swift action must be taken. Mr. Chairman, I want to point out that the people for whom this legislation has been drawn up are privileged people. They are people who live in State houses, houses which are let to them at a low rental. In my constituency, for example, there are many people who are waiting for the privilege to be able to rent a house from the Department at a very low monthly rental. Far from permitting these people to continue to misuse the money of the State and keep other honourable people out of these State houses, the Department must have the necessary means at its disposal to be able to take action against these people who are consistently trying to shirk their rent responsibilities. Action of this nature will also protect State funds. It has already been said, and I want to emphasize this fact, that if the Opposition adopt this attitude, they will be shirking the responsibility which they have as representatives of the people. We are the guardians of public funds and I do not think that anyone will be in favour of our allowing a tenant to remain in a house for 90 days at a very low rental a house which he rents from the State and, on top of this, his being given an additional 30 days in which to pay his rent. No, I think that we must accept our responsibility and the Opposition should adopt a more responsible attitude in this regard. I think that their actions in this regard are irresponsible in the extreme. The hon. member for Hospital has gone out of his way to prove how irresponsible he is. He is not prepared to give the Department a power which he had as Mayor of Johannesburg. We are asking here that the Department would have a right which has been given to lesser bodies such as municipalities and utility companies. Municipalities and utility companies already have the rights for which the Department is asking here. The hon. member for Hospital claims those rights for local authorities and utility companies but he begrudges these rights to the Government which is responsible for public funds.

Order! Hon. members must advance new arguments in connection with the question of 7 days’ notice.

I wish to deal with the new proposed Section 12sex in this clause. This section makes provision for the board to be exempted from the provisions of certain by-laws. As originally contemplated the section provided for the board to be exempted from town planning schemes and various other requirements that I do not want to deal with, and, in sub-paragraph (b), from the provisions of any Ordinance in terms whereof approval must be obtained from a local authority for the subdivision of land. Sir, the Committee will remember that it was this clause which gave rise to a great deal of acrimonious discussion during the second-reading debate. The objection of this side of the House to the clause as it then stood was the fact that the clause gave unfettered powers to the hon. the Minister to override town-planning schemes, and the power to override the provisions of any law relating to the subdivision of land. These powers were given to him to exercise without any limitation whatsoever. Sir, it will be appreciated that town-planning schemes have been established by local authorities. Before those schemes could be given the effect of law, they had to be approved by the Provincial Administration. These schemes only came into being after the most careful scrutiny and examination by town-planning experts who gave their opinions to the local authority, and thereafter these schemes were subjected to the most careful scrutiny by the Provincial authorities before they were given the effect of law. You can well appreciate that we felt that the hon. the Minister was taking the power unto himself completely to override the provisions of these town planning schemes and provisions with regard to the subdivision of land without any reference, in terms of the Bill as originally drafted, to the Provincial Administrations or to the local authorities who had devoted a great deal of time, money and energy to the establishment of these schemes. In order to meet the objection that was raised, the hon. the Minister now has an amendment on the Order Paper, an amendment which is set out on page 155 of the Order Paper. In terms of this amendment the hon. the Minister proposes to delete from the original provisions the words “town-planning scheme” in sub-paragraph (a), and completely to delete sub-paragraph (b) from this section, and then he proposes to add a new sub-section which reads that he (the Minister) may after consultation with the Administrator exempt the board from the provisions of any town-planning scheme and from the provisions of any Ordinance in terms whereof approval must be obtained from a local authority for the subdivision of land. Sir, whilst I feel that this goes some way towards meeting some of the objections raised from this side of the House, I would suggest to the hon. the Minister that it does not by any stretch of the imagination go far enough. What does the Minister propose in terms of his amendment? He proposes to take the right unto himself after consultation with the Administrator—and I will deal with what consultation means in just a moment—to exempt his own board from the provisions of any town-planning scheme or from the provisions of any Ordinance relating to the subdivision of land. In other words, the board, as I tried to point out in the second-reading debate is the Minister. He therefore takes the power, in terms of this amendment, after consulting with the Administrator, to exempt himself from the provisions of any town-planning scheme or from the provisions of any ordinance relating to the subdivision of land.

Sir, surely that does not go far enough. We had experience quite recently in the City of Cape Town as to what consultation means between the Government and local authorities. In the opinion of the Government that consultation means one thing and one thing only and that is the use of the big stick. They say, “This is our view and you either accept it or else.” If you do not accept their views they force you to do so. I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister that if he really intends to meet the objections raised by the United Municipal Executive and by this side of the House to his original provisions, he should amend his own amendment, and I suggest that there is a very simple way in which we can test whether he really wants to meet the objections which have been raised here. I suggest that the way to deal with this matter is for the Minister to substitute in his amendment the word “administrator” for “minister” and to substitute “minister” for “administrator”. That will mean this: If the Minister gives effect to my suggestion it will mean that his amendment will read that the Administrator may after consultation with the Minister exempt the board from the provisions of any town-planning scheme or from the provisions of any ordinance relating to the subdivision of land. I think that is the acid test in this matter. If there is to be consultation with the Administrator and the Administrator is satisfied that the Minister has put up to him a reasonable case justifying the amendment of any town planning scheme or justifying an amendment ordinance relating to the subdivision of land, then the Administrator should grant the exemption, not the Minister.

Why must it be the Administrator?

I only have ten minutes, I cannot repeat what I have already said. Sir, I do submit to the hon. the Minister that if he genuinely wishes to meet the objections of the United Municipal Executive and the objections raised from this side of the House, namely that he should not willy-nilly proceed to ignore and override town-planning schemes and the provisions of the law relating to the sub-division of land, he should give very serious consideration to my proposal, and that is that if he has a case which justifies the granting of exemption to the board, he should present that case to the Administrator and that the Administrator, if he feels that a good case has been made out, should have the power in terms of this law to exempt the Minister’s board from the provisions of any town planning schemes, or from the provisions of any law relating to the sub-division of land. To leave it as the Minister suggests in his own amendment is making a complete farce of the whole thing. The Minister will go along to an Administrator and tell him what his proposal is; that amounts to consultation, and he will then immediately proceed to exempt his own board, which means himself, from the provisions of the law. I do not want to move an amendment at this stage to the Minister’s amendment, but I ask the Minister to give serious consideration to what I have suggested here, and that is to substitute in his own amendment the word “administrator” for “minister”, and that he should substitute “minister” for “administrator”, which will mean that the Administrator, after having heard the Minister’s representations, shall have the power to exempt the board from the provisions of any law relating to town planning or the subdivision of land.

If the hon. member for Peninsula (Mr. Bloomberg) did not come into this House so seldom, he would most probably be more acquainted with the facts. It is because the hon. member does not do his duty in this House that he displays his ignorance in the way in which he has just displayed it. He makes himself look ridiculous, not the Department. If he had been here he would have known that I have dealt in great detail with this matter on various occasions. I dealt with the matter in my introductory speech and I also dealt with it in my reply to the second-reading debate. I said expressly that this was a provision which had the unanimous approval of the United Municipal Executive.

I am not concerned about that.

Now the hon. member asks me not to accede to the request of the United Municipal Executive! What absolute nonsense! The fact is that the United Municipal Executive told me that they realized that there had to be a central authority which could take these steps, but that they did not want the board to have the power and that the power should be vested in the Minister. It was they who formulated this proposal and submitted it to us. Now the hon. member for Peninsula comes along and he says that I must reject the proposal of the United Municipal Executive ! I must reject their proposal for the sake of his. What a stupid suggestion on the part of a responsible frontbencher! On two occasions I read out the letter which I received from the United Municipal Executive.

I was listening.

Very well, then the hon. member must not conduct himself in such a frivolous manner.

I want now to prove his ignorance in a second respect. Has the hon. member ever heard of a report by experts, a report which this Department released last year—the report in connection with prefabricated buildings and certain other building materials and building methods? Does he know about it? It was released to the public. It is in the possession of most local authorities. It is available to any hon. member. I want to ask the hon. member whether he knows anything about this report and whether he has read it. No, he has not read it, Sir. What he has said here has been said in complete ignorance. This report was drawn up, inter alia, by people in the building industry like Professor Kobie Louw, a man who is one of the most well-known personages in the country to-day, by Dr. Stutterheim and Mr. Webb, both of the Building Research Institute, and by the Assistant Chief Housing Engineer of the Department of Community Development, who served on the committee after a study tour of Europe. This committee reported on new building methods and the us of materials. I did not hide this report away. After it was submitted to me, I went so far as to make it available to the official Opposition. In this report the committee makes recommendations in regard, inter alia, to the use of heavy construction, concrete panel construction, foam concrete construction. in situ concrete construction, spray concrete construction, light construction, wooden frame construction, frameless construction, composite construction and wood and brick construction.

What has that to do with the point which I have raised?

I shall explain if the hon. member does not know. If the hon. member will remain silent for a while he will realize how ignorant he is. The committee goes on to say that these industrialized methods cannot be applied in South Africa because of our obsolete building regulations. Most of the bylaws and building regulations in our towns and cities are of such a nature that these things cannot be applied.

Why cannot the Administrators grant exemption?

I shall tell the hon. member why not. If the hon. member will listen, he will realize what the position is. Before the report of this committee was made available, steps were taken under the guidance of my Department in order to frame, in consultation with the South African Bureau of Standards, a standard set of building regulations which would be acceptable to local authorities and which the provinces could introduce by way of ordinance. One of the recommendations of this committee is that the ordinances of the provinces should be amended so as to enable standard building regulations to be issued for South Africa. We had an International Congress on building methods in South Africa last year in connection with this matter. One of the important points of discussion at that Congress was the question of standard building regulations. But it is going to be some time yet before standard building regulations can be adopted in this country, standard building regulations which will be generally acceptable. firstly by the provinces and, secondly, by local authorities. That is the background to the problem. But in the meantime the State must continue, with funds which it makes available itself, to provide the country with housing. The State cannot sit still and wait until standard regulations are adopted while these new building methods are at its disposal. In the meantime this committee has issued certain instructions in regard to these new building methods and how they can be used. There are interests in South Africa and elsewhere which want to introduce and are already introducing new building methods into South Africa. Factories have come into being. For example, there is the Rema product which has come on to the market. We as a Department make use of it but if we were bound by the obsolete regulations of local authorities, we could not make use of the Rema product. The Rema product helps us not only to provide cheaper housing but to provide housing more quickly. This is only one example. There are other examples to which I have already referred in this House.

Last year we had a discussion with the Administrators and we agreed that these powers should be given to my Department—that the State should have these powers in regard to housing or development schemes. These powers are not exercised at the whim of the Minister. They are only exercised after the town planners, the architects and the engineers whose services are available to my Department have reached agreement in this regard in consultation with the Building Research Institute of South Africa and in accordance with the standards of the South African Bureau of Standards which have already been laid down. That is the position. The hon. member in his ignorance has come along here and has created a completely wrong impression. Let me say this to the hon. member: These things are done in consultation with the Master Builders’ Association; the United Municipal Executive are fully aware of what we want to do; there is continual consultation. Most of the large urban authorities in the country are kept informed and are co-operating with us in this connection; they welcome it because without it we would not be able to build houses. That is my answer to the hon. member. He must forgive me if in the light of all this scientific guidance and assistance which we have at our disposal I take no further notice of his plea.

I just want to reply to one point raised by the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield). The hon. member raised a new point—that there may be a servant at a particular house and that the servant may be illiterate. But if such person has a servant, he cannot be as poor as the hon. member’s party has been trying to make out. If a person can keep a servant, than I think he can also pay his rent.

They may also perhaps rent a small room.

Very well. Let me tell the hon. member that the people whom we are discussing here and the powers which we are taking here are for people whom we know, from experience, make sure that they are not at home if they know that we want to serve notice on them. We want to deal with those people. When one summonses a person, it is only necessary to attach the summons to the door of the house if that person is not at home. One need not hand it over to such person personally. We say here that it must be handed to a responsible person. I do not think we should advance this sort of argument. Hon. members know that we are dealing here with people who are acting wilfully.

The hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel) spoke about the change of name. I want to give him two examples. I do not want to devote too much time to this matter. We cleared Sophiatown which was the worst slum area in South Africa. Should we have called the attractive White town which came into being there Sophiatown as well? That is why we want these powers. Sophiatown came into being under the Housing Act. Because the Housing Act gives us the power to change a name, we changed the name of that town to Triomf because it was a triumph for civilization and for urban development.

I want to give another example. Western Native Township is a proclaimed Coloured township and it is now being redeveloped in consultation with the Johannesburg City Council. Does the hon. member not want us to have the right to change its name from that of Western Native Township once it has been redeveloped?

No, I did not say that.

It is for that reason that we want this power. We want to be able to do away with silly names and give places suitable names which suit the community.

Cannot you give that

power to the local authority?

We only exercise this power when we spend money and when we own the largest portion of that area. Why should we not have that right? Why should the Central Government not have a right of this nature when it provides all the funds and technical guidance? That is my answer to the hon. member. I am afraid that I cannot assist him any further.

I want to spend a few minutes on this question of the 30 days although that is not really the reason why I am on my feet. I want to make an appeal to the hon. the Minister not to lower the level he has attained during the major portion of his conduct of this Bill through the House and become childish in this matter. All that is being asked for here is to translate into law, only to some extent, what in practice the Department does, namely, to give as much latitude as they can subject to certain powers. This side of the House feels that it is carrying out its duty in ensuring that the most reasonable provision is inserted in the law. We ask that the clause be amended to read 30 days instead of seven days’ notice. Why the hon. the Minister should dig his toes in like a little boy and say: “I will not do that; I will not accept that; I am not prepared to talk” is beyond me. Sir, I think the hon. the Minister owes it to the House and particularly to himself not to adopt that attitude at this stage of the debate.

I should like to tell the hon. member for Parow (Mr. S. F. Kotzé) who is not here at the moment that for him to spend ten minutes pleading that it is essential to preserve the State’s money reduces the debate to an even more childish level and makes a situation which might perhaps be a sublime situation in the Minister’s mind a completely ridiculous one.

I want to come back to 12sex of this particular clause and say this. I hope the hon. the Minister will give me a satisfactory reply. His amendment in fact changes a principle in this Bill and I think the Chairman should take some note of this. If you examine the Clause as it stands very carefully you find that it says “The board shall be exempt (a) from the provisions of any by-law, town-planning scheme or regulation of a local authority, and the conditions of establishment … relating to” and it is limited to certain specific purposes. Then it goes on in (b) “from the provisions of any ordinance in terms whereof approval must be obtained from a local authority for the subdivision of land”. I think the hon. the Minister is under the impression that he is improving this clause by inserting “in consultation with the Administrator”. But it does not do that. He removes the words “town-planning” from lines 67 and 68 on page 12 and inserts another clause in place of (b): “The Minister may, after consultation with the Administrator, exempt the board from the provisions of any town-planning scheme”. In other words, it is no longer exemption from a town-planning scheme relating to certain limited provisions; it is exemption from a town-planning scheme entirely. This means that he is seeking vaster powers in this amendment than this particular clause contains.

Read 12sex (a).

I have just read it—

The board shall be exempt:

1. (a) from the provisions of any by-law, town-planning scheme or regulation of a local authority and the conditions of establishment of a township prescribed by any Administrator, townships board or townships commission relating to—

Relating to (i), (ii), (iii) and (iv). That is what the board shall be exempt from, namely, all the provisions relating to (i), (ii), (iii) and (iv). The hon. the Minister now removes the words “town planning” so it does not become limited any more in its relationship to four or five powers, oh no. He now comes with an amendment which says that the “Minister may, after consultation … exempt the board from the provisions of a town-planning scheme” entirely. I say the hon. the Minister has actually changed the complete purpose of this clause and widened the extent of the powers. Why? Because after going through this clause again he realized that he did not have that complete power. I told him during the second reading that he would always be asking for more and more powers. He has found this particular weakness and he is new remedying it. I do not think we can vote for this clause.

What I should like to suggest to the hon. the Minister is this: He can leave it as it is, it is a very objectionable clause in any form, and we do not like it at all; we shall probably vote against it in any event. But if he wants to improve it by indicating that he does not want to be the over-riding authority in every respect, the amendment I would like to move to this clause as it stands in the Bill is as follows—

My purpose with this amendment is this: Much as I regard this clause as a complete anathema I have to do something to try to relieve its severity and its harshness. I do that by at least enabling the local authority and the Administrator to know what the board wants to do so that they can at least co-ordinate their own services to fit in with this particular power. In other words, it does not restrain the board from being exempted but it gives the local authority and the Administrator an opportunity of knowing what is going to be done. That, after all, was what the hon. the Minister claimed was the premises of his whole approach to this matter, namely, the question of co-operation and the spirit of community development and understanding. If that is the case then at least try to carry it to its logical conclusion. I do not. however, want the hon. the Minister to infer that by moving this amendment I necessarily accept the clause. I do however think it is my duty to try to relieve its harshness. I do ask the hon. the Minister to tell us whether he can refute my suggestion that his amendment changes the complete intent of the clause. Far from limiting his powers or providing some platform for consultation he has in fact extended his powers and brought about the very evil of which the hon. member for Peninsula (Mr. Bloomberg) was so justifiably apprehensive and criticized so severely. We have already dealt with that aspect. A tremendous amount of service, work, thought, planning, expert advice and valuable knowledge has built up this country of ours. All its towns, villages and cities have within them magnificent town planning aspects as a result of that. The fact that the hon. the Minister wants to clear up certain unfavourable features hastily is an entirely different story but that does not, in any way, detract from what has been done. Therefore, Sir, there is justification for trying to avoid the Minister having these vast powers. I would like the hon. the Minister to make it clear once and for all whether his amendment does not merely widen his powers? I ask legal men on the other side of the House to refute that interpretation.

The amendment proposed by the Minister is in order.

I want in the first place to deal with Section 12quat inserted by Clause 8. This is the rental collection provision. I want to indicate the principle involved in this regard because this debate is being approached from a wrong point of view as has been the case in regard to numbers of debates which we have had in this House over the past years. It is wrong to say that the State should not be exempted from the ordinary civil law commitments which exist between citizens. There is a principle in constitutional law to the effect that it is assumed that the State is a decent person. This principle in constitutional law is described particularly in French administrative law and expressly accepted. In South Africa strangely enough, as far as I know, nothing has as yet been published in our constitutional law about the principle that it is always accepted that the State acts like a decent person. But it has been accepted practice in countless cases in the legislation of the old Union of South Africa and the Republic of South Africa to assume that the State is a decent person. That is why the State is granted special shortened periods of superannuation in many cases; that is why the State often has the privilege of notice of the institution of claims; that is why the State has theoretically, simplified methods of implementing claims in execution. There is the striking example under the Land Bank Act to which the hon. member for Omaruru (Mr. Frank) referred. But the principle which is laid down here is that under constitutional law the State is assumed to be a decent person and for this reason the State can be given special powers which could never be given to private individuals. Because of this principle of State administration and constitutional law, the Opposition is wrong in concentrating its attack upon the fact that the State is in this case being given the benefit of an abnormally short procedure of execution and eviction in respect of State houses. The only attack which the Opposition could launch in this regard would be that this Government has proved that it is misusing the aforementioned principle of constitutional law, and that for this reason we could no longer permit it to practise this normal principle of constitutional law. That would be a legitimate parliamentary attack. But the parliamentary attack which has been launched in this regard is a reprehensible confession of ignorance on the part of the United party of the constitutional law principle which has existed in this country for six decades.

I should like now to discuss Section 12quin which deals with the changing of the name of a municipal area. The big mistake made by hon. members opposite is this: We are still in effect dealing here with a Group Areas Development Act. The municipal areas affected by this name-changing provision are not the same as those under the Housing Act. These are municipal areas under the Group Areas Development Act. Two requirements are needed here. In the first place, the character of a municipal area is changed by a group areas proclamation, like the Western Native Township which is an excellent example. A White town becomes a non-White town or a non-White town becomes a White town and because of this fact a real change must of necessity take place in the character of that particular municipal area. In the second place, the Group Areas Development Board, the Community Development Board, must be the majority shareholder in that town. It must own most of the land. This principle compares favourably with the normal principle that if one obtains a majority share in a company, one can do what one wants to with that company; one can call it what one wants to call it. The third principle is that these provisions go together with those of 12sex, the contentious replanning clause. We have therefore these three requirements: There is a change of character in the municipal area, a radical change in its character; there is a new majority shareholder in the municipal area and that new majority shareholder has the right to replan completely. The position is the same in the laying out of a new town. An analogy to this is not the misleading analogy of Roosevelt Park which the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel) gave us in his good, quietly-developed argument because it is highly improbable that a built-up suburb will ever be affected. [Interjections.] No, it only exists when a municipal area comes into the possession of the Development Board and it can only happen in the case of a group area.

A correct analogy would be that of a company which plans a municipal area and has the plan on the drawing board. A new majority shareholder then comes along and scraps that plan and draws up a new municipal plan on the drawing board and at the same time gives that town a new name. That is the only fair analogy.

I have nothing to say in regard to the exemption of the Board from the powers in connection with planning, except that I want to draw the hon. the Minister’s attention to the fact that in my interpretation of his amendment, the general qualifying provision of 12sex (a) is not applicable to his newly proposed sub-section (2) in terms of the amendment. I think consideration must be given to whether the qualifying provisions of 12sex (a) are not also intended to hold good in respect of the powers which the hon. the Minister will now receive in terms of the amendment. I leave the matter at that. It is a purely legal question for the hon. the Minister’s law advisers.

In order to ensure—at least, I hope that I will do this—that 12sex never raises its ugly head again, I want to move—

In accordance with Standing Order No. 30 (2) I will report progress and ask leave to sit again.

House Resumed:

Progress reported.

The House proceeded to the consideration of private members business.

I move—

My reason for introducing this Bill follows upon a study of the available information on the results—mental and physical—of the effect of boxing. This study has led me to the conclusion that the results are so grave that the country should intervene and ban this particular occupation, or as it is sometimes wrongfully called this “sport”

Some may question the right of anybody to interfere with the right of an individual to go his own way to destruction, but the medical profession has a heavy duty placed upon it to not only try to cure ills but also to avoid illness, and boxing has become such a hazard of health that I personally, as a member of that profession, feel that it is time that attention was drawn to these hazards. Laymen are ill-informed on the risks and the effects of boxing. They see the odd case reported in the newspapers, a death here and a death there, but seldom do they know the total effects and most of them are completely ignorant of the prevalence of the chronic damage to the brain which has developed punch-drunkenness.

Professional boxing is an industry. It is carried on for the profit chiefly of a third person who takes no actual part in the risks and the injuries which come to those who participate. The object of the contestants is chiefly to inflict unconsciousness on his opponent. It has on occasion caused death—some 203 deaths in 17 years.

Where do you get these figures from?

I am prepared to give you the evidence. Over 300 deaths are recorded and this is unlikely to be a complete list.

During the eight years immediately following the last war, that is from 1946 to 1953, 114 deaths are recorded by Dr. Muskat of Johannesburg, himself for three years Featherweight Champion at the Witwatersrand University. Of these 114, 51 were amateurs. In the United States of America there were 64 deaths, including 22 amateurs in four years—not a light death rate and not negligible if one of them happens to be your son.

But in addition to death, there are the considerable number of ex-boxers who develop punch-drunkenness, characterized by persistent headaches, dizziness, impaired sight and hearing, and occasionally epilepsy. The man is usually fatuously euphoric, he has not the slightest idea that he suffers from anything. It is characteristic of the drunk that he always denies that he is drunk. He is, as has been described, slap happy. “Slap happy” is the original name for punch-drunkenness. It is not a new word. I find that as far back as 1925. that is 40 years ago, Eric Partridge quotes “slap happily crazed from the punching he has received”. Intellectual deterioration can always be diagnosed by medical examination. In addition there are mood changes—irascibility, irritability and defective emotional control. Outstanding features are slurring speech and a shuffling gait.

More recently it has been worked out that it can be demonstrated in an X-ray in the living person. And, Sir, finally, there have been sufficient post mortems carried out on ex-boxers to prove the existence of a definite condition of punch-drunkenness, brain atrophy in ex-boxers. Finally, the average boxer does not live out his full life-span. He generally dies, if he gets that far, in the middle-forties.

Unfortunately there has been not sufficient research to enable me to give statistics of those who suffered from punch-drunkenness, but no reliable authority any longer doubts the fact that punch-drunkenness is a definite entity in ex-boxers.

McDonald Critchley, one of the world’s leading neurologists, has himself recorded 69 cases which came under his care, and Lord Brain, who works in the same hospital as Critchley, has also studied numerous cases. Dr. Larson, a Swede, found signs of brain damage in 36 of 75 amateurs who had been engaged in 120 contests. Spillane, a Cardiff neurologist, studied five ex-boxers, hospitalized, in detail. He reports that four suffered from chronic brain disorder in later life, and the fifth suffered from intermittent aggressive behaviour—this will interest the Minister of Justice—which brought him into conflict with the law. I myself know an ex-South African champion who has this characteristic, but he has had the good fortune to marry a wife who understands him and is able to control him. Lastly, in order to convince the House, the United States National Boxing Association has established a home for punch-drunk ex-fighters.

Sir, why has boxing become more dangerous? I believe that this arises from the contestant’s wish to win outright—the result must be put beyond doubt. He no longer trusts the referee; the prize to-day is so great not only in money at the moment but also for the future earnings and reputation that the professional boxer aims to remove all doubt by a knockout result, and even a gold medal at the purely amateur Olympic Games is a door to professionalism.

The chief argument against boxing is that the contents of the skull are the main target. At this point I must digress a little and explain the skull and the brain. Firstly, the skull is not a round, smoothly lined ball. It is irregular in shape, its inside is rough, ridged and grooved. The brain fits snugly into all the grooves and ridges, surrounded by a thin layer of fluid—the fluid is about the thickness of three or four layers of ordinary writing paper. The brain’s consistency is about that of a jelly, with not the same cohesion. A blow on the head rattles the brain in the skull, causing bruises to the brain; more blows, more bruises; more bruises, more permanent damage to the brain, for a bruise means torn vessels, and torn vessels mean that that area is deprived of oxygen and nourishment permanently, for the vessels cannot be repaired. What were brain cells are now scars. A very hard, well-timed blow forces the rough prominent ridges at the base of the skull into the vital centres of the brain and causes death.

Mr. Speaker, it is well known that during the course of a round, in professionalism chiefly, about 100 blows are delivered and taken. In a ten-round contest there will be in other words about 1,000 blows to the head. Fortunately, a fair number of them are not well-timed, otherwise there would be more fatalities.

Most of them do not land at all.

Well a fair number land because we have these deaths and we have these punch-drunkards.

The object of most boxers is to so derange the brain that it goes out of action, at least temporarily. In fact the damage is at times fatal, and in a number of other instances it leads to permanent deterioration of brain function—the slap happy punch-drunk cyndrome—and in other instances to a relatively premature death.

Boards of control and medical supervision can and do reduce the toll, but they cannot alter the facts that the main object of the boxer is to out out of action the most important and the most vulnerable organ in the body. These boards also can even do some harm by promoting a false sense of security, because the first blow may be, and has been, fatal. Control has failed to eliminate fatalities. It may have reduced them in numbers but it has failed to eliminate them. So long as the thick, padded gloves are worn and blows to the head are permitted, it will eliminate neither death nor encephalitis pugilistica—punch-drunkenness. Gloves, theoretically, are for the protection of the man who is struck. Common-sense of simple mechanics will convince anyone that their effect in this respect is negligible. Their real effect is to protect the hands of the striker. It is painful to strike many blows on the hard, bony skull or jaw with hands covered only by an unpadded leather glove and no bandage, and the more frequent and harder the blows, the more painful does it become; thus the striker using this form of attack will find his blows becoming less and less severe. Further, there can be resulting injury to hands, such as fractures or sprains, etc., but these are curable and infinitely preferable to damage to the brain.

If boxing is to be continued, consideration should be given to brain protection. There could be a foul line drawn round the neck at the level of the collar-bones, and all blows above that line should be treated as fouls, and there should be no warnings. If then the industry feels that the bouts lack bloodthirstiness, let them eliminate the present so-called belt. The region below that level is much less vulnerable than the brain and much less valuable. Retain the ban on the kidney-punch, and leave the rest of the body open to attack. A fit boxer will easily sustain a severe attack on the solar plexus. Similarly the other contents of the abdomen will be protected by the same fit, well-trained muscles, and a blow on the genitals while extremely painful and temporarily disabling, is unlikely to result in permanent damage. At the very worst it could possibly lead to the loss of one testicle, and nature has supplied a spare. Death and imbecility at their worst do not follow eunuchism. For procreation one testicle is sufficient.

Boxing as now practiced is not in general painful. Blows to the head and face are reasonably painless, but blows to the body generally are painful but do not damage the hands. Raising the foul line to the base of the neck and reversing it, will change the emphasis from mental damage, and perhaps death, to pain; such pain could temporarily but not permanently damage and disable as does injury to that most highly developed, most precious and most vulnerable organ, the human brain.

The human brain is man’s most valuable possession. It distinguishes man from the beasts and the birds. Damage to it may mean death or worse than death, it may bring him to the level of the birds and the beasts. All the body depends on the brain. It is the fountain of life, it governs all our actions, it is the source of all our thoughts, it is our humanness, most precious, most easily damaged, least easily repaired, not renewable, and unlike the testicles it is not duplicated.

My objections contrary to those of many others are entirely directed to the severe damage which happens, whether suddenly or gradually, to the brain.

Disaster in boxing is ever imminent. That is perhaps one of the features which makes it so attractive to that type of audience. Throughout the spectacle there is the possibility of drama and excitement. A tense atmosphere prevails. The audience waits for a knock-out. What a reflection on their character! In private life probably the kindliest of men and women but en masse spectators at a gladiatorial contest—ready at any moment to turn down their thumbs.

Iceland, Belgium and some American states have banned boxing. I hope that I can convince hon. members that we should join that select, cultured and civilized group.

The mothers of the country stand behind me. Not one mother wishes her son to box. Certainly no mother wishes him to be a professional boxer. With one exception, no leading ex-boxers in South Africa will allow their sons to box, and the majority of the medical profession regard it with revulsion.

The protagonists of boxing, Sir, are firstly the promoters who naturally object to the loss of their profits. The second group are the fathers of daughters, not the fathers of sons, and lastly, the opposition to my motion comes from those aged bearers of the old school tie who in discussions chuck a chest, assume an aggressive stance, ill fitting their creaking joints, and they say “It never did me any harm”. But, Sir, do they know?

The hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford) gave us what was undoubtedly a very interesting lecture on boxing. I do not want to argue with him about the involved medical terms which he used. In boxing we call this the “infighting”, but I do not want to indulge in any in-fighting with him. I am convinced that even though he delivered his lecture so effectively, this honourable House will not support him. I am convinced that even though we have given the first round to the hon. member for Durban (Central), he and those who support him will soon throw in the towel and, Mr. Speaker, that you will have the privilege of being able to count out the second reading!

I should like to draw the attention of the hon. member to one statement which he made. He tried to create the impression that in boxing one concentrated on the brain only, on one’s opponent’s head. I think that it would be a very stupid boxer who would do this. No boxer who knows anything about boxing will waste his blows on his opponent’s head.

What about a blow to the chin?

Yes, he aims at the chin. If a person wants to knock come other person out, he hits him on the chin. This paralyses a nerve which is connected with the brain and causes that person to lose consciousness for a while but it does not affect his brain in the slightest. That is why the hon. member for Durban (Central) must not try to create the impression that the brain must of necessity be damaged by every blow.

Undoubtedly, boxing is not exactly for children or for those who are soft. It is a hard sport. I fully agree with him in that regard. Solomon also said “Do not be one of those wicked people who strike with their fists”, but if Solomon had been aware of all the dangerous sports which we have to-day, I am sure he would have made his warning far more comprehensive.

His little games were far more dangerous.

If the most important argument of the hon. member for Durban (Central) is that boxing should be prohibited because it is dangerous and can be extremely dangerous, then I want to say that we will have to prohibit a large number of different types of sport. We must, inter alia, prohibit the driving of motor cars. Thousands more accidents and deaths take place as a result of driving motor cars than as a result of boxing. Will the thousands of accidents necessarily cause us to prohibit driving, for example?

This is not the first time that this matter has been discussed in this House. I want to remind hon. members that an equally interesting motion was discussed in this House in 1923. At that time professional boxing was prohibited in the Transvaal and a member, Mr. H. S. McAllister of Germiston, introduced a Bill in this House to legalize boxing in the Transvaal as well. It is interesting to peruse the debates of that time. I find that leading people, a few of whom I want to quote, defended boxing. There was the late Minister Mentz who said at the time that it was healthy exercise and that it enabled one to defend oneself and to keep a pugnacious person in his place. I agree with that. Advocate Leslie Blackwell, the then member for Bezuidenhout, said: “As long as boxing matches are under proper supervision, they ought to be allowed.” I hope that his successor will adopt the same attitude. The late Mr. John X. Merriman, a very prominent member and a very revered Member of Parliament, said that every person should be able to use his fists. A man like Dr. Forsyth who at the time was member for Cape Town (Gardens)—he was a doctor—had this interesting remark to make: “The eyes are developed by boxing.” I do not know in what respect, but that was what he said.

In 1923, the matter was eventually brought to a vote and it is very interesting to note which members voted in favour of boxing. Amongst them we find people who held important positions. Two former Governors-General, the late Mr. Patrick Duncan and the late Mr. G. B. van Zyl, voted in favour of boxing.

Now both deceased.

Yes, but surely not as a result of boxing! There was, for example, the late Mr. John X. Merriman and a person like the late General Smuts who both voted in favour of boxing. I want to draw the attention of the House to the fact that even Parliament as an institution has close ties with boxing. A former speaker of the British House of Commons was a champion boxer in Britain. I think that he also fought in world championship bouts on a few occasions.

Do not forget Sir Roy Welensky.

Yes, he was a prominent boxer. And the present leader of the Opposition was the champion boxer of Oxford. I see that to-day’s newspapers praise his so-called “killer instinct”. This is what one appreciates in him. It is a pity that he did not retain more of that “killer instinct” because, if he had, the debates in this House would have been more interesting.

Order! The hon. member must come back to the Bill.

Yes, Mr. Speaker. I was merely pointing out how this House has in the past felt on this subject. There is one particular reason why I am not opposed to boxing and that is because it is, after all, voluntary. We compel no one to participate in boxing and those who want to take part in boxing will be the last ones to take a person by the scruff of his neck and force him into the boxing ring. But in our judicature we also have the interesting Latin expression volenti non fit injuria. This means that if a person allows himself to be struck voluntarily, no offence is committed. We have more or less the same principle in the case of suicide. Suicide is not a crime. A person commits suicide voluntarily and as long as he does it voluntarily, it does not constitute an offence. There are various types of sport which develop various talents in a person. Thinking, for example, of a game like snooker, I consider that it develops one’s judgment. A game like cricket develops one’s ability to concentrate. I do not say that it should be developed to such an extent that a person should have to take seven hours to make 137 runs, but it does nevertheless develop one’s ability to concentrate. Rugby develops one’s stamina; target-shooting develops one’s accuracy; wrestling develops one’s strength; soccer, one’s agility and athletics, one’s fitness. But there is one game which develops practically all one’s talents and that is boxing. One has to have concentration, judgment, agility and fitness. There is no other sport which is as good as boxing.

Of all the sports which the hon. member has mentioned, can he mention one in which it is the deliberate intention to hurt one’s opponent?

I admit that in boxing the main aim is to incapacitate one’s opponent physically but there are other kinds of sport in which the main purpose is to put a man out of action by robbing him of his spirit, and that is perhaps just as cruel. Indeed, it is far worse. It is very boring for me to have to sit on a pavilion and watch a man standing before the wickets for hours; it is cruel. Let me put it in this way. One has to deal with various sports in society. There is a sport for the clever ones and a sport for the strong ones. But boxing develops one important characteristic and that is a man’s courage. That is why boxing is not for the man who does not have a great deal of courage. Boxing develops the characteristic of courage. You will never find a frightened man in the ring. [Interjections.]

Do you box?

The hon. member for Outeniqua (Mr. Holland) should come to me for a little physical revitalization. But boxing is primarily the sport which develops one’s courage. My attitude is that there may be a community in which there are clever people and strong people, but if there is no element there of courage, that community does not amount to much. One may have the cleverest people who work with the most involved instruments, or one may have strong men, but if a man does not have a little courage he will not amount to much. The same thing holds good in politics.

Order!

Boxing is just like politics. Both tempt one. But what do we need more than courage in any community? We need courage in the life of any nation. We need courage in the times in which we are living.

One must not be a person who gives up.

That is precisely what I am saying. Yes, I think that that hon. member has courage and he will agree with me that he will need courage for the coming election. Courage is what we need in the present-day world in which we live and because boxing is primarily the sport which cultivates courage, I am opposed to this Bill.

It will be rather difficult for me to follow the hon. mover of the motion in his medical terminology. I do not want to do so because I am not able to do so. Let us look at the matter as it exists, as everything in the world exists. The male sex in everything, the creeping and walking and swimming animals, are all inclined to start a fight. It is impossible to imagine that humans will not fight. Everything male, all animals and all insects, will start a fight at a certain time and this is the right thing because this has been the case since before the creation of the world, before the mover of the motion was alive.

Order! This motion has nothing to do with the creation of the world.

It is a natural thing and if we can appreciate how natural it is, we will have far less trouble. If, for example, we could round up all the ducktails to-day and put them into halls where they could fight one another, we would not have all the trouble which we now have on the streets. They now have bicycle chains in their pockets. This is simply another way of satisfying their desire to fight. But if we give them the opportunity to thrash things out among themselves in a room, we will soon have peace. As soon as we stop them they start berating one another and in the long run no good comes of it at all.

The second point is the exercise which is involved in boxing. It is the sort of exercise which one likes to do, which is not a burden—the sort of exercise which one will walk to if one cannot get there any other way. That is why this exercise is good for us. It exercises the various parts of the body—what I call the triumvirate in man—which is necessary in order to enable humanity to make a decent living. It exercises the human eye because a man has to be very quick to see an opening in his opponent’s guard at the right moment. That eye must telegraph the fact that there is an opening to the brain and the brain telegraphs this message back to the hand. Everything has to happen like lightning otherwise the opportunity is lost. That is why I say that the triumvirate which contribute towards making a particular person useful in all spheres combine harmoniously with one another in this regard. These are the eye, the brain and the other parts of the body which are under the control of the brain.

And if you hit him on the chin, his brain becomes useless.

That is true, but only for a moment. It has been proved that if a person exercises correctly, little damage will be done to his body by the normal actions which take place in that exercising. If one’s face is not exercised and one goes into the boxing ring, one will come out of the ring with a face which looks like a piece of liver. One’s face will be swollen and red, but if the skin is exercised, there will only be a discoloured mark, and the pain will not last for very long either. It has been proved over and over again that physical exercise enables a person to do things which he cannot do with a body which is not exercised.

It also helps the development of a well-built man. Without exercise he would not be able to develop his body and would be left with a pair of narrow shoulders, but with exercise he will develop into something which will be attractive in the eyes of his Maker. This can only happen if he exercises because nature has made man realize that he can develop his body as he wants it developed. That is why I say that we cannot prohibit this sport bcause the disadvantages from so doing will far outweigh the advantages. The disadvantages will be that instead of having a number of healthy boxers in the ring, we will have a number of ducktails on the street corners because fighting is quite a natural thing in man, whether he is given the opportunity to fight or not. We will then have the danger that this fighting will take place between people who do not exercise and who may be easily hurt while people who do exercise and are practiced in the art can avoid a great deal of the danger. I think that I have said enough to prove that the exercise is of great value, but there is a further point in this regard. This is that if one can discover a physical weakness it is of great value and one can only discover such a weakness if one is involved in a contest with a person who is stronger than oneself. The beauty about the whole thing is that when a person discovers his own physical weakness, he will appreciate the strength of another person all the more. It teaches one to keep one’s temper in check. There is no boxer who dares become annoyed because if he becomes annoyed while he is fighting he will already have lost the fight. But if he can keep his temper in the ring, he will also be able to keep his temper in society.

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

Afternoon Sitting

When business was suspended I was trying to prove that boxing is not only one of the best but the very best exercise in order to develop one’s body to peak fitness. I also want to prove that boxing develops the human mind. It is also educational in the sense that it teaches one to be courteous towards one’s fellow man and to conduct oneself properly when with others. Not only does it sharpen the brain to enable it to appreciate danger in time and to react to that danger in time, but it also teaches one to conduct oneself in such a way in society that everyone can see that one has had an education and so one is courteous. One will never find a boxer pointing his finger at anybody. When he speaks—and we are all inclined to speak with our hands—he speaks with his hands open and if he wants to emphasize a point, he raises his finger but does not point it at anyone. But the man who has never participated in boxing will point his finger at someone. If the hon. members in this House who point their fingers were to do so in that part of the world where I grew up, most of them would no longer have any fingers because if one points a finger at a boxer, he finds it so insulting that he thinks nothing of breaking that finger. If one has not yet learnt to treat others in the way in which one likes to be treated, one must then be taught in the language which one understands and the way in which this is done is to teach a person that he is not such a wonderful person but merely a person like everybody else. There is nothing better than boxing to teach one to conduct oneself properly in the company of others. The hon. members are not here now but I want to tell them that a person who has eyes as shallow as those of the hon. member for North-East Rand (Brig. Bronkhorst) should be careful not to talk too much; and if a person’s eyes are as close together as those of his bench mate, he should also not talk too much because one good blow would close those eyes. [Laughter.] It would also teach the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel) not to deprive other people of their chances and to speak so much out of turn. He must learn to understand that other people also have their turns. The hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) tried in vain to speak yesterday but he was not given the opportunity to do so. If one condemns this sport which is both mentally and physically rewarding, one must have better and stronger arguments than those advanced by the mover of the motion. The hon. member put the medical aspect of the matter to us but in my opinion the educational aspect of the matter weighs far more heavily in boxing than in the hundreds of other types of sports in which human life is in greater danger than it is in the case in boxing. A boxer is not overcome by a man who is 30 lbs. or 50 lbs. heavier than he is. People of the same weight are selected to fight one another and they are trained to look after themselves. We appreciate the fact that accidents sometimes happen but they are nothing in comparison with what sometimes happens in other types of sport. Besides this there is also the fact that it is up to each person to ensure that he is adequately trained so as to avoid those accidents. Compare boxing with mountaineering. I have not heard it said that our young people should not climb mountains. This is also a type of sport in which a person is on his own but in this case he has no say as far as his safety is concerned. If he slips, he falls to his death but the boxer can train his body to such an extent that he can withstand the attacks of his opponent. Take motor-cycle racing. One’s life depends upon the mechanism of an engine, upon human error. People will stand around a race track in large numbers to see a man risking his life in a motor-car or on a motor-cycle which has been made by human hands and whose mechanism can go wrong at any moment and claim not only that man’s life but also the lives of a number of the onlookers. But none of the hon. members opposite have suggested that motor racing should be stopped. The lives of a number of people are at stake in this sport, if there is danger, while in boxing this danger is the exception rather than the rule. The mortality figures which were quoted by the mover of the motion are merely a drop in the ocean in comparison with the thousands who die in other ways. In our newspapers we read reports that some of the word’s best drivers are killed in accidents on race tracks. These are people whose services could be used in the testing of aeroplanes, people who are used to speed, people who could test cars or aeroplanes when they are on their own. These people are useful people but speed on the track kills them. Nobody says anything about it, including myself, because I also like to watch that sport. It is part of human nature to want to shine and none of us want to see our young lads growing up and being told that they can grow up as weak and as soft as they like and that they should never fight amongst themselves. The hon. member said that no mother would like her son to box but I know of no mother who would like her son to be a “cissy”; every mother wants her son to be a man and if he is not a man, she is ashamed of him. I say that that boy must have the opportunity of being able to develop to full manhood.

Sir, I will be very brief because there are many other members who wish to participate in the debate which is limited by the Rules. The hon. member for Middelland (Mr. van der Merwe) argued that it was not the blow on the head that knocked out a man; that is quite true; it is a hook or an uppercut to the jaw that gives him the K.O. That is also true. But, Sir, it is not the injury to the jaw that makes the man unconscious; it is the contact to the brain from the jaw which injures the brain and which causes the man to pass out. It is an entirely false argument therefore, and that is exactly what the hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford) tried to point out. The hon. member has argued that people are injured in all forms of sport. That is perfectly true. But do people set out in rugby or in soccer or any other sport deliberately to try to injure their opponents so that they cannot go on playing? They do not deliberately set out to incapacitate their opponents. Sir, name me one sport, except boxing, where the object of the game is to try so to injure your opponent that he cannot continue. The hon. member quoted leading politicians of the past who supported boxing. They all said that one should be trained to defend one’s self with one’s hands. But the strange thing is that everyone of those politicians spent their whole lives defending themselves with their mouths as far as I can remember. The hon. member said that nobody was forced to box. He is wrong there. In practically every public school the boy is either forced to box or is told that he is a “cissy” if he does not; with the result that he is willy-nilly pushed into it. You know, Sir, if my hon. lightweight friend, the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. Bootha) was knocked down, he would be half-way home, so small is he, but there it is. The hon. member said that a blow to the jaw merely incapacitated the man temporarily. But, Sir, the man is knocked unconscious because his brain has been jarred. It is the blow to the jaw that jars the brain and that makes him unconscious. That is the type of blow which, as the hon. member for Durban (Central) has said, does the damage.

Sir, I do not want to drag in the Colour question, particularly since I see that the hon. the Prime Minister is in the House, but the fact is that all anthropologists will tell you that the African (particularly the American Negro) has a much thicker skull than the White man. His brain is better protected by his skull. Is it not possible that that is why in the past many boxing champions have been Negroes; and why most of the champions in America to-day are also Negroes—because they have this thicker skull?

I do not want to digress from the Bill but I just want to say—for the sake of an argument that I want to advance later—that I was a very keen boxer until I was 30. But I want to make it quite clear, before anybody else says it, that I was never punch drunk, and it was not because of this that a former Prime Minister made me a Cabinet Minister. But I am beginning to realize now why such strange appointments have been made to the Cabinet recently. I think the hon. members for Rustenburg and Middelland are both potential future Ministers. Sir, to show that I was a keen boxer,

I want to say that I mixed with boxers during all those years until I was 30. 1 boxed for four years at university, so you cannot say that I was a “cissy” because I did not want to box. I was the only member of my family who did not get a boxing Blue. I must say that those who did get Blues were not highly intelligent, but that is by the way! Later when I became a member of the Permanent Force at Port Elizabeth, which was then one of the centres of professional boxing, I boxed with all the professionals. I boxed with the professional heavyweight champion of South Africa and the professional middleweight champion taught me boxing; I used to box with him about twice a week. Later in life I realized how those men had deteriorated. When I was later transferred to Pretoria I boxed with the champion of the British Army, and all these fellows deteriorated mentally later in life. [Laughter.] [Interjection.] Sir, if the hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher) wants to take a bout with me let him come outside now and I will show him! I am forced therefore, seeing the deterioration of these people later in life, to support the hon. member for Durban (Central). I am being very serious now; I do not know why there is this undignified hilarity! I agree with the hon. member’s remark about gloves. The gloves merely add to the weight of the blow, whilst protecting the man’s hands. Sir, what did most of us do when we were young and we got into a rough-house in the street? We put our hand into our trouser pocker, filled our hand with coins and then hit the attacker and knocked him out You are able to knock him out because of the extra weight in your hand. It is a good old trick; I broke a finger that way, but no matter, I managed to stop the other man! I would not agree that boxing be abolished entirely if people still boxed, like the old professionals, with bare fists. Your own hand then suffers so much that you cannot hit your opponent too hard, and in any case you have not got that extra weight to the fist which puts out the man. I think it is essential—I entirely agree with the two hon. members who have spoken—that all youngsters should be taught to defend themselves; and I agree with all the virtues that they have mentioned. It teaches them to control their temper. My hon. friend for Rustenburg is an example of how to control your temper when you get into a debate! It teaches youngsters to defend themselves and it is good for their self-respect. I agree that no mother wants a “cissy” for a son, etc., etc. But, Sir, there are certain blows which are regarded as foul blows under the Queensberry rules today. There is the blow below the belt: there is the kidney punch, and all the rest of it. There are also certain blows which can injure the brain which should also be declared foul blows. If that was accepted, then I would approve of boxing.

Sir, these are the reasons why I am supporting this Bill. I do not want to take up any more time of the House, but let me say that I think it is a first-class thing to teach all youngsters to defend themselves, but the danger is that a punch to the jaw may affect the brain, making the recipient of the blow punch-drunk for the rest of his life and almost an imbecile. I feel therefore that the hon. member for Durban (Central)’s speech should be carefully considered to see whether it is not possible to make rules to prevent blows, other than those blows which are at present regarded as foul, which may cause injury to the brain.

Sir, I rise with alacrity to say that I will vote for this Bill that has been introduced by the hon. member for Durban (Central) (Mr. Radford).

With regard to the speech made by the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. Bootha) I just want to say that I am not going to cross swords with him because he has told me how, shortly after the Anglo-Boer War, he beat a man to pulp with his fists. I will therefore try to be on the safe side as far as he is concerned. As far as the hon. member for Middelland (Mr. van der Merwe) is concerned, I will take him in my stride in the course of my speech. He has unfortunately made the mistake of naming the hon. the Leader of the Opposition (Sir De Villiers Graaff) as a former boxing champion of the University of Oxford. I think the hon. member should not have said that because that only proves my point. Ever since then the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has been politically punch-drunk.

Sir, I must congratulate the hon. member for Durban (Central) on the able way in which he has made his plea for the prohibition of boxing. In his younger days he was a famous surgeon in South Africa …

He still is.

The hon. member can therefore speak with authority. Politically we are opponents, but in this matter we have a common cause and that is to protect human life in the same way that we have protected the lives of animals by legislation passed in this Chamber. The majority of the members who are sitting here now were present when we passed that legislation. Sir, as a layman I wish to support the hon. member for Durban (Central) on totally different grounds from those stated by him in his plea for the prohibition of boxing. Sir, in most countries of the world—there are a few exceptions such as Scandinavia and a few South American countries—boxing is internationally acknowledged as a sport, but in fact it is not a sport. It is a cruel contest between two opponents. Before they are allowed to enter the boxing ring, they have been trained how to box. They have been told where the most vulnerable points in a man’s body are. They go into the ring with the avowed object of inflicting as much injury on those vulnerable points in as short a time as possible, and I defy any protagonist of boxing in South Africa to stand up and deny this statement. The intention of the professional boxer who enters the ring is to hit his opponent on all the most vulnerable points in his body in as short a time as possible. In terms of our law boxers must be examined by a doctor before they go into the ring. When the doctor gives them the green light, they must be of sound mind and must know that they can kill an appoint by one blow of the fist or make him punch-drunk, disabling him for life.

It may be argued by the protagonists of boxing that the old rule of volente non fit injuria, which means voluntary injury by agreement, covers a boxing contest. I disagree with that point of view, because it is also a principle of our law that two persons cannot connive to commit a felony. To kill a human being is a felony, but we allow boxers to do so!

Sir, by Act No. 71 of 1962 all hon. members in this House, who were Members of Parliament in that year unanimously decided to protect animal life. I quote Section 2 (1) (o) of that Act—

Sir, this is what we have done for dumb animals. In 1962 our Legislature unanimously protected the lives of dogs and roosters; why cannot we protect the lives of men? I emphasize that again: We passed legislation to protect the lives of dogs and roosters. If we are prepared to protect the lives of dumb animals then we must be prepared to protect the lives of the highest animal in creation, namely, man.

Sir, for further elucidation in this matter, may I quote to you the definition of an animal as set out in Section 1 of Act No. 71 of 1962?—

1. 1. In this Act, unless the context otherwise indicates—
   1. (i) “animal” means any equine, bovine, sheep, goat, pig, fowl, ostrich, dog, cat or other domestic animal or bird or any wild animal, wild bird or reptile which is in captivity or under the control of any person.

Sir, I wish to stress the last words: “in captivity or under the control of any person.” This is what our Legislature unanimously did in 1962 for dumb animals, even pigs! But what have we done for a man who is under the control of another person? Nothing whatsoever! Our boxers are under the control of their trainers and their promoters. Once a boxer has signed a contract with his promoter he becomes a dumb animal. He has to fight the contests which have been arranged for him. Why should we not protect his life in the same way as we have protected the lives of animals, even pigs? Why should we not protect the health of physically fit young men who, by one unfortunate blow, could become punch-drunk, thus becoming practically useless to our country? If we can protect animals, as we did in 1962, then we should also protect our young men.

Do you want to stop everything that kills men?

Why should we, by using boxers, cater for sadists? And that at the peril of their lives! Sir, I use the term “sadist” after careful consideration. Boxing enthusiasts pay a high entry fee to see a boxing contest. When pain is inflicted and blood flows they cheer and often yell out at the top of their voices, “Kill him, kill him!” Sir, I have been an eye-witness to this on two occasions in Cape Town.

In all my long life I have never heard it.

Well, I have heard it twice. People want to see injury inflicted and blood spilt, then they are satisfied. Is that not

sadism?

May I ask the hon. member whether he himself has ever taken part in fights?

Yes, that is why I have abhorred it ever since. Sir, I beat up a man once so much that he had to take 28 days’ sick leave, and when I brought him down, when he sank down like a dead ox and had to be revived, I felt so nauseated that I started vomiting. That was the end of my boxing days.

Order! Is the hon. member confessing now?

I am saying that it was this experience of mine which turned me against boxing. I readily admit that man will forever come to blows with others, using his fists. If we can believe in the Biblical story of Cain and Abel then this must have started shortly after Creation. It will continue. Even dumb animals fight in the veld and no legislation can prevent them from doing so. But why should man be trained to fight for the amusement and satisfaction of sadists where there is no animosity between them? Why should they be compelled to fight when there is no axe to grind between them?

For money.

The hon. member is quite correct.

Where is the compulsion?

Sir, I have said that I used the word “sadist” after due consideration. I now wish to refer to the cock fights and the dog fights which we had in South Africa before Act 71 of 1962 was passed. In the cock fights the promoters put blades on to the legs of the cocks.

Spurs.

Yes, spurs. For what reason? To see blood and to cater for sadism. In the dog fights the one dog had to kill the other before the contest was won. This reminds me of the days of the old gladiators. According to the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, page 303, gladiators are described as “professional combatants who fought to the death in Roman public shows”. Then on page 328 of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica we find the following definition of tournaments or tourneys—

Here I refer to the hon. member for Rustenburg—

Sir, this is my reply to both the hon. member for Middelland and the hon. member for Rustenburg. On page 329 of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica we read—

Sir, I mention this because the argument will be advanced by the protagonists of boxing that if we prohibit boxing it would go underground. Well, cock fighting has not gone underground and we have prohibited it by legislation. Sir, all those tournaments caused death. They have since been prohibited and some country must have taken the lead in legislating against them. Why cannot we follow the lead of Scandinavia and other countries to prohibit boxing? Quite apart from the spear and the shield the men of past ages also had the flail or the ball and chain, and the spiked mace with which they contested in tournaments, well-knowing that they may kill an opponent. The same applies to boxing in South Africa to-day.

Tournaments in those days were internationally acknowledged. They have all been prohibited, even duels in France. Some country must have taken the lead. Why should we in the Republic of South Africa not follow the lead of countries which have prohibited boxing?

Sir. according to the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. page 711 a duel is described as—

Sir, this was in the year 501 A.D. We are now living in the year 1965 A.D. I must admit that many of my ancestors, ever since the year 1220 A.D., when my family was raised to the German aristocracy, must have killed many men in tournaments in contests or duels because else they would not have survived. But this is no reason why I, as one of the legislators of our country, should shirk my duty to protect human life in the same way that we have already protected animal life in South Africa. Many years ago I was a member of the Select Committee on the Boxing and Wrestling Bill. I sat next to my old friend who is now deceased, Oswald Shearer. There were pathetic letters from boxers. The late Oswald Shearer was a pugilist and he was a boxing referee. He told me at that time that we must stop boxing. Now the hon. member for Durban (Central) has come forward with the same idea and that is why I am supporting him. Let us stop catering for sadists in South Africa. Let us protect human lives. The protagonists of boxing have a favourite argument that men are also killed on the rugby field. That is true. Men have been killed in playing rugby. But they have gone on the rugby field for the avowed purpose of placing the ball behind the scoring line or kicking it through the posts. Their intention was not to inflict injury but to place the ball behind the scoring line or to kick it through the posts. What is the intention of the boxer? As I have already said: He goes into the ring after he has been trained, and well-trained. Victory depends on whether he can inflict the maximum of injury in the minimum of time while he is fighting. Before a contest he is medically examined. He is found fit by the doctor; so he must be of sound mind and must realize that he can kill a man by one blow of the fist. There are many towns and cities in South Africa. In the smallest town or dorp in our country you will find at least four rugby teams—two school teams and two town teams. When you come to the cities they multiply. There are many thousands of rugby players in South Africa against a handful of boxers.

I ask you, Sir, I ask any hon. member who is a protagonist of boxing to give me a comparison between the number of deaths on the rugby field and the number of deaths in the boxing ring. Let them give it to me. Let us as legislators of our country consider this question without fear or favour. Let us decide to protect human life in the same manner as we here have unanimously protected animal life.

I hope this Bill is not going to be passed by this House because I hate to think that the youth of this country will not have the happy opportunity of learning the sport and discipline of boxing. This Bill is not only a Bill to prevent professional boxing for high stakes, but it is a Bill to prohibit all boxing. That is what it amounts to and that is why I am against it. I was impressed by the hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford) when he introduced this Bill. I was impressed by his sincerity, but I was not impressed by his arguments. If this Bill were to go through this House and become law I can see very few sports not being attacked at some future stage because of the deaths in that sport if we are to accept the figure of something like 300 deaths in 17 years over the whole of the world in the case of boxing. If you make a comparison with motor racing, let alone motoring for enjoyment on the roads of South Africa, you will find a staggering figure, Sir. There is no comparison between the two as to the loss of life. Take sea bathing. Then we ought to prohibit all sea bathing because of the loss of life. The hon. member for Durban (Central) talked about injury to the brain. What about the people who are bed-ridden because of a motorcar accident? They go out for a Sunday-afternoon drive; they obey the law; they drive according to all the rules of the road, and they are run into by somebody else, a drunken driver, for instance. I do hope that this House does not pass this Bill as it stands. If the hon. member feels it is essential to stop some of the bad features of professional boxing in world class, then I feel it is a matter to be dealt with by the Boxing Board of Control. We have had a Boxing Bill before this House a number of years ago, and we have a Boxing Board of Control in this country. I think if we were to submit to that Boxing Board of Control some suggestions for their consideration—which could be done by the hon. member direct or by this House in the form of a motion—for stricter control in relation to professional boxing, I think it would be more to the point. We do know that the control on that side is not all it might be. We do know that in some of the minor professional boxing tournaments old gloves are used; that the stuffing in some of these gloves is not as good as it should be. I saw a report the other day that the leather was of very inferior quality. It is things like that that lead to injury.

I do not agree with the hon. member for Durban (Central) when he says that a glove only protects the striker. That is not correct. It is amazing to see the damage that can be done in a bare-fist fight if the man knows how to strike his opponent. I would hate to think of the damage that could be done if the suggestion of the hon. member for Green Point (Maj. Van der Byl) is accepted that professional fighting should be done without boxing gloves. As a matter of fact, I think that if 6-ounce gloves were used instead of 4-ounce gloves and if the Boxing Board of Control brought in a rule that in all professional fights and in all amateur fights where it is competitive, only 6-ounce gloves of new leather, gloves that have been properly inspected and perhaps stamped as approved by the Bureau of Standards, you would have many fewer injuries than you have to-day.

There are thousands of youngsters in school to-day who learn discipline and have their characters formed through learning to box. They are taught by professionals. You have the gymnasiums of the army, navy and air force, where great enjoyment is had out of boxing. I have had a lot to do with sport amongst the younger generation over the years. I can think of no greater harm that we can do to the younger generation, especially among the amateur boxers, than to say: “You will never learn how to protect yourself; you will not learn a protective sport such as this and to look after yourself.”

What about judo?

Judo is a good thing, but, how many people teach judo? You do not get the same easy way of en masse teaching in judo is you do in the case of boxing. Judo has not got the same appeal as boxing. At least not to the boys I have struck. I thing it is a very important form of protection, but it is only a form of protection; it is not a sport as such. I think it would be a great pity if this Bill were to be passed by this House. As I have said before, much is to be said for putting up to the Board of Control various aspects of boxing, such as the tightening of control in the case of professional boxing, doing away with much of the ballyhoo that surrounds professional boxing on the higher plane, better control over the gloves and other things that go with boxing, things that can lead to damage to individuals.

I do not want to detain the House. I know many hon. members want to take part in this debate. So, with these few words, I will resume my seat.

It is not every day that I find myself in agreement or in partial agreement with the hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford). Listening to his speech to-day and the speeches of those who expressed themselves in opposition to his Bill, I must say, to describe it in boxing parlance, that the blows he struck were telling blows and the blows which were aimed at his motion were blows which missed their target.

I want to say immediately that I am not in complete agreement with the hon. member. I want to express myself to-day as being opposed to professional boxing. But I believe that there is a great deal to be said for boxing up to a certain stage. In saying this, I am also replying immediately to the argument that has been advanced here that if we prohibit boxing, we will make milksops of our youth, that they will not receive exercise, and so forth. When we draw a clear distinction between amateur boxing and professional boxing, it is quite obvious that the insistence which there is upon the retention of boxing applies to professional boxing and not to amateur boxing. The agitation which there is in this regard is not made for the sake of sportmanship and exercise because there are only a few who are able to practise it. This insistence stems from the mass of people who go along to these matches as spectators and who are, I could almost say, drunk with the desire to see blood. In other words this is the fact which is harmful to society—the strong insistence upon the retention of professional boxing simply to satisfy the human craving for sensation. This is also the background to the whole problem with which we are faced. It is for this reason that I do not regard professional boxing as a sport, as the hon. member for Middelland (Mr. van der Merwe) does, but as a circus. Why is it that wrestling which is one of the most scientific types of sport that we have, is not popular with the public?

It is a farce.

I am speaking of amateur wrestling. The reason is because it is a scientific sport and the man who participates in it must practise it himself to enjoy it. But the spectator is not always able to appreciate these techniques and because he is not always to appreciate the finer techniques of wrestling and, what is more, because amateur wrestling does not satisfy the craving for sensation and blood, it does not receive the attention of the public and has become a disappearing sport.

We speak of exercise for our young people. Which sport gives more exercise in all respects than amateur wrestling? I can mention 20 or more types of sport which are available to our young people to enable them to develop physically and mentally. The hon. member for Middelland advanced a very stupid argument. He said that we object to the murderous aspect of boxing and he asked why we do not object to driving; he asked why drivers are not refused licences because they may perhaps cause more deaths on the road than boxers do in the boxing ring. Does the hon. member not know that when a driver has proved that he is not fit to have a licence because he causes accidents, that licence is taken away from him?

What about motor racing and the Grand Prix?

The hon. member mentions motor racing. That is a matter which is not at all relevant to this discussion. The fact remains that a very clear distinction must be drawn between professional boxing and amateur boxing because in amateur boxing the motive is to learn self-defence and the aim is not the extreme one of delivering a knock-out blow. This is the position because an amateur fight does not last very long and proper precautions are taken to prevent unnecessary knock-out blows. The primary aim of professional boxing is to incapacitate the other man and he is incapacitated and rendered harmless by putting his brain out of commission and by rendering certain of his limbs harmless.

Have hon. members who differ from us taken the trouble to look at the photographs which have appeared in our Press recently? Have they seen the distorted faces and the various parts of the body of boxers who have been knocked out?

One looks like that when one has lost an election.

I know that the hon. the Minister is correct. People who lose an election do not look so well either. But I want to tell the hon. the Minister that I myself have had the experience of losing an election by a small minority, just as he has had, and I got over it. To lose an election—the hon. the Minister has also had experience in this regard—does perhaps afford one a better opportunity to build up courage and tenacity than is the case in a professional boxing match where a man is paid in order to satisfy the craving for sensation on the part of the masses.

It has been said here that boxing is one of the best ways in which a person can learn courage. I agree with this contention to a certain extent as far as amateur boxing is concerned. but there are also other ways in which one can develop one’s courage. The hon. the Minister of Transport is a big-game hunter. I think that this is an excellent way in which to develop courage. As far as this question of the development of courage is concerned, I want to ask, how many boxing champions have we not had throughout the world who at a later stage did not have the courage to face up to life? What became of the developed courage of those people? While they are champions they have more than enough money but when they retire they are without any income and without courage to face life and become idlers.

I say that as long as this important aim of professional boxing remains—to distinguish it from other sports, to eliminate one’s opponent by what is tantamount to an assault—it will remain a type of sport which cannot be regarded as a sport. If a motion were to be moved in this House to-day that we should introduce bull-fights in this country, would we vote for it? And why would we not vote for it? For the same reason—that the appeal of bull-fighting is the desire to see blood; it is a sadistic type of sport which does not fit in with our national character.

It involves an animal which is not able to give its consent.

Yes, it involves an animal which is not able to give its consent. The hon. member for Karas (Mr. Von Moltke) told us very efficiently just now that the professional boxer does not have a choice when he is in the hands of a promoter. Then he is in the same position as an animal. There are other types of sport in which one can say that the aim is to hurt. There is, for example, fencing with swords and duelling itself. Why is duelling prohibited? Because it could lead to the death of one of the combatants. In boxing one is permitted to knock one’s opponent out. One cannot see that one has hurt him but a few minutes later he may be unconscious. Who would consider allowing duels with swords as a form of sport?

Let us try to be very honest with ourselves about this matter. We must not try to act popularly in this matter. It is very easy to do so because there is this mass craving for sensation. But do not let us yield to the temptation to act in a way which will appeal to that urging because it is not a sportive urge. It is not an insistence on sport for physical and mental development.

I want to quote the conclusion arrived at by Dr. Ernst Jockl in his book “Medical Aspects of Boxing”. After having made an extremely careful study of this matter, he had this to say—

He went on to say further—

Why did Jockl leave Stellenbosch?

The hon. member asks why the writer of this book left Stellenbosch. Stellenbosch was not the only place he left; he was associated with various educational institutions in our country but that has nothing to do with this matter. The fact is that as we are discussing the harmful aspects of boxing to-day—and this is the extent to which I shall support the Bill—I shall at the Committee Stage, if the Bill is read a second time, move an amendment to provide that the prohibition will not hold good in respect of amateur boxing. The reason why I feel that the harmful aspect of professional boxing should be eliminated is simply and solely because its primary aim—and this distinguishes it from other sports—is to hurt with the result that human lives are knowingly and wittingly taken. That is why I do not support this legislation.

I must confess that many of the arguments used by the opponents of this Bill to-day have been singularly unimpressive and unconvincing. We in South Africa do seem to waste an awful lot of our time in attempting to ban things, one way and another, whether it is Sunday swimming or State lotteries or television or things of that kind. It seems to have become an almost built-in passion to ban things. It has become almost a national sport itself. For these reasons, Sir, I found myself hesitating a little when I was asked whether or not I was in favour of this Bill. After listening to the case made by the hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford) I think we have had irrefutable scientific and medical evidence given by one of the most competent professional people in this House. On those grounds alone I am prepared to support him.

A very solid case has been made out on a medical and a scientific basis. I would like to say that as a woman I must confess I can think of nothing more barbarous than the practise of a sport, if you can call it such, whose total object is to have your opponent carried out feet first if you can knock him unconscious in the process. Mr. Speaker, in saying that I am aware that some of the best people in this House may in fact have done it. I don’t think that makes it any less barbarous. We all know that in this business of boxing there is such a thing as a technical knock-out. We also know that there is such a thing as winning a bout on points. My hon. friend the member for Durban (Central) said so in his introductory remarks, but we have to admit, if we are honest with ourselves, that what people who watch professional boxing really like to see is one or other of the combatants carried out, knocked out cold. That is what boxing enthusiasts want to see. [Interjections.] Well, watch a crowd at a big boxing match and see their reactions.

I would say there is something unpleasantly sadistic about it, as the hon. member for Karas (Mr. Von Moltke) has said, certainly about professional boxing in this regard. After all, Sir, what other human sport is there in the world, with the exception of bull-fighting and hunting wild animals, in which the main object is so seriously to injure your opponent as to render him physically incapable of carrying on? There is no sport like it.

What about professional wrestling?

That is nothing like the same. Mr. Speaker, there have been wiseacres in the House to-day who have shaken their heads and who have told us that it was essential for youngsters, as the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) (Capt. Henwood) said, to learn how to box; that it was part of their disciplinary training, that it toughened them up, and that they had to learn how to box for purposes of self defence. Well, I submit that there are plenty of ways of learning how to defend yourself in the modern world without indulging in the practice of bashing your opponent about until he is unconscious, because that is the state to which the boxing enthusiast would like to see one or other of the opponents brought.

Hon. members may disagree; various opinions have been expressed to-day as to what the reaction of the average woman is to this matter. But I would like to assure the House that mothers of young children particularly are in no way impressed by the unedifying sight of small boys with bloody noses knocking each other about in the boxing ring because the target is, as the hon. member for Durban (Central) correctly said, the head or the jaw. This type of sport very often causes the greatest possible physical damage, damage to the brain, the results of which are not necessarily obvious at that stage in their lives. When it comes to self-defence, there is the very well-known and highly effective system of jujitsu; there is wrestling. The hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield) has referred to it. Wrestling requires a degree of skill and at least there is a far lesser likelihood of injury to the brain. When it comes to defending yourself, there are, in times of acute emergency, the commando tactics applied so effectively during the last war as anybody who has had anything to do with soldiering would know.

What about the professional boxer? The hon. member for Stellenbosch (Mr. Smit) talked about the professional boxer. I think the professional boxer has very little to recommend him at all. He is fed, he is dieted, he is weighed, he is exercised. I am surprised that he is not led up and down on a lead just like a prize bull at an agricultural show. Then he is sent into the ring with thousands of rand upon his head, just like a prize animal. He is no better in effect. In terms of the stakes involved and the money that has gone to his promotion by the people responsible, he is obliged to do his level best to bash his opponent right out of the ring. What an unedifying business, Sir. I think, personally, that it is quite revolting.

There is another aspect of this matter which has not been touched upon very much in this debate.

A woman’s point of view.

I am very proud to be a woman in this House, Sir. I would say that it is an insult to our humanity that we should be so ready to legalize and to applaud what I would call the vicarious satisfactions and the release of unconcealed aggressions and some of the most unpleasant human inhibitions enjoyed by the general public in watching brutality of this kind. Because, Mr. Speaker, do not let us make any bones about it, the psychological effect upon the spectators who are sitting by and are watching brutalities of this kind can only be to brutalize the spectators themselves. If hon. members do not believe me, let them go and watch a big crowd at a boxing match and see the state of human degradation into which they fall in the process.

And what about the promoters and the managers of these, what I call, prime human cattle? They, I think, are the most extraordinary species of all, Sir, for it is they who commercialize the whole business. No other sport is commercialized to quite the same extent. it is they who deliberately cultivate these bruisers, because many of them are no more than that. They make a living out of their capacity to knock other human beings about. What kind of civilization is that, Sir? What kind of standard in terms of sport? Mr. Speaker, in many cases, when it comes to professional boxing, there is so much money involved that these promoters are able to hold their boxing prodigies up to ransom in a way which I find very degrading indeed. Mr. Speaker, consider all the fun that men have—and I am saying “men” advisedly, because women are not involved in this sort of thing to the same extent—what a lot of fun men have when they evolve the more humane types of sport, the ordinary types, of sport with which we are familiar. I don’t have to tell this House, Sir. They surround these sports with elaborate ritual, very often with terminologies which are quite incomprehensible to anybody except the initiated and the enthusiastic followers; there is a whole series of conventions as to what is correct and what is not correct in connection with these sports; that is part of the fun, part of the game, and very much more civilized it is than this wretched business of bashing each other about within a small boxing ring. In that type of sport you seldom if ever have any degree of public degradation. I would say, by all means let us have the patter, let us have all the queer terminology, all the “birdies” and the “eagles” and the “bogeys”, the “tries and conversions”—you know all about it, I know about it because I have a sporting husband. Rugby is a tough game, let us have by all means the tries and conversions, the “maidens” and the “overs” in cricket—half of us do not know what those terms mean. All that patter is alright, but for heaven’s sake let us have the “knock ons” rather than the “knock outs”

I want to make my last point: Is there not sufficient violence in the world as it is, without calculatingly encouraging it in this particular way? I would say that there is sufficient brutalization of the human species in the modern world without maintaining and encouraging it to become the commercialized racket that boxing has become to-day. I am quite aware that hon. members may say: “Oh, well, this is a typically feminine point of view.” I am not in the slightset bit ashamed of that. I think perhaps it is quite a good thing that the feminine point of view should be heard from time to time in this House on matters of this kind, where our male colleagues might be inclined to be a little less humane. In any event, Sir, the medical evidence given by the hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford) should surely be enough to persuade hon. members in this House of the need to outlaw for commercial purposes, and private purposes if it comes to that, the so-called “sport” of boxing. I think the figures that the hon. member gave in regard to the death rate amongst amateur boxers were quite appalling, and I have the greatest pleasure, Mr. Speaker, in supporting the hon. member and this Bill.

I have listened with great care to the proposer of this Bill and the various hon. members supporting him. It was rather interesting that he was basing his claim on two assumptions. The one is the danger of boxing itself, and particularly professional boxing, the number of deaths caused by boxing in the professional ring, and, secondly, he switched over and said, “If they are not killed, they get punch-drunk”. Now, Sir, first of all, no figures were given which substantiated the claims of this gentleman. Let me give a few figures for a change. Dr. Edith Summerskill, who is the most persistent attacker of professional boxing overseas, was replied to by Lord Newton who gave these figures: From 1955 to 1958, there were 30 deaths of males between the ages of 10 and 49 as a result of sport injuries in Britain; of these nine were caused by rugby, 13 by soccer, 14 by cricket and one might possibly be attributed to boxing. I am giving these figures to show what happened in respect of professional boxing in England. But let us come to South Africa. From 1925, when boxing was legalized and controlled by Parliament to date—have hon. members tried to find out how many people were killed as a result of boxing? Let me give you the figures. Perhaps five, but definitely four. Only four people were killed since 1925 to this date as a result of boxing. And these figures are authentic.

How many were killed through rugby.

I have not got the figures in regard to rugby, but what I do know is that eight deaths on the rugby fields of the Republic occurred in 1961 alone.

How many rugby games were played and how many boxing contests were there?

The hon. member is now running away from the point but I will give him the figures. The hon. member argues that so few boxing contests take place. That is an old argument. But listen to this: There must take place something like 12,000 boxing matches every year over the world, 12,000 at least.

Many more.

The number may be very much greater but I am now speaking of big professional boxing bouts, and I will tell you how I have calculated that. The results of approximately 200 main bouts all over the world appeared in the International Boxing Magazine every month, and if you take it that approximately four supporting bouts will take place as well, it is quite easy to arrive at that figure. So that the percentage of people getting injured in boxing is not so big. The hon. member for Durban (Central) says that boxers don’t live to a very ripe old age. Of course, the doctors use the same argument occasionally too when they put up their fees; then they say they must for a short period of time collect high fees and make lots of money because the profession of medicine is such that the casualty rate is high, and they don’t live to a very ripe old age. So if statistics prove anything, you must also ban people taking medicine because they die at a comparatively young age, but you are not going to ban people taking up the profession of medicine because of the dangers attached to the profession …

That is no argument.

It is a fair argument. Here a professional boxer has chosen a profession to which dangers are attached. He is prepared to do so.

That is the most stupid argument I have yet heard.

He is prepared to do so. I have here in my possession the causes of death in sports over the month of February, as reported in the papers, the Cape Town papers. Let us have a look at that. An Australian racing motorist was killed, Lex Davidson was killed; Jockey Dave Kent still unconscious. Here I have another report: “Dokter sterf by krieket”. A doctor Lotter, a 32-year-old railway doctor at Kroonstad. Another one, “Girl hurt by javelin”, “Man killed on race track”. So you can go right through and you will find that every single day there are reports of people being killed in some or other sport. But I am dealing with professional boxers. He chooses that profession, just as a fellow chooses to become a soldier. He knows he is choosing a dangerous profession, the same as a fellow who decides to become a policeman. They know that they are following a dangerous profession. And if a man decides to become a doctor, he knows in advance that he is taking a profession where there will be good rewards, but there are risks attached to it. What is wrong with it? If the hon. member for Outeniqua prefers to sit in this House instead of being in the boxing-ring, in any case his end will come sooner or later.

Will he be master of his own fate?

He can do so, but why prohibit a boxer, a good boxer, a man with courage and a man with guts to follow this profession if he wants to do so?

We have heard a lost about medical evidence. I am the last person to cross swords with so eminent a doctor as the introducer of this Bill, but let me tell him that there are other doctors who have other opinions. Let me quote a few. I am thinking for instance of a doctor of the calibre of Dr. H. A. Kaplan, who made a special study of injuries received as a result of boxing. After having examined over 3,000 boxers before and after boxing contests, he came to the conclusion that the permanent damage resulting from boxing is practically nil.

He probably buried his mistakes, any way.

He was a doctor in America and examined these cases. As a matter of fact he was a surgeon. And there are quite a few doctors whose findings differ from those of the doctor who introduced this Bill, and I think it is only fair that we should realize that there are two sides and two lots of opinion, even in respect of the medical evidence. And as for the moral aspects, I can also give you a few quotations, also of people who so far as courage and integrity is concerned, need not take second place to anyone here in this House. Let me quote here for instance what a Nobel Prize winner such as Maeterlinck, the Belgian writer and philosopher, says in his essay, “Praise of the Fist”—

That is a Nobel Prize winner who says this. I can give another one, also a Nobel Prize winner, Ernest Hemingway, who defended boxing right through his life. And one can quote a dozen others. I am not here to say that I and only I can moralize to the whole of the people in the world, but other people must not come here and say that because I happen to enjoy a good boxing contest, for that reason I am still a half barbarian and I am not a civilized person. You see, it is a strange thing that during the last few years when money was reasonably plentiful in this country, a group of youngsters grew up in this country, and ever so many of them in the area of Cape Town, who were called ducktails. We have noticed that although the active participation by the younger people in boxing diminished, the amount of violence amongst the youth increased as interest in amateur boxing decreased. All that happened was that the bicycle chain and the knife and the booted foot took the place of the boxing gloves and the ring.

There is not one person in this House, not even the introducer of this motion, who will send a telegram now, at this moment, to his constituency and say: “I ask you to stop all boxing in my constituency,” because the hon. member knows that it is keeping the young people off the streets. The hon. member knows that amateur boxing develops character. You will never find a fellow who can hit hard and who has been at the receiving end who will be a mean fellow, who will hit below the belt, to use that expression. I hope that this Bill will be rejected. That will be in the best interest of South Africa.

I listened attentively to hon. members on both sides of the House. Some expressed themselves in favour of the Bill, others against it. I think, taken as a whole, we have had a pleasant morning and a pleasant afternoon in this House. During the few minutes at my disposal I want to confine myself to the Bill before us and, if time allows me, compare boxing with other kinds of sport. It is very clear to every one of us who has taken part in one or other kind of sport that there is hardly a kind of sport in which one does not run the risk of sustaining personal injuries. As a matter of fact everybody knows that the moment you take part in sport you run a risk and, as has been rightly pointed out, it is up to you to decide whether or not you want to run that risk by taking part in that particular sport. I think it serves little purpose to select only one, professional boxing for instance, where people box for money because we are living in a time in which people are making more and more money out of sport. It serves no purpose whatsoever to condemn professional boxing and even to prohibit it. The weakness of the hon. member’s Bill, of course, lies in the fact that it does not aim at prohibiting all boxing but only boxing to which the public has access. That, of course, is immediately the weakness in the whole Bill. If you regard it as so evil from the the medical point of view—I do not for one moment discard the medical arguments advanced by the hon. member; we all accept that that is the position—that you want to prohibit boxing, you have to prohibit it in all shape and form, whether or not the public has access. Because if it has the results the hon. member says it has and if those results weigh so heavily with you, you have to wipe it out completely, whether private or public. The hon. member is not, however, asking us to do that.

As stated we all accept that a risk attaches to all kinds of sport. Let us take rugby for example. I am not even talking about the American rugby. The other day I read a report in an American newspaper about American rugby and the headlines read “Very successful season ended; only 39 killed.” That is the American kind of rugby. But let us take our ordinary football. My hon. friend over there said: “Look at the photographs of boxers in the newspaper.” Has the hon. member seen what Jaap Bekker looks like when he gets up from the mud? Has the hon. member seen other photographs of persons injured in rugby? It is true that you are not supposed to hit when playing rugby. Those who do do so precisely when the other person is not looking and the very moment the other person cannot defend himself. Take the rules of our ordinary rugby. In terms of the rules of ordinary rugby you have to throw the other man to the ground, and the harder you throw him the better for your team. That is the whole spirit in which the game is played and I take it that people are hurt in the process. But that is no reason to prohibit rugby. Some hon. members have said: “Yes, but you hit a person till his nose bleeds.” But why can’t you hit a person till his nose bleeds?” That happens time and again. I know there are people who are like a baboon—when they see blood they faint. You simply cannot prevent that. But that is no reason to prohibit the sport as such.

I am sorry in a particular sense that we have a Bill before us and not a motion, and not a motion asking for total prohibition. If there are complaints, and I readily accept there are good reasons for complaint, that sufficient precautionary measures are not taken, that the rules are not applied strictly, then surely something can be done about it. That is why I am in complete agreement with the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) (Capt. Henwood) who hit the nail on the head as far as this matter is concerned. If we have complaints in this connection we can have a very fruitful discussion on it. Then we can say: “Look, the rules say this or that, but this is the danger which attaches to it and that is the danger which attaches to it; you have boxing control boards and you have officials who do not know what their duties are or who have the wrong idea about what their duties are or who do not see to it that the rules and regulations are observed.” Then we can argue about it and we can formulate other rules to bring about greater safety. But as far as professional boxing is concerned …

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? Is he prepared to move that this Bill, before its second reading, be referred to a Select Committee so that the matter can be gone into?

No, Sir, the whole idea of this Bill is not to reform. The idea of this Bill is to abolish. I want to state very clearly that I cannot in any way reconcile myself with the idea of abolishing it. Because if I do reconcile myself with the idea of abolishing it I must admit that not only us but most of the countries in the world have allowed a sport which is indeed sadistic, murderous and all the other things ascribed to it and I refuse to admit that. I do not for a moment believe that we, in spite of the fact that the person goes into the ring, that he probably gets more money if he wins, can adopt that attitude. Is there a sport in which anybody takes part in order to lose? But what hon. members also lose sight of is this: The whole argument has been that we were dealing with one man with well-developed muscles, a well-trained man, fighting a little chap who could not defend himself. There has been argument along those lines. The hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. Bootha) has stated the position quite correctly: You are not dealing with one person bullying another. You are dealing with two people who are both in practice, people who know the blows and counterblows, people who know to hide behind their fists. Nor it is a question of seeing to it that the one bashes the other to pulp according to existing rules. That simply does not happen. The other evening when there was a boxing tournament in Cape Town I had the opportunity of attending it. Many hon. members were present that evening. The first bout was obviously one in which the two opponents were not well balanced; the one was obviously a much better boxer than the other. The one was an imported boxer and the other a local boxer. The imported boxer came here with a fairly good reputation on paper. It soon became clear that he was not up to the other boxer and in the first round the referee—and the crowd was in complete agreement—stopped the fight after it became clear to him that the one was a much better boxer than the other. The crowd cheered his decision. If ever there was an occasion on which the crowds could have seen blood, had they been sadistic, then it was there when they could have seen a bucket full of it. But the rules made provision for that and the referee immediately applied the rules and stopped the fight. We must not approach this matter from the angle of prohibiting it because a few people have been injured. We cannot get away from that; that it true. We cannot approach it from the angle of prohibiting it even though a few have died. There is not one type of sport which has not caused the death of somebody. Must we be so sensitive about it, must we be so soft about it that, that being the case, we must prohibit that type of sport? I think if we want to adopt an attitude, we can, as far as that is concerned, adopt the attitude that the rules should be improved and then we can have a fruitful discussion on what we should do to tighten the rules which control it. We must not forget that boxing in the form we have it to-day has been legalized by this Parliament with an overwhelming majority I think. It takes place in accordance with an Act of Parliament and in terms of regulations laid down in that Act and it takes place under the supervision of people amongst whom there are a number of doctors.

May I ask the Minister a question? In order to give hon. members an opportunity of taking part in this debate, will the hon. the Minister move the adjournment of the debate?

Unfortunately I cannot comply with the hon. member’s request because I honestly do not think anything has emanated from this discussion which justifies one to prolong the debate on the subject.

Because boxing falls under me I should like to state my attitude in this connection. The hon. member for Durban (Central) has given us medical statistics with which I do not and cannot quarrel. The hon. member gave us the number of deaths, but as the hon. member for Sea Point rightly said, the hon. member carefully avoided giving us the statistics for South Africa. If the regulations are observed in such in the world. The question before this House is whether we should prohibit it in South Africa. If it is properly controlled in South Africa. If the regulations are observed in such a way that injuries are limited to the minimum, and if the officials responsible for keeping order and supervising boxing tournaments do their job in such a way that there is no necessity to prohibit it in South Africa, I do not think it is necessary for us to spend more time on the subject.

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

I move the motion standing in my name—

This motion emphasizes two things. In the first place it emphasises the necessity of a sound family structure, and secondly the necessity of a constant family growth as prerequisite for the survival of the nation and the preservation of a sound national way of life. This motion draws our attention to a very alarming fact, and that is that as far as the White section of the population is concerned, there is the danger of a decline in the natural growth of our population; this motion therefore deals mainly with White families because this phenomenon does not occur amongst the other population groups. The White section of the population, however, runs the risk of becoming smaller and smaller, and we know that if the Whites disappear from this country it will also mean misery for the non-Whites.

The fact that the rate of natural growth of the White population is declining disturbingly is one which nobody can dispute. I read just recently in this month’s issue of Tegniek that it is estimated that the numbers of Whites will decline to such an extent that by 1975 the ratio between non-Whites and Whites will be 4.4 to 1. This phenomenon is so disturbing that the Government and the present Minister appointed an extremely important commission in 1959 to go into this whole matter. I refer to the Piek Commission which brought out a very important report. The commission’s finding in paragraph 13 is—

And in paragraph 17 the commission says—

I should like the House to note particularly that this commission realized the danger and issued a warning note; it said that if this dangerous tendency continued it would have a definite effect in the future upon the population pattern of the country as a whole. When we look at the 1960 census figures, it is evident that that declining tendency in the birth rate continued. The census revealed a downward trend in the birth rate, in the rate of natural growth. As far as natural growth is concerned, the position is that in 1959, when this commission brought about its report, the growth rate was 16.2 per 1,000; in 1960 it was 16.1; in 1961 it was 16.6; and in 1963 it was 14.9. These figures show that our birth rate, our rate of natural growth, is not fluctuating, but that there is a very clear and a constant downward trend. When we look at the population pyramid, as drawn up by the National Bureau for Social and Educational Research, we find that it confirms this tendency. It is perfectly clear therefore that we are dealing here with a very imminent danger, and if that dangerous tendency is not exorcised, it will very definitely lead to our downfall ultimately. A further inference that we can draw from these figures is that the danger is great and that it is sufficiently serious to warrant the most serious attention, as well as the most vigorous action. I should like to say, too, that no price would be too high to pay to check this downward trend in the growth rate of our population.

When we come to analyze the causes of this problem we find that this is out and out a family problem. The task of any government with a welfare policy in respect of family life is a two-fold one. In the first place, we must keep the family structure sound, and in the second place we must propagate a sound family growth. I say that we must propagate a sound family growth because not every form of family growth is necessarily healthy; not every form of growth is laudable. If there is family growth without planning, it may well bring about misery for us. Excessive and irresponsible growth causes problems which are just as serious as the problems caused by a constantly declining birth rate. The effect of planning, however, will be that our White families will grow in size, and it will also mean that the size of non-White families, who often simply grow unchecked, will be limited to a more practical figure.

When we analyze these two considerations, I say that, in the first place, the object of our welfare policy in respect of family life should be the maintenance of a sound family structure. What do we mean by that? When it comes to promoting a sound family structure, we must recognize a number of factors. In such a family one expects the optimum number of children having due regard to the ability of the parents to give them proper care and to equip them for life. That is why we express our appreciation in the motion of what is already being done in this country by the Government with a view to maintaining a sound family structure.

When we look at our Estimates this year we find that R80,000,000 is being voted for this particular Department. When we come to analyze how that money is used, we realize that it is difficult to say that any specific amount is intended for the maintenance of a sound family structure because this whole question is interwoven with all the other activities of this large Department. For example, the Department has its field services, it has its technical services, it subsidizes voluntary welfare organizations, which includes the Christian Social Council and other similar organizations which concentrate their efforts on the establishment, the promotion and the propagation of a sound family structure by means of guidance, advice and active assistance. The Estimates also include items which are concerned more specifically with individual families. Here we have in mind forms of assistance such as grants-in-aid for example, and pensions, because many of these pensions are paid to families in which there are still children who have to be cared for. The payment of pensions is one way of maintaining a sound family structure. We also think of family allowances which are given more specifically with a view to promoting sound family structure. We say therefore that a great deal is already being done—and we greatly appreciate it—in order to maintain a sound family structure, but in spite of everything that is being done, we want to re-affirm here that the results are not adequate, and that we are still not succeeding in promoting a sound growth. That is why we put forward the plea in this motion that more should be done to stimulate a sound family growth. This declining birth rate must be counteracted; this decline in the natural growth rate must be checked. A sound natural growth is the most cardinal requirement for every nation that hopes to maintain itself and to survive. We ask ourselves what we can do about it. But before one can treat a particular disease by prescribing a remedy, one must first have a proper diagnosis to find out the cause of the disease. We must first establish what is the basic cause of the problem.

When we look at the findings of the Piek Commission, we find that they classify the causes of this disturbing phenomenon in three categories. In the first place the commission emphasizes the personal factors. Those personal factors can be summed up in one single expression, namely the negative philosophy adopted by people. When we analyze this negative philosophy we find that there are factors such as the high (frequently too high) sense of responsibility of parents, where ambition even plays a role and where parents feel that they cannot bring children into the world because they will not be able to give them everything they need. Then there is another factor and that is the desire on the part of parents to maintain their particular status. They argue that they have a particular status to-day and that if there is an additional child who will also have a share in the family income, they will have to sacrifice their existing status to some extent, and there are many parents who are not prepared to do this. Then there are also all sorts of egotistical motives such as the desire for comfort and the desire on the part of the wife to retain her attractive appearance rather than to bring children into the world. These are the personal factors which are responsible for the fact that the birth rate is constantly declining.

But then there are also the social factors, the two important group factors, and here I think of housing; we are living in a world where many of our people live in flats in which there is no room for children. The flat is one of the biggest enemies of large families. We also live in a world in which married women refuse to give up their income; they prefer to work themselves to supplement the income of their husbands so that they can improve their status. Frequently, when they do consider the question of having more children, they are discouraged by the thought of the lack of facilities in the shape of créches where it becomes necessary for the mother to go out and work, because the fact of the matter is that we have insufficient créches at the present time. Sir, I could go on and refer to all the other things which are characteristic of our society—the phenomenon of alcoholism and the phenomenon of religious defection, the result of which is that parenthood which in the past was regarded as a divine calling is a concept which is gradually being pushed aside. Another factor is the urbanization of our people. We know that in the tranquil atmosphere of the rural areas families are always bigger than in the cities because the city is not the child’s friend. Another factor is the widely held opinion that it has become necessary to have small families.

The third important factor is the monetary factor. There may be people who will say that money plays no role in this matter; they will point out that the small families are to be found particularly amongst highly paid people and that the large families are to be found amongst the lowest strata of the population. But the important group to which we look for our talents in the future is the middle-income group, and here, too, we find that the birth rate is low. I want to say here that money does play a role, because if it is argued that there is a negative correlation between the number of children one finds amongst the highly paid and their incomes, my reply is that there are factors which account for that fact. We find that it is the rich people who have ambitious plans and who do not want to be saddled with children. When we come to the middle-income group, however, the Piek Commission arrived at the following finding in paragraph 56—

Sir, just think of the factors where money does play a role, where money can have a limiting effect upon the size of families. Take confinement expenses, in the first place. The Piek Commission found in 1959 that confinement expenses amounted to about R120 for the various groups. I had that figure checked by one of our leading gynaecologists in the city and his finding is that confinement expenses nowadays are about 30 per cent higher. One can well imagine the position of a young couple living in a flat who say that however much they would like to have more children they simply cannot afford it financially.

Another factor is housing. These people cannot afford to live in a decent house. In this morning’s newspaper an article appeared under the heading “Dream of larger family shattered”. This mother writes as follows—

Another factor is the education of the child. Here I am thinking not just of Std. V or Std. VI. The parent also has to think of all the extra-mural activities of the school. The parent wants his child to take part in music and ballet. Then there is also the cost of medical services, which has risen tremendously, the cost of clothing and feeding, which is very high; then there is the question of the ready availability of credit facilities as a result of which many couples practically place a millstone around their necks. Then there is also the rising standard of living which entails higher costs. We say that all those factors very definitely influence the size of families.

The question arises what steps we can take to counteract this trend because, after all, we cannot allow the White section of the population to disappear; we cannot sit by supinely and allow a constantly declining birth rate, a continual decline in the rate of natural growth of our White population, to continue. Some people say that the remedy lies in immigration, but immigration is not always an unmixed blessing. Not only does it cost a great deal but in addition to that there is this risk attached to it: the immigrant who comes here still has to prove that he is assimilable and if immigration is emphasized at the expense of natural growth we run the risk of gradually changing our national character. What we should emphasize therefore is the importance of natural growth and what can be done to stimulate our own birth rate and to promote our natural growth.

In this connection there are various things that we can do. One thing is that by means of education and propaganda we can positively condition people psychologically to have larger families. We can do so by means of national congresses, by the distribution of pamphlets, by issuing warnings from the pulpit in this regard, and by emphasizing the importance of this matter at national festivals; we can launch a large-scale propaganda campaign to advocate larger families. But I predict that all this will fall on deaf ears if we simply leave it at that. We had a Family Year and we have had family congresses; we have a host of publications dealing with this matter, but we find that we do not achieve the desired results in the absence of the necessary material means. We come now to the other alternatives. One possibility is for us to make endeavours to extend the existing aid schemes, and the other is to advocate the introduction of family allowances. I just want to point out that we already have family allowances; I shall come back to this again in a moment. Talking about family allowances, let us look at the Western countries where family allowances are being paid to-day and let us ask ourselves what those countries seek to achieve by means of family allowances. The object is a twofold one. In most of these countries family allowances are paid for the sake of the social security of the family, to enable the family to enjoy security and to meet its obligations. But there are a few countries such as France where the payment of family allowances has a very definite demographic object and that is to stimulate the growth of the population. I had the privilege last year of visiting France; I had an interview with the deputy director of family care with regard to this matter and I asked him when they introduced family allowances. He told me that family allowances were introduced in 1938, when their birth rate had dropped to it lowest level, and that the object was to stimulate the birth rate. I asked him what the effect of it had been and he told me that it had been calculated by statisticians that if the tendencies which existed in 1938 had continued, France would to-day have had at least 18,000,000 fewer people. He said that in France the effect of family allowances had been not only to produce happy families but also to stimulate the growth of population.

Here in South Africa we do have family allowances but there is a very sad history attached to it. Family allowances were introduced in 1947 but you will be surprised, Sir to learn how few families benefited as a result of its introduction. You will be surprised to learn—that is the latest figure that I have been able to trace—that the number of families who benefit as a result of the introduction of family allowances to-day stands at no more than 757. Why? The finding of the Piek Commission is that the scope of the family allowance is too small because of the fact that there is a means test, the result of which is that the benefit of the allowance is limited to just a small group of people. Under our present system of family allowances the poor family only qualifies for the allowance when there is a third child. But, Sir, we are not concerned about the third child; we are concerned about the first child. We want our nation to grow in numbers. You may ask me, Sir, what I suggest we should do. It goes without saying that this is an extremely difficult problem. No single person can get up here and say “Here is a formula that will solve this whole problem.” But we have a Minister who is concerned about this matter; that is why the Piek Commission was appointed. The Minister has often emphasized in this House that the question of a sound family life is one which is of great concern to him, and he has now given notice of a new Bill to be introduced, in terms of which the National Welfare Board will be re-constituted in such a way that one division of it, one committee of the board, will be able to concentrate exclusively on research into family problems. I hope the Minister will tell us that his instruction to that division of the new National Welfare Board which is to be constituted will be that they must do research and that they must leave no stone unturned until they have reviewed the whole of this problem. And if they find that the solution lies in family allowances, then we must pay that price, however high it may be, to safeguard our nation. We talk about our welfare in various spheres, but unless we find a solution for this acute problem we will find ourselves in the position of the rich farmer who has no heir to whom he can leave his assets. I make bold to say that this is the most acute problem awaiting our attention, and unless we find a solution we are heading for a slow but certain death; we will then become a dying nation.

I listened to the hon. member for Kimberley (South) (Dr. W. L. D. M. Venter) with interest, and I was surprised that he could spend half-an-hour condemning his own Government. I feel that everything he has said here shows up the deficiencies in the workings of the Department of Social Welfare. He did not give one positive suggestion as to how this problem should be dealt with. He spoke briefly about family allowances, but he did not tell the House how they should be introduced and what they should really be. I think we should tackle this with the admission that we are meeting a problem here which should have been met immediately after the Piek Committee reported.

Can’t you keep it out of politics?

This matter has to be dealt with not, I think, as the hon. member for Kimberley (South) has dealt with it, but in a much more positive manner. He reminds me of the tracts we sometimes see on the walls of houses, “God is the head of this house”, and then very often God is left to do the work. People put up this tract on the wall and then they say, “Well, God is the head of this house; let Him get on with the job.” That is not the way in which to approach this matter. Every single one of us must put his shoulder to the wheel to see what he can do to help. I agree with the hon. member for Kimberley (South) that the population problem in South Africa is a grave one. We have to do our very best to increase the White population in South Africa. Nobody denies that, but before we can get the inhabitants of this country to agree en masse to help, they have to have certain securities. Our job to-day is to see what these securities are and how we can provide them. I would say that the first thing that a family must have is a home. A home can be either a hired home or one’s own home. We will got into each one of these points more fully later. Then I would say that the health problem must be dealt with because in the home we want a healthy family. Then we have to deal with the question of work and the question of a reasonable wage on which one expects to be able to rear a family. Once the children in the family reaches school-going age we have to deal with the question of education, and as the breadwinner of the family becomes older we have to consider the question of pension schemes and provision for old-age. If we build along those lines then we have something concrete on which to build; then we have security, and then the fear of having large families will disappear.

Now I want to say a word or two about housing and the problem of owning a home. The ideal, of course, is for each family to have its own home. The ideal would be to own a house rather than to live in a flat, but how many ordinary working people can afford to pay for a home? This problem is mentioned in the Piek Report, which says that in the case of working people especially, large deposits for home ownership should be reduced or done away with. A man should be able to go and buy a home by putting down a deposit which is within his means. The charges which go with home ownership in the initial stages—transfer fees and legal costs—have to be dealt with. We should make things as easy as possible for the individual so as to encourage him to buy his own home. I think the hon. member for Kimberley (South) will agree with me when I say that it is in a house that families are encouraged to grow rather than in a flat. It is therefore the Minister’s job from now onwards to make sure that the Department dealing with housing gives as much help as possible to the working people to enable them to purchase homes on the best possible terms and in the easiest possible manner. The period in which to pay off the purchase price of the house must be extended and the instalment should be made as low as possible to enable people to purchase their own homes. The other point is this: It is not necessary for us to have elaborate homes. The beauty of a home does not depend on its exterior; it depends on what is inside the home. It depends on the happiness of the family and the desire of the family to beautify the home within. You do not need to have a park for a garden; you do not need to have an elaborate frontage, but what you do need is a sound structure in which to live.

Then I want to say a word or two about the question of health. One of the problems that we come up against over and over again and which has been touched upon briefly by the hon. member for Kimberley (South) is the question of security against illness. We have asked the Minister of Health here in this House over and over again to do something about it; we have asked for the introduction of a medical aid scheme. Sir, that is very important. We on this side of the House have asked for free hospitalization which is also important because one of the fears to-day in bringing up a family is, “What am I going to do if a member of my family becomes ill; what is my wife going to do if I as the breadwinner becomes ill; how are we going to manage; what is it going to set us back; are we going to be able to pay our rent this month?” I say that security from the health point of view must be instituted as soon as possible and a prepaid medical scheme should be encouraged by the Government at all levels. It is not enough for us to leave this matter in the hands of the Minister of Health. The Minister of Social Welfare, the Minister of Economic Affairs, and the Minister of Finance must all pool their knowledge and their will, to meet this problem that is growing in this country from month to month and getting more and more difficult.

Then we come to the question of work. In South Africa to-day we do not know what unemployment means. We are passing through a wonderful phase of prosperity. Every person who wants to work has a job, and in many cases people are asked to work overtime. In the sphere of employment there is an opportunity for everyone of us, but are the wages earned to-day sufficient to meet the rising cost of living? Sir, I doubt it. If the wages were sufficient there would not be such keenness to work overtime. The necessity to work overtime creates a problem in a growing family. We find that the father is hardly ever at home. What happens is tins: He goes to work early in the morning. He probably puts in an hour’s overtime before he is due to start officially. He comes home late because he has again worked overtime; he never sees his children during the week. When the week-end comes he is either too tired to give them his attention or he feels that after a hard week’s work he wants his own recreation and that he does not want to be bothered with his children; he goes off either to have a game of bowls or he goes fishing or walking. Not everybody works a five-day week; there are many people who work a six-day week, and we know that Sundays for many people is no longer a day of rest; it is becoming a working day because of the shortage of labour. The whole family unit is being broken up. In addition to that we find in house after house, in flat after flat, the mother is not at home; she is out working as well. You find that both mother and father go out to work, both trying to meet the cost of living. What happens to the children? Babies who should still be in their mothers’ arms are sometimes brought up by a domestic servant. The children have their lunches cut by the mother the night before. They go to school with a lunch bag. Whether the children eat their lunch or not the mother simply does not know. She only knows that they took their lunch to school. The children play during their lunch break; they do not eat properly with the result that they often become ill. That is what usually happens. The mother then has to stay away from work to look after the ill child. This again means a loss of wages. It becomes a never-ending circle, a never-ending struggle to meet the cost of living. You find that because both mother and father go out to work, the children become ill because they do not eat properly. You find that delinquency may start in the home. I feel that the rising trend towards delinquency to-day is due to no other reason than the fact that mothers and fathers do not spend enough time with their children. It is a tragedy to see that parents have so little time to spend with their children. Sir, the propaganda that was mentioned by the hon. member for Kimberley (South) must surely include something which will help mothers and fathers to come together again with their children. The family outings as we used to know them in the old days are things of the past. The father goes his own way, the mother goes another way, this child goes to that function, the other child goes to another.

It is a matter of education, a matter of family education.

Yes, it is a matter of education. We have to bring people back into the family unit. Sir, talking about this type of education I was struck some time ago by the rarity of families going out together. It was brought home to me here in the Cape during the Malay Festival. It was a pleasure to see mother and father and children all walking down the street in a happy group to the mosque or wherever they were going, dressed in their holiday best. That is such a rare sight nowadays that when one does see it one stands and stares at what should be an every-day occurrence. You do not see this sort of thing on Saturdays and Sundays amongst our own people. The mother goes to church, the father goes to church; ten minutes later you see a child going there: another ten minutes later another child comes running up because he has just come back from extra lessons or a game of cricket. The members of the family all go their own separate ways. Sir, what is the use of bringing up a family, what is the use of having more children if you cannot keep them together as a family unit? What is the use of bringing up a family if one member of the family is not prepared to meet the other and to help the other? Sir, we talk about increasing our population, but we will never do it unless we can go back to the old days where the family was an entity. I have here a marvellous letter that I received a while ago. The contents have nothing to do with the matter under discussion here, but here is a family that is proud of itself. Here is a letterhead containing the address of the family and above there is a picture of the family. The picture shows a young mother and father. Mr. and Mrs. Heidenkamp, of Twelfth Street, Parkmore, Johannesburg. Sir, how many children do they have, according to this picture? Eleven. This is such a rare event that they felt impelled to take a photograph of the family and to put it on their letterhead. Sir, that is what we would like to see. To-day, as the hon. member has correctly said, there is a growing tendency to have one child or no children because of the fear of the future, but in this country there should be no fear of the future. We must have security and we can have it here because we have everything we need. All we have to do is to direct the good things that we have in this country along the correct channels.

Now I come to education. We in this country have schools provided by the Provinces; we have schools run by private people, we have special schools, we have schools for the handicapped and for the disabled. Why should it be necessary then for the mother to say, “I do not know if I should have a second child,” or “I do not know if I can afford the education of a second child; look what it cost me; every year I have to have a new outfit for the child.” In some cases it means new books. Higher education means extra expenses. I think the time has come where special attention should be given not only to the brilliant children who win bursaries but to the average boy and the average girl at school, because it is from this average group that you nearly always get the leaders in our community. That average group must be encouraged and you can only do that by helping those children to get bursaries, loans, grants, assistance in transport and assistance in connection with the purchase of books. I do not know whether my observation is correct but only too often we find that the best bursaries go to the children of families who can well afford to send their children to university. It is an honour, of course, to win a bursary, but that money is very rarely given back to help somebody else more deserving. I have always felt that if I were giving grants and bursaries to help children to receive higher education, I would assist those average children whom I feel will produce the best results if they are given an opportunity to receive higher education. How many members in this House do not come from average homes? Nearly all of us come from average homes. I do not say that we are the best but I do say that we are a fair cross-section of intelligent people and most of us here have at some stage or other made at least some contribution to the welfare of our country. You get your farmers, you get your doctors, and, of course, you also get a few exceptions, people who are good at nothing but who still manage to make their way here! Right through life you will find that it is the plodder, the average boy or the average girl who does well, who is determined to make his mark and who does make his mark, sometimes under the greatest difficulties, and it is average children who should be given some extra assistance.

I want to say just a word or two about pensions; I am not going to deal with this at length, but we have to provide security for people in their old age as well. A man who is prepared to send his child or several children to university must be sure that in spending the money to put his children through university he is not going to be short when the time comes for him to discontinue work. If he has to stop working because of his age, because of disability or illness, he must know that he can draw a pension. I say again what we have said before, and that is that the time has come for us to institute a contributory pension scheme so that the ordinary man in the street who wants to give his child the best must know that he will not be short of money and that his wife will not be short of money when the time comes for him to retire. This fear of an increase in the family must be removed, and we can only do that by providing the securities which I have mentioned. I regret very much that more has not been done in the past. I regret very much that the Minister has not taken note of what the Piek Committee recommended. I do not know and I have not heard whether the Minister has acted upon any of the Committee’s recommendations, but I do know that none of the recommendations has been implemented in this House. I regret that very much. Although I agree wholeheartedly with the essence of what the hon. member for Kimberley (South) said, I feel that we on this side of the House must move the following amendment—

The hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher) who has just sat down, attacked the hon. member for Kimberley (South) (Dr. W. L. D. M. Venter) and said that he had not made any positive suggestions in connection with the problem set out in the motion. I am quite sure that if we compare the two Hansards later on we will find the hon. member for Rosettenville raised precisely the same points as those raised by the hon. member for Kimberley (South), and the hon. member for Rosettenville can also be accused therefore of not having made any positive contributions to this debate. The hon. member said that the recommendations of the Piek Commission should have been implemented immediately, but, Mr. Speaker, this problem did not arise for the first time in 1961; it is a problem which should have been attended to long before then. It is not going to help us very much to hurl accusations at one another because this is a problem which we must solve together. I leave it at that.

I want to bring a few other matters to the attention of the House. Somebody on one occasion called the family “The nation on a small scale”, a very accurate and correct description. If that is so, then I am sure that what we are discussing here to-day is probably the most important aspect of a broad population policy. The fact that what we are giving our attention to this matter is by no means unimportant because the question of population policy formed part of general State policy from the earliest days up to the 19th century. In the 19th century States often adopted a laissez faire attitude in regard to population and they still do so. It has only been over the last decade that leading scientists, particularly in the democratic world, have urged democratic states to strive for and formulate a clear population policy. One of the persons who devoted his energies to the formulation of such a policy, G. Myrdal, writes as follows in his work “Population—A Problem for Democracy”—

It is interesting to note that the totalitarian systems of government are not guilty of this lack of interest in the population problem that is displaced by democratic countries.

The fundamental concepts expressed in the motion, namely, family structure and family growth, are imparable although they are perhaps distinguishable. These two concepts go hand in hand, as I will show later on. When we talk about the structure of the family, we have to deal with the component parts of the family, that is to say, firstly the members of the family, in other words, the husband, wife and children; secondly, the equipment of that family—by that we mean the material and non-material possessions of the group as well as the source of income and the manner of consumption; and, thirdly, the organization, which refers to the way in which the members and the equipment are organized or to the role which the individual members of the family play. But the family is not simply a structure; it is a living, dynamic institution, and accordingly, it has specific functions. The most important matter in connection with any social institution is the function it serves.

The family came into being in order to meet certain fundamental human requirements. The primary functions of the family are (1) procreation (2) economic co-operation between the members of the family and (3) caring for the children born to that family. Over the course of time and as social and other changes have taken place, the scope of the family; functions have been widened considerably and the following can be mentioned together with the primary functions: The cultural, educational, disciplinary and religious functions. New occurrences which have taken place over the centuries, and particularly over the last few years, however, have changed the functions of the family radically. The educational, religious and other functions have really been torn away from the family. New outlooks in life have resulted in a new relationship between the sexes and all these factors together have influenced the family, particularly its organization and size.

Many of these changes came about rapidly and took pace simultaneously in various spheres, such as the social, spiritual, scientific and religious spheres, and where this happened, social institutions, including the family, were caught unawares. It was difficult to make adjustments and the family lost its balance. Certain of the changes may be mentioned here briefly. In the first place there is the question of urbanization, a process which has been in operation for some time now but which rapidly gained momentum with the increase in industrialization. For example, in 1891, 65.0 per cent of the White population in South Africa lived on the platteland. In 1946, only 26.4 per cent lived on the platteland and 73.6 per cent in the cities. In 1960, 83.6 per cent lived in the cities as against 16.4 per cent on the platteland. The city with its material culture and multiplicity of other influencing factors exerts a variety of influences over the family. The size of the family is one of the important results of this influence. The second change is the new outlook on life. The conservative and religious outlook on life has gradually given way to individualism, rationalism and materialism. According to G. F. McCleary in his works “The Menace of British Depopulation” and “Race Suicide”, rationalization of life must be regarded as the main cause of the limitation of the number of children. In South Africa this process of change has been in operation for more than 50 years and the new outlook on life is also slowly penetrating to the platteland.

Another factor that I can mention is the emancipation of women. Changes in the legal status of women, increased educational opportunities and increased opportunities of employment, have completely changed the status of women. Together with this I can also mention birth control and divorce. In the Piek report of 1961 the factors which have a limiting effect upon the size of families are arranged in a different order and subdivided differently, as well as the factors which lead to the defective care and education of children. At this stage I should like to give a few specific facts in connection with the size of families. It is not only in South Africa that we are concerned about this matter; concern is also expressed in may Western European countries at the decrease in the birth rate over the last three-quarters of a century. In South Africa the number of births per 1,000 of the population in 1911 was 32.2; by 1958 this figure had dropped to 25.2; and in 1963 it had fallen to 24 per 1,000 of the population. In 1904, the White population in South Africa stood at 1,117,000, in round figures, and in 1960, at 3,088,000. It has been estimated by various authorities that in the year 2000 the White population of South Africa will be just under the five million mark. It will therefore take the White population 40 years to increase from slightly more than 3 million to just under 5 million. If we look back at the number of children per family in earlier years we find that the average number of children per South African White family in the middle of the 19th century was nine. Towards the end of that century this figure had decreased to six and in 1949, it was about 3.5 children per family.

This information illustrates and forms the background to the problem with which we are faced, the problem of family structure and the disturbing decrease in the birth rate. Our task now is to try to find a solution to this problem, and it is not very easy to find a solution when one considers the multiplicity of interrelated factors. One is also inclined to jump to the conclusion immediately that the problem can be solved by the prospect of family allowances. Family allowances exist for various reasons in many European countries, as has been pointed out by one of the previous speakers. It is part of their whole system of social security to preserve a balance between family income and family requirements by means of suitable compensation. This then serves a demographic purpose, as has also been mentioned already.

The Piek Report of 1961 gives a clear description of the various systems. It states (translation)

Nowhere could adequate proof be produced to indicate the influence of the allowances on the birth rate. I will quote no further because the quotation does not seem to be quite complete. But it amounts to this that we cannot arrive at the correct conclusion because there is no positive proof that the increase in the birth rate in France, for example, is due specifically to the payment of family allowances. We also have a system of family allowances in South Africa, as has already been mentioned, but it is interesting to note that no Government in South Africa has as yet been prepared to institute an extended system of family allowances. We had the Van Eck Commission in 1943. They were not in favour of it. A select committee was then appointed and they were not in favour of it either. After that select committee we had an inter-departmental committee. They too were not able to reach agreement in the long run. They too were not in favour of a general system of family allowances. Of course, various reasons are given as to why a family allowance system is not the most suitable solution. I am not going to deal with all the factors which are said to be disadvantageous as far as a family allowance system is concerned because I may then be pressed for time.

We will have to review this system of family allowances which we have in South Africa. That is my first solution to the problem. I would even go a little further than the recommendation of the Piek Commission. They suggested a change but I say that we shall have to effect a radical change in the present system of family allowances. We must face the fact that economic considerations are involved and we shall have to devote serious attention to those economic considerations. A person named R. F. George in England made a study of the poverty datum line in England. He found that two children brought about an increase of 49 per cent in the expenditure of a family and that a third child increased the family expenditure by a further 66 per cent. The economic factor is an important one. Whether or not we can eliminate it by the payment of family allowances is something I do not know. We shall have to experiment in this regard. Further research will have to be done in this connection. This is not the only method; there are also indirect methods. All these indirect methods are set out for us in the Piek Report. I do not know how much attention the Department has already given to that report. I believe that the report has already been studied carefully. Research has been undertaken in order to ascertain which of the recommendations can be implemented. But, Mr. Speaker, we shall have to increase our pace a little in order to ascertain by means of further research whether we shall be able to help our people by means of the indirect methods mentioned in the Piek Report. Various methods including housing are mentioned. For example, it is suggested that in the granting of loans for housing purposes, the deposit be done away with; that there be an increase in the maximum loan, that the term of the loan be extended and that provision be made for building loans which will be written off at a specific rate as and when children are born. We have a system of maintenance allowances which calls for review. We can also consider concessions in respect of medical services and in the sphere of income tax.

I should like to return to the question of housing. If it is true that President Kruger gave a farm to every burger with twelve sons in the South African Republic, then I am almost tempted to suggest to-day that a house might be given to every family in South Africa with 10 children. I agree with the hon. member for Kimberley (South). Even though we do all these things, we will not get very far unless we make the necessary propaganda for a change of attitude in regard to the importance of large families and the status of people with large families. We must once again condition public opinion in favour of well-cared for and large families. We must use every means available, every platform, every pulpit—every means of propaganda in order to bring this important matter to the attention of our people. We must immediately set about working out a population and family policy. I am not wholly in favour of this matter falling under the Council which the hon. member for Kimberley (South) had in mind. I want it to fall directly under the Minister. I also want to give it a name. It must be a subdivision of the Department, which we can call “The Division of Family and Youth Affairs”. If we tackle the matter in this way then the words of McCleary which I have already quoted will have exactly the opposite effect for us and the following will not be true in our case—

I am very glad that the hon. member for Germiston (Mr. Cruywagen) has sketched the changes that have taken place in the pattern of family life up to the present time. In dealing with this problem one of the fundamentals is that we have got to accept that a change has taken place. Whereas the hon. the Minister said by way of interjection people could be educated up to a certain point, the situation is that a change has taken place and there can never be any going back. This is the evolution of humanity. Sir, we go forward and we do go back. The hon. member dealt, for example, with the move to the city, and the emancipation of women. These are things which have taken place and we shall not be able to reverse the process.

One of the fundamentals in trying to deal with this problem is, as has been mentioned already but one with which I want to deal with in somewhat greater detail, the financial aspect of the family. The hon. member for Kimberley (South) (Mr. W. L. D. M. Venter), in dealing with the Piek Report, mentioned one factor which is sometimes lost sight of and certainly bears repeating and emphasizing; and that is the three grades of income groups with which we have to deal. The poor, the middle class and the wealthy. In so far as the problem we are discussing this afternoon is concerned, he pointed out quite rightly, as the report pointed out, that we had an inverse ratio; the poor people have large families and the rich people have small families. Our problem ends up with the middle class.

It is interesting to read what the Piek Report says in relation to the middle class—

Then they go on in paragraph 56 to say— The conclusion therefore appears to be justified that the group most sincerely affected by financial considerations in respect of family limitation is essentially the middle income group.

It is these people that I want to talk about this afternoon. The hon. member for Kimberley (South) also dealt—so did the hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher)—with the problems that flow from this financial problem, the question of housing, the question of medical benefits, the question of pensions, the question of care in old age. Basically, the question is one of removing fear from the minds of people. Because there is no doubt, and I think we all accept it, that one of the problems in the question of bringing up a family is the fear that the parent has of the security for himself and his family.

We are faced with another problem, of course. One must not go too far. This is not, and we hope it will never be, a socialistic State. One has got to try to balance the situation of giving people security and at the same time not taking away from them their initiative.

In this report certain social problems are dealt with on pages 17 and 18 particularly the question of the employment of women. There are three statements here which I want to give to the House. This is in relation to the employment of women and their income. The first is No. 4 on page 18: “She has grown accustomed to having an income of her own”. The second one, No. 6 “She finds herself in a role where she considers herself co-responsible for the family income.” And thirdly, No. 8 “The economy of the country can no longer do without her contribution.”

It is quite clear that if to-day we are going to deal with the problem of larger families we have got to deal with the question of the married woman who is employed. As I said when I started, we cannot turn the clock back. The married woman to-day is employed in every sphere of our activities. To-day the family economic unit, the earner of the family income, is no longer only the man; it is the husband and the wife. We know there are a number of people who do not subscribe to this situation but we have to deal with the situation as we find it and not as we would want it.

If we look at the Bulletin of Statistics for January 1965, Tables BI and BII, we find some very interesting information. In 1960, which is the last figures available, in the manufacturing industry there were 229,000 males and 45,629 females. I am only talking about Whites. In commerce and finance there were 233,896 males and 102,000 females. In services 252,000 males and 105,000 females. In the professions etc. 132,000 males and 50,000 females. In clerical work 280,000 males and 145,000 women and in sales works 98,000 men and 37,000 women. Sir, the position is, and it is quite clear from these figures, that to-day the problem we are basically faced with is the fact that both the husband and wife must work.

There is another facet to the question of the husband and the wife working. We have had a lot of discussion in this House over the last five or six weeks which has indicated quite clearly that if the married women stopped working there would be chaos in the economic life of this country. I notice there is a motion in the Other Place to encourage the working of women. The present-day situation is going to be that we are going to require more and more women to work in our industries and factories. It is mainly the middle class worker who is affected as a result of this influx of women into industry. The Piek Report makes it quite clear that people require money for housing, education, to maintain a decent standard of living and so forth. The hon. member for Rosettenville has dealt with that fairly fully. Certain suggestions are made as to how we can alleviate the situation. There is the question of family allowances, the question of rebates, etc. But there is one other factor, one which I raised last year and one which I want to raise again in relation to this matter, and that is a change in the basis of our income tax system in so far as married women are concerned. That change can give the relief to the married woman so that she will be able to raise her family with a lessening fear of the economic fear. A lot of the additional income that a married woman earns goes into taxes. But because she works she has to make other provisions. She has to provide for the care of her children when she is at work. She has to provide for her transport to work. She has to provide for her own maintenance while she is at work. Her standard as a working woman is more expensive than her standard as a housewife during her normal day. She needs better clothes, additional food and so forth. All these things have to be provided for and yet when we deal with her from the tax point of view we say “You shall be treated no differently from anybody else.”

Relief can be given in numerous ways. There is the English system whereby a special allowance is given to a married woman. In the English Income Tax Act they state specifically that this is an allowance from taxation because the woman has to work and because of what flows therefrom. The other way, of course, as has been mooted, is separated taxation for the husband and the wife so that the benefit of this separate taxation shall accrue to the family unit.

There is another social factor which is arising in our life to-day which has an important bearing on this question of our population. Because of our method of taxation there is little doubt that a number of people are living together as husband and wife and yet are not married. The reason is their saving in tax. Their separate incomes are taxed separately as long as they are not married. It is a profitable business from a tax point of view to-day to live in sin. That is what is happening in many cases because of the fact that there is no alleviation for the married woman who goes out to work and earns her money. Her income is lumped with that of her husband, they are taxed as one unit whereas if they are not married each one is taxed individually and there is a considerable saving. This is a factor which I am sure the non. the Minister will be the first one to say is bad and has its repercussions on the problem we are discussing this afternoon.

There are many problems that have been mentioned in relation to this matter but the financial one seems to be basic to the whole problem. I hope the hon. the Minister will be able to persuade his colleague, the hon. the Minister of Finance, in addition to some alleviation by the method of taxation, to increase the family rebate and the children’s rebate. We are going through a period of prosperity; we know the problems of the hon. Minister of Finance in regard to inflation. But one has got to try to keep a balance between the problems which a country has to face. We want additional population desperately. It is quite clear from the report, and the hon. the Minister knows this better than I do, that the financial impact to-day is the vital question and that if a family can be given greater allowances directly or indirectly, this is going to help them to ameliorate the position.

What we would also like to know from the hon. the Minister is what has been the fate of this report? One would have thought, with this vexed problem before us and with the report in the hands of the Minister of Finance for a considerable time, we would have had some indication from the Government as to what its thinking was. This is not a political issue, Mr. Speaker. This is an issue which concerns every single member of this House and every single member of the nation. I hope the hon. the Minister will be able to tell us, when he addresses the House, that this report is really being considered. That ways and means of implementing it are being considered, and that we should not have to come to the House and say, in effect; “You should have kept us in the picture at least because since the publication of this report, as far as we are concerned, it has been lost”. It is too vital a document for the welfare and the future of this country to be lost. I hope, as I have said, the Minister will tell us to-day that this matter is being gone into and that both sides of the House will hear from the Minister that there will be some action in regard to this problem we are discussing.

I have listened to this debate with very great interest. Once again it is a matter of deep regret to me that a debate of this nature has to be conducted in so limited a time. It goes without saying that hon. members on both sides of the House should have such a great deal to say on a matter of this nature, a matter which, fundamentally, concerns all of us. But now the time is very limited, and consequently we cannot say everything we should like to say.

At the outset I just want to refer to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher). It reads as follows—

In my opinion this is an extraordinary amendment to move, Mr. Speaker. Hon. members have been sitting here all along, and I think they have had an opportunity of asking by way of a substantive motion at an earlier stage what has been done in connection with the Report. Hon. members must bear in mind that the matter with which we are concerned here is one of very intimate importance. As has been said by all the hon. members who have spoken, the matter with which we are concerned here is one that does not have financial implications only. I have listened to the ideas expressed here, and these have made me think that what is said by the Piek Committee, namely, that money is no solution to this problem, is absolutely true. This problem is a serious one. Various hon. members and the introducer have pointed out in an exceptionally able manner that this problem has resulted from a changed attitude to life that has arisen. The hon. member for Germiston (Mr. Cruywagen) has summed up the position very ably. We now have to adapt ourselves to this new attitude to life, but we also have to induce our people to adapt themselves to it. Not directly, but indirectly, hon. members have created the impression that it is only in South Africa that the position is such a serious one. Let me just give these statistics to them—

If we want to draw comparisons, let us draw fair ones. I have a whole list of countries here, and in the year 1955/56 none of them maintained a birth rate of over 26 per thousand.

The second point I want to put very clearly is the following—

This is the second point I want to make. Hon. members know that, with their assent, I undertook a study tour in Europe. I undertook this study tour in order to see what more we could do by way of improving the circumstances of our people here. I confined myself mainly to two, in actual fact three, things. The first was the position of the child, the second the family circle, and the third the care of the aged. I returned and set to work immediately. To come to the basis of the matter, hon. members will recall that the following recommendation was made by the Piek Committee—

They are referring to family allowances—

This is the basic recommendation made by the Piek Committee, and now hon. members accuse me of not having given effect to the Report of the Piek Committee. I agreed with the Piek Committee’s Report. What is more, I think I said so in this House shortly afterwards. In fact, Mr. Speaker, it forms part of what I have advocated all these years, namely, that we should devote attention to family life. The attention that we as a Government and as a community should devote to family life is not merely a matter of making financial grants. A sound family structure cannot be bought with money. A sound family structure is an expensive item. A sound family structure is a priceless article. Hon. members will probably agree with me that a sound family structure is the best asset one can have. I was particularly impressed by the wonderful image used by the hon. member for Rosettenville. How often does one see a father, mother and children going out together? The basis of family life is something that is beyond price, namely, the respect and love that cements the family together, and nothing in the world can destroy it.

Mr. Speaker, in all the years that I have been responsible for the Department of Social Welfare I have laid down certain basic tenets, and all these years I have said that if one preserves the family one preserves the child, and that if one preserves the child one preserves the future of the nation. In the last resort this is also what is said by the Piek Committee. When formulating a policy for reconstructing family life, we have to take into account two factors, namely, in the first place, that the erosion of family life—whatever the causes thereof may have been in the past—must be stopped, and, in the second place, that all of us should make a concerted effort to encourage the formation of a sound family structure: the church, the state and the community should all make a contribution in this regard. This will not be achieved by means of money alone. I now want to state in very clear terms—as I have often stated in public, abroad as well—that family structure is the foundation stone, the very basis, of a nation’s existence. It will be of no avail, Mr. Speaker, if children are brought into the world and are then—as I have seen in many countries of Europe—immediately after they have seen the light of day, or even before they can see the light of day, simply off-loaded into homes, thenceforth to be cared for exclusively by the State. In Germany I saw that artificial families were being created, and I asked them why they did not rather build up the real natural family. The fact is that they do not devote so much attention to family life in itself as we do in South Africa. I am very grateful that I belong to a nation that has the sense to regard a sound family structure as being essential for its development.

Mr. Speaker, I do not have the time to deal with all the causes, but I want to say to the hon. member for Parktown (Mr. Emdin) that he has said some very interesting things. There has been a change in the attitude to life, but I say to the hon. member, and to every hon. member in this House and to everyone in the country, that one trend in this change that has taken place is that sound family structure, which is so important for the well-being of a nation, has been cast into the shadow. It is futile to say that we cannot revert to it. I am saying here that we shall have to revert to it, that we shall have to reform our nation’s attitude to life and to family life on the basis that family life is the norm by which a nation’s strength to survive is measured. I hope I have not misunderstood the hon. member, but I say that if we cannot do this we shall perish in any case. If we in South Africa cannot so organize our family structure that it will continue to play the role that it has played in the development of civilization in the world, all the other measures that we can and will take will be of no avail. That is what is aimed at, and what should be aimed at by all of us.

Mr. Speaker, I now want to discuss what has been done in connection with the report of the Piek Committee. I may just mention that the Piek Committee made, inter alia, the specific recommendation that the existing system of family allowances should be improved—and this directly concerns my Department—so that it would have a wider compass and contribute more effectively to family care. This relates to family care—it is not so essential for family increase. I may just say that I have been asked what has been done about this Committee’s recommendations. Well, this particular recommendation has been complied with, and in proof thereof it may be said that in the 1961-’62 financial year a total amount of R99,510 was paid out in family allowances in respect of 403 families. In 1963 the expenditure was considerably higher, viz. R242,000, and in respect of 750 families. In other words, Mr. Speaker, despite the fact that during the same period wages in general increased tremendously and people made more money, the number of families to which benefits were paid was almost doubled. The Piek Committee said that these benefits should be given a somewhat wider compass. When the number of families that received benefits was almost doubled, can we be accused of having done nothing? Surely we cannot be accused of that. Mr. Speaker, I by no means want to suggest that we cannot do still more. I agree with the hon. member for Germiston (Mr. Cruywagen) where he said that we should take the whole system into reconsideration—we are in fact doing so. The whole issue is being taken into reconsideration and later on I shall say a few words in this regard. But I now say here that these figures may be cited as proof, because the benefits paid out increased three-fold and the number of families that received benefits increased almost two-fold. Where the Piek Committee said that we should give benefits a wider compass, we can say that this has in fact been done, as I indicated a moment ago. In these respects the benefits have been given an appreciably wider compass.

As far as maintenance grants are concerned, an amount of R2,953,000 was paid to 7,790 families during the year 1961-’62. These payments were almost doubled during the 1963-’64 financial year—instead of R2,953,000, an amount of R4,296,000 was paid out. At the same time the number of families assisted increased along with the benefits. As was also requested by the Piek Committee, we referred this matter to the various departments, viz. the Department of Health and other departments concerned in the matter. We asked the various departments to examine and give effect to those parts of the Report that concerned them. In the short space of time at my disposal at present it is difficult for me to account for the actions of my colleagues in this connection. It has been said here, for example, that people should have houses. I agree with that. People should have houses, but the Government cannot be expected to provide houses to everybody. Heads of families must also carry out their obligations in this connection. In this regard I want to say something that is very pertinent. The best place to cultivate the right attitude for future heads of families is a sound family circle itself. The hon. member for Rosettenville will agree with me. His family circle is a sound one in which his children learn to appreciate the value of a sound family circle as he learnt it from his parents. It is instilled into them strive to achieve what from childhood and they grow up with it. As a result they also strive to achieve what their parents and grandparents had and what is good and pure, elevated and noble. That is the place where these things should be cultivated, namely the domestic circle.

As has been stressed here, these things can also be promoted by means of propaganda, in order that we may lead our people in that direction. By this means it should be brought home to our young people that it is the fashion to have a large family. I once attended a congress in Transvaal where this matter was being discussed. A man who apparently belonged to the middle or the higher income group got up there and pleaded for family allowances. This man had three children. A free discussion of this topic was allowed at the congress. Then an old lady took up her position before the microphone and said that her husband was a ganger on the railways and that they had twelve children. All these children had been cared for and given an education, and she enumerated the positions held by those children, inter alia, some of the best positions in the Public Service. Mr. Speaker, this is not merely a matter of making financial contributions. It is a matter of appreciating the value of family life and of the obligation felt by the parent as far as the education of his child is concerned.

I cannot furnish full details at the moment. Hon. members will have every opportunity of discussing these matters as well when the various votes are under discussion. The hon. member for Rosettenville mentioned health services. These are also a matter for the provincial administrations. As a matter of fact, health services are a matter which, if hon. members are not satisfied, can be raised at the provincial elections, also in those constituencies in which the United Party has not put up any candidates! In any case, this matter is one that really falls under the provinces.

Order! The hon. Minister is really not being quite relevant now!

Mr. Speaker, I am only pointing out that health services can also receive some attention in another field. I shall not enter upon this field any further.

In regard to housing, the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield) put a question to the Minister of Community Development in this connection on 9 February. The reply the Minister furnished to the hon. member consisted of about 2½ pages of figures. I have these with me. These figures clearly indicate what has been done and what is still being considered. Having regard to these statistics, I do not think it can be said that the Piek Committee’s recommendations in this respect are not receiving attention.

But there is still a large shortage of houses.

That I will admit. I will also admit that it is possible still to improve upon what has been done. I will always admit that. Nevertheless, as I have said, we are doing even more wherever possible and we are trying to carry out any good advice we may receive. The same applies in this connection.

The hon. member for Parktown (Mr. Emdin) mentioned the employment of women. Now, it is a fact that it is a general phenomenon that more and more women are taking up employment—it is one of the features of the modern era. I think that married women form about 40 per cent of the very large percentage of working women in Germany, for example. In actual fact this matter falls outside my responsibility, although it does form part of the changed circumstances in which we are living to-day. Be that as it may, these changed circumstances have become a reality. I have already said that it was desirable—in fact, I have already brought it to the notice of many people and firms—to have a system in terms of which married women would only work half a day per day. Such a system is already being applied in the Public Service. In fact, it has been found that a married woman does the same amount of work in half a day as a young girl does in a full day. A system such as this makes it possible for a woman on the one hand to supplement the family income, and on the other hand to spend the afternoons and evenings at home with the children, where she is the key figure and where she can then look after and weld together the family circle. At the same time I wish to point out that it is also the duty of the head of the family not to isolate himself from his family, but to see to it that his family is welded together into a closely-knit unit so that it can face the future as such, and so that the younger generation can be set an example of what the true source of the greatest happiness in life is.

Mr. Speaker, this morning I gave notice of the National Welfare Bill. I have said, and I now repeat, that the restoration of a sound family structure is a very profound and complicated scientific problem. This truth has been emphasized by the hon. member for Rosettenville. He said, inter alia, that it would be no use to give a family the whole world if such a family still lost its soul. There are wealthy families in which the soul of the family is destroyed because the attitude in the home is not the right one, and it is this attitude that we should try to put right. This, however, is no easy task. After having had repeated discussions with Dr. Piek and members of his Committee after they had presented their Report, I decided, in terms of the Bill of which I gave notice this morning, but which I do not want to anticipate, to appoint a commission of absolute experts to collaborate with my Department in drawing up a family code, a family policy, so that, when putting it into operation, we shall know that it is not an experiment, but something that will achieve the end we all want to achieve, and so that we shall build up the future of South Africa on the basis of a sounder family structure in which the true values of life will be appreciated and an attitude to life will be adopted that will be directly opposed to any attitude that leads to the disintegration of family life. If we cannot do this, a very difficult future awaits us. We are already engaged upon this task, and we have had considerable discussions in this regard, and so I am now going to introduce this legislation and appoint the commission immediately. I shall appreciate it very much if hon. members will submit to the commission any proposals they may wish to make at any time. This matter has to be investigated statistically and very scientifically. Any further action that we take in this regard must not be on an experimental basis, but must be well-considered action. Once the commission has been appointed any member is at any time entitled to meet the commission, and the commission will also meet the various church bodies and welfare organizations, and then we shall put our heads together and formulate something that will be of lasting significance to South Africa.

I agree with what has been said on all sides of this House, namely that we should not adopt a negative attitude as far as this matter is concerned; we should adopt a positive attitude, and therefore we should regard the situation as being a serious one and we should approach it as such. We should, however, make a very thorough study of it and our strategy must be worked out very carefully, and we must take the entire population along with us in order to achieve the best results, which will be in the interests of the whole of the country.

I wish to conclude by expressing my appreciation, in spite of this amendment, for the good spirit in which hon. members have discussed these matters. The amendment seeks to attach blame to the Government. Sir, I have never made any apologies if in connection with a matter affecting such vital interests I took a little more time in order to study the matter very carefully and to look before I leap. In my opinion it would be a wrong attitude on the part of any Minister of Social Welfare to act over-hastily in matters of this nature. I appreciate the suggestions that have been made by all sides of the House and the speeches in which we all directed our attention to this problem. This problem is a serious one for which we must seek a solution together, and I hope that we shall solve it in the best interests of the future of South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Minister laid great stress on the moral values of family life and I agree with him that anything that the Government can try to do will not give us any results unless we can lay stress on the moral values of family life. We in this House do not deal with that part of it. We can only deal with a portion of it. I listened very carefully to the various speakers and I have found it a pity that only the Minister of Social Welfare was here, because this is a burden which he cannot bear alone. The Ministers of Housing, Education, Health and Finance should have been here. This is not a subject with which one Minister can deal. The hon. member for Kimberley (South) said that the Department of Social Welfare had R80,000,000 on the Estimates this year. That is true, but what did the Minister tell us? He told us that in regard to maintenance allowances only R4,000,000 was spent out of this huge budget of R80,000,000, and in regard to family allowances this year only R242,000 was spent. That is why I say it is indeed difficult because this is not something which can be laid at the door of one Minister alone. It is something which is the joint responsibility of these various Ministers I have mentioned. The Minister said it was a case of a change in the thoughts of the people, a change in the way of life, and that money was not the only remedy. That is perfectly true. He went on to talk about the high birth-rate we have in this country, which is higher than in most other countries of the world, and he pointed to the fact that in many of the rich families there is a very low birth-rate, and he came to the conclusion that it is in the middle income group where the greatest difficulty lies because that is where we should find the greatest percentage of children.

The hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher) held up a picture here, a letter written to him containing a picture of a family with 11 children. Perhaps that is something the Minister could give attention to. Not very long ago I was in the Far East and there I saw that they had what they call Family Day, a particular holiday granted in those countries. On that day the children are dressed up and it is particularly the children’s day, and they are taken to the various temples by their parents, as a family, and it was a most impressive sight to see that these people were so proud of the size of their families. That is a lesson we can learn in South Africa. Since the Minister put such great emphasis on the moral values, perhaps that is a suggestion he could follow, so that we could have such a family day where emphasis would be laid on the children and families would go to public places and also to religious places as a family, so that we can learn to be proud of our children. It is of course a fact that the dropping birth-rate in South Africa has as its reason the fact that the middle income groups find that the economic stresses and strains are too much for them. In spite of what the Minister said, this is a basic truth, that people wish to have for their children that which they could not have. That is one of the reasons why this side of the House says to the Minister: Give effect to what the Piek Commission recommended. It is true that the Commission said that the remedy does not lie only in granting family allowances. That is also perfectly true, and that is why I said that I was sorry that the other Ministers are not here. It is the people of the middle income group, people with high ideals, who think before the birth of every child. When they have one or two children they argue it out among themselves because they have to make sure that if they have a third or a fourth or a fifth child they can give to those children

ERRATA:

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which in the opinion of experts, just as eminent, is as great, if in fact not a greater cause of lung cancer.

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allowed diesel buses to be introduced.

what they wanted to give to the two they already have. It is true that the education of the children drains the financial resources of the parents, and when the child is small the parent thinks that already it is costing him so much. One small thing which I as a woman have noticed is that you will find a child in a junior school going to school in one uniform, but when he has to move to the secondary school there is a change of uniform and that child has to have a complete set of new clothes, which is an added expenditure. The Minister said a moment ago that hospitalization falls under the provinces, and I suppose this matter also falls under the provinces, but the Minister is there to give a lead to the provinces in this regard. There is the fact that the mother, before she has another baby, thinks of the maternity costs and of the chemist’s account, and she thinks that she has to buy a pram and a cot and perhaps she has to feed the child artificially. I wonder whether the Minister has ever considered how expensive it is when a child has to be fed artificially. The Minister has spoken of a change in the way of life. That is true. Today the mother does not stay at home; she has to go out to work, and not only has she got to work but we are appealing to her to work because we have such a scarcity of labour and therefore we are appealing to the women to step in. Has the Minister thought of it that when this mother who has two or three children and wants to go to work, she needs a creche or a place of safety where she can leave the children while she is working, even if it is only for the half-day the Minister spoke about? There are too few such places. We are a young nation and we must look to the older nations and see what they have done.

What is the position in Western Europe and in the British Isles? All those nations have found that to grant family allowances was a good investment for the nation and for the Government. In Germany there is a pro-rata family allowance. If there is a husband and wife and one child the allowance is so much; where the family consists of the husband and wife and two children the allowance is more and so it increases until there are five or six children. The hon. the Minister says that it has not been proved that in Europe the birth-rate has increased with the granting of family allowances, but, Sir, the opposite is true. In France in 1939 the birth-rate was 14.6. After the introduction of family allowances in 1947 the birthrate rose to 21 per cent, still much lower than ours; I grant the hon. the Minister that. Sir, I want to point out that those nations are not in the precarious position in which we are in this country. Twenty-one per cent may be all very well for France, but it is not all right for South Africa, not with the racial difficulties that we have here. Everywhere in the whole of Europe the granting of family allowances has been a feature of social progress. Sir, I could carry on in this way; I could quote what is being done in Belgium and France; I could also point out that whereas previously family allowances were granted in respect of children up to 18 years of age, the age limit has been stepped up in some countries to 21 years because it is realized that these children have to have education and especially higher education.

Sir, before I move the adjournment of the debate I want to draw attention to another feature and that is that in England the family allowance is paid not to the father but to the mother. This is a most interesting point. The hon. the Minister has said that it is the responsibility of the father to care for his children and for his household.

No, I say that the father is also responsible.

I would like to put it the other way. I would like to say that it is the responsibility for the father to care as far as possible for his household and where he cannot do so the mother must help. We recognize that that has become the case in modern living. It is interesting to note, because of the many malpractices that there are and because the hon. the Minister puts such high value on the moral aspect, that where there are malpractices the allowance in this case is paid to the mother. In South Africa we have family allowances. I have quoted the figures given to us by the hon. the Minister but they are not enough. I want to say that I have every sympathy with the hon. the Minister. This is not a job that he can tackle alone. This is a job which he must tackle jointly with the whole of the Cabinet. This is a job where the Minister of Housing comes in, where the Minister of Education comes in, where the Minister of Health and the Minister of Finance come into the picture. This is a task of great seriousness to a young country like ours and I feel with the Minister that an afternoon’s debate on this subject is not enough. We welcome the legislation of which the Minister gave notice this morning. We do not know what that legislation will contain. I hope it will ease the position as it exists in South Africa to-day. At this stage I should like to move—

Agreed to, debate adjourned.