I want to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to three items under this Vote. In the first place I want to draw the Minister’s attention to the Loan Votes where provision is made for the substantial sum of R6,000,000 for the Industrial Development Corporation for the provision of buildings, etc., in border areas. As the Minister knows, the I.D.C. was originally started by the United Party Government, and the whole object of the establishment of the I.D.C. was that it should virtually act as an industrial bank to assist industry to get on to its feet. Since this Government has been in power the whole function of the I.D.C. has been changed. In some cases the opinion has been growing that the I.D.C. is competing with industry; in other cases it has been regarded as virtually the instrument of the Government, without adequate parliamentary control. I would like the Minister to indicate the extent to which the moneys which are being provided for are being spent on machinery for border industries and also what proportion of Bantu labour will be attracted to these border industries as a result of that expenditure. In other words, what we would like to know from the Minister is what the proportion is of capital to labour. How much of this capital is represented by Bantu labour? It would be interesting to see how those figures compare with the figures recommended in the report of the Tomlinson Commission. I should also like the hon. the Minister to indicate what the criteria are for establishing a border industry. Does the Minister take into account the number of Bantu who will be provided with employment and, if so, would the Minister indicate what the position would be if the nature of that business was changed. The Minister knows from his experience that with modern technology a factory can be established to produce goods under a certain process, and that after a period of time that process may be changed as a result of the introduction of new techniques which may make it unnecessary to have the same volume of labour. By introducing more modern machinery you may have a low employee ratio instead of a high employee ratio. Under those circumstances we would like to know from the Minister what the policy of his Department is in regard to benefits which are given to border industries. One can well understand an industry being established with, say 1,000 employees, but as a result of new techniques, new technological developments and new mechanical aids, instead of that industry requiring 1,000 labour units, it might only require a few hundred. Would that industry then continue to enjoy the same benefits as formerly? As I understand the position, the criterion demanded by the Department before the establishment of a border industry is a high labour ratio. I would like to know from the Minister what he intends to do in regard to this matter. I think the Minister will agree that it is important that industries should know.

There is another problem to which I want to draw the attention of the Minister, and that is the problem of exports of South Africa semi-processed materials. I am not criticizing the recent private agreement entered into between South Africa and Japan whereby quantities of ore are being shipped to Japan, but what I want to know is this: Does the Minister envisage that the time will come when South Africa’s industrialists will be discouraged from shipping ore to foreign countries and when encouragement will be given to the manufacture of the finished goods in South Africa. As the Minister well knows, the ore which is being shipped to Japan is being used to help the Japanese steel industry and other industries to manufacture capital goods. I submit that the position with regard to Japan is very similar to the position in South Africa. The Japanese peasant population has been encouraged to become an industrial population because they have two particular assets there, namely manual dexterity and a temperament which enables them to do repetitive work for long periods. Those two facets are also demonstrated in South African industry. Our Bantu population has a high degree of manual dexterity and also the temperament to do repetitive work for long periods. It seems to me that what we should be doing here, as far as possible, while recognizing the interim demand for South African ore overseas, is to adopt the long-term view and to establish industries which can manufacture capital goods similar to the goods which are being manufactured in Japan at the present time, because it is only in that way that we can raise the general standard of living of all our people. I think this is a matter which should receive the urgent attention of the Minister’s Department.

There is another matter to which I wish to draw the attention of the Minister and that is the recent address given by Mr. Kitsoff, the recently appointed chairman of the Board of Trade and Industries, where he indicated that the policy of the Department was to have a pegging of wage rates and a pegging of profits. I want to know from the Minister whether he supports that statement made by Mr. Kitshoff. We have, of course, only seen the Press report, which may or may not be accurate. If the report is accurate—and I am assuming that it is accurate—will the Minister tell us whether the policy of the Department is to peg the margin of profits and whether it is the policy of his colleague, the Minister of labour, to peg wages. Will he also indicate what margin of profits he regards as reasonable. Some time ago the hon. the Minister mentioned a profit margin of 15 per cent. I want to know from the Minister whether he is prepared to base that 15 per cent on the present-day capital employed or on the original capital employed. Sir, we are concerned with the tendency in recent years to water down capital in many industries with the object of avoiding taxation. Instead of paying dividends they issue shares. As a result of the issuing of shares the capital has been watered down. With the issue of bonus shares tax has been avoided, and as a result of the share issues, these companies have a larger capital structure. I can see the Minister running into difficulties if the profit margin is based on the latest capital structure. This would, of course, adversely affect companies which have not issued new shares and which have a low capital structure. I submit that the Minister should give us some indication as to the policy of his Department in regard to these matters: First of all, the criteria adopted by his Department when the I.D.C. decides to assist in establishing a board of industry; what the criteria are with regard to the question of the ratio of labour to capital; thirdly, what his policy is in regard to the margin of profit and what his policy is in regard to the export of semi-processed materials which later on come back to South Africa as imports from overseas countries, and having South African raw materials as their basis. [Time limit.]

I briefly want to bring a small matter which I regard as being of the utmost importance to the 10,000 small farmers who concentrate on intensive tobacco production in South Africa, to the notice of the hon. the Minister. I refer to the importation of tobacco products from Southern Rhodesia to the Republic of South Africa. The farmers are very perturbed about what they regard as the undesirable importation of tobacco products such as tobacco leaf and particularly cigarettes. They are particularly perturbed because they think that since 1957 up to the present an ever increasing quantity of tobacco products have been imported. I just want to give the figures: In 1957 1,300,000 lbs. of cigarettes were imported; in 1958 1,400,000, in 1959 1,500,000, in 1960 1,500,000, in 1961 1,400,000, in 1962 1,700,000, in 1963 1,900,000 and in 1964 2,100,000. The farmers look upon these importations as a threat to their own local market. The tobacco manufacturing industry is also very perturbed about this. The question is what is the reason for this. I think the basic reason for this rapidly increasing importation is undoubtedly the unequality we find in the customs duty structure between Rhodesia and the Republic of South Africa. I trust the hon. the Minister will give some attention to this matter. I want to explain the position as follows: When we export one lb. of tobacco leaf to Rhodesia the customs duty is 50 cent; when tobacco leaf is imported to the Republic it is 35 cent. In other words, the Rhodesian tobacco farmers receive far greater protection than the tobacco farmers in the Republic. When we export one lb. of cigarettes to Rhodesia the customs duty is 142.5 cent Republic. When we export one lb. of cigarettes to Rhodesia the customs duty is 142.5 cent plus the 15 per cent ad valorem charge and when it is imported to the Republic it is only 44.4 cent. All the tobacco farmers of the Republic are asking is that they should receive the same protection as that given to the tobacco farmers in Rhodesia by their Government. I want it to be clearly understood that I have no objection to our giving some measure of assistance to Rhodesia; that is our neighbour State and we are all in agreement as far as that is concerned but when you have an unequal tariff structure it must of necessity adversely affect our cigarette and tobacco industry in the Republic of South Africa. I want to make it very clear that the existence and the continued existence of the tobacco industry in this country is inextricably tied up with the amount of protection it enjoys on our internal market. Internal prices are much higher to-day than prices outside and the tobacco farmer practically demands that the internal market be secured for him because it is more or less the only market on which he gets anything like an economic price. I submit to the Minister that the customs duty structure on the importation of cigarette and tobacco leaf, in comparison with that of Rhodesia, in actual fact favours the tobacco farmers of Rhodesia with what result? The result is that Rhodesian cigarettes are sold in the Republic at most favoured competitive prices and at a reasonable profit. Our import duty is in the interests of Rhodesia but not in the interests of our tobacco growers and it is in this regard that the great loss is suffered. The Rhodesian agreement will probably be discussed at a later stage of the Session and I want to ask the hon. the Minister to consider the points I have raised when that agreement is renewed. I want to say clearly that we are not against any assistance being given to Rhodesia. We have this Rhodesian agreement and I think the balance of trade is in our favour. I, therefore, do not want to be too criticial or too sensitive about this matter but I do want to point out that the farmers feel aggrieved and that is why I, as their representative, have raised the matter here. They are of opinion that we have an unequal and unfair customs duty structure and that during the past few years it has been further disturbed by Southern Rhodesia pushing up her customs duty from 116 cent to 142.5 cent per lb. of cigarettes. That is the friendly request I am making to the hon. the Minister. I know he can get in touch with the Rhodesian Government in the psychological and tactful way in which he always does so but I do hope that he will, on this occasion, succeed in according the tobacco farmers in the Republic protection as far as their local market is concerned.

As a non-smoker I appreciate the fact that the hon. member for Brits (Mr. J. E. Potgieter) who, I think, is a non-smoker as well is more concerned with production than anything else, and in that sense I agree with him. I fully agree that from the point of view of production South Africa should make as much advance as possible.

I want to point out that the difficulty that we are experiencing with regard to export markets is something which we envisaged last year. I think this matter was raised in the House with the Minister last year because we realized at that time that this difficulty would increase unless something was done about it. I agree that there is no need to panic about the gap in the balance of payments although it is a matter of great concern, particularly since we noticed that last week there was a further drop of R7,500,000. We also know that there has been a big drop in our wool exports; we know that we are obliged to import butter and that we may well have to import meat into the Republic. The drop in our Reserves is therefore a matter of concern to us but what disappoints us is that the hon. the Minister has not taken the most effective steps to deal with this question of improving the export position of the Republic, and more particularly to ensure that our present exports are maintained on a progressive scale. Sir, I know what work is being done by SAFTO because I had an opportunity of discussing this matter with them two years ago before I took a trip abroad. I discussed with them the possibility of diversifying our export market and of entering hitherto unexplored fields so that we will not have to rely largely on one or two export countries as we have had to do over a considerable number of years. Despite the fact that assistance is being given to SAFTO to enable them to promote export markets, I believe that there should be some proper planning between the State and the industrialists and manufacturers. I think the hon. the Minister and the Government should get together with industrialists and manufacturers at a conference to work out a proper plan. We know the difficulties that manufacturers face. On the other hand, I am also inclined to agree that manufacturers themselves may to a certain extent be at fault, but they need encouragement, and there should be proper planning which should be initiated at the highest level so that they can be satisfied that whatever steps they take to ensure that there is sufficient production both to meet local requirements and for export purposes, they will have the support of the Government behind them. We would like to know what is being done to assist exporters. Are we assisting them, for instance, with regard to initial profits in order to assist them with capital formation. Are we meeting them with regard to their expense accounts and with regard to the high cost that necessarily has to be incurred in exploring new markets. Sir, I was in Australia about two years ago, and I felt that here we had a field which could well be used as a springboard for exports to South East Asia. I know what difficulties we have in South East Asia but nevertheless I think these are difficulties which might possibly be overcome in time. In any event, we have to get a foothold in that part of the world as well as in the East. I understand that there is a fairly ready market particularly since certain exploratory work has been done in Hong Kong and further afield. But here we have a country which is very similar to South Africa, both in language and outlook, although there is a great difference in production costs. It could well become a springboard from which we could explore new markets in that part of the world. I tried to suggest to SAFTO that that should be done and I am just wondering whether the hon. the Minister has thought along these lines or not. I feel that there must be planning at Government level and not through an agency despite the fact that SAFTO is composed of the original association of exporters comprising a considerable number of manufacturers. Nevertheless it is not sufficient just to leave it to a body like this to develop by itself because in my view it has not got sufficient authority and sufficient support from the State.

Then there is another matter that I should like to raise with the hon. the Minister and that is in regard to our fishing industry. I believe that in this field we can become one of the world’s biggest exporters. We have fantastic fishing beds along our costs, and further north we have friendly neighbours who will allow us to exploit this particular industry. I remember that recently when the Minister of Mines decided to throw open the diamond fields in the north-western part of the Cape, tenders were called for from interested persons and a capital of approximately R50,000,000 was looked for in order to explore these diamond fields. I cannot help wondering why we do not do something along the same lines as far as our fishing industry is concerned. We are told that various companies have started exploiting this industry and that various concessions have been granted. The exploitation of our fishing industry is confined to just a few companies, and I believe that the fishing industry could become one of our greatest export industries in this country. It should therefore be encouraged as much as possible. I think we should follow the same lines as those followed in the case of the diamond industry recently. I think if we threw it open to tender and invited more and more people to participate in the exploitation of this industry, we may even attract the foreign capital for which we are crying out and which to-day is not coming on the scale on which it should be coming to a country which is as rich potentially as the Republic is. When one looks at the countries on the Mediterranean coasts one finds that there is such a dearth of fish that they would buy anything we produced. When you go further afield to Australia you find a similar position there. They have difficulty in supplying the fish which is required for daily consumption because of the fact that the shelf drops away from the coast so rapidly. We in South Africa, a country which in many senses is very similar to the South American eastern seaboard, have an abundance of this particular commodity, in all shapes and kinds and sizes. This is an industry which could earn the Republic many millions in foreign capital. We could also earn a considerable amount of money through the export of fish and thus improve our balance of payments position. I think we have heard too little about the manner in which the fishing rights along our coasts are being controlled and distributed. I think the hon. the Minister should take the Committee into his confidence as far as this particular matter is concerned. [Time limit.]

I think I should now try to reply to a number of questions raised in the course of the debate. I doubt whether it will be possible for me to reply to all the questions; that would take too long, but I shall try to reply to most of the questions, particularly those which affect matters of principle.

In the first place, I want to express my appreciation to hon. members on both sides of the House for the sober and efficient way in which they spoke in this debate. There were, of course, exceptions, but those one always has; there were cases where hon. members did not try to be constructive but destructive, and tried to cause sensation. Such persons, alas, we shall always have with us, like the poor. But I think that most members on both sides have thus far in this debate tried to be helpful and to approach the economic problems of the country objectively.

The questions put to me and the subjects dealt with here mainly fall into three categories. The first is the question of our balance of payments, our import and export position, and the position of our foreign reserves. The second group of questions concerns the border industries and the problems in connection with that. Then, thirdly, three were a number of sundry questions put by individual members in regard to particular matters. I just briefly want to deal with the last group of questions before proceeding to deal with our export position and the question of border industries.

I want to refer briefly to what was said by the hon. member for Ladybrand (Mr. Keyter) in regard to bags and fertilizer. In regard to bags, I just want to tell the hon. member that we are not considering the establishment of any new bag factory based on jute. If the day arrives when South Africa can produce her own fibres in sufficient quantities to enable us to manufacture our own bags, we shall devote attention to it, but not on the basis of jute.

In regard to the synthetic bag referred to by the hon. member, I just want to say that we should first give that bag an opportunity to prove itself. Up to now this bag has not quite proved itself yet as a grainbag and does not as yet comply with all the standards of efficiency.

The hon. member also asked a question in regard to the price of fertilizer. I just want to tell him that my Department every year, through our cost accountants, carefully goes into the profits of the manufacturers of fertilizer. We allow them a reasonable percentage of profit on their capital; we allow certain expenses, and we very carefully scrutinize the expenses in connection with sales. I think the hon. member can take it that we guard against any unnecessary increase in prices, and that we try to keep prices low in the interest of the farmer, but once we determine a basis we have no control over the manufacture of fertilizer. We cannot prescribe how they should spend their money.

The hon. member for Brits (Mr. J. E. Potgieter) referred to the imports of cigarettes from Rhodesia. I want to ask the hon. member to leave this point standing over. He knows that there is a motion on the Order Paper in my name in which the House will be asked to approve the trade agreement between South Africa and Rhodesia, and we shall be able to discuss the whole question of the imports of cigarettes within the context of our trade relations with Rhodesia when that motion is debated.

The hon. member for Florida (Mr. Miller) referred to the development of our fisheries. I agree with the hon. member that we have a tremendous potential source of income around our coasts, but I do want to point out that our fisheries have expanded tremendously in recent years, with the result that to-day we have one of the greatest fishing industries in the world. There are still possibilities for further expansion. From our side we shall do everything in our power to stimulate sound development of that industry; we shall do that, but we shall have to do so judiciously without harming our fish resources and without the same thing taking place that has happened in other countries, namely the fish resources being harmed by over-catching.

I now come to the two most important points raised in this debate, namely the question of our exports, our balance of payments and our dwindling reserves. I want to give hon. members the assurance that the Government is taking this matter of our dwindling reserves very seriously, but that there is not the slightest reason yet for panic in that regard. Our reserves are in fact decreasing, and quite rapidly just recently, but they are still fairly high; in fact they are much, much higher than they have been before in our history. These reserves are there to be used; they are there to be used particularly in times, such as these, of high conjuncture and fast development. That is why one needs reserves, and in view of the fact that we are experiencing fast economic development, it is obvious that our reserves will decrease. But if we try to analyse the basic cause of the position in which we find ourselves, we will see that the first main reason is the tremendous imports during the past two years. During the past two years, 1962 and 1963, our imports increased by 52 per cent. That is a tremendous increase within two years, which was bound to have its effect on our reserves. But what is more, while our imports increased, our exports did not increase to the same extent. If we ask ourselves the reason for this imbalance between imports and exports, the main reason for it is the tremendous economic development which has taken place in South Africa during the past two years and more. These dwindling reserves are not a sign of economic retrogression; they are particularly a sign of fast economic growth.

The boom which started a few years ago is still continuing, in spite of the ideological policy of this Government which is condemned by hon. members opposite, and in spite of the so-called lack of confidence in South Africa referred to by the hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje). This tremendous economic growth results in the large-scale importation of raw materials and capital goods. Any member who takes the trouble to analyse the imports over the past year will find that in respect of capital goods—machinery, chemicals and industrial raw materials—the imports in those three items increased by about R230,000,000, and that those three items alone constitute almost 60 per cent of our total imports. It is the tremendous industrial growth in our country which results in an increased demand for capital goods and raw materials. But we should also remember that with this industrial growth a tremendous amount of money has come into circulation, and with this increase in the amount of money in circulation there was an increased demand for manufactured goods, which in turn had the result, on the one hand, of more manufactured goods being imported, but it also had the effect of locally manufactured goods being used here on a much larger scale than in the past. The figures also show that consumption last year increased by 14 per cent. Therefore we have on the one hand a tremendous import and on the other hand a tremendous local demand for goods, with the result that goods which we would otherwise have exported are being consumed locally.

In addition, during the last few years we have had an unprecedented drought. The hon. member for Jeppes asked me whether we knew what the drought cost South Africa in terms of foreign currency. There are newspapers in South Africa which put the total at R 150,000,000. It is difficult to calculate the costs, but my estimate is that during the past year we lost appreciably more than R 100,000,000 in foreign currency alone as the result of the drought. Not only did we not have enough maize and sugar and wool to export, but we even had to import goods which we had always exported, commodities such as cheese and butter. The drought has had a tremendous effect on our reserves; I should say to the extent of at least R 100,000,000. But there is also another matter which we should not lose sight of, and that is the ample credit granted by the banks in South Africa, which strengthens the purchasing power. As the result of the increased purchasing power, the demand for both imported and locally manufactured goods was of course increased. Last year the commercial banks increased their loans and discountings by R346,000,000, i.e. by 40 per cent in one year. In the first quarter of this year the commercial banks already increased their loans and discounting by R101,000,000. I say that it is this tremendous creation of credit by the banks which is largely responsible for this tremendous purchasing power being created in South Africa, this great demand for local goods, and it is that which to a large extent stimulated this development.

Let us state it very clearly: South Africa is developing faster than it ought to. Every country has limits to its development. Whether it is America or Italy* or Britain or Japan, there are certain limits of development which no country can exceed without being faced with difficulties and bottle-necks. Our development over recent years, of 10 per cent to 12 per cent, with a real gross production increase of 1¾ per cent for the last three years, is an extraordinarily fast development, and we must feel the effects somewhere, if not in manpower then in our foreign reserves. The solution for this problem does not lie merely in import control. We may perhaps be able to do something towards solving it by means of import control, but that does not by any means get to the root of the matter. The answer is to slow down the economic development of South Africa, to ensure that the demand for imported goods and locally manufactured goods is decreased to some extent. That is why the Government took the steps already announced on increasing the bank rate and the liquidity requirements of banks. Those measures have not yet had the opportunity to work effectively.

I take it that their effect will be felt within the next few months, and if within the next few months they start working effectively the moment will come when the demand for imported goods will be somewhat reduced and more goods will be available for export, so that the gap will be filled. I think the indications are there that these measures are beginning to have an effect. We see it on the Stock Exchange and in the sales of certain durable consumer goods. We see it in the motor market where the sales of vehicles last month were 9¾ per cent lower than in April 1964. We can expect clear signs of a slowing-down in our growth, something which peculiarly enough we need in South Africa, because we have been developing too fast.

I just want to add that in promoting our exports, we as a Government experience many difficulties in so far as local exporters and manufacturers are concerned. You may ask, Sir, what we do in regard to exports. We do much. Perhaps there is still much more which we can do, but what is the use of trying to do more if the goods for export are not there, if the goods are being consumed locally? Before we can really start exporting we must have the goods, and we must make those goods available by dampening the local demand for them. Then our local traders, our businessmen, our exporters and our manufacturers must also be more willing to export. The hon. member for Jeppes is quite right in saying that many of our manufacturers are not keen to export; that they do not want to do so because they have a market right on their doorstep. They do not have the capacity, nor do they want to make arrangements to have that capacity; they are not willing to export. The hon member is correct in telling them: Export or stagnate. I think we shall see in a few months that the monetary measures which have been applied are beginning to bite; we shall see that less is being imported in the way of capital goods and raw materials and that more goods will be available for export, and that we will also see that certain of our industries which are now expanding their capacity for production will make available more goods for export.

What do we as a Government do? I want to say immediately that our Government is moving in all spheres. We have the exhibitions we hold in other countries; we advertise. And if the hon. member for Jeppes asks me why the figures for this year are lower than for the previous year, then the simply reply is that certain exhibitions were held last year in various parts of the world but have not been held this year. We support SAFTO. The hon. member for Vereeniging asked us to suggest to SAFTO that they should give R2 for every R1 we give. I am afraid that is impossible; we are struggling to get a rand for a rand from the industrialists in this effort we are making.

We have revised our export register and today it contains the names of 5,000 products and of 3,600 exporters. It is available to people right throughout the world who want to know what we have for export. We have our export insurance facilities; we have introduced new financial facilities for capital exports; we have our foreign commercial service which we are still expanding and we are opening offices in new places as far as possible, where there is a demand and where opportunities exist.

In reply to the hon. member for Parktown (Mr. Emdin), I may say that we have appointed people from outside. We are satisfied with their services. We have already got people from outside the Public Service to enter our service, but when making appointments abroad we always have to bear in mind the interests of our people who have made the Public Service their career, so that we do not harm their careers and their future. We have taxation concessions in respect of exports. I also want to mention that we have a policy in South Africa in regard to industries which replace imports. It is not merely a question of promoting exports but also of replacing imports. This policy is very successful. I may point out that in respect of important textile goods five years ago, we manufactured 26 per cent of our consumption locally, whereas last year we manufactured locally 50 per cent of the increased consumption. In this way the Government is giving its careful attention in many spheres to promoting exports.

I ask that others should co-operate. Everybody should co-operate. I ask that the businessmen should co-operate in respect of greater efficiency, in order to produce more and cheaper products. I ask for better organization; I ask that the businessmen should make a contribution to our purposeful planning for exports and that they should be reasonable and moderate in regard to their profits. If businessmen do not want to co-operate, if they do not want to co-operate voluntarily in promoting exports, then the Government will regretfully be compelled to intervene and to take any steps it may consider necessary. I ask the workers also to do certain things, with all the respect we have for them. I ask that they should be moderate and reasonable in their wage demands and that they should correlate their wage demands with productivity, otherwise there will be inflation from which they themselves will suffer and as the result of which the prosperity of the country will be reduced. We ask the public as a whole to save more in this time of high consumption. Save for prosperity; save to get the capital which we will need in future; save to get the goods for export. The public can make a big contribution by saying on a large scale.

The hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Hope-well) asked me about the exports of raw materials. It is all part of our policy of industrial development that the raw materials which we have here should be processed, whether by way of making ferrochrome or ferromanganese or petrol out of coal. That is our policy. I think the hon. member will agree with me that although there is still much to be done in the direction of processing our raw materials, we are on that road and that great progress has already been made.

Finally, I just want to announce that SAFTO, in respect of the promotion of exports, is organizing commodity group boards. They want to group together the makers of various commodities, whether it be shoes or clothing, into certain groups, in order to discuss their problems together. I just want to read a statement which puts the matter clearly—

In other words, SAFTO is organizing the various groups of exporters into boards so that each group can discuss its own problems and evolve a common plan of action.

The hon. member for Jeppes and the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Ross) asked me about the Kennedy Round. In that respect I just want to say that, as hon. members know, there is the idea that there should be a linear reduction in import tariffs right throughout the world, an “across the board reduction”, as it is called; in other words, that a large scale reduction in import tariffs should take place right throughout the world, and the figure of 50 per cent was mentioned. That would apply to agricultural products and industrial goods. It would apply in respect of measures which are not tariff measures, measures which are used within a country to protect its industries. A start was made with that idea but many problems arose. There is the problem of agriculture and the problem of disparities. In certain countries there is an import tariff of, say, 80 per cent on a product, while in another it is 10 per cent. It would be unfair to expect both countries to make the same reduction, say 50 per cent. Those problems have not been solved yet, but the countries concerned are busy at the moment negotiating with one another on a confidential basis. South Africa is not participating in those negotiations. South Africa is regarded as a country with a particular economic system and trade structure, together with Canada, Australia and New Zealand. We have always fought against South Africa being regarded as an under-developed country, but also against its being regarded as an over-developed country because we are between the two, and we have obtained recognition of that. Because South Africa is regarded as a country with a particular economic trade structure, we are not participating in those negotiations and we are not expected to make the same linear reduction in tariffs. But we are expected to make offers. It is obvious that if all the nations of the world were to reduce their import tariffs by, say, 50 per cent we would also benefit in regard to our exports to every particular country, as compared with the manufacturers in those countries. We shall have to offer something as compensation for what we are receiving. Some time ago we drew up the list of offers we were making and sent it to our team of negotiators in Geneva as study material. That document will again come back to us for final consideration. That is what we offer as our contribution towards the linear across-the-board reduction in tariffs. In the drafting of this list, I can assure the hon. member, we sought the co-operation of organized industry. When we take the next step—and 16 September is the date on which the final documents are to be lodged—we shall be prepared again to consult with organized industry in the hope that the contributions we get from them will be a little more fruitful.

The hon. members for Jeppes and Pinetown questioned me in regard to certain remarks made by Mr. Kitshoff in regard to an income policy. The question was asked as to whether the Government had decided to appoint a board which would control income, profits, wages, etc. I just want to say that we, as a Government, have devoted no attention to it yet and that we have taken no resolution in that regard. In other countries such as England and Holland there is an income policy, but circumstances in South Africa are very different from those in the countries mentioned, and we should be careful not to do things which are perhaps fitting there but not here. One can only apply an income policy if there is a very large degree of unanimity. It is difficult to apply it in a country where there is great pressure on the labour force. It is difficult to regulate wages and it is also very difficult to regulate profits because profits to some extent constitute the source of capital. I am going into the matter and I think hon. members will agree with me and be satisfied when I say that we have taken no decision yet, nor have we moved in that direction yet.

I now come to the last subject, that of border areas. It is very interesting to me to see how the United Party comes to this House every year to launch attacks, on ideological grounds, against the Government’s policy of promoting border industries. They say they believe in decentralization. The hon. member for East London (North) (Mr. Field) had much to say yesterday about the “old United Party policy of decentralization”. As I understand the hon. member, he very much wants us to establish more industries in that corridor between the Ciskei and the Transkei where East London is situated, but he wants those industries to be established under the flag of “the old United Party policy of decentralization” and not under that of border industry development. In other words, a factory like that of Cyril Lord or any of the other factories we still want to establish there should rather stay away if they fall under the policy of border industry development and not under the “old United Party policy of decentralization”. Does the hon. member not know the adage to the effect that a rose by any other name smells just as sweet? Can the hon. member for East London (North) tell me this: Can he mention a few industries to me which were decentralized under this old United Party policy of decentralization?

Good Hope Textiles.

I know that was established, but was it established with Government assistance?

Yes.

We cannot argue about this matter, but I challenge hon. members opposite to mention any industry—I do not know if they can mention more industries than Good Hope Textiles—which in terms of their policy was consciously decentralized, one which did not establish itself.

Last year, if I remember correctly, the Leader of the Opposition said in this House that the United Party believed in decentralization and that if they came into power they would effect measures to achieve large-scale decentralization of industries. I think that was an important statement made by the Leader of the Opposition. In doing so, they intimated in the first place that it was undesirable for all industries to be centralized in certain parts of the country and that it was essential for industries to be spread over various areas of the country. Moreover, the Leader of the Opposition intimated that he was prepared to effect measures to decentralize industries to areas where they would not have gone themselves, for economic reasons. I now ask myself: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition and his party are prepared to decentralize to various areas of the country in order, say, to keep the Whites on the platteland. Is that correct? But those hon. members are not prepared to decentralize to keep the non-Whites in their homelands. [Interjections.] Hon. members are prepared to take steps to prevent the Whites going to the cities in large numbers. We find no fault with that. But they are not prepared to take steps to prevent the non-Whites going to the cities in large numbers. That is the difference. It seems to me that we are agreed that industries should be taken to those places where there is a need for them due to certain factors like, e.g. raw materials or available manpower. We say we decentralized because the manpower is available there. It is particularly available in the non-White areas. We bring the factory to the worker instead of bringing the worker to the factory. Let us be very clear on this point. Any policy of decentralization is based on more than economic considerations. Whatever positive steps a Government may take to transfer an industry from a metropolitan area to a rural area are not taken for purely economic reasons, because if the economic reasons were there that factory would have gone there by itself; it therefore does so for socio-political reasons

Ideological reasons.

I do not know what the hon. member means by that big word “ideological”. Then it is ideological on the part of Holland to take factories to the north of Holland because there is unemployment there; then it is ideological of Italy to take factories to the south of Italy because there is unemployment there: then it is ideological on the part of Spain to set in motion special works in certain areas of Spain because there is poverty and unemployment there, and then it is ideological of Britain to take factories to the so-called depressed areas. I say it is done for socio-political reasons, and in most cases those reasons are based on the availability of labour. That is what our whole policy is based on, the availability of labour. Our policy is to take the factory to the labour rather than to bring the labour to the factory.

May I put a question? Is the position not that in those countries they pay the same wages in the factories which are decentralized as those paid in the large cities?

I do not know whether the hon. member has asked a question or made a statement. I can just tell him that I doubt whether the same wages are paid. If the same wages are in fact not paid, then I know for a fact that workers in certain areas, e.g. of Spain and Germany, are granted other privileges which make up for their wages. The factories grant certain concessions, concessions which are to the benefit of the factory, to attract people there.

May I put a further question to the hon. the Minister? If it is his policy to bring the industries to the area where the most unemployed labour is, why were so few industries brought to East London?

It is our policy. That policy was put into operation a few years ago; we are busy establishing increasingly more factories near East London. Quite a few are on the cards, which we want to take there. If, however, we do not get the support of those hon. members, how are we to do it?

Quite a few questions were asked in this regard and I hope hon. members will forgive me if I do not reply to all of them. I could detain hon. members for a long time, but I do not wish to do so.

I want to come back to what I regard as one of the most important points raised in this debate, viz. the Cyril Lord factory. Before doing so, however, I just want to say that the I.D.C. has never yet exceeded its functions in order to support border industries. It is quite within its functions to do so. In connection with South West, where we considered that it might perhaps exceed its functions, we passed special legislation in this House last year to give it that right. Unfortunately I cannot go into those matters now, but I now want to come to a very important matter, viz. the attacks which were made here on the firm Cyril Lord. I do not know why attacks are made from time to time in this House and in the Other Place on this particular firm. Is it perhaps because it is a border industry? Or is it because Cyril Lord came to South Africa at a time when everybody showed a lack of confidence in South Africa and when the hon. members over there themselves had no confidence in the economic future of South Africa? Here we have a firm which uprooted itself in Britain and brought with it almost 200 people, highly qualified technicians, whom they brought to South Africa to start a brand new industry here. The hon. member for Springs (Mr. Taurog) had much to say about this matter. I just want to say that the hon. member for Springs is a man who has certain capabilities, but in recent years he has made a practice of getting up in this House and trying to reveal scandals in order to cause a sensation. The hon. member is a comparatively young member and I do not want to hurt him, but I want to tell him this in all seriousness. If a man tries in this House continually to raise this sort of sensational thing, he might perhaps get headlines in the Press, and he might perhaps cause a sensation—it is unfortunate that the Press this morning, both the Afrikaans-and the English-language newspapers, should have given headlines particularly to this negative and sensational matter. The hon. member may perhaps arouse sensation and he may perhaps reach the headlines, but I want to tell the hon. member in all friendliness that that type of behaviour is not the basis on which to build a stable parliamentary career.

Why not?

The hon. member alleged that we had brought the Cyril Lord factory here for ideological reasons. That was not the reason, Sir. Cyril Lord was brought to South Africa because we use about 30,000,000 to 40,000,000 yards of poplin a year and there was not a single manufacturer of poplin in the country. The Board of Trade and Industries advertised five years ago and asked whether there were industrialists who wanted to manufacture poplin in South Africa because there was a great need for it, and that they should disclose their plans and their needs so that the Board could investigate the matter, but no South African industrialist applied. But Cyril Lord did so. He showed confidence in South Africa, and so did his people by coming here, and we were prepared, and the I.D.C. was prepared, to assist Cyril Lord to establish that new industry, for which the hon. member for East London (North) ought to be grateful, because that was the beginning of the upsurge in East London.

With how much money were they assisted by the I.D.C.?

Let me say very clearly that I do not intend discussing the financial position of a private company over the floor of the House. I shall not do so. I shall not discuss the financial position of an industry which is a border industry, or of any other industry assisted by the I.D.C., across the floor of the House. What precedent would that not create?

It is the taxpayers’ money.

Does the hon. member want to tell me that because the I.D.C. has supported dozens of businesses in which it holds shares which it bought with the money of the taxpayers, therefore the affairs of all those companies should be discussed in this House? The hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje) is a business man, and I do not know whether any of his businesses have also received assistance—it does not concern me— but I do not believe that he will not agree with me when I say that we cannot allow private businesses to be discussed here in regard to their financial position merely because they are assisted by the I.D.C.

The hon. member for Springs spoke very disparagingly about that business. I want to admit that there were and are difficulties, and that it has its problems. Any factory has teething troubles in the beginning, particularly a factory which has to work with raw, unskilled labour.

And old machinery.

We are talking a little too fast, my friend; wait a minute! Any factory has its difficulties, and so has the Cyril Lord factory also had its difficulties. The hon. member for Springs said they could not sell their products because the quality was bad. Yes, in the beginning certain of its materials were not of the right quality, but we know that at the moment it manufactures some of the best quality poplin. That is admitted. The hon. member said that the Cyril Lord factory has 15,000,000 yards of poplin lying there. Sir, there are 2,000,000 yards, not 15,000,000. The 15,000,000 yards is what is lying in all the factories in South Africa. The hon. member referred to the quality. I say that there were teething troubles in regard to the quality, but those are over. But the great difficulty experienced by the Cyril Lord organization was that when certain clothing manufacturers got to know about the Cyril Lord factory they imported just as much poplin as they could in order not to have to buy from him. To-day the position is that certain manufacturers using poplin are sitting with 15,000,000 to 16,000,000 yards and the clothing manufacturers are sitting with a full year’s supply of poplin. That is the reason why it could not be sold. It was not a question of quality. The reason is that it could not sell it because those people over-imported and they are sitting with more than a year’s supply. Can hon. members therefore realize why we took steps to control the imports of poplin? I would have done that for any factory and not only for Cyril Lord. We have done that in the past already in connection with other factories, and we shall do so in future also in regard to other factories if there are enough raw materials of a certain kind in South Africa. Then we will, if necessary, apply control so that no raw materials will be imported before sufficient use has been made of the local raw materials. That is not an embargo. It is merely control.

The hon. member made the allegation that the protection given by us to Cyril Lord increased the prices of shirts and pyjamas, etc. by 20 per cent. Where does the hon. member get those figures from? The information we have shows that the average price of an average shirt in South Africa is increased by ll¼ cents when it is made of South African poplin, and when it is made from imported poplin it is increased by 18¾ cents, an increase of 3 per cent to 6 per cent. Is that abnormal protection for an industry? Those are the figures, and not 20 per cent, as was stated by the hon. member. It is just as far from the truth as the 15,000,000 yards which he says Cyril Lord has on hand.

The hon. member said here that this company was practically under judicial management. I think it is scandalous that such statements should be made here! It is just sowing suspicion. It is true that one of the directors of Cyril Lord who is employed by the I.D.C. is temporarily at that factory, particularly to give advice in regard to marketing to people who do not know the South African conditions. That is customary. It constantly happens in industry.

What is wrong with it?

There is nothing wrong with it. But to say here that it is under judicial management! Sir, I think it is a disservice to Cyril Lord and a disservice to the workers there, a disservice to East London and a disservice to South Africa.

I now come to another point. The hon. member for Transkeian Territories (Mr. Hughes) said that -the machinery was old. Last year one of the United Party members in the Other Place also attacked me and said that the Government had paid too much for this old machinery. “The Government has bought a pup”. When I asked him what the Government had paid, he said he did not know. That hon. member over -there agrees that the machinery is old. Sir, to a large extent this was machinery which had been used before, but it had been approved by the I.D.C. and by independent experts in Britain, and what was not good enough was not allowed, and the machinery which came to South Africa was the same machinery which makes poplin of the highest quality in Britain, so much so that it is being exported to the United States. But what is more, 60 per cent of that machinery is brand new. It has just recently been bought, -the most modern machinery in Hanover. The used machinery is completely efficient and has manufactured the best quality poplin in England, which has been exported to the U.S.A. But the hon. member does not want to understand. I just want to refer to the fact that -the Daily Despatch had a special investigation made. The Daily Despatch are certainly not people who are well disposed towards our policy, and it had a special investigation made in regard to this machinery and sent its own people to do so, and the reply on 7 March 1964 was: “Nothing obsolete about Arnoldton textile mill”. I can read out the whole report here. According to this report, there is nothing wrong. But the hon. member for Springs read something in a newspaper and he had to say something here, and apart from the other things he said in regard to the higher prices and the quantities of material lying there, which were untrue, this allegation of his was also taken out of the air.

You also made mistakes when you were Minister of Mines.

The hon. member must not run away now. I am dealing with facts. The hon. member made absolutely wrong statements in regard to the quality of the machinery. I want to conclude by saying that I received reports from East London this morning to the effect that the public of East London, English as well as Afrikaans-speaking, supporters of the Opposition as well as our supporters, are very indignant about the statements of the hon. member. And those people are not asking me to put the matter right; they are asking that the United Party should put it right. The people ask that the members who represent East London in this House should get up and put the matter right.

I was in East London this morning still, but I heard nothing in that regard.

As a Government, we shall take all the necessary steps which are reasonable and wise to ensure the future of that factory, and I am going to resume my seat now, and I ask the hon. members representing East London—I see one of them is not here now—to get up and to fight for the interests of their city here also.

During the few moments at my disposal I wish to deal with the development of our fishing industry along the South Coast. Our fish banks along the South Coast may perhaps not be quite as rich in fish and in such a great variety of fish as those along the West Coast but with proper planning and the necessary harbour facilities a fish industry with a tremendous potential can be built up there. It is practically of primary importance that we develop a fish industry there because that may be the first step to inject some life into an extremely economically depressed and inactive area. There are many unemployed Coloureds and they are good fishermen. The Whites leave on a large scale and a lively fish industry may to some extent counter that depopulation process. At the same time we shall be producing an excellent export article whereby the economy of the country as a whole will benefit. We are aware of the fact that planning is being done as far as Mossel Bay and Still Bay are concerned. We are very pleased about that but we do want to ask the hon. the Minister to expedite that as much as possible. It is absolutely essential for the economy of that area to extend the facilities as soon as possible, or to create completely new ones, seeing that the existing ones are obsolete, have served their purpose or are actually primitive. I think, for instance, of the way the fishing boats have to be pulled out on dry land every day, how those boats are damaged in the process and how that limits the fishermen to the smaller type of boat. If a proper shelter can be provided where the boats can anchor at night and in rough weather the fishermen can use bigger boats and go out in rough weather or stay out at sea the whole night, something which is impossible at the moment. Many of them have already, under the existing impossible conditions, paid the supreme penalty nature demands.

I want to plead with the Minister and his Department for something else. When the fishing harbours have indeed been completed at the places I have mentioned I hope local interests will be properly protected. We do not want the position to arise where the smaller and poorer boat-owners who have been struggling for years and have often only made a meagre living, will be pushed out by the larger fishing boats of the rich companies so that they will have to withdraw from that industry on which they are dependent for their living. We shall, therefore, appreciate it if the Department would, in due course, issue a statement well in advance in which those people who fish on a small scale are given the assurance that they will indeed be protected when better facilities which will also be used by larger boats are provided.

The hon. the Minister has replied fully to most of my questions and I am grateful to him for his reply. I just want to point out that there is one question to which he has not replied and that is my question as to what plans were devised by the Minister, together with the industrialists, when they discussed the question of the increase in the prices of large numbers of manufactured products.

Let me admit immediately that the hon. the Minister gave a fine analysis of the whole problem which I tried to outline here, the problem of the rate of decline in our reserves together with the fact that to a certain extent our exports are not keeping pace with our imports. We all realize, of course, that that is the position, but I think our criticism of the Minister’s speech is that he offered no solution to the House and to the country. The hon. the Minister says, of course, that the large-scale imports are due to the rapid economic growth of the country. That is a fact of which we are aware but I want to remind the hon. the Minister that his colleague, the Minister of Finance, told us a little while ago that the rapid growth experienced by this country over the past four or five years had in fact been planned by the Government. Well, if they planned this upsurge one would have expected them to take into account the greater volume of imports that would necessarily result from an economic boom. Surely the hon. the Minister knows as well as I do that every rand by which the national income rises causes imports to increase to a certain extent, and if the boom that we have been experiencing here over the past few years was actually planned by the Government, then surely they should also have foreseen this increase in imports. We on this side of the House, of course, do not believe that the boom was planned; we believe that to a certain extent it was just fortuitous; that it was caused by circumstances entirely beyond the control of the Government. But any rapid economic growth inevitably results in a greater volume of imports. Nor do I blame the Government for the difficult position in which they find themselves with regard to exports. It is due to a series of circumstances over which they have as little control as they have over the circumstances which have led to this rapid economic growth over the past four years. As I have pointed out to the Minister, there is also the fact that there is no longer such a rapid increase in our gold production which is now beginning to reach a fixed level. Then there is also the fact that we have had a very serious drought which the Minister says will cost us R 100,000,000 or more from the point of view of earning foreign currency. Then there is the fact that there is a retardation as a result of the shortage of international liquidity in the economy of the world as a whole. We appreciate all these factors and we realize that they inevitably create difficulties in South Africa. But I do not think that this is such a short-term problem, as the Minister apparently thinks, and that it will resolve itself. I should have thought that a Government which believes in planning and which does not adopt a sort of laisser faire attitude would have acted sooner. Let me point out, for example, that the Minister has tacitly admitted to-day that to a large extent the planning of the boom, if indeed there was planning, was defective, because the Minister says that the rate of growth over the past three years has really been too rapid; that is what is his argument amounts to. In other words, the hon. the Minister who says that the Government planned the boom admits that the Government made a great mistake in planning for this unduly rapid growth, is planning for a rate of growth which is faster than we can allow having regard to our natural resources, our manpower and our capital resources. I expected to hear from the Minister that they had a specific plan to check the rapid decline in our reserves, because my main attack on the Minister in this debate was based on the fact that I should have thought that the Government, faced as it is with this situation, would have taken far more active steps to promote exports. The Minister of Finance, for example, lost a golden opportunity in his Budget of promoting exports by means of fiscal measures.

Sir, nothing that the Minister has said here today will alter my opinion that a certain amount of blame also rests on the Minister himself and his Department inasmuch as they have failed to take active steps to give greater encouragement to exports. We realize the Minister’s difficulty, of course, and that is that we have such a large market in South Africa that there is no natural incentive for industries to export. But it is the function of the Government to see to it that the necessary incentive is provided.

What about putting forward a few ideas?

Sir, I have many ideas, but I am not the Government. After all, it is the Government’s duty to devise plans to provide the necessary incentives. I have already said that the Department, having regard to all the difficulties that face us, is not providing adequate services to people who want to export, who are prepared to export. In this country if one wants information, one cannot simply pick up the telephone as one can in England, to which I have already referred. In England, simply by picking up the telephone and dialling the Board of Trade one can get all the information one wants in connection with the tariffs position, the position with regard to payment in any particular country, the type of market in that country, etc. This is one of the services that the Government ought to establish for the industrialists but which has apparently not yet been established in this country. I have already ‘pointed out that one would have thought that in this period which lies ahead of us, a period in which great difficulties will be experienced by South Africa as far as exports are concerned, the amount of money that is spent on this type of service, which should be provided to furnish this type of information to industrialists, would have been increased, but we find that the amount is not being increased at all. Must we assume that this service has been perfect in the past, or must we assume that money has been wasted in the past and that they are now able to provide better services with the same amount of money? These are the only conclusions that one can draw. I repeat that the Minister has given us an excellent analysis of the difficulties facing South Africa, but he has outlined no plan to us; after all, one is supposed to make some sort of plan when one gets into difficulties. The Minister has given us no plan as to what we can do to overcome this particular difficulty.

I also want to say a few words with regard to the question of decentralization. The hon. the Minister has tried to ridicule the allegation made here by the hon. member for East London (North) (Mr. Field) that the United Party Government followed a policy of decentralization. May I just point out to the Minister that the first step towards the decentralization of industries in South Africa was taken by the United Party Government under General Smuts. I refer to the Cape of Good Hope textile industry, to which the hon. member for East London (North) referred. Again we had the case of Fynwal at Uitenhage and the case of Masonite at Escourt. That was the beginning, just after the establishment of the Industrial Development Corporation, and just think how long it took before the present Government came along with a process of decentralization. A period of almost ten years elapsed before we had any further decentralization.

It is not correct, therefore, to say that decentralization only got under way when the Government introduced its policy of border industries. If the hon. the Minister had said that in establishing border industries the sole motivation was decentralization we would have had no quarrel with him, but our quarrel with the Minister in respect of the policy of border industries is that it does not necessarily follow that decentralization is motivated purely by economic considerations. To a certain extent, of course, the Minister is right in saying that the question of decentralization also has its sociological aspects, but the sociological aspects should never completely overshadow the economic aspects. Even where one gets decentralization in a country like England, Italy, etc., they justify it entirely on economic grounds, because they simply say that in the case of the large metropolitan areas one does not count the indirect economic costs of industrialization, and when one makes a comparison one finds that the indirect costs of concentration makes it an economic proposition to decentralize. That is not necessarily the motivation in this country. I concede to the Minister that to a large extent the establishment of what we call border industries in South Africa is, of course, simply the establishment of industries outside of our present large industrial complexes. Strictly speaking, of course, it is not a question of border industry development. We are not bringing industries to the borders of the Native areas; we are simply bringing industries to the borders of the large industrial complexes of the so-called White cities in South Africa. [Time limit.]

As one who is intensely interested in the decentralization of industries I want to thank the hon. the Minister very sincerely for the new industrial plan which has been announced in terms of which industrial growth-points are to be created in White areas, but outside border areas. I shall appreciate it, however, if the hon. the Minister would either now or at some later appropriate stage, enlarge on this plan in view of the fact that, in my humble opinion, certain points in regard to this plan still have to be cleared up. Although it is obvious that this plan will be gratefully accepted and welcomed there are nevertheless certain points which are not clear. According to the plan these places in the so-called White platteland, where there is unemployment amongst Indians and Coloured, will be granted some of the concessions which are granted to border areas in order to combat that unemployment. But only in respect of one area, namely, the George-Knysna area, is unemployment amongst White women advanced as the reason why that area should enjoy border area benefits. On the face of it it would, therefore, appear that it is only necessary for an area outside a Bantu area and a border area to build up a surplus reservoir of Coloured and Indian labour to claim the additional benefits which have been announced.

I suggest that if no further qualification is required to be able to enjoy these benefits the position may arise where certain areas may artificially build up a reservoir of surplus labour, that the Government will have to follow the de facto position and that a stage will be reached where there will be hardly any planning. I want to ask the hon. the Minister this, and then I shall resume my seat: Is it not of the utmost importance to the White platteland that, instead of following that policy in places where there is surplus labour, the Government deliberately declare certain central areas, large towns in the White platteland, towns which have the potential, areas around which industrial development can take place? I think that will be in the best interests of planning, and I humbly suggest that if that is done better planning will follow.

I want to refer to the valuable work done by the permanent comittee for the establishment of industries and border area development. I also want to refer to their report for last year. I have reason to believe that the work done by this committee will soon lead to the policy of the Government being implemented, namely, to develop the border areas and to attract more industries there. I also want to express my gratitude to the Government for having decided that the Pietersburg complex should be one of those growth-points. I do not think it is necessary for me to point out that there is a large potential of labour in the Native Trust areas in the Northern Transvaal. A large percentage of the Bantu on the Rand and in Pretoria come from the Northern Transvaal. It is obvious that there will have to be tremendous development in the Northern Transvaal, in the border areas, in order to attract the Bantu back to their homelands there. Apart from that, there is a tremendous labour potential which will also have to be supplied with work. In expressing my thanks for what has already been done in Pietersburg I also want to ask that the Pietersburg complex should be dealt with more realistically.

There is sufficient power in the Pietersburg complex. The power station there is one of the biggest in the country because we know that Escom provides most of the power in this country. There are enough industrial land, railway facilities, labour and water and there is also a very big supply of mineral wealth. When one thinks of the potential of Northern Transvaal, Sir, one realizes that that area is only on the threshold of its future development. But I also want to plead very strongly with the Minister to think about attracting the type of industry which employs a big percentage of Bantu and a small percentage of Whites to the border areas by offering even stronger inducements. I wonder whether all the industries know what benefits are being offered to them to settle in the border areas. It is not the intention of the Government to create competition for existing industries in the big cities as suggested by the Opposition. Far from it. The intention is to carry out our policy and to ensure that there will be work for the Bantu in their homelands thus keeping our White areas White for posterity. If existing industries do not co-operate in availing themselves of the benefits which are offered and in expanding in the border areas they only have themselves to blame. As far as Pietersburg is concerned we welcome border area development and I want to assure the Minister that the spirit which prevails in that town is to bring about development there on their own initiative. Various industries have lately come into existence there. Those industries have come into existence because of the activities in the town itself. I want to pay high tribute to those people.

In conclusion I want to associate myself with the suggestion made by the hon. member for Queenstown (Mr. Loots) that we on the platteland should support our local industries by buying their products. I also want to make an appeal to the public on the platteland and in the border areas to pool their financial resources and invest their money profitably in the industries in their own towns. I also appeal to businessmen on the platteland not to invest their money elsewhere but to invest it in their own areas thereby proving that they have confidence in the area in which they are making their living.

I was indeed happy to be present yesterday when the hon. member for Ladybrand (Mr. Keyter) came forward with an idea for bags which I think may relieve the problem we have constantly had for the last five or six years in regard to the storage of grain. He has told us of this new synthetic fibre from which grain-bags are being made. I was equally interested to listen to the Minister’s reply. I think the Minister gave the correct reply by saying that this would have to be thoroughly investigated before any decisions could be taken. Obviously this synthetic fibre is also an imported fibre. The attractive part, according to the hon. member for Lady-brand, is that not only is it very much stronger but it is very much cheaper, and that has been my argument all along. I think it is a pity that this experiment in regard to grain-bags has come about through private investigation. I think if we take into consideration the vast extent of our requirements in regard to packing materials, the Government should long ago have been able to set afoot independent research to try to find the real answer for us.

The Minister in his reply to the hon. member for Ladybrand when he spoke about a factory indicated that he was not very interested in the idea of a new factory. I cannot help but say that I agree with the Minister, but then the Minister went on further to say that he was only interested in factories once we could produce our own fibres in our own country. The idea the Minister gave me was that he wanted us to be self-sufficient and that he favoured the establishment of factories to use the fibres we produce in this country.

We must produce sufficient fibres to justify a factory.

I have raised the matter in this House on many occasions, but this is the first time that I have got a lead from the Minister as to what the Government’s policy is, and now I can see the position from a different angle. I always contended that exploitation was taking place and the position is still one which perturbs me considerably. The Minister knows that I am sympathetic. I have been associated with this side of the industry all my life, and I happened to work with this Government on jute control, so I do not wish to make any political capital out of it. I think we have to go into the direction where we can ultimately be self-sufficient and establish our own industry. I have said before that it is no use keeping these factories going in this country and then to be bled from the other side when we import these fibres. Does the Minister honestly believe that we in this country can produce sufficient fibre, and suitable fibres, to be able to meet our needs? I have been very unhappy about the position because I have followed it closely, and I think the Minister knows probably better than any of us what the needs are. I have got an estimate that we require more or less from 55,000 to 60,000 tons, and our production over the last four years has only been about 4,000 tons. We actually fell back last year. Somewhere the position has arisen where the idea of the Minister has not been able to take shape. Somewhere we have been nervous, probably of this type of synthetic fibre coming in and making the development of our own fibres more costly. I agree with the Minister when he says that we should produce sufficient of our own fibres to be able to produce our own bags and packs. We certainly cannot go on as we have done for the last few years. I have taken out the figures and given them to the House. During 1962-3 we had to pay R18,000,000 more for our requirements just because we did not import these goods in manufactured form. Surely the Minister does not want those conditions to continue. I have no reason to believe that there has been any change. The position is still just the same. We have had to import the raw material as well as the manufactured articles. We might have difficulties, but as someone else said earlier, if we have difficulties in not getting what we want, we must make a plan. But at the same time I think our aim should be, and we should have a definite policy, to produce these fibres and to be absolutely self-sufficient. I feel further that if we produce it on a mass scale we must be able to produce it more economically. But as we are going on now, we are simply increasing the cost from year to year. I hope the Minister will be able to give us a very definite indication as to what the policy of his Department is in trying to overcome this difficulty. We have the position in regard to the wool farmer that he has always paid his own way in regard to his packs. I happened to notice in the Auditor-General’s report that some R18,947 loss had been made on packs. If I were still in the wool trade I would have been very ashamed of myself. The wool farmer does not want to cost the Government any money. They know how to import through their organization. I do not know what has actually gone wrong which resulted in the Government suffering a loss. The position is simple. You buy from the factory and you import, and you put the two prices together and divide up and say that is your price for the year. But here there seems to have been a bit of trading and a very substantial loss was shown on trading in grain-bags. I have not gone into that too deeply, but it all ties up with this position where we are doing neither one thing nor the other. We are manufacturing here at terrific cost and we know that if we can import all our requirements we can save so much money.

When it comes to production, I just want to ask the Minister one more question about the factories on the borders. Is it not a fact that the phormium tenax is mostly produced in the Transkei? Both in the Transkei and everywhere else I have heard every year the same excuse that the decorticating plant does not work. I hear now the plant in that particular area does not work. Surely this cannot go on. This has been the complaint I have heard for three years now, and what I want to ask the Minister is this. If you are growing all this fibre in the Transkei, will it be the policy of the Government to establish a factory right in the Transkei which can be a true factory of the Bantu people there, and we could then buy our jute, the manufactured article, right on the spot, and they, having produced the fibre, will retain for themselves all the costs of processing? [Time limit.]

I want to reply to an accusation levelled by the hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje) at the Minister. He submitted that the Minister had no plan whereby our exports could be encouraged. I should like to know from the hon. member what we must export. If the Government is guilty of not doing anything to encourage exports the hon. member must tell us what we must export. Are there any agricultural or factory products which cannot be exported? I am asking the hon. member. No, he cannot reply, Sir. There are no such goods in this country in fact. The Minister stated very clearly that those services could not be provided overseas if goods were not exported. There are capable people in that organization and the organization itself is good. If there are goods to be exported it is done properly. This Government is doing a great deal to make this an export country. We know what is happening with all our factories. We in South Africa will have to see to it that we do not only export agricultural products but manufactured articles as well and the Government is already attending to that. One asks oneself why the United Party is opposed to factories being established in the border areas. They say it is decentralization, but we talk about border industries. Why don’t they support decentralization then? No, where this Government is developing industries in the border areas they do not want those industries just this side of the border but across the border; they want them in the Bantu areas and why? They have only one idea and that is to exploit those Bantu and to keep them in a subordinate position for all time. They have no intention whatsoever of giving the Bantu an opportunity of developing on his own. Sir, listening to hon. members you would swear that that part of South Africa which falls in the border area does not form part of the fatherland of the Opposition. We have already heard a great deal this year about how concerned they are about the fragmentation of South Africa in that the Bantu homelands no longer form part of South Africa. They now want to develop those areas by means of White capital but they are not prepared to develop the border areas just this side of the border. It is clear that they are afraid of a few things, one being that the platteland will prosper. They are opposed to the platteland as such. They are naturally also very scared that the policy of Bantu homelands will succeed because the hon. member for Springs (Mr. Taurog) said yesterday that if border industries were to be a success, Bantu homelands would be a success in which case the policy of the Government would be a success. That is what they are afraid of. This Government is doing its best but the Opposition is practically sabotaging the policy of South Africa because their own businessmen and they themselves do not want to do anything to establish factories in the border areas.

What is the position of border industries in South Africa at the moment? We have the report of the permanent committee in which they say the following—

That is what has been done during the past 3¾ to four years. When we look at the report of the Hotel Commission we notice that the total capital invested in the hotel industry in South Africa, which employs 55,000 people, amounted to R124,000,000 in 1963. That shows you, Sir, that for generations, only R124,000,000 has been invested in the hotel industry which is the amount this Government has spent on border industries over a period of 3| years. We can go further and look at the Estimates for this year. This year provision is made on the Estimates for R6,750,000 for border industries. I want to ask the hon. member for Jeppes this: Does he think this amount of R6,750,000 is enough to encourage factories in the border areas or not? No, he only sits and laughs. Perhaps he has not noticed it or he does not know what it means.

I think the time has perhaps arrived for this Government to take more drastic steps. I want to ask the Minister whether the time has not arrived for us in South Africa to make a survey of all our factories and undertakings which are labour intensive. If there are large labour intensive undertakings which should really be in the border areas the Government should warn them to go and establish themselves there voluntarily. If they do not do so voluntarily the time has arrived for us to increase the electricity and water rates in the cities for those industries and to increase the levy on their Bantu labour. I also want to plead that a special levy be imposed on the industrial sites on which they are established at the moment if they are operating a labour intensive factory which should rightly be in a border area. As a further step a special tax can also be imposed on those companies. Our object should be to be firm with them because we have to decentralize. These industries must go to the border areas; then apartheid will succeed and this Government is deliberately moving along the road of making it succeed. If we do that we shall have a flourishing economy. It is very important that these industries move to the border areas because they will then be nearer to our harbours and they are also the factories which have to see to it that the products are there to export. We know manufactured goods are expensive items to convey but if those factories were nearer to the coastal areas . . .

What about Ross-lyn?

The goods manufactured there can be sold on the local market but the entire coastal area of East London and Natal can produce for export purposes. It is essential that we take vigorous action if the industrialists and the Opposition do not want to co-operate to make a greater success of things than the Government has already made.

In passing I just want to mention two points. I should like the Minister to indicate to us to what extent he has already considered the report of Professor Louw, the report of the committee which dealt with the metric system of weights and measures. We know that report has been submitted but we do not know whether the Government has already considered it. Where we shall become a big export country in future it is essential that we introduce the metric system of weights and measures in South Africa. I want to plead for it to be considered well in advance so that when the time comes when we are a big export country we shall easily fall into line with countries overseas.

I want to discuss Loan Vote “J”, the provision of R5,000,000 for the development of industries in the border areas and South West Africa, and R5,000,000 for the aircraft industry. I want to couple my remarks about the aircraft industry with a request I wish to make to the Minister in connection with a region of this country which has not been properly developed yet. May I ask the Minister whether this R5,000,000 is an installment, something to set the ball rolling? Is the industry going to be a completely State-owned affair, and to what extent will private enterprise participate in it? Is it strategically placed,, and furthermore, is this not the opportunity to decentralize industry to an area which is well suited to handle such an industry? I want to give the Minister an opportunity, if he will do so. to make a statement in regard to the aircraft industry because many people are interested. I should like to ask him whether or not this plant will manufacture passenger aircraft, fighter aircraft or supersonic aircraft? What particular type of aircraft is envisaged? Will it be bombers or other types of aircraft?

I want to make the suggestion because I think the Government and the country are concerned because there is legislation before the House in regard to it, and we shall have to be on the qui vive and make provision in case of need and in time of war. If this industry is to be established in the Southern Transvaal complex, I do not think it requires much imagination to appreciate that that is the most vulnerable place in terms of modern warfare, especially if we bear in mind missiles. I do not want to alarm anyone, but I believe that as this industry is in its infancy the diversification of the manufacture of aircraft is something to which the Minister has undoubtedly applied his mind, and I would like to ask him to make a statement on it. Allied with that new development I want to make a plea for the region which is bounded by Kimberley, Postmasburg and Kuruman, and in saying that, draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to a fact which he undoubtedly knows, and that is that there is a great wealth of minerals to be found there, minerals which are being dug out of the ground to-day, and carted away in enormous quantities. Representations have been made to the Government from time to time for something to be done in that part of the country. I think I am correct in saying that all development in that area has been done by private enterprise; the Government has done nothing or very little. Sir, I do not say that in any carping, critical way. Suggestions have been made with regard to the establishment of steel works and plans have been submitted but somehow that part of the country, the Northern Cape, seems to fall in that corridor or channel of Government activity which leads only into a blind alley. Nothing seems to develop there. At the present moment the Railway Administration is spending large sums of money on the re-laying of tracks and on electrification—to what end? To dig the manganese and the iron ore out of the ground and ship it away to Japan. I believe that the manufacturing aspect of industry, allied with steel and the need for new metals and materials for this new industry, lend themselves to the necessity to investigate and examine the possibility of providing the new materials and the new metals which will be required. I say this, Sir, because the man in the street in the Northern Cape and in the towns, which I have mentioned, wants to know why so little is being done there. They point out that here we have this enormous wealth and that nothing material is happening in the shape of developing the region. Allied with that, there is the fact that the Government intends spending an enormous amount of money on the development of the Orange River scheme, a scheme on which it is to be congratulated. It is said that north of the Orange River, in the complex of the Vaal River, there should be some planning. The emphasis in the Orange River scheme has been on agriculture. Others think, of course, that some consideration might be given to planning for industry. It has been said by various Government speakers that that part of the country can look forward to a very bright and rosy future, but I think we have reached the stage where we need a little more than sweet words and promises. I hope that the hon. the Minister will give us a statement on this very important industry, which is launched and that he will give an opportunity to the local authorities concerned and to other interested persons to submit their claims and to press the advantages of regions outside of the Transvaal. As aircraft industry, judging by the experience I have had, mostly in America, Canada and Europe, is a very diversified and highly technical business, I am convinced that the Government could show its goodwill to the Northern Cape region, which centres on the city of Kimberley by establishing further industries there which would be to the advantage of everybody. You know, Sir, we refer to exports as if it is the lifeblood of the country. I have never been able to understand why we go to so much trouble to dig manganese and iron ore out of the ground along the Postmasburg outcrops, and mines in the Kuruman area and elsewhere and cart it away over congested railway track, where they have difficulty in handling the traffic. We tell the world and the people in this area that so many hundreds of thousands of trainloads of manganese and iron ore are going to be hauled away to Port Elizabeth and Durban to be shipped away and processed in other countries. I believe that although we are prosperous, that approach is only making the Japanese better off than we are ourselves. There are thousands of people involved. Sir, I want to conclude by saying this: I think the Minister should divorce from his mind any suggestion that the workers in this country, the people who produce the goods by the sweat of their brow, by their muscles and sinews, and who work long hours and much overtime, must refrain from asking for more money and concentrate their efforts on greater productivity. I am a great believer in high wages, and I can speak from a successful career myself when I say that high wages produce results. One does not get better work and more productivity out of people who are not receiving adequate wages. If there is any doubt at all, I suggest that we should err on the side of generosity. One need only look at the balance sheets of public companies, as published in the newspapers, to realize the enormous profits which are being made, and then examine the paysheets of the workers and see who is making the money and who is contributing to the welfare of the country in the most direct form.

The hon. the Minister, who is a very learned man, knows full well that the real wealth of a country lies in its labour force and in its raw materials. Bring these two things together, merchandize them on the markets of the world and we will then be a great country. I do not think we should be alarmed and frightened by any suggestion that our economy is developing at a faster pace than it should be developing. I think that is a pessimistic outlook, and I go further and say that the type of talk we heard from the hon. member who spoke just before me just does us all an injury. The solution to the problems of this country is to sell our wares, our goods, our merchandise in the markets of the world and particularly in the markets of Africa. There are millions and millions of people who want to buy, who can buy and should be enabled to buy, and I say to the hon. the Minister that in this particular portfolio he should divorce himself entirely from all political claptrap, if I may use a vernacular word, because I cannot think of a better one. The hon. the Minister is big business personified; he is the managing director of this country; he is the responsible party. If our workers are not getting the money they should, it is his duty to come to grips with the problem, to pay adequate wages and to create full employment, not for a select few, but for everybody. On that note, Sir, I will resume my seat and ask the hon. the Minister once again to give us some information on the aircraft industry.

It is a well-known fact that every town or city comes into existence as a result of primary or secondary industries or because it has become a business centre and that was how Springs came into existence at the beginning of this century. It developed as a mining town where coal was also mined. Gold was subsequently discovered there and Springs has developed into one of the biggest towns in the Republic as a result of the mining development in its municipal area. The City Council of Springs realized, however, that gold mining was on the decline and that they would have to do something to replace the declining gold mine industry if Springs were to continue to exist. That was why Springs started in the thirties to develop industries there. Up to date reasonable progress has been made with the establishment of industries in Springs with the result that the population has remained constant but in recent years the gold mining industry has declined faster than before the Geduld mine and the Vogelstruisbult mine announced last month that they were closing down. Daggafontein announced last month that they (were closing; both the East Geduld and East Dagga mines only have a few years’ ore reserves. After that only Grootvlei mine will be left with a reasonable life span. Sir, we are not asking for special treatment but the industrial land we have in Springs has already been sold and built upon and there is no further land for expansion. The problem which faces Springs is that it has no industrial ground and cannot therefore encourage the establishment of new industries to take the place of the mines which are going to close down. I am not asking for something to be done which has not already been done on the Witwatersrand. In reply to a question on 14 May the Minister said that new industrial land had indeed been granted on the Witwatersrand. At Alrode Extension in Alberton 496 acres were granted; 25 acres at Frampton in Johannesburg; six acres in Springfield Extension in Johannesburg and according to a newspaper cutting I have here the City Council of Nigel is asking for the registration of a new extension of their industrial area. I want to ask the hon. the Minister please to give some thought to Springs in the difficult position in which it finds itself. Springs has no land for industrial development and we know that we must look to industrial expansion to replace the declining mining industry. In these circumstances I want to ask the hon. the Minister to help us to acquire some additional industrial land. We do not want labour intensive industries at Springs; we subscribe to the policy of the Government that labour intensive industries must go to the border areas. We only want capital intensive industries in Springs. We are asking for this assistance because we do not know how we can keep this town going when the mines close down without additional industries there. This is a very serious matter as far as we are concerned and I hope the Minister and the Government will give their serious attention to it and grant Springs additional industrial land.

I do not propose to discuss the Cyril Lord transaction: I am not familiar with the details and therefore I cannot make a useful contribution, but I should like to say this to the hon. the Minister: From what I have read Mr. Cyril Lord is a hard-headed Lancashire businessman, the type of fellow who comes from Manchester, as they say, and when you deal with the lads from Manchester, you have to get up very early in the morning. I think the hon. the Minister did not, perhaps, get up early enough when he dealt with Mr. Cyril Lord. Sir, they have the reputation in Manchester of being the keenest businessmen in the world, not excluding the Chinese, not excluding the people of Israel, not excluding the Indians. Give me the lads from Lancashire!

Sir, I should like to make a small contribution to this debate by reverting to a subject which we have discussed on previous occasions. I think I can do that best by referring to Loan Vote J, where we are making an advance of R 16,000,000 to industries in border areas, South West Africa and the aircraft industry. I am not discussing the purpose for which we are advancing that money but the manner in which it is being advanced. It is being advanced through the Industrial Development Corporation. Sir, on many occasions in this Committee and in this House we have discussed the Industrial Development Corporation and other corporations. When a debate starts on economic affairs, I always hear on the left flank here, “What about Iscor, what about Sasol?” Well, what about Iscor? There are men in the House to-day who were not born when Iscor was established. The discussion of Iscor is one of those “old, forgotten, far-off things and battles long ago”. The Prime Minister of the Government that established Iscor became the leader of this party. Such things have happened in the history of South Africa. And when we speak about Sasol, what about Sasol? Hon. members should really do themselves the service of reading the early debates on Sasol. They will learn a great deal if they do. A debate took place here in 1951; there was a short debate in 1950, but I remember that the big debate was in 1951. The two chief speakers were the Minister of Commerce and Industries at that time, Mr. Eric Louw, and the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson) who had been the Minister. While the hon. member for Constantia was Minister, a Bill was introduced in 1947, and the measure that was introduced later to establish Sasol was an extension of that measure. In other words, everybody in the House combined to establish Sasol. I am not going to suggest that the party on the other side were wrong in giving us information that they did at the time because they said that Sasol was going to produce petrol, oil from coal, first of all for £13,000,000 (R26,000,000) and then for £18,000,000 (R36,000,000). I am not blaming anybody for the fact that those estimates were not good estimates: they did their best; they acted on expert advice. But the point I want to make is this: When this House votes this money under Loan Vote J, that money is handed over to a utility corporation and we as a Parliament have no further control. I am speaking of accountability to Parliament. This matter has been raised on various occasions. The suggestion I put forward many years ago—I have done it from time to time and other members on this side have done it— is that there should be a Select Committee of Parliament, in addition to the Select Committees on Public Accounts and on Railways, which should have the annual reports of the utility corporation submitted to them, not to analyse in detail, not to hold the managers and the directors responsible, but to be able to inform Parliament if there are items in their expenditure and in their plans that should come before Parliament. That is the plan that has been put forward. Mr. Havenga, as Minister of Finance, agreed with us. As Minister of Finance he had to find the money and, having found the money, he handed it over to a utility corporation to spend. Thereafter there was no accountability to Parliament. In other words, what is at stake here is a very important principle of parliamentary government, that is to say, responsibility to Parliament for all moneys spent. In discussing these Votes we are to-day considering how each Department is spending its money. At the same time we have voted hundreds of millions to utility corporations and there has been no responsibility to this Parliament. Sir, that is the point I want to make. I think it is a point that the hon. the Minister should consider. Mr. Havenga as Minister of Finance, and Mr. Eric Louw, as Minister of Economic Affairs, did not see eye to eye. Mr. Eric Louw took up this attitude: he said he was going to maintain a firm control, but after he had maintained a firm control he was not responsible to this Parliament. The utility corporation-—in that case the I.D.C. —was responsible to the Minister, but the Minister in turn was not responsible to Parliament. We have the case of other utility corporations. We have the South African Broadcasting Corporation. The hon. the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs told us quite correctly that under the law he was not responsible for what they did. His job is to appoint the directors and after he has appointed them, his responsibility ceases; he is not responsible to us. He has said that the S.A.B.C. is responsible to nobody, except the Minister. There is no parliamentary control and, Sir, that is a vital matter in parliamentary government. What is the position to-day? We now have other utility corporations; we have a Bantu Development Corporation and we have a Coloured Development Corporation; the number increases from year to year, and yet we give no consideration whatsoever to this question of responsibility to Parliament.

I want to mention one or two small matters to the Minister, The first one is at page 150 of the Estimates, our foreign trade service. I notice that we have an office in Hong Kong which is expanding. I am very interested in this. I am very pleased, of course, but I should like to know from the hon. the Minister where our office is in Hong Kong. Is it in Hong Kong itself or is it across in Kowloon? Are we dealing with the Chinese? I think that is a very important point. I notice that the staff in that office has increased from four to seven. There is expansion there and I am very pleased about it. The other point I want to put to the hon. the Minister is this: I see no mention of countries north of Rhodesia; we have no trade representatives in countries north of Rhodesia. Is the explanation that they will not have us; have we been boycotted completely in Africa? If so, it is a very sad story. If that is the explanation I am very sorry, but perhaps the hon. the Minister will give us some explanation. [Time limit.]

It is not my intention to take up much of the Committee’s time by replying at length to all the questions. I just want to reply very briefly to a few points mentioned by certain hon. members with regard to matters which are of a more local character. The hon. members for Kroonstad (Mr. A. L. Schlebusch), Pietersburg (Mr. Niemand) and Geduld (Dr. Jurgens) dealt with matters of local interest. Rather than take up the time of the Committee, however, I will let them have written replies to their questions. The same applies to the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Mr. M. J. Rail). I just want to say that a committee was appointed to go into the question of the Mossel Bay harbour. The committee has completed its work and we are expecting its report in this connection in the near future.

The hon. member for East London (City) (Dr. Moolman) has referred to East London as a free trade port. I just want to say that this matter has been investigated by various Departments. AU I can say is that we can find no merit in a free port at East London or anywhere else in South Africa.

The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Mr. Dodds) put a few questions to me with regard to the manufacture of bags in South Africa. I just want to say briefly that the two bag factories in South Africa are based on imported materials. I do not think that is a desirable position and we do not want to proceed further along the lines of establishing bag factories which are based on imported materials. Then he wanted to know whether the locally produced material would be sufficient in quantity for the manufacture of South African grain bags. We think that under the present circumstances of large-scale handling we would require about 25,000 tons of phormium tenax. We hope in due course to be able to produce that quantity. The hon. member also referred to a loss on wool packs last year. Well, last year there was a loss on wool packs but the year before there was a profit.

The hon. member for Karoo (Mr. Eden) asked one or two questions about the aircraft factory. The hon. member may have forgotten that I made a full statement in this House a few weeks ago on this question of the aircraft factory. He was probably not here at the time. I just want to say that this R5,000,000 is the Government contribution to the I.D.C. and by the I.D.C. to this factory which will be based for the rest on private enterprise. The capital required will be about R50,000,000, and R45,000,000 will have to come from private sources.

The hon. member also mentioned certain matters in regard to the Northern Cape. I want to ask him to refer these matters to the Minister of Planning who is charged with the duty of planning the industrial development with regard to the Orange River scheme.

Lastly the hon. member made a plea on behalf of the workers of South Africa. I fully agree with him that one of our biggest assets is our labour force. I did not say at any time that the workers should refrain from asking for increases in their pay, but I said that they should be reasonable in their demands and that any increase in pay should be accompanied by an increase in productivity otherwise the increased pay may lead to inflation, which, of course, will also detrimentally affect the workers.

The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) again mentioned the question of the accountability of utility corporations to Parliament. This is a matter that we have been discussing in this House for many years. I think in this matter the hon. member should address his remarks to the hon. the Minister of Finance because it is a question of control of finances voted by the House. I personally believe that it would be very difficult to devise a means to make these institutions accountable to Parliament without infringing upon the confidential character of the business conducted by these corporations.

Mr. Havenga thought it could be done.

Yes, I know that various opinions are held on this matter.

I want to reply just briefly to the hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje). The hon. member said that we had no plan. Well, I do not want to adopt a frivolous attitude with regard to this matter, but I want to read out to the House a very interesting extract from a certain periodical—

Sir, this appeared in the Netherland Bank bulletin under a portrait of my hon. friend! The hon. member said that we were making no preparations. He wanted to know what we were doing and I said that what we were doing at the moment was to apply monetary measures with a view to restricting purchasing power and thus placing a damper on imports and stimulating exports. I think the hon. member will agree that that is the most important measure that we can apply at this stage; we have other measures in mind but it is not always advisable to make them known.

The hon. member went on to say that all one had to do in Britain to get all sorts of information was to pick up the telephone and dial the Board of Trade. Sir, that is correct, but I do not think the service that we are able to provide in South Africa through our Export Information Division in Pretoria compares very unfavourable with the service provided in England.

Mr. Chairman, may I have the privilege of the half-hour. I rise firstly to pay tribute to 44,000 hard-working, conscientious men and women. They are the men and women in the service of the Post Office in South Africa. They are men and women who have sometimes to maintain that service under the most difficult and most shameful conditions ever experienced in the history of the country. I pay tribute to them from the Postmaster-General down to the youngest postal clerk because by their loyalty, by working thousands of hours overtime, by their devotion to duty and by their patriotism they are maintaining a service which, without their zealous efforts, would certainly have collapsed by this time.

Not the least of our homage and gratitude goes to the three postal staff associations for the great task they are trying to do for their men and women. I pay this tribute to them in spite of the setbacks and bitter disappointments which the Post Office staff have experienced over the past month. They were dealt two hard blows. The first was when the hon. the Minister of the Interior tried to make out a case for there being no further salary increases in the Public Service. The other was a few days ago in the Other Place when the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs reaffirmed what had been said by the hon. the Minister of the Interior—that there was practically no hope for the Post Office staff of further relief in the dark and difficult days which lie ahead. Their representations were rejected; the hands which they extended pleadingly were thrust aside by this Government. All that they received were speeches by two Ministers speeches which they will receive again to-day, and they were told: “You are receiving enough; there are not so many resignations in the Post Office; the position is not so serious.” The one hon. Minister even spoke contemptuously and cried out: “Show me the people who are not in favour of more money,” when these Post Office employees made their earnest and heartrending representations.

I should say that the more guilty of the two hon. Ministers whom I have mentioned is the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, the Minister who ought to be the father of the Post Office staff and look after their interests. Before I go any further I want therefore at this stage to move—

The effect of this amendument is that the hon. the Minister’s salary for the coming year must be reduced by R6,000 because of the way in which he is administering the Post Office. Last year we moved a reduction of R5,000. There are good reasons, as everyone in the Post Office will agree, for increasing the amount to R6,000 this year.

There are two main reasons why we are dissatisfied with the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs. The first is his unjust treatment of his staff and the second is the deterioration in the standard of the services that are being rendered by the Post Office to-day in spite of the hard work being done by the staff. It is not I who says this, Mr. Chairman. Let the staff members themselves explain their difficulties. In the leading article in the March issue of the official publication of the South African Telecommunications Association they have this to say (translation)—

If the hon. the Minister will stand up here this afternoon and deny that there is dissatisfaction on a scale hitherto unknown, he will be making a liar of these post and telegraph associations. He dare not do that. I should like to quote from the leading article which appeared in the March issue of the Post and Telegraph Herald (translation)—

But a month later the Chairman did speak of a collapse. He said (translation)—

Because of a lack of growth deterioration has already started and unless positive steps are taken to make the service more attractive a complete collapse will result.

The collapse will be similar to that in the United Party.

I am quoting here the official words of the voice of 8,000 Post Office workers, workers who are struggling and whose families are struggling. If the hon. member for Middelland (Mr. Van der Merwe) finds this amusing, he ought to hang his head in shame!

I want to quote from the Report of the Postmaster-General. When a responsible person uses words as serious as these, they mean something. He says (translation)—

Not just “serious”, but “most serious” (translation)—

This is one of the most serious statements that has ever been made by a Postmaster-General in an official report such as this. The hon. the Minister dare not deny that the position is the most serious it has ever been in the history of South Africa. His own Postmaster-General says, so. If the hon. the Minister denies it he will be making a liar of this capable officer and he dare not do so. We shall not allow it; the Post Office will not allow it and the country will not allow it either.

The Post Office has been in existence for 55 years. It was founded in 1910 by Sir David de Villiers Graaff, the father of our present leader. It has experienced difficult times, it has experienced wars, it has experienced a depression and it has experienced the dismissal of Minister Sampson in the first Nationalist Party Government. The Post Office has experienced all those difficulties but the position to-day as far as staff is concerned is more serious than it has ever been in the entire history of the Post Office. This Government has already had five Ministers of Posts and Telegraphs. These were Dr. Dönges, Mr. Erasmus, Mr. Naudé, Mr. Serfontein and the present hon. Minister. The position of the staff to-day is not only the worst it has been under the Nationalist Party Government which came into power in 1948 but it is the worst it has been under all five Ministers who have administered this Portfolio.

What is the position which the hon. the Minister cannot deny because he himself said it in the Other Place in reply to questions? Firstly: “Last year there were 10,800 resignations from the Post Office out of a total staff of about 43,000”. Do you know how hard these people have to work in the Post Office, Mr. Chairman, as a result of this shortage? They work 188,000 hours per week overtime, ten times as much as in any other department in the Public Service. In January, there were 3,194 vacant posts. But the position is far worse than these figures indicate, as I shall show later. We know that the hon. the Minister of Labour has said that there is no job reservation in the Post Office. The hon. the Minister made a desperate attempt to appoint non-Whites but even those non-Whites are resigning from the Post Office in large numbers.

I do not thing that we want to hear the same story from the hon. the Minister which he has told in the Other Place during the past week or which he has told from platforms over the past month. We do not want to hear him say that the resignations from the Post Office have not reached serious proportions, that it is only young men and married women who are resigning and that it is the capable employees who are being enticed away from the service by outside businesses. My first reply to this is: In his report the Postmaster-General speaks of “the shortage of trained staff”. Traned staff are not those who have had one or two or three years’ service in the Post Office; it is the shortage of trained staff which is causing all the trouble. My second reply is this: Do you know, Sir, how many of these 42,000 persons in the Post Office service are temporary workers? Seventeen thousand! Forty per cent—this is the largest percentage of temporary workers the Post Office has ever had. These are people who in many cases are not trained. If the hon. the Minister says that there is only a small shortage, a shortage which is represented by about 3,000 vacant posts, he is not giving us the full picture. Most of the 17,000 temporary employees, or a large number of them, are people occupying posts which ought to be occupied by permanent officials. They also represent a great shortage in the Post Office service.

When we look at the figures we find this strange position that while the number of permanent employees is about 1½ times that of the temporary employees, to judge from the figures which the hon. the Minister has given me, the number of resignations among permanent employees is about 11 times that of temporary employees. Another thing we do not want to hear from the hon. the Minister is that it will promote inflation if the Post Office staff receive better treatment and better salaries. Did this Government not plan the boom? Did they not make plans for the people working for them? Is this boom only for the rich man? Does the poor man receive nothing from it? Must he always be pushed to one side? Has the Post Office always to be the Cinderella of the Public Service?

The Public Servant, the official publication of public servants, investigated this matter. They had the facts worked out by economists and they came to this conclusion (translation)—

Another thing we do not want to hear from the hon. the Minister is that it is the high wages offered by commerce and industry which draw the staff away from the Post Office, and that the Post Office cannot pay the same wages and salaries as are offered to these people. Nobody expects the Post Office to pay the same salaries and wages as are paid by commercial undertakings. The Public Service offers security; it offers good pension benefits, medical aid and housing services. It is therefore to be understood that the absolute scale of salaries in the Public Service will be lower than those outside the Public Service but there must at least be a comparable value attached to those salaries. If the disproportion between the salaries within and without the Public Service becomes as great as it is now, and the resignations increase to such an extent, then there is something radically and shamefully wrong in the Post Office.

Mention is made of outside organizations which entice employees away from the Post Office. They are not the only ones. Do you know, Sir, that if only they had the chance the Post Office workers would join other State departments in their thousands? Do you know. Sir, that Post Office workers in their hundreds desire to join the other stepchild department of the Government, the Railways; that it has become such an urgent problem that a strongly worded circular was issued by the head office of the Post Office in which it was laid down that no Post Office worker or anyone who had worked in the Post Office dare apply for a post in the Railway service? They do not desert, as the hon. the Minister tries to make out. They do not simply leave to join industry and commerce. They even want to join other State departments like the Railways.

Another statement which we hope we shall not hear from the hon. the Minister is that conditions and wages to-day are, in comparison, better than they were under the United Party Government which only granted one increase, I think he said, over a period of 10 years. Let us briefly analyse that statement. The hon. the Minister will admit that he said something similar to this in the Other Place— that there was only one increase under the United Party Government. Does he not know that under the United Party Government the wages in the Post Office and throughout the Public Service were reviewed every three months and that those wages were increased with every 2 per cent increase in the cost of living? Does he not know that this was done repeatedly under the United Party Government? How dare the hon. the Minister say that there was only one wage increase? I am quite prepared to argue with the hon. the Minister in regard to which system would be the better—the United Party system of a wage increase every three months when the cost of living rose or his present system of postponement and postponement year after year until wages eventually rise. I can show him figures to prove that in 10 years’ time under his policy postmen will be more than R 1,000 worse off than they would have been if the United Party policy of reviewing wages every three months had been followed.

I also want to ask the hon. the Minister not to malign people to-day, as he did on another occasion when he said that there were misguided people in the Post Office who thought they were serving the Post Office by saying how bad things were. Mr. Chairman, is the Postmaster-General a misguided person when he says that there is the most serious shortage of trained staff to-day in the history of the Post Office? Who are the misguided people in the Post Office? Are they the members of the Post Office staff associations, all three of them? How dare the hon. the Minister talk of misguided people in the Post Office when they complain about bad conditions which really exist?

The hon. the Minister tried to place the blame upon United Party newspapers. I have up to the moment specifically refrained from quoting from any newspaper. I have quoted from the publications of the Post Office Staff Associations themselves. If the hon. the Minister wants an example from a newspaper I can show him a cutting from the Burger in which the Chairman of the Posts and Telegraphs Association is reported as having said that there were 18,000 resignations in the Post Office last year. I do not know whether the hon. the Minister was referring to the Burger when he complained about newspapers. He did say United Party newspapers.

Lastly, we do not want to hear from the hon. the Minister that there is no money to increase these wages and salaries. Last year the Post Office made a profit of R13,500,000. This profit was made in spite of the fact that the Post Office worker had to be satisfied with his low wages so that free services to the value of more than R4,000,000 could be rendered for other State Departments. In actual fact, the cash income of the Post Office last year was R30,000,000 more than its expenditure. I agree that one has to deduct pension contributions and interest on capital. When we deduct this we find that the actual profit of the Post Office is still far more than the amount of R 13,500,000 reflected. If that money is available and if it is the policy of the Government for the Post Office to pay for itself, a considerable increase in salaries can be given from this R13,500,000 without the Post Office running at a loss. The hon. the Minister dare not say therefore that there is not sufficient money to assist the Post Office worker. I believe that it can be done and that it must be done. All we need is a Minister who is a man of action, not a Minister like the one we have to-day.

Mr. Chairman, I do not want to use my full half-hour.

You cannot.

If hon. members challenge me to speak as long as I want to and my Whips allow me to do so, I can talk until the House adjourns. But I shall not do so.

Let me deal now with the services rendered by the Post Office. Once again we have to see these services against the background of the zealous, loyal and hardworking Post Office workers, 42,000 of them. We find that the official organ of the Telecommunications Association, the official publication of 8,000 workers in the Post Office, had the following to say in its leading article of two months ago. (Translation.)—

It is not I who says this; it is not people from outside who say it but people in the Post Office. They admit it themselves. These are people who work hard to try to render good services but they are simply unable to do so. They go on to say (translation)—

The hon. the Minister must not tell us to-day that there is only a little dissatisfaction here and a little wrong with services there. His people speak of utter dissatisfaction; his own Postmaster-General talks about the rendering of services which in many places and in many respects have reached their lowest level in 55 years. This is not admitted proudly; it is admitted with sorrow by these people who would like to render better service than this if only the hon. the Minister would enable them to do so.

Other hon. members on this side will deal in greater detail with services such as letters which are delivered late, with telegrams and so forth. I know of one case of a contract worth R 1,000,000 which was almost lost because of a long delay in a trunk-line call. I know of a case in which it took seven days for a letter to go from one end of the street to the other. Even a. judge in the Supreme Court in Pretoria had the other day to remark on the poor standard of the letter delivery service. Does the hon. the Minister want to tell me that a Judge does not know what he is talking about?

You are discussing the staff.

One of the great problems in the Post Office is what they call the “brain drain”, the loss of their trained staff. The hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. F. H. Bekker) is unfortunately suffering from a “brain drain”, but it is not the same “brain drain” which they have in the Post Office!

Nobody can say that tariffs have been lowered. When we compare the position under the United Party with that of to-day we find that the postage on letters has risen by 100 per cent; on postcards, by 80 per cent; on printed matter, by 140 per cent; on telegrams, by nearly 100 per cent; on telephone calls, by almost 100 per cent; on annual telephone rentals, by 150 per cent—from R7.20 per annum to R18. Call-box fees have risen by 100 per cent—we have to-day to pay 5c instead of a tickey. Once again I do not blame the Post Office because the Postmaster-General himself told a commission that he did not want that increase. He told the Chamber of Commerce that telephone tariffs ought to be increased but that he would fight to keep them low until the day he retired. Why did the hon. the Minister not accept the advice of his own Postmaster-General in the connection?

Post office accommodation has never ever been the best accommodation to be found in South Africa. We axe used to the fact that post offices are not all they should be, but the position has never been as serious as it is to-day. When we look at the Loan Estimates we find a long list of post offices which appeared on the Estimates last year and the year before and in regard to which nothing has as yet been done. It seems to me that they have stopped work on the post office at Leeuwdoringstad because the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Mr. G. P. van den Berg) spoke about it the other day. It is such a wonderful thing that something has been done in this regard that he wanted to fell the country that a start had been made on one post office! Here is the list: Adddo, Barkly West, Beaufort West, Bethlehem, Britstown, Burgersdorp. Butterworth, Cullinan, Davel, Florida, Ginghindlovu, Goodwood Gravelotte, Huguenot, Ixopo, Braamfontein, Johannesburg Central, Kestell, Klerksdorp, Middelburg, Tvl., Mkuze, Mount Fletcher, Pretoria West, Rustenburg, Strand, Welcome, Welverdiend, Franschhoek, Zeerust, De Aar, Despatch, Felixton, Hutchinson, Kinross, Nelstroom and Vryburg. What a list! The hon. members who represent those parts are sitting there. Are they going to open their mouths to-day to ask for post offices? Once again it is not I but the Postmaster-General himself who has this to say in his report (translation)—

The hon. the Minister must not now say: “540,000,000 letters are delivered each year and you can only mention two or three cases”. Let him ask his own Postmaster-General who says that the services have reached a new low at many places and in many respects. When the hon. the Minister uses this sort of argument, Mr. Chairman, it makes me think of the old Gamat who was caught by the police for stealing chickens. Gamat’s attorney said to him: “You will have to be careful because they have two witnesses against you”. Gamat answered: “That is nothing, Sir; I can bring 100 witnesses who did not see me steal the chickens.” That is the sort of argument which the hon. the Minister uses. The hon. the Minister must not tell us that these services were worse under the United Party. The Postmaster-General speaks here of a new low. If there were mistakes under the United Party Government, they did not constitute a new low. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) has told us the story about Gamat who stole the fowl and now I cannot resist telling another story. While the hon. member was talking he reminded me of a story I heard of a building contractor who had bought one of these new concrete mixing machines. While they were off-loading this machine at the building site old John said: “Master what are you going to do with this machine?” The reply was: “We are going to make Kaffers with this machine”. Then the old Native said: “How is master going to do that?” And he said: “We throw in a bag of manure and a bag of coal and then we turn out Bantu”. Then the old Native said: “If master wants to make the other kind, the White man, what does master do then? Does master not add the coal?” With much waving of the arms the hon. member nearly became hysterical in his attack on the Minister. His great difficulty is in connection with the staff. We on this side of the House will reply to every accusation that hon. member and the Opposition have to-day levelled at the Government and at the Minister. As far as the staff is concerned we shall indeed reply fully to every point raised by him. All I want to say to the hon. member at this stage is that the staff is much better off to-day under the régime of the National Party than they were under the régime of the United Party. It is true that there are resignations and that there is a great number of vacancies in the Post Office at the moment. We admit that. That is due, in the first instance, to the manpower shortage. I just want to point out to the hon. member that the position in the Post Office is by far not as desperate as it is in the Public Service. I do not know whether the hon. member has investigated the position. At the moment the vacancies in the Public Service constitute 26 per cent of the total establishment.

You are including temporary staff.

It is 26 per cent, as far as the Public Service is concerned and 12 per cent in the case of those posts who have not been filled by temporary staff. In the Post Office it is 16 per cent as far as vacancies are concerned and in respect of vacancies not filled by temporary staff it is 6.8 per cent of the establishment. The position in the Post Office, therefore, is actually much better than in the Public Service. I admit that we would like the Post Office personnel to receive better and higher salaries, as well as those in the Public Service, but the Minister has repeatedly explained what salary increases there have been. I for one am convinced that the Minister of Post and Telegraphs and the Government will indeed revise the salaries of the Post Office personnel so that they will be in line with those paid in the rest of the Public Service, although they compare quite favourable at the moment. The hon. member has made so many accusations, however, that it is hardly possible to keep track of all of them. What I do want to say to him is that where the National Party Government has now been in power for 17 years we have experienced an economic upsurge in this country as never experienced before in the history of South Africa. I can assure him that in spite of the manpower shortage and all the vacancies in the Post Office at the moment the postal and telecommunication services of to-day are far better than they were in the time of the United Party. We shall prove that to the hon. member in the course of these debates. I want to counter in advance the attacks they are going to make on the Minister and this side of the House. For example I want to refer him to the telecommunication section of the Post Office and compare the present position with the position as it obtained in the years when the United Party was in power. In 1948 the telecommunication equipment was valued at R48,015,000 and in 1964 (the figures for 1965 are not yet available) it is valued at the enormous sum of R291,724,000. In other words, five times more than during the time of the United Party. I want to go further and point out to him what a tremendous expansion there has been in the telecommunication service. In 1948, when the United Party was in power, there were 318,581 telephones in South Africa and on 31 March 1965 there were 1,058,000. That means that the number of telephones has increased by 740,019 in 16 years. Furthermore, I want to point out that under this Government and this Minister, to whom he refers so sneeringly, our telephone services have been enormously extended. Between 1958 and 1962 an average of 33,800 telephones were installed per annum but in spite of the increased tempo at which telephones are being installed the waiting list is continuing to grow. At the end of March 1963, 1964 and 1965 there were 9,506, 12,051 and 16,166 applicants respectively on the waiting list. I know the hon. member for Orange Grove will now say to me: “You see how serious the position is; all those people are waiting; some have been waiting for three years”. I want to take him back to the days of the United Party. Unfortunately I do not have the figures for 1948, but in 1953, a few years after the National Party Government had taken over, a total number of 82,190 applicants were waiting for telephones. That was our inheritance from the United Party and in 1963-4 there were only 13,936. I know hon. members will accuse us and say the telephone service is very poor at the moment and that they have to wait a long time for trunk calls. [Time limit.]

I can only say that the poor post office workers from the last speech have had “naught for their comfort”. The hon. member spoke about the increase in the number of telephones, and he said that the Government will increase salaries. But I have a newspaper here and I will show him the headlines: “Hertzog reveals little hope for pay claims”, and the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs is quoted here as saying that the Government cannot give higher pay to the post office men because that would cause inflation. When the hon. member for Bethlehem talks about an increase in salaries that will come about, I want to ask the hon. Minister to refute these headlines and this article in the paper, because this is supposed to be based on a statement that he personally made, and quite recently. One thing worries me about this hon. Minister and about hon. members on the other side. They seem to regard the running of this country’s public services almost as a private concern, almost as a family business. If there is anything wrong in this country in regard to the running of the Post Office or with the salaried staff in the Post Office, or with the conditions under which the post office people have to work, it is none of the business of the country, it is none of the business of this side of the House to say it out loudly, to say it out very loudly. It seems to me that the Minister thinks that this is his own private affair. Mr. Chairman, I want to say that the citizens have the right to know that these people who are giving us excellent service—the hon. member for Orange Grove has paid a tribute to them, and I would also pay a tribute to them—the citizens of this country have a right to know that these people are getting proper salaries and that they are working under proper conditions. This Minister is not playing about with the money of a few industries, or the money of a few private shareholders; he is playing about with revenue that is gathered from South Africans in this country. This Minister himself is being paid from public moneys and he is answerable to the nation, to South Africa as a whole. That is what worries me about hon. members on that side. They seem to think that no criticism whatsoever must be made, that these men can work under these deplorable conditions, these men and women, that they can work on those salary scales which are such that they are leaving the Post Office service in their thousands, and where they have to work under conditions that are almost impossible. We know that they may not refuse to work overtime if they are told to do so, because otherwise disciplinary action is being taken against them. They simply have to work overtime when they are told to do so, and I say that it is the nation’s concern, this shortage of personnel and the overtime they have to work and the conditions under which they have to do their work. Then hon. members talk about the revision of salary scales and they come with the story that we are so tired of, as to what happened before 1948. I ask them: What has the present post office worker to do with what happened before 1948? Does that bring him a cent in his pocket? These girls working here in the telephone exchange now, what does it help them to be told the story by the hon. member for Bethlehem as to what happened before 1948? What does it matter to them when the hon. member for Cradock is constantly shouting about what happened in 1943 or in the year dot? It does not help them at all. The truth of the matter is that the three postal associations have approached the Minister and have told the Minister that the present position is intolerable. The hon. member for Orange Grove pointed out that in the United Party’s time the cost-of-living allowance was revised from time to time, and as the cost-of-living went up, the salary scales were raised. If the cost-of-living index showed an increase, the salary scales were raised. But I want to say that the last appreciable increase in the salaries of post office staff took place on 1 January 1963 and the cost-of-living index has since gone up by as much as 4.1 per cent in one year, viz. 1964. Just imagine that a learner postman of about 20 years of age, gets a starting salary of R65 per month! R65 per month for a 20-year old youth! That is £32 10s. Is it not from this Government that I have heard that the Bantu people in South Africa should not have a salary of less than £30 a month?

What are their qualifications?

Their qualifications are good because otherwise they would not be taken in as learner-postmen. If they were not suitable, they would not be accepted. Surely the hon. member knows that. But let me take him up on that. If the man’s qualifications are not what they should be, who is to blame but the Nationalist Party. After all, in 1948 this man was hardly born who is now 20 years of age. The truth is that they are working for R780 a year, or R65 per month, and the truth is further that the Post Office associations have asked the Minister to put that up to R 1,000 a year, that is R83.40 per month, and the hon. the Minister does not see his way clear to give that to a youngster of 20 years old.

And that is before departmental deductions.

Quite so. And what are the conditions under which these people work? Year after year, since I have come to Parliament, I have spoken about one post office or another where the girls in the telephone exchange and people serving at the counters are working under impossible conditions, and I have to do that day after day, Mr. Chairman. The Postmaster-General himself speaking on the 16th March, this year here in Cape Town at a farewell reception of one of the senior officials who was retiring, said himself, after praising this official for the excellent job he had done under very difficult conditions—

Ten years ago the Telephone Exchange in Cape Town was out of date. No wonder then that people leave the service. Hon. members opposite say that we are blaming the Post office staff. We are not. We are blaming these out-of-date installations, and I want to quote the following: A certain businessman wanted a certain number here in Cape Town and he kept on calling this number for about two or three days in succession, but he could not get a reply. Then eventually he tried to find out if the number was out of order and he phoned the requisite number and asked whether that telephone was out of order. They told him: “No, phone 4191 and ask whether the number is out of order”. He phoned and was told that they did not know. They were told to ring 2291 to test the line. They tested the line and phoned back and said “Yes, the line is out of order”, and then they told him: “Ring back 4191 and tell them that the line is out of order, and put in a complaint”. [Time limit]

The hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) has more or less raised the same cry as the one raised in a newspaper report I have here. This is the type of newspaper report we shall ignore in future. I want to quote from the specific newspaper report and I want the hon. member to say “hear, hear” and agree with everything in it—

That is the newspaper report. The hon. member will agree with me that it is terrible. But the interesting thing is that this newspaper report refers to the Post Office in America; it criticizes the American system and the date of the report is 12 April 1965. This report appeared in News and World which is published in the United States, In other words, this outcry and hullabaloo about the Post Office is an exaggeration of the position. I accept that there are certain things that must be rectified but the whole approach of the hon. member is to cause sensation. You do not only find that problem in South Africa but throughout the world; every country is faced with that problem. I want to deal for a moment with the Post Office staff. I want to say beforehand that the hon. member as well as the hon. member for Drakensberg (Mrs. S. M. van Niekerk) have, like typical politicians, and as I know them, seen in the alleged dissatisfaction amongst the Post Office workers at the moment, an opportunity of making some political capital. But then they sudddenly start eulogizing the wonderful service the Post Office staff is rendering, etc. I want to know from the hon. member why he did not eulogize those people last year? Did he pay tribute to them then for the work they were doing? Why did he not sing a paean of praise to them in the past? He had no praise for those people then. On the contrary, the hon. member is continually telling us of the poor service they are rendering.

That is not true.

Now suddenly they have become the friends and the advocates of the Post Office personnel. We on this side of the House is responsible for the government of the country and to say what the true position is on every occasion. We say that the Post Office personnel have consistently, under difficult circumstances, rendered excellent service in the interests of South Africa. We know there is a shortage of staff and that there are many posts vacant but in the circumstances the staff are still doing their work loyally towards the Department, the Postmaster-General, the Minister and the Government. Loyal servants as they are they are working more overtime than before in order to keep the Post Office going. We do not only pay tribute and give praise when we can make political capital out of it but we pay tribute and praise them on every occasion. I want to say at once that the resignations from the Post Office staff have increased considerably in recent years. In 1958 there were not many resignations at all, namely, only 7,600 out of a total establishment of between 36,000 to 38,000 people. The percentage remained constant, it actually decreased, and the lowest point was reached in 1962 when 5,000 out of 36,000 workers resigned. That is not at all high in comparison with other spheres of work. Then, however, something happened in South Africa, something about which we all rejoice, a wave of economic prosperity set in and that wave of economic prosperity was the result of tremendous new development in the private sector. More industries came into existence, banks were started, new undertakings were embarked upon and it is logical that private initiative required manpower in that whole development. Where did they get that manpower? By offering salaries between R500 and R1,000 per annum higher than the salaries the Post Office paid its staff they enticed the manpower away to their own private undertakings. I do not hold it against the Post Office staff for having grasped at better chances but then I do not blame the Minister for not seeing his way clear suddenly to increase salaries by R 1,000. Surely that is practically impossible. There is competition for the service of these people and with the manpower shortage which has come about as a result of the prosperity we are experiencing we have the position that people are enticed away from Government departments. Those Government departments cannot compete with the private sector as far as salaries are concerned. Let me add this: If we were to try to compete with the private sector we would be setting in a motion an evil and endless spiral. Because the moment you increase the salaries in the Post Office the Railwayman, the Police and the Public Servant will immediately say: “What about us?” The moment you increase their salaries the private sector will say: “We must again attract those people because we need their services; we must offer them higher salaries”. You will get an evil spiral which will send the cost of living soaring and that will, in all respects, only be harmful to the country because the value of money will depreciate with the result that our products will no longer be able to compete on the overseas markets. That is the logical sequence of events. I want to say at once that I have all the sympathy in the world with the Post Office workers and the hon. member must not for a moment think he is the only person who appreciates them. The hon. member tried to create the impression that he was the only person who was interested in their welfare. The Post Office workers know who their friends were in the past and who are still their friends at the present moment. The Post Office workers are sensible enough to realize what the circumstances are. They make demands; that is natural. Everybody would like to have more but the Post Office personnel have always been sufficiently loyal towards the State, the Government and South Africa to carry on with their work. Never yet has the Minister been unsympathetic; he has always stated their case and will continue to do so. I want to ask another question: Has the hon. member ever imagined what would happen—we sincerely hope not—if there were to be an economic setback in the country, if we were suddenly again to have unemployment? Then the Post Office will suddenly again become one of the most sought-after employers in the entire Public Service; then we shall again be told that it is the best department of all the departments to work for; that the most pleasant atmosphere prevailed there. All this hullabaloo, Sir, is nothing but an attempt to exploit a position which has arisen in that the Post Office personnel have made demands, have taken a stand, and are to some extent dissatisfied with what they have received. The matter has, in any case not yet been finalized; they are still negotiating.

I want to refer to a few other things which may interest the hon. member and figures and statistics speak louder than political propaganda. From 1 January 1948 to 1 January 1964 the salaries of the officials were increased by 118 per cent. The cost-of-living index rose by 71 per cent over that same period. In other words, they are really not worse off than they were in 1948. I am not suggesting that they lived in paradise in 1948 or that they lived a royal life, but, purely statistically, the officials are not worse off at the moment than they were in 1948. On the contrary they are better off in spite of the rise in the cost of living. But that is not all as far as this matter is concerned. What concessions have been granted to the Post Office staff? In the first place, the starting salaries of clerks in the Post Office have been raised and placed on a par with those paid in the Railway Service.

The original request by the Post Office Staff Associations was that they should fall in the same category as the rest of the Public Service. It is true that to some extent it was easier for people to be promoted in the Public Service; it was easier for them to receive promotion as a result of the nature of the work done in the Post Office; the different way in which it is constituted. Out of a staff of 30 or 40 only one can be promoted to superintendent without there being any other opportunities for promotion. Those problems do exist. It is a different type of business. The first concession was made in that respect. The second concession is that during the first six years of employment in the Post Office deserving men can, on merit, be promoted three notches over and above their normal promotion. That is a concession to meet those who are in any way worth their salt and who do their work well in the department. That is a concession which the Post Office staff understand and appreciate. A further concession was made. One of the problems was that people progressed to the top of their scale where they remained stationary and if a post did not become vacant higher up such a person had to remain in that position without further promotion unless somebody died or somebody above him received promotion. That has been rectified in this sense that the man no longer remains stationary at the top of his scale because the scale has been made continuous; he moves up automatically to the next scale and so he goes up. Of course, they would like to get more. Even the hon. member for Orange Grove would like to get more but cannot get more in the circumstances. [Time limit.]

This Government is paying the price of its stupid ideological policies and this Department is suffering because of that stupid policy. This Minister and the members of the Cabinet must once and for all realize that the White people of South Africa cannot do it alone and it is because they are steadfastly holding on to the White people of South Africa to do the work that they are failing. It is the obstinate refusal to accept the Coloured people in the services of every Department of the State that is causing the trouble, and until they realize that there are not sufficient White people in South Africa to fill the vacancies in every Department we will never be able to reach the stage or the status in our Government services which is demanded by the progress in this country. I raised this matter last time and I am prepared to debate it. I would like to say to the hon. member for Randfontein (Dr. Mulder) that it is unworthy of him to say that because a certain position obtains in America that is justification for the same system obtaining in South Africa, when there is no necessity for it to obtain.

I want to refer the Minister to what we discussed last year, and I want him to tell me what the position is to-day. Last year I put questions to the Minister in regard to a report that White postmen from overseas would be imported to this country and the Minister then admitted that that was so. He then said that certain difficulties were being experienced in certain centres in recruiting White persons as postmen, and the Department was investigating proposals to overcome this difficulty, including the various proposals put forward by the Staff Association. Then I spoke to him about the Coloured people and the hon. the Minister said that that possibility was being investigated, namely of the employment of Coloured people in the Post Office. I know from Press reports that certain Coloured people have been engaged as postmen, but I also read in the Press that there were objections in various areas to Coloured people delivering a letter. Of course this stupidity nobody can understand. They do not mind a non-White delivering their coffee in the morning, or making their beds, or serving their breakfast, but they do not want him even to come near the house to put a letter in the letter-box.

You have the cat by the tail now.

The Minister asks whether I have not got the cat by the tail. I want to tell him that I know nothing about cats and I have never caught a cat by the tail, because then he might scratch me. I catch a cat where he should be caught. If the Minister says I am wrong in suggesting that people objected to Coloured postmen, then the Minister must tell me that the reports in the Press were wrong. [Interjections.] The Minister is trying to find an excuse for the refusal to engage Coloured people. Now let me argue the point raised by the Minister that the postmen themselves objected. Since when does the Minister listen to every White employee of his? If the Minister tells me that the report in the Press was wrong I will accept it, but I want him to tell me what increase there has been in the number of Coloured postmen in the Transvaal. Prove to me with figures that I am wrong, and that there has or has not been an increase in the number of Coloured postmen. I will wait for those replies. I will be very happy to know that the Coloured people are being employed, but I say that if the Minister utilizes them to a greater extent, as he will eventually have to do, he will relieve the position greatly. I want to tell the Minister that for the first time in years letters sent to me from Johannesburg from my daughter never arrived. I do not want to make an issue of it, except to say that the Minister can relieve his staff position by using Coloured people who have been the backbone of the postal services in the Western Province. They have been loyal and have done their work well.

Now I want to come to the point raised by the hon. member for Drakensberg (Mrs. S. M. van Niekerk) when she, quite rightly, raised the question of the pay of the learner-postmen. The hon. member seemed aghast at the paucity of the pay. Well, if she is against at the paucity of the pay of White postmen, she should see what the Coloured postmen are being paid. I want to ask the Minister whether he received a resolution from the postmen’s organization in the Western Province? I was present at the opening of their conference last year and the Postmaster of Cape Town was there and there was a resolution passed demanding equal pay for equal work. I should like to ask the Minister publicly whether he received copies of that resolution, and whether he acted upon it, and if not, why not. I want the hon. member for Drakensberg and the whole House to know that when a White person gets a certain salary, the Coloured man gets very much less for the same work. I was told a story which I think is true, that at Christmas the Coloured men worked overtime until 11 p.m. or 12 p.m. without getting any overtime, but the White man—and I want the Minister to tell me whether this is true—who sits there waiting for them to come and report gets overtime. I say that is wrong, that the Coloured man who has to carry the bags for hours should not get overtime pay, but the White man does. [Time limit.]

The plea made by the hon. member who has just sat down amounts to this that he wants the non-Whites to be integrated in the Post Office and that the existing order, as we know it in South Africa, should be overthrown. But I can tell him that it will not be overthrown in South Africa. The hon. member made a comparison between the non-White who served him his coffee and the non-White who delivered the post but you cannot compare those two. The hon. member hasn’t the faintest idea what he is talking about when he makes that comparison because, in the first case, it is an acknowledged state of integration whereas the second case has nothing to do with integration. [Interjections.] I think those hon. members need a few lessons on what integration is.

Order! The hon. member cannot give a lecture on integration. He must confine himself to the Vote.

The speech of the hon. member amounts to this, therefore, that the Minister must agree to the road of integration being followed in the Post Office and we refuse to do so. We shall allow a certain amount of elasticity as is being allowed at the moment in respect of this temporary shortage of postmen. For example 308 non-Whites have been employed during the past six months as temporary postmen but I can assure the hon. member that as soon as things return to normal these non-Whites will again be replaced by Whites. We therefore cannot even think about acceding to the hon. member’s plea.

That brings me to the hon. members for Drakensberg (Mrs. S. M. van Niekerk) and Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan), a person with a brilliant brain. During the days of the Kruithoring he proved that to me but he got up here to-day and made a big hullabaloo. I came to only one conclusion and that is—I want to warn him—that the gods have a definite plan with him. They talk about delays. What delay has there actually been? I must honestly say that no letter has so far not been delivered on time to me. Hon. members who are sitting here must be honest. Have they ever been inconvenienced by so-called delays? In recent times there have only been delays in Johannesburg, Florida and a part of Vereeniging but for the rest the position was as normal throughout the country as one can expect it to be in any country undergoing the tremendous development we are undergoing and where the labour market has to some extent been drained. They are exaggerating the position. Can any member on that side of the House get up and mention any area other than Johannesburg, Florida and perhaps Edenvale and Vereeniging, where letters have not been delivered for a short while? [Interjections.] For the rest the position is normal throughout the country. That is typical of the Opposition, however. Newspaper reports are exaggerated, reproduced in this House and time and again it is our duty to prick that balloon and to deflate it. The hon. member for Drakensberg says the position is unbearable in the country; it is impossible to work under these conditions; the delays are unbearable and that the public has every right to demand satisfaction. Let me say in the first place that I think the time has arrived for us not to mince words. I think during these critical times of a manpower shortage as a result of the developments which are taking place in all spheres the public must co-operate with the Departments. I think it is the duty of the public to co-operate and not to expect to have everything handed to them on a platter. I think the public have become too concerned about their own comfort and whenever a letter is not delivered they point the finger at the Minister and the Government and accuse them of inefficiency.

But you admit that letters are not delivered.

I think the time has arrived that the public be told that there is unprecedented prosperity and stability in this country and that they should do their share in this crisis in which we find ourselves. Secondly, I think the Department of Posts and Telegraphs has the right to demand cooperation on the part of the public. What those hon. members are doing is to grasp at a number of letters. They think they will make an impression on the staff and on the public of South Africa in that way but they won’t make any impression. It is much better to address a few straightforward and honest words to the public and I am doing that to-day in all honesty. I think that during this hour of crisis when we are experiencing bottlenecks as a result of the good actions of this Government, we can demand greater co-operation. Some sections of the public, in particular, are guilty of exaggerating these so-called delays and chaos in the Post Office. I maintain that there is no chaos or disorganization in the Post Office, on the contrary I want to congratulate the Post Office on the efficient way in which they have handled the position in these difficult times. I am always impressed by the correct way in which you are served in the Post Office and I take my hat off to those people. In the second place I think we can demand a greater sense of responsibility from members like the hon. member for Drakensberg. Did the hon. member not occupy an executive position in her days in Natal? Surely she knows what burdens accompany responsibility. I sat and listened to her this afternoon. Surely the hon. member knows she is talking against her own better judgment. She has carried the burden of responsibility and now she demands responsibility from the Minister knowing full well that she has no right to make that demand. I want to ask the hon. member, as somebody who has influence in her party, as an outstanding figure in her party and as somebody who always causes us amusement in this House, to think back to the days when she carried the burden of responsibility and teach her fellow members, like the hon. member for Orange Grove—he is a bit young but he will still come to his senses—to be a little more responsible and to exercise her influence on that party. I think we in South Africa can consider ourselves fortunate in having a Department of Posts and Telegraphs which is being administered the way it is and in having a staff which perform their duties so punctiliously, people who are not always working under the most favourable conditions but who support the Government and make the best of the task which has been entrusted to them. [Time limit.]

I am not going to follow the hon. member who has just sat down. He spoke about point number one, and then he came to point number two and then to another point number two. He said that the Post Office deliveries were normal and that there was no chaos, but then he delivered a stupid little homily to the public and said it was time the public of South Africa learned not to be waited on. If there is nothing wrong and there is no delay and no hitch in the postal services, why should the public learn not to be waited on? Then he came to point number three, which was still point number two, and it was the same story; he wanted to tell everybody in South Africa what to do except the Minister. This was most amusing, and the hon. member for Randfontein who spoke just before him, and the hon. member for Bethlehem, had paeons of praise for everybody except the Minister. I said to the hon. member for Bethlehem that he had said naught for the comfort of the Post Office staff, and I must say the same to the hon. member for Randfontein. Whereas the hon. member for Bethlehem lives in the past, the hon. member for Randfontein lives in the future. He asked what would happen if this boom stopped? Then the people who resigned would come back to the Post Office; and he said you could not put up their salaries because it would increase the inflation. What sense is there in all this talk? Then the hon. member for Ventersdorp challenged us to get up immediately and say where the delay was, but when two of us jumped up he refused to listen to us.

You have the opportunity now. Please do it.

You are almost tempting me not to do it, but I cannot allow the hon. member to waste my time. To me the question of the postal staff and the shortage of workers and the salaries are not things to laugh about. I think that is in extremely bad taste. I want to tell the hon. member for Randfontein my own personal experience. My car was railed from Utrecht to Cape Town, and the car was standing on the loading bank for two days when my car key, which had been posted by air mail, had not even arrived yet. I just want to say to the hon. member for Randfontein, who spoke about the spiral of inflation and therefore the Post Office workers cannot get higher salaries, that the Minister forgot about inflation when he promptly put up the price of a telephone call at a callbox from 2¾ cents to 5 cents. He milks the public every time he gets the chance.

But I was telling of my experiences and I was about to say that the Postmaster-General said in March this year that ten years ago the telephone exchange in Cape Town was hopelessly outdated, and I was telling of the experience of this person who had telephoned a certain number for days and she was told to phone 4191, where she was told to ring 2291 to test the line to find out whether it was in order, and then when she rang 2291 to ask whether it had been tested she was told to complain to 4191, and she waited, and the next day she telephoned, the original number again hoping that now it had been repaired, but there was no reply. So the same thing happened again. She had to ring 4191, where she was told to ring 2291, and there she was told that these people would test the line. She had to ring them back again to ask whether the line has been tested and she was told that the line had been tested and she must now ring 4191 to complain. The third day the same process took place again. She rang 4191 and was told to ring 2291 and she rang 2291 and waited and was told to ring 4191 and then the fourth time the whole process repeated itself again. Every time you are told to ring a certain number to find whether the line is out of order, and when you ring that particular number you are told to ring another number so that they can test the line and then you must ring up again to ask whether they have tested it, and when they have tested it they tell you it was out of order and they tell you to lodge your complaint at the first number.

Where did this happen?

Here in Cape Town. On the fourth day she went through this procedure all over again. Then she just said that she was not going to do it and the person at the other end of the line said they would put her through to the Supervisor. She held on and got through to the Supervisor, who told her that this firm had moved out to Paarden Eiland and that the telephone was ringing in an empty house. That was after four or five days that she had been trying to get this number. She was told to ring 093 and ask for the new number of the firm, which she did, and they told her they could not give her the new number.

That sounds like a Grimm’s fairy tale.

Yes, it sounds like a fairy story but it happens to be true. Eventually she rang the Post Office at Paarden Eiland and asked whether they could perhaps give her the new numbers of this firm. She dialled the first digit, five, and a sweet voice answered “Valkenberg here”.

Is that where you got that story from?

This afternoon I was trying to find a member of this hon. House who was not here because he is not well. I dialled the digit four, and the second time I dialled the digit four I heard a sweet voice saying to me: “Goodbye, I will see you some other day.” (Laughter.)

I want to speak to the hon. the Minister in regard to the telephone books, I want to ask him whether they cannot simplify the numbers of the Government Departments. I want to tell him the story of somebody who tried to phone the Rent Board. [Time limit.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Drakensberg accused the hon. member for Randfontein of living in the future and the hon. member for Bethlehem of living in the past. Listening to the hon. member for Drakensberg I wondered in what era she was living. I want to return to the present. I think we are all acquainted with the method of attack the Opposition employ. The method they have employed here has been nothing but to create a fuss. It was started by the hon. member for Orange Grove who dramatically launched the attack on the part of the Opposition. This side of the House is as sympathetic towards the Post Office workers of the country as the Opposition pretend to be.

Why don’t you help them then?

It has been my privilege in the past also to have worked for the Government. It was still during the days of the United Party government and let me say at once that the treatment we received was poor. The hon. member for Drakensberg spoke about an initial salary of R65 per month without any qualifications. In those days it was R16 per month for a matriculant. I want to confine myself more specifically to our postal traffic and the delivery of mail. In this connection we have had to listen to many complaints from that side of the House. Not only did they plead for an improved service but indirectly they cast a reflection on the Post Office staff. We are all aware of the fact that our country is undergoing a tremendous economic upsurge except hon. members on that side of the House who are apparently unaware of it that the country is undergoing phenomenal development. Apparently they do not want to see it. In an attempt to convince them of that I want to invite them to come to the Vaal triangle and to see what is happening there. What is happening there is happening throughout the Republic.

It is understandable that this phenomenal growth must have a radical effect on the Post Office services. It must cause bottlenecks in the service. One of these bottlenecks is a shortage of staff. We admit that. But this problem will not be solved merely by raising the salaries. The hon. member for Randfontein has already pointed out what a rising cost spiral would be created if there were to be competition with industries as far as salaries were concerned. There is one thing we must not lose sight of that is that in view of the fact that the cost of living has now been consolidated with basic wages the person will receive a higher pension the day he retires than he would have under the United Party Government when there was no consolidation and when the cost of living allowance was not taken into account for pension purposes.

It is characteristic of the United Party to exaggerate everything. That is why they still think that they are a big and powerful political party. Let us analyse the position as far as the postal services are concerned. Let us see how these services have been extended. As has already been pointed out these services are continually being extended as new needs and demands arise. In this regard I want to mention the air-mail parcel postal service to countries overseas which came into operation on the 1st of January, 1965 and to the postal certification service for Government departments which came into operation on the 1st of April, 1964. These are only two of the additional services which have recently been introduced. Let us look at the extension of our postal traffic in general. During the past year 1,107,000,000 postal articles were handled by the Post Office, i.e. over 3,000,000 per day. The percentage increase in the traffic has risen from 3 per cent five years ago to nearly 8.5 per cent to-day, i.e. during the past financial year. As far as air mail is concerned the 1963-4 financial year was a record year. The postal articles conveyed by air in the Republic and South West Africa have increased by 9 per cent from 1,272 tons to 1,393 tons during the financial year 1962-3 and during the past financial year by 11 per cent from 1,393 tons to 1,556 tons. As far as the overseas service is concerned the postal traffic increased during 1963-4 by 6 per cent from 428 tons to 456 tons as against a 2 per cent increase from 418 tons to 428 tons during the previous financial year. As far as the conveyance of parcels by air is concerned there has been a 25 per cent increase, namely, from 129 tons to 161 tons as compared with a 19 per cent increase, i.e. from 119 tons to 129 tons, during the year 1962-3. The percentage increase in the weight of the parcels conveyed by air to the United Kingdom during 1962-3 and 1963-4 was 18 per cent and 15 per cent respectively.

These few figures are irrefutable proof of the extension in the services the Department have had to give and they have dealt with that in an extremely efficient manner. Let me deal for a moment with our postal tariffs. The hon. member for Orange Grove said our tariffs had gone up. I readily admit that but let us see how our tariffs compare with those in overseas countries. Take our internal postal rates. For the first ounce our tariff is 2|c in comparison with 2£c in the United Kingdom, 3£c in Australia; 7c in New Zealand; 31c in Canada. For a two ounce letter our tariff is 31c, that of the United Kingdom 3|c; of Australia 51c; of New Zealand 91c and of Canada 51c. In addition we must remember that ours is a very big country with a scattered population. Let us deal with the internal postal rate for post-cards. In the Republic of South Africa it is 21c; 2 c in the United Kingdom; 31c in Australia and four times as high, namely 6c in New Zealand; and 3c in Canada.

In the case of printed matter it is 11c for four ounces in the Republic; 31c in the United Kingdom; 31c in Australia; 3c in Canada, I think that is indeed an achievement on the part of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs in that it can provide us with this service at these rates.

Reference has also been made to the delivery of postal articles. I want to quote from the same periodical from which the hon. member for Randfontein has quoted; this happened in America—

I take it that some letters do go astray as far as our postal service is concerned but I do not think they are many. I also want to refer to a letter which appeared in the Transvaler of yesterday’s date in which the appreciation of the public is expressed to the postal staff in that they often have to deal with difficult handwritings and addresses without those letters being incorrectly delivered. I think the handwriting of many of us will fall in that category. I think my own falls in it yet my letters have so far always reached their destination. I think that is an achievement on the part of the Post Office. [Time limit.]

We have had a pitiful exhibition this afternoon of Government members not even attempting to answer the attacks by the Opposition on the hon. the Minister but dealing with generalities. The hon. member who has just sat down says our attack is just “stofopskoppery”; he says the members of the Government are just as sympathetic as we are towards the postal officials. But we want to know why not one of them has got up to make a plea on behalf of those officials. Why talk generalities? We have been given the reasons for the shortage of personnel but not one single member has asked the Minister to do something for the officials. All they say is that the postal officials are not worse off than they were in 1948. Is there to be no improvement under the Nationalist Party Government? Are hon. members opposite going to be satisfied if the country stands still and if things are no worse than they were in 1948 while the rest of the world is progressing and improving? The postal officials in South Africa must be satisfied if their position is just as good as it was in 1948!

The hon. member for Vanderbijlpark (Mr. Henning) told us how the Post Office has expanded. We know it has expanded. He says we must not complain when telephone charges go up and postal rates also because we are cheaper than Canada, Australia and America. What are the wages paid in those countries? Why did he not tell us what wages were paid in those countries? Are the postal officials there better off .than the postal officials in this country? The postal tariff does not represent the cost to the Post Office to convey the letter; it is a form of taxation. The higher the postal rate the greater the income to the State. To try to suggest, as the hon. member did, that our post office was conveying letters cheaper because it was more efficient than those other post offices, is so much nonsense. I am not saying our postal officials are not efficient but that is not the reason why our postal rates are lower than they are in other countries.

The hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) found half an hour too short to deal with the grievances and complaints of the postal officials. His time was up before he was half-way through what he wanted to say. He is going to come into the debate again, Sir, many times, to finish his case against the Minister. I want to deal with a particular group of officials, namely, those in the Transkei. We know that there is dissatisfaction throughout the Republic amongst the postal officials. It is no good hon. members opposite trying to pretend that there is not. There is dissatisfaction and there is greater dissatisfaction in the Transkei than in the rest of the Republic. Although the postal officials in the Republic are being discriminated against as compared with other civil servants, in the Transkei the position is even worse; there the discrimination is even greater. I blame the Minister. What did the hon. Minister of Bantu Administration do in the Transkei? What did he do for his civil servants in the Transkei? He bought them houses, not one house, but many houses, and he is building more houses for them and he pays them special allowances. He gives them a territorial allowance ranging from R20 to R40 and he gives them a rent allowance from R33.50 to R45, and those who are living in official Government houses get a rental reduction of 80 per cent. That is what happens to officials in the Bantu Affairs Department who work in the Transkei.

Are you against that?

Of course not, but why can’t the post office people get the same treatment? Why must Bantu Affairs officials get the special treatment? The hon. member for Randfontein and others have said that there is a shortage of personnel because officials are attracted to private business, to private firms because they get better salaries there. But you don’t find that the Bantu officials in the Transkei are leaving the service. In fact there is an effort to get into the Transkei as Bantu officials, in the Bantu Affairs Department. The hon. Minister has no trouble in getting officials there, but there is trouble in the Post Office. Why? Because they do not get the same treatment. If the postal officials were treated the same way as other officials are treated, we soon would find them applying to go to the Transkei. I want to ask the hon. Minister to tell us what houses is he supplying to the officials in the Transkei compared with the houses supplied by the Bantu Affairs Department? Is he doing anything to assist them? Why does he not improve the conditions under which they work? What about the post offices? The post offices are old and antiquated. I put a question to the Minister the other day about the post office at Butterworth and I asked when they were going to build a new post office. It has been on the priority list for years. The reply was—

Now I want to ask the hon. Minister: What attempt is he making to get other accommodation for the postmaster and for the post office? Is he doing anything at all? Do you know what the Minister of Bantu Affairs did? He built new magistrates’ offices throughout the Transkei for his officials. They work in comfort and when they built new offices for the new Transkeian Government they erected prefabs in no time, comfortable prefabs. Why is the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs not doing something like that? What does he do? He sits quietly there, doing nothing at all.

You are talking politics again.

Mr. Chairman, the post office service is just as essential to the Transkei as the other officials working for the Bantu Affairs Department. Without communication the Transkei must come to a standstill. In fact it is more essential in the Transkei to have good communications because of the nature of the territory. Throughout the area you have traders, living in isolated spots and in small villages and it is essential that those people have good communication services, and unless something is done to make the conditions for the people working there more attractive, the services will deteriorate more and more. The hon. member for Ventersdorp (Mr. Greyling) asked anybody to stand up who had a complaint about postal deliveries. He should have been at the Civic Association Congress in Umtata last week, then he would have heard complaints about delivery. But that is general all over the Republic. It is idle to pretend that there are no complaints about post office deliveries. Unless the officials are treated properly they will remain dissatisfied and dissatisfied officials will not give satisfactory services, and while these officials have a grudge and they feel that they are neglected, and justly so. that they are not being treated as other officials in other Departments, they will work with a grudge, and I say that as long as we have this Minister as Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, the Post Office Department will remain the Cinderella of the Government Departments.

I think it is very unfair and unreasonable on the part of the hon. member for Transkeian Territories (Mr. Hughes) or on the part of any member on that side of the House to say that while we have this Minister the Post Office will remain the Cinderella of Government Departments. If there is one thing we all know it is that this Minister has always done everything in his power to get as much as possible for the post office worker. We can talk in this House and level accusations at one another but until such time as we are prepared to make an earnest plea and, indeed, to demand that the Post Office, which must be regarded as the commercial department of the Public Service, should stand on its own legs we shall always have these complaints.

Are you doing that now?

Yes, I shall do it now. My plea is that the Post Office should be regarded as the biggest commercial undertaking in the Republic. [Interjections.] One can say the Railways are bigger but we expect the Post Office to compete with the biggest businesses in the country, and until such time as it is separated and becomes a department of its own, and has the power in its hands to employ officials and to dismiss them . . .

You are now talking contrary to the policy of your party.

That does not matter. A Whip has not yet had occasion to come and tell me to stop. Hon. members are getting very worried because we are coming forward with something positive. When I say that we are coming forward with something positive. We appreciate the difficult circumstances under which the post office workers have worked and we are grateful to them for what they have done in the past; we appreciate it greatly. The post office workers realize what this Government has done in giving everybody in the Post Office proper training. It makes no matter whether it is a female assistant, or a technician or the most capable person but they are given thorough training in the Post Office. The Post Office has gone out of its way to train the people who work for it. That training is costing the State anything from R500 to R4.000 depending on the duration of the training. But what do trade and commerce do? Are they assisting the State in this great undertaking? No. they prey on the Post Office and I want to make an appeal to trade and industry to-day not to be so selfish and not to attract these people away from the Post Office who have cost you, Sir, and me, as taxpayers, a great deal of money to train. The hon. member for Randfontein has explained very clearly that we cannot afford to pay all the technicians in the Post Office the same salary which a particular business may perhaps be able to afford to pay. if it wants an outstanding person it simply takes that person away from the Post Office. I therefore want to ask industry to introduce their own training schemes for the staff they require. It is no use the State going out of its way to create all those facilities only to lose all those people to people who have come to this country, opened businesses and just want to scoop off the cream. Had the State been able to afford to pay these people the salaries which trade and commerce pay them to-day, it would assuredly have done so. We are told there is a surplus. If the State uses that surplus to increase wages does the hon. member think trade and industry will be satisfied? Would we not simply be creating a ridiculous inflationary cycle? We are prepared to pay every official a living wage but we do not want to listen to the nonsense of the hon. member for Drakensberg. Is that the only contribution she can make? The way she carried on made me think we were in Valkenburg.

We know serious problems face the Post Office; we do not want to argue that away but we do not want to run away from those problems. The National Party will in due course solve those problems. I want to make a plea to the Minister. Our most serious problem on the Witwatersrand is in connection with the delivery of letters. Has the time not arrived for us to approach this matter from a totally different angle? Must people have their mail delivered to their houses every day?

Yes.

If it has to be done I want to point out to the hon. member for Boland that the journal of the postal workers says that the Coloureds and the Bantu are irresponsible and lazy. I have a suggestion to make. We are anxious to teach our youth how to work. Let us enlist the services of the White matric boys in our towns; let us give them the responsibility of delivering our mail against some compensation; they can be occupied in this way for two hours per day and earn money at the same time. My plea to the Minister is to consider applying this method. If he does we shall have a good postal delivery service and we shall at the same time be teaching those boys to work and to assume responsibility from a young age.

Then they fail matric.

They will be able to earn something while they will at the same time be helping the Government to overcome this crisis. I am very anxious for this problem to be solved in a practical way. It is no use our levelling accusations at one another in this House. That gets us nowhere. If hon. members would only realize their responsibility towards the country and not always try to exploit our problems we would make far better progress.

Business interrupted to report progress.