Unless notice of objection to the adoption of the Report is given before the commencement of business on Friday, 11 June, the Report will be considered as adopted.

Yesterday I raised with the hon. the Minister the question of police assistance to a stranded motorist. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister is in a position to tell the House whether his advisers are of the view that that situation is covered by the terms of this Clause.

In reply to the question put by the hon. member for Zulu-land (Mr. Cadman), the position is that if it is necessary for the police to do that in the execution of their duties or in terms of obligations resting upon them as a result of an accident, the State is liable, because then the person is regarded as an official passenger. If that is not the position, then he is not regarded as an official passenger. In other words, as I told the hon. member yesterday, if the police, purely out of kind-heartedness, pick up a person who has had a flat tyre on the road and take him to the nearest garage, then the responsibility does not rest with the State, because the person concerned has been done a favour. I have gone into the matter and have found that that also applies to Defence and other Government transport. They have similar provisions.

Clause put and agreed to.

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

House resumed:

Bill reported without amendment.

Yesterday when this Bill was before the House for the Second Reading, I raised with the hon. the Minister the question of the redrafting of the definition appearing in the Bill, so that it would not appear—as it does at the moment—that people are executed whilst being transferred from one gaol to another.

Quite candidly I am afraid I do not see the hon. member’s point.

In that case I shall demonstrate it to the hon. the Minister. In the Bill a “prisoner” is defined as—

1. (c) was executed or died while he was being detained in custody in a prison or while he was being transferred in custody or was en route in custody from one prison to another prison . . .

Mr. Chairman, this is a most abominable abomination of the English language. Surely this is not what the hon. the Minister means? As this clause reads now it refers to a prisoner who died or was executed while in custody or while being transferred from one prison to another prison. Surely this is not what the hon. the Minister intends? All I am asking the Minister to do is to have another look at this clause and ask his law advisers whether they cannot redraft it so that it reads properly, so that it will not indicate that people are executed while being transferred from one gaol to another. It goes without saying that this does not in fact happen. But, Sir, the wording which I am objecting to should not be in an Act. This sort of language should not be here. This is the definition of a “prisoner”.

It defines a prisoner inter alia as a person who was executed or . . . who . . . died otherwise.

Well. Mr. Chairman, why have words in an Act which are subject to this construction? It is subject to this construction, because that is how the clause reads. If I understand English syntax then that is how it reads.

Because I do not wish to be accused of murdering the English language, I will go into the matter again. But, Sir, quite candidly I must confess that I personally do not see the hon. member’s point. The first category of persons we are dealing with here is a person who was executed. The next category is the person who died whilst being detained in custody. It is quite a different category altogether. That is how I see the matter. However, if there are other hon. members who agree with the hon. member for Durban (North) then I will certainly ask the law advisers to look into this matter again. But as I said, Sir, to me the meaning is perfectly plain. I am not an expert as far as languages are concerned, but to me the meaning is as plain as can be.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 18,

I move—

In line 47, to omit all the words after “the”, where it occurs for the first time, to the end of the clause and to substitute “addition to sub-section (2) of the following proviso:

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 24,

I move—

To insert the following paragraph to follow paragraph (b):

1. (c) by the deletion in paragraph (b) of subsection (2) of the word “one” and the substitution in the said paragraph for the words “set out” of the words “referred to”; and.

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Remaining clauses and Title of the Bill put

and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with amendments.

On a point of order. I wish to submit that the amendment moved by the hon. the Minister is opt of order as far as sub-section (2) is concerned. A new principle is being introduced here, a principle which is quite different from the principle adopted at the second reading. The principle adopted at the second reading refers to fideicommissa, and fideicommissary substitutia. In terms of this form of substitution the ownership vests in the various fideicommissaries nominated in the will or other instrument, and the ownership passes on to others in the course of time. If, for example, property is left to A, B, C and D, and B, C and D were to die the property would vest absolutely in A.

Sub-section (2) of this clause deals with usufructuaries. It does not deal with fideicommissaries. It refers to a fiduciary other than a fiduciary without a beneficial interest. What is really referred to here in this sub-section is not a fiduciary but a usufructuary.

Ag, no!

The principle is quite different. It is no use the hon. member making the interjection he has just made. The principle here is that you may leave your property for example to X subject to a usufruct without no right whatsoever in the property in between. This is quite different from a fideicommissarii substitution. In fact there is no real substitution because you leave the property absolutely to X, with three or four or five generations enjoying the usufruct in between. The testator never had in mind that any of the usufructuaries in a usufructuary disposition should have ownership in the property bequeathed. This is the principle with which we dealt at the second reading and this is the principle which was adopted. The principle of fideicommissarius and not the principle of fiduciarius without an interest was adopted at the second reading.

This clause does not deal with the usufructuary at all.

It deals with fiduciaries without an interest.

Well that is not a usufructuary.

But it could refer to a usufructuary.

That in fact is a trustee, referred to in Clause 8 of the Bill.

I am afraid I cannot agree with the hon. the Minister.

You will find it in “The Law and Practice of Administration of Estates” by Meyerowitz.

Well, I still maintain that the principle of this new clause goes beyond the principle of the Bill.

Order! I have already considered this clause from the point of view mentioned by the hon. member. I find the clause to be in order and I rule accordingly.

The hon. the Minister has given us his point of view as regards the amendment which he has moved to Clause 7, but before the hon. the Minister decides finally . . .

No, I do not want to decide—I want the House to decide.

The hon. the Minister did not give me time to finish my sentence! Before the hon. the Minister decides that his point of view is the one that should be accepted by the House, I should like to raise two issues, issues which, in my view, detract very considerably from the merits of the amendment. We are dealing here with a situation where landed property is tied up in a will for a number of generations. It is tied up in such a way that it is to pass from one person to another and to another and vet to another person, in a defined order. Until this measure came before the House, people were entitled to believe, being aware of the contents of a trust or a will, that they would eventually inherit certain assets. I believe. Sir, that people—not just a handful, but many—all over the country have adjusted their lives, particularly if they are middle-aged, they have adjusted their finances according to the belief that is almost certain that a certain inheritance will eventually come their way. If the inheritance were to be cut away precipitately—as this amendment seeks to do—those people will without doubt suffer hardship. This is the first point I wish to make, Sir, and I believe it is something which we should avoid.

The second aspect to which I wish to refer is the question of death duties. Very often in these cases one deals with large landed estates, and as we know people who have to deal with large landed estates left in trust or left in wills and tied up with fideicommissa have to provide for eventual death duties which will have to be paid on that property. This is one of the main functions of the trustees or the executors of estates such as these. They make provision for payment of death duties in order to avoid forced sales of large areas of the land for the purpose of paying death duties.

If one inherits merely a life interest in property, and after your death the property is to devolve upon somebody else, the amount of estate duty paid by the first-mentioned is very considerably less than it would be if the person concerned were to inherit the property outright. We are creating a situation here. Mr. Chairman, where a person who anticipated having merely a life interest will now find himself receiving unencumbered transfer of the property. It might well happen that trustees or executors dealing with large landed estates might find themselves caught unawares by this legislation because they had not set aside, or made sufficient arrangements, to meet the estate duty. And, Sir, in a big estate the death duty can be a tremendous amount.

These seem to me to be two major difficulties preventing the acceptance of this amendment. I should like the hon. the Minister to consider extending the scope of his amendment to one additional generation—that is to say, where you have an estate tied up and two generations have already benefited in terms of the particular will, the estate should be allowed to go for one further generation. If the Minister would adopt this suggestion, Sir, then both the difficulties I have mentioned, namely, the payment of death duties and the disruption of a vested interest on the part of a person who has planned his life in terms of the existing law, will be obviated. I have prepared an amendment, but I do not wish to move it at this stage, because I do hope the hon. the Minister will see his way clear to make the suggested change in his amendment, that is to say, allowing the property to continue for one generation beyond the commencement of this Bill.

As I said during the second-reading debate yesterday, I am convinced that difficulties will, in fact, arise as predicted by the hon. member for Zululand. I readily concede that. At the same time, however, I want to point out that every single piece of legislation affects some people adversely and others beneficially. What we have to do here, therefore, is to weigh the disadvantages against the advantages. I want to point out the disadvantages which would result if further substitutions were allowed, apart from those provided for in the new clause. Here I want to mention a case from my personal experience, the small piece of land in Oudtshoorn in respect of which there have already been no fewer than five substitutions. As a result of sub-division the portions have become so small that, by the time the fifth generation have to get their portions, they will be completely uneconomic. But in the meantime there are still surviving members of the third generation. As far as certain portions of these pieces of land are concerned, there have only been substitutions up to the third generation so far. It is no longer possible to trace all the heirs in the fourth generation. Besides, they are no longer interested in those pieces of land, because they are completely uneconomic. Although we were able to trace some of the heirs of the fifth generation, we could not trace all of them. They are no longer interested either. All that can be achieved by further substitutions is to aggravate the position more and more, because the number of heirs increases from generation to generation by perhaps four children and the piece of land concerned then has to be divided among four people in that generation. But the fact of the matter is that those persons cannot be traced. I maintain, therefore, that the position which this legislation proposes to improve will only be aggravated if we allow any further substitutions, that is to say, after the second and third substitutions, as provided here. As the proposal reads at the moment, it means that where there have been three, four or five substitutions, substitution will be terminated immediately; in cases where there has only been one substitution, a second one will still be allowed; and in cases where there has been no substitution as yet, two substitutions will be allowed. That is in terms of the proposed clause as it reads at present.

I maintain that that is a reasonable and fair provision. In fact, only the old substitutions will be affected; in other words, those cases where the position has already got out of hand. I do not think the cases in regard to which the hon. member for Zululand expressed concern here will be affected. There may be a few where only one further substitution will be allowed, but what we really want to combat here is the fact that these multiple substitutions are taking place—to the fourth, the fifth and the sixth generation.

The hon. member for Zululand also spoke about the death duties which will have to be paid. I want to concede that more death duties will have to be paid, but the receiver of property must bear in mind that he will now be obtaining property which is free of fideicommissums and that, consequently, the heir must be prepared to pay higher duties on the increased value of the property. That is the position, after all, in the case of every heir; if he inherits little, he pays little; if he inherits a great deal, he has to pay proportionately more. In this case an heir would, therefore, receive more than would otherwise have been the case, and consequently he will have to be content with having to pay higher death duties.

It should be borne in mind that we cannot frame legislation for individual cases. We have to lay down the principle, and persons who are adversely affected by it simply have to accept the position.

In support of what the hon. member for Zululand has said, I wish to make the following point. This is a piece of legislation which is very, very important. There is no doubt that the proposed amendment by the hon. the Minister will affect properties involving huge sums. This Bill was introduced in the Other Place a considerable time back. It has been before the public over a long period. To adopt this amendment at this stage, an amendment which varies so greatly from the original Bill, might easily cause very grave injustice in certain cases.

These amendments are moved because of the debates that took place in the Other Place.

That is so, Mr. Chairman, but on the other hand there might be many people who are completely satisfied with the position as it was debated in the Other Place. The amount involved may run into very considerable sums. There may even be instances where a substitution is to take place immediately after this Bill is passed. A person may have relied on a certain situation existing at some time in the future, and then, at the very last moment, without that person having had any opportunity of making representations, a completely new piece of legislation is put on the Statute Book. In terms of the original measure, there were to be two substitutions. The hon. member for Zululand has pleaded that one further substitution should be permitted. That will give us an opportunity of going into the matter. I have no doubt that complaints will reach the hon. the Minister. I suggest to the hon. the Minister that if we accept his amendment as it stands, we may be doing very grave injustice indeed. The persons concerned, persons having vested rights on which they were relying, would have had no opportunity of making representations, having relied on what happened when this measure was before the Other Place. I most earnestly ask the hon. the Minister to consider this point.

I support the idea of doing away with these everlasting fideicommissa. I am in favour of limiting them in the way this Bill seeks to do. But, Sir, where substitutions have already occurred, what this Bill will in effect do will be to vest rights in a certain person and remove the rights which were to vest in another person who, within a short period, would have acquired those rights. Life is not everlasting, Sir, and the period involved might be but a few days. And that, Sir, as a result of legislation in respect of which the aggrieved person had had no opportunity of making representations to the hon. the Minister. I do hope the hon. the Minister will reconsider this matter very seriously.

I hope the Committee will accept the new Clause 7 as moved by the hon. the Minister. I am perfectly prepared to admit that every piece of legislation may affect certain persons adversely, some more so than others. What we therefore have to consider in those cases—and there I agree wtih the hon. member for Heilbron—is in what way we would do the most good and the least harm. I believe that if one person will be adversely affected by this provision, there will be thousands who will benefit from it.

I am no lawyer and, therefore, I do not want to argue this matter from a legal point of view, but I want to approach it from the practical point of view. When I was still Minister of Lands we had to deal with many such cases. The principle we want to get away from here is the principle that a person can remain the owner of his property for many years after his death. That is what a fideicommissum amounts to, namely, that a person can remain the owner of his property for many years after his death or, in other words, that he can decide about his property after he has been dead for many years. That, in my view, is totally wrong. I can understand perfectly well that a parent should have the right, if his children do not satisfy the requirements, to bequeath his property to their children, but to bequeath it to children who have not yet been born seems quite ridiculous to me. A man should not have the right to dispose of his property and to bequeath it to persons who have not even been born yet. The object of this Bill is to prevent that.

I have come across various cases in my experience. I came across a case in the Karoo in which a beautiful farm had been left to 99 generations; in other words, the testator wanted to retain the right of disposal over that land for about 3,000 years. That is totally wrong, and I am very glad that we are going to put an end to that. Two substitutions have already taken place. In this particular case the property passes from eldest son to eldest son. The position is now that if the present owner of that farm should die to-morrow, his wife and the other children would have nothing at all, because his eldest son would inherit it. If he has not made provision for them out of the income from the farm, they will be virtually disinherited, and if one further substitution takes place that may in fact happen. But if the eldest and only son of that man should die, a second cousin of his will come in and become the owner of the farm, and that is quite ridiculous. His daughters cannot inherit it. I had another case of a farm in Stellenbosch which had been left as a fideicommissum for four generations and the farm was. totally neglected. The owners did not live on the farm, but farmed in the Karoo. The farm deteriorated completely, and it was losing its value, and they wanted to dispose of the farm. The executors of the estate also wanted to dispose of it, but the law prohibited them from doing so, because two substitutions still had to take place. The one person who was to receive it was 12 years old, and we would have had to wait until that person’s son was 21 years old before the farm could be sold. The owners of the farm, the executors of the estate, came to me as Minister and asked whether we could not do something to sell the farm and invest the money. We could not sell it, and in the end we solved the problem by expropriating it. I can relate the history of another case in the Sundays River Valley, a beautiful farm which was left under a fideicommissum, not to the eldest son, but to the descendants. When the Sundays River Valley was laid out as an irrigation area—and it is one of the most successful irrigation areas we have in South Africa—they could not find all the owners of that farm to sign the necessary documents, and as a result that land was not listed for irrigation purposes. If you drive along the river you will find the finest piece of land there which is simply being neglected. As a result of the fideicommissum it was impossible to subdivide the land, because they could not find all the heirs, and it was impossible to list the land, because we could not get the consent of the heirs. I can mention many cases which convinced me many years ago that the right which our law grants a testator virtually to have the right of disposal over land for generations to come is an absurdity and does much more harm than the aspect about which the hon. members for Zululand and Springs have certain misgivings, and the sooner we put an end to it the better. The sooner we put an end to it, the sooner testators will lose the desire to bequeath land subject to a fideicommissum. I hope the Minister will accept the amendment in its present form. This state of affairs is an evil and the harm caused by it is far greater than the dangers which will arise if we put an end to it. There are certain persons who will be affected, but there are thousands who will benefit if we put an end to it.

The hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) gave me the impression that he is really even against allowing two substitutions. He does not want any substitutions of any kind. Well, the House does not agree with that point of view, because it has accepted the principle of allowing two substitutions.

After this Bill becomes law.

Yes, The effect of accepting the principle in the second reading is that in future, after this Bill becomes law, no one can tie up his estate for more than two generations. We have accepted that.

I should like to go further. The principle is the same.

Here is a watering down of the principle, but we apparently agree that there should be some freedom of testation. There are two points of view. The one is the principle of the freedom of testation, and the other is that you must not allow a dead man to tie up his land after his death. Well, we have compromised. We have allowed a dead man to tie up his land for two generations after his death. It is a question of the incidence of the point of view that the House has adopted. We agree that tying up land for 99 generations is ridiculous, but a line has to be drawn somewhere. The House has decided to draw that line at two generations, with which I agree. But as we are making a change in the situation that has obtained here ever since the White man came to South Africa, a law under which a great many wills have been made and under which wills a great many people think they are going to receive a benefit, when you make a change as radical as this, let it be made, I suggest, so that it hurts most people least; and it is in order to bring about that situation that I have suggested one further generation. The hon. member for Heilbron addressed the House in a manner which might lead some people to believe that there is no legislation at present to deal with the problem of the uneconomic land-holding due to a fideicommissum in a will, but that is not so. I do not know whether the hon. member intended to convey that, but there is the Act of 1916. . . .

Yes, but that Act has never worked.

It has worked. I have handled cases myself where we have gone to court under that Act because of uneconomic land-holdings or because of holdings that had to be farmed in an undesirable manner. I agree that the legislation is not perfect, but it has given a remedy in many cases.

It has never been used.

I have handled numbers of such cases myself.

Then you must have handled nearly all the cases that arose.

If you go through the law books you will find a great many such cases where that legislation was successfully used, as well as cases where it has failed. But it has worked, although I do not say it is perfect. I hope that after this discussion, the Minister will adopt the point of view that whereas we are unanimous in wishing to put the situation right, we do not wish to do so by injuring present parties through no fault of their own. That difficulty can be overcome if you allow these to continue for one further generation after this Bill becomes law.

I also want to give my opinion, as requested by the hon. the Minister. I must say that I do not feel quite happy about the Bill, because the right of free bequeathal has been a deep-rooted one in our system of law for centuries. It was eventually changed to four generations, and now we want to reduce it to two generations. Well, “O tempora! O mores!” Times change, and we have to consider matters as they are at present. The hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Cadman) made a very strong point about persons who are living to-day and who are depending upon this inheritance which must accrue to them. That is something which worries one if this law should be passed in its present form. The hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) has now put the case for the other side, which is that so many people would be benefited if we passed this law. He stated the examples so clearly that it is not necessary for me to explain the matter again. The hon. member for Zululand also stated his examples clearly. We have heard both sides of the matter. Although it is difficult to decide about the matter, because there are both advantages and disadvantages, we must consider who will benefit most. If we consider the matter in that light, then I think we must accept in practice that there will be a few cases, out of the hundreds of cases we have to deal with, in which there will be disadvantages. These cases are usually family matters, and in those few cases we hope that the members of the family will be able to come to an agreement amongst themselves so that the person concerned will not be left with nothing at all. So, when considering both sides of the matter, it does seem to me that the amendment should go through as it stands.

I do not view this as a legal man, but from the point of view of fairness and justice. It seems to me quite wrong to adopt the principle that we should weigh up how many will benefit and how many will lose. In legislating our main business is to see that nobody loses. It is not our business to see who is going to gain. To my mind, that is the important point here. A number of people will obviously lose and we should see that nobody loses.

Although we have accepted the principle, I agree with the hon. member for Zululand that certain persons will be prejudiced. I am thinking, for example, of the case in which the property is occupied by an heir in the third generation. If this Bill is passed, he can immediately become the full owner of the property and the other heirs in the fourth generation will lose everything. I wondered whether there was not some solution and whether the property could not be divided in such a case. Then the fiduciary right could be determined as in the case of usufruct. It is calculated by means of tables which stipulate that if a person is of a certain age, the usufruct is worth a certain amount, and on that basis it can be divided. Is a possible solution not perhaps that we should pass the Bill, but that it should not come into operation before some later date by which we will have effected such an amendment? Then no one would be prejudiced. Will the Minister not give consideration to that?

The hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) certainly put up a very strong case, but we all bore those facts in mind in accepting the change the Minister moved in the original Bill. We know there has to be a change and we merely want to protect the interests of some people who will be adversely affected. I want to draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that in terms of this amendment which we are now considering, if there has been one substitution already then there will only be one further substitution. What the hon. member for Zululand proposes is that in cases where there has already been two substitutions, there should be one further substitution. He does not propose to alter the position where there has been one substitution, because the next generation is being protected. After all, there are not so many people who will be affected. The position of land will not deteriorate so extensively because of the protection given to one group who are certainly going to lose a right. Therefore I ask the Minister to consider that. The amendment moved by the hon. member for Zululand is very limited; it will only affect a limited number of people. The Minister says it is because of representations made to him after the discussion of the Bill in the Other Place that he has brought in this amendment, but I want to point out to him that had he brought in this amendment earlier, he might have had more representations from the people who are going to be affected, because naturally they thought their rights were being protected. Therefore we cannot really judge the position on the representations which have been made to the Minister because of the discussions which took place in the Other Place.

That is a sound argument.

I ask the House to bear in. mind that the hon. member for Zululand is merely protecting one group and not all fideicommissa which are in force already. He does not protect those where one generation has already been substituted. It will still only go to one further generation. He wants to protect those cases where there have already been two substitutions, by allowing one more substitution, and I do not think that is asking too much.

On the one hand we now have a very practical argument by the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer), with his many years of experience, and on the other hand we have a hypothetical argument, a strong argument on paper, admittedly, by the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Cadman), but the latter argument is not substantiated by practical examples, for the simple reason that we are not really concerned with outsiders here, but with relatives. The danger of doing any injustice to outsiders is therefore a minimal one. If I have to give an immediate decision as to what my personal point of view is, I say without any hesitation whatsoever that I will decide in favour of the amendment as printed on the Order Paper. But, apart from the argument advanced by the hon. member for Zululand, a strong argument has been put forward by the hon. member for Germiston (District) (Mr. Tucker), which has been folloyed up by the hon. member for Transkeian Territories (Mr. Hughes), to the effect that people may have been brought under the impression that their rights are quite safe now and that for that reason they have not submitted any representations. Without my wanting to depart from my point of view in any respect, it therefore seems to me that I must be fair. There is no hurry for this matter to be disposed of this morning. The discussion we have had here has served a very useful purpose. It has focused attention pertinently on the question. The hon. member for Zululand raised another question, on which I shall not be able to give a decision now, but it seems to me that there is not much substance in it, although it is a matter which I should like to go into, namely, estate duty and related matters. Although I have already had wide consultations, I should like to consult the law societies afresh, in so far as they are available in the time. I also want to afford hon. members an opportunity of looking for examples, because we do not want to prejudice anybody. I may mention that the Master is strongly in favour of the amendments. It seems to me that there are overwhelming advantages in accepting the amendment, but, as I am saying, there is no hurry. According to some newspapers we are going to be here for quite some time still. Accordingly I wonder whether it would not be fair towards other parties that I should now move that progress be reported and that we ask leave to sit again. Then all of us could reconsider the matter and we could continue the discussion on a later occasion. It should not take too much time. I should therefore like to move—

That the Chairman report progress.

Agreed to.

House Resumed:

Progress reported.

In the definition clause “Bantu is defined in accordance with the Bantu Trust and Land Act. Now the Bantu Investment Corporation Act includes land referred to in Section 4 of the South West African Native Administration Act. I would like the Minister to tell us why it has been left out of this Bill and why South West Africa is not to be included.

This Bill really relates only to the national units within the Republic of South Africa, and not in South West Africa. It is to bring it into line with the Act of 1959. I do not think it is advisable to extend it so South West Africa.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 3,

In terms of Clause 3 (1), it says—

I submit that Clause 3 confines the operations to the homeland exclusively. I want to know whether the Minister has considered whether this Bill can be applied to areas outside the homeland? Can he by a subsequent clause make the Bill applicable to areas outside the homeland? I do not see how he can. I think Clause 3 limits the field of the operations of the corporation to the homeland, which means the portion of the Bantu area occupied by a national unit. The Minister now wants to amend Clause 6 (3), but I do not think it can affect the position.

What areas have you in mind outside the homelands?

I want it to operate in the villages and towns of the Transkei, but I am afraid that Clause 3 as it reads now confines it only to the homelands and not to an area outside the homelands.

I do not think the hon. member’s objection is a real one. It is when a place has been zoned in the Transkei that it may possibly not apply to it. The hon. member need not feel anxious in that regard, because we are quite satisfied that it can in fact be done. We shall only not allow it to be done in the White areas.

I am not worried about the area which has been zoned. Once it is zoned for Black occupation, it then becomes a Bantu area. What I am worried about is the areas which have not been zoned. We had the same difficulty with the Bantu Investment Corporation. It was not able to open a bank in the White area because the Act did not provide for it. It was subsequently amended to allow the corporation to operate in the urban areas. The Minister intends in Clause 6 (3) to give the Corporation the power to establish industries or other undertakings in White areas. But I feel that Clause 3 as it reads now does not allow the Corporation to operate outside the homeland and I want the assurance that the law advisers are satisfied that Clause 6 (3) will override Clause 3 and enable the Corporation to establish industries in the White areas, especially in the Transkei, because I want them to be able to operate there, but I am afraid that as it reads now that cannot be done.

I just want to give the hon. member the assurance that I have been assured that there is no difficulty, but I will make double sure and consult the law advisers again, and if necessary, I will move such an amendment in the Other Place.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 6,

I promised yesterday that I would go into this matter, and I am quite prepared to move the following amendment—

To omit sub-section (3) and to substitute the following sub-section:

1. (3) The powers conferred by sub-section (1) may also be exercised by a corporation in any urban area, as defined in section one of the Bantu (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act, 1945 (Act No. 25 of 1945), which is surrounded by the Bantu homeland for which such corporation has been established, or which adjoin such homeland but excluding an urban area which is not intended for occupation or ownership by Bantu persons.

I want to afford the hon. members an opportunity of first examining this amendment thoroughly and I would prefer to move it in the Other Place.

With leave of the Committee, amendment withdrawn.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

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

House Resumed:

Bill reported without amendment.

Consequent upon the adjournment of the debate last evening, it has now been possible to consider the second reading statement of the hon. the Minister and its effect on the Bill. Sir, the main effect of that statement is that this House is now faced with a fait accompli, and it is no longer faced with prospective provisions to empower the entertainment of negotiations for the disposal of the Klipfontein Organic Products Corporation shares to private enterprise in terms of the Bill. All that is now still in contemplation, so far as the Government is concerned, is to get ratification of their own negotiations and not to get power to enter into such negotiations or arrangements. I must say that in this matter the Government in my view has shown a blatant disdain for the authority of Parliament. It has in effect simply ignored the prerogative of Parliament and it is making a travesty of the processes of parliamentary procedure and of this second reading debate. Sir, I say that, because the true effect of the hon. the Minister’s statement is that, in anticipation of the consideration and the acceptance by this House of the principles set out in the Bill, the Government has to all intents and purposes completed negotiations with Federale Volksbeleggings Beperk for the takeover of KOP as a going concern. All that remains is for the Government and that organization to dot the i’s and cross the t’s of their arrangements. In the first place, the essential features of the take-over have been concluded; the price of the take-over is settled, and whether or not there is to be some slight adjustment to the figure of R5,600,000 is of no real consequence at all. Secondly, whether the take-over will be to a consortium of 14 or 15 or more interested parties is really neither here nor there for all practical purposes. As I have said, the fundamentals of the take-over arrangements have been completed; only the frills still have to be ironed out. Sir, that really makes a sham of the legislative scheme set out in the Bill. Anything the directors of KOP are empowered to do in the future in terms of paragraph (1) (a) of Clause 1 has already been settled for them by the Government. Moreover the essential requirements that should precede any disposal of State property, namely the calling of public tenders to ensure free and fair competition for the purchase of the assets, have now been rendered quite futile and inoperative. As I said earlier in this debate, when any state property is sold, whether that property is made up of tangible assets or of shareholdings in a body in which the assets are vested, then certain important obligations rest upon the Government. The first of these obligations is to advertise the proposed disposal and so to allow private enterprise to compete fairly for the purchase of the assets which are to be sold. The second obligation is to see that the assets are sold at the highest possible price or certainly to the best possible advantage of the State as the owner. Sir in all the circumstances presented to this House to-day, Parliament is being deprived of the right to demand compliance with those requirements by the Government.

Why do you say that?

Because all the arrangements have been concluded; that is What the hon. the Minister has told us. The essential fundamentals have been arranged. The position is that Parliament can no longer exercise its right to demand compliance with these requirements. That is what would have happened if the disposal of this State enterprise had been left, for instance, to the State Tender Board. In that case the normal procedure would have been followed, first of inviting public tenders for the purchase of the assets; secondly getting technical advice on the offers made and thereafter negotiating for the sale of the assets. Sir, that is the business-like way of dealing with the problem in a matter such as this; that is the business-like procedure that we would have wanted to see followed in the disposal of this very valuable State asset. Those are the requirements which we on this side of the House consider should have been set out specifically in the Bill before us.

Sir, I have spoken of this as a valuable asset. I think it is necessary for the purpose of the record to show how valuable that asset is. Let me therefore give some brief details of the financial position of Klipfontein Organic Products Corporation to show how valuable the asset really is. I am quoting from the Corporation’s report dated 8 December 1964, and from the statement of accounts covering the financial year ended 30 June 1964. The fixed assets as at 30 June 1964, stood at R3,600,000; the excess of current assets over current liabilities as at the same date was R3,300,000, giving a total value value of net assets of R6,900,000. The only liability of any consequence as against that is a debenture share issue which at that date stood at Rl,500,000, but it is a debenture issue on very favourable repayment or redemption conditions because the repayment is only to be concluded in 1975. But over the 15 years in which this organization has been conducting its affairs it has built up reserves totalling Rl,400,000 and the net profit for the year with which I am dealing was nearly R500.000. The turnover in fact for the year ended 30 June 1964, amounted to R6,100,000. In those circumstances one can say that the chairman of the Corporation was quite correct in his report when he reported as follows: “The Financial position of the Corporation is healthy.” Sir, I quote those details to indicate the value of the asset which is being disposed of and which is being disposed of in anticipation of the acceptance even of the principle as set out in the Bill itself. If the Minister had concluded his negotiations and had come to this House for ratification, that would of course have set a different complexion on the position, but he has certainly deprived Parliament of its prerogative in bringing before Parliament a Bill after conducting negotiations which make any variation or change of the Bill completely futile and of no value. I say therefore that the Government has really ignored the prerogative of Parliament and in the circumstances I move as an amendment—

I am surprised at the attitude adopted by the Opposition in regard to this matter. If they had listened to the Minister yesterday evening, it would have been very clear to them that there had been negotiations with numerous people in connection with the purchase or possible purchase or partial purchase of K.O.P.C., and that the negotiations failed every time. They failed, basically, because the people concerned probably did not consider it as being a sound enough economic proposition. What is more, we have continually had requests from the United Party and from United Party supporters that the Government should refrain from competing with private enterprise. Here we now have an undertaking which is worth R5,000,000 or R6,000,000 and which can only continue on an economic basis and yield the necessary profits if it is expanded tremendously, and it cannot be expanded tremendously without in fact treading on the toes of private enterprise and operating in the same field as that in which private enterprise is operating. It is beyond doubt that K.O.P.C. cannot be expanded without treading on the toes of private enterprise. The whole trend in the world to-day is to establish large chemical industries in which not R5,000,000 or even R 10,000,000 is invested, but hundreds of millions of rands. One is faced with that situation and the situation which one comes across in the business world all the time, which is that one has a large undertaking and that one receives an offer for that undertaking. The Government did not go and ask Federale Volksbeleggings to buy the concern from it. We all know that offers have been made by private interests over the years to take over K.O.P.C. wholly or partly, and that those negotiations failed. If hon. members of the Opposition have in mind someone who is interested in taking over K.O.P.C., why has that person not come forward with a takeover offer? Because what are we concerned with here? We are concerned with what is termed a “take-over bid” for a going concern in English.

Without competition.

No, it is not without competition. The hon. member does not know what he is talking about. Sir, the hon. member was Auditor-General of this country for many years, and he still does not know what this balance sheet of K.O.P.C. means. He comes along here and says that the assets of K.O.P.C. are worth R6.859,000, but does the hon. member not know that R 1,500,000 of that amount represents loan capital? The obligation as far as that loan capital is concerned is being taken over by the buyer of the shares, which leaves an amount of R5,300,000. What has happened? The hon. member knows as well as I do that there is tremendous wear and tear on equipment in the chemical industry. My very difficulty with organizations such as K.O.P.C. is that they write off too small an amount in respect of wear and tear. If they wrote off their assets in the way they really ought to do, the position reflected in their balance sheet would perhaps have been even worse.

Let us see what has really happened and let us compare it with what happens in the case of an ordinary public company where one has a take-over bid. I have never heard of any company in the case of which the directors summon together its shareholders beforehand and say to them, “Look, certain persons want to buy us out. Do you think we must negotiate with them with a view to sale?” No, that just does not happen. The directors first carry the negotiations to the stage where they enter into a provisional agreement of purchase and sale with the prospective buyers. They obtain the necessary valuations, and there are firms in South Africa which specialize in making valuations for takeover bids. They assess the value of the shares, they determine the inherent value of each asset, and on that basis they conclude a provisional agreement, and only when that has been completed does the board of directors convene a meeting of shareholders and submit the offer to that meeting of shareholders for confirmation or rejection. Mr. Speaker, since the Minister and the Cabinet are the directors of K.O.P.C. and we who sit here are the shareholders. we are concerned with a parallel case here.

Why does that not stand in the Bill?

Good gracious! Has that hon. member ever been at a directors’ meeting at which a take-over bid was being dealt with? It does not look like it to me. All the negotiations are subject to the shareholders approving of the provisional transaction. As shareholders we are being asked here to-day to approve of the recommendation made by the directors. We as shareholders say whether or not we approve of the provisional negotiations. Suppose we do not approve of them; what is the alternative then? Not to call for tenders. I have never heard of tenders being called for in a case where an offer is made to take over a business concern. There is always someone who takes the initiative and tries to take over the concern. He tries to come to an agreement with the board of directors and it is only subsequent to that that the shareholders are informed and the full implications of the offer are submitted to them. The shareholders either get shares in the new company or get cash for their shareholding. and in this case we are going to get cash for our shares. Sir. I am not interested in who the buyers are. I want to make the statement here that K.O.P.C. either has to disappear or has to be transferred to interests which can develop it to its full potential. We should like to see it developed to its full potential, but if that is undertaking by the State itself, we get the reproach from the private sector that the State is encroaching upon their domain. As far as that is concerned, I can read out resolutions taken by chambers of commerce and chambers of industries and by the Handelsinstituut in which they are always complaining because the State is venturing into the field of private enterprise, and it is for that reason that K.O.P.C. cannot be expanded as a State undertaking in order really to make it the asset which such an undertaking ought to be; because the chemical industry is one of the largest industries, with the largest potential in the world to-day. One finds these tremendously large chemical undertakings involving hundreds of thousands of rands. These industries are still expanding themselves all the time and are still attracting more and more capital and undertaking larger and larger developments. Future development lies in that direction. Do hon. members of the Opposition want to suggest that they do not care if we tread on the toes of private enterprise? Do they want to suggest that we may do what we like and that the State should develop K.O.P.C. further? I have already said that in a case such as this, one cannot call for tenders, because before a tenderer is able to tender he has to incur heavy costs in determining the value of the concern. Here we have the case of a buyer who says that he is prepared to take over K.O.P.C. at an agreed price, based on valuations. The valuations are being made in precisely the same way in which they were made when a group of Transvaal and Natal collieries combined and established the Trans-Natal Coal Company. That was a takeover of a large number of companies, and the valuations were made in precisely the same way. The valuators went along and assessed the value of every share and every undertaking, and thereupon a provisional agreement of purchase and sale was entered into. After all that had been completed, the directors concerned summoned together the shareholders of the various companies and told them at a special meeting. “Here is a provisional agreement with a view to amalgamation.” The shareholders approved of it and thereupon Trans-Natal was established. That is precisely what has happened in this case, as the hon. the Minister also said in his speech yesterday. He ended his speech with these words—

That is the crux of the matter. Do hon. members want to suggest now that the price is too low, or what is their objection? Do they want to tell me that they have another buyer? If there is another buyer, why did that other buyer not also show the initiative to approach the Government and to offer to buy this undertaking? Why not? Simply because there is no other buyer? If hon. members would look up the Minister’s speech they would find that there were repeated negotiations with various people with the very object of expanding K.O.P.C. People were even invited to take over a portion of the shares, and all those negotiations failed. The prospective buyers simply disappeared. This is the first time in a period of 18 to 19 years that a buyer has come forward, because it is as far back as 1947, under the United Party regime, that it was considered to transfer K.O.P.C. into the hands of private enterprise. The efforts made by the United Party Government failed, and all efforts which have since been made to have K.O.P.C. taken over by private enterprise have failed. Here we now have an agreement with people who are prepared to pay the full price on the basis of sworn valuations and of an audit analysis of the position of the company. In addition to the fact that they are going to pay the full price, they are giving certain undertakings which are of the utmost importance. One undertaking is that if K.O.P.C. should be required by the Government for strategic purposes, it would be at the disposal of the Government. The second condition is that they give an undertaking that they will not increase the prices for parasite and insect control materials without the approval of the Price Controller. That is a very important factor, because the Klipfontein Organic Products Corporation is a key industry as regards the health of our animal life in South Africa to-day. Insect control materials are produced there and distributed from there to the farming community. Those materials are sold to them at a relatively low price. These people are now giving an undertaking that they will not increase those prices. Suppose we said that we wanted a higher price, that there was another firm which said that it would pay more, then it could have only one result, and it is an inevitable one, namely, that that company would recoup the higher price paid by it from the farming community. It would increase the prices of those articles which are absolutely essential to the farmer on his farm to keep his grazing sound and his animals in good health. And we cannot allow that to happen.

I am surprised that the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) has moved this amendment. Although the procedure which is being followed is the normal procedure which is followed in private life where one company takes over another or where they amalgamate, he rejects it and says that it amounts to contempt of Parliament. Why does he not object to the fact that in 1947, during the United Party regime, negotiations were entered into with private enterprise with a view to taking over this undertaking? Was that contempt of Parliament too? No, they remain silent about that. Were all the negotiations which were referred to by the Minister and which were entered into with one potential buyer after another in the fifties and in 1962 and which failed, contempt of Parliament? Now that we at last have people who are serious enough about the matter to take over the undertaking, it is contempt of Parliament! What the hon. member wants amounts to this: You first call your shareholders together and say to them, “Let us sell this undertaking.” Then you throw it on the market and you sell it to the highest bidder. I have never heard of any decent large undertaking doing something of that nature. It is just not done in the business world. Hon. members know that.

I think there is more behind these objections than what we are told.

Tell us about that.

I hope the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) will tell us what it is. I want to say to the hon. member that the objections put forward by them are totally rejected by us. We do not think they are worth the paper on which they will be printed in Hansard. They must have other reasons for opposing this measure, otherwise there is no justification for that action. I want to find out now what those other objections are, and the hon. members for Kensington and Jeppes (Dr. Cronje) are the two persons who have to tell us. I am asking: Why are hon. members on the other side opposed to the take-over of the Klipfontein Organic Products Corporation? Is it because it is a consortium of Federale Volksbeleggings which is taking it over or is it because hon. members are opposed in principle to it being transferred into the hands of private enterprise? I think the first of the two possibilities I have mentioned is the reason. And if that is the reason, then I say that I am rather ashamed that there are people in South Africa who advance that as a reason for opposing a measure of this nature where, as a result of this measure, we are going to get tremendous development of an industry of which South Africa as a whole will be proud.

The concluding remarks of the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. v. d. Heever) make me think he thinks there is something unpatriotic in the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman). The hon. member for Pretoria (Central) says he is amazed.

It seems to me that when we discuss a financial measure of this kind the hon. member seems to live in a maze; he does not seem to be able to find his way out. Why did the negotiations fail in the past? The Minister has told us. We can discuss the Minister’s speech as we go along. We are now told that private initiative is the policy of the Government. We shall come to that too when we deal with the Minister’s speech because the Minister dealt with it more fully than the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) did. The hon. member for Pretoria (Central) asks: Why did others not compete; why did they not make an offer? Perhaps they did not know it was in the market. I did not see any advertisements in the Press. This is not a take-over bid, as the hon. member seems to think; this is a handover. Who suggests that any company can come along and take over a Government institution? The Government does not dispose of its assets in that way, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member says he has never heard of a tender in matters of this kind. But all State assets are disposed of by tender. There is no other manner. It must be clear to the public what is happening.

Then we come to the hazard for the farming community. That is what will happen if they do not get this scheme of theirs put through! The hon. member made an attempt to make our flesh creep, to make us scared that the farming community will suffer. Why? The hon. the Minister explained to us last night that any disposal of Klipfontein would have a clause protecting the agricultural industry. But that could be a condition in regard to the disposal of any asset, not only in respect of this one. There is no substance in that argument. The final argument is to say that we, the United Party have some other motive; that there must be some other body we are trying to cover! That is not worthy of the hon. member. I do not think he should suggest that. I am not suggesting that he is a big shareholder in Federale Volksbeleggings, the taking-over company; I am not suggesting that about him; why should I? We are here to-day with the proxies of the shareholders in Klipfontein; we are here as the represenatives of the shareholders, the public of South Africa. It is our duty to dispose of this asset as we think it should be disposed of. In 1950 I was present at the debate. We then heard a great speech by the hon. Minister’s predecessor, Mr. Eric Louw. Every argument Mr. Eric Louw advanced in 1950 was demolished last night by this hon. Minister. Every argument advanced then by the Nationalist Party, as their policy, was effectively demolished last night by the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs of to-day. Sir, you can read Mr. Louw’s speech. We tried to preach reason rather on the lines on which the hon. the Minister tried last night but it had no effect.

I want to come to the hon. Minister’s speech and see how he dealt with the disposal of the Klipfontein assets. Because I think we can say, as the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) has explained, that we are now faced with a fait accompli —the deal is through. Now they say: “Come along, we will tell you about it”.

You can reject it.

What did the hon. Minister say? He tells us that throughout the world today there is a tendency for great corporations to amalgamate, either by a straightforward amalgamation or by take-over and that this is especially true of the chemical industry. The hon. member for Pretoria (Central) emphasized that. The Minister said—

It is a necessity. Well, if it a necessity what about the Government’s great chemical industry of to-day—not Klipfontein—but Sasol? That is a great Government enterprise; it is a great chemical industry. We have been told that Sasol is the pride of the Government. The hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) and I often exchange views about the future of Sasol.

You always said it would be a failure.

I never said it would be a failure. What I have said about Sasol I will repeat. I said that all experts in the world said that you could not produce petrol from coal to compete with petrol produced as we receive it to-day. It cannot be done. We were told that petrol would be produced at ten cents per gallon at the time. But I do approve of what Sasol has done to-day; we all approve. It has developed as a great chemical industry. They are limiting the amount of petrol. We were told at the time that there would be more Sasols throughout South Africa; there would be one in the Eastern Transvaal. We expected that. We supported Sasol not because it was going to be a paying proposition and make great profits but for strategic reasons.

Would you approve of a second Sasol?

For strategic reasons?

Yes.

That may be necessary but I should like to hear the Minister of Defence on that. I should like to discuss that with the Minister of Defence. If the hon. the Minister would urge upon the Minister of Defence to accept our policy of a Defence Council we could get together and discuss this. That is the answer. We do no want to say we are going to establish one but I do not hink private enterprise will ever establish a factory to produce petrol from coal. The hon. Minister of Railways has told us in this House that he is to-day protecting Sasol petrol by charging seven cents for a gallon to come from Durban to Johannseburg when it costs him less than one cent to bring it through the pipe-line. He says he has to protect Sasol. Sasol is a great undertaking. Does anybody suggest that we should dispose of it? I do not think so. I do not think the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) and the Minister are consistent.

Let us take the next point in the Minister’s speech. I thank the hon. Minister for making copies available and agreeing to the adjournment. We thank him very sincerely for that because it was quite impossible, listening to the speech, to follow closely the reasoning that he gave us. He says this—

If he can dispose of it to reliable private enterprise. The word should not be “oorgedra” but “verkoop”.

They are exactly the same.

Let me take the next one—

What about Iscor? Will the hon. members agree that Iscor should be handed over to private enterprise? Because that is what the hon. Minister has told us is the policy. Will the Minister agree that the I.D.C. should dispose of its assets? If that is not the policy of the Government why is he inconsistent?

I want to deal with an ordinary remark of the Minister’s when he told us about the price. Now we are getting down to the thing that matters. The hon. the Minister told us there was a maximum price of R7,000,000 and—let me read the paragraph and get it right—

Why do you have two prices? If you are going to sell at seven million sell it at seven million. Why do you have a maximum and a minimum price? Because you are having valuations? Let us go a little further with this. The hon. Minister tells us this—

The hon. Minister does not know to whom he is selling; he does not know the composition of the consortium.

I presume he does.

He says quite frankly he does not know. Let me come to the question of the debentures. We are told that the debenture holders are prepared to hold their debentures provided the 5| per cent is raised to 7 per cent or per cent! That is the intention apparently from this statement. Seven and a half per cent debentures! What is obviously going to happen to Klipfontein is this: The consortium will take over; there will be a public offer of the rand shares at a premium; when the debentures are listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, as they will be, they will not stand at 100 but at very much more because you cannot get a good 1¾ per cent debenture to-day on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange or anywhere else in South Africa. It is a very high price.

The question we now ask is what should have been done here? In selling Klipfontein it should have been clear to everybody that this undertaking of the Government’s was for sale; conditions of the sale should have been stated and tenders called for; any consortium could have formed itself and made an offer to the Government.

Did Harry tell you to say that?

Harry Lawrence?

Harry Oppenheimer.

The hon. member has revealed what these gentlemen have in mind. He should have kept quiet. When we had the roar of disapproval over there then it was quite concealed. Does the hon. member suggest that we are speaking on behalf of any undertaking that is interested in Klipfontein? The Minister has not mentioned any other undertaking. If K.O.P. is for sale then it should have been open to any company or consortium or arrangement of companies to compete. The hon. member for Pretoria (Central) knows and the hon. the Minister knows that the I.D.C. has competed in private enterprise. The hon. Minister said in his speech last night that it was not considered desirable that the Government should compete with private enterprise and that that was one of the reasons why Klipfontein was being disposed of. Not compete with private enterprise! When the I.D.C. competed as Bonafel for the taking over of Cuthberts! It competed to take over the whole business of Cuthberts throughout South Africa—and lost! There we have the situation of a Government undertaking competing with private enterprise to take over the Cuthbert organization in this country but the Minister told us very, piously last night that it was not considered desirable that the Government should compete with private enterprise !

I want to say this: I think in any deal in finance of this kind, particularly where public interests and Government assets are concerned, there are certain things that ought to be done. It is necessary that there be a free market where everybody knows what is being done. All the facts should be made available, not only to the competing interests, but to every shareholders in South Africa, i.e., every member of the public whom we represent here. Then there should be open competition so that they can all compete. The hon. member for Pretoria (Central) says that an interested party should come along and make an offer to the Government and that there should be negotiations as there have been here; and after the negotiations have gone through the Government should come to Parliament and say: “We have sold.” What the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) says is that somebody else should have come along as well without knowing Klipfontein was in the market.

Mr. Speaker, I don’t like the whole deal of Klipfontein as it had been carried out. I don’t like it. I am not suggesting anything. I think the hon. the Minister has tried his best in the disposal but it is a very, very poor best. I don’t think that this is a precedent that should be followed in South Africa. It is not dishonourable but it is just incompetent. Government assets should not be sold in this way. We as Members of Parliament are here to protect the public interest and to represent public opinion. If the fact of this are known to public opinion it will condemn the deal as we are condemning it now. This should have come before Parliament with the offers. The Minister should have said: “This is what I am going to do; these are the offers; I have called for tenders.” Having called for tenders, having received the prices, he should have come to Parliament for confirmation of what he had done.

At the end of his speech the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) sounded the real note on which the attack by the United Party has been based. He said that he was not insinuating that the transaction was a dishonourable one, but that it was an incompetent one. I want to say this to the hon. member: He was not honest enough to say that he wanted to insinuate that the transaction was a dishonourable one.

That is really mean.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the words “he was not honest enough”.

I withdraw them, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member did not feel himself at liberty to express his innermost . . .

On a point of order, is the hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp) entitled to say to the hon. member for Kemp-ton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn) that he is mean?

I said “that” was mean.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that. The hon. member for Kempton Park has withdrawn his words.

Then I withdraw it, Mr. Speaker.

With that statement the hon. member revealed their attitude, the innuendo that they want to pass. I want to deal briefly with the argument advanced by them. The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) advanced one new argument. He suggested that we were concerned with a reversal of Nationalist policy here; in 1950 the National Party Government had adopted the attitude that they did not want to sell K.O.P.C. He went further and asked: What about Sasol, if we want to sell K.O.P.C.? What about Iscor, and what about the various possessions of I.D.C.? The suggestion is that this is an illogical exception to the Government’s policy, with a sinister motive. Mr. Speaker, there is no illogical exception to Government policy here. Since 1950 the chemical industry in South Africa has undergone tremendous development and diversification. In 1950 K.O.P.C. was still primarily a producer of raw materials, of basic materials, for the chemical industry, while at the moment K.O.P.C. is an ordinary competitor in the retail and wholesale trade of the South Africa chemical industry. That is the basic difference between to-day and 1950. Surely it is ridiculous to want to draw a comparison with Sasol or Iscor, where we have to do with the production of basic raw materials—except in the case of the petrol, which is on the commercial market—which are processed by other industrialists. Iscor produces the raw steel which is processed mainly by other consumers. It has always been the Government’s policy that the State is allowed to produce basic industrial products.

As far as the criticism in connection with I.D.C. is concerned, it has always been our policy that I.D.C. should act as an entrepreneur, as an undertaking that grants assistance in connection with the establishment of difficult industries. It has never been the policy that I.D.C. should retain what it has established. Are there not a great many examples of I.D.C. having offered to the public the shares of companies which were established as a result of its initiative? As a rule I.D.C. is a minority shareholder. There is no question of there having been any exception to Government policy in this instance. The sale of K.O.P.C. is an implementation of Government policy in the sense that, as a result of technical developments in our country during the past 17 to 18 years, Klipfontein has changed from being a producer of basic raw materials in the chemical industry to being an ordinary manufacturing competitor in the chemical industry. So much as regards the first point raised by the hon. member for Kensington.

Then I want to return for a moment to the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman), who laid down the premise that Parliamentary authority had been left out of account here. The hon. member for Kensington repeated that argument. To a large extent it has already been replied to. May I refer to the hon. the Minister’s speech, in which he stated explicitly that the Government’s response to the offers made by the buyer of the Klipfontein Organic Products Corporation included the condition that Parliament had to approve the negotiations? The Government’s reply consisted, firstly, of a response to the financial terms and, secondly, of the response that at the earliest possible opportunity the Government had to be authorized by Parliament, by way of legislation, to take the necessary steps to to transfer the issued shares.

The condition which the amendment moved by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) seeks to impose upon the Government was incorporated in the negotiations. What we had here, was the ordinary administrative procedure which is followed in this country and in every democratic country which has a Cabinet system. The Cabinet decides on projects with enormous financial implications. The Cabinet may to-morrow decide on an undertaking such as the Orange River Scheme or the construction of new military airfields or any public work which may not entail the expenditure of R7,000,000, but may entail the expenditure of tens of millions of rands, and after the administrative initiative has been taken by the Cabinet and the ball has been set rolling, the matter is submitted to Parliament for approval in the normal course of events, or by way of special legislation, or by way of the approval of a symbolic or actual item on the Estimates. That is the normal procedure. But now the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) wants to tell us that something extra-ordinary has been done here and that Parliament has been disregarded, and he says that after the action taken by the Cabinet specifically included a condition that the approval of Parliament had to be obtained.

Then I want to return to the main attack made by the hon. member for Kensington and the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South), in which they said that an announcement should have been made that K.O.P.C. was for sale, and that tenders should have been called for, or that there should have been other open competition for buying the undertaking, and that it should have been possible for K.O.P.C. to be sold to any company or consortium. In the first place, as far as the matter of announcement is concerned —and here I am speaking as a member of Parliament for the neighbouring town (the factory itself falls in the constituency of the hon. member for North (East) Rand (Brig. Bronkhorst)—I want to say that the local community in the vicinity of K.O.P.C. and the commercial community of Johannesburg have known ever since 1950 that it was the idea that K.O.P.C. might perhaps be sold to private industry.

Ever since 1947.

Yes, but as far as my personal knowledge goes, that fact has been known ever since 1950 at the least, in which year the matter was raised here. It was no secret. None of the large company groups in South Africa did not know that K.O.P.C. was potentially for sale, that there were certain reservations on the part of the Government, and that those reservations had diminished as a result of the fact that K.O.P.C. increasingly took up a more normally competitive position in the chemical industry of South Africa. It was open to all interested parties to make enquiries.

Two specific attacks are now being made: Firstly, an announcement of the sale of K.O.P.C. should have been made. I want to point out that the Government did not decide in desperation that K.O.P.C. had to be sold, that the place should not be retained one day longer. No, the Government’s attitude was that the industry and the production of the materials produced by K.O.P.C. had to be maintained; consequently, if no one approached the Government and said, “We want to take over the task,” the Government would peacefully continue with what K.O.P.C. was doing. Secondly, there is the idea of a tender. Mr. Chairman, a former Auditor-General, and an experienced financier such as the hon. member for Kensington, come along with the naive suggestion that more tenders should have been invited for K.O.P.C. How would one tender for so complicated an industry? Patent rights are an important factor in the tender. All the chemical equipment of the factory is an important factor in the tender. Their commercial privileges and commercial obligations are important factors in the tender. If one wants to tender for K.O.P.C., a thorough study has to be made of each commercial and physical facet of that industry.

Has that not been done?

We shall come to that. I am saying that if one wanted to call for tenders one would have to provide facilities to each tenderer to go and make that detailed valuation of every facet of that industry. And would it have been practical to throw open an industry of that nature and to make it the hunting-ground and the rummaging-place of all its competitors of to-morrow and the day after who would come there as possible tenderers? One would also have to throw it open to persons who would not so much be interested in tendering, but who would want to find out how they could put K.O.P.C. in its place when it was taken over by the successful tenderer. Surely that is ridiculous. No, the only way in which a concern such as this can be sold is by means of the procedure which has been adopted here, which is that a serious buyer agrees to buy within certain limits on the basis of an expert valuation which is made by experts who are in touch with the industry. I also want to say the following in connection with the idea of tenders, and this is a very important consideration to me. It has been said here, and rightly said, that the chemical industry is showing an increasing tendency to develop into very large units. And who is the only probably successful tenderer for such an industry? Is it not the other existing largest South African industry in the chemical field? If one puts something like that out on tender, is one not seeking to strengthen the monopolistic tendency which is inherent in the chemical industry by making this industry available for purchase by the strongest other concern in this industry? That alone, to my mind, is sufficient justification for not putting the undertaking out on tender, but to make an attempt to counteract the creation of monopolies and to make possible the establishment of a new group in the chemical field.

A very weak argument!

The hon. member wants to present himself as being the judge of arguments! He may be a good judge of stock and aircraft pilots, but really, arguments fall a little outside his limits.

The suggestion has also been made that there is something irresponsible about the Minister not even knowing who the consortium is to whom he is selling. The hon. member for Kensington said derisively that the Minister did not even know who the consortium was.

I did not say so; the Minister himself said so.

Yes, the hon. member jeeringly emphasized it. Mr. Chairman, what we have heard in that connection locally is that it will be a feature of this consortium that it will not be a purely Afrikaans group of companies like F.V.B., but that English-language financial interests in South Africa will also be represented in the consortium, and I want to express the hope that the Minister will make that a requirement.

In conclusion I want to say that one of the conditions is that the Minister must find the consortium acceptable. In this connection I want to make an earnest appeal that the Minister should give very careful consideration to the financial potential of this consortium. We in that area, in the general vicinity, are very proud of that chemical industry, and we are looking forward to it being further expanded. But the fact of the matter is, that as we have already experienced in South Africa, that successful chemical industries here are associated with foreign chemical industries, that they are associated with other large capital undertakings, and a chemical industry here in South Africa, as elsewhere, can only develop if it has access to very large capital resources, so that it can periodically make a rapid readjustment to the new technical possibilities and requirements which arise from time to time. A consortium taking over K.O.P.C. must therefore be a consortium with the potential of having very large capital resources at its disposal, and we trust that if the consortium perhaps falls short in that respect, the State, by way of the I.D.C. or whatever organization, will not fail to provide the real capital requirements of this chemical industry in future years. We are interested in the continued existence of this industry. We feel that its strategic role, which has been emphasized in the contract, both in the military and in the agricultural field, must be protected and must be permanently protected in the future, but the effectiveness of this industry can be guaranteed in one way only, and that is that its owners will be able to provide the necessary and probably increasing capital resources as required from time to time.

May I ask the hon. member a question: Would the hon. member agree that the next stage would be that the consortium would make an offer of shares to the public?

I think that is quite likely, but that is not the final source of capital, as the hon. member knows. Such a newly formed company does not continually come forward with a new offer of shares to finance its growth. It has to be financed by the principal shareholders.

The hon. member for Kemp-ton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn) tried to draw a comparison between normal government expenditure and the fact that expenditure was started before it had been completely voted by this House, with the sale of this factory at Klipfontein. I don’t think the two cases have anything in common whatsoever. One is the normal process of government and the other is an entirely different issue, namely the disposal of an asset. The hon. member also took exception to the fact that we have suggested that perhaps the matter should have been dealt with by tender, and he said that that was an impossible proposition, that Klipfontein Organic Products would have to open its books to everybody and tell people all about their business, that valuations would have to be made, etc. Of course this is not the case at all, Mr. Speaker. There is no large chemical organization in South Africa, and few beyond the borders of South Africa which have any interest in South Africa, who do not know all about the K.O.P. Any organization of any standard would not require valuations to be made to make an offer for Klipfontein Organic Products. The only reason that valuations are required is because this is a negotiated deal between the hon. the Minister and the consortium. Otherwise the normal procedure is, when you have a take over bid as was mentioned by the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. Van den Heever), that you fix your own valuations, through your knowledge of a particular factory and the knowledge of its potential and all the other factors that fix a price in the buying and selling of a business.

And profitability.

Mr. Speaker, there have been some strange things said in this debate so far and therefore I am afraid I must go back a little further in the history of this undertaking than the hon. Minister did in his speech last night. We know that Klipfontein Organic Products started as a joint military venture between the British Government and the South African Government, and its purpose was the production of poisonous gases. It was run by the S.A. Engineering Corps, the 99th Technical Works Company, and I personally spent some three years with that unit at Klipfontein. When the plant was completed, the unit was demobilized and the management of the plant was taken over by a management committee that was set up by the Department of Defence, consisting of the technical staff officer, Defence, the representative of the British Ministry of Supply and the Gold-Producers Committee. At the time of VJ Day, Mr. Speaker, it was realized that the use of poisonous gases would no longer probably be necessary, but at that time there was a serious shortage of D.D.T., which was an entirely new product. I remember at the time reading the first reports on D.D.T., this wonderful new insecticide which had been discovered. It was being used particularly for the prevention of typhus and de-lousing in the Middle East.

Now the value of Klipfontein Organic Products, is that it has a large chlorine plant, because chlorine is the basis for poisonous gases, chlorine is the basis for D.D.T., and chlorine is the basis for B.H.C. which came after D.D.T. After the completion of the war, the plant was decontaminated, the stocks were destroyed—in some cases to the annoyance of some of our coastal friends where containers were washed ashore and caused a certain amount of damage—and the plant then started to operate as a normal industrial plant, with its main production: D.D.T.

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

Afternoon Sitting

The main point made by the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. Van den Heever) and also the hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn), neither of whom are in the House, was that the Klipfontein Organic Products Organization had been available for sale over the past 18 years. I would like to examine the correctness of that statement in relation to the facts. In May 1950 a Bill was introduced by this Government to set up the Klipfontein Organic Products Organization as a state organization, and the main feature of the debate in 1950 was whether the plant was to be privately owned or whether it was to be State-owned. Now the attitude of the Nationalist Government in 1950 was very clear indeed. That the plant was to be retained and run by the State. The hon. member for Kempton Park said that the position had changed very considerably since 1950, and I want to examine that statement as well in a moment. Now the Government’s reasons at the time for retaining the plant were (1) that the plant was capable of producing poisonous gases, and therefore it was essential that it should remain under Government control and that this point of view was supported by the Chief of the General Staff. What did the hon. Minister of Economic Affairs have to say on this issue in 1950?—

So it was quite clear that in 1950 there was no question of the plant being sold to private enterprise.

The second reason mentioned by the Government for retaining the plant as a State plant was for the purpose of the health of the public and of the crops and the flocks, etc. And the hon. Minister of Economic Affairs said this—

Therefore to suggest that this plant was available for sale from 1950 is quite contrary to the speeches of the then Minister of Economic Affairs and members on the other side of the House.

Now their third point was, Mr. Speaker, that there was only one chemical enterprise in South Africa that was thought capable of buying and running the plant, and that the sale of the plant would create a monopoly. Hon. members on the Government benches had quite a lot to say on this issue, and certain accusations were made against this side of the House. This is what Dr. Van Rhyn had to say—

I suggest with respect that the situation is very much worse to-day, because this goes back 15 years when K.O.P. was in its infancy and even then there was objection to private enterprise, on the part of the Government, taking over and walking into these open doors. Then there was a direct attack on the United Party, that it was speaking on behalf of one organization. A proposal that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee before the second reading was made, and the Minister of Economic Affairs said (col. 5653)—

You will note that we were opposed to that principle in 1950, as we are to-day—

This was the attack made on us in 1950. What is the hon. Minister doing to-day? He comes to this House and says: “I have arranged with this consortium, without giving anybody else an opportunity to make a bid for my plant”. That after accusing us, without any evidence, but the machinations of their own mind, that we were supporting a particular private enterprise. He continued—

And he goes on in the same strain that we were pushing for the plant to be sold to one particular organization. The attitude of the United Party in 1950 was quite clear and it is no different to-day, namely that the plant should have been handed over to private enterprise.

Now we come a little nearer to present times. There seems to be somewhat of a change of heart on the part of government benches, and we are grateful that that is the case that at last they have seen the light. They are always about ten to 15 years behind us. The hon. Minister tells us that in 1962, the Cabinet took a decision to dispose of the plant, or 40 per cent of the plant and nothing happened. In 1963, there was going to be a combine of an overseas firm and a local firm who were going to purchase 60 per cent of the plant, leaving the Government with 40 per cent of the plant, and the hon. the Minister gave us his reasons, and very good reasons, why the plant should be sold: That K.O.P. had to diversify, and that the only way, on a long-term basis, for it to remain profitable and to be able to diversify was that private enterprise should be interested. The Government could not diversify, because it would mean competing with private enterprise. Then he said a very interesting thing, after we were accused in 1950 of sort of playing with cartels and supporting the one colossus in the chemical field in South Africa. He said—

Now the Minister tells us that there will be a cartel in regard to KOP, and that the consortium which is being formed will have to do deals with overseas organizations, and that cooperation on an international basis is the only way in which a large chemical business can be carried on. He went on to tell us that KOP is a statutory body and its position was very difficult because it could not expand without interfering with private enterprise, a sentiment with which we agree entirely. He also said it was a nucleus for a powerful chemical industry in South Africa. That is also true. Then he went on to tell us that despite these factors there were certain other provisions which were worrying him regarding the position in time of war, but that he could cure that by commandeering the plant, and there was the position in regard to the protection of the farmer in case prices were raised, and he said he could deal with that by means of price control, and the fact that the farmers may require certain products in times of crisis, and he said he had dealt with that by arranging that the new owners of KOP would produce what was asked of them by the Government through the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services. He then went on to say that with these safeguards there was really no need for the State to play a part in KOP any longer. Now it has taken the Government 15 years to appreciate the fact we tried to explain to them in 1950. Then the Minister went on to talk about the price. He told us that the buyers had fixed a maximum purchase price of R7,000,000 and the State had fixed a minimum selling price of R5,600,000, and that the price was to be determined between these two poles by means of valuations and auditors’ certificates. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman) dealt with some of the figures, but I want to come back to them. The capital of KOP is R4,000,000. Its reserves are R 1,359,000, giving it a total amount invested of R5,359,000, or say R5,400,000, which is its net worth to-day in terms of its balance sheet. But there is one very vital factor in these figures, and that is that according to the balance sheet of 30 June 1964 the fixed assets stand at R3,500,000 and they have already been depreciated to R4,600,000. That means that the value at which they stand to-day is less than 50 per cent of their basic cost. I, like any other member of this House, have no knowledge of the real value of the assets of KOP to-day. We can only go by what we see in the balance sheet. It is a sound company with liquid resources. Its profit for last year was nearly R500,000. Its turnover was well over R6,000,000, and it is exporting abroad to the extent of nearly R 1.000,000, and it is in a first-class financial position.

Since 1948, as has been rightly said in this House, there has been a vast development of our chemical industry and we are manufacturing not only cascara, white ointments, green amara and Harmans drops, (which was how the then Minister of Economic Affairs rather scathingly referred to our chemical industry by saying that this was about all they could produce. One of our greatest industries, the mining industry, has been diversifying horizontally into industries of many different kinds, like non-ferrous metals, stainless steel, and in fact it is contemplating another steel industry. They are potential buyers of a plant of this nature, because the chemical industry is one of the great industries of the world. There are many huge overseas organizations which have been established in this country since the war and there are many others who would come here if they had a base to operate from. KOP can be a means of attracting overseas capital, if that is what we desire, particularly if they do so in conjunction with local people. In 1948 it was said that the thing we had to fear was a monopoly, but there is still the danger of a monopoly. The value of KOP lies in its ability to produce chlorine, and as far as I know it is the only major producer of chlorine in South Africa. Now we have had a complete change of face by the Government. All the problems of private enterprise on which this side of the House was attacked in 1950 still exist. There is still a need for the country to have this plant in time of war. The answer given by the Minister was as good in 1950 as it is to-day, that this plant could be commandeered in time of war. In regard to the strategic needs of agriculture in times of crisis, the answer given by the Minister that he can impose certain conditions could equally have been imposed in 1950, and the fears of a monopoly are equally existing to-day as they were in 1950. Yet we have had this complete change in Government thinking. It seems that the Government has suddenly decided that all the problems have disappeared or that the remedies they have found are completely new ones which did not exist fifteen years ago.

The criticism, as I have said, in 1950 was that the United Party was trying to create a situation where only one firm could purchase. What has the Minister done? He has been dealing with one firm. We are told it is a consortium. The hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. van den Heever) talks about a takeover bid, with the Cabinet as the directors and Parliament as the shareholders. The analogy may or may not be correct, except for one important fact, that we have seen, and will see again in future, that where the directors of a company have recommended a takeover, the shareholders have refused to endorse it, and I want to know which of the hon. members opposite, as shareholders in this organization, are going to object to what their directors, the Cabinet, have decided. Will any one of them say that he disagrees with these directors and exercise his democratic vote as a shareholder?

You can object now.

That is why the Bill is before you.

Yes, but the hon. member knows as well as I do that he will not get up and say to the Cabinet that he does not like this deal.

Why not?

Because Government members like everything the Cabinet decides. Many takeover bids have failed because the shareholders have refused to confirm what the directors are doing, and that is what we as honest, thinking shareholders are doing here to-day. We say we do not like this deal. We believe in private enterprise, but we do not like the way in which this deal has been done, and until it is done in the way in which it should be done we as shareholders representing the public will object to it.

You are quite free to say so.

The value of this property, the price that will be paid for it, is what is called balance sheet value, the excess of assets over liabilities. I cannot tell whether the plant and machinery represent their balance sheet value, but there are many other assets besides plant and machinery, which may be obsolete after R4,000,000 has been written off. I presume that the debtors are good value, and they amount to something like R 1,100,000, and that the stocks and stores are good value, amounting to R2,400,000, and that certain other assets are good value. To buy an organization doing a turnover of R6,000,000 per annum for its asset value is normally a very good bargain, because to set up an industry of this kind would take a minimum of two or three years. Your establishment costs alone would run into hundreds of thousands of rands. The value of a running business must be estimated at hundreds of thousands of rand, and all the costs that have gone into acquiring patents and negotiating licence rights and putting names on the market, etc. must be worth tens of thousands of rands. [Time limit.]

The difficulty we have with the Opposition to-day, as we so often have with them, is that we cannot make out what they want. Are they in favour of KOP passing into the hands of private people, or are they opposed to it? According to the amendment of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth South (Mr. Plewman) his only objection is that Parliament is being slighted in this matter. They say nothing about the question of whether it is right to hand over KOP to private enterprise, and I am surprised, I am particularly surprised at the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore). Since I have been in this Parliament he has been the greatest protagonist of the fact that the Government should keep out of these businesses and leave them to private enterprise. The hon. member says he is very pleased that the Government has changed its mind and is transferring this undertaking to private enterprise. He must then vote for this Bill which authorizes this step. The only reason they have advanced is that Parliament is being slighted. I shall return to this point just now. I thought the hon. member for Kensington would jump for joy at this step which the Government is taking. I thought he would say: “Not only am I pleased that you are doing this with KOP but I also want you please to do it as quickly as possible with Iscor and Sasol and I.D.C. and Foscor”, and, if he had his way, with the Post Office as well, because he is the advocate of the fact that all these things should be in the hands of private enterprise. The Government is now taking this step to transfer this business to private enterprise but the hon. member for Kensington is objecting. The hon. member for Parktown (Mr. Emdin) quoted the argument advanced by either this Minister or the previous Minister as to why KOP should not be transferred to private enterprise at a certain stage. He mentioned the military importance of KOP, with which the hon. the Minister dealt fully in his speech. He said clearly that the actual military importance of KOP is no longer such an accomplished fact but that if it appeared to be of importance in the future, the Government had a remedy and that was to commandeer it in a state of emergency. The next point was in regard to the products which they supply to the farmers. But in the agreement which the hon. the Minister is going to conclude with the consortium, he has made full provision whereby the interests of the farmers will be protected. Therefore, full provision is being made in this contract to meet all those arguments which were used in the past.

I want to deal now with the point made much of by the hon. member for Parktown, and that is that the shareholders should have the opportunity to refuse. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) said: “The Government ignored the prerogative of Parliament”; the Government did not consult this House. But what are we dealing with? We are exercising the prerogative of Parliament and any hon. member has the right to say that he does not agree with this. The hon. member challenges us to say that we do not agree with this, but we do agree with it. That is the only difference between him and me. We are exercising the prerogative of Parliament in this regard. Parliament is fully entitled to tell the hon. the Minister that we do not like the contract which he has concluded with F.V.B. It will then be rejected and the hon. the Minister will have to start from scratch. He can then ask Harry Oppenheimer to make an offer. Those hon. members are not concerned about the prerogative of Parliament but about the prerogative of the Opposition. They think that they are still governing this country. They are annoyed because they do not want it. What has the hon. Minister to submit to Parliament? The balance sheets of KOP are there. What did the hon. the Minister tell us? He told us that a certain firm wants to buy it. It has been well known for some time that the Government has been willing to sell KOP on acceptable terms. Dr. Van Rhyn said in this House that if there were people who wanted to buy KOP, they could do so. The hon. the Minister dealt with this point in his speech. There were various overseas’ institutions which were interested in 1947-8, but they could not agree. In the 1950’s there were two local undertakings which negotiated with the Government, one on the basis of a complete take-over and the other on the basis of a partial take-over, but they could not reach agreement either. The hon. the Minister told us that in 1962 the Cabinet agreed that KOP be authorized to negotiate with a large local organization in order to enlarge considerably the inorganic division of KOP’s activities, with a ratio of 60 per cent to KOP and 40 per cent to the undertaking, but that did not succeed either. Over the past almost 20 years therefore there have been a number of negotiations with various people to sell KOP. Does the hon. member for Parktown want to tell me that all the other interests did not know this? The hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn) said that one could not call for tenders in a matter of this nature because one would simply then be inviting all KOP’s competitors to find out everything they wanted to know about it. But the hon. member for Parktown said that in any case the competitors of KOP knew everything about it. If they know everything, why do they not know of these negotiations that have been going on? Who in this House does not know of the negotiations of certain firms to take over Moni’s? These things are known to the trade, they are discussed and everyone knows about them. But what I am surprised about is that a successful businessman like the hon. member for Park-town and a successful financier like the hon. member for Kensington could suggest that tenders be called for in this regard. What is the procedure when the Tender Board deals with the matter? The Tender Board has first to prepare tender documents. What will those documents for a business of this nature be like? They will run into 5,000 pages. That therefore is impossible. Anyone who knows anything about business will know that it is impossible in practice to draw up tender documents for an undertaking such as this. All these things are done by way of negotiation. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) will be the first to admit that in the days when he was Auditor-General the Tender Board regulations were often departed from. When does one do this? One departs from the Tender Board regulations when there are only two or three firms who wish to tender for a particular thing. One does not then go to all the expense of preparing tender documents. One telephones the people and tells them to tender. All these things come before the Select Committee on Public Accounts. There are certain procedures in which one asks for informal tenders. But there is also the well-known practice which is followed even by the Tender Board, and that is sell something by way of private treaty. What did the hon. member want? Did he want the hon. the Minister to insert an advertisement in the Government Gazette or in the Sunday Times: “KOP for sale: What offers”?

Hawking it.

There are only a few people who can buy KOP, and in dealing with a take-over bid of this nature, as the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. Van den Heever) said, we must realize that the Government was not, after all, forced or keen to sell KOP. KOP was not a bankrupt business and so the Government was not keen to sell it and it was not necessary for them to advertise: “KOP for sale: What offers?” The Government was quite prepared to wait and see whether an offer would be made to it. Offers have been made to the Government to take over KOP since 1947, but there has never been a satisfactory offer. Then F.V.B. made an offer and now the hon. member for Kensington is objecting. He asks why there must be two prices. F.V.B. tells the Government that the most they are willing to pay is R7,000,000 and the Government says that they will not sell it for less than R5,600,000. He asks why there are two prices. But he is a businessman. F.V.B. looked at the balance sheets and said: We have looked at the balance sheets and we want to negotiate but the most we are prepared to pay is R7,000,000. The hon. the Minister said: Very well, I shall consider the matter. His people also looked at the balance sheets and said: Before we go to the trouble of investigating the whole matter, we just want to tell you that the least we are prepared to accept is R5,600,000; so what we do is we appoint two firms of auditors—the hon. the Minister appoints one and the F.V.B. appoint one—to see whether the two can agree in regard to the price.

Did the hon. member say that for a period of 20 years the Government was prepared to sell KOP?

There were negotiations over a period of 20 years.

They hawked it.

If that is so, why did the Government come to this House for debentures as recently as six years ago?

Because they were not made an acceptable offer. If I own a farm I may not be keen to sell it but if people make me an offer I may consider it, and that is precisely what happened here. Now the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel)—I am not sure whether it is he—says: “They are hawking it.”

I said nothing.

If the hon. member said nothing, it is a miracle, but somebody said it. Hon. members opposite ask why the Government did not advertise it. Anyone who knows anything about business will know that that is hawking. The Government was not keen to sell it.

Did you sell your business in that way?

Yes. I do not want to discuss my business but I had interests in a certain company and I did not want to sell then until an offer was made to me out of the blue, and then we started negotiating. Precisely the same thing happened in this case.

The actual question is whether the price is fair. The hon. the Minister said in his speech that the auditors of the sellers and those of the buyers reached agreement to within an amount of R200,000. Their valuations only differed by 3.5 per cent on this large amount of R6,000,000. That is remarkable. Who can say that this is an unfair price? The price has not been finally determined but it will be between R5,600,000 and R7,000,000, as agreed by the auditors who made the valuation. No, I think that the Opposition are simply being petty about this matter. I do not think they know precisely why they are opposing this matter. The hon. the Minister has not ignored Parliament because he is consulting it here and Parliament is quite able to reject this proposal. The sour expressions on the faces of hon. members opposite are due simply to the fact that they cannot get Parliament to reject it. As far as the price is concerned, I think that the determination has been made in the fairest possible way and I want particularly to congratulate the hon. the Minister on the other conditions which he ensured were accepted, namely, the protection of the farmers and the position in a crisis if that factory is needed. I think the hon. the Minister has concluded an excellent business deal and the Opposition must accept it as such.

All the speakers of the Government side, the hon. members for Pretoria-Central, Kempton Park and Vereeniging, have all endeavoured to stress how poor this business, KOP, is; it has been on the market for 20 years and the Government could not get anyone to buy it. They also made great play, particularly the hon. member for Vereeniging, of trying to throw a smoke-screen over the whole subject, and they made great play of the fact that it is in their view impossible to call for tenders, but there is no impossibility about that matter at all. All that had to be done was to let people know that the same information available to Federale Volksbeleggings was available to anyone else who wanted to investigate the matter. The hon. member for Vereeniging is always called in as a last resort, but he has failed miserably this time in trying to put up a smoke-screen. The Government has no case in this matter whatsoever. I must pay tribute to the Minister for the ingenuity which has gone into this Bill. It is certainly the most ingenious method of saving legal costs and maintaining the validity of the various contracts. I must congratulate him on the long explanation he gave us as to why and how he finished up with F.V.B. as the only purchaser of this moribund business. If ever there was a case where tenders should have been called for, it was this one. This side of the House has always been in favour of private enterprise, but when an organization such as KOP is brought into being by the Government in the public interest and later on the stage is reached where it can and should be taken over by private enterprise, then public tender is the correct method of disposal. I repeat that all that had to be done was to tell everyone that the same information available to F.V.B. could be obtained, and the fact that it was not given requires explanation.

KOP was not and is not a moribund business. I want to give the figures over the last four years. In 1959-60 the turnover was R3,963,000. In 1963-4 it was R6,117,000. It was up by 66f per cent over the space of four years. Its net profit jumped from R231,000 in 1959-60—it dropped to R161,000 in 1960-1, and to R 157,000 in 1961-2, and then in 1962-3 it jumped up again. Then in 62-63 it jumped to R393,000 and last year it jumped to no less than R490,000, as at the 30th June, 1964. If ever there was a business which the present financial houses, which are looking for diversification would have jumped at, this is one, had the necessary information been given to them. I repeat that this is a very virile young business and it is growing at an extraordinary pace. Sir, the return on its own capital in 1959-60 was 5 per cent and on capital and reserves in those days 4.9 per cent. In 1963 the return on its own capital had increased to 12.3 per cent, 2¾ times as much net profit, and 9.2 per cent respectively, so how can hon. members opposite say that this business is moribund and that Federale Volksbeleggings are doing the Government a very great favour by taking it off their hands. That suggestion is ludicrous. This is a business transaction and to me it looks like a first-class business for Federale Volksbeleggings. I do not believe that they would take any moribund or dying business off the Government’s hands; they are no different from any other financial house and they would certainly not be prepared to do that.

Sir, I am not going to say much about the products sold by Klipfontein; that has been dealt with by other speakers. Some of our farming members will express some of their fears later on. The Minister has already informed us in his introductory speech that he will look after the farmers. This is very necessary because Klipfontein practically has a monopoly in several directions and it would be a very serious matter if it should fall into the hands of just the ordinary business man who is prepared to sting anybody who is knocking around, not that private enterprise does that, but that is the point of view expressed by hon. members on the other side of the House when it suits their political book. Sir, I think that to come to Parliament for ratification of a contract which has already been ratified is a questionable action, to say the least. No fair value can be put on this organization without a consideration of the present profits. We have seen the way in which the graph is going up. The figure was R500,000 last year. I am going to ask the hon. the Minister to let me know what the estimated profits are for this year. Those figures must be available because they must have been disclosed to Federale Volksbeleggings in the course of the negotiations. I repeat that no fair value can be placed on these shares unless the profit graph is studied. Sir, there are other organizations in this country apart from Federale Volksbeleggings, who might be interested, as well as overseas concerns. I must say that I feel that this transaction has been very, very badly handled.

In conclusion there are two questions I want to ask the hon. the Minister and I hope he will give me the information when he replies to the debate: (a) What is the estimated turnover of KOP for the current year, 1964-65 and (b) the estimated profit for the same period. It will be very interesting to compare those figures with the figures for the previous four years. My second question is this: Is there or was there an intermediary in the negotiations? If so, who is the intermediary and what remuneration or commission will the intermediary receive?

I think the hon. member who has just sat down has completely spoilt the cause that side of the House has been pleading when he said that this concern should have been offered to undertakings inside South Africa and overseas. Mr. Speaker, when the United Party governed this country in 1947 an overseas company made an offer for KOP and the United Party, to their credit, turned it down. It could indeed still have been said at that time that KOP was a key industry in this country. To-day it is no longer a key industry to the same extent but it is nevertheless such a basic industry, it is the basis of a tremendously big chemical industry which can be built up, that I am surprised that the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Ross) can plead in this House that KOP should be sold to an overseas undertaking.

He did not say that.

He did say that; he said to local undertakings or overseas undertakings. By adopting that attitude he has destroyed the whole attitude that side of the House has adopted towards this Bill.

If you want to understand the whole question concerning KOP, Sir, you must think of how it started. It started as a factory during the war. KOP was established with the object of manufacturing poison gas and after certain outbreaks in Italy it switched over, still during the war, to the manufacture of D.D.T. for the allied forces. And as such it was a key industry and could not be in any hands other than those of the State. But after the war, when that side of the House had to decide what had to be done with KOP and when this offer was received from an overseas firm, they quite rightly decided that KOP should not go out of the hands of the State. In 1948 this side of the House came into power and this side of the House then had to decide what to do with KOP. The Government then introduced a Bill in 1950 which converted KOP into a semi-State undertaking.

The hon. member for Parktown (Mr. Emdin) must not say, therefore, that they have never changed their attitude nor must the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) say that. Because what was their attitude in 1950? The hon. member for Parktown does not know himself what his party’s attitude was in 1950 because they tried to sit on two stools. There were members on that side of the House who fervently pleaded that KOP should pass into the hands of private initiative but there were also other members on that side who did not want to take a stand. I refer, for example, to the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson) in this connection and the hon. member who then represented Sunnyside, Mr. Pocock. They sat on the fence and the best compromise they could come to was to refer the Bill, before its second reading, to a Select Committee. That is why I say they never adopted a clear attitude at the time. It is quite right that this side of the House said at the time that KOP was a young industry, that it was still a key industry in many respects and that it should remain in the hands of the State so that it could revert to war-time production if a war should break out and for the sake of the health of the people and for the sake of the interests of the farming community. That was how KOP came into existence, Mr. Speaker. But, as the hon. the Minister clearly stated in his speech, KOP is really no longer a key industry to-day. There are other organizations and other undertakings in and outside South Africa which are producing the same type of product KOP is producing and who can market those products at competitive prices. When you examine this matter closely, Sir, you find that this is really an industry which should be in the hands of private initiative. As has been stated most clearly, in order to expand KOP properly, it has to go into the hands of the private sector.

There is really only one big question which arises in my mind and it is this: If the State sells KOP will it receive what the undertaking is worth? If we can satisfy ourselves on that point only one objection can remain and that is against the people to whom it is being sold. As far as the first point is concerned I want to state unequivocally that I think the manner in which the hon. Minister has handled the matter is quite correct . . . Hon. members of the Opposition, including the hon. member for Benoni, said other concerns did not know that KOP could be taken over by private initiative. But they did know about it. Everybody knew that certain offers had been made to the Government and that those offers had been turned down and that other concerns were free to make offers. But supposing the hon. the Minister had come to this House with a Bill which simply empowered the Government to sell this undertaking. We would then have given that power to the Government and the Minister would then have sold this concern in precisely the same way as he is doing now; he would have reported that fact to this House and hon. members would have had to approve of it provided the Minister could satisfy them that the State had received value for the asset it had disposed of to private initiative. I do not understand how there can be any doubts in regard to the value of KOP. Two independent auditors were appointed by the respective parties and they were backed by sworn valuations. Surely that is the way in which you determine, the value of any undertaking and that is exactly what was done in this case. If hon. members of the Opposition have any doubts as to the value they must tell us that the auditors cannot be trusted and that the sworn appraisers cannot be trusted, but they cannot say that nor did they say it. In other words, the actual value of the assets of KOP will be determined, not by politicians, not by laymen, but by experts. The figure determined by these people will be the compensation the State will receive for this undertaking which it is going to dispose of with all its assets. I do not think the Opposition really has a case against the Government on this issue.

Only one point remains, as far as I am concerned, and that is perhaps that the Opposition does not approve of the people to whom this concern is being transferred; that they do not approve of the firm which has taken the initiative in these negotiations. Well, it is at least a South African undertaking and it is at least a trustworthy undertaking. I want to support the argument advanced by the hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn) namely, that by giving this group a strong hold on the chemical industry in South Africa we are preventing a monopoly from developing in chemical industry. For these reasons I do not concede that there is any substance in the objections and arguments of the Opposition and for that reason we on this side of the House wholeheartedly support the hon. the Minister.

The hon. member for Queenstown (Mr. Loots) based almost his whole argument on the supposition that this side of the House is opposing the sale of the State’s shares in K.O.P. because we do not like the people to whom this organization is to be transferred. When this Bill was introduced, we thought that the hon. the Minister would come to the House and say: In terms of the State’s policy to dispose of this institution as far as possible, we have now come to the House to find out whether we must sell all the State’s shares or whether we must sell only some of the State’s shares. We could then have gone into the merits of the case and we could have decided whether the State should sell all its shares or only some of its shares, and under which conditions and to which group interests the organization should be sold. We would then have asked the hon. the Minister whether he had sounded out other bodies to discover whether he could not perhaps obtain a better offer. But instead of this, what did the hon. the Minister tell us in his second-reading speech? We were surprised as few of us in this House have ever been surprised. The hon. the Minister said: “I am facing the House with an accomplished fact; I have negotiated with Federale Volksbeleggings and a consortium of 16 or 18 other bodies”. We on this side do not know who the members of that consortium are. We do not know whether the consortium includes all the firms which are already producing the same products as K.O.P. is producing. We do not know, if we pass this Bill, whether we may not perhaps be establishing a monopoly which may be dangerous to us in the agricultural sphere. The hon. the Minister did not say a single word about the members of the consortium. He did not even indicate whether there are other bodies within that consortium which may to some extent be manufacturing the same type of products as those manufactured by K.O.P. The hon. the Minister comes along here and tells us simply that the negotiations have been concluded and asks the House to pass this measure before 30 June, or something of this nature. Mr. Speaker, if this does not bear the mark of contempt for this House, then I do not know what contempt of this House means.

I want to speak more specifically as someone who is interested in agriculture. If one wants to deal with this matter on its merits there are a few important questions which one must ask oneself. I had hoped that we would be able to discuss this matter on its merits and not on the basis that the Government party was proposing the sale of K.O.P. and that the Opposition was opposing it. In the first instance one must ask oneself whether it is desirable for the State to dispose of its interests in K.O.P. at this stage, and, if so, then secondly, whether the State should sell all its shares or whether it should retain part of its shareholding as a guarantee that things do not go wrong in the future. I want to mention all the points first; I shall come back to them later. In the third place, the question arises as to whether this offer is the best one which could have been obtained under prevailing circumstances and having regard to the balance sheet of K.O.P. to-day. In the fourth place the question arises whether K.O.P. will be placed in the hands of people in whose hands we would like it to be. I want to say immediately here that if the hon. the Minister were to have come along here and have said that I.C.I. had made an offer to take over all the shares in K.O.P., I would have taken fright immediately. But other bodies could also have been approached to make offers. We would have felt happier if the hon. the Minister could have told us which financial bodies in South Africa make up this consortium. The fifth question which arises is whether the necessary precautionary measures have been taken to enable the agricultural industry particularly to feel that everything possible has been done to protect its interests. The sixth question which arises is whether this take-over will not lead to a monopoly.

It will have precisely the opposite effect.

I want to come back now to the first question I asked, namely, whether the time has come for the State to sell all its interests in K.O.P., which has had to take over the manufacturing division of the Onderstepoort Research Institute. Some years ago Onderstepoort decided that as a Research Institute it could not continue to manufacture insecticides and other preparations on the large scale on which it had to manufacture these things. A large part of this work was taken over by Klipfontein. We have the protection to-day that if a mistake is made in the production methods, the State is empowered to write off a large amount. I want to ask the hon. the Minister pertinently whether he will be empowered to do the same thing once the manufacture of these products is in the hands of a consortium. If farmers suffer losses as a result of a mistake made in the manufacture of certain items, whether insecticides or dipping chemicals, then the State is empowered to wipe out those losses, but this cannot be done when a consortium of private bodies takes over an undertaking of this nature and when great losses are suffered. The only way in which such a consortium can cover those losses is by increasing the prices of its products. In the first instance therefore I want to ask this question, purely on the merits of the case: If this House feels that the State’s interests in K.O.P. must be sold to a consortium, must it sell all its interests or must it retain a certain percentage of its shares in K.O.P.?

The hon. the Minister mentioned two previous occasions on which offers were made to take over K.O.P., but I am sure that the circumstances were fundamentally different to the circumstances of to-day. When we look at the balance sheets what do we find? Notwithstanding a tremendous drought which does of course affect K.O.P.’s marketing ability, we find that local sales rose by 33.5 per cent. We find further as far as prices were concerned that it was possible, notwithstanding the 35 per cent reduction in their sales, to reduce the prices of many products by up to 18 per cent. I ask hon. members opposite in all fairness whether it is an advantageous transaction to dispose of an undertaking which, notwithstanding a drop of 35 per cent in its production, was able to reduce its prices by 18 per cent and still show a profit of R500,000 on an investment of R5,000,000? I do not want to devote too much time to the question of the advantageousness or otherwise of selling K.O.P. to a consortium. I accept the fact that it is advantageous to this consortium to take it over on the proposed price basis, but I want to ask this further question: Is this offer the best the hon. the Minister could obtain under the conditions which he laid down? We do not of course want to hawk K.O.P. but there are, after all, other financial bodies which could form consortiums in the country. The hon. the Minister would have satisfied us far more if he could have told this House that after he had received this offer he had approached one or two other financial bodies, which could also form a consortium, to discover whether they were interested in taking over K.O.P. But the hon. the Minister is not able to tell us that he approached any other body to find out whether or not it was interested. This side of the House would of course have been far happier if the hon. the Minister could have told us that he had sounded out other bodies and that it did not appear as though we would receive another offer, and if he had then asked the House for its approval to negotiate with certain bodies. We do not -know who the members of this consortium are; in the first -place, we do not know who entered into the negotiations. This is information we should like to have so that we can satisfy ourselves that this matter will be in the hands of the right people if the State disposes of all its interests in K.O.P. We should like to have this information so that we may know whether there is any danger of the establishment of a monopoly because there is the tendency in the business world today to establish cartels and monopolies. We as farmers become afraid as soon as there is mention of the possibility of the establishment of a monopoly because we are to a large extent dependent upon K.O.P. for our fungicides and dipping materials. We know in whose hands we are at the moment and we know the advantages attaching to this fact. Mr. Speaker, if the Government were to come to this House with a proposal that Onderstepoort be placed in the hands of private enterprise, I would lodge the same strong objection as the objection I am now lodging to the proposal that the State should dispose of all its shares in K.O.P., because even if the State has a minority shareholding in organizations such as this, it can still give the lead by means of its representative on the Board of Directors. This protection on the part of the State is very important to us as farmers but the hon. the Minister has faced us here with an accomplished fact. The negotiations have already been completed and we have simply to pass the Bill. I want to go further and ask whether the necessary precautions have been -taken to protect the consumers of the products of Klipfontein against price manipulation. If the hon. the Minister gives us the assurance that the Price Controller will from time to time determine whether the prices asked for for any of the products of K.O.P. are just prices, then I should just like to put this question to the hon. the Minister: For how many years has the Price Controller been engaged in ensuring that bags and woolsacks are manufactured on a cost-plus basis in this country? Can the hon. the Minister say honestly to-day that he is satisfied with the position in this connection, notwithstanding the fact that from year to year and from time to time the Price Controller investigates the cost-plus basis of these factories on the instruction of the hon. the Minister and his Department? The hon. the Minister knows better than I the difference between the price of the locally manufactured product and that of the imported article. It is colossal. The price of the locally manufactured product is almost twice that of the imported product.

Order! That is not relevant.

I am saying in support of my argument that any assurance that the Price Controller will from time to time determine whether prices are just prices does not hold the value for us which the hon. the Minister thinks it does. I contend that where a monopoly is established prices can be raised disproportionately, supported by figures submitted to the price controller, with the result that he will not be able to reduce those prices. We have had repeated examples of this in the past. I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister to consider this matter purely on its merits and not because it suits the Government at this stage to place this undertaking in the hands of a consortium of private bodies. The objection of this side of the House is not to the fact that this consortium consists mainly of Afrikaans business undertakings; we would be proud to place such an undertaking in the hands of such a consortium, but we want to ask the hon. the Minister once again whether he thinks that the time has come to dispose of all the State’s interests in K.O.P. or whether it would not be more desirable for the State to retain some of its interests in the undertaking. Is the hon. the Minister satisfied that the farmers will be adequately protected, even in times of crisis? The hon. the Minister himself said that the production of K.O.P. can be utilized to meet any crisis. It is therefore not so easy to transform a whole factory manufacturing a certain product into a factory which has to concentrate upon certain matters. It is easier when it is a factory which is financed by the State than when it is a factory belonging to private enterprise.

On behalf of this side of the House and on behalf of agriculture I want to ask the hon. the Minister to reconsider, before this legislation is passed, whether the State should alienate all its shares in K.O.P. without taking the additional precautions which we advocate.

Hon. members on this side of the House who have spoken previously have made it quite clear that our objection to this Bill is the method of sale and that we do not object to the principle, in fact we support the principle, that industrial installations should be run by private enterprise rather than by State or semi-State institutions such as a public utility company.

We do that because we believe that private enterprise, other things being equal, can produce more efficiently and therefore at lower cost per unit, than a State enterprise and a public utility corporation. It does not necessarily follow that because it produces at lower cost per unit that the retail prices charged by that enterprise, because of the degree of the monopoly in that industry, will be lower. The hon. Minister has gone a considerable way towards allaying our fears as regards the possibility of price increases resulting from this proposed hand-over to a public company. He has given us two assurances. Firstly, that certain products will continue to be produced by the new company at the request of the Department of Agriculture and, secondly, that there will be no price increases unless the price controller is absolutely convinced that those increases are necessary. A third assurance is, however, necessary in order to make that assurance regarding price increases effective but I shall return to that in a minute. We have in the Klipfontein Organic Products, as a public utility company, an organization which has presumably in the past followed the usual principle followed by utility companies of covering costs and showing a reasonable profit only over a period of years. That this pricing policy has, in fact, been reasonable is borne out by K.O.P.’s figures of net profit. The figures I have here are expressed as percentages of the total assets after repayment of interest on debentures. In 1959-60 it was 7.2 per cent; in 1960-1 6.8 per cent; in 1961-2 3.6 per cent; in 1962-3 3.5 per cent and in 1963-4 4.4 per cent. I think those are very reasonable figures. They show that hitherto the users of Klipfontein Organic Products have not been subjected to unnecessarily severe pricing policies. It has been stressed, particularly by the hon. member for East London (City) (Dr. Moolman) that the price of these products is of very great importance, particularly to the agricultural industry. Let me say at once that it is not only of great importance to the agricultural industry but also to the housewife of this country because a great deal of what is produced there finds its way into the ordinary home, both urban and rural, of the people of this country. Klipfontein is quite definitely not, as has been said by the hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn), a normal competitor—he used the phrase “’n gewone konkurrent”—and in one respect at least, Klipfontein has virtually a monopoly. It is the only manufacturer of what I shall call basic or industrial (the Afrikaans word is “tegniese”) B.H.C. and D.D.T. in Southern Africa. In fact it exports large quantities and sells to other manufacturers. Apart from this basic B.H.C. and D.D.T. it also manufactures the following percentages of formulated B.H.C. and D.D.T. insecticides: 95 per cent of the B.H.C. wettable powders, 60 per cent of the B.H.C. dusting powders and 80 per cent of the B.H.C. in liquid form. On the D.D.T. side, 86 per cent of the wettable powders, and 39 per cent of the dusting powders. I think those figures are an indication of the key position which K.O.P. still holds in this particular field.

I understand that in some instances they sell these products to other manufacturers or other local firms already packed in tins and that those firms, which deal in insecticides, merely put their own labels on the tins and market them. B.H.C. particularly is of great importance to the agricultural industry in fields such as locust control, for example, although there are many other fields. Apart from that Klipfontein also provides the following percentages of total estimated demands for certain pest control products: Dips 30 per cent. Sir, there are parts of this country where, had it not been for the D.D.T. put out by K.O.P., beef cattle farming would have been quite impracticable because of the resistance built up by ticks to certain other insecticides. Agricultural products in general 25 per cent and weedicides no less than 50 per cent. As our agricultural industry develops and becomes more capitalized things like weedicides and insecticides are becoming of ever increasing importance in our country.

According to what the hon. the Minister has said it would seem that this tendency towards monopolistic control will become intensified because of the technical structure of the industry; the industry has to grow, and that there will in fact be further vertical integration in future. I think we are entitled to ask the hon. Minister for an assurance on this point—this is where I want to come back to the price. As the hon. member for East London (City) has said price control is generally based on a cost plus basis. It is sometimes fairly easy to put up a good case for increases in price unless you have a norm against which you can measure that price. The assurance which I want to ask the Minister to give us is that he will look very carefully indeed before granting any sort of import control so that there will be a norm of imported products, if necessary, against which to measure the prices of the new company. I trust the hon. the Minister will give the House that assurance.

We have said before that our objection to this Bill is the form in which it is being presented to us. I am amazed that in a key industry like this—the Minister himself has said this is a key industry which is going to become an even more important industry because of the vertical integration that is taking place—the Government should not have given the sale the widest possible publicity beforehand as has been suggested from this side of the House, by way of advertising and calling for tenders, but that they have, instead, resorted to this method of sale by private treaty.

I must say immediately that the attitude of the United Party in regard to certain cardinal points is becoming less and less clear to me. This debate has not contributed towards making these policy points of theirs any clearer. I refer in the first place to their attitude in respect of private enterprise as against State control and the fundamental question which we are faced with here— whether or not we must sell K.O.P. The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) _ who over the years has been a great protagonist of private enterprise in this House made a speech here to-day from which it often appeared to me that the hon. member was opposed to our selling K.O.P. to private enterprise because he said: “You are selling it to private enterprise and what are you going to do with Sasol and Iscor? Are you also going to sell them?” Then the hon. member for Parktown (Mr. Emdin) made a speech which was a very good one because he used all the arguments used by Ministers of conomic Affairs at the time as to why K.O.P. could not be sold to private enterprise. If I am to draw any conclusion from the speech of the hon. member for Parktown, it is that his attitude is that we must not sell it. He repeated the arguments which were used in 1950. The hon. member for East London (City) (Dr. Moolman) expressed grave doubts in regard to this matter. I understand his doubts. I do not say that he has no right to have doubts and to express them. His doubts amount to this— that we should rather not sell K.O.P. and, if we consider selling it, that we should only sell part of it What is actually the attitude of the United Party? Must we sell it or must we not sell it or must we only sell part of it?

Hon. members attack us in regard to our attitude towards private enterprise. I want to say clearly that the Government’s attitude is that if it is in the national interest that an undertaking which belongs to the Government should be transferred to private enterprise, we are prepared to hand it over to private enterprise. In the case of K.O.P., the time has now arrived, which was perhaps not the case previously, when it is in the interest of the community, in our national interest, for this undertaking to be transferred to private enterprise.

It has been stated clearly that the chemical industry is a great industry. One cannot run a chemical industry like K.O.P. on a small scale. One has to continue to expand it; one has to do a great deal of research; one has to keep pace with the new technical developments and one requires a great deal of capital for that expansion. Because K.O.P. has to expand, as it must expand as a matter of course and on a healthy footing, the State will have to invest more and more money in it. I do not think that hon. members would be in favour of the State having to invest more and more money in K.O.P. in the form of capital so as to enable it to embark on new ventures.

Secondly, if K.O.P. is to progress, it will be necessary for it to produce more and more products in order to remain economically sound. If it produces more and more products it will enter the sphere of private enterprise more and more, and we do not want that either. Hon. members have objected to this. Other public companies have objected to the fact that K.O.P. has had to enter the sphere of other private organizations in order to remain economically sound. So from this point of view it is impossible to keep a chemical industry of the size of K.O.P. in the hands of the State any longer and the time has now come, if we want to make something of it, for it to be transferred to private ownership.

Hon. members have said that this came as a surprise to them. The hon. member for East London (City) said that it was the biggest surprise Parliament had ever had when I said that we were engaged in negotiating with a private company. Have hon. members not read their newspapers? Months ago I issued statements in interviews with the Press in which I confirmed the fact that we were negotiating with Federale Volksbeleggings which were acting on behalf of a consortium. This is nothing new. This is not the first time that hon. members are hearing it in this House. On 9 March of this year a question in regard to this matter was put to me in the Other Place. I said then that I was negotiating with a consortium of private interests which had still to be established. This is no surprise; it is not something new. If hon. members had read their newspapers they would have known what we were doing.

The main argument of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman) was that Parliament was being slighted. Really, Mr. Speaker, I thought that I was doing my duty by Parliament in full, as required of me by the Act. and even more so. I have introduced a Bill here and I am asking Parliament for the right to enable me to sell the shares in K.O.P. Secondly, I have given Parliament full details of the procedure which has to be followed in selling the shares. Thirdly, I am going further and I am telling Parliament to whom I want to sell the shares and how I want to sell them.

On a point of order, may the hon. member for Ventersdorp (Mr. Greyling) continue to say: “Communists, communists”?

He did not say it.

He must have said it at least 20 times.

I said that the hon. the Minister does not act like the communists act.

Order! It would be better if the hon. member did not use the word “communist”.

I want to make the point that I have in no way been guilty of contempt of Parliament or of wishing to deprive it of its prerogative. I came along here with all the information at my disposal. I could just as well have introduced a Bill asking Parliament for the right to sell K.O.P. and without giving details. Parliament would then have given me that right and I could then have sold K.O.P. to this consortium or to another one. But I followed the better course. I came to Parliament and said: There are my plans, this is the procedure. I made all the information available. I did not bypass Parliament because Parliament still has the last word in this regard. This has been stated clearly by hon. members on this side. Parliament has the final say. What is happening here is the same as happens in regard to any business undertaking. The directors enter into certain negotiations, they come to a tentative agreement and then they ask a meeting of the shareholders to ratify that agreement. That is what we have done. We concluded an agreement; it is not completely finalized and we are now asking Parliament for the power to finalize it. I really cannot see how the hon. member can say that this is contempt of Parliament.

Which part has not yet been finalized?

The whole agreement will be finalized on a date to be announced by the State President in the Gazette; when the new company is registered; when the shares are transferred; after the purchase price has been paid, when the debentures have been arranged. It will be finalized when a number of things have been done. Even if the House passes this legislation the matter will not yet be finalized because a specific date has still to be announced by the State President. Only then will everything be finalized.

Hon. members spoke about tenders. I know that this is a very important point. I do not very much like to depart from tender procedure in regard to the sale of State possessions. This is a matter to which we gave serious attention. But it is very easy to sell a house or a building or a tangible possession by way of tender. One cannot sell an involved chemical industry like K.O.P. by tender. It has been stated correctly here that every person or body who wanted to buy it would want in advance to go into the nature, the assets, the value and all the details of that institution.

That right was given to Federale Volksbeleggings.

I shall reply to that question. The hon. member for Parktown said that everyone knew everything about K.O.P. and yet, a few minutes later, he said that he was not in a position to judge what the value of the assets was. Nobody can at a glance judge or determine what the assets are. The Government itself, which owns it, had to appoint a valuator to determine the actual value of the assets. Would you allow K.O.P. to be thrown open for tender so that any person or body could walk in there, go right through it, investigate it for months and months and uncover all its secrets, all its agreements, all its contracts and patents? It might be a body which is already its competitor in the chemical industry. Is that fair? I do not say that it is impossible but is it fair, is it reasonable to throw open such a business and allow anybody to walk in there and examine everything and then say: No thank you; I do not want to buy it, and then to walk away with the secrets of that organization?

The hon. member asked why Federale Volksbeleggings were allowed to do this. That is a fair question. The answer is this: Because F.V.B. made a firm offer. It made a firm offer which none of the others did, an offer to which we could hold it—if the conditions were complied with.

They were not even given any details first; they just came along and made an offer?

They said: We are making a firm offer to a maximum of R7,000,000, but the actual price will depend upon a valuation, as I have explained. If the price had been fixed at that figure they would have had to buy the undertaking. They made an actual, firm offer; it was not simply an investigation. They were the only ones to make an offer.

Without an inventory?

No, I say that they said: “We are prepared to buy it for an amount of not more than R7,000,000, but the actual amount must be determined by the two auditors.” A procedure in regard to the way in which the price had to be arrived at was prescribed and if that price was arrived at, they had to buy the undertaking. It was not really an investigation; an actual firm offer was made.

I have been asked why the same offer was not made by others. I have already replied partly in this regard. There have been many negotiations over the years in regard to a partial take-over of K.O.P. Only recently there were negotiations of this nature but none of them were successful because it appeared that there was no interest in only a partial takeover of K.O.P. Recently, there have been only two bodies, of which I am aware, which have been interested and which were able to take over the whole undertaking. One of these bodies was F.V.B. and its group with which we are negotiating at present, and the other was a large chemical firm whose name I need not mention, with which we negotiated because it had previously indicated its interest in a complete take-over of K.O.P. We negotiated with the same firm two or three years ago in regard to the take-over of the chlorine factory. The hon. member for Parktown is quite right in saying that the chlorine division is the heart of K.O.P. That particular firm informed us two years ago that it was no longer interested “because the economics of the problem favour a chlorine plant on the same site as our future chlorine consuming plants”. Therefore the other large firm which was still interested bowed out because of this reason. We were then left with the F.V.B. consortium. This is the only one which made a firm offer for the take-over of this large undertaking. I think hon. members must understand clearly that there was no other method left to us.

There was no other method left to us in regard to the question of the price either, other than to estimate it in accordance with the valuations of appraisers. I want to emphasize what the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) said—that K.O.P. was not up for auction. It was not on the market. We were prepared to sell it but we did not erect a notice board outside with the words “For Sale/ Te Koop” on it. But we were prepared, if somebody approached us with an offer, to consider that offer, and only one body approached us with an offer which we could consider.

The hon. member for Kensington asked whether I know which bodies make up the consortium; he said that I did not even know to whom I was selling. That is not quite correct. I said that I was not able to announce the final composition of the consortium as yet. That is correct. I am not able to announce the final composition of the consortium. I have here before me a list of 20 names of bodies which may make up that consortium. Some of them have indicated their interest clearly and others not completely. Nobody will be able to make a definite statement in this regard until this legislation has been passed and until the price has been arranged. Only when those things have been done will the organizations be able to say finally whether they want to participate in the consortium or not. It would not be right on my part to mention names now not knowing whether every one of these bodies will join the consortium finally or not. I can tell the hon. member for East London (City) that the Government is paying very careful attention to the composition of that consortium. We are watching it carefully because, in the first place, we know the problems of agriculture. I mentioned this fact in my second-reading speech. We do not lose sight of these matters. We are watching the composition carefully in order to see that we will have bodies there which will be sympathetically disposed towards agriculture. I can also give the hon. member the assurance that, although the consortium has not yet been finally constituted, we shall ensure that it does not lead to the establishment of another monopoly. We want to prevent a new monopoly coming into being and operating on such a scale that it may be detrimental to the population as a whole.

May I ask a question? Is this list of names of the future members of the consortium still open as far as applications are concerned?

I take it that it is still open. I am not keeping the list. I think that F.V.B. will be willing to place any persons or bodies which are interested on that list. I think that the hon. member can still apply because a few days ago they gave me to understand that they would like more people to apply. I may just add that if there are hon. members who think that this consortium is of a sectional character, they are wrong. It is the wish of the Government, as expressed to the F.V.B.. that the consortium be constituted as widely as possible from the various economic interests in our country. Hon. members must not think that this is a one-sided consortium. The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) also asked me about the maximum and minimum price. I think that this matter was dealt with adequately by the hon. member for Vereeniging.

The hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Ross) asked what the anticipated turnover and profit for the current year will be. It is of course rather difficult to say at this stage because their financial year ends on the 30th June, but preliminary figures indicate that the profit will be in the region of R500.000 and that the turnover will be almost the same as last year— perhaps slightly higher than the turnover for last year. I may also say for the information of the hon. member that there was no middleman in this transaction.

The hon. member for East London (City) asked me certain questions to which I have already replied, and the same thing holds good for the hon. member for Albany (Mr. Bennett). I just want to add that not only will we apply price control if it becomes necessary to do so but, if necessary, we shall also make use of import control as a means of competition and, by so doing, keep the prices of the products to the farmer and the consumer as low as possible. I think that I have now replied to most of the questions asked, and I believe that even the hon. member for Kensington will now be convinced of the fact that he ought to vote with this side.

Discussion ensued.

Question put: That all the words after

“That” stand part of the motion, Upon which the House divided:

AYES—76: Badenhorst, F. H.; Bekker, G. F. H.; Bekker, M. J. H.; Bezuidenhout, G. P. C.; Botha, H. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, S. P.; Coetzee, B.; Coetzee, P. J.; Cruywagen, W. A.; de Villiers, J. D.; de Wet, J. M.; Diederichs, N.; du Plessis, H. R. H.; Fouché, J. J.; Frank, S.; Froneman, G. F. van L.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Henning, J. M.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Hiemstra, E. C. A.; Jonker, A. H.; Knobel, G. J.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotze, G. P.; Loots, J. J.; Malan, A. I.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, J. A.; Maree, G. de K.; Martins, H. E.; Meyer, T.; Mostert, D. J. J.; Mulder, C. P.; Nel, J. A. F.; Nel, M. D. C. de W.; Odell, H. G. O.; Pansegrouw, J. S.; Pelser, P. C.; Potgieter, D. J.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rall, J. W.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schlebusch, J. A.: Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Schoonbee, J. F.; Serfontein, J. J.; Steyn, F. S.; Steyn, J. H.; Swanepoel, J. W. F.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Uys, D. C. H.; van den Berg, G. P.: van den Berg, M. J.; van den Heever, D. J. G.; van der Ahee. H. H.; van der Spuy, J. P.; van der Walt, B. J.; van der Wath, J. G. H.; van eden, F. J.; van Niekerk, G. L. H.; van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; van Staden, J. W.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Venter, W. L. D. M.; Verwoerd, H. F.; Viljoen, M.; Visse, J. H.; Waring, F. W.; Wentzel, J. J.

Tellers: W. H. Faurie and H. J. van Wyk.

NOES—46: Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Bennett, C.; Cadman, R. M.; Connan, J. M.; Cronje, F. J. C.; de Kock, H. C.; Durrant, R. B.; Eaton, N. G.; Eden, G. S.; Emdin, S.; Field, A. N.; Fisher, E. L.; Gorshel, A.; Graaff, de V.; Hickman, T.; Higgerty, J. W.; Hughes, T. G.; Lewis, H.; Malan, E. G.; Miller, H.; Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Oldfield, G. N.; Plewman, R. P.; Radford, A.; Raw, W. V.; Ross, D. G.; Steenkamp, L. S.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Taurog, L. B.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Tucker, H.; van der Byl, P.; van Niekerk, S. M.; Warren, C. M.; Waterson, S. F.; Weiss, U. M.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: H. J. Bronkhorst, and A. Hopewell. Question affirmed and amendment dropped.

Motion accordingly agreed to and Bill read a Second Time.

I think if the hon. the Minister considers accepting the the amendment, he should realize that its acceptance will nullify the force and meaning of this Bill. It is a great pity that the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) was not present during the second-reading debate in this House because then she would have understood a great deal more of the background to and the motivation for this legislation. The National Welfare Board which consists of extremely capable professional people and persons with practical experience and knowledge, had the opportunity of drawing up this Bill and studying it very carefully. A working group prepared the way for them and that working group gave all its attention to this measure. The consideration of this matter took a long time but eventually they submitted recommendations to the hon. the Minister to establish a board whose most important function is going to be to advise the hon. the Minister. When one considers all these things one feels that the hon. member’s amendment cannot be considered. The whole composition of the board with its expert committees and everything else is such that it is there as an advisory body to advise the Minister. We know that if one wants an advisory body, one does not want a body which is chosen by outsiders because then one will have all kinds of group interests represented on that body. This is a board whose primary function will be to give expert advice and to maintain close contact with the work in all its ramifications. The board as proposed in the Bill complies with these qualifications. If one changes the board as the hon. member for Houghton wants to change it, it will not be an advisory board but it will be a board which other people will have chosen and have forced on the hon. the Minister. They will tell him: Here are the people to advise you. The idea is that of the more than 2,000 welfare organizations, every one will have an opportunity to submit four or so names from which the hon. the Minister can choose, and then he can say: I have confidence in this, that and the other person and I know that on the grounds of their knowledge and training they are the people who will be able to best advise me. In discussing this matter. the hon. member for Houghton made it clear —and we in this House know—that she bas never shown particular interest in this subject and is consequently rather unprepared in this regard. She advocated something which is absolutely unthinkable. When one looks at her amendment and one sees how she has taken the various regions and wants to give each region two representatives, one realizes that she wants to give two representatives to one large area which she has compounded out of the whole of the Republic of South Africa and comprising Border, the Eastern Cape, the Northern Cape, the Northern Transvaal and the Orange Free State, areas which have their own regions. She wants to lump them all together and give them only two representatives. I think that the amendment which the hon. member has moved here is completely unrealistic and simply reveals that she does not have the background to and insight into the problem dealt with by this Bill. I think that it would be an evil day for all welfare work in South Africa if the hon. the Minister were to consider for one moment giving attention to this amendment because it would make the whole Bill impotent.

I believe that this clause which establishes the National Welfare Board, is perhaps the most important clause in this Bill in view of the fact that the board in terms of the functions that will be accorded to that board under Clause 4, shows that this is a most important clause in the Bill and one which requires a careful study by this Committee.

The appointment of the members of this board, will rest with the Minister, and it is hoped that the Minister will realize the important task that will be before him in appointing the most efficient persons to serve on that board. If we look at the principal Act of 1947 and how the existing board is constituted —the board has come into existence by appointment—I believe that the criticism that one can offer in regard to the appointment of that board, is that there is a certain degree of imbalance. In terms of the existing principal Act, the existing board has 24 members, and one-quarter of those members are persons appointed, persons who are social workers, another quarter are persons appointed from organizations which do voluntary social welfare work and who are performing the task in the country districts, and one-half of the 24 members are persons taken from voluntary social welfare organizations operating in the cities. In the constitution of that existing board, there does seem to be an attempt to bring about a certain degree of balance in those areas which are more densely populated, such as the urban areas. Therefore in studying the composition of the proposed board, we find that there is a spread of having one person from each region, that is nine persons representing those nine regions; a member of the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions, and also the Minister now makes provision under paragraph (c) for five other members. Here I believe the hon. Minister could use that position of five other members to bring about a greater degree of balance in regard to the urban and the rural areas, and it is hoped that the Minister will also bear in mind that in the existing board, as I mentioned at the time of the second reading, it is unfortunate that of the persons from the universities, the four persons from the universities all came from Afrikaans-medium universities, two from the Pretoria University, one from the Orange Free State, and one from the Stellenbosch University. I believe that there are persons of sufficient ability at the English-medium universities to warrant an appointment to such a board. If it is to be a balanced board, the Minister should give due consideration to that particular aspect. Similarly, in regard to the urban areas there is a certain degree of merit in that the urban areas should get some further recognition as far as representation on this board is concerned. However, I do not believe that by changing the whole system of creating this board, as suggested by the hon. member for Houghton, is a practical suggestion. It appears that the amendment that is now before the Committee, is one which will place the whole question of establishing this board on an elective basis. The subsequent amendment that the hon. member for Houghton intends moving in respect of regional boards is also to bring about an elective basis. I believe that this is not the type of statutory board which should be subject to such an election and placed on such an elective basis. I think the best persons for the job, the persons best suited to perform this most important task should be appointed on this National Welfare Board. That should be the main consideration. If you are going to introduce an element whereby you have canvassing for election amongst the many hundreds and indeed thousands of welfare organizations that exist, all clamouring to have their representatives elected on the board, which is an advisory board, a board which is going to carry out very important functions, would mean that you run the risk of perhaps having persons elected who possibly are not suitably equipped and qualified to take on that task on this National Welfare Board. I believe that in terms of the clause as it stands whereby the list under Section 15 will provide an opportunity for all these welfare organizations in their regions to submit a list of four names of persons they believe are best suited and qualified to be considered for appointment to this board, allows the welfare organizations a great degree of discretion as to whose names they should submit for consideration for appointment to the regional boards and also as representatives of that region. on this National Board.

In sub-section (3) of this clause it says “one of the members of the board shall be designated by the Minister as the chairman of the board, and one of such members shall be elected as deputy-chairman of the board”. That is a departure from the position obtaining in the principal Act, which left it to the board from amongst their own members to elect the chairman and the vice-chairman. I should like to know from the hon. the Minister for what reasons he now wishes to designate the post of chairman on the National Board whereas in terms of the old provisions the chairman and vice-chairman were elected from amongst the members themselves.

We look upon this board as an improvement on the existing board, and it reduces the number of persons on the board from 24 to 15, and we know that later provisions of this Bill provide for the establishment of commissions which will concentrate on certain aspects of welfare work, and the overall co-ordinating body will remain the National Welfare Board in its advisory capacity to the Minister. So we believe that this particular clause does bring about improvements as far as the existing board is concerned, and we will therefore not support the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Houghton.

I want to support the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield) and I want to add that I, after listening to the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman), cannot see the reason for her amendment. If I look at Clause 2 and I read it in conjunction with Clause 4, where the functions of the board are set out clearly, I think the way this board is going to be made up is quite satisfactory. There is one point that I am not altogether clear about and that is sub-section (c) of subsection (2), this paragraph in which five other members will be appointed. The Minister in his second-reading speech to the best of my memory did not indicate how he would elect or nominate these five members, and I am a little bit perturbed about this group of people that will be added to the board, to make up their numbers. Now it has come from the hon. member for Umbilo that the language groups should be adequately represented. The Minister will know—it is no good arguing—that the sections of the community very often do present different problems from time to time, in the same way as the platteland will offer problems which differ from those of the city—in the same way we will find that individuals belonging to different language groups differ in their problems. I would urge the hon. Minister when appointing these five “other members” to this board, to see to it that proper representation is given to each of the language groups. There should be some sort of representation which is adequate without an eye on majorities or otherwise. The representations must be adequate and fair. At this stage I am not concerned with who will be in the majority on this board.

The next point I want clarified is in Clause 2 (3). It says that one of the members of the board shall be designated by the Minister as the chairman and one as the deputy-chairman of the board, who is to be elected. In the event of the chairman disappearing from the scene permanently, does the deputy-chairman automatically become the chairman, or does the Minister . . .

He will act as such for the time being.

I want to know what is meant by “for the time being”. I know it will be the interim period between the disappearance of the chairman and the new chairman being nominated by the Minister, but will the Minister automatically nominate the deputy-chairman, or will he appoint somebody who is not on the board?

The MINISTER OF SOCIAL WELFARE AND PENSIONS: Not necessarily.

I should like to know whether it will be a total outsider who has not served on the board at all who will possibly be appointed by the Minister as chairman.

I think it will curtail discussion if I reply now to the points that have been raised. The hon. members for Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield) and Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher) have asked me about the chairman. Under the provisions of the present Act, the Minister appoints the chairman. This is the position simply because I received a unanimous request from the present board to appoint the chairman. As far as the second question of the hon. member for Rosettenville is concerned—in regard to the fact that the vice-chairman is elected by the board itself and will act as chairman—he will remain there until the Minister appoints somebody in his stead. The Minister must appoint somebody in terms of this Bill. It is difficult to determine precisely how long it will be before an appointment is made but any Minister will try to fill the vacancy as soon as possible. He can appoint the deputy-chairman. He can also of course, appoint an outsider. I do not think the hon. member need be concerned in this regard. I think any reasonable Minister will know that he must appoint the best man under the circumstances.

Hon. members also asked questions about the way in which the board was balanced. Hon. members will remember that we considered this Bill for a very long while; all interested bodies in the country considered it as well and had an opportunity to express their views. The hon. member for Umbilo will remember that from time to time the question of the composition of the board and the fact that it should be a balanced board was discussed. It is not a representative board but an advisory board. I want to give the hon. member this assurance. We have inserted the provision that the Minister will appoint five additional members and the Minister is responsible for the balanced nature of the board. The hon. member will also remember that I have always said that we must all co-operate in welfare work. That was why I expressed my appreciation for the co-operation I had received in connection with this clause as well. The hon. member for Kimberley (South) (Dr. W. L. D. M. Venter) gave a very clear reply to the hon. member for Houghton. I have already said that the board is not a body of delegates which has to interview the Minister from time to time. The hon. member for Houghton ought to be able to imagine what the position of such a Minister will be if he has to have people to advise him who have been chosen from a wide variety of interests. Each one will put forward his own interests and then the Minister will have to decide among the various group interests. This is in conflict with our aim to have co-ordination and co-operation.

The Minister has made a few comments which I cannot allow to go by unchallenged. I am sorry about the lateness of my amendments. I thought I had explained that matter personally to the Minister, but if he is not prepared to accept my explanation, I am not prepared to give him another one. As to the question of only allowing one from each of these areas, the Border, Eastern Transvaal, Northern Cape, Northern Transvaal and the Free State, my original amendment was to allow one member for each of those regions. I am fully aware of how unrepresentative it is to allow to be jointly elected by this enormous area, although populationwise it does not compare with the Witwatersrand, but unfortunately since the Minister limited the number of members of the Board, in terms of the rules of the House I could not increase the number of members because of the financial implications whereby these members have to be paid. That is the explanation for it, and therefore I am not quite as stupid as the Minister thinks. It is a pity he and other members do not know the rules of the House.

As far as the other comments are concerned, I should imagine that the people most intimately concerned with running Welfare, i.e. the National Councils, the Regional Boards, the Universities teaching social work and who are training our social workers, and the professional association of social workers are the experts in this country. Who else are the experts, and why should the Minister know better than these people, who are the experts in this field? That is why I suggested that they be elected to the Board. I realize that the object is to have a board consisting of experts, but in practice it may simply be a board consisting of regional representatives. I do not think there is any more guarantee in the Minister’s choice of experts on that board than there is if those people are elected by the Afrikaans universities and the English universities, the professional social workers’ association and the regional boards. They know the experts better than the Minister. There will not be a conflict of interests. They will try to build up the best board possible. Even in terms of the last board, the Minister had to be guided in regard to the people he appointed. He had to take a proportion of people from the country districts and some from the welfare organizations and he had to take the largest proportion who came from the urban areas. There is absolutely no restriction on the Minister here at all, and I think he would be much better advised to have a board composed of experts who are elected by the experts themselves. Also instead of commissions he should have ad hoc sub-committees dealing with specific aspects of social work. There are all sorts of problems in social work which may need special investigation and it is far better to have ad hoc committees than statutory commissions and a body appointed entirely by the Minister.

As far as the hon. member for Kimberley (South) is concerned, I want to point out that there is no unanimity about this Bill at all. It is true that the ideas were canvassed widely, but there was no unanimity in the end. There were objections from several of the English-medium universities to the whole way in which this Bill was being framed. There were objections from the social workers’ associations or at least from some of the branches. There was no unanimity in regard to the executive as the Minister stated. [Interjections.] I was here, during the latter part of the second reading debate at any rate, and I moved an amendment, and there was no unanimity about this Bill whatever, and therefore the Minister cannot say that this board was acceptable and that everybody concerned in welfare work accepted it with joyful cheers. There are considerable misgivings about the whole structure of the Bill. Many people feel it should have been divided into two parts, the one dealing with welfare organizations per se and the National Board, and the other dealing entirely with the social workers’ association. So let no one think that the whole structure of this Bill is one which is accepted wholeheartedly by the people most intimately concerned with welfare work. I am sorry the Minister does not see fit to accept my amendment.

I must agree with the hon. member for Umbilo, who said that this was probably the most important clause in the Bill, the formation of the National Welfare Board. I would like to make a plea for one of our authorities which is not even mentioned in the Bill, and that is the Provincial Administration. Perhaps the Minister will say that the Provincial Administration has nothing to do with social welfare, but that would be entirely incorrect. The Provincial Administrations are clothed with the authority to supervise hospitals and they are very closely tied up with social welfare work. I know that it is said that our provincial hospitals should not have social workers on their staff, but if you take a hospital of the size of Groote Schuur, they have four social workers. They find it very necessary because in dealing with half a million out-patients a year there are quite a number of patients who require treatment other than medical treatment, and a lot of research has to be done. I would like to make a plea to the Minister to give some consideration that the Provincial Administrations should be represented. There may be liaison between the provinces through the Administrators, but that is not good enough. This is an advisory board and I feel that the Provincial Administrations, possibly through their Directors of hospital services, should have representation on this board. I appeal to the Minister to give consideration to nominating representatives from the provinces, preferably a member of the Hospital Department who is au fait with social work.

Amendment put and negatived (Mrs. Suzman dissenting).

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to (Mrs. Suzman dissenting).

On Clause 4.

I want to move the amendment standing in my name on page 467—

The functions of the Board are set out in Clause 4. If we look at the functions we see what they have to do, and it immediately comes to our notice that one of the most important aspects of this Board would be to stimulate the formation of a new professional class which would deal primarily with social welfare work. I think the Minister will agree with me when I say that is the basis of the whole Bill, to have a responsible professional class of social worker who will see at all times to the social work in our country. The Minister has appointed a group of people who will see that these different branches of the work will be carried out efficiently, and the only way it can be done is if it is done by as many well-trained people as possible. When a new profession starts, one of the major problems they have is to regulate their own members, to see that they toe the line. It has always been the privilege of the professional classes to have a body which becomes autonomous after a time, and which then sees to it that regulations are drawn up for the proper carrying out of the work and that the work is done efficiently by its members, and if there are any deviations, the members of the profession decide themselves how to deal with these deviates. I say that five years is a fair period in which this new profession will be able to establish itself and to get together a body of people which will be capable of doing the registering of its members. In this sub-section we have no indication whatsoever that this authority will ever be handed over to the social workers themselves. It will always be the Minister who has the power to register them, through one of his subsidiary groups. I say to the Minister in all seriousness and with the experience that we in the medical profession have had over the years, that the safest way to get efficiency and a good ethical code of conduct is to hand over the registration of the social workers to the social workers themselves. When they are properly established and have their own association, they should in turn elect from their members a council which shall have the right to register the members of the profession, and they will see to it that the members of the profession always do what is expected of them. I shall not go into the matter further. I am sure there are other members on this side who would like to support me.

Unfortunately, I cannot agree with the amendment of the hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher). From the discussion during the Second Reading debate it appeared that we have about 1,000 social workers in South Africa. It will be virtually impossible to establish and maintain a registration body for that group of people. They will have to contribute towards the upkeep and maintenance of their own offices and staff who will have to do the registration and all the work connected with it. We feel that that small group of people cannot do this work properly without being placed under a very great strain. In order to assist them provision is being made in the Bill whereby the Board will act as the registering body. They are being spared this expense and trouble. The question is now whether within the next five years, as the hon. member suggests the number of these people will increase to such an extent that they will be able to establish their own registration body. I do not think that that will be the case. We must not at this stage destroy the good instrument which we are giving these people by imposing a five year restriction upon it. If the registration as provided for in the Bill works well and this professional group is satisfied with its operation and does not require anything else, why then make provision at this stage for the demolition of a good system? I cannot agree with the hon. member. We must leave the matter just as it is and we must let the board and the Department act as the registration body for this professional group. If after some years it appears that their numbers have increased to the requisite extent and that they desire their own registration body, this matter can be considered again. I do not think that we must at this stage make provision for the demolition after five years of the machinery which we are establishing now.

Sir, I am in a quandary here because I do not know whether I should discuss the registration of social workers under this clause or under the later clause which provides for the actual registration. The hon. the Minister has an amendment here; a proviso is being added that the board shall delegate the functions that it has under sub-clause (1) (e), under Sections 33, 34, 35 and 36, to the Social Work Commission. I want to discuss the whole question of the registration but I do not know whether I should discuss it now or wait until we get to the later clauses.

I think it would be better if the hon. member waited until those clauses come under discussion.

Very well, I will not pursue that now, but I do have an amendment which is really a consequential amendment to an amendment that I am moving later on in Clause 7. In other words, I do not want commissions to be appointed and therefore I have to move for the omission of the word “commission” wherever it appears because I later want to ask for the appointment of ad hoc sub-committees instead. I therefore move as a consequential amendment—

My point is that I think it would be better to have ad hoc sub-committees with powers to co-opt experts and specialists in the various fields rather than to appoint commissions, because I think for the Minister to tie himself down just to these four commissions is to stultify real research in social work. Study may be required on a medical-social work, on psychiatric social work, child welfare and so on, and the commission are not going to allow any flexibility in this regard. That is why I move my amendment.

I cannot agree with the hon. member for Germiston (Mr. Cruywagen) nor for that matter with the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) over this question. Those of us who have investigated the rise of this particular professional group are agreed that this group is at present not strong enough nor does it contain enough members to stand independently on its own feet. But there can be no doubt whatever that with the encouragement given in this Bill together with other factors such as the increase in the numbers of social workers employed in industry and commerce, there will be a greater demand than in the past for this type of professional worker. It is to be hoped that within the next five years this group will so increase in numbers that they will be in a position to take over the control of their own body. As my colleague, the hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher) has said it is important that a professional group of workers should have control of its own body. It has been found advisable in the Western civilized areas on the whole, outside of the authoritarian groups, to give autonomy to professional groups. Sir, they are more jealous of their honour and their ethical behaviour; they are most jealous of their standard of training and their research. Everything is in favour of the granting of autonomy to these professional groups. As I have said, this group is not yet able to stand on its own feet and it is wise and advisable that the hon. the Minister should retain the control which is provided for in this Bill, but it would also be wise and it would be far-sighted to encourage this group to seek autonomy; to give them the opportunity to break loose from the control of the Department. I think on the whole the Department, with the passage of time and with increasing contact with these workers will probably come to realize that they themselves would like to be divested of this particular duty of registering the professional social worker. We on this side thought that it would be a good thing to suggest that the legal control which is provided for in this measure should disappear in about five years’ time. It may be found in five years’ time that these people are still not able to take over control of their own group, nothing would then prevent the hon. the Minister from coming to this House and asking for an extension of the existing powers, but if the matter is left in the air, with no period set to the control, it will be very difficult indeed for this professional group to get a charter and to bring this departmental control to an end. It would be very much better —-and that is why my colleague has moved this amendment—to lay down that in five years the departmental control shall cease, and there can then be negotiations or a commission can be set up or some other method can be used to decide what would be the wisest course in respect of these people. I beg the hon. the Minister to give this matter the most careful consideration because the future of professional social work in this country rests to a very great extent in his hands. It would be much better for him if the trained, professional social workers, the people who are going to be the backbone of his organization, have autonomy outside of their actual duties. The Minister should not exercise an iron control over them; he should say, “We will do away with departmental control in five years’ time, and we will then see what is the best thing to be done for these people.” That is the thought which underlies the amendment moved by my hon. friend. The hon. the Minister and his Department should exercise control for the next five years but thereafter they should call together the interested parties to discuss the question of retaining or doing away with departmental control. If my hon. friend’s amendment is accepted we will not have that long fight for a charter which so many professional bodies have had to wage in an effort to obtain autonomy.

I just want to tell the hon. members for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher) and Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford) that I have given a great deal of attention to this amendment. We also discussed this matter previously at another level. We asked ourselves what the position would be if the welfare workers, who are only small in number to-day, were simply left to their own divides, and we came to the conclusion that it would be better to incorporate them in this whole organization, an organization which, as I have said, still has to prove itself in practice. Hon. members will remember that I said that this new plan for welfare work would have to prove itself in practice and the provisions of this clause will also have to prove themselves in practice. Why not leave matters at that; why must we fix a specific date? The hon. member for Germiston (Mr. Cruywagen) put the matter very clearly. We are now going to organize welfare work on this basis within the next five years we are going to build up an organization for these people, an organization over which they will have a large measure of control. We are going to build up this organization and over the next five years they will build up a code of ethics for themselves. After a period of five years they can then come forward and tell us whether or not they are satisfied with the existing set-up. They can then tell us that they want a different set-up and that they are strong enough to stand on their own feet.

Mr. Chairman, those two hon. members are doctors. They know that one cannot simply take a small child by the hand and decide in advance that one is simply going to leave it to its own devides after a certain time. No, one leads that child step by step until one sees that it is able to stand on its own feet and walk by itself. One does not want that child to fall down. I think that hon. members on that side will appreciate our argument in this connection. Why should one specify a period of five years? Why should we insert a provision of this nature in the Bill to-day whether the people concerned want it or not. whether they are in favour of it or not? Hon. members want the whole position to be reviewed after five years. I think that it would be silly to accept such an amendment at this stage. I want to reply to the amendment of the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman). My difficulty with her amendment is that it seeks to demolish the whole structure of the Bill. She is seeking to dislocate the whole structure of the Bill. I just want to tell the hon. member that these ad hoc committees which she is suggesting are impracticable and unrealistic. Ad hoc committees give no continuity.

But that is the whole idea.

I say that there must be continuity. Mr. Chairman, in considering the whole plan in this regard I have said that we must have continuity in the whole organization, that we must build it up on a firm foundation and that we must build it in the form of a pyramid. This organization cannot consist of loose segments. We do not want appendages which can break away at any time. Every commission must consist of members who have been selected for their theoretical knowledge and practical experience of the specific sphere in which they are serving. That is why we want to appoint these commissions. We want commissions which can advise the Minister on the grounds of their specific knowledge, commissions which can properly investigate the matters which are specifically referred to them. If we appoint detached committees, as suggested by the hon. member, we will have no continuity. What we want is an organization established on a firm foundation. I am sorry therefore but I cannot accept the hon. member’s amendment. The Minister can appoint ad hoc committees from time to time if he wants to and the board can also seek the advice of other experts in regard to matters in which they are interested. They can do this if they want to.

I just want to say a few words in pursuance of the amendment which I have moved to Clause 4. As the Bill was drawn up originally the board was the only body which could give instructions to the commissions and the regional boards. And if the Minister wanted to give any instruction to a commission or a regional board he could only do so with the approval of the board. Let us imagine that the Minister wants to issue a certain instruction and the board refuses to carry out that instruction. The Minister must then have the power to order the board to carry out that instruction. It is desirable that the Minister be empowered to give an instruction to a body which is serving him in an advisory capacity. The next amendment is to ensure that a delegation made to a commission or a regional board in terms of an instruction of the Minister, cannot be amended or withdrawn except with the approval of the Minister. The third amendment is to add the following subsection at the end of the clause—

The most important reason for the establishment of the commission for social work is that all the work in regard to the registration of social workers will be done by the commission. The intention is that the board will delegate all its functions in this connection to the commission concerned. I move the amendments standing in my name—

and to add the following sub-section at the end of the clause:

1. (4) The board shall delegate to the social work commission all the functions entrusted to it under Sections 33, 34, 35 and 36, and any function performed by the said commission in pursuance of such delegation, shall, for the purposes of this Act, be deemed to have been performed by the board.

We think that the addition of sub-clause (4), as proposed by the Minister will go a long way in meeting our desire to build up this profession. The hon. the Minister wanted to know in his reply why we had picked on five years as being the length of time during which the registration of social workers should be done department-ally or through the welfare board, but the period of five years is the period which his own Department has selected in other clauses under which the social work commission will be permitted to register as social workers people who do not have the necessary qualifications in a legal sense, in other words, those who by dint of work and self-education or even in some cases university education and devotion to duty have created for themselves a position which is deserving of recognition, although they do not comply with all the conditions laid down for registration as social workers. That dedicated but amateur worker will not be recognized and cannot be recognized by the board after the expiration of five years from the date on which this Act comes into operation. Sir, this matter will crop up again several times under different clauses and we hope that the Minister will give careful consideration to our idea of fixing a definite period during which his Department will control the registration of social workers. I want to say that if control is exercised too long by the Minister’s Department it will, amongst other things, affect the employment of social workers by industrial or commercial organizations which require personal relations to be investigated. The Department will handicap the development of this group if they do not sooner or later allow its members to associate, agglomerate and obtain control of their members, their standards of conduct and their educational needs.

I wish to deal in particular with the proposed new sub-section (4), as moved by the hon. Minister in his amendment and which reads—

I particularly welcome this new sub-section because the question of the functions of the social work commission, in relation to the registration of social workers, is a matter which did cause a certain amount of concern amongst certain social workers. We felt that if the clause was left in its present form and the board was empowered to take disciplinary action against social workers, if the need should arise, the destinies of social workers would be in the hands of a board which might possibly consist of persons who are not themselves registered social workers. According to a later clause of this Bill, the social work commission will consist of at least four persons who are registered social workers, out of a total of seven and therefore the social workers themselves will be in the majority on that particular commission. Sir, the question of the registration of social workers is a very important matter. I know that there is not a great degree of unanimity about this question amongst the social workers themselves. It is obvious that there is this difference of opinion, but the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) who is totally opposed to this Bill and to these various provisions, should bear in mind that perhaps the people who have made representations to her merely represent a group within a group. According to the discussions that I have had with social workers they are desirous of having a form of registration which will be the first step towards professional status for them. Sir, the points of view that were expressed at the second reading to the effect that greater use should be made of the social work commission to deal with the registration of social workers, induced me to place on the Order Paper certain amendments to Clause 33, and then there is also an amendment, in the name of the hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford) to Clause 35. The objects of those amendments to Clauses 33 and 35, were to ensure that the board would carry out certain functions only in consultation with the social work commission. This aim has now been met in terms of the new sub-section introduced by the hon. the Minister. With these words of explanation I would like to say at this stage that we welcome the proposed new sub-section (4), because it has the same object that we had in mind in moving amendments, as we propose to do, to certain subsequent clauses. In the circumstances, we will not move certain amendments to which I have referred and we welcome this amendment moved by the Minister.

It is quite true that I have had representations about the registration of social workers. Whether they represent a group within a group is another matter. The social workers’ association consists of numerous branches and one of the branches, of course, is the southern Transvaal branch which consists of about one-third of the total member-shin of the social workers’ association, so it is fairly representative. Another branch which does not agree with the manner in which registration is being carried out and the whole idea of the code of ethics, of course, is the Natal Branch, which is another very important branch. In fact, Southern Transvaal and Natal, are two of the most important areas engaged in social work by virtue of the fact that the population for these areas are amongst the highest in South Africa. One cannot therefore just brush their objections aside as coming from a group within a group. They form a very important percentage of the total number of social workers.

Surely one cannot listen to the minority as against the wishes of the majority.

This is not a minority; this is the majority of the social workers. These two branches are certainly the most important branches of the social workers. Sir, the working body made recommendations which are not being carried out in this Bill at all; the working group certainly recommended that there should be a statutory board to act as a registering body. [Interjection.] Sir, I am not going to quibble over words. This is an association of professional workers and just as in the case of the Medical Council and the Law Society one would think that the organization laying down the rules of conduct and the code of ethics, the organization responsible for the defrocking of social workers, if I may put it that way, would be the professional body concerned. The commission has been entrusted with these functions, but if you look at the way in which the commission is set up. the Minister appoints all the members; they are not elected by the people themselves. The Medical Council, after all. does have elected members on it. I think I am right in saying that the majority of its members are elected members.

No.

At any rate it has a large number of elected members. In the case of the social work commission the ratio is four social workers to three other members, all appointed. I think the Medical Council should show that they have some guts and they should fight for their rights; that would be my attitude. I think that four against three is a very slight majority for the professional association which is going to register social workers, lay down the rules of conduct, deal with charges of improper conduct and in fact strike people off the register where they are not considered fit to do social work. That is why in a later amendment I propose that the commission be set up in a different way and that all seven members should be elected members, so that these people can learn to run their own affairs since they are a professional body.

Amendments proposed by Mrs. Suzman and Dr. Fisher put and negatived and the amendments proposed by the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 5,

I move the amendment standing in my name—

In line 38, after “shall” to insert “at least twice”.

Clause 5 deals with the reports which have to be submitted by the board. When one looks at the history of the welfare organization Act we find that originally it provided that these reports should be submitted annually. In 1961 a Bill was introduced which amended that provision and made the period five years, in other words, the board had to report once during its period of office At that particular stage we moved an amendment to the effect that they should report at least twice during their period of office. Although that amendment was rejected, in terms of the Bill which is now before us, the board has gained increased significance in that various commissions are to be appointed. These commissions are to report annually to the board as the regional boards are required to do. We feel that a period of five years is too long a period for the House to wait for a report from the National Welfare Board. We therefore feel that it is not an unreasonable request that the House should have the opportunity of receiving a report from the board on its activities at least twice during its lifetime. We think there should be at least one interim report from the board. The clause, as it now stands, does state that the Minister may call for other reports from time to time, if it is required to do so. However, it is felt that provision should be made in this clause to ensure that the House will receive reports at least during a period of five years.

I move the following amendment—

I want annual reports. The hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield) will be satisfied with two reports in a five year period. I think that this is such an important board, a board which is being entrusted with the all-important task of framing the whole welfare policy of the Republic, that there is no reason why it should not report annually.

It is an advisory board, after all.

I know it is an advisory board but it is going to give very important advice. It is going to advise the hon. the Minister on all matters intimately concerning the implementation of the welfare policy throughout South Africa. I see no reason why it should not report annually. It only has to meet twice a year—-not even at six monthly intervals—and I cannot see any reason why the results of its deliberations should not be incorporated in an annual report for the benefit of the country.

I am sorry but I cannot accept the amendment of the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman). The work of these commissions is long-term work. If one provides that they must report annually they may say that they have not done very much in that year. The hon. member will understand that such a body can be placed in a very difficult position if it is compelled to report annually. Because the planning is on a long-term basis, there are cases where it takes longer than a year before Departments receive reports. We shall be creating an impossible position by such a provision. I am sorry, but I cannot accept her amendment.

I am prepared to accept the amendment of the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield), namely, that the board must report twice during its period of office. It must report at least twice and then as often as the Minister specifically requires.

I want to move the amendment standing in my name—

The purpose of this legislation is that the National Board and the commissions shall be so constituted that the commissions will function as sub-divisions of the board and that the board’s report on its activities will also cover the activities of the commissions. This is the way in which the whole organization is set up. But the provisions of the Bill are not always interpreted in this way. Some bodies had expressed a doubt as to whether, in terms of the provisions of Clause 5, the board is also compelled to report on the activities of the commissions.

I also want to move my next amendment—

To omit sub-section (2).

In terms of the amendment of the hon. member for Umbilo which I have accepted, the board will report twice on its activities during its term of office. This will have the result that a report of the board will not cover its full period of office and therefore it is necessary to omit sub-section (2) which is in conflict with this fact.

Amendment proposed by Mr. Oldfield put and agreed to, amendment proposed by Mrs. Suzman put and negatived and amendments proposed by the Minister, put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 7,

I want to move the following amendment—

To omit sub-section (1) and to substitute the following sub-section:

1. (1) The Minister shall establish a social work commission consisting of seven members elected by persons registered under Section 33, one of whom shall be a member of the board.

The object of this amendment is to do away with these commissions, with the exception of one, which the hon. Minister proposes to appoint, for the reasons I have already mentioned during the second reading. I believe the commissions nullify the activities and the functions of the existing machinery, i.e. the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions, the national councils of the various welfare organizations, the Joint University Committee on Sociology and Social Work and the Social Workers’ Association. I feel, as I mentioned earlier today, that the setting up of specific ad hoc committees to study subjects particularly germane to the field of social welfare would be of much more value to South Africa than the statutory commissions which, I believe, are going to nullify the activities of the existing machinery.

I want to say too, Sir, that I believe the two commissions, the Family Life Commission and the Welfare Policy Commission, are completely arbitrary and unrealistic in their division. I cannot understand the difference between the two. Why this arbitrary division between family life and welfare policy. The White Paper which the hon. Minister issued tells us that the Family Life Commission will deal more particularly with the normal family while the Welfare Policy Commission will concern itself with the maladjusted family and the family in need. I say it is difficult to isolate family policy at all, that all family welfare is related to the entire field of social welfare. What is more, Sir, since when has the normal family become the concern of the Social Welfare Department? Normal family is exactly what it implies; it is normal. It does not require any assistance from the hon. the Minister’s department or his commission. Surely we are all aiming at normal family life. I don’t see any point in putting this under the charge of a commission which is called the Family Life Commission. I think it is an unduly ambitious aim, anyway, to set up a special commission on family life in our multi-racial society. As I have said before, the main aim should be to establish a norm in South Africa. We have not got a norm. Our norms differ in our multiracial society. The Government does not even recognize the necessity for normal family life amongst the Africans.

Nonsense.

All its laws which are designed to perpetuate and extend the system of migratory labour mean, in point of fact, that the Government’s policy is designed not to encourage family life, but to break it up, because family life among the Bantu and migratory labour are mutually contradictory.

What do you want?

I don’t want these commissions. I think they are a lot of nonsense. That is exactly what my amendment says. The reason why I ask for the establishment of one commission and not also the Welfare Organization Commission since the board is going to take over the registration of welfare organizations, is although I would not really mind having a welfare registration commission left, to my mind, the national board should take that over. The reason why I ask for the maintenance of a social work commission is because I want that commission to do the work of registering social workers. But, as far as I am concerned, the other commissions don’t mean a thing. The one is meant to deal with normal family life, which does not require a Government commission at all, and the other one is going to deal with a concept which we have not even established in this country, i.e. the norm that should be followed. As I say Government policy is designed, as far as Africans are concerned, to see that normal family life can simply not be carried out as far as that particular section of the population is concerned. You can’t say migratory labour is the norm and then say you want family life. The two are simply incompatible. Because migratory labour means that the wage-earner, the head of the family, is away from his wife and children who are left in the reserve for months on end, sometimes for years on end. If they are lucky they can go back for a few days each year.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order may I have your ruling: Is the hon. member in order to ask that three of the commissions be done away with? During the second reading we accepted the principle that there would be four called as set out in (a), (b), (c) and (d). The hon. member is now asking that three be done away with and that only one, namely, (b) “Social Work” remains.

The principle does not cover the number of commissions. The hon. member may continue.

Thank you, Sir. The hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) asked me about the Africans from the rest of Africa. I am not concerned with them. We are here concerned with mapping out the best way of organizing the welfare policy of the Republic of South Africa. If the people lead different lives in other countries in Africa, as they no doubt do, if they have to become migratory labourers through economic circumstances, is no concern of mine at all. What does concern me is that the official Government policy in the Republic of South Africa is not designed to extend family life among the largest section of our community, and therefore to set up this commission and call it a “family life commission” is as far as I am concerned, so much nonsense. As I say, the only reason really why I ask for the establishment of the Social Work Commission is simply because I want a body which is going to take over the registration of the social workers’ associations and will be responsible for their code of conduct, i.e. the working out of the ethical code for those professional code. For the rest I would much rather see the establishment of ad hoc subcommittees, and I do not think anything really will be achived by the establishment of these commissions. Of course, I also moved in my amendment that the social work commission shall consist of seven members elected by the persons registered under Section 33. In other words, I want the professional associations controlled by professional people.

I rise to speak to the amendment of the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman). It seems to me that she does not yet fully understand the terms of the Bill. The Bill is now establishing a smaller board and a number of commissions are being appointed under the board. The task of these commissions will undoubtedly be to do certain research work. Both the board and the commissions only have advisory powers. The board must advise the Minister and in order to enable the board better to advise the Minister it must have those commissions to advise it in regard to various matters, after they have done research into their particular spheres. The hon. member has now introduced another matter completely, namely, the question of migratory labour in South Africa. The hon. member knows as well as I that the position is that social work for the Bantu must gradually and systematically be transferred to the Department dealing with Bantu affairs. By raising this matter here the hon. member has proved that she does not understand the provisions of this Bill. In the first place, this Bill has been drawn up for the Whites and for White South Africa, and social work among the Bantu will be transferred to the particular department concerned. Her remarks that the commission is not necessary do not constitute an argument at all. Do the other people not exist at all as far as she is concerned? Do White families and Coloured families in the rest of White South Africa no longer exist for her at all? The particular commission which she has mentioned will deal primarily with family life but, according to the hon. member, it has no right of existence. The hon. member has certainly not given careful consideration to the position.

I think that the hon. member for Houghton in the speech she made a minute ago indicated that she has not a true appreciation of the objective of this Bill. Surely the hon. member must in the first instance realize that quite contrary to what the hon. member for Heilbron has said, this is not a racial matter, it is a non-racial measure, and the structure that is being set up in this Bill equally applies to Coloured families as White families, contrary to the viewpoint of the hon. member for Heilbron, and to Native families.

You don’t understand my argument.

Of course I do. The whole objection the hon. member has to the provisions of this clause is the line she has taken right through from the time we have discussed the constitution of the board. The hon. member does not seem to appreciate that the establishment of these commissions is the first step to taking a scientific approach in the establishment, the formulation of social services affecting the people of South Africa. The hon. member should also realize that when you discuss a Bill such as this, you are not discussing a Bill dealing with artificial insemination, you are not dealing with cattle, you are dealing with people, and the process of evolution of people is by nature a slow one, and as we envisage the work of these commissions it is to lay down a pattern for future development, future activities in the social field, in advisory capacities. Of necessity that will affect the whole pattern of family life in South Africa irrespective of race groups. I have had a great deal to say about this matter during the second reading, and I do not want to take the matter further here. But I do want to say that we do not in any way support the attitude that the hon. member for Houghton has adopted in respect of this clause. We look upon this clause and the two subsequent clauses that follow as possibly the three most important clauses in this Bill embracing the positive aspects of this Bill. For the first time in our legislative machinery we are setting up machinery to make plans in respect of the whole structure of the social life of South Africa in future years, and I think the hon. member should bear that aspect in mind and not come here dealing with welfare matters because she has probably listened to a minority group that made some representations to her. We know that the hon. member for Houghton has never taken any interest in matters of this kind.

That is quite untrue.

We know that she has never taken any interest in these matters, and so I say to her that before she comes to this House and deals with fundamental issues which have received considerable consideration over a long period of time, she should make a better and fuller study of her subject.

As the previous speaker said, we are dealing here with one of the cardinal principles of this Bill and it is simply shocking to hear a member like the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) standing up here and telling the House that the appointment of these commissions is just so much nonsense to her mind.

Quite right.

In other words, we have outstanding sociologists and social workers who are experts in this field, who have said that welfare work has developed in these various branches and who have also asked that these four important commissions be established under this legislation, but the hon. member for Houghton, who knows as much about welfare work as my boot wants to draw a red line right through these provisions. She says that they are absolute nonsense to her mind. I can also stand up and say that the satellites of America are complete nonsense to my mind, but that still does not change the fact that I will be revealing my ignorance about an extremely important and technical matter. That is what the hon. member for Houghton has done here. She has said that she simply cannot understand what this thing means. If she knew the extremely important role played by the commission which has undertaken the registration of welfare organizations, which has to register those various welfare organizations, which has to ensure that they comply with the requirements of the Act. which has to ensure that steps are taken to co-ordinate the various branches of the work and the various organizations, she would not say that it was unnecessary to have such a commission. If she knew that family life was being emphasized more and more throughout the Western World to-day, that we had an important family congress and that that family congress advocated the establishment of such a commission, the hon. member would not say that this was nonsense. Earlier in the Session we discussed a private member’s motion dealing with family allowances. The hon. the Minister’s reply was that this would be one of the matters which a commission of this nature would have to investigate. They are the experts in this sphere. When one considers the welfare work being done in France to-day or in any of the Western countries one finds that they emphasize the importance of family life. They draw a clear distinction between family care and welfare policy, but the hon. member for Houghton says that this is nonsense. Mr. Chairman. I think that it is a waste of time to give any further attention to anything said by the hon. member, because she knows absolutely nothing about this matter at all. The hon. member made a statement which I want to refute as emphatically as I can. I deprecate the fact that she said that it appeared that we were only interested in family care as far as the Whites were concerned, and that we were not interested in family care for the non-Whites. I want to say that this Government is interested in a sound family life for the Whites, the Coloureds, the Indians and the Bantu. It is for this reason that our welfare policy provides that each of those various departments will now do its own welfare work. We are laying a foundation here; we are constructing a model which these departments can also follow as far as their work is concerned. We now have liaison with the various departments. The hon. member for Houghton usually studies most matters well but in this case it is very clear that she has become the spokesman for certain opinions and group interest in the country which have given her half-baked advice. She does not have the technical knowledge to differentiate and that is why she comes along here and says things which, from a scientific point of view, are absolutely nonsensical.

We know that the study and research as far as social science is concerned. have made tremendous strides in recent years. We on this side of the House believe that it is necessary that commissions should be appointed which can specialise in certain aspects of social work. We believe that these commissions are necessary to bring about that degree of specialisation that is required in the science of social work, and if this Committee is to accept the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Houghton, which is to omit sub-section (1), and substitute a new sub-section which shall be the establishment of a social work commission alone, it means that the hon. member for Houghton is therefore opposed to a welfare organization registration commission. I wonder if the hon. member for Houghton realizes the enormous amount of work involved in the applications, registrations and control of these welfare organizations? Sir, if the Board which is to be appointed in terms of this Bill, has to be completely bogged down in dealing with all the necessary details that have to be attended to with the registration of welfare organizations, we will continue to have the long delays that have been caused in the past. We know that the Board meets at least twice a year. So it means that where organizations have been formed and they wish to obtain registration so that they might proceed with the work for which they have formed that association, they will be subject to considerable delays. The aim of this clause is to establish a welfare organizations’ registration commission, and if one reads the White Paper that accompanies this Bill, it becomes clear that this commission is going to facilitate the legislation and the dealing with matters affecting welfare organizations, and I believe that the hon. member for Houghton is doing a disservice by moving an amendment to eliminate that particular commission.

The next commission that she wishes to eliminate from this clause is the family life commission. The objection is that there is not sufficient information as to what the functions of this commission would be. But we know that in terms of the Family Year and the Family Congress that was held, a great deal of constructive work was done in regard to preventing social work in regard to the family unit. It was of paramount and fundamental importance during the period of the family year and the family congress that was held to try and weld and unify the family unit as the very basis of successful preventive work in the field of social work, and surely that is an aim which should be encouraged. Surely the degree of prevention that can be brought about, preventing a family from becoming a maladjusted unit, is a vitally important task of the Department of Social Welfare, and we find that there are organizations that specialise in such work. Surely therefore this commission will be set the task, or set a challenge, and the challenge of that commission will be to strengthen the family unit in South Africa. I believe it is a step in the right direction, a constructive step towards bringing about a greater degree of preventing the breaking up of family units. This can save the State and welfare organizations a great deal of money. I believe it is an important aspect of this clause.

The amendment moved by the hon. member for Houghton also aims at eliminating the Welfare Policy Commission. This is the commission which will specialise in the reconstruction of the family unit, the protection of children, social deviation, the planning and co-ordination of welfare work and research. Surely these are all vitally important aspects. Here the Board will be able to refer matters to the Commission which is dealing with the subject. They in turn will send their annual reports to the Board and the Board will advise the Minister. This is a method of ensuring specialization in certain fields of social work. The only amendment I wish to move in this clause is the one standing in my name—

Therefore the object of this amendment is that the commission, instead of being known as the Welfare Policy Commission, will be known as the Welfare Planning Commission. I believe that the question of policy must always rest with the Minister, and it would be wrong to expect the commission to formulate policy. This commission will co-ordinate the welfare work and social research and therefore I think it should not be called the Welfare Policy Commission but the Welfare Planning Commission.

I want to support the hon. member for Umbilo and I want to take the opportunity of saying to the hon. member for Houghton that she has this evening shown that she knows very little, if anything, about welfare work.

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

The hon. member said that as far as she is concerned she would like to see the whole of this clause scrapped. Can she tell the House whether ad hoc committees will work better than these commissions, and why? How will these committees be elected? [Interjection.] The hon. member says there will be research done. Why cannot these commissions do research work? It is their object to do research. I cannot for the life of me see what this idea of hers means. I cannot understand her trend of thought. To me it looks as if this is a deliberate attempt by her to undermine the work that this board is going to do. I must support the Minister in his contention that it is necessary to have these commissions established because I know from experience that if we have these commissions established on sound grounds their work will be of such a nature that all the various types of social work will be served and all the various groups of people in the country will be looked after. She need have no fear that any one group will be left out of the work this board will do.

I wish to raise with the Minister a certain aspect concerning the family life commission in so far as normal family life is concerned. Under the four headings in the White Paper we find that the third heading states: “The family and the philosophy of life, and associated therewith a family code, marriage guidance and family functions,” will be catered for. The White Paper also refers to the welfare policy commission, which apparently deals with social deviation, and I believe that broken marriages will fall within the matters to be dealt with by this commission. I wish to refer to the question of marriage guidance, with particular reference to divorce, because I believe that the intentions of the Minister to limit divorce are sincere and that everything possible is done to lower the incidence of divorce. I feel that no restriction should be envisaged of the work of the Marriage Guidance Council. I feel, too, that that council has offered a voluntary and specialised service to the community which no State-sponsored organization could adequately perform. I believe that the work could almost be likened to the work of Alcoholics Anonymous, which assists alcoholics to overcome their problems. I believe the success of these organizations is due mainly to the fact that no compulsion is enforced on the individual. Therefore I believe that this Marriage Guidance Council does very important work. One finds that the engaged couple is able to seek the advice of these councils prior to marriage, and after marriage, if problems should arise, these same people can come back to people whom they have learnt to know and in whom they have confidence to seek further advice. I feel that the Marriage Guidance Council could deal with both aspects, the aspect of the normal marriages and the aspect of the deviate individual who may be heading towards divorce, because it is a council offering a specialised service. The people have undergone a long course of training and they to a large extent consist of ministers of religion. But my problem is this. Which of these two commissions will now deal with marriage guidance? Will the normal marriage guidance work be undertaken by one commission, and is the deviate or broken marriage to be dealt with by the other commission. and in that process, will there be any danger of interference with the work of the Marriage Guidance Council? Also, I would like to ask the Minister whether it is his intention to make it compulsory by law for a couple whose marriage has reached the point of no return and is on the rocks to appear before a commission before their divorce case is heard in a court of law? I believe that many people are of the opinion that this cuts across the existing practice and that these efforts to reconcile people should not be effected on the basis of compulsion but by persuasion. I trust that the Minister will be able to give me some assurance that the work of the marriage guidance societies will be encouraged and that wherever possible he will assist them financially.

I just want to reply to a few matters that have been raised. The hon. member for Berea (Mr. Wood) referred to a very important aspect of welfare work— marriage guidance. I can assure him that we are very interested in marriage guidance. This is a matter to which we are giving careful attention. It is also included in the whole structure of our planning. This is one aspect which can be referred to the family life commission—the way in which things can be planned in order to ensure that we do what is best for future family life in this country. It will not help to do all the work of reconstruction or simply to maintain our established families at their present level so that they do not fall away; one must also make plans for building up family life in this country. A nation which does not have a sound family life will not survive. So I can assure the hon. member that this matter is of great importance to us.

I want to thank the hon. member for Kimberley (South) (Dr. W. L. D. M. Venter) for having done his best to give the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) a healthy approach to this matter. It is a strange thing to my mind that the hon. member for Houghton has had nothing constructive to offer. The hon. members for Kimberley (South), Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) and Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield) are people who know something about these matters, perhaps more than she does, but she did not have the grace to admit that these are people who have made a particular study of the matter. She said simply that we should draw a red line through all the planning that has already been done throughout a large part of the country. It is absolutely nonsensical to say that a large section of the public are not in favour of this planning. I made it clear that this Bill was considered by the public and by all interested authorities for more than two years, and I mentioned the telegrams that I had received. The hon. member would do very well to learn that she must be silent when somebody gives her advice, but this she cannot do. She does not want to listen to what one has to say and that is why she talks nonsense. The hon member made a wild statement to the effect that the composition of these commissions and of the board is not supported by large sections of the public. She did not mention any specific points; she concentrated on bringing one matter into the discussion in a round-about way; she said that there was a large non-White section of the population who were not included in this planning. But the non-Whites are at a stage of development at which they are imitating the pattern of development of the Whites in every sphere of life. They are doing this in every sphere of life. To hear the hon. member one would say that White civilization meant nothing to the non-Whites, in the sphere of welfare work as well. Where does she get that from? I should like to see the chaotic position that would result from the amendment which she has proposed.

As far as Clause 7 is concerned the hon. member for Umbilo has moved to omit “welfare policy” and to substitute “welfare planning”. I am prepared to accept this amendment. We are not here to split hairs; we are dealing with the planning of welfare work in regard to those who have a claim in this regard. I think that the term “welfare planning” is a very suitable one and I am prepared to accept the amendment.

I have already replied to the hon. member for Houghton who moved an amendment in connection with the commission. As hon. members on both sides of the House have said, it would be silly to destroy the whole structural basis of this legislation and to appoint a body of this nature consisting of elected members. We shall then have to make the services of officials of the Department available to that body in order to do its work, but we shall have no control at all over it. Why does the hon. member want a position in which we will be able to exercise no control at all? No, I cannot accept that amendment.

At this stage I want to move—

If this clause remains unchanged, the activities of the commission will simply consist of the registration of welfare organizations. It is a function which under the old regime was carried out by the executive committee of the National Welfare Board, but it is a restricted activity. The important work comprises the co-ordinating of welfare organizations, the promotion of welfare organizations and supervision and control over welfare organizations. These are all functions which will be carried out by the commission and that is why I am moving that the word “registration” be omitted. As far as the addition of the words “of whom at least two shall be persons engaged in social work” is concerned, I should just like to say this. Such a commission will consist of five ordinary and two additional members appointed by the Minister. Of the ordinary members, at least one must be a member of the board; at least four must be persons whose names appear on the list mentioned in Clause 15. In the case of the social work commission, there must be at least four persons who are registered in terms of Clause 33 and I am adding “of whom at least two shall be persons engaged in social work” in order to give the social workers in the profession a greater say in this matter.

I am certainly not going to reply to the personal remarks made about my ability and my knowledge by various members in this House. I am only interested in the comments of people whose opinions I respect and therefore I do not intend to reply to any of the comment made by the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) or the hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher) or other hon. members on that side of the House. Sir, I am entitled, as other members are, to choose my advisers and as far as this Bill is concerned I happen to have chosen advisers who are experts in the field of sociology, people who are professors and who are running Departments of Sociology, and it is just possible that these people know as much about social work and the practice of welfare work as the hon. member for Kimberley (South) (Dr. W. L. D. M. Venter) or the hon. member for Rosettenville, and the hon. member for Turffontein. The reason why I moved the amendment in this clause is because my advice is that social work cannot be divided up in this arbitrary way. I do not know whether it is done in any other country of the world and according to the letters I have received in this regard I doubt it. It is a purely arbitrary division. What is more, if one took seriously the comments of the hon. members for Rosettenville and Turffontein one would think that we have had no welfare work done in this country at all until now; that these commissions for the first time are to initiate family planning, marriage guidance, child welfare, care of the aged, care of the deaf, etc. For the first time since the establishment of the commissions has any welfare work been done in this country; that is the impression that one gets listening to those hon. members. That is absolute nonsense, of course. There has been welfare work in all these fields and I believe that the work done by the Department of Social Welfare, the work done by the Joint Committees of the Universities in their sociology and social work departments and by the national organizations have been extremely valuable work. Hon. members should not come here and try to create the impression that it is only by establishing these commissions that we can get anywhere at all. We do not need statutory commissions of this kind but we do need research, and that is why I suggested ad hoc committees. Statutory bodies are least able to do this sort of research because they are fixed in their membership and may very well be that the type of research that should be carried out requires specialists in that particular field, be it psychiatry, child welfare, marriage guidance, geriatrics or any of these other fields.

What is wrong with the statutory commissions?

Sir, I do not want to make any personal rejoinders but it seems to me that maybe I am not really the stupid one in this argument because however much I put forward the view of social experts, however much I try to enlarge on it, it seems to me that I am unable to penetrate the minds of certain members in this House. Sir, I will not waste the time of the Committee any longer. I will simply say that if one looks at the definition of “social worker” in the Minister’s own Bill, one finds that it covers practically every one of the particular fields in which these commissions are supposed to operate. I want to say, in reply to the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield) that I have no real objection to the establishment of a specific board to register organizations. This work has been done up till now by the National Board. Most of the big organizations are already registered. I do not think we are going to have the enormous spate of applications for registration in the future that we have had in past years.

It is not just a question of registration, there is also the question of control.

But the Welfare Board and the regional board are perfectly capable of doing that.

This will be a specialist board.

I do not see the need for it; the regional boards can do it. The national organizations have been perfectly capable of running their own affairs; they have been established for years and they do not need this over-all umbrella of control. The National Board is there to see that there are no really serious sins of omission or commission, and that is why I really do not think that this is necessary.

I am at a loss to understand the approach of the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman).

I have no intention of trying to explain the position any further to you.

Sir, it is not a question of explaining to me; it is a question of explaining to the people whom the hon. member for Houghton represents and it is a question of explaining to this House. The hon. member for Houghton has not made her objections to this clause clear at all.

Order! the hon. member must confine himself to the clause.

I am going to do so, Sir. I want to deal with one or two of the arguments of the hon. member for Houghton in opposing this clause. I am supporting this clause. If the hon. member for Houghton is opposed to the establishment of a family commission I think it is pertinent to ask whether the hon. member considers that there are any trends in our national life to-day which have the effect of breaking up family life and thus undermining the very foundations of our nation. Sir, we are faced with a situation that one out of every six marriages ends in divorce in this country. We are faced with the fact that more than 70 per cent of the children who appear in the Children’s Court come from broken homes. If the hon. member for Houghton is not concerned with these fundamental facts of South African life and the breaking down of family life in this country, then I can understand her attitude in opposing this clause. The hon. member for Houghton must tell us, when she opposes this clause, whether in fact she wants to see a breakdown of family life, or whether she is prepared to leave it to some ad hoc committee, in the times in which we live, to solve these serious problems which affect the very foundations of the South African nation. The hon. member makes no attempt to justify her attitude in opposing this clause, and she will have to justify her actions to the people she represents, because there are people in her constituency who are very concerned to maintain the unity of family life in South Africa, which is the prime objective of these commissions, as we understand the position. In supporting this clause our approach is that it is the task of this commission to ensure the continuation of the family as the basis and the strength of our nation. Nobody can deny the fact that there are factors in our modern life, factors such as the shortage of housing and the high cost of living, which tend to keep down the size of the family whereas we should do everything in our power to encourage larger families in this country. I want to ask the hon. member for Houghton whether she intends to leave all these issues to an ad hoc committee.

You have welfare organizations dealing with these things.

Sir, the difference between the approach of the hon. member for Houghton and myself, or in fact any other member in this House, is that the hon. member for Houghton regards this Bill as some sort of administrative procedure to take care of people who have fallen by the wayside and who are in need of welfare work, in need of some form of largesse to be handed out to them. The hon. member cannot see this clause as a constructive measure which makes provision for planning for the future development of our country, and for preventive measures which will make it unnecessary for people to rely on social welfare work, if we can avoid it. The hon. member wants to know what is the difference between the welfare policy commission and the family commission. Surely the hon. member can see the difference. The difference is clearly explained in the explanatory memorandum. The one commission will deal with issues pertaining specifically to welfare work; the welfare policy commission will deal with questions such as social deviation, the protection of children, planning and co-ordination of welfare work, social research, etc. The other commission will do purely preventive work; it will lay down policy and plan for development of the family unit as the basis and the foundation of our whole South African nation. It is amazing to me that the hon. member for Houghton, representing the type of constituency she does represent, cannot come forward with any positive thinking, but merely opposes this clause on the ground of racial prejudice. She then proceeds to raise issues such as migratory labour, etc., which have nothing whatsoever to do with this clause.

Amendment proposed by Mrs. Suzman put and negatived (Mrs. Suzman dissenting).

Amendments proposed by the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions and Mr. Oldfield put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Business suspended at 6.30 p.m. and resumed at 8.5 p.m.

Evening Sitting

On Clause 10,

I wish to move the following amendment—

This is a very straightforward amendment, Sir, the reason for it being that I wish to make the regional boards elected rather than appointed by the hon. the Minister. I therefore suggest that three-quarters of the board—whatever number it may ultimately consist of. shall be elected by the bodies referred to in Clause 15. i.e. by the various organizations, which are asked to submit lists from which the Minister may make the appointments. The rest will be appointed by the Minister who shall, in addition. to such members, appoint ex officio members, one officer of the Departments of Coloured Affairs, Indian Affairs and Bantu Administration and Development, respectively. The object is to make these regional boards rather more elected than appointed bodies. Secondly, to bring into the orbit of these regional bodies ex officio representatives from the three non-White departments which are now responsible for the handling of non-White social welfare. In other words, African social welfare is now handled by the Department of Bantu Administration, or will be shortly. The same applies to the Department of Indian Affairs who will be taking over Indian welfare and the Department of Coloured Affairs will be taking over Coloured welfare. I think it is very important that the regional boards have on them representatives from these ministerial departments, otherwise I see a complete break between welfare as organized for the White community in South Africa and welfare as organized for the non-White community. These bodies are going to be advisory, apart from anything else and they are going to have representatives on the National Board which is going to have such a very important function in welfare work in South Africa. I therefore think it is important that representatives of the non-White communities be placed also on the regional boards.

I think it is obvious that the hon. the Minister will not consider accepting this amendment of the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman). The regional welfare boards are in terms of this Bill constituted in such a way that all the welfare organizations concerned in the various regions are given the opportunity to submit to the hon. the Minister the names of people whom they think qualify to serve on those boards. From those names the hon. the Minister appoints people who will be as representative as possible and he will also ensure that the board is not larger than is necessary. He will ensure that it is a board which will be able effectively to control the welfare work and policy of that area. Our experience up to the present has been .that if a regional board of this nature becomes too unwieldy it becomes very difficult for it to function properly. The hon. the Minister is now being given the opportunity to constitute such a board from the names which are submitted to him. The hon. member has moved that the board should be elected. Bearing in mind the thousands of welfare organizations we have, I wonder how we are going to hold such an election. This amendment appears to me to be completely impracticable. Even if it were not impracticable, it would still intrude upon the principle that the Minister needs a regional welfare board from which he can select persons to serve him on the National Board. We have already pointed out that these members cannot be elected because we do not want various interests to be represented. The whole idea of elections is foreign to this principle. We want people who can advise and we want to have our best people available for this purpose. One does not want to open a door to enable some or other interest to be represented by people who are elected in order to become the champions of the interests of the specific welfare organizations they represent. We want the members of this body to be people who will look after the welfare interests of that region and act in an advisory capacity because a large portion of the work of the board will be delegated to these regional boards. Instead, therefore, of being elected they must be constituted in the way in which this legislation provides.

As far as representation of the Coloureds, Indians and Bantu on these regional boards is concerned, I want to tell the hon. member that this is completely foreign and unnecessary. The hon. the Minister has stated from the start that this Bill has been introduced with a view to the welfare of the Whites. The Coloured, the Bantu and the Indians are developing their own welfare pattern. There is a liaison but there is no liaison on these boards. These regional boards are not the places for liaison. We are developing the welfare work of the Whites by means of this Bill. There is another way to liaise so that the Departments of Coloured Affairs, Bantu Administration and Indian Affairs can learn from us and so that they can develop a similar pattern for their own departments. I think it would be wrong to agree to accept this amendment.

In terms of the original legislation the maximum number of members to serve on these regional boards was 24 and in terms of this Clause the number is to be not less than eight and not more than 16 members. Regional boards do play a very important part in the structure of our present welfare organizations and also an important part as far as the National Welfare Board is concerned. The regional boards have the advantage of being conversant with the position in their particular region. They are therefore in the position to carry out certain tasks which are allocated to them by the National Welfare Board or by the executive of that board.

We on this side of the House believe it is an improvement to reduce that maximum number from 24 to 16. In the past it has been looked upon as an unwieldy board. These provisions allow for three-quarters of the persons to be appointed to this board to be persons drawn from the nomination lists submitted in terms of Clause 15 of this Bill. In other words, the various welfare organizations in that region will have the opportunity of putting forward the names of the persons whom they consider as suitable to be appointed as members of the regional board in their particular region.

The hon. member for Houghton has moved an amendment which again emphasizes the fact that she would like to see these boards on an elected basis. We on this side of the House do not think it desirable or that it would improve the functioning of the regional boards. The welfare organizations will have the opportunity of submitting names to the Minister. I think they can submit four names in the terms of Clause 15. The Minister will then be able to appoint these boards from those nomination lists. I don’t know where the desire comes from to have these boards on an elected basis. The various welfare organizations with which I have discussed this matter have not suggested that these boards, which have always been appointed for as far back as the original Act in 1947, should be on an elected basis. I fail to see how any advantage can be gained by having these boards on an elected basis. It will only mean a great degree of competition amongst the various welfare organizations to solicit votes to be elected to this board. I can’t see that a board of this nature, which is advisory to the National Welfare Board, should be on an elected basis. It is not a question of propounding any policy that might be adopted and put forward by any particular organization. There is a very wide diversity of organizations in every region. Consequently every one of those organizations, however small it might be, will still have the opportunity of being able to put forward on their nomination lists, the names of persons in their organizations who they believe are capable to serve on the regional board of that particular region. I feel that if it is on an elected basis, organizations would tend to solicit support for the persons they want to nominate. That will create an atmosphere of competition and I think some of the smaller welfare organizations will then not have the opportunity of having suitable persons in their ranks nominated and appointed to the regional boards.

I wonder whether the hon. the Minister, in his reply, would tell the House whether, in the establishment of a regional board, it would be possible to have full-time social welfare workers on the board in addition to voluntary workers. I am not quite sure whether or not full-time social workers will be eligible to be elected to this board. There is nothing in this Clause to indicate yes or no. It only says that the chief social welfare officer shall ex officio be a member. It lays down no provision for anybody else. I hope the Minister would explain this to us in his reply.

In reply to the hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher) I just want to tell hi m that the answer is yes; these welfare workers can be appointed to the board. Their names can appear on the nomination list and if their names appear on this list they can be appointed to the regional board.

I just want to tell the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) that many arguments were advanced by the hon. members for Kimberley South (Dr. W. L. D. M. Venter) and Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield) which link up with the principle which we have felt throughout should be maintained, namely, that we must not constitute the welfare board on the basis of elected members. That is what the hon. member wants. The moment one does this one brings about that disruption which one is seeking to avoid. It will mean that instead of our obtaining the co-operation of the people we have there in connection with welfare matters, they are going to be in competition with one another. Each one will want to promote his own interests. If every separate organization is going to promote its own interests, those organizations will compete with one another. It has been the aim of the Department over the years to ensure that there is no competition. I have so often said in this House that there is work for everyone. It is not necessary for us to fall over one another and to want to do the same piece of work. There is more than enough work for everyone but it has to be regulated properly.

To accept her amendment will be completely in conflict with the evidence which we have received from numbers of authorities. I have already said that all the authorities consulted in connection with this legislation want the position to be as it is set out here. The hon. member does not want to accept this. It seems to me that she will accept nothing. As things stand, Mr. Chairman, she wants to accept nothing contained in this Bill. And because she does not want to accept it she does not want to accept my assurance in this regard. She says now that the Departments of Bantu Administration, Indian Affairs and Coloured Affairs should also be represented on this board. Let me tell her that this legislation was drawn up in consultation with these particular departments. We do not summarily suck things out of our thumbs; it would be irresponsible on the part of any Government to act in that way. Those departments have been properly consulted and they agree that they do not want representatives on that board. As I have already said, from this planning for the welfare services for the “Whites on the basis of this Bill, can flow planning for the welfare services for these three different groups. If cases do arise in which the interests of people are affected and they approach this welfare board for advice, the board will always give them the necessary advice. They can also be co-opted in regard to the consideration of any matter affecting their interests. This has been the system followed over the years and it has worked very well. Why does the hon. member seek to introduce something which will disrupt the whole structure of this board? I am sorry but I cannot accept her amendment.

Amendment proposed by Mrs. Suzman put and negatived (Mrs. Suzman dissenting).

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On Clause 12,

I wish to move the following amendment—

To omit sub-paragraph (i) of paragraph (c) of sub-section (1) and to substitute the following sub-paragraph:

1. (i) family life and welfare planning;

I would like to have some clarity from the hon. the Minister in regard to two aspects. This Clause gives power to the welfare board to make recommendations on matters which have been referred to it by a board or a commission and, secondly, to advise the board or the commission in connection with the four functions laid down in Clause 7 with which we have already dealt. With respect to the Minister I don’t think it necessarily follows on the amendment moved by the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield) and the amendment moved by the hon. Minister that it actually fits the matter. You see. Sir, the Minister moves to add “family and welfare planning” but sub-paragraph (2) says “to advise the board or commission in connection with all matters relating to social welfare”. Surely “all matters relating to social welfare” must of necessity embrace the question of welfare planning as such. I wonder whether the Minister would consider whether it would not be better to state as the first function “all matters relating to family life”. In other words, it will bring in the wide concept as outlined in the White Paper.

Then there is the welfare aspect. I think it will be more in accord with the amendment moved by my hon. colleague which was accepted by the Minister. I therefore want to suggest to the Minister to substitute “all matters relating to family life” for “family and welfare policy” as it appears in his amendment. That will bring in the whole concept, including the welfare planning aspect. I accordingly move—

I have of course only had a moment in which to consider the amendment of the hon. member. At first glance it appears to me that if I accept the amendment it will widen the scope considerably. We accept the suggestion of the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield) to use the expression “family life and welfare planning” instead of “family policy”, we have now done away with the expression “family policy” and have accepted the words “family life and welfare planning” suggested by the hon. member for Umbilo. We think that this will cover the position completely. We do not want to do anything which will be in conflict with what we have already agreed to.

The point just occurred to me whilst the Minister was moving his amendment. That was why I moved my amendment so hurriedly. I do feel, however, that it will give far greater clarity. I am trying to be completely consequential. If I may make the point again to the hon. the Minister: The Minister brings in the word “welfare” twice. He refers to “family life” and “welfare planning”. But sub-paragraph (2) says “all matters relating to social welfare”. That is in its broadest concept. The intention is obviously to draw a complete distinction between the social welfare aspect and the family life aspect in respect of the work of the commission. The Minister will note the Commission drew a clear distinction between the family life commission and the welfare policy commission which deals with the social welfare aspect of family life. I am trying to be consequential in relation to the amendment moved by my colleague and which the Minister has accepted. To assist the hon. member I move that the Clause stand over until the Minister has had a chance of considering the point.

I shall go into the point raised by the hon. member and if necessary I shall bring about an amendment in the Other Place.

In view of the Minister’s assurance I withdraw my amendment with the leave of the Committee.

Amendment withdrawn.

Amendment proposed by the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 14,

There is one aspect of this Clause in respect of which I should like some clarity from the hon. the Minister. This Clause says that members of the commission or regional board or board, who are not in full-time service of the State but engaged on work connected with the business of the board or commission or regional board shall be paid such fees and travelling and subsistence allowance as may be determined by the Minister in consultation with the Minister of Finance. The point I want to raise with the Minister is the question of “such fees”. If we look at the principal Act of 1947 we find that there is no mention of fees in Section 2. This would appear to be an innovation which is being introduced in this particular Clause. Section 2 of the Act of 1947 merely says—

I wonder if the Minister could give some indication as to the reasons why this particular alteration has been made in terms of this Clause. This Clause now makes provision for fees to be paid to members of the National Welfare Board, the commissions and the regional welfare boards.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On Clause 18,

I want to move the following amendment—

Sub-section (5) of this Clause gives the board power, after the particular organisation has served its purpose, in its discretion, to dispose of any surplus money, securities or other property obtained under such authority. This clause deals with the temporary authority given to organisations to collect money and contributions from the public. After that particular object has been served and there is any money left over, the board decides what to do with the surplus money. My amendment is to the effect that the board at least consults the organisation concerned before disposing of any surplus money.

What happens if it ceases to exist?

Obviously, when it ceases to exist, then this does not obtain.

Amendments put and negatived (Mrs. Suzman dissenting).

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On Clause 19,

I move—

To omit paragraph (b) of sub-section (5).

I think this is perfectly self-explanatory and it is not necessary for me to make a speech on this. Here the board has no discretion because the board may not grant an application by a welfare organisation if any objection has been lodged previous to that. I wish to extend this discretion to the board and to omit this particular clause.

This paragraph (b) of sub-section (5) has been taken over from the Welfare Organization Act as amended in 1961. In terms of the 1961 amending legislation we on this side of the House objected to the fact that such arbitrary powers were being placed in the hands of the Minister. This Bill repeals the Welfare Organization Act of 1947 as amended in 1961 and. therefore, we on this side of the House do not support paragraph (b) of sub-section (5) where this authority is extended to the Minister. We also do not agree with this particular paragraph of the sub-section.

Question put: That paragraph (b) of subsection (5) stand part of the Clause.

Upon which the Committee divided:

AYES—57: Badenhorst, F. H.; Bekker, G. F. H.: Bekker, M. J. H.; Bezuidenhout, G. P. C.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Coertze, L. L; Cruywagen, W. A.; De Villiers, J. D.; De Wet, J. M.; Dönges, T. E.; Frank, S.; Froneman, G. F. van L.; Greyling, J. C.; Henning, J. M.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Hiemstra, E. C. A.; Jonker. A. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Knobel, G. J.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotze, G. P.; Loots, J. J.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, J. A.; Maree. G. de K..; Martins, H. E.; Meyer, T.; Mostert, D. J. J.; Nel, J. A. F.; Odell, H. G. O.: Pansegrouw, J. S.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rall, J. W.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Serfontein, J. J.; Steyn, F. S.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Van den Berg, G. P.; Van den Berg, M. J.; Van den Heever, D. J. G.; Van der Spuy, J. P.; Van der Walt, B. J.; Van der Wath. J. G. H.; Van Eeden, F. J.; Van Rensburg. M. C. G. J.; Venter, W. L. D. M.; Viljoen, M.; Visse, J. H.; Vorster, B. J.; Waring. F. W.; Wentzel, J. J.

Tellers: D. J. Potgieter, H. J. van Wyk.

NOES—37: Basson, J. A. L.; Bennett. C.; Connan, J. M.; Durrant, R. B.; Eden. G. S.; Emdin, S.; Field, A. N.; Fisher, E. L.: Gay, L. C.; Gorshel, A.; Hickman, T.; Higgerty, J. W.; Hopewell, A.; Hughes. T. G.; Malan, E. G.; Miller, H.; Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Oldfield, G. N.; Plewman, R. P.; Radford, A.; Raw, W. V.; Ross, D. G.: Steyn, S. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Taurog, L. B.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Tucker, H.; Van der Byl, P.; Warren, C. M.; Waterson. S. F.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: H. J. Bronkhorst, N. G. Eaton.

Question accordingly affirmed and amendment negatived.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On Clause 25,

I move as an amendment—

To omit paragraphs (b) and (c) of subsection (1).

This amendment is consequential to the one I moved to Clause 19, and again it is an attempt in some way to try and circumscribe the powers that the hon. Minister is trying to take under this particular clause. Under this clause there can be no appeal against the decisions taken by the Minister where he has refused to consent to the granting of an application of one of these organizations, and I see no reason why the hon. the Minister should not at least have to consult with the regional board before he comes to this decision. After he has come to a decision, there should be an appeal from that decision. I believe he is taking too much power here, and I therefore move the amendment.

This is another section of the original principal Act which was amended in 1961, and the amendment that has now been moved by the hon. member for Houghton is identical to the amendment which this side of the House moved during the Committee Stage of the amending legislation in 1961. Sir, in the course of that debate in the Committee Stage, we made the position of this side of the House perfectly clear that we were opposed to this extension of the powers of the Minister in terms of these decisions. There can be an appeal against the decision of the Board, but then a provision is included which was also included in the 1961 legislation providing that there shall be no right of appeal against the refusal of the Minister to consent to the grant of an application under paragraph (b) of subsection (5) of Section 19, and also there shall be no right of appeal against a decision of the cancellation by the Minister of any certificate of registration under sub-section (4) of Section 21. I do not intend to delay proceedings in the Committee in dealing with this matter, but it is a question of being consistent with the point of view that was adopted in 1961, and without repeating those reasons, I would just like to say that we on this side of the House are opposed to this further extension of the powers of the Minister, and we believe that it is unnecessary that there should be this proviso included in this clause so that no right of appeal shall exist against the decision of the Minister in regard to such registration. We shall oppose this sub-section of the clause.

Amendment proposed, put and negatived (Official Opposition and Mrs Suzman dissenting).

On Clause 33,

This is one of the most important clauses of the whole Bill. It deals with the registration of social workers. Here we are laying down conditions for people who want to be registered as social workers long before we have enabled any code of ethics to be worked out by the professional social workers in South Africa. Other countries have had the same difficulty. In fact there are very few countries where registration of social workers is compulsory and I think there are only three or four cases where registration has been made compulsory. I know that many social workers have pronounced themselves in favour of registration. There are of course social workers who think that this is premature before a code of ethics has been properly worked out by the Social Workers Association. I think there is a saving clause in that the hon. the Minister has now agreed to refer the function of registration under this particular clause to the Commission which is to be set up under Clause 7. That is definitely an improvement and from that point of view I am happier about this clause of the Bill than I was at the second reading. Nevertheless, I think the hon. Minister is making a mistake in rushing into compulsory registration. As I say, so many difficulties have been encountered in other countries, that have had many more years of experience of the registration of professional social workers, that I am not at all sure that we are not making a mistake in South Africa by going in for compulsory registration. I just wanted to make those comments on the clause.

This clause which deals with the registration of social workers is a matter which we on this side of the House view as the initial step towards professional status of those persons who are qualified as social workers and those persons who may be provisionally registered as social workers. Mr. Chairman, I placed an amendment on the Order Paper which would have the effect of referring this matter to be dealt with by the Social Work Commission, but in terms of an amendment moved by the hon. Minister to Clause 4, that object has been achieved in that the Social Work Commission can be delegated the authority which rests here as it stands in the name of the board, where it specifically says that the board “may so register any such person who has complied with the prescribed conditions and furnished the prescribed particulars”. I believe that is an important improvement to this clause in that Clause 4 will meet the objection which was made at the second reading.

Another portion of this clause which I think some attention should be drawn to is subsection (2) which says—

This is an important part of the clause in view of the fact that certain misunderstandings have arisen amongst some persons who are connected with social work and who believe that with the bringing about of registration some of those persons who over many years have been performing social work on a voluntary basis and have gained a vast experience in their particular field of social work, might in some way be precluded from continuing with the work that they are doing in the field of social work. Therefore I believe that sub-section (2) of this clause is important in that it makes provision for those persons who might not necessarily have a university degree in social science but who by virtue of their experience and their performing of duties on a voluntary basis will also be able to be provisionally granted registration as social workers. I think another important factor is that unfortunately on occasion there have been persons who are prepared to term themselves social workers and unfortunately operate in a completely independent manner, which in many instances adversely affects the work of those registered organizations who have social workers on their staff. Here too I think this might obviate that difficulty which has arisen from time to time where persons who are not in a true sense of the word social workers, term themselves as social workers and are inclined to set up their own individual organization which can have an adverse effect on those organizations which do employ registered social workers, or social workers who by virtue of their experience and knowledge will be able to receive provisional registration in terms of sub-section (2) of this clause.

This is a very important clause. Sub-section (2) worries me somewhat because it grants provisional registration to certain people who are not fully qualified, but who for practical purposes fulfil the need of social workers and who over the years have filled a want. Now whenever certain rights are given, or privileges are given to professional groups, it is customary to enable those who have conscientiously worked and who are judged fit to be registered in spite of their lack of special education, but whom the registering authorities believe to be worthy of registration, to give them registration which is like any other registration and not provisional. I can well understand that some of them may be given registration provisionally on their carrying out such further studies as are specified by the registering authority. In that case it could be provisional. But where there are people who have spent their life in this type of work, and who are adjudged fit, such registration should not be provisional, it should not cease at the end of five years. I am not moving any amendment, but I would like the hon. Minister to give the matter thought. I think he should be careful to avoid doing an injustice to good people, good responsible people who have carried the burden before the present registration scheme came to pass.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 34,

I wish to voice my opposition to this clause in toto, and I intend voting against it.

Why?

I shall tell the hon member why, if he will be a bit patient. The reason is that it interferes with the autonomy of the universities. It is an attempt to dictate to the universities whom they shall or shall not appoint to the staff in a Department of Sociology or social work. I see no reason whatsoever why the hon Minister should give the Board such powers which will make it impossible for a university to appoint to its fulltime staff, people who are going to lecture to students in sociology, unless they are registered by the hon. Minister’s Board. I want to point out that, according to one of our most experienced sociologists, who is a university professor in South Africa, the methodology of social science research, the application of the scientific method, the application of specific research techniques, the use of statistical procedures and formula, are universal— whether they are applied to sociology, social psychology or social work. There are few qualified social workers who are highly trained and competent and experienced in the field of methodology, statistics and techniques of research. If there are to be sufficient students to warrant a full-time member of staff to teach research, methodology, etc., to social work students, this would be an entirely desirable academic procedure.

It seems somewhat illogical to lay down that you may have a part-time instructor who is not registered teaching students sociology and social work, but you may not have a full-time instructor who is not registered teaching such students, because if they do, such students may not be registered thereafter. Why a part-time instructor and not a full-time instructor.

According to this particular expert there is no sound academic reason why a lecturer in administration for instance, administration of welfare work, must be a qualified social worker. In fact this is entirely contrary to the academic practices of some of the largest educational institutions in the world. For instance at the London School of Economics, Professor Titmu, who is internationally recognized as a world authority on social policy and administration, lectures to students in these fields. At the Columbia School of Social Work, Professor Evelyn Burns, whom I happen to know personally, is an international authority, and actually advises the President of the United States in her particular field. Neither of these two people is a qualified social worker, but they happen to be experts on legislation, welfare policy and administration. As I mentioned, they are consultants to the governments of their countries. If we employed people like that in our universities in a full-time capacity to lecture to students in the Department of Sociology and Administration, on social law, on methodology and any of the other allied subjects, such students could not be registered by the Board in terms of Clause 34. I say this is wholly impracticable and is a practice not followed by registered institutions elsewhere and it is a decided interference with academic freedom and the autonomy of the universities. Therefore I oppose this clause in its entirety. Already there is certain control laid down by the Department of Social Welfare in regard to the courses which must be incorporated in the degree of social science. I would say it is the absolute limit of interference with the autonomy of the universities to prescribe how their students should be taught, in which subjects they shall be instructed and who shall do the teaching. For these reasons I oppose Clause 34.

I also have objections to Clause 34 although not quite the same. I also have Professor Polak’s letter of which the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) read a great deal. Clause 34 in my opinion is a badly worded clause and I do not think it achieves the object which it should and it treads on the corns of university authorities, quite obviously. I do not think it interferes with the autonomy of the universities, because I think the outlook as to who shall teach and who shall not teach still remains with the universities. All that the Registration Commission does is that it does not register them. The same case exists in medicine where the Medical Council lays down what is required in order to entitle a man to registration as doctor and then it is left to the university to decide how the subject shall be taught and who shall teach it. Here if the Minister’s department wishes to register social workers, it is quite within their rights to decide what shall be taught and they are quite entitled to say to the universities “We want you to teach certain things before we will recognize your course”. Whether such a person should be a full-time or not a full-time registered worker, or whether such a person should have other qualifications should rest with the universities. For instance in the medical course (I use that one because it is the one I know well), the universities do not use doctors to teach zoology, nor do they have doctors to teach physics or chemistry or botany. It is not necessary that doctors should teach subjects like pathology, bacteriology, anatomy or physiology, in other words in the first three years of the medical course it is not really necessary that they should be doctors who are teaching. They must be masters of the subject that they are teaching. To that extent I would ask the hon. Minister therefore to accept an amendment which will allow him and his Department to refuse to accept teaching from certain universities if they are not satisfied, but not to lay down conditions as to what the university shall do. If they want certain subjects like methodology and administration taught, then it is for the university to teach these subjects and it is for the universities to be told by the Department, by the Minister, if he is not satisfied, and the Minister should have the right, as indeed there is the legal right of the Medical Council, to inspect the work of the universities. It is being done at intervals—the work is inspected, and the work is watched—I do not say watched like a detective. but one sits in with the professor at the examination and one inspects the examinations as to how they are carried out, and one has the right of full access to all the hospitals where the teaching goes on. But the Medical Council does not dictate as to who shall teach. I want to ask you, Sir, to give to the universities the right to carry out their teaching, but to retain the right for your department to refuse to accept that teaching if you think it is not up to standard. I think it is necessary that the Minister should have that power, because otherwise you will have mushroom colleges possibly springing up, or even technical colleges taking up the work of teaching social work. Some of it may be satisfactorily done, but at all times it should be within the Minister’s power as the governing authority for registration to accept or to refuse it. Do not lay down laws which are difficult to carry out. It might be possible that with the passage of time social workers will take up other subjects. I can foresee that with the development of community services throughout the country, services which will probably be instituted by the Department of Health in which the Department of Social Welfare may take part. Therefore it may become advisable for the social worker to learn psychiatry. Well, no social worker can teach another social worker psychiatry. Their standard of work would not be high enough for that. They must be taught by a psychiatrist. In the same way in the case of psychology, you use specialists to teach, people who know so much more than their pupils, that they outclass their pupils. That is what you find in the universities. [Time limit.]

The attitude that has been revealed here in dealing with certain parts of the Bill, particularly in regard to social workers, is to say that we are jealous of the position of the social workers and we want to protect and strengthen that position. I may just say that originally the Bill did not provide for full-time people who in a full-time capacity have a share in the training of persons in any aspect of the subject of social work, but merely provided for part-time persons. After discussions with the people of the University of Natal, they were quite satisfied, Professor Polak among others, that it would be quite in order if we omitted the word “part-time”. The fact that they are not satisfied with this now was a later development. I can only say again in connection with this clause what I have said in connection with so many other clauses. Many authorities were consulted and the vast majority of those consulted asked that the Bill should contain a provision to ensure that social workers be trained by persons who are themselves qualified social workers. It is practical experience which counts in social work whether in regard to the subject or the actual work itself. This provision only refers to full-time teachers of the subject of social work. It does not refer to teachers who teach the required subjects such as sociology and others; nor does it relate to teachers who simply assist in teaching social work. If, for example, universities prefer students in social work also to take a course in anatomy, physiology or statistics as part of that social work course, then those teachers need not be registered social workers because this does not fall within the definition of “social work” as defined in Clause 1. Furthermore, this clause only refers to teachers who are appointed five years after the coming into operation of the Act. It does not refer to the teachers to-day. It is so easy to give the impression that our universities will be disrupted in this regard. It only refers to teachers who will be appointed in five years’ time. The present teachers, including those who will be appointed during the next five years, can teach the subject as long as they want to without being registered, and during this period we should be able to judge by experience where we stand in regard to this undertaking. We may perhaps change our minds in this regard, but at this stage I am unable to accept the amendment of the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman). We think that it is necessary for the position to remain as it is.

Mr. Chairman, this is a clause which bristles with difficulties. The first two lines read as follows—

Now the first point I want to make is that “institution” is not defined, and the Minister has got to point out whether “institution” means a university only, or whether it means technical colleges, or ordinary schools or any other type of house of learning. That is very important because, if “institution” means a university, then if the university is going to run a course in “social welfare” that course in social welfare should be established as a faculty, and if there is a faculty of social welfare in all its branches, it will naturally be expected to have a full-time professor at the head of the faculty. If such is the case, then a lot of the difficulties we find here will be overcome. Under the full-time professor there can be part-time lecturers and surely there won’t be any objection from anybody if you have got a full complement of teachers, whether they be full-time or part-time under the head who probably will be a full-time person. But as it is phrased here, “institution” may be any institution. Now what happens if the teaching takes place at a technical college and a person at the technical college has been teaching at a technical college for five years before this Bill comes into operation. (He is already teaching there now) and when he becomes a part-time teacher after this Bill is passed? Does that technical college student become entitled to registration? It is a difficulty which the hon. the ^Minister will have to meet and I don’t know how he is going to overcome it. So I would ask him firstly to define what “institution” means. Then the Minister is making provision in a clause preceding Clause 34 for giving temporary registration. Now what happens to those people who want permanent registration, who want to be fully registered social workers? Is it expected that a person who has been doing voluntary work, say for 30 or 40 years, should go to a university to complete his training before registration is given? It seems ridiculous. The provisional worker must find a place for permanent registration in Clause 34 and nothing has been done for that provisional worker. I want to support the further argument put up by the hon. member for Durban (Central). He will move an amendment which I think will possibly clear up the difficulties in Clause 34.

The Minister has tried to qualify certain workers in an endeavour to ensure that new social workers shall be trained only by trained social workers. Unfortunately the Minister is putting the universities in a very difficult position. Take the case of the average student going to the university to-day to take a B.A. Social Science degree. He can get a B.A. Social Science degree with the endorsement that he is not trained as a social worker, or a B.A. degree in social science. In the course of taking that degree he may take as major subjects sociology and psychology and in addition he may take another subject known as “social work”. It is quite possible that in the course of his training he will have lecturers who will deal with social work, but who are not registered social workers and at the conclusion of his career at the university he will not be able to get a certificate as a qualified social worker because his lecturers were not registered social workers. The social work part of it is a very wide field. He may be particularly interested in prison work, in which case he may have a lecturer who has had previous experience of prisons and the rehabilitation of prisoners and that person may be well qualified to deal with this work, but he may not be a qualified social worker. On the other hand, he may be interested in personnel management in factories and in the course of his training he will take sociology and psychology and social work. He will be required to take lectures from a person who is not registered as a social worker. At the end of his career he will get a certificate that he has passed B.A. Social Science, but there will be an endorsement that he is not registered as a social worker because of the provisions of this clause. I think this is interfering with the work of the university because the universities in many cases have specialized lecturers who deal with different aspects of the comprehensive sociology degree. You may have a professor in sociology which covers a wide field, but who may not be registered as a social worker because he has done no full-time social work as a registered social worker, and yet that professor may have led research in social work and may have conducted a tremendous amount of investigation into the techniques of social work. But because he is not registered as a social worker, his students cannot qualify. I think this clause is far too harsh. The Minister should withdraw this clause because I think in his endeavour to protect the social worker he is losing sight of the very broad field of work covered by the university in granting a social science degree, which covers several aspects of social work, depending on the particular aspect the student is interested in, whether it is field work in factories or among the community, etc. It is a wide field and you could, by enforcing this provision, have a state of affairs which is not desirable. I suggest that the Minister withdraw this clause.

In moving the second reading of the Bill, the Minister tried to indicate that his objective was to co-ordinate the advances made in this particular field of social activity. He knows very well that the whole science of sociology or social work has developed on a very free and broad basis. I think it would be very difficult for him, or even his experts, to try to narrow down the field within which this particular science has developed. It developed over a broad field and to-day we are reaping the benefits of the contributions from many aspects of human study in this most important field of social life. But in this particular clause we find a restriction of that liberty which this particular science has enjoyed in the course of its development. The extraordinary thing is that the Minister has given no explanation whatsoever as to why he wants this clause. In fact, when he dealt with the analysis of the Bill in the second reading, he dealt with Clause 33 and then jumped to Clause 35. I think the House is entitled to an explanation as to why such a clause is called for. I am not interested in the fact that the Minister consulted with A, B or C. I want to know why he has included this restrictive clause in the Bill on a subject which, as he has said often enough, requires the broadest field of interest and knowledge. If you take medical students, e.g. they are lectured in the subjects of anatomy and physiology by men who are not necessarily qualified medical practitioners, men, e.g. who take a Ph.D. in anatomy and do not qualify for the medical degree, and similarly in physiology. I do not know that there exists in any field of education, particularly in the scientific field, this peculiar type of restriction. I do not think it is good enough for the Minister to say that he has given a lot of thought to this matter and he has come to the conclusion that he cannot accept an amendment and he is not prepared to withdraw the clause. This has been going on right through the Bill. On three or four clauses the Minister has said that he has considered the matter, but he is not prepared to change his point of view. We would like to know why this clause was put in at all. Can he explain to us, if he thinks the clause should be there, what is the value of the clause and what is the purpose of it? After all, as was pointed out by others, there are many fields in which lecturers at universities or technical colleges can impart to students the benefit of their knowledge, but who need not necessarily, in order to do so, have a social science degree. There are men who are very eminently qualified in many fields of social work and the science of sociology or psychology or similar sciences who could be very useful in imparting a sound background of knowledge to a student in order to prepare him for the work he is going to undertake. Why then have we this peculiar restriction? I would like the Minister to find a precedent in any other law which deals with the registration of qualified persons where the method under which he is taught is limited to a particularly narrow field. You do not find it in the study of medicine or of law, or any other subject, like physics or chemistry. I do not know of any science where you confine the teaching to a field where the teacher must be not only qualified but must be actually qualified to be registered as is provided in the provisions of this Bill. It means that you are discarding everything of the past. I think this clause is a blot on the Bill. In order to satisfy the Minister that this matter was not by-passed in the second reading, I know that I specifically drew the Minister’s attention to the fact that I did not like this clause at all. I examined Hansard, which recorded the Minister’s speech, and I particularly noticed his jump from Clause 33 to Clause 35. I think this House is entitled to a reasonable explanation, and a sound technical one, before the Minister can expect the House to be satisfied with the fact that he thinks this clause should remain in the Bill.

The hon. the Minister is, I fear, treading on difficult ground. He is trying to lay down in a short clause of five lines the standard and quality and the type of education which he expects for his future social workers. Life is not as simple as that. If the Minister were employing carpenters or bricklayers, it would be suitable to have an apprenticeship system in which a journeyman takes the apprentice and teaches him the work. This profession is not suitable for apprenticeship. My own profession started with apprenticeships, but graduated out of it, and to-day we have medical schools at the universities. I am going to move an amendment, but I would prefer the Minister to withdraw this clause and redraft it in consultation with professional experts, not in sociology, but in the education of professional men. The method adopted in the medical profession is that the Medical Council lays down minimum standards of education. It defines what it requires and if that is fulfilled by the university the Medical Council must accept the students who have complied with that standard. _It does not say to the universities: Teach this and that, and do it this way or that way. It does not care who does it. The Council says to the university: That is the standard we lay down and we trust you as a responsible body, when you issue a certificate saying that the man has fulfilled his task, that it is a reliable certificate. If the Minister is unable to accept the suggestion of the hon. member for Pinetown and withdraw the clause and redraft it—and I shall be very pleased to assist because I have considerable experience in this type of work in my own particular line; I have been an inspector for the Medical Council and I have examined in nearly every medical school in the country, so that I have some knowledge of it, and I am on the staff of a teaching college now. So I suggest that the Minister should rather withdraw the clause. If not, I want to move the following amendment—

That will let the Minister define what he wants. He only has to get into touch with the universities and put his case to them and I have not the slightest doubt that the universities will meet him and will be only too pleased to carry out his wishes. I can assure him that if he does this, his cherished idea of protecting and building up the social workers will be fulfilled. But if he carries on with this suggested apprenticeship system, his social workers will remain tradesmen and will never attain professional status.

During the second-reading speech members on this side expressed concern in regard to the provisions of this clause. We wanted to consider this clause further before the Committee Stage was reached, and in taking into consideration the implications of passing this clause in its present form it would appear that the Minister is taking a drastic step which he might regret at a later stage. I believe that we are embarking upon this new step of granting registration to qualified social workers and that it should be imperative that we get off on the correct footing in the initial stages. It is hoped that later the profession of social workers will grow and will be able to have their own council and their own Act and will become a full-fledged profession. However, the question of the desirability of having Clause 34 must be taken into account in the light of what the effect would be on the Bill if this clause were deleted. We passed Clause 33 which dealt with the registration of social workers, and I believe that if Clause 34 were deleted it would not in any way adversely affect the position of the social workers and their jealousy of their profession. It is laid down in Clause 33 (1) that any person who holds the prescribed qualifications may apply for registration as a social worker. It is distinctly laid down here that the person shall be registered in terms of the prescribed qualifications laid down. At a later stage we will deal with the clause making provision for regulations in terms of which these qualifications will be prescribed. It therefore appears quite clear that the Social Work Commission which will be handling this whole question of the desirability of registration, etc., will be guided by their own regulations and by the provisions of Clause 33 (1) which provides for registration. Therefore it would seem that no case has been made out for the retention of Clause 34. If this clause is deleted it will not in any way derogate from the professional status of social workers. So it appears that Clause 34 is not necessary and therefore I hope that the Minister will give further consideration to the whole question of retaining this clause. I believe that the Minister would be taking the safest way out of this difficulty by deleting this clause and not proceeding with it, particularly in its present form. Therefore I hope the Minister will consider withdrawing Clause 34.

I cannot understand why hon. members have so many objections to this clause. I would have been able to understand it if hon. members had stated from the start that they wanted to move an amendment to negative this clause for the reasons which they have mentioned here this evening. We have dealt with the whole Bill in consultation with one another. I do not want to say that hon. members do not have the right to add anything in this regard, but it would have enabled us to consider the whole matter thoroughly. The hon. member for Florida (Mr. Miller) asked why I want to retain this clause. I have replied time and time again in this regard but he does not want to listen. I have said that this is a Bill, this clause included, which has been requested by the largest bodies in the country.

Tell us why you want this clause.

The hon. member only mentions the arguments which suit him. He says on the one hand that I have said that I want the co-operation of the whole country. I have said it and, in order to obtain that co-operation, I covered as wide a field as I possibly could, including the universities, and those people gave their approval to this Bill, this clause included. They asked for it. Its purpose is to increase the status of social workers. Hon. members opposite also want to increase their status but now that we want to do something to increase that status the hon. member is objecting. I am not an expert but my contention is that if somebody teaches this subject and that person has a knowledge of practical social work, he is better able to train people. Do hon. members not agree? If this is so, then it is a good thing for a teacher to register, to form part of that organization of social workers which we are building up. Why do hon. members wish to exclude him? There is sufficient time. As the organization is built up and as the status is increased, I think each one will want to register in that organization for which people are to be trained. I really cannot see the arguments of hon. members who now suddenly say that I must omit this clause. Have I to consult all these people again? I want to say this to hon. members. If there is any difficulty in connection with this clause. Parliament sits every year, and if the majority of people who are interested in social work ask for it to be changed, they can come to Parliament at any time and say that the Minister made a mistake, and then we will rectify the matter. A period of five years has to elapse before this clause will be applied to any teacher. What is the hurry? If it is such an important matter, they should have objected sooner. Their objections now have come like a bolt from the blue.

I wonder whether the Minister realizes what he is asking the universities to do. All the universities are suffering from a shortage of skilled staff and have difficulty in filling positions. Now the Minister is asking universities involved in the teaching of social work or a degree course to reorganize his department, for what reason? I cannot understand the reason. He says that this was asked for by the universities. Does this mean that every university has asked for it?

Why should every university ask for it before we can pass an Act? This Bill was circulated to all the universities.

Have some of the universities not in fact voiced the strongest objection to this clause? Why is the Minister so obstinate about it? It cannot matter that much to him that he has to insert this clause contrary to the wishes of some of the largest universities. Why will the Minister not see reason? It means reorganization in the whole teaching of sociology and it will make a laughing stock of our universities overseas. It is not recognized practice at any of the large universities overseas that a Minister should come and lay down what qualifications people teaching full-time should have. A large university is a responsible institution. It would certainly not want to lower its own academic standard. But now suddenly out of the blue and contrary to all accepted academic practice, the Minister wants to insert this clause. It is absurd. It goes contrary to the general direction of academic life in the world. Most of the universities are moving towards multidisciplines and not trying to compartmentalize their teaching in the way the Minister wants them to do. They try to bring in allied disciplines which broaden the knowledge of the student, and that is what we should be doing. Does the Minister know of any university teaching medicine or law where students may not thereafter be registered members of the profession if they are taught by teachers who are not specifically registered in the same profession? The legal profession brings in people to teach all sorts of additional subjects, like income tax, by people who are not trained in law per se. The Department of Economics brings in mathematicians and statisticians who do not hold degrees in economics, but they are trained in their specific field. They are taught by accountants who are qualified in their own field but are not registered as economists. The medical profession has teachers teaching physiology and chemistry who are not doctors. Why in this particular field of sociology does the Minister persist in being so obstinate? Why does he not accept the advice of people who have been teaching all their lives and follow the example of the multi-discipline direction followed everywhere, instead of trying to narrow the teaching in the field of sociology? The Minister has given us no good reason for this. All he says is that this Bill was submitted to everybody, but when one produces specific evidence of real objections to the clause and backs it up with solid, logical arguments, the Minister has no answer at all except to say that he is not prepared to change his mind.

I cannot understand the Minister being so peeved at our discussion of this clause. He must surely realize that we are in the Committee Stage where we have a perfect right to discuss it. The position is this. We have not sucked these arguments out of our thumbs. Some of us have had experience of social science and we know what we are talking about, and we have had representations made to us. The Minister suggests that people who have practical knowledge will be better teachers, and I accept that. I can give him an example of a leading lecturer at a university. I have a social science degree and the person who lectured to me was a man who originally worked in the Prisons Department and then he qualified and took his B.A., and later his M.A., and eventually a Ph.D. in social science, but he never had “social work” on his certificate and he never took it as a subject. Yet, despite the fact that that man had a lot of experience in the Prisons Department and eventually became one of our senior lecturers, because he did not have social science on his certificate, he would fall within the ambit of this clause and any students in his class could not get an endorsement on their certificates as social workers because this man with a Ph.D. did not have social work as one of his subjects. I have never heard such arrant nonsense in all my life. The Minister is just being obstinate. He asks why we did not discuss it with him, but this is the place for discussion. I suggest that the Minister should drop this clause because universities have many people on their staff who have experience of field work. You may have persons in commerce and industry doing welfare work and they may find that university work is more attractive. They do not have social work endorsed on their certificates as a subject and therefore, in terms of this clause, the university will be debarred from using them as lecturers in social work because they did not take it as a subject. I think the Minister has been wrongly advised and he would be well advised to accept the arguments advanced by this side and drop this clause because he is using an unpractical argument when we wish to assist the social workers. It is all very well for the Minister to say there is five years’ time, but what about the prospective social workers now being trained at the universities? They will first have to find out whether the university has lecturers who have social work as a subject. I suggest that this is a matter which should be left to the universities and the Minister should not endeavour to enforce control as he attempts to do in Clause 34.

The hon. the Minister wondered, when he replied a few minutes ago, why I had suggested that, while on the one hand he desired the co-operation of the whole country as far as this particular Bill was concerned, yet on the other hand this particular clause under discussion was a bar to the valuable co-operation he was seeking. Well, Sir, we want to save both the hon. the Minister and the country from two important things. In the first place this clause will be a blot on the Bill, and it will be a blot—and I say this with the utmost respect—on the Minister inasmuch as he will allow legislation with this sort of provision being placed on the Statute Book. In the second place, Mr. Speaker, we could become the laughing stock of the entire country, we could become the laughing stock of educational institutions in that we seek to narrow this type of educational facility. The hon. the Minister is unable to quote a precedent in this regard. It was pointed out to the Minister at the second reading that this clause was not satisfactory at all. But just because one clause was not acceptable to this side, the passage of the Bill could not very well be denied. In general this Bill was an acceptable measure in that it was an improvement on the 1947 Statute. Therefore, Sir, no one wishes to deny the hon. the Minister the second-reading passage of this Bill. The Minister knew there was dissatisfaction with Clause 34, and I shall quote a few lines from the Hansard report (Vol. 16, Col. 6156) of the second-reading debate—

Well, Mr. Speaker, I am quite astounded to hear the Minister say that this side co-operated with him, and yet, during the Committee Stage it is suggested that he is adamant on having a particular clause retained in the Bill whereas there was no objection whatsoever at the earlier discussions. The Minister says this clause will elevate the status of the social worker. Again I say, and I say it with respect, that that is absolute nonsense. How can a restriction on the educational life of the student be something that is going to elevate his status? Every profession that is worthwhile in this country is a profession which we at all times try to raise and elevate to the highest possible level. But, Sir, we do not do that by restricting the field of education. We do not do that by limiting the source of knowledge of the student. This measure is, on the face of it, quite innocuous, in that it is virtually a recapitulation of the existing Statute with additional provisions aimed at establishing a proper social workers’ body and co-ordinating all the relevant activities throughout the country. Why then, Sir, should this Bill contain a clause which could well prove to be a blot on the very escutcheon which the hon. the Minister has said he hopes to leave as his contribution to the field of social science and social reform in South Africa? Surely the hon. the Minister is not so naive as to believe that this is going to raise his status or the value of the work that he has done? I agree with the hon. member for Pinetown. I am sure the Minister has been misadvised in this respect. I should very much like the hon. the Minister to give us some details of the bodies that suggested that there should be restriction of this nature. Will the Minister tell us what universities suggested it? Will he tell us which authorities made this suggestion? Will he tell us who these authorities are who came with this type of proposal? Who has said to the hon. the Minister “We have read your Bill, and we deem this to be a first-class clause”, or “We have read the Bill and you have not made this provision, you have not applied this restriction, a restriction we consider to be essential in order to raise the status of the social worker in this country”? [Interjection.] The status should not be brought down to that of the hon. member for Cradock who throughout this debate has not stopped mumbling for one moment. Perhaps he is one of the finest examples of a restricted form of education !

We should like the hon. the Minister to appreciate that our objections to this clause have a very sound foundation. The hon. the Minister has received quite a large measure of cooperation from this side of the House as far as this Bill is concerned. And this co-operation has been forthcoming simply because we would all like to see continued improvement in what is in effect the baby science in the social field in the Republic. It is almost the baby science of all our various sciences. It is a very complicated science, Sir, a science in which we are constantly seeking fresh knowledge, a science in respect of which we are continually looking for fresh fields to conquer. The hon. the Minister wants commissions appointed . . .

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

The clause under discussion deals with the education of the social worker. This clause deals with the basis on which the worker can be registered, and why he cannot be registered if his tutors are not themselves social workers. We are doing our best to try and persuade the hon. the Minister—in his own interest, in the interest of the country, in the interest of the science, and in the interest of the community—that we should not have a restriction which is going to prove harmful to one of the most important fields of study, one of the most important fields of human activity. Because, Mr. Chairman, we are dealing with the intimate lives of human beings. We are dealing with the lives of adolescents, of adults, of families. Surely the hon. the Minister appreciates the vast field that is being covered. Surely he is aware of the tremendous amount of knowledge that is required in order to serve in this sphere satisfactorily. And yet, Sir, he seems to be most surprised when we object because this field of knowledge is being restricted. We say it is wrong to interfere with the teaching of a student unless some ulterior motive can be ascribed to the teaching. Also, as has been pointed out by another speaker, this clause will throw the very heavy burden on the provision of the necessary lectures. But I do not require this as a material point for the purposes of my argument. My main objection is that this clause is a very bad feature; it is a very bad form of interference. To tell you the truth it looks to me as if it is a back-door interference with the broad field of educational life in this country.

Although the hon. member for Durban (Central) has tried to meet the hon. the Minister by asking him to exclude at least the universities from the operation of this clause, so that our image is not destroyed in the educational field, I personally feel that this clause should be withdrawn. This clause should be erased from the Bill. [Time limit.]

We have had a very full discussion on all aspects of this clause. We on this side of the House during the second reading of this Bill expressed our doubts about incorporating this clause. After the second reading this side made further inquiries and further investigations as to the necessity of having this clause incorporated in the Bill. This side of the House feels that this clause is not necessary. We feel that a strong case has been made out as to why we think this clause is not necessary. The hon. the Minister has replied and has informed us that he has also given the matter consideration. But as far as we are concerned he does not appear to have answered our question to why he regards it necessary to retain this clause in the Bill.

I realize that the hon. the Minister is trying to obtain the co-operation of as many people as he possibly can in order that this measure can go through all its stages as an agreed piece of legislation, not only as far as this House is concerned, but also as far as all interested bodies and persons are concerned. Therefore, Sir, I hope that, after having heard the arguments put forward by hon. members on this side, if the hon. the Minister finds himself unable to accept the amendments moved by the hon. member for Durban (Central), and if he is unable at this stage to agree to the withdrawal of this offending clause, he will nevertheless consider giving the Committee the assurance that he will reconsider the whole question and exercise his mind as to the possibility of deleting this clause when this measure goes to the Other Place. I do hope the hon. the Minister will adopt this attitude so as to ensure that this Bill will receive the general acclamation of all sides of this House and all persons interested in the Bill.

After having listened to everything that has been said about this clause, it is clear that hon. members do not fully realize that this clause is not destructive but is on the contrary intended to give us better trained and better qualified social workers. Let me point out that there are various directions in which people who want to be trained as social workers, can qualify, For example there is sociology, criminology, psychology and social work. If we look at the definition of “social work” in the Bill, we see that it includes the following—

1. (a) individual treatment as a means or form of social assistance. Social work is a practical subject and what I have just mentioned is a practical function of the social worker. Other activities are—
2. (b) group work as a means or form of social assistance;
3. (c) the administration of any or all of the activities referred to in paragraph (a) or (b).

When we look at the activities involved in social work, we will see that this subject is a practical subject through and through.

I want to make bold to say that a person with a theoretical background may be a very good teacher but if he has practical experience as well he is worth twice as much, just as a doctor is better able to practise his profession if he has had practical experience. He becomes more mature in this way. It has been said here that the sociologist, the criminologist, the psychologist and so forth need not be registered in terms of this provision but that this is required of a person who is doing social work. It is being done not with the purpose of lowering their qualifications but simply in order to raise them. Moreover, I cannot see how this can interfere with the automony of the university. After all, one is not interfering with the university when one forces it to produce better teachers. This would only be the case if the opposite were true.

The purpose of this clause is to ensure that we do not produce half-baked male and female social workers but thoroughly trained people, people who have been trained by persons steeped in this subject. That is why I say that it will be a loss if we decide to omit this clause. As I see the matter, every university which is in earnest as far as its training is concerned will want to retain this clause.

Amendments put and negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to Official Opposition and Mrs. Suzman dissenting).

On Clause 35,

On the Order Paper there is an amendment standing in my name, but as the hon. the Minister has already met me when Clause 4 was discussed, I do not propose to put this amendment.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 36,

I move the following amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper—

It is a very dangerous matter for a board or any other court to interfere with the livelihood and the professional standing of a citizen without due inquiry. It is not enough to accept that because a man has been found guilty of some misdemeanour or offence in another court, therefore a professional court should accept the findings of the other court without holding an inquiry. There have been instances in the past where such conduct on the part of the professional court has led to grave injustice. To summarily adopt without inquiry the judgment of another court, a court which applies a completely different set of laws, which applies a completely different set of ethics, and with complete ignorance as regards the true working of the profession, is blatantly unjust.

Mr. Chairman, up to about 25 years ago the procedure of which I am complaining and a clause similar to the one under discussion were included in the Medical Act in Great Britain. In one instance the Medical Council of Great Britain, without inquiry, convicted a doctor of improper conduct and ordered his name to be erased from the register because he had been found guilty of being a co-respondent in a divorce action in which the other part was the wife of one of his patients. In other words, Sir, he was found guilty of committing one of the most serious of medical crimes, namely abusing the confidence which a doctor enjoys when entering a house. The doctor concerned insisted that he was not guilty of improper conduct. The divorce action had been unopposed. In other words, the doctor had in fact not been found guilty of any misdemeanour. In due course he asked the council to inquire as to whether he was in fact guilty of the offence laid at his door, namely whether he was guilty of disgraceful conduct when considering his particular profession. The doctor claimed that, as the court had not in fact found him guilty, it was the duty of the Medical Council to inquire as to whether or not he was guilty. He was most adamant and took his case to the House of Lords and the upshot was that the House of Lords held that the Medical Council must hold an inquiry. And this obtains in this country to-day. The Medical Council of this country always holds an inquiry into the conduct of a doctor when one of the courts of the land has reported him to it. I therefore ask the hon. the Minister to accept my amendment. In this way the Minister will safeguard a social worker against being struck off the register of social workers without inquiry and merely on the strength of his conviction of some crime in another court.

I feel that this clause is very inelegantly drafted indeed. I can only describe it as a clumsy clause, particularly as it purports to provide machinery for finding a registered social worker guilty of improper conduct. As the hon. member who has just sat down has pointed out, it is quite conceivable that an injustice may be perpetrated by the board. The sidenote to this clause does not really correspond with the contents thereof. The sidenote states that

But when one reads the clause itself a completely different impression is gained. Because, Sir, the clause simply states that on production of some evidence that a social worker has been found guilty of an offence by a court of law, that will be conclusive evidence against him. It would be preferable to hold that evidence of his conviction will only be prima facie evidence against him, because in that case it would be possible for the person involved to lead evidence in rebuttal. It is quite plain, Mr. Chairman, what the hon. the Minister is aiming at, and in this regard I draw his attention to a similar type of provision to be found in the Public Service Act, No. 54 of 1957. Section 18 (13) reads as follows:

I am sure this is what the hon. the Minister intends in this clause. I am not prepared to believe that the Minister intends that a board shall be bound, without any proof of identification even, by the proceedings and conviction in the court of law.

I therefore support the amendment moved by the hon. member for Durban (Central). It will at any rate improve the position slightly. It will at any rate ensure that the board will apply its mind to the case before it. It will have to make some enquiry. I presume it will in the first instance have to satisfy itself as to the identity of the person concerned. I hope it will in the second place also have regard to the sidenote—although, of course, legally a side-note is of no force and effect—and realize that because it is only prima facie evidence, therefore it can be rebutted, and in the result it should hear the person concerned and give him the opportunity to establish that he was in fact wrongly convicted.

What is really needed here. Sir. is for the whole clause to be redrafted. The entire clause should be reconstructed completely. I hope the hon. the Minister will consider adopting the relevant provision in the Public Service Act, a provision which has been tried over the years and found to be quite satisfactory, and which is a fair and equitable way of handling matters of this nature. I hope that in the Other Place at least the hon. the Minister will consider adopting a more elegant form of wording to ensure that justice is done—and also seen to be done—in these cases.

Hon. members must read the clause. When we look at it we find that it reads as follows—

and then we have the following—

Therefore, “in the opinion of the board”.

That makes no difference.

What more do hon. members want? The board bases its judgment upon the record of the court case. The court has already found the person guilty. If then on the grounds of the court record the board decides that the person has been guilty of improper conduct, why should it again have to investigate such person’s conduct? I feel that if hon. members read the clause correctly they will accept it as it is.

Mr. Chairman, I have another amendment on this clause, namely—

Where a social worker has been convicted by any court, the Attorney-General should as a matter of course send the papers to the board. It should not be a question of “he may or may not”. It should be automatic. The papers should be submitted automatically to the board so that it may be kept posted with what happened to its members.

Amendments put and negatived.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On Clause 40,

Mr. Chairman, I wish to move the following amendment.—

In terms of sub-section (2) (b) and (e) the Minister must appoint a social worker in the public service and one outside the public service as members of the appeal committee. The registration of social workers is, however, not compulsory and accordingly it may happen that one or both of these persons may not be registered social workers. The amendment which I am moving here will ensure—not only that these two persons practise the profession but that they will also be registered social workers.

Amendments put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 42,

I move—

In line 1, to omit “after consultation with the board” and to substitute “subject to the provisions of sub-section (2)”; and to insert the following sub-section to follow subsection (1):

1. (2) Regulations under paragraphs (a) to (h) inclusive and paragraph (q) of subsection (1) shall be made after consultation with the board, and regulations under paragraphs (i) to (p) inclusive of the said sub-section shall be made in consultation with the board and with the commission referred to in paragraph (b) of sub-section (1) of Section 7.

Regulations are to be issued in terms of this clause, regulations to cover the registration of social workers and to cover all matters related to such registration, matters which could eventually lead to a code of ethics being set up for this body. There are various paragraphs of this clause which deal with social workers, such as paragraph (m)—

In fact, paragraphs (i) to (p), inclusive, deal with the registration of social workers and the functions of the social work commission in this connection.

The other paragraphs deal with other matters. My amendment is aimed at ensuring that these regulations will be made only after consultation with the board, i.e. the National Welfare Board, while the regulations dealing with the registration and work of social workers will be made only in consultation with the board and with the commission referred to in Clause 7 (1) (b) as the social work commission. This is to ensure, that regulations dealing with social workers will be drafted by the commission itself.

I am prepared to accept this amendment.

I move—

To omit sub-paragraph (ii) of paragraph (b) of sub-section (1); to omit paragraphs (i) to (o) of sub-section (1); and to add the following sub-section at the end of the clause:

1. (4) The social work commission referred to in sub-section (1) of Section 7 shall make regulations with regard to—

   1. (a) the registration or conditional registration of social workers;
   2. (b) the manner in which application for registration as a social worker shall be made, and the particulars to be furnished to the board in order to enable it to maintain the register referred to in Section 33;
   3. (c) the qualifications to be obtained and the conditions to be complied with in order to be able to claim to be registered or conditionally registered as a social worker, including the period or nature of the training or experience required and the examinations to be passed: Provided that different qualifications or conditions may be prescribed in respect of persons of different classes or races;
   4. (d) the conditions on which extracts from the register of social workers may be furnished, and the fees, if any, payable in respect of such extracts;
   5. (e) the circumstances, in addition to the circumstances mentioned in this Act, under which a name may be removed from or restored to the register of social workers;
   6. (f) conduct by a person registered under Section 33 which shall constitute improper conduct;
   7. (g) the manner in which complaints or charges against any person registered under Section 33 shall be lodged;
   8. (h) the manner in which any inquiry under the provisions of Section 35 shall be instituted, the procedure to be followed in connection therewith and any other matter incidental to the institution thereof.

My amendment goes somewhat further than that of the hon. member for Umbilo, an amendment which the Minister has indicated he is prepared to accept. The object of my amendment is to make the regulations pertaining to the professional social workers’ association their own business—in other words, I do not want the hon. the Minister simply to consult only with the commission when regulations have to be drafted, qualifications decided upon, and conditions under which the commission shall operate, etc., determined. No, Sir. I want the commission itself to be responsible for these matters. Although the Minister, by accepting the amendment of the hon. member for Umbilo, has to a certain extent increased the authority of the commission by stipulating that it must be consulted in regard to the regulations which have to be drafted, I should nevertheless like him to go even further; hence my amendment.

Amendment proposed by Mr. Oldfield put and agreed to, and amendment proposed by Mrs. Suzman put and negatived (Mrs. Suzman dissenting).